Eight Era, cycle 1721 – cycle of the squatting dog, season of Unkh, day 303

Gorzark clapped his hands to draw the attention of the group.

‘Chaps, chaps – attention. Brandon, shut up! Now, there are growing reports of a cockatrice in the local area. Apparently, they’re chicken-headed, lizard-legged things – is that right, Wax?’

Wax squinted at her interface and shook her head; she was blind, but the interface was still visible to her due to its ethereal nature. ‘No, they’re dragonoid, not reptiles, and that’s an important distinction; for instance, they can breathe fire, and their lungs are extremely valuable to alchemists.’

‘Fire breathing? Good tip,’ Gorzark stated, nodding. ‘Anything else we should be aware of?’

‘Well, they’re territorial, and don’t let their chicken-esque heads fool you – their beaks are razor sharp, and they’re quick.’

Gorzark nodded again. ‘“Never underestimate monsters” is always worth reiterating.’

‘Also, they have a piercing screech, which can disorientate you, reduce your defensive stats, stun you or cause pain. I’ve never faced one, but I’ve heard you need a good level of resistance to fight off the effects from their cries.’

‘So, we’re classing this as a B-rated threat, based on the class-rating system in the interface. An S-rated threat means the village is in danger, class A is a threat that could lead to damage to the village, and class B is a high-class threat but one that we don’t anticipate reaching the village,’ Gorzark explained. ‘As we’re a new party, we’re going to go through some warm-ups first before risking this engagement. After all, the village isn’t in danger at this point, so we have some time. I want to know what we’re capable of. Red and Byron are our scouts; say hello to them now as you probably won’t see them very often. When we’re in a fight, they’ll attack from a distance with bows, so this is the closest you’ll ever get to them.’

There was laughter in response.

Gorzark moved on. ‘Blake is our sentinel. For those of you who’ve never been in a party with a sentinel, he’ll use his taunts and such like to keep the creatures’ attention away from the rest of us. He’ll kick the ever-loving shit out of anything we come across, but he doesn’t have much health; it’s a difficult class to level up, but it has some major advantages, should he manage it. If we’re up against large groups, then Buster will sentinel up also. Buster and I are berserkers, so we’ll also take a lot of attention from whatever we’re fighting, but only through the vast damage we’ll deal. We’ve got better defences than Blake, but our attacks tend to deal friendly damage if you get too close.

‘Rohan is our healer; he’s going to be pulling our butts out of the fire – less for me and Buster, though. Patchwork is our mass-damage dealer, crowd control and also status effects, if she has the mana left over. You don’t have to make friends with Patchwork, but don’t piss her off unless you want a boil on your cock.’

There were nervous laughs, every adventurer had experienced vindictive mages, and the threat of boils wasn’t the worst they’d seen or, in some cases, been on the receiving end of.

‘A varied group,’ Wax commented.

‘Aye, well, there’s plenty to choose from,’ Gorzark answered, and then clapped his hands together,

‘So, once we’ve had a warm-up fight, there’ll be no reason for failure, hey?’

‘But if it ain’t a cock-a-what, then what are we up against?’ Patchwork asked. She was a tall woman with a strong bone structure; she’d lost too much weight, so her collar bones and cheek bones stood out like razor blades. She was called Patchwork as a cruel jest because she had mild Tourette’s syndrome and sporadically twitched like a puppet.

‘Wax isn’t coming with us, is she? We ain’t got room for pity experience,’ announced Buster, who was an unremarkable-looking human.

Gorzark strode right up to Buster and poked him with a slab-like finger. ‘Wax is the only person in the village who has a specialisation linked to scholarship, which makes her indispensable in my book. Dwarfs treat scholars with reverence, as we consider it sacrilege to destroy or lose the written word. Moreover, her specialisation is in the bestiary, which means she knows more about the fiends and monsters of this world than you can imagine. So, if she wants to level up, she comes with us. As it is, Wax is busy.’

‘So who’s taking her back to camp?’ Buster continued, his pride bristling at Gorzark’s intrusion into his personal space.

‘Nurul is on her way to pick Wax up.’ Gorzark sounded uncertain as he said it.

‘How does that work? I mean, Nurul’s as blind as you, isn’t she, Wax?’ Blake asked. He looked like you’d expect a specialist in aggravating hostiles to look: he appeared to be someone who could eat half a cow and still have room for dessert.

‘I was blinded by a dahlia scorpion (which is so called because its scales protrude, making it look like the flower), but Nurul was raised by the Sinopoda, a sect of magic users who exchange their sight for a series of spells that are otherwise unobtainable. These spells allow her some sort of sight; unfortunately, but not surprisingly, she’s reluctant to share the specifics,’ Wax expounded.

‘Will you be okay sitting here and waiting?’ Blake asked, looking uncomfortable at leaving the blind woman to fend for herself. His mother would definitely give him a thick ear, at least – if she found out. On the other hand, Nurul made Blake feel uncomfortable; she made most people feel uncomfortable. She wasn’t the type of person who encouraged small talk or company, and the mystery about her “vision” helped keep people at bay.

‘She’ll be fine with me.’ Everyone turned to see Nurul walking into view, with her trademark style of movement. Her feet hardly lifted off the ground, and she walked so smoothly that it seemed as if she were gliding. She had wild hair with beads, craft items and feathers woven into it, and today, she sported a black-and-orange blindfold – she always wore a blindfold over her eyes.

There was a soft rustle near the group, and Nurul – without turning to look in the direction it came from – pulled out a sling and fired a stone in the direction of the noise, which cut off with a squeak. She strode through the thicket, though her progress was slow and awkward as she often became entangled, but finally, she reached down and pulled up a dead rabbit.

‘There’s five bronze for small game,’ she said, stuffing the rabbit into an empty leather pouch around her waist.

It was an odd display: killing the creature without looking was impressive and even somewhat frightening, but she followed this with a rather comical or even embarrassing attempt to walk through a small hedge. This juxtaposition somewhat typified her.

‘Hey, it’s the blind leading the blind,’ Buster observed, nudging Patchwork in the ribs.

Nurul turned her face in Buster’s direction.

‘Hey, Patch, do you think she’s looking at me?’ Buster asked.

Patchwork didn’t reply, but she did take a few exaggerated steps away from Buster.

Nurul moved her right hand reflexively, like working stiffness out of her wrist; once Buster started to shift on his feet uneasily, she dropped her gaze, looked down at her hand and laid it flat before her. Next, she moved her left hand around, paused, muttered a few words and then moved her hand again.

‘What’s she doing?’ Blake queried, confused.

Rohan nodded approvingly, saying, ‘You can add “activation conditions” to your spells. These make casting the spell more time-consuming. Nurul has added both words and dual-hand movements to this particular spell, meaning that it consumes less mana to activate in exchange for a longer and more complex casting. I, however, have most of my spells set at instant, single-hand casts, which maxes out the mana consumption, but it does mean that, in the heat of battle, I can cast spells instantly to heal someone. Before being taken captive by the caroks, I had rings and clothing that increased my mana reserves, making up for the large consumption. I’ve been playing with my spells due to losing all my items, but I haven’t settled on the best set-up yet.’

‘Is it really that important?’

‘That depends; if I used harsh words, could I kill you?’ Rohan asked. He was a round-faced, thick-bearded man with scraggly, thinning hair, so his face was hairier than his head.

‘Of course not.’

‘Then, yes, running out of mana is important. The reason so many of us start stores and charge so much to be in parties is because we buy expensive items to influence our mana and we dabble in alchemy to increase our potion-toxicity resistance, which means we have lots of stuff to sell,’ Rohan explained, biting his nails reflexively.

Blake noticed Rohan’s anxiety and slapped him on the back. ‘Not to worry; we’re starting small. And, hey, at least we don’t have to carry any non-combatants with us, such as chefs and repair smiths.’

‘Yes, yes, try not to get too beat up, right?’ Rohan joshed, smiling.

‘It doesn’t seem fair, though; I can last all day in a fight and not worry too much about my stamina, but you magic users are forever sweating spell costs. It seems like a bit of a bad career choice.’

‘Well, it has its upsides; we can do more damage than a simple sword user, and you need to be up close. If I start getting direct attacks, it tends to be a sign to run away,’ Rohan concluded with a laugh, and Blake joined in.

Nurul summoned a vargr (a large, wolf-like creature), which she used as a guide dog.

‘We’ll be fine,’ Nurul stated, holding the scruff of her vargr’s neck, taking one of Wax’s hands and placing that against the vargr’s neck as well. ‘Just move when it moves, Wax, and you’ll be fine.’

‘Right, party, we’re off,’ Gorzark announced, and they set off on patrol.

*

Gorzark had decided to send his scouts out to find something for the party to fight in the hope of a feel-good quick win. The forest was bound to be full of monsters and fiends, as the area had a reputation for such, so the scouts would find a suitable low-level prey for them to sink their teeth into. (Or a “shallow quarry”, as the dwarfs say.) He sent out Byron and Red to find something for the party to kill that would be challenging enough to get the blood flowing but not too difficult in case their teamwork fell apart.

Byron had chosen transfiguration as his specialisation, particularly skiouranthropy – the ability to turn into a squirrel. Transfiguration was a rare specialisation because unless you wanted to turn into a squirrel (or another creature) that was the same weight as you, then you had to deal with the excess matter; that is, all the bits of you that wouldn’t fit into a squirrel skin. You had two choices: either you could deal with the challenging equations involved in mass displacement, which appealed to the people who liked to do quadratic equations in their heads, or you could turn into multiple squirrels, which appealed to the people who liked to play chess against themselves.

These two methods explained why transfiguration was a rare calling. Byron chose the former form of transfiguration.

He scurried along branches and leaped between trees. Using his improved squirrely senses, he smelled the fresh scat of a lamprey badger and sniffed around. It was an easy scent to follow, and assuming part of the scat had attached itself to the lamprey badger’s fur, then Byron had a mark.

Sure enough, Byron found a badger sett and snuffled around, attempting to work out how many badgers called the sett their home. Unfortunately, whilst his sense of smell had improved, it wasn’t the keenest in the animal kingdom, and so all he could do was make a rough estimate of four badgers.

Red, on the other hand, was an orc scout trained in tracking, rather than general scouting, and had joined the guard in Warringay as part of an exchange programme to build relationships between the local humans and orcs. She was then sent to Avalia, as the guards didn’t know what else to do with her, and then she’d joined Amaka’s party to start a new settlement as life in Avalia was beyond tedious to her. Red’s real name was Leha’Andria Tochukwu-Ponomarev Ot. Szreniawska, and she was the sixth child of Warchief Urg (a good, strong orc name); “Ot. Szreniawska” (meaning “of Szreniawska”, which was the name of the village) was added to her father’s name to announce his station within the village. Red was tall, spry and green, with twin tusks curving from her shoulders (these were trophies taken from her first kill and fused onto her), and she had shaved the back and sides of her head but kept the crown long, so she had a waist-length ponytail.

She had also spotted scat from animals, but because her sense of smell was keen, the scat was too strong a scent. However, coming from a remarkably different area, the smells meant very little to her and her lore didn’t cover animals in forests. So all she had was a medley of smells, which she was able to age, but she was unable to associate the smells to the appropriate creatures. That being the case, she picked a smell at random and followed it. The smell was of damp feathers; however, the creature was never more than 5 feet above the ground, so it must have been a flightless bird – or some primitive reptile that hadn’t yet evolved out of the feathery stage. That was a concern as prehistoric reptiles tended to be vicious. Presumably, there must be some shrine to a deity for such creatures to be present.

So, Red went with the assumption that it was going to be a flightless bird. After tracking it for a while – something that made her reminisce about her life in the orc tribe – she spotted a thicket that held a few stone-grey feathers. It wasn’t anything Red could use to identify the offending creature, and as she moved on, she spotted a footprint that could have only come from a bird.

With a sense of relief, she pressed onwards.

She knew there was a saying giving a general rule about flightless birds: ‘For every hand in its stride, it is a hand in height.’ (The hand being a unit of measurement, much like it is on Earth, where it’s used to measure horses.) There was another saying about how you could tell the level of a monster or fiend by measuring its foot size and comparing that with the known foot size of the same creature of a different level. If you knew the level of creature B, then you could gauge the level of creature A by comparing the different sizes of their feet. Based on this rule, many guilds had a room of footprints to help adventurers gauge monster levels. However, there were two problems with these two measurements: one, she’d only found a single footprint, and two, she had no idea what this creature was and so couldn’t compare its foot size with anything else. Still, the foot of the creature was bigger than her own foot, so she was expecting a reasonably large beast.

As Red walked, she found she needed to venture further and further into the marshland. The marshland had been a cause of much argument amongst the scouts; as she was discovering, many of the scouts had little wetland experience. The arguments had been about the differences between marshland, bog, swamp and fen, and furthermore, what different types of vegetation and creatures could be found in each. As this was wetland, then Red internally adjusted the measurement of the creature’s size as wetland birds tended to have bigger feat. So, she was hoping for a waist-height bird. Such a creature shouldn’t be too difficult for a party to kill; if anything, as a training exercise for the party, it would be better if there were a pair.

Just then, Red’s sense of smell was assaulted by the reek of numerous birds; whatever it was she’d been following had joined a flock. This was a problem, as a flock would be too much work for a training exercise. Still, it was worth following the stench, so she could create a full report. Perhaps, in the future, she and the party could return, as it would be quite an interesting challenge.

There was a large mound of dirt close by; once Red had reached it, she started to clamber up it.

Her feet sunk down into the stodgy mud, which reached her calves, and she was soon panting as she climbed the shallow incline. When she neared the top, she got down on her belly, and the plant life shielded her from view. She then crested the top and moved the plants away to peer out at the landscape. The smell was heavy, so they must be nesting nearby. What Red had taken for a rock shifted and rose slowly. The largest double-headed shoebill she had even seen shook itself and revealed a harem of double-headed shoebills. She gaped; it must have had a 7-foot-long body.

Red licked her lips; she made a mark on a crude map and retreated. This would make a grand challenge for the party once they had levelled up a little. She nearly skipped back, the thrill of the anticipated fight making her feel weightless.

*

Gorzark let out a short, sharp bark of laughter. ‘Lamprey badgers? I like it.’ He nodded.

All of Gorzark’s party were grouped around a campfire back at the settlement and were enjoying a meal of freshly cooked, salted game and focaccia bread made with some of the local rosemary and other fresh herbs.

‘It’s a bit easy,’ Red grumbled.

‘I smelled around; I think I made out eight distinct scents,’ Byron added.

‘That’s a good start, as long as they’re mid-level to low-level,’ Patchwork agreed.

‘Mid-level maybe,’ Red argued, ‘but who wants to fight low-level sword fodder? Give me a challenge or give me death.’

‘That’s not an orc saying; you’re just restless,’ Buster challenged.

‘We grew fat and weak in that last village,’ Red stated, bristling, referring to their time in Avalia where they were used sparingly.

‘I agree that the guards in Avalia were stupid and lazy,’ Blake cut in. ‘They never initiated random patrols, and they neglected foraging beasts and encroaching monsters. It’s no surprise they were finally overrun with fiends. Yet even I didn’t expect them to hide in their stone walls.’

‘They’re a bunch of wewes,’ Rohan said, chuckling.

Red laughed. ‘For you, Rohan, that was quite the vicious snipe.’

Rohan blushed; he was a kind-hearted man. ‘Yes, well, they irked me.’

‘Wewes aren’t an actual subspecies, are they?’ Gorzark asked, confused.

‘No, they’re just normal ghosts but of woman with large, drooping breasts. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone alive with breasts like those, so maybe they are a real subclass?’ Blake pondered, scratching his beard.

‘Does anyone have an ability to inspect monsters?’ Buster enquired interestedly.

‘I do, but it’s on a scroll, and I rarely use them,’ Red offered.

‘I once found a ring that offered monster identification; they were selling it for ten gold! Highway robbery, if you ask me,’ Patchwork added.

‘I dunno, it sounds a good price,’ Gorzark countered. ‘I mean, information saves lives.’

Patchwork opened her mouth and then closed it. ‘You know, you have a point. Damn, I regret that now.’

‘What d’you find?’ Byron nudged Red in the ribs.

‘Double-headed shoebills,’ Red answered, beaming.

‘A what?’ Byron asked confused.

‘Double-headed shoebills. You’ve not seen one? It’s like a shoebill but larger and with two heads,’ Red explained.

‘They’re a proper challenge; perhaps we’ll tackle them next. As a first challenge, I think these badgers sound about right. We’re not a bunch of level 1s, so I’m going to trust that you each know what you’re doing in a group fight,’ Gorzark stated with a confidence that he’d come to regret later.

‘Right,’ the group replied in unison.

‘You know what each person’s role is, so tomorrow, we’ll go and beat up a bunch of lamprey badgers!’ Gorzark declared to cheers.

‘Hey, who wants to hear the story of how Patchwork and I ended up facing a demonic entity?’ Rohan asked, and Patchwork groaned.

‘You might not believe this, but Patchwork was quite the looker back in the day,’ Rohan began (at which Patchwork covered her eyes). ‘We were teamed up about thirty to forty years ago, and she had around… maybe 30 points in charisma?’

There were wolf whistles, and Patchwork blushed.

‘What happened?’ Buster asked bluntly, staring at Patchwork with incredulity.

‘I spent some faith points to redistribute my attributes and reduced my charisma to single digits,’ Patchwork replied.

‘Really?’ Red queried, impressed. ‘You’re still a very good-looking woman; single digits, you say? You have good bone structure, then.’

‘So, we’re in this rustic village… I can’t remember where now,’ Rohan confessed, biting his lip.

‘No, I can’t remember anymore either,’ Patchwork agreed.

‘Anyway, we found ourselves in a metaphysical place,’ Rohan continued.

‘It changes in the eye of the beholder,’ Patchwork explained.

‘Yes, we were staying at an inn and woke in this new place, and each of us has a different memory of what it looked like. But Tamsin, this psychic mage we were with, managed to snap us out of the illusion. Instead, the room we found ourselves in had odd symbols scrawled over the walls; there were no windows, no furnishings and no sounds. There wasn’t even a door, but just a hole in the wall you’d normally associate with having a doorway.’ Rohan was starting to get into the swing of the story.

‘When I say there weren’t any sounds, it was to the point where our footsteps were oddly muffled. What with that and the fact that the light in the room seemed to be frozen – so that when you moved through it, you caused no break in the light and no shadow – we thought we were trapped in some odd time-lock where the only time you had was that which you brought with you, but the environment itself held no time.

‘Eventually, one of us – don’t ask me who – spotted that one of the walls had a visual distortion; we walked over to it, and as we did so, we noticed that this particular part of the wall was actually set back somewhat, revealing a corridor. We progressed down this corridor, and once we got used to the trick with the walls, we realised that it split every few yards. The sheer amount of space that was suggested by the corridors was impossible. We tried to look down one, but we couldn’t even make out the end, I remember that point quite clearly, even after all this time. The question was where could we have been taken that was so huge and yet also hidden?

‘Perhaps it wasn’t a physical corridor; it could have been a corridor of the soul – just a representation of our inner confusion – and some monster was trusting that we’d lose ourselves to existential angst, questioning who we were, where we were and why. I say that now knowing what was to come.’

‘Skip to the end!’ Buster burst out, bored.

‘We weren’t alone,’ Patchwork added, rolling her eyes. ‘There was this girl we found; she was terrified and no more than a teenager. Her face was gaunt and sunken; her clothes were dishevelled and smelled like she had done more than sleep in them. More than that – more concerning, anyway – she had scratches and blood smears over her hands and face. And then… she lunged at us, a long, haunting cry escaping from her. Thankfully, we had Tamsin with us, and we blessed him twice as her presence would have otherwise pushed us back into the psychomelogical… psychamilogacel… Anyway, she’d have allowed the mental presence to dominate us if it weren’t for Tamsin, who warded it off. Otherwise, we might have ended up like her: attacking each other and lost to our fears.’

‘We’re not a bunch of girls sitting around the campfire so get to the point,’ Buster butted in once more.

‘A great yearning emptiness opened before us – a near-infinite blackness in place of a room. Someone was watching us, studiously examining our reactions and attempting to anticipate our paranoia and panic,’ Rohan said slowly, deliberately trying to annoy Buster. ‘I don’t know about the others, but I swear I looked back over my shoulder, and when I turned back, a light appeared in front of us.’

Patchwork shrugged and said she didn’t remember.

Rohan went on: ‘Anyway, I remember that it wasn’t a normal colour, but that it changed hue; it had started out as a dull-brown light and then became the light of a clear night sky. You see, it was coming from a large orb. On its spherical surface pinpricks of light shone from a black canvas, like stars in the cosmos. Then, I realised that it hung a few feet from the ground, seemingly suspended by nothing. And the strangest part was that a weird shadow of a man stood over it, one hand placed so close as to be touching the orb and the other held at his side. He seemed to be completely engrossed in what he was doing, and he failed to notice our silent approach from his side. From our angle, we could make out only a little of what the man was looking at.

‘When we were close enough for our faces to be lit up by the stars displayed on the orb, the man still ignored us. I remember that I studied him. He was completely black, but he was more like the absence of something rather than dark of skin. I remember he was wearing black clothing, but the more typical black, as opposed to the absence of substance that formed the outline of this creature. At this point, I’m sure we all realised that this was no man but a fiend.’

(The words “fiend” and “monster”, or even “creature”, are used rather interchangeably. But strictly speaking, a monster is born on the Sphere, whereas a fiend is from a different plane of existence. However, as most people don’t have the analysis skills, they’re unable to tell the origins of the beasts they face, and so the words have become largely synonymous.)

‘What I remember is that we were behind the man at one point, looking over his shoulder, but I became captivated by what the orb showed, and when I next looked up, the man was suddenly on the other side the orb and was looking into my soul,’ Rohan concluded.

‘What was on the orb?’ Gorzark asked, confused.

Patchwork licked her lips. ‘Visions of the Sphere: panic, mayhem, disaster and pandemonium. I-I-I… I, uh… I dreamed of those visions for years. “What shall we do with them?” the daemon asked, and even with Tamsin there, the aura emanating from this creature turned my blood to ice.’

‘I remember the daemon asking, “Come, join me; this will be of interest to you. Should we have them blown off course?” On the orb, a ship appeared, and the fiend moved his fingers with the subtlety and dexterity of a puppeteer, creating a sudden gust of wind that tore across the deck of the ship, throwing a sailor into the sea…’ Patchwork said, shuddering. ‘Then the man said, “No, I think not.” A long, thin finger calmed the sudden storm, and like a child watching an insect drown in a pond, the man just watched the sailor flail and drown. “Does a soul feel pain? Do they ever reach eternal rest? All those poor lost souls, alone and terrified. Do you think they suffer much?” he questioned. I’ll never forget the impassivity of it all. He didn’t revel in death; he just didn’t care.’

‘That was how it always spoke,’ Rohan clarified. ‘It enjoyed toying with your mind and said things like “The regret in your heart is physical, like a fine wine. The bouquet of defiance that masks an empty pit, the cold dread that prickles the back of your neck, the guilt, the regret and the torment. Lives taken on a whim, with no final, crashing crescendo or defiant dénouement, for I’ve seen death – an old friend, you could say. There’s no glory in it.” It spoke reverently, like a connoisseur, and when asked what purpose it killed for, it simply said, “For an illimitable number of reasons, really; the most pressing for you is this… because I can. Is that not life? Challenging things that are boundaries to others? Why climb a mountain? Because it’s there. Why take lives? Because I’m stronger, and through this act, I prove I exist. ‘Eternity’ – can you comprehend that word? Not just the time until you die but forever after as well. I must find something to pass it. So I have, and those whom I find most challenging to break, I take. You have no idea how much I’ve needed a challenge, and then I found you four. The simple minds of some break in mere hours; they’re a poor hoard for one so cerebral. So empty of mind and easy; it’s a wonder they just don’t die on their own and rid the world of their dyspeptic bodies. You must rid yourself of the weak and needy. They’re a parasite on this planet! Yet some offer resistance, giving my life some meaning. I like to destroy them – to grind their sanity beneath my heel. There used to be more creatures than you can count in a lifetime, and in the First Era – before I was trapped in this cage – even your kind had power you couldn’t imagine. But its walls gradually weaken, and one day, I shall be free once more, and people will remember to fear me! My song will be sung once more! They fought the black and evil one! The soldiers come; the soldiers come! To push back the monster to its cave, they never sleep; they never wane! They fight for right; they fight for love. I’m a knight; I’m a knave. We’re brothers of the Ti’sue! The soldiers come; the soldiers come!” It all comes back so clearly.’

‘We asked it, “What’s this about?”’ Rohan continued. ‘It replied, “About? This is about power and control. Not the simple life or death power, such things are paltry; this is about power to rule, to own, to break people.” And when asked what it was, it declared, “Freedom”.

‘Yet Tamsin, our mental mage, believed he understood what it was. Passing from mind to mind, potentially staying in each mind as it infected the next, he thought of it as a noncorporeal demonic entity, more akin to bacteria, which – on being trapped in a magical cage for so long – had found a way to create a personification of itself to use when it pulled others into its cage. Tamsin believed that we were only there in mind, not in body. The creature seemed to long for company, saying, “It’s been so many eons of nothingness; a few more moments of conversation is somehow gratifying. I’ve always been a people person. Noncorporeal in essence, yet I’m very much physical; I’m here.” It tapped its forehead, and I swear that as it did, I felt a knock on my temple.

‘It went on, “I was to be forgotten and lost forever. I feel insulted. That I could be trapped by those who don’t have the foresight to see even a few thousand years into the future? Nothing lasts forever; certainly nothing made by humans. Why do you insult the world so by thinking you’re in control?” I felt the passion to its words; I started to cede to its will. And yet, we had Tamsin, who held it at bay with all the power at his disposal.

‘“I’m truth… untempered truth,” it declared. “The realisation of the infinite, the never ending, the never dying, and by comparison, how tiny you are – how insignificant! I’m your perspective, the realisation of your limitations, your caution and the knowledge you’re but a passing blight on this world. Here I am to set you free! My captors believed the best way to utterly remove my touch from this world was to have me forgotten. The greatest insult, and yet, how could they be so blind? My touch is everywhere even trapped; my power is pure… and is carnal. It’s created by you; I feed from your fear, and yet I’m so much more than any of you! You see someone shudder as they say a word, such as ‘spiders’ or ‘snakes’; they fear the memory of something. A memory! How powerful I am. And fear – like hatred, love and passion – is power. I’m a god! But not one who’s worshipped – one who’s feared! That’s more fundamental to you than any god. With fear, I can control your actions or warp a half-seen vision into anything I desire. I could change the shadows to look like spiders. Oh how the people cringed away from a shadow! Little things I know, but it allowed me to learn to control this power. But I’ll admit that when I was trapped, my direct control over this world waned. Yes, for a while it seemed like their plan would work, but I was patient; I knew I’d return. That Ankhtifi, he played with my cell and loosened the boundaries, though not a lot.”

‘The creature breathed the air hungrily before carrying on. “But it didn’t need to be weakened much. It was enough. This was long ago when people still had the power to truly meddle with essence. They renamed me Lo-lol, a creature of fear. And thus, I was trapped, but what to do with my prison? They placed me in a temple and put up warnings of the dangers inside it. Yet their langue was lost, and so your adventurers discovered me and sold me to scholars, who played with my cage, weakening it enough to allow me to extend my influence.”’

‘But what was it?’ Red asked.

‘One of the eight deadly thoughts,’ Rohan replied, ‘some sort of being of old that poisons the mind of human existence. You see, there are anthro-po-morph-ic personifications, like death being a cowled man to humans. We create gods and devils through our beliefs, as belief is power. But as I’ve said already, during one of the creature’s speeches it said that things other than belief have power. Everyone has pride, fear and greed, and just like belief these… I dunno, emotions? They have power and have called into being these personifications, which are called the “eight deadly thoughts”. If I remember my lore correctly, there was once a time when the gods lived upon the land, and they, the demons and the angels actively participated in the lives of humans.’

‘This is the First Era you’re referring to?’ Byron asked.

‘Indeed,’ confirmed Rohan. ‘The gods grew fascinated with human existence, with their beliefs and power plays. As the fascination grew, so did the casualties. Whole civilisations were lost or driven mad with terror by the creatures that inhabited their land, just to see how we’d react; even the gods were amused at our terror. And back in the age of nightmares and daydreams, these creatures found form.

‘As I said, there were once eight: Gluttony, who took food from the starving and forced people to eat themselves ill; Lust, the creator of infidelity, rape and jealousy; Greed, bringing about the downfall of the kings, making once strong kingdoms collapse from taxation and conflict; Ire, the bringer of revenge, setting neighbour against neighbour and causing rivalry between siblings; Sloth, causing laziness (resulting in a breeding ground for germs and viruses) and making the strong weak; Vanity, instigating one putting oneself before others, and the harbinger of self-doubt; Pride, who led to all downfalls; and Despair or Fear, causing everything about the night that frightens, the unknown and the ineffable. They were created from the darkness of the mind, and the fairy tales of godmothers and wishes, pixies, and magic. They were created by man, so they have complete power over us. There are two sides to every story: kindness and justice were created by man, but so were cruelty and evil. Humankind does so like its rationalisations. Before, there was chaos, and now, there’s spite and vindictiveness – as they say in my village.’ Rohan finished his recounting and fell silent.

‘So how’d you beat it?’ Blake asked, engrossed.

‘I believe the expression is “deus ex machina”,’ Rohan replied. ‘Remember I said that Patchwork was quite the looker? She had caught the attention of a local paladin, and he appeared in a radial burst of discharge, banishing the creature to the netherworld from which it was formed. Unfortunately, as it wasn’t actually killed, we didn’t get any experience from it, and Patchwork had to go on a date with our saviour.’

Patchwork placed her hands over her face for a moment. ‘He was intolerable.’

Gorzark slapped his thighs. ‘What a story!’

‘So how’d you end up in Avalia? If it’s such a poorly run outpost?’ Buster demanded cruelly.

‘Time… and opportunity,’ Rohan said sagely.

‘Meaning?’ Buster enquired, irritated by the reply.

‘Rohan was considered to be quite the promising recruit in his day,’ Patchwork offered kindly.

‘However, he was never what you’d call “forward”, so the captains who were more forward would press for the quests and stations that yielded more experience. Nepotism and cronyism are rife, unfortunately. So, Rohan’s opportunity for experience was limited, especially as not everyone joins the guards to put their life in danger – some just want the salary. Experience and levels aren’t enough for everyone to risk their lives; otherwise, you’d see more higher-level alchemists and things.’

There was general laughter; these were hardy people, and there was a kind of cockiness about them, which on Earth would cause alchemists, enchanters and others doing “safe” jobs to be thought of as nerds and layabouts.

‘As I’m sure everyone knows – well, the humans anyway – we get around ten years of life per level of experience. What most people don’t know – because not many people manage to reach old age – is that when you get close to your life expectancy, you suffer debuffs. I’m level 17, so I might live to 170. At age 119, I’ll start to get age debuffs of 5% reductions to all my attributes, which will increase each year until it reaches 90%, and then it will stop there,’ Patchwork explained.

‘Why’s that concerning?’ Blake asked, confused.

‘Well, I’m over ninety now, and considering I’ve gained five levels in the last sixty years, the chances are I’m going to enter old age in ten years or so. So by sending me here, the guards have put me out to pasture,’ Patchwork stated with a weak smile. ‘Rohan, as he never pressed for the good quests and stations, also allowed his age to creep up on his level, and he was sent here a few months ago; we hadn’t seen each other in decades until then.’

‘But now we’re here, and we’re going to start grinding out the experience!’ Red announced, slapping Patchwork on the back.

Patchwork laughed. ‘Maybe, but killing basic monsters isn’t a great source of experience.’

‘I’ve often wondered how people in the hundreds grind out levels,’ Buster added after a moment’s thought.

‘Kills aren’t everything; that’s why the really powerful people have specialisations that aren’t combat related but are experimentation related, such as alchemy and enchanting. If you find a really potent potion, you get as much experience as a raid boss. It’s an interesting dichotomy; at the lower levels, such specialisations are wasted – a level-20 enchanter can’t do much, and that’s why you rarely find low-level enchanted items, and the enchantments tend to be uselessly weak because the crafter is weak,’ Rohan agreed.

‘I get what Rohan is saying,’ Red cut in. ‘Levels aren’t everything, but you can hardly expect a level 20 to create something a level 100 could use. You can funnel your experience into unlocking more spells and spell upgrades in your specialisation. So instead of you yourself going up a level, you unlock… I don’t know… healing enchantments level 2. I don’t know if that’s a thing; it was just a general example,’ Red added hastily before anyone could say anything.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

‘Anyway,’ Rohan continued, ‘there’s this dichotomy between levels and skill in your specialisation. If you’re a lowly level 20, is someone going to give you a powerful quest that can give you much experience? On the other hand, a level-100 person might not have focused on their enchanting at all but on making it easier to kill monsters. Then, when they feel strong enough, they kill monsters and start grinding out their enchanting levels. That’s what’s so powerful about specialisations – you can put experience from any source directly into any ability you want. Many of these people start out as adventurers, to get to a high level and to get the experience rolling in; they then stop levelling and start pouring it into their specialisation skill tree, so they can start making high-quality items, and therefore stop doing risky quests and no longer put their life in danger. If you ever meet someone who is low level and is working on their specialisation, not on their levelling, then the chances are that they’ll die as a low-level, low-skilled person.’

‘What has any of that got to do with people over level 100 levelling up?’ Buster interjected, obviously annoyed.

‘Well, people of a high level anticipate that it becomes exponentially harder and takes longer to level up even a single level. Someone over level 200, say, would probably take more than ten years to go from level 210 to 211. It’s an artificial level cap,’ Patchwork confirmed, taking over the explanation. ‘That’s why they specialise in enchanting, alchemy and other powerful specialisations instead of sword work, so that they can make potions and enchanted armour that increases their lifespan without levelling.’

‘Was that so hard?’ Buster enquired, slouching back in his chair and waving his arms.

‘Well, it isn’t that simple,’ Patchwork added, ‘because people that powerful make enemies of other people who are just as powerful, since power breeds… what’s the word? Paranoia. As only someone as powerful as you can kill you, you fear each other. So how do you get more power? The chances are that buying and upgrading any skills at that point would take a horrendous amount of experience; I expect there’s another crystal ceiling in that respect. No, the way to gain power when you’re over level 100 is through faith points: buying new abilities and powers from the gods. But you’d want to be at a high level before doing that, as the more faith points you earn one god, the more the other gods start to take notice, and at some point, they’ll start to target you with their own champions. Levels lead to specialisation, which leads to faith points. Not everyone follows that path, but I’d wager all level-200-plus people went about it that way.’

*

‘Right boys, I know I said I wouldn’t go over old ground, but perhaps not all of you know about lamprey badgers, right? So for those of you who spend the coin on poisons, which I highly recommend (yes, it’s expensive, but yous only get one life, right?), well, lamprey badgers are the genus “Pilis brevibus”, I think. Now, those of Pilis brevibus – or short-haired – are highly resistant to floral poisons, things such as your belladonnas, foxgloves and Cerbera odollam. However, animal poisons are very effective, so if you’ve milked venom from your snakes and scorpions, that’s good, see? Or if you’ve got any poison glands, that’s also good. For our mages, elemental attacks are all the same to the short-haired. They aren’t resistant or weak to any particular element. Lastly, short-haired animals are territorial but don’t venture far from their burrows, and although they live in groups, they aren’t pack animals, so attacking one won’t necessarily draw them all out. So that’s it; I’m going to be watching you all to see how we work as a group. Hopefully, this’ll be a clean run, and we can take out the cockatrice next,’ Gorzark explained before clapping his hands together loudly. ‘Let’s go, boys.’

Gorzark gave them time to collect any items they might require for the fight, and then led them out of the village towards the lamprey badger sett. For the start of the hike, they found no badger tracks, but Blake found a patch of cowslip parsley, which he said was like honey to a woozle for many small woodland creatures.

They finally reached an area of patchy grass, thorny bushes and no flowers.

‘This is it; you can tell because they’ve eaten the area bare of all flowers and most of the grass,’ Byron confirmed.

‘Good. I was going to smoke them out, but we’ll give Blake’s cowslip a chance,’ Gorzark said, and then ushered Blake forwards with a nod of his head.

Blake stripped, rubbed clear oil over his body and pulled the cowslip parsley from a leather bag. He placed a little at the mouth of the sett and made a large patch a little way off before returning and re-dressing.

‘Did you have to do that naked?’ Buster complained.

‘You want the badgers to smell me and stay in their sett?’ Blake challenged.

‘How’d you get that scar on your arse?’ Red asked.

Blake cleared his throat. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Because it looks like the marks from a whip,’ Red prodded, but Blake ignored her. ‘Do you like being punished?’

‘All this noise is scaring off the badgers,’ Blake announced so quickly that it almost came out as one word.

‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of; sometimes you need your face mushed in the dirt,’ Red added with a wink.

‘I dunno, those marks looked rather fresh…’ Patchwork mused, giggling.

Everyone looked down at Blake’s butt as he hurriedly re-dressed.

‘Like a bit of willow, do you?’ Buster sneered.

Unexpectedly, the party was blasted by an incredible torrent of noise, which was loud enough to actually take a few life points from each of them. There was panic over what could create such a sound.

Affliction: confusion

You’ve been attacked by the magnified-scream ability, causing 50 confusion points and 5 panic points. Confusion and panic are measured on a scale of 0–100, though an attack may inflict more than 100 confusion points. For instance, you might be hit with 150 confusion points from an attack, but if you have a high resistance, you may only receive 50 confusion points. If you have low resistance, your confusion score will hit 100, and the excess will be transferred to physical damage.

An immense bird, some 15 feet long, blotted out the sun as it flew past them. In the wake of the bird came a wind that buffeted and tossed the party to the ground.

‘Horned screamer!’ shouted Blake, who was one of the few still on his feet. He took his spear, slammed it on his shield and used his taunt ability on the monster.

It turned and focused on Blake with unintelligent eyes, hammering the air with its great wings so as to hover above the ground. The force of its wingbeats turned the air into a physical attack, which Blake had to block with his shield, and then the bird kicked out at him with its vicious talons. The talons scraped ineffectually at his shield, but its curved claws were the size of claymores, and his heart-shaped shield bowed slightly at the edges from the force of the horned screamer. Blake fought back; his spear was able to uncoil like a spring and it thrust forwards, puncturing the horned screamer’s chest.

‘To arms!’ Gorzark bellowed, and then he tossed a throwing axe at the bird before charging in with a wicked-looking sickle, swiping at the monster’s feet to give Blake a chance to recover.

Buster was the next to be attacked; he had a large blunderbuss and fired a volley into the horned screamer. His blunderbuss was extremely inaccurate; he had to be close to make his scattershot hit, and he’d then have to scurry back to reload – a laborious task that would take him out of the melee for the next five minutes.

As Buster scrambled back, he collided with Patchwork, who had taken a stance and was channelling a spell. The impact from Buster distracted her, causing spell blowback and tossing her through the air. With a sickening thud, Patchwork’s head smacked into a tree, which knocked her unconscious for a few moments.

‘Daft bitch,’ Buster screamed, for when Patchwork’s spell failed, it created a small fireball, setting Buster’s clothes on fire. He scrabbled desperately at his ammo belt, needing to take it off before his black powder could catch fire.

‘Byron, get Patchwork,’ Rohan shouted as the horned screamer, released from the taunt spell, detached itself from Blake’s shield and went to snatch up the concussed Patchwork.

‘Badgers!’ Red cried as the creatures burst from the ground, hissing and alert to the party on the surface.

A badger charged and tackled Gorzark. It was a large creature, with stubby legs, a heavy torso and an elongated muzzle with an end like a puckered arsehole. The puckering parted to reveal a yawning mouth full of sharp teeth, like those of the lamprey from which it earned its name.

Byron sprinted over to Patchwork; he was there in a flash and scooped her up, hardly breaking stride. But as quick as he was, the horned screamer was on him before he took his next step. He shrieked its claws punctured his leather armour and pierced his chest. The leather clung to the talons, creating an impromptu seal that stopped Byron’s precious lifeblood from spilling. But the talons punctured one of his lungs, and his next breath was choked with blood.

Patchwork dropped from his arms. He pulled a knife from his belt, but it was a feeble one used only for skinning.

‘Byron!’ Rohan screamed, shooting a ranged healing spell at the man as the horned screamer carried him off.

‘Wait!’ Gorzark shouted as Rohan turned to run after Byron. ‘Blast it, you’re still needed here. Red, you go after him! Here, take this.’ Gorzark threw a satchel at Red, who caught it mid-sprint and dashed off into the forest.

‘They’re only badgers,’ Buster challenged, having finally loaded his blunderbuss.

‘That may be, but we’ve no way of knowing their level. They could be 100-plus,’ Gorzark countered.

Buster used a skill, and his next shot came out as a highly concentrated mass, with all of the bullets hitting a single badger. It was struck on the stomach, and its insides were blasted several feet away from its body.

‘They don’t look that high to me,’ Buster declared, and then started the laborious task of reloading.

‘Great, the one-hit wonder can take them out; let’s just hope they sit still for an hour,’ Blake mocked.

‘I do more damage output than you lot combined, even with the reload delay,’ Buster jeered whilst packing the gun’s primer.

As if in answer to Buster’s brag, a pothole opened up beneath him, and he disappeared into the earth.

‘They’ve taken Buster!’ someone shouted.

‘Any chance it’s permanent?’ Blake retorted.

The sounds of conflict halted suddenly, and everyone looked around cautiously for some sort of trick.

‘Where’d they go?’ Gorzark asked. ‘Did anyone get a bead on them as they disappeared?’

‘We need to get after Byron,’ Rohan said, fidgeting on his feet.

‘Red’s on that; we should go after Buster,’ Gorzark concluded without any real determination.

‘Are you serious? We should get after Byron not Buster!’ Rohan shouted.

‘Do you have any way to track Byron? No? Well, there’s a dirty great tunnel here leading us to Buster. It’s the smart call,’ Gorzark challenged.

‘But… but he’s an arse,’ Rohan stated flatly.

‘Agreed, but you were a party leader; you know we don’t get to choose,’ Gorzark replied, and then dropped into the hole.

‘That’s a dirty trick to play on a fella, reminding him of his responsibilities,’ Rohan muttered before following Gorzark.

Patchwork and Blake also followed them into the tunnel, and they all found themselves with their legs sunk to the knee in soft, freshly churned soil.

‘Oh no! Look – blood stains,’ Patchwork said, pointing to a pool of blood seeping into the soil. ‘He’s probably dead; that’s a shame as I really liked him. Oh well, there’s nothing we can do now. Let’s head back to the surface.’

‘Look, he’s a hole, but he’s one of us,’ Gorzark stated before marching off.

‘How meta: a hole in a hole.’ Patchwork giggled to the confusion of everyone else.

‘Your sense of humour is as esoteric as ever,’ Rohan commented. ‘I remember you reading The Good Quester’s Guide to Achievement Hunting and laughing at the headline “Cole Fuels Fortune’s Success”. A member of the Fortune team was called Cole, and he helped his party out of a scrape. That headline had you chuckling all day.’

‘You don’t read that rag, do you?’ Blake said disgustedly. ‘You realise they regularly confuse an owlscope with a scryglass?’

‘We don’t all have the luxury of having a high-level alchemist for a father, Blake. Not all of us know the difference between the two offhand.’ Rohan entertained Blake’s ire to take his mind off Byron.

‘That’s why it’s so important for magazines to not confuse things,’ Blake grumbled.

‘Do you hear that? We’re close,’ Gorzark whispered.

‘Stand back,’ Patchwork instructed, and then strode to the front of the group. She struck a pose, channelled her mana and slowly worked through various poses like a martial artist practising their moves. A burst of fire shaped like a bird left her hands. ‘That’ll move around corners and home in on… Got ya!’

Patchwork punched the air as they all got a message about experience, and she got a message about several of the badgers being on fire.

‘Now, whilst they’re distracted!’ Patchwork ordered, but everyone was already moving after she’d cast her spell.

They rounded the tunnel and set to work on the distraught badgers; unsurprisingly, many animals and people were hit with the panic debuff when they were on fire, making the fire spells twice as effective. (Many elements had debuffs: ice caused slowing, lightning caused burns and so on.)

As the fire burned itself out, so, too, did the light diminish; this wasn’t a problem for Gorzark, but the humans started to struggle; Patchwork cast a light, but during the time it took her to cast it, she was attacked by a lamprey badger, and the spell backfired. It was only a minor spell, so it just caused superficial burns on the palm of her hand.

‘We need protection!’ Rohan yelled; he tried to cast a group healing spell and was interrupted by a lamprey badger.

‘Ba-boom!’ Buster shouted, and a terrific sound exploded from his blunderbuss with an accompanying plume of fire. This shot came with an ability that added concussive damage to the round; however, the blinding light and massive roar of the gun put a debuff on Buster’s own party, as well as on the badgers.

The badgers were the first to recover and had entered a berserk mode, which doubled their physical stats, making them faster and stronger. The only reason the party didn’t die in the tunnel was because Blake had used a taunt and activated a spell to increase his armour’s strength before Buster debuffed the party. As it was, Blake’s armour was soon shredded, his arms and legs fast becoming slick with blood.

Patchwork placed her palms on the floor and looked up to the ceiling, ‘Belladonna, the Night Mother, I call upon you – grant me this boon!’ She inhaled deeply before releasing a slow breath, sickly green in colour, which roiled and brought with it an acrid stench.

Rohan moved his hands like a magician making a dime disappear, and a soothing light alleviated all the status effects of the party.

‘What I wouldn’t give for a proper pickaxe!’ Gorzark declared, and then flicked his sickle so that the handle extended until he was holding a scythe. ‘These weapons just don’t match up to dwarf iron! To arms!’ He had received the scythe out of the settlement’s stockpile. It was a new style of weapon for Gorzark, and therefore cost him levels in his stats to wield, which was a common effect for using an unfamiliar weapon. However, he was highly talented with weapons, so he was still able to use his lower-level skills; he instantly activated one called “flurry”, which allowed him to strike five times with incredible speed.

‘Sentinel’s blessing!’ Blake screamed, and his body shone faintly; it was an ability that increased his attributes in relation to how little life he had left. The lower his health points, the more potent the ability.

‘Overcharge!’ he then roared. This ability removed all his defensive attributes and added a third of their value to his attack; it meant he could make a stronger strike, but he was completely open to attack.

Blake charged forwards and thrust his spear at a lamprey badger. It dodged and bit the spear shaft; tossing its head, it tried to force the spear out of his hands, but he held true due to his increased strength. Blake adjusted his grip and pulled the badger off the ground; he arced the spear over, slamming it on the ground. The lamprey badger squalled in pain and staggered to its feet. It let out a shrill cry and charged at Blake to tackle him. He stepped back and swung his spear behind his back; after switching his grip on the spear to his other hand, he brought the spear around, walloping the badger heavily on the side. It tumbled but regained its footing without losing much momentum. Blake tossed his spear; it skewered the badger, killing it, but the beast’s momentum meant it dealt Blake a glancing blow. It shouldn’t have taken off many health points, but his reduced defence meant that the impact was enough to snap his femur with a sickening crack, and he fell to the ground, screaming.

‘Is that the lot of them?’ Gorzark checked, looking around.

‘Can’t you shut him up?’ Buster asked, jabbing his chin in Blake’s direction.

‘I think you mean, “Can’t you heal him?”’ Rohan replied.

‘Either way is fine,’ Buster muttered.

‘I can’t; it’s a compound fracture, and I need to make sure the bones are set correctly, otherwise he’ll limp for life. And my mana level is too low to do that right now,’ Rohan said running a hand down Blake’s leg. ‘Perhaps we should give him a sedative?’

‘What a bloody buffoon! Who uses an ability to render their defence void?’ Buster scoffed.

‘You were right next to him, Buster; you could have helped,’ Patchwork accused.

‘I had to reload; I was the only one killing anything,’ Buster retorted.

‘You just care about the experience; you know it isn’t true that you get more experience if you get the kill!’ Patchwork shot back.

‘Then why do you care that I’m getting the kills?’ Buster replied smugly, as if he’d just won the argument.

‘Because Blake could have been killed!’ Patchwork shouted.

‘We’ve not got time for this; we must get after Byron,’ Rohan said, letting Gorzark carry Blake.

‘Right, there’s no time for infighting. This was a complete goblins’ den, but we have more important things to worry about right now,’ Gorzark declared. (To a dwarf, a “goblins’ den” is an expression that means the same as a “cock-up”.)

They traipsed back to the tunnel exit and clambered out; Gorzark was hardly struggling, even whilst carrying Blake.

‘The scouts have an ability to allow us to follow them,’ Rohan said, hurrying off confidently.

‘Yeah, don’t mind me; I’ll just carry Blake, right?’ Gorzark grumbled.

Blake was a big lad, but his weight didn’t seem to affect Gorzark at all, and the sturdy dwarf kept up with the party as they chased after Red.

It wasn’t long until Rohan slowed down and started moving with uncertainty. ‘This isn’t right,’ he was muttering.

‘What’s wrong now?’ Buster bitched.

‘The trail peters out, but I can’t find… Red!’ Rohan thrust himself through a patch of prickly bushes and pulled out the comatose body of Red. He instantly started checking her condition and casting spells. Her hair was plastered to her skin with blood, and there were numerous scrapes over her exposed skin, with similar tears in her clothing.

‘I thought we were going after Byron? Wake her up; we don’t have time,’ Buster moaned.

Red slowly regained consciousness and lethargically got to her feet.

‘Steady now; what happened?’ Rohan asked, stabilising her.

‘There were more of them,’ Red said abruptly, and she fingered her skull gingerly.

‘And Byron?’ Rohan pressed.

Red looked away still examining her head wound. ‘Check the party screen; he’s dead.’

There was a shocked silence.

*

Gorzark pressed down on the handle of the tankard, and the lid opened, allowing the barmaid to pour in more ale. As she topped him up, he held out his hand, palm out, and took a few large swigs. As he wiped his mouth, he motioned for her to refill him again. The ale was warm, the tavern was stiflingly hot, and Gorzark was on his ninth or twelfth refill. But who was counting? The Red Orc was a dwarf tavern, but there were a few other races that gave it their patronage as the dwarfs had the largest supply of ale in the settlement. The tables were newly made but already covered in stains, and a fair few had chips taken out of them from a few scuffles. Dwarfs were rowdy drinkers.

Rohan strode briskly through the dwarf section of the settlement and burst into The Red Orc. He looked around, marched over to Gorzark’s table and slapped the ale out of Gorzark’s hand. There was a sudden flurry of movement as every dwarf shot to their feet. Knocking a drink out of someone’s hand in a dwarf bar was suicide – suicide by having one’s kneecaps cut off and one’s head kicked in anyway.

Gorzark started to rise slowly to his feet, but he was interrupted by a truly massive belch and had to sit back down again. He made it to his feet the second time.

‘That was perfectly go… perfectly drin… that was nearly a full mug of ale,’ Gorzark challenged.

‘What are you doing? Wallowing in your own pity?’ Rohan snarled.

Gorzark looked down. ‘Nah, s’not pity. Could be day old stew.’

Rohan opened his mouth just as Gorzark released a plume of noxious gas, making Rohan gag violently.

‘That smells more like pity – maybe with a hint of self-reproach?’ Gorzark suggested.

‘Pure cowardice,’ Rohan spat.

Gorzark sniffed. ‘Could be.’

Rohan sighed, dropped to the chair next to Gorzark and sniffed the ale that was poured for him before he passed it over to Gorzark.

‘Is this, like, the first time you’ve ever lost anybody on a quest?’ Rohan asked.

‘No, I lost party taken to captive caroks,’ Gorzark replied between swigs.

Rohan tried to understand the drunken grammar. ‘It must be hard.’

‘You know how many dwarfs are born each year? No. I don’t know either. We’re a slow race and can’t afford the losses.’ Gorzark spoke slower and slower until he passed out, with his head on the table, snoring softly.

Rohan sighed; he felt sorry for Gorzark but had little time for self-pity over some random act of chaos. He asked for a bucket of ice water, and when it arrived, he healed Gorzark of his drunken status and then threw the water over him.

Gorzark came to with an incomprehensible series of noises.

‘So it’s bringing back bad memories; I get that,’ Rohan continued as if nothing had happened. ‘But we humans, our lives are cheap. We’re dying all the time, and as long as we’re not needlessly spent, we can respect that. You need to accept that and come to terms with it, because humans aren’t as resilient as dwarfs.’

‘You blooming goblin; you could get yourself killed doing that in a dwarf tavern!’ Gorzark raged, but the rest of the tavern’s occupants were laughing.

‘Look, you need to get your act together. I was one of those who put their name in to make captain, and you’re making me look bad for not being able to make captain when the current lot aren’t up to snuff.’

‘I can’t speak for your shortfalls.’

‘The team have had a week off; fair enough, we lost a chap and we needed to grieve. But you need to pull everyone together now and make them work their chuffs off. You’re not moping over losses when you’re blowing out your arsehole. Don’t give them – or yourself – time to think.’

‘Is that from experience?’

Rohan sighed. ‘Partly,’ he admitted.

‘You know, when a dwarf dies, we take the body back and the entire city comes to the funeral.’ Gorzark sighed, too. ‘Life above ground is harsh.’

‘Survival of the quickest; we can’t outfight them, so we outbreed them,’ Rohan joked.

‘If this is what it means to breed so easily, I’m glad we dwarfs have it harder in that regard,’ Gorzark agreed.

*

‘Right, boyos, that was a shower of shit, and I hate showers, me. We were chaotic, we were disorganised, and we lacked energy. The settlement needs standard operating procedures on how to fight as a group, so as we train recruits, they can slot straight into any party. With that in mind, the captains have got together to start hammering something out,’ Gorzark explained briskly, but his voice caught once or twice. ‘We lost a scout, and unfortunately, there isn’t any heart in the reserves to step up and fight. I can’t blame them – most of the reserves were those captured by caroks, and it rather turns a chap off facing monsters. However, I personally think that if all the parties start dispatching beasts left and right, with nary an injury, then people will start to revive their battle spirit. Nothing fuels the lust for battle more than seeing people’s levels skyrocket.’

There was some muttered agreement.

‘So, we need to get our bloody act together, you know.’ Gorzark punched his right fist into his left hand. ‘Now, healing magicka is always better than potions or herbs, because it’s free. However, once we killed all the badgers, we could have left Blake behind if he’d kept healing equipment on him. He didn’t, so we had to carry him, thus slowing us down. We haven’t recovered Byron’s body, but perhaps he’d have lived if he’d had potions or something on him. So don’t be thrifty – buy some potions. If you don’t use them, sell them on. But we can’t rely on Rohan to heal all our ills. I always have items on me, and you should too.’

‘What’s the point of having a healer if you ain’t going to use him?’ Buster complained.

‘Rohan isn’t there to heal your every boo-boo; he’s there to keep you in the fight. We can’t become overly reliant on him. You forget that the best healers are there because they’re scanning the field like a battle master,’ Gorzark said, but his point was met with confusion.

‘That’s why I took the healers’ path, so I could stand back, assess the battles and have a sub-specialisation in tactics. Unfortunately, I never reached a high enough level to unlock it,’ Rohan admitted.

‘You should have dedicated yourself to buffing your stats and armour; I always said it’d be of more use than battle planning,’ Patchwork put in.

‘I second that; it’s bloody useless,’ Buster agreed.

‘Ick, I feel dirty,’ Patchwork whispered to Red.

‘To be fair, he took it in a different direction,’ Red reassured Patchwork.

‘Well, you’re all grown-arse adults, but when we go on a quest, I’ll be expecting you to carry your own potions, and I’ll make my plans and tactics accordingly. So, if you get yourself killed, I’m not going to beat myself up over it, you know,’ Gorzark growled back.

‘I’m not going to stick with this team,’ Buster muttered darkly.

‘Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s anything we could have done to save Byron. Once Byron and Buster had been taken, we were always going to have to sacrifice one of them. I don’t know how we can stop that going forward. Even if Byron had kept potions on him, he wasn’t in any position to drink one. Plus, he was out of range for magicka, so even if Red had known a healing spell, she couldn’t have used it. There’s only so much we can do, but as long as we have our bases covered, then if we should lose anyone else, at least we can reassure ourselves that we did our best. Is everyone alright with that?’ Gorzark enquired, deliberately staring Buster down.

There was a murmur of agreement.

‘Right, there’re reports of snake lilies. Now, I don’t think we’re ready for the cockatrice yet, so I’ve volunteered us for the quests,’ Gorzark told them.

There were groans from the members of the party who had once been city guards. Anyone who’d ever been a guard knew you never volunteered for anything.

‘None of that; I thought you’d all be excited at the opportunity. Now, does anyone have the horticulture skill?’ asked Gorzark.

Patchwork raised her hand.

‘Not surprising,’ Gorzark concluded, nodding. ‘Right, well, we’re tasked with clearing them out and collecting as many of them as we can.’

‘Um…’ Rohan started hesitantly, ‘what exactly is a snake lily?’

‘It’s a plant – a lily, I guess. But unlike most plants, it gets its nutrients from animals, much like the Venus flytrap. The snake lily has… well, think of it as pressure plates. You step on the plate and… bam!’ Patchwork elaborated, slamming her fist into her palm. ‘You get struck. The plant has a nu… nur-r… neuron poison. No, that’s not it… What’s the word?’

‘Necrotic poison,’ Rohan supplied.

‘Right, necrotic. You’re walking along, and the next thing you know, your arm’s decaying. I’ve got some antitoxin, which you drink before going on the mission, but it only lasts five hours, so we’re on a timer. The other tricky part is that it overlays the area with vines hidden in the undergrowth, so we need to be extra careful,’ Patchwork finished.

‘Right, we’ll harvest as many as we can and destroy the rest. The idea is to grow them in the village at some point. Their poison will give our blades the edge in future fights, and apparently, their vines are good for binding thatching and things.’ Gorzark shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I’m not a gardener, but they want seeds or cuttings if possible.’

‘We’re on weed duty now?’ Buster complained.

‘Aye, tomorrow at sunup we meet by the town gate,’ Gorzark replied simply.

‘Sunrise, to root out a bunch of weeds?’ Buster questioned, surprised.

‘Flowers use photosynthesis for energy, which makes them solar powered. If we get there just as the sun rises, it should give us the advantage. And I’m not doing it in the dark,’ Gorzark explained.

*

Sunup the next day found the party waiting for Buster at the main gate. Red was holding a steaming bowl of soup as they waited, but the rest stamped their feet irritably in the brisk morning air.

‘Can you give him crotch rot?’ Patchwork asked, elbowing Rohan.

‘Hmm?’ Rohan replied absentmindedly.

‘Can you curse Buster?’ Patchwork reiterated.

‘Oh, n-no, I don’t know any hexes.’

‘What’s got you distracted?’

‘Had rather a pleasant dream last night. There were bards, an amphitheatre and some of the music… I was just trying to remember the melodies, but it’s gone,’ Rohan explained sadly.

‘What a dull mind,’ Red scoffed, and then she laughed.

‘Some of us appreciate the simpler things,’ Rohan stated, scowling. ‘Sorry it didn’t have any flesh in it.’

‘How simplistic; I don’t have to have flesh. A nice, fat roasted boar is what I dreamed of last night,’ Red replied, after finishing her breakfast and placing her bowl in her satchel.

‘Anyone know where Buster’s sleeping?’ Gorzark finally asked.

Nobody did, so they had to wait around for a while longer. Eventually, a large figure materialised from the mist and approached them. The figure moved with a heavy step, and there was an audible clank with each footstep.

‘Is this the morning raiding party?’ the figure asked in a surprisingly smooth, yet deep, voice.

‘Could be; we’re after snake lilies,’ Gorzark replied.

The figure paused for a moment. ‘Aye, that be it.’

‘I’m sorry, but who the devils are you?’ Blake asked.

The figure’s body shuddered, but he was just taking off a massive jacket, which – it transpired – was made from a creature called a black hydrangea, which was a type of buffalo with thick, black hair. The creature’s skin was so thick and tough that it had a higher armour rating that any cheap metal armour on the market.

‘I’m Quake,’ he said. He was a large man, and the left side of his face had sunk as if he’d suffered a stroke or – more probably in this world – the left side of his face had been crushed at some point and crudely healed. He was missing his left eye, and the left side of his body seemed to be shorter than the right – hence his heavy step.

‘Quake – that’s your real name?’ Blake asked.

Quake shrugged. ‘It’s just what people call me. My real name is Sayid Naheem.’

‘That’s a large sword hilt you have there,’ Red declared, referring to the sword hilt sticking over Quake’s shoulder. ‘Either that or it’s a small tree.’

Quake drew his weapon. The tip of it was a metal sledgehammer, but instead of having a blunt end, it ended in a sharp point. The shaft of the hammer wasn’t wood but metal, and not blunt metal either but sharpened metal, making it like a hammer-topped claymore. ‘It was a drop from a hollow priest, who was the boss monster when I was in a party clearing out a forgotten temple many years ago,’ Quake replied.

‘Lucky bugger; I’ve faced five bosses and never once found an item I could actually use,’ Rohan complained. ‘They always fetched a good price, though.’

‘What’s the threat we’re tasked with facing?’ Quake enquired.

‘Nothing as exciting as a priest boss; it’s a patch of snake lilies that are wanted by the gardeners, and they also pose a threat to unwary travellers,’ Gorzark answered.

‘What are our skills? Do we have fire throwers or ice?’ Quake asked.

‘That’s a common misconception; fire and ice are actually the same spell,’ Patchwork clarified enthusiastically. ‘Fire is the spell focused outwards and ice is the spell focused inwards. Exothermic and endothermic magicka, respectively – they’re both sides of the same coin, depending on which way you hold it.’

‘Surely, if you pull the heat of an area into yourself, you’ll just catch fire?’ Blake asked confused.

Patchwork shrugged. ‘That’s like saying using fire spells will freeze the caster. The excess heat generated from an ice spell and the heat used in a fire spell are both pulled from mana. That’s why it needs mana to cast to begin with.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Blake admitted.

Patchwork shrugged again. ‘Many magic users struggle to understand it, and they just throw spells around. But the best mages always have a strong understanding of thaumaturgical theory, and they always alter the foundation of their spells for their own uses. I was taught to throw a fireball by shouting out a word and thrusting my hand forwards. But as I studied, I found it more favourable to change the formation of the spell, so that when I was duelling my peers, they wouldn’t know what spell I was using. Lazy spell theory makes for spells that can be countered easily.’

‘By Larry’s blue balls, let’s just go. I can’t stand all this talking,’ Gorzark shouted and started them marching.

*

Slowly, it started to feel like the plants were rather invasive; they were clustering on top of each other and looming over the path. It transpired that there were a lot of abandoned structures in the area the plants had grown over, allowing them to build up and block out large swathes of light, with the rhododendron and peony creating a claustrophobic path.

‘So, although the lily is a plant, it’s best to think of it as an ambush predator, which means that just because we can’t see it yet, it doesn’t mean we’re safe. From here on out, I want us to be on full alert,’ Gorzark commanded.

‘With that massive sword, I assume that you like to get up close and personal, Quake?’ Red asked.

Quake nodded.

‘I’m not sure how useful that will be against a patch of flowers; you can’t taunt a plant at all,’ Red concluded.

‘From what Gorzark explained, that shouldn’t be a problem,’ Quake retorted, stepping out in front of the group. ‘I shall go first, thus triggering the plants and drawing their attacks.’

‘Ah, an interesting idea. However, that does mean we’ll have to copy your footsteps exactly,’ Blake argued.

Quake shook his head and drew his sword, which he slammed onto the ground in front of him, triggering a volley of lilies to strike out like the snakes they were named after. He was pulled forwards several feet as the vines of the snake lilies wrapped around the sword and tugged. Many of the vines were cut as he fought back; his heels digging into the dirt triggered many more vines, causing a second round of strikes. This time, the vines struck Quake himself, but his jacket was so tough that the thorns on the vines couldn’t penetrate it.

He cut through vines with ease, the weight of the sword making each of his swings immensely strong. Then he struck a boulder with the weighted end, shattering the rock and revealing a hidden clutch of snake lilies.

‘So that’s what the hammer on the end is for,’ Red observed, impressed.

‘Okay, we’ll halt for the moment and clear the vines out. I want these plants harvested,’ Gorzark stated.

They were all covered in cuts and had ripped clothing, except Gorzark, who’d stripped to his chain mail vest, and Quake, whose jacket showed little effect from the vines, except patches of grass stains.

For a long time, the only sounds were the swishes and thunks of many blades cutting through the air and impacting the willowy vines, accompanied by the occasional slap and curse as a thorn caught someone by surprise.

‘This sound is going to give me nightmares when I’m pruning,’ Red said, applying an oily substance to an open wound on her chest.

‘I think we’re clear; Patchwork, you’re on,’ Gorzark ordered, and then readied himself.

Patchwork sprinted forwards, pulled an elaborately shaped glass bottle out of her satchel and used a water spell to dampen the soil around the snake lilies before scooping the soil away with her hands. After freeing the roots, she pushed the lily into the bottle and sealed it before repeating the action on a second lily.

‘Got them,’ Patchwork shouted, running back.

‘Good. Don’t drop your guard, people; there could be more,’ Rohan stated, having spotted that a few people had seemingly relaxed.

‘That’s a good call, Rohan; people, listen to him!’ Gorzark warned.

‘My ground strike has cooled down,’ Quake said. He backed the party up so that he had space around him and then slammed the hammer head into the ground, triggering a mass of vines to strike out wildly.

‘I like this guy,’ Blake confided in Rohan, who nodded.

‘Great, let’s use this opportunity to move forwards!’ Gorzark instructed, and the party staggered forwards like a line of people dying for a dump.

‘There must be at least one more snake lily around for all these vines,’ Red growled as they hacked their way forwards.

‘This is seriously blunting my weapons,’ Blake whined whilst struggling to cut through another vine.

‘They’re tough,’ Gorzark agreed. ‘What I’d give for a war axe!’

‘I’m getting a serious mana migraine,’ Patchwork whimpered between the gouts of flame she was spraying from her hands.

‘But on the plus side, it’s warming me up a treat,’ Red declared, sidling up close to Patchwork.

‘Blake, your stamina’s down, you know. Get to the back,’ Gorzark suggested on checking his team’s core stats (health, mana and stamina) in his party interface.

‘Quake, how come your mana’s dropping?’ Red asked, bored with the repetitive fighting style needed to break down the vines of the snake lilies.

‘I have only one spell, which turns mana into stamina,’ Quake replied simply.

‘Blasphemy,’ Patchwork and Rohan joked simultaneously.

‘Over there!’ Blake shouted, pointing.

They all turned and spotted a patch of five lilies in a small glade.

‘Brilliant, I want at least two more, right?’ Gorzark requested.

They fought their way over to the glade, and Gorzark held up a warning hand. ‘Hold up, that patch of bushes over there look suspiciously like vines.’

‘It can’t be; there’re too many of them,’ Red argued.

‘After the badgers, I’m not taking any chances. Patchwork, one last fireball, and make it a big one,’ Gorzark ordered.

‘Very well,’ Patchwork responded, pulling up her sleeves. ‘Homonie, etuy polrumbla.’ And with that, she summoned a fireball the size of her head and flung it at the bramble patch. There was a damp thud, and the flames spread wide but failed to catch. Nothing else happened.

‘Once more with feeling,’ Patchwork said, and this time, she summoned an umbra ball with flickering flames chasing each other over the surface. ‘Last verse, same as the first. Little bit louder; little bit worse.’ She threw the ball. This time the liquid spread out like napalm, and the flames caught.

Patchwork went down on one knee, holding her head; it felt like the entire forest shuddered as trees were uprooted and flailed through the air before being snapped like matchsticks as around 1,000 vines whipped wildly around the party, who all huddled together in the eye of the “storm”.

‘What the merry hells?’ Rohan shouted.

‘Look!’ Blake yelled.

This time, when they turned, they were confronted by a lily that was taller than the trees, with a stamen larger than a person and petals spread wider that a cottage.

‘What the shit is that?’ Red shouted.

‘I think… a tactical retreat is called for,’ Gorzark concluded, tapping Quake on the shoulder to get him moving.

Fortunately, they’d cleared the area already and were able to retreat with little difficultly; then, they stood back to watch the whirlwind of vines, which cracked through the air fast enough to break the sound barrier, like a cacophonous chorus of whips.

‘Hey, it’s Buster!’ Patchwork exclaimed, pointing at a group of men running towards them.

‘Isn’t that Gavin Wilnock’s party?’ Rohan asked nobody in particular.

‘Outta the way, losers,’ Buster shouted as his new party ran past.

‘What’s that about?’ Patchwork asked confused.

‘Well, whatever, we’ve got a weed problem, right?’ Gorzark answered, returning his attention to the giant snake lily.

‘Bull elks!’ Blake shouted.

And they all turned to find a giant elk breaking through the forest, turning trees over as it stampeded towards them, followed by a herd of more regular-sized elks.

‘The bastards ran a train past us!’ Gorzark screamed in rage as the elk bore down on them.

‘They’re busting down trees! Run!’ Patchwork shouted, staggering back.

‘My stamina’s near bottomed out,’ Quake stated stoically.

‘So, we can’t run, and there’s no cover?’ Red summarised as the ground started shaking beneath them from the footfalls of the giant elk.

‘Well… there’s one spot of cover from the elks. We can use the vines from the lily to protect us from them,’ Rohan suggested.

‘Let’s do it,’ Gorzark declared.

They stormed forwards.