When Rum came running into the street where his new dungeon party were gathered – all 11 of the elves – he was met by an additional 2 elves he hadn’t met before, standing next to 2 smallish horse-drawn wagons.
Rum promptly collapsed in front of his new party as his automated running spell completed. White Rose, hanging on his shoulder, collapsed forward with him, hitting the ground and taking most of Rum’s fall damage. Though bony as ze was under that cloth, ze wasn’t much of a pillow to land on. Rum crawled a little, and ended up laying with his head in White Rose’s hard lap, where he tried to contain the heaviest of wheezes. After a while, he pointed a lazy finger in the general direction of the new duo, attempting to speak: “Whuuu-whuuu-who are they?”
The female elf warrior from yesterday came up to him. Standing above him and looking down unto his wheezing face, she gave him a weird, curious smile. “The support team” she replied.
From behind her, Alkiath made an appearance, and offered a more detailed answer: “Cook and an herbalist. For a party this size we need support crew. A fine cook and a good herbalist will keep us better fed and healthier.”
Rum’s lazy hand went on to point weakly at the wagons. “And those?”
“You mean the wagons? Well one is for driving us. More efficient that way. The other is for food and equipment. Pots for cooking, potions, spare arrows. That sort of thing. Also, we got ourselves a couple of large shields in there, just in case. They were expensive to acquire, but I believe they may prove useful to survival.”
Rum nodded with understanding, in-between his heavy breaths on White Rose’s lap. When his breathing soon after calmed down, he and White Rose stood up from the ground, and he dusted himself and White Rose off. Looking about at the gathering of elves, he continued with asking about each of their names. Most of the names he ended up immediately forgetting, but he caught the names of the two elf warriors, the woman and the man, who’d spoken up yesterday. The woman’s name was Udevi, and the man’s name Arrovani. “And who is your mysterious friend?” Arrovani asked Rum with a small curious smile, when the last elf had been named.
Rum glanced over at White Rose standing by his side. “Ze is White Rose” he responded, and glanced back at Arrovani. “Ze’s my... friend? Or more like I’m zes guardian. Unfortunately, White Rose has a very problematic condition, ever since zes beginning.” And I’m not lying, Rum added mentally, UNDEATH tends to cause a lot of issues. “And because of that ze can’t speak, and also have some developmental challenges. If you’re wondering about zes veil, well, it’s really just best when ze is covered up.”
“Oh” Arrovani responded, having lost his smile, and now looking on with pity.
“But don’t you worry!” Rum hastily added, “Ze is not suffering, nor dying.”
Udevi approached the conversation. “But why did you bring ze along?” she joined in. “Sounds weak, not really fit for a dungeon.”
Rum considered her statement for a moment. “Ze is immensely strong and very durable” he replied. “Trust me, ze is in no greater danger, I think, than the weakest warrior among you. It’ll be fine.” Probably fine, Rum added mentally.
Most of the elves just stood now and stared at White Rose, who – being entirely deprived of self-awareness – merely stared back at them all, more blankly than zes veil would let ze communicate.
“Well then” Alkiath eventually said after some silence. “Should we get going?” He looked around, giving everyone a quick look, before commanding: “Everyone onboard the wagons!”
The passenger wagon did not fit everyone. Even with Alkiath and another elf riding on the front with the driver, and two other elves joining the front of the goods wagon, there were only 9 seats available against the 10 needing seats. Likely the elves had counted on there being exactly enough space for everyone. Consequently, Rum had to sit with White Rose on his lap. Luckily ze was pretty light, but the journey was long and so Rum had to suffer through some discomfort, though he distributed Softify magic on everyone’s seats to make it overall as comfortable as possible. The elves appreciated the gesture mightily.
For days they travelled the long road. Then, merely a day before their journey would’ve taken them off-road and into the wilderness, they came upon 2 smaller groups of bloodied and maimed fighters, walking parallell with each other along the road in direction of the city.
Alkiath gestured for the driver to stop the horse as they got close. Looking about and finding a plate-armored individual who looked like he could be an authority, Alkiath asked: “What happened to you guys?”
The armored man, a human, did not immediately return the eye-contact, but merely groaned as if reliving painful memories. When he eventually looked up into Alkiath’s eyes, he responded: “We were tricked. Guild intelligence did not adequately prepare us for what we found there.”
“Found where?” Alkiath queried.
“Jorteg’s Dungeon” the man mumbled, a big frown on his face as his eyes cast down again, as if reliving shame, sorrow or both.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“We’re heading there now” Udevi joined in from the back of the wagon.
“Don’t” the man mumbled again.
“Why not?” Alkiath questioned, “What exactly happened to you guys?” The herd of bloodied fighters crowded around their stopped wagon now, everyone looking either miserable, or stoically trying to pretend they weren’t miserable. Half of them were missing various limbs, like arms, hands, and fingers. One urban elven woman was even missing the entire part of her leg beneath the knee, the remains of a bloodied pants leg barely covering up the stump. She’d clearly been a front fighter, but was now being carried on the back of another large muscular human man.
“Jorteg has gone on the offensive” the armored man replied somberly. “A hundred skeletons, if not many more, lead by 3 witches and a wizard. They raided our camp at night, before we’d even stepped inside the place.” He paused for a second, an increasingly sour mournful expression on his face. “Before nightfall we’d been 3 parties of seasoned fighters. At dawn, an entire party had been wiped out, and what you see here is what remains of us. I lost 2 friends myself.”
From his seat on the wagon Rum counted the sum total of their heads. They were 9 people altogether. Well below the usual party sizes if that number were divided over 2 parties.
“That is frightening and sobering to hear.” Alkiath said, a whitening expression of concern on his face matching the dire of the news. “But at least hearing it, we’ll be more prepared.”
The armored man surveyed the 2 wagons, glancing over the passangers. “You won’t be enough. We were 3 parties of seasoned fighters. Look what happened to us. You could barely qualify for 2 parties, and I don’t see many signs of seasoned fighter material.”
Alkiath turned around, as if doing his own survey. “We’ve come this far, we’ll make it work. But we will be doubly cautious and alert ahead.”
The man nodded, and then began walking again, as if ending the conversation. His allies were just about to start following when Rum stood up from his wagon and shouted “Stop!”
The man and his fighters stopped and looked up at him.
“I’m a magic user, I have magic that can heal and help you.” Rum didn’t wait for a response but just ran to and jumped off the back of the wagon, before jogging up to the crowd of the bloodied and maimed.
“We have our own healer” a new voice said, a shield-bearing dwarf man missing half of his right ear. The dwarf pointed at one of the few among their crew who weren’t covered in blood. The healer was a young urban elf wizard, in blue silken robes, with a cheap-looking wand tied to a cloth belt around his waist.
“I think I might be able to do more than your healer. I don’t know, but it’ll be worth the try.”
Rum walked over to a pained, sweating and exhausted human man who’d been holding a half-grown bloody cut to his side. Putting his hand on the man’s wound, Rum caused the man to grunt in protest, before Rum loudly said: “Trinity of Healing!” The familiar intense green light spewed out from the man’s side wound, and within mere seconds the wound grew itself into a clean, hairless, but undamaged smooth surface. The man’s previous expression of pain softened and faded, replaced by an awe at what had just happened.
“Is the pain gone?” Rum asked, intending for it be more of a research survey question, but from the context it came out like a doctor’s question instead.
“Yes! YES!” the man shouted, and tried to hug Rum, but Rum stepped back, pointing at him.
“You’re sweaty and bloody.” The man’s excitement toned down, and he nodded with understanding. But Rum stepped forward again, and put a hand to the man’s shoulder, saying: “Clean Body” and a whirlwind of magic, centered on the man, spontaneously sprang forth. Within seconds the man’s sweat and blood was washed away by magic, and what had before been ruffled greasy half-long hair, became combed, silken smooth and almost shiny. The clean-up finishing, the man had gone from filthy warrior to a fairly handsome looking fella. Only wrong thing about him now were his torn clothes.
“I have a spell which can fix your clothes as well, but it might change the clothes entirely. You won’t mind losing those clothes, would you?”
The man shook his face eagerly, a happy smile rapidly forming and replacing the previous face of a pained and helpless person.
“Renew Clothes” Rum said, again having put his hand on the man’s shoulder. Within seconds the man was yet more transformed. This time shirt, pants, boots and what pieces of armor he had been wearing, all changed slightly; becoming new, fresh, shiny. The man before Rum now looked nothing like the man before. This was a changed man. Healed, refit, cleaned.
“Now you can hug me” Rum said, and opened up his own arms slightly, at which the man leapt forth into a hug, briefly becoming like a kid with all his joy and grateful excitement.
“Thank you! Thanks a lot” he said. And then, within Rum’s embrace, sighed with relief. At least some of his troubles were gone now.
As the man released Rum, Rum shouted out to the crowd: “Who’s next!?” At that cue, Rum’s elven party members decided to take a break. They came off the wagon to stretch, bend and have a snack. They shared a few rations and some lemon juice with the dungeoneers, who insisted on paying for it. For Rum’s services though Rum declined payment, arguing that their warning and what else they may tell about the attack and the tactics of Jorteg’s forces were all payment enough.
Shortly after they packed up and the two flocks of dungeoneers separated, the wagons travelled off-road and began the last part of the journey, the one first leading them through the open grasslands, before they came upon the forest, and its wilderness. Or wilderness with one exception of course: Rum had not forgotten about the burrow of wild gnomes living out there. Unless they’d finally fled their home that is, which would be understandable if these parts of the land were becoming less safe.
As they finally reached their destination – the entrance to Jorteg’s Dungeon – they decided to take extra precautions, setting up camp far away and deep into the forest. Here the elves cast a special branch of magic only used by themselves. Under Rum’s observation this magic seeped into the trees, the undergrowth and the soil itself, where a network of information and alarm mechanisms were established. But more than that, and to Rum’s astonishment, the elves managed to animate several of the trees nearby over to their side, making the forest around their encampment into a platoon of guardians for their people, Rum and White Rose included. This, the elven magic, was all too fascinating an experience to Rum, and he questioned and pondered it all while they set up. But more importantly: he and all the elves felt significantly more secure now. They were prepared, at the very least. Questions lay in the back of everyone’s minds now though. Would an attack come? And being out here, were they risking their lives too much? Should they perhaps had chosen to return to the city instead, for more assistance?
I suppose, Rum pondered, we’ll just have to wait and see.