Chapter: 25

With their deal and plan set Len used Rick’s sound transmission device to start getting the other parts moving while Rick guided them back towards Nedlin.

Their talks had taken them into the night, so they ran through the darkness.

Len threw up his hand, turning his head to the sounds of yelling.

He looked over to Rick.

He drew his hammer and they were off in the direction of the yelling.

The ground disappeared under their feet as they reached a small farmstead.

A torch of flame wafted at the doorway into the home.

A bear growled and charged the home. Wood cracked and gave way, a scream and yelling coming from inside the home.

Rick wound up and threw his humming hammer. It crashed into the bear it jolted and collapsed.

Another growl came from the barn, another bear crashing through a fence as it ran towards the house, leaving a half eaten cow behind.

Len diverted towards the bear, they charged one another, the bear reared up to swipe down on Len. Len jumped, sailing over the bear’s reach, he stabbed his sword through the bear’s neck and into its vitals. He activated the mana blade enchantment he’d carved into the weapon.

He pulled the sword through the back of the bear, riding it down to the ground.

It threw up dust as he flicked his sword casting clean upon it. His blade glowing blue in the night.

Too low level to give experience.

“Len!” Rick yelled from the house. He was moving in the next second, Rick tossed the bear’s corpse that was in the entry of the home away.

The doorway showed the bear’s abuse, thick furrows carved into it by its claws. The door was hanging by half a hinge and a young man was sputtering on the floor.

Rick rolled the young man on his side.

“There’s another, the father,” Rick said as his feet hit the wood of the wrap-around deck.

Len stepped over the man Rick was working on and into the house. A woman was holding three children close, a fourth holding a shovel and shaking.

“Where is he?” Len asked.

The woman looked at him, her eyes wide. “Your husband.” Len barked, trying to break through the film of shock.

“In the bedroom,” She pointed a finger back.

“Take them to another room,” Len said, moving towards the room she’d pointed out. “They don’t need to see this.”

“Clive, come, help me with your brothers and sisters,” The woman said to the boy holding the shovel. His eyes were as big as saucers. “Clive!” Her voice broke him out as he looked around the world as if seeing it for the first time.

Len pushed open the door to the smell of sickness and infection.

A husk of a man lay in the bed, halfway out, holding onto the headboard as he fought to pull himself up.

“The bears are dead,” Len said.

The man’s eyes swum as he looked at him. “My family, they.”

“They’re okay,” Len threw his sword onto the bed and ripped open the man’s shirt. He held onto the material. Damn he’s weak.

The man’s head rolled. Len grabbed his collar and moved to the side as the man spewed on the floor. Len stuck his finger into a bowl of water next to the bed with a cloth in it, casting cleanse then a cooling spell.

He took out the cloth wiping the man’s head and then his mouth. He threw the towel back into the water and got the man sideways on the bed in the recovery position.

Len took out his utility knife and cut through the cloth bandages on the man’s side, releasing a sickly sweet and rancid smell.

The man’s side was collapse unnaturally and there were three gouges in his side that were filled with pus, the skin inflamed and looking waxy.

Len spotted a bottle of alcohol on the table and flicked the cork off with his thumb, putting his finger into the mouth of the bottle he flipped it up, coating his finger as he cast cleanse before he wiped the pungent alcohol under his nose.

It made him cough with the strength and overpowered everything else before he clamped onto the man’s shoulder. “This is going to suck.”

He poured the alcohol over the man’s side, he bucked and writhed, moaning.

“Got some kick in you still now!”

Len put the bottle down half empty and grabbed his knife, clearing away the bandages.

The man let out shuddering breaths, wheezing.

Dry not wet. Lungs aren’t punctured.

The man was a faint memory of what he had been the wound and infection stealing his strength and mass.

Fuse his bones together first? Though that would make the breathing better and take away a lot of the pain it wasn’t actively killing him. The infection was doing that. If he gets too weak from me sapping his stamina to fix his bones, dead. Skill-up probably dead from the stress.

“Not making it easy on me.”

Len opened the man’s mana gate in his palm as he drew in a hitching breath.

That’s not good. His lungs weren’t opening all the way.

“Rick, when you got a moment!”

“Alright, just finishing up here.”

The man had to have at least a single level by the way he was drawing in mana he’d formed a core.

Len’s attention returned to the wounds.

If I could cut it out. Len grimaced, he’d have to cut out a lot. It would reduce the amount of crap entering his body. Though his ribs were collapsed, that actually gave him room to work with because the ribs weren’t creating structure.

“You are a lucky bastard,” Len pulled out a stamina potion. Hope Tenebrook has been having good results. “Drink this.” He held it to the man’s lips slowly letting the potion out.

The man’s actions were weak and gained some strength, Len giving it to him faster till the whole thing was gone.

He slipped the potion bottle away.

“Well being awake for the rest of this is going to suck a bit.”

Len cast a numbing spell over the area and moved the man’s arm to the side. He rubbed his utility knife, putting his free arm in such a way it would block the man from moving his arms and seeing what Len was doing.

Len got his knee on the other side of the man so he couldn’t roll over. He studied the infected cuts, tracing out the muscle through the man’s side as he might do when cleaning a kill.

His butcher skill came to the fore as he cut into the man’s side, quick and precise movements to remove only what he needed to.

The man twitched Len’s bracing holding what he was working in place.

Rick pushed open the door. “Lovely.”

Len grunted as he finished his bloody work, pulling away the strip he’d cot from the man, throwing it onto the bandages on the floor. He cleaned his knife and hands agains, sliding his blade away. He used both of his hands to pinch the open wounds together and fuse the skin together.

The man’s breathing was weak and labored, hitching as his lungs couldn’t expand all the way now.

A suction force came in the direction of Rick, the mess Len and the man had made gathering up into his hand as he pushed open a window, letting in fresh air. The bundled mess hung in the air away from his hand as he put it out of the window, hurling it away before it burst into flame, burning into cinders in seconds, ash falling in the moonlight.

Len released the man.

“Gave him a stamina potion, should help out. He’s got a nasty infection running through him and his ribs are a mess.” Len shook his head they couldn’t stop here for too long. “Also his lungs aren’t drawing in air fully, think one’s collapsed.”

“Crap,” Rick moved to the man and put an ear to his side. Then he moved him and listened to another area. “Yup, lungs collapsed.” Rick paused then pulled out his last stamina potion and gave it to the man. “We’re going to need to cut into the cavity around the lung, let the air pressure equalize and then put him back together. Before that we need to fuse all of the bits of his ribs together so that when his lung is working it doesn’t get punctured.

“Alright,” Len pulled out his knife cleaned it and held it out to Rick.

Rick stored his now empty potion bottle and took the knife. Len put his hand against the man’s side and then starting aligning the ribs together and fusing them with spells.

The man groaned as Rick cast a spell on him. “Numbing.”

Len kept working getting the bones together and then pushing the shards together into a pocket.

He had to heal the man as the fused skin got tight with the ribs pushing out.

“Cut here, there’s a bunch of bone bits,” Len tapped between the ribs.

Rick cut into the man’s side, drawing out the bloody bone shards, then he made a small cut through.

Air came out of the cut.

Rick made and O with his forefinger and thumb, holding it next to the skin, air moved around his hand and the man’s chest rose and fell evenly, some of the tension in his body falling away.

Rick waited a bit before closing up the wound. “That should work now.” He cleansed everything and handed Len back his knife. “Those bears out there have mana in them, clean them up and give them some chunks of meat to build up their strength?”

“Best we can do,” Len walked past him into the main room of the house, the boy that had been holding the shovel, had his weapon in his hand, watching through the door. His mother talking to the young man who’d been struck by the bear at the door.

He had a scar from shoulder to hip. The skin pinched together. He drank water as his mother kept checking him over.

She looked up as they approached. “My husband?” There was a note of fear in her voice.

“Resting and better than he was,” Len said. “The beasts are getting worse around here and they’re going to get stronger with time. Head to Velkaris or Goran, they should have jobs for people.”

Len moved for the door. “We’ll clean up some of the meat so you can cook and eat it. Feed it to your boy and husband. They’re going to need plenty of food to heal. Once they’ve got some strength back and able to move under their own power they should harvest some of your crops, work on anything that requires skills. That will make them stronger.”

He walked out the door, Rick trailing.

The beasts were creatures they were familiar with and their butcher skill meant that a few cuts broke down the beast’s bodies.

“Love the screen cheats,” Rick said.

“World recognizes our skill, uses a bit of magic to make what we know and picture a reality,” Len stood up with a grunt.

“There’s a drying hut over there,” The boy with the shovel pointed to a mud hut.

“I’ll put this one in there,” Len said.

“I’ll take half of this into the house. You got a cellar lad?” Rick asked.

Len folded up the hide holding all the good meat and walked to the drying hut. He opened the door to the smell of dried meat.

Make this a little faster. Len used a water spell to draw the water from the interior of the meat as he cut them into smaller strips and laid them over the wood drying racks stabbed into the drying hut’s walls.

He worked quickly, filling several drying shelves with meat before he stepped back out into the night’s air.

The boy with the shovel was putting it to use, digging a hole.

Smoke rose from the chimney.

Len walked back to the house. Rick was frying shaved meat on a pan and then handing it to the kids who were around him.

Rick was using a spell to warm the iron oven, burning only a little wood.

They all looked over to Len’s entrance, then snapped back to Rick and his treats.

“I know that expression, I cleared out the bacteria that would eat muscle,” Rick said, checking another pot full of water and oats. He threw in dried fruits and nuts covered it again and then continued to treat the kids.

Rick tapped the meat, cutting it into several different sizes.

The boy that had been nearly torn apart by the bear was sitting at the main table. A healthy portion of meat, milk and water infront of him that he was working his way through.

The mother stepped out of the room her husband was in. She closed the door, leaning against the frame, weary relief etched into her features.

Len looked away as if he hadn’t seen it.

She pushed herself off of door, Len glanced over and nodded to her.

“Thank you both,” She said as she walked into the kitchen area.

“Heard someone in help,” Len shrugged.

“You’re welcome,” Rick said. “There’s meat down in the cellar, more is out in the drying hut. I’ve cooked up some and there’s oats and bits for food. The meat is good to just cook up.” Rick flipped the meat he was working on.

His cooking skill will make it nutritious and its how he’s able to cook everything so quickly.

“I’d suggest that if you cook something that you do it outside,” Rick moved the pan to the side, the meat done. “And do something that you don’t mind if you ruin.”

The woman frowned.

“These are odd times and we’ve seen things in our travels,” Len said.

She tilted her head. “That I bet you have, who are you?” She asked.

“Just two passing travellers,” Rick said, picking up his rucksack.

“Thank you again and once my husband is able to move we’re going to Goran. We know how to farm. Velkaris isn’t a good place to raise children and the stories from there.” She shook her head.

“Things might be changing,” Len said as he walked out of the door, Rick right behind him.

Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

They looked at one another as the mother, her children gathering at the door her eldest hobbling over to the door.

Len and Rick ran off into the darkness, the sun starting to rise.

***

The sun rose as they reached the edge of Nedlin, their speed that of the locals.

They bought food and walked through the streets, over the bridge and towards the train station. Rick got the tickets as Len sat on a bench eating his brunch.

“When we make the train lines, remind me to make them dual track so we can have people go both directions,” Rick grumbled.

“The train will be here at midday right?” Len asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s not too long,” Len shrugged.

The Isendia mercenaries had just landed at the docks and were heading their way. "They're coming up this way!" someone yelled, panting as they reached a group of friends.

Len raised an eyebrow and looked at Rick. "Grandma sent out word for all the companies to return. I wonder who it is."

Len tilted his head, hearing a rhythmic noise in the background. "Sounds like they really are coming this way."

They weaved through the streets towards the docks. Finding a flat roof away from prying eyes, they jumped up on it, watching the street below.

Soldiers wearing the Isendia uniform marched up in formation. Behind them, horses drew carts filled with supplies and mall cannons on display.

Rick pulled back behind a chimney on the roof, grimacing. Len raised an eyebrow. "What are you looking at?" Rick grumbled.

"Someone who's uncomfortable about something they just saw." Len went for the jugular.

"It's one of my aunts, I think. Well, not really a blood-related aunt, but she always made me call her aunt. Her name's Irene. She's a battle maniac. She was a good fighter with a blade, and she'd take every opportunity she had to beat me up in the training ground and say it was some kind of training."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound too much like fun," Len agreed.

"So let's try and stay the heck away from her if we can,” Rick said.

Len and Rick waited until all of the mercenaries were loaded up onto the train before they crossed the platform to the train, getting in one of the carriages furthest from the mercenaries.

Len looked up at the sky.

“Feels like a storm is brewing again.”

***

The train stopped in Warwick. Len peeked his head outside the carriage doors, stepping down onto the platform.

Several mercenaries jumped off the train as well. Len noticed a couple of farmers from the Dell standing on the platform. They waved to the mercenaries, had a quick chat with them, and pointed at two cargo trains on parallel tracks.

The mercenaries and the farmers finished their quick conversation. Yurik, one of the farmers noticed Len and waved at him.

The group wandered over as the mercenaries went off towards the engine of the train.

"Didn't know you'd be here for the pickup,” Yurik, greeted Len.

"I didn't know that I'd be back here this quick," Len replied, tilting his chin towards the mercenaries. "How's working with them going?"

"We got a message yesterday from those sound transmission devices. Someone over in Goran saying to ship all of the stuff that we could to fill two train carriages that were being set aside for us up here. Hauled up as many carts as we could yesterday and today and just got to it,” Yurik shrugged. “Thankfully we don’t need that much sleep no more. Sent most back to the dell.”

“What kind of stuff you got in there?" Len glanced at the cargo carriage.

"Well, we got tons of crystal, really. Most of the meat we've been keeping and using ourselves. Gives a good jolt in the morning and increases the mana regeneration.”

“You been training up your bodies too?” Len asked.

“Not too much.”

“You should be able to eat the meat a lower grade well enough, but the same or higher it might give you more mana than what you’re using and start pushing up your mana stat,” Len said.

“Hard to find something that’s hard to do nowadays,” Porov, one of the other farmers said.

Len grimaced. “Yeah that’s true, if you go slowly and increase the amount of mana in your body a single level, your body will work to compensate for it. A level or two is okay, you go more than three levels and you’ll start to lose reasoning,” Len looked at them all.

They nodded seriously.

“So we got the crystal from the foxes, spiders and dungeons, get those plants in there and the alchemy lab?”

“Yeah, lab takes up half of the carriage by itself, its all locked up like when you left it. We also brought up all them books. Remember you saying how much you wish you could take them with you,” Yurik said.

“Thank you,” Len said.

Yurik shrugged. “We listen from time to time. We made a ledger and took out some of the light and heat crystals, warm the homes and let us work through the night now we only need a few hours of rest a day.”

“Gotcha,” Len nodded.

“Though there’s still a lot left over so we threw those in. You can take all the damned lightning crystals Had to keep those packed up in different kinds of boxes and far away from one another. They're mighty annoying to deal with once they start clicking together. Give you a right little zap," Yurik grimaced. "Still, nothing like the zap you get from a skill up enlightenment. That's for damn sure.”

Len grinned as the others chuckled, he turned as the train started up, moving the whole, pushing all of the carriages backwards to where the two cargo carriages were.

A couple of workers walked down the platform with purpose with the mercenaries.

“Have you decided what you want to do with your share?” Len asked.

“We got a lot in that twenty percent share, even with the heat and light crystals we haven’t made much of a dent,” Yurik crossed his arms and frowned. “You were saying how we could farm through the winter, got to say we’re mighty interested in that, more than the gold. Earned enough from selling the harvest. If we can get a second growing season that’s going to be more valuable.”

"That certainly makes sense to me," Len said.

"Betting on something you know really well instead of going into something you don't understand at all," Yurik said.

"Well, I was thinking of a couple of things," Len began, frowning as he pulled his thoughts together. "I was going to modify some of those heat crystals, maybe make an enchantment so they could warm the ground or a larger area instead of just spreading it everywhere. Though honestly if you put them up on holders then they could warm the air and ground around them.”

He looked around, all of the farmers were focused on him.

“Then the crystal from the dungeon, the general stuff, if we can make it thin enough and with the information from the alchemy books transparent, we could make crystal houses that would allow sunlight in, keeping the inside warm throughout the winter, and you could grow inside it. Like a house made of glass.”

The farmers moved around, making nods of agreement and noises of approval.

The train crew were removing bolts and waiting until the last cars of the train and the new cars were mated together before yelling at the engine, which stopped moving.

"What about the defenses around farms if we've got to worry about these mana creatures coming up now?" Porov asked.

"Well, you could probably use the lightning crystals with a fence formation and that would zap anything that goes through the two points. At the very least, it would let you know if something's trying to get onto your property. And it'll scare off the smaller or weaker beasts. The benefit of using the crystals is that you can just replenish them out of the dungeon itself instead of having to purchase them for much higher prices.”

“Always better when you can use your own supply,” Yurik said.

“There are also some other enchantments I could work up for you, the kind that pulls water out of the air, allowing you to water the crops even if there's a drought. Though you could use spells to do that too. Same with growing enchantments that you'd have to keep supplied with mana, which will work on your mana control overall, but they'll speed up the rate that crops grow and increase the overall harvest."

“If we can do it with spells, whats the benefit to doing it with enchantments?” Yurik asked.

“Spells you have to keep casting regularly. So you’d have to walk through a field casting enhancing spells on the ground and plants. You have an enchantment, you fill it up with mana and it does the work for you and burns through the mana you supply it. Also it can get some mana from the world instead of you. You might be okay walking a half acre, but walking ten acres a day, that’s going to take a lot of people,” Len said.

“Good point,” Yurik said.

“Now the house made from transparent crystal is the most beneficial thing for you, though its probably the hardest too,” Len said.

“Why?” Porov asked.

“Got to make it clear so that it allows in the sunlight.” Len frowned.

“That’s a thinking face,” Yurik said.

Len frowned as he turned his face in the direction of the sun, feeling its heat. "Or we could modify the light crystals," he suggested, holding his chin in thought. "There's different kinds of light that is useful for different things. If you can modify the light crystals in such a way it gives off the same light as if it was the sun, it wouldn't matter how clear the crystal is. All that matters is just having a building up around it."

"But we can build a barn pretty quick, especially now," Yurik said.

"Yeah, that would work enough," Len nodded. "And if you needed stuff like wall panels or roofs or that kind of thing, what you could do is just create molds and form sheets of crystal just like you formed the parts for the carts."

"We could start on that when we get back," Porov said.

The crews quickly secured the train carriages to the rest of the train and headed back to the engine.

Yurik nodded. "All right, if you work on all of them enchantment bits with the crystals, we'll work on building a barn that we could work in and it'll stay warm throughout the winter."

“I’m not sure how much it’ll all cost,” Len said.

“We’ll get back and chat with the others in the dell and see what they say think we’d be okay selling a lot of what we got from our twenty percent to get those things,” Yurik said.

"All right, well, it looks like we're headed off. How much is left at the farm still?" Len asked.

"Well, now I know how much goes into a train carriage. I think there's probably another six carriages worth in there?” Yurik looked around to the nods of the others.

“Has anyone gone and delved the dungeon since we did it last?" Len asked.

"No, not yet," Yurik looped his thumbs into his belt. "Everyone's still a bit nervous about the whole thing, though we did get word as well that a group, an expedition, is heading our way."

"Yeah, Rick's sister's probably going to be leading that group of people that haven't gone and done a dungeon yet, but got the skills to tackle it. Gonna have them clear out the dungeon if you're good with that.”

“Be fine with us. Might be that we ask if we can tag along just to get the lay of the land down there," Yurik said.

"That's fair enough," Len said. "Best to ask them and see what they say. I don't see there being a problem. It's your dungeon after all."

"That's fair there," Yurik nodded.

"They're also going to be heading off to a couple of other areas around, so there should be a good number of fighters in the area in case you need them to handle the dungeon," Len said. “We’re going to get some people down this way to handle moving the goods soon. If you have anything that you want to sell from the dungeon or from the farms they’ll be able to coordinate with you and get you a good price on it.”

“That’d be nice,” Yurik said. “Lord Warwick would start to get mighty confused when we’re bringing a harvest in spring.

“With the growing enchantments you’ll be able to bring it in earlier than that,” Len said.

A whistle came from the train as the conductors along the platform started calling out to people and closing doors.

"All right, well, got to go lads, look after yourselves," he held up his hand in goodbye and turned for the train.

"You too, Len. Give those in Goran our hellos,” Yurik raised his voice.

"Will do." Len jumped up the stairs back up into the train, the engine huffing as it started to gain momentum. There was a sudden jolt and a bang in the direction of the engine before it returned back to normal.

Len frowned, turning and finding a pensive Rick.

"Some of the coal must have got a little bit mana excited," Rick said as Len sat back down in his seat.

"Looks like we're hauling materials from the crystal dungeon back to Goran," Len said.

"Well, that'll make the building of those sound transmission devices a little bit easier," Rick said. "Gonna have to see if we can get some warehousing room."

Len nodded, settling back for as the train picked up speed, leaving more Warwick behind once more.

If I was able to get a couple of cores and materials from the Whispering Grove, that would allow me to make much stronger earth enchantments.