Kier continued, “Quests can come from many places. Sometimes they’re out of nowhere and sometimes someone can give one. They’re a set of dealin’s what needs doin’ to get experience and loot or gold. I suppose since you’ve got no Class, that you cannae get quests yet.”
As the group talked, Joe noticed Rory’s eyes narrow as he stared at something behind Joe. A gruff hand fell on Joe’s shoulder and Bixby spun in place with a growl, “An’ this must be the malinky longlegs what’s got the camps coozie in a swelter.” A deep baritone voice exclaimed.
Joe turned to see the speaker and ended up almost eye to eye with a very wide, very muscular dwarf. This one had a dark black beard that was singed at the ends, and he smelled of metal and fire. His brawny frame wore a tight cotton tunic that had various stains and burns on it. He had dark brown eyes that in the light of the Inn looked almost black. Joe’s mind yelled, Bad guy! Just from the dwarfs looks alone. He was flanked by two other heavily muscled dwarves in similar attire. Something about them made Joe think that they were younger than the speaker.
The dwarf looked Joe in the eye with an unspoken challenge. “I’m, Hamish. This here’s Callum and Leah.” Joe noticed that the third dwarf was actually a woman. Her beard hid the obvious signs of her gender.
Rory spoke up with spite in his voice, “Get lost arsehole! We donnae need your stench here.”
Hamish replied with mock hurt, “Och, Rory, no need to be nippy. We’re just comin’ by to pay our respects to the human what turned down Sophie.”
Iona turned in her chair to face the newcomers, “Away on your cart then Hamish. You’ve seen him, now you can bugger off.”
Hamish’s tone changed in an instant as he turned on Iona, “And you can shut your gob hole. No one want’s to hear from a lanky beardless minger.”
The two dwarves behind Hamish moved to the side a bit, possibly looking to flank the seated group. Kier and Rory both stood up, their chairs pushed away, and Kier exclaimed, “Enow! No need fer that kind a talk, Hamish!”
“What? She knows she’s got a face like a dog licking spit off a nettle.” Hamish said with a wicked smile. Iona stood up at this insult, her face bright red and anger filling her eyes.
Just then, Joe stood up to his full height, towering over those around him. His eyes narrowed in anger, he loomed over Hamish and said, “Apologize.”
Hamish looked up, unperturbed, “For what? Speakin’ the truth?”
Joe took a deep breath and let it out, “For being an asshole.”
“Oh, so’s you want to have a go eh?” Hamish smiled broadly. A smile that did not reach his eyes.
“Look, dickwad, I promised not to make any trouble here, but I am absolutely willing to break that promise and kick your ass all the way into next week if you do not apologize.” Joe’s anger was beginning to make him uncomfortable. Where the hell is this attitude coming from? Yeah, he’s a douche-canoe, but why am I so fucking mad right now? Bixby, picking up on Joe’s emotional state began a soft growl low in his throat.
“What? You think a little dust-up’s gonnae get you kicked out?” Hamish got a mock surprised look and said, “Oh aye! I see. Your’re sweet on Iona then? Of course, only a dirty human’s gonnae want a tart like her.” He smirked and added, “Besides, you think you got the stones to fight me?”
“Look at my titles.” Joe said with venom.
“I’ve heard about your manky titles. So what?”
“Look at my class and my level.”
The other two dwarves obviously Inspected Joe and then both of them looked up at him with a combination of fear and awe. Callum tapped Hamish on the shoulder. Hamish turned on his accomplice, “What is it you numpty?”
“He’s zero level.”
“So?”
“With those titles? I think you’re off your blooter if you wants ta tussle with the like.” Callum and Leah both began to back away.
Hamish turned back to Joe and his eyes unfocused for a short moment, he then refocused and looked at Joe, “Hmmph. You’d probably bleed all over the floor and Sophie’d have me scuttered fer a month. She and you are not worth the effort.” He indicated Iona and then turned and motioned for his cronies to follow him out.
Everyone at the table watched the trio leave the Inn before anyone said anything. Rory spoke up, addressing all of the dwarves at the other tables, watching the argument, “Go on an get jaked, the lot of you!”
Joe turned back to the group, “What in the double fuck was that about?” He unconsciously closed a screen that had popped up.
Kier, sat back down and grabbed his drink, “Hamish is..”
Iona interrupted, “A ballsack!” She sat heavily in her chair, her armor clanking loudly.
Kier, giving Iona a look, continued, “True, but he’s been a right arsehole since Iona turned him down. Now he’s just talking shite everytime he sees her.”
Iona downed the last of her beer and looked angrily at Joe, “And you! I donnae need you to fight my battles!” She then stood up and stalked out of the bar.
Joe was completely stunned, “Wait. What’d I do?”
Rory took a puff of his pipe, “Aw, she’s just feeling a bit rocky is all. She’ll calm down later.”
Joe took a bite of his cheese without any real gusto and asked, “Why’d he call her a beardless whatever? Is that like a major insult?”
Kier shook his head and got a grave look on his face, “Iona is, well, the lass ain’t normal.”
Rory added, “You got that right. Donnae get me wrong. I love my sister, but she’s got nutter notions in her head.”
Keir began packing his own pipe with sweet smelling tobacco, “She’s born tall, which already makes her less than desirable to most. On top of that she refuses to grow a right proper beard.” He waved his hands around, “She don’t want to conform to the dwarven standards a beauty or something. That’s the reason we’re here. Our Da got tired of her causing a ruckus so he sent her on an immigration. Rory and I, we’ve watched out for her for our whole lives. Couldn’t very well let her come alone. Especially knowing Hamish was looming.
“We appreciate you standing up for her, but you may want to nae do so again. She can get right bonkers about being able to stand up on her own.”
“Good to know.” Joe leaned back in his chair, suddenly a little overwhelmed at his circumstances. Just a few days ago I was living with a giant, now I’m talking to dwarves about women’s equality. He patted Bixby’s head, “Bix, this world is not getting any less crazy.”
After another round of drinks, more dwarves began making their way to the Inn and the atmosphere began to get rowdier. Over the course of the following hours many dwarves came in and spoke to Joe, Rory and Kier. Many lavished praises on Bixby, which made him preen and almost all of them bought a round of drinks for the table, a few even ordering more steak for Bixby. Bixby got very excited and ate with great gusto, even going so far as to get the hiccups, which Joe admonished him for and caused the dwarves to laugh uproariously. Joe spent a great deal of time surrounded by dwarves and telling and retelling his story as the day wore on into night. He ended the night by singing Gharak’s family song and caused a few eyes to shed tears. There was a toast raised in Gharak’s honor and eventually Kier left Rory passed out at the table and led a very inebriated Joe upstairs to crash into a too short bed. Distantly, Joe was disappointed that Iona never returned to the Inn. He decided that he would apologize in the morning.
Deep in the night, Joe was awoken by the sound of a very loud horn blowing. Bixby was already on his feet. Joe snapped awake as he also heard shouts from outside. He quickly threw on his leather trousers and boots, forgoing his jerkin and stood up, only to crack his head on the low ceiling. “Dammit!” He exclaimed as he rubbed the top of his head. He and Bixby made their way out the door and downstairs. Only a few of the Inn’s interior torches were lit, but it was enough to see by. The horn outside continued to sound and the yells became shouted orders in Dwarvish. The duo exited the Inn and saw dwarves of every caste running towards the front of the camp. Joe saw a dwarf he remembered from the night before and asked, “What’s going on?”
The dwarf, carrying a huge mallet yelled back, “We’re under attack! Make for the gates!”
Joe glanced down at Bixby, who huffed once and put on a massive burst of speed, Joe took off into a sprint and with his magical boots, ate up the distance to the front gates in mere moments.
As he closed on the gates, he could see dwarves in armor with weapons at hand falling into ordered ranks. Those with shields were in front and there were a few with polearms behind them. In the rear were those with massive two-handed weapons. Ladders were being slammed against the wall as archers scrambled up them. He could see the crossbowmen at the corner towers already firing into the night. Outside of the gate, Joe could hear the sounds of bodies colliding with the walls causing the timbers to shake. There were roars and squeals and other animalistic sounds of pain and fury as arrows found their targets. Joe spotted Kier in the back of the pack with his armor on and mace in hand. “Kier, what’s attacking us?”
“Beast horde. Biggest bloody horde we’ve yet to see. Boars, bears, elk. Something’s driven them mad!”
“What level?”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Ey what?”
“What level is the horde?”
Kier asked around of those near him and answered back, “Twenty.”
Joe looked at Bixby, “We can do level twenty, right?” Bixby woofed in response. Turning back to Kier, Joe said, “Bixby and I are going to go over the wall to the right, please ask your archers not to shoot us. He and I can hit these monsters from the side and maybe take some pressure off the gate.”
“You’re a mad lad and more power to you! As soon’s safe enough, we’re gonna sally forth.” He clapped Joe on the arm and began yelling to his fellow dwarves, the yell was taken up by others and as Joe and Bixby ran to the right-side wall of the camp, the information had been passed to the archers.
The two came to the wall and Joe dashed up the corner tower ladder. When he got to the top, there were two dwarves firing their crossbows into the plain in front of the camp. Fire arrows had been launched and the stake filled gully was awash in flames which lit the scene for Joe. There were hundreds of gigantic wild boar and elk flowing from the forest. Interspersed were enormous bears and wolves. Joe could even see foxes and rabbits darting among the feet of the larger animals. The wall of fire was keeping some of the animals at bay, but many more either leapt the gap or charged through the fire and stakes, heedless of the damage. Oddly, none of them were trying to swerve around the camp, they came from the East and continued pouring into the killing field. Those that made it over, repeatedly threw themselves against the walls with jarring power. The boars were especially damaging to the walls.
Joe told the two dwarves to make some room and then he called for Bixby who blink stepped onto the platform. Joe pointed to the side of the camp that was currently animal free and said, “We go down there and cross the ditch, then we can hit those that haven’t made it to the wall yet. Hit and run tactics, don’t get caught up in fighting just one. We can bleed most of them out and keep the pressure off the gates enough for the dwarves to come out.” Bixby wagged his tail and woofed, “You too buddy. If we get separated, we come back to this look out spot. Got it?” In answer, Bixby licked Joe’s hand and disappeared. Joe blinked to the ground and took off at a dead run, He blinked past the burning ditch and then angled his run back to the East to begin harrowing the animals that had yet to cross the flaming barrier. He activated his mantle and summoned his swords.
He almost immediately lost track of Bixby but heard him howl a few times. He used his blink step sparingly as he did not want to run out of Mana during this fight. Using his blades and his new Dual Wield skill, he carved a path through the enraged animals. He did not linger to try and kill them but instead he went for crippling shots and any attack that would cause them to bleed. The few hits he took did no damage as between his mantle and his abilities, True Grit and Tough as Nails, he was like a walking tank.
To the dwarves watching from the walls, Joe and Bixby were dervishes leaving a trail of blood and broken animals in their wakes. Bixby had called his Void Wolves and they began tearing through the horde. After ten minutes, the horn sounded again, but this time with a different tone and the gates of the camp swung open to the battle cries of the dwarves. The wall of armored warriors met with the incoming huge beasts with a crash and the fight was truly on.
Joe dashed around the field dismembering and wounding as many animals as he could. He made forays into the inner area of the killing field and relieved some of the pressure from the dwarves. For their part, Joe was blown away at how handily they took down the large creatures. He saw lightning bolts fly and at one point a shower of meteors came down and pulverized a group of bears. As he was running to help a group of dwarves that had been cut off from any support, he saw Iona’s familiar armor and shield. She bashed her axe against her shield and an unbelievably loud shout emanated from her, instantly every creature within earshot turned her way, pulling some away from other dwarves that were badly outnumbered. Next to her, Rory was swinging his hammer like a madman, spit flying alongside curses from his mouth. He was enveloped by the weird halo of red mist and most everything he hit, stayed down.
Stopping to watch his new friends proved to be a bad idea as he was slammed from behind and trampled by a boar the size of a van. Joe’s mantle spell was in full effect, but it still managed to damage him. It had one ridiculously large hoof on his chest and had raised its head to bring its tusks down on Joe, suddenly half a dozen wolves piled onto the thing, causing it to thrash about and release its hoof from Joe’s chest. Joe took the opportunity handed to him and rammed both swords deep into the boar’s chest before blinking back a few feet and standing. Joe recalled his blades to his hands and where they left the boar, a huge amount of blood gushed from the wounds. One of the wolves came up to Joe and licked his hand with its head cocked. Joe smiled at the Alpha Void Wolf, “Thanks, I’m good, go help Bixby.”
As he was searching around for his next target, a new horn sound emanated from the camp. Dwarves began shouting and pointing. Dimly through the haze of smoke and fire, Joe could see trees in the forest toppling as something massive came towards the camp. The dwarves were rolling something large and wooden out of the gates, but Joe could not tell what it was. He decided that whatever they were doing, he had no part in it and instead whistled as loudly as he could while he made his way through the oncoming horde of animals. Joe vaguely noticed that the animals still moving through the field were smaller and no more larger ones were approaching. He blinked beyond the flaming ditch that was even now dying down. How long has it been since I started fighting? It has to have been at least thirty minutes, probably more. He checked his status and was happy that his Health was still near full and his Stamina was just over half, but his Mana was getting low and before long he would need to tap into his amulet.
After reaching the forest side of the ditch, Joe stopped and saw Bixby zooming towards him followed by a dozen void wolves. “What is it? What’s coming?” Joe asked. Bixby let off a few barks. “A what? A giant lizard?” Bixby looked at Joe as if her were simple and barked again. “A Fire Salamander? What the fuck is a Fire Salamander?!”
As Joe asked, the trees at the tree line split asunder and a massive lizard pushed its way onto the field. The thing was one of the largest monsters that Joe had yet to see, besides the Dragon. It was easily the size of a city bus, and it came crawling with a wiggling gait. Bixby was right, it looked just like a salamander, only thousands of times larger than any Joe had ever seen. This one had black skin with orange and red stripes flowing over it. Its path through the trees was smoking and Joe could see fires burning in its wake. Joe inspected the monstrosity.
Monster Horde Boss: Fire Salamander (75)
HP: 20000
Status: Maddened
Weak to Cold damage
“Well double fuck! I just had to ask!” The monster moved almost leisurely, and Joe could hear the dwarves behind him shouting. He turned to look just as a massive wooden spike was launched from what he could now tell was an enormous crossbow. The log sized arrow hit the salamander on the top of its head causing it to pause, but the bolt skidded off and sailed into the forest behind it. Joe could hear the curses of the dwarves as a team began the laborious process of pulling the cable back on the crossbow. Joe was partially through a plan in his head when a group of about twenty dwarves ran up to him. He could see Iona and Rory, but in the dim light and with their armor and helmets, he did not recognize any others.
Iona ran a little breathless up to Joe, “We’ve got nae cold mages nor water adepts. Tis the largest manky beast we’ve yet to see. If it gets into the camp, we’re done for.” She addressed the other dwarves and Joe noticed that all of them carried shields, “Stoneshear! Form up! We’re nae afraid of this scunner an’ it will nae cross our line!” A shout from the other dwarves went up, echoed a moment later by those at the camp. The dwarves ranged out shoulder to shoulder and placed their shields in line next to one another. Iona stood as the center shield and hers began to glow. In a second, the glow crossed to the other shields and rose up about five feet above their heads. The salamander, seeing this display made a weird gagging sound and then spit a fireball directly at the shield wall. Joe was standing in front of Iona facing her and saw her eyes go wide a second before the fire ball hit the glowing barrier. Iona screamed Joe’s name but her vision of him was washed out by the fire.
It took a few seconds for her vision to clear, and she saw Joe pressed against her shield where he had stumbled. He was completely unharmed; however, his leather trousers and boots had been incinerated. Joe stood there in front of the shocked dwarf, then he winked at her and spun on his heel.
“Bixby! This thing needs to die! And quickly!” He renewed his mantle spell and blinked on top of the beast. Its skin was hot, but Joe only slightly noticed as he summoned his swords and sank them into the salamander’s neck. The beast reared its head and let out a shriek that sounded like a steam whistle. Bixby used the moment to leverage a bite at its throat, but it swung its head and slammed Bixby twenty feet away and tumbled him into the dirt. Joe’s attack did a good chunk of damage, but the monster had Health for days. I need a heart shot like with the dragon. Joe thought. Am I going to? Joe wrestled with a decision for only a moment as the salamander shook its body like a dog shaking water off of its fur trying to dislodge Joe. He let the thing toss him off its back and he landed in a crouch. Without his magical boots, he couldn’t move nearly as quickly as before, but he could still blink step. Shit! Yeah, I’m gonna do it. He appeared in front of the salamander’s head, cocked his arm and punched the monster right in its snout.
The thing reared back, opened its mouth, and snatched at Joe with its jaws. Joe timed his next blink perfectly while looking down the monstrous gullet and appeared as far back into its throat as he could. He curled into a ball as the immense beast began gagging on him. He braced his feet behind its jaws and pushed himself headfirst deeper down the throat. He could feel the creature thrashing about trying to dislodge him and very faintly, he thought he heard people screaming his name. He felt motion and assumed that the creature was doing its best to toss him up like bad sushi. Joe stretched his arms above his head and felt something wet and slimy touch his skin and a moment later, he felt the heat of the salamanders’ stomach acid. Joe summoned his swords and moved them as much as he could, he then dismissed them and shifted the angle of his hands and summoned them again. This time the shuddering intensified so Joe took that as a good sign. He dismissed the swords again, reversed his grip, resummoned them and began pulling them down towards his body, ripping them through internal tissue and organs. In a last-ditch effort to dislodge Joe, the salamander called upon its flaming spit and Joe felt his body get coated with acidic fire. With a grunt of effort, Joe stabbed out where he hoped down was and created a tear in the salamander’s chest.
The struggling giant only hastened its own demise with its movements as Joe slid out of the salamanders’ stomach and landed on the ground with a plop. Then the beast dropped directly on top of him, pinning him in place. Laying trapped under the colossal amphibian, Joe began to laugh and sputter as the things’ internal organs and flaming blood poured over him. His hearing was muffled, but he could quite clearly hear Iona and Rory screaming his name. The salamander gave one last twitch and the familiar death tingle in the back of Joe’s mind told him it was dead. Instantly the carcass disappeared as someone stowed it in their inventory.
Joe looked up, covered in gore, flames, and smoke, still laughing. Iona cried out, “Mithra preserve ‘im! He’s dying! I need a cleric, Kier, anyone, please!!!” Hands grasped at Joe, wiping the fluids from him. The fear and worry in her voice held the traces of panic. For some reason he found that funny as well and continued to laugh and wheeze as he tried to breathe.
It was Rory that caught Iona’s hands and halted her efforts to clear the fire and fluids from Joe’s body. She screamed at Rory, and he yelled back, “Look at ‘is Health lassie! Look!”
“But he’s dying! He’s…” Joe watched her eyes go briefly vacant and she continued, “Nae injured a’tall…” She stared down at Joe, who was desperately trying to get the laughter under control and her face went from panic to anger in a heartbeat. She knelt next to Joe and slapped him across the face with a gauntleted hand. That brought Joe out of his maddened mirth. She stood up and yelled down at him, “Joe, you’re pure goon to go and do something like that! I thought you were dead and your kin would come to blame me!” She then stormed off, fuming.
Bixby was licking Joe’s face as he watched Iona storm off. “Ha ha! I’m good Bix.” He said fending off the licks and head butts. Rory reached a hand down and helped Joe to his feet.
“You’re a right madman and you’ve got a ballsack that Mithra would be jealous of!” Rory laughed along with Joe. “I ain’t never seen something like that. You’re teched in the head and no mistake, but you sure can fight!”