First three chapters have been edited and improved, now with 1.5x more words XD.
Enjoy my faithful readers!
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"Ugg, my head." Valgrim grimaced, raising his head off the floor. He turned his head left and right, slowly taking in his surroundings.
"...Why am I in the spare bedroom?" He wondered, then looked down at himself, "And why am I naked to my waist?"
He shivered as the air moved over his bare skin. Unlike regular spell casters, clerics often found themselves in the thick of battle and trained their bodies accordingly. Not the most muscular of sentient beings, Valgrim could stand to get a tan shirtless on the beach.
"Besides the obvious indications that I've been visually molested, what was her goal with this?" He mused to himself, "At least I hope it was a girl, with this lot you can never be quite sure."
Donning his clothes, Valgrim exited the guest room and returned to the sitting room. He found Saharra and the deer girl still there, the others long gone. Saharra explained that Meridia had excused herself to her room, Brutus had left chuckling to return to work, the father had vamoosed as soon as his eyes had opened, and Dirrg had been seen exiting the building at high speed panting and grinning like mad. Various members of their community had come by to see the deer girl and had talked with her, but Saharra had no idea what they were saying.
Saharra herself was a bit of an emotional mess herself. Her natural arrogance and superiority complex toward the animal people was fighting with her matron instincts. Dark elves were cunning, devious, arrogant, and borderline evil, but they were very loving toward their own children, at least until they were old enough to be used in their "politics". Her silver hair hung around her head sloppily, as if she hadn't tended to it in days.
Valgrim knelt down and looked the new mother in the eye. "Do you want this child?" He asked gently in animal tongue.
The woman, with her hand rubbing her belly, looked down, than up at Valgrim, and nodded. "Ye....ye...yes." She said in broken common. Surprised by her ability to speak even a single world of the language, Valgrim nodded and stood up.
"What is your name?" He inquired.
The deer woman shook her head, not understanding the distinction in language nuance. Animals like her did not give names to themselves and their offspring, they just were who they were.
Nodding, Valgrim turned to Saharra. "I think you are the best choice for keeping an eye on her." He reasoned, "Are you up for it?"
Saharra held mixed emotions on her face before nodding reluctantly. She would watch the young mother.
Having sorted the mess out, Valgrim left the house and headed back into town. He was still hungry, and there was still time before dark truly set in.
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[The next day]
Valgrim walked down the village path, heading south toward the other side of the lake. Everything was progressing smoothly today: the mines had started rebuilding the damaged parts and discussing how to avoid other monster nests, Brutus was humming away at his black-smithy, and no one was dead. He nodded toward a some growls of greeting from some of the people walking near him.
He had taken a quick detour to check in on the mother at the big house that morning. She was still confused on her inability to change back into a deer, but she was still adamant about keeping the baby. The father was no where to be found- Valgrim suspected that doing it with a deer and having a child with her had overloaded the squirrels mind. He doubted that they would see him again.
He continued his way through the village, coming to the end of it. Making sure no one was watching, Valgrim went east into the forest. Walking beside the quiet trees, Valgrim made sure he could no longer see the village before heading south again. He walked until he could make out a tree with a cross carved into it. Seeing it, he walked west.
He soon emerged from the forest, coming to a hill beside the lake. It had been a high point in the swamp before, but no was only a hill nest to a lake. At least, that is what it looked like to everyone else. Valgrim walked around it until he came to a solid rock face on one side of the hill. He put his hand on it and moved it around til he found a slight indention in the rock.
"Critafu." He invoked, causing a slight shimmer to appear on the stone.
The wall opened out toward him, revealing an entrance way into the hill. The door had no markings, and for any that didn't know the password, it would just be a plain stone wall. Valgrim stepped inside, and the door closed behind him.
Inside the hill was a large, carved cavern. Valgrim had spent his waking moments not working creating this place. It was huge, extending into the ground and forming the inside of a building almost. To the left, there were three stone buildings that were apart of the wall. A path stretched out in front of him, taking him down into a hidden cove, hidden from the outside. To his right, a huge wall with holes in it at varying heights spread from the side, separating large stone vats underneath the holes from the other side.
Valgrim walked to the other side of the wall. There, three stone fences completed a pen-like area with the hole wall. Three sentry towers were in place around the pen, but were as quiet as the cave itself. The pen was also empty, save for a lone figure laying on it's side, dead to the world.
Valgrim grinned to himself, "Oh you, lets change the world together."
The cave was filled with the sound of magic, and then a roar the echoed around the area, growing stronger until it reached it's high point.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
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Brutus hummed away as his hammer struck the metal in front of him. He enjoyed music, especially with grog after a hard days work with other people in a tavern. Of course, there was no more grog and no more tavern. He sighed, breaking off his song. It would be awhile before Scald came back, hopefully with beer and spirits aplenty, and maybe some fruit to start their own crop. Meridia had a few plants worthy of wine production, but it would take til the fall to produce, and any number of years to be strong.
Sighing again, he went back into the familiar beat of the hammer.
Up, down, smack, move, up, down, strike, adjust
It was a good beat, he smiled down at his newest creation. The metal he was beating would be smooth soon, perfect for folding in on itself til he could twist it. It was one of the many small supports he was making that would be cut into nails for the castle and other houses. His limited slave training as a blacksmith had taught him the fundamentals, but everything he learned had been successful.
He smiled ruefully, remembering the second house he had built with Dirrg. The nails had not been quite strong enough to hold the pieces of lumber together, and he had had to dig the indignant and swearing dwarf out of the wreckage. The dwarf could unfortunately speak most of the languages that Brutus understood, so he had to put up with being sworn at in 4 different tongues for the next hour.
Seeing the metal was flat enough, he put it in the furnace to reheat it. He took a swig of ale, savoring the strong bitterness that swept down his tongue into his throat. The pleasant burn in his throat matched the intensity of the flame he felt looking around the village. Every animal person he saw reminded him of his beloved mother, and to even if none of them were the same as her, it still was nice to have the memory fresh in his mind.
With though, he was also reminded of the cursed father who spawned him. Brutus gnashed his teeth together in anger, his eyes glowing the tell-tale red of rage. His hand forming a fist, he punched a nearby stone. The stone shattered out into the wall, splintering into little pieces along the woodwork.
Quickly calming himself, Brutus went over and inspected the wall. Finding no damage, he wiped his forehead and sighed. Valgrim would have given him hell if he broken another wall. Still, Brutus had two dreams. He wanted to fly with his wings, and he would have vengeance for his mother. He never held any hate toward the dark elves, they hadn't killed his mother. They did put him chains, but they taught him how to fight, live, survive. His father had chased his mother into the tunnels, trapping her to her death.
Taking a sniff, he noticed the metal was ready. He took it out and began hammering it into a fold.
Up, down, smack, move, up, down, strike, adjust
The rhythm continued in the black smithy, broken only by a soft quiet hum, flowing into the spring air.
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Dirrg was bored. There was nothing else to describe his mood. Everyone else had something to do in the village to occupy their time. Even Girr was off gallivanting with one of the male bears, probably having a great time doing BARE activities. Not poor Dirrg though. He sighed, chewing on a piece of grass while sitting on a stump.
True, he was useful regrowing the trees so they didn't deplete the forest and making the plants in the field grow better. However, he didn't have a "thing" yet, an important part of the community that made him invaluable. He had stuck around to give the party a hand with building this community, but he really wanted to resume his journey searching for a way to get back his real body. He even had a good incentive to rush now.
Blushing fiercely, he put his hands on his face and squealed loudly. That gnome had such a fine body, smooth yet muscular in all the right places. Dwarf women were thought to only love the loudest, dirtiest, strongest, and most facial-haired dwarf men. True, some of those were accurate, and Dirrg would have preferred if Valgrim had a long, thick beard; but it was the body that him panting loudly on his stump. Just imagining a hammer in Valgrim's strong grip sent him falling backward off his stump, bumping his head on a rock.
The mood ruined, Dirrg scowled at the offending piece of riftera. Picking it up, he hurled it through the air, sending it into the sky to become a star. Leaning back onto the stump, he resumed his thoughts on his next move. Depending on the amount of BARE activities, there may be another bear in Dirrg's future. It would be better to stay in a comfortable place when that happens, he reasoned. Plus, he was curious about the new mother in the village. It might be interesting to see the result before moving on.
He got himself of the ground, stretched, and resumed his patrol in the woods. He was still sending the occasional animal toward the village, and making sure civilization didn't intrude on the budding kingdom.
Pausing for a second, he bent down and inspected something in the ground. He started digging, and leaned back to inspect what he had found. Recognizing it, he smiled and resumed digging.
"Aye, ye will be useful for what Vallgrimm has planned." He said smiling wildly as he pulled his prize out of the ground. It was indeed a good day.