Chapter 12

Roden’s first steps on solid ground were more comforting than he ever imagined. After flying over open water for so many hours aboard a cloud, he had started feeling uneasy without solid ground beneath him.

They had chosen to land on a cliff around the eastern side of the island just in case anyone could still see them from the mainland.

The island was mostly scrub land with mostly short wide vegetation. The island itself was a raised plateau with no easy access to water, a main reason for its lack of habitation. The scroll given to them by Yan the court mage, had a few details about the island and where they might find the conflux.

Riakon took the lead as the men formed up in a loose line and started into the tree line. Once again they found themselves trekking through a forest with little information to go on. Roden could only hope they would stumble across a friendly village with a fireweed smoking elf. It was needless to say he wasn’t holding his breath for such an outcome.

They didn’t have enough daylight to search the entire island so as soon as they found a suitable clearly Roden set to conjuring up the treehouse with the intent to continue their search the following day.

That night after a light dinner of bread and a spiced shredded meat, packed for them by Miriana, the men laid in the nest on the room staring at the stars. The stars were brighter than ever. With the island being twenty or so miles from the city there was no light pollution of any kind.

Roden had made sure the tree house didn’t have any gaps or windows either to keep from alerting anyone or anything to their presence on the island. Roden was surprised to see that the cities on Mir did in fact have light pollution even with their lack of incandescent lighting, apparently mage lights were enough to give the cities an unnatural glow.

‘Is it technically unnatural if magic is a naturally occurring phenomenon?’

Roden shook his head at yet another brain wracking question brought about by his non-native sensibilities. He’d been on Mir for months by then and time kept ticking by. Each day was another day he felt he was getting further and further away from his life back on Earth.

Yet, he didn’t know if he would even be able to go home if given the opportunity. He couldn’t help, but feel an obligation to the world around him. If he abandoned his task then by Miriana’s words he’d be dooming the world to a terrible fate.

Thus he stared at the stars and wondered if his Sun was up there shining its light on him all the way to wherever the hell he was in the wide cosmos.

‘Fucking Neil deGrasse Tyson would shit his pants if he knew what I know…Note to self, email NGT when I get back to Earth’

The thought about the astrophysicist was rapidly dashed by a strange sound that drew Roden’s attention.

Of course the sound had to come from the thickest parts of the trees and of course it had to be at night when he was the only one who could see fuck all.

He lowered his voice to a whisper and roused his two companions who had nodded off during their stargazing. “Hey guys, there is something going on out there.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Where, cacaw?”

Roden gestured in the general vicinity where he heard the noise. “Over there somewhere and no I’m not sure it’s anything. I think it bears checking out though.”

Errrkkkk promptly sat up and started loosening up, “we’ll be ready if you signal us in, cacaw.”

Riakon nodded, “be careful.”

Roden nodded and conjured up his cloud. It was moments like that where he was crouched on a cloud slowly floating his way through an island canopy in the middle of the night investigating a random sound that he wondered what the fuck he was doing.

He did not know what possessed him to pull a Scooby-doo while on a deserted island, but there he was. Luckily, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness hours ago and with the added light from the stars he could see nearly perfectly.

He made a slow methodical circuit of the nearby trees and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, not that he had much of a frame of reference. It was then his Divine Gambit pulled his attention, he had grown used to the ability prompting him in ways such as this so he allowed the ability to engage.

His vision was enhanced to such a great degree he was able to see an unnatural movement to the vegetation below. Figuring if his spell had homed in on something such as that, it must be worth taking a closer look. He steered his cloud around so as to approach from the backside of the movement.

He activated his Grove Armor ability hoping the wooden exterior would blend in with the trees more than his regular clothes. He stepped off the cloud onto a thick branch and allowed his Nimbus to float up and out of the treetops.

He crept along the branch in the direction he had seen the movement. He had to work up the courage to hop from one tree to the next. The rustling of the leaves caused by his landing gave him pause, but he figured it didn’t sound too out of the ordinary.

If not for his spell he might have given up on his search. He was much farther from the treehouse than he intended to go by himself, but his instincts told him there was something there.

Just as he was pushing through a particularly dense cluster of branches, he saw a faint blackish glow that seemed to suck in the light around it coming from just ahead of his path. He laid on his stomach and pulled himself along an outstretched branch. When he was as far out as he dared he managed to see a small figure in the darkness.

It was short, no more than a meter tall. It was the red glow coming from its eyes that gave Roden pause. There was no mistaking that glow for him. He knew it was without a doubt a gremlin. He watched on as the gremlin moved around the area in a curious pattern.

When the gremlin turned around to continue its search in Roden’s direction, he saw the creature was holding something that gave off that dark, light stealing glow. When the gremlin raised the object over his head it cast his immediate area in a darkness so dense even Roden could not see through it.

That gave Roden pause and made his sweat run cold. The feel of his wooden armor on his skin gave him the idea to try out an ability he hadn’t had the opportunity to use since he had received it. He focused on his elven magic and drew out the magic from within him. He felt himself slowly descend into the branch that held him.

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Once he was fully encased in the tree he used what control he had to slide himself down the branch and into the trunk of the tree proper. The sensation was strange and Roden imagined that was what it felt like being one of those popsicles that came in the plastic sleeve.

When he had reached his desired location he could hear the gremlin chanting in a strange guttural language, which was curious to him as gremlin’s didn’t have a language of their own as far as he had written.

Next he heard a soft popping noise followed by more low chittering. The voice that came out of the dark scared the shit out of Roden.

“Who be hiding in trees?” The voice was deep and harsh. “I know you be there, hugan.”

‘What the fuck is a hugan?’

Because of his ability Roden couldn’t see anything other than the inside of his helmet, but he could feel the tree he inhabited. He focused his attention on every part of the tree hoping some part was close enough to give him an idea of what was happening.

It was the roots of the tree that served his purpose. The gremlin, correction gremlins, were standing just above the outstretched roots of his tree.

‘Where the hell did the others come from?’

“You can’t stop us hugan. Come out and I let you be maker instead of killing you.”

Roden thought hard about the situation. As much as he hated it, this felt like a great chance to get some information. Gremlins shouldn’t even be here, let alone speak English. Roden allowed himself to step out of the trunk of the tree and into the small clearing the gremlin had been searching. Simultaneously, he activated his Mozzetta of Clouds for some added protection.

When his eyes readjusted he saw there were at least three gremlins now, the one he saw first stood in the middle of two slightly shorter gremlins whose eyes glowed bright red in the shadows.

“Okay gremlin you have my attention. What are you doing here?”

“Ahhhhhh, there you are hugan.”

“Yeah you keep calling me that. My name is Roden, not this hugan you seem to be looking for.”

The gremlin let out a disgusted noise, “hugan be any non-gremlin. hugans be all the lesser folk.”

“Woah lesser folk? Calm down there hitler, no need for that. You know you’re awfully talkative for a gremlin.”

“Bah, no thanks to you hugan. You wipe out our people. You destroy us.”

That gave Roden pause.

“Fair point, but yall haven’t really shown yall can coexist either.”

The gremlin spit on the ground, “we are born from you hateful creatures. Do not preach to me about coexist. I, Grumell am born of a man’s intent to murder. I would not be if you hugan coexist.” The gremlin words were full of venom as he grew more animated.

“Hmmm, okay then explain to me how you’re here talking to me like no gremlin I have ever seen.”

Grumell gestured to the gremlins on either side of him, “we are born rabid of dark thoughts. Our great god gave us the power to grow beyond our origin, something you hugan never wanted.”

“Uhhhh yeah mate, cause yall kill people.”

Grumell took a hard step forward, his anger evident as he spoke, “and you made us that way! You hugan abandoned us to our fate. Now our great god gave us real life.”

Roden raised his hands up in a placating motion, “okay okay, I can see how you’d be mad, but to be fair we didn’t know yall were capable of more.”

“Bah you hugan are ashamed of us. You try to hide your evil behind lies. No more can you hide from us.”

Roden had to think fast, this was getting out of hand. Grumell was getting angrier as the conversation progressed and whatever was in his hand was beginning to throb with power.

“So what man, you are going to wipe out all non-gremlins? Then what? There would be no more gremlins.”

A wicked wide grin spread on Grumell’s face. “We no kill you all. We keep you as maker.”

Roden didn’t like the sound of that at all.

“Yeah that doesn’t sound fun at all mate.”

Grumell chuckled, “fun for me. Very painful for maker.”

“I’m gonna have to pass.”

Grumell snorted, “you no have choice when we descend on you. Now get out of my way hugan. I have work to do.”

Roden raised an eyebrow, “what kind of work?” He could feel he was close to getting some vital information, and the gremlin didn’t seem to care about revealing plans.

“Work not for hugan. Now leave or try to stop me. We are more civil. I prove by letting you go.”

‘Shit, this little bastard put him in a catch twenty two.’

Grumell turned around and raised his hands high. A dark energy started flowing off the object in his hand. The air in front of him rippled and seemed to bend. A force pushed back the vegetation and sent a slight shockwave through the air.

As the gale buffeted him, Roden got a strong scent of vanilla that reminded him of that cave from his first adventure with Errrkkkk and Riakon. That could only mean one thing, the gremlin had found the conflux. Whatever the gremlin was doing appeared to be having an effect as a sliver of energy started to form amidst the outpour of energy.

“Hey man, I don’t think you should be doing that.”

Gremell glazed over his shoulder, he had to shout as whatever he was doing was building up into a low roar.

“I do what the great god says. I claim this in the name of Renjor, the great god.”

“Yeah that's a big nope from me bud.”

Against his better judgment Roden immediately brought a lance to hand and cast it toward Grumell. He shouted the incantation in the hopes Errrkkkk and Riakon would hear it, if they hadn’t heard the conflux already.

The spell flew true. Roden thought it had connected with Grumell’s back until he saw Grumell had been covered by something of utter blackness. The rod of golden energy remained lodged in the black thing that had shielded the gremlin.

The darkness moved aside revealing Grumell was now facing Roden, the conflux at his back. Roden could see that somehow Grumell had created two arms of black energy that stretched out from the sliver of power like the shadow of a giant made tangible.

Grumell laughed a deep knowing laugh, “I knew you hugan couldn’t resist the opportunity to stab someone in the back.”

“Fuck you man. You are threating my world with genocide, don’t give me that philosophical bullshit.”

The sliver within the conflux was making Roden nervous. From his own knowledge of the phenomenon, the gremlin had clearly tapped into the power through whatever was in his hand and it didn’t appear to be a good thing for Roden and his friends. That was exactly what they were there to avoid.

Roden raised his hand palm up, “burst!”

The lightning leapt to his will. A cascade of small arcs crawled around his shoulder and down his arm. With a flash the beam of lightning shot toward Grumell who simply raised his hand. That was when Roden could see he was holding the same kind of black crystal the shaman had used in Pescatin.

His Lightning Burst met with Grumell’s outstretched hand and was halted and absorbed. Roden blinked as he watched the gremlin do a remarkable impression of Yoda when he absorbed the force lightning in episode two. Roden was thankful he didn’t throw it back.

That was enough of a cue for the two lesser gremlins to charge him, their red eyes floating in the darkness around them. A mass of swirling dark purple energy came flying over their heads and caught Roden in the chest.

Roden could hear his breastplate crack and splinter under the force of the magic. He hadn’t lost his feet, but the spell had pushed him back a good foot or so.

“For the Grove!”

As his sword landed in his hand, Roden activated his Strom Strider. With the magic coursing through him he launched himself forward. With two clean cuts he left the lesser gremlins incapacitated on the ground. His real problem was Grumell, who in the meantime had started drawing together a prodigious amount of power in the air between his raised shadow hands.

“Oh fuck me man.” escaped Roden’s lips as he promptly changed direction.

The power coalesced into a bright purple orb that burst into jagged tendrils of energy. Each one seemed to home in on Roden. He dashed about in a haphazard path to try and avoid the assault. He succeeded for the most part. One of the lines of power struck his leg, but did little to him beyond slightly damaging his armor.

Roden did not like how the fight was going at all. ‘Where the fuck are Errrkkkk and Riakon?!’

If they needed a bigger signal he would give them one.

Roden raised his sword to the sky and released the charge within his cloak sending a bolt of blue energy into the night sky. He had to dodge another blob of dark purple energy before he could go back on the offensive.

With his enhanced speed Roden ran parallel to Grumell; his main plan was to avoid his spells while building up a charge in his cloak. That plan became less important when he heard,

“Caaaaaaaaa, Caaaaaaawwwwwww!!!!!!”

From out of the trees behind Grumell a beam of golden light slammed into the gremlin knocking him forward. Everything around him shuttered with the impact. The shadow arms wriggled and writhed before being absorbed back into the growing sliver inside the conflux.

Grumell pushed himself up on his hands and knees. “Again you hugan attack from the back.”

Riakon burst from the trees in front of Roden to Grumell’s left, On the opposite side, Errrkkkk dropped out of the sky and landed in a fighting stance.

“I hope we aren’t too late, cacaw.”

Roden smiled, “earlier would’ve been better.”

“Is that a gremlin?” Riakon’s bewilderment cut through some of the tension.

Grumell took the initiative to answer the dragonkin, “I am Grumell, I am no simple gremlin. I am one of the sacred shagrem of the great god.”

Riakon raised an eyebrow, “I didn’t know these things could talk.”

Grumell rose to his feet and slowly started backing toward the conflux. “There are a great many things you hugan do not know.” He said the last word with finality and drove his fist clutching the stone straight into the sliver of the conflux.