Chapter 33
After their night at the Magic Theater, the men decided to take a slower approach to their quest. They lounged in Coastall and took in the city before rushing off to slay their second dragon. Their delay came with a few benefits.
First, the men were able to get Grok and Branch some controlled combat experience. A quick chat with some folks at the arena and they managed to secure a training room and opponent. The arena offered small room sized arenas as a sort of shooting range for adventurers to test abilities or tactics.
In their case, they rented a battle construct for them to fight against. When all was set, Errrkkkk and Riakon gave their companions respective pep talks. Errrkkkk’s speech was a series of squawks and chirps that Roden could not understand, while Riakon’s sounded like a pre-game speech a coach might give before a football game filled with multiple grunts and ooo ras.
For their part, Branch and Grok looked determined as they stood in the training arena opposite their opponent. The men had decided to pit them against a clay golem similar to the Zolem they had fought all those months ago.
Grok stood tall with his dimensional bag strapped around him like a bandolier. He was essentially full grown by that point, all that was left was for him to mature. Gargs like humans grew stronger as they matured into their adulthood with a sharp decline as they became elderly.
Branch looked quite unassuming standing next to Grok. He was about two feet shorter and about as broad as one of Grok’s biceps. If Roden didn’t already know what the little Treant could do, he’d be worried for him.
Riakon gave the signal for the match to start by shouting the Golem’s command phrase. The Golem immediately rushed toward its opponents. Grok leapt into action, attempting to tackle the nearly eight foot construct. The two crashed into each other hard. The collision resulted in the Golem being stopped in its tracks with Grok holding it around the waist.
When the Golem realized it couldn’t move, it rose up to its full height intent on slamming down on Grok’s back. Before it could start its downward motion, a wooden spike the size of a pencil sprouted from its chest. It turned its head and located Branch who stood in his starting location arm raised.
Branch’s arm had shifted and opened revealing a hollow cavity. A soft green glow came from the darkness within until it flashed releasing another wooden spike that flew out of his arm and into the Golems chest alongside the first one.
With the Golem distracted Grok released his hold and swung his meaty claw in a wild overhand slash that left four gashes across the Golem’s clay skin. He followed up with a horizontal slash across the Golem’s midsection.
While the Golem wasn’t intelligent by the standards which one would judge a person. These training Golems were instilled with tactics. It weathered Grok’s attacks and used Grok’s inside leverage against him.
The Golem seized Grok by the head with one of its meaty hands and hoisted him off his feet. Grok for his part struggled mightily, but his awkward position left him unable to match the Golem’s strength. The powerful hook that came from the Golem’s other hand slammed into Grok’s chest, sending him flying a few feet.
The Golem took a step toward Grok and found its foot stuck to the ground. Leafy green vines sprouted from the ground and were wrapping themselves around the Golem’s leg. It only took the Golem a few seconds to pull its leg free, but that was enough time for Grok to recover.
While distracted Grok had dusted himself off and leapt into the air. Roden recognized the tactic as the typical garg hunting method. He’d written the gargs what seemed like forever ago, but he distinctly remembered imagining them performing an elaborate flying bounce that was part eagle snatching a fish and part tiger pouncing on an unsuspecting deer.
Grok’s instincts told him to go for the head and neck. The tactic would have worked except the Golem did not have those weak points. Grok’s pounce looked devastating. He crashed into the Golem’s back while digging his claws into its neck. Next came a vicious bite with his needle-like teeth.
If the Golem had been made of flesh, Roden was quite sure Grok would have decapitated his target. Instead, Grok spat out a chunk of clay and the Golem turned around with its head flopping to the side settling on its own shoulder.
Roden noticed a green glow coming from his left. When he spared a glance to the offending brightness, he saw Branch had reconfigured his arm into a spear like shape, his hand was transformed into a rough point.
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The bright glow emanated out of the back of his shoulder, which had grown thick protrusions. With a flash of magical energy Branches arm shot off of his body like a rocket. The nearly foot long wooden stake pierced the Golem’s back and jutted out the front a few inches.
It was the consolidation of the druidic magic within the projectile that reminded Roden of what was to come and he shouted out of reflex.
“Get down!”
Roden was relieved to see nearly everyone followed his instruction. Grok dashed away from the Golem as soon as he saw, Riakon dive to the side. Roden ducked behind the low wall in front of him just enough so he could still peer over.
Errrkkkk and Branch both stood stoic and watched the wooden arm turned stake, first crack then splitter before exploding out in a concussive wave. The resulting explosion left the Golem’s body above the waist in tatters. What remained of the Golem’s arms fell to the ground under their own weight, the remnants of the torso were no longer capable of holding them up.
With the Golem looking like a half eaten banana the man wrapped up their training session with Grok and Branch with a post fight meeting. While Errrkkkk and Riakon were reviewing the fight, Roden took the opportunity to walk around the arena a bit and take in the current main stage fight.
Roden was both surprised and tickled at seeing the current fight was between a group of three adventurers fighting a rather nasty looking Timber Manticore. The fight was going rather well for the adventurers, they had managed to back the creature up against a wall while the three of them had it surrounded.
The similarity to his own group's fight gave his spectating experience an uncanny feeling. Unfortunately for this band of adventurers, they’re tactics and teamwork didn’t appear to be on the same level as the Sons of Er-archy.
This group didn’t appear to have a magic user of any substantial capacity. All of their members looked and fought in close, which gave the Manticore the advantage. Two members of the group ended up in the creature’s back mounted claws, while the central adventurer bashed at its face with a massive greataxe.
Roden’s instincts told him if the group had better coordination, they could have chopped off those claws and had the manticore at their mercy. Instead the manticore smashed its two captives into one another before leaping on the lone standing combatant. Needless to say all three adventurers ended up with their safety wards being triggered, sparing their lives, as the Manticore’s roar rattled the arena in triumph.
That night the party celebrated their youngest members’ victory courtesy of Miriana and her delicious home cooking. The return to Coastall appeared to be a benefit to everyone. Miriana was visibly more relaxed within her own home especially when she was able to spend time in her ocean view garden.
Errrkkkk and Riakon appreciated the move back into Roden’s treehouse as did Grok and Branch.
Miriana had made it a point to try and ease Roden’s troubled mind. She had the suspicion he was beginning to feel the absence of the things in his life that gave him purpose. She had made the conscious decision to show him just what life was like on Mir in the hope it would reignite his love of life.
The trip to the Magic Theater had done wonders for his mood, and being able to discuss a play with another theater lover had temporarily put a pep in his step. Errrkkkk and Riakon were not oblivious to the situation, but allowed Miriana to handle it privately. Roden had not given them a reason to think his mood would be a detriment thus they left it alone.
However, they did believe it was best to capitalize on Roden’s good spirits so they made their final preparations for their encounter with the second dragon by making a trip to their old business partner, G’Vaddle, for potions and other things.
They were announced by the familiar chime of the arcane bell triggered by the opening of the shop door. The wiry gnome greeted them in his high singsong voice,
“Welcome to G’Vaddle’s Potions— Oh! It’s you boys!”
A wide grin spread on all of their faces at the gnome’s greeting. There was something about G’Vaddle’s disposition that was simply infectious. Roden wasn’t completely convinced the effect wasn’t the result of some external influence, but he felt no magic being pressed upon him nor had he written anything of the sort, but the inscrutable feeling of jubilation he and seemingly everyone got from entering G’Vaddle’s shop made him wonder.
Riakon immediately went into his buy and selling pitch looking to procure a substantial supply of healing potions. Everything was going as expected until they got to negotiating price. G’Vaddle simply waved his hand dismissing the matter.
“You boys have quite a healthy bit of credit saved up. No coin need be exchanged for these things.”
A puzzled look spread across Riakon’s brow, “what credit?”
Errrkkkk nearly knocked over a stand of small potion vials labeled, “Discreet Favors”, while trying to reach the counter.
“Is it from the masks, cacaw?”
G’Vaddle nodded, “Yes! I fine tuned them and managed to produce disposable pods for them which made them all the more popular among the non-adventuring types. Needless to say, you boys are making a tidy profit. I have the exact number in my ledgers…”
Riakon pounced on the opportunity, “no need for exact numbers among partners. We trust you.”
G’Vaddle beamed, “Good! Good! So what are you gentlemen off to conquer with your trove of health potions?”
Riakon leaned in conspiratorially, “we are off to slay a dragon.” he said in a whisper.
“Oh! A dragon! How fun!.” he replied in a voice that bore no resemblance to a whisper. The trifecta of palms meeting faces didn’t slow down the excitable gnome.
“Do you need anything ‘extra’ for your dragon slaying mission?”
“What do you mean ‘extra’?” Riakon said attempting to put the same inflection on the word.
“Oh, you know…”
Riakon sighed, “No actually I do not, I am not the brightest dragon in the clutch so please speak plainly.”
“Oh you’re no fun! I love pretending to be a clandestine merchant to shadowy warriors.”
The three men looked at each other in their brightly colored adventuring clothes clearly not suited for stealthy operations and shrugged discreetly.
“What did you have in mind?” Riakon said in an attempt to snap the shopkeeper out of his fantasy.
“Well my first thought was my Bitter Bombs, but no no those won’t do for a creature as magnificent as a dragon! We simply must go bigger! I am thinking we use some Annul Beads!”