"I actually don't know everything. But! I don't need to know everything... Right?Right?Right?
When I hear something or, even better when I touch something, I... Can merge with my library and a new book will appear with the knowledge I'm missing.
I know every information that is written inside my library, that's why some times my sisters just send me letters. Once they become part of my library, I know what's inside them and can compile them into books, I don't really need to but, I like my library with books and not just random letters laying around.
This piece of Pond of Life's water is really interesting!
Did you know that... what I'm talking about? Even I did not know where the Pond of Life came from!
I was not even born when Life took it away!
One of the first Planes that Life made, Death was not even there yet apparently, was a desert habitat. Life wanted to see what could live there, so she threw in every living being she made previously.
Some adapted and overcame the sand, the heat and... the lack of water.
Others just died off... Life tried to fix that Plane, with oases!
She made a sea of sand, with some ponds of water. The Water!
Inside those ponds there was a vitality so high and so pure that life just bloomed around it.
It did solve the problem and Life was happy with it.
Then the era of traveling and conquest started, the Pond of Life was discovered...
War came to that Plane and Life took her super special water back!
She put a water source directly connected with some Pure water Elemental, they filled the oases with their water so that they could try to get the free Neutral Elemental Spirits to join them, becoming a bigger and stronger Pure Elemental.
The general knowledge is that the Pond of Life does not exist... There is no general knowledge actually!
The ones that are in the know are dead or really old!
Those that knows about it think that there is no more water.
Appartently my watery sister took some for personal use."
-Bee May, the faery of knowledge
"Pond of Life and her water! Shit I got distracted and forgot about my pen!"
John loved and hated his job. He was born in a military family. His father was a scout captain from the elite army, he was the left arm of the Battle Queen. His mother? Senior field medic. His brothers and sisters were spread out in the various military departments, everyone was an army member. EVERYONE, their horses? War horses, their dogs? Scout dogs.
John loved rules, they were easy to learn, at least for him, and easy to follow. They just told you what you could do and what you could not. He hated orders, not because he had to obey them, he hated orders because the person who usually gave that order was an idiot.
When John exposed his problem to his family, his father just laughed it off. "The kingdom of Arthus is not that weak, even if there are some traitors that value family or money more than our people... Remember that only the blood of Arthus can become the lord of our people and the leader of our battles. Trust in the royal blood, they have outclassed any opposition, they won't give control of their reign to inepts." And that was it from his family. Trust the sistem and everything will go well.
Sadly, for John at least, they were right. John started his military career at fifteen, he did have tutors at home so he knew how to read, write and how to fight with spear, sword, dagger and any of those combinations with a shield. His first year as a cadet was hell. His superiors were greedy men and women, they were not good teachers, they could not get a promotion of any kind, they did not even really know how to fight! They were sad and miserable people, that could not advance in the military and could only do worse outside of it so they just took their anger to the new recruits. If they survived, like John did, they would easily outrank them and maybe even make them pay, making those trainers even more vicious to the new generation.
After the first touch of hell... It was much worse, the superiors were competent at least but the training was much more intense. John had a jumping start because of his family teachings but he still had an hard time.
John joined the elite army at eighteen, he was assigned as a scout, like his father. He was good at it, his father was extra hard on him but he survived and thrived. At nineteen John was a vice squad leader, he had only a superior to worry about and twenty scouts to protect from his idiot squad leader. Then an order came from above, directly from the Battle Queen herself.
The cold stone mines in the east were lost, their scouts reported that even if the mines were empty, the mountains were full of Federation of Blades men. Phrillia, the third princess herself was to be sent to the village in the middle of the hardwood forest. Phrillia had to guide the new rectuits and some more experienced troops for a total of two thousand five hundred men and women to what was the village, now broken and destroyed, and obviously with the full support of the crown to make a fortress. So that the Federation of Blades could not inviade the Arthus kingdom and the army had a place where they could build an offensive to retake what was theirs. Dick, John's superior was nominated the head scout under the third princess command. So John and his team had to follow head scout Richard, yes Richard was his name but everyone that knew him called him Dick, to the ex village and now fortress to be.
John joined Dick and the other army leaders when the third princess joined them in the capital city, they had to talk on how to work togheter, at least until they arrived to the village inside the hardwood forest.
Phrillia did not inspire trust in John, she was not that old, hell she looked younger than him. She dressed like a mercenary, she had a simple leather armor, the quality was excellent but it was just leather. She wore a belt from shoulder to hip filled with throwing knives. Affixed on the shoulder there were two long swords fixed on her left shoulder. Another belt on her hips had two short swords to her left side and two daggers on her lower back, she had a dagger not really hidden on her right boot. When she walked in she had what could probably be called a two-handed sword resting on her right shoulder. It was the first hardwood weapon that John saw, the hilt as long as an arm, the blade... It was large, so large that the third princess could use the flat side to hide her body with. It was something so unwieldy that only a child would draw it, no one would use it on a real fight. The third princess was apparently a genius fighter and stragegist, even the Battle Queen had only praises for her but, to John eyes, she looked like a young child playing soldier.
The meeting was only a formality, the leaders had already worked togheter in the past so it was easy to create a leadership ladder and to split the responsabilities. The third princess let the leaders do their thing, she just spoke in the end to make sure that the army would stay togheter and to not leave any corps behind. Her last concern was for the scouts, Phrillia ordered them to not go too far inside the forest, the hardwood forest is dangerous to the untrained so they should keep to the road and the surrounding of it.
John felt that the princess was underestimating them, they were the scouts from the elite army, if they were untrained who was? Alas they had their orders and they would follow them.
The travel from the capital to the village was boring, there was no bandit nor animal attack, the forest was eerily quiet, the army was large and slow. They had no need to hurry too so they took their time. When they came up to the village, they found the tents of the elite army and something that looked like the beginning of a wall. The elite of Arthus and the villagers were working hard, digging holes where the wall would be and using steel instruments to slowly whittle down the hardwood trees and make them usable.
Some of the elite army came and started to yell instructions to the new arrivals, they had already planned where the reinforcement had to be placed, the army men were used to that and John joined the other is the routine of making camp, this time a more permanent one.
The third princess was whisked away to a meeting with the forward leader of the elite army, the head scout of the villagers and an old veteran? When John heard it he could not believe it, their future was in the hands of a leader of the elite army and that was fine, the third princess if she had the trust of the Battle Queen... Maybe she was worth something... The head scout of the village, why would the head scout know something that the army scouts could not know? And even if that head scout knew something, she could have just told everything to the scouts, there was no need to talk with people that would be more useful elsewhere. And the old veteran? Pff, he was old, old people have knowledge sure but, the military does share their informations with all of their corps, everything that old man knew, the army knew too!
Some of the villagers did not want to live here anymore, the village was filled with bad memories for them. The head scout agreed to bring them to the capital city and find them jobs. Like that was the easiest thing in the world! John knew that the villages always need more strong arms but the capital city was different, they would become servants or beggars, these villagers did not know what they were going to find when they left. It was not his job to tell them so, he did not.
Their principal objective was to make a fort, so the army did just that, they made space, they cut the hardwood trees, they made the necessary holes and they... worked hard, for weeks, for months. When the heat came they had a wall and some longhouses, they used fabric to make shade and they spaced cauldrons on their traveling routes, the cauldrons were filled with water and with some cold stones, the army elites were used to the high temperatures of the hellfire desert but the normal army men were not. They used everything they could to keep the inside cool, they could work through the heat.
When the heat was over, they started working mostly on the outside, they needed to get ready for the snow. John was put to work like all the others men and women. They were just building, only the villagers were used as scouts, he felt wronged, even if they knew the forest better there was no way that some villagers even if a little trained were better than real army scouts!
The Federation of Blades did not show their presence at all, they were happy with the cold stone mines apparently. Dick, for once, had a good idea and tried to persuade the third princess to send his party in exploration, they needed to know what the Federation of Blades were doing, John hated being in the dark, it was their job as scouts to know things! The princess refused, there was no argument with her, the fort construction was the most important thing for her.
With almost three thousand people working togheter they had the skeleton of the fort done by the time snow started to fall from the sky, with good use of spacing and braziers they could work on the insides even while under the cold storms.
With the snow gone, the forest came back to life. The forest was not silent anymore, there were bird songs. The animals came back to the forest. The three thousand men and women were fed with supplies that came from the capital. Finally the third princess approved the idea of foraging parties. Every foraging party had to have at least one villager, John hated the idea of being a babysitter but it was better than working inside the fort.
The forest was a nightmare! There were zones where it was really hot, others where it was really cold. The canopy could cover the sun in some places, in others the sun never came, it was always dark there. There were marshes and swamps and there were zones so empy of water that the earth cracked. The problem was that it did not make any sense at all! It was like someone had picked different climates and terrains and just mashed them toghether. It was confusionary and they could not even really find their routes back safely, they could not cut into the hardwood trees easily and even if they did, the animals could do similar scratches, they tried leaving pieces of cloth but the squirrels and birds stole them for their nests or lairs.
The villagers had a way to find their route inside the forests, they did not go around randomly. They did what they had to do and came back, the forest was not their friend.
The army did not work only on getting the fort now, they were almost done anyway with the easy work, now they needed the elites or the construction corps to do the delicate work. The army started training again, some villagers saw that and decided to join, they wanted to be useful, they wanted to fight, they did not want to leave their village again when danger came. The villagers were... Disappointed, the army training was easy, it was boring. Their normal daily work, when they were still inside the village left them more tired. The remaining hunters and scouts were even stronger than the normal villagers, they cruised through the normal army training and even joined the elites while practicing. Alfonse apparently the temporary First Hunter, he was still waiting for the return of their leader, fought with all eight of the bodyguards of princess Phrillia and he won! He was basically naked, with only a pair of leather pants on and he used a hardwood staff. The elite guardian of the princess with leather or even plate armor fell to his heavy strikes, no shield, sword, spear, arrow or axe touched the man, he just danced around them, blocked only what could not be evaded, used their numbers against them and he used brute force to disable them, when they surrendered he was not even sweating.
The princess was really happy and wanted to duel the man, he refused, he would not fight royalty. She tried to offer him a job then, he still refused, he would not follow orders that were not given by the village chief or the First Hunter. Some of the army elites wanted to skin him alive, how dared he talk that way to the princess, to the blood of Arthus? But princess Phrillia just smiled and accepted hid words, she promised him that she would find a way to make him follow her.
John heard the various rumors of these villagers, the villagers were stronger, faster and had more stamina than trained soldiers. They were smart too, they did not learn a lot, they did not need to. But when they were explained something they could follow what they were asked to do and they could perform well. They were used to hardships and they thrived in them. How could people like this exist and not be famous? How could they not be elite members of the army and just a random village inside a forest?
John did not know and, there was no one with the answers. He did hear that the old scout veteran was training the kids of the villagers to be scouts, he was curious, how could ten years old boys and girls train as scouts? Maybe the old scout would make them play a little bit and try to teach them what plant could be eaten or maybe what was a hare track and what was a wolf one.
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He was wrong! Extremely wrong! The old scout was a monster, a slaver, the poor childs were trained as if soldiers, harsher than soldiers! They did learn of the forest but they had weights on them, they needed to bring their own water and food, every single one of them had a bow and a dagger, the bow was made of hardwood and those poor childs could not go out in the forest unless they could draw it and hit where they aimed. The older trainees were brought to the forest by older villager scouts, while the young ones were doing strenghtening and stamina trainings just so they could they could walk outside the walls! Some members of his own team could not draw hardwood bows!
The third princess joined the kids on the scout training too! She found it refreshing and ordered that every corp that wanted to go inside the forest needed to pass Todd's test.
John knew that the old scout veteran training was harsh but he joined anyways, he wanted to go outside. The training was extra hard, 'you are trained military so you can take it', that was Todd's excuse. He even had the gall to yell at them that even ten years old kids could do it! Many left, they could not keep up with the harsh training but John stayed. John could feel that the training was working, he was getting stronger, it was just really hard. It took John two months but he finally got Todd's approval.
It was just in time too, the village scouts came back with a quest, there were some boars nearby. Usually they could leave them be but, they were getting closer to the fort and there were young ones too, the mother would be super aggressive. Their request was to bait them to another side of the forest or if impossible... kill the boars.
A small group exited the fort the next morning, princess Phrillia headed the group, John and one of her bodyguard. John and the princess bodyguard had a light leather armor as protection, an iron and steel pike, bow and arrows and a brutal dagger that could be called a shortsword. The princess had her usual 'I'm a living armory' setup, John still thought it stupid but she never let those down during their travel from the capital to the village, so she was strong enough to walk with them, if she knew how to use them, he did not know yet. From the villagers only two people joined them, one was a young scout, maybe not even fifteen years old, the other was the temporary First Hunter, Alfonse.
The hardwood forest was beautiful and eery at the same time, the child scout guided them towards the boars, John still could not entirely understand how the villagers found their way inside these confusing woods. They did find the boars rather easily and Alfonse had to restrain the third pricess because she wanted to play with the piglets. John scowled at that but on the inside he too thought that those little boars were rather cute. The villagers started making a trail and leaving some food around, they slowly guided the boars away from the fort and towards a creek that was known to them. There the boars family could drink, forage and stay away from humans.
"Well, that was boring."
Said the princess bodyguard.
"You are boring, we saw piglets! They were super cute! And mama boar was so big! It was really interesting too!"
The princess rebutted.
"It was interesting at the start but after two days of slowly steering those boars around, it became boring fast."
John expressed his agreement to the bodyguard.
"Umph, it was different, I have never done anything similar before, can't I be excited about it?"
Phrillia asked.
"It might be boring to some, but it's important work for the village, or it was when it was still standing..."
Said Alfonse, sadness tinged the end of his answer.
"You are called the First Hunter, should you have not hunted them?"
Asked John.
"Temporary First Hunter, our First Hunter is still around in the forest, we are just waiting for him to come back. And more than hunters we are the village protectors, if killing animals protects the village, we do it, if killing humans protects the village, we do it, if we can just make them leave, it's better for everyone."
Alfonse explained.
"What about the zones where the sun does not shine?"
Asked the curious princess.
"We let the things that live in the dark, live in the dark. they are used to the darkness, they won't come out when there is light, we just need to be a little careful at night."
Answered the teenager scout.
The group was going back to the fort when the third princess heard sounds of fighting inside the forest. She started to follow them, with the rest of the group in tow. What they found was a lather lange pack of wolves getting mowed down by droppers.
A dropper, at least two meter tall dropped in front of the human group.
"Woah!"
Exclaimed the princess as she took a battle stance with her hardwood greatsword.
"STOP! We don't want trouble!"
Said Alfonse, then he bowed towards the dropper.
The dropper, bowed its head towards Alfonse, then turned around and joined the fighting. Alfonse guided the others to a safe distance, there was a little watercouse, they sat down and refreshed themselves, drank a little.
"What was that!?"
Asked the princess.
"Apparently the droppers have been in a fight with the wolves for a couple snows... And the droppers are winning."
Answered Alfonse.
"Don't droppers eat anything that moves?"
Asked John.
"You would think so right? Actually they are really smart, if it's too much work for them, they will go for easier prey."
Said Alfonse.
"So we are just too much work for them?"
Asked the bodyguard, he looked hurt by the thought.
"They hate the wolves, not the humans, we have no reason to make them hate us."
Answered the young scout matter of factly.
"They weren't that many, I could have taken them."
Said Phrillia.
"Princess, you might be strong but, when you see a dropper, a hundred more are hidden around it."
Said Alfonse with a little shudder.
A scout came running to them.
"Alfonse, we finally found you!" The young girl gasped and tried to get some air then continued. "Those idiots with pots on their heads, a group of them fled into the forest and entered an endless night patch."
Alfose jumped on his feet.
"How bad is it!?"
"They used a torch to ignite a moss boar!"
"Shit! Fucking idiots!"
Alfonse started running towards the fort, he left the others behind easily, the two village scouts could bring them back easily, he had other things to worry about.
"So what is a moss boar and how bad is it?"
Asked Phrillia, while Alfonse was running at a fast pace, but still trying to not waste too much energy, the third pricess was just jogging near him, and she wore much heavier equipment.
"Moss boars are giant boars, they have poor eyes and hate light, they sleep in humid places and moss grows on them, it acts as an extra defence and it protects them from the light a little too."
"So we have a giant fireball trampling the forest?"
"I hope not!"
"Well, I'll go ahead, bye bye!"
Phrillia started running and she left Alfonse behind.
She was running toward the direction of the fort, she was not really worried about being lost, worse came to wrost she would live off the forest until they found her. It happened in the past when she took a trip to the hellfire desert. Then she started smelling this awful mix of burning flesh and wet, rotten wood. She followed her nose and found people running away, she continued a little more and saw the moss boar.
"Woah you are really a giant Mr. Boar!"
It was a really massive boar, it was around five to six meter tall, it was large too, his thick legs pushed against the ground and created tremors. It's right side was burning a little, it kept slamming into her people and the trees, it was mad from pain, it tried to smother the flames but it wanted to kill the humans that hurt it too.
The third princess planted her hardwood greatsword on the ground then, she threw some of her throwing daggers at the flaming boar and they just bounced off. She started running towards it, then jumped from the ground to a tree, it was hardwood, she kicked, HARD. The wood held and she was propelled towards the flaming side, mid flight she put both hands behind her left shoulder and took hold of her longswords, she used the sheat to give them power, she extracted the steel swords and cut the eye of the beast.
The boar felt even more pain, it tried to close the right eye, Phrillia was a little faster and she did cut into the eye, but the powerful eyelid of the boar broke both longswords.
"Shit! Hey Mr. Boar! I liked those two!"
The two long swords were now daggers and useless too, the good news was that the broken pieces were still inside the right eye and it was mangling it from the inside as the frenzied boar bucked from the pain. The bad news was that the moss boar was even more angry, and now his only remainin eye was focused on the pesky human that hurt it.
The third princess started to play a game of hide and seek with the towering boar.
"Hey dum dums! GO AWAY! You are useless, leave me with Mr. Boar, I'll take him for a nice walk!"
"But princess!"
"SHOO!"
Phrillia ran back and took hold of her hardwood greatsword, then she started to run towards the boar, she used the greatsword as a sledge and slid beneat it and tried to cut the now vulnerable underside with her daggers, that she kept on her lower back. The hide was thinner, but the daggers were short too, she did make it bleed and even more mad, it tried to crush her by slamming on the ground but she used the daggers to change direction and let the boar slam down.
The moss boar slammed hard on the ground and its wounds made it hache, it was stunned for a little. The princess let the hardwood greatsword fly away and used the same tree jumping trick to reach the left eye, this time she used her short swords. She was prepared for the eyelid too. She planted the shortswords deep enough that when the eyelid closed, the pommels were pushed even deeper.
The now blind moss boar trashed even harder, some of the not hardwood tree and underwood started to catch fire.
Alfonse joined the third princess now, she turned towards him and asked.
"So, how do you usually kill a moss boar?"
"We don't, we just don't go and bother them."
"So, when do you need to kill a moss boar how would you do it?"
"We, I mean, the First Hunter killed one with his boar spear, pierced his heart."
"Ok, where is the boar spear?"
"With the First Hunter..."
"Right, Mr. temporary First Hunter... So, when do you need to kill a moss boar and you dont have the boar spear?"
"Maybe bleed it out? Let it run around until it tires itself to death..."
"Right, good plan... I already blinded it, I cannot pierce its fur, too tough for steel swords or arrows."
"Same for hardwood arrows or spears, you need the weight of hardwood and the piercing power of a steel pike."
The third princess nodded.
"Go around and try to get some steel spears, I'll try to keep it busy. HEY MR. BOAR! IT'S ME! COME, LET'S PLAY!"
While the princess fled with a hulking mass of muscle, vegetation and forest fire behind her, Alfonse ran around frantically, he found only five steel tipped pikes.
"I got it a little farther away, are those the spears?"
"Yes, I found only five..."
"Good enough for the moment, tell the people to move their asses, we don't want our wooden fort to become a pyre. Stop the fires!"
Phrillia started going around the moss boar, she had only five spears and they would not penetrate deep enough, she had to use them well.
The first one was easy, the ass! It was exposed, it was not lethal but it was painful for sure.
While the half roasted pig whailed she stuck the second and third spear on the left side, in betweet the ribs, she hoped to pierce a lung, it would have less air that way, maybe it would drown. The fourth and the fifth, she planted them on the ground, she gave them some space and called.
"Hey Mr. Boar, tired of me yet!?"
The boar charged, the two spears stuck its underside, she hoped they hit something good.
She tried to move around the trees, maybe to get it stuck on them. She had only the hardwood greatsword with her. It was good to swat things around but she needed piercing power now.
Phrillia continued to holler and run around with the moss boar, she found two trees that were close enough to let her pass but trap the colossal boar. Only, one of them was not hardwood, she thought herself safe and slowed down to admire her work, the boar just uprooted the poor tree and continued its frenzied chase.
"SHIT!"
Phrillia used the hardwood greatsword as a shield, the crossguard had a hole on the side, perfect for gripping it and using it akin a tower shield. The moss boar impacted on the greatsword, the hardwood held. The third princess planted the sword into the ground and pushed as hard as she could with her legs, she felt a powerful vibration and a BOOM.
She was sent flying, she twisted midair and dropped low to the ground, with the greatsword propped as a shield.
Phrillia found the moss boar slumped to the ground, a really long brown-grey spear was stuck to the ground and kept the head of the boar from touching it. The long and relatively thin spear ended a good thirty centimeters on top of the massive boar's head. On top of the boar's head there was a man, dressed with animal pelts, it had a mantle made with a deer pelt, his hood was adorned with the antlers, that man looked two meters tall, he had a foot on the butt of the spear, his elbow on his knee and he was resting his chin on his fist. He was sudying her.
"Hi Mr. Antlers! Thanks for the help! I was almost done with it too... bummer. You kinda stole my fun! But where are my manners? I am the third princess of this kingdom Phrillia Arthus!"
"Spirits of the earth, I and my spear give you our thanks, you can rest now."
The strange man said, the spear started to become smaller, the head of the boar touched the ground. The man jumped off the colossal beast, he touched the ground lightly, he did not even bend the knees, Phrillia was impressed.
"I'm just a hunter roaming around the forest, I used to bring some pelts to a village around here, I heard the racket that you made and came to help."
"No name uh? Ok, Mr. Antlers... Well thank you again for your help!"
"Antlers uh?"
The man turned around to leave, Phrillia moved fast and swung her greatsword towards his head.
He blocked it with a single hand, he turned a little, his brown eyes looked red for a second, the third princess noticed a big scar on the man chest, it was shining blood red too.
"Little girl, you should learn some manners."
The man threw her and her greatsword with a single hand, he was strong!
Phrillia flew for about three to four hundred meters, she ended her flight when she crashed into the canopy of a hardwood tree.
This place was getting interesting!