They followed the gnoll up out of the mines. When they made it back to level ground instead of heading back towards the slave camp instead they were taken towards a large building on the outskirts of the gnoll settlement. It was made out of stone, which is what most of the city was made out of. As they walked closer Bjorn had a thought.
“Hey Alaric, how did they build this city, gnolls don’t seem to be much of stoneworkers.” At his words the lead gnoll started to growl, a deep back of the throat growl.
“Are you talking bad about our abilities?”
“No merely observing, and commenting.”
The gnoll stopped and turned around looking rather fierce at 7 feet tall. It stood there and stared at Bjorn for a long minute before turning back around and walking onwards. Bjorn looked first at Alaric, then at Meira, who both just looked back, not wanting to make a scene.
“You’re right of course.” Said the gnoll at the head of the pack, "Most of our buildings are slave made.”
Alaric chimed in. “It is dwarven make, if I am worth my salt, you can tell by the chisel work.” As Alaric pointed out a stone set in the wall, the stone was smooth, it looked like the same polished stone countertops that were common back on earth.
“What do you mean chisel work? That looks like polished stone.”
That made Alaric give a hearty belly laugh. The laugh drew a scathing look from the gnoll leading them towards the entrance of the building. “That is no polished stone, that is rough cut stone lad. Maybe someday you’ll get to see what a dwarf can really do with his rocks.” With that comment he winked at Bjorn.
“Alright that is enough.” Said the gnoll. “I am going to take you in front of our captain, you will not speak unless spoken to, you will not look him in the eye, and you will remain kneeling until told otherwise. If you don't, nothing in the world will save you from our wrath.”
That comment shut them both up. The gnoll pushed open a large iron banded wooden door and pushed the three of them inside. As they were passing by the door Bjorn got a good look at the door itself, the door wood was over 5 inches thick, and had a dark almost black color to the softer parts of the wood. The door had to be well over a thousand pounds but it swung open easily as it pivoted on well oiled hinges.
Alaric whispered just loud enough that Bjorn could hear him from where he stood directly behind him. “They oiled the wood in a flame resistant pitch to help avoid someone burning their way in.” Nodding they continued inside. The interior of the building was spacious with a few doors leading out of the main entrance, above the level they were walking on there was another stone walkway with crenulations. Inside the room there were several long wooden tables with benches situated on either side of the table, each table ran the entire length of the room. The benches had gnolls sitting at them eating some sort of slop that looked like a mix between a soup and raw meat. It almost looked like they had boiled the bones of whatever animal to make a broth, then they cut up the meat from that animal and threw it into the soup just long enough to make the meat warm before being served. The chunks of meat floating in the stew were as raw as they could get. The entire room had 15 or so gnolls spaced out in the entire place, even though the room was spacious enough that it could easily fit 200.
Walking through the room some of the gnolls make comments towards the gnoll group surrounding the three slaves, which was met with growls, and one of the guards went so far as to smack one of the gnolls sitting at the tables. By the time they made it through the room all of the gnolls stopped eating and were watching the procession as they made their way towards one of the doors.
Once they made it to the door they were led inside which continued onwards in a long narrow hallway with several doors leading off of the hall. At the very end of the hallway there was one door more ornate than the rest. The gnolls directed them toward that door, once they were standing outside the door the gnoll motioned them to stay put and knocked, opened, walked into, and then closed the door behind it. They sat there for a few minutes with the other 3 gnoll guards. Looking at the body language of the gnolls they looked uncomfortable, like they didn’t want to be there.
Eventually the door opened and the gnoll poked its head out of the door and beckoned them inside. The gnolls started to follow and a quick word stopped them in their tracks. Looking back at the three gnolls Bjorn was surprised to see relief on their faces. Something in his stomach dropped, if the gnoll guards were scared of this captain, what would it do to the three of them.
The room that they entered had a neat pristine military vibe to it. There were two bookshelves along the wall filled with books, looking at them Bjorn realized he had never learned how to read any of the languages that he had been taught. There was a large wooden desk sitting in the middle of the room, and sitting behind the desk in a chair too large for even the gnoll sitting in it, sat one of the roughest looking gnolls Bjorn had seen so far. Using his identify Ability on the gnoll his heart decided to join his stomach as he read the description.
Name: Dekxot Farclaw
Race: Deep Gnoll Chief
Age: 53
Level: 37
Deep Gnoll Chiefs are a rare variant that are born to the deep gnolls, they are natural born leaders. From the day they are born they have a natural ruthlessness that is rivaled by few, these cold and calculating creatures as the last thing you want to come across on a battlefield where gnolls are present. They gain 1 point in constitution, 1 point in endurance, 2 points in strength and get 2 free points to distribute per level.
Dekxot gave the three of them a brief look before returning to the papers on its desk. The gnoll guard seemed agitated, it shifted from foot to foot. Dekxot ignored those in its office, grabbed a quill and dipped it into an ink well, and wrote a quick line at the bottom of the page. Then it flipped a page and began reading that next paper. It was four pages of paper before Dekxot gave them any of its attention. After the four pages it stopped the inkwell, and set the quill aside. Setting its paws in front of itself Dekxot started to speak. Its voice was surprisingly soft and high pitched, Dekxot was a woman gnoll. It was hard to tell the difference between the male and female gnolls both had the same basic build, the only real difference that Bjorn could see from where he stood was Dekxot had a little bit narrower of a snout than the guard in the room.
“So, Thort over there tells me you have killed some sort of monster down in the iron mine today.” There was a pause in her speech as she waited for some sort of confirmation. Giving the slightest of nods, Dekxot smiled. “That is good, how did you do it, explain it to me. You have my permission to talk.” She said that last bit directly to Bjorn. Taking that as his que he started speaking, telling her how it all happened. Telling her most of the story, leaving out their fight training, and how Bjorn ate both of the cores.
At the end of his tale Dekxot stood up and started to walk around the desk, soon she was standing behind Bjorn. At the end of his story he could feel her warm breath on the back of his neck. Finishing his story he stood there in silence waiting for some sort of response.
“That was cleverly done. Quick thinking to use one to disable the other, from what you’ve told me the creature was a flesh abomination. Rare creatures, and I think I know how these came to be. But all in due time. You have succeeded where my gnolls have failed, and for that you will be rewarded.”
With that she turned around and rushed at the gnoll guard that came in with Bjorn, Alaric, and Meira. She closed the distance between her and the guard in a brief moment and used her claws to cut deep into its throat. A gurgling cry was all that the gnoll managed as she removed her claws from the gnoll's throat. It fell to the ground. As it slowly bled out on the floor of the office, the sound of it attempting to breathe permeated the silence. The sound of its labored breathing slowed until it finally stopped. Dekxot stood there watching the gnoll slowly die with a smile on her face.
Slowly she walked back around and sat down at the desk. Taking a rag out of her desk she started to clean the blood off of her paw. “As I was saying you will be rewarded for succeeding where my own soldiers have failed. We will heal your wounds, we will provide you with a week's worth of food, and we will even provide you with clothes to wear. I thank you for doing that, without removing the creature it was only a matter of time before they killed all of you slaves and we had to send gnolls down there. I ordered my troops to remove the threat, but apparently they were too cowardly to actually try to fight them. They told me they searched the tunnels and failed to find the creature, multiple times. As to how they were formed we have a pit that all of our dead go down. During your diggings you must have uncovered a way into the bottom of the pit. I’m not entirely sure, but I think that is where they came from.”
Alaric was the one who spoke up this time. “I beg your pardon, your ladyship. But would it be too much to ask for you to let us go free?”
Chuckling, she shook her head. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but no, I won’t free you. I do appreciate you killing the abominations but you know where our city is, and our anonymity is what keeps us safe here. Not many know where our city is outside of the gnolls and slaves.”
“What about freeing us as slaves?” Asked Meira.
“Again no, if I did that I would soon meet the same fate that Thort met. I may hold power in this pack, but I am by no means the strongest, and I can guarantee you that the rest of my pack would not take kindly to you being free. I would find myself slain, and then the three of you would follow me soon afterwards. I’m sorry but no.” She raised her voice and called out. “Rret, come in here.”
The door opened again and this time the tiny gnoll who was exceptionally harsh to Bjorn on the trip to the gnoll encampment walked through the door. “What can I do for you ma’am?” Asked Rret
“Take these three first to the healers and make sure that their wounds are looked at and taken care of. After that take them to the kitchens and make sure they are well fed, next find them some clothes, their nakedness isn’t something I care to keep looking at. Then take them back to camp for me. Do this with all due haste.”
Nodding Rret bowed briefly and backed out of the room beckoning the three of them to follow along. As soon as the door closed Rret’s face changed from one of subservience to one of anger. “Don’t think because I'm ordered to take you to the healer that I won’t make you regret it. The way I see it the healer will heal any damage I do to you.” As Rret finished saying that he was true to his word and made Bjorn’s life one of pain. He would have fought back but there were 2 guards standing outside the door. So Bjorn just let himself be beaten.
Once Rret was finished with Bjorn he couldn’t even stand. “You, and you.” He barked at Alaric, and Meira. “Carry this worthless sack of shit to the healer.” Turning on his heels, Rret walked down the hall without even seeing if they followed.
There was little fuss at the healer’s room. Once the gnoll that was in the healer room was told that Dekxot ordered it, the elderly gnoll set to providing healing to the slaves. She took one look at Bjorn and stepped over him going straight to Alaric. She cast a spell on Alaric and the wounds that had broken open again while carrying Bjorn closed themselves and started to stitch itself back together. With a grunt, Alaric commented. “Tickles.” Before shutting up again as the gnoll gave him a withering look. She took one look at Meira and said. “There is nothing I can do for this one.” Finally she turned back to Bjorn’s bloody state on the ground and spit. “Alright, I can’t guarantee he will live, but I have something that might do the trick.” She left the room through a back door and returned a minute later with a potion in one hand. Uncorking it she poured the contents into Bjorn’s mouth and then held his mouth closed until he swallowed. Saying a word her hands wreathed themselves in a golden light before forming a small ball which slowly sunk towards Bjorn. When it came in contact with his body it sunk into it and much of Bjorn’s blood that had covered his skin from the beating turned liquid again and sunk into this skin. The bruises on Bjorn’s skin also faded. There was a crunch as his collar bone snapped back in place and mended.
When Bjorn’s injuries were healed it felt like a fresh wind traveled straight through his entire being. The feeling washed away the fog that permeated his mind allowing him to think and see clearly since Rret beat him. Looking at his health bar it was actually full. “This healing magic is wonderful, I need to try and learn some as soon as i possibly can.” Thought Bjorn and he picked himself up off of the floor. Looking up he caught sight of Rret, who had a wolfish grin on his face. After everyone was fully healed, Rret turned and started to walk out. As he did he turned and said something in gnollish to the elderly lady. When the words were out there was a sharp barely perceptible intake of breath that came from Meira. Looking at her she barely shook her head. Her message was clear, not now.
Letting the matter drop the three of them followed Rret out of healers room and followed him to the kitchens. Once there he sat them down and gave them a hearty portion of the gruel that they give the slaves who have earned their right to eat. They did give them small round loaves of bread to go with the gruel. As they ate their fill a gnoll came to them and provided each with a set of clothes, they weren’t nice by any stretch of the definition of that word. It was a plain brown homespun burlap. There were a shirt and pants for each of them. Bjorn’s own clothes were tattered, the pants that he had when he was brought to the slave camp where little more than a butt flap by now. The legs of the pants had been ripped and torn to high heaven. Bjorn had never gotten his shirt back from Meira, she had kept that, it was all the clothes she had. One of the times that Olvog’s men had taken Meira to rape her they had torn the shirt she was wearing down the middle, so now it was more of a cardigan then it was a shirt. Which was all that she had for clothes. Alaric had been brought in wearing almost the same type of clothes they provided him with, three weeks of hard work and many ass whoopings had worn the clothes down though, so it was another benefit.
Once they had eaten their fill they were taken back to the slave camp and thrown roughly into it. Once the doors closed Bjorn turned to Meira, “What was that intake of breath for?”
She turned towards Bjorn and said gravely. “I understand a little gnoll, I have been a slave at this camp for some time, over time I’ve picked up a little gnollish. And as we were leaving the healer that gnoll.”
“Rret.”
She barely acknowledged the interruption. “Rret, said to the old gnoll, “Thanks aunty.” It doesn’t exactly translate to that, but it is close enough. I fear whatever it is that you are in for. I don’t think the potion she gave you was actually for your benefit.”
“Now that you say that, I haven’t received a prompt telling me what the potion was yet.”
Nodding, “That can happen sometimes, often when the effects actually take effect you will get the prompt. I’m assuming the effects haven’t started yet and because of that you haven’t gotten the prompt.”
The entire time Meira and Bjorn were speaking Alaric looked like he was going to blow, he kept trying to interject but they continued to talk without stopping to let Alaric speak. “Will you let me get a word in length ways? Damn it.” At his outburst both Meira and Bjorn stopped talking and looked at the dwarf.
“Thank you, I have a question for you Bjorn. How did you know that small slimy red oozy looking orb wasn’t going to kill you? And for that matter, how did you know Meira’s name? She has been mute as a stone these last 3 weeks?”
“I would also like to know the answers to these questions.” Said Meira as she turned towards Bjorn.
“I’m assuming the question you are asking me is actually exceptionally rude given the answer to that question. But seeing how I wouldn’t be alive without you Alaric, I'll tell you.” There was a pause and Bjorn turned to look at Meira giving her a pointed look.
“Yeah in your dreams.” She said, “If you think I'm going to walk away from this conversation you are crazy, my mind just threw off the shackles of Olvog’s Ability, you think I'm going to walk away from the two idiots who did that for me?”
The silence continued to grow between the three of them before Bjorn finally gave in. “Alright. If I hadn’t just spent the last month and a half caring for you and trying to make sure you didn’t die I wouldn’t be telling you either. I have an Ability that allows me to identify whatever I am looking at, and it gives me a brief description of what the item does. It is how I knew that the flesh abomination core was actually beneficial instead of damning. It is how I found Meira’s name even though she hasn’t said a word to me this entire time. It is also how I found out that the gnoll captain we talked to earlier was actually a deep gnoll chief, and she was level 37.”
With that revelation both Alaric and Meira just stood there staring at Bjorn kind of slack jawed. Meira was the first to recover from that. “That sounds like quite a powerful Ability, I do know there have been many times in my life I wished I had an ability like yours.”
Alaric turned towards Meira. “You said earlier that you just threw off the shackles of Olvog’s Ability. I’m assuming you have an inkling of what the Ability does?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
With a sigh Meira started talking. “You are right, dwarf.
Alaric’s cheeks grew a shade of red as it looked like he was about to explode. “I have a name you twitter-put, and it is Alaric, it would be appreciated if you used it, thank you.”
With a bit of a shamed look on her face Meira continued. “I’m sorry Alaric, you are right, I should have used your name, it is only fair after what you’ve done for me.”
That calmed down Alaric at least a little, he still didn’t look happy by any means but he was mollified. Meira continued. “You are right Alaric, I do have a clue as to what one of Olvog’s Abilities does. It manipulates people’s emotions, specifically it seems to just be one, subservience. The more exposure you have to this seems to make the effect of the Ability stronger. I have been at this camp for well over two years based on my age counter on my character sheet. Around a year ago the gnolls brought Olvog to this camp and threw him in here with us. Things have always been grim, but not this bad. It didn’t take long for him to take over and have most people turn into his slaves.” She stopped at that and let out an emotionless chuckle. “Ironic that the slave started making slaves of his own. Anyways he took over camp easily, it is easy to break those who have already been broken by the gnolls. Within a day he had half the camp listening to him. At first the gnolls sent him out on the mining expeditions, over time they made him go more and more infrequent, eventually they stopped sending him all together. I wasn’t quite so easy to break, but what could I do? I was one person against the entire camp. Olvog took what he wanted when he wanted. Soon there was nothing I could do as he raped me over and over. With his ability growing stronger, eventually I stopped resisting. There comes a point where too much subservience turns people into shells of who they once were. If you look at those people.” As she pointed to where the huddled masses were. “They weren’t always like that, once they all had goals on escape, they planned, and a few actually tried, even though it never worked. After Olvog all of that stopped. I think it is part of the reason why the gnolls don’t do anything about him, by him existing he keeps this camp docile.”
Bjorn spoke up. “That explains what I was feeling before Alaric came. I used to fight back and resist Olvog, but by the time Alaric showed up I had given up and I let them do whatever they wanted to you… I’m sorry.”
A soft smile fell over Meira’s face. “It’s alright Bjorn, there was nothing you could do in the situation you were in. I even gave in eventually, and I think my will is stronger than yours ever has been or will be.”
“That’s why this camp felt weird as soon as I came here.” Said Alaric. “I have an Ability that makes me immune to mind altering effects. I was wondering why everyone was just turning belly up to Olvog, his own power is barely anything. Hell by myself I put up a good fight against him and his 3 remaining goons. It is no wonder that the conditions are so good in this camp. They don’t need to use any other means to keep the camp from rebelling.”
“I appreciate your forthcomingness sharing one of your Abilities Alaric.” She turned towards Bjorn. “You are right of course, our question was in fact extremely rude, knowing one’s Abilities gives you a certain power over them. Everyone has two of them, and they are their own trump cards. You were wise to play your’s close to your chest.”
“Anyways, because of your help with keeping Olvog away from me, my mind started to fight back against the influence of his Ability, and seeing those flesh abominations was the final straw to break me free, again I thank both of you. I owe you a debt I doubt I'll be able to pay. I do have my doubts that I am truly free from his influence. I suspect that all it will take is for him to be near me for my mind to fall back into itself again trying to protect me.”
By then they had made it over to the huddled masses and took their place among them. “I feel for these poor people, they have had all of their agency stripped away from them. No one deserves to be driven to what they are. Olvog’s Ability is truly an insidious one. There comes a point where the drive for subservenance becomes so strong it snaps a person’s will and turns them into barely a living creature. These people are more of a walking meat suit and can follow orders. Oddly enough, Olvog’s power has backfired on him, it has made it so that these people who once would have done exactly what he asked to the letter, now just sit around and cower. I imagine that if it comes to a fight they won’t pose us any trouble.”
Silence fell as each of the small group started to digest what they had heard so far today. Hours passed as they all slowly started to nod off. Some time later Bjorn awoke with a stabbing pain in his stomach. It lasted a few seconds before fading. Looking around Meira and Alaric were both asleep laying on the ground near Bjorn. After a minute of nothing Bjorn began to relax. That was when the pain came back to him, it felt like someone took hot liquid iron and poured it onto the skin of his stomach, the burning sensation overpowered his mind and all he could feel was the burn. The burning sensation didn’t just stay on his stomach though, it started to enter under the skin. Using his eyes he could see that he wasn’t actually burning, and that the skin where the feeling was actually unblemished. Contrary to his eyes the burn began to drip down onto his organs from the skin. Rolling onto his stomach he started to puke immediately. Retching once, twice, three times, and then the pain started to subside. His vision began to clear, that was when he noticed a prompt in front of him.
You have drunk the nectar of the death lotus. The death lotus is one of the few magical plants in the world that will kill everything from the smallest mouse, to the oldest dragon. You drank the purest form of the lotus’s expression of death, it’s nectar. Over the next 32 hours you will take your entire health pool of damage. This is to ensure death for all creatures. All healing effects and magics besides natural regeneration will not work on you for the duration of the death lotus’s poison. If there is someone nearby who would grant it to you, you should ask for them to kill you. It would be a kindness in the face of what you are about to go through.
Picking up his head he could see both Alaric and Meira sitting there with worried looks on their faces. He looked them straight in the face and said two words. “Death lotus.” Meira’s face fell at that, as he could see sorrow in her eyes. Alaric’s expression became stoney.
“I’m sorry lad, there is nothing I can do to help you, I will miss you, I hope your next life isn’t as terrible as this one was.”
Meira didn’t say a word, only a single tear fell from her face, she leaned forward and planted a single kiss on his forehead. That was when he screamed. He screamed so loud that he tore his vocal cords, the taste of blood flooded his entire mouth as his throat started to be filled with blood from his vocal cords. He started to cough up blood as his mind tried to retreat from the pain, to try to block out all of the sensory input his body kept sending to it. Unfortunately for Bjorn, the pain was so all encompassing that he didn’t find the comforting blackness of being unconscious. Every time his world would start to go black around the edges and he was starting to welcome the black, a new way for his body to feel pain came back and would rouse his mind back from the brink, causing the entire process to start over again. The entire process lasted for a long, excruciating amount of time. There were moments where the pain would ebb for a brief moment, and in those moments his mind would clear enough to where he could focus on one thing at a time. It wasn’t long before what he would focus on was his health bar. After the 4th or 5th cycle he gave up hope of surviving. By the 8th or 9th cycle he started to wish that it would end. By the 15th or 16th his health was starting to get low. And finally after 19 times of his world descending into misery his health was sitting at 3 hp. His mind cleared enough to watch his health slowly tick down. It dropped to two, and he grew frustrated that it wouldn’t just end. The frustration lasted only a brief moment before it ticked down to one and then darkness overtook him.
Blessed release what all that Bjorn felt when he woke up. But something felt off. He woke up? The fact that he was awake felt wrong… But he couldn’t quite say why it felt wrong. Not knowing why, he didn’t actually care, he wanted his escape and so his mind slipped back into itself as darkness overcame him again…
The next time his mind roused itself a little he could faintly hear voices.
“He is alive? How is that even possible?”
“... Care, at least we have hope.”
“He might not recover from this, death lotus nectar is said to kill anything in this world.”
“...Olvog, you might want to leave, otherwise your stench might just finish him off.”
The darkness once again welcomed him with open arms.
Rough hands gripped Bjorn just under his shoulders as he awoke. Opening his eyes blearily he looked up at whatever had him by the armpits. Alaric was dragging him across the ground with a grim expression on his face.
“Hey there cutie.” Bjorn said to Alaric. As he did so Alaric started and dropped Bjorn back to the ground, with a heavy thump Bjorn’s body came to rest. Unperturbed by the rough handling he continued onwards. “To what do I owe the honor of being carried by one such as you?”
“By the stars!” Exclaimed Alaric. “You are really alive. I mean I know you were alive, but you have recovered! The way that elf was talking about your mind we thought you’d be nothing more than a vegetable for the rest of your life. Ho ho! I’m glad to have you back!” He rushed forward and embraced Bjorn in a rough hug.
Grunting at having a rather heavy dwarf throw himself at him, Bjorn awkwardly hugged him back. “I’m glad to see you too.” Fearing the dwarf might actually kill him by his hug he took a look at his health and it was sitting at 25 out of 150. In a panic he shoved Alaric off the best he could. “I’ve been out for 24 days?!”
Shaking his head. “No that’s the damndest thing, you’ve only been out for 3 days. Your state was a sorry one to behold.” His face screwed itself up in anger. “That damn Rret knew something was up, as soon as you started to convulse on the ground he and 15 of his buddies came and collected a large mining group of which Meira and myself were the first ones to be grabbed. He then made all of us pull a full day shift mining. Under the pretext of ‘We are running low on Iron, you need to make yourself useful.’ What a lode of crap.” A smile broke out on his face again. “Anyways when we got back from the mining trip Meira and myself expected to find you dead. As we walked up to you we actually thought you were. Your limbs were sitting at awkward angles, you lay face down in the soil. You were laying in a pool of your own blood. But as we got near Meira said she could see your back moving. I thought it was just your body convulsing in death. But no, she pointed out that it was too regular and even for it to be death, it had to be breathing. So we rushed over and sure enough you were alive!”
Alaric grinned down at Bjorn where he lay as if Bjorn had just played the biggest joke on the world. “You being alive surprised us, but what happened next surprised us more. Over two days you went from looking like you were on death's door to looking like you got run over by a wagon. You had a broken arm from your body pulling on itself. Meira said that you were experiencing so much pain that your muscles were literally pulling your bones apart. We didn’t have anything to splint your arm so we just set it in place and made sure you didn’t move so it had a chance to actually heal properly. And this morning I decided it was time to clean you up. You were covered in shit by the way. Anyways, when I was moving you over towards the water to clean you up your arm looked like it started to actually heal.”
Still a little groggy Bjorn decided to pull up his notifications, it had been a while since he checked them, with a mental command he ignored any of the notifications that didn't deal with his more recent ordeal, then with another command he read the prompts.
You have ingested and absorbed a flesh abomination core and have gained some of its healing properties. Your health regeneration has increased from 1 hp per day to 2 hp per day.
You have ingested and absorbed another flesh abomination core, because you have absorbed another core in such a small time frame the effects of the second on are boosted. Your base health regeneration has gone from 2 hp per day to 4 hp per day.
You have ingested a substance of pure death right after ingesting a substance of pure vitality. Because of the nature of the vitality it has weakened the death lotus nectar ever so slightly, giving you the slightest chance of life.
Congratulations by sheer dumb luck your body managed to regenerate 1 hp as your health total was about to hit 0, leaving you with exactly 1 hp. Your dumb luck streak continued by the fact that the vitality from the abomination core weakened the death lotus nectar just enough that you were able to survive.
Because your body was a battleground for two such strong opposing energies your health regeneration has further increased, going from 4 hp per day to 8 hp per day.
Looking up at Alaric Bjorn smiled as he said. “Turns out I'm lucky, or something like that. You saved my life by not taking the abomination core. The strength from both of the cores was enough to weaken the death lotus nectar enough for me to live. If just barely. Also my health regeneration has increased because of this ordeal.”
“I’m glad your hair-brained idea to eat those disgusting blobs paid off somehow.”
“Where is Meira?”
Once Meira’s name left Bjorn’s mouth Alaric’s face fell once again. “She is gone again. I’m sorry lad.”
“She lost herself again?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
Heaving a great sigh Alaric started again. “It was just yesterday. We weren’t sure you would survive, but we wanted to give you a shot. Olvog the great big greedy bastard left his little palace and came over with all of his goons again. We were ready to fight them off, but one of them threatened to kill you if we fought back or if she didn’t go with them. You have to know we had a chance against them if it was just the girl and I, but we had little chance if we were to defend you while trying to fight them off. I was willing to take that chance, but not Meira, she didn’t want to chance it. So she went with them, they weren’t kind to her, all of her clothes are ripped to shreds, she has bruises all over her body, and she is vacant again.”
He was quiet for a long time, Bjorn didn’t say anything because he could tell Alaric had more to say. Looking at his friend a single tear slid down his face and got lost in his beard. “They were loud about it too. I could hear it from where I was at. I could hear her pleading for them to stop, but it only made them laugh and then it got louder. I’d be surprised if all of the gnolls in the guard house could hear it. I could hear everything clearly, every word, every smack.” His voice became hoarse. “I could hear her choke as they shoved something down her throat. When they threw her body out of their hut she was just as she was before.”
The dwarf’s voice trailed off. As more tears joined its kin sliding down the man’s face. “I wanted to do something, but before she left she told me that you were our best chance to maybe get out of here someday. I don’t know what made her say that, but I believe her.”
Silence fell between the friends as Bjorn began to work his way through what had happened while unconscious. The silence stretched for a long time, as it did Bjorn began to seeth. All of the emotions that had been pushed down since he became a slave started to boil up. His feeling of helplessness. The anger at the beatings he took, the anger at what Olvog and his mooks did to Meira. What started as anger soon turned into rage, the rage built until it died down. It settled into a cold fury.
Bjorn spoke in an even flat voice. “I am going to kill him. As soon as I am good enough I am going to kill Olvog, consequences be damned. I don’t care if the gnolls kill me for it. That monster doesn’t deserve to live any longer.”
The conviction in his voice made Alaric look up at his friend, and in his eyes he saw pure determination. It was the type of determination that drove men to do great things, or die trying. “Ay, I was hoping you’d say that. Our time for revenge is upon us, as soon as you are good enough to stand and fight, I think we need to get our payback. The injustice of the situation has long since been overdue to be fixed.”
The two men stood and took off to where Alaric had stored Meira for the time being. It broke his heart seeing her as she had been, especially after seeing a piece of her for the one day she was herself. All it really did was fuel the fire burning within him. Getting down on one knee he bowed his head to Meira and said under his breath.
“I don’t know if you can hear me in the state you are in. I appreciate you being willing to give yourself up for me. Knowing full well that you might not come back from this. I promise you I will get revenge, and stop Olvog from doing this to you ever again. I promise you that if I survive after killing Olvog I will dedicate my life to finding a way to bring you back to us. Thank you.”
Getting up from his kneeling position he turned back to Alaric. “Alright, I think we should go mining, it is time to get away from this camp.”
A whole week was spent mining, and staying as far away from Olvog as they possibly could. That time was spent mixed from trying to coax Meira back, mining, and even more training on how to actually fight. Albeit even with Bjorn’s determination it was slow going, he was recovering from almost dying after all. Progress was still being made though. They were both counting down the days to where they felt like Bjorn was recovered enough for them to take on Olvog.
At the end of the week they still planned on waiting, but Olvog had other ideas. After Alaric and Bjorn’s act of defiance the last time Olvog decided he wanted to play with Meira they started to all join in on getting their plaything for the day. So it was little surprise when all 4 of the group left their hut and made a beeline straight for where Bjorn, Alaric, and Meira were situated.
“Move out of the way.” Shouted Olvog as he got closer to where they stood. “I am taking that elf with me, don’t even try to stop me.” By that time he and his goons. When neither of the two men moved, his face grew a ravenous expression. “Dear, why don’t you come with us? Some real men. You see, she isn’t resisting. She must be fine with coming with us.”
The only response Olvog got was a tightening of fists and both Bjorn and Alaric balled their fists getting ready for a fight. Seeing their reaction the three goons positioned themselves between Olvog and the angry men.
It was Alaric who broke the tense silence, he spoke in a low even tone. “I’ll give you one chance to turn around and walk back into your hut. If you don’t take the only hope I'm giving you, your blood will run before the day is out. Consequences be damned.”
Olvog let out a laugh at that. “What makes you think that you have any authority to give orders here? Don’t you see everyone here.” Making a sweeping gesture to the huddled masses, all of whom had made a 20 foot radius clearing from where both the groups stood. “They all learned the lesson for non compliance. Whether you like it or not, dwarf, I always get my way. You think you and your little child of a man scare me? Ha, don’t make me laugh. We beat you last time, we will win again.” He paused and made an exaggerated face as if he was thinking. “You know I think I’ll make a lesson out of you for everyone here. I think this time I'll do whatever I wish with your little elf over there for everyone to see. Gnurl over there has a bit of a taste for men as well.” he indicated the orc that was standing to Olvogs right. For his part the ore grew a wicked smile that said he wouldn’t mind taking Bjorn for a spin. “We find it unpleasant so we don’t let him indulge. But I think we should let him indulge this time. Oh don’t worry, the more you right back the sweeter it will be for Gnurl.”
During the entire exchange the two groups slowly were edging towards each other, and By the time Olvog stopped speaking they were within striking distance. It was Alaric who made the first move, he took a lunging step forward and brought his leg down hard on the leg of the human, a snap could be heard as he crumpled over. And with that the calm before the storm ended. As the elf and Olvog charged at Alaric, the orc advanced on Bjorn with a wicked grin on his face.
As the two groups came together in a clash. A large explosion shook the cave. Momentarily distracted, both groups looked around. In the distance at one of the entrances to the cave where the gnolls had built the stone gatehouse to defend the passage a cloud of dust and dirt billowed into the chamber. After a few seconds the sound of metal clashing on metal echoed through the chamber. Every so often the sound of some man screaming in pain punctuated the din in the distance. Once the dust settled a little from where he stood Bjorn could see purple figures pouring into the large cave that had been his home for the last 2 months.
You may skip to the next part if you don’t care about the skill progression.
You have advanced your skill level in healing, reaching skill level 2. Wounds that you treat will heal 3% faster.
As an alchemist you have many ways forward. One of which is by coming up with your own recipes. It is a long slow way to produce potions, but your abilities will actually become better because of it. For creating your own health potion you have gotten increased progression in your alchemy.
You have advanced your skill level in alchemy, reaching skill level 13. Potions you make will be 13% increased effect and 26% increased duration of effect.
You have advanced your skill level in Mining, reaching skill level 20. Rocks are 100% more likely to break from a solid strike. Your stamina drain while mining is decreased by 40%.
Congratulations by reaching the novice threshold in mining you gain a perk! You gain a slight inkling on where to strike the rock for it to break apart easier.
You have advanced your skill level in light magic. reaching skill level 6. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.
You have advanced your skill level in water magic. reaching skill level 5. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.
You have advanced your skill level in hand to hand. reaching skill level 7. Blows you land with bare fists and legs now deal 14% extra damage.
Level up! You are now level 12, you have 3 attribute points to distribute.
With the level up that came from fighting the flesh abominations Bjorn put 2 points into dexterity and 1 into Agility. Those stats were starting to lag behind.