Chapter 5: Kono Dio Da!

The party crossed the open snow of the pass from the dwarven ruins at the base of the western slope to the thin treeline near the cliff face on the eastern side. It was only about three hundred yards or so but it was completely open save for an occasional boulder. Further down slope the pass was much wider, as much as a mile or more from side to side, but the further up the mountain it went the more and more narrow it became. Until it reached a plateau where the thick, high forest awaited. The plateau there opened up into a small but still fairly sizable valley.

The previous day they had been navigating up the right side of the pass along the base of the western slope, but not far past the fallen dwarven fort on the western side of the pass the sparse tree cover gradually became thicker turning into a full fledged limb of the forest where the gnolls had ambushed them. Ordinarily they would have chosen that side since the trees offered protection from the wind and the pinestraw of the forest floor would have been easier to navigate than the gravel of the center of the pass. However, Binna was insistent that the forest would contain the gnolls and fighting them in their home turf seemed like a bad idea. So they traveled up the left side of the pass behind a thin line of trees bordering tumbled boulders fallen from a fairly steep cliff face on the eastern side of the pass.

If nothing else, the trees (thin as they were) would screen the party from view as they moved up the pass and if the gnolls did spot them there were plenty of boulders large enough to hide behind. It wouldn't offer overhead cover, but hopefully enough to force the archers out of position if they wanted to get line of sight. The position was something of a tactical nightmare to be honest; The wide open pass behind them offered no cover, and according to Binna the gnolls could run very fast over long distances. So it was a sure bet that they'd be run down if they had to flee down the pass. The thin trees weren't enough to really hide in, unless you were the size of one of Binna's people. The western cliff face was a hard barrier that limited their maneuverability. All in all, if the gnolls attacked them their best bet would be to stand their ground and use the boulders to screen them from archers and force them into melee range with the party. As long as they weren't too badly outnumbered they'd fair well enough in melee, but the party lacked ranged attacks. Brent had his bow, Charlie had her evocations, and Brian could chuck his bearded axe if he really needed to, but it was by far their biggest weakness.

Kurt was roused from his idle thoughts by the good natured squabbling of the two obverse members of the party.

"Was that a motherfucking JoJo reference‽" Charlotte's distinctive voice from the back of the formation rose above the constant sound of the wind blowing down the pass.

Brian's deep baritone voice cut far more clearly through the wind, "Everything is a motherfucking JoJo reference!"

Kurt was often confused by their banter. He knew quite a bit about earth, stories from his grandparents and his father covered the basics of life on earth, and since the majority of people in Origin were from earth the culture took that shape. But Kurt had never seen the television shows that the two kept referencing, he'd never even seen a television for that matter. He chose to be amused rather than feel excluded. And if nothing else, they both seemed to try to keep their jokes as accessible as possible to the rest of the group.

***

"So, tell me again why there've been people here in this world for like sixty years and there's still no electricity or guns?" Brian brought up a subject that he'd asked in passing before.

"We're operating on fantasy rules, bro." Charlotte said simply.

"Yeah, you said that last time. What does that mean?"

"How long have you been here? Like eleven months right? Didn't they explain all this at the orientation week when you popped at the origin?"

"Yeah, but honestly I wasn't paying very close attention. I had a brand new foot long schlong and lots of hot ladies that wanted to 'ride the pony'."

"But like how even? It'd be like sitting on a bollard..."

"You wanna'-"

"No I do not, and you know what? Never mind. Why didn't it come up between orientation and now? It's not like you've been impaling thots nonstop for the last ten months."

"Who's to say I wasn't?"

Charlotte just gave him a skeptical eye until he relented.

"Okay, okay, they shipped me out to the southern swamps right after orientation and I've been 'abating hostile fauna' until last month when I jumped at the chance to get in on these Explorer's Guild expeditions."

Charlotte knew that 'Abating hostile fauna' is just bureaucrat speak for slaughtering trolls before they get too close to the estuary and inconvenienced the fishing boats.

Brian contuned, "The kind of guys they put on that duty are the worst kind of introverts, not much for conversation. So it didn't really come up."

"Oi, that's rough. Who'd you piss off to get kicked into swamp duty? Don't tell me you fucked the commandant's daughter."

"I didn't know who's daughter she was! And I really think he overreacted."

"Holy, shit! You didn't really, did you?"

"She said I ruined her for normal dicks." Brian's self satisfied boyish grin was just too much and Charlotte nearly collapsed from laughing.

Once Charlotte caught her breath again, Brian insisted, "Alight, so anyway, answer my question."

"OK, so it's really simple and also hideously complicated at the same time. Basically physics doesn't work the same here as it does on earth. Like at a subatomic level. I'm no expert on the subject but a buddy at the Academy said that the leading theory is that combustion rates are tied to the membrane between the material plane and the elemental planes..."

Brian's eyes had already started glazing over.

"Eh, look. Magic works here, right?"

Brian nodded.

"OK, so that's not normal on earth. The sorts of things that are tied to the four elements don't work here like you would expect them to work on earth. No guns because guns work by basically throwing lead with an explosion. Explosions are basically just something burning really fast. Well the kinds of things that normally would burn really fast on earth don't here. It's still fast, but just not as fast as you'd expect on earth. That means you're better off just throwing that chunk of lead instead of trying to shoot it out. Electricity and magnets don't work quite the same way either. You can still make a coil of wire and push a magnet through it, but the charge that comes out is just way weaker. That means no electromagnets, no electromagnets means no generators or electronics."

Brian lifted the back of his helm to scratch his head. "OK, I guess that makes sense. But, If electromagnets don't work why do you have a coil of copper on your staff then?"

Charlotte raised her eyebrow in surprise at the big lug's observation. "That's a good question. Basically, elemental magic kind of takes the place of science for those things. The coil of copper wire on my staff is like, really 'attractive' to air elementals. It's kind of complicated to explain, but I have to weaken the membrane between the planes of existence and then attract an elemental spirit to cross the barrier. The copper coil and the different bangles on my staff serve as a focal point for the spirit and make it easier to control and direct."

"So you kind of ask it nicely for a favor? Like, 'hey buddy go zap those fuckers over there'?"

"That's not far off, but the simple spirits I deal with don't really do much thinking. They more or less operate on what we would consider 'instinct' and I have to coax them to do what I want with the elemental version of doggie treats."

Brian laughed at the mental image of a ball of lightning begging for a doggie treat. But he never got the chance to ask what kind of doggie treat an elemental spirit would want because at that moment Kurt began issuing hand signals instructing the party to take cover.

***

The party had drawn near the end of the cliff separating the two passes. As they came closer and closer to the plateau and the forest thereon, the cliff had slowly dwindled in scale. They'd be able to switch to the other pass in another seven or eight hundred yards, but that would put them within a stone's throw of the thick forest on the plateau.

Up ahead Kurt saw Brent materialize out of the thin tree line and motion for the party to take cover as he himself quickly made for protection of the toppled boulders. Kurt passed the signal on to those behind him and quickly got behind a large slab of falen stone.

Just a few moments later Brent crawled up beside him and made his report.

"There's at least twenty maybe more of those long dog things coming this way. The wind is shifting, it won't be long before the wind is blowing our scent towards them."

Kurt had noticed that too. Over the last couple of hours the wind which had been so strongly gusting down the pass had begun to lighten and it had dwindled to just a light breeze in the last few minutes. Likely the air pressure from the valley below was equalizing and would start to blow the other way within the hour.

"I think they know we're here. They're fanning out in groups of five or six and they've got our path blocked off." The ranger concluded.

"Alright, so we're going to need to make a play, even if we wait they're going to walk right up on us?" Kurt asked.

"I think so."

"Alright, let's go and get the others and make a plan."

(End of Chapter 5)

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Written by Charles Caplan, all characters and situations are fiction.