The weakest of the undead is the skeleton. Mindless creatures that often rattle as they move. They are either currently under control of another or following the last set of orders they were given. They are easily returned to rest with blunt force but are resistant to other physical damage types. Where you find one of these creatures you will likely find more. - Common Monsters
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Adrian
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It turned out the open beds in the church meant blankets on the floor in one of the side rooms. I don’t notice any clergy here so I think they are just using the building. Charity in a church, makes sense to me. We sit at a table in the room we are being loaned for the night. There are a few others who have been staying here for a while.
There seems to be a few hundred people that are living near here. They have a lot of guns but seem to be running low on food. These people look like they are losing weight, there must not have been much food storage here. Should I trade food for ammunition? Maybe, I’ll ask the others after our talk with this old man. Aaron is not here, he had to go back to his job.
A young woman comes in with a small pot of what smells like a thin soup. She looks scrawny, she has missed more than a few meals in the last week. They are rationing food.
“My name’s Tom. So, why are you all dressed in those clothes?”
I introduce the names of everyone before answering his question. “Our other clothes became too tattered and these clothes came from their dead.”
The old man nods, “how has your small group managed to do that?”
“Guns, swords, and a bit of magic.”
“Magic? I can’t believe that.”
I pull out an apple from my Void Cache and toss it at him. He is startled, but catches it.
“What do you call that then?”
“It’s food, how did you . . .”
“I stole it from the Althaen, the people that are dressed as I currently am.”
“Althaen? How did you steal from them?”
I smile, he is too curious now to think of what to do with us. While I don’t think Aaron would want to fight us he isn’t in charge. This man is, and I don’t want to give him the opportunity to act as the Althaen did.
“Guns, swords, and magic. The Althaen have numbers and some nasty tricks but they are human and make mistakes. What do you want to know about? How they act? Where their camp is? Where they keep their food? What are they doing with those they kidnap? Where they came from? What do you want to know?”
Tom ends up asking me about each of the questions I offered him. I told him the truth, I left out things like what makes them find a person to be a noble and how you can get out of being a slave. The things that make them seem better. Tom is suitable angry about the Althaen invaders who brought their problems to us.
I know that the picture is not quite accurate, but getting Tom to attack and harass them until I am far gone will be helpful. They might even have enough guns to take them out. Soon enough he knows all we can tell him about the layout and strength of the camp, and he doesn’t want to hear more about how they act. Abagail helped quite a bit in my explanations, she knew more about the layout than I did.
Tom takes a breath and then moves onto another topic. One I think is more important to his group’s immediate survival.
“Is it possible for you to give us some food before you leave?”
I smile, I have quite a bit of food for six people but for the hundred(s) that he leads I’m not sure how much my stash really counts for.
“We could trade. Some of your weapons for some of our food.”
He frowns at the idea of trading.
“It’s a good deal to trade. You saw me pull that apple out of nowhere, you know that fighting me for it won’t work.”
He sighs and nods. “We may have a lot of guns but ammunition doesn’t grow over time.”
“I understand and that is why they have value now. You can have a quartermaster or whoever you have in charge of your supplies talk with Abagail over the quantities to trade. We have paid well with information already, give us a good deal on this part.”
“Alrigth, but how much can you even trade?”
I close my eyes for a moment, it helps me visualize what is within my Void Cache. I have a few dozen fifty pound bags of rice, a similar amount of flour, a few gallons of honey, thirty boxes of cereal, three loaves of bread, a small crate’s worth of: apples, oranges, and bananas. There are also the few dozen bottles of wine, and some bottles that I think are actually juice. This is not counting the few dozen meals that are still around from that feast.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“We could trade up to a few hundred pounds of rice and flour, and a few bottles of honey.”
There is a look of surprise on everyone’s faces. Did I forget to tell them how much I had managed to take? Oh well, they know now at any rate. There is a bit of excitement in Tom’s face, this certainly will help him should we trade. I wonder how many people he actually has here.
Little else happened the rest of the night. Abagail took care of the trade negotiations and I think she did a good job. She got more .22 ammo than anything else but she did get us several guns and quite a bit of clothing. She ended up adding most of the Althaen clothes as disguises for more bullets.
I no longer have any rice or flour but she got us the following: 4 Pistols (9mm), 1 Rifle (.45), 600 (.22), 120 (9mm), 60 (.45), a bulletproof vest, and a shotgun for the 12 gauge shells we already have. She ends up with both the rifles and the vest, the other items will mostly sit in the void until needed.
As we all start heading to sleep I pulled out the beds I stored upon request this morning. The trio surrounds me on a bed. There are others in the room so we only cuddle. The other men in the room seem jealous but I do not care about them. Abagail does not like that the trio all were with me either. She is Bryan’s or will be at some point. I do not mind that she does not agree with everything I do. I do appreciate that she leaves her disapproval to just looks.
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I open my eves to a grey expanse, this is not the Grey Dream though. There is no reason to go there tonight. I will not have gained enough to be worth spending it. I hear the roar of a dragon and howl of a wolf.
My mindscape shifts, I am in the stands of a colosseum. I am sitting next to me-but-not-me; within the gladiatorial ring there are two beings. A dragon and a wolf, both far larger than my current self. Even so, I do not feel threatened by either one.
I can tell the dragon is dragon-me, he is growing stronger. He is solid, physical form of my draconic traits; my pride, greed, and raw power. The wolf has silver fur, it seems similar to the wolf beast K turned into under the full moon. There is savageness within it, an embodiment of primal desires; desires to eat, mate and kill. The wolf seems thin though, it looks strong but it is not as much a part of me as the dragon.
It feels foreign, like it could be a part of me but it is not yet. The wolf lunges at the dragon, they refuse to coexist. Then this mental world freezes and me-but-not-me speaks. She seems a bit different than before, a little wilder.
“Do you know what they are?”
“Beasts that exist within me.”
She smiles, “close enough. They are things you could become, alternate selves that could consume us.”
“I did think that dragon-me might want to be dominant.”
She laughs, “careful, you want these beasts to become more like you. Not you become them, slowly integrate into you not the other way around.”
“So, what is going on here?”
“The fragment of you that is a dragon does not like sharing. He would destroy me if he could, but I am you and you are stronger than he. This puppy however is not you and is weaker than he.”
“He wants to kill it then?”
“Yes, but we could force them to play nice.”
“Why haven’t we then?”
“The consequences of doing that would be great. Any woman you obtain would be tainted with the wolf, most will not be able to handle it. Our physical body would also react poorly should the wolf stay unless the dragon is destroyed.”
I frown, this wolf is lycanthropy. A disease that is both a blessing and curse. It is why me-but-not-me seems more wild now, because it would make me more wild.
“What can we do?”
“Allow the dragon to kill it, but I think we would just catch it again from the wolf girl.”
I smirk, I know how I caught this and I cannot honestly say I wouldn’t do so again. Me-but-not-me continues, “Alternatively we could force them to coexist, but our physical self would mutate and suffer from it. It would eventually happen if a permanent solution isn’t found.”
“You speak as if you know of one.”
“There are a few; tear out the wolf within the wolf girl, cast the girl aside, or chain the wolf in a way that does not tie it to our physical self.”
I continue to frown. I won’t do the first two suggestions; K is my friend I will not abandon her nor destroy a part of her. Ripping the wolf from her soul would shatter who she is, and I don’t want her to be gone.
“How do I chain it?”
“Right now, you cannot. Learn to twist the spirit and soul of others in reality and then I could help you do so. Until then we must rely on the dragon to consume it.”
I frown, I do not want to destroy this thing that is a connection to K. But I do not want to drive the twins mad from a wolf entering their souls either.
“How can I make sure the twins aren’t harmed from what they gave me?”
“Lycanthropy is a disease, easily cured before the full moon after infection. Just kill the disease within their bodies. No one will even notice.”
Me-but-not-me smiles and then fades out of this dream. Time resumes, and the two beasts crash into each other. The dream world shakes and the wolf is torn apart with dragon claws.
It reforms its existence thinner, the dragon unchanged from their few moments of fighting. I watch, there must be something else I need to do here before I wake. The wolf dies a few more times before it truly ceases to exist, and I feel calmer after it ceases to be within my mind.
The dragon turns to me, he is not dragon-me but tather a piece of his subconscious.
[Do not think to make me share you. A dragon does not share. You will learn to be me.]
“No, you will learn what you are. A fragment of me, that is all you are.”
The dragon roars and charges at me. Stupid prideful dragon, this is my mind and my existence is stronger than yours within it. The colosseum collapses and the world shifts. Now the dragon is caged, I should not leave the dragon like this but for now he is trapped.
“You are a part of me. I am in charge and this is my mind.”
The dragon laughs.
[I am growing faster than you. I will overtake you.]
“No, you are just a fragment of the part of me that is a dragon. You bend to him and he bends to me.”
The dragon begins to shrink, and I dismiss the cage around him. My dragon is not a threat to me, and locking him up would weaken me. He is however right on one thing, most of my growing power is him, my own power needs to grow or he could become a threat to my identity. The dream fades, I have slept enough.
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I open my eyes, it is only a bit past midnight. I smile at the trio as I remove myself. I just do not need as much sleep anymore unless I am injured or recently bought changes in the Grey Dream. I think it is from Void Sustenance. It is time to practice magic, none are looking and I need to learn to do more. This is my power that is not from dragon-me.