I could feel the effects of the deathcap mushroom fading, on top of the exhaustion from the battle and my duel, I had nothing left. In spite of that I kept myself standing. I had a feeling that the stonemen were the type to sense weakness and take advantage.

The stonemen had ceased their chanting and were looking at one another in surprise. I heard an exchange of words I didn’t recognize, and then a few of them went to check on Tog. They flipped him over and I saw that he was still breathing, which I found surprisingly relieving. I’d killed quite a few stonemen today, and if I was going to find out what was actually happening with the kidnapped people in the caverns, it would probably benefit us to have the stonemen keep their leader.

Once they were sure of his condition, they all turned to me. I was dead on my feet, but met their attentions as best I could. They all kneeled for a few moments, then stood and one of them approached, a stonewoman with a well kept beard.

“We will honor the Gra-Thuk. Our conflict is ended, we will answer all questions you ask.”

I nodded, then turned to the roof and looked at Elle and Zevrack. “Those two will question you, but I must speak with them first.” I moved over to the building and looked up at them. They leaned down to meet me halfway. “I’m maybe a minute from passing out. I’ll have to leave the rest to you two. They said the conflict is over. Don’t trust them yet.” I started leaning heavily against the wall, and Zevrack scrambled down to catch me, and as funny as that would’ve been to see, everything went black before he could reach me.

…

My sleep was dreamless, black, and soothing. I was very upset to be broken away from it into light, pain, and annoyance. I was in a mushroom bed, my feet hanging off its edge, in a room lit by the soft glow of some moss. I was bandaged in some places, but I found that the majority of the pain I was experiencing was soreness that seemed to have seeped deep into my bones. I tried moving, found the experience excruciating, and fell back down. I decided to take things slow. I pulled up my notifications.

Congratulations! You’ve completed Men of Stone and Blood by using both violence and diplomacy!

Reward:1000xp, You are now well regarded by the village of Mykas, respected by the Stonemen and Buried Claw, Companion options available

After that was a flurry of kill notifications followed by another level up. I placed the new points into SPD and DEX. They just won me that last fight, it made sense to keep investing in them. After that I dismissed all the other notifications and pulled up my sheet. It made more sense to see it summarized than go through all of the prompts one by one.

Cormac

Half-Elf

Lvl 4 Mercenary

->XP: 3720

->HP: 52

Stats:

STR: 13

->DEX: 16

->SPD: 16

INT: 14

WIS: 10

PER: 11

CON: 11

LCK: 8

Known Skills:

->Sword (LVL 8)

Club (LVL 6)

Mace (LVL 5)

Axe (LVL 5)

Stolen novel; please report.

->Spear (Lvl 8)

Hammer (LVL 5)

Bow (LVL 5)

Dagger (LVL 10)

->Improvised Weapon (LVL 7)

Barehanded (LVL 9)

Stealth (LVL 3)

->Feint (LVL 3)

Trapfinding (LVL 3)

->Negotiation (LVL 1)

Abilities (Racial):

Half Borne of Magic

Abilities (Class):

Anything in a Pinch

For the Right Price

A Job is a Job

Abilities (Unique):

Left Hand Free

Spells:

Flash Step 1x per day

Grease 1x per day

Spark unlimited uses

It seemed like open heavy conflict was an excellent way to raise one's stats and level quickly. Though at the clear cost of possibly dying at any moment. I focused on the new Left Hand Free ability.

Left Hand Free- If one hand wields a weapon and the other is empty, you receive a 30% increase to the speed of actions with the free hand

Now that was a game changer. I was already leaning into a combat style that left one of my hands free. It seemed that the system liked when people leaned into what they were naturally good at, and rewarded them for it.

Now that I was feeling more awake I decided to give that whole ‘moving’ thing another try. I started slowly, tilting my head left and right, then moving my arms a little and finally my legs. As I moved the soreness actually lessened and eventually I was able to sit myself up and dangle my legs off the side of the bed. There was a clay cup and pitcher with water on a small table next to me. I poured a cup and took a drink. As the cool water went down my throat I realized I was enormously thirsty. I picked up the pitcher and drank straight from it. Water dribbled down my chin, but I ignored it, just trying to imbibe as much as possible, as quickly as I could. Once it was empty I sat it back on the table.

I stood up. I was wearing fresh, dwarf sized clothing. I started making my way out the door, but the dwarf councilman with the crown of mushrooms entered before I could get to it. He looked up at me with surprise.

“You’re up!”

I made a show of the fact that I couldn’t stand up all the way due to the low ceiling. “As up as I can be. How long was I out?”

“Two, nearly three days.” He looked down at the ground. “I apologize.”

“Why?”

“I gave you the deathcap, in spite of not being certain of how it would affect you.”

I shook my head. “It’s fine. There’s a good chance I’d be dead if I hadn’t been available for the fight.” I sat back down on the bed. No reason to leave right away if I could get some answers from mushroom head. “What’s your name by the way?”

“Bordami.”

“Cormac,” I held out my hand for him to shake and he looked at it confused. “Sorry, old custom on my world.” I demonstrated a hand shake to him with my other hand and he nodded, then presented his own. I gave it a firm shake. “I should’ve introduced myself sooner, but things have been pretty busy since I got here.”

He nodded and held out a fist, then bumped it with his own. “That’s the traditional greeting among dwarves Cormac.” He held out his fist.

I gave it a solid bump. I considered telling him that was also used among a lot of people on Earth, but I decided that was more a conversation to have with Elle later. “How have things been since I’ve been asleep?”

“Both better, and worse.” he leaned against the wall. “The stonemen have honored the conditions of our duel and we have been communicating with both them and the Buried Claw about our missing people. Elle has determined we’ve never had kidnappings occur at the same time, and they rotate from stonemen, to the kobolds, to us, and back to the stonemen. Rockelle believes that means there’s only one entity doing all of it. She also found that near all three of us are caverns with running water. Salt water, rather than the fresher water we’ve tapped for the town. They’re working on a way to track where it all goes, trading maps between the three of us. There has been only a single kidnapping since the battle. A young kobold.”

I closed my eyes and took a moment to digest all of that, then I pulled up the first quest I’d received when I’d made it to Tu’reyne.

System Quest

Not as it should be:

A being is living in this area that was not granted access by the system or the gods. Eliminate it or return it from whence it came.

Reward: Significant XP, Hidden, A Choice

When I’d arrived and spoken to the mushroom dwarves I assumed that this quest was about the stonemen and hadn’t thought twice about it, focusing instead on throwing myself into things. Looking at it closely now it was clear it referred to only one being. Whatever was kidnapping people in the caverns, that was the reason I was here.

“How tense are things overall? Between everyone I mean?” I asked.

“The kobolds were upset that the conflict ended without them taking any territory, but once we all sat down we promised them whatever territory the kidnapper has as well as anything they’ve taken, excluding any living people, they settled down. That last part took a lot of negotiation.”

“And the stonemen?”

“Surprisingly cooperative, especially since their leader awoke. Now that they know we weren’t the ones who kidnapped their people they feel they owe us a debt for what they’d done to us.”

“Why did they suspect you?”

Bordani chuckled. “They found us scary. Can you believe that? They said our colorful clothing, fungus fields, and general manner scared them.”

I chuckled back as if agreeing that it was ridiculous, but truthfully that made a lot of sense. The mushroom dwarves were scary. Wearing glowing clothes and decorating their buildings in shifting colorful light, not to mention the horror that was their graveyard and mushroom field. Even looking at Borgani with the mushrooms growing out of holes in his head made me a little nauseous if I looked too closely. “Any idea where my weapons and armor are? I think it’s time I joined the hunt.”