Published at 3rd of August 2024 7:50 am

Book 2 Chapter 33: I Was Aiming For Her Head

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Coal rode his warthog into the clearing in the middle of a hearty laugh.

“And the man chased you right into the swamp?” he asked Lorna, who was walking next to him, her gator, Beast, bolting ahead of them with surprising speed so that he could leap into the water.

“Yes. He thought I was some kind of nymph.”

“Flattering.”

She nodded. “Yes, particularly when he was focused on me he didn’t notice the quicksand.”

Coal shrugged. “Oh well, there’s worse things to die over. He’ll be good for the soil too.”

She nodded. “It was a pure death.”

Fern and Ivey were behind them, flying through the branches as falcons that matched their own pair. They landed and shifted back into their elven forms. As they did so, their falcons dropped small bags from which they pulled clothes and got dressed.

Traizen moved to greet them. “Brother, sisters, welcome.”

They all gave a respectful nod to him.

“Ah, I see our newest brother has decided to return. I expected him to avoid these meetings if possible,” said Lorna.

Dantes shook his head. “I may not be here every time, but I said I’d bring some samples of what I could provide everyone…” He reached into his pack and began pulling out each of the small samples that he had. Guns, wands, and gunpowder were all arrayed in a small square in front of him. Coal, Lorna, and the twins looked over it closely.

Coal smiled as he opened one of the pouches of gunpowder, he took some between his fingers and rubbed them together. “Gunpowder and I are already very familiar with one another. While I appreciate what you’re trying to do here lad, I don’t think anything you have could be much use to me.”

Dantes smiled. “I don’t just want to make a trade of goods, information can be just as valuable. Where is your locus?”

“A valley near the endless mountain. A beautiful and muddy place hidden from the sun by the mighty peaks rising above it.”

“And has anyone been encroaching on it? Making your locus a more difficult place to maintain?”

“Well, some kobolds have been edging close to it. And my own people seem to think there’s some gold nearby in the caves that are part of my domain.”

Dantes smiled. “Is there gold in those caves?”

“Aye, tons of it.”

“But the nearby dwarves aren’t aware of it?”

“No. They only suspect it’s there. I sometimes crawl around the nearest underground town as a cave lizard and watch them. They seem to be preparing a larger expedition.” He stroked his beard. “You think I should kill them?”

“No… I don’t think that would discourage them. Danger with the possibility of reward isn’t enough I think. You need to make the expedition miserable, and a failure.”

“Oh?”

“Have their pack animals refuse to cooperate, have their camps torn through by wild hogs, sneak in and destroy their equipment whenever possible, have bats screech through the night so that they can’t sleep, and do whatever you can to make sure they don’t find any actual gold. Maybe make it so they find something else valuable, but not nearly worth the effort and suffering that they endured.”

“Perhaps moron’s gold?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Pyrite. It looks like gold to a layman, but is worthless. It’s also the name of my uncle’s least favorite daughter.”

“Yes, that’d be perfect.”

“And the kobolds?”

Dantes smiled. “I actually just learned about something that would be discouraging for them. Did you know there’s a particular kind of mite that likes to live between their scales?”

…

Dantes went into more detail with Coal, working with him to help protect his Locus from outsiders. Luckily, his problems were relatively easy to solve. As long as the gold wasn’t ever actually discovered, it didn’t seem like any more dwarves would have a reason to come there. As for the kobolds, they were looking for more living space, but if Coal filled his valley with the mites that tormented them. Mor-gan-may agreed to collect any she found, and she also mentioned that they really just ate blood and dead skin of any kind, but simply favored kobolds. If there were none nearby they’d just eat whatever was available. Cultivating them would be difficult, without their druidic influence having an effect on them, but was definitely possible. In exchange for Dantes’s help, Coal agreed to give Dantes any of the gold that could be removed or gathered without damaging any cave structures or harming the land nearby.

Lorna was next. Dantes knew her locus was a swamp, but only had a vague idea of what life was like on her side of the continent. There were a number of superstitions about the swamp that surrounded the floating city of Chitlan, Dantes and her worked on a plan to simply encourage those superstitions. He gave her one of the wands, one that was killed by creating a cone of frost, that would leave very suspicious corpses of anyone who she decided encroached too far.

The twins were easier in a number of ways. They lived in a massive plain that expanded between vast mountains. The nomadic locals were no trouble as they had close ties to the land, but there’d been new groups of people starting to farm the land. They knew that the soil would grow loose and become dust if the land was farmed for too many seasons without renewing the soil or replanting the native grasses. Dantes taught them how to make small explosives with the gunpowder he had, and to focus on the equipment and livestock of the farmers rather than the farmers themselves. If they died, but there was still a homestead with everything needed to farm there, then the land would just be sold to another farmer after all.

In the end Dantes let everyone have the first bits of advice and goods for free. He wasn’t yet sure of how they’d be able to pay him anyway, and giving a first hit free was a common practice back in Midtown.

Traizen refused any help, the area his locus was in was a vast tundra with little to no civilization aside from a few sparsely populated towns. Murk also refused help, because he was an asshole. Fizz and Thing arrived in the shape of Tigers carrying meat in their mouth, and that signaled that it was time for dinner to be prepared. Luckily they didn’t impose on Dantes to help, he wasn’t sure of what his capacity to hunt would be, but he doubted anyone wanted food with a dozen shank-wounds or a thousand rat bites on the meat.

Once dinner was done, everyone sat peacefully and contented with full stomachs. Dantes sipped from a small flask he’d brought and considered making a pass at Lorna or the twins, but before he could decide the energy in the clearing suddenly shifted. Dantes felt a kind of scratching in the back of his throat, and a heat in his left arm. He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve to see that the withered leaf on it was red and raised. He looked at the others and saw an odd mix of concerned and even fearful expressions.

There was a sound from the far end of the valley and everyone’s heads turned in unison to see a tall woman covered in a black cloak and wearing a plain white mask over her face approaching. The air around her seemed dense and sour, but Dantes didn’t see anything that could be causing it.

Jacopo radiated discomfort so strong that Dantes turned his full attention to him for a moment. He had buried himself in the jacket Dantes had discarded a moment ago. The other animals were reacting the same, only Thing seemed unfazed, though he had shifted into a possum for some reason.

The woman stopped roughly fifteen feet away from them.

“Hello brothers and sisters,” she said, her voice was like a whisper, but sounded almost like it was right in his ear.

Traizen stood, and stepped in front of everyone else. “Serpica. You still call us brothers? You left us. You killed a herd of mammoths within my locus, you stole herbs and potions from Mor-gan-may. Why are you here?”

“That was all necessary,” she said, as if that was more than enough explanation. “I’m here because of that,” she held out a gloved hand and pointed a finger at Dantes.

“Women seek me out from all corners of the continent it seems,” said Dantes, but no one else appreciated the humor.

“You should never have accepted a druid such as him into your ranks. He represents everything that we are against. Everything that has been taken from us is because of people like him.”

Traizen crossed his arms. “We did not choose him. The Mother did.”

“The mother’s judgment is faulty.”

Beast and Lorna let out a kind of hissing roar from their throats. “Do not speak of a greater god this way.”

“You do not know her as I do. Only when you are yourself a source of life can you truly understand her will.”

“Odd thing for-”

“-someone who abandoned her-”

“To say.” said the twins in their odd alternating speech.

“I did not abandon her. I simply had to gain distance from her to see things from a wider perspective.”

“All of this is moot,” said Traizen, his voice projecting across the clearing. “We have already accepted Dantes as a brother, and while we will always hold you with us,” he showed his forearm where her leaf shone red, “he has council of his own that many of us have accepted. Perhaps if you could speak with us outside of riddles and grand claims we could welcome you back to us, but not at the expense of a new brother.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Murk.

Dantes expected him to begin taking the strange woman’s side, but was surprised when he continued.

“I hated her from the start. Always makes any life near her shudder.”

Serpica shook her head. “Whether you welcome me back or not is immaterial. I am going to solve the problem. I simply wanted to see this thing you’ve brought into your midst for myself.”

Dantes stepped forward, he’d been keeping quiet to observe things before making any moves, but had heard enough. He pulled a pistol from the back of his belt and aimed it at her. “I don’t appreciate threats.” he pulled back the hammer, “Especially from someone that makes Jacopo uncomfortable.” Serpica radiated discomfort and danger and Dantes wanted her to know he could do the same.

Before anyone could speak anymore, the full attention of the forest itself seemed to focus on all of them. The pressure of that focus almost made Dantes’s knees buckle, but he stayed on his feet.

“LEAVE,” said Berkilak, his words meant for Serpica who, despite clearly trying not to, shuddered under the force of his ire.

She turned and moved toward the nearest tree, placing her foot inside of it, and looked back at Dantes. “I’ll see you soon. When the rest of you see me, you’ll be thanking me for what I’ve-”

Dantes pulled the trigger on the pistol and the bullet skirted Serpica’s waist. She fell into the tree, and was gone.

The rest of the druids looked at him.

He shrugged. “Murks threats we’re annoying enough to stomach. Hers were a step too far.”

“I’m impressed you could aim well enough to clip her like that,” said Coal.

“I was aiming for her head.”

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