by Eric Ugland
Nutresh settled in his chair, and pulled out a small piece of parchment. After a quick glance, I could see it was the missive from Bottes.
“This is quite the, uh, transfer,” Nutresh said.
“Before we get deeper into the, uh, whatever you want to call it,” I said, “can you just explain how things work here?”
“In what way?”
“You said something about transferring ownership—”
“Of debt,” he said quickly, interrupting me. “Just of debt and contracts. These workers will be contracted to work for you for whatever time remains on their contract, or until they pay of off their debt.”
“So they have to work for me?”
“There is no coercion taking place. But you are able to call in their debt, at which point they will either pay what they owe or be placed in the debtor’s prison where they are forced to work it off. So most will take any job as long as the debt is not called.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling pretty gross about this whole situation. “Let’s do this.”
“You have been allotted five tier-one workers, five tier-two workers, and twenty bottom-tier workers. What is your industry?”
“My industry? I’m, uh, building a holding.”
“Construction.”
“No, well, I mean, I need a little bit of everything. Like, I mean, a blacksmith—”
“Do you have a smithy?”
“No, I will have to build one of those.”
“So you will need masons.”
“Yes.”
“Which makes me ask if you have a quarry.”
“No.”
“So you will need miners.”
“Yeah. And before you ask, I will also require a carpenter and—”
He held up a hand. “I will warn you: due to Osterstadt’s economy, anything involving wood working is very hard to find.”
“You have no carpenters?”
“We have several, but you are limited to the workers we have available and not already assigned. So we have but one carpenter free at the moment. We have no lumber jacks, foresters, arborists, or rangers.”
“Noted. Where might you start if you were building out a town?”
“By getting out of that horrible job.”
“Not one for the wilds?”
“Outside our walls is a barely-controlled wasteland. I, for one, refused to entertain the idea of stepping beyond the gates.”
“Okay. How about that carpenter?”
Nutresh nodded, and opened the ledger. He flipped through pages, reading and muttering to himself before finally finding what he searched for, and then setting the page down gently, he read over it once before looking up at me.
“I have a tier-two carpenter, a younger woman, and while she showed some promise, she just, well, she lacks motivation. Gumption.”
“Okay, that’s fine. I’ll take her.”
“She has four years left on her contract and, to be honest, quite a debt load, so I am reasonably sure she can be kept working for quite some time to come.”
“Excellent,” I said. “Is there another carpenter?”
“No. No one available.”
“Well then, one will do. Blacksmith?”
Nutresh smiled, and flipped through the pages.
“I have two—”
“I will take them both.”
“You have n—”
“No concerns.”
He nodded and smiled, and made a few marks on a piece of parchment.
But then, I noticed him notice something. I couldn’t exactly tell what it was, but he was looking over to the side, and he was reading something.
“Oh,” he said, flipping through his ledger, “it would appear, that is, I believe Mister Bottes has, uh, completed a major sell-off, and, well, it would appear he can no longer complete the, uh, deal as he—”
“So he is backing out of the favor he agreed to?”
“No, most definitely not. It will just require, uh, that you and I negotiate something you feel is a fair replacement.”
I frowned, and I leaned back in the chair.
“I have to say,” I said, “this displeases me.”
Nutresh had a rather forced smile on his face, and I could see a few beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.
A bell rang out in the city, something I probably would have missed if the two of us weren’t sitting in an awkward silence.
There was a knock at the door, and Nathalie pushed it open before Nutresh could even offer up an excuse why Nathalie couldn’t come in.
“The attack bell sounds,” she said.
I sprung to my feet, and looked across to Nutresh.
He immediately put his hands up.
“I am not a combatant,” he said, pushing back from his desk. “That is not my job in the slightest.”
I just gave a tight smile to the man, then nodded.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” I said.
Nutresh gave a wan smile. Which probably meant that he hoped I was about to perish in the fight.
Chapter 10
Nathalie led the way through the building and out into the city streets. I was busy pulling armor from my bag and getting it on my person. I was also thinking along the lines of strategy, trying to figure out what it was I could best do. Naturally, that made me think back to what Nikolai had yelled at me, that I would be best served mastering a single weapon first. Good thing I hadn’t taken that whole Weapon Generalist class.
We weren’t far from the Emerald Sea and the bulwark, making us some of the first up on the wall. As had been the case every time I’d seen it, the Emerald Sea took my breath away. It was just such a massive expanse of green. Trees literally as far as I could see. Tree tops, rather. And of all sorts of different varieties. The bulk were conifers, especially right up against the city, but further afield, I spied some deciduous leaves.
Birds flew above the trees in great swarms, making it clear something was headed straight towards us.
As other soldiers, warriors, and dudes with weapons started to arrive, I took a moment to reassess.
“Do you need help with your armor?” Nathalie asked.
I was about to say no, but I realized that while most of the time I just wore simple stuff, chainmail and the like, maybe it’d be better if I was able to take a little more punishment. That way I wouldn’t need to end every battle relying on my re-gen to survive.
“I’d love it,” I replied. I pulled out all the plate armor I could find, and we cobbled together the various pieces that fit until I had a patchwork of steel, and a few other metals, covering my body. I didn’t look particularly good — I looked a bit like a macabre clown — but I felt decent. My movement wasn’t limited. And even though it was heavy, I didn’t notice any sort of slowdown.
The other fighters on the wall, however, were laughing at me. I definitely heard a few bets get placed on how long I’d make it before dying.
I pulled out a handful of gold coins, and gave them to Nathalie.
“Put a bet on me making it through,” I said, pointing to a nefarious-looking woman standing at the far back with a small clipboard in front of her and no weapons about.
“You should not sully—”
“Just proving a point,” I said.
“You are a duke.”
“They don’t know that. Yet.”
She rolled her eyes at me, but walked away.
I put all my gear back into the unfillable knapsack, sure there were a few hoping to snag the bag off my corpse, and then I took out my best weapon at the moment, a battle axe.
Battle Axe
Item Type: UnCommon
Item Class: Two-handed Melee
Material: Iron
Damage: 24-46 (Slashing)
Durability: 100/180
Weight: 12 lbs
Requirements: Str 14
Description: A single-bladed axe meant for cleaving with a back spike meant for poking with serious intention and a top spike for
spearing.
It didn’t have the same sentimental connection to Cleeve, but it did have better stats. Only a single cutting edge, but a spike on the back gave me some more killing options. As did the spike on the bottom. And the top.
I gave the axe a few swings, getting used to the weight. Also, taking a moment to make sure my armor wasn’t going to pinch up anywhere.
Pointedly, there was a distinct lack of Legion.
There were some, a token force at best, standing at attention in the central spot they’d occupied the first time I’d fought at the wall. But instead of a massive force with a big shield wall ready to kick ass, it was a small group, maybe fifty legionnaires at most. I started over to them, but I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Do we have a strategy?” Nathalie asked.
I looked over at her, sword out and glinting in the light, a large shield across her left arm. Her helm was on, with the visor partway up.
“A lot of that depends on what’s coming,” I said. “As far as I know, there’s no guarantee of what it is.”
“Ah,” she said, looking out across the tree tops.
“And last time I was here, the Legion did most of the heavy lifting. But I’m a bit worried they’re not really coming to this party.”
“That would be bad.”
“That would be rather disastrous, yes.”
A soft rumble rolled out from down below, and there was a rush to the edge of the wall, everyone trying to get a look down at what was coming.
Someone yelled out: “NIUCLÖPS!”
I had to know what it was, so I ran forward, and I couldn’t help noticing that as I was going forward, most people were heading back. Some even left the bulwarks.
At the edge, I knelt down and peered over, expecting to see a massive monster of some kind. Instead, I saw hundreds of big monsters, maybe more. Bipedal, a verdant green, huge heads, wide bodies with remarkably large arms. They were climbing the cliff with fluid ease.
“Not sure what these are,” I said, watching as Nathalie looked over the edge, “but bipedal and big. I’m guessing our best bet is you tanking and me damaging. By which I mean, you keep my back safe, and I throw down.”
She nodded once and then closed her visor. We backed away from the wall, and took up a position about fifteen feet back from the edge. She stood to my left, slightly behind me.
I took a glance at the Legion.
Still about fifty bodies. They’d arranged themselves into a small line, protecting the stairwell leading back to the city. I couldn’t imagine that would do a whole lot. The creatures coming up the cliff wouldn’t mind a little hop off the wall.
There were guttural calls echoing out from the cliff, something approaching a song, but more chant-like, I suppose.
The adrenaline started to pump. I bounced on the balls of my feet. I closed my eyes, let everything fall away until I found a spot of calm. I took a few deep breaths, filling my lungs to bursting.
Screams sounded out around me, and as I opened my eyes, I saw my foes. It was time to battle.
The niuclöps had arrived.
Chapter 11
The niuclöps were interesting creatures. Nightmarish in their own way, but I could also see them as pretty badass. They were about 15 to 20 feet tall, and half as wide. Just massive things. Long arms wrapped with ropey muscles. They wore simple hide loincloths to cover their jiggly bits. Most interesting, they had eight heads at the top of their chests. Not really much of a neck, just heads, all of which held big mouths with large thick teeth. Some faces had tusks, some faces had big noses, some small. Tall pointed ears stood up straight, or had been torn off. Dark green tufts of hair were all over the place, both on top of the face and under the chins, and peeking out from under their arms. There was some grunting and grumbling between the heads, and between the niuclöps. But as they crested the edge, they stood still.
One roared, all eight heads going off with thunderous might. Another niuclöps joined, then another, until it was a veritable wall of noise. I could almost feel the wave of energy pulsate over me, and I involuntarily leaned forward.
Screams and shouts echoed out behind me. My fellow fighters were afraid.
I, for one, welcomed the shouting. I held up my axe with one hand, and gave all I had to my best blood-curdling yawp back at them.
It wasn’t quite as effective. I didn’t get the feeling that any of the niuclöps had even a remote fear of me.
“Whatever,” I said I turned to look over at Nathalie, “we got this.”
As it turns out, we did not.
Nathalie wasn’t there.
In fact, as I looked left and right, no one was there. Everyone had moved as far back as they could, regrouping at the back of the bulwarks, essentially hiding behind each other.
“Oh come on,” I shouted at the fighters.
I’d like to say I came up with some sort of rousing speech to give, something to be recorded into the history books as great words that turned the course of the battle. But instead, I got distracted by the rumbling steps of the niuclöps charge.
“Time to dance,” I said to pump up myself. Then I charged to meet them.
The niuclöps had quite the reach advantage on me. Also they had weapons, so as soon as I was in range, there were huge clubs swinging at me from every direction.
I dropped to my knees and slid under a massive club, looking up just in time to see a straight-up tree trunk go whistling by. I hopped up and immediately jumped over another swing, and darted to the left of another before getting my first swing off, absolutely going for the fences. The axe connected perfectly, right at the side of a knee joint that was as big around as me. The niuclöps roared loudly, and its leg snapped.
The niuclöp fell over, and I kept going, stepping around the falling form and hitting an overhand chop to one of the niuclöp’s eight heads, popping a skull open with the spike.
There was no time to celebrate; another niuclöps was already swinging at me. It was like all eight heads were watching me, somehow telling their bodies how and when to respond. The only thing that saved me was the sheer number of niuclöpses, because they constantly got in each other's way. Clubs smashing into other niuclöpses, as well as into other niuclöpses’ clubs. Then me, darting this way and that, swinging where I could, but mostly punching holes in the thick green skin with one of the spikes on my axe.
Viridian blood poured out of their wounds, and pretty soon I looked just about as green as they did. Any turn I made was accompanied by a gruesome spray of gore.
I skidded to a stop at the edge of the cliff just as a niuclöps was pulling itself over, and I took the moment to Sparta-kick the bastard off. He pinwheeled a moment, but then gravity grabbed hold and he tumbled down.
It made me wonder, immediately, why this wasn’t just the way things were always done. Push the invading monsters off the edge. But an answer provided itself very quickly. The kick had been super cool-looking, but also left me a bit unbalanced Which meant the niuclöps next to me was able to give me a little push, and I went over the edge.
“Fuuuuuuuck!” I shouted as I fell.
Chapter 12
As soon as I had the mind to, I swung the axe, pick first, at the cliff, stopping my fall. I was below the invaders now, which meant I didn’t have to fight my way back up. But it did mean I had quite a climb. I got my feet situated on the cliff face and slid the axe into my bag — a tough maneuver one handed — and started back up.
Climbing wasn’t particularly tough. The rock was really craggy, so there were plenty of handholds, and I had plenty of strength to work with. I loved it, actually. Plus, the blood covering me gave me just a little extra grip.
I reached the top just as the last of the niuclöps were pulling themselves up over the ledge.
Axe back out, I spun it once in my hand before charging.
Turns out the niuclöps weren’t that smart. They didn’t think to look behind them, even with eight heads each to survey the area.
&
nbsp; I leapt up, axe held high, and brought it down as hard as I could, slicing deep through the back of one of the niuclöps. The whole thing just opened up, insides becoming outsides and covering me in gore. I didn’t stop moving, just pushed through the viscera shower, coming through the other side already swinging.
Then I heard that glorious sound, the unmistakable slam of shields on rock, the legion forming up their shield wall. Shouted orders, and the steady tromp of metal shod boots. Whatever part of the legion that had shown up was doing its job. Finally.
I took my leave to fight laterally then, swinging my axe low and cutting the niuclöps at the knees or ankles, thinking that someone could follow along behind and finish off the job.
It was a gruesome but simple gig when it came down to it. The big guys were bruisers, but they didn’t work together in the slightest. Hell, there were multiple occasions where a niuclöps didn’t even seem to work amongst itself, the heads arguing about what they should be doing.
Bonus, though, along the way I got up a fun notification:
Smashing! You’ve learned a new language, Troll.
and I heard one niuclöps shouting at its other heads for doing things wrong.
Finally, a single niuclöps tried to make a break for it, and I launched my axe at it, end over end, hitting perfectly to slice three of the eight heads wide open.
Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to faze the creature, and it continued on, dropping down the cliff, and climbing away. With my axe embedded in head number four.
“I lose more axes that way,” I said, shaking my one head.
The rush of combat subsided, giving me a chance to look around. Corpses littered the battlefield. Nearly all of them niuclöps.
And I was the only one standing amongst the dead. Everyone else was at the far edge. The legion, having grown dramatically during the battle, was nearly as numerous as they had been at the previous conflict. I saw some familiar faces, and they waved at me.