by Sami Dougish
I looked back at the dwarf, and let out an irritated breath, and said, “Fine, I’ll let the mage do what she needs to do, after that I want some fucking sleep!”
Orizmad laughed, and said, “Deal, now after you are healed, get some rest, and if you are up when the sun sets, you can come and get some food. You haven’t eaten all day as far as I can tell.”
“Fine,” with that I turned away from him, and went back to the chair I had been sitting in. and waited for Marin to come back inside. I took several minutes, and I could hear Orizmad arguing with her. It seemed like she was reluctant to get within arm’s reach of me again.
“Despite lacking wings, more scales, horns, tail, and awe-inspiring appearance, you pull off draconic intimidation well vessel.”
I laughed at his comment, and said, “Glad to hear a real dragon approves then.”
I proceeded to lean back in the chair, and close my eyes while I waited for Orizmad to finally convince the mage to come back in. I could feel my leg stinging, as the quick movements I had made, had caused the wound to start bleeding again. I reached over to the bundle that Marin had brought in, and grabbed a few of the bandages there, and pressed them into the wound.
Eventually, I heard Marin step back into the room, and she glared at me suspiciously, as she moved over to where I was sitting. I returned her gaze with equal amounts of suspicions but made no aggressive movement towards her.
She slowly came around the table, and to my wounded leg. Without speaking, she knelt down again, and removed the bandages I had pressed into the wound. She quickly wiped the blood away and held her hand over the wound. She then began to mutter under her breath, and her hand began to glow with a soft green light. I felt the mana and power of her spell trying to overcome my natural resistance to magic, and the weak spell was stopped cold. I saw Marin, frown in confusion for a moment, and right afterwards, the glow around her hands brightened slightly, and I felt the pressure intensify, but still nothing happened to the wound. Marin gritted her teeth, and the light in her hands suddenly flared brightly, and I felt the mana overcome my resistance, and flow into the wound. I stopped my involuntary growl working its way out of my throat at the feeling of magic pushing into my body and forced it back down.
Now that the spell had taken hold, I felt the wound begin to shift slightly, but to my surprise there was no pain that followed the shifts. I looked down curiously at the wound but wasn’t able to see anything clearly as her hand was in the way. Still from what I could feel, the wound felt as if it were stitching itself back together. Less than a minute later, she drew back, and I studied the wound with interest. Where seconds earlier there had been a bloody cut, there was now nothing but healthy skin. The wound hadn’t been major, but it had still bitten deep into my thigh, and it shocked me how fast the wound had been healed. Despite my dislike of mage spells, I had to admit it was nice not to having to limp for the next week or so.
Marin looked up at me curiously, and spoke for the first time since entering the room, “That was interesting, that wound should have been healed by the lowest form of that spell, but for some reason the spell wouldn’t allow me to start knitting the wound back together. I had to expend a far larger amount of mana then that should have required. Were you resisting me? I have never met anyone who wasn’t a mage, who was able to resist a spell like that without enchanted armor, or something of the sort.”
Her question surprised me. All of the mages I had the displeasure of meeting in the past, had known of my kind’s innate resistance to magic, and had target me specifically because of that. Did she really not know that?
“You don’t know that my kind have a natural resistance to magic?”
Her eyes widened, and the anger and suspicion vanished from her face, and was instead replaced by excited curiosity.
“Really? That is incredible. I know of a number of monsters that are resistant to magic, but I have never heard of a sentient race that had such a resistance. Fascinating, I wonder what the threshold is, Is it the same for all the branches of magic, or is just for certain areas? Does the power of the mage affect the resistance? I wonder how your kind developed such an ability. Such a gift is more valuable then you probably realize. If you paired such a natural resistance with items that are enchanted to resist magic, you would be a veritable mage killer!” I stared at her slightly confused at her sudden change in demeanor, but she kept rambling on, talking more to herself then me, “There are draw backs of course, if a mage who specializes in the life school would have a harder time healing you, and if they didn’t have the more advanced spells, they wouldn’t be able to heal minor wounds, and in turn if they did, they would charge far more for smaller wounds then usual! You would have to be wealthy to afford a mage in that situation!”
Her eyes brighten and she looked back at me hopefully, and asked, “Would you be willing to run some tests with me? I’m curious to see what the range of-“
“No! what have I done this entire time to make you think that I would let you poke and prod me with different spells?!”
She didn’t seem fazed at all, and just kept talking as she pulled out a notebook I hadn’t seen before and started writing frantically.
I had enough, and finally said, “Look, just get the one on my ribs healed, and leave me in peace damn it!”
“Oh, yes, I can see if the non scaled areas have the same resistance! Need to get these stitches out of the way first though!”
When her eyes fell on the rough stitching job I had done, her enthusiasm faded as quickly as it had come, and she scowled, as she glared up at me.
“What by all that is good do you call that? No wonder you have so many scars, if that’s what you consider a good stitch!”
I ignored her, and she seemed irritated that I didn’t give her an answer, she got over it quickly though once she got started. She first cut through the stitches I had done, and pulled the threads out. After she had done that she placed her handover the wound, and began casting her spell. The process was exactly the same for this wound, and she immediately reverted back to her enthusiastic self, and began muttering excitedly again. I had enough. I wanted some fucking sleep!
Now that my wounds were healed, I stood up. Before she had time to register what was happening, I reached down, and threw her onto my shoulder. She yelped, and began to shout indignantly at me, as I bent down, and swept her supplies roughly back into the bundle she had brought in with her. Then with her over my shoulder, and the bundles of supplies in my other, I marched to the door, pulled it open, and unceremoniously dumped her on the floor, and threw her supplies on top of her.
“There my wounds are healed, your job is done, now let me get some sleep!” I shouted at her, as I slammed the door in her face. I bolted it, and walked across the room, grabbed one of the chairs, and rammed it up against the door. Once I was sure I wouldn’t be disturbed, I stomped back over to my place out on the balcony and laid down. Like an angry child, I pulled the pelt over my head, shutting the world out. I would finally get some real sleep.
Despite my anger and irritation from having my sleep interrupted, I ended up falling asleep almost instantly. When I finally woke up again, I felt worlds more rested, and had calmed down. I glanced up at the sky, and saw that the sun was half set, and would soon be night.
My stomach took that time to growl loudly, making sure I knew I was hungry. I remembered that Orizmad had said that dinner would be served around sunset, and I imagined a dwarf as wealthy as he was would have a feast readily available. If I hustled, I could probably grab some food, and bring it back to my room to eat in private.
With that in mind, I stood up, stretched quickly, and went to grab my gear. Raskorian was still sleeping in my mind, something that always confused me, how did a mental dragon sleep exactly. I had asked him once, and he had just looked at me like a bug he had stepped on, and I had dropped the topic. I spent some time strapping my armor back on, I still hadn’t memorized all the small clips and latches that kept
the armor together, and it took me a bit longer to get in on then I would have liked. Still, I got it on, and then went to my weapons. While I would have liked to carry the naginata with me, I had a feeling the large weapon would just get in the way in the close quarters of the house. Besides, as I had demonstrated to Marin, knives and smaller weapons were generally the better option in close quarters.
So, I strapped two of the knives to my belt, and followed them up with the now dented, and pitted hammer. I would probably need to get better quality weapons to go along with my new polearm. The daggers had served me well alongside the hammer and mace, but they were of average quality at best.
Once I had all of my gear situated, I glanced over at the mask. I had been sworn protection here, so I decided to just forgo it for now. I walked back over to the door that was still securely bolted and jammed shut by the chair. I unbolted it and placed the chair back in its proper place before pulling the door open and walking out into the hall. The area was quiet, and I was able to recall easily enough the direction the Ekton had taken me to get to this room in the first place.
After a bit of walking, I found myself back in the main hall of the mansion. I passed several servants as I had made my way through the mansion, and most of them, ahead stopped, and pointed at me. They didn’t realize that I could hear most of their conversations with my sensitive hearing, so they spoke freely. Most of what I heard was a mixture of shock, fear, and disgust. It wasn’t anything new, and it was better the open hostility I was used too. I guess being vouched for by the head of a powerful smuggling organization went a long way to keeping people in line.
I didn’t feel like asking one of the gawking servants for directions, so instead, I closed my eyes, and flicked my tongue out, and took a deep breath through my nose. After a few minutes of walking around doing this, the scent of food, fresh meat being the strongest, finally wafted through my sense. I turned in the direction of the smell and made my way down a hallway off to my right.
As I moved closer and closer to the smell, I picked up the scents of other foods, drinks, and even people. I also heard boisterous laughter, followed by avid conversation. Finally, I ended up in front of a large wooden door, which led to what I assumed was a feasting hall of sorts.
I slowly pushed the door open and was greeted with the sight of nearly everyone who we had saved, including the raiding party, eating, drinking and singing. The room was filled with a multitude of large tables, and servants bustled around the crowded room, carrying drinks and food. Torches hung from the walls, casting a bright light in all direction, and heating the stone encased room. I saw artwork adorning the walls, along with large animal pelts, and other such displays. There was a large clearing in the middle of the room, and I saw a small crowd of people dancing in the middle of the room. Several bards were sitting near the scent of the room with a variety of instruments playing a lively tune that had the dancers excitedly swaying in all directions. Overall, the room was impressively built, large pillars supported the curved ceiling, and alongside all the torches a large chandelier hung from the ceiling of the room, and from what I could make out, it was made from pure gold.
I shook my head at the overly ornate piece, “Dwarves,” I muttered to myself, what was the point of something like that? It probably wasn’t just a dwarf thing though, as many nobles in Thuum had similar pieces as well, maybe those had been dwarven made as well, there certainly wasn’t a shortage of dwarven slaves in Thuum.
I took another moment to sweep my eyes across the room, and I spotted Orizmad at a slightly raised table in the back of the room. He looked to be in the middle of a drinking match with Brazkin, and Oktai. Primus and Adarossa were talking with each other as they ate from large platters of food, occasionally taking large swigs from their mugs.
Everyone was dressed in regular clothing, I realized that I was the only with armor and weapons. That suited me just fine, I was here to grab food, and head back to my room. I fortunately hadn’t barged into the room, and what with all the people talking and eating, I had gone unnoticed for now. I quietly slipped into the room, softly shutting the door behind me.
I carefully avoided being seen and stayed back in the small amount of shadows cast by the pillars. Fortunately, most people were focused on their food, and the dancing in the middle of the floor. I saw at one end of the room that one of the tables was mostly empty of people, as all the people at that table had moved off to the dance floor. I made my way over and looked over the food.
There was a large variety of meats, which immediately caught my attention. There were large slabs of what smelled like beef that were covered in a layer of spices I wasn’t familiar with, though that wasn’t saying much coming from me. There was a large platter topped with a line of whole grilled chickens that appeared to be stuffed with something I didn’t recognize. In the middle of the table was an animal I didn’t recognize, but it had been cooked whole with a spit through its mouth.
Next came a large line of vegetables of varying colors. I wasn’t too interested in that, so I moved on from there. Next to the vegetables though was a varied selection of deliciously bright fruits. There were grapes, berries, apples, melons, and a whole list of fruits that were unknown to me, but still looked delicious.
My tongue flicked out of its own accord, tasting the scents of the foods, and a shiver of anticipation ran down my spine, as I glanced around seeing if anyone was watching the table. Satisfied no one was, I grabbed a large plate off the table. It looked to have been used, but I didn’t care. Quickly I stacked a large amount of meat on it, I didn’t care what kind it was, just as long as it was meat. This was topped off by a smattering of fruits, and several rough torn pieces of bread. I looked for a drink but saw nothing but an assortment of ale’s and beers. It didn’t bother me too much, I could settle for the spring water in the washroom back upstairs.
Thankfully, no one had seen me, so I backed away into the shadows again, and careful to keep my plate balanced, I skulked back over to the door. Once again no one seemed to notice me, and with a sigh of relief, I reached the door.
“AHHHH THERE YOU ARE VAKAARIAN! WELCOME, WELCOME, GET YOUR GRUMPY ASS OVER HERE, I SAVED YOU A SEAT!”
“Ugh” I groan in frustration; I had been so close to getting out unnoticed. I closed my eyes, as if praying for a quick and unnoticed exit, but I wasn’t so lucky. That had been a boisterous sounding Orizmad, and following his outburst, the entire room, which moment before had been full of people singing, talking, and dancing, was now dead silent. I heard people all look over to where I was, and people began whispering and pointing me out.
It was at that moment that Raskorian decided to wake up with a massive yawn, saying, “Ah vessel, so close, yet so far.”
“Shut up!” I growled at him, as I turned around, and glared at the dwarf who appeared to have stood up and was now moving towards me.
I glared at him, and said, “No, I will eat in my room.”
Orizmad seemingly unfazed, laughed, and now that the room was completely silent, his strong voice, echoed even more loudly around the room, as he said, “No, nonsense! I was just about to propose a toast in your honor you know! Now come along and get yourself some food!” his slightly unfocused eyes fell on the platter in my hand, and he looked back up to me, and laughed so hard, he nearly fell over.
“You, you actually tried to sneak in here, and back to your room without anyone seeing you!?”
“Yes, and I will be going back to my room now! I will see you tomorrow, to collect me reward, and be on my way!”
Orizmad still laughing, said, “No, Nope, why is it always money and reward with you eh? And that’s rich coming from a dwarf too! How about this, I will pay you a small bonus, if you sit your bad tempered, covered in scales ass down at the head table, and eat that delicious meal in your hands! Come on now!”
I had never been paid to eat food before, but I wouldn’t complain. I turned back around, about to agree, when Adarossa stood up, and called over to Ori
zmad
“Boss! What are you doing? If that animal wants to eat alone let him! I have no desire for his disgusting company!”
“I second that!” Primus said as he stood, glaring at me as well.
“Last time I was within arm’s reach of him, I ended up with a knife at my throat! You already have shown him enough hospitality Orz, leave him to eat in his den like the animal he is!” Brazkin chimed in, as he looked hatefully towards me.
I heard a number of other people in the room voice similar sentiments, which I found funny seeing as I had been the deciding factor in keeping these ungrateful shits both alive, and free from the slaver’s shackles. Still I didn’t really expect much different. So far only Oktai, and Orizmad hadn’t shown any discomfort whatsoever with me being what I was.
Orizmad spun around, his seemingly drunken demeanor seemed to vanish, replaced now by a harsh look that radiated authority and anger.
“Quiet! All of you! He is a guest in both my house, and this base. I have extended him dwarven hospitality, and I will not have that sullied, by any of your prejudices or discomforts! You dishonor him, and you dishonor me! What has he done to deserve your hate?! So far, he saved most of our lives, and nearly killed half the garrison single handedly while we went and freed our men! Could any of you have done that!”
Orizmad looked enraged as he swept his gaze over the assembled mass before him. It was moments like these, that the seemingly boisterous, and good-natured dwarf showed his heavy handed, and commanding side.
Orizmad continued his speech, still angrily shouting at the assembly, “He then led the rear guard to cover our escapes and carried Brazkin back on his shoulder while wounded! Stop complaining about his knife at your throat too Brazkin, you were in the middle of revealing his secret that would get him killed in Thuum, are you really surprised he acted in defense?! Plus, he let you go, once I promised him that no harm would come to him! So far from what I have seen, only you are the ones acting in a disgraceful and ungrateful manner! Shame on you all! You have all disappointed me!”