Agility:
318
“Okay, well, that idea was a dud.” Dave pushed himself upward before he was overcome by a sort of vertigo.
“Ahhh, shheee! Man, this is the worst brain freeze ever!” Dave yelled, gripping onto the side of the cot. Information rushed through his mind—techniques on summoning circles and how to open different planes. A smorgasbord of information seemed to open up within his mind.
It finally dissipated after some time, leaving Dave panting with fresh sweat rolling down his face.
Suzy opened the tent’s flap. “What did you do now?”
The rest of the party was behind her. Deia walked past her and into the tent.
“I figured out how to get you a contracted creature.” Dave smiled.
“Are you okay?” Deia checked Dave over.
“Yeah, just a lot of information to process. With my high Intelligence, I think I made way more connections than I thought I would. Damn, I have a few ideas of how the portals work, even.” Dave looked to Malsour.
“Well, that can wait for now. We’re needed to support Kala’s forces that are moving into the field. We’ve got an hour. Everyone, get some food into you and we’ll get going soon.” Deia looked to the rest of the party.
They quickly moved to their own nearby tents and started working on getting ready.
“Well, I think I need a shower.” Dave raised a hand. A small shower appeared on the side of the tent.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Deia asked.
“Come join me in the shower and I’ll show you just how okay I really am.” Dave winked.
Deia pursed her lips. “Fine, but hands to yourself. We’ve got work to do.”
“Okay.” Dave smiled, and then destroyed half of the shower and conjured a bigger shower with multiple shower heads. “Damn, I could get used to this new control. With the higher Intelligence stat, it’s so much easier to make complex things.”
Deia dropped her armored breastplate on the ground, followed by her shirt underneath.
Dave stopped admiring his newfound skills, instead focusing on the beauty in front of him.
“You can’t go into a shower with full armor.” Deia’s pants dropped to the floor.
“Umm, okay,” Dave said, numbly pulling off his armor as Deia glanced back at him. She took her time walking to the shower and turning it on as Dave dismissed his armor.
She looked back at Dave, biting her lip. “You going to hurry up and join me?” She pivoted on her foot, showing off her full figure before she stepped into the shower.
Dave nearly fell flat on his face with the whole new perception of time, but he somehow made his way into the shower. His hands fell on her shoulders, working on the kinks that lay there.
She let out a relaxed groan, moving backward so that she was pressed up against his lower half. Dave’s hands worked on her back, edging downward and then snaking across her front. He swept her hair away from the side of her neck and kissed it lightly.
“I said no touching,” Deia purred, her hands reaching back to find him.
“Some rules were made to be broken,” Dave whispered in her ear, biting it gently.
A message appeared in his view.
Private Message: Kol
Kol> Lady Kragr of Aldamire Mountain wishes to speak to you. It seems that she saw some magical artillery coming from Devil’s Crater.
I’ll talk to her later!
***
“With what we’ve learned from the portals, we’ve been able to come up with a number of different circuits that could reduce the power draw and increase the range of the teleport pads without having to use one to jump the others’ signal to get all the way around Emerilia. Of course, we’re looking into the magical coding side of things. With Dave’s skill, it seems that we will be able to reduce that power draw even further and our corrections will not need to be so strict on short jumps, thus less intensive, unless the other items we’re connecting to are way out of alignment.” Ela-Dorn took a deep breath as she looked at the council members.
She looked as though she hadn’t slept in days and she couldn’t give a damn about sleep or anything that got in the way of her research. Hamdir hid a smile behind his hand, knowing the work that it had taken to get her out of the college and to Alephir to report to the council.
Her people were coming out with new ideas and firming up theories. It was one hell of an impressive feat.
“You say over longer distances—how long are we talking?” Frenik asked.
“Well, we can connect to portals right now, but they’ve been stuck on a singular system. For all of their advances, they’re linked to one another. Have one portal here, then another at a different location, put them on the same frequency and link them up. As long as they are given power, then they will connect to one another indefinitely. With the teleport pads, we can connect to multiple different locations, but then we’re thinking about differences on a planet. There are a lot less things we have to worry about. The portals’ connecting frequencies, which we are still trying to figure out, are pretty difficult, though I would say that we could connect to another portal on some of the closest planets or moons where portals are located.” Ela-Dorn shrugged.
A shocked silence filled the room. They all knew of the difficulties that the technicians and academics had talked about with connecting two teleport pads over Emerilia. Being able to do it between entire star systems was a lot to take in.
“Well, it seems that you and your fellows have been rather busy,” Hamdir said.
“It’s hard to get away. It’s so fascinating; we are finally getting an answer to all we’ve been thinking of,” Ela-Dorn said with a proud smile.
“Unfortunately, we can’t talk about the portal and all we’ve learned from it for the entire meeting. First, I must bring a request that Josh of the Stone Raiders has made. He and his forces are fighting with the Beast Kin and Demons of Devil’s Crater against the Demon Horde sent by the Dark Lord. Their forces were badly mauled. They’re currently hunting down nearly six hundred thousand Demons and Demon Champions around the cliffs of Devil’s Crater. Josh has asked for our help in clearing the area.”
Before Hamdir could continue, Sela spoke up. “What kind of support do they need?” The usually laid-back Gnome leaned forward, her face serious as she looked to Hamdir.
Hamdir closed his mouth as he looked around the table. “I know that the Stone Raiders have helped us out a lot, but are you sure we want to show ourselves like this?” Hamdir asked.
Koza raised his hand. Hamdir indicated for him to talk.
“The Stone Raiders didn’t need to help us, but they did. They’ve cleared out our cities and facilities, something that we couldn’t have done for another few centuries. As you said, we need to look outward instead of just inward. We share a common bond with the people of Devil’s Crater. They were banished like us. As we were helped in our time of need, we must help those in the same situation. Anything else and we have failed. I ask what the Stone Raiders need. Me and mine will be proud to support them,” Koza said.
As Hamdir looked around the table, he knew the people there. He had served on the council with them for many years as the rest of Emerilia seemed determined to hunt them down before the Pantheon finally found a way into their homes, trying to root them out.
They were no longer the scared people who had hid in fear, thinking that any moment one of the Pantheon’s forces would flood their homes, slaughtering all.
They remembered that mind-numbing fear. They knew what it was like to call for allies and have none answer. The Stone Raiders had answered, even when they were at their weakest and most vulnerable. They had come and helped, laying down their lives and their hard-won experience, to come back again and again until they saved the Aleph’s homes.
“Josh requests scouts if we can send them. There is a large area where the Demon Horde is spread out. If they know where they are, then they might be able to help deal with it all. The
re are many wounded; people are without shelter and it is cold,” Hamdir said.
“I have passed out the message,” Shard said.
Hamdir looked up to Shard, seeing a proud smile on his face. When Hamdir left, he had felt like Shard’s caretaker. Now it felt as though Shard were some kind of guiding spirit, watching over those who fell under his protection.
“We can help with most of these military matters.” Koza nodded.
“With the new enchanted greenhouses, we can easily spare some food,” Meda added. “I know that a few of the healers would also volunteer their services.”
“I have maintenance workers who are good at shifting dirt around and making shelters,” Sela added.
“My people can help out with building and fixing as needed.” Frenik looked to Sela, who nodded in thanks for his support.
“Koza, you go first with the automatons and controllers you need. Liaise with the forces within the crater and see what other aid we can provide,” Hamdir said.
“I will see to it immediately.” Koza stood and saluted Hamdir.
“Very well.” Hamdir nodded to Koza. The Elf Halfling turned and marched out of the room. All across Alephir and the Aleph’s facilities, automatons started coming online, storage racks moving as the automaton legions of the Aleph activated for the first time in over three hundred years.
Chapter 16: With Friends Like This
Dave touched the small Mirror of Communication he had looted from a PKP member. As he was watching Deia dry her hair with a directed Fire spell, the tent and she disappeared.
He appeared in the conference room that the Council of Anvil and Fire met at every week.
Waiting for him was a hard-looking woman.
Her eyes locked onto Dave as soon as he walked into the room.
Oloh Kragr
Dwarf
Level 285
“Well, you must have damn Giant’s blood in you to be that damned tall.” She looked Dave over.
“Nah, just Dwarf Halfling. Guess I got the height from the Human side.” Dave took a seat opposite her.
“And the bulk of the Dwarves. You must be Dave Grahslagg, the first Master Smith who isn’t full Dwarf. Hope you aren’t one of those mutts who just gets their body modified without actually having the strength to back it up.” Oloh’s eyes narrowed as she studied Dave.
“This is all me, though I don’t think that my physical proportions are the purpose of this meeting.” Dave gave her a pointed look.
“Well, yer a damned Dwarf, that’s for sure. Hate all that flowery talking crap. Right, you been shooting off a ton of magic over in Devil’s Crater?” Oloh asked.
“Yeah,” Dave said.
“Why?”
Dave thought about trying to keep the information from her. She would find out about it soon enough and maybe he could forge an alliance between Aldamire and the Devil’s Crater residents.
“The Dark Lord made a Demon Horde and directed them to walk across Ashal in order to become more powerful. They were supposed to settle in Devil’s Crater. You might have heard that in a year or so that there will be creatures that threatened Emerilia’s survival coming back from the grave. Well, not all of them were bad people. We helped the Demons who rebelled against the Pantheon and the Beast Kin who disappeared a few centuries ago. They were in Devil’s Crater and they weren’t going to give it up to the twisted Demon Horde under the Dark Lord. Yesterday, the Demon Horde reached the cliffs surrounding Devil’s Crater. We killed nearly one and a half million of the Demon Horde, but there are still hundreds of thousands who escaped death and are now trying to find a way through the cliffs and keeps of the crater to try to finish off the creatures living here.”
Oloh looked to Dave, as if analyzing how true his words were. “You swear on yer hammer?” she asked, her voice solemn.
“I swear on my hammer,” Dave agreed.
She took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “Well, damn. That is one hell of a pickle. These Beast Kin and Demons in Devil’s Crater, what are they like? Are they honorable folk?”
“The Beast Kin have a code of honor that would make Dwarves give them some grudging respect. The Demons used to be rather wild but now they are finally getting their footing and figuring out their place in the world as not just a roaming horde, but as a race putting down roots,” Dave said.
Oloh rapped her knuckles on the table for a bit, looking to the ceiling and thinking.
“Right.” She hit her knuckles against the table with finality. “Should I be worried that Aldamire might be attacked?”
“I don’t believe so. As the Demon Horde dispersed, what I’ve heard is they’ve been trying to find other ways into Devil’s Crater.”
“So, would be best to keep them there and fight them?” Oloh said dryly.
“I would think so,” Dave agreed.
Oloh took a deep breath. “I have two full Warclans and their supporting artillery, mages, and engineers who are ready to move in a moment’s notice. I can get them to you in about six hours. I will have four more clans ready to move an hour after that.” Oloh’s eyes found Dave’s.
“Aldamire’s forces are yours to command, Master Smith.”
For a few minutes, Dave didn’t say anything. He had seen some of the power that the Council of Anvil and Fire gave him with the new artillery he’d been lent. Now, he was able to call upon the Warclans of Aldamire to support his cause that the council had given their blessing for.
“Thank you, Lady Kragr,” Dave said.
“I know my oaths and trust in the council.” She waved off his thanks.
“Still, it is a large risk to fight someone else’s battles when you could have looked the other way. As for transport, there is no need for the Warclans to walk when they can use the teleport pads.” Dave sent her a message with the information she would need to connect with the teleport pad within Unity.
“Impressive. How did they get a teleport pad?”
“We gave them one.” Dave shrugged.
Kragr’s eyebrow rose in apparent shock. She let out a little laugh and shook her head. “I’ve heard stories of you and the Stone Raiders. It seems that the stories weren’t as wild as I thought.”
***
The teleport pad activated. The Stone Raiders watching the pad and the DCA backing them up immediately went on alert. No one had told them of anyone coming through the teleport pad.
A Half-Elf wearing ebony and steel armor covered in powerful runes and Magical Circuits stepped out.
“I am Council Member Koza. Josh said that he required reinforcements?” Koza asked.
“One second, sir. I will contact him,” Matt said. He was one of the crafters who had been learning under Dave while they put Aleph’s facilities back together.
“He sends his thanks. He will make sure that word of your arrival is passed around. He asks that you meet him up at Alkao’s keep.” Matt shared a waypoint with Koza.
“Very well.” Koza closed his interface.
As he did so, automatons started jogging out of the teleport pad. Dozens of scouts headed for Alkao’s keep.
Koza took off at a jog, outpacing the automatons. Matt watched the flood of creatures.
***
Malkur watched the approaching automatons. They had run out of the teleport pad and through the city in single file. As they exited Unity, they formed into four wide and fifty deep ranks. Controllers, Aleph who commanded the automatons, ran beside their creations. It was hard to tell them apart because their armor was in the same style as the automatons’ bodies.
There was something powerful about seeing two hundred creations all moving as one. Their feet made a rhythmic pounding as the first groups of scouts were followed by flying drones that whizzed out over Alkao’s keep and searched the cliffs around Devil’s Crater for signs of the Demon Horde. Fighter, archer, and finally behemoth formations marched to support the DCA.
Just who the hell are these Stone Raiders? With more training and proper equi
pment, I wonder if we, too, will have the same impression as these Aleph.
“General, we have reports that the teleport pad is active again. This time, there’s Dwarves coming through!” one of the aides nearby said.
Malkur enhanced his sight, looking to Unity as a dark group started to emerge from the city, following after the automatons.
Then the drums started, striking a chill down Malkur’s spine. He knew those drums. They were the drums of a marching Dwarven Warclan. He remembered all too easily how the small but bulky Dwarves had used their armor and shields to keep the Demons at bay. They were relentless, never tiring, never upset nor happy.
If there was ever an enemy Malkur never wanted to fight in open plains or attack in defensive positions, it was the Dwarven Warclans.
The drums beat out a tempo as Malkur surveyed the Warclans sub-groups. Blackened steel armor covered every inch of their bodies, turning them into miniature tanks. As they marched, their line never wavered. It was perfectly straight, with the Dwarven shields on their backs, ready to be deployed in a moment’s notice.
They moved in units of one thousand shield bearers. Battle mages, engineers, and their war machines followed. Ten square formations formed and marched out of Unity, their steps in time with their war drum adding to the volume.
“When the Dwarves march, the very earth is their war drum,” Malkur said.
“What was that?” Vrexu asked from beside Malkur.
“Never attack a Dwarf’s home or be the focus of their ire. Those armored bastards will hunt you and grind you into paste.” Malkur didn’t look away from the moving masses of their reinforcements.
“Maybe they can help teach some of our people? I sure as hell don’t want to fight them,” Vrexu said.
***
Dave and Josh walked into the command center, glancing at the Mirrors of Communication set up for those who were away.
The three Dwarves, talking among themselves, moved to greet them as they entered.
Their leader saluted Dave. “Warclan Leader Fonrir at your service, Master Smith,” he said. The two behind him stood ram-rod straight; one male, one female, both with eyes that Dave knew only too well from other POE veterans.
Emerilia Series Box Set 2 Page 47