by Simon Archer
“I agree with Hudson,” Gobta added as we approached the hunter’s set of huts on the far left side of the village. “Should this ‘Ice King,’” he made finger quotes, “come along, we will easily crush him.”
“I am not so sure,” Elephelie said as she looked at her feet. “You are all quite strong, but he has an army of highly trained hunters who are all armed with bone weapons. That is in addition to his water and ice shamans. What we have cannot stand against him.”
“So, if this Ice King is so powerful, why hasn’t he come here and taken everything over already?” I asked. I wasn’t worried, really, more curious. After all, if what Hudson said was true, we had a good long while to prepare for him, and I’d make this place an impenetrable fortress before then.
“He is a staunch supporter of the old ways, and they forbid conquering other tribes,” Elephelie said with a glance towards me. “And while I wouldn’t worry normally, our alliance could be seen as defying the Holy Laws. It could give him an excuse to take us over, all under the guise of it being the Gods’ will.”
“Okay, so like this guy, but actually powerful.” I smiled at Hudson. “No offense.”
“It should be offensive!” Gobta cried. “He is pitiably weak.” He slapped Hudson on the back, causing him to stumble a few steps. “But we’re working on it.”
“I am not offended.” Hudson regained his composure and looked to me. “But think about how weak I am and how I was able to cow the southern lands.” He looked to Elephelie who nodded. “The Ice King is the greatest among us and would have squashed me like a bug.”
“Okay,” I said as I filed away that information for later. Perhaps, once Queenie was done crafting baskets, I would have her do a flyby and get us some more information, but for now, we had more important things to do. I turned my attention to the hunters’ huts. “So, uh, where is everyone?”
“Out hunting,” Hudson said with a satisfied smirk. “They will be in the lower levels watching their nets.”
Then, before I could ask why we had come here, he continued, “I only brought you here because I wished to show you the tools they work with.”
“Makes sense,” I said as he led us to a large, longhouse looking building made of leaves and branches. Like most of the other buildings, it looked almost like it had been grown rather than fashioned out of sea tree. In fact, I could even see spots where ancient twine had been used to help shape the boughs into place.
“Hudson, what is the meaning of this?” Gobta snarled as he stomped into the room and looked around in horror. “Where are your spears, and gaffs, and hooks? I do not even see standard fishing equipment.” He did a double-take. “All you have are nets and baskets.”
“Well, we have these too.” Hudson walked past the hobgoblin and then opened what looked like a storage locker made of leaves. Then he pulled out one of those weird harpoon guns. “These are quite effective at taking down smaller game.”
“Those are single-use though,” Elephelie commented before the priest could say more. “Once the spine is fired, it cannot be used again.”
“That is true,” Hudson said with a shrug, “but I make my hunters carry them, anyway. I would rather my hunters use them if their life depends on it.”
“Aww, you do care,” I said, somewhat pleased by the Amorphie.
“Of course.” He nodded fervently. “Do you know how difficult it is to train a hunter? The last thing I want to do is replace them.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Gobta mused. “You cannot return them to life once they have died.”
“Right, okay.” I waved off their conversation about the value of Amorphie life in the light of necromancy. “So, it seems what we need to do is get you proper equipment,” I paused for a second. “But let’s actually head down to the hunting grounds and see what you guys are doing.” I shot a glare at Hudson. “While this has been quite informative, I still need to see how you guys, you know, hunt.”
“You seem confident you can improve our methods,” Elephelie said as we turned and left. “Why is that?”
“Well…” I was going to launch into an explanation, but instead, I just reached into my inventory and pulled out a shitty spear I’d gotten off a hobgoblin during the fight in Jane’s Bazaar world. “Do you even have anything like this?” I showed it to her.
“How did you get something like that?” she gasped. “That would be worth…” Her eyes widened as she reached out. “Can I touch it?”
“Sure,” I said, offering it to her.
“I’ll be gentle,” she said reverently as she closed her hands around the shaft. “This wood… it’s so hard and firm.”
“Let me see,” Hudson said, and when I looked over at him, I saw he was enamored by my spear as well. As he took it from the Princess and examined it, he shook his head in shock. “It’s so thick.”
Elephelie nodded. “Yeah, it’s as big around as my arm.”
Hudson touched the top of the spearhead. “It’s sharp.” He thrust it toward Elephelie. “Feel the sharpness!”
She did just that, carefully running a slender finger along the head of the spear. Then she nodded once and looked up at me. “You are truly a man of exceptional qualities, Garrett. How you produced such a fine weapon from thin air is beyond me, but you are correct. We have nothing even close to this exquisite piece of craftsmanship.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Gobta said incredulously. “That thing is a piece of shit. I give those to pikemen because they’re ten for a copper.” He shook his head.
“A copper must be a huge sum then,” Elephelie swallowed. “But we could try to pay for it.” She and Hudson looked at each other for a long time. “Perhaps we could work out a deal.”
“You can just keep that,” I told Elephelie while Gobta shook his head in disdain. “And to answer your question: No, a copper is barely anything.” I waved off the discussion before it could really get going. “But yes, this is why I want to see what we’re hunting because as nice as this spear is, we can likely buy better equipment for you, especially if we can find something of value here that we can trade in the bazaar. After all, setting up economies of scale is the best way to do things in general.”
“What is an economy of scale?” Hudson asked as we moved toward a copse of sea trees where I realized there was a very crude pulls system rigged up for an elevator with a pair of able-bodied Amorphie standing next to it.
“It’s, um… basically a system where people only produce the things they are good at producing, and then they trade with other people for the things they need.” I followed Hudson and the princess onto the rickety basket elevator, and after I was satisfied I wouldn’t plunge through the floor, I gestured for Gobta to join us.
“Why did you not just say that?” Hudson asked as he gestured to the Amorphie who began to lower us down.
“I dunno. Anyway, it’s not important.” I sent a quick message to Melanie and Jodie to see if the Amorphie had anything of value we could sell in the bazaar. “What is important is that, one way or another, we can fix your lack of resources problem.”
It was true. Even if the Amorphie didn’t have anything the bazaar deemed valuable, just getting them into the stone age would be an improvement. If I had to spend some of my own loot to do that, it would be fine since it might help me complete the Discover the source of unrest with the indigenous life quest I’d picked up when I’d first entered the portal.
“I don’t see how we could ever repay you for that,” Elephelie replied with a worried shake of her head. “We have no way to pay you, and it is not as though I can bear your babies.” She took a deep breath. “And as beautiful as my sister and I are, I do not think an exchange of sex for equipment is good for the long term health of our future relationships.”
“You don’t need to have sex with me to get the gear,” I said with a laugh. “Trust me when I say this, I have a vested interest in making this work. You may not think you have anything of value, but trust me when I sa
y that there’s gotta be someone in the Bazaar who wants something on this world. Even if that isn’t the case, I am willing to fund you guys until you get a proper industry off the ground.”
“I do not know what to say to that,” Elephelie said as she looked at her feet. “It seems beyond nice.”
“I know what to say,” Hudson said as he held out his hand to me. “Thank you for your generosity, sir.”
“You’re welcome.” I shook his hand and then extended it to Elephelie. “What say you, Princess?”
“I think I should not look a gift walroid in the mouth.” She shook my hand. “But I fear that soon you will find that it is not worth your time to help us.”
“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it,” I replied as we reached the bottom and I realized we were hovering a few inches above a thick mat that looked to be made of sea-green kelp. Clearly, it was able to hold the Amorphie because sixteen of them were standing on it and holding nets as they looked down into the water.
“You certainly have devoted a lot of resources to hunting,” Elephelie commented as she swept her hand around, and as my gaze followed her movement, I realized there were at least ten more mats all full of fisher-Amorphie. “What is the daily catch from this?”
“One or two Baracudians, and usually a handful of smaller fish.” Hudson paused like he was thinking. “On the days we don’t get our catch stolen by Sharktopi.”
“Sharktopi?” I asked, and as I said it, both Elephelie and Hudson shivered.
“Massive creatures with rows of razor-sharp teeth and giant tentacles,” Hudson said. “They can smell blood from miles away, so when we manage to catch something, if it bleeds, we have to evacuate the hunt for the day, else they will come and kill us all.” He stomped his foot on the mat with a wet squish. “We have lost many hunters to them.”
“Which is why you probably try to net things,” I said with a nod as I watched an Amorphie pull in a net that only had three tiny fish in it. “Man, if I have to guess, that guy spent more calories pulling in his catch than he’ll get from those fish.”
“That is a good catch, actually,” Hudson said with a shrug. “There are not many small fish anymore for us to catch, and the bigger ones are beyond our abilities to pull in. Even when we catch them with our nets, they are too strong for us to pull up onto the mats.”
“Right,” I said as I turned to Gobta. “Can you jump in there and tell me what you find?”
“As you wish, my liege,” Gobta said and began to pull off his armor and stow it in his inventory. It was pretty interesting because as he did so, I actually watched it go into a subset of my own inventory.
“You cannot send him down there!” Hudson exclaimed as he stared wide-eyed at me. “He will definitely be eaten, and even if he is not, he will definitely attract something too big to handle.”
“Oh, I’m counting on that,” I said with a laugh. “Actually, on that note though, can you evacuate your hunters?” I smiled at him. “I plan on killing me some bigger fish.”
Hudson stared at me for a long time before sighing like a deflated balloon. “As you wish, my lord.”
As he and Elephelie began to gather the hunters up and send them up the elevator, I peered into the water. It was too murky to see very far, but I had the intense feeling that whatever was down there was waiting for me to jump in so it could eat me.
The thing was, as much as I was worried about that possibility, I knew we needed to get samples of everything we could and send it back to Melanie. Then, hopefully, she could analyze it and find something worth a lot in the Bazaar. After all, there had been more than a few times, I’d found someone willing to pay good coin for something absolutely ridiculous.
Besides, assuming I didn’t get eaten, we’d at least have some meat for everyone to eat. Speaking of which…
“Hey, Jodie,” I said as I pulled out the crystal connecting me to the Hall of Research. When she appeared in front of me in full holographic glory, I continued, “Can you buy me a bag of salt, a couple of barrels, and a primitive smoker. Some firewood too.”
“That won’t be a problem, Garrett,” Jodie hedged, “but know that since the world you’re in doesn’t actually have a trade agreement with the Bazaar, we’ll have to pay a lot more to get it.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s fine. We’ll have one soon enough.” I smiled brightly at the holographic catgirl.
“Is that my other job?” she asked before shaking her head. “You know, I signed on to work on machines, right? Not be everyone’s shopping bitch.”
“I thought you loved to shop?” I said as Gobta finally finished undressing and stood there clad only in his skivvies.
“That is not the point.” She huffed loudly. “Anyway, I’ll get it done, but you better find something to sell because we have to keep up trade to maintain the license. Melanie says that the fruit isn’t going to go over well, so you need to find something else.”
“Oh, I’m on it,” I said as Gobta began to do some stretches. “We’ll find something if I have to dredge the entire ocean.”
“I hope so,” she replied before cutting the connection.
“You do not need hope,” Gobta said even though Jodie was long gone. “You have me.” He smashed his chest with his fist. “G-G-G-G-Unit!”
Then he dove into the water.
26
Gobta
After hitting the water like a goddamned wrecking ball, I sank like a fucking stone. Why? Because I didn’t actually know how to swim.
Still, I didn’t let a little thing like not knowing how to swim stop me because I was Gobta, Undead Necromancer extraordinaire and leader of the famed G-Unit.
So as I plunged downward armed only with Sparkle, I wasn’t worried.
I especially wasn’t worried when a giant whale of a fish with a horn jutting from its forehead and more teeth than sense swam toward me. Its flat black eyes scanned over me as its stupidly huge jaws unhinged like it was a giant snake which was when I realized it meant to eat me. Clearly, it was as foolish as it was large.
Even worse, its yellow name let me know it had a stupid name that didn’t even have a single apostrophe in it. Didn’t this stupid, pitiable fish know how to name itself properly?
“Die, Hornswaggler!” I snarled as I hurled a bolt of concentrated necromantic energy at the creature. The blast went right down its stupid throat and punched out its tail area in a burst of blood and gore that made the murky water even cloudier.
As the Hornswaggler thrashed because the nerves in its body hadn’t already realized it was actually dead, I used a bit more of my aura to raise it into a proper unlife. Then I mounted my undead steed and rode it around like a fucking horse. Only underwater. And without a saddle. So, nothing like a horse really.
It turned out to have been an excellent idea if I did say so myself because the bloody creature seemed to attract other larger predators, ones that made my Hornswaggler look small. Thankfully, my undead steed was swift because as we moved away from the bloody cloud, the predators, all variations of teeth and tentacles with stupid names, kept right on going toward the blood in the water.
Part of me wanted to try fighting them, but they were large enough that I knew Sparkle would barely scratch their stupid scaled hides. So, instead, I turned my attention toward what Garrett had bidden me do, which was to scout the area. Unfortunately, even after I switched on my steed’s level six Necromantic Aura so that it would not appear appetizing to the larger predators, they didn’t seem to care. I suppose rotting meat was still rotting meat to them.
Even still, I did my best to look around, and I quickly realized why the Amorphie had such a problem fishing. Everything down here was large and angry. Even if, by some chance, they were able to fell one of these massive underwater cows, I doubted that they would be able to bring it up into their ridiculously squishy trees. And that was assuming they didn’t get swallowed whole.
In fact, it seemed like everything down here was a predator. I expected to
see, well, things that ate plants and whatnot, but there didn’t appear to be anything like that. It was as though this silly planet had opted to just increase the number of spines, teeth, and tentacles on any given creature. To be fair, though, if I were designing a planet, it is what I would have done. Create apex predator after apex predator so that only the strongest, most dangerous creatures would survive. Then I would hurl my enemies into a pit of them and laugh as they were torn to shreds.
“Hey, Gobta,” Garrett’s voice pulsed through the link between us. “What’s that shiny thing on your left?”
“Are you spying on me, my liege?” I asked as I turned to my left and saw what looked like a pearl the size of a giant skull… only it was glowing and coming toward me.
“Of course. Why would I send you down there and not look at what you’re doing?” It was a fair point, so I merely nodded, then I wondered if he could see me nod.
“Fair enough,” I said vaguely as I watched the pearl come closer and closer, which was when I realized it was attached to a fleshy tentacle which was attached on its other end to a mass of fucking teeth and fury. “Seems your pearl is bullshit. Some kind of fish lure thing.”
“Can you get it, anyway?”
“Can I get it, anyway?” I asked incredulously because the idea of taking on a forty-meter wide fish made of teeth was abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous. “Of course I can get it for you.”
Then, without pausing to think about how stupid this fish was for challenging someone a millionth of its side armed with only a very tiny sword, I kicked my Hornswaggler into action and tore ass toward it.
Only I didn’t get there because, as it opened its mouth to try to eat me, at which point it would learn I was far too tough, a giant… Sharktopus hit it from the side. And I don’t use the term giant lightly. This… Sharktopus bit the fucking lure fish in half in a single bite.
“Abort!” Garrett cried in my ear which was unfortunate because even though the word Sharktopus above the creature’s head was so red it was like it had been soaked in the blood of planets, I knew I could take it.