by ilo man
“Not if you want to get out of here alive.”
“No, the ring, shall I tell them about the ring?”
“Why not tell them about rescuing Lavender, defeating the twins and then leave it at that, eh? Dwarves are quite the verbose and outgoing species, but also fairly prudish.”
“Got it.” He raised his mug and shouted, “Cheers,” and then told them of yet another titanic battle, one between him and two female gargoyles brought to life by an evil necromancer called Erectomort.
The applause rippled back and forth and gasps of amazement peppering his words. Vinnie felt great. He was entertaining again and had a rapt audience. In the end, he called for a guitar and sang to them, a sad ballad about a magical ring and a beautiful nymph.
Atrixa pulled him down after. “I said to tell a few lies, not fabricate whole fucking mythologies. What’s the matter with you?”
“I just got carried away. It felt good to—”
Ice flowed through his veins sending him rigid.
Warning: Discretion Guaranteed, that is our tagline. All who break it by giving away aspects of their real life will receive a loss of esteem equal to the severity of the crime. Consider yourself warned. No second chances. Third chances in your case.
Vinnie shut up. Atrixa seemed to understand. “Next time, stick to one story.”
Gorbon served up some roasted hams and flatbread, topping up Vinnie’s ale. “Grand tales,” he told Vinnie.
Your status with Gorbon has altered. You have risen from 0, indifferent, to plus 2, friend.
Your status with the dwarven nation has altered. You have risen from 0, indifferent, to plus 1 still indifferent, but better.
Vinnie did like-wise, but couldn’t alter the status of the human race and the dwarves, though he did note it was a lowly minus two.
“Why aren’t humans and dwarves friends?” he asked.
“Because most are duplicitous, some pretend to be on the king’s side, when they’re really on Sivatous’s. Some don’t even care enough to do that. They worship the dark brazenly. No, the human race is not to be trusted. At least with an orc you know you’re in the shit, and with a kobold, you are sure to be swindled. At least you know where you stand.”
Vinnie understood, but it made him sad. He looked around at the cheery dwarves, cheery in their slum, and his heart burst—his 1.5 compassion welling up.
“You, Vinnie, are revered among the dwarves. You are a rock brother as Atrixa is a rock sister. We will escort you to Hundenwyrdich. We will take you along paths that few have seen, and we will deliver you in double-quick time.”
Vinnie thought that was nice, as he swigged more morning ale. “So, when do we set off?” he asked and hiccupped.
“As soon as we’re done eating.”
Vinnie gulped. Sorrell waved from down the table, and Vinnie decided he loved him.
You have altered your status with Sorrell. You have changed it from 0, indifferent, to 4, friendly.
“I don’t like him as much as you,” Vinnie whispered to Atrixa, none too quietly.
She grabbed his arm, her lips brushing his ear. “That’s because you want to bonk me, Vinnie,” Atrixa whispered back. Vinnie immediately cherried up, but her lips lingered. “It’s okay Vinnie. I might fancy me a bit of that monumental cock and a touch of your ring.”
Vinnie stiffened in anticipation, but then wondered about the hint of humor in her tone. He wondered if Atrixa wasn’t playing with him, or not, more to the point. He supped some more ale, munched on his meaty sandwich, and imagined romping with the half-elf sitting next to him. By the time Gorbon rose and told them it was time to leave, Vinnie felt quite light-headed. When he tried to walk outside, he was quite unsteady on his feet.
Sorrell grabbed one of his arms. “Are you drunk?”
“A smidge. I always drink while I perform,” Vinnie explained.
“This should be fun,” Atrixa hissed under her breath.
Vinnie staggered back through the drab village. Gorbon marched up to a troop of a dozen or so dwarves, all looking remarkably similar apart from differing colored beards, with some plaited and some not. He was unceremoniously loaded onto a cart, propped up on one of its two facing benches and held upright by Sorrell’s sure frame and Atrixa’s draping arm.
Gorbon sat opposite Vinnie, grinning away at the lagging hero like he could do no wrong. “Take us half an hour to get up to the mine. Have you got any questions?”
“Did you bring any ale?”
All the dwarves laughed heartily. “A true rock-brother,” one said to the next.
The cart wound up the trail and away from the lake. The wheels slid on the wet mud, horses whinnying, the carter straining to keep control, but before long the trail leveled and dried, and Vinnie gawped at the majesty of the vibrant, deciduous forest as they trundled along. A while later, they stopped at a clearing. A small rockface that curiously resembled the front wall of a stone cottage, but with an oversized entrance, broke the forest’s green backdrop. The moss-laden rocks around it gave the impression of being ancient crags, and the black of its doorway was no more than an open maw into the unknown.
“Have yea got any magic?” Gorbon asked.
Vinnie shook his head. “Nope, but I’ve got a Little Book of Spells, though it’s got nothing written in it.”
“Then yea can have this one. It’ll be the first.”
Gorbon has gifted you the spell, Dwarven Light. Dwarves often spend weeks in the bowels of the earth, mining precious metals, scouring caves for stunning gemstones, searching out old ruins and seeking banes. While dwarves have attuned to the dark and their night vision is better than most, they use soft light to see. This light isn’t harmful to any creatures who live in the deep, deep, underground. Dwarven light isn’t an expensive spell and only uses five mana per hour. Dwarven light must be attached to a lamp, torch or staff.
“Thanks, man,” said Vinnie, “but don't got me no staff.” He shook his head, suddenly realizing he was speaking drunk-rockstar. “I mean, cheers, but the staff I used to kill the Witherer was Atrixa’s spare one, and I kind of ruined that.”
Gorbon grinned and put his fat fingers between his lips and whistled. A burly dwarf with a rangy black scattering of hair appeared in the dark entrance. He had a black staff in his hands, each end shod in silver. He ambled up to Vinnie, holding the staff out.
Borbon has gifted you a staff. Its name is Skullsplatterer 2. It has the following stats.
Plus 20 radial blood splatter.
Plus 15 brain mush.
Plus 20 crania scatter.
Who am I kidding? You don’t need those kind of stats. If a sword slides into your guts, you die. If an arrow catches you in the eye, you die, and if Skullsplatterer 2 is smashed down on your head, your eyes will burst out like shot musket balls, your skull will implode, you’ll taste brains and then die. It’s that simple; you don’t need plus five attacks, you need to smash the fucker straight down on your enemy’s noggin and watch the bastard crumble.
You can also attach the dwarven light to it.
Skullsplatterer 2 comes complete with either a larval orange or passion purple carrying case.
See small print for details.
Vinnie took the staff. “Thanks, Borbon, Gorbon, all of you. Thank you so much. What can I ever do to repay you?”
“Well, there is just one thing,” Gorbon said.
Gorbon has offered you a quest. Stabilize the tin market. The hobgoblin overlords are flooding the land with tin mined using slave labor. Gorbon wants you to stop them and bring the price back in line so that he and his village can make a decent living again. Quest reward 2500 XP & increased status with the dwarven nation. Do you accept? Y/N
Vinnie nodded and pressed the Y. Gorbon clapped him on the back. “Thanks, it would mean a lot. Us dwarves, we don’t ask for much, just a roof over our heads, honest toil, and a few dozen ales a night.”
“Well, I hope I can complete the quest,” Vinnie said earnestly but
heard familiar laughter in his mind.
“What?” barked Little Red. “Have you turned into a sap or something? Stab him, plug me into his neck. Let me feed, Vinnie, let me gobble that dwarven blood down. One more feed, Vinnie, and I level up. Level 2 baby, we’ll soon be on our way. Wanna control the tin market, control the road south. You n’ me, Vin, we could go far. Get me some blood.”
“All right, all right,” Vinnie hissed. “As soon as I can.”
“Are you okay?” Atrixa asked him.
“Yeah, fine, err,” Vinnie replied. “Just trying to, erm, just trying the spell. Trying to do that.”
Pro Tip: To activate a spell, it first has to go in your spellbook. As you haven’t chosen the magic skill, you are limited to the spells in your book, and they cannot be the most powerful as the spell simply wouldn’t fit. Read the spell, learn the spell and recant the spell when you need it. All the time it is in your Little Book of Spells, it is available to you provided you have the necessary mana.
Vinnie took out his book, opened it, and sure enough, the spell appeared on its first page. He began to read it.
“Oh star in the sky,
Lend me your light,
Thanks.”
“Is that it?” Vinnie asked.
“What did you expect?” Gorbon turned and started walking to the shadowy entrance. “It’s only a light spell, if it took ages, you might as well fire up a torch.”
Vinnie shrugged. “Fair enough.” He recanted the spell, and a ball of soft light appeared, settling on his head.
“Attracted to the wood,” Sorrell muttered as he lumbered past.
Atrixa took his new staff and fished his ball of dwarven light off his head. “There,” she said, giving it back to him, and firing up her own. “You’ll get the hang of it. Spells can be mischievous little buggers. You’ve got to take control while you cast it.” She marched off after Sorrell.
“Three lines,” he called after her. “It was only three lines, and one of them was thanks. How the hell am I supposed to master that?”
He stood there, scratching his head, checking for spell residue, goo, or whatever it must have left. When he realized no one was taking any notice of him, he huffed and ambled to the entrance.
Chapter Nineteen
The mine was a lot bigger on the inside than its simple entrance had promised. As Vinnie strode into the semi-darkness, he immediately gasped. He’d expected some cramped mine shaft with dingy lights and dead canaries. He certainly hadn’t expected the walls to vanish on either side of him creating a sizeable chamber. Vinnie’s dwarven light caressed its rocky sides, and he noticed how soft its shine was. It licked up the jagged, gray walls, settled on the few rows of tables, and illuminated the little bar counter.
Gorbon signaled Vinnie over, and Borbon handed him a mug of frothy ale. It appeared that everything the dwarves did revolved around a beer or two.
“Go steady,” Borbon told him, and furrowed his eyebrows, or might have done, it was hard to tell with his mess of black hair shooting everywhere. “Yea don’t want to be feelin’ queasy on yer ride down.”
Gorbon steered Vinnie toward one of the long tables. Atrixa and Sorrell had already taken a pew, and both were puffing on bone pipes, ales in hand.
“Ride down,” Vinnie enquired. “Exactly what do you mean by, ride down?”
“First bit,” Borbon said, squeezing in next to him. “First bit’s a little hairy, but it evens out over the chasm, and throughout the ancient city, then it slows right down when we get to the first face—a tin one.”
“Soon picks up again after, though,” Gorbon huffed. “’Especially near the ruins. Mind you, you don’t want to be hanging around there, what with the ghouls n’ like.”
“Ghouls?”
Borbon roared. “Take no note. Gorbon thinks its haunted.” He carried on laughing like it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.
“And is it?” Vinnie asked more tremor than inquiry in his voice.
When no one answered, Vinnie decided it was a wind-up, a noob thing, something to get under his skin. Naturally, he decided to worry about it right up until they drained their ale, emptied their pipe pots, slapped him on the back, and jumped up, wandering off to the back of the cavern.
Vinnie followed, no longer quite so uplifted by the trip, but his curiosity soon got the better of him. The gray cavern walls gradually narrowed. A pathway ran straight through its middle, worn smooth by tread and time. Either side, a mass of picks and shovels, hammers and long chisels, short chisels and wrecking bars stood in higgledy-piggledy ranks. Vinnie strode through, his brand new staff in hand, its soft glow illuminating his little area, almost umbrella-like. He saw a little queue up ahead and slowed, suspicious of what he saw.
Atrixa had hung back. “We’ll get the next cart.”
“Cart?” Vinnie didn’t expect an answer. He’d guessed. A nice gentle ride awaited him. Though they’d tried their best, no way could Gorbon and Borbon outfox a street-wise son-of-a-biatch like Vinnie Targetti. “So, fast eh?”
Atrixa shrugged. “We need to get to the Wanton Witch as quick as possible, so yeah, fast.”
Vinnie rolled his eyes. Her too.
“If the cart tips over and you all go flying, splattering into walls and what not, don’t forget your little demon chick in her pocket-rocket,” Little Red reminded him.
“Are you always this bloodthirsty?” Vinnie said, then saw Atrixa staring at him.
“What?” the half-elf asked.
Vinnie started to say something, but saw the queue had vanished, just him, Atrixa, Sorrell, Borbon and Gorbon left. A wooden wagon rolled around, its wheels guided by grooves carved and worn in the rocky floor. Gorbon opened a little half-door, and they all got in.
Sitting in the bottom, Vinnie was head and shoulders above the cart’s side, and he settled in for the ride. Sorrell sat behind, Atrixa right next to him. Her free hand rested on his knee. It felt good. Life was good.
“You take the brake, Borbon,” Gorbon hollered from the front, and Vinnie turned, looked around Sorrell to see Borbon had grabbed a big wooden paddle that looked much like a tiller handle.
They edged slowly forward, creeping a foot, then another, the wheels squeaking away as they turned. They slowly rolled towards a small rocky archway, edging closer. Vinnie craned his neck. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought the ground vanished a little past it. “Must be a sharp turn,” he mumbled.
“What do you mean, ‘Am I always this bloodthirsty’,” Atrixa asked all of a sudden.
The cart lurched, the wheels ground. The cart lurched again. The wheels screamed. The cart sped down an impossibly steep slope. Vinnie screamed. The cart hurtled down, bouncing around. Everything around him blurred, apart from Atrixa and Gorbon in front. Vinnie tried to clamp his jaws shut, but his terror gland was having none of it, wanting to open up even more orifices. Atrixa grinned from fine-pointed ear to fine-pointed ear. Vinnie struggled to keep his bowels in check.
The swilling contents of his ale-engorged belly suddenly levitated up into his throat as the cart banked, leveled, and sped off along a slightly gentler incline. The blur of rocks began to slow, and Vinnie saw they were passing along a hewn tunnel, no exit in sight. They slowed even farther, and Vinnie took a breath, beginning to relax a little, wondering where the stench of scorched wood was coming from. Trundling along, Vinnie beamed, enjoying the ride now. Atrixa squeezed his knee and nuzzled in a bit.
“About time you showed me your ring again,” she whispered. Mini Vinnie stirred, the trip suddenly becoming interesting for him. “I’m not so much bloodthirsty as—”
“Hey Gorbon!” shouted Borbon from behind. “The brake’s burnt through.”
Borbon tossed the smoking tiller-like piece of wood over Vinnie. Gorbon turned and caught it. “Meh!” He shouted back. “They should be far enough forward. I doubt we’ll crash into ‘em.”
“Brake?” Vinnie repeated, the tunnel came to an end, and the cart hurtled down another
slope.
Atrixa grinned, and Vinnie screamed, but they soon slowed again. This time, they passed through a vast subterranean cavern. Stalagmites rose in tall cone-shaped columns. Stalactites plunged, like a dragon’s jaws. They careened between them, threading a perilous path. One moment they all leaned one way, the cart on two wheels, then with a thump they tipped back down before rising the other way.
Vinnie screamed his throat dry, Atrixa whooped, and the cart forged on. Just as Vinnie thought his heart was going to give out, the cart began to slow again. Just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he realized he couldn’t see anything apart from a rocky ceiling. Slowly, like a man opening a door knowing there was a maniacal killer on the other side, but needing to see anyway, Vinnie peered over the wagon’s side.
At first, he thought it was a bright orange hair stuck onto a jet black floor. Then he thought it must be a brilliant tangerine whip, as it was surely bigger than a hair.
“The larval rivers of Middle Sea,” Atrixa told him. “They stretch in every direction for as far as you can sail on them.”
Vinnie fancied pulling her up on that last statement, mostly because there was no way you could sail on a sea of larva. As he was about to, he realized a flying sack of bones had already tried to kill him, and he’d screwed a water nymph in the not too distant past, and therefore assumed everything was possible in this land.
“What have they got? Boat’s made of pumice?” He scoffed.
Atrixa cocked her head. “How did you know that?”
He gave her one of those looks, one that both questioned her sanity and wondered if she was stringing him along, but ended up subliminally accusing her of farting—that kind of look.
Eyes front, he decided and turned away. Now, a vast wall reared up, a shimmering, glowing sheet of metamorphic beauty. The orange from below picking out mirror-like flecks and making the whole wall look like it had been doused in flammable fluid. He spied the stone bridge they trundled along, and saw, much to his consternation, that it vanished as it met the wall.