by Jamie Davis
Hal held out his hand, trying to give the seed pod to Bronwyn. She stepped backward, her hands remaining at her sides.
“I may not take the seed from you. No one may plant the seed but the bearer entrusted to the task by the tree. You must make this journey and cleanse the forest of the evil that drove us from it centuries ago.”
“But I have to learn earth magic. You’re supposed to teach me. That was what Tildi wanted.”
“You have two great talismans now, Hal. You possess the scrying crystal and now you have a seed pod from the Tree of Life itself. Go and plant the seed. Use the magic you now possess to grow the new tree. The magic of the earth will reveal itself to you in the completion of your quest.”
“Sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo,” Hal muttered under his breath.
“What was that?” Bronwyn asked.
Damned elf ears.
“Nothing, your highness. I don’t suppose you can give me directions to this Fallen Forest of yours?”
Bronwyn smiled and gestured for Hal to follow her. She turned and strode back into the forest, taking the path leading to her spire. Hal was going on another journey and he’d only just gotten here.
Hal pulled up his stats as he walked behind her. He had four more attribute points to allocate. He dropped two in wisdom hoping to improve his spell casting abilities even further, and then used the remaining two to bring his luck and speed back to their original values lost to Norak’s cursed sword.
Name: Hal Dix
Class: Mage
Level: 6
Attributes:
Brawn: 24 — +8
Wisdom: 16 — +4
Luck: 30 — +11 (Max)
Speed: 16 — +4
Looks: 8
Health: 130/130
Character Skills: Chakra Regeneration - 3 (heal 18hp; 1/day)
Mage Experience: 4,925/9,600
Ice elemental school:
Resist Cold; Ice Shield; Ice Armor; Ice Darts; Ice Lance; Wall of Fog
Earth elemental school:
Plant growth;
Fire elemental school: locked
Wind elemental school: locked
Unknown elemental school: locked
Warrior Experience: 161,100/250,000
Rogue Experience: 146,100/250,000
13
Hal kicked at his horse’s flanks with the heels of his boots increasing the mount’s pace to keep up with Kay and the two elven guardsmen accompanying him on their journey. Bronwyn provided them everything they needed to make the trek to the Fallen Forest including the captain of her guard and his sergeant.
The four of them had been on the road four days and the two elves had said less than ten words to him. They spoke to each other in their elvish tongue but neither he nor Kay could understand what they said.
“Kay, tell Gareth to slow down.”
“I think he wants to reach the edge of the hills ahead before sundown, Hal. That seems to be where we’re heading. According to the map Bronwyn gave us, the Fallen Forest is just on the other side. If we camp there, we can reach the forest by midmorning tomorrow.”
“Well, at least there’s that good news. I’m not used to riding a horse and I will be happy to get out of the saddle for a few days.”
“Hal, what kind of hero can’t ride a horse?” Kay chided him.
“What kind of princess can’t drive a car?”
“What’s a car?”
Hal sighed. “Never mind.”
He kicked his horse to catch up and found his hand once again resting on the smooth leather of the pouch at his waist. Inside, he felt the bulge of the seed pod.
A few days before, he’d taken the pouch off to go and wash up in a stream. Two steps away from the pile of clothes he left on the stream’s bank and nausea and dizziness that knocked him to his knees overcame him.
It took Hal only a second to realize he had to remain close to the seed pod or it made him very ill. Since then, he checked for its presence by reflex. Stranger still, he wasn’t bothered by the need to keep the pod with him always. It made him happy when he held it close like it was feeding him with its presence.
Kay was right. As soon as they reached the foothills of the ridge line ahead of them, Gareth dismounted and signaled to his sergeant to begin gathering firewood. Hal and Kay caught up to the two elves and the four of them set to getting their camp ready.
They had fallen into a routine that had Kay helping the sergeant with gathering firewood while Hal set up the small camp stove they carried on their pack mule. The device consisted of a metal grate with four tall, metal legs to hold it suspended over a campfire or hot coals. It made it easy to cook a meal using their small collection of pots and pans.
Gareth had shot a small wild pig with his bow earlier in the day and the captain started working on the carcass to cut some chops for them to roast over the fire. Hal took their largest cook pot and walked to the brook running past their camp a few hundred yards away to retrieve some water.
He returned to see Kay and Chance, the sergeant, had started a small fire. Kay was placing the camp stove over the burning logs as Hal approached with the pot.
“I’m thinking polenta since we have the cornmeal.”
“Is that all you know how to cook, Hal? There must be something else you can make with the supplies Bronwyn gave us.”
“Do you want to cook dinner?”
Kay held up her hands in surrender.
“No, you know I cannot cook. No one wants to eat anything I manage to create over a campfire.”
“I think you burned those griddle cakes on purpose, so you wouldn’t have to cook any more meals on this trip,” Hal said.
Kay shot him a smile as she walked away to gather more wood.
“A woman never reveals her secrets.”
The comment drew an actual snort of laughter from Gareth on the other side of the camp. He was tending to the horses and their pack mule. Picketing them at the edge of the clearing so they could graze but not wander away in the night.
“You want to share some of your elven wisdom for handling women, Gareth?”
The elf shook his head and returned to his work with the animals.
“Chicken,” Hal said.
Picking up the large cast iron skillet, Hal placed it on the stove grate over the fire to preheat while he drew one of his daggers to trim some of the fat from the chops Gareth cut from the pig for dinner. He dropped the pork fat in the skillet to render down before he added the chops to sear.
Hal enjoyed cooking dinner, even though he didn’t like to let the others know. It reminded him of home. He did most of the cooking in his house. It had to do with his schedule being more amenable to getting home in time to start the evening meal. Mona often worked late at her job and it fell to Hal to do a lot of the meal preparation for the three of them.
His thoughts drifted to his wife and daughter while he tended the fire and prepared the meal. He tried every night of this journey, once he settled into his bedroll, to get the scrying crystal to show him his family. No matter how he tried to manipulate the translucent stone with his hands or his magic, it remained inert and silent regarding the secret powers it possessed.
Hal would try again this evening, but he was losing hope of ever completing his training and reaching his family. The futility of doing the same thing repeatedly with no change in the result weighed on him.
“You’ve got that look on your face again, Hal.”
Kay sat down on a saddle on the opposite side of the fire from him.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“This is a journey with many stops along the way. At each stage, we are closer to getting your family back. You have to keep that in your mind. If you lose hope, then you’ve already failed.”
Hal used the point of his dagger to stab one of the chops in the skillet and turn it over. He shook his head at Kay’s point.
“It’s easier said than done, Kay. You know that, right?”
&nbs
p; “You know I do. I’ve been searching for my brother and sister since we were sold as slaves years ago. I haven’t given up and you can’t either.”
“I’m not giving up, Kay. I want to push harder and get to the end faster. I feel like I’m stuck in the mud here, going off on this random quest to plant a tree somewhere.”
“But you have to learn to use the earth magic and this is a way to do that. It’s all connected. The fastest route between two places is rarely a straight line on a map. There are mountains and rivers and oceans in the way that dictate a different path. That is the case here, too. Stay the course, Hal. Every day brings us closer even if it seems like we’re going in the opposite direction.”
Gareth and Chance, sitting cross-legged on the ground nearby, used whetstones to hone the edges of their sword blades. Gareth must have been listening in on their conversations and he nodded and made a harrumph sound that bothered Hal.
“Gareth, you sound like you have an opinion.”
Kay raised a hand to stop him. “Hal, leave it be.”
“No, I won’t leave it be.” He pointed his dagger in the captain’s direction. “You don’t like to talk with us for some reason. Maybe it’s because you’re just rude, maybe it’s because you don’t like me. I don’t know. But if you want to say something about my quest to find my family, let’s have it. What am I doing wrong?”
Gareth’s eyes remained locked on his sword blade as the whetstone scraped along the sharpened steel for a long time before he spoke. He didn’t look up, but Hal had no doubt the elf was talking to him.
“You are a mere visitor to our land, Hal Dix. I have questioned Princess Bronwyn about who and what you are. She said you come here to play some sort of game. She said we are all just story characters to you who go away when you return home. You think none of this is real. Now reality has caught up with you and you complain. Many have lost their families in the Emperor’s conquests. What makes you think your quest is more special than anyone else’s?”
Gareth looked up at the end and fixed Hal with a baleful stare. It was as if he’d sharpened those eyes on the whetstone, too. They pierced right to Hal’s soul along with Gareth’s words.
Hal’s grip on his dagger tightened as the fury washed over him in a wave that left his whole body rigid with tension. He jumped to his feet pointing his blade at the elf.
“I never said my family was special to anyone but me, Captain. But they are more important to everyone here than you know, so you’d better do your best to help me get where I’m going, or I’ll take you out myself.”
The elf dropped his whetstone, jumping forward with his sword blade extended over the fire towards Hal.
He opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a snarling yowl to their left. Another just like it answered from the right.
“Damn, skitterlings,” Gareth said. “I was afraid of this.”
Hal turned and put his back toward the fire, facing outward. He cast a spell and a breastplate of ice wrapped his torso. He had a dagger in one hand and the other outstretched, readying an ice dart spell. Hal searched the darkness outside the firelight.
“What the hell is a skittering?”
A third yowling snarl sounded from a different direction. They were surrounded by whatever was making those sounds.
Kay moved to stand next to Hal with her sword and shield ready.
“Skitterlings are humanoids distantly related to spiders. They have poisonous bites that can paralyze so be wary of their attacks.”
Gareth nodded in agreement.
“The spider-kin will attack in a pack. It is their way. Watch for one to distract while another attacks.”
The elf captain and his sergeant now stood side by side on the opposite side of the fire. Hal searched the darkness outside the ring of light from their fire. He thought he picked up movement on several occasions, but he couldn’t be sure if it was his mind playing tricks on him or not. The yips and yowls from the creatures surrounding them continued.
The attack launched from the darkness with such sudden violence, Hal almost lost hold on his magic energy. He had the spell ready to go, though, and released it at once, launching a pair of ice shards outward from his hands. Hal was able to aim each shard at a different target as a group of four black and tan beasts ran at them from the darkness.
They had small round bodies with spindly arms and legs, all covered with coarse black spiky hair. Their faces had six black eyes and a broad opening for a mouth with opposing mandibles on either side, each with an oozing black fang. Hal suspected the ooze dripping from the fangs was poison.
The dual ice shards each hit their mark. One pierced the leading skitterling in one of its bulbous black eyes. The shard must have struck straight to the brain because the creature’s legs and arms folded in and it fell quivering to the ground.
600 experience awarded.
The second shard hit another skitterling in the shoulder. The arm on that side dropped and hung limply at the beast’s side but it still charged onward.
Hal had a bare instant to cast another spell and he used it to bring up his ice shield. He managed it just in time. The wounded skitterling launched at Hal from six feet away, catching him by surprise with the length of its leaping bound.
Hal raised his shield taking the creature’s weight on his right arm. It was shorter than a man and weighed less than he expected. Hal pushed the thing away from him to send it crashing back to the ground. He forgot Gareth’s warning, though.
Pain lanced through his calf. Hal stared in horror at his leg. Another skitterling had latched on to his leg and was working its mouth parts on his lower leg, stabbing him repeatedly with its poison-covered fangs.
Health damage: Health -4
Health damage: Health -4
Health damage: Health -4
Health damage: Health -4
Save vs. poison successful
Hal shoved the point of his dagger down at the beast, stabbing into its exposed back again and again.
On the third strike, he managed to get it to let go of his leg. As it tried to run away, Hal stabbed down one more time and shouted in triumph when his blade sunk home into the creature’s back.
600 experience awarded.
Checking on Kay, Hal realized she had already dispatched her attacker along with the wounded skitterling he had pushed off with his shield.
She pointed towards their mounts.
“The horses, they’re attacking the horses.”
Ignoring the pain in his wounded leg, Hal raced after her. He could hear the screams of the horses over the noise of the attacking pack now.
One of the horses was down. Two others had pulled their lines up from the picket stakes and bolted into the darkness. The mule had two skitterlings attached to its back and it bucked and kicked into the air with its hind legs attempting to dislodge the attackers.
Hal got an idea. He sheathed his dagger and placed both hands together with his thumbs touching and palm facing away from him. Channeling his ice magic while he envisioned what he wanted, a stream of frost and ice crystals shot out from his palms coating the mule in a blanket of ice.
The shocked look in the mule’s eyes would have been comical if the situation weren’t so deathly dangerous. The good news was the spell worked. Their target suddenly too slippery to hold on to, the two skitterlings fell to the ground and struggled to rise. Kay jumped into their midst and finished them with her sword before they could get back on their feet.
Another skitterling, still feeding on the first downed horse, seeing its companions die, turned and started loping away. Hal drew on his last shred of magic and sent a single shard of ice into its back. The creature’s arms flew outward and it fell forward in a heap, twitching on the ground for a second before it stilled.
600 experience awarded.
Out of the corner of his eye, another of the beasts ran at Kay’s back.
“Kay watch out!”
She tried to turn to meet the
new attack, but the surprise coupled with twisting to face her attacker caused her to fall backward, losing her balance.
Hal let loose a guttural war cry and charged to her rescue.
The skitterling had her down on the ground at an awkward angle. Her body weight trapped her shield arm underneath her and she couldn’t get an angle with her sword due to the close quarters. It was all she could do to fend off the snapping mandibles inches from her face.
Hal raced in and kicked at the round abdomen of the skitterling, bowling it over onto its back and off Kay. He continued his advance, not giving the beast a chance to rise. Hal stomped downward with his boot on one of its spindly legs pinning it to the ground.
Holding it in place with his foot, Hal drew both daggers and stabbed downward in a simultaneous attack. The skitterling spasmed once and died.
600 experience awarded.
Hal searched the darkness outside the campfire’s perimeter. The yowling sounds had stopped, and it seemed they’d broken the attack. It wasn’t without consequence. One of the horses was dead, another wounded, and two others had run off into the night. The mule seemed fine and had taken to grazing again, though it seemed more than a little skittish. After the attack they’d just fought off, Hal couldn’t blame the beast.
A groan from by the camp's center drew his attention back to his companions. Chance collapsed to the ground. Only Gareth’s quick action prevented him from fainting into the campfire. The elf captain lowered the sergeant to the ground.
“He’s been bitten. Damn, it must be the poison.” Gareth cursed. “There’s nothing we can do for him. We’re too far from help to get him anything to counteract the effects.”
Hal ran over and checked the fallen elf. Chance’s body was limp. The paralyzing effects of the skitterling bite had taken full force. When he examined the wound on the sergeant’s arm, Hal saw something odd.
It took him a few seconds to realize he could see something in the magical spectrum around the bite. This was the first time since he’d awakened his earth magic Hal had seen any kind of injury or wound on a person.