by M J Sweeney
“What do you think if I slept here, and kinda guard your wares at night…?”
He barked a short laugh. “The Titus too expensive for you?”
“Yes, basically. Is it okay?”
“Depends if you’re actually kinda sleeping or kinda guarding,” he replied, arms still folded. But his ginger eyebrows were dancing on his face again.
“Kinda sleeping would be the preference, truth be told,” I replied, grinning goofily.
“Fine, fine, I agree. I can’t afford to pay you fer kinda guarding anyway. Ha.”
“Okay, right then. I’ll be back by nightfall. I can bring some stuff to cook, if you want.”
“No, that’s fine. I prefer me own victuals.” He rubbed his rounded belly.
“Damn,” I sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, your food tastes great. Just not sure if my insides can keep up with you.” I massaged my own stomach. It had calmed down since lunch, but was already inclined to rebellion with the thought of those spices.
He laughed again. “It’s good fer ya. It’ll toughen ya up.”
“Not sure if I can agree with that, but thanks anyway.”
Chapter 4
The next morning, I walked out of town on my first real quest. The clover-engraved compass I had bought from Max pointed the way, but it wasn’t hard to find in any case. The farm was only about a forty-minute walk out of town. It was a beautiful day—blue sky, no clouds. It was early summer, so the nights were cool and the days getting hotter. I knew instinctively that we were in a temperate to subtropical zone, so it was unlikely to get too cold here anyway. Further north, toward the capital and up into human lands, it got colder.
The nearer end of the farm revealed an old, dilapidated wooden house—a big three-story affair with two long wings to the east and west. There was also a large barn on the far side. The stream bordered one side, and the farm itself stretched to the south. Not too sure what to expect, I first pulled out the rope and grappling hook and looped it around one shoulder, securing it with the hook itself. There were a couple of willow trees off to the side of the road, so I climbed up the larger one, wedged my pack into one of the branches, and climbed down. From below, it was impossible to see.
With that, I trudged cautiously onto the field. There were no vegetables to be seen, but plenty of weeds and patches of soil. It did look fertile. There was an old fence along the boundary of the large field, fallen down in multiple places, so rather than running into the field and getting mobbed, I banged on the fence. When no reaction came, I repeated my banging. Eventually, I saw a bulge of earth a few metres from where I stood and a sharp beak of a nose, followed by an armoured head popping up. It was definitely an armadillo, but far bigger than any I’d ever seen.
Quick as I could, I smacked my staff down on its head, and it squealed. It seemed stunned for a moment, so I did it again, and it squealed again. The shriek sounded a lot like a pig, only higher-pitched, bordering on painful. Through the visible part of my interface where I had placed “encounters,” I could see its icon, the name armadillo, and a greyed-out health bar under it. That was strange, but I didn’t have time to explore the thought.
I didn’t seem to be doing a lot of damage to it. Its back legs were trundling, and suddenly it was digging back into the ground. I struck again, but this time I only hit soil. Shit. Looking about, I noticed a few mounds of earth coming my way, so I jumped back a few steps.
Not far enough. Suddenly, I had a row of serrated teeth clamped around my boot and gnawing as hard as it could. Holy shit! I tried wrenching my foot away and almost fell flat on my face. The thing was too big and heavy to kick off with its teeth and jaw locked down. Was it the same as the one I had already hit? I wasn’t sure, but I assumed so. Another tried to latch on to my other foot, but I yanked my leg out of the way. Clubbing at the beast that already had a hold on my foot, I only managed a glancing blow, and almost managed to knacker myself in the process. It was about as big as a medium-sized dog, only lower to the ground and a lot heavier with all those armour-plates. Its teeth were grinding into the bones of my foot—more pain! God dammit!
Quickly, I activated Breath of Life, and kept drag-stepping back to get as far off the field as I could. It was still doing damage, grunting and biting. It was like an armadillo had mated with a giant rat and a bulldog simultaneously. I tried not to panic. Shit, shit, shit.
There was some kind of poison taking effect; the horrible noxious smell partly gave that away, but I could also literally feel my foot sizzling and cooking, like from acid burns. Activating my second healing spell, Heart of Oak, I felt some temporary relief and pleasure. The other burrowing beasts seemed to have disappeared again. I lined up, this time managing a solid hit with my staff, and once again managed to briefly stun it. Fortunately, it let go of my foot. This time, I planted both feet and swung with everything I had, aiming directly between its eyes. Splotch! Its brains leaked out satisfyingly. Disgusting rodent!
The putrid stench of the thing only seemed to get worse in death. I found myself holding back bile and vomit. Next, I tied the rope around the carcass, gagging even more as I had to touch the thing, and dragged it off to one side, well away from the fence line. Here, the ground was rockier, closer to the bridge, and obviously no good for digging and burrowing.
Looking at my status screen, I noticed my health was gradually falling. Whatever that poison was, it was quite bad. I started feeling woozy, going a little faint, and had to hunch over, hands to my knees. My first heal was about to run out, and I started to sweat. Although I could cast more healing spells, while the first ones still wound down, it would be pointless as only the first two stacked. Shit, dying from a poisonous fucking armoured fucking rat.
I also realised how stupid I was. I’d brought no piercing weapon even though I knew it was armoured, and no fucking bandages. I used to be a medic, for fuck’s sake—how dumb could you get? Living in fantasy-land didn’t mean living in a fantasy!
Raging at myself a moment, I sighed when both Breath of Life and the poison ended. Heart of Oak kept ticking over (very slowly), and so I quickly redid the first heal-over-time. Gradually, I felt my foot repair itself and the poison flush from my system. My boot was near to ruined, however.
Now, that was an epic fail. Looking at the dead beast, I made myself get down closer. It still stank, but I could see its vital fluids slowly leaking out, staining the rocky soil around it. Poison. It had a long tapering snout, wicked sharp teeth, beady little eyes (now glassy in death), heavy looking armour plates on top, and a soft grey underbelly. Eventually I unhitched the rope and hook, went back to the tree with my backpack, and limped back to town.
***
“A shovel?”
“Yes, a small shovel-head. Something I can resize to fit this end of my staff.”
The smith glanced at the end of my staff. “Can be done. Might pop off occasionally if I don’t rivet it, but it’s doable.”
“And I need the other end sharpened. Like a spear. Actually, hold that thought; I’ll just take my spear back. Just the shovel. How much for that?” I grabbed my spear from the neat stack the smith had made.
“Well now, if you’re not taking the handle and only the metal head, and it’s a small shovel at that, only three jeb, three oll.”
“All right. Done.” I put the money on the table. “I’ll be back later to collect.” I left my staff so he could resize the shovel head, but took the spear with me. I gave it a few practice swings, noticing it was a lot more top-heavy and at least two metres long. It wasn’t halberd class, but it still had a decent-sized heavy steel spear-head—slower than what I was used to, but eminently more practical for piercing armour. Nor was it a boar spear or dragon-lance, both of which had large flanges below the metal head to stop the beast from running up the shaft and goring you after it had been impaled.
Next, I collected bandages and some extra foodstuffs from the general goods store, and parted with more coins with a sigh. When I asked Maximus a few more pointed questions ab
out the beasts, it prompted even more discussion on what I could do. We came up with a few ideas which took some more organising to implement.
Then I went to the tavern. After ordering four bottles of beer, two stouts, and two ales, I went in search of Drognad.
When I offered him the stouts, he grinned. “Good choice.” We sat down for lunch and drank our beers.
When I told him the story of what had happened, he laughed. I mean, from a certain point of view it was funny, but really. A bit of sympathy, please. After a little bit of glaring, he calmed down.
“Poisonous armadillo,” I muttered. “Friggin’ oversized rodents. Do you know them?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t. A local beast, methinks.” He scratched his face, clearly thinking. “Got any interest in salvage?”
“Salvage? You mean the poison?”
“For sure. Someone finds a beast like that, surely there’s a use for the poison. You can either sell to someone for a profit, or study it to find a cure.”
“Yeah, sure, already thought of that,” I replied. “I’m just not sure how I can extract it. I don’t have syringes here. And they’re armoured. Probably hard as hell to find the source of the poison.”
He frowned at the unfamiliar word. “What are syringes? Never mind. Drognad has something better.”
He clambered up and went into his wagon. I heard a bit of rattling and scraping, and then he came back with a flattish wooden box. He opened the lid and revealed a rather medieval-looking syringe. My god, what a beast. It was all metal, bronze perhaps, with a thin metal handle and plunger and sharp metal end. The nozzle looked as thick as my little finger. My god, that’s evil-looking, I thought. It made me shudder. I didn’t like needles. Anyone who was used to modern needles would cry at the thought of that thing going into a body. Visions of mad evil scientists torturing their victims flashed before my eyes. I was tempted to jump up and stomp on it till it broke, but I resisted.
Trying to be polite, I found my voice. “Uh, what is it?”
“An extractor. You said it yerself. Kill the beast. Extract it while it’s fresh. We can sell it. Or I can take it back to me clan and me da can study it. Either way, good money. Whaddya say?”
There was a ding from my interface. I subtly opened it while I nodded at Drognad.
/ Agree to Farm Poison for High Profit Sale / Y/N OR
/ Agree to Farm Poison for Lower Profit Research / Y/N
That made me think a moment, but mostly about my future course. “I prefer healing to poison as a general principle, and the thought of giving this to someone unscrupulous isn’t so appealing. So I say we give it to your da and wish him best of luck.”
He seemed glad to not have to make the choice. “Fair enough; research it is. Me da will be happy.” He handed me the case and I put it into my backpack.
“Speaking of research,” I continued, “I gathered you’re selling healing ointments and balms and herbs and such to the good-wives of the area.”
“Yes, amongst other things. What do you need?”
“How about healing potions, or balms, that kind of thing. What have you got, and how much do you sell it for?”
“The quality health-balm can be used after most wounds and costs twelve dran per jar.”
I snorted out my beer. “Gods! I could buy a house with a few of those.” I wiped the beer of my already-stained trousers. Gods, I was becoming more and more of a mess—tattered clothing, stained trousers, boot with holes in it and with barely the toe on.
“Yes, it’s true. The healing travel-cakes are more. They’re worth fifteen dran, though they do last longer. Taste like boiled spinach and socks, and hard as a rock, but they are effective.”
“I can’t afford that. At least, not yet. Can we trade somehow?” I gestured forlornly at my sparse gear, and he nodded kindly in sympathy.
“Don’t see why not. I’d have to get a sample of the poison to gauge its potency and a rarity, but most likely scenario is about equal value. One vial of poison for either the health-cake or health-balm?”
“All right, that works.” I heard my interface ding, but didn’t bother looking it up.
“I’ll even provide you with all the vials and a backpack to carry them, seeing as how your pack is full already. How many do you think?”
“Let’s try twenty… no, make it thirty, to be sure.”
“Shall I get them now?”
“No, let’s finish lunch and these beers; then I’m having a nap while you sell more stuff.”
“All right, it’s a deal.”
As we finished our drinks, he nodded at some of the other stock he had on display—mostly metal jars with screw top lids, each with a Zahn and Derge label. He shook his head. “Y’know, it’s strange—I do sell a fair amount of herbs and healing ointments, ‘n most of my customers are female… Do you know what most elves really want?”
I shook my head.
“Other than a good shagging, of course,” he added with a wicked twinkle in his eye.
I coughed on my beer a moment. Shit, that was unexpected. “Uh, no?”
“No-wrinkle cream. Anti-aging balm.”
I started laughing harder. “But they’re elves!”
“I know, exactly! No lines on their faces. Or none that we can see. But does that matter? No. If they think one of the others has an advantage—looking younger, more beautiful—then they all gotta have it. Crazy elves. I mean, we expect the human women to buy it—they don’t live so long and they’re naturally crazy anyway—but elves? It’s even funnier. But I guess you can’t teach an old elf new tricks, eh? They’re all vain as a princess, so I guess that’s that. My wagon will be stocked full of the stuff next year, you can be sure.”
Chapter 5
The next morning found me back at the bridge on the outskirts of the farm. Both packs were now up in the tree, the one with the vials very carefully hanging from a top branch. It seemed I had a fairly good tree-climbing skill.
With the spear in one hand and the quarterstaff in the other, I went forth. For some of that morning I had practiced shadow-sparring with the spear, noting that I had a lower skill level with spear than with the staff. Still, it wasn’t too bad—(21) versus (31). I had a feeling that expertise with one gave me partial skill with the other, as they were similar weapons.
The first thing I had to do was find an area where I could drag the beasts off to—not close to the stream, not close to the farm, and preferably rocky. Cautiously, I walked around the outskirts of the farm, checking for signs of the nasty burrowers. There were none around the back, but I found I was in luck when I reached the far side of the building directly opposite the bridge. There was a small bald hill there, with what looked like some kind of mineral stone. I estimated it was about twenty metres or so from the barn, and slightly more than that to the main field.
I collected my packs and set everything up around the hill: empty glass vials with copper screw-top lids, evil extractor, and skinning knife, all laid out in a row. I had the grappling hook and rope around one shoulder, the spear in one hand, and my new improvised “quarter-shovel” in the other. I wore my leather armour and leather gloves, one good boot, and one tattered boot. I also had a nice, thick leather belt with pouches full of small bandage-wrapped packages around my waist, kindly loaned to me by Drognad. Drognad had been willing to advance one health-cake and one health-balm, as a favour. The belt was just a loan, but I thought I could buy it later. It was definitely handy.
I ate half of one of the health-cakes—yes, it did taste like spinach and socks—and lastly put the vial of health-balm in a slot of the belt.
After waiting until the sun was hot and fully overhead—Maximus had told me the armadillos were burrowers and night creatures—I crept onward. The creatures had two weaknesses: they slept in the middle of the day and they had an overly sensitive sense of smell. How they could abide their own stink, I couldn’t fathom, but went with it.
Sneaking up to the fence on this side, so f
ar I encountered no trouble. Moving through a gap in the fence, and still there was no movement. Shit, I was nervous. What if I got mobbed? I really didn’t want ‘death-by-armadillo’ on my tombstone.
Carefully, I pushed my spear into the loose earth so I could grab it easily. Then, as carefully and quietly as I could, I shovelled out some dirt. Then some more. I kept going until I felt I had a hole deep enough, then dropped in a large handful of black pepper wrapped in thin muslin cloth. I could smell it easily myself, and barely managed not to sneeze. As for the burrowing armadillos? I hoped its effect was truly poisonous—as they seemed to have a really advanced sense of smell (and hearing), but poor eyesight. This was my secret weapon that I’d bought from Maximus.
Pausing in thought, I did some quick calculations. If I did this multiple times, and dug all the holes now, I’d have to just hope for the best. But if it didn’t work or something unexpected happened, I would have lost all my packages and hard work. So I just dug two more holes a fair distance from each other, dropped more pepper in, collected my spear, and crept off the field. I tried to keep note of where each of the holes were.
Then, I waited, just sitting on the hill and contemplating the plan for a little while. Again, I could feel my second heartbeat pointing the way west and north, to the deeper forest. That was my heart-tree, off in the forest somewhere. Eventually, I got bored and practiced some more with the spear. I didn’t want to overexert, however, so I just kept it light. The sun was starting to slowly set, so I ate some of my travel rations, dried meat, and nuts, then drank some water from my copper flask. This time, I left the quarter-shovel behind and gripped my spear in both hands.
Once again, I crept up to the fence line and stood as near as I dared to the first hole I had dug. I waited some more. I was starting to drift off, my head nodding to one side, when I heard it: a snuffling grunt followed by a slight squeal. It wasn’t the same pained kind of sound as before, but definitely one of surprise. Suddenly, the earth by the hole I had dug erupted as the creature came out, snuffling, spitting, and pawing at its nose frantically. Fortunately, my night vision was good, so I could see it quite clearly, even if it was a little monochromatic. When the moment was right, I thrust quickly, stabbing into its belly. It could barely squeal as the air seemed to go out of it, and shortly it expired. Quickly, I wrapped the hook and rope and pulled it back to the rocky hill. I had no pursuers.