Delvers LLC: Welcome to Ludus

by Blaise Corvin

  "What are you doing?" gasped Jason.

  "Just watch." Henry held his arm up so Jason could see better, and right before his eyes, most of the blood was sucked back into the wound, and it healed. In seconds.

  "Wow," breathed Jason.

  "Yeah, I haven't had the balls to make bigger cuts than this. I'm still not sure what I'm doing is such a great idea, I might be using up energy or something. But damn is this is cool."

  "Yeah, I can't argue with you. I also get what you meant before. We not only need to talk in private, but we probably shouldn't let any of the villagers see us do anything like this right now," said Jason.

  "Well, I thought about that," replied Henry. "I don't think we should hide that we're Bonded."

  "Why not?"

  Henry smiled without humor. "Mainly because we're fluent in whatever language we are talking in right now. Luda, I guess. Yesterday we didn't speak a word of it. That's a pretty dead giveaway that something major is going on. Maybe we should just try hiding that our orbs were special, not that we're Bonded."

  Jason thought about it for a few seconds before he said, "Yes, you're right. Since you know our orbs were somewhat special, I'm assuming you saw the same purple cartoon cat in a dream last night?"

  Henry looked at Jason in confusion then pity and explosively laughed. "Cartoon cat? Man, I was talking to a bikini model in my dream. What the hell is wrong with you? A cartoon cat..."

  Henry kept laughing, sputtered off and started again when he saw Jason's face. Jason was not amused, which was probably what kept the abuse coming. He loudly cleared his throat and said, "Okay, whatever. You got Ludwila or whatever, and I got Eek. It doesn't matter right now. We need to figure out if we both had the same general choices."

  "Okay, okay, I'll stop," said Henry as he wiped tears from his eyes. "I had ten points to spend and three general categories to spend them in: physical abilities, magic, and utility. There were a few abilities that had requirements, like the Self-healing skill I bought, which is why I bought Endurance, Rank 1 first. Those two skills used up half my points."

  "Okay, the setup was the same for me," said Jason. "What else did you get?"

  "Well, there's something I have to say before I tell you the rest of it. I found out that since I kept thinking of metal yesterday, I'm actually specialized in the Metal sub school, not Earth."

  Jason raised his eyebrows. "Metal? How did that happen? I thought you were set on Earth?"

  "Well, thing is I kept wondering about the corroding steel on this world and how our crappy machete and the Swiss Army knife are still in perfect shape. I checked the rifle that Dolos gave us too, by the way. George wasn't kidding. All the steel turned to dust. It took me like ten minutes this morning to beat all the nastiness out of the bag."

  Jason held up a hand. "Okay, I think we're getting off track here. What all did you get again?"

  "I used up all ten points. I got Endurance (Rank 1, two points), Self-healing (Rank 1, three points), Enhanced Senses (Rank 1, one point), Magic Perception (Rank 1, one point), Magic Power (Rank 1, two points), and Dungeon Locations (Rank 1, one point). Magic Power was a no-brainer. Magic Perception seemed like it might be kind of like an identify skill and sense-magic skill rolled up into one."

  "Okay, that makes sense, but what about Dungeon Locations? That was in the utility section, right?"

  "Well, I first planned to get earth magic so we could explore dungeons, and luckily we're freaks, so I can still use earth magic okay even though I specialized in metal. Anyway, we've already found out this whole world is engineered to force people to go into dungeons. There is treasure in dungeons, and we've already decided that raiding them is probably the only way we'll have to make money... unless you want to be a prostitute. I won't judge you, but I personally would prefer not to work in a brothel. Do they have brothels on this world? I bet they do."

  Jason shook his head and sighed. "Whatever. Do you even know how the Dungeon Locations skill works?"

  "I got lucky with that." Henry grinned. "When I was cleaning out the fucking duffle bag this morning, I pulled that shitty map out too, and when I saw it, little red marks like on a smart phone app popped up in my vision. I could will them to disappear or reappear. It was trippy."

  Jason was impressed. Henry had made some really smart choices despite not being much of a gamer back on Earth. The man was practical, though. It probably helped.

  "Okay, I guess I'll tell you what I got. I had the same idea as you, probably because we practice fencing. Since we fought the goblins, it really drove home how easy it is to die. I got Endurance (Rank 1, two points), Self-Healing (Rank 1, three points), Magic Power (Rank 1, two points), Magic Control (Consciousness/Space Rank 1, two points), and Magic Lore (Rank 1, one point) for a total of ten points.

  "Magic Lore sounds like a lot more of an identify skill than Magic Perception, huh?"

  "Yes, that's why I got it, but I think it was still smart to get the perception skill."

  "Yeah, but I missed it. I guess I was too busy admiring how my orb took the appearance of a smoking hot bikini model. Maybe if I was talking to a cartoon cat, I would have been more focused."

  Henry started laughing again, and Jason was seriously considering hitting him when Mareen walked around the corner. Henry's laughter turned into choking coughs as he tried to get himself back under control, and Jason felt a grim sense of satisfaction. Serves him right.

  Jason smiled at Mareen and consciously thought about speaking in the local language, Luda. "Good morning, Mareen."

  Mareen smiled. "Good morning! It's nice that I can actually talk to my saviors now. I guess you guys took the orbs after all. Why is Henry laughing and choking, though?"

  Jason rolled his eyes. "He was making a joke at my expense and he thinks he is hilarious. I guess someone has to because nobody else does."

  Mareen laughed, "Well, now that we can understand each other, maybe I will think he is funny too."

  "I doubt it." Jason scowled. "I'd wish you good luck, but I wouldn't wish Henry's sense of humor on my worst enemy."

  Henry finally had himself under control. "Oh, don't mind him. I'm very funny. It just takes a refined sense of humor to appreciate me."

  Mareen laughed again, her eyes sparkling. "Well, like I said, we will see. Anyway, I came by because Grandfather asked me to tell you we are about to head out with the wagons. He also wanted me to ask that you bring all the remaining things from the house. We are leaving the mattresses on the beds, so everything else should fit in the last two baskets on the floor of cabin."

  "You are leaving a lot of stuff, huh?" Henry glanced into the open door of the cabin. "Like the pictures on the walls and the bigger things, including the furniture..."

  "Yes, speed is important. We don't want to lose anyone else," Mareen said seriously. "Plus, we made all of this before, so we can do it again. Food isn't too hard to come by on Ludus if we're not too picky, so we should be okay. Grandfather said that food is much harder to find on Earth. He says we don't have to work as hard just to survive here, so we have more time to make furniture and such."

  Jason was surprised. He'd just assumed Ludus was similar to Earth. Based on what Mareen was saying, he imagined there were more animals or more edible plants. He would find out later. "Okay, tell George we will be there soon."

  Mareen turned around and walked away at a brisk pace, her task done. Jason noticed Henry watching the girl walk away, probably trying to get a glimpse of her butt under her dress. Then his friend shook his head and said, "Let's get this over with," as he walked into the cabin. Jason followed.

  About an hour later, Henry and Jason met up with the village caravan. George was waiting for them and stowed the baskets of items from his home. He greeted them in Luda, "So, I heard you can speak the language now."

  "Yeah, don't take this the wrong way, but you're actually easier to understand while speaking this language." Jason raised one eyebrow. "Your accent and slang were all over the place when we we
re speaking English."

  George laughed, "That's because the two people I spent most of my time with for ten years after I got to this place were an Englishman and a lady from Russia who spoke broken English. I guess I picked up more from them than I thought. Those were dark times." George's face clouded over, and his eyes were far away but he suddenly clapped Jason on the back. "We are about to head out on another adventure, though! We all mourn Tommas." He glanced at Perry, who was securing something on another wagon and said, "But his is an opportunity for everyone. Who knows what will happen?"

  Henry asked, "Where are we going?"

  George smiled. "We are heading east to Mirana, the second or third largest city in Tolstey, the country we're in. We heard that Mirana is looking for farmers and just found a few new dungeons nearby, so they have money. They are probably sending some magic power stones to the coast then by ship to the Adom country, Teteth. They usually need food too."

  Jason frowned. "I thought you said the Adom race was rare."

  George shrugged and said, "You still might not see any, and I say a lot of things. Either way, we can talk about it on the way. It will take us a few weeks to get to Mirana."

  Jason looked at Henry and asked, "You ready to go?"

  "Damn right," Henry snorted. "The farther we get away from that fucking goblin cave, the better I'll feel."

  Jason quietly agreed with him but had a suspicion their trip to Mirana wouldn't be completely peaceful. It turned out he was right.

  Wagon Stage

  It had only been three days, and Henry was tired of walking. He wasn't having any problems with the physicality of the journey--that wasn't the issue. Due to his handy new orb powers and the fact that his body still remembered an efficient marching style from his old army days, he was physically better off than everyone else in the caravan other than Jason. Jason used to be a cross country runner, and he had those long, gangly legs. With the addition of the orb, Jason never looked tired anymore. If Henry had been the slightest bit fatigued, he would have been pissed.

  No, what was irritating Henry was the boredom. Or rather, he wanted the actual travel portion of the day to be done already so he could test his new powers some more. He and Jason weren't trying to hide that they were orb-Bonded, but they both decided not to advertise their specific abilities in case they needed an element of surprise in the future. What they would actually need an element of surprise for Henry didn't know, but he approved of Jason's paranoia. Apparently, the RPG tropes that Jason was following seemed to mostly align with Henry's real world experiences--shit could go to hell in the blink of an eye. It didn't hurt to be prepared.

  The first time he and Jason had tried testing their powers was on the first night of their journey with the caravan. Henry found that if he concentrated, he could bring up a mental list of things he could do with his power. Apparently, the list was just a set of guidelines though because he could make up his own abilities if he concentrated and practiced. For instance, one of his abilities was to turn the skin of his forearms to metal for protection. However, he found that by concentrating, he could make spikes or even blades come out of the armor too. It was a neat trick.

  His abilities with earth were not listed in his mind, but it didn't take him long to figure out they were similar to his metal magic. One experiment he did was to pinch the blade of a stone knife and sharpen it like he could with his machete's blade. It worked. The knapped stone blade glittered in the moonlight, but it took more energy out of him to work with stone than with metal.

  Henry tried out all of his abilities one by one whenever he got the chance, and he tried thinking of new applications for them. Meanwhile, every night he practiced, Jason joined him. They walked out into the woods to escape prying eyes, and Jason just sat with his eyes closed. When Henry asked him what he was doing, Jason said he was meditating. Henry rolled his eyes. No wonder the goofball got a cartoon cat talking to him in his dreams.

  Still, Henry had a lot of respect for the magic school his friend had chosen. Jason also said that his Magic Control skill should make mastering his new abilities easier. Henry was really curious what his friend could do and kept hounding Jason to actually demonstrate some of his new power.

  Jason gave in after the second day. He demonstrated one of his abilities; with the sound of displaced air and a pop, Jason teleported behind Henry. For a moment, as Henry turned around, his tall, gangly friend looked like death incarnate. Henry realized that if Jason ever used this ability violently, it would be terrifying to anyone on the receiving end.

  Jason's abilities were cool, but Henry thought his spiked metal arms were also pretty badass. It was also slick how he could throw stones with the strength of a bullet. Being able to nearly effortlessly craft stone tools had been useful for the villagers on the trip so far too. He simply didn't tell them how he kept "finding" exactly the same tool someone said they needed in the forest. He knew nobody really believed his bullshit, but they played along.

  Henry looked at the sun in the sky again. It was only noon! Time just seemed to crawl. He glanced over at Mareen. As usual, she was walking next to them and chatting with Jason. Jason always seemed to get all the girls; Henry figured it had something to do with his height because it sure wasn't because he was cool.

  Mareen was cute, nice, helpful, and a hard worker. She had a habit of wrinkling her nose before she laughed. She was a few inches shorter than Henry. He judged she was about 5'5". So far, this seemed to be slightly above average height for women on Ludus, at least among the villagers.

  Mareen's simple dress was baggy, but glimpses could be seen of her figure underneath sometimes. Plus her clothes had been all torn up in the goblin cave. Henry would have described her type as athletic with curves in all the right places. She reminded him of an action movie actress. She was definitely hot.

  Henry judged that Jason could definitely do worse. He wished them well and made it a habit not talk to Mareen. He didn't want to get in their way. He wished Mareen wasn't constantly around so he could ask Jason more questions about his cartoon cat experience.

  He chuckled softly to himself while he thought about Jason's dream friend. He shook his head and was getting back to business, trying to listen for running water, when he heard the howls. His head snapped up, and he looked around quickly. Nobody else seemed alarmed.

  Then he realized that the wagons were creaking, people were talking, the villagers and the animals were walking... normal people probably wouldn't be able to hear the howls yet. With a flash of insight, Henry remembered he chose the Rank-1 Enhanced Senses skill.

  He took a step over and grabbed Jason's shoulder. "I hear howls."

  Henry instantly had Mareen's full attention. "Howls?" she asked.

  "Yeah, I can hear a lot of them, and I think they're coming this way."

  Mareen's face was white. "This is supposedly the general range for a large pack of demon wolves. In fact, it's one of the reasons so few people come out this way. We didn't see them when we moved to this area, and we thought they were gone."

  Jason frowned and asked, "Couldn't they be normal wolves?"

  Mareen gave him a strange look. "Normal wolves don't exist. If they did, the demon wolves would have eaten them."

  "Oh," said Jason lamely, "silly me."

  Henry asked, "Why would you or anyone else think that demon wolves were just a 'scary story' in world where you literally see demons and monsters all the time?"

  "Wishful thinking?" Mareen shrugged. "When we first came out here, we had couple parties of adventurers with us for protection."

  "So then why don't you have guards or... oh, never mind." Henry's mind went into overdrive. His wanted to question how otherwise rational people could make such stupid decisions, but he shelved it. His first priority was to get these people into some sort of defensive formation. He saw a small clearing up ahead, and the howls were coming off from his right. It would be close, but they could make it.

  Henry had never particularly enjoy
ed leading, especially in high stress situations, but he dispassionately judged he was the best person for the job in their current situation. And then, like many other times in his life, he turned off his doubts and did what had to be done.

  Henry climbed up to the top of the nearest wagon and hollered, "Shut the fuck up and look at me. Everyone is in danger! Don't panic, but move your asses so we can get to the clearing ahead faster."

  Most of the villagers stared at him blankly in surprise, but Jeth, a man in his early twenties, sneered. "You aren't one of us. Get off the wagon and stop giving orders."

  Henry didn't have time to argue. He pointed at the ground near Jeth's feet, and with an effort of will, he caused a spray of dirt and rocks to knock Jeth on his butt. "Someone pick that moron up."

  He breathed deeply and hollered even louder, "Listen up everyone!" Now he had everyone's attention. "You will all calmly but quickly make your away to the clearing ahead, or I will personally kick the shit out of every last motherfucking one of you."

  Henry's words carried, his voice trained by years of calling cadences while running and shouting over the noise of running engines. Complete silence fell for several seconds before the villagers started scrambling for the clearing. Henry nodded in satisfaction and jumped down.

  Jason asked, "Did you really have to curse at them?"

  "I didn't see you up there," Henry snorted. "Next time, feel free to take control, and you can do it your way." He briefly felt bad for being harsh, but he steeled himself. This was a dangerous, shitty world, and Jason was not used to this sort of thing. Henry really wanted his friend to survive. He figured that honesty and pragmatism were probably the best ways to help Jason adapt; feelings were less important than surviving.

  When the villagers were almost to the clearing, everyone could hear the howls. If they'd waited any longer to move, it would have been too late. As it was, they barely got to the clearing in time. The wagons were formed up into a rough triangle, with the villagers and animals in the middle, right before the first demon wolves were visible.