by Tom Hansen
“Anknoa.”
“Helu.”
The two stared at each other like a couple of Tau’ri who were afraid of holding each other’s hands. Hillbender flexed his jaw as a broad smile opened his mouth.
Chieftain Bloodhorn stepped forward to greet Scarhoof. “Well met, Soldier. Seems you and this young lady over here got separated. She came trotting up the road just as we were turning around.”
Scarhoof glanced at the Eldermother. “I suppose we were separated, if only either of us knew the whole plan.”
Scarhoof quickly laid out what he had seen while flying in Spirit’s presence regarding the Nagos’s camp.
“They have these airships that they have been assembling on the beach, and I saw them grinding down the shards they took from this quarry and loading the powder into the airships. I don’t know how they plan on dispersing it but ground up it was terrifying enough when I saw what it did to the Kobolds. What it did to us while we were fighting the boss inside this quarry was worse.”
“Dried, the powder will make you feral, mad, ferocious. But dunked into seawater, it becomes a potent mixture of smoke that will turn the most docile soldier against his own troops.”
From the crowd, a familiar voice spoke up. “It’s the salt, mixed with the water.”
The new voice was a welcome addition, and Scarhoof hoped that him hitting the poor researcher hadn’t permanently damaged their relationship.
Haliin Earthwhisper sidled up to their Chieftain, sidestepping the Eldermother. He was clearly out of breath from the hasty retreat back to the quarry. “While you were gone, I ran some tests. It seems that water acts as a solvent, activating something else entirely, making it more potent than just the powder.”
Scarhoof nodded. “Yes, and while the powder can get absorbed into the skin a certain amount, as well as being inhaled into the lungs, that only raises the ire of most soldiers. It had a pretty profound effect on the smaller Kobolds, but I suspect most Tau’raj soldiers would be unaffected by it, or possibly even enhanced a little bit with their fighting skills.”
Haliin was getting visibly excited at their back and forth. “Yes, but water raises the potency of the effect.” He glanced down to the buckets of shimmering water on the ground, his expression morphed into one of confusion. “What are all the buckets for?”
Eldermother pushed through between the Chieftain and his researcher. “This isn’t just any water, and I suspect that Scarhoof managed to figure that out for himself.”
Scarhoof smiled back at the old cow. He was so glad he got to see her again. “It was something you said to me, and something I noticed while in Spiritmother’s dream.
“Spiritmother lies in wait.” He turned, pointing to the nearest peaks. “Those are her hooves, pointing east toward the center of Eloria, where all life came, but her body,” he turned, moving his finger west along the ridge of mountains, “is that way, ending at the western edge of the continent. That is where she lays.”
Eldermother matched him word for word as he repeated the phrase.
“Weeping for her children’s suffering until the time of the host.”
The camp was deadly silent but for the rustle of a handful of soldiers that peered at them from dozens of meters away.
Scarhoof pointed to the buckets on the ground. “These are Her tears, flowing through the Tau’moor and bubbling up inside Misty Cave.”
“How are we going to use them to help fight the Nagos?” Commander Skysong asked.
Eldermother grabbed up her bag and held it out for the rest to see. “My special concoction.”
Before long, a couple mages had been requested to teleport back and setup a portal system to allow a handful of soldiers to cart the special water from one end of the Plains to the other.
Before they left, Scarhoof sent one to run to the ocean while at Sunset Cove and return with a bucket of sea water.
Eldermother and Scarhoof set to mixing the ingredients in a speedy, but attentive manner, dunking them into the water. Smoke began to pouring out.
Scarhoof then ran over to the remaining white shard which was still standing suspended at the heart of the quarry. Taking his newly reclaimed bo, he smashed off some fragments. He it picked up, feeling the power course through him as the shardtouch buff hit him again.
Effect Status: Spirit Shardtouch:
+10% to Spirit Abilities. +5% to Fire and Earth Abilities. -5% to Water and Air Abilities. Duration: 10 Minutes.
He ran back and began to grind up the shard fragment into a fine powder, soon having a healthy pile.
“I need a volunteer, and I need some sea water.”
Chieftain called over one of the guards, who’s stricken face matched his white hide.
Scarhoof nodded at the soldier. “Don’t worry, this shouldn’t be that bad.”
With that, Scarhoof blew a handful of dust at the soldier. Upon contact, the soldier’s eyes began to take on a slight milky white appearance, and the soldier began to drool slightly.
“How do you feel, soldier?”
The soldier looked at his hands, flexed his biceps and wore a cheesy grin across his face.
“Stronger, Sir, more stamina, strength, in fact my regeneration has increased as well.”
“Good, that’s what I suspected,” Scarhoof chimed in. He turned to his Bloodhorn. “All our soldiers can use this buff to their advantage in battle. Our size allows us to withstand the negative effects while harnessing the benefits.”
“This is hopeful,” Haliin Earthwhisper said as he peered at the young bull’s eyes.
“Yes, but why does touching a shard hurt someone, but as a powder it just seems to boost their stats?”
Haliin scratched his goatee in contemplation. “Maybe because of the matrix. While you were off training, I had a better look at the shards, and their crystalline patterns form a rudimentary Yantra inside of them, that must be the way that they are escalating their powers while as a crystalline form.”
“Because these shards are residual, excess Spirit magic,” Scarhoof muttered under his breath, realization creeping into his mind. His skin tingled from excitement at his utterance. He’d just realized what he’d been missing this whole time.
Around him, the whole gaggle of onlookers grew silent.
Haliin’s voice dropped to a whisper, almost like he was treading on sacred ground by even asking. “What do you mean excess Spirit?”
Scarhoof stood from his cauldron of bubbling magic and looked around. They were all stricken. “That’s something Spiritmother told me while I was in her dream, that all the shards are extra buildup of magic caused by an overabundance of the other varieties. Their growth is a natural way to try to maintain balance of magic in all of Eloria.”
He turned, pointing due east, across the ocean.
“Right here is a leyline that runs directly east from the volcanoes of the Fire epicenter to us. If there is too much Fire magic in the world, Spirit tries to raise itself up to its level to balance out the lines.”
Chieftain looked at the resident Shaman trainer. “Is this so?”
Hillbender nodded his head. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but at its core, yes. If you have too much Fire magic, then Spirit and Water, which are the compliments, will increase to try to compensate.”
“Right,” Scarhoof interrupted. “And when Spirit increases, Earth will compensate, thus the whole of Eloria is growing these crystals.”
Chieftain pounded a balled up fist into his open palm. “So, what is causing this global increase?”
Scarhoof shrugged. “I don’t know, but Spiritmother tasked me to find out, to help restore balance to the world.”
He looked around his small group. Here were the leaders of his nation, the most respected elders, trainers, chieftains, and the like, with somber looks on their faces as they contemplated this new turn of events.
“But we shouldn’t dwell on that for now, right now we have a fight to win, and I think our next test will tell u
s more.”
As-to not taint his experiment, Scarhoof asked for another volunteer for the next test. As the cow came forward, Scarhoof asked everyone to take a step back.
“I’m sorry, because this isn’t going to be pleasant, and I don’t want anyone else caught in the smoke.”
Scarhoof dunked the shard into the bucket of well water and threw it at the soldier. The smoke billowed up, and the cow started huffing and puffing, clearly enraged.
“As you can see, she’s beginning to become feral, but not so much that she can’t control it. Soldier, thank you. Eldermother, can you help him out?”
Scarhoof ground up a large chunk of the shard, dumped the powder into a bag, and handed it to Commander Skysong. “This might be useful for our frontline warriors, but maybe have the archers and mages stick to just the powder.”
“Incidentally, the poultice Eldermother has should be distributed to all the troops, keep some handy in case you need to negate the effects of these shards. I recommend handkerchiefs soaked in the mixture to tie around their faces.”
He pointed down toward the shoreline where the Nagos army was amassed. “I will do what I can to disable the airships, but if they manage to disperse the shard water into the air, you can see how bad it could be. It’s best if everyone has easy access to the Mother’s Tears mixture.”
Skysong nodded and handed the powder to one of her soldiers.
“Remember to only use regular rain or well water for that!” Scarhoof yelled before the soldier had ran off. A salute indicated that he understood, so Scarhoof turned back for his next experiment.
“For this one, I must insist our next subject remove his weapons. We don’t want anyone hurt until the actual battle. Oh, and no one with teleport abilities.”
The next test used seawater instead of regular rain water, and Scarhoof used a hunk of shard rather than the powder this time, similar to how their fight with the Quarry Boss happened. As soon as Scarhoof threw the shard at the soldier, he followed up with an immediate casting of Tendrils to root the bull in place.
Sure enough, the soldier lost all sense of reality, and tried as hard as he could to get at someone. The event made Scarhoof flash back to his most recent encounter with the massive Nagos boss, recalling these deadly shard’s power to overtake trained soldier’s minds and cause them to do unspeakable things.
Once they helped recover the soldier with the help of Eldermother’s magical herb-filled poultice, they had one more thing to test.
“The last one was bad enough, but I cannot say how bad this next one will be. If what Earthwhisper says is true, then grinding up shards changes the entire effect. If the Nagos manage to drop shards that have been dunked in seawater, we saw just how bad it will be, but I distinctly saw them grinding it up, so I think we should try to see what the effects are.”
He paused, then took an extra-large step back, away from the crowd. “I’m going to test this on myself, just in case. For some reason these shards don’t affect me like they affect others, so it will be best to have the testing done by me. Please, everyone, stay back.”
Scarhoof ground up some white shard and placed dust in a small wooden bowl. He then dipped his finger into the bucket with seawater, and dripped a few drops into the bowl. The reaction was immediate. Thick white smoke billowed out of the small container. Raw energy coursed through his hands at the violence of the reaction.
He stuck his face down into the smoke, expecting to have a reaction, and he got exactly what he was expecting, only this time it was far more than he thought.
Effect Status: Volatile Spirit Shardsmoke:
+1000% to Spirit Abilities. +500% to Fire and Earth Abilities. -500% to Water and Air Abilities. Duration: 1 Hour.
“Whoa.”
The whole world began to spin for him with this sudden onrush of power into his being. Scarhoof stumbled backwards, tripping over one of the buckets as his vision clouded and his head began to swirl.
He dropped the small container, realizing too late that it had slipped from his grip.
He reached for it as he fell backwards but was unable to grab it fast enough.
Beside him, Haliin Earthwhisper tried to jump for the small wooden bowl.
“No!” Scarhoof yelled at the stupid Tau’raj, but it was too late.
The small amount of billowing smoke hit Earthwhisper’s face as he leapt for it.
Earthwhisper hit the ground with a dull thud and his body began to convulse.
Scarhoof rolled backwards and up to his hooves. “Clear the space! Hillbender, I need healing help!”
He reached out and grabbed his friend, rolling him onto his back. The poor bull was foaming at the mouth, his eyes wide with fright and pain.
Tears flooded Scarhoof’s vision as he tried to make sense of the situation. Why did the same acrid smoke give him stronger powers but harmed or killed others?
Why was he so different from the others, that everywhere he went he brought only death and pain? Scarhoof grabbed what remained of the bowl and hurled it far into the quarry.
Hillbender arrived at his side, his face grim. “He’s bleeding internally already, Anknoa, I’m going to need your help, his lungs are contracting, not allowing any air.”
Eldermother pushed past the older bulls, a serious expression on her face as she began chanting.
Together, they both tried to heal the shard researcher as he writhed in pain and agony on the ground. Scarhoof managed to get some of the Kobold cave water into the bull’s mouth, wetting his lips and splashing most of it across the bull’s eyes.
Helu and Eldermother, side by side, began chanting.
After a few tense moments, Haliin coughed, a raspy, painful sound. Pink foam bubbled up out of his mouth.
A sigh of relief swept the crowd and Scarhoof was barely able to keep his tears in as he wiped excess water from Haliin’s face.
His voice was scratchy and raw, but the researcher had something to say.
“I guess we know not to let this happen, don’t we?”
Quest Update! A Spreading Sickness:
Progress continues in learning how the shards interact, though this knowledge has come at an immense cost. Continue to refine your knowledge and experimentation until you learn how to utilize these shards and avoid their damage. (Gained 50 XP!)
Chapter 38
Brendalynn Bobbins muttered under her breath as she checked the compressed air valves one last time. “I’ll launch when I’m damn well ready, thank you very much.”
She waved her head back and forth like she had unlimited sass, imagining what it would be like to tell off that know-it-all. “I’m not the one who opened your precious closed-raid to any Engineer with a fully talented Airship skill.”
She had barely arrived at the shore when the raid leader insisted that they deploy.
“We need more time to get the ships in the air!”
She had tried to argue with the massive Nagos Commander, but he was having none of it. He wanted the ships airborne within the hour, and that was that.
Brendalynn wasn’t about to sacrifice her safety so they could attack the Tau’raj a couple hours ahead of schedule. What was the rush anyway? After a twenty-year never-ending war, Goop’tar the Incontinent was in a tizzy about getting this done tonight? What had crawled up his butt and died?
Besides, she had just got out of class and wasn’t due back on campus for nearly twenty-four hours. She had all the time in the world.
The first quest, failed, the second and third quests failed as well, but she wasn’t worried about those. At just a hair shy of level 35, she was easily going to complete enough quests to ding and then some.
She was the head Engineer, and no Zeppelin left the ground without her authorization.
If you’d asked her a few days ago, if she thought she would want to login to a game, to do the same things she taught at Kyoto University. She would have told you, you were nuts. She played games to get away from real life, but somehow being a Litlin E
ngineer was the most thrilling thing in the world to her.
At school, she was the most junior instructor, having only been hired that semester. She was still on probation, but here? Here she was in charge of an entire fleet of Engineers. They might all be NPC’s, but who cared? They worked for her. She was in her element, top of her game, and no one was around to tell her what to do.
Specially some stodgy stuck in the mud role-playing raid leader insisting that she get an entire fleet of unknown origin airships deployed with untested alpha-at-best nebulizing equipment that weighed twice what the airships were rated. Not to mention the failure by the previous Engineer that wiped out a fifth of the army.
Yeah, no. She was on her own timetable here.
“Uh ma’am?”
One of the NPC’s who had walked up to her while she was practicing telling off the raid leader snapped to attention in her peripheral vision.
Another Litlin, like her character. All of the techs were. This one was male. She thought his name was Squirt, but it didn’t really matter. Once the raid was completed, she would be on to bigger and better things in the world of Eloria.
For now, she just wanted to get on with it. Ensuring that everything was tip-top shape was her responsibility. In his rush to bump up their raid time, Mr. Roleplay himself hadn’t allowed enough time to organize enough new players.
Squirt cleared his throat, continuing on. “Ma’am, we are finally ready.”
Finally, she thought to herself, looking up from her contraption.
“Tanks are holding?”
“300 psi, Ma’am.”
“Valves checked?”
“Two times the pressure. Triple checked by me and twice by the other techs.”
A wry smile crossed her lips. They might actually get off the ground at this rate.
“Finally,” she said, “it’s about time we have some good news for the Commander.”
She cringed thinking about the Commander. Open-Sore the Disgusting, a level 48 player that was taking the role play just a bit too seriously. Every time she asked him where he was from he kept rattling off some small village to the south. In-game, mind you. It was like he had been born in-game.