“Allurie, what are you doing here?” I asked as the dwarves surrounded the girl.
“Nothing,” she sighed as she looked at the ground. The axe was one of the two handed variety, with a blade on each side, but she didn’t seem to have any problem holding it in one hand. She was also wearing pieces of poor fitting dwarven armor on her arms, shoulders, and knees. The pieces were different types of armor and looked kind of ridiculous on her.
“Doesn’t look like nothing,” the dwarf woman said.
“I want to prove I can be with Leo,” Allurie admitted as she looked at the ground.
“What does that mean?” I asked as I tried to keep the anger out of my voice.
“I thought I could go and kill a dragon or something, and then bring it back, and you’d let me stay. I want to stay with you.”
“Ha! I think an elf holding a battle axe, wearing half of six different suits of dwarven armor, and thinking she could kill a dragon is a good reason for you not to stay with anyone,” the dwarf woman joked with a gruff voice.
I thought Allurie would have argued with the other woman, or gotten angry, but she just sighed and looked at the ground. She seemed embarrassed, and it was an emotion that I had never seen on her face before.
“You are right. I’m not good at this stuff. I should have just—”
“Shhhhh!” one of the men said as he pointed to the hillside. The dwarves had been glancing around as I spoke to Allurie, and the sudden hiss of warning made me notice that I didn’t hear any birds, or even the sound of the wind. It was strangely quiet.
“Well, lass,” the dwarf Blood Smith began. “I hope you can figure out how to get good at that stuff in a hurry because we’ve got about ten ogres on the side of that hill there, and they are about to—”
Her voice was cut off by a scream from above, and I saw a group of eight foot tall, thickly bearded, black skinned monsters running down the steep hillside. Each of the creatures looked almost like a hunchback, but where the lump was on their back was kind of a cluster of horns that made them look like an ankylosaurus dinosaur in that spot. Each of the creatures had a mouth full of long tusks, and they carried either a long spear, or a sword that was probably as long as one of the dwarves were tall, in their hands. They looked all sorts of bad, and my UI displayed their cluster of red health bars in a way that made me feel like it was a warning alert.
Shit.
Chapter 4
“Brace formation! Leo and the elf on the inside!” the Blood Smith yelled. The dwarves seemed to instantly fall into place between the charging ogres and where Allurie stood.
I pulled the magic sword out of my sheath with my right hand and then grabbed one of my short blades with my left. The ogres were getting closer, almost eighty yards now, and they seemed to be getting much larger as they approached. I let out a long breath and then used my right arm to push Allurie behind me. I really wished I’d found some armor somewhere, but at least I had a short sword.
And I could respawn if we got plowed over.
Allurie couldn’t respawn though, nor could my new dwarven friends. So I was going to do my best to kill as many of these assholes as I could before they—
“Incoming!” the Blood Smith shouted as one of the running ogres tossed his spear in our direction. The thing was a good ten feet long, and it flew toward us as straight as an arrow. I pushed Allurie to the side, and attempted to get my own body out of its trajectory, but the dwarven woman at the front of her group raised her thick metal shield over her head, and the spear smacked right into it.
There was a sound like a gong crossed with thunder, and the spear bounced off of the hunk of metal like a skipped stone. The shaft flew way over my head, and I turned around to see it continue its path and impale itself into the mountain side some two hundred yards behind us.
Holy shit, that was one hell of a throw.
“Is that all you got you ugly sons of cow dung?” the Blood Smith laughed and the rest of the dwarves joined her.
But a split second later the ogres crashed into the wall of short armored men.
One of the tall monsters actually leaped over the group, and he made a downward cut as he tumbled through the air. The aim of the strike was surprisingly true, but the Blood Smith seemed to have expected the movement, and she flipped her shield casually over her head to deflect the blow. Then she lowered it again to block the spear thrust from another dark skinned monster.
The ogre that just landed shrieked and pivoted to make an attack at the Blood Smith. His movement actually turned his back to me, and I knew I was going to have to do something or his attack would cut down the woman that had just saved my ass.
“Nope,” I said as I leapt away from Allurie. The magical broadsword swung downward with a chopping motion, and the edge cut into the elbow of the ogre. His arm was massive, thick, and covered with a heavy looking layer of rusted chain mail, so I half expected my new sword to bite halfway into the limb. Instead, I cut clear through easily, and the ogre screamed with surprise when he swung his arm forward sans weapon.
His health bar dropped down to about 70%.
Another ogre thrust his spear at me from the other side of the dwarves. I had half expected the attack, since the dwarves couldn’t really protect me, so I managed to flip my magical blade up in time to parry the attack.
The ogre with only half of his sword arm spun around, and his massive fist wrecking balled downward to my face. The attack was fast, for such a big fucker, but it wasn’t anything that I didn’t see projected by the twist of his hips and shoulders. I ducked down and to the left a bit to let the big hand pass over my head, and then I bounced back up with a flurry of cuts from my short and long sword.
I slashed him across the outside of his right thigh with my short blade, but the weapon didn’t do much of anything against his chain armor. My magical blade did bite deep into the inside of the same leg, and if their anatomy was anything like a human’s I would have just severed his femoral artery. I made another cut with my short sword across the lower part of his stomach, but my blade encountered the same armor protection there, and it did little more than lay open some of the chain.
The monster was beginning to pivot back to strike me again, but I figured I could get one more slice in with my longer blade. His swing had kind of shifted his weight off of his left leg so that most of it was over his right. If this was a Judo or Ju-Jitsu match, I would have kicked the back of the knee there and my opponent probably would have tumbled to the ground. Even though I was really strong, the ogre was a good two feet taller, and probably outweighed me by double. I doubted that one of my kicks could take him down, so I just sliced the back of his knee with my new sword.
The leg came apart with a spray of dark red blood, and my opponent’s second melee attack went high over my head. His health bar was at 40% now, but he was falling, and screaming, and I was able to shove the top of my broadsword through his skull before he even hit the ground.
“Leo’s making you all look like a bunch of fenias during mating season! Stop trying to kiss these ugly bastards and kill the life out of them!” the Blood Smith shouted over the chaos of the battle.
I glanced over the melee and sighed with relief. I didn’t know how the ogres hadn’t overpowered the dwarves yet, but the short warriors were holding their own against the larger opponents and superior numbers. None of the men had fallen, and the Blood Smith had ended two of the ogres already.
It was time to step up my own game.
The left side of the line had two monsters double teaming one of the dwarven men. I recognized him as the initial guard I had spoken with, and I jumped next to him just as one of the monsters was making a wicked downward chop on the shorter man’s head.
“Shield!” I called out as I raised my left arm. The disc of almost transparent energy appeared over my forearm, and the ogres’ massive hit slammed into the magic barrier a fraction of a second later.
I would have thought the attack would have ripped a
part my arm, or at least numbed my shoulder so bad that I wouldn’t have been able to feel anything, but the ogre’s massive hit against me felt like it had very little pressure, and his big ugly eyes widened with surprise when his sword bounced off of the semi-transparent air.
They were only surprised for a second though. The impact of our block had forced his hands over his head, and he didn’t get them down in time to block my riposte. The point of my broadsword buried in between the big monster’s eyes, and I felt my blade pierce the other side of his skull before I yanked my weapon out. The dark skinned creature was dead before he hit the ground, and I pivoted to kill the next one.
“Leo is making you look like you’re new born babes playing with your momma’s nipple. Let’s get a move on!” the Blood Smith shouted to her men.
There was a flash on my UI, over the party window area, and the dwarfs all gave a synchronized grunt. The pace of their counter attacks increased noticeably, and I guessed that the Blood Smith had used some sort of party buff to make the other men attack faster. There was a little sword icon with wings next to everyone’s health bar on my screen, and when my eyes focused there I noticed that only a few of the dwarves had actually lost any health.
The ogre I was now double teaming with the other dwarf flipped his sword around to parry the dwarf’s low axe attack, and I swung my long sword overhand to try and chop into his unprotected shoulder joint. My blade slashed out quicker than I expected, and I almost missed my target because I was so surprised. Fortunately, my new sword’s edge was sharp, and it dug deeply into the ogre. He screamed with agony, and then tried to slide his blade around to hit me, but the dwarf’s axe was locked with the sword, and the short man was somehow able to keep the giant ogre from cutting me in half.
The ogre didn’t have the same team work advantage, and I made another attack at the same spot I had before. I was ready for the increased speed of my arm now, and my sword cut the limb off of the monster with little effort. He screeched, dropped the blade from his remaining hand, and then tried to crush my face with his clawed fingers.
The Blood Smith was there in the nick of time, and her massive axe somehow cut the other arm off of the monster before he could ruin my good looks. The black skinned ogre made a final guttural shout, but then I took his head off with a lop of my long blade.
Then the battle was over.
I looked around at the carnage with a grateful sigh. We had somehow survived without losing a single man, and the bodies of the ten ogres laid around us in various death poses. I hadn’t even had to use Rwunidar’s Might during the battle, and I was a bit proud of myself for taking care of business without getting hurt. Allurie still stood at her spot about thirty feet behind the row of dwarves, and her face was as white as the simple servant’s outfit that she wore.
“By my great-grandfather’s battle axe! Leo, you are one tough human!” the Blood Smith shouted. “I was having problems keeping up with your body count, but I think we tied at the end, since you just got that one.”
“That was crazy,” I said as my heart started to slow down. “I thought we were all going to die.”
“From these weaklings?” she asked as she kicked the corpse of one of the ogres. “Naw. They’d need twice, no three, no four times the numbers to make me a bit worried, but that would only be a bit worried.” She laughed again, but I could see from the expressions of the other men’s faces that they had probably been as concerned as I was, and they were also surprised that we were still alive.
I guessed that Gratia had been right when she spoke about Blood Smiths. If dwarves were tough, Blood Smiths were even crazier. I was suddenly glad that this woman had decided to help me find Allurie. I would have surely died if it had just been me out here against ten ogres.
I cleaned off the blades of my swords, sheathed them, and walked over to Allurie. Before I could say anything, she dropped her axe and threw her arms around me. The elf girl buried her face in my chest and began to sob. The dwarves all kind of winced at the emotional display, and they took a few steps away from us so that we’d have more privacy.
“I am an idiot. I’m so sorry. Leo, please don’t send me away. I know I’m a dummy, but I just love you,” is what I thought she said after a few minutes of her crying, it was hard to understand her because of the sobbing and the muffled sound of her mouth against my chest.
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and sighed heavily. A flurry of emotions tumbled through my stomach, and I began to think about my parents. I thought about Garf, and I thought about Jax.
I thought about Sal.
I did miss my friends, and I understood some of what Allurie was feeling. It was a weird situation, because she was just a NPC in a virtual game, but I knew what it was like to have someone that you loved that you didn’t want to leave. I still thought it was a bit idiotic that she had these feelings for me in the first place, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t have the feelings for real. Or, at least, virtually, since she wasn’t real.
Damn. This game was really confusing me.
Damn. I love this game.
“Hey,” the Blood Smith called out. “For the love of Shadow, there is nothing worse than a damn elf crying. It’s like there is something wrong with the universe. Beer tasting like wine, and wine tasting like something that you should drink, instead of something weaklings drink. Just tell that damn girl she can have what she wants, so she’ll go back to smiling, and we can go home. All this talk of beer is making me thirsty.”
“Aye!” a few of the other dwarves, that had seemed more than a little uncomfortable with Allurie’s emotions, agreed loudly.
I pulled the pretty elf girl away from my chest, and then held her shoulders so she couldn’t hug me again. The skin around her eyes was red from crying, and it made her strangely colored eyes seem even brighter.
“You have to go home. You can’t come with me to Arnicoal. I’m sorry, Allurie.”
“I know,” she said as her lower lip quivered. “But now I’m sad that I caused you all these problems. Will you forgive me?”
“Please forgive her! I want some damn beer!” The Blood Smith shouted, and I saw the other men nod out of the corner of my eye.
“Yes. I forgive you. It is okay. Let’s go back. Artus and Gratia are waiting. We need to leave.”
“Okay, Leo,” she said with a sigh. Then she wiped her nose with the sleeve of her servant outfit, picked up the too big battle axe, and nodded at me.
Then we marched back to the stronghold.
Chapter 5
I had five minutes left on the quest timer when we made it back to the wagon with Allurie. As soon as the two of us reached the side of the vehicle, and saw Gratia approaching with a small army of servants carrying boxes, the Quest Completed words appeared on my UI. There was a second pause and then another sentence appeared: You have been awarded 4 attribute points.
My UI glowed in the top right corner of my screen, and I fought against the desire to open the window so that I could look at my character sheet. I should have 28 points to spend now, and while they weren’t burning a virtual hole in my pocket, I really wanted to know what it felt like to spend some of them. The buff that the Blood Smith had used earlier had made me attack faster, and the sensation had felt awesome. Would I have a similar feeling when I dumped some points into an attribute? Would I suddenly feel smarter? Stronger? Faster? Better looking? The only thing keeping me from spending the points was my end goal. I needed to get these fifteen artifacts, and I didn’t know what attributes I would need in Arnicoal. It was more prudent to wait.
“Ya found her! Why is she blubbering?” Gratia asked when she saw Allurie and me.
“She doesn’t want to go back,” I said with a shrug.
“I have to go back, it is okay,” the elf girl said as she climbed up on the seat of the wagon next to Artus.
“Humpf.” I couldn’t tell if Gratia’s grunt was one of agreement or annoyance, but the expression on her face when she looked a
t me made me think that the dwarf woman might have liked the elven girl more than she was letting on.
“Where in the Shadow are you going?” the Blood Smith asked Graita as she came to stand next to us.
“Ahhh Beernie! I’m heading to Arnicoal with intent to sell my art and start a new life.”
“What? I’m gonna miss ya too much,” the armored woman said. As she spoke her named changed above her head to say Beernie.
“I have some guards escorting us through the foothills,” my friend said as she nodded to the four armored dwarven warriors that were helping load Gratia’s boxes in the back of the wagon.
“Ehhh. Got any beer?” Beernie asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Two kegs.”
“You’ll need a bit more if I’m coming with you. Hold on for a few minutes, I’ll go get some. Ha!” The Blood Smith turned to walk away and Gratia smiled at me.
“This is good news. Beernie is one of our best. She’s never been defeated in combat.”
“Yeah. She helped me find Allurie, we were attacked by a bunch of ogres,” I said as I watched the short armored woman walk away.
“Oh? I imagine she made one cut with her axe and killed all of them.”
“Haha,” I laughed a bit. “It wasn’t that impressive, but it was still amazing. I was thankful to have her.”
“Aye, and it is good she is coming with us. I asked for some Blood Smiths to escort us, but some people are a little ass sore that I’m leaving, and they refused to give me more than a few guards.” Gratia rolled her eyes, and I guessed that there were a lot of political idiosyncrasies to dwarven culture that I had only scratched the surface of.
By the time Gratia’s stuff had been packed, and the four of us had figured out the seating arrangements, Beernie had returned. The stout woman was carrying a keg on each shoulder and then somehow sandwiching a third pressed between them a few inches over her head. The armored woman loaded them in the back of the wagon with a loud thud, and I actually saw the leaf spring shocks of the wagon drop a bit with the extra weight.
Lion's Quest: Dual Wield: A LitRPG Saga Page 5