by Demi Harper
“So why is Ket mad at you?” he asked. “You could hardly have chosen who your Core was.”
“’Tis as she said. I betrayed her.”
Benin narrowed his eyes, waiting.
“Corey and Ket lead their denizens by example. Through faith. As did I. However, Grimrock uses…used… darker means.”
Benin grimaced. “Yeah, I saw his altar.” It had been made of bones. “A benevolent god he was not.”
“Sacrifice, not worship. Fear, not faith. He bred his denizens—my denizens—to be fodder, then slaughtered the weakest of them like they meant nothing.” His voice shook, though with anger or sadness Benin couldn’t tell.
“You told him about the gnomes so he’d stop tormenting kobolds?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Let me guess. He didn’t stop.”
“No.”
“And then you lost the only friend you’d ever had down there.”
There was a heavy pause. He heard Bekkit swallow before continuing.
“I eventually appealed to the Lord of Light to aid me in my plight. Instead, that treacherous entity sent an agent—an adventurer of the Guild, no less—to secure Grimrock’s alliance in favor of mine. They faked his destruction, then restored his gem, removing all other witnesses. At that monster’s request, they removed me from the dragonkin Sphere, trapping me in stasis and keeping me in a secure location until they should once more have need of me.”
“Must have been a relief when we freed you instead.”
“Indeed. Though as we’ve discussed, I am somewhat dissatisfied with the limitations of my current form.”
“Understandable.”
“I wish to burn. To fly.”
“You’ve got wings. I’ve seen you fly plenty.”
“Untrue. It has seen me flit. Flutter.”
“Like a hummingbird,” Benin agreed.
“I wish to soar, young fire brother. Soar!”
Okay, crazy.
“I’m sure you will,” he told the sprite.
“It will help make this happen.”
“Like I said, keep teaching me the good stuff and we’ll see.”
Benin checked his mana. It had almost fully replenished during the course of their conversation. He picked himself up off the ground, brushing charred twigs and blackened leaves from his robes as he reached again for his magic.
“One more time before we go back,” he said, focusing on Levitate and trying to ignore the bruises on his backside from his last attempt.
“Is it sure? Our absence from the Sphere has surely been observed by now.”
“Not likely,” Benin told him. “I bet they haven’t even noticed we’re gone.”
Thirty-Nine
Seed
Corey
“Where in the hells have you been?!”
Benin didn’t seem to hear me. The human mage stared around at the camp, mouth open and eyes wide.
Four of the five dire badgers had survived the fight. Gneil and the acolytes were tending to their injuries, while the tribe’s regular badgers sniffed suspiciously at the now-docile creatures they’d just been fighting. One of the owlets had hopped down from the chariot and was now riding around perched on Bruce’s head.
“Hoot-hoot,” it said. Naturally.
The other owls, temporarily unsupervised, had taken it upon themselves to harass the carpenters, all four of whom were attempting to repair the smashed wagon. The owlets toddled around, getting underfoot and generally making a nuisance of themselves until some of the gnomish children came over to scoop them up and take them away from the busy workers.
Other children helped the builders to gather up the webbing that was strewn everywhere from the fallen skynet. They wore thick gloves made from what looked like mole-rat skin, and frowned in concentration as they sorted through the sticky strands for any that could still be salvaged.
Meanwhile, the gnomish medics were tending to the handful of injured warriors, most of which had thankfully only received superficial wounds.
“What happened here?” Benin managed to ask.
“Badgers,” said Coll.
Bekkit cleared his throat and rose from his perch on Benin’s shoulder.
“Honored Core, forgive me. I simply sought to train this young mage’s powers in a location safely away from your denizens—”
“Safe?! You left them without protection!”
Benin frowned. “Coll was—”
“Also off gallivanting in the forest,” I snapped. “That the humans behaved irresponsibly is no surprise—” Benin folded his arms and snorted “—but I honestly expected better of you, Bekkit. You too, Ket.”
“I’m sorry, Corey,” she said miserably. The sprite’s usually glowing form was dull, and her guilt crept across our bond.
“Why did you guys leave?” asked Benin, stepping aside to let a bloody badger bumble past. “You can’t have been training as well. Or are you telling me Ket’s been hiding a wealth of knowledge about the best ways to hit things with hammers?”
Coll glanced at Ket, who shifted uncomfortably but didn’t reply.
“The lot of you need to start talking. Now.” My voice was hard, and both sprites flinched. I didn’t usually play the hard-ass, but they’d just endangered the tribe and our entire existence with their reckless behavior. It was unacceptable, and they needed to know I wouldn’t tolerate it.
“Bekkit taught me a new skill,” Ket burst out. “Terrestrial Body.”
“You guys can share skills?” I said, momentarily distracted from my anger. “Wait—sprites have skills?”
“Of course.” She sounded affronted. “Ris’kin has skills. Binky has skills. Why are you surprised that I do too?”
“You’ve just never mentioned it before.”
She shifted. “Well, that’s because I don’t have that many.”
My sprite’s tiny body dimmed even further. Despite the circumstances, I felt bad for being so hard on her. Her own inadequacies as a sprite were already a sore subject. Not wanting to drag it out in front of everyone, I changed the subject.
“So, Terrestrial Body…” I prompted.
“Right! It basically lets me leave your Sphere by temporarily severing our connection. But it’s for a limited time only. Without my connection to you, my essence is no longer sustained by your Sphere’s ambient mana. It drains very slowly, but if I don’t return here to regenerate…”
“All right, that makes sense. I wish you hadn’t used it without first consulting me, though. Especially after the lectures you’ve given me in the past for doing the same thing!”
She squirmed, but along with the awareness of her own hypocrisy I also sensed fury.
“Bekkit said our bond would remain,” she cried. “He said I’d still be able to talk to you. As always, he lied.”
Everyone looked at Bekkit, who said calmly, “You still haven’t answered my fiery companion’s question. Why did you leave in the first place?”
Ket fluttered her wings in discomfort, but glared defiantly at Bekkit. “We came to look for you.” Addressing me, she said, “I convinced Coll to help me find where those two had gone. He’s up to something, I know it.”
“Your mistrust, though admittedly not unearned, grows tiresome, young Ketten,” said Bekkit.
He sounded as though she’d wounded him. The sprite was still shielding his emotions from me so I couldn’t know for sure, but I wasn’t buying it.
“Oh really? And how do we know for sure you weren’t behind this entire thing?”
He sputtered. “What?!”
“Did you actually witness Bekkit and Benin training together?” I asked my sprite.
“No,” said Ket. “We turned back before we found them. It felt wrong to be away from the Sphere.”
“Good.”
She glowed a little brighter at my approval.
I rounded on the other two once more.
“I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt this time. But I need to kno
w that I can trust you.” Benin scowled and opened his mouth to argue, but I carried on quickly. “Your presence here is appreciated, as is your help so far. But if you’re to continue accompanying us, I need to know that you’re with us.”
There was a pause. Then Bekkit declared, “I am with you. To the end.”
“Me too,” said Coll.
Benin nodded. I figured that was the best I was going to get from him for now.
Seemingly relieved that the conflict was over, Ket asked tentatively, “What happened with the scouts? Where’s Shanky? And Ris’kin?”
“They’re on their way back,” I said. “We found the badgers’ burrow—and their queen.”
“It’s called a sett,” she corrected me, back to her old self. “And that can’t be right. Badgers don’t have queens.”
“These ones do. Look.”
I brought up the blueprint for the dire badger queen. Ket’s wings fluttered anxiously as she perused it.
“It makes no sense,” she murmured. Sparks showered erratically from her as she flitted from side to side, the aerial version of pacing back and forth. Bekkit also came over to look.
“It’s not like they’re unique in that regard,” I pointed out. “The mole-rats had a queen too, remember?”
“Yes, but they’re a eusocial species anyway. Aren’t they?”
I mentally shrugged. “I only know what the Augmentary tells me. I know we fought a queen, and…” I swiped through to find it. “Yeah, a dire blesmol queen. Her blueprint mentions the ‘eusocial’ thing.”
“Interesting…” Bekkit was scanning the other blueprints. “The Augmentary describes the owlets as tiger owl ‘offspring.’ However, the dire badgers are referred to as the queen’s ‘spawn.’ I wonder if that is significant…”
“There’s something else bothering me as well.” I told them about the dire badgers’ behavior, and how it reminded me of Snagga. Bekkit shuddered at the name, as though it brought back unpleasant memories.
“If they were indeed compelled by their queen’s signal, should they not have retreated?” he said. “If the queen were under attack by Ris’kin and the scouts, and if she was near-death as you say, would not her instincts be to withdraw them from combat to defend her instead?”
“Just like Grimrock did with Snagga,” added Ket.
“To do otherwise goes against all of nature’s survival instincts.”
“Perhaps they’re not natural.”
He frowned. “Perhaps,” he conceded. “Even so, in this situation it makes no sense that they would have been urged to attack our camp instead of returning to protect their queen.”
“Unless their orders weren’t coming from the queen. Or hers were from elsewhere, even.”
We all turned to look at Coll, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground. Two of the new badgers, already bandaged and stitched by Gneil’s team of impromptu veterinarians, were exploring the warrior’s feet. One began to chew on his boot, all traces of the creature’s former animosity gone.
“Why do you say that?” I asked him.
“Well, if an army’s behavior don’t make sense, chances are they’ve either got themselves an incompetent leader, their plans are different to what you think they are, or they’re getting their orders from somewhere else. Ain’t that right, Mr. Snuffles?”
“What? Oh.”
He was talking to the other badger, which had now climbed into his lap.
“Mr. Snuffles? Really?” I asked him.
“Yup. An’ this bitey one’s Bodger.”
“Of course it is.”
Benin snorted. “And you wondered why I didn’t let him name my emberfox.”
“I came up with good names!” Coll protested.
“Lady Firepants is not a good name.”
I sniggered. “I disagree. I think it’s an excellent name.”
“No wonder you two get along so well,” sighed Ket.
I was about to demand she explain what she meant when Ris’kin and Longshank returned with the scouts.
Well, most of them.
The four scouts walked with heavy steps and bowed heads, as though they were carrying a weight greater than the sacks of badger meat and pelts they’d harvested from their pair of kills.
Where’s the fifth scout? I asked Ris’kin, expecting him to arrive at any moment. But the scout named Hindmarch was already here, handing a bloody silver-furred pelt to the tribe’s tanner. Hindmarch always brought up the rear. Always. Which meant…
A flash of sadness from my avatar confirmed the worst. The fifth scout was dead.
As always, Ket focused first on her favorite. “Look at poor Shanky!”
“What are you talking about? Shanky’s f—”
I’d been about to say “fine,” but thought better of it. Longshank’s armor was torn, and rivulets of blood were coagulating in the wrinkles of the mole-rat hide. His knuckles were sliced and bruised, though I noticed he still carried the clump of brambles he’d used as impromptu knuckle dusters.
He and the other scouts were beat-up and tired. But at least they were alive.
Ket sensed the direction of my thoughts and finally looked up from her favorite gnome long enough to notice the missing scout. Her hands flew to her face.
“Oh, no,” she whispered through her fingers.
Many of the gnomes reacted similarly to the news. Others showed signs of grief, but stepped up to shoulder extra tasks to give their fellows more space to grieve.
The wagons were a flurry of activity as Buttress oversaw the distribution of pelts, claws and meat. The two farmers were squealing quietly in unison at the sight of some small item; a closer look revealed it to be some sort of seed. It was silvery in color, rounded at one end and pointed at the other, with black grooves running lengthwise along its surface.
Weird.
I watched absently as they scurried away with their prize after the overseer nodded her permission for them to take it. I had bigger things to worry about.
We were down to just four scouts. I couldn’t assign more; the scout vocation required scouting experience before it could be assigned to an individual. And for me to send non-scouts out beyond my Sphere required mana—mana I didn’t have access to.
Even Swift and Cheer, whom I’d sent to scout on several occasions in the past, had not done it enough to unlock the vocation; besides, their two basic vocation slots had already been filled.
Still…
With a blink, I opened up Swift’s Augmentary profile and examined her scavenger skills.
Detect Site, Dismantle, Sabotage… Scavenge.
Scavenge
Scavenger ability
Venture beyond one’s immediate surroundings in search of discarded items of potential use.
I’d noted Scavenge before, but had assumed its use would involve targeting something specific, like with Sabotage and the skynet. Actually, though, it seemed to function much more like Scout, minus the mana cost. Given previous results, I couldn’t say I had much faith in the scavengers’ dedication to their task, but perhaps their recent increase in approval would make them more willing to help their fellow gnomes.
The pair were still basking in the praise of the non-combatants who’d witnessed their actions first-hand. Many had gathered around the scavengers to shake their hands and pat their backs—though the latter abruptly stopped after Twain’s palm came away embedded with what looked like hedgehog spines.
While the somewhat bewildered sawyer went in search of a medic, the nearby warriors continued to re-load the undamaged wagons, rolling their eyes at Swift and Cheer’s sudden popularity.
However, even the scavengers’ reputation paled compared with that of the rogue blond child. Binky had managed to shake her off, so she’d roped Flea into becoming her latest steed. She rode by serenely, pale hair floating in the breeze, singing softly under her breath and patting the badger’s flank.
“You’re a strange one,” I muttered. “And lucky to be alive.”
Pandemonium… heh. I guess I’ll name you”Pan.
It was strange; everywhere she went, gnomes smiled to see her; not just as though they were happy, which they clearly were, but as though their overall morale was lifted. It reminded me of the change I used to see when a denizen converted to become Faithful; they became lighter, more enthusiastic, filled with purpose. Ris’kin’s presence had a similar effect.
I examined the little gnome more closely.
Pan
Gnome (juvenile)
This young gnome has survived plenty of unlikely circumstances, so much so that her tribe-mates regard her as something of a lucky charm. The universe itself recognized this and granted her ‘periapt’ status.
Unique trait: Periapt (+5 morale to allies within 3 meters)
So the impetuous child had basically become the tribe’s mascot. It made about as much sense as anything else, I supposed.
Pan and Flea ambled past the remains of the portahut used to trap one of the dire badgers. That reminded me.
“Why were the huts and wagons set up like this, Ket?”
“It was time to rest. The gnomes need to keep their stamina up—”
“Yes, but why was the entire camp assembled just for a rest stop? And in this way? It’s almost like they were expecting an attack.”
“Well, that’s actually really interesting,” she said. “Bekkit and I decided it was time to call the halt. Of course, we can’t communicate with Gneil like you can.”
“They asked me to try,” Coll chipped in.
“We did. He couldn’t get through to them either—”
“Though it was amusing to watch its attempts,” added Bekkit.
“—so he went on ahead and pitched his tent in their path. They seemed confused, but Buttress and Rattail seemed to agree it was time for a rest. Those two being the overseer and quartermaster, the others followed suit—after getting Gneil’s approval, of course.”