by Eric Ugland
“I thought you figured that out already.”
“Just confirming.”
‘You are not.”
“So you lied to me.”
“Sure, but I also didn’t want you to do a header off the mountain. A little lie for your safety.”
“Where are you?” I asked, looking around. Nothing was around, except the mountain and the bench. Seemed like the bench might be staying. “And can you hear my thoughts?”
“I’m nearby. And not really. You’re just not the best at hiding them. Are you going to climb down?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You could probably phone a friend.”
“What?”
“Oh, speaking of phone, that’s mine. Got to go.”
“You’ve got a phone?”
No answer. Just the slight whistling of the wind picking up. Looking out to the west, I could see big clouds on the horizon, glowing in the light of the four moons. I tied my pizza bag to my belt, and I started climbing down carefully. Annoyed, but also a bit happy how dumb it was to have a bench on top of a mountain.
Chapter Thirty-Six
When I got back, I threw myself into the road project. It was the only thing I could think to do, because, as usual, I had no desire to think, or to be alone with myself. I filled every minute of every day with something, and I tried to let go of the rage that was bubbling just beneath the surface.
To be honest, the pizza helped, and I had my suspicions that it might have had a dual purpose in that regard. That Mister Paul might have done something to the pizza to improve my mood. I just accepted it. For now. So every morning, I worked on the road and civic improvements. My afternoons were for training. And nights, nights I went hunting.
The goblins were around. We knew that. They had patrols going around during the night, watching us. That’s what Ragnar had been working on while I’d been making my way back with Fritz. He and the nascent ranger corp were spending their nights hunting down goblin bands and their days setting up traps for said goblins. The first night I went out, I followed Amber the kitsune. The other rangers were given squads of soldiers, but I insisted I was equal to a squad or more. It took us two hours of hiking through the trees to the north before Amber waved me down to wait. She’d found something.
A band had come through. Ten to twenty night goblins. It was tough getting an accurate count because they were sneaky little fucks, and they had the habit of purposefully disguising their numbers. But they were also a bit stupid, which meant if you saw a lot of goblin prints, it was likely a small band. A few meant it was a large war-band. I had to admit, I was impressed at their discipline, keeping a bunch of goblins so close in line couldn’t be easy.
We followed the trail until we got close enough to smell burning meat. Which was, ostensibly, their attempt at cooking the local game. They brought new meaning to the culinary term blackened. I can’t imagine it tasted good.
Once we had visual confirmation of the goblins, it was Amber’s turn to stand back. My turn to work.
I took the greenskins’ bane from my back, limbered up ever so much in my black leather armor (light armor for sneaky-sneak purposes), and then I waded in. My sword cut left and then right. It was a rare moment of catharsis when I could actually let my rage out.
And rage I did. I was not a nice man to those goblins. I mean, I didn’t desecrate their corpses, much, but I spared no one. They all fell under my blade.
Then it was rinse, quite literally because I always needed a shower after the carnage, and repeat the next night. I lost count of the goblins I killed, and everything sort of blurred together because I wasn’t really sleeping either. But dealing death was the only thing that really made me feel anything. Fucked up as that sounds.
It almost made it worse that I was being rewarded for my actions.
Through hard work and extra-judicious use of violence and terror, you have unlocked an additional aspect of your indicium SLAYER: GOBLINBANE. Congratulations on the slaughter. Goblins of all stripe fear you, and whisper your name in the dark. You gain additional XP for killing goblins, you do bonus visceral damage to goblins, greater chance for dismemberment and brutality when killing goblins.
I gained three levels in Stealth, and plenty of XP. Enough so that I was a little surprised I didn’t level, and I started to wonder if there was a hidden penalty of some form I’d missed after dying. Maybe I lost my XP? Did I need to work back up from zero? That’d be a pretty giant pain in the ass.
Still, the more important work was happening in daylight hours.
The first step in the process of building our road was entertaining as hell. We had to map out the valley, which meant strapping cartographers to Fritz, and then flying around. There’s nothing quite so amusing, to me at least, as dwarves screaming bloody murder for an hour while the cold air whips through your hair. And after a few days of careful flight, we had some excellent information about Coggeshall Valley.
The night goblins knew we were flying about. And so one of the first things we learned was that they had siege weapons. That didn’t have great aim. Any time we got near their caverns, rocks would start sailing in our direction. The first time it happened, it was a little startling, but then it just became something else we’d have to watch out for.
Second, the valley was oddly circular. Like nearly perfect. Once we had measurements going, it became even clearer how perfect a circle it actually was. Lee took a few flights up with Fritz and me — side note: I had to take all the flights because Fritz was being a bit of an asshole and wouldn’t fly anyone without me present — and Lee’s working hypothesis at the time was that we were in a crater. It made sense. Especially with the big rock still sitting in the middle of the valley. A team of miners and a geologist were itching to go out and sample the central rock, but there were too many confusing elements in place to allow something like that to happen. I needed to know they’d be safe. Lee thought the two caves, the large one in the east that seemed mostly full of water and the massive gaping hole in the world to the west, had been connected prior to the cratering. And that one cave had a river running through it. When the crater formed, both halves of the river started dumping into the remaining hole. Hence two rivers coming in.
Third, the best path for the road would not be to bisect the circle with a straight line. Instead, it would be better to do more of a curve around. Not only was there a big weird rock smack dab in the middle, there was also the large lake that cupped around the big weird rock. Fortunately, it didn’t look like we’d need to build any bridges as the only water we’d be crossing the entire trip would be at the very end, where we’d be building our fortress.
It took a full week before we had the mapping together, and another few days while the cartographers, who weren’t Choice cartographers but just those who had an interest in mapmaking, gathered their notes together, and pored over their maps made from the magic map I’d gotten from Léon Glaton, the Viceroy of Osterstadt. Finally, they got a huge map together, spread over a large table in a specially made room right off of Nikolai’s office. There was something neat about just needing to dig into rock to make new buildings or rooms appear. Since we had magic on our side, all it took was dwarven architects and miners working with our geomancer Essie. She did the heavy lifting getting the stone cut. And then it was just a matter of pulling the rock out and doing a little finishing work. So in just a few hours, we had a massive room with an eight-foot square map table that showed our valley in reasonable detail.
The council, as it were, stood around it, all of us looking down at the red string Lee was using to mark out where he wanted the road to go. It was at odds with the proposed road by the dwarven chief, Harmut, who wanted to have a floating bridge across the lake, skirting on the eastern side of the big rock. Which we were also in the midst of arguing over naming. The dwarves were proposing calling it the Eye of Eirsíða, who was evidently the god of dwarves, but that seemed speciest to the others. Oddly enough, the dwarves s
eemed to find nothing wrong with also proposing digging out the eye of their god.
I was already getting tired of all the talking, and even though I was doing my best to quash the irritation and frustration welling up inside me, it wasn’t helping. Not when when so many people were arguing and being silly. The arguments were just so stupid. Childish. When I could step away, I could see where they were coming from. It was a big project, and everyone wanted to have their input in it. And be heard. Valued. But the bickering. The quibbling.
“Okay,” I said, and when I looked around at the council, I realized I may have spoken a little louder than I’d intended. Whatever. “Building a floating bridge is foolish.”
“That’s true, my lord,” the dwarf chief said. “But it would allow easy access for fishing in the lake.”
I hesitated. He almost had me.
“You know I like fishing,” I said.
“I do.”
“But as much as I like fishing, I don’t think it’s a wise choice. The amount of upkeep is going to be insane. Especially with winter snows looking to be high.”
“I know, just. I wanted the challenge.”
“There’s plenty of challenges left to conquer. Like building a fortress on the other end of the valley. That’s going to be where you’re tested, my man.”
The dwarf laughed. “Building a fortress in a lake.”
“Gotta get the whole thing secured,” I said. “But the road is going around the western side of the big rock. Skeld Rock.”
Ragnar smiled at me, and nodded.
“Skeld Rock,” Ragnar said.
“Working name,” I said. “Maybe something a little more grandiose than rock. And maybe we should find out what the stuff actually is. I’d hate to name it after him and the rock wind up being, like, holy poop or something.”
“I’ve been considering the construction aspect,” Lee said, leaning on the table. “I believe we need to think of it in three stages. One, preparing the path. Clearing trees, digging out a foundation. Second, laying the stones. Third, material delivery. Making sure the stones are getting where we need them when we need them.”
“Prinkies,” Nikolai said. “Perfect to march stones out there.”
“Each of the blocks weighs close to five hundred pounds,” Lee said. “Can a single prinky handle that?”
“We can test it,” I said.
I summoned up ten prinkies, and the cute little furry magical creatures came into being and stood at attention. For a second at least, and then their attention began to wander.
“Ragnar,” I said, “go direct these guys to a stone. Bring it back.”
Ragnar nodded. “Follow me you furry little jerks!” he yelled, and sprinted off.
“He means you,” I told the prinkies.
They waited a heartbeat, and then tore off after the otter.
“I’ll take job one,” I said. “Clearing and digging. Me and a few prinkies. Maybe some kobolds. We’ll get everything ready. Fritz will be the best thing for three, stone delivery. You guys build some pallets and rig up a system he can grab with his claws. He’ll be able to drop off the stones faster than we can build. And speaking of building, you guys can deal with that.”
Everyone just sort of looked at me, as if they couldn’t quite believe I’d said all that.
“Okay then,” I continued. “I’ve got work to do. I’m leaving now.”
“You aren’t waiting for the prinkies?” Nikolai asked. “What if—“
“Nah, that was mainly to mess with Ragnar. And you. Fritz is the best way to handle material delivery.”
I gave one more look around the room. Then I nodded, and walked out. I was done with groupthink.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I spent a few hours getting a small team together. Amber and Bear as my rangers, Baltu as my kobold wrangler, ten kobolds, and then Ragnar and Tarryn as might. Plus a young dwarven woman named Maja who would be in charge of the map. And making sure we didn’t stray too far off course.
We started off a little after noon. Which actually meant I stepped through the gate and had my shovel out. The Empire had a standard width for a road: wide enough for two wagons to pass by each other with a horse in between. We’d made our gates to match that size, and Maja had a long guide that we could lay across the ground and get an accurate measurement whenever we needed it. She walked off a ways, and then stood there with her stick on the ground.
“Dig to me!” she called out.
So I did.
I acted as the main digging machine, with a horde of prinkies doing things like hauling loose dirt to the side and getting rocks out of the foundation layer. The ten kobolds did finishing work on the digging, making sure the sides were mostly straight and whatnot.
And the game was on. In a way it was beautiful. The work was simple. Exhausting, sure, a bit banal, definitely. But it absorbed me, and my brain just drifted away for a spell.
Every morning, we would walk the path we’d be digging that day. I would cut down the various trees in the way, after which I would send a horde of prinkies to get the stumps out. We’d move the larger rocks to the side, and then the dig would commence. At the end of the day, Amber, Ragnar, and Bear would have a fire going, food would be nearly ready, and I would collapse into my bedroll. The kobolds would talk in their chittery way, telling stories and legends until Baltu told them to all shut up and go to sleep. It was a bit like being on a long-term sleepover. Then, at some point, I would wake up in the middle of the night buried under a pile of prinkies, and I would throw them all as far away from me as I could, only occasionally hitting a tree and cringing at the glitteriffic explosion.
Day after day. No matter the weather, because the weather didn’t really matter. It wasn’t important if it was raining, it just meant I was digging out mud instead of dirt. And I didn’t really care how far we got, because that wasn’t my job. My job was digging. Moving. I gave up on everything else because I didn’t want to deal with it.
And it seemed like the game world picked up on that.
Cool Beans, you’ve leveled the skill Digging. Move dirt with ease. And skill. Sort of.
Cool Beans, you’ve learned the skill Lumberjacking. Now you can swing sharp objects and cut down trees!
Boom! Through hard work, you’ve managed to gain one ability point in Constitution.
There was a rugged beauty to the valley, and on the rare occasions when I looked up from my work, I felt a few twinges of guilt that I was going into this primal wilderness and, in a sense, ruining it. I was paving over this pristine chunk of nature. I mean, I wasn’t actually paving, but you get the idea. That was, until we found the first of the ruins.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
On the tail end of the second week, we’d gotten beyond Skeld Rock. Which, in my mind at least, was our half-way marker, making me think we’d make the end of the road in another week and a half. Which I was thankful for, because we were now dealing with freezing temperatures at night.
We got to a stand of younger trees packed ridiculously tightly together. Naturally, the trees were exactly where Maja wanted the road to go, so I’d have to to spend my morning chopping down a fuck-ton of trees. It was almost easier to cut down one big tree, because once the tree fell over, that was most of the work done. The little trees had their branches all tangled up in each other, which meant lots of pulling and tugging, and invariably the branches would choose just the right time to release, and come swinging back to hit me in the fucking face. It was annoying.
Baltu and the other kobolds were squaring up some of the road from the day before while Ragnar and Tarryn dealt with food delivery. Fritz had been flying all over the valley carrying all sorts of things. He had already leapfrogged us, and we would come across huge piles of stone bricks, gravel, and sand in clearings. It felt like he’d probably gotten everything done already. Now he was focused more on delivering food and whatnot to us. I had the feeling, if I’d asked, he’d probably have been willing to ferry us
back and forth every day. But that seemed not just like a big ask, but also not especially useful for us. His efforts were better spent elsewhere. Turns out, after speaking to Bear and a few other people, that Fritz was an Alpine Roc.
Fritz
Alpine Roc
Monster
Lvl 28
HP: Very High
MP: Very low
Known Strengths: High strength. Natural magics increasing lift and flight abilities.
Known Weaknesses: None
Threat Level: Scarletite
Which meant he was not only a big motherfucker, but also a badass motherfucker to boot. His kind were more than capable of carrying off mammoths and even giants. Which also brought about the unpleasant reality that giants existed. He could reliably carry in the neighborhood of ten tons. At least, that’s the max we’d tried on him, and he didn’t seem to have any problem with it.
But by that point, he was bringing fresh food in for us on a daily basis. Amber would supplement the food with foraging and Tarryn would sit around reading books and occasionally doing spells to either amaze or irritate the kobolds. Pretty even chance on what it was.
I was ripping the trees and brush out, sending my horde of prinkies in front of me to pull out as much of the vegetation as they could. I turned my attention to a tenacious vine and grabbed it. Then it turned around and bit me.
“The fuck is this?” I shouted as the huge fangs pierced my arm from either side, fairly dripping with venom.
Big bulbous bug eyes on either side of the hard carapace shell looked at me with insect indifference. A giant centipede was trying to make me his meal.
I wasn’t about to have that.
So I stomped on one end of him and pulled up with my arms.