Death Knight Box Set

by Michael Chatfield

  “A bear? What bear sounds like a metal frying pan?” Sofie shot back.

  “Shii—uh, what?” Katrine lowered her bow as she looked at a knight with a branch nearly four times his own size, holding it over someone’s face.

  “Oh, that’s good.” The knight tossed the branch away. It shot through the clearing and exploded as it hit a tree.

  The skeleton winced, his fists up by his head as he raised one leg.

  “Crap.” He looked around to check whether anyone had seen him.

  Even through the helmet, the adventurers could feel their eyes meeting.

  He put his hands and his foot down, looking up at the moons. “Ah, it is a nice night out tonight. Just, uh, checking on my companion here,” he said awkwardly.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Sofie asked, her power gathering in her body.

  “Air sickness?”

  “Air sickness? She got sick from the air?” Gunnar asked.

  Katrine forcefully restrained herself from instinctually banging on Gunnar’s helmeted head to determine whether there was anything going on in there.

  The knight tilted his head to the side, looking at Gunnar as if finding an especially interesting specimen and then looking at Sofie and Katrine.

  Gunnar coughed as he realized that his statement was possibly wrong under the stares and probably feeling his party’s restrained reactions.

  “When you’re on a boat, you can get sea sick, right?” the knight said, making sure to slow down his words.

  “Yes, of course. Air sickness is when you are going in the air and feel sick,” Gunnar said, trying to redeem himself.

  “Eh, well, yeah, close enough.” It seemed as though the knight really didn’t want to put in the time it might require to educate Gunnar.

  It’s a failed plan—look at how far he’s come so far and he’s thirty-five this year! Katrine thought.

  “So the half of a tree in her face?” Sofie asked.

  “Well, she just fell backward, wanted to check if she was okay or not,” the knight said.

  “So, the half of the tree?” Sofie tried again.

  “Check she was breathing. You know, breath moves leaves like air,” the knight said.

  “Why didn’t you use grass?” Katrine asked. They were in a clearing filled with grass.

  “I tried,” the knight muttered as he tried to toe down some of the holes in the ground.

  “What is your purpose here?” Gunnar said, trying to take control of the situation.

  “We’re heading to Laisa, but then she passed out, so I guess, staying here till she’s okay. Then we’re seeing if we can get a guide from Laisa into the Deepwood. Need to go to Thelsedorei,” the knight said.

  “You mean the capital city of the wood elves that moves?” Sofie snorted.

  “Yeah, don’t you find Thelsedorei is a weird name for a city? Not many people know it literally means green elves home, though they accent the hell out of it. All about presentation. I remember a time I asked for a meal; they gave me this beautiful plant-based something or other and it looked like a leaf but tasted like strawberries. Took them three hours to make it. Took them three hours to make a leaf! A tasty leaf, but a leaf! By that time I had the leaf, I’d gone into my meeting, come out of it, taken a nap and was on the edge of starvation. Just went into the kitchen and drank a bowl of the glazing—took me days to digest that. How was I supposed to know it was made with Mana? Right?”

  Katrine and Gunnar looked at each other and then Sofie, who shrugged.

  “Well, we need to sleep somewhere. This is as good as any.” Sofie looked at Katrine, who nodded. Girls out in the wild needed to look after each other and seeing the woman passed out on the ground and the knight alone in a clearing, their intuition was telling them that just letting things be wouldn’t turn out that well.

  Gunnar slumped and sighed.

  They pulled off their bags and started to make camp as Anthony looked at the girl.

  Sofie went and checked on her. The knight shrugged and went off to the side.

  “She’s an elf,” Sofie said in a shocked voice. “Though her skin isn’t pearly white but gray.”

  “Dark elf?” Gunnar grabbed his sword.

  “Don’t they practice the dark arts and copulate with Satan?” Katrine asked.

  “You’re a pervert.” The knight carried a boulder on one shoulder and dragged a dead tree with his other hand.

  “What?”

  “He says dark elf and you’re right in there with the sex—you need five minutes in the forest?” the knight asked.

  Katrine blushed, too flustered to talk.

  “Think of dark elves like the shut-in cousins of the high elves. Why do you call them wood elves? Is it because of the green city naming stuff?” He waved his hand, dismissing those thoughts. “You know how humans get a tan, right?”

  “Yeah,” Gunnar said.

  “Elves get a shade. More time they’re in the dark, the darker their skin becomes. They’ve even got dark beds to sleep in so their skin is darker in the morning. A one-hundred-year elf who’s only spent their days in the sun—let’s just say there is a reason that the elven cities glow,” Anthony said. “Walking, pointy-eared flashlights. Also, the high elves are usually all about jewels and finely crafted stuff. Dark elves like their peace and quiet, being in the mountains, working on their different things. Both of them study magic, earth element or water—they can be dark or high.”

  “Aren’t the dark elves weaker though?” Sofie asked.

  “Weaker? You know how elven magic works, right? I’m seeing all of these potions—familiar mage, right?” The knight waved at Sofie and set down his boulder.

  “Yeah,” she said, with a hint of pride.

  “That’s a nice boulder.” The knight tapped the boulder a few times and went to the dead tree.

  Both Katrine and Gunnar, who were putting together their tents, stopped what they were doing as the knight pulled out a sword. They hadn’t noticed it before but there was a large tree engraved into his armor. The workmanship made it look like the tree was swaying in a light night breeze as he used his sword to cut the tree in half.

  “What is your name?” Katrine interjected.

  “Anthony—that’s Aila. You guys?”

  “Gunnar.”

  “Katrine.”

  “Sofie.”

  “Nice to meet you. Oh and mages! So elves, well, the more they use their magic, the stronger they become—that is a part of it. They have two ways to increase their power: one, Mana cultivating, or having a breakthrough. So, Mana breakthrough, drain your Mana system, push yourself to your limits. Don’t burn your life-force, though—important, that.” Anthony took the time to point his sword at them before he went back to chopping the tree.

  Gunnar shuddered with each hit, unconsciously patting his blade, comforting it.

  “Though you also need to counter balance that with filling your system up. Kind of like how when you want to get strong, you push yourself, but then you eat everything in sight afterward to get energy to do it again. Rinse, repeat. Though if you pick a magical path and follow that, then instead of just flinging spells around, pick out certain spells, master those and then move on. Getting to know a spell, you need to do the chanting, waving your hands all about, and the dancing mess, but if you master it completely, you can insta cast and it’ll cost a lot less magical power. Spells are like guides: there’s a good way to do it, and another way to really mess it up.” Anthony took some of the cut wood, tossed it into a rough fire and held up his hand.

  Nothing happened and he looked at his arm.

  “Penelope? Hey?” He tapped his arm again and there was a slight glow.

  A spurt of flame plopped out of his hand and landed on the wood. It went up with a wump, lighting the area and heating it.

  “All right, you sleep a little longer.” He pat his arm.

  “Are you a familiar knight?” Gunnar asked.

  “I don’t know. Do I look fa
miliar to you?” Anthony asked, perplexed.

  “Spirit knight, Gunnar,” Katrine said in a pained voice. She did not want to know what a conversation between these two might be like.

  “I’m a Guardian, but the way I fight is called—what is it called? Spirit something.” Anthony started muttering.

  “Anyway, dark elves, unlike their high elven cousins, they spend most of their time doing magic—either exercising it, or trying to increase their knowledge of spells and are seeking out the path of magic. I guess they’re trying to become something like elementals. Creatures formed from elements and Mana that can use magic as they wish. Also, really bad houseguests! But that is another thing. Anyway, because of that, the dark elves are much stronger, but they’re impure mages. So they use tools to enhance their magic. Put a dark elf and a gnome engineer together, or a goblin grenadier, and run in the other damn direction. High elves like to rely on themselves. The dark elves are unsociable; high elves are narcissists. They make runescript and they’re good at it, but it’s made to look pretty and functional. Takes them years whereas gnomes make it crude, but then it works the same and takes them just a few minutes or hours. They don’t like working with others, thus the hiding bit. Got their whole class system, honor things, and the rules! Rules on how to eat! Who needs five forks and three spoons?” Anthony shook his head and went back to chopping wood.

  The others erected their tents and sorted out shifts to watch the other two.

  Katrine woke up with Gunnar shaking her.

  “Your watch. He’s awake,” Gunnar said, a strained look on his face.

  She got up and grabbed her gear. Gunnar went into his tent while she found Anthony using his blade to cut a chair into the boulder. She noticed Gunnar tapping his sword, comforting it.

  He loves his sword, so seeing someone use theirs to chop up wood and carve out a stone chair is probably like nails on a chalkboard for others.

  She sat down on a rock and looked over at Aila. Someone had put her into some bedding at some time and moved her closer to the fire.

  She looked like hell from whatever the hell she had been through.

  “Why are you doing that to your blade?” Katrine asked.

  “A bit of wood or stone isn’t enough to blunt my blade,” Anthony said, not looking up as he worked. “There is some hot tea in the fire. I made it.”

  “I’m good. Thanks.” Katrine had just met him tonight and not even seen his face yet. “Why do you wear your armor all the time?”

  “Aren’t you wearing it all the time too?”

  “Well, yeah, but I have a padded jacket and pants—you’ve got plate armor.”

  “Used to it now.” Anthony shrugged as he lowered his sword, looking at the chair. “Nice.” He sat down, his steel ass grating against the chair as he sat back in it.

  “That’s a nice boulder.” He tapped the newly shaped boulder.

  “You can sleep. I’ll keep watch,” Katrine said.

  “The last time I got woken up, I was buck naked in a place I didn’t know, with people who I didn’t know all around me with a stone tie.” Anthony’s voice turned darker as he muttered under his breath. “Guess it’s what I get for trying to get a few extra minutes. Some people are so inconsiderate to the dead, making so much noise.”

  Katrine just ignored most of his statement, looking around the camp.

  “So, since then, I haven’t slept. Sucks, really. I like sleeping—it’s great. But nada, not even a mid-afternoon nap!”

  Katrine shrugged and got comfortable for her watch. She changed off with Sofie at the end of her shift and went to sleep.

  The night passed uneventfully before Sofie woke them both up.

  They started to break down their tents when Aila started to stir.

  She woke up screaming and kicking, her arms and legs hitting the ground. She stopped suddenly, grabbing the ground beneath her and flipping over, tears in her eyes as if she meant to hug the dirt.

  “Morning, Aila!” Anthony said.

  Aila jumped to her feet, her eyes filled with anger as she leveled a finger at him. “You—why—what, Anthony!” she yelled, startling birds in the forest.

  “Meet Gunnar, Sofie, and Katrine,” Anthony said.

  She paused in her tirade and turned on the ball of her foot, looking at them before raising a hand in greeting. Her eyes thinned as she moved her hand to her head, the other moving in as she felt the volume she had built up.

  She paled as she pulled out a mirror to look at her hair and appearance.

  Anthony pulled out a pot of tea from the fire and poured it into an earthen cup. It looked as if he had made them both during the night.

  The scent from the tea was earthy, but with a hint of fruits.

  “Tea?” He gave her a cup.

  Aila took the cup, taking a sip. She closed her eyes, composing herself, and sat down, taking small sips from the cup as she started trying to tame her hair back down.

  “Where are we?” Aila asked after her second cup.

  “Radal. Outside the city Laisa. It’s just up the road,” Anthony said.

  “I’m sorry about this morning,” Aila said to the others. “I’m Aila.”

  They greeted one another. Katrine and Sofie’s intuition was calmed down and Gunnar couldn’t take his eyes off the elf. Now that she had her hair back down, he was useless. At least he wasn’t drooling.

  They broke camp, not having breakfast. All of them looked forward to having some real food in the city instead of eating the rations they’d saved up.

  “It was good meeting you. Hope you have a good trip and you come back safe,” Anthony said.

  The two groups separated as Gunnar, Sofie, and Katrine headed off toward the adventurer’s guild.

  “They’re odd, but they’re good people,” Sofie said with a smile.

  “The knight and the elf in the forest—I doubt people would believe it,” Katrine said.

  “Did you see the tree when we left the camp? Was it just me—” Gunnar started.

  “Or did it look like he ran into it and broke it?” Sofie finished.

  “So I wasn’t the only one,” Gunnar said.

  “Doesn’t everyone seem a little odd?” Katrine said.

  “Yeah,” Sofie said as the residents were looking at one another with hooded eyes, as if they might attack each other at any moment.

  ***

  Aila looked around the town. It was a homely kind of town, with large stone streets where trade was being carried out by those who had goods from the Deepwood and those coming from across Radal.

  “Let’s find a guide first.” Anthony led them toward a bar.

  “Are you looking for a guide or a drink?”

  “Can I drink?” Anthony sounded curious.

  “It would be better if we checked later,” Aila said.

  Anthony opened the door to the bar. Inside, people were having hushed conversations.

  “Heard that the city guard is checking all of the goblins now. Having such dangerous creatures in the town will only lead to chaos,” one said to their table mate.

  “They know nothing but fighting and pranking. If it weren’t for the hobgoblins, then they would still be just beasts,” the other agreed.

  Anthony walked right up to the bar and waved to the barman, who was washing earthen mugs.

  “What brings you into the Gnome’s Stumble?” the gnome asked with a smile. Gnomes were shorter creatures; a giant among their race would be five foot tall. This one was just over four feet, though the bar was slanted so he could deal with other gnomes easily and then the floor behind the bar got higher so he could deal with his human and taller patrons.

  “Looking to go into the forest—want to go to one of the elven outposts,” Anthony said.

  “Don’t look like traders,” the gnome said.

  “She’s going to one of her cousin’s ceremonies.” Anthony pointed at Aila.

  The gnome moved the glasses on his face. “Dark elf,” he said with a nod. �
��Haven’t seen many of you around here. Well, just so happens my son Tommie is heading out into the Deepwood with his trading company in a few days. I can ask him if he’s got a spot?”

  “That would be perfect,” Anthony agreed.

  “I’ll have a runner to take him a message. In the meantime, can I get you some food or drink?”

  “Ale and breakfast please. Just one set—I’m not hungry,” Anthony said.

  “Coming up. The name’s Todd! Pick any table.”

  Anthony and Aila sat down at a table.

  “You got coin, right?” Anthony asked.

  “Yes.” Aila sighed. “Do you plan anything out?”

  “Sometimes.” Anthony shrugged.

  They sat there, listening to the patrons talking in low tones and shooting glances around the bar.

  Todd arrived soon with a drink and piping hot food. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you.” Aila’s face spread into a smile at the hot and fresh food.

  “Just fifteen coppers,” Todd said.

  She rooted around in her coin purse as Anthony spoke up.

  “Did something happen? The people seem a little spooked.”

  “A few days back there was a few explosions, destroyed our wells and our Brilliant Tower of Dark Clouds system. No one was hurt, but everyone thinks that the goblins have gone too far. People have started to get sick and people have to pay a lot more for water or travel far to get it from a nearby stream.” Todd shook his head.

  “What is the Brilliant Tower of Dark Clouds?” Anthony asked.

  “It cleans our water.”

  “So, a water treatment place?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, why not call it that instead of dark clouds whatever tower?”

  “Well, doesn’t really fit with the naming scheme of Laisa.”

  “Did they find the culprits?” Aila interrupted.

  “No. All of the goblins say it wasn’t them. The hobgoblins came out publicly and said that they weren’t involved in the act. It only served to anger the people more. The city has a large population of humans and goblins, though there are still a good number of us gnomes left, and then there are half-breeds as well.”

  Goblins aren’t the kind to lie, especially about explosions. They might be annoying at times, but they are proud of their explosions and lying is a taboo for them. Most people think that because of their inability to form complex sentences that they’re dull-witted and stupid creatures.