God of Gnomes

by Demi Harper

  It occurred to me that perhaps the gnomish race was more primitive than my own dark elves when it came to combat. Obviously they’d used weapons in the past, as the armorer seemed more than familiar with them, but perhaps historically they were not given to wearing armor?

  Time for a little more Divine Inspiration, methinks.

  Taking pity on Gneil, whom I’d used to demonstrate badger-riding a few days earlier, I selected one of his acolytes instead. I fixed my attention upon my strongest memory of dark elf armor – dark blue-dyed leather made from some sort of scaly hide, embossed with a silvery spiderweb design – then used every ounce of focus I possessed to imprint this image onto the acolyte’s mind.

  After the customary blank gaze and drooling, the acolyte’s eyes widened, brimming with the joy of Divine Inspiration. He marched from my shrine over to the armorer.

  The armorer was busy using lengths of twine – made from dried shroomtree gills – to bind a stone spearhead onto a long, straight wooden haft. She barely glanced up from her work when the acolyte arrived.

  Once he started waving his arms in excited explanation, though, she sighed and put down her spear. She said something to the acolyte, then spread her hands, palms up, in the universal language of ‘There’s nothing I can do.’

  The acolyte continued to babble, but the armorer simply shook her head and ignored him. She picked up her spear and went back to work.

  Huh.

  That was unexpected – and inconvenient. Perhaps she simply hadn’t understood his meaning? I’d thought it was perfectly simple. I gave a mental shake and turned my attention upon a different acolyte, using Divine Inspiration to convey the exact same image of elvish armor. Just like his fellow, the second acolyte went trotting off to the armory with a spring in his step and a huge grin on his face.

  When he arrived, the armorer simply rolled her eyes and continued working on the spear. She’d progressed from attaching the blade to sharpening it, and punctuated each sentence of the second acolyte’s explanation with the rasping scrape of her whetstone. The first acolyte kept interjecting into his brother’s monologue, and the two of them worked themselves up into a frenzy of enthusiasm over their shared revelation. But the armorer simply didn’t seem to care.

  What’s wrong with her? Why won’t she even attempt it? It’s just armor, damn it!

  Fine.

  I returned to the shrine to look for Gneil. My diminutive high cleric was still sniffling a little from a chill he’d caught after his sojourn underwater the other day, but I pushed away my guilt. Tough. He’s got a job to do.

  Once more, I focused on the image of the leather armor and activated Divine Inspiration. My sniffling cleric forgot about his own cold-induced misery and scurried off to the armory.

  Here we go. Third time lucky.

  I was sure Gneil’s previous success – or at least the positive reactions of the other gnomes to his efforts – would ensure the message got through properly this time. But to my dismay, the armorer didn’t even look up from her work.

  Not one of the three acolytes seemed able to get through to her – though not for lack of trying. When talking didn’t work, they tried physical theater, the two acolytes using the armorer’s supply of twine to wrap up Gneil in a mimicry of armor – much to the armorer’s annoyance.

  As she unraveled the twine from the bound cleric, grumbling, the two acolytes knelt and began drawing pictures in the dirt. I squinted at the pictures from several different angles. As far as I could tell, they were all stick-figure renditions of gnomes, each bedecked in what looked like an attacking spider.

  I fought not to roll my eyes. The armorer had no such compunction. She wrapped the last of her twine into a neat ball, then pointed toward the armory’s open-faced front. I didn’t need to speak Gnomish to know she was telling Gneil and the acolytes to get out.

  As the three gnomes trooped forlornly away, they crossed paths with Swift and Cheer. Or rather, they were forced to leap aside to prevent themselves from being knocked over by the two scouts, who were lugging their latest find over the bridge toward the armory.

  It looked like a possum. I was fairly certain it was a possum. However, it was very dead, so I couldn’t use Insight to make sure. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected them to bring back, but it certainly wasn’t this.

  What are we supposed to do with… this?

  The possum was almost twice the size of a gnome. I had no idea how Swift and Cheer had managed to drag it back here by themselves, but here they were.

  As they came within sight of the armory, the armorer gave a squeak and came rushing out from behind her workbench. Hands pressed to her cheeks in amazement, she stared at the dead possum, circling it twice before flinging her hands in the air and pulling Swift and Cheer into a hug. The two scouts endured this for a few seconds, then squirmed away and stepped back.

  I watched, baffled, as the armorer admired the possum some more, then made a disappointed gesture.

  I don’t get it. Why is she so excited? And what does she want now?

  Realization hit me like a lightning strike. I opened the construction tab in my Augmentary and cycled through the buildings until I found what I was looking for.

  Tannery

  Tier 2 building

  Enables treatment of animal hides to turn them into leather.

  Of course. The armorer hadn’t been refusing to make armor for the purposes of being difficult. She simply hadn’t been able to start the process due to a lack of materials.

  Judging by the large knife she’d just retrieved from her workshop, she was about to make the best attempt she could with the possum hide she’d been provided. In future, though, I wanted my gnomes to have the best armor possible, so once I’d sent Swift and Cheer off to scout again with the specific instructions to find more possums, I turned my attention to building a tannery.

  I decided to situate this new building even further downstream than the armory. In the end, I chose a place beside the stream, close to where the gnomes habitually went to… er, evacuate their bowels. I knew enough about the basic tanning process to know it required some rather disgusting ingredients. At least with the tannery being this far away from the main settlement, any waste could be safely deposited in the stream without contaminating the tribe’s drinking or washing water. Furthermore, none of the denizens would have to put up with the stench.

  Most of the time, anyway.

  Once I’d selected the area the tannery would go, my four builders – who’d finished work on the fifth gnomehome earlier that morning – harnessed one of the badgers and headed for the lumberyard.

  I felt rather stupid for not realizing the armorer had simply been waiting for materials. That sort of rookie error – just like my lack of foresight with the creche nurses – wouldn’t have occurred had Ket still been around to guide me. She’d laugh so hard if she ever found out about this.

  Past me would have hated the idea of being laughed at by an incorporeal light-fairy. Now, though, I would have given my proverbial right arm to have the sprite’s company once again.

  I hope she’s safe, wherever she is.

  Fifty-One

  Time

  As more days passed with still no sign of Tiri or the Guild, I tried not to think too hard about the upcoming deadline, and instead remained focused on the positives.

  The tannery was complete. I assigned one of my two farmers to become the tribe’s resident tanner; he marched off to the vats and racks of his new workplace, taking to the gruesome – and smelly – work with surprising equanimity.

  Swift and Cheer continued to return with possums. I hadn’t wasted mana to observe how they were getting hold of them, or bringing them down – were they strangling them with their bare hands? – but since the new bounty meant hides for the tanner, and thus leather for the armorer, as well as meat for the tribe, I wasn’t about to complain.

  In fact, the armorer now had her work cut out for her. In addition to the surplus of leatherworkin
g opportunities, she’d also received a surprising gift from the mushroom farmers. Prompted by Granny – ever the innovator – the remaining farmer had borrowed spare tools from the lumberyard in order to sever the caps from the redcap mushrooms.

  As my Insight ability had already indicated, the mushrooms were extremely resistant to all forms of physical damage. Apparently, this made them perfect for use as shields in combat, which seemed to be what Granny intended all along.

  Once they’d been hollowed out and carved with grips, the white-spotted redcap shields were distributed among Hammer and Graywall’s melee warriors, of which there were now thirty-one. Their wooden practice swords had been replaced by short stone-tipped spears from the armory, and they were now equipped with thick, tanned leather armor that covered their torsos. All of the warriors had also been provided with boots, which had caused some consternation at first, but which they’d soon grown accustomed to.

  As for the ten slingers, they were armed with stronger slingshots and more balanced ammunition, and wore light armor of scraped hide – the first batch the armorer had made, before the tannery was in operation.

  My warriors were really starting to look the part. I only wished there were more of them.

  Speaking of which, the creche was finally beginning to serve its purpose. First one female gnome, then two, then six or seven began to show signs of being with child. And those children were growing stupendously quickly. Small bumps became bulging bellies in a matter of mere days; it was almost as though the mothers-to-be were expanding before my very eyes, including my drill officer, Hammer. Not that it stopped her from beating the crap out of her sparring partners.

  The creche could hold up to forty infants, which suddenly didn’t seem like an awful lot. The gnome babies would need nurses when they were born, one for every ten children. I’d only assigned two so far, but now decided we may as well push for the maximum. For lack of a better option – and given that our most crucial buildings had now been constructed – I assigned two of my remaining four sawyers to the task. Sawing planks and raising children were basically the same thing, right?

  With the knowledge that the next generation of very vulnerable gnomes would soon be on the way, I redoubled my attempts to prepare for any eventuality.

  The Passage had been partly obstructed since the last battle; the kobold shamans’ explosive fire magic had caused a rockfall, which no one had gotten around to clearing yet. Obviously this was something we could use to our advantage.

  Following my instructions (via Gneil and Divine Inspiration), the builders harnessed one of Bruce’s siblings to drag the rocks and detritus to partially barricade the Grotto’s entrance.

  I couldn’t help but admire how strong the badgers had become in such a short time. Either the presence of the creche had enhanced their growth as well as the baby gnomes’, or badgers just matured unnaturally fast.

  As it represented the sole means of access to the Grotto from the deeper caves, I decided the Passage’s entrance should be as well-fortified as I could possibly make it. After giving this some thought, I successfully used Divine Inspiration to have my acolytes convince the builders to construct a palisade just in front of it.

  The wooden defense was merely a length of vertical half-timbers – about two gnome-heights tall – tied together, their tips sharpened to points and their bases embedded firmly in the ground, along with a raised platform about two-thirds of the height on the other side. The idea being that slingers would position themselves on these platforms and target the enemies below, while remaining more or less shielded from attack themselves by the palisade.

  In a pleasantly surprising development, once the builders had completed the palisade, it appeared in my Augmentary’s construction tab (as had the bridge the builders had previously improvised), meaning I wouldn’t have to keep using Divine Inspiration on one of my acolytes each time I wanted one built. Since the builders currently had no other structures to focus their efforts on, I had them build more palisades all around the Grotto, with me using Growth to replenish the shroomtree supply as needed. Regrowing a felled shroomtree to its full regular size consumed far less mana than growing one from a spore. It cost me around one globe per tree, and with only two lumberjacks working on cutting them down, my worshiping acolytes’ mana was more than enough to keep our shroom-wood supply replenished.

  I set out the palisades in a series of V-shaped arrangements. The first was just inside the entranceway, where the shroomtree fields met the Passage. The next two were at the far side of the shroomtree field, spaced apart in a way that would restrict the passage of enemies and force large groups to funnel through the smaller areas, which would cause them to bottleneck and hopefully make them much easier for the defenders to hold and the slingers to pick off from above. More palisades on the far side of both bridges would hopefully prevent the enemy from crossing the stream. In the event that they failed, another palisade on either side of my hillock would give my denizens a better chance of defending my gem – though if the enemy managed to reach that point, it would mean we were in dire straits indeed.

  I hovered over the Vocation option in my Augmentary. It was so tempting to just uproot every one of my remaining workers and reassign them all as warriors. But of course I needed to retain some builders – and lumberjacks, farmers, sawyers, et cetera - in order to continue producing materials in future. All being well, there would be life after Grimrock, and the tribe would need individuals who could construct the buildings that would house their potential new denizens.

  Ket had told me that switching between vocations too many times would have a detrimental effect on their skills; I didn’t want to consider the idea of a settlement with workers even more inept than mine had been when first starting out, especially since they all seemed to have improved their craft the longer they’d been assigned their professions.

  Still, I wished there was more I could do for the tribe’s defense. The stakes were growing higher with each gnome that prepared to bring forth tiny new lives. My drill officers – Hammer, Graywall, and Bullet – had done their jobs well, as had Granny, and the warriors and militia were continuing to improve each day. But the fact remained that our fighting force amounted to just sixty-one gnomes. Would they be enough if Grimrock decided to turn against us?

  I recalled Lila’s speech to Tiri in the dark tunnels. It felt so long ago now, though it had been only a matter of weeks. Lila had assured the younger woman that every individual was like an arrow: a collection of mundane, disparate ingredients, honed to a specific purpose over time. Normally, that would have been reassuring. Inspiring, even.

  Too bad time is the one thing we don’t have.

  Fifty-Two

  Puffball

  There were barely two weeks to go until Grimrock’s deadline, and Hammer had been missing from the practice yard for two days.

  Given that the expectant mother had been just about ready to pop, I was almost certain she was spending this time in the creche with the nurses. However, some squeamish instinct stopped me from actually entering to make sure. Instead, I watched the warriors train without her.

  They were surprisingly efficient, but nowhere near as motivated as they were in Hammer’s presence. So when I heard them unexpectedly break out into cheers, I turned eagerly toward the barracks doorway.

  There stood Hammer: as sturdy and formidable as ever, though significantly smaller around the middle than when last I’d seen her. She strode into the practice yard and picked up a weapon and shield, as though she’d never left. The creature that toddled in her wake was larger than I’d expected for one barely a day old, though it was still tiny. My breath caught upon seeing it – or would have, had I possessed a pair of lungs.

  The young gnome wobbled uncertainly on its stumpy legs, then plopped to the ground, where it began poking around in the dirt.

  The warriors – every single one of them – had halted their sparring. Weapons by their sides, they gazed adoringly down at their dril
l officer’s new baby.

  The gnome child had found an earthworm, which it was stubbornly attempting to pull from the ground. The worm, however, clearly did not want to play. A brief tug-of-war ensued in which the increasingly red-faced child hauled itself to its knees, obviously using every vestige of its meager strength to try to win this fight. Then the child's pudgy hands slipped; the worm slithered from sight as the child tumbled backward and landed firmly on its rear.

  It sat quietly for a moment. Its face was all screwed up, and I winced, preparing for the tantrum that was certain to follow. To my amazement, the gnome child instead began to giggle. Clear, high-pitched laughter echoed around the yard, and I knew my gem would be glowing brighter as I watched the child begin to dig around in the dirt once more, completely undeterred by its failure.

  Apart from the huge grin plastered across its chubby face, it was a tiny replica of my other gnomes.

  It will do, I thought.

  Ugh. Who was I kidding? It was perfect.

  How is it possible for me to have a lump in my throat? I don’t even have a throat!

  To my and the warriors’ disappointment, one of the creche’s nurses came bursting into the yard. Relief flooded his features when he caught sight of the child sitting in the dirt. He hurried over, scooped it up, and then bustled out of the barracks.

  I followed the nurse back to the creche. Two more gnomelings were toddling around outside. By my last count, there were now six babies in total, and it was getting hard to keep track of them.

  Given the Augmentary’s promise that the creche would supply ‘Faithful denizens’, I’d hoped the first few births would be enough to push me into the next god tier. Who knew what sort of anti-kobold abilities I might gain by reaching tier eight? To my great disappointment, however, the new arrivals had no immediate visible impact upon the level in my Faith triangle. From the absence of green auras around the gnomelings, I discerned that they would not be counted as full denizens until they were older.