The Land: Monsters

by Aleron Kong

  In front of each of them, a span of stone rose from the ground. Each was eight feet high, three feet wide and several inches thick. The rock walls appeared together, and the dwarves’ skill was so great that they fit together with barely any gaps. Indeed, if they hadn’t made the walls appear at an angle to better channel the water away, there would most likely not have even been a crack between the various stone spans. Such was the power and training of the Stone Warden Granite Breakers.

  The work was not done. After the initial wave hit, the water roared past and over them. The initial impact left them wet, but breathing. The water level continued to quickly rise. If not for his father, they would have all drowned. Laird was not only a warrior. He was a leader, a geomancer and a Master of a Place of Power. While his men had been creating the rock wall, he had been casting an adept-rank spell. Laird finished the incantation and green Earth magic flowed from both of his hands. A triple shield of Earth energy domed over the party, maintained by the clan chief’s will. The barrier formed a solid seal between the ground and the cliffside behind them.

  Richter felt the pride and amazement of the body he inhabited, staring at his father resisting nature himself. The chaos lord felt the already-remarkable resolve in the young boy grow stronger. He would prove that he was worthy of this power. He would be even greater than his father-chief!

  As soon as the cooldown on the warriors’ technique elapsed, they slammed their maces into the ground again. More stone rose from the ground, making the physical wall higher and thicker. The few cracks were sealed. His father held his magic firm until the warriors could strike the ground a third time, finally making the rock walls high enough to withstand the flow of water. During the long minutes it took, the first two Earth shields broke amid shards of disappearing green light. The final barrier was actively maintained, only the geomancer’s will standing between everyone and a watery death. Regardless, the faces of each warrior remained impassive, fully confident in their leader’s abilities.

  When Laird finally released his energy, his arms dropped heavily. His mana was nearly depleted, and it had taken a serious toll on his mental state to hold back thousands of pounds of water. Despite all of that, he hadn’t fallen, and he did not rest even when the task was done. Instead, he checked on his fighters and the children under his protection. Richter felt the body he was in search Laird’s face for some type of connection, but the clan chief remained distant, valuing his life no more than the lives of the other children. Rather than hurt feelings, Richter felt the pride in the boy swell. With that emotion came another. It was determination to live up to his father’s example.

  At an order from the chief, they made camp. The only ventilation came from a small hole at the top of the stone dome, but it was enough. Two days later, the waters had receded. The warriors struck down the stone walls, giving proof to the name of their combat technique. Time leapt forward again.

  Richter next saw them going into the earth, not through a tunnel or cave, but a large crack in the ground. Each warrior tied a rope to their waist and the other end to one of the children. Like that, they scaled down the cliff face. Nearly every child fell on the way down, their young muscles and frames not up to the task of descending a sheer rock wall. Each time, it was only the unyielding strength of the warriors they were bound to that kept them alive.

  Every child fell except for Richter’s host. Even years younger than the other dwarf children, his focus and refusal to fail kept him from being a burden. The child never saw it, but Richter’s strange all-around sight caught the look of admiration in Laird’s eyes. He also saw the jealousy bordering on hatred in the eyes of the other children.

  The scene blurred.

  Richter’s host approached a cliff face far underground. The chaos lord knew that they had not seen the sun for the last several days of travel. The dwarf warriors had needed to fight off monsters more than once. No matter how large the attacker, however, the beasts had fallen to the powerful combat skills and magic of the group. Now they had finally arrived.

  Set into the rock face was a carved stone doorway. Every inch of the gateway featured expertly created carvings of dwarves in battle. The history of an entire people was captured in the artwork. Richter could feel his host’s fascination with the doorway. Even the chaos lord felt like the carvings were so lifelike that they almost moved.

  The warriors did not give them time to stop and stare, however. They shuttled the children through the doorway quickly. On the other side was a chamber with a ceiling so high that the torchlight did not reach it. In the center was a seven-sided stone stele. Standing before the monolith was a dwarf so old his skin had more wrinkles than smooth spots. For the long-lived race that meant centuries of life. Richter didn’t know exactly what the lifespan of mountain dwarves was, but he knew it was several times as long as an average human’s.

  They stopped in front of the old dwarf. Despite his skin being wrinkled, muscles still bulged beneath. He held a stone club that looked like a snapped-off stalactite. Without even looking at the children, he addressed Laird. His voice was mocking and had the high-pitched whistle that only the truly elderly could possess. When he opened his mouth, Richter could see that every one of his teeth was encased in varying precious metals.

  “Ye brought them. Now ye can leave. Unless ye want to go through more training yerselves, caha-caha-caha!” A cackling laugh punctuated his statement. Richter host turned his head and the chaos lord was shocked by what he saw. These fearless dwarf warriors that had braved rushing rapids and giant monsters all shared a look of dread. Only Laird stared back without flinching.

  The clan chief’s response was simple, showing respect and acknowledgement.

  “Maistir Olrich,” he intoned, placing his middle three fingers over his heart. With a short command, the entire war party filed out of the cave.

  The old dwarf waved his hand and muttered a word of power. The doorway they had all come through vanished, replaced by unbroken stone. The kids looked at him in apprehension.

  “Yer all here ta learn how to fight, aren’t ye?” When no one responded, he repeated with a bark this time, “Well, aren’t ye?”

  “Yes,” the children mumbled quietly. A figure that could scare even the brave warriors of the clan was not someone they would take lightly. In the mountains, strength was everything.

  “When ye address me, ye say ‘Maistir Olrich’!” he snapped. The early levity was completely gone.

  “Yes, Maistir Olrich!” all the children shouted. Every dwarf child present hailed from the more powerful families of the clan, and they knew what was expected of the warriors they were training to become.

  “Good,” he responded with his metal-toothed smile. “Ye canna fight if you haven’t had a good meal. It be time for dinner.” He clapped his hands and cast a spell. Stone clubs, sized to the children, dropped to the ground in a loud clatter. “Afore ye eat, ye will all learn the first lesson of Earth. It does not care about ye. Do ye understand?” he asked pointing at one of the older girls.

  “Yes, Maistir Olrich!” she yelled, while doing the best a six-year-old could to stand at attention.

  “Pony crap!” the old dwarf responded, not believing her. “What about yew?” he asked pointing to one of larger boys.

  “Yes, Maistir Olrich,” the boy responded, making sure he yelled louder than the girl.

  “Goblin balls on yer tongue, boy!” Olrich responded with disdain.

  While the first two children had been responding, and the other children were trying to avoid eye contact with the crazy coot they’d been left with, the body Richter was inhabiting had picked up a stone club in his small hands. It was almost too heavy for him to swing. He held it up nonetheless, and was scanning the dark recesses of the cave for enemies. Olrich noticed.

  “What about yew, boy?” the old dwarf asked slowly.

  Richter’s body met the maistir’s gaze for a short eye lock, before responding simply, and in a calm voice, “Yes, Maistir Olr
ich.” Then he started scanning the darkness again.

  “Hmm,” Olrich looked at the boy consideringly. The child didn’t look like anything special, but the old dwarf’s sharp eyes had noticed Laird’s gaze lingering on the youth for just a second before the warband had left. The maistir liked to play into his role as a crazy old man, but his intellect and mind were among the greatest in the River Peninsula. If the boy was related to Laird, as he thought, not only was the child sharper than the rest, but he came from one of the strongest families. “Mayhap yew do understand,” the maistir said under his breath.

  The rest of the children looked at him quizzically. Olrich slapped his craziest grin onto his face, “Like ay said, it be dinner time, but ye need to learn another lesson. That be, ye shouldna take things for granted. Ay didna say if ye were being fed or if ye were the meal!”

  He waved a hand and a heavy thud boomed through the air around them. It sounded like a door made out of pure rock crashing to the ground. After that, dozens of stone crablings came scuttling toward the children. They were only two feet tall, but their bodies’ carapaces were hardened into pure stone. Their pincers could cut through a grown dwarf’s arms. They were a serious threat to the children.

  Olrich showed no sign of helping them, so the dwarven youths just picked up their stone clubs and a battle began. Richter’s host swung his stone club in a strong overhand blow. The rock weapon crashed into a crabling’s carapace with a heavy thud. The crab collapsed, but the boy’s arms were numb. Another crabling climbed over the dead body of his first enemy and launched itself at the helpless dwarf lad.

  Time sped up again.

  Richter could sense that nearly four years had passed. Each year, the children that survived grew in strength and combat techniques. They still had not reached even the novice rank of Granite Breaker, but every child that remained in the training program was a deadly killer. His host’s body was currently leaning against a rock wall, barely visible. A stone club was clutched in his hands. It was several times heavier than the one he’d used his first day. His host handled the weight easily. He patiently waited for his quarry to appear, and silently repeated the mantra of every student of Maistir Olrich.

  “This is my club. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My club is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master life. Without me, my club is useless. Without my club, …”

  The mantra was so ingrained that the young dwarves spoke it in their sleep. At least, until Olrich had learned they were violating one of his many “Laws of Earth,” namely that “Earth silently sleeps.” The cadets found that there were many of these laws. In fact, a new one seemed to appear whenever Olrich felt like it.

  A week of “special” training had ensured that, in the future, no trainee made noise unless they consciously decided to do so. That very principle was why a goblin platoon had just walked by several of the silent dwarves without knowing an enemy watched them. It was only when Richter’s host swung his club and made ichor fly that the green-skinned humanoids knew they had fallen into a trap. By then, it was too late.

  Richter, and other students of Olrich, proceeded to beat their enemies to death, each swing of a stone club pulping flesh and breaking bones. Only the screams of the goblins broke the underground silence. In a single minute it was over, and the only remaining sound was the drip of black blood from stone clubs. Richter’s host raised his hand and made a tactical hand signal. Every other dwarf nodded, following the order of their team leader. Today’s training exercise wasn’t over. The deadly children faded into the darkness to hunt their next group of green-skinned experience points.

  Time sped by.

  Three more years passed, and a final scene played out. The battle forms Richter’s host had been practicing for years had finally reached a proficiency that had earned Maistir Olrich’s recognition. In a giant amphitheater, hundreds of other trainees filled the stands. Paden stood bare-chested in the center on grey sand. At eleven years old, the trainee already had the body of a warrior. Muscles stood out in stark relief on both his chest and arms. A short-cropped black beard hugged his square jaw. A well-healed, vertical scar traced from his temple to his cheekbone, a memento from a battle lesson he would never forget.

  He was the first of hundreds of trainees who had qualified to take this test. If he failed, the consequences would be dire. Richter knew the feelings of his host though. All the young man felt was excitement and anticipation.

  Olrich stood on a raised platform in the stands. When he spoke, his voice boomed out, easily heard by all present. For once, mockery was absent from his tone, “Head trainee Paden has chosen to challenge his novice test. If he fails, the penalty be death. Why is that, trainees?”

  “The Earth is unforgiving!” came the thundering reply. Hundreds of young dwarf killers shouted the answer at the top of their lungs.

  “Ay,” Olrich intoned gravely. He locked eyes with Paden, “Knowing this, do ye still wish to challenge the test?”

  “Ay do, Maistir Olrich,” Paden replied.

  “So be it.” The maistir held his stone club upside down, and slammed his weapon on the ground three times. The echoing sound cut through the air like a gavel. In response, a stone gate opened up. What stepped through was a higher-ranked version of the first monster Paden had fought in his training. Rather than a two-foot-tall crabling, however, it was a pincer lord. The monster was five feet at the top of its shell and had four claws. Its defense was higher than adept-forged high steel. To destroy the monster, not only a high combat skill would be required, but also a high proficiency in one of the five special techniques of Granite Breaking.

  Murmurs broke out in the gallery. Every trainee was familiar with the strength of this monster. Only a blind and deaf fool would confuse it with a crabling. A pincer lord was several evolutions stronger. There was even a standing order for trainees to retreat if one of these monsters was encountered in the wild. This particular creature even had a high level. Did the maistir have a vendetta against the head trainee? How was Paden supposed to survive? A sharp, “Silence!” from the maister quieted the murmurs, but not the internal speculation.

  Paden did not panic at seeing the monster. Richter could tell that rather than alarm, the young warrior was just reviewing everything he knew about the creature. Its strengths, weaknesses, and likely health, mana and stamina. It never entered his mind that this was an unfair test. To him, it was completely understandable. While other trainees might not understand the maistir, he had long ago grasped a simple point. Olrich did not value the lives of any one of them. Rather, the combat master would easily sacrifice the few to forge the many. If Paden’s gory death could serve as a lesson to the other trainees, Olrich would consider it a price well paid. The young warrior had understood all of that before he had asked to be tested.

  Unlike the other trainees, he wasn’t nervous, he was ready. As the pincer lord rushed toward him, Paden settled his feet into a ready stance. He then summoned his power and raised his club into the proper position. Performing an action that he’d practiced to the point of muscle memory, he stepped forward, swinging his club downward.

  In the last years of his training, he and the other trainees had learned that by combining physical action, mental constructs and spiritual focus, certain attacks could achieve special effects. The success of combining these three factors was called Proficiency. The better you adhered to the specific combination needed for a special attack, the greater the power it would evidence. When attacks could take less than a second, it was easier said than done. Anyone who had undergone combat training knew that even a simple punch required diligent training to perform effectively. That was why it took years of practice to even reach the first rank of a Combat Expertise.

  When a technique’s Proficiency reached a certain level, energy would surround a weapon. The same energy that had surrounded the warrior’s maces when they had raised the stone wall to block the flash flood. The same energy that was surrounding P
aden’s club now. With a heavy fall, the stone club slammed into one of the pincer lord’s claws and knocked it aside. The dwarf’s blow continued forward, striking the hard armor of the monster’s face. Its stone carapace was crushed inward and orange-red blood leaked from the cracks.

  It keened, all four claws waving wildly in pain. A prompt appeared in Paden’s vision. Richter easily read the notification as well.

  Special Attack, Crush, was successful! Proficiency of 52%. +2% effect. 0 Proficiency Points obtained.

  After living through Paden’s memories, Richter knew the importance of improving Proficiency. 50% was the minimum required to even trigger an attack. Anything less would just be a normal swing of your weapon. Fifty might not sound like a lot, but many warriors never even achieved that benchmark. Every Proficiency percentage after that gave a 1% boost to the attack, up to 60%. 61-70% increased the boost to 2%. 71-80% improved it to 4%. After that, the boosts to attack power grew much stronger until a Proficiency of 99% magnified a special attack by an astounding 250%. There were also other bonuses that came with high Proficiency, depending on the special attack being used.

  This was the moment that Richter finally understood the true power of possessing combat expertise. He’d thought it was as simple as just knowing how to fight. The difference between a trained swordsman and someone picking up a blade for the first time. It wasn’t only that, however. It was the bonuses to damage that could come through special attacks.

  The move Paden had used was called Crush. It increased base attack by +5, but more importantly, magnified the damage to armor. The initial +5 damage was doubled to +10 against armor. The 2% boost to attack power from his 52% Proficiency wasn’t enough to move the needle, but at higher Proficiencies, that increase might be enough to cripple an enemy in heavy armor. Even the 52% was enough to add ten points of damage to Paden’s attack and crack the pincer lord’s hard carapace.