The Conduit

by Erik Anderson

  “Your pack?” I asked, creeping alongside her. She nodded at me.

  “I left them to their own devices.” She bared her teeth, sneering. “And that was a mistake.” I was curious to know how strong she was, and when I examined her I understood why she blew Samuel away with her hunting skills. She was level 18! While I attempted to examine her without blatantly checking her out, she continued speaking. “I left my companion with the pack. His name is Carter, you’ll meet him soon. He was falling behind me in power, and I thought that having the pack at his command would give him an opportunity to catch up to me. Apparently, he took that opportunity and decided to fuck things up.” She was getting exasperated as she complained. “What an idiot! Stealing from the goblin village, they could easily have been killed.”

  “That goblin general looked really strong.” I interjected.

  “Exactly! And they have bruisers almost twice the level of most of the pack members. If they’d been caught, they would have all been slaughtered.” She strangled an invisible neck in front of her. “When I get my hands on him, I’ll make him regret his idiocy.” In her anger, she picked up her pace, and I fell back to the rest of the group. When I fell back Alicia trotted up next to Lady Cana and chatted with her. I listened in on their conversation.

  “You have issues keeping your companion in line too?” Alicia asked. Lady Cana nodded, and Alicia proceeded to tell her all the terrible things she thinks I’ve done to her, blatantly making up events as she went along. “We were fighting wolves, and he let me die! Can you believe that?” I couldn’t fault her there. I didn’t do it on purpose, and I felt she was being a little harsh in her criticism. Alicia felt better after complaining, and started getting into the nitty gritty of character development. “What’s your sneak proficiency?”

  “Just over ten.” Lady Cana stated.

  “Holy shit! You’re a sneaky bitch!” Alicia exclaimed. Rather than argue with her, Lady Cana turned and winked, immediately blending into the surroundings. I had my eyes right on her, and even I lost track of where she was. Samuel yelped suddenly, turning around.

  “Something pinched my ass!” He exclaimed. When I looked back towards Alicia, Lady Cana was beside her, whistling innocently.

  “I need to be able to do that.” Alicia said. “Not exactly that, but the disappearing. I need it.” Alicia followed up words with action, getting into a sneaky posture. We’d gotten quite deep into the woods when Lady Cana halted, holding her hand up and signaling for us to stop. She cupped her hands to her mouth and howled.

  “Arooooo!” I would think it was ridiculous if it didn’t sound exactly like a howling wolf. An answering howl came from somewhere deeper in the forest. Moments later a wolf trotted up to our group. It mimicked Lady Cana’s transformation, except the wolf became a man and remained kneeling.

  “I heard your call, Lady Cana.” He said with his eyes lowered to the ground.

  “Rise.” She commanded, and he stood up. “Lead us to the pack, we have business with Carter.” The werewolf immediately started sprinting deeper into the forest, and we followed. By the time we made it to the camp, Gerald was winded. I was the only one mounted, and Harry didn’t seem tired at all. The first thing I noticed was that the sheep were penned up near the camp. That was preferable to them all being slaughtered, and I hoped that not too many were missing. There were people milling about amongst the wolves, all the structures were designed to be portable. It looked like a campsite with tents made of animal skins stretched over wooden poles. There were no fires, which didn’t surprise me. Wolves didn’t need to cook their meat.

  “Carter!” Lady Cana yelled. “Get your stupid ass out here!” A man emerged from one of the tents. He stood to his full height, and I gawked. He looked like a bodybuilder, was covered in coarse, dark hair, and stood a foot taller than me.

  “Cana.” He hissed through his teeth.

  “That’s Lady Cana to you, you miserable fuckup.” Lady Cana spat on the ground in a very unladylike manner.

  “Yeah, and I’m Lord fucking Carter, or did you forget that you left me in charge of these fleabags?” Carter boomed. I examined him, and whatever Lady Cana’s complaints, she achieved her goal in leaving him here. He was level 20, two levels higher than her. She must have also examined his level, because she was grinning at him.

  “Look at you! You were just a pup when I left you here. Your balls finally dropped.” Lady Cana taunted him mercilessly.

  “Fuck off, Cana. I beat you last time fair and square. If you want me to call you Lady Cana again, you need to fight for the privilege.” Carter responded, sneering.

  Lady Cana cracked her neck. “That’s what I’m here for, wolfling.” The end of her sentence came out lower, and was nearly garbled by her sudden transformation into wolf form. Her silver fur bristled as she snarled at Carter, who had just finished turning into a big black wolf. Without hesitation, Carter leaped into the air towards Lady Cana, all fangs and claws. Lady Cana deftly dodged to the side. I was worried for her, but held off on assisting. This was clearly a fight for pack dominance, and I’d probably do more harm than good by getting involved. Besides, I was underestimating her ability. After Lady Cana dodged, she immediately dashed towards Carter’s rear before he could recover from his landing. She rent a bleeding gash in his back left leg with a powerful bite, then backed off to see how he’d respond, growling. The larger wolf was no pushover, and shrugged off Lady Cana’s attack as if it were only a scratch. He dashed forward, swiping at her with his forelegs, grazing her shoulder. Lady Cana couldn’t stand up to his frontal attacks, so she feinted a sideways leap. When Carter fell for it and turned away from her, she quickly moved to his exposed flank and raked him with her claws, digging into his side and pulling himself over top of him. I winced as I saw her powerful back legs thrust into him, and I heard his ribs crack. Carter howled in pain, but turned towards her for another frontal attack. Lady Cana was fearless, and Carter’s attacks were weaker with his busted ribs. She took one of his blows to her other shoulder, rolled with it, and snapped at his neck with her powerful jaws. I thought the fight was over when Carter fell to his side, but Lady Cana didn’t let up until he stopped moving.

  They both reverted to their human forms, battered and bloody. Lady Cana put her hand on him, and Carter opened his eyes with a gasp. Despite how savagely they were fighting earlier, Lady Cana reached her hand down, and Carter grasped it, letting her pull him up. Their hands remained clasped between them as they both pounded each other on the back with their free hands in a tight embrace.

  “Damn good fight.” Carter said, shrugging off the drowsiness of his revival.

  “Fuck yeah it was.” Lady Carter agreed. “Now say it.” They released each other, and Carter bowed before her.

  “Lady Cana.” Carter intoned with respect.

  “Don’t forget it.” Lady Cana was grinning as she turned to face us. “Let me introduce you to Carter, my companion.” Samantha started chanting words of power, and a soft white glow surrounded Carter, healing most of his wounds. Emera in turn healed Lady Cana. We all introduced ourselves, and after everyone was done talking about how much they admired the fight, I addressed the reason we’d come.

  “So, Carter. Why did you steal a herd of sheep from the goblins?” In response, Carter laughed uproariously. When he calmed down, he responded.

  “Mostly just to see if I could! I had only a rough idea for a strategy, but those dumbass goblins fell for it anyways. My boys and I,” He stopped for a moment to howl, and his call was answered by a few of the werewolves in the village, both in human and wolf form. “We waltzed in there looking all haggard, wearing only furs. We pretended we were weak and sickly, and got rooms at the inn. That night, we sneaked out, and I had one of the boys knock out the guards at the front gate while the rest of us went for the sheep pen.” Carter shrugged, emphasizing how easy the next part was. “We turned into wolves and chased the sheep through the gate. The goblins in the towers saw us, but they didn’t
even try shooting. By the time they mustered a force to go after us, we were well into the woods and they still couldn’t risk trying to shoot us.”

  I didn’t want to piss him off, but I spoke my mind regardless. “So, you’re admitting that you’re essentially just a dick.”

  Carter shrugged again. “Pretty much. The goblins also sent scouts into the forest to try and track us down, and hunting them was a blast. I took care of so many that I lost count, which is why I was able to catch up to that bit-“ Carter was interrupted by a fierce slap from Lady Cana. “As I was saying, that’s why I was able to catch up to Lady Cana in power.” He continued, rubbing his cheek, which was now bright red. “They stopped sending scouts into the forest, so no more easy kills for me.”

  I hesitated before following up on that disclosure. “If you don’t really want or need the sheep, can we take them back to Glerzz? The goblins have sealed off the settlement after your raid, and I think they’ll let us in if we get their herd back to them.”

  Carter nodded. “Yeah sure. They’re probably hungry anyways, I don’t think they like pine needles.” He mused for a moment, adding “Also they taste terrible.”

  I was confused for a moment. “Why would you think pine needles tasted good?”

  Carter shook his head. “No, sheep. They taste awful, please take them.”

  Quest updated! Return with the sheep to Glerzz and barter for entrance to the village.

  “Great! We’ll be happy to take them off your hands.” I said, feeling pleased. Night was falling, and it would be impossible to drive the sheep towards Glerzz without any light, so I asked Lady Cana if we could spend the night in the werewolf camp.

  Lady Cana nodded emphatically at me. “That’s an excellent idea! There’s always a few loners ranging out, so feel free to sleep in any of the empty tents.” She walked over to Samuel confidently, grabbing him by the arm. “You’re coming with me, I’m not sleeping alone tonight.” Without waiting for Samuel to comply, she dragged him into the biggest tent in the encampment and closed the flap. I’d be more concerned, but I caught a glimpse of Samuel grinning before he was ushered inside. I chuckled to myself, hoping that they had a good time. As for me, I found an empty tent on the outskirts of the village and crawled in, quickly drifting off and logging out for the night.

  Chapter 21: Shepherd on spiderback

  After climbing out of my gaming rig, I headed immediately to the kitchen. My body had adjusted quite nicely to my two meal a day diet. For breakfast I’d only eaten a handful of granola bars, though, and I was feeling hungry for something substantial and filling. Second bag of pizza rolls, we hardly knew ye. When I was finished eating, I still wasn’t tired, so I logged into the game forums to see if I could figure out how quests were procedurally generated. My earlier musings were on target. The game developers had adapted some of the artificial intelligences towards managing game mechanics. In addition to quests, most players who had founded settlements described finding small, one-shot dungeons nearby, and these usually provided resources to aid the developing villages. The consensus was that the designers wanted players to build the infrastructure. With every village being crafted by a different player, or groups of players, it was far more likely that adventurers would find something new and interesting during their travels. Frank had tried to turn the Village on the Lake towards banditry, and had I not stopped him he may have succeeded in making the settlement a cesspool of crime and corruption. As I thought about the development of villages, I became more curious about the goblin village. I had only seen the tops of buildings due to the tall palisade, so I had no idea how it was organized. I sincerely hoped that we’d be able to trade the recovered sheep for entrance to the village, but that would have to wait for tomorrow. Yawning, I cleaned myself up and after a hot shower crawled into bed.

  When I woke up the next morning, I ate the last of my oatmeal. I checked my phone and there were still no messages. It’s quite difficult to get an appointment with a psychiatrist, and I hadn’t heard any voices in my head lately, so I was neither surprised nor overly concerned. After brushing my teeth and using the bathroom, I laid back in my massage chair and lowered the dome, entering Epic Online. In the game, I woke up alone and felt a pang of disappointment. Either Alicia had risen early, or she’d found a tent of her own. Despite my joking, I’d come to find her snoring in the morning comforting. Maybe I was a logger in another life. Shrugging, I crawled out of the tent and surveyed the camp. Most everyone was awake and milling about. I didn’t see Lady Cana or Samuel anywhere, which made me suspect that Samuel hadn’t minded being dragged off last night. While I was grinning at the thought, I felt a tap on my left shoulder. I turned and didn’t see anyone, and but when I turned back Alicia was standing in front of me, smirking.

  “I’m practicing my sneaking! That trick Lady Cana pulled off yesterday was awesome.” She frowned a bit and bit her lip. “I’ve done that about three or four times to everyone in the camp, and now nobody is turning around anymore.” I rolled my eyes at her, and she suddenly put on a confused look while pointing at my chest. “What’s that?” I looked down, saw nothing, and Alicia flicked me in the nose. Hard. While I scrunched up my face, rubbing away my discomfort, Alicia was dry heaving with laughter. “That…” She coughed, still laughing. “…that never works! On anyone! You are so gullible.” As much as I enjoy being the butt of a joke, I tried to switch gears.

  “Come on, let’s get everyone together and try to determine how we’re going to get these sheep back to Glerzz.” Alicia suspended whatever prank she was planning, and her face lit up.

  “Yeah! I want to see what those little green buggers are up to behind that wall.” She sneaked away from me, clearly intending to practice her skills while we gathered our group. As I watched her, I noticed that a notification had appeared on my interface.

  Village update! One of your scouts has found a suitable location for a marble quarry!

  That didn’t take long! I opened the map of the village and saw that the location was only a couple miles away from town. I found the extra miners I’d hired and ordered them to establish the quarry and begin mining. I also sent one of the elite guards with them in case any of the creatures in the forest decided to attack. It would take many trips for the stockpile to accumulate enough resources to build a structure using marble. Wait, stockpile? All the resources such as wood and iron were being piled up wherever they were going to be used. To remedy that, I drafted a stockpile just outside of the town, and designated it for storage of lumber, iron, and marble. Satisfied, I closed the village interface, seeing that Alicia had gathered everyone. They all looked annoyed for some reason, and I couldn’t begin to imagine why.

  Grith was rubbing his backside, frowning. “Next time you want us all together, Alex, don’t send that monster after us.”

  Alicia had her hands behind her back, doing an excellent job of pretending to look inconspicuous. “What do you mean? If you didn’t see me, how could you know it was me?”

  Emera was blushing and covering her chest with her arms. “You’ve been poking at us all morning, and not in the least sensitive areas.”

  Nareth looked white as a ghost, and his knees were bending inwards slightly. “Let’s, let’s just get the sheep back to Glerzz and rescue Francis, okay?” Everyone nodded, and I noticed that Samuel was missing. I walked over to the large tent and cleared my throat.

  “Hey Samuel, we’re getting ready to leave. Are you in there?” I asked.

  After a moment, Samuel’s voice answered. “I think I’m going to stay here for a while. Lady Cana has offered to help me improve my skills.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, I bet she has. All right man, we’re headed to Glerzz and then we’ll probably end up back at the Village on the Lake. Feel free to catch up with us if you want! You’re always welcome.”

  Samuel answered. “Thanks, I appreciate it. Have fun with your sheep! I think I prefer wolves.” I let him be, walking away, but not before I heard a low growl an
d the start of a scuffle within the tent. I approached the rest of the group, who were all warily eyeing Alicia. I started to open my mouth to ask how we were going to get the sheep back to Glerzz when I remembered something. I had the animal husbandry skill! I knew that I needed it to fulfill our bargain with Arachna, but I’d never checked the description.

  Animal husbandry: Allows the user to manage herd animals. Increase proficiency to control more exotic creatures!

  I walked up to the sheep pen and got their attention. “Come on sheep! Time to head back to Glerzz!”

  Alicia looked at me like I was an idiot. “Why are you talking to sheep?” In response, I pointed at the herd. They were all staring at me. I was very creeped out, but I wasn’t going to let my victory go to waste.

  In a condescending tone, I answered. “Because, Alicia. It’s working.” I opened the makeshift gate that the werewolves had cobbled together, sheathed my sword, and pulled my staff from my inventory. It wasn’t a shepherd’s crook, but it would do. In a rustic tone, I called to my herd. “Come sheep, come! Away from this den of wolves!” I summoned Harry, mounted him, and led the sheep through the forest towards Glerzz while the rest of our group followed. As we made our way, it quickly became apparent that the wolves in the forest didn’t share Carter’s distaste for mutton. Gina and I fired bolts of fire and force, respectively, to drive off a hungry pack, while everyone with a bow had an arrow nocked. The scariest part of the trip was when we encountered a level 12 black bear. Together we could probably fight it off easily, but Alicia wanted to handle it herself. She tossed one of her flasks of spore cloud into its face, and it worked as well as any bear repellent. I was a little worried for her, so while she wasn’t paying attention I fired a gravity bolt at the bear, and its movements became strained and sluggish. Alicia appeared behind it, skewering its kidneys with her twin daggers, and the mortal wounds allowed her to finish it off with a stab through the neck while she dodged a swipe. I started to congratulate her, but she immediately pushed the bear onto its stomach and started carving at its body.