As soon as I landed, I did the same thing as before and pushed myself toward him. He shot an arrow, and this time I dove headlong into a forward shoulder roll and kicked up as I twisted beneath him. I took a slice from the wire and he missed the worst of it, but I still caught him under the ribs and sent him ten feet into the air and climbing. Tmont slammed into my right flank, and rather than being moved, I simply gathered my breath and roared into the evening air, using Predator’s Call.
The ability allowed me to try and instill fear in my opponents, freezing them in place. Several rings in the area glowed blue, but only Tmont stilled with a hiss.
I bunched the muscles in my legs before I launched myself skyward after my opponent. As I caught up to him, the bastard froze and the werewolf in me bayed and rejoiced.
End him! The voice echoed in my mind. It was almost enough to make me reach out with my jaws and bite.
But instead, I grasped him by the throat and twisted, throwing him down to the ground. There was a sickening crunch as Bokaj hit the ground, his health shot down by about 30%. A broken bone symbol pop up under his health bar.
As I landed, I ensured that I did it with my claws inside his stomach cavity, trying to avoid any major organs.
“Sorry, buddy,” my bass voice ground out of my throat, as I lifted him up, precious bits of red draining from his health bar. “But we need to be prepared.”
“We do,” I felt a burning down my back, a dark blade piercing the meat of my ribs painfully as Yohsuke’s voice reached my ears’ from over my shoulder.
“That’s no fair,” I snarled, throwing Bokaj over my shoulder at where I hoped Yohsuke would be.
“No such thing as a fair fight, and we will never let someone just have their way.” Yoh growled. “Especially not with our friends. Let’s push it.”
I turned and tried to rush him, but he was on top of me in a second, and I was on the defensive immediately. His astral adaptor carved into my health bar like a hot knife through butter, and it was all I could do to return a single blow.
I tried to reach for my magic, but it wasn’t responding.
We cannot use spells, but we can do other things. Limit yourself less! I know that you see this one as a litter-mate, but he is here to push you, too. Respond in kind.
I bunched my muscles like I was going to leap, then threw myself down onto the ground as Tmont freed herself from Predator’s Call and came at my back. The large panther sailed through the air into Yohsuke, and the two of them became entangled briefly. I used that moment to leap onto both of them and tore at them both with my claws. I didn’t make it far before a burning arrow found its way in between my shoulder blades, just out of my reach. Then I was done. They were on top of me, and I couldn’t stand, the silver poisoning me more.
Eventually, they pulled the offending, ruined silver coin from my skin, and Jaken healed me.
You did well. The alpha within me stated, then was gone. Nothing further, just the sense of a job well done.
Time for a bath. Fuck this sparring shit.
***
The serenity of village life being as it was here lately in Sunrise washed over us. This was the place that we had begun our crazy new lives here on Brindolla. We had seen a lot of good done here lately, and that hot spring that had been given to us by the Primordial Water Elemental as a reward for killing the black dragon Riktolth and cleansing his influence from the ocean in doing so? Sooooo nice.
“This is the life.” Jaken sighed as he settled his bulky naked body further into the heated water.
“You said it,” I grumbled.
Typically, it’s considered rude to stare at another naked dude. Me? I’d been in the Marine Corps. After boot camp, I’d probably seen more dudes’ junk than most of the women I knew.
Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. It’s okay. Who’s the one dating a queen? That’s what I thought. Sit down.
Jaken’s figure looked like it was cut from the same cloth as some of the Greek Gods, so some people could be jealous, but whatever. His long fingers attempted to twirl his mustache into a handlebar as he observed the place lazily, but it was foiled. He was going for the handlebar-goatee combo, but it just wasn’t working out in his favor.
“You sure this water isn’t going to do anything negative to your fur, brother?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow my way.
I looked down at my beautiful, silky, raven-black fur with dots and specs of white throughout that mirrored the night sky and smiled. “Yeah.”
As a kitsune, my fur was just as much a part of my skin as his was. It was just hair. Could I have taken human form at that moment? Sure. But I preferred this form most of the time. My tails floated freely behind me, all five of them. Unfortunately, I hadn’t gained another one in the last seven fucking levels.
I’m not butthurt about that in the slightest. But hey—I got tails baby. And that’s all that matters.
I sank into the water a little further and really let myself truly relax. It was a community bath house now. Everybody was allowed in, but it seemed at this moment that people wanted us to have this time alone to relax and recoup.
I opened my eyes to take in the place around us once more. The wooden walls were stained a darker color, beautifully done, but it was bright and warm. Very inviting. There were mage lights enchanted in sconces that offered a soft sort of light that played along the top of the water to give a shred of privacy from the view below. So gazing was a little difficult. Which was good. There were plants potted around the area that gave off delicate and soothing scents that mingled well. And there was a slight hint of steam to the room as well that opened up the pores. Before getting into the water, we had used a system similar in design to showers at the pools back on Earth.
You clean yourself off first, then come here to relax and soak. It was so nice.
The door opened and closed, the sound of others joining us reached my vulpine ears. The first to walk in was James and then Muu.
“Thought we would find you two here.” Muu grinned and flashed his sharp teeth at us before charging into the water.
He cannonballed into the water and came up a second later. “Shallow! Don’t jump, hurt my ass.”
“What a stupid bastard.” Yohsuke chuckled. “Don’t splash all the water out, we need to relax while we still can!”
“Too busy relaxing to pay attention, sorry. What did you say?” Muu arched an eyebrow ridge in the other man’s direction with his purple eyes sparkling mischievously.
Yohsuke rolled his eyes and flipped Muu off, he kept me humble most of the time.
“Tmont opted out of bath time,” Bokaj advised as he sat himself on the edge of the water with his legs in it as his best bud Balmur stood nearby, observing the surroundings for what they were, and likely what they could be. His year and a half in the Hells had not been kind to him.
A small flash of light off his sweaty, tanned skin where part of the beard on the left side of his face was disfigured thanks to a nasty cut that had scarred over and claimed his left eye. It remained shut, but we had made a commission from Xiphyre and Thogan to see about getting him a magical eye similar to my arm.
I looked down at the green and purple piece of craftsmanship that had siphoned a whole level’s worth of experience from me to act as if it were the limb I was born with. It moved and worked as a normal arm except for the fact that it was metal, and that was badass for the low price of a majority of my mana pool. I was so happy to have been using it so far, but I felt like I’d enjoy foiling people stabbing me with that bad boy just a wee bit more.
Balmur dropped into the water softly with a sigh of relief, “This is nice.”
The seven of us sat there in the water just relaxing and enjoying the quiet for a short time before Balmur spoke once more, “You guys know what kind of eye I’ll be getting? It was well before we left that you put the order in.”
It had been, and it was likely that it would be finished soon. I had sent the order ahead using an item that Vilmas, the now-grandmaster enc
hanter who worked with my first true enchanting teacher Shellica Light Hand, had given me.
The item, a small raven, allowed me to send messages over long distances for a hundred MP anywhere in the plane of existence I’m currently in. Xiphyre hadn’t made an eye like that before, but we had brought him some powerful components in the last weeks, and he was excited to try it. The little man worked fast, as he was a powerful enchanter. Easily stronger than Shellica and Vilmas combined, but I imagined he would take his time to ensure it was great.
“It’s probably going to be very similar to what I have.” I had been showing him my arm, as we had discussed commissioning the eye beforehand. He had seemed fine with it even if there was any sort of experience drain in order to activate it.
“I wonder if it will help you see in the dark?” Muu raised the question. “That would be really cool.”
“We’ll be underground, man—I can see underground already.” Balmur frowned in thought. “Though with the eye you commissioned, I’m not sure what it will be able to do, or not do.” He fell silent after that.
“Worry about all of that shit later.” Bokaj clapped him on the shoulder, the dwarf flinched but calmed down instantly. It seemed he was starting to relax a little bit. “For now, we need to try and get our rogue here kitted out, and back into fighting shape before heading into the land down under.”
“Australia?” Jaken raised an eyebrow questioningly with a slight grin.
“No man, the down below.” Bokaj rolled his eyes.
“Speaker box!” I challenged. That one seemed to fly over his head; seemed like decent rap music went way over his head. Moving on.
“What do we call this place? Wasn’t there a term that Farnik had used?” James rubbed his temples as if the massage would help him recall the name.
Balmur snapped his fingers and grinned. “The Great Below!”
“Terrible time for a dick joke, my man—but good try.” Muu patted him on the shoulder affectionately.
“No, man.” Balmur shrugged the hand away angrily. “That’s what they had called it before. The name they used for it.”
I had to admit, Balmur was having a rough go of things lately, especially where Muu was concerned. We were hoping that he would be able to perk back up, but we would be watching out for him.
“Balmur, bud, it was a joke!” Bokaj grinned at his friend with a look of concern. “You okay? That dick joke flew way over your head.”
“Not hard when he’s so short,” Muu muttered with a devious grin, and Balmur rolled his eyes at the jest.
“Can’t you boys keep your minds out of your pants?” A breathier voice sounded from outside.
A woman’s head poked through the door, Vrawn, our orcish lady friend. Her green skin glowed a little in the warm mage light. Her fiery orange mohawk was artfully braided over the side of her head and swayed as she tilted her head, “Room for one more?”
I sighed, knowing what was coming and looked up to find my friends grinning wolfishly in my direction. Balmur looked completely lost but caught the general mood of our brotherly ribbing.
“Vrawn, we would be delighted to have you join us,” Muu all but purred.
Using the telepathic earrings we had, I growled at the others, You do realize that I can straight up merc you, right? I will curse the fuck out of your items.
Balmur seemed to catch on to what was truly happening, because his smile deepened considerably before he turned to greet the woman in the doorway. “Hey there, I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Balmur!”
He waded over to the side of the water closest to the door and held a hand out for her to shake.
She blinked at all of them, her eyes finding and holding mine for a moment. When I didn’t offer any kind of resistance to her presence, Vrawn’s large frame cleared the doorway, and oh, my giddy great aunt, she was naked!
Balmur, James, Jaken, and Yohsuke instantly gasped and looked away. All of them had some lady loves back home to whom they had pledged their undying love. Hell, Yohsuke was married as fuck—had been the majority of the time that I had known him, and his wife would straight-up fight Vrawn for this.
Worth it. Got you, you fuckers. I growled at them victoriously.
Now, I know what you’re likely thinking. Either A) look at the orc lady, you putz. Or B) But Zeke, what about Maebe?
My lady Queen, in our budding relationship, had plainly said I was stupid for denying Vrawn’s very forward attempts at getting my attention. To the point where she had asked if…the Great Below worked. Well, it does, and knowing how she felt, I wasn’t going to be too terribly modest at this moment.
Of course, Option C) I’m going to describe her because y’all know what my brothers look like, and I told you I wasn’t gonna. So there. Now, to treat you and me.
Vrawn was moving toward the water now, her confused eyes skirting over the men who were looking away from her, but then her eyes rested on me, and she smiled.
“Hi Vrawn, how was recruit training today?” Jaken craned his neck, still looking away.
Her voluptuous form displaced the water a little, but it was okay. Her muscled body, something that would make some of the male bodybuilders at home slightly jealous, moved well in the calm waters of the spring. Her broad shoulders were about head height for me when we were standing. So, she was taller than me by more than a little, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t womanly in the slightest. Her waist was narrow comparatively speaking to the rest of her body, and none of that muscle was remotely unsightly. If anything, she put most of the women I knew to shame in a lot of ways, physically.
Eventually, she reached the point where her assets were below water and sat next to me with a sigh, answering Jaken, “It went well, though I still do not know why you have me doing this ‘incentive training,’ or what it does for troop welfare.”
She underwater? Yohsuke‘s query made me grin. I confirmed it, and he finally opened his eyes.
“It’s meant to simultaneously break them down, strengthen them, and ensure that they listen to you without screwing up too much,” Yohsuke explained. “When you do it to most of them at once, the others feel guilty for not being with the team, or for causing it. But it makes them sharper.”
“Like honing a blade—you can’t do that without whittling the metal away to carve to the cutting edge,” James added on. “In the Marines, by the end of our training, usually when one of the recruits gets ‘I.T.’d’ the others join in as a show of solidarity.”
Muu, Bokaj, and Balmur glanced askance at Yohsuke and I, the former taking pity and explaining, “It means ‘incentive training,’ basically that if you’re stupid, you get destroyed with push-ups or some other inane exercise.”
I looked at the other two Marines and grinned. “Those who suffer together, will endure together. They have to learn to embrace the suck.”
“Well, I have noticed that they are much more capable when I use the stick and not the carrot.” Vrawn frowned.
“Carrot comes later.” Yohsuke waved at her as if bidding her to perish the thought. “They aren’t being punished for fucking up, so much as they are being punished for doing so too much, too often. Have you noticed other improvements?”
“It has only been two days, but they are much more disciplined and willing to work harder.” As she spoke, I felt the large woman drifting closer and just resigned myself to what was coming.
“It took more than three months for us to earn our title. Thirteen weeks and going through hell. Between you and Zhavron—these guys are going to be badasses.” James laughed. “Can you imagine ol’ Zhav working with newbies?”
A few of us chuckled, I refrained though. “He’s hard because they need him to be. I’ve seen the man work. Those recruits aren’t getting the same treatment that we did, that’s for damned sure.”
Muu shivered and narrowed his eyes at the door. “He comes,” he said in a display of odd clairvoyance, yet nothing happened.
“Fuck, usually when you talk about
him, the devil fucking appears, this is bullshi—” Muu screeched as the water behind him exploded upward, and Yohsuke burst from the spot laughing wildly.
The rest of us laughed probably too hard, Vrawn joining in the good-natured revelry, and we relaxed even more.
“Do you know how long you will be staying before you leave?” Vrawn leaned down so that her heavily muscled shoulder leaned against the top of my arm, her bust resting on the side of my body.
I fought the urge to move away, my friends being close-by throwing me off a little more than it would have if we had been alone.
“I’m not sure yet. Xiphyre is working on a project for us with Thogan, and we need to try and find a way to get down into the Great Below,” I looked over into her blue eyes. “You don’t happen to know of an entrance, do you?”
She shook her head, forlornly. “I do not. My apologies. I only ever hear rumors about raids in the outer lands of this continent. There are cities above ground across the sea if I recall correctly. There was something about them being able to create barriers of spell-woven glass to protect their cities from the light of day.”
That was both impressive and depressing. We would have to spend gods knew how long at sea to get to drow that didn’t seem to have anything to do with this case of drow craziness since the ocean separated them from Djurn Forge. No, we needed to find a way to get to the ones on this continent.
“Thank you for that, it’ll be something to keep in mind for the future.” I reached under the water, using her arm as a guide and held her hand. A friendly gesture that she seemed to take as a carrot in this instance.
“I’ve been trying to grill Vilmas when she has a minute between lessons and her dates with Rowland on what happened when the drow tried to invade.” James sighed, leaning back against the edge of the ground where he sat. “She just keeps saying that they burst through the ground in the center of their city.”
“They likely did. Drow aren’t known for being diggers, as they have their cannon fodder do all that for them. A powerful spell caster could have blown a huge hole in the ground after it was dug to where it needed to be. Then boom”—Yohsuke punched the water before him, a geyser of water spouting from the spot—“they’re in and wreaking havoc.”
Into the Darkness: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Axe Druid Book 4) Page 2
