Battleborne

by Dave Willmarth

  Deciding he had enough, Max headed toward where a faint wisp of smoke rose from the dwarves’ campfire. As he crossed the tree line to the south of the battlefield, the curse ended, and his health ticked back upward one final time.

  Dalia had a fire going, and was using a clever tripod made of three thin metal rods to support a small cauldron over the flames. He watched as she added some ingredients and stirred with a long-handled wooden spoon.

  “Dinner?” He looked up at the sky, where the sun was steadily lowering, already hard to see through the forest canopy.

  “Health potions.” Dalia replied. “There be ingredients everywhere out here. I’m thinkin’ no one has come here to harvest the herbs for many a year.” She waved her hand in an arc, taking in several mature bushes with a light purple flower.

  Interested, Max moved over to one of the bushes and Examined it.

  Nivenroot Flower

  Uncommon herb

  Potency: Rare

  “This says these flowers have a rare potency. What does that mean?”

  Dalia looked up from her work. “Aye, I see’d that as well. Most plants become more potent as they mature. In the case o’ bushes like these, if they be allowed to grow big and strong, the flowers they produce increase the potency o’ potions n such. Few nivenroot bushes near populated areas be left alone long enough to grow this large, as healin’ potions always be in high demand.”

  She paused while she removed the cauldron from over the flames and set it down. Producing a vial from her inventory, she grabbed it with a pair of tongs, scooped some of the liquid into it, then capped it. Shaking the vial, the liquid turned from a dull red to a deep purple. Max stared at the vial even as the other two dwarves did the same.

  Major Healing Potion

  Quality: Rare

  Restores three hundred health upon consumption, and an additional two hundred over thirty seconds.

  Not being familiar with potions at all, Max asked, “Is that good?”

  Battleaxe laughed. “If I wanted to buy that potion in Darkholm, it’d cost me ten gold.”

  Dalia shook her head. “More than that. And I sort of botched this batch.” She spoke as she quickly dipped several more vials into the liquid, shaking each one until it turned purple, then poured the remainder into a larger bottle. “I’m only an amateur, apprentice level alchemist. I told ye me da’s an alchemist, and I learned just by watchin’ him as a wee lass. With these ingredients, and a real laboratory with controlled heat and proper tools, me da could create healing potions that’ll restore a thousand points, maybe more. There be somethin’ special about these. And those over there,” She pointed to a low-growing weed sprouting near the base of a tree. “Those be bloodwort, the main ingredient in a poison cure. And these here be angelheart leaves.” She held up a handful of golden heart-shaped leaves. “I’ll be usin em to make a mana potion next.”

  Max looked around them, seeing plants of a dozen different varieties, all looking lush and healthy. “What do you suppose makes them more potent?”

  Battleaxe cleared his throat, sitting cross-legged near the fire. “There be another legend, and like the others I assumed they just be fairy tales. But after what ye’ve shown me in recent days, the legendary sword, the dragon’s remains, maybe it be true as well.”

  He paused, looking down at the fire as he seemed to collect his thoughts. After a full minute, Dalia threw a stick at him. “Well!? Tell us!”

  Smiling at the healer, Battleaxe began. “It goes back to the battle o’ Brightwood. The story be secondhand, mind ye. There were no dwarves present to witness and tell the tale, and it were a thousand years ago. It has been retold so many times, who knows what bits be truth, or legend. But it were said that the orcs used hundreds o’ mighty bows with enchanted metal arrowheads to bring down the dragon. They shot arrows into his wings and underbelly as he passed, and it’s said his blood rained down upon them. Three passes, he made, snatchin’ up trees in each claw and droppin’ em on the orc army, crushin’ em by the score. He were a stone dragon, not one to breathe fire, and that were his best form of attack from the air. Three passes, then on the fourth, the loss o’ blood was too much, and the beast fell to the ground, crushing even more orcs. Then he fought on, snatchin orcs in his jaws two and three at a time, rending them with claws, sweepin’ away dozens with each twitch o’ his tail.”

  Dalia interrupted. “Ye think it be the dragon’s blood. We be close to the battleground, maybe some o’ his blood rained down on this soil. The blood of a dragon born o’ the stone.”

  “Aye. But not just that. There were rumors from them that braved the curse to scavenge the field. It were said that the mana were thick in the air here. Spellcasters claimed no matter how quick they cast, their mana regenerated in seconds. Our mages guessed that it were residual magic fadin’ from the dragon as he were reclaimed by the land.”

  “So this ground might be soaked in both dragon’s blood, and mana.” Max looked around again, itching to lay claim to the land for himself and his new kingdom. This resource, if Dalia and the sergeant were correct, was extremely valuable. He imagined planting food crops in the fertile soil, and enriching his city’s meals with magic. “Who owns this land?”

  Battleaxe shrugged. “I suppose the orcs lay claim to it. We be outside the boundaries o’ Darkholm, so me king makes no claim on it.” He began to smile at Max as he realized the reason for the question. “Aye, as a king, ye could claim it. But could ye hold it?”

  “Not at the moment.” Max deflated, reality dashing his enthusiasm.

  For the rest of the day, both Max and Battleaxe helped Dalia harvest ingredients. She instructed them on how to carefully remove a percentage of the blooms, stems, or leaves, so as not to damage the plants and bushes. She identified each plant for them, describing its properties, and the uses she was aware of. By the time they were done gathering, Max was at level three in Herbalism, and the sergeant was at level five. When Max raised an eyebrow at him, he shrugged.

  “I used to help me ma gather herbs for her kitchen. It’s how I became a scout, after so many days o’ walkin through the woods with her. I grew to love it out here.”

  When the sun had fully set and it became too dark to properly harvest plants, Max pulled out the basic alchemy supplies that Dalia had helped him purchase from Fitchstone, and she showed him how to make the healing and mana potions. She only allowed him one batch, and made him use ingredients she pulled from her inventory, rather than the valuable ones they’d just gathered. “Ye’ll just waste good ingredients, to start.” She admonished.

  While they puttered around with potions, Battleaxe disappeared into the woods, bow in hand. Half an hour later he returned with a dead bird that looked like an oversized chicken with spotted feathers. He quietly plucked and dressed the bird, then put it on a spit over the fire.

  They had a tasty meal of fowl and ale, with Max providing pastries for dessert. As soon as it was over, they determined that Dalia would take first watch, followed by Battleaxe, then Max. The sergeant settled into his bedroll, and was already half asleep when a pillow struck him in the face. Sitting up, he saw Max grinning. “I bought a bunch of these from Fitchstone. The pillow is stuffed with some kind of fur, sewed inside canvas treated to be waterproof.” He pulled another from his storage and handed it to Dalia. “We might have to sleep on the ground in the open, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be comfortable!”

  Chuckling, the sergeant placed the pillow under his head, punched it a few times, then grunted his approval before closing his eyes.

  It turned out that Max took the entire night’s watch, taking all of Dalia’s normal ingredients and spending the whole night practicing his potions. Having had a good night’s sleep the night before, and with his monster endurance, he didn’t need sleep. So he let the sergeant sleep through the night, and sent Dalia to bed around midnight after she’d filled all the vials both of them were carrying with high quality potions. Except for half a dozen that Max was
using for his training. He cooked a small batch, filled the vials, Examined them, then either drank them to test the taste, which Dalia said would help him understand the process better, or simply poured them out before starting again.

  He ran out of ingredients early in the morning, he estimated an hour or so before sunrise. The fire was running low, and he saw no wood to build it back up, so he went to find more. He was careful to remain within sight of the camp, not wanting any forest predators to take advantage of his absence and ambush his sleeping companions.

  Max had just dumped an armload of wood near the fire, added a couple big pieces to get the flames going for breakfast, and was headed out for another load when his elven hearing picked up a rustling sound.

  He froze where he was, maybe ten yards from the fire, and stepped sideways to his left to put a tree between himself and the fire’s light. Tilting his head unconsciously, he held his breath and listened. After half a minute, there was the crackle of a dry leaf being crushed. His head spun toward the sound, his darksight helping him spot movement about thirty yards further into the forest.

  Without hesitation, Max cast Fade on himself, then drew his axe and began to creep toward the spot where the movement had been. Unfortunately, the spell only made him harder to see, not harder to hear. His stealth skills were sorely lacking when it came to walking through a forest filled with fallen leaves and sticks. He hadn’t made it halfway before he stepped on a twig, the resulting snap sounding like a rifle report in the predawn silence.

  The creature he was stalking heard it too, and emerged from the brush near a large tree at a run. Max instantly recognized it from his last battle out here in the wilderness. Still, he Examined it out of habit.

  Spidorc Hunter

  Level 12

  Health: 650/650

  Max held his breath as the spidorc’s eight-legged charge halted about five yards away, and it looked around. Not seeing Max, it sniffed the air, its legs shuffling the half-orc body around left and right, trying to scent its prey. Max waited until it turned its back on him, then raised his axe and leapt forward. Roaring as he descended, he lowered the blade and severed one of the spidorc legs just above its top joint.

  Critical hit! Your surprise attack from behind does an extra 50% damage and causes a bleed effect.

  The surprised monster screamed in pain, spinning to try and stab Max with a long, jagged bone dagger it held in one hand. In one blow it was down to less than two hundred health, and was bleeding away more every second.

  Max hopped back out of range, the dagger swiping past just in front of his chest. Taking his eyes off the enemy as it recovered from the swing, he focused on the ground behind the monster and cast Jump. A second later he swung the axe again, now standing behind the spidorc. The blow split its skull, killing it instantly.

  Awakened by the scream, Battleaxe and Dalia rushed up, weapons ready, only to find Max standing over the corpse. They both smiled as they received experience notifications, and all three looted the monster. Since it was nearly dawn, a well-rested Battleaxe offered to go ahead and cook breakfast.

  Max took some time to show his most recent versions of the healing potions to Dalia, who praised his improvements. His Alchemy skill had increased to five, and the potions he made from the standard ingredients would restore two hundred points of health, fifty upon drinking the potion, and the other one hundred fifty over thirty seconds.

  “Not bad fer just a few hours’ practice. Put these in yer bag, they’ll do well enough fer any scrapes n bumps we get in the next few days.”

  While the sergeant was preparing breakfast, Max got an idea. He went back to the corpse of the spidorc, laid a hand on it, and cast Jump. There was a shout of surprise, then some angry muttering after the corpse appeared right next to Battleaxe. Chuckling, Max returned and spent the next several minutes chasing the corpse around the forest near the campsite, casting Jump again and again until he ran low on mana. He smiled as his ears picked up Dalia mumbling “Sick bastard, he could just teleport himself to practice.” to herself, and Battleaxe agreeing.

  When his mana had recovered enough, he left the corpse and ran toward the campfire shouting, “Get down!” When the two dwarves instantly hit the dirt, he slid down next to them, turned and pointed toward the spidorc corpse and said “Boom!”

  There was a satisfying splat a moment later as the monster’s head exploded, coating the surrounding forest in a spray of gore in about a ten foot radius.

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, yer highness,” the sergeant managed to put sarcasm into the emphasis on the title, “But cut that shit out.” He grumbled, making Max laugh. Dalia looked at him crossly for a moment before she too began to laugh. Finally, the sergeant joined in, shouting “Boom!”

  Ten minutes later it was the sergeant’s turn to laugh. He served a breakfast of oatmeal with apple slices and honey, and tasty roasted meat. Max wolfed it down, then patted his belly, saying, “That was great, sergeant. What was it?”

  “Spidorc leg. Old family recipe!” The sergeant got his laugh as Max turned slightly pale and had to fight a gag reflex.

  Chapter 18

  After breakfast the trio took some time to harvest a few more of the highly potent herbs. Max discovered that his storage slots would each hold one hundred of the same herb, so he filled six slots with one hundred of each kind of herb they’d discovered. They agreed to split the herbs three ways. Dalia was going to give her share to her father, saying that he could make master quality potions, maybe level up his skill, and definitely sell them for enough gold to retire on. Hearing that, Battleaxe offered to sell his share to her father as well, but Dalia shook her head.

  “Our family don’t have enough gold to buy yer whole lot. Ye’d do better ta auction em, or sell ‘em to the crafter’s guild.” She looked at Max. “You, as well.”

  Max shook his head. “I’ll hold onto them for now. They’ll be preserved inside the storage, right? They’ll stay fresh?”

  “Aye.” Dalia nodded her head.

  “Then I’ll use them to make a deal with a master alchemist. Convince him or her to come live in Stormhaven and open a shop, and in return I’ll give them half of my share. They can purchase the other half at a discount, or I’ll use the other half to recruit a second alchemist.”

  They moved on, walking at a comfortable pace for the dwarves, each of them keeping their eyes open for any sign of orcs or wild creatures that might present a danger. The sergeant led them in a roughly southwesterly direction all day, heading toward where they’d last scouted an orc camp. “I do not know if they’ll be there still, but likely we can pick up their trail if they’ve moved. They don’t bother to hide their tracks.”

  At midday Dalia called a halt, spotting some more usable herbs. These too were full-grown and untouched, though they were much less potent than those near the battlefield. Battleaxe passed around the last of the cooked spidorc leg meat, which Max happily crunched away. It hadn’t taken him long to get over the idea of consuming the spidorc meat after his first gut reaction. It tasted good, and the recipe that the sergeant used gave a buff of +2 Endurance for four hours.

  They were just gathering their gear to get moving again when Dalia grunted in pain and fell backward onto the ground, a large black arrow sticking out of her shoulder. In a heartbeat Max had his own bow in hand, and his quiver hooked on his belt. He nocked an arrow and drew even as he scanned the forest in the rough direction the arrow had come from. Battleaxe had produced his shield and hand axe, and was moving to protect their fallen comrade. Before he could reach her, a second arrow pierced her leg just above the knee, and she cried out in pain.

  Max adjusted his bow and loosed, having traced the shot back to a shadow near a tree. The first arrow had barely struck when it was followed by a second. Both arrows hit their target, the second one knocking it down. Max ran forward, hearing Battleaxe speaking softly, “Heal yerself, lass. Drink one o’ them poison cures. These arrows be fouled with somethin’
nasty.”

  Running as quickly as he could toward his target, Max did not see the tripwire that had been run across the narrow space between two trees. His lead foot cleared it, but his trailing foot snagged the line, causing him to stumble forward. Just as he did, a heavy branch whipped around and smashed into his gut, two daggers that had been lashed to the branch punching through his armor and troll skin. He felt his innards being ruptured before the force of the impact knocked him backward, the daggers doing more damage on their way out.

  Roaring in pain, Max took a moment to cast Nature’s Boon on himself, hoping to repair the damage to his internal organs before he bled out, or became too badly infected. Even as he cast, he saw that his attacker was an orc. It was slowly rising to its feet, one of Max’s arrows in its left shoulder, the other in its left arm. Max felt his pain easing as he watched the orc yank the two arrows free with its uninjured arm. Having dropped its bow, the massive orc reached over its shoulder and drew a sword. The blade was easily four feet long, and maybe six inches wide at the base. Max Identified his opponent as he himself struggled to his feet.

  Orc Scout

  Level 12

  Health: 650/1,200

  The orc was nearly as tall as Max, and easily more muscular. Its shoulders were wide enough to park a golf cart on. It ignored the blood leaking from the two arrow wounds and stepped toward Max with a snarl.