Watcher's Question: A LitRPG Saga (Life in Exile Book 2)

by Sean Oswald

  “Sir Belmore, I know that you are my husband’s vassal, but you will find that both he and I are in total agreement on this point. Eris’ Rise, even the entire Murkwood, is not a place for humans or elves alone. It is a place where all races who wish to join are welcome, so long as they contribute to the common good.”

  For his part, Daichi only nodded and then produced a silver dagger with a twelve inch blade from a sheath on his thigh. Emily wasn’t sure she wanted to know why someone would have such a thing. There were probably werewolves in Eloria or something like that. All she could do was force herself to chuckle.

  With the knife in hand, Rak’kar dropped to his knees and drew a long cut along first one forearm and then the other before driving the blade into the ground. He placed his huge, meaty hands upon the cuts and then held his hands up to the sun. The wet blood glistening against the black skin of his palms. “I, Rak’kar son of Beorth, do swear by my hope of salvation in the halls of Dikastis, that I shall honor my life debt to this woman and until freed of my shame, I will protect her, her herd, and her plans as a sacred duty.”

  Then Rak’kar turned his eyes upon Emily and stayed still as his blood flowed freely from the deep cuts he had made. His expression was one of expectancy. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was supposed to say something now. Her frustration grew. If she had some lines to say in this ritual, then why hadn’t he told her. Now everyone was starting to look at her. “Oh well, here goes,” Emily thought before saying, “I accept your oath and will from this day. For as long as you prove to be true, you shall be treated as one of our people.”

  The two of them locked eyes, before Rak’kar snorted. Emily wasn’t sure if that meant she said the right thing or the wrong, but then he stood up. She so badly wanted to heal his wounds, but was afraid that offering to do so would somehow interfere with his ritual. As the bullman stood, she signaled for his axe to be returned to him and told him to report to Eisuke to be assigned to a squad. Then she turned and walked back to the only two tents still standing, to partake of some fried eggs and if her nose didn’t deceive her, some bacon.

  Hours later the entire force was spread throughout the forest sweeping for any signs of their quarry. The druids were acting as the focal points of the search as it was their magic which was tracking down the pests. From what they could tell, there were probably half a dozen new nests. None of the forest wardens or druids said it, but they all feared that if that many nests hatched at one time the forest would be over ran.

  For her part, Emily had ended up in the reading of the search with Sara and Balayria. She and Dave had discussed it, and while they trusted the half-orc as much as they could for someone they had only known for a few days, they still both felt more comfortable with one of them by Sara. This actually worked out really well for Emily. It was so relaxing to be light hearted for a few hours, playing and skipping through the forest with her daughter. Then in more quiet moments, she would talk to Balayria and while not much was said, she could see the wounds of rejection on the other woman’s soul. Those wounds called to her, causing her to want to heal the half-orc. Emily was wise enough to know though that no magic could heal pain like this. So she did what she could and offered an ear, a warm smile, and an invitation into the community.

  Suddenly though, there was an eruption of noise half a mile to the north east. A part of Emily wanted to rush forward, but she decided there was no need. Instead, she asked Sara if her ‘friend’ could go find out what was going on for them. She would be lying if she said that she wasn’t weirded out by the connection between her daughter and the little green creature, but once again, she knew that the connection was real. So at an unspoken request from Sara, Krinnk went racing off through the underbrush to see what was happening.

  Dave got the message telling him the first nest had been found. Everything was going according to plan. Not that he could claim any credit for it. It was Eisuke’s plan, and the forest warden was ensuring that it was being executed to the letter. Once the nest was found, no one attacked it. Instead, they waited till a sufficient number of squads could surround it. Then Dave got to make his primary contribution. He was to cast his new Alcoholic Cloud spell centered on the nest. Before he obtained that spell, the original plan had been for one of the druids to cast a Lesser Venomous Cloud spell, but that spell would have potentially allowed many of the pests to resist long enough to get away. Dave’s spell wasn’t a killing spell but an immobilizing spell, so it was perfect. Once it was cast, the druids would use wind spells to keep the cloud in place, and the warriors would strike down any of the creatures that made it out of the AoE. Emily was their final line of defense. If any side got overwhelmed, she would race to step in and cast a Frost Wave spell. It was stronger than her Flame Fan, which had already been shown to kill tree sappers but hopefully would do a little less damage to the surrounding environs.

  The plan went so well that it was almost boring. The pests were trapped, not more than a couple hundred made it out of the cloud, and those were quickly cut down. The rest were all unconscious when Dave dropped the spell allowing the hunters to go in and end them quickly. Fortunately the eggs had not hatched yet, but they were not far from it as the precious ironwood tree had been drained of all its strength and likely would fall over. Given time the druids might come back later and try to revive the tree, but it seemed unlikely as the previously impervious bark had become brittle to the touch.

  Once it was over, it was almost anti-climactic until Eisuke reminded him that they likely had five more nests to find. With that in mind, he started to order everyone to search again as there was still a few more hours of daylight. Mira broke that conversation and asked everyone to pick up the little corpses from where they were being gathered to be burnt and cut open to find out if they had little amber blobs inside of them as the ones she had burnt before did. Dave raised his voice to make sure that the instruction was followed, but after the gruesome work of cutting open over a hundred foot long insects was done, not a single bit of the material had been found.

  “Dad, I still think there is something to that material. Maybe it only shows up when they are burnt. Would it be okay if I partially burn some of them and then see if we can recover the amber material out of them?” Emily asked. Her voice drawing Dave out of his contemplation of the task before them.

  “I guess so, but why do you need the amber material or whatever it is?”

  “I sensed some interesting magical properties in it and want to do some experiments with it. Please?” Mira put on her best ‘please daddy’ face and batted her pretty blue eyes at him. Dave never stood a chance and just turned to give the instructions.

  It turned out that Mira’s hypothesis that the amber only appeared if the pests were burned was correct. About one third of the husks contained the amber material which she collected and eventually gave over to Dave to carry in the bag of holding. This part of the process slowed down the hunt a great deal and produced a lot of grumbling from the soldiers who had to cut the corpses open. Even with the delay though, they managed to get two more nests before the sun went down. The best estimates from the druids were still that there seemed to be three more nests.

  That night in the camp, the Nelsons spent most of their time together along with Sara’s add-ons. The guards kept their distance, but even surrounded by their soldiers, Daichi wouldn’t consent to no body guard for Lady Emiri. It turned into a good time to catch up and talk about the improvements since leveling up. Most of the conversation ended up focusing on Dave’s decisions, and he ended up actually being a little anxious about having so much of the focus on himself. He had tried to talk to a couple of the Elorians about his character build but found once again that they all seemed very uncomfortable talking on that subject. It just seemed to be an unwritten rule that it was a highly personal and private thing.

  The more Dave shared about the new direction he was taking, the more Mira got excited. The two of them clicked talking magic together, while Sara
and Emily mostly listened. Emily was happy to see Dave so animated about it but wasn’t sure if the decisions he had made would end up being good or bad for the family in the future. She even ended up teasing her first born a bit about turning into a nerd. To which Mira first blushed and then said, “So what? It's not like I’m ever going to see any of my friends again. That statement sobered up the conversation for everyone except Sara who really was happier here, getting more time with her family than she ever had in the past.

  Breaking away from that mood, Dave asked the family if they wanted to watch him try something. A part of him said this wasn’t a very good idea, but he was too much of the kid in a candy store to stop. His excitement was contagious and even Emily got on board although she did insist that they invite Daichi and Jaselm over just in case anything went wrong. Once everyone was in place and the monk had mumbled enough comments about ‘irresponsible humans,’ Dave began to cast his spell: Summon Dire Rhinoceros.

  The cast time was slow at thirty seconds and the mana cost was incredibly high for Dave before he added all the Intelligence points. As it was in the Murkwood with his bonuses, Dave had 680 mana between his sword reservoir and himself. He felt the magic building in him and it was unlike anything he had felt before. Even his Minor Enlarge wasn’t the rush to cast that this spell was. There was more to it than simply the amount of mana he was pushing into the spell form. This was his first summoning and he could tell already it was an entirely different thing. He was trying to force his will upon the world of Eloria and drag a living being from one part of the world to another. In his mind, he could feel the strain as space was warped in the area in front of him. Dave sensed a connection to a barren land of arid heat, and then with an audible whoosh as the air was displaced, a massive beast appeared in front of him.

  The larger of the two horns upon its snout was a good four feet long and reached ten feet into the air. Even at its shoulder the massive rhino was six feet tall and its body was as wide as a car while easily being twenty feet long. Dave got an immediate notification:

  Summoned Creature: Dire Rhinoceros

  Level 29

  Health: 4900

  Defense: 120

  Attack: 90

  Damage Resistance: 60

  Fire Resistance: 200

  Strength: 1485

  Constitution: 490

  Endurance: 20

  Intelligence: 4

  Wisdom: 15

  Move: 60

  Run Speed: Triple

  Main Attacks: Trample 307 dmg

  Gore: 460 dmg

  Special Attack: Charge (2 stamina) 767 dmg 150% of max run speed.

  No sooner had he read the notification than he felt the struggle for control. The creature was trying to break the invisible bonds around it which allowed Dave to order it around. The only reason that the struggle had not begun instantaneously was the disorientation which Dave could feel. It didn’t know where it was or how it got here, but it was angry. That anger built till he could feel the bonds created by the spell being stretched. Then it was a true battle of will and Dave had never been happier about the points put into any stat than he was for every point of Wisdom he had applied recently. With the zone bonus, his Wisdom sat at 17 and even that didn’t feel like enough.

  The struggle went back and forth between the two wills. The rhino’s anger burning against Dave’s determination to control it. He could feel it slipping away and redoubled his effort. In the end, just as he felt he couldn’t go on any longer, the anger faded away and a certain emotional blandness for a lack of a better word existed. He had won. He was excited beyond measure and a part of him wanted to see what he could do with the creature. Based upon the spell, this creature was one of the most powerful that he could have summoned.

  As the strain passed from Dave’s face, everyone else felt their tension drain away and relaxed hands which had been griping weapons or dismissed half formed spells which were on their lips. Dave took in the sight of his new pet, albeit a temporary pet. The rhino was a brute, a veritable engine of destruction. He was just glad that he hadn’t ended up having to fight it. There wasn’t really anything for him to do with it, but it did present an interesting opportunity.

  “Mira, do you want to see if you can wrest control of a summoned creature like you did of the spell that death knight cast?” Dave’s glee at successfully casting his first Tier 3 spell came through in his question.

  The old Mira would have been afraid to be within one hundred yards of the rhino, but the new Mira loved experimenting with magic, so her answer was a simple, “For sure.”

  Then all those hands that had relaxed tensed up again and Daichi gave voice to the concerns of everyone but the two mages more interested in experiment than in practicality. “Baron Murkwood, are you sure that this is a prudent course of action in the midst of the camp?”

  Dave looked around at their surroundings and realized the monk was correct. The problem was that he had trouble staying in the middle. Since arriving in Eloria, he had been busy focusing on how best to protect his family, doing his duty, and suppressing his childlike thrill at actually experiencing real magic. Now that he had uncorked that genie, he was having trouble thinking about anything other than how to develop his magic. In the back of his mind there was a voice saying what he was planning wasn’t safe, but he quickly hushed it.

  “Okay so that’s a valid point.” Then turning to Mira he said, shall we go out a ways from the camp so as not to disturb anyone else.” When she nodded, he grabbed her by the waist and tossed her up onto the back of the rhino. Her amazing balance allowed her to perfectly fall into place.

  “Emily, can you stay here and keep Sara safe. I promise to look out for Mira, but this is important. It could be a big deal later on.”

  “No. No I won’t stay here while you go do dangerous and reckless things. What has come over you?”

  “Honestly, I’m just excited, but we don’t have time to talk about this now. The summoning only has a ten minute duration and I’m sure we have used up the first minute.” Seeing that his argument didn’t matter to Emily he changed tactics, “I am still me, don’t worry. My family’s safety means everything to me, but I can’t put my finger on exactly what has changed. Maybe it’s just excitement or maybe it is my new grandmaster level research skill. All I can tell you is that, I need to do this experiment.”

  Emily struggled as she looked at him. She liked this Dave so much more. Alive and enthused about something rather than grinding out daily life. Except this wasn’t’ safe. She teetered on a knife’s edge in sorting out how she should respond. Finally, without much enthusiasm she said, “Fine if you have to do it. BUT, I’m trusting you to protect not only Emily but also yourself. I expect you both back as soon as this is over and in one piece.”

  Dave didn’t wait for her to change her mind. He simply leapt up on the back of the rhino and mentally ordered it through the link his spell created to run forward at full steam. He even utilized the creature’s Charge skill three times in a row to get them away as quickly as possible. Both of them had to cling to the beast’s rough hide, holding their bodies as close to it as possible as it ran through underbrush and small tree with equal indifference. In the end Mira, lacking Dave’s damage resistance and armor, took a dozen points of damage but was too caught up in the moment to care.

  Back at the camp, Emily looked from Daichi to Jaselm and then said, “What are you two waiting for?”

  The two men looked at one another knowing what she meant but not wanting to say it aloud on the stray chance that they were wrong. When they didn’t move though, Emily added, “Get moving. Go protect my daughter and that fool I love.”

  “Daughter of Redemption, we will but they certainly have a huge lead on us with that beast carrying them. Besides, I thought you told Baron Murkwood that you trusted him.”

  “We have a saying back home, ‘Trust but verify,’ and if they have a lead then you better get going.” Seeing that they still hadn’t moved, p
robably sorting out yet another of her earth expressions so she added, “Now, please.” Although the please didn’t make it sound any more like a request.

  Both men nodded and made gestures for some of their respective forces to follow them and before anyone said another, word five elven monks and five church warriors were running down the trail of wrecked plants and trees left by the improvised mount.

  Once Dave deemed that they were far enough away, he ordered the rhino to stop in a small clearing in the woods. They were near the base of an ironwood tree which suited him, so if the worst came to pass, they could climb up into the tree.

  “This should be a good spot,” he said.

  “Yeah, besides we want to do this before we run out of time,” Mira added.

  “So, first thing’s first. I want you to activate your ring of flight and try this from up in the air. Have your staff and ring of spell storing ready just in case.”

  “Geez dad, you are starting to sound like mom. I’m not an idiot. You invited me along because I’m the magical genius in the family.”

  Chuckling Dave replied, “Okay wizard princess. I’m ready whenever you are.”

  “That’s metamage princess, to you, father baron.” Laughter threatened to overwhelm the two of them but they were too excited to try this out so they reined it in.

  Mira reached out with her magical senses and felt at the form of the spell which had summoned the creature here. It wasn’t quite like using her esoteric senses, but it was still something she hadn't done very often up to this point, a short sighted mistake which she fully intended to correct. “Okay, I can feel the spell form around it. There appears to be mostly Conjuration magic. There is magic which brought it here, but there is also a band of magic which almost seems like Enchantment magic which makes it obey you, but it's not quite the same. Then there is another smaller thread which seems like Divination magic and must be what allows it to receive mental commands from you. Dad, this is so cool. Tier 3 magic is so much more complex than any of the other spells I’ve looked at.”