by Hugo Huesca
“No!” he told her. “Stay back!”
The spiders started to get their act together, to push forward through the dust.
I really hope I’m not about to blow us all up, Ed thought.
Alder reached his side, began to say something, but Ed caught the Bard’s lamp and pushed him back. “Now get the hell away from the cave!”
“What?”
“You insane dung-eater!” Lavy exclaimed as her eyes widened when she saw the way Ed was holding the lamp. “Alder, run!”
With a speed born of desperation, Ed used his Evil Eye to bring up the familiar window of his talent options.
This one, he thought, focusing all his will into a single option. This one!
His body felt different, although he had little time to identify in what way.
Time was running out.
With his free hand, Ed caught Klek, raised him over his head, then passed the batblin over to Alder like a sack of potatoes. Then, Ed ran the same way as his companions, away from the cloud of dust. The spiders followed.
They are so fast!
Alder and Lavy reached the exit and kept running. Ed stopped and looked over his shoulder at the cloud of dust he had left well behind, then saw the black shapes cackling madly while they ran after him.
The dust didn’t extend much farther than the tunnel’s mouth, and he was as far away from it as he dared. But he had absolutely no idea if that would be enough—
He threw the lamp with all his strength toward the dust. The tin lamp traced an arc through the air, almost in slow motion. No, really in slow motion. The lamp had stopped at the highest point of its path toward the dust.
A wave of heat exploded out of Ed’s entire body, every muscle in his body roaring to life as if overdosed with medical-grade adrenaline.
His newly acquired Improved Reflexes had bought him three seconds.
He ran faster than he had ever run. He felt like his legs, his entire body, was already on fire, as if he carried the explosion inside himself.
It was very painful.
Three seconds.
Alder and Lavy were still running, halfway into the tunnel’s entrance. It was, though, as if they were wading through water. Klek, who was slung over Alder’s shoulders, was pointing at Ed, big eyes wide with astonishment.
Two seconds.
Ed crossed the distance to the tunnel’s exit, screaming without realizing it, “—shiiiiiiiiii—”
One second.
Ed reached his companions, still screaming. His legs felt like they could snap at any moment, just break like twigs. Even the muscles in his arms and torso felt red-hot, right at his very limit.
He started to pass them just as time resumed its normal course.
A burst of heat and force hit him square at his back, enveloped him, passed him by. Ed felt the skin of his back sear. Air rushed out of his lungs, and he lost his footing.
He was vaguely aware he was rolling through the ground, hitting every part of his body with hard and sharp surfaces. He screamed, tried to grab a hold of anything, failed, started to roll downhill—
He came to a stunned stop in a damp patch of grass, his mind overwhelmed with pain and confusion.
How badly was he hurt? He had no way to know.
You’re alive, he told himself. He groaned in pain. At least you know that.
He groaned again and clutched at his head with trembling hands. His forehead pulsated painfully and the world was spinning even with his eyes closed. His ears wouldn’t stop ringing.
Opening his eyes revealed the starry sky mocking him far above. He was sick with nausea and heat—the heat! His legs were on fire, he had no doubt about it—but looking down revealed that apparently they weren’t.
With an effort, he managed to sit down. His minions—his companions—were laying in the grass in similar states as his own. Alder was sprawled in the grass, complaining pitifully, with Klek laying on the Bard’s head. The batblin’s fur was simmering and smoked a bit, and he was just coming to his senses.
Lavy was already up, though her movements were erratic, similar to those of a drunk. She caught Ed’s stunned gaze, shook her head, tried to speak, coughed, tried again:
“You insane dung-eater,” she told him, her voice a bit too high. “If the dust had been just a bit more tightly packed, we would have been history!”
Ed answered her with a groan. He shook his head to clear it, patted at his ears, trying to get the ringing to die down.
Too hot! He turned off his Evil Eye—it was making him feel feverish—but not before reading the newest status screen.
You have gained 15 experience (what remained of the spider swarm. Lethal encounter). Your unused experience is 21 and your total experience is 172.
He finally found the strength to speak, “Are you kidding me? Crushing them with a big rock earns me thirty points, but killing them with a goddamn explosion only gives me half of that? That is just not fair!”
11
Chapter Eleven
Burrova
The morning found the four members of Ed’s group licking their wounds at the simmering circle of the campfire. No one dared venture again into the cave, so Ed had a drone go and make sure it was safe, and that no spiderling reinforcements were coming.
Like Lavy had said, it was a miracle they were relatively unharmed. Ed’s back had suffered some minor burns, and his new shirt had been reduced to rags, but the only other consequences of his crazy stunt had been some scraps and a lot of bruises.
His fever dissipated quickly once he turned down his Evil Eye, thanks to the cold air of Starevos. For a while, he didn’t even shiver. He was content to catch his breath and let his body rest for a bit.
So, that’s what it means for a talent to have a high energy drain. He wasn’t feeling like using improved reflexes anytime soon.
Lavy had managed to escape the tunnel unharmed, though her hair was a mess of twigs, dirt, and smoke. For his part, Alder was as bruised as Ed, but most of the damage he had tactically absorbed by falling on his face.
Klek was covered in the shitty blankets Ed had ordered his two remaining drones—he could do three now, without any additional effort—to begin crafting non-stop out, transmuting twigs, fallen logs, and other forest-matter. The batblin had fallen asleep again without trouble and was even snoring a bit.
As far as Ed was concerned, the little guy deserved the rest. Klek had gained fifteen experience points yesterday when his cloud had betrayed him and left him at the mercy of the humans. Back at the cave, when Ed had been lost in the darkness and about to be surrounded by spiders, the batblin had used those fifteen points to buy the talent echolocation, which he had used to find Ed and lead him to the tunnel.
The Bard nursed his swollen nose and shivered. “You said you were a new Dungeon Lord? I hardly believe it—fireball is at least an improved-level spell.”
“That wasn’t a spell,” Lavy said. “Wherever this Earth is, it seems people are smart enough to know dust is flammable, but not smart enough to know not to make an explosion in front of their faces.”
Ed sighed. According to his stats, he was almost twice as experienced as he had been a day ago. That didn’t feel right.
“Ah, to be fair,” said Alder. “I kinda miss the explosion now. I can barely feel my toes. How are the blankets coming along, drone friends? You think you can hurry a little?”
The two drones hissed at him and spat on the blanket they were working on.
“That’s some attitude,” Alder complained. “The fabric they make barely holds together. I would think they at least should show some humility.”
“They’re useful only for making dungeon-related constructions,” said Lavy. “Small pieces aren’t their forte, much less mundane things like blankets or clothes. Of course they don’t like it.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” said Ed. He was feeling much better now, but he was hungry and thirsty. And he had recently discovered one of the less-frequently mentioned d
isadvantages of living in a medieval-ish world like Ivalis. Having to relieve himself in some damp forest with only dry leaves as a method for hygiene had soured his mood instantly.
First chance I get, he thought, I’m going to figure out how to build a serviceable bathroom.
But he had more urgent matters to attend to.
“We need to leave,” he told his companions. “Sooner, I think, rather than later.”
“Do we?” asked Lavy. She didn’t seem to be in the mood for walking.
“We don’t know if there’s more spiders where those came from,” said Ed. “More could come back.”
“They were spiders,” said Alder. “They were hunting. There’s no need to overthink it. They’re dead now, and I have fifteen new experience points to show for it.”
That didn’t sit right with Ed. “I know I’m new to Ivalis, and it may work in ways I’m not even aware of,” he said. “But…That many spiders? There were hundreds of them, and their status said they were only babies. Spiderlings. Where the hell are you going to find food to feed a swarm like that? Is Hoia Forest really that big? What I am trying to say is…their behavior doesn’t strike me as normal. What do you think?”
“Hoia is huge,” said Alder, extending his arms over his head. “Really huge. I think hundreds of fully grown horned spiders could easily find food here.”
Ed nodded. The Bard had survival as a skill, and he didn’t, so that was the end of the discussion.
“You’re wrong,” said Klek under his fort of blankets. “Spiders get to grow very big. As big as a human. Some as big as a horse. Thousands of them could strip the forest bare.”
“Ah, yeah? What do you know, anyway?” Alder said.
“Sometimes they eat batblin.” Klek shrugged. “Adults hunt in groups of two to…four. Not hundreds. They like to chase us around, toy with us. Pick a fat batblin, pierce him with their horns, paralyze him with venom, cover him in webs, then they bring it back to their lair to feed on his insides. The spiderlings are disposable, they are not hunters. This was not normal.”
Alder looked at the batblin, then at Ed. He made a gesture as if he was gagging. “Well, I don’t know, then. I’ve never seen an adult spider. I hope I never have to after tonight.”
Ed glanced at the forest, mulling over Klek’s words.
Would I even see them coming?
One of his companions had said there was a village nearby, he recalled. The group’s provisions had been lost during the explosion, in any case, and none of them were equipped to hunt.
The idea of going back to civilization both scared and excited Ed. The Witch, the Bard, and the batblin were, so far, his only links to the world of Ivalis—not counting the things that wanted to eat him. Although the idea of staying hidden in the scorched cave had some primal appeal, it wasn’t a hard decision.
He stood up. “We’ll go to that village you mentioned. At the very least, we can come back with weapons, though we don’t have to come back at all. There ought to be a place in Starevos that’s not infested with spiders, right?”
Lavy grunted and jerked up. One of the pants of her trousers was slightly torn at the side, revealing pale, almost blue-ish skin. “I would drown a baby in exchange for a hot breakfast. What are you waiting for, Bard? Let’s go!”
The cave’s entrance had been hidden at the edges of a cliff southwest of Burrova, close to the wilder parts of Hoia Forest, but not deep enough that its most lethal inhabitants would take an interest in the dungeon. In theory.
While Ed and his companions strutted through the forest, Alder and Lavy gave him all the background information he’d need to pass himself as a normal human.
“First of all, unless you go around using your Evil Eye, people won’t have a way to tell you’re a Dungeon Lord. There are spells that could identify you—more now that you don’t have ways of countering them. But Burrova’s far enough from Heiliges that there isn’t any Inquisitor or Cleric powerful enough to cast them,” said Lavy. She was covered head to toe in the crappy, drone-made blankets, same as Alder and Ed.
If someone met them on the road, Ed’s procession would’ve been a ridiculous sight. But Ed was warm with his blankets, and that was all he cared about.
“This region is called Starevos,” Lavy went on, gesturing to the surrounding space. “It’s a mountainous region with Lotia to the south-east and the Vast Wetlands far, far to the south. It’s a tough, cold place where farming is hard and monsters have not yet learned to fear humans’ settlements, so there are frequent attacks. Most of those monsters are venomous.”
“And they like to eat batblin,” added Klek, who was walking next to Ed. The small batblin spoke little, instead being content with staring deeply at the three humans, like he was studying them or trying to figure them out. While the batblin didn’t appear to be affected by the cold, he was still enveloped in the blankets. Ed guessed that Klek may simply enjoy having clothes besides his dirty loincloth.
“Why would anyone want to live here?” asked Ed. He glanced at the shed leaves, branches, and bark that formed the detritus of the forest’s soil.
“For the adventure!” declared Alder. “A wild region, with lots of possibility! A place where history is made, where there are still Dungeon Lords other than the Lotians, where men from another worlds are transported so they can find their fortune! Oh, Starevos—the wild frontier where death and love live in harmony!”
He looked at Ed and Lavy expectantly. When neither reacted, he grimaced and said, “That was a quote from Archbard Estanislao—”
“Sorry, I’m not from around here, remember?” Ed told him.
“Don’t listen to him. Alder’s here more for the women than for the wild frontier,” Lavy said with a mocking grin.
“Well, there are different kind of wild frontiers,” Alder said. “Different kinds of men are required for each. My kind of frontier involves exotic women with skin of bronze, dark hair, and deep eyes where a man can either find redemption, or lose himself—”
“Yeah, save the speech for them,” Lavy said with a laugh. “Perhaps there’s still a woman in Burrova that hasn’t heard it, yet.”
Ed laughed, too, though he had little idea about his companions’ activities other than that they used to be Kael’s minions. He realized he knew little to nothing about them.
There was something in the cold air of the forest that made it very different from the air he was used to in Earth. Hoia’s breeze carried with it so many aromas—Ed couldn’t recognize them all. He smelled leaves and other vegetation slowly decomposing, humidity, mud, and the smell of trees whose names he couldn’t pinpoint.
Are there trees like these back in my world? he wondered.
“In short,” Lavy resumed their conversation, “Burrova is one of many Heiligian outposts in Starevos. Right now, they have little strategic value, but the Militant Church hopes that they will manage to tame Alder’s wild frontier after enough years. If they succeed, they’ll gain a stronghold to threaten Lotia with by ground, instead of having to rely on the Heiligian Navy.”
I could use a map, thought Ed. But he was beginning to get an idea about the politics of this new world. At least he wasn’t as clueless as he had been yesterday. Now, he recognized some names.
“Burrova’s population is mostly Heiligian and natives of the region, so you’ll need a good cover if you don’t want people to suspect you,” Lavy went on. “What do you think, Alder, could we pass Lord Edward for a Lotian?”
“The hair color is right, but his eyes are too dark. He won’t pass for Heiligian, either, though, he lacks the mannerisms, the grace, the education, and the sensitivity. He wouldn’t fool anyone for a second.”
“Well, fuck you too,” Ed muttered.
“I agree, Alder,” said Lavy. “How about we say he’s from Constantina? That shouldn’t get him many questions. No one likes Constantina.”
“Undercity, huh?” said Alder. “Well, that can work. He lacks the fishy smell.”
“
He doesn’t have to be a harbor worker.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Alder. “As the saying goes, ‘Never sleep with your purse and neck bared in Undercity, unless you want both cut before morning.’ ”
Lavy laughed again. Then, both she and Alder looked at Ed, who was staring at them with a completely clueless expression. They laughed harder at that.
“We’ll have to do something about these references, Alder,” groaned Ed. “You keep forgetting I can’t understand them.”
“Eh,” said Alder. “Explaining them would kill the joke.”
Reaching Burrova took them much longer than it should have, because they decided on a long detour through the forest so they could arrive at the village from the east, instead of the south.
When they were close to the east road, Alder and Lavy explained their covers to Ed. She pretended to be Alder’s wife, which helped her avoid suspicion because of her obvious Lotian heritage. Since Kael’s last stand, which had happened three days ago, they had visited Burrova for provisions at least once, pretending to be travelers from neighboring towns.
“We didn’t stay for long, though,” said Alder. “A bunch of survivors from the Kael raid, mostly apprentices like us, tried to get past outposts like Burrova with the intention of reaching Undercity and scrambling away through Stormbreaker Harbor. Of course, they got captured by the militia within minutes, and the lot of them got shipped to the galleys, or the gallows. We only managed to trick them because I’m obviously a Heiligian citizen, and even then it was close. We’ll need a very good story to justify why we’re still here, though. Don’t worry about that. As a Bard, coming up with good stories is my job.”
Ed nodded, then asked, “Why try to go to Undercity? That’s to the north, right? Why not go the other way, to Lotia?”
“By the way,” Lavy chimed in, “don’t ask questions like that when we reach Burrova. It will mark you without a doubt as a stranger from another world, and those are usually brought here by Dark magic.”
