Wrack and Ruin

by Dave Willmarth

  His first stop was Fitchstone’s emporium, to visit with the old merchant and try to recruit him one more time. They talked about the revival of the old trade route, and the possibility of finding an unknown kobold tribe in the wilds that they could milk for gold and gems. That last part caused a gleam in the old dwarf’s eyes, but he still refused to move.

  Their next stop was the meat on a stick vendor, whom Max also tried to recruit while he bought out the dwarf’s entire inventory, as well as some more spices. Again, he failed. So he made his final stop, at Josephine’s shop.

  She greeted him with a bright smile as he stepped through the door, then gave Redmane a lesser, but still friendly, smile. To Max, she said, “Why, King Max. Do you need a chaperone to visit me these days? Are you afraid I’d take advantage of you right here in my shop?”

  Max actually blushed. “Well I wasn’t, but now I might be, just a little.” He replied as he approached the counter. As before, she stepped up onto the counter and grabbed Max’s face to pull him in for a kiss. When she let him go, she winked at Redmane, who was laughing aloud.

  “Are you prepared for the dinner you promised me?” She purred at him.

  “Actually, yes I am.” He pulled out a kabob and offered it to her with a smile. When he saw the hurt look on her face, he put it away. “I was just teasing. We have a really good chef now, and actual furniture, and everything. When would you like to honor me with your presence, m’lady?”

  “Oooh! Sweet-talking me? I like it.” She grinned. “How about three days from now? A girl needs a little time to prepare.”

  Max heard Redmane, who had drifted away to inspect some books, mumble to himself. “I be thinkin Max might need a lil preparin’ too.” Unfortunately, gnomes could hear nearly as well as elves. Josephine giggled, causing Max to blush again.

  “While you’re here, can I interest you in some of my wares?” She leaned over to poke Max in the belly, exposing some cleavage in the process. Redmane snorted.

  “Yes please.” Max grinned at her, letting her take it any way she wanted.

  Half an hour later, after they exited the store to head to Firebelly’s, Redmane grinned up at Max. “Oh, I like her. She’ll keep ye on yer toes.”

  “She had me so flustered, I don’t even know what I paid for those spells.” Max shook his head in resignation.

  “More than ye could have, but not too much. She was more interested in pokin’ at ye, and wantin ye to do some pokin at her, than takin’ yer gold.” He made a vaguely vulgar hand gesture.

  “Oh hush!” Max thought the chamberlain was having way too much fun at his expense.

  They were at Firebelly’s, submitting another significant order, when they both got another notification.

  The kingdom of Stormhaven is under attack!

  Quest Accepted: Defend the temple!

  An invading army has attacked your temple.

  Gather your forces and defend your territory!

  Reward: Variable

  This is a mandatory quest, and cannot be declined.

  Max was already running for the portal, Redmane doing his best to keep up. Max didn’t wait, the old dwarf could take care of himself. When he got to the portal, it was already connected to another dwarven city, but the mage running it saw Max coming, and shut it down. Max growled, “Stormhaven is under attack” and the dwarf just nodded. Redmane caught up as the portal opened, and both of them ran through. The moment it was closed, Max turned around and opened the portal to the temple while Redmane began shouting orders. The quest was shared around to the citizens, and they began mustering. There was no sign of anyone on the temple side of the portal.

  Max didn’t wait. Speaking calmly into party chat, he called his group together. “Portal. Now.” It turned out not to be necessary, as Dylan, Smitty, and Nessa were already jogging into the courtyard. Dalia emerged a moment later from the direction of the alchemy lab, Picklet running beside her. They passed General Lightfoot, who had taken over from Redmane and was commanding the troops that were gathered. Blake came running through the gate from the city side, and Smitty grinned at him. “Your robe is on backwards. What, or who, were you up to?”

  Blake just winked at him and followed Max through the portal.

  The portal room at the heart of the temple was empty, no Glitterspindle or any of his so-called acolytes. Max’s elven ears picked up the sound of shouting, and they activated the door that led them outside. As soon as they were all out, Smitty closed the door behind them. When one looked from the outside, all you could see was the pyramid, no sign of the door.

  Max followed his ears out to the wide paved area behind the main temple building. There he found thirty or so dwarves formed up in a small square, shields locked. Glitterspindle and four gnomes stood inside the formation, the mechamage riding his spider construct, both its weapons turrets out and taking aim. The gnomes with him carried small crossbows. At their feet lay two dwarves and a gnome, all of whom looked dead.

  “Stupid orcs! I’ll blast you all into oblivion!” Glitterspindle was screaming, his glass brain pan crackling with angry red lightning, his eyes glowing.

  Despite the mechamage’s words, it wasn’t orcs that were attacking the dwarven formation. The enemy was well back from the shield wall, firing crossbow bolts and casting spells of lightning, fire, and a spell Max hadn’t seen before that ripped up sections of the paving stone and flung it in chunks at the dwarves.

  It was gnomes.

  Max could see maybe a hundred of them, mostly hiding in the dense shrubbery that surrounded the temple’s paved area. They were dressed in an odd assortment of armor that was so laden with gears and spikes and misplaced steel plates that it looked ridiculous.

  “Don’t worry, Mechamage! We’re here to save you from these brutes!” A gnome riding a mechanical cat shouted before casting a lightning spell at the dwarves, whose shields absorbed the magic.

  Max walked up behind the dwarven formation and held his arms out wide, Storm Reaver in his right hand, his massive two-handed axe in the left. Tilting his head back, he took a deep breath and roared at the gnomes. The sounds caused the little fellas to pause and cringe a bit, and even a few of the dwarves twitched in surprise and turned their heads.

  Having everyone’s attention, Max bared his fangs at the gnome on the cat, their presumed leader. “Why have you attacked my temple?

  “It’s our temple! And he’s our mechamage!” the feisty gnome shouted back, raising a fist and shaking it at Max. “You stole them both, and are holding a gnome hostage! You’ll pay for that insult!” The gnome cast another bolt of electricity, this time at Max, who was an easy target standing tall above the shield wall.

  Max just stood there and let the spell hit him. The bolt struck square in his chest, spreading across his armor and stinging quite a bit. It took about two hundred points off his health bar, and locked up his muscles for a few seconds. When he could move again, he shouted, “We are holding no one hostage. Glitterspindle agreed to become one of my citizens, and I claimed this temple as part of my kingdom. A kingdom allied with the dwarven nations on this continent. A kingdom which you have invaded, and whose king you just tried to murder!”

  The moment he was done speaking, he focused on the gnome leader’s cat mount and shouted, “Boom!” A second later the cat exploded, shredding the offending gnome and several others nearby. The gnome leader’s corpse flew into the air, landing with a messy wet splat about halfway to the dwarven formation.

  “Who’s next?” Max roared, stalking forward around the shield square. Smitty, Dalia, Picklet, and Blake followed behind, Nessa having disappeared shortly after they arrived. Dylan moved far to one side and summoned Princess, whose roar froze about half the gnome force in fear. Taking advantage of that situation, Max shouted, “Princess is hungry! Who wants to be lizard lunch?”

  Several crossbows fired, and half a dozen bolts peppered Max, the impacts surprisingly hard for such tiny weapons. Two penetrated his chest armor, one in
his gut, the other his shoulder. Another hit his forehead, tearing a nasty gash in his skin, but not penetrating his skull. Blood began to run down his face. One took him in the left arm, the one holding the axe, and the others struck his right leg. At least the same number had missed him altogether, one striking Dalia behind him, another hitting Blake, who cussed loud and long.

  Max felt heals from Dalia, but didn’t bother removing the bolts. Instead he roared again and charged forward, casting Zap! into a dense section of gnomes, who all went down twitching and smoking inside their armor. He cast Boom! on another gnome with particularly ornate armor, which turned into shrapnel two seconds later and mowed down a dozen nearby gnomes.

  Behind Max, the dwarves roared along with him, and broke formation, charging forward behind their shields. Smitty started firing arrows, which blasted completely through any of the little gnomes they hit. Blake, angry over being shot, called down Flame Strike again and again, frying two or three gnomes with each hit.

  There was a series of sickening crunches when the dwarves activated some sort of shield rush ability, shooting past Max and impacting the gnomes, whose bodies crunched inside their armor. Gnomes screamed in pain as the dwarves hacked or smashed them into oblivion.

  Max halted, lowering his weapons. Despite their actions, he felt bad hurting the little gnomes. Picklet had no such issue, charging past Max and removing the head of a crossbow wielding gnome who had just fired at him.

  The little bastards had guts, Max had to give them that. Despite seeing their comrades massacred, not one of them ran. They held their ground and fought until they were cut down, or fried by Blake. A few more dwarves fell to lucky crossbow shots or a spell here and there, but Dalia and Max healed them instantly.

  When Nessa emerged between the final two standing gnomes and eviscerated one of them, Max shouted, “Nessa! Hold!” She paused with one of her daggers to the last gnome’s throat, looking curiously at Max. “I want to speak to one of them. I think he’s the last one alive.”

  Nodding, she used her free hand to disarm the very frightened gnome while keeping the blade to his neck. She easily manhandled the three foot tall warrior, pushing him toward Max, who was yanking tiny crossbow bolts out of his flesh one at a time, growling with each pull.

  “What’s your name, gnome?” He bared his teeth, thinking about biting the gnome in the face, his Intimidation ability causing the little guy to wet himself.

  “B-Bert. Bertlegard.” the gnome stammered, trying to take a step back, but bumping into Nessa’s legs. He looked nervously left and right as Dylan, Smitty, Picklet, and a few dozen angry dwarves closed in around him. “Don’t kill me.”

  “Where are you from, Bert? Who sent you here?”

  “We… we came from the capital. The gnome capital, Steamwhistle Gorge. I… don’t know who sent us! We just followed our section leader, Tinripper!” he looked around for a moment, then pointed to the wet blob that had been the cat rider. “He said you had taken the great Mechamage Glitterspindle prisoner, and we were to rescue him and retake the temple of our ancestors.” The gnome sniffed, clearly doing his best not to cry.

  Max waved his hand at the gathered warriors. “Relax. Step back a bit. He’s no threat to anyone at the moment.” The dwarves did as he ordered, moving back several steps and stowing their shields and weapons. Several went to see to their dead, while others went to loot the gnome corpses.

  As soon as the ring of dwarves broke up, Glitterspindle came charging in, still aboard his spider bot. “Stupid little orc! Why did you attack? You killed one of my acolytes, and a couple of other stupid orcs!” He looked back at the dead dwarves and gnome.

  The gnome warrior, seeing Glitterspindle, dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “We came to rescue you, great Mechamage! You are a legend among our people! When we heard you still lived, and were being held prisoner…”

  “Prisoner? Hah! None could hold me if I didn’t allow it! This big stupid orc is my friend!” Glitterspindle’s shoulder weapons both focused on the kneeling gnome and fired, killing him instantly.

  “No!” Max shouted, but it was already done. “Shit. Why did you do that?”

  Glitterspindle turned to look up at him. “They killed one of my minions. Now I will have to begin training another one. Big waste of my time! He deserved it!”

  Shaking his head, Max said, “He was an unarmed prisoner, Glitterspindle. We don’t kill prisoners once they’ve surrendered. At least, not without a trial. Am I understood?”

  “Fine, big stupid orc.” The little metal body shrugged its shoulders. “No more to kill, anyway.” He turned away from Max toward the pile of bodies and watched, fascinated, as Dylan let Princess munch on several that had already been looted. He peeled their armor off first, then tossed the tiny bodies to the lizard, who caught them mid-air and gulped them down with just a crunch or two. One of the gnome acolytes lost his breakfast all over Smitty’s boots.

  “Oh, damn, man. Really? That’s nasty. What the hell did you eat?” Smitty tried to wipe a boot on the gnome’s robe, but missed as he quickly retreated. Blake hit Smitty’s feet with a water spell, mostly washing away the nastiness. “Thanks, brother.”

  “Had no choice, self-preservation. I’m downwind of you.” Blake winked at him.

  Right then a gnome that Dylan had just tossed into the air woke up and screamed for a brief moment before Princess grabbed it and finished it off with a crunch. “Oh, shit.” Dylan covered his face with his hands, “I thought he was dead.” That was apparently the last of the gnomes, and they all received experience for completing the defense quest. It was enough to level up Max, and most of the others got a level or two.

  “Shake it off, corporal.” Max moved to put a hand on the ogre’s shoulder. “Axe or teeth, he was dead either way. He went quickly.” Dylan just nodded, looking at his feet. Max understood. Killing the little gnomes felt a bit like killing kids, something a soldier never wanted to do. He told himself they were fully grown adults of their race, and had killed some of his people first. It didn’t help all that much.

  “Nessa, Smitty, take a dozen dwarves and make sure there are no other gnomes lurking about out there. If you find any, capture them if possible. I have more questions.” He shot Glitterspindle a look, then turned away as Nessa morphed into her cat form and dashed off, nose to the ground. Smitty organized the dwarves and followed.

  Not feeling much like talking to the insane metal gnome, Max walked back into the temple. He found the trigger for the door in the pyramid, and entered the control room. From there he took the elevator down and grabbed six more portal pedestals before heading back up. While he waited for the scouts to return, he sat on the floor with his back to a wall and pulled up his interface. It had been three levels since he assigned his points.

  Not in the mood to spend a lot of time on it, he simply put four into Wisdom and four into Intelligence, the final point going into Dexterity in hopes that it would help with his smithing. His three levels meant three more automatic points in Strength and Constitution as well, bumping his health pool up to three thousand. He considered adding more to Constitution with his next few levels, but if he were truly going to fight from the back ranks more often, he probably didn’t need it. One point with every level would keep him healthy enough. He’d also picked up significant attribute bumps from discovering a new spell, from Storm Reaver, and the bracers. The combination put both his Wisdom and Intelligence up over sixty! Which boosted his mana pool by more than fifty percent, up to sixteen hundred. And he’d picked up five points of Luck from Lisbane’s blessing.

  After some time spent reviewing his information, Max finalized his choices and leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes to rest while he waited.

  Chapter 27

  Lagrass walked for nearly a week through the forest. On the second day he found a road, but was too frightened of being discovered to use it. So he walked parallel to it through the forest, heading roughly northeast. Anytime he heard
horses or travelers on the road, he took cover and froze until they were well past him. On the fifth day, as he moved closer to the road just to make sure he hadn’t lost it, he spotted a tall stone marker. Checking carefully in both directions, he got close to it. It was painted two different colors, one on each side as you approached from either direction. Clearly a boundary marker of some kind, Lagrass hoped it meant he’d entered a new kingdom. One where they wouldn’t care if he was wanted somewhere else.

  Sticking to the woods, he continued his slow trek through the forest. When it began to grow dark, he would either find a convenient cave or fir tree, or set up his tent and sleep in that. He never dared make a fire so close the road. Though he was far enough from it that he doubted anyone would see the light, he had no control over which way the smoke drifted.

  As he walked, Lagrass spotted and harvested a ton of plants he identified through the knowledge the alchemist had given him. While he had no interest in alchemy, he hoped to be able to sell them in the next village.

  Except the next village turned out to be a town. He was just beginning his seventh day since emerging from the bear den when he reached the crest of a hill and found himself staring down at a walled town placed at the intersection of two roads. There were gates at all four sides, with wagons, riders, and pedestrians moving in and out of them. Hundreds of buildings sat inside the walls, with a twin-towered keep of some sort set into the center. From that distance he couldn’t make out any designs on the pennants mounted above the nearest gate. He’d have to ask around when he got down there, and as he descended he realized he’d never even asked the name of the kingdom he’d fled.