Delvers LLC: Welcome to Ludus

by Blaise Corvin

  After Henry ruthlessly chopped each of the goblins on the floor to ensure they were down for good, he flanked the goblin boss. Henry and Jason worked together to kill the leader, but it still put up one hell of a fight. The armored monster was surprisingly skilled. The bronze sword it used may have looked old, but it was still sharp and effective. By the time the boss went down, Jason's blocking spear was just one or two more chops away from being cut through.

  Then all the goblins were dead. The only sounds in the dank, bloody, horrifying cave were Jason and Henry's labored breathing. The woman on the ground had long since stopped screaming and was watching them with huge eyes, eyes that now carried a glimmer of hope. Henry shook his head and mumbled, "What kind of fucked up world is this?" Jason could only silently agree with his assessment.

  He was exhausted, but he slowly plodded forward, approaching the traumatized woman, and knelt down so he could talk to her at eye level. This close, Jason noticed that she was younger than he had originally thought and might be pretty under all the grime and filth. Her tawny skin was scratched all over. The girl's ambiguous racial background gave her an exotic look. "Are you okay?" he asked.

  The girl scrunched up her nose, holding back tears, and responded in a language Jason had never heard before. He shook his head and asked, "Do you speak English?" As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew how stupid he sounded. He was on another planet, somehow a sword-and-sorcery planet, and he'd just asked a local if she spoke English. Stupid, stupid, stupid, awkward Jason. People on new planets aren't going to speak English! At this rate, I'll have to change my name to Daniel Jackson.

  The girl looked down, "Yes, I speak, but I not perfect." Jason's jaw dropped. He glanced back at Henry and saw his friend was trying to wake the injured old man with no success. When Jason turned back to the girl, she was gazing at the old man with concern and obvious distress. "Man is grandfather. Please let help."

  He nodded dumbly and helped the girl to her feet as she tried holding the tatters of her clothing together. She knelt down next to the old man, closed her eyes, and placed a hand on his head. Jason gasped as her palm suddenly began to glow.

  He watched in fascination as the girl's hand continued glowing and the old man's injuries healed before his eyes. He'd never seen anything like it before. Based on the letter Dolos had given them coupled with his experiences so far, Jason was willing to believe magic existed on this world. However, actually seeing it in person was amazing.

  After the girl was done, the old, umber-skinned man no longer had any visible wounds. He began to breathe more easily. The girl looked exhausted and sat limply on the cave floor. She obviously didn't have the energy anymore to care about her destroyed clothes. As Henry gathered up all the weapons, Jason sat down and organized his thoughts.

  He kept his eyes off to the side of the girl, not looking directly at her exposed body, and asked, "How do you know English?"

  She pointed at the old man on the floor and replied, "Grandfather from Africa."

  Well, that explained some things, but the implications were disturbing. It seemed Dolos might have been telling truth. "My name is Jason. What is your name?"

  "My name Mareen."

  Jason struggled with how to ask his next question. "Mareen, how did you heal that man?"

  Mareen didn't understand the question, as evidenced by a shake of her head. Jason tried again, "Man sick, now not sick. You did?"

  "Ah!" Mareen nodded. "Grandfather." She shrugged and said, "I am magic."

  "You mean you used magic?"

  "I used magic. Body magic."

  "Mareen, can you help that boy over there?" Jason pointed at the corpse of the boy on the floor of the cave.

  Mareen glanced over but quickly looked away and began to quietly sob. Jason let her have a few moments. Mareen shook her head. "Boy gone."

  Jason wanted to ask more questions, but Henry laid a hand on his shoulder. Jason immediately understood--they needed to get away from cave. Fast. There was no telling whether more goblins might show up.

  After the men gathered anything that looked useful, including the boss goblin's bronze sword, Mareen helped them haul their makeshift weapons while Jason carried her grandfather in a fireman's carry.

  They made pretty good time at first, probably because their bodies were still pumped full of adrenaline. Henry led the way back the direction they'd come on the goblin trail. Jason was tired and confused. He whispered, "Henry, why are we going this way?"

  His friend whispered back, "Tracks. We can't make a new trail from the cave." Jason nodded.

  Luckily, they didn't see any more goblins. They turned off the path into the forest a little way past the clearing where Henry and Jason had first found the goblin trail. Then they walked about a quarter mile before lying down to watch the way they'd come. Mareen busied herself tending to her grandfather behind them.

  Jason was still shaky, but he gradually forced himself to calm down, approaching the situation like a programming problem. He needed to frame everything with logic so he could rationally process what had happened. He was about to ask Mareen if she could fight with magic but answered his own question. If she could, she wouldn't have been captured. It irritated him that Henry probably hadn't asked because he'd already come to that conclusion.

  He glanced over at Henry and noticed his friend looked bored. That figures. Nothing ever seemed to affect Henry in any way other than temporarily pissing him off. He sighed.

  Jason still felt like a bucket of raw nerves, but he managed to slow his breathing. It was quiet in the forest other than the sound of Mareen whispering to her grandfather. They waited for about half an hour in breathless anticipation. Jason tightly gripped the late goblin boss's bronze sword, but nothing happened. No new goblins came screaming out of the trees.

  Eventually, Henry tapped Jason on the shoulder and whispered, "We should get going. Best I can figure, Mareen says her home is probably a few miles from here going downhill." Jason nodded tiredly.

  Once again, the two men and Mareen gathered everything up. This time Jason carried Mareen's grandfather. It was slow going. Walking downhill while carrying heavy weight, especially over uneven terrain, was exhausting. After about half a mile, Jason switched with Henry. After that, they switched off every quarter mile or so.

  Through his exhaustion, Jason blearily wondered if the day got dark or whether the trees were just blocking most of the light. He could hardly see where he was going. In fact, the next two hours were a blur. Jason concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. He was so tired, so very, very tired. He just wanted to lie down and rest.

  No, he had to keep going. He knew the woman with them and the old man he was carrying were depending on him. He wouldn't let them down. He would never let anyone down again. He'd already let his mom down enough when he was a kid. He had to take that shame to his grave, but he refused to add any more to it as long as he had any strength left in him.

  By the time the old man woke up, Jason was so tired he was practically sleepwalking. He couldn't remember if anything was said. It was possible he heard people talking; it was possible he even spoke himself, but he couldn't remember. The only thing that really registered before he passed out was excited people carrying lights--maybe torches, he wasn't sure--and helping him the rest of the way to where he was finally able to collapse in a heap. Jason dreamt that goblins were driving race cars and kept running into things. He had to keep fixing everything they destroyed with magic.

  The Village

  Henry woke up and stared at the ceiling for a moment before he remembered everything that had happened. He was currently lying on a rustic, handmade bed in a cabin made of rough-hewn logs. He glanced over and saw Jason still asleep on another bed, slightly drooling.

  Henry shook his head and wearily rolled his eyes. He got up and winced. His entire body felt like a bunch of little gnomes had beaten him with miniature baseball bats for an hour straight. At least I'm alive. The thought was cold c
omfort. At least we killed the evil little fuckers. He grinned nastily--that thought made him feel better.

  He and Jason were alone. He wandered around for a while trying to figure out how to deal with his call of nature until he found an outhouse behind the building. After relieving himself, he found the duffle bag and his equipment at the front of the house. He sat down to think for a while then took out the mysterious box with the spheres again. He reread the notes from Dolos and stared into space, thinking about the two mysterious balls that had come with the letter.

  Eventually Jason stumbled out of the house, yawning. He winced and asked, "Does your whole body hurt too?"

  Henry nodded. "Yeah, fighting for your life tends to have that effect."

  Jason stretched and asked, "Is there a toilet anywhere?"

  Henry mutely pointed rearwards with a thumb and went back to pondering their situation. By the looks of things, it was getting on to late afternoon, almost twilight. He and Jason had slept a while but not as long as he'd first thought. Either that or days on this new world were different, which was a definite possibility. He decided to shelve the matter for the time being.

  One thing was painfully clear-- if he and Jason were ever going to get home, they had to get stronger. They also needed intel. Badly.

  When Jason got back from the outhouse, Henry told him what was on his mind. Jason said, "Yes, I was thinking the same thing. We almost died for real. We'd probably be better off if we could just look the other way and mind our own business, but apparently that isn't going to happen."

  Henry scratched his chest and said, "Yet knowing you, you probably have an idea."

  Jason grinned. "You bet. I want to let it sit for a while, though. Let's find out about how magic works in this world and about the races mentioned in the note before we make any decisions."

  Henry nodded--that made sense. He wasn't surprised. Over the years, he and Jason had figured out each other's strengths and weaknesses. When it came to quick thinking, being decisive, Henry had the edge. But with long-term strategy, Jason was like a fish to water. In fact, Jason had mentioned before that he'd played chess in high school and was actually pretty good.

  The two friends got up and began to wander around, their sore muscles making them shuffle like zombies. Henry quickly realized that the cottage they'd woken up in was one of several small buildings. It looked like a few families had settled down in the area. Once he realized what sort of place their hosts led them to, he tried figuring out where all the people had gone.

  Jason accompanied him as he explored, and they eventually found everyone in a large house at the center of the clearing. They could hear the sounds of voices before ever actually seeing anyone. The door to the large cottage was open, and when he glanced in, Henry could see a group of people sitting down while two men stood talking. It looked like a town meeting of some kind. Henry tapped Jason on the shoulder and put his finger to his lips, and his tall, gangly friend nodded. They both wanted to observe for a while.

  After paying closer attention, Henry could see that one of the men standing up and addressing the rest of the group was the old man they'd rescued from the goblin cave. The other man had swarthy skin and looked about the same age, but while Mareen's grandfather was calmly speaking, the other man was angry, yelling and gesturing violently.

  Henry watched the crowd and counted about a dozen other adults and a few children present. He caught a glimpse of Mareen in the crowd. He was glad she seemed safe and healthy, but he noticed she looked worried.

  He wished he understood what was being said, but everyone was speaking an unfamiliar language. To his ears, it sounded like a cross between German and Spanish. However, he knew he sucked with languages, so his guess probably wasn't the best.

  After his grandmother had moved to the United States, she'd been appalled that his father never taught him Japanese. She had immediately spent a few years trying to remedy the oversight. By that time it was already too late, though. Henry could speak just enough Japanese to know how bad he was at it. He definitely would never have called himself bilingual.

  As he watched, one of the children glanced over and gasped. She excitedly tugged on her mother's skirt and pointed at Henry and Jason standing outside. Then her mother said something, and the town meeting stopped. Mareen and her grandfather walked outside while some of the villagers watched from inside the building. Most were curious, but others were obviously afraid. The old man that'd been arguing with Mareen's grandfather glared at them.

  Mareen's dark brown hair bounced as she came to a stop, and her green eyes twinkled. She was wearing a clean, plain dress that looked made of cotton. She greeted them with broken English, "You awake now. Good!"

  Her grandfather patted her on the shoulder and said in accented English, "Yeah, you two were sleepin' for such a long time that we were beginnin' to worry. Well, I s'pose it's fair. You did clean out an entire goblin cave by yourselfs. I'm assumin' you just got ta this world too. Ah, where my manners? My name is George."

  As George shook hands with him and Jason, Henry mentally shook his head. He didn't know how long he'd been out, but seeing George and Mareen behaving somewhat normally despite the ordeal they'd just gone through meant these must be very tough people. Mareen's healing magic probably had no way to fix emotional trauma. Then again, he was currently standing in the middle of a village in a fantasy world. These people would have to be tough to survive.

  While Henry pondered the people they'd rescued, he heard Jason say, "Nice to meet you, George. I'm Jason, and my grumpy friend here is Henry. I'm glad somebody around here speaks English."

  "Izit? I've actually been jawin' to Mareen in English when you were sleepin' so I coo be a little less rusty, you know? Whole thing making me a loskop today, you know? Itz been about ten years since I spoke with someone else like you lot. You can probably tell by my accent that I'm not from the United States like you, you know? I can still recognize that accent, for sure. I was from South Africa and working in Brazil before I was taken to this... place." George's smile dropped. "That's been over 30 years."

  Henry cocked his head. "There are more of us here from our world?"

  "All humans on this place are from Earth. Dolos has been taking us here for thousands of years from what I know. Right now there not too many people still living that remember the Earth, but more than you might think! Of course, we're from all over the fokking place on Earth and scattered all over on this planet so..."

  Jason nodded and said, "It's probably hard to keep in touch. So what is your meeting about?"

  "I am actually mayor of this village, well, close enough." George frowned. "The majority of us want ta move. This new goblin mess driving home how dangerous this area become, and there are not enough of us to protect the place. Not everyone is happy, you know? Actually, if you could wait for us back at my house where you woke up, me and Mareen should be done soon. We can talk more then, just now."

  George's rusty English combined with his accent was a little confusing, but Henry knew a polite dismissal when he heard one. He swatted Jason on the arm and began heading back. He thought about their situation while he walked and realized he and Jason were flying blind.

  Jason whispered, "Hey, I thought I saw a book with English written on it in the house before we left. Let's go take a look before George and Mareen get back." Henry nodded.

  After they got back to the rough house, Jason showed Henry where he'd seen the written English. It looked like an old, battered, handwritten journal sitting on a rough shelf with a small number of other books. Henry flipped the book open, and the first things he saw were a date at the top of the page, lines of blocky handwriting, and old water marks.

  He was suddenly struck with a feeling like he was intruding on memories without permission and glanced up. His eyes met Jason's, and his friend said, "Let's put it back." Henry nodded.

  They needed information badly, but he wasn't about to go rooting around someone's diary or journal during his first d
ay or two on a new world. He was not desperate enough yet to be that big of a shitbag.

  Henry walked outside to sit down, and Jason followed. He scratched his goatee and said, "I've seen you looking off into the distance a few times, and I know that look. What are you thinking? Since we're alone right now, this is probably the best time to talk without anyone listening in."

  Jason replied, "I've been thinking about the note that Dolos left. I think we should take it literally." He found the note in the duffle and read it out loud again:

  "Each device will confer one magic type of your choosing as well as the ability to understand all languages on Ludus. When you are ready to accept your blessing from the Great God Dolos, swallow one device and think of the magic you wish to learn all day and right before you fall asleep."

  Jason folded the note and put it back in the duffle. He said, "If we take this note seriously, and at this point we have no reason not to, we can logically assume a few things."

  Henry paid close attention. He had a lot of respect for his friend's power of insight as well as Jason's superior background in fantasy and science fiction. Who'd have known that Jason's geeky hobbies might possibly save their lives one day?

  Jason continued, "We are at a huge disadvantage right now in that we don't speak the local language. We were incredibly lucky to meet another English speaker in our first day or two here and also that we are in a relatively uninhabited area."

  Henry scrunched up his forehead and asked, "What do you mean?"

  "Think about it. If these orbs just do what the note says they'll do, they're incredibly valuable. What happens to tourists carrying pockets full of money in rough areas of foreign countries?"

  Henry immediately understood. He'd seen firsthand what happened when people carrying valuables were not wary enough. He made a circular motion with his hand and urged, "Go on."