by Jez Cajiao
Adult Male Cave Troll
This is the last surviving Cave Troll from a family that was tamed by the Goblins. The Matriarch has eaten one, and the other apparently fled, rather than be tamed.
This creature has the very dangerous combination of high muscle density combined with an extremely low level of intelligence.
HP: 999/1100
I scowled at the goblins, watching them freeze as they saw us. The cowardly little monsters pulled back to the middle of their group, screaming in rage at finding us arrayed before their home. One of them, sporting a bone headdress, screamed something at the cave troll, who threw the human down and stamped on him. The crunch of his skull made it clear that he wasn’t going to be getting back up.
“I think that was one of the three idiots,” Oracle said quietly, and I nodded. I hadn’t wanted them to die, necessarily, but they were assholes, so I wasn’t particularly concerned about it.
The cave troll started to run forward, smashing saplings aside as it went. The goblins following close behind, brandishing weapons and screaming, the air filled with their bloodlust.
“What do you think?” I asked Oracle, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “Do they think the Golems are just statues?”
“Probably,” she said, an evil grin appearing on her face. The cave troll was maybe ten feet tall, and heavily muscled. The Golems ranged from nine feet tall for the general fighters, to eleven for Sarge, and they all had to outweigh the troll easily.
“Sarge…” I said, my own grin splitting my face. “Wait until they’re about twenty feet away, then slaughter the fucking lot of them. I want you to rip the troll’s arms off and beat it to death with the wet ends.” The Golems shifted slightly; an air of readiness palpable in their stances.
It took maybe thirty seconds for the troll to close the distance to the point I’d specified, and as it crossed that imaginary line, the Golems blurred into action.
Sarge hadn’t bothered to draw its sword from the enormous sheath across its back. It simply went from standing still to what looked like a dead run in two seconds flat. The rest of the Golems followed its lead, and I had the chance to see the look of confusion on the face of the cave troll…right before Sarge’s shield smashed into it with the force of an out of control semi.
The troll was catapulted backwards, audible cracks sounding as bones were broken, and Sarge discarded its shield, crushing a pair of goblins under its ridiculous mass.
The rest of the Golems spread out, the ranged ones firing mana bolts from their huge crossbows that flared into existence, then blasted multiple goblins into bits. The melee-armed Golems barely got to touch the goblins before they were all dead. The last thing the goblin in the headdress saw was Sarge pinning his supposedly invincible cave troll to the floor, grabbing both of its arms by the wrists, and tearing them off.
I watched the carnage in stunned silence. The only sounds, beyond the echoes of the explosions returning to us from the surrounding hills, were the meaty ‘thwacks’ as Sarge hammered the arms down onto the already dead cave troll, and Stephanos’ retching behind us.
“Okay… note to self, Golems and metaphors don’t mix…” I said, swallowing hard.
I pulled the Golems back, ordering them back to their regular duties, and gestured for the ships to land, everyone left a little uneasy by the amazing prowess of the War Golems.
I didn’t even get any experience, as it was that much of a one-sided slaughter, apparently. I just shrugged and wished we’d had the fuckers when we went to clear the nest out.
It only took a few minutes for everyone to gather; we’d had a large area cleared for the ships to land, and two other areas as well. One was to the left of the ruin, the other to the right, with the goblins and all the general refuse piled to the right, a trench around it all to prevent the fire from spreading and the entire heap dowsed liberally in whatever we could find that was cheap and flammable. The section to the left, on the other hand, was for the bodies of the dead from Decin’s ship and the other corpses that the Golems had found. Anything that wasn’t goblin or animal was placed here. Due to the condition of the bodies, there was no way of knowing what was from who, so they were placed with as much reverence as we could manage, then they were covered in naphtha from the warship.
I stood to one side, listening as Decin led the funeral. He spoke of the dead with long familiarity, reminiscing about fights, families, and what good people they’d been. I stood for a long while as he spoke, the thought that nobody ever said that the dead were assholes occasionally running through my mind as people stepped forward to speak, and then I realized they were all looking to me.
I stepped forward, clearing my throat, and frantically running the last few seconds through my mind, realizing I’d missed my cue.
“I…I wanted to say…” I said, trying to cover my mistake. “I wanted to say that I was sorry I never met you. I’m sorry that you were lost before I could help you. I don’t know if you can hear us, if you’re comforted by the things that have been said, but there’s only one thing I can offer you to help. I’ll make the same offer to your families that has been made to your shipmates; if they want to, they’ll be allowed to come to the Tower. I’ll protect them as best I can and give them the chance to be all they could be.” I looked to Decin, who nodded once, and I began.
I cast Firebolt, the simplest version of the first spell I had learned, firing a small patch of ground in front of the bodies that I’d deliberately left clear and had soaked in naphtha. It impacted with a solid ‘whumpth’ as the flames burst to life, spreading rapidly, and flooding the corpses.
We stood there for almost an hour, nowhere near enough time to reduce the bones fully to ash, but short of a much hotter fire, I’d been warned by Decin it would take the entire day or more to destroy them fully.
I gestured to Oren and Decin, and they got their people moving, filing slowly onto the ships. While we’d stood vigil, the final Golems had finished charging and had been set to work by Sarge. The items we felt we could use had been loaded onto the ships, and the Golems had closed off the ruins with the large slab of stone. I walked over to Sarge with Oracle and waited while the people made their way onto the ships.
“Bane?” I said quietly, and the tree beside me moved. Bane slipped silently into view, and I sighed. “Honestly, mate, you don’t need to guard me here. What do you think is going to attack me? Horned bunnies? Squirrel Knights?”
“I won’t know until they try,” was his only response, and I shook my head, turning to Sarge.
“Watch over the pyres. If they start to spread, then put them out; if not, then leave them to burn out on their own. Bury the remains of the crew together but show them respect. As to the goblins and the trash, cover it with whatever you need to. I want the fires completely out in twelve hours if they’ve not finished on their own, and the pyres covered. and then lead the others to the Tower as quickly as possible. Once you arrive, you are to report to Hephaestus and take on whatever duties he assigns. Do you know where the Tower is, and do you understand your orders?” I asked and Sarge turned slowly, scanning the horizon through the trees until we could both see the Tower. He pointed at it, then turned back to me and clapped his fist to his chest in salute. I returned the salute and walked over to the piled goblins and crap, casting a second firebolt.
This one, I slammed into the middle of the pile, blasting some of the bones flying. The fire spread out, noxious fumes beginning almost instantly from the mixture of rubbish, unwashed goblins, and the flammables we’d piled in there.
We backed away quickly and went to join Oren on the raised deck of the Agamemnon’s’ Pride, and he got us lifting off quickly, everyone happy to get away from the fumes.
It took another four hours for us to get back to the Tower. Decin flew alongside, occasionally exchanging insults with Oren about his speed and ship handling abilities. It didn’t take long until the tone was lowered to his ‘handling’ of himself and his wife as well
, and I couldn’t help but smile. The sound of friends exchanging good-natured insults and abuse was universal, and I was damn glad about that.
When we were on our final approach to the Tower, I confirmed the orders I’d given Oren earlier, at which point, he walked to the side of the ship and shouted over to Decin, going through details with him. They dropped Flux and his people, the new Complex Servitor Golem, Oracle, and myself off on the twenty-sixth floor before taking off again and flying down to ground level to land outside.
The parade ground looked much better than it had; it’d been cleared and cleaned, all the various refuse and debris was gone, and the twisted wreck of the old doors, which we’d virtually destroyed by shoving the remnants of Oren’s ship into as a trap, had also been cleared away.
Instead, two huge doors were slowly growing out of the surrounding mass of the Tower, and a smaller door was forming off to one side. I headed inside, smiling and waving at the various people milling around on the floor, counting down until…
“Is that…”
“It be mine!”
I’d been waiting for them, wondering who’d spot the new Golem first; no surprise that they’d both started off at near the same time.
“Now you listen here…”
“No, you listen! Do ye know whut I could do wit’ that? You would’na even know how to use it properly!”
“That’s enough, the both of you. The ships are going to land outside the Tower on the ground. I want Golems to unload the heavy gear as quickly as possible, and then we’ll talk about the new Servitor.”
“But the Servitor is clearly to be used to repair MY Tower, isn’t it, Jax?”
“Ye fool! Ye know…”
The sound of Seneschal and Heph arguing washed over me, and I banished it from my mind as Barrett and Cai approached. I left the Mer with a promise that I’d be right back and headed over to intercept them.
“You’ve been busy!” I said to them, gesturing around the floor, and receiving proud smiles from both of them.
“You don’t mind, then?” Barrett asked. “Cai and I were worried we’d overstepped our authority when we suggested it to Seneschal, but he just went ahead with it…”
“Hell no. I told you to do what you needed to do, and to look after things in my absence. This project was a conversation I’d already had with Seneschal. The fact you’ve got this much done already?” I said, looking about in amazement.
The twenty-sixth floor was the highest of the large floors in the Tower; from this point on, they shrank considerably, staying high ceilinged but growing smaller with each level. As I admired the improved space, I was amazed by the size of the floor itself. They’d somehow managed to not only get all the internal walls in this section of the Tower removed, save for some huge support struts, but they’d used a lot of the stone to begin to make berths!
“Well, Seneschal and Hephaestus needed stone for the other repairs; apparently the stone composing the Tower is better to work with than quarrying more elsewhere, so stripping this floor was a priority. There are two Servitors working on this floor constantly,” Cai said, gesturing to a corner where I could just make out a blur of arms stacking and sealing stones together. A handful of people were running back and forth from a large pile of stones, taking them to the Servitors and clearly working together to keep them supplied. “There are three Servitors on the third floor, reconstructing the Genesis Chamber, and one is working on sealing the command room off for now, at my request.”
“Yeah, the door there locks, but only just. Considering the importance of the Creation Table, and how rare and powerful they are? It just made sense.” Barrett interjected, and I nodded approvingly.
“Once we’ve got the basics, so that we’re safe and people can rest in a little comfort, we’ll make a change to that, anyway. I think the Command Center will become a suite of rooms all close together on a single floor, probably with the majority of the soldiers and War Golems stationed around there.”
“I’d recommend having that done soon, Jax,” Barrett replied, “If someone was to injure or kill the wisps and get access to that table…” He shook his head and Oracle spoke up.
“They could shut the Tower down, change its priorities. They could lock you out, Jax, or they could order it to concentrate all the mana in an unstable area, flooding the mana channels and cause an explosion that could collapse the Tower. There’s no limit to the damage they could do.”
“But they couldn’t do any of that with the Wisps in control, right?” I asked her, concern filling my voice.
“No, but that’s the point. The Tower is a structure, that’s all. We wisps look after it, but if we’re killed off, then the Tower can only be controlled by the Creation Table. That’s why it was kept at the top of the Tower, in the most secure area we had.”
“Why wasn’t it moved to the Hall of Memories? Or, hell, why didn’t the SporeMother use it?” I asked. Oracle shook her head.
“We didn’t have time; all the Golems were fighting its creatures, but the SporeMother couldn’t use the Creation Table anyway; Seneschal cut it off when the he shut the Tower down.”
“So, we could shut it down then, if we needed to?”
“It’s a magical construct. Draining it entirely and then repowering it is damaging. It had to be done like this before, but now? No. Best if we just keep it safe. Posting a War Golem with it would probably be enough; there are eight, after all,” Oracle said, and Barrett perked up immediately.
“Ah… eight War Golems, Jax?” he asked quickly, and I grinned at him.
“Yeah, mate, we found an old Waystation of the Tower. It was full of goblins, but once we’d cleared them out, we found ten Golems. There are five basic melee class, three ranged, one ‘command’ Golem—it’s a level three ‘Complex’ one that can control the War Golems and fight alongside them, as well as take orders—” I turned and gestured to the large Servitor that had stopped a few feet back, “and there was also this monstrosity, a level three Servitor, capable of carrying out simple requests and commands, especially for repairing and rebuilding.”
“It’s very different to ours…” Cai said, walking around it slowly and inspecting the ornamentation.
“I know; we’ve concentrated on building them as fast as possible, and we’ve been manufacturing the very basic models. This one’s a lot more advanced, and the ancients clearly cared more about style than we can afford to.”
“I noticed you’ve brought some new recruits as well, and with the second ship, I can only assume…?” Cai asked, lifting one eyebrow, and I took the hint.
“Yes, Decin has joined us, although nobody has sworn yet. We’ve also been lucky, in the sense that a handful of Mer we encountered agreed to join us as well. In fairness, they agreed as much for the promise of healing as anything else. There’s a lady called Ame that I would recommend you watch your step with; she’s very determined. She’s also a Runecrafter and wants to be a healer."
"The Mer are generally led by her or Flux; they’re the two at the front of the group. The one currently getting his ear chewed off is Flux.”
“A Runecrafter that wants to be a healer? Why…”
“She wasn’t well before; I healed her, and now, boom! wants to be a healer. Incredibly determined lady, so I suggest not annoying her, unless you want your head bitten off. That being said, all the best doctors and nurses I know have a total lack of patience for fucking about, so she’ll probably make an amazing healer… if she has any aptitude for it. Come on, I’ll introduce you.” I turned to the Golem, speaking slowly and clearly.
“You are to begin strengthening and repairing this floor. You will accept orders from the wisps of this Tower. Oracle here, you already know; the other two are Seneschal and Hephaestus. You are also to accept commands from Cai, Barrett, and Oren, the dwarf from the ship we just left, provided their orders do not contradict my own, or the orders of the wisps. Nod if you understand and accept these commands.” There was a momentary pause, and the
Servitor nodded, turning, and walking over to the area where the other Golem was working. The Servitor paused, communing with it somehow, before grabbing stones and starting to work alongside the first, its four arms working in a seamless blur.
“Damn, that thing’s fast!” Barrett said, and I had to agree, nodding along with Cai. I led them back across to the group, seeking out Flux and Ame in particular as I introduced my advisors to the Mer.
“I know I haven’t had the chance to really meet you all before now, so please don’t be upset that I’ve not learned who you are, and your skills and abilities before now. I wanted you to meet two of my advisors first. This is Cai, who deals with people, and the Tower itself, and Barrett, who is in charge of security and our fighting forces. They will be able to help you all with most things as we go on. As you can see, and as I’m sure Flux told you all, the Tower is slowly being repaired and made to be more livable.”
The group all nodded, with a few giving out the strange low frequency hums that I took for a form of sonar.
I noticed that, while it only looked and felt like two on the outer edge of the group were giving the signals off, the tendrils of the entire group were shifting in response. There was a long silence as I processed this, when Ame stepped forward.
“Very well; we understand this and forgive the rudeness. First, I am Ame, Healer and Runecrafter.” She said, introducing herself to Cai and Barrett, while I blinked in shock. “This is Flux, or at least that is the closest your kind is likely to come to his true name, so it will suffice. He is my mate, and a warrior. He patrolled our waters and killed those who threatened the pod. He will do this here as well. With him are Cheena, his second, who is also a warrior, and Fenir, her mate, who is a hunter. Bane is the Lord Jax’s dedicated bodyguard, with Jana to assist until a proper cadre is chosen.” As each was named, they stepped forward, clapping a fist to chest, and stepped back.
