by Eric Ugland
“I’m just saying, I could help—”
“If it comes to that, I will request your assistance.”
“Okay. Fine. If that’s the case, I can pull Cleeve and his gear—”
“And maybe everyone else.”
“You want to go through the night?”
“I worry about Cleeve. I believe he overestimates his health. This path is detrimental to him.”
“Yeah, I can see that. You want to get off the lake.”
“I do.”
“I mean, sure, no problem. I’ll keep going until I can’t. Hopefully the whole length of the lake, but I really don’t know how long it’ll be until I get tired.”
Ragnar hopped into the water, which came up past his waist. The Lutra had otter-like bodies, which meant short legs and long torsos, and their pants seemed much more like shorts.
“We will scout for him,” Ragnar said, planting his spear into the water. I think the move was supposed to look bold and brave, but ultimately it came off looking a bit silly.
“You can see in the night?” Nikolai asked.
“We can,” Ragnar replied.
“Once everyone has eaten, we will get on the rafts and be off.”
Nikolai went back around, and everyone got on their little boats, except for me. More crappy dried food was passed around, and I scarfed it down. Everyone seemed settled on their boats. As I hauled on the line, I definitely felt some weight this time. The rafts were primarily built to be stable platforms, so they had little in the way of hydrodynamics. But even still, it was a massive step up from pulling the damn wagon.
Skeld walked along the raft with the mostly unconscious Cleeve, while Ragnar headed out far in front, making sure I didn’t accidentally step into one of the great big holes.
I worried he’d find a tentacled beast and we’d wind up in a midnight rumble. At least I had a weapon with me now, so I could put up a fight. But even where I was, level wise, I had no idea how I’d fare against something I couldn’t even identify. I made a mental note to talk to Nikolai about level limits and identification and all that.
In the darkness, pulling a bunch of rafts through the rain, I figured I had time to do all the thinking I wanted. And I barely even thought about my previous life. Or her.
Chapter 63
Can’t say that I recommend walking through a lake in the rain in the middle of the night. Pretty mis, actually. Ragnar and Skeld traded off every once in a while, but for the most part, we just slogged on. We didn’t get any relief until very early in the morning, when the rain finally gave up. The sun started to mosey on up, the sky lightened, and I could see something on the horizon. A silhouette came out of the water, stretching skyward.
I whistled to Skeld, currently serving as ranger. He looked over at me.
“Let’s angle that way, see what that is,” I said.
He nodded, and slightly shifted the direction he was guiding me.
I plodded along, my head down. The sun rose, and the clouds seemed to vanish from the sky. It was brilliant behind me, light streaming across the deep blue lake and illuminating the thing in front of me: An island with a clearly manmade structure sitting squarely on top.
“Holy shit,” I said. “To the island!”
I didn’t wait for Skeld to start poking around. I just stomped along to the island. With the sun out, I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a problem to see where I was going.
The island was a rather strange geologic formation — pretty much in fitting with the rest of this weird-ass lake. There was a tiny beach, a lot of trees, and then it went mostly vertical until it ended in a small castle. At least, to me, it looked small. Very blocky, with square towers and super tall walls. Grey stone bricks and absolutely no evidence of any residents. To make things just exponentially weirder, at this point, we were far enough out in the water that I couldn’t really see any other land masses. It was just this castle sticking way up out of the water, and then, well, water.
I stopped about a hundred yards away, seeing that there was a shallow path up to the island. I wanted to get an okay from Nikolai before dragging everyone there.
He was already standing next to me.
“You thinking that might be a good place for the bossman to rest?” I asked.
“Are you referring to your de facto father?”
“Yeah. I guess. But it’s weirding me out to consider him, you know—”
“Your father?”
“Bingo.”
“Let go of that discomfort. ’Tis reality now. I say we stop on the island. We dry out, we rest up, we resume walking at night.”
“You’re planning on me walking through the night again?”
“I am. I’d prefer if we all walk through the night, but if need be, I might call upon you to be the draft horse again.”
I shrugged. Part of me wanted to say fuck no, but that was just me being selfish. I was a bit tired, but only in the ‘a nap would be nice’ sort of way. I wasn’t actually fatigued.
Most everyone got off their rafts and untied them from the convoy line. I dragged Cleeve and the gear close to the beach, then stood waiting as Nikolai stepped foot on the rocky beach first. He moved slowly, carefully, as if there might be traps everywhere. I did my best to look at the beach with a keen eye, seeing if I’d somehow pick out traps myself.
I saw nothing.
Nikolai waved at us, and we wall stepped onto the beach. Immediately, I started pulling clothes off. I’d been soaking wet since my inadvisable social call with the big eye, and I wanted a chance to be at least a little dry. Everything went into a pile on a large rock, and then I stood there, naked in the sun. It felt awesome, and for once, I didn’t care what anyone else thought.
I got my knapsack of holding, reached in, and felt a cool nothing. At first I panicked. But then I thought back to the times I’d had a bag of holding in games, and how they worked, so I figured my best course of action would just be trying what the games said. To think of the item I wanted, and reach in to grab it.
I thought of clothes, and poof. They were in my hand. I pulled them out, put them on, and was starting to wring the water out of the clothes I had been wearing when I realized that the leather pants were already dry. I shook them out and started to fold them up when I thought to look at them. I couldn’t actually remember when I’d bought the supremely supple pants.
Trousers of the Seal
Item Type: Rare
Item Class: Light
Material: Blessed Seal Leather
Armor: +10
Durability: 4990/5000
Weight: 4 pounds
Requirements: May only be worn by those with the blessing of Eona
Bonus: +25% swim speed.
Description: Made from the leather of a blessed seal who died a heroic death in view of his god. The Trousers of the Seal are among the treasured gifts given by Eona to her chosen.
Wow was I a fool. I unfolded the pants and put them right back on. Sure, they were a bit tight, but they were comfortable enough, and who didn’t like showing their ass off? I got my sword back on, thought about armor, and put my hand into the bag.
Nothing.
I suppose I was hoping for a bit much with such a generalized request out of a magic item. Kind of like when I forgot Alexa wasn’t an actual personal assistant.
Everyone else was engaged in a slightly more polite version of what I’d done —stripping down a few layers and letting the sun warm them up. But no one was quite as soaked as I’d been, so they didn’t need to be quite so thorough in disrobing.
Something thunked into my back. I turned around to see a piece of armor hitting the ground. A leather cuirass with steel pauldrons for each shoulder.
“Cover up,” Nikolai barked. “Need to make sure this island isn’t keeping any dangerous secrets.”
I pulled the armor on with some help from Skeld, who handled the hard-to-reach straps. I did a quick check.
Heavy Leather Cuirass with Steel Pauldrons
It
em Type: Uncommon
Item Class: Medium
Material: Leather, steel
Armor: +24
Durability: 340/500
Weight: 30 pounds
Requirements: none
Bonus: none
Description: Made from boiled and shaped leather as well as forged steel, this armor provides adequate protection, but provides little in the way of fashion.
Not bad.
“Ready,” I said.
“With your sword on your back?” Nikolai asked, his eyebrow raised.
“Yeah?”
“Unsheathe it. Now.”
I reached back, pulled the blade, and, well, once I got to the limit of my arm’s length, the sword was still in the scabbard. At which point I had to grab the blade (carefully) and pull, working it until it was mostly out. Then there was some awkward fumbling until I finally had a hand around the sword.
“Even the lowliest goblin would have pin-cushioned you twice over during the pathetic juggling act you just performed for us,” Nikolai said. “Back scabbard is for travel only.”
He had a few words with Teela. She had her weapons out and ready, but stood near Cleeve. Cleeve started to stand, but a single look from Nikolai was enough for the old man to sit back down. Nikolai paused for a minute, then walked over to me.
“I need you to make sure this island is safe,” he said, talking low and quiet. “Can you do that?”
You have been offered a quest by Nikolai:
Safe Is Secret I
Explore the island and make sure there is nothing that will cause harm to Cleeve or his party.
Reward for success: Increased regard with Nikolai and [Unknown].
Penalty for failure (or refusal): Extreme drop in regard with Nikolai, possible death or dismemberment of Cleeve and/or his party.
Yes/No
Naturally, yes was the only acceptable answer.
“Yeah,” I replied, “I can do that.”
I nodded at my boys. Ragnar and Skeld hopped up from their lounging positions, and immediately had their spears at attention.
“Uh, Montana,” Nikolai said.
“Yeah?”
“Fix your sword.”
Chapter 64
We started by getting back in the water and circling around the island, with myself in the lead and Skeld bringing up the rear. The island was quite steep, but any mildly horizontal spot was lush with vegetation. Small trees popped out of nearly every crevasse, and bushes and grasses were everywhere. It was a marked difference to any of the other shores we’d seen around the lake, which had mostly been bereft of life.
On the western side, we discovered two things: one good, one bad. Good, a small dock, a little hut, and a path leading up to the castle. Bad, most everything to the west was really deep. The shallows seemed to pretty much disappear.
“How do we walk across this?” I asked, looking to Ragnar.
He didn’t answer, too busy staring.
“Let me check this,” I said, pointing to the hut. “I don’t want anything to pop out from behind us.”
I walked over to the hut to check things out. Calling it a hut was bit unfair though — it was built better than that, and was on the larger side. Maybe thirty by thirty, made out of rough-hewn wood. A single window faced the water, with glass that was clearly hand-blown, since it was slightly bulging at the bottom with a bit of a bubble in one pane. Peeking inside showed basically nothing. There were a lot of wood crates, but little else.
I walked around, getting to a side with double doors that ran nearly the entire length of the building. I gave the doors a pull. They creaked, but didn’t open. I peered through the crack between the two doors and saw that they were chained together. With thick metal links. I pulled harder. The wood creaked and cracked a bit, but there was no real movement.
The smart move would've been to go get Nikolai and seek his advice on the matter. But I was afraid that in doing so, I might fail the quest he'd given me. Knowing Nikolai, this could very well be another one of his tests to see if I was capable of handling myself. I couldn’t just run to him at the first sign of trouble.
I figured he'd tell me not to rip the doors apart. But then I wouldn't get to see what was inside. And what if what was inside was the secret danger on the island that would get us all killed?
Clearly, I had no choice but to break in.
It took some real strength — I felt my muscles really pull — but the wood splintered apart, and the chain fell to the ground. Both doors came open, one a bit faster than other, hitting the wall with a thud.
Dust swirled out and settled around my legs while the sun shed light on the inside. Crates were stacked along all the walls, and blocked the entrance. Someone had done their damndest to keep something out of the boathouse.
The crates were heavy, but it was difficult to resist the urge to look inside. I figured there’d be more time to dig in and look later. Pulling the crates aside revealed a boat. It looked like a glorified rowboat, somewhere close to twenty feet long. It had the vague shape of a Viking longship, but nowhere near the size. Provided it was still seaworthy, it’d certainly give us a way across the remainder of the lake. At least until we hit up against the next shallow point and had to abandon it. I peeked into the boat and saw three small skeletons, all huddled down. Scraps of clothing had settled down in the bottom of the boat, but jewelry still hung on bones.
Ragnar popped up next to me and peered in.
“Ideas?” I asked.
“They are dead,” he replied.
“Yeah, got that bit. How’d you think they died?”
“Death.”
“Dead by death. Interesting theory.”
I reached in carefully and touched one of the bones. It didn’t move.
“Are skeletons a thing here?” I asked.
Ragnar gave me an are-you-really-asking-me-that look. “Yes,” he said, pointing to the skeletons.
“No, I mean, ugh,” I stammered, “like skeletons that are, uh, animated.”
“Undead? There are as many undead as there are living.”
“So these might be undead?”
“No, these are dead.”
“How do you tell the difference?”
“Undead are moving.”
I got the snarky hirðman. Lucky me.
“Okay,” I said, “good safety tip. Egon.”
“Egon?”
“Never mind. These aren’t moving, so they’re dead.”
“Probably.”
“I appreciate your confidence.”
He gave me a jaunty little salute, and then wandered out of the boathouse. I made a mental note to crack open the crates later, and followed the little guy.
Outside, Skeld stood at the end of the dock, looking westward over the water.
“Storm’s coming,” he said.
I followed his gaze, and saw an ominous bank of black clouds hanging over the far horizon, speeding towards the island.
“Fuck,” I said. “We need to be quick about this.”
“At some point,” Ragnar said, following quickly as I ran up the the path towards the castle, “you need to tell us what is going on with these quests of ours.”
“Are you on the same quests we are?”
“Everything you take, we take. As your hirðmen, we are an extension of you. Should there be a time we are offered a quest before you, you will get those as we do.”
“How does experience work?”
“What you receive, we receive. Same same.”
“That’s dope,” I said. “Next time we have downtime, we need to talk. There’s a bit too much about our world I don’t know.”
The castle loomed above. Now that I was closer, it looked more robust and much taller than it had seemed from down below. It looked to be purpose-built for war. I’d loved reading about castles as a kid. Studied the hell out of them. I memorized the names of all the parts and built a massive diorama in fourth grade for Mrs. Sperry, something that remain
ed the highlight of my academic career. I knew most everything there was to know about castles as they related to medieval European history, and despite all that, I had no idea why there was a big old castle in the middle of a lake.
Heavy doors hung off their hinges, as if they’d been blown off from something coming out of the castle. Oddly, I felt a sense of relief. Something leaving meant there was less of a chance of something left in the castle.
We passed through the barbican. I noticed the portcullis was still up.
Inside, the bailey was wrecked. Broken, weathered wood was everywhere, and decayed bits of straw cluttered the corners. We saw more skeletons here, but not a single one complete. They’d been torn apart, and bones littered the area. I noticed some rusting armor, and, always one to look for loot, knelt down to take a closer look. A thick metal cuirass covered the remains of a torso, but a hole had been punched in the lower quadrant by something with either really big claws or really big teeth. The metal was thick, but it didn’t look like anything I’d seen contemporary soldiers wear. When I tried to get an ID of the stuff, it just came back as Broken Armor.
There were some weapons scattered about, swords and axes mostly. A few spears. I chucked everything that wasn’t completely rusted out into my bag, very curious if I could find a limit to what it could hold. Currently, it seemed a little OP, but then again, why would I complain about something like that? It was one of the ultimate cheats for every RPG I’d ever played. It wasn’t totally overpowered, notably because I couldn't see what I had with me. At at some point I’d probably get around to making a list. Provided, you know, I could figure out how to get everything out of the bag.
Instead of heading straight to the keep, I decided to first go up a set of stairs onto the battlements. But there was little to see there, mostly detritus from the nearby trees. There wasn’t any vegetation inside the castle, but everything on the outside had grown up and over. It gave me a vague notion of how long ago everything had happened. Enough for some tree growth, but not enough for nature to begin her reclamation.
