Dukes and Ladders: A LitRPG/Gamelit Adventure (The Good Guys Book 5)

by Eric Ugland

  One way to find out! Really, just summon a bunch at once.

  Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Now I had a dozen. All different in little ways. One had bigger ears, another larger eyes. Different colors, one was a gradient, starting dark blue at his feet and winding up a vermillion at his eartips, a veritable rainbow of cute furry creatures looking at me expectantly.

  “Help them,” I said, pointing to Prime and Two.

  There were some pleasant chirps between the prinkies, and just like that, they were working as a team, picking up rather heavy objects, then toddling over and putting everything in the growing pile around the increasingly unhappy Tarryn.

  “Lovely,” I said with a smile, feeling like these little things might work out.

  Chapter Nine

  Most of the townsfolk were busy digging while I cut down trees. Which the prinkies then picked up and carried over to a stack of logs. Of course, I had to get a few more of the prinkies going. To the tune of a hundred.

  One hundred prinkies of various colors and shapes. Within reason. All I mean to say is that they weren’t identical copies. They were individuals. It made me disbelieve Tarryn, to a degree. Not that he was lying, but perhaps Tarryn’s was but a story. The creatures seemed too complicated to be a fabrication or an artifice.

  They were, however, good workers. Not the best, as there was definitely an upper limit to the directions they understood. Anything where there was the slightest bit of actual decision-making involved, and there’d be a knock-down drag out fight over the appropriate means of accomplishing the task. So while asking them to pull bushes and pile them up was fine, asking them to sort bushes out or only pick the ripe berries, that was just a recipe for disaster. A hilarious disaster of course, since, like everything the prinkies did, it was cute.

  As a plus, the prinkies didn’t seem to need breaks. Or if they did, I didn’t notice them taking breaks. And they didn’t eat. I mean, besides draining my mana, which they barely seemed to do.

  We were making some incredible progress, and by the time we called a stop for the day, there was a swath of clear land about a hundred yards in any direction from the village. Sure, there were a ton of stumps to deal with still, and we had stacks of trees to turn into lumber, and a relative shit ton of shrubs, bushes, and other undergrowth things, but that was an easy bonfire fix away.

  I felt pretty okay about things, until I checked on the progress of the other groups.

  My plan called for the tunnel to end in an open area that would essentially be our killzone if anyone tried to attack from the south, through the tunnel. We would need a large gate, which had mostly been constructed already, and some big ass towers. The towers would be at the corners and provide military housing as well as fighting positions. Then, there’d be big walls running from the towers the short distance to the mountain face. All told, the area would be about a quarter acre. But we basically had one guy trying to do all the building. Two if you count Nikolai.

  Conall, the woch, was doing admirable work, though rather slow. He’d nearly finished off the walls around the gate. He’d completed about half of one wall and was right around the point where he could start on the first tower.

  Which wasn’t exactly much further along than where he’d been previously. Not that he was working slowly, it just wasn’t a one person (or woch) job. Sure, the dude was built like a brick house and had four arms, but he still needed more bodies. And he wasn’t exactly a fan of talking, which added to the complexity of getting other people to work with him. He followed orders and directions perfectly, but he wasn’t exactly brimming with suggestions on how to streamline the project. Watching Nikolai, I had the distinct impression he was growing frustrated with his position.

  I didn’t interfere, though. I just observed for now.

  Lee had made slightly more progress.

  His group managed to get the beginnings of a structure formed, up over by the river. I could see why Lee had chosen the place, because even though it was in the early stages, I got a clear picture of what was going up, namely, a water wheel. And, it made sense: use the river to power the sawmill. But that meant we had to find a way to protect the sawmill. And the riverbank. Which, in my head, meant we probably need to wall over the river, and I was having enough trouble making a wall around a vague rectangle.

  “Lee,” I called out.

  He gave me a wave and trotted my way.

  “Having the water wheel here gives us a tremendous advantage,” he said. “Effectively, we can have a power hammer in the smithy and a powered blade in the sawmill. And, if we get to the point where we’re growing enough wheat to warrant a mill, we can do that as well.”

  “It’s kind of on the outside of the walls.”

  “Sure,” Lee said, “but if we are in a siege sort of situation, we can just power things manually. Or with animals.”

  “The plan isn’t to wall around the wheel?”

  “Not yet,” Lee said, a wry smile on his face. “For now, since we’re overflowing with massive logs, we run everything through the wall. Essie and I have been talking about doing something with the waterfalls in the canyon, but that’s obviously a much more involved project once we’ve got too many bored people needing jobs.”

  I shook my head. “Not sure when that’s going to be.”

  “You get more of those little furry things running around it might be.”

  He grinned as he watched a group of the prinkies tear a large bush from the ground then toddle it towards the piles.

  “Would having some of them help you guys?” I asked.

  “Do they follow directions?”

  “Well,” I said, then had to stop as the prinkies started chirping angrily, arguing about whether their bush should go in the shrubbery pile or the bush pile. The distinctions of which were still murky to anyone but the prinkies. “They listen to directions. I think.”

  “We might be able to use them,” Lee said. “Not quite yet — everything we’re doing tomorrow is going to be pretty technical, but the day after that, once we have the wheel up, that’s going to be when we put the sawmill together.”

  “So we’ll have lumber by the end of the week?”

  “What day is today?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “In that case, if it’s Saturday, no. If it’s Monday, yes. You pick.”

  “Works for me,” I said, and gave Lee a merry clap on the shoulder.

  Chapter Ten

  Once again, I chose to spend the night out under the stars, and I woke up to a blanket of snoring prinkies quite liberally and literally covering me. I was sweating profusely. Some of them had squished themselves around my head, akin to pillows.

  I got to my feet, and somehow stifled the urge to scream because the damn things were clinging to me. Still snoring, amazingly.

  I grabbed one and peeled it off. It tried to squirm in closer, to cuddle. I wanted to throw it, but it was just so darned cute. It looked at me with its big eyes, all innocent, so I just dropped it in the pile of prinkies that was somehow my bed. Then, I had the fun of wading through the furry beasties until I was finally free of them, and they all cuddled back together as if I’d never been there.

  For a moment, I inspected my person until I found the one who was still asleep on my head. That one I tossed over my shoulder, and it fell into the pile.

  The four moons lit the sky and the sun was still a ways from rising, I’d managed to sleep far longer than I had in some time, and I wondered if that had anything to do with my living blanket. I hoped not, because I felt pretty good, and I didn’t want to have that happen every night. I walked away from the fire and the pile and the longhouse, and, for once, I wasn’t overwhelmed by all the forest about the place. Because it was gone. The prinkies must have worked well into the night. The piles of bushes and shrubs were huge, and every single tree I’d cut down had been stacked into a neat pile of logs. There was still plenty of work to be done, but the space where
we were going to build our village had, for the most part, been cleared. I had left some of the larger trees with wide crowns and thick branches for shade and aesthetic joy.

  There were markings left by the older battenti gent denoting where the wall was going to be, how far out and how far down the ditch needed to be, and where the towers would be. Of all the people who’d been working, I felt like he’d done the best job. Or the most work. Or both. He definitely made everything move a lot smoother.

  I walked to the ditch and looked at the dismal progress. Maybe dismal was harsh, I suppose, but they’d dug down about six feet, out five feet, and along about thirty feet.

  And left all the tools there. Which, to be fair, they’d be going back in a few hours, but still, some goblins, dark or otherwise, could have taken the shovels. I grabbed one of the shovels and hopped down in the ditch. The dirt on either side of me was impressively black, rich loamy soil.

  With a grunt, I started digging, going as quickly as I could, tossing dirt to the town side.

  There was a heavy whomp as something large landed nearby.

  I jumped out of the ditch and positioned the shovel across my body for defense, looking around. Stretching my senses out, I could tell something big padded across the ground in front of me, just around a tree.

  Taking the chance, I dropped the shovel and grabbed a spear from the bag of holding I always kept on my person. I cocked my arm back, ready to let go as soon as I could identify what was hunting me.

  A grey snout came out from the back of the tree, followed by a large head, almost shark shaped. The skin was smooth, and it looked hard. Small eyes sunk into the skull, tucked there for protection. A large mouth, one that ran almost the entire length of the skull, hung open, and I could see a deep red mouth with a large tongue. It had very powerful legs, thick, with massive claws at the end. The claws weren’t sharp or pointy, but they were big. They looked very strong, as if they were perfect for digging. The creature continued from behind the tree until I could see the whole thing. The grey skin looked more like armored plates now that I could take it all in. The back end had a thick tail, heavy with muscle. All told, it looked a lot like a shark that had been built to swim through the earth. A land shark.

  Mouth open, it watched me.

  I crouched a little, ready to jump to either side if this big bastard chose to attack.

  He remained motionless, just looking at me.

  Slowly, carefully, I stood back up and lowered the spear until it hung at my side, pointy bit towards the ground.

  “Hey there, buddy,” I said.

  It tilted its head to the side, and I wondered where its ears were.

  “I really hope I’m not wrong here, because that probably leads to unpleasant things between the two of us, but is there any chance you’re here because of Typhon?” I asked.

  There was a pause, long enough to make me worry. But then the big head nodded.

  I had a thought, and popped into my sheet to look over the boon Typhon bestowed upon me.

  Monstrous Companion (Typhon) - You have been gifted a companion from the god Typhon. Your companion is immortal, though if reduced to 0 HP, he will be forced to return in a different form, chosen at the whim of Typhon. You may absorb your companion for a temporary boost to your abilities, but the boost will only last until Typhon sends another companion your way.

  Given the wording, I had to wonder…

  “Fritz?” I asked.

  The creature’s mouth opened wider, and the tongue came out, lolling to the side. Then he nodded.

  Fritz was back.

  I dropped the spear, jumped the ditch, and threw my arms around the big land shark.

  “Fritz,” I shouted, “welcome home, buddy!”

  He licked me.

  Thank gods there wasn’t like, acid in his saliva. It was just, you know, normal regular ol’ gross stuff.

  “What the fuck are you?” I asked.

  He turned his head to the side and closed his mouth, giving me the land shark equivalent of a what the fuck, do you think I can talk like this? gesture.

  “Ah, can’t talk?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Are you a land shark?”

  He tilted his head from one side to the other.

  “You’re kind of a land shark? Or a kind of land shark?”

  I could feel frustration rolling off of him, that he felt I was an idiot for asking such a question, that I should just know what the fuck he was.

  “Whatever, man,” I said, “I’m just glad you’re back. Welcome home.”

  That seemed to mollify the big guy. He pushed me to the side and hopped down in the ditch.

  “Yeah,” I said, like I knew what he was doing, “we’re digging, like, a protective ditch. Which might be called a moat? Except I think a moat has water, but it’s, you know, going around the wall we’re going to build. Dirt’s going inside, we’ll use that to build a rampart up to the wall.”

  He jumped up to the other side and sniffed around a little.

  “The marks on the ground,” I continued, “indicate where the wall is going to be, and, you know, the boundary of the ditch. Any chance you’re good at digging?”

  He gave me a look that said, I’m as good at digging as you are at being a dumbass.

  I felt like I was getting pretty good at reading his looks.

  Fritz started digging.

  Dirt flew out behind him in a massive rooster tail.

  And, likely on purpose, all over me.

  There was a chirp from next to me.

  The prinkies had arrived. En masse. They spread out, and looked at the ditch.

  Fritz, for his part, stopped digging, and looked over at all the tiny creatures.

  “They aren’t food,” I said, though it made me wonder if you could eat a prinky. Would it provide any nutrition? If I could summon them for mana, and a tiny amount of mana, maybe I’d found a way to feed the community through the winter. Though, looking down at all the innocent wide eyes staring at me as if I was the bees knees, I didn’t think I’d be able to slaughter them. “They’re more like, you know, helpers. So, uh, Fritz, meet the prinkies. Prinkies, meet Fritz. You guys should work together to dig this ditch. Put all the dirt on the inside and tamp it all down.”

  There was a very short pause, and then the prinkies all hopped into the ditch and started throwing the loose dirt Fritz had scooped up onto the bank.

  Fritz watched the little guys work for a moment, and then he went back to digging, a plume of dirt going high in the sky behind him.

  I left them to it, and walked back to the fire where I heard the enticing sounds of someone making porridge.

  Chapter Eleven

  By the time we were done with breakfast and ready to get started on the work day, the ditch was finished. Done to a depth of ten feet, all around the three sides of the prospective village. Also the rampart was up. It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t beautiful, but it was there. The prinkies even managed to follow the rough plans laid out by Lanfrank, leaving spots filled where our gates would be. I couldn’t stop smiling.

  Fritz the land shark laid at one of the entrances, growling at the prinkies who were climbing all over him in a big cuddle puddle.

  I walked into the center of the village, which was really closer to a camp, and I stood up on a stump.

  “If I might have your attention,” I shouted out.

  People shut up, for the most part, and looked at me. I was their duke, after all.

  “Our good friend Fritz,” I said, “who you might remember as a big scary furry guy with wings who flew you all through the canyon into our new home, is back. He doesn’t quite look the way he used to, though. Instead of a manticore, this time he’s back as a land shark.”

  I was met with confused looks.

  “What is a land shark?” I heard a woman whisper to her friend.

  Her friend shrugged.

  “I guess there’s some, uh, other word for it here, but where I�
�m from,” I lied, “we just called them land sharks. He’s, you know, laying over there. Because he dug out the rest of the defensive ditch this morning.”

  As one, all the heads of my followers turned to look where I was pointing. Then they faced back to me.

  “So, uh, yeah, not really much need for digging for you all today.”

  There were some laughs of relief.

  “We are going to be putting logs up as the outside of the wall, though. So, you know, little need for digging and a lot of need for hoisting up big things. I will be working with Essie and Mercy. I promise I’ll get you guys out of the stinky longhouse as soon as I can.”

  Nods and smiles. The crowd was starting to come around.

  “For the moment, uh, I’m going to talk to my, uh, council, and then we’re going to do something I should have done right when we got here, but I was a little, well, distracted and I didn’t know what it was I was doing, but well, here I am and we’re going to do it. I’m going to sit here with the council, and we’re going to meet you all one at a time. You’ll tell us what you can do, and we’re going to assign everyone a job. Provided, you know, you’re an adult. Kids, you can play with the furballs for now.”

  The council headed over to me, and formed a rough semi-circle.

  “What’s up guys?“ I asked.

  “You think a little heads up on this matter might have been in order?” Nikolai asked.

  “Sure, but I just thought of it. I’m trying to be a better leader.”

  “And Fritz is back as a bullette?” Nikolai asked.

  “That I didn’t know about until a little earlier this morning. I’m not sure what the word you just said means, but I’ll assume it means land shark. So yes.”

  “And the little furry things?”