The Emissary Bard (World Of Chains Book 3)

by Lars M.

  From there on out, it was pure clean-up duty. Not ten seconds had gone by when I was able to put down my violin with a sigh. From the looks of it, my health would remain in the green, so I quickly moved up to Lyle. "What's the damage? Are you hanging in there, Lyle?"

  He dropped to both knees, panting. "I'm... not sure. I don't feel too good. They managed to hit me a couple of times and... dunno. It doesn't hurt much, but it aches. Know what I mean?" His face was pallid and his eyes looked sunken. From the looks of it, the poison was doing a number on him.

  Rapid footsteps from behind announced the arrival of Darya. "Here. Chew this." She proffered a handful of spotted leaves at Lyle. He did as ordered without complaint.

  Right away, his complexion improved even as his face contracted in distaste. He asked around the mouthful, "What iff.."

  Darya brushed him off. "Stop talking. Start chewing. In fact, if you can talk, there's room for more." She pushed another handful at him and he gracelessly accepted.

  "Will he be okay?" Arack asked as she approached from the side. The little lizard appeared completely unharmed, albeit with a worried expression.

  Darya looked him over before nodding. "Should be. Benneth has had me crafting my own emergency pack. This should nullify most mild poisons."

  Relieved, I let myself plop down on the ground, blood and dirt be damned. "Wow. That was too close." Nobody responded verbally, but there were nods all around. Atlas came walking out into the clearing and I accessed the bond again. What came flowing towards me could only be described as embarrassment. I sent assurance, comfort, and unconditional love back at him. "It's not your fault, Atlas. If they were able to detect you, they would have noticed any of us." The sense of remorse lessened slightly. Instead, I received a mental message - loud and clear: "Come." Intrigued, I got up and followed the large lizard as he shuffled across the clearing towards the tree line. He stopped right before entering into the forest proper. Leaves, branches and stones lay scattered all over the place, but I saw nothing to draw the attention. "What am I looking at here?" I murmured with a questioning tone.

  With great care, he opened his mouth and lifted one end of a branch to place it on a rock - and then stepped on the center of the branch with a loud crack.

  "Oh." I was flabbergasted, as I had to do some mental reevaluation of how clever Atlas really was. Not only was he apparently able to learn how to talk, he was also capable of understanding his own errors and feeling remorse. "Atlas," I said, keeping my tone of voice earnest and my feelings centered on reassurance, "you are doing great. Learn from your mistakes and improve. We'll reach great heights, you and me." I knelt beside him and started scratching his neck. "Besides, I've got no clue if you're getting any of this, or if I'm just talking to myself here. Might as well join the others - and scratch you a little more. C'mon."

  We returned to the others. Lyle was looking a lot better already. Even though his hit points were still low, he'd regained his color and composure. He was busy rinsing his mouth with water. Darya was reclaiming her arrows and Arack looked like she was still hopped up on adrenaline. She was all over the place, fingers tapping her side and moving fitfully. I took a round, collecting materials from the downed Gyrespit before dropping to the ground near the others. I coughed and addressed the group. "Sooo - sitrep?"

  Darya nodded and sat down. The others stared and Lyle burst out, "What?"

  "Sitrep. It means..." My voice trailed out as I realized I had no clue what it stood for, nor how to explain it. "Lil' help here, Darya?"

  With a muffled laugh, she came to the rescue. "Sitrep. It means situation report - typical boy thing to make up fancy words about us talking about the battle and our status."

  "Yes. That. Let's see how everybody's doing, and if there's anything to learn from the battle."

  Arack jumped into it immediately. "Can I start? Because I've just figured out one very, very important thing."

  "I don't see why not."

  She performed an elaborate bow. "Thing is - I've realized that I'm amazing. Awe-inspiring. I'll, like, have to insist that you call me the Whirlwind Warrior from now on."

  I burst out in laughter along with the rest. "Ooookay there, warrior. Good start. I'll have to agree on the amazing part. Anything else you'd like to add?"

  She nodded emphatically. "Yeah, sending in a knight in heavy armor against somebody who's almost as good as evading as I am? That's dumb. We should stop doing that."

  We all agreed on that, Lyle most of all. He added, "Yeah, no disagreement here. Maybe I should've just pulled back and let you all take potshots from behind the trees or something?"

  "Hrm. Might work," Darya said. "Might also allow them to focus on us one at a time and wear us down. Hard to tell. Best approach with a group like this would still be doing what we planned, only without the mess." She walked over to Atlas and started caressing him. "No hard feelings, though, baby. Who's a wonderful chameleon? You are."

  I rolled my eyes. "Babytalk aside… all in all, I'd say we salvaged it pretty well. Wonderful accuracy from the two of you, Arack and Darya. And Lyle, don't beat yourself up. You did a fine job at presenting a nice, fat target so the rest of us could do some damage. We'll just need to get you some better armor for the legs and face. I only have one addition - Arack - please don't do this again. I know you're incredibly agile, but one miss and they'd have skewered you. I can tell you this much: I'm not going to go back to Videk and Darek to tell them that their princess died because I failed to teach you the meaning of caution. Yes, if I'd moved in to take the brunt of the attack, I might have died - but I'd be Reborn, only slightly the worse for wear. Can you say the same for yourself?"

  She folded her arms over her chest, sulking. "But they weren't even close to hitting me."

  "I don't care. If you risk yourself needlessly from now on, I will stop bringing you into battle. Both you and Lyle could've made it out without trouble, and Darya could have helped with the poison."

  "That's a load of crap. You didn't even know that Darya could help with the poison beforehand."

  I pointed at her to berate her further... and then let my hand drop."Heh. Good point. That one's on all of us, however, for not talking about that when we knew they were poisonous. Regardless, my point stands. I'd love to keep you as part of the group, but only if you intend to show me that you're in it for the long haul."

  Her mumbled response could charitably be interpreted as an "all right," so I let the topic lie for the time being. I clapped my hands together and asked, "So how is everybody? Any lingering injuries or damages, or do we go for the full trio?"

  Everybody insisted that they were ready to go. Darya raised an eyebrow at Lyle, and he elaborated, "Well, I'm not good, but by the time we arrive, any lingering poison should be over and done with."

  "Good enough, and glad to hear it. There's nothing wrong with coming back tomorrow, but I'll have to admit I'd like to end the day with a clear victory. Which leads us to...you, Darya? What're we going to be up against?"

  She grimaced. "Let's get going. We'll talk on the way." She stretched and cracked her neck. "We're a couple of hours out, and I'd like to get there while it's still light."

  We packed up and left. This time around, we wasted little time cleaning up after ourselves. Nature would soon take care of it.

  The trip was going to be cross-country all the way. Darya suggested, "Or we could go to the caravan route, follow it for a while, and then go back towards our target. Would be faster. Except we're not doing that. We'll start working on an emergency pack for each of you. Not debating this either. You all need it."

  Nobody dared to tell her no. With the last battle fresh in our minds, it was easy to see that we needed some basic emergency items.

  "About our target, though. Lyle and Arcangelo, you both know the place - it's the kobold village where we found Othell the first time." To Arack, she added, "That's the demonologist who was responsible for attacking the caravans all these years."

  Arack
goggled. "A demonologist? That's pretty bad news, isn't it?"

  "Yeah. That's also the reason we need to go back there. You see, in all the commotion that his defeat caused, nobody thought about Othell pursuing his demonic experiments down in the ruins of the temple." She took a deep breath. "I'm no expert here, and Benneth was already repeating what Mallard had told him, so I might not be saying it right. The way I understood it, though - if you leave something like an experiment or a summoning or magic circle left untended, it can cause issues. Bad issues. The circle is permanent until it's canceled, except you will need to impose your will and magical direction on it from time to time. Otherwise the magic... wears away at the instructions, or something."

  Arack tilted her head. "Wouldn't that just, like, cause the summoning to disappear?"

  She nodded. "That's what I thought. Except it would seem that the magic itself maintains the circle or summoning. Only... well, the purpose of the circle kinda erodes with time, and what's left is just the magic itself that sort of seeps through."

  I nodded, thinking aloud. "Makes sense, sort of. Greck once explained magic to me as a huge sea, and each kind of magic was just a way of dipping your cup into the sea. Well, if you open a hole into the sea, the magic's bound to wipe away any original intentions in time. I might be talking out my behind right now, but it's logical to me." I scratched my neck. "Not sure what the result would be, though. Dark magic spilling into the temple?"

  Lyle added in a gravelly voice, "Or the destruction of the Kingdom of Selrahc." We all turned towards him and he continued, "It's part of one of my books. The king of Selrahc, King Naed, had turned to necromancy without anybody's knowledge. After decades, when he was finally found out, he fled the country. He fought every bit of the way, however, using the amassed legions of dead from his country - and the intentional decay of magical rituals fed with necromantic power. To date, the kingdom is still a lifeless ruin, and there are harsh penalties on anybody who leaves an active circle or ritual, especially on purpose." He walked a bit further before he realized that the rest of us were just standing there, staring at him. He stammered, "I - I mean, not that that's what I think is-" He visibly gathered himself before continuing, "That was the work of tons of circles, intentionally planted to be used as magical warfare. I was just trying to say this is serious."

  A nervous snort escaped me. "Well, you had me fooled for a second there. Thanks for the lesson, though! It's good to know that it's nothing to joke around with. How do we know Othell left something behind, though?"

  Darya nodded in approval. "I was just about to get to that." She grimaced. "Benneth said he’d originally scouted the place to see if he could handle it by himself, and he'd spotted a dark-infested animal near the entrance. That's all I know, however."

  "Damn. So that's what it does. That dark-infested wolverine of Othell's was a pain. Which animal are we talking here?"

  From the look on Darya's face, just describing it hurt her. "A... maggot."

  Arack jumped in, "I don't get it. So what? We smoosh them and disable the summoning thing. Most maggots are pretty good eating, by the way."

  "Ew. Yeah, I'm never trusting you with cooking," Lyle said.

  Darya swallowed. "Crushing them is less easy when they're ankle-height."

  Silence reigned as we tried to picture a group of super-sized maggots. I snapped my fingers. "Farts. This is going to be nasty. I get it, though. They did have that ugly pile of corpses right next to the summoning circle. Nasty magic spills from experiment, endangers world by creating nastier, gigantic larvae. Sucks to be us."

  Our talented half-orc was true to her word. As we walked, she started pointing out interesting plants and berries, and once in a while, we stopped to harvest some items for our individual emergency kits. Arack was as lively as ever, asking questions every other second, until even Darya was left unable to respond.

  "That's... I'm not sure why that combination works, really. It just does. You'd have to ask Benneth - or maybe Naevys - she knows just about anything about plants and animals. Greck would too, I guess, only it's hard to find him sober - or just drunk enough."

  For myself, I managed to pilfer a handful of Gentleberries that apparently increased the mana regeneration rate slightly, and some Durghen root. Crushed and applied as a powder, it would be able to stop bleeding, albeit in a painful manner. Arack was less hesitant. Her pockets and bags bulged from being stuffed with every single thing Darya thought might be used for alchemical concoctions. Lyle listened attentively to every word out of Darya's mouth and ended up with a good bunch of items as well. Maybe his close brushes with death had taught him something? Heh. Sure.

  On the walk, I managed to get a good overview of the items from our recent battles. Exogenics hadn't been stingy with the items, and I looked forward to getting busy crafting. Each of the dozen beasts had dropped a piece of [Gyrespit Carapace.] Lyle had insisted on claiming those. He believed they might be used to craft armor similar to the Viper scales. For myself, I'd claimed 19 [Gyrespit Legs] and 12 [Gyrespit Tooth] of common rarity, as well as a double handful of other, nastier body parts of uncommon quality. Vertebrae, eyes, and, yup, [Gyrespit Intestines.] Somebody really needed to get over that fetish, post-haste. Darya had laid claim to the largest pile of items, though. She'd had us scour the entire clearing to gather all the remaining [Gyrespit Quills.] She believed she'd be able to repurpose them into arrows and perhaps retain the poison effect.

  Two and a half hours, two skill-ups to Lore - Dawnlight Forest and one to Crafting Lore later, we stood gathered at the far end of the decrepit kobold village, staring in dismay.

  Lyle was the first one to speak. "Beren help me, I thought the place was a dump before. Can we go dish out some punishment already, Arcangelo?"

  "Spoken like a true paladin - very nice." Even playing at a devil-may-care attitude, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the sight before me. About ten [Dark-infested Maggots] were wriggling through the village, leaving a slimy, black trail behind them wherever they moved. From the looks of it, the slime slowly destroyed whatever it touched, be it plants, wood, or grass. "Gillem's going to kill me when I bring back my clothes to him for cleaning. Ah well, at least I can claim truthfully that it was for a good cause." I faced the others. "We're probably going to find more maggots, the farther we go - and unless my guess is wrong, they're going to be even larger. So this is essentially practice for what we're about to enter. At least they're slow. I say we pull one or two, take turns seeing how much damage we can do to them."

  "Pull?" I was never going to stop being entertained by Lyle's face when he was perplexed. Even when it made sense that he didn't know the lingo.

  "Yeah, attack one of them and attract their ire." Darya stood, rolled her shoulders, and did a test pull on her bow string. The movement did wonderful things to her posture. "I'll go first; see what I can do." She caught me with a stern gaze, "and you, stop drooling and focus."

  I grinned at her, not at all remorseful. " Yes, ma'am."

  All business now, she let her gaze include the rest of our motley crew. "Now. Those maggots look pretty disgusting but, above all, slow. No obvious weak spots, so our best bet's probably to aim for the head. See the dark areas around their mouths? Probably armor like on that damn wolverine. Aim around it if you can." She pointed back behind us. "Now, if we back off that way, we'll have a free path at our backs for at least a couple of hundred meters. We'll be falling back while fighting unless they're weaker or slower than it looks."

  I jumped in, "That means no heroic last stands from you, Lyle. You hear?" His blush and averted glance was response enough. I grinned at him. "All right, I'll lay off. I've only got one thing to add. We have no idea how the dark magic has altered those nauseating things – armor's the only thing we know for sure. Stay alert, keep a distance where you can, and look out for each other."

  A series of nods confirmed agreement, and Darya spoke over the silence. "Any last words?" Then, with a feral grin, she raised the bow, aim
ed at the nearest maggot and let loose.

  I've had a couple of nasty experiences during my time inside World of Chains. Some of them were of the types to burn images into the retina as a mental keepsake for later. Being beaten to death by fists, claws, and teeth – that was one. Being charged by a giant viper, another. Tortured by... all right, enough of that list. Regardless, after this day, I'd be able to add another image to the set. The presence of eight huge, bloated maggots keening and bearing down on us in a slithering, writhing mess hit some primordial terror I didn't even know I had inside. And the sounds... you wouldn't think that a maggot moving would create any sort of sound, but they did. Words like 'putrid' and 'moist' came to mind – something reminiscent to the sound of a steak sizzling on a pan.

  Whatever. I'm just trying to come up with a decent excuse for missing my first Sonic Missile entirely. Hell, it wasn't anywhere near the foremost maggot, and the terrain was as flat and open as it could get within a forest. Darya’s attack was spot-on, however. She timed it with the opening of the maggot's mouth, and it disappeared into the belly of the beast, removing over half its health. Two daggers followed, sinking into the still-open mouth and leaving it with only a sliver of health. Darya's next arrow sank into the outer ridges of its gaping maw, but the damage was still enough to cause the large beast sink to the ground. The remaining maggots didn’t even seem to notice its demise, bearing down on us.

  I shook myself and fired off a Sonic Wave in an attempt to redeem my blundered attack. Even before the wave had torn its way through the ranks of approaching monsters, I’d braced myself and let a Stream of Songs fly. The dark waves of magic poured from me in a gleeful explosion of carnage, as if they had been waiting to be released. The attacking beasts cared not the least. In their defense, they probably only had been bestowed a handful of brain cells between the lot. Keening, they charged on and ground themselves to death against the magic that streamed from me.