by Dante King
He must have been out of his mind.
The closest he’d ever come to a real fight before coming to this world, let alone something as potentially deadly as this, was a fistfight he had had back in high school with some asshole named Josh Barnes, this prick who’d thought it was funny to shoot spitballs at the back of his head during biology class. Ben managed to hold his own during the fight after the bell went, but that had just been some stupid scrape between teenagers. This fight was likely to end up with a bunch of dead bodies. Hopefully all of them would be ogre bodies.
Ben took a few calming deep breaths, trying to get his heart rate to calm a bit.
“What do we know, Melody?” he asked.
Melody, the beautiful catgirl, glanced up at him from where she sat against the thick trunk of a nearby tree, a curious expression on her insanely gorgeous face.
Ben continued to speak, more talking aloud to himself than anything else. “We know that there are at least five of those mountain ogres in the village. Possibly more hiding in those huts.” He began counting items off on his fingers. “They also look strong as hell. Right?”
Melody nodded. “The mountain ogres rely on their immense strength for victory in combat against weaker races.”
“So, brawn-over-brains types.” He counted that off. “Anything else you know about them?”
“This particular species of ogre is not known for sophistication in craftsmanship,” she added.
“OK, perfect—big muscles wielding shitty weapons.” He counted that off as well. “So unless they’ve managed to steal weapons, they’re probably not well armed. Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen any weapons among them while we’ve been watching. I’m going to assume they’re not very smart either, right?”
Melody nodded. “They are brutish and ruthless, but not cunning.”
“Hmm.” He paced across the hilltop again, reflecting. “So, if their advantage is raw muscle, then ours needs to be tactics. If we don’t play it smart, they could easily beat us through simple physical strength. We need to outwit them somehow.”
Melody smiled as he spoke. “The Forgotten Ruler was always known for his brilliant use of strategy.”
It was encouraging to have her vote of confidence, though he still needed to actually come up with the strategy.
“We have the element of surprise,” Ben continued. “And the ogres aren’t exactly tactical masterminds. So, we ought to be able to distract them pretty easily.”
He slapped his knee with satisfaction. “Can we create a distraction, Melody? You could cast a spell. Your lightning spells would really stand out in this light.”
“Then what?” she asked. “A distraction will not last forever.”
“We can grab the prisoners and run to safety. You know these woods, right? We can hide away until they give up and leave.”
Melody shook her head. “We need to enter these ruins in order to recover your strength, in order to find the artifacts. And the ogres will not give up these prisoners so easily.”
“You don’t think we can hide from them?” Ben asked. He was beginning to get the distinct impression they were actually going to have to fight these ogres head on.
“Prisoners like these,” Melody gestured in the direction of the village, “monster girls. They are rare and will fetch a very high price. These ogres will do anything to recover them. I don’t believe they’d be willing to simply let them go.”
“How would they find us though?” Ben persisted. “These woods are huge. Wouldn’t it be easy to just…keep running? We’d have to be able to lose them eventually.”
“The ogres may not be known for their intelligence,” Melody countered. “But they do have keen senses, particularly of smell and hearing. They are excellent trackers, and they will find us.” There was a note of finality in her tone.
“Well, so much for that plan.” Ben put his hands on his hips and went back to staring out at the village in the deepening gloom, trying to think of a plan.
“Could you defeat them?” he asked. “You have some powerful magic. Couldn’t you just…blow them up from a distance? Shoot fireballs or something?”
Melody shook her head. “I am not that powerful.”
He chuckled. “You and I might have very different definitions of powerful. In my world, someone who can shoot a thousand volts out of a wooden stick would definitely be considered powerful.”
“Your words are kind, Benjamin.” She smiled. “But my strength is not what it once was. I lost much of it when I traveled to your world.”
“How so?” he asked.
“The magic I had to perform to make such a dangerous journey cost me much,” Melody said. There was unmistakable sadness in her voice.
“And you gave that up to bring me here?” Ben felt a twinge of guilt. How much, exactly, had she given up to bring him here?
Melody smiled. “I would do it all again. We need you here, Benjamin.”
“What can we do to get your power back?” he asked. He was grateful beyond words that Melody had made this sacrifice for him, but he didn’t want it to be a permanent sacrifice—not if he could do anything about it.
“Don’t worry, Benjamin. I will regain my power in time. And you will grow in strength beyond anything you could imagine. You are the answer to these problems. Your increased power will make your followers stronger also.”
Melody’s words reassured Ben. He was excited to see how much they could grow in strength. “One step at a time then,” Ben said. “First we need a plan to defeat those ogres.”
Thinking his plans over was definitely one of his strengths. He’d never liked going into a new situation without knowing the “hows” and “whys.”. He wasn’t one of those idiots who brazenly dashed into danger without a moment’s consideration. But he'd never had to plan for combat with monstrous slavers who would make any linebacker look like a dwarf.
Fortunately, it seemed like the ogres were settling in for the night. A carcass was roasting over the fire in the middle of the clearing, the smell of cooking meat drifting all the way over to where they were hidden. And one of the mountain ogres had tapped a barrel of some liquid, presumably some sort of ale, though he had no way of knowing from our distance.
The smell of roasting meat made Ben’s stomach growl. He realized with surprise that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday evening. He’d been too caught up with the events of today to even think about breakfast. He remembered he had a couple of snacks in his rucksack. Ben didn’t know if whatever the ogres were roasting down there would be particularly appetizing.
“Any idea what they’re cooking down there, Melody?” Ben asked.
Melody sniffed the air and shook her head. “I couldn’t say for sure. It looks like a large animal though. If I remember rightly from what I read back in the Arcanarium, the mountain ogres have a fondness for bear flesh.”
“No, thank you.” Ben laughed drily.
“You’ve never eaten bear?” she asked. “It’s quite good—if not somewhat sweet.”
“I’ll stick to meat that moos or oinks, if you don’t mind.”
The mountain ogres took turns drinking straight out of the barrel. Typical barbarians—or at least, typical according to what he'd learned about fictional barbarians in video games or D & D. Harsh shouts and snatches of some ugly song drifted up to them from where they were beginning their revelry.
“Looks like there are more of them,” Ben said to Melody as he gestured at a few additional ogres stepping out of the to join their comrades around the fire.
Melody looked where Ben indicated. “I count seven,” she said. “And an eighth marching toward the entrance of the village.”
Ben worried for a moment that this one might be coming toward them. He didn’t think we’d made enough noise to be detected. But then the ogre stopped between two collapsed pillars that appeared to be the remnants of an archway. It looked like he was going to be on watch duty for the time being.
Ugly as the campf
ire songs of the mountain ogres were, hearing the boisterous noises gave Ben something to consider. He'd fought werebats earlier, barely sentient beings likely acting on pure instinct. Even so, he'd managed to pull their emotions out of them, drain them, use them against his enemies.
These mountain ogres, they were monsters like the werebats, but they were also different. If he could use the barely-there emotions of werebats to turn a fight in his favor, what could he do with actual, sentient beings with more developed emotions?
Could he drain their courage and make them flee? His mind raced with all of the possibilities at his disposal. And it was enough to cause a small smile to spread across his lips.
“What are you thinking, Benjamin?” Melody’s voice interrupted his line of thinking, and Ben realized he'd been standing in silence for several minutes.
With a snap of his fingers, Ben spun on his toes to face her. “I think I have a plan. I can use Drain to beat these assholes.”
Melody nodded slowly, her form becoming indistinct in the fading light. “You will need much mana to defeat them though.”
“That’s right.” Ben nodded. “I need to replenish my supply of mana. Can you refine the mana crystal you absorbed from those werebats?”
“I can.” Melody still sounded a little reluctant. “But you should be cautious about relying on mana crystals. You will need to be careful how much mana you consume, or else you may become sick.”
He remembered how Melody had warned of this earlier. “Don’t worry about me—I’m nothing if not careful. And I think I know exactly how much I’ll need to win the fight.”
“How will you do that?” Melody asked, curiosity in her voice.
“I’ll use their strength against them. But to do that, I need to test Drain on a living creature.”
“What will you test it on?” Melody sounded concerned. Ben got the immediate impression she thought he was implying that he would test his magic on her. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“I’ll have to capture one of the ogres,” Ben said, squaring his shoulders and trying not to think too hard about how he would actually pull that off.
Melody didn’t respond for a moment. Her head was tilted to the side, and she appeared to be thinking hard. Finally, she let out a soft sigh—one that almost sounded like resignation. “You are the Forgotten Ruler, Benjamin. I have confidence in you. I know you will carry out your plan to the best of your ability.”
“I know this is kind of an insane plan, but I know we can pull it off.” He took her hands in mine. “I won’t let you down.”
Melody nodded. “I believe you. But you will still need strength. Here, you must take the last of this refined mana crystal.” She fished a transparent lump out of her satchel.
“Is there any way of naturally recovering mana?” Ben asked. He knew that was possible in lots of the RPGs he had played. This was a real world of course, and not a video game, but it would be nice to have some of the same perks.
“The natural process is very slow,” Melody said. “But there are legends of powerful sorcerers who can do so at a rapid rate, taking small breaks during battle to recover their mana. Me? I have always relied upon what I could harvest from the monsters I killed.”
“Surely the Forgotten Ruler could do it, right?” Ben persisted. “If he was as powerful as you say?”
Melody smiled. “Perhaps you will be able to. We shall see.”
It was something to think about, but not where his head needed to be in that moment.
“Well, in the meantime, I’ll need that mana crystal.”
“I will make more while I wait for your return,” she said, placing the lump into his hands.
Ben held the crystal up to the gray sky. It was totally transparent. He assumed this meant it was very pure. “What do I do with it?”
“You eat it,” Melody simply stated.
He shrugged. It was strange, but he had a feeling eating a lump of clear rock would be the least weird of what he'd be experiencing in this new world. He raised the mana crystal to his mouth and bit a chunk out of it. It had the crunchy texture of hard candy and the flavor of toffee—but a very mild flavor. As he chewed, he wondered if the intensity of the flavor tied into the power of the mana.
As Ben swallowed the first mouthful, he felt energy being restored. The swirling substance inside him that he'd used to cast his Drain spell was replenished and began moving faster inside him. He hadn’t realized that he'd been depleted before, since he never knew what it was like to be full.
Ben looked around him, then clenched and unclenched his fists. His muscles throbbed and a tingling sensation ran down his limbs. He could feel his pulse slowing, and his breathing grew steady and calm.
Ben felt stronger, less worried about the trial he was about to face. And it wasn’t the wild, careless overconfidence he'd experienced after absorbing too much courage from the werebats. It was simply the knowledge that whatever happened, he had inherited the legacy of the Forgotten Ruler, and he had the power to defeat these ugly motherfuckers.
“Wait,” said Melody, placing her hand on his shoulder as he turned toward the village. “Shouldn’t I come with you?”
Ben shook his head. “This is a recon mission. With those, the fewer people, the better. And I don’t want to put you at risk trying to pull off this risky-as-hell plan.”
Worry in her eyes, she nodded. “I…I see. Then I’ll stay here and out of sight.’
His eyes flicked down at her wand. “What about that? Might be handy to take with me if my cover gets blown.”
Her eyes flashed. “That would not be a good idea, Benjamin. While you have great potential for power, you’re not yet ready to wield a wand like this. I’ve seen the less-magic-adept try to use powers they weren’t capable of handling. The result is…not pleasant.”
Ben had a brief mental flash of some newbie magic user sticking out a wand, ready to shoot a bolt of lightning, only for the spell to turn back on him.
Not the sort of thing he wanted to risk.
“Then I should get going.”
She continued to regard him with concerned eyes. “Good luck, Benjamin.”
Ben flashed her a confident smirk. “Be right back—don’t miss me too much.”
With a cautious but steady gait, he set off down the hill toward the sentry at the entrance to the village.
The tree cover thinned as he approached the village, but it was still enough for him to remain concealed in the fading light. He used the trees and the stone ruins for cover, ensuring there was never an unbroken line of sight between him and the sentry.
Ben noticed some of the collapsed stone structures more closely as he crept past them. It seemed as if some of the stone belonged to towers and walls, stretching in a long ring, far beyond the village to either side. That structure must have been truly awe inspiring, eons before now, when it was in its original condition.
Maybe he'd be the one to bring it back to its former glory.
As he got closer, Ben made out the mountain ogre sentry’s features more clearly. He was definitely not human. Humanoid, perhaps, but his face was so heavily set, and his joints so thick and graceless, he might as well have been carved out of the same weather-worn stone as the ruins he stood beside. Ben wondered if draining emotion from humanoids would be different than doing it from a normal human.
Ben was under no illusion that he could beat one of these one-on-one. The sentry was over seven feet tall, and had to weigh at least three hundred pounds. As he shifted from one leg to the other, Ben caught the gleam of a blade in the mountain ogre’s right hand, a vicious-looking scimitar. Evidently at least one of the mountain ogres had managed to steal a decent weapon. Ben would need even more caution approaching them. He wasn’t thrilled about the idea of the ogre slashing that blade across his gut.
Ben reached the last bit of cover before the archway, a low pile of stones only twenty feet away. From there, he could peer over and still see the sentry. By that poin
t he was placing every footstep with the maximum amount of care. Ben had no doubt that this guy would be all over him if he so much as snapped a twig under his foot.
The sentry lifted his head and sniffed deeply. Ben’s heart stopped. Did he smell his cologne from last night? Last thing Ben wanted was a scimitar in his neck because he went a little too heavy with the Drakkar Noir.
The sentry turned and shouted something unintelligible in the direction of the campfire. Was he calling them all over to Ben? Ben’s skin went cold and sweat ran down his brow. This would have to be the shortest reign of the Forgotten Ruler in all his history. He'd failed Melody, and the dryad prisoners.
But then the other mountain ogres started up another one of their ugly songs. The sentry must have smelled the food cooking and simply yelled something at his buddies. Ben took a breath once more, softly. The sentry hadn’t noticed Ben then, but he would eventually if Ben didn’t do something about him.
He looked formidable, and his weapon no doubt deadly. But thankfully Ben wouldn’t need to come within range of his swing. Six or seven feet ought to be enough. Hopefully Ben could get that close and cast his spell before he could attack him or alert the guys around the fire.
Ben waited for the raucous song of the ogres by the campfire to reach a fevered pitch. Then he gathered the swirling magic inside him toward his arms and clenched his fists, ready to cast a spell. Ben dashed over the low stones and sprinted toward the sentry.
Ben was only ten feet away when the savage turned and saw him. His eyes widened, and he gave a loud grunt. He swung his scimitar at Ben’s head.
Ben dove at the ground to his left and unleashed his Drain spell. As the strands that were the mountain ogre’s strengths became revealed to him, Ben snatched at one. Ben couldn’t tell which type of strand it was, but in his desperation, he tugged on it all the same. He pulled everything he could from him at once, absorbing the energy, as the ogre’s scimitar speared into the ground only an inch behind his head.
With a dull thud, the huge mountain ogre crashed to the ground beside Ben, limp. His tongue drooped out of his mouth, and his eyes were dull. What kind of energy had I drained from him? He was definitely still breathing, so Ben hadn’t completely drained the life from him.
