“You humans have a good saying for what came next – when it rains it pours. Before Gino’s body was even cold, the first creditor showed up on his doorstep. He was accompanied by a lawyer and a couple city guards with documents confirming his rights to the house and gladiator school. In just a few days, he got his grubby paws on all Gino’s property and bank accounts.”
She suddenly looked up and glanced at me in surprise, as if having remembered something important:
“Another thing. I’m positive that scumbag was not able to pocket your share of the money from selling the female whipsnake. An enterprising gnome showed up with a stack of papers, demanding your portion. You should have seen the sour looks from those creditors and lawyers. How’d you pull that one off?”
I chuckled. Madi Belvokrut. We had concluded our agreement just in the nick of time.
“My attorney,” I decided to explain. “You’ve gotta watch your step around guys like that. Give him and inch and he’ll take a mile!”
“Pf… Gnomes…” Dobbess didn’t hesitate to throw in his two copper.
Based on his intonations, I couldn’t tell if it was scorn or respect. I had heard goblins and gnomes don’t always get along. I know one thing for sure. You certainly can’t call them friends.
Pinebogey just rolled his eyes impotently at that clarification.
“I already have an approximate idea of what happened next,” I encouraged Midori.
A shadow fell on the dryad’s face.
“We were all thrown out onto the street. After Gino died, it turned out we were not family after all. Juvess was first to leave. Went back to his own kind. As it turns out, Ironville is home to a large goblin diaspora.”
I deliberately turned my head toward Dobbess. Backing up the dryad, he gave an important nod and mustered a significant expression.
“Leonia went back to her family,” Midori continued. “Tusk went south. Then, Takeda came and offered to enlist me in service to the Steel King.”
That made me frown. My intuition seemed to be wailing. Something is wrong here!
“And now you’re just telling me this?”
The dryad shrugged her shoulders, baffled. Her emerald eyes flew wide open. Seemingly, the unexpected revelations were surprising her no less than me.
“I myself don’t even understand why… After all, I’m saddled with an oath of secrecy, but I feel like I can trust you. There is something long forgotten in you… Something that reminds me of home… I broke a loyalty oath given to the King himself, but the Great System is not punishing me!”
I turned to Dobbess and Pinebogey, baffled.
Based on the goblin’s gaping expression, he was just as confused as me. The same could not be said for Pinebogey. He seemed to know what was up.
“She doesn’t see you as an enemy because you contain a modicum of the Heart of the Forest,” he said and added: “I can sense it as well.”
Hm… So that’s Pinebogey’s secret. That means… He must have been the reason the necromancers could all detect me. I wonder if he knows that. I would also like to know what a forest elemental is doing among the forces of chaos. Spying? Unlikely. It can’t be too easy to get one over on the Snake. There must be another hidden factor.
“But how can that be!” the dryad exclaimed and shot to her feet with an alarmed expression. “My Tree died long ago, as did my home forest! Such a thing is simply not possible!”
“Actually it is,” Pinebogey responded peremptorily. “Those dedicated to the Forest, remain loyal for all time. No matter how long it’s been.”
“Then I definitely don’t understand what this kid has to do with the Great Forest.” the dryad turned her baffled gaze on me.
“Don’t you think I want to know too, little one?” Pinebogey responded. “Ever since he appeared in our citadel, I have been able to sense the Call of the Forest.”
Three pairs of eyes stared at me inquisitively.
I was in no hurry to respond. I could see already that the Goddess Fate had brought some very curious individuals into my path. And I should take full advantage of that gift.
Pinebogey called the dryad little. What was that about? Was he really the same Pinebogey the Woodwose had referred to as a potential keeper? A primordial woodsman at the service of chaos? Odd.
In the meantime, a bold plan sprouted in my head.
“First of all,” I began. “Now that I know you’ve been dedicated to the Forest, you will never see me as an enemy.”
I took the Friend of the Forest amulet from my ephemeral pocket.
“But you could only have gotten that amulet from…”
Pinebogey looked thrown off for the first time.
“The Heart of the Forest,” I finished. “But that isn’t all. You did indeed sense its Call.”
The next thing I took from my pocket was the pinecone the Woodwose gave me.
While Midori looked on with utterly childlike curiosity, Pinebogey darted to my side the instant he saw the amulet. Now he looked like old man Krato, who lived one street over and spent his whole life as a city guardsman. He gained weight in his old age and got flabby, but every time he ran into a younger colleague on the street, he still tried to stand up straight and give a dignified salute.
“Is that what I think it is?” Pinebogey muttered.
“Most likely,” I nodded calmly. “It’s a summoning amulet. And right now, it is telling me that there is one potential keeper in its range.”
Midori and Dobbess both turned towards Pinebogey at once. Seems like the goblin knows what he’s dealing with.
“I got this amulet from the Woodwose with an instruction to be very meticulous in choosing a candidate.”
“A candidate for what exactly?” Pinebogey asked, hiccupping.
Pulling my hand from my pocket, I slowly unclenched my fist. There was a little seed on my palm enshrouded in light green magic glow.
“To become Keeper of the Heart of the Forest.”
Before I finished up, much to my surprise, Pinebogey and Midori slowly dropped to their knees. I saw tears of awe and joy welling up in their eyes. Only then did I truly comprehend what a gift the Great Tree had given me.
Chapter 11
IT HAD BEEN several hours since jumping to this anomaly. And night was falling in the forest, or rather the small scrap of woodland where we found ourselves. My companions were dozing away peacefully. It was my turn to keep watch. Sitting on the soft grass, I leaned up against Gorgie’s hot side, analyzing the situation over and over.
By the way, my fear that I had been unconscious for a long time after crossing over was not justified ― I had only spent a few minutes passed out. The instant cooldown on all my abilities and spells, immediate refilling of supplies and removal of all effects both negative and positive was just yet another of the labyrinth’s little quirks.
I was in two minds about that odd little fact. On one side of the scale is the risk of crossing over into an unknown anomaly without protection or any other positive effects, while the other holds complete replenishment of supplies, access to all spells and zeroing out of all negative effects. It isn’t so easy to say which side outweighs the other. Finding one’s self in a relatively safe location is one thing. But it would be another thing entirely to have the labyrinth spit you out, for example, over the top of a recently awoken volcano. Although, if such a thing were to happen, none of my shields would be much use. And if I also somehow lost consciousness like this time, I’d be done for.
That same factor had played a mean joke on Midori. Her high-level masking spell had been undone. Thankfully, she had an amulet she could use to refresh the spell. And it was hard not to be happy about that. Wherever she will return to after the labyrinth’s invitation, they will be expecting an Atrian not a dryad.
And that place will not just be any old portal, but the Citadel of the Order of Mages. And that was where she had been sent by the Steel King’s court mage Magister Sato to infiltrate and spy in the guise of a des
ert warrior woman.
The thing was that, even without a magic supply, dryads had particular abilities related to camouflage and stealth. I had seen a few of them in action while we were travelling to the capital.
The question of whether to agree to serve the King or not was essentially not posed. Midori had simply been told she would do so as fact, first by Captain Takeda who came to get her then, in his suburban manor, Magister Sato said the same. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one Gino the old goat had betrayed. He had probably been keeping them abreast of his familiar’s particular talents, which he himself was nurturing as her master. Otherwise, why would figures such as Sato and Takeda be interested in some dryad who was just level twelve. For fairness’ sake I should note that the outcast dryad, left without a master or roof over her head, had seized upon the offer to serve the crown like a drowning person grasping at straws.
Her new masters appreciated both her abilities and zeal as their new ward. After infiltrating the Order of Mages, the Atrian/Dryad had learned in short order how to pass the test and get a pass to visit the Labyrinth of Fright without herself being a mage. And all that time, she had been unfailingly sending information back to her new masters about the goings on inside the Order, an organization which had, by the way, grown plainly rotten over the years, consumed by the mold of nitpicking, bribery and nepotism.
While Midori quite literally poured her soul out to us, I was struck by the fact that most of the highest placed members of the Order of Mages were in fact not mages at all. I was reminded of Master Chi and his subsequent capital punishment. Knowing now a few more details, I looked in a new light at my former captor, may his black soul burn in the Abyss. If the Order’s executioners hadn’t stood in his way, I’m scared to even imagine what he could have become. Especially with my help…
The reason I was worried about what might come next for the dryad had to do with the fact that, starting today, Midori would be spying for me as well. And totally voluntarily. Beyond that, I was not interested in the Order of Mages, or the Steel King. The only thing I wanted to know was where they were keeping Mee.
As for Pinebogey though… the Primordial did not appear to be sleeping either. He was lying near me and his animal eyes were slightly glimmering in the darkness.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked quietly.
“Could anyone after something like that?”
“We have a tough day ahead of us,” I reminded him and took a fleeting glance at the waterfall. According to the amulet, that was precisely where I would find the passage to the next anomaly. If the invitation to transport to the citadel never came, sooner or later we’d have to move on.
“I know…” Pinebogey sighed. “But there’s nothing I can do about it. It looks like you still don’t fully comprehend what you possess. You’re just too relaxed about it.”
He’s partially correct. But not one hundred percent. When I saw Pinebogey and Midori weeping while kneeling before me, it reached me fully. I knew before what the little seed they were literally praying to could become. But I did not suspect what it would mean to the foresters.
Meanwhile, Pinebogey continued:
“As an aside, are you aware that this is the first Heart of the Forest I have heard the call of in my many years? I don’t even know what it will be like when it grows up. The last one was destroyed several hundred years before I came into this world. You saw one in another world though, right? What was it like?”
The woodsman’s eyes were shimmering with excitement. He even came a bit closer. He now looked like a curious child.
“Huge,” I answered. “Highly powerful…” I spent a bit of time in silence, remembering how it felt, then added: “Scary… but at the same time kind and just.”
A happy smile beamed back at me from Pinebogey’s bearded countenance.
“To be frank,” I muttered thoughtfully. “I still can’t figure how the Black Widow was able to subdue it.”
The primordial’s face went gloomy.
“There are ways,” he muttered. “Chaos is more powerful than Forest. Or rather, some of its forces…”
The silence held for a while, and Pinebogey was first to break it.
“You’d probably like to know what I’m doing among the forces of chaos.”
“To be honest, not especially,” I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s none of my business.”
Pinebogey stared at me. After that, clearly having made up his mind, he gave a short nod.
“Ever heard the expression: An enemy of my enemy, is my friend?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Do chaos and forest share a common enemy?”
“Yes,” the primordial responded. “Darkness.”
I shuddered and frowned. Then Pinebogey continued:
“It’s weak against Forest and weak against Chaos, but its archnemesis was Light.”
“Why ‘was?’“
“Because the last primordial Light mage was slain in the Age of the Dead Wars.”
“So you’re saying…?”
“Yes,” the old man nodded. “King Nidas was the last of the primordial Light mages.”
I felt a troop of ants go marching up my spine. Gorgie shuddered and looked up. I could read a question in his unsettled eyes.
“Everything is fine,” I mentally reassured him and turned to Pinebogey:
“So, has the Labyrinth ever shown you that anomaly before?”
“No,” Pinebogey replied. “But every primordial knows what happened on that day. The Steel King, with the support of the necromancers, allowed Darkness to enter our world and became its first magister. Nidas’s brother, by the way, also served with distinction.”
“Yes,” I nodded gloomily. “One of the guardsmen told me.”
“Must be pretty different from what you learned in school, eh?” Pinebogey chuckled bitterly.
“Indeed…” I snorted. “What happened after that?”
“After that came a time you humans call the Age of the Dead Wars. The dark mages and necromancers had a simple plan. Kill everyone that could pose a threat to their rule.”
“Forest and Chaos,” I whispered.
“Exactly,” Pinebogey nodded and gave a bitter smirk. “But alas, neither my forebearers the foresters, nor the forces of chaos were able to soberly assess what a great threat they were up against. And that made it impossible to discuss joining forces against a common enemy. As a matter of fact, even thinking of it was most likely out of the question. And in the aftermath, almost all citadels of chaos were destroyed along with all the Great Forests. The most powerful and elder Primordials fled to other worlds, taking with them the few remaining scraps of their ancient majesty. More minor Primordials meanwhile just hoofed it to the most desolate corners of this world. That was what my grandma and grandpa did, for example.”
I rubbed my chin in confusion.
“So do the chronicles contain a single word of truth about the Dead Wars?”
“What makes you ask that?” Pinebogey objected. “Everything they say about the demise of the necromancer army was recorded faithfully. He-he… I can see in your eyes you don’t understand. It happened just the way they said. The Steel King used the necromancers to his own ends, but after they had completed their mission, he declared a Holy War against them. And the way he did it is why darkness is considered equivalent to death magic to this day. Even though they’re totally different. As a matter of fact, the Steel King stayed so far behind the scenes that his victory over the necromancers ended up being ascribed to the Order of Mages. Even though, at the time, they were just a bunch of middling sorcerers. However, the true victor took the Emperor’s throne in the end. And his descendants would be ruling a united Empire down to current day if not for one other enemy.”
My heart aflutter, I was hanging on the primordial’s every word even though I already knew what was coming.
“The monster hunters,” Pinebogey said. “The order, which was founded by a mere fisherman to push back Darkness, amassed power in
a short time span. Beyond that, these hunters were somehow able to close the otherworldly portals whence the minions of darkness derived their magic.”
As I listened to Pinebogey, I was trying not to let a single muscle twitch on my face.
“Needless to say, among the common people, who were fed up with dark beasts intruding upon their settlements, the hunters’ reputation was immediately sky high. And no wonder! They are of the people, and they slay beasts.” Pinebogey turned onto his right side and continued his tale. “The current Steel King’s forebearer at that time didn’t pay much attention to the hunters’ growing popularity. He was more concerned with the portals. And more specifically the fact they were being closed. As a result, he decided to take care of the nuisance himself, but first he took out an insurance policy. The Emperor sent provocateurs by the hundreds, who started to sling mud at the hunters, portraying them in a bad light and blackening their reputation. I must note ― the effort to discredit the order of hunters was completed very quickly. It got to the point that they stopped even letting them enter cities and villages. Heh… Human memory is short. And at that very moment, the Steel King decided to strike out at the magister of the order. He decided to do so himself.”
Labyrinth of Fright (Underdog Book #5): LitRPG Series Page 12
