by Sean Oswald
Shake as hard as she could, she wasn’t able to break the tongue loose and she started to feel the burn of its acidic saliva against her bare skin in the space between her low-cut boot and the leather of her body wrap. Figuring the best thing she could do was to reach her dagger, she stretched out with her hand, but no matter how hard she reached, her fingers couldn’t quite find purchase on end of the handle. Worse yet, the frog’s tongue was trying to retract and pull her back with it. She dug her elbows into the ground and tried to pull herself forward while trying to use her free leg to kick at the tongue suctioned to her. The kicks apparently distracted the beast enough that she was able to make some slight headway, but just as soon as she thought she would reach the dagger, she was pulled back several inches, instigating a tug-a-war battle between her and the slimy tongue of this overgrown fly eater. She screamed out in frustration every time that the little progress she would make was reversed by another yank of the slimy protuberance. In desperation, she cried out to God asking for help. After the dramatic effects of the last time she cried out like this, she held her breath waiting for another breakthrough. Wait, maybe it was because she wasn’t using the name that God was known by in Eloria, Shanelle. Even after crying out to Shanelle for help, it still made no difference. She was stuck on the ground fighting out a battle of inches with her personal miniature Jabba. Apparently, some things she had to handle on her own.
As the battle dragged on, it became clear that the amphibian was much stronger than she was because she was steadily losing ground now and the dagger that had at one point been mere inches from her fingers was now over three feet away. As a last-ditch effort, she grabbed a small stone off the ground and hurled it at the beast’s eye. Thankfully, her aim was dead on, and while she didn’t get any damage notification showing that she had injured it, she was rewarded by it releasing the hold it had on her. Without wasting an instant, Emily surged forward, almost tripping in her effort to stand up before finally sighing in relief as she encircled her hand around the handle of her enchanted dagger. Her relief was short-lived though as the muscular tongue shot out at her again, this time slamming into her knee (8) and knocking her to the ground again. Despite having her legs swept out from under her, she retained the presence of mind to hold onto the dagger so that almost as quickly as she hit the ground, she lunged up in a sit-up-like maneuver to place her into position for a quick slash at the offending member holding onto her.
The tongue was neither as hard as the bony armor along its back nor as soft as the underbelly that Jackson had pommeled on the earlier frog. It was more like a tough stringy jerky in consistency, but even old leather would give way quickly to the rapid slashes of her enchanted blade. Three cuts in rapid succession, and while none of them were critical hits, they all brought varying degrees of success, landing for (2), (6), and (8) dmg respectively. It wasn’t enough to kill the beast which had something like 60 total health, but it was enough to make a bloody ruin of its tongue, which suddenly the beast couldn’t seem to pull back into its mouth fast enough. She watched with a somewhat morbid satisfaction as the tongue wouldn’t fully retract back but instead ended up with a full foot hanging out of the mouth as it bled upon the ground.
Having learned from her mistake before, Emily didn’t allow the beast a moment of respite and again lunged forward, lashing at the front leg on the right side before circling around the frog faster than it could turn and slashing again at the back leg. Each hit landed on an unarmored spot, and the blows were clearly adding up to greatly weaken her foe. It attempted another charge at her but was unable to move quickly enough with two wounded legs. Not letting up, Emily continued to dance around it, never fully committing, but each time lashing out with a quick slashing or piercing attack at one of the legs or even the side of the head under where the armor covered the top of its head. Within seconds, the little blows each worth only a few points of health added up to a dead horned bullfrog and a new notification popped up into her mind.
You have defeated: Average Horned Bullfrog Level 5. XP: 30 xTier Penalty of 50% x 2 (killing blow bonus) = 30 XP.
You have 2 new character points.
Instantly dismissing the notification, Emily looked around to see Sara seemingly safe and unbothered in her little golden bubble. Next, she noticed Dave and Jackson running toward them. Wait, was Dave bleeding from his side? Finally, her eyes shifted, and she saw Mira lying on the ground, with a frog stabbing its horns at her. Time seemed to freeze, and she took in all of what was happening. One frog lay where her flames had originally struck it, apparently charred and dead, one frog was attacking Mira’s prone form as she weakly used her arms to try to ward it away, and most confusing of all was that two of the frogs seemed to be fighting each other.
Mira was vainly struggling against the beast who was suffocating her with its mouth over her head, its acidic saliva burning into her face. She kept her eyes screwed shut even as she tried to push against the frog, not wanting any of the acid to get into her eyes. She felt her health falling by the second. Then blooming into her mind was another awareness. She could feel the frog she had charmed, felt a deep connection to it. Through that connection, she pushed the desperate cry, “Help me!”
A second later, as 5 more points of her health evaporated, she felt the beast atop her thrown from her. Too weak to even sit up, down to less than 10 health, she rolled to her side and saw that her charmed frog had charged and rammed both of its horns into the side of the frog which had been on top of her. Struggling to get up, Mira was weak, her arms shaking. Then a notification crossed her mind as the first frog she burned finally succumbed to its injuries.
You have defeated: Average Horned Bullfrog Level 5. XP: 30 xTier Penalty of 50% x 2 (killing blow bonus) x Racial Bonus = 37 XP.
You have 2 new character points.
A second identical notification popped up moments later as her charmed frog, which was uninjured, made short work of the mostly burnt frog, which had been suffocating her. The rush of XP back to back felt good and gave her enough focus to sit up just as the final frog that her Flame Fan had burnt came charging at her. She was too weak to move, to slow to roll out of the way, so she did as instinct demanded. She raised her hand up with her palm out as if to say stop to the charging monstrosity. A useless gesture of desperation at best, it would have been mere hours ago on earth, but now it was the focus of her last 25 mana as her Ice Dagger Spell erupted from her hand. The opaque icy blades spun out stabbing into the eyes of the charging frog, driving into its brain and ending its existence. That did nothing to stop its momentum; twin horns still continued forward until they were buried in her chest.
Dave and Emily both watched in horror, unable to do anything as they watched their firstborn be impaled, both too far away to be able to do anything. Emily burst into tears, and Dave cried out, “No!”
As they continued to run forward, Dave with blood pouring down his side and Emily with tears streaming down her face, they landed on their knees. Dave struggled to pull the corpse of the dead frog off his little girl. “Heal her,” he mumbled, but looking at her pale face, he knew it was too late. Time stood still and what was actually only a second seemed to drag on forever as their hearts broke and half the light of the world seemed to be quenched in an instant.
Chapter Ten
“The fragility of life is not the most shocking truth which Eloria reveals. Quite the opposite, what I find most shocking is the constant reminders of the resilience of life, of its ability to adapt and overcome, to rise forth from the ashes.” —Journal entry found in the private holdings of Emily Nelson, Daughter of Redemption.
Eris’ Rise might be too pompous of a name for a tiny logging village on the back end of nowhere, but that was what the town had finally been named by its founding elders. Many of the residents had argued for what they felt a more appropriate name, such as Land’s End, Foreston, or even Merkwood Village, but those names lacked a certain air of freedom and pride. They might describe where the town
was but didn’t say anything about the proud spirit of the people who had decided to settle here in an attempt to forge a new life for themselves and their families. Instead, they had decided to name their town after the famous celestial messenger of the goddess Shanelle. It seemed fitting, to honor the mother of redemption and second chances when that was exactly the promise that this town held for so many of its residents.
Duke Holstein had ceded land to be held in trust for the benefit of the town and the pioneers willing to risk property and even life on the wild northeastern border. This meant that none of the barons under him could restrain any of their serfs from coming to this new town. The town was meant to be under the general rule of the Duke but the direct rule of a mayor and city council. The thought was anathema to the noble houses. Except, apart from this incentive, the duke had been unable to find enough willing settlers to complete the king’s order that he establish two logging villages to harvest much-needed materials for the kingdom, and more specifically, for the army.
Sure, Duke Holstein could have sent soldiers along and made serfs travel there, but he didn’t wish to invest the resources into this effort, and truth be told, he had learned enough of the nature of man to know that a man who believes he is working for himself works twice as hard as a man working for a master. Edwin Holstein knew well that his soldiers were too much of a resource for him to squander forcing serfs to work on the border. No, Edwin was marshaling his forces and holding back as many soldiers as he could. He fulfilled the levies set by King Borstein for troops and arms, even sending his own son to fight the goblins on the western border as a gesture of his commitment to the war. In reality, it was meant to distract from the fact that he was training more soldiers and sending only the rawest and weakest of his soldiers to the goblin war, as it was being called. Unlike his neighboring dukes, Holstein was not suffering from any goblin raids, and it was his earnest hope that once the goblins had been turned back, something he took as inevitable, that his neighbors would be weakened enough to allow him to expand his duchy. It wasn’t that he was disloyal to King Borstein. Edwin had no active plans to move against the king, yet Eloria is conflict and one could never know what opportunities would present themselves to the prepared mind.
The people of Eris’ Rise couldn’t care less about the machinations of dukes and kings, or at least they cared only enough to be free of them. This was a new chance for many serfs who had poor lots in life serving on the land of various nobles. It was even a chance for an enterprising merchant, short on resources but long on dreams. There was no other place in Albia, or in any human country, that any of them had ever heard of where commoners could rule over themselves with only the slightest of obligations to the nobility. All sorts of rumors were spoken about how the elves, dwarves, and even orcs ruled their nations. There was no telling how such odd creatures might behave, but for humans, there wasn’t a better opportunity to live free than Eris’ Rise.
The duke had placed some constraints on who would be allowed to migrate to the new logging village. He made sure that no truly elderly went and only enough of those over thirty as to provide for a small-town council and mayor. The majority of the serfs allowed to migrate were those with trades or crafts involving lumber production such as logging, milling, or even general carpentry. He also allowed a limited number of slots for other tradesfolk such as a single herbalist, blacksmith, and baker. A few teamsters came along, for transporting the lumber to the interior of the kingdom would be as important as harvesting it in the first place. Duke Holstein had even allowed a small number of farmers to go to protect the sustainability of the village, and as many as possible of the men who were allowed to go were married, many with children, all to keep a growing population. Men working for themselves would work twice as hard, but men working to feed their wives and children would work themselves to death if need be.
The duke’s choices were well reasoned and actually worked to establish a full seventy men and an equal number of women and children, all of whom had the drive to try to make something out of Eris’ Rise. He also supplied a small amount of livestock, specifically cows and chickens to provide milk and eggs and potentially meat in the future. Wagons were sent with the settlers full of the initial building supplies that they would need, minus the wood of course, since they were expected to harvest that themselves. The duke even provided six months’ worth of grain. The one thing he was unwilling to provide were soldiers for protection, and so, these one hundred and forty souls were true pioneers.
Most humans had no understanding of the difference between the Merkwood and the Chenhou Forest. To them, it was all an elven forest and was hostile territory. While there was an uneasy peace between the kingdom of Albia and the Moon Elves, it was more of a peace based upon a lack of interaction between the two races than it was upon any form of understanding. Most of these humans were level 0 and Moon Elves were among the many boogie-men of Eloria which their mothers had used to frighten them into good behavior. In fact, amongst all of the people of Eris’ Rise, there were only five who had actually achieved a level. Most peasants never had the opportunity or even desire since reaching level 1 was so hard and the death rate was far beyond fifty percent for those that tried. Among those who had achieved a level, the highest of them was Talvenicus, who had been elected mayor. In his youth, he had been a mage in the armies of Albia and had won a small pension commiserate with his level 6 status and his years of service. Yet life as a crafter had been boring to him and he yearned for adventure. His wife having died in childbirth, the fifty-year-old man was pleased with the opportunity to come to Eris’ Rise, not only for himself but for his daughter, Aloysia. At twenty-one, Aloysia was the only unmarried adult woman in the village and old enough to make her father start to worry that she would never marry. He knew that she had an adventurous streak a mile wide, and he loved her for it, but as a man gets to a certain age, he looks forward to grandchildren bouncing on his knee. Aloysia had always steadfastly rejected every match he had proposed, either from the merchants or the sons of his fellow crafters. She had instead spent her time running the streets of the capital and none of his half-hearted rebukes had ever dissuaded her behavior. In some ways, it had worked for her as she had achieved level 3 and her physical activity had only enhanced her already fine figure and given a certain wild beauty to her tight blond curls and shiny blue eyes.
Beyond the mayor and his daughter, the other three residents of Eris’ Rise who were leveled were Conrad the blacksmith at level 4, Gertrude the herbalist at level 3, and the head teamster, Jarvis, at level 5. Much stock is put into levels, whether it be due to an ingrained habit of obeying the nobles who tend to have the highest of levels among humans, or for the practical aspect of wanting to have the most powerful people in positions of authority. Either way, Conrad, Gertrude, and Jarvis made up the city council of Eris’ Rise and ruled it along with Talvenicus. That ruling had consisted of organizing the labor to do the initial building necessary. A small hill served as the center of the town and was adorned with the town hall, bakery, general shop, and the jail—the last never having had a resident for anything other than drunken behavior. They also had a small mill built on the western side of the hill where it could be powered by the flow of a small but swiftly moving river that branched off of the Seinna. With the usual creativity of peasants, the river was simply called Mill River. The houses were all built-in clusters of people who seemed to bond together on the eastern side of the hill, and past the houses, a couple of small barns were built for the livestock. Even further past that was a couple of acres that had been given over to growing a limited number of crops. For now, all of the farmland and animals were owned by the village and shared in common, but the council knew that eventually the resources would have to be divvied up between the various individuals.
In the beginning of the founding of Eris’ Rise, everything was going splendidly. The citizens all rejoiced in their newfound freedom and worked hard on a unified plan. A broad flat-bott
omed boat was used to row lumberjacks across the Seinna each morning and to bring them back with the trees they had felled each evening. While even in the beginning it was not uncommon to sight a dangerous beast, they never appeared in numbers that worrisome or individuals that were strong enough to want to challenge the bows the lumberjacks brought with them. Within six months, a good chunk of land had been cleared; the main buildings and houses for all the families had been built. Even the mill was starting to be functional, so they didn’t have to ship out raw wood but were able to send milled timber. This increased the profitability of Eris’ Rise and soon they expected there to be more folk seeking permission from the duke to settle in what appeared to be a booming success.
This all changed with the first death of a lumberjack. By this time, they had succeeded in building a simple bridge across the Seinna at one of its most narrow points. Fortunately, the water was not deep, so they were able to make a functional bridge. The existence of the bridge meant that it wasn’t necessary for all of the lumberjacks to travel to work at the same time each morning. Instead, on that fateful morning, only two men had crossed just after the rising of the first sun. They were young and wanted to get a head start on the day’s work. They hadn’t been working more than fifteen minutes when Karl heard a rustling in the brush. Having seen small lynxes, boars, and even once what looked like a walking tree, he took no chances and went to grab his bow even as he called out a cautionary warning to Blaz, who was working with him. It did no good because, before he had pulled the bow loose from his pack, Blaz was on the ground screaming as he was disemboweled by a large flame lynx. The only thing that saved Karl was the cat was so intent on playing with Blaz by eliciting screams as it batted around the now exposed intestines that it didn’t notice Karl running as fast as he could for the bridge. Once the cat did see him, it sprung after him and while far faster, it was unable to make up the head start the fleeing lumberjack had. The lynx was only able to catch up to Karl just as he passed the zone line into Eastern Albia. Intelligent races like humans and such were able to cross zone lines without any difficulty, but the animals and monsters of Eloria were unable to duplicate this feat. Some philosophers and mages have hypothesized that the gods had created the zones as a way of balancing the much more powerful monsters with the fragile humans and such. Others have said that it is just a simple natural law of Eloria, just as common as gravity and just as sure as the fact that two suns will rise each day. As far as Karl was concerned in that moment, the philosophers could keep their debate. He was simply glad beyond measure for the invisible wall that separated him from the snarling face of the flame lynx, which was covered in the blood of his friend.
