[Edited] Chapter 3 - The Allamande in the Ashes

See attached file for the original version w/ editorial notes.

...how did I ever manage a schedule of a chapter a week while editing?  Was that really what I was doing or am I nuts?  Oy...

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With a sudden pop, I was once again on the surface of Vrekfren, the over-world. Or rather, approximately five feet above it.

And when whatever force was holding me in the air decided to let me go, I was once again dropped, with little ceremony, this time in a large bed of ashes. I was not certain whether it was an improvement over the last time I had been ejected from the Dungeon, what with the mud puddle, but at the very least, it was somewhat warm. Was it really so difficult to just set me on the ground? And where had the ashes even come from?!

I groaned. Naturally, I felt horrifically ill. Acquiring a new Word did that to a person, after all. However, having gone through as much as I had, it was now somewhat possible for me to resist the desire to violently disrupt the cremated environment with the contents of my stomach. Of course, it did help that I did not have the least bit of food down there.

Coughing violently both from how sick I felt and from the puff of ash that had just been sucked up my nose, I attempted to concentrate on the Word I had just obtained. It was a ridiculous stroke of luck, really.

Conceal.

After having gained ten of the damned things—the one I had gotten from my own efforts plus the additional nine from binding Arx—I finally had a Word that appeared in my spell catalog. Specifically within Fortunate Shadows, one of the very first and more useful spells I had acquired. It had the effect, once cast, of creating a shadowy camouflage for myself and anyone I chose to cover with it. I tended to think of it as giving a group bonus to stealth checks, to put it in D&D terms. It probably was not the best way of thinking about it, but that was the only other spell system that I had any experience with, so I was sticking with it.

With the addition of the Word, the spell now read: Something Conceal blah-blublah something.

The revelation somehow managed to be a major and absolutely fundamental improvement while simultaneously being almost useless. I mean, I could probably infer what the rest might be given what the spell did—likely something to do with shadows or shade or maybe luck—but it was really a crap-shoot. As for what that meant for me, mechanically, I did not have the foggiest notion. Arx had said that each additional known Word was supposed to benefit the skill in some nebulous way. However, as she had never been so fortunate as to have one of her own Words line up, it was understandable that she had needed to remain vague.

As for the rest, the Word had now joined my slowly expanding ‘cosmic library’ of every language ever. However, as a verb, it was significantly more complex than most. There were the various tenses and conjugations, the infinitive, and plenty of other weird-ass things that I did not have any name for. They were not exactly labeled. I just sort of knew how it all would work given different contexts, which was for the best, really. I neither needed nor frankly wanted to know why it might be that some language needed its specific translation of ‘conceal’ to be accompanied by the faint aroma of decomposing eggs to make it past tense.

It just did, and that was the end of it.

Woozily raising my head to look around, I found that the bed of ashes I was lying in was fairly substantial, perhaps extending out ten to fifteen feet in every direction, in the middle of a large clearing in a relatively sparse, yet hilly, wooded area. I might have called it a forest, but that seemed slightly too strong a word.

In any case, something significant had apparently happened around here. And recently—within the span of a couple weeks, anyway. To say nothing of the ashes, the ground nearby had been churned up, as if by a squad of hammer-wielding dwarves who had randomly become incensed by the concept of soil. Honestly, it looked for all the world as if a battle had taken place, though there were no corpses. Only broken arrows, spear shafts, and other discarded medieval paraphernalia.

Where was I? The last time I had been in the over-world, I had been the captive of a horde of Goblins and their kin. So I had to assume that I would have been dropped somewhere nearby. Perhaps some enterprising group of soldiers or militia had decided to attack them and drove them off? Were that the case, one might be forgiven for assuming the bed of ashes I had the misfortune to land within to be the remains of some massive corpse fire. However, monsters did not leave corpses behind once their Gems had been harvested, and those were far too valuable to simply burn.

Regardless, that certainly explained a few things. Battle or no battle, there had been quite a lot of fires around the encampment, and from what I had seen, the Goblins had not been particularly keen on preserving what equipment they had looted from our caravan.

Then, there was the question of the gigantic—and unfortunately naked—goblinoid creature that had served as the local Dungeon Mouth. I did not see any sign of it, however off to my left, I did note several trees that had been uprooted or otherwise broken at the trunk. So either the encampment had been attacked by men on elephant-back, which was possible for all I knew, or the Mouth had walked off in that direction.

So, whatever happens, we don’t go that way. One of these days, I was going to need to find out what happened when a person got swallowed by the same Mouth twice, but it certainly was not going to be today.

Okay, then… so what about my lilim? Where were they? Obviously, we had all exited the Dungeon at roughly the same time, but I had been inescapably delayed by Mother Idh-Yaa. Although, that might be a rather unfair comparison. As terrifying as Ahnbe was to me, she was no gigantic Elder God-worm from the planet Xoth. And I was pretty sure she had never even heard of Cthulhu. Pretty sure.

A rueful smile crept over my face. I sure hope she can’t hear my thoughts now. That would be a shit show, for a certainty.

With a grunt, I came to my knees and, resting on my haunches for a moment, I concentrated on the faint connection I had with them. They were alive. I knew that much. But where…

Slowly, I began to rock my body back and forth, feeling out the strength of the connection. It was not as if I could just close my eyes and point. Instead, it was sort of like a game of hot and cold. As long as I focused on it, I could generally tell whether I was moving toward or away from them. They were together. Somewhere… off to my right… and behind me.

Relieved, I turned. They should be somewhere just past that group of… Gobs…

We stared at each other in stunned silence. There were six of the flat-headed, spindly-looking, goblinoid creatures surrounding a seventh who looked to have been seriously injured. He was all but dead, mostly because the others had apparently been beating him in order to hasten his departure. However, from the snarls that were beginning to curl their lips, they had decided that I looked quite a bit tastier than their buddy.

“Well… fuck.”

Almost like some cheesy old Western, the sound of my voice signaled the start of the chaos. Even as the Gobs began to howl one of their high-pitched battle cries, I kicked my feet up under me, scrabbling for purchase in the uneven and deceptively soft ashes, and made for the trees. I managed about half a dozen paces before the Gobs gave chase, throwing whatever they had on hand in their attempt to bring me down quickly. Most of the random sticks and rocks sailed wide, however a couple of small rocks slapped against my bare back.

They did not hurt all that much. I had gained quite a bit in the way of stats and experience since the last time I had faced off against these things, and besides, Gobs on their own did not have a particularly fearsome reputation. One on one, most anyone could take them down. Even me. However, against six and unarmed, I would need to improvise some sort of strategy.

Tracing the path of one of the errant stones that had sailed wide, I altered course and, before it had rolled to a stop, I had snatched it up. Not bothering to slow, I quickly began assembling my accuracy spell. It was to the point now where I did not really have to think about what to say, but getting my tongue around the syllables was still a challenge. Especially while running.

However, luck was on my side. After only one flubbed attempt, I had the thing going, and spinning, I side-armed the rock in the general direction of the one closest to me. I had not bothered to aim beyond simply ‘at it.’ Even so, with my buff, the rock almost sizzled through the air before smashing right into one of the creature’s bulbous eyes.

Screeching in pain, the Gob went down, rolling about and clutching its head in an attempt at stemming the fountain of blood erupting from it.

But that was only the first of a half dozen. I did not have time to congratulate myself, just yet.

Taking off in a random direction, my only goal to maintain the distance between myself and the clutch of gibbering beasts, I quickly spied a broken off piece of wood sticking out of the ground. Angling toward it, I wrenched it free of the dirt. However, my joy at finding a weapon was short-lived. The old spear I had just found, besides being broken in half, was rusted to the point of being all but useless.

As a spear, anyway. It was still capped with metal and heavy. I would take it.

Quickly deflecting a branch that was spinning toward my head, I dodged to the side and made for the nearest tree. I needed to break their line of sight. My hastily cobbled together plan was sketchy, at best, but Gobs were pretty stupid. Even so, I needed to try to pad my odds slightly.

However, as I scanned the ground passing in front of me for anything else to throw, I could only curse my luck at the dearth of likely objects. I had no idea where the Gobs kept finding throwing-rocks on the move unless they were pulling them out of their literal asses, but when one of them clipped my ear, it occurred to me I could use their good fortune against them and snatched up the bloodied stone before it had the chance to roll to a stop.

Finally at the tree line, I decided to pass the first two or three trunks to play for time. I needed to drop my current buff in favor of getting a slightly more complex one going. The Words came easily this time, especially with the latest addition to my repertoire. Now that I had a known Word within it, the spell seemed to flow out from me like melted butter. Like it wanted to be cast.

The moment it was in place, I tossed my rock into some nearby bushes as a distraction, and skipped behind a tree. My skill, Forgotten in Stillness, settled over me like a heavy cloak, and with the added benefit of Fortunate Shadows, I might as well have been a tree myself.

Moments later, the Gobs rushed past me, and most of them leapt directly into the bush I had cast my rock into, cackling in delight that I had apparently decided to go to ground instead of making them chase me down. I resisted the urge to smirk.

One of them had trailed behind, content to let the others do the dirty work. Slowing, the filthy little thing came to a rest just a couple of paces in front of me, its chest rapidly pumping, dog-like as it panted from its exertions. Swiveling my eyes over the scene to quickly make sure that I would not be noticed, I took a hesitant step forward. The Gob stilled at my approach and cautiously tilted its head back to sniff at the air. Spinning, it’s eyes widened, and it sucked in a breath to scream.

However, before it could, I swung down for all I was worth. I did not have any knowledge of fighting styles. I had never trained and, while I had seen a few battles, my front-line combat experience remained limited. Even so, some things are basic to the point of instinct. Swing heavy club. Smash head. And that is what I tried to do, but because I had added Efficacy in the Gloom, my accuracy spell, into my buff mix, something else happened.

Abruptly, the arc of my swing bent, tracing a path around the creature’s huge head, and deformed the creature’s neck with a sickening crunch. On impact, the Gob collapsed like a rag doll. It never moved again. I was so surprised that I froze, just staring at the now dead creature.

Which was fortunate.

The sound of a snapping spine reverberating through the woods caused a couple of heads to swivel in my direction. However, my skill allowed me to remain as still as a statue, and their eyes passed right over me, inevitably landing on their fallen companion. Rushing forward, they poked at the body for a moment before blindly casting about for me. I decided not to hold them in suspense.

Flicking my rusted spear upward, I caught one of them by its enormous nose, and the pointed beak snapped into a right angle. The Gob flailed back, shrieking bloody murder as it rolled away, so without pausing for an instant, I took aim at its companion. The creature was so shocked at having what it thought was an unusually shaped tree stump come to life that it had not even moved, and my club took it right over its ear.

It fell to the ground, howling in misery, and I viciously battered the creature a few more times to make sure it would not get up again. But before I could be sure it was finished, the last two reappeared from the bushes, and I swore aloud. It seemed they had finally cottoned to the fact I had tricked them.

Enraged, they rushed me, but I had no desire to fight in any way fair. So, I turned to run. Right into the one whose eye I had first popped with my rock.

The thing had recovered enough from its injury that it had decided to continue the chase and, now that I was stopped and embattled, it had moved to flank me. Unfortunately, it had not expected me to run headlong into it, and my knee took the unlucky creature right in the chin, knocking several of its shark-like teeth out of its skull. Of course, that also meant that my momentum carried me up and over it, and I landed in a sprawl on my back.

Disoriented, I stumbled to my feet again just in time to see the two healthy ones jumping over their now defanged and one-eyed ally. Not really giving the move any thought beyond, ‘Fuck! Get it away!’ I hurled my spear like a Frisbee in the vague direction of the one on my right. To my utter shock, the dull point took the beast right in the chest and, though it did not penetrate very far, the Gob went down as if it had been blasted by a sawed-off shotgun.

Hell yeah! That accuracy spell is the motherfucking boss!

Encouraged, I kicked some grit and leaves into the last one’s face just as it got into range and, perhaps because it was beginning to fear my prowess or simply because it was the last one standing, that simple maneuver broke its morale. Covering its head in fear, it rolled away and broke for the trees.

With a grimace, I ran for my spear. It was bad form to let monsters of the ‘chaotic evil’ variety escape—they could be vindictive little bastards and usually had friends—but my leg gave out before I could take a single step. Confused and pumped full of adrenaline, it took me a moment to figure out what was wrong. It seemed kneeing the one bastard in the teeth had cut a dashed semicircle right into my lower thigh, and it had begun to bleed profusely in few seconds since. By the time I had regained my feet, the coward was gone.

I sighed. I just had to hope my premonition of nearby allies would not come to pass.

Dropping my buffs, I quickly sent some healing Energy to my injury and went about the gristly task of finishing off the wounded.

A bit later, I had five additional Minor Rank I Gems rattling around in my inventory—four from my own efforts and one from the unfortunate they had been kicking when I first saw them. It could have been more, but it seemed the one whose nose I had readjusted had decided it too had a pressing appointment to keep and buggered off somewhere. The rest had either been dead when I found them, unconscious, or too injured to care.

I was rather impressed with myself, to tell the truth. Even if Gobs were the lowest of the low, I had managed to take on six at once and still emerged the victor! And as a wizard, no less! Well… more like a white mage given the absence of my summons.

Speaking of, where the hell are they?

My question was answered almost immediately by a roar reverberating through the trees.

“Fuck me,” I sighed resignedly. My connection to them was pointing right toward whatever that had been.

Cutting a path through the trees, I soon found signs of an ongoing and running battle. Fresh Gob and Goblin corpses were sparsely scattered in ones and twos along the forest floor or listing bonelessly against tree trunks. So I began dutifully collecting the Gems from what dead I found and finishing off the living so as to perform much the same, effectively picking up the breadcrumbs as I tracked my errant lilim. All told, I collected an additional seventeen Minor and nine Average Gems, all of the first Rank.

I shook my head in disbelief at the total. Someone had been busy.

Another roar ripped through the otherwise silent forest, much closer this time. Firming my expression, I bent into a crouch and scuttled forward, my rusty spear held ready. I rather doubted it would be of much use against something that could give my girls trouble, but it had served me well. I was not keen on giving up the first weapon I had found in weeks.

Weaving my way through the trees, I finally came to the edge of another clearing, similar to the one I had left, though smaller. Roughly in the center, there stood a small hill, really more of a mound than anything, and atop it, there was an enraged Gobborn, staggering and swinging wildly about itself with a club the size of a park bench. It was positively covered in little Jax-shaped shadows that were doing their level best to distract, blind, and generally make as big a nuisance of themselves as they could.

Off to one side, I spied Jax herself, keeping well clear of that huge weapon. Periodically, she would summon up a replacement shadow or her axe and hurl it in the direction of the ogre-like creature, but she looked unable to manage much else. From the way she was favoring her leg and the expression of exhaustion on her face, she would not long survive once the beast rid itself of the distractions.

As for Arx, it took me a moment to find her as she was hidden by the tall grass, however I soon spotted motion off to the right. She was repeatedly driving her dagger downward, as if she were hammering a stake into the ground.

“Fucking ‘snails!” she panted. “I think that’s the last of them.”

“About fucking time!” Jax shouted in response just as she overhanded her axe at the Gobborn. “Now start helping me bleed this great warty dobber afore he does me head in!”

The axe sliced into the beast’s shoulder, carving a heavy line through it’s flesh before the weapon sailed past and vanished. Mad with rage, the Gobborn slammed its enormous club into the ground once before hefting it again and wildly spinning in the approximate direction the blade had come from. Jax dove out of the way as best she could, and only managed to keep her head attached to her shoulders by the thinnest of margins. If that thing had made contact, her skull would have cleared the line at Wrigley Field.

Well, first thing’s first. The two of them were clearly exhausted from their long and ongoing battle, and I only knew of two ways to fix that. The first was a non-option. There was no way I could summon that kind of mood at the spur of the moment, and besides, I had a far easier solution.

Palming a few of the Average Gems I had been collecting from the Goblins, I popped one into my mouth. I could tell the moment it began to dissolve that it was nowhere near the appropriate Rank for me. It tasted… weak. Insipid. Like a chocolate bar that had melted in the store and gone ashy.

I just hope they still give an endurance boost. We had not exactly tested whether the Stratum disparity made a difference when it came to that sort of thing.

Setting the question aside for now, I noted Jax hopping unsteadily to her feet again. Now at the beast’s back, a dim-looking pair of new shadow clones stepped away from her and rushed forward, joining their sisters in their effort to drive the creature truly insane with rage. Meanwhile, I saw the telltale sparkles of Jax’s axe once more solidifying in her hand.

Right… let’s do something to fix that leg.

Quickly snapping out the incantation for Renewal of Consumption [Mk II], I directed the spell to attach itself to Jax’s weapon, and just as she raised it overhead, the spell took hold. Hurling it for all she was worth, she sent the axe sailed through the air, end over end. However, the distance this time was a little longer than before, and the weapon drifted a tad lower than she had intended—oh, Mercy’s tears—straight between the Gobborn’s ass cheeks.

The beast’s cry of shock and outrage climbed a few octaves higher than I had thought it capable of. Then, adding insult to injury, my spell began to leech away its Life Energy to fuel Jax’s regeneration, and the creature’s outcry faltered. Combined with its own continued blood loss, the effect momentarily brought the Gobborn to its knees.

“Now, Arx!” Jax yelled. “It’s… It’s d-dow— Nah~”

Arx, who had been running for the Gobborn’s back, abruptly stumbled and collapsed to her hands and knees, “’Stits! W-what… Mmm… Oh, ‘stits… yes!”

Jax twirled around, her chest heaving and, staring right at me, she shouted, “It’s Master! He be out! He’s here!”

“He is? Oh, thank M-Maeve… I… I… Mmm~ Why does it feel so good?” Arx moaned plaintively, even as she struggled to regain her footing.

“Aye, ye lightweight. He only be—” Jax jokingly began, but the Gobborn’s breathless yet infuriated roar cut off her explanation.

The battle was not over.

Unsteadily, Arx brought her arrow out, pointed it at the creature and shouted, “Hah~!”

Unfortunately, her voice was still a little… impassioned from the Power of the Gem filling her Core. As the projectile streaked toward its head, the Gobborn flinched back, but when the arrow mysteriously arced skyward, it stared after it, dumbfounded.

I grimaced. We were going to need some more practice with that before it was reliable. If nothing else, she was going to need to get used to having pleasure coursing through her, or she was going to have some serious problems hanging around us.

I guess it wouldn’t hurt to get a little accuracy bonus going…

Even as I uttered the Words, Jax was already taking advantage of the beast’s distraction. Her leg now mostly mended, she ran forward and chopped right into the Gobborn’s ankle, as if it were a tree that needed felling. The beast threw its head back and bellowed in pain before blindly swiping behind itself, trying to smash the annoying lilim into so much paste. But she was already well away, scattering clones in her wake.

The Gobborn turned to give chase, swinging its enormous club at the skittering shadows, but its leg gave way as soon as it attempted to put any weight on it. Collapsing to one knee, it still managed to swing that huge club about, fending away the multitude of annoying black shapes.

“Ha!” Arx’s shout heralded the second volley of her missile, and this time, with my help, it actually hit something. Sinking deep into the beast’s back, it missed the spine by the length of a finger. And then came a second. And a third. Each inching closer.

The Gobborn grunted as each struck home before finally screaming in frustration. Jerking around to find this new annoyance, it scooped a chunk of earth out of the hill and hurled the mass toward where she was standing. Of course, it was just dirt, and most of it broke up before it even got to her. Still, it was enough to break her concentration, and she broke for cover.

However, now that it was distracted again, Jax swooped back in, sailing through the air weightlessly, and slammed her axe home just above its trapezius muscle and right into the creature’s neck. I could not help but shudder in unwilling sympathy on seeing such a terrible wound. Even so, the beast’s hide was thick, and the blade did not quite sever its spine. Jax was forced to hastily back flip away before its great mitt could snag her.

The Gobborn attempted to twirl about with its club once more, hoping to bat her from the air, but with its latest injuries, it could no longer support the weapon’s weight, and the club dropped back to the ground. Wheezing now as air started bubbling out of the gaping gash in its neck, it struggled back to its feet and stood there for a long moment before finally collapsing.

It was done. All we had to do was wait for the twitching to stop.