Updates going great, thanks.
And yes, I did the coffee thing off Pratchet. I prefer the term 'shout out'. I have a man crush on him.
Hence the 'hotshot'.
An hour later
Most of the humans had been roused and were currently being sobered by homebrewed dwarven coffee. Dwarves did not have any real magical abilities except when it came to craft. Magic embedded deep, deep within them granted them supernatural skill and cunning when it came to the creation of… pretty much anything. It is, funnily enough, why dwarven children can stomach alcohol and wield a weapon so soon after birth. In comparison, making coffee was trivial. It wasn’t trivial in its effects, however.
Bjorn and Galdon were currently rolling around on the ground until the effects went away.
The dwarves had no such problems, having mixed a goodly supply of alcohol into their drinks. This was not due to any attempt at safety, dwarves just do that no matter the beverage served.
Kain was sitting with Vilien, who was stoking the now roaring fire. Looking up, Vilien noticed Kain was staring at him.
“What?” he asked, chucking another twig onto the fire.
“‘Shanked?’” inquired Kain. “I haven’t heard that one before.”
Vilien laughed. “That’s a word of my own devising. To be ‘shanked’ is to be stabbed with a poorly crafted weapon.”
“But,” said Kain, looking over to where Barbarossa was running his hand up and down the goblin blade, “that looked a fairly dangerous and well made weapon.”
“Perhaps.” said Vilien, leaning forward. “But I don’t see it that way. To my mind, there’s ‘dwarven make’ and then there’s ‘poorly crafted’.”
Kain roared with laughter. Quieting down, he unslung his mace and hefted it in his hand. He looked at it thoughtfully.
“What do you think of all this? Magic? Goblins?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to make of it just yet. I know I don’t like it,” said Vilien, “but I don’t know what to make of it. Why did they capture Walter specifically? His technology? They could have gone for Oldbeard just as easily. He’s not exactly adept at preventing theft, as you may have noticed.”
“Yes,” chuckled Kain, “I’ve noticed. Item recovery, however, is one thing he’s apparently very good at.”
“Yes. I just don’t like waiting around. I can understand the need for caution but still… I don’t think I’ll be able to shake this feeling of uncertainty until I hoist a bastard goblin’s head on my blade.”
Behind them, Galdon got up, walking into a tree and fell flat on his face, gaping. The turned at the sound.
“Pf. Humans. Can’t stomach anything, be it booze or coffee,” observed Vilien.
“I wish we had a way of communicating long distance,” muttered Barbarossa.
“You know how that went last time,” said Kogan. They were sitting with their backs against a large tree. Barbarossa was running his finger up and down the goblin blade, as if fascinated by it. In true, he was, morbidly so. He had caused the deaths of many goblins, but on that day some months ago, when he passed out in a blinding flash of light, he had thought that was it. No more fighting. No more goblins. Cruel fate had conspired to wake him up on board a slaving ship and there were no more goblins, at the very least. And now, he had a plan. Well, not so much a plan, more an idea, validated by mere suspicions. Whether or not he went through with it depended on several things but first they needed Walter back.
Then, he would find this ‘Warlord’, the one that ordered them to slay the dragon. He would observe him and find out if what he suspected was true.
Then they would ride into battle. Probably for the last time.
six miles eastward
Forrest paused for breath. The very fact that he had to do so meant he was pushing himself too hard, but he had to. These tracks were easy to follow. An aptitude in magic was the only thing the kidnappers were skilled in. Forrest check the tracks again. Yes, they disappeared here. Honestly, even if he couldn’t smell the background magic (an ability taught to him by elves. It was easy if you had the herbs) it would still be obvious what that implied. He knelt down and felt around in the grass. His fingers brushed against a small bump and he quickly withdrew them. Sensor trap. Opens for only a few, screams like a banshee for anyone else. Luckily, they weren’t that sensitive or he’d be half deaf from the shrieking right about now. Now…
He placed his palms on the soil. There were benefits to being raised by elves, oh yes there were. It would surprise a lot of people that, whilst much of elven abilities came from birth, they could just as easily be learned through training. He muttered a few arcane words under his breath. Unfortunately, you needed a specific type of mind for most elven magic and he’d only really been able to achieve a few of the lesser spells. But there was no denying that they were useful.
“Gods, why the hell do we have to stand guard?”
“Oh for the sake of all that is holy, Jason, shut the hell up! We’ve had this same conversation about fifty times over the last three hours!”
“I’m just saying man –”
“I know what you’re ‘just saying’. We have to stand guard because that’s what we do, alright? We’re lucky he even has this place.”
“No we’re not. Luck has nothing to do with it. He runs the largest smuggling empire in the world! Hell, the goblins actually let him live, he was so effective at creating supply lines, you know how rare that is? Of course he has bolt holes and tunnels. He’s probably tunnelled his way to the other side of the Godsdamned world. He probably sells them daggers.”
“Ha ha. Look, we have the boy, right? We’ll be out of here as soon as the manhunt stops.”
“And when will that be?”
“Whenever it stops. Look, shut up, I’ve got a headache.”
“Fine, fine.”
Forrest muttered a few more words, rather more vulgar ones, stood up, and headed for camp.
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Topic: To venture north, into Hell: Othtar Noloc, world at war (Read 106566 times)