The Forerunner: A GameLit Progression Fantasy, page 8
‘Note to self—patient is becoming resistant to treatment. This, coupled with: 1) violent tendencies towards the helpless wildlife, 2) often talking to himself, and 3) hearing voices in his head, causes me great concern.’
“Ha! So are you going to be my therapist now, Iris?”
‘That’s Doctor Iris to you, bub.’
“Sorry, Dr. Iris. So what should we do for treatment?”
‘Good question. I’m thinking if things don’t turn around quickly we’ll have to do an emergency lobotomy. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll have to get really serious.’
“Well that escalated quickly. I’m probably going to regret asking, but what’s ‘really serious’, Iris?”
‘A rotation of selections from: Barry Manilow, Rick Astley, Nickelback, and Yoko Ono on repeat.’
“Since you’re inside my head, wouldn’t that torture you too?”
‘Hmm, good point. Note to self—although self-evidently delusional, the patient shows a certain animal cunning. Must come up with ways to torture… I mean, “treat" the patient that do not harm his therapist. Look into playing the “Stop Hitting Yourself” game.’
Zed chuckled a bit. Somehow these little chats with Iris did help. They were the moments of levity and, well, maybe not “human” contact, but the closest thing he could get right now, that made the insanity of his life a little easier to deal with.
‘Thank you, Iris.’
Zed took the time after dinner to tan the bear hide by scraping it some more and treating it with a paste made of water and mashed up bear brain. According to Iris you could use the brain of just about any mammal to tan its hide, so Zed decided to give it a try. He then put some newly cut wooden stakes in the ground and stretched the hides over them. He was going to need some blankets and warmer clothes come winter, and he hoped this would be the start of making some.
Chapter 9
Zed occasionally climbed the tallest tree around to make sure he was going in the right direction and to see how far the smoke was. As he got nearer to what he hoped was a town, he took greater pains to be alert and stealthy. Which goes to show just how worried Zed was about the other people on Nienor, given that on most normal alertness days he and Brutus fought deadly creatures.
On the fifth day of traveling he heard the sound of multiple axes chopping and, a few minutes later, a shout followed by the sound of a tree crashing down. Zed and Brutus crept forward and, peeking through the brush, saw what looked like three tiny humans dressed in homespun wool clothing, each of them about 3 ½ feet tall. They were all working on cutting down trees and removing branches from the felled trees. Though their arms were spindly, they showed that they still had strength.
Working alongside them was a human! He was an adult, probably in his late 20’s, looked American, and was wearing ratty jeans and a t-shirt, much like Zed himself. He had a scruffy dark brown beard and a farmer’s tan, no doubt from working outside a lot.
‘Iris, do you know what those humanoids are?’
‘They’re gnomes, Zed.’
Zed was excited to see the human and gnomes and thought about coming out to greet them, but he heard the clank of metal hitting metal when the man moved to a different part of the tree. His heart sunk as he looked at the man’s feet and saw a chain.
‘Damn it.’
Zed briefly—very briefly—thought about confronting the gnomes and freeing the man, but knew that was stupid. He had no idea how strong they were. They looked weak, but they might be able to use magic, so who knows? He also didn’t know how many of them there were, their language, whether they had other humans or not, etc. He needed to know more, a lot more, before making a move.
For now he stayed put and listened to them talk, concentrating on remembering their speech and picking up on the patterns. He could almost feel his mind chugging away at figuring the language out.
After the red sun started to sink below the horizon, another gnome arrived on the back of a mastodon. The mastodon looked like a rumbling, shaggy mountain. Its massive tusks swayed with every step. Zed thought about his chances against the mastodon and decided that yes, he really, really wanted a good spear. Not that a spear would make his chances good, mind you, just that he would have a chance.
‘You don’t want to take on the mastodon with your knife? Wimp,' Iris joked.
The gnomes and the human tied up a few logs on one end to a rope attached to the mastodon’s harness. Then the mastodon, at its riders urging, started pulling them away as if it were no more difficult than pulling a toy wagon.
Zed and Brutus followed them at a distance. Zed assumed that they would go to wherever the gnomes lived. On the way they passed farm fields that, although there was a mixture of crops, were clearly arranged intentionally with regular spacing and a repeating crop pattern.
Before long he saw gnomes entering into a small town with a wooden palisade and gate. The palisade was about 10’ tall, and Zed figured that if he had to he could climb it pretty quickly. Zed decided to rest for a few hours, and then sneak into the town at night.
**
Zed used the time while he was waiting to look into using mana to enhance night vision—something he probably should have done a while ago. It turns out it could be done, but it wasn’t something he was going to be able to do tonight, at least not reliably. Zed decided to just go as-is. Fortunately it was nearly a full moon and he could see pretty well after his eyes adjusted.
Zed circled the town to see and listen to what was going on near the palisade. He needed to determine where the best spot was to infiltrate the town. Having picked his spot he simply enhanced his muscles and jumped over the wall, though he did have to tuck in his legs as much as he could. He minimized the impact and sound at landing by turning it into a forward roll, parkour-style.
This was just an intelligence gathering operation, Zed kept telling himself. He stayed in the shadows and snuck up to the nearest log house to listen to chatter so he could learn the language of the gnomes. The first cabin had a crying baby but no other sounds other than a mother gently singing to quiet the child. He moved on to the second, but it was dark and quiet. He did hear revelry a ways off and recognized the universal language of drinking songs. He’d found his target.
Zed took his time to get there to make sure that he wasn’t discovered. He saw one guard wandering around the town, but he was just kicking a stone down the dirt road, obviously not expecting anything to happen. Given his complete lack of attention it wasn’t hard to evade him. Once he got to the tavern he got up against the back wall and started listening.
**
It took a few nights of observation before Zed started to understand their speech. As much as he wanted to hate the gnomes, they sounded a lot like him and his friends at the bar. They teased each other, gossiped, and acted like fools once they were drunk.
That didn’t change the fact that they were slavers though. That they had enslaved someone who was brand new to the planet and probably didn’t even understand their speech. Someone vulnerable.
That wasn’t going to stand.
Zed had watched and learned where they kept the man. He had considered the merits of breaking him out versus talking with the gnomes. He decided to give diplomacy a chance. If that didn’t work he would fall back to “alternative methods”. And nothing was off the table. Zed wasn’t stupid, he knew he couldn’t win in a war with the gnomes, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do a lot of damage.
In ancient wars it was more-or-less standard operating procedure to gather whatever crops and animals you could from your enemy to feed your army. And to destroy the rest. Zed was ready to get primitive if he needed to.
**
Zed would have rather talked with the gnomes when he was more fluent in their language, but time was too precious to waste on niceties like that. It was time. The next morning he approached the logging crew with the knife in its scabbard and Brutus out of sight. He wanted an ace in the hole in case negotiations went south.
Zed walked out of the brush slowly with hands in sight and called out, “Hello!" The three gnomes and the human were all startled, but the human, who was looking somewhat gaunt, smiled upon seeing Zed while the gnomes looked scared.
“Who are you?! What are you doing here?" called out their leader, a gnome with a bulbous nose.
“My name is Zed. I would like to talk with your leader about freeing your prisoner," Zed said, while motioning to the man.
It didn’t take long for the gnome to decide that this was above his pay grade, so he said “Wait here!" and he ran off to the town to get someone.
Zed turned his focus to the human man. He looked fit but a little emaciated, with a shaggy beard and head of hair. “What’s your name?" Zed asked the man after switching to English.
“Dan. Thanks for coming for me, Zed. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. Are you from Earth?”
“Yeah. Pensacola, Florida.”
“Uh oh. Florida Man,” he said with a grin. “Tulsa, Oklahoma. Are you a fighter pilot?”
“Nah. Plane mechanic. I have no idea why I was picked to come here.”
“That makes two of us. How have they been treating you?”
“Honestly? Not bad. They don’t feed me enough, but I think that it’s partly because they’re just not used to someone who eats so much. Other than that and not being able to go and do what I want, they haven’t mistreated me. They don’t beat me or anything.”
“I’m surprised you’re not more ticked off.”
Dan sighed and said, “Oh, I’ve been plenty mad. The first week was lots of not doing what I was told and revenge fantasies of killing lots of them as I escaped. But as I calmed down and meditated I saw that the anger wasn’t doing me any good, at least the way I was expressing it. I also realized that I had played my part in getting where I was. I think that they are living on the edge here, and as a matter of survival they have to deal with thieves harshly.”
“Is that what happened? You stole from them?”
“Yeah, some food. Not a lot, but to them it was enough to matter. Supposedly the winters are pretty long here.”
Having felt the biting cold while the days were still fairly long, Zed believed it.
“Well, I’m not sure if you’re being mature or if it’s Stockholm Syndrome, but either way, let’s get you out of here.”
“I’m all for that.”
“How fluent are you in their language?”
“Not very. I understand enough to usually get the gist of what they’re saying, but I can’t talk for crap.”
“Okay, I’ll just talk with them directly then.”
“How did you learn their language?" Dan asked.
“I’m good with languages.”
Dan just raised an eyebrow.
“I’m really good at languages,” Zed said with a chuckle.
At this point they saw a group of gnomes approaching so they waited silently. One of them was clearly the leader of the group, looking rather self-important and a little nervous at the same time. What really marked him as the leader was how all of the other gnomes unconsciously oriented themselves around him, occasionally looking at him to see how he reacted to things, and to make sure that they didn’t wander away or get too close.
When they got close enough and the gnomes had taken a moment to size Zed up, the leader said, “What do you want, ####?" Zed didn’t know that the last word was, but he figured it was “outsider” or “human”, or something like that.
“I want you to let him go," Zed said as he pointed at Dan.
“He is a thief that stole from us. He is ours by right.”
“He says that he did not steal much. It is fair to make him pay his debt to you. Has he not paid his debt?" Zed was frustrated at his inability to communicate as well as he would like to, but he could get the basic meaning across.
“Should there not be a penalty for his crime beyond merely paying us back?" asked the leader.
“Maybe, but his life is too much. He has already worked for you for… (in English) Dan, how long have you worked for them?”
Dan looked a little embarrassed and said, “If you count the first week then it’s been 17 days.”
Facing the gnome leader again Zed said, “He’s worked for you for 17 days. I think this is enough.”
“Ha! He didn’t work for half of that, and he eats like three of us. More is owed.”
“What if I paid what’s left of his debt?”
“What can you offer us?" the leader asked. He was obviously trying to look indifferent, but Zed’s mana-enhanced senses detected that he was eager to hear Zed’s answer.
Zed pulled out one of the bear hides and showed it to them. The leader looked a little disappointed and said, “That’s all?" Zed pulled out the other hide as well.
“It would be better to be friends than enemies. Take these and release him to me, and we can be friends," Zed said. When Zed said “enemies” the gnomes bristled.
“There is just you, and you talk about being our enemy? We could kill you right now and take what you have." At that point the guards with bows looked menacing and ready to attack at the leader’s say-so. Zed was pretty sure that the leader was willing to fight, but didn’t really want to.
“You should know something. He and I are just the beginning. In two years all of our people will be brought here. There are 8 thousand, thousand, thousand of us." The gnomes looked confused at this point so he decided to do some quick drawing. He drew a dot and said “one” in the gnome’s language. He drew 10 dots and said “ten”. Zed circled that, and drew ten arrows to a new circle and said “one hundred”. He continued on, and when he got to numbers he did not know he asked them to tell him the word for that number. Once he had what he needed he said, “8 billion of us are coming.”
The gnomes gasped and looked frightened. If Zed had to guess he would say there were a few hundred gnomes in the town.
“Even if only 1 out of 1 million people come to this area, that is 8000 people. You will be crushed if you are our enemies. We would rather be friends and work together.”
The leader looked very solemn while he thought about this and eventually said, “It doesn’t matter if we are friends or not. If what you are saying is true, we will be crushed anyway. This land cannot support 8000 people without lots of farming, more than we could possibly do. Your people will starve, and when they do, there will be war.”
Zed wanted to refute what the gnome was saying, but as he thought about it he saw the inexorable, tragic logic behind it. While he was trying to figure out what to say the leader said, “Give us the hides, and take your friend and go." He signaled the other gnomes and they unlocked the manacles around Dan’s ankles. Dan looked relieved and immediately went behind Zed, while Zed handed over the hides.
Zed asked Dan, “What stuff did they take from you?”
“A sword, a knife, a book, and a backpack.”
Zed faced the leader and said, “We want the things that belong to Dan.”
“We will give you everything but the book. That is part of the payment for his freedom.”
Zed asked Dan, “What is the book?”
“It’s about how to cultivate and use stellar energy. I need that book!" Dan said.
Zed made a quieting motion with his hand and turned back to the leader. “The book is very valuable. We will let you keep the book if you make us a good metal spear that is my height.”
The leader thought about it and said, “Fine. Come back here tomorrow at mid-day and we’ll have your spear. We’ll get the other items now." The mayor spit on his hand and held it out, so Zed did the same and took him by the hand. The leader turned and left with most of his group, leaving behind the loggers and a few guards.
“Zed, I told you I need that book!”
“Don’t worry, Dan. I have that kind of information too and I can share it with you.”
“Well, alright I guess." Dan didn’t seem to like that solution, but went along with it.
Now that an agreement had been reached both sides walked away, warily watching the other. Once they were far enough away that they felt somewhat safe Zed paused and looked at Dan.
“So what do you want to do now? You’re welcome to come with us if you want.”
“Yes! I want to stay with you. You saw exactly how successful I’ve been here. I’d rather work with you.”
“I’m glad to have you." Brutus gave a pouting chuff, so Zed added, “We’re glad to have you. Let’s kick some ass for the next two years.”
Chapter 10
While looking at the dancing flames of the campfire that evening Zed said, “So tell me about yourself, Dan.”
“Not much to tell, really. I was an Army brat growing up, and our family moved around a lot. When I graduated from high school I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I joined the Air Force.”
“Why not Army?”
“Because my Dad always bitched about how easy the Air Force pukes had it,” Dan said with a laugh. “He was right, it is nicer. I got in as a mechanic, and then 10 years and one ex-wife later, I get an orc telling me the end of the world is coming." He unconsciously started looking for something with his right hand. Zed suspected that it was searching for a non-existent cigarette.
Realizing what he was doing, Dan sighed and said, “So that’s my story.”
After verifying that both of their ogrums’ stories were consistent, Zed asked, “How did your ogrum convince you that it was real?”
“I asked him to heal my brother, and he did.”
Zed saw that Dan had started to tear up, so he left that line of questioning alone. He naturally started thinking about his own family and friends and felt his own eyes get wet. Brutus came over and put his head in Zed’s lap. Zed quirked the corners of his lips up and started petting the big dog. After a few minutes of quiet he said, “I’ve been thinking about what the gnome leader said today.”
“Yeah? What about it?”
