Towering Trouble: A LitRPG Isekai, page 18
Saskia began to write a diary of sorts, scratched into the stone of the cave wall. This was a novel experience for her. On Earth, she’d never kept a diary; just sketchbooks. As she wrote, she focussed on her desire for the interface to adapt and incorporate the new language. Sure enough, the Dwarvish symbols slowly shifted into English letters. It took a couple of days, but she was pretty happy with the result.
There were now proper distances and labels marked on her map. About damn time!
Speaking of time, in addition to her clock, she now had access to something resembling a calendar, showing the passage of seasons. There were a lot more seasons than on Earth, because, like the drunken sun, temperatures wobbled all over the place throughout the year, from cold to scorching to medium to hot to freezing to medium to cold again. The extra seasons had names like lowspring, mildwinter and highfall; at least, that’s how they were translated in her interface.
Even better, she could bring up information about objects and creatures she inspected, showing her, for example if a plant was poisonous or an animal diseased. It was all just descriptive information; no statistics or health bars. She suspected her interface would never get too number-crunchy; partly because of her personal dislike of such things, and partly because this wasn’t really a game, and in this world, just as on Earth, something as complex as one’s health—or strength or dexterity or even intelligence—couldn’t be meaningfully distilled down to a single number.
Between language lessons and crafting sessions, Saskia kept up the training bouts with Ruhildi. Her friend’s skill with necromancy—or, as she called it, necrourgy—seemed to be improving day by day. At first she’d had little control over the dead she summoned, but now Saskia often felt like she was facing a disciplined army. And then sometimes they’d come out of left field with some crazy stunt, like the time they started hurling body parts at her.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Ruhildi though. Even as she gained control over her magic, she’d still lapse into near-catatonia at times, and the night terrors and sleepwalking incidents continued unabated. One night, Saskia awoke to the sight of her friend slumped by the fire, clutching at a horrific burn on the bottom of her foot. She’d sleepwalked right onto the hot coals.
“Holy crap, Ruhildi, that looks bad.” Leaping out of bed, Saskia hurriedly filled a large bowl with cool water and set it at her friend’s feet. Murmuring her thanks, Ruhildi lowered her foot into the bowl. She stared off into the gloom, shivering. Letting out a breath, Saskia touched her lightly on the shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Ruhildi. I’ll go prepare another batch of my…”
She stopped mid-sentence, swaying as a wave of dizziness rolled over her. The cave receded from her sight, replaced once again with another scene. It was like seeing through the elf’s eyes, but…different. This time she wasn’t holding the druid’s staff, and she couldn’t feel her own body. She felt cold…so cold, and when her eyes drifted down, she saw that she was naked, and covered in cuts and bruises on top of a patchwork of old scars.
This was Ruhildi’s body, she realised, but not as the dwarf was now.
Cold chains bit into her wrists and ankles, binding her to an iron wheel that hung from the wall of a tiny blood-smeared stone room. She squirmed against it.
“Hold still, burrower,” said a robed elf with a reedy voice. He stood before her with a wand in one hand and a bloody knife in the other. There was a primal gleam in his blood-shot eyes. “It’ll go easier for you if you don’t move.”
He pressed the knife into her sternum, and she went suddenly still, feeling a slight sting as its tip drew a thin trail of blood.
Without warning, he thrust the knife deep, and twisted it. Almost, she blacked out from the shock. It was like Saskia’s own punctured artery times ten. A fountain of blood squirted out with every laboured heartbeat. But before she had time to bleed out, the tip of the elf’s wand gave off a pale glow, and the gushing flow suddenly slowed to a trickle.
The elf picked up a slender crystalline shard from a nearby bench top. It looked like the same material that tipped his wand, and the druid’s staff.
He pushed the crystal shard into the hole in her chest.
Book 1, Chapter 13: Demon
“Wake up, Sashki. Shite, I’m the one who should be swooning, me being a dwarrow and you being a trow. And me with my bollocking foot peeling off.”
Gasping on the floor, Saskia became aware of Ruhildi’s face gazing down at her. “What…? I saw…” Then she remembered what had happened just before she had the…vision. “Are you okay? How long was I out?”
“Just a few breaths,” said Ruhildi. “As for me, I could still use a bit of your juiced-up blood…” She pointed at her foot, still resting in the bowl of water. Some of the skin was sloughing off, revealing yellowy ooze beneath.
“Oh…oh crap. I’ll just…” Saskia suppressed a wave of nausea. “…I’ll go ready my…blood.”
She swallowed, the vision of Ruhildi still raw in her mind. So much blood…
It was a bad night. Not even a dose of Saskia’s regenerative blood could knit all of the charred flesh back together in one go. Ruhildi couldn’t sleep because of the pain, and Saskia couldn’t sleep because of what she’d just seen…and felt. The experience of being bound and helpless and…
Come morning, she decided that now was as good a time as any to do some more pseudo-alchemy experiments. If she could find any way to further accelerate Ruhildi’s physical recovery, it’d be worth the effort. As for her friend’s mental state…well that would have to wait. Saskia didn’t feel ready to have that conversation.
These alchemical experiments were really quite simple. She just needed to vary the types or quantities of ingredients she put in the blood-boosting concoction, whether and how long to boil them, how much water to add, and so forth. Then she’d tear open a gash in her flesh and measure how long it took to close up. Rinse and repeat a bunch of times, and she got a pretty good idea of each brew’s potency.
There was the slight complication that each time she healed a wound, her flesh grew back a little tougher than before. It became harder to cut—but also took a bit longer to regenerate. Her math nerd friends might be able to account for the changes by analysing datasets and subtracting biases or some such statistical hocus pocus, but bog that. Saskia just cut open a slightly different spot each time.
It had occurred to her that if she kept this up for—oh, a thousand years or so—her skin might eventually become as hard as diamond and impervious to swords and spells. Tempting though the prospect was, there would be some pretty big downsides. If she couldn’t draw blood, there’d be no more healing anyone else with it. And if something did manage to damage her in that state, she’d take ages to heal.
Also, she’d be a statue.
Probably shoulda led with that one.
Anyhow, she’d discovered that not all of the plant materials she used in her blood-boosting concoction were created equal—and not all of them were necessary. The crapberries, for example, had pretty weak concentration of the…whatever it was that fired up her blood. She called it petrolleum. Given the other unfortunate effect those little suckers had on her, she’d been quick to toss them out, and hadn’t looked back.
Even more important than the type of tree or plant supplying the ingredients was its location. She’d discovered this just the other day when she’d plucked some wannabe-pinecones from a tree that wasn’t marked on her map. These specimens had proven completely worthless for the purpose of improving her regeneration speed, although they’d made pretty good firewood.
This led her to the theory that the stuff she needed grew in certain places in the ground and was absorbed by certain types of plants that happened to grow nearby. So maybe—just maybe—she could harvest it directly from the ground, in a more concentrated form? Of course, it was just as likely that the plants formed some other compound from this hypothetical substance, and that the substance alone was of no use to her. Still, it was worth investigating.
And she knew exactly where to start looking: the spot with the highest concentrations of ‘alchemy’ ingredients marked on her map. That spot was smack dab in the centre of the valley, a short distance from the river.
Arriving at the designated location, she pushed away piles of twigs and dead leaves, and began to dig.
It wasn’t long before she hit paydirt: a clump of ochre-coloured soil that sparkled brightly in her oracle interface. Or maybe it sparkled for real too. It was hard to tell. Either way, this stuff was lit up like a Christmas tree. With the recent changes to her interface, she was now also seeing text labels over highlighted objects; this stuff was called arlithite. She gathered some of it into a bucket and brought it back to Ruhildi.
Her friend glanced down at the bucket, and said, “That’s a bucket of dirt.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” said Saskia. “Can you see what’s in the dirt? It’s something called arlithite. Maybe you can tell me what that is.”
This earned her a long stare from Ruhildi, who then took hold of the bucket, swirled it around, and sifted the dirt through her fingers. Finally, she said, “I thought you were tweaking my nose, but you speak true, Sashki. There is arlithite in this here soil. Not a lot, mind, but more than I’d expect to find under the open sky.”
“So…what’s arlithite?”
“It’s an altered form of arlium. Very valuable, and quite rare up on the surface.”
“Well there’s plenty more where that came from. I think this stuff may be the key to brewing a better blood-booster…” Saskia explained her theory that the plants and trees had been absorbing trace amounts of arlithite, and it was that substance, not the plant materials themselves, that had been affecting her. “So my thought is…why not cut out the middlemen—er, middleplants? What if I just take this arlithite directly?”
“You…want to eat dirt,” said Ruhildi.
“No! Well…yeah, kinda. I was hoping you could extract the arlithite from the dirt though. With your magic.”
“Aye, mayhap I could do that…” said Ruhildi.
“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here.”
“But…only if you promise to be careful, Sashki. This bucket of dirt will yield less than a thimble of refined arlithite. You can surely imagine how potent it must be, compared to the tiny traces you took afore. I don’t ken what might happen if you take too much…”
“I’ll be careful,” said Saskia. “I’ll try just a tiny pinch of it.”
So that’s what she did. Even after swallowing a miniscule amount of the stuff, the result was quite spectacular. When she made a small incision across the back of her hand, it snapped shut almost instantly, and the scar was completely gone within seconds.
Saskia decanted some of her blood for Ruhildi, then watched in satisfaction as new skin rapidly spread across the burnt patch on her foot.
“Are you okay?” asked Saskia, watching as the dwarf swayed on her seat.
“Aye, it’s just a bout of the tummy shakes. Rarely have I felt so famished.”
Saskia nodded in understanding. She always felt ravenous after regenerating. But in this instance her friend had regrown a lot more flesh than she herself had.
After they’d eaten, they spent the rest of the day gathering and refining more of the miraculous substance. By the time they were done, Saskia had a small pouch of the stuff—enough for her to heal an army. She didn’t even need to add water.
So much for alchemy.
Throughout that day and the following morning, Saskia agonised over whether to talk to her friend about what she’d seen in the vision. The word vision didn’t do it justice, but she couldn’t think of a better one.
At first she’d worried that she might have witnessed a future event—a prophetic vision. If that turned out to be the case, talking about it would only make things worse, just like in every time travel story ever written.
Then she remembered the medical overlay she’d seen on the first day Ruhildi showed up. It had revealed an object deep inside her chest; an object very much like the one in her vision.
So the vision could only have been one thing: a memory. Or a delusion, but she’d set that possibility aside for now.
It was a pretty big invasion of privacy to have seen Ruhildi at her most vulnerable. Not just seen—been. Well, it was kinda the same with the elf she’d been spying on, but…no it wasn’t! He’d tried to kill her!
If she told Ruhildi what she’d seen, she’d be digging up old wounds. Then again, sometimes old wounds needed to be dug up for them to truly heal. Ruhildi’s symptoms didn’t seem to have gotten much better over these past weeks, except for the fact that she no longer raised zombie goats in her sleep.
Finally, Ruhildi settled the internal debate for her. “Something’s gotten your mane ruffled, Sashki. I amn’t blind. Just out with it. I’ve had enough of your sidelong glances and pacing about.”
Saskia gave a strangled laugh. “Okay Ruhildi, but be careful what you ask for…”
As Saskia described—as delicately as she could—what she’d seen and heard and felt, the woman’s face slowly drained of colour. Ruhildi was silent for almost the entire morning, and Saskia worried that she’d made a terrible mistake.
Finally, while Saskia prepared lunch for them, Ruhildi began to speak.
“What you saw…that were the final time he tormented me. He’d been at it for so long I lost count of the seasons. It didn’t happen all the time; just often enough that I never slept soundly, except following a beating that left me senseless. That last time, I were laid low with a fever for days after. My kin…my fellow slaves took care of me, and whilst I lay thrashing and moaning in a pool of my own puke, they tried to overthrow the forge master.
“It didn’t go well for them.
“You ken, all greenhands have some power to shape living trees, but a rare few can also shape living flesh and bone. Most of those few become tenders; ones who pledge to use spells of flesh only to heal others. But some, such as the forge master, take no such oath. His ilk are called cruorgers. They are to greenhands what necrourgists are to stoneshapers: the darkest facet of the jewel.
“With a twitch of his wand, a cruorger can snap necks and stop hearts; make blood pour forth from eyes; even take control of living bodies and turn them against each other.
“The forge master did all of those things to my kin, and more.
“I awoke in time to witness the last of it. And something else awoke inside of me in that moment. It had been lurking there a long time, growing stronger with each cut. But now it were mine to wield. The first manifestation of an awakened magic is rare powerful. I ken not how I did it. I weren’t even fully aware at the time. All I remember is the rage.
“My kin rose up off the bloody floor…and in death achieved what in life they couldn’t. A cruorger is impotent against those who are already dead, you ken. He can’t stop the heart of one whose heart no longer beats in his chest. Dead blood and bone falls outside the domain of the seed of life. Death is my domain.
“I watched them cut him down. Watched the light fade from his eyes. And then I brought him back, just as I brought back my own kin.
“My kin and me—and the shell of the hated master—fought our way through the guards and any other leaf-ears foolish enough to stand in our way. Those who fell, I raised them to fight beside us. On that day, there seemed no limit to my power.
“To be true with you, I didn’t expect to survive. I didn’t truly want to survive. I just wanted to hurt them.
“Yet when I fled into the night, the alvari didn’t chase me. I ken not why. Mayhap they think I fell with the rest. Aye, that must be it. Elsewise these mountains would have been swarming with our enemies, even in the midst of mildwinter.
“I wandered high into the hills, still half-hoping to die. But death didn’t claim me as I claimed it. And that were when I met you.
“You brought me back, Sashki, my friend. You made me want to live again. And for that—I ken not if I ever thanked you truly, but I’m thanking you now. Thank you.”
Saskia dabbed at the tears spilling silently down her cheeks as she finished chopping vegetables for the soup.
Damn these onions, she thought to herself. Except…this world doesn’t have onions. What kind of a world doesn’t have onions? And what the hell is wrong with me? Why am I thinking about onions after listening to a story like that!?
“You’re…uh…” Saskia coughed. “…you’re welcome, Ruhildi. So the crystal shard thing that…that fucker put in your chest…it’s still in there? Is it dangerous?”
“Och it’s in there,” said Ruhildi. “I ken not if it’s dangerous, but without it, I’d not be casting any real spells.”
“What, really? That would mean he…basically handed you the weapon that killed him.”
Ruhildi snorted. “He were a fool, alright.”
“But…why? It makes no sense. What was he planning?”
“Long afore he did this to me, he larned to channel a portion of my dormant magic for the shaping of metals, and later, bone as well. That were how it began…” Ruhildi shivered, looking down at her feet. “’Twere not enough for him. He wanted more, fool he were.”
“A while back you told me the greenhand—the keeper—can’t use magic without his staff, and that’s why he’s so dead-set on hunting me down. The staff also has one of those crystals in it. So it’s the crystal he needs, not the staff? That’s what you use to cast spells?”
Ruhildi nodded. “You nearly have the right of it. But what you saw weren’t just any old crystal. ’Twere arlium. Yesterday I told you arlithite is a form of arlium. To be true with you, it’s not quite that simple, but it’s easier to think of them that way.
“Spellflingers bind our magic to an instrument shaped around a very specific piece of arlium, which we call our focus. Without our focus, we are near powerless—though he were still able to draw some power from me. That arlium shard the alvar put in me, that were taken from the same wand they confiscated from me when I were taken. I thought it broken, lost, until…” She paused for a long moment, eyes distant. “What he did to me…such a thing has not been attempted since the days of old Ulugmir. The arlium were fused to my body; to my animus. I am become my own focus.”
