Tides of magic, p.23
Tides of Magic, page 23
“I think I could,” she nodded, “I prefer to follow roads from the air, so I could either fly south to the pass and then follow that through the mountains.”
“Or you could use the dwarven hold,” Diana added, “don’t overfly their land, but so long as you stay safely outside their land the outer wall should be visible from space. Follow it around till you see our camp on the other side. They can give you directions to the manor.”
“I hadn’t thought about following the wall,” Isabella admitted, “should shave a day or so off the round trip. I’d appreciate if you’d send a message to our camp so they don’t freak out when Huginn and I land.”
“Please tell me you aren’t going with that name,” Croft groaned.
“Where is your wolf anyways?” Hal asked.
“Kitty is ‘somewhere near by’ if the slate is to be believed,” the beast master responded, ignoring Croft, “apparently all my animal companions can warp to my location or something, otherwise they spend their time near ‘my home’ or something.”
“I’ll start negotiating a plan for moving people through the dwarven hold,” said Diana, “I already broached the topic, probably going to cost an arm and a leg per person, but we seem to have built enough trust with the exarch to bring people through. At least, I hope so.”
“We can also put out a call for settlers on this side of the mountains,” Croft added, “our newest guards might know some people who would be willing to move.”
“Want me to bring Ash back over once I have my saddle?” Isabella asked.
“He’ll want to stick with the villagers,” the guild leader replied, “and it might be helpful to have him escort Eric over. Although… I do want to talk to Eric before we move him.”
“Still think he can be of help?”
“Yes… maybe, I don’t know,” Hal shrugged, “I have to try, can your owl carry me over with you?”
“Huginn can carry a struggling horse over mountains,” Isabella smirked, “he can handle the two of us.”
-----
As some measure of safety Isabella had tied a couple ropes around her noctua’s chest, one in front of the wings and the other behind, with a couple lengths connecting the two both on the owl’s back. It looked like a makeshift harness one might use while climbing, were it not for the massive creature it was on. Hal had found that Huginn’s feathers were surprisingly soft, Isabella had flown thus far simply by gripping the creature’s soft down and had commented that even the ropes made it much easier to hold on.
Hal, however, found it terrifying.
He was seated behind the beast master, and now hunt master for the guild, who was crouched just behind Huginn’s neck. She held the front rope and guided her owl by simply leaning, putting her weight on the knee in the direction she wanted to turn. Pushing or pulling gently on the neck caused him to dive or climb respectively, though thankfully the noctua was relatively intelligent and avoided mountain tops without any input.
Behind her Hal gripped his own safety rope like his life depended on it, which it might have. He had vowed to find a slow fall spell before he ever did this again. He managed to do some sightseeing, angling his head against the wind, unwilling to let go of the ropes to shield himself. If the dwarven hold’s outer wall was impressive from the ground it was almost unbelievable from the air. It looked like they had designated a circle on the map where their walls were to go and stuck by that regardless of terrain. Mountains had entire faces chopped away like some massive cake, valleys between them were filled in with solid, hard stone, all forming a single smooth, unbroken wall hundreds of feet tall.
The sections of wall bridging between mountains were just short enough for Huginn to fly over if they had wanted. As it was they flew at a more comfortable height, leaving one side of the view a nearly featureless wall of stone, and the other mountains. Isabella seemed to be enjoying herself, looking off to the side, occasionally pointing at something and yelling words that were lost to the wind as though Hal had any chance of understanding.
It took just over two hours to fly around the hold, Isabella quickly spotting the trade camp on this side and guiding the Noctua down for a landing. The moment Huginn came to a stop Hal nearly jumped off.
“Oh god, solid ground,” he whispered, remaining crouched on the ground for a few seconds, enjoying the feel of stillness.
“You’ll get used to it,” Isabella teased as he finally stood back up on shaky legs.
“M-My lord,” a man wearing a chain shirt said, bowing to Hal while keeping his eyes on the Noctua. Despite being warned the other guards at the camp were eyeing Huginn wearily, weapons not drawn but in easy reach, and bows strung but not held.
“I need a drink,” Hal grumbled, flexing his legs which had long ago fallen asleep, “and please tell me our manor is close enough to walk to.”
“I can get you a drink, M’lord,” the man said, straightening up, “but I’m afraid if I told you the other thing it would be a lie.”
“It should only be another hour flight,” Isabella called from where she stood with another man with a map between them, “and look at it this way, we’ll have a saddle on the way back.”
“No, no, no,” Hal said, accepting a wine skin from one of the guards and taking a long pull, “I’m not flying back. I’d rather hide amidst the villagers.”
“Is someone afraid of heights?” Isabella continued to tease.
“It’s less the heights and more the ‘small, fast moving hard to hold onto creature to who’s back I’m clinging to’ that scares me.”
“If you say so,” she replied with a sly smile, and took one more glance at the map, “alright, I think I can find my way to the manor, ready to go?”
“Might as well get it over with,” Hal sighed, taking another drink from the skin before handing it back with a nod of thanks.
“I’m with you m’lord,” the man confided in a whisper, “not even the lady of light herself could make me ride it.”
“And yet I must,” the knight gave him a weak smile, “hardships of command.”
-----
“Hal!” a voice called from the manor as the named knight half stumbled through the main gate. It had only been a couple months since he had last been here, but it was hardly recognizable. The grassy plains had mostly been replaced with rows of neatly tilled soil, dirt roads had been mostly cobbled, and dozens of structures had sprung up around the longhouse.
Even the manor grounds, once an over grown mess, were now neatly tended, the small well was clearly working now with a freshly rebuilt roof and winch. The creeping vines on the manor walls were mostly left alone, giving the building a comfortable aged look, but the once decrepit doors had either been replaced or repaired and cleaned up. Even the main gate had a new set of thick wooden doors flanked by a couple guards wielding spears who saluted as Hal and Isabella walked in.
A bundle in shining armor nearly crashed into Hal in its excitement.
“Have you gotten taller?” Hal asked the young paladin.
“Good to see you again Ash,” Isabella said, stepping past Hal to give the young man a hug.
“Where’s the owl?” Ash asked once the hug ended, “I wanted to see it.”
“We landed a short distance from the village, figured it wasn’t a good idea to land a massive owl in the middle of town,” Hal responded, which was mostly true, though it was also so Hal could get some circulation back to his legs with a short walk.
“I can take you to meet Huginn later,” Isabella promised, “the manor and town look amazing, seems you’ve been busy while we’ve been gone.”
“Yup,” Ash nodded, “though the villagers did most of the work, I simply helped out.”
“Have you found any volunteers to settle our new village and castle on the other side?” Hal asked.
“Got some, most of the miners want to stay, some farmers are willing to make the move though. We should get more once we send a message back to Barrowdale.”
“I hear you’ve built up quite the following,” Isabella commented as the three of the began walking back towards the manor house.
“It’s a paladin’s job to help people,” Ash responded, holding open the door, “apparently that’s not as common as it should be.”
“Any young women offering to… thank you?” Isabella continued, clearly still in a teasing mood. Hal broke off from the now blushing Ash, glad Isabella had a new target. He made his way up the stairs and down the hallway which contained the mostly unused bedrooms for the guild. A pair of guards waited outside the only door with a lock on it, both stood straighter and saluted with their fists over their heart as the arcane knight approached.
“Can you open up?” Hal asked, “I’d like to speak to him in person.”
The guards exchanged a quick glance before nodding. One of them pulled out a large key while the other loosened the short sword in its sheath at his hip. Hal hadn’t heard of any break out attempts, likely they remembered the attack from months earlier.
“You’re back,” Eric grunted as Hal entered, the room was relatively comfortable, a well-made wooden chair sat in front of a small table across the room from an unmade bed. Light filtered in the small window, augmented by small lantern that hung from a post near the door. Eric sat in the chair with one leg up on the desk, worn leather pants and a green cloth tunic that looked like the starting gear were all he had on. Hal spotted Eric’s slate on the desk, they had tried to separate him from it but it seemed to teleport back if too far away for too long.
“Wanted to check in,” Hal replied, leaning against the wall by the door, “see how you’re doing.”
“I don’t know,” the CIA spook admitted, looking down, “I tried to do as you said, to prove these people aren’t real. But…”
“I don’t know if they are just incredibly accurate simulations or real people,” Hal agreed as Eric drifted off, “we decided it doesn’t really matter.”
“That’s what Ash says,” the other man nodded, “the only unreal things were Guide’s healing and her nearly indestructible clothing.”
“I think she’s a special case,” the knight suppressed a shudder as he remembered that morning, “no one else pays her any mind, I think it’s so players can tell she isn’t of this world, she isn’t supposed to fit in. Maybe it helps lend her credibility when she talks about game mechanics or something.”
“I don’t understand how this is possible,” Eric responded, shrugging off the comment about Guide while motioning with one hand in a large arc, as though to encompass the world, “the guys who gave me a crash course in programming said there was no way to simulate an entire world perfectly in a computer. Apparently that much information in one spot would collapse into a black hole or something. And to create not one but millions of artificial human minds that are so realistic that I can’t tell the difference…”
“I don’t get it either,” Hal shrugged, “again, it doesn’t really matter. We might as well live in a new world.”
“You haven’t seen what you look like on the outside,” Eric replied, “feeding tubes, IVs, heart monitors… They had to replace Ash’s chair since he didn’t fit in it properly. I, along with other security guards, took turns spending hours holding him up while the chair was cut away. They had to do it slowly, so they didn’t cut any wires, took nearly a day to remove enough of it that a medical bed could be brought in and we could lay him down. Thankfully the rest of you fit well enough we didn’t have to do that again.”
Hal nodded, looking at the ground himself. Several long seconds passed in silence.
“You just come by for a chat?” Eric asked after a moment.
“I wanted to see how you’re doing,” Hal replied, “we could still use your help, if are willing to treat the locals with the same respect you’d give people on the outside.”
“It would be better than rotting in here,” the other man admitted, “could you really trust me though?”
“At this point I’m double your level, you could probably jump me in the middle of the night and I’d still win.”
“Really? Levels matter that much?”
“Well here,” Hal walked over to the desk, pulled it so it was between the two of them and put his right arm atop it, elbow on the wood and hand up. He explained, “Arm wrestle, I’ll show you how strong I’ve gotten.”
“Right,” Eric agreed, matching Hal and gripping his hand. It wasn’t even a contest in the end, Hal didn’t even have to struggle to push Eric’s hand to the desk. Several more attempts later, with both arms, the spook finally accepted it.
“How much can you lift now?” he asked, pushing the table back into the corner.
“I don’t know, haven’t had a chance to test it yet. I managed to lift Isabella up high enough she could easily step into a horse’s saddle though, and it wasn’t even that hard. Also cut a guy in half with one swing of my sword, though I did have some help from magic.”
“Damn,” Eric looked genuinely impressed by the second feat, “and you aren’t even at the maximum level yet.”
“We’ll probably be akin to demi-gods by the time we hit level 30 or so,” Hal agreed, “so long as you promise not to needlessly hurt NPCs, you willing to help out?”
“You aren’t going full pacifist, are you?” Eric grumbled.
“No, we kill when we need to, it’s the way of this world. But no needless killing, torture, like… guide.”
“I think I can handle that,” the CIA spook agreed.
“Alright, I chat with the others, let you know our decision tomorrow,” Hal nodded, straightening up, “oh, and if you do go rogue again? I might end up killing you by accident, I’m not used to this strength.”
“Noted,” Eric replied with a lopsided grin.
-----
“You sure about this?” Isabella asked the next day as they began packing up building supplies into a series of carts for transport. Diana had managed to secure passage through the dwarven hold, for a cost naturally, for a convoy of passengers and supplies. There were, however, limitations. No one passing through dwarven land was allowed to carry weapons, there was a price per supply carriage and person. Apparently, there were several more pages to the agreement that didn’t matter so much as long as no one did anything stupid.
That however, wasn’t what Isabella was talking about. In fact, the subject of her suspicion was currently helping a villager carry a chord of wood to a cart.
“He sounded quite humbled when I spoke to him,” Hal assured her as Eric pushed the wood into place.
“He’s a spook, it might a ploy.”
“I don’t think so,” the knight replied, lifting an unknown part that was supposedly for a water wheel powered saw mill. In the back of his mind he was trying to assemble a blue print of the device, but likely would have to visit the mill after it gets built.
“He’s actually speaking with the locals normally,” Hal continued, nodding to where Eric was talking something over with a villager. Most of the villagers gave him a wide berth, the two guards once assigned to his door remained close by with spears. However, a group, probably more recent arrivals who didn’t know the story, were managing to get along with the CIA operative well enough.
“It is better than he was treating them when we walked through town that first day,” she agreed warily, “Ash seems to agree with you as well, and he’s spoken with him the most.”
“Diana trusts my judgement as well,” he pointed out.
“And she’s not biased at all,” Isabella replied, giving Hal a knowing smile, “and Croft isn’t happy about it at all.”
“Honestly it’s probably a good thing the two of you remain suspicious,” the knight said, pointedly looking at a wooden gear the size of his torso as he sought a place in the cart to place it, “and if I’m wrong you can feed him to your newest pet.”
“If I do you’re cleaning up that owl pellet,” she shot back in a tone that left Hal confused if she was serious or not. He’d seen the size of the pellets the noctua coughed up after feeding and was fine with never seeing one again. Thankfully most were deposited out in the forest where no one had to see them.
“Think we have enough supplies?” Hal changed the subject, nodding to two full carts filled with nothing but wood, “it’s ten gold a cart and there’s plenty of wood on the other side.”
“We need enough to ensure the mill gets up and running,” Isabella explained, “and then some extra to start on the initial long house while that starts working. I want to avoid log houses, they take up space and don’t exactly speak to a strong kingdom.”
“Does it really matter that much?”
“I’ve been doing some reading, and Dwarves value appearance, especially craftsmanship. If we ever want them to join us against the legion, we need to show them our skill.”
“Huh,” Hal grunted as he ensured the most recent gear was placed securely, “I hadn’t even thought about asking them to join us. I was imagining getting Ulyssar to join us, maybe some of the more eastern kingdoms if the other player groups aren’t able to rally them first, but not the dwarves.”
“There’s no love lost between them and the legion,” Isabella pointed out, “and they’ve been known to march out of their holds when properly motivated.”
“And here I’m supposed to be the lore expert,” Hal chuckled, “I know they took part in the first legion war, from the first game. At least they did if you managed to straighten out a dispute among their nobles before the final battle. That was with a more southern hold though, and every hold is basically a nation unto itself.”
“I read about that, the battle of sacred tides, right?” Isabella asked as she pushed a box of square nails into another cart. She lacked the strength that Hal had and was clearly struggling more.
“That’s what it was known as in later games,” agreed Hal, “final battle of Tides of Magic: Legion, first game in the series. It was a good build up, but the tech wasn’t really there to fully realize the battle.”
“In any case, the precedent is there. There are several holds in the mountains, right? If we can rally several of them that would be a significant force.”
