Dream - 27 (Patreon)

Sam watched on as Dussok and Takkla sat cross-legged by the fire, a glowing coal cupped in each of their claws.  His sister’s face twitched, and the smell of burning meat reached his nostrils.

He winced apologetically.  The oils Samazzar had made for his siblings should have protected them from the actual burning heat of the embers, but apparently there still were some gaps in his knowledge.  Of course, there was a pit of dead goblins that could attest to that, but the handful that had reached the first level in the path of flesh were hardly complaining.

Already, they were using the power of the elixirs to train their bodies past their physical limits.  Almost every morning, Sam saw them running back and forth outside the city limits, burlap sacks full of sand strapped to their backs while Chief Grolm watched on.  Half of the leveled up goblins had already earned stat boosts in their strength.

Samazzar wasn’t sure whether Grolm knew exercises for the other abilities: coordination, speed, and reflexes or if the big goblin simply didn’t care.  Each usage of the an let the person that survived consuming it struggle to earn four stat boosts.  A practitioner of the path of flesh could only develop an attribute to the point that it had three more levels than the number of elixirs they had used.

In short, a first level goblin theoretically could earn all of their ranks in strength.  That would leave them dangerously unbalanced when compared to another creature with levels, but against a common foe it would let them physically overpower even an ogre or a bear.

But it wasn’t Sam’s problem.  He had no plans to remain in the Greentoe village any longer than necessary.  Really, the only reason he was performing alchemy for the goblin chief was to keep the big green creature happy while he did his own work.

Chief Grolm was ecstatic once the casualty rate for the first level elixir dropped below fifty percent.  Once Sam hinted that he was researching the second level of the elixir, the chief practically tripped over their giant feet, offering him all of the food, ingredients, and mates he could think of to try and urge Samazzar to finish his research.

He grimaced.  The mates were hardly welcome, but Grolm seemed content to leave the kobolds to their own devices so long as Sam kept producing potions and the hounds kept getting fed.  As for the rest of the goblins, they largely left them alone, occasionally screeching and gibbering something incomprehensible at the kobolds before wandering off when none Sam and his siblings didn’t respond.

Despite months spent in the Greentoe village, none of them had figured out how to understand any of the goblins except Grolm, Grimmshold and a handful of the merchants.  Still, that just meant less distractions while the kobolds studied magic.

“Little dragon,” Dussok’s voice ground out from by the edge of the fire.  “I’m close to the next threshold, but Takkla is in pain.  She needs to take-”

“No,” she cut him off, eyes still closed and her voice tight with pain.  “It hurts, but it’s not anything that I can’t handle.  I need to finish the baptism.”

“She’s right you know,” Sam interjected, closing his eyes and reaching out with his mind to touch the flames behind them.  He’d only managed to raise his understanding in the mystery of fire to the second level during his time in the goblin village so he couldn’t actually control the bonfire, but he could still mold the heat and good air to prevent his siblings from being overwhelmed.

“Right now the two of you need to focus on embers in your claws and the way the heat is flowing over you,”  he continued.  “If you don’t break through in the next twenty or so seconds, the oil of burn resistance will begin to wear off.”

“We’ll get rid of the embers before then,” Dussok replied solemnly, inclining his head.  “Don’t worry little dragon.”

“No.” Sam snorted.  “If it takes that long you need to eat the embers.  I doubt it will feel comfortable, but I’ll be able to use my magic to keep the heat from searing you.  Plus, I have a couple of healing potions I was saving up for just this sort of occasion so you’ll be fine.  Probably.”

Dussok jolted, the ember in his claws shaking slightly as he opened his eyes to stare at Samazzar in shock.

“What?”  Sam asked,  crossing his arms.  “You were both there when Tazzaera made me do the same thing.  You’ve had so much more time to finish learning the third level than me, maybe you won’t need as forceful of a baptism.”

“If you don’t want to eat an ember,” he finished with a snort, “just have a breakthrough.  It’s as simple as that.  Comprehend the mysteries of heat and ember or we increase the intensity of the baptism.  The choice is yours.”

Takkla’s eyes popped open, the ember slipping from her claws as she stared unseeing past Samazzar.  Has magical senses took note of the heat emanating from her ember coiling, seemingly on its own, and rising into a ball in front of the smaller kobold.  She reached forward, passing a claw through the sphere with a look of wonder on her face.

“That’s one!”  He announced cheerfully.  “Takkla made it to the third level in heat and ember.  It’s time for you to catch up Dussok.”

The bigger kobold grumbled, muscles in his shoulders tensing for a second before shoving the ember into his mouth.  Quickly, Sam reached out with his senses, blunting the worst of the heat as Dussok’s jaw began to work, crushing the glowing coal down into tiny orange fragments.

Then Dussok went slack as well, muscles slumping as he lost focus under the torrent of information pouring into his mind as he comprehended the mystery.

Samazzar smiled, looking affectionately at both of his siblings as they processed their baptisms before scurrying over a couple of steps to the channel he had cut into the ground.  The dirt was muddy and cold, rising up to Sam’s waste around him as he settled into the trench.  With a deep breath he picked up the stick that Dussok used to ward off the scale hounds.

“Take a deep breath everyone,” Sam called out, tapping the pole against the wooden support holding the reservoir gate shut.  “I’m about to put out the fire.  You won’t be able to breathe for a little while due to the steam, so you should take that chance to focus on the mystery of good air.”

He pushed.  The block of wood fell to the side, and a moment later a huge wave of water rushed down the passage he’d dug for it.  Barely a second later, it slammed into his pack, folding Sam forward as it flowed around him toward the bonfire at the end of the canal.

The pressure hammered down on him, pushing against his scales.  Distantly, he sensed the fire go out as it was flooded, choking the area in an ever expanding cloud of steam.  Almost absently, Sam reached inside his own lungs, multiplying the good air to keep himself from suffocating before he returned his attention to the water around him.

The water frothed as it swirled past, the natural flow from its uphill holding chamber disrupted by Samazzar’s body.  He reached out with his mind to touch it, literally bathing in the cold liquid even as he tried to comprehend the secrets that it held.

Deep down, he knew that the baptism could have been done with air.  In fact the delicate intricacies of airflow and pressure were a more interesting source of study than water and liquids, it was just much harder to recreate them.  Technically, his baptism could have taken place next to a blacksmith’s bellows with Dussok pumping away at the massive accordion.

Unfortunately, the goblins couldn’t seem to understand the concept of the tool even when human traders explained it to them.  That left Sam with water and his small artificial river.  It might be a more brute force method of exploring the mysteries, but at the end of the day, it should still work.

He shivered slightly under the frigid onslaught, tweaking his internal body heat a note higher to counteract the cold water.

Biting his lower lip, Samazzar refocused on the liquid surrounding him, struggling against the intense pressure to regain his ordinary sitting position.  His tail swished through the current, disturbing the miniature river more as it created small whirlpools that only lasted a fraction of a second before the crush of oncoming water destroyed them.

Then it struck.  The moment of epiphany and realization where, for a brief second the universe pulled aside the cloak of obscurity and Sam could actually see the truth of how pressure and flow worked.  For that moment, all of his hypotheses about their nature and operation were confirmed, written onto the very fabric of his being in massive burning letters.

Sam blinked his eyes open, shaking his head as he looked up into the night sky.  Stars winked down at him, impossibly distant as he squelched in the mud of the trench.  A groan ripped itself from his throat as Sammazar struggled to get to his feet.

He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious while comprehending the mysteries, but the reservoir was empty, and the bonfire was nothing but soggy ashes.  More importantly, Sam noticed with a wince, most of the low-lying area near the village wall where he’d been experimenting had been transformed into a mire of mud and detritus.

Apparently there had been more water stored in the cistern than he’d thought.

A claw clapped down onto his shoulder, drawing Samazzar’s gaze back to Dussok as his sibling looked down at him with concern.  To the side, Takkla was silently manipulating ambient warmth, exploring her abilities by twisting the heat into a series of interlocking shapes in the air.

“Are you sure that this will be all right little dragon?”  Dussok asked, squeezing Sam’s shoulder as the two of them looked at the giant mess.  “I think you just dumped out all of the village’s drinking water.”

“A small price to pay for a level in pressure and flow,” Samazzar responded, chuckling awkwardly.  After all, Dussok was right.  It had taken a dozen goblins days of slaving away over the village’s big communal well to stock the reservoir.  Even with Chief Grolm’s current good mood, he’d probably pushed the big goblin’s patience further than he should.  In all likelihood, the three of them would be beaten and deprived of food for a couple of days, one of Grolm’s favorite punishments for anything they perceived as a failure or disrespect.

“Seriously,”  Sam continued, winking at Dussok as he balled a claw up into a fist and lightly punched the other kobold in the side.  “Everything is going according to plan.  We’ll be back home with the medicine that Crone Tazzaera needs in two shakes of your tail.”

Dussok looked over the flooded, muddy expanse created by Samazzar’s experiment, a dour look on his face.  Finally, he turned back, forcing a smile.

“If you say so little dragon,”  Dussok replied weakly.  “Say, what level are your mysteries at?  With that last round Takkla and I are through to the third level of good air, heat and ember.  One more breakthrough and we’ll be able to move on to fire.”

“That’s great!”  Sam enthused, clapping his claws together.  “I’ll warn you that the fourth level is almost twice as hard as the third, but the increase in power is night and day.  Really, the third level is where magic starts becoming actually useful.  Takkla and you will have to practice, but there is a ton you can do with shaping and bending a mystery, even without being able to enhance or diminish its intensity.”

“As for me?”  He grinned at Dussok.  “I’m at the second tier in fire, pressure, and flow.  Obviously heat and good air are at the fourth level, but I have a secret.”

Samazzar motioned with a claw for his brother to move closer.  Reluctantly, Dussok leaned in as Sam cupped his claws around his muzzle, forming a tunnel that connected the other kobold’s ear to his mouth before he spoke.

“Part of the plan involves me making it to the third rank in fire.”

He winked at Dussok, feet squelching in the mud as he stepped away from his sibling.

“You actually do have a plan, don’t you little dragon?”  Dussok asked slowly, staring at Samazzar like he’d turned pink and grown an extra head.  “That wasn’t all just some sort of act to keep Takkla and my spirits up.  Despite the Greentoes enslaving us, you actually think you can make something positive out of this entire mess?”

“Of course,” Samazzar began, only to be cut off by an angry yelp.

Grimmshold buzzed over, green hands shaking with rage as they shook their skull-topped walking stick at the trio of kobolds.

“What in the name of the mysteries is this you little scaled wretches!”  The bleached skull glared balefully at Sam as the incensed goblin shook it in his face.

“Every day I tell the Chief that your lot is dangerous,” Grimmshold continued, voice quivering with rage.  “I know you’re up to something Samazzar.  Every day I look at the work you’re doing and tell Chief Grolm that it would be simpler and safer to just put you and your friends to death before you can cause some major catastrophe, and look at this.  For the sake of some ‘experiment’ you’ve flooded a quarter of the village!”

“I’ll explain my reasoning to the Chief at the feast tomorrow,” Sam replied, lying smoothly.  “After all, he’ll be excited to hear about the results of the experiment.  It brought me close to determining the appropriate water pressure, temperature, and acidity levels for dissolving redbell pollen before transforming the liquid into a gelatin with bonemeal so that it can be used as a healing stimulant.  It’s a key part of the process for tempering the violent and toxic temperment of musk boar marrow as part of the process for brewing second level elixirs.”

Grimmhshold just sputtered.  The skull atop the walking stick just shook more in Samazzar’s face as the goblin struggled and failed to find the proper words to respond.

“You just made all of that up!”  The shaman finally spt out.  “I’m fairly certain that redbell has no such effect, and everyone knows that musk boars are toxic.  They literally use their poisonous flesh as a ward against predators.  Eating any part of their body is fatal.”

“Regardless of whether you understand my work,” Sam responded smugly, “I have produced results where you have not.  I suppose we can let the Chief judge my work on its merits.  If they think there is a problem with my methods, I’m sure they’ll tell me.”

“Of course there is a problem!”  The goblin shouted at Sam, rapping the end of their walking stick against his shoulder.  “You are a slave!  You aren’t supposed to back-talk one of your masters after flooding half of the tribe’s game paddocks.  You’re supposed to be whipped and beaten for your impudence!”

“Look,” Samazzar said with a shrug.  “I already told you what I was doing, but if the water is a problem, my siblings and I will make sure to feed the hogs tonight.  The mud should be dry by tomorrow so no one will be inconvenienced.”

“No one but the well-workers that have to refill the water reservoir,”  Grimmshold grumbled.  “Fine.  Make sure that the pigs are fed, but you can be sure that I will tell Chief Grolm about your actions and attitude.”

“Sounds good,” Sam replied agreeably.  “Make sure to tell them that my research on the second level elixir is nearing completion.  The first batches will have a high fatality rate, but I should be able to start brewing them by the end of the month.”

“Elixir,” Grimmshold was practically vibrating as they said the word.  “The concoctions you make are vile.  There are heaps of dead goblins just outside the village walls that I’m sure would love to thank you for your ‘research’ and ‘advancements.”

“I told Chief Grolm that they needed more testing on game animals,”  Samazzar responded, shrugging.  “It’s not my fault that the Chief told me to look deeper into your research before testing the results on live goblins.  I’m pretty sure they’d have me beaten again if I disobeyed their orders.”

“Why anyone in their right mind give a slave access to my books on poison, alchemy and magical theory is beyond me,” the goblin shaman grumbled unhappily, turning to leave.  “Fine.  Feed the pigs you little scaled wretch.  Just be sure that I will get to the bottom of what you’re actually up too, and as soon as I do, the Chief will know.”