Dao Divinity 2 Chapter 3 (Patreon)

As Dar carried Russ into the center of the village, people scrambled to make way for their injured towns person.

“Dar, we have this table ready for you.” Sasha guided him over to a low table.

Setting Russ down, Dar was nearly pushed aside as Russ’ women circled the table defensively and wouldn’t let Sasha approach.

“Cut it out.” Dar growled. “Now isn’t the time for this. Let her get to him.”

All but the ram wilted in front of Dar. But as he locked eyes with the ram, she looked ready to pick a fight. He knew her emotions were riding high, so he let the challenge pass, but he kept eye contact with her.

“You need to get a new shirt and get that wound stitched up.”

She looked down at the torn shirt plastered to her side, soaked in blood. “I’ll be fine. I’m made of tough stuff.”

“Mindy.” One of her sister wives pleaded.

Dar let out a sigh of relief. Finally, he had her name.

“Mindy. Let someone look at your wound and let them tend to Russ. You are currently getting in the way of his recovery.”

She glared at Dar and started to move, only to wince and clutch her side.

Dar knew she’d come to the right conclusion soon, but he was tired of waiting. “Lay down. Don’t make that cut any worse than it is. We’ll have someone look at you after Russ.”

Mindy grumbled but eventually used her spear to lower herself down to the ground, refusing to even take her other dao companions’ help.

One problem solved, Dar nodded to Sasha and two human women that came to the table. Tabby, Bart’s wife, apparently had a knack for healing. She liked to joke she was self taught from having to bandage Bart so much during his early days in the forge.

Sasha pulled out a spool of thread and got to work. Using her dao, she didn’t even need a needle to stitch the wounds closed. Her precision was impeccable. Tabby worked with her, sealing each wound with a paste, while a third woman finished with wraps.

Together, the three women should be able to stop Russ from getting worse, at least long enough that his natural fortitude as a demon would do the rest.

Dar felt somebody come up behind him, but he knew that floral smell. As Cherry reached him, she rubbed his back, standing on her tiptoes to put her chin against his shoulder. “Let’s get you some food, and we can talk about what happened with the leaders.”

Nodding, Dar left the healers to do what they did best. His own minor injuries could wait.

They approached the other side of the fire pit, where they ate communally. The central fire pit sported three large cauldrons and masses stood around them, waiting their turn to get a serving of food. Dar recognized one of Glump’s dao companions managing one of the cauldron’s, so he headed over with Cherry to get a bowl of stew.

Dar hoped they’d be able to get things set up for a larger variety, but they could all live on stew for now. It was by far one of the easier meals to cook in mass to feed over a hundred people.

“What are we having today, Darande?” Dar asked the woman ladling food into everybody’s bowls.

“We have another lovely assortment of wild herbs with dryad grown corn and potatoes. We even managed to get some rabbit in here.” She scooped stew into two rough bowls for Dar and Cherry.

“Thank you.” Dar nodded to her in thanks.

“Here,” Cherry held her bowl out, offering to swap. It had a slightly larger portion.

Dar took it and gave her a peck on the cheek, but looking up, he noticed a few of the heads of the village looking at him as they formed a rough circle among the seating.

Sighing internally, Dar was reminded that building a town didn’t keep to working hours. There was always work to be done. Dar found Cherry and him a seat in the circle, making a mental list of who was in attendance.

Closest to him was Bart, the first human to agree to come with Dar to start the town, and the reason so many other craftsmen had joined. He was also the father of their maid, Amber. He’d naturally become the leader for the humans in the village. He was well spoken, well liked, and a bear of a man from his days at the forge. He’d helped lead the craftsman as they built up the town.

Next to him was Glump, a demon from the eldest family unit, and Dar’s working companion. Glump’s dao companions flitted around him but never sat down at the group. Dar had been told it was something to do with the demon culture; the men would usually take the lead and speak for their group.

Samantha, a human woman, sat next to Glump. She had taken it upon herself to be the voice of the women and children in the village. She’d even set up a schooling program for the little ones. Dar obliged her as much as he could; children were the future, and he wouldn’t hamper them unless he had to.

Rex was the last one in the circle. He was a bird demon and led the charge around the village’s defenses. His ability to scout and keep an eye on everything around them had already proven valuable.

He and his guards managed to spot and prevent two wolf packs from getting to their budding village in the short time they’d been at this.

A few of the leaders were missing, but the important ones were there. And Dar knew Rex would be interested in hearing his report of the attack.

“Evening.” Bart waved Dar and Cherry into the conversation.

Dar smiled as he settled into his seat. “A little more lively than I was expecting this late in the day, but all’s well that ends well. Russ will get patched up and be back to his boisterous self in no time.”

“Maybe he’ll be tempered a tad.” Glump smiled and a few of the others tried to keep a smile off their own lips. “Still, he should be strong enough to take care of himself. Many in the village are not as strong as he is, so if there is a threat to him, there’s a threat to many. Tell us what you found.”

Dar told them the story of his flight through the forest, and how he’d found Russ. They paid special attention to his description of the jaguar demon.

Rex was the first to speak. “Sounds like a young demon. We’ll double up anyone on night watch. Can’t have her prowling down from the cliffs and causing trouble. She’ll need to be dealt with though.”

Wincing, Dar hazarded a question. “Dealt with how?”

Glump croaked a laugh. “Captured, not killed. This situation isn’t that uncommon among demons. Most of us start like that. It isn’t as if we go from animals to demons and become magically civilized.”

Dar paused. He hadn’t really given it much thought, but it made sense. Even though forming a dao and rebuilding their bodies led to higher intelligence, most of them would still not be more than a wild animal after it. Just far smarter.

“So, we send out a team to wrangle her down. Then what?”

Glump smiled and Rex filled in. “We bring her back and try to socialize her. The women have done this before; they can hen peck the new girl for a while. It’ll get them off my back.”

Dar looked warily over Rex’s shoulder. Sure enough, one of his dao companions walked over and smacked the back of his head, walking away muttering something about ungrateful men.

Rex winced, a sparkle of mirth in his eye as he rubbed the back of his head. “I guess I deserved that one.”

“Probably did. Most of us were thinking it, but I have enough sense not to say it aloud.” Bart laughed, and the others joined in, the tension lightening.

Dar took another bite of the stew, waiting for the group to settle before getting back to the topic at hand. “So we send a group to go get her. Who’s it going to be?”

But Glump surprised Dar when he said, “No, only one can go. A demon like her won’t make a move on a large group. She still has the instincts of a predator. She will know when she’s outmatched, and it will be almost impossible to flush her out.”

Dar nodded, looking around the circle and noticing at all the expectant faces watching him. Sure enough, Glump finished his statement by saying “I think it should be you, boss.”

Dar’d thought that was coming. He looked over to Cherry to get her thoughts; she nodded her agreement. “Alright. I’ll go see if I can’t wrangle us a feral demon and a new member of the village. What other excitement did I miss today?”

Bart leaned forward. “I got those picks made. If you think your dao isn’t going to come soon, I’ll start some men working the caves into something larger. We can at least dig out some limestone we can crush and start trying to make that concrete you described.”

Dar had given him the basic recipe for some simple concrete. He’d recommended crushed and cooked limestone as a great base, with sand and gravel mixed in. It wouldn’t be like industrial concrete, but it would do the job just fine. “Go ahead and get that started. If you can get the guys to dig out a pit and lay a foundation, I’ll see about enchanting it.”

“Will one of the kilns we were already working on do it? We have the three pits for you almost dug out. Just need to line them so you can enchant them.”

Dar thought about it. He knew the cook for the limestone would give off some pretty dangerous fumes, so really it just needed to be somewhat kept separate. “Pick one, but let’s make sure it is marked. There are some nasty fumes that come off the limestone; I don’t want to mix our new pottery dishes and those fumes.”

Bart nodded and scratched a note into a piece of wood he had at his side with a knife. “I’ll get them marked with stakes. Two for the women’s pottery and one for the concrete.”

He looked up. “You know, Rick is begging to try building with this stuff given how you talked it up. He’s excited about the idea of something like mortar, but used in mass to make a structure’s base.”

“Hah, I hope it lives up to his expectations. Just be careful what you put in it. It’s meant to be pretty hard to modify once it is set.” Dar commented, still a little unsure how the substance would work in Granterra. But so far, chemical properties had seemed similar enough to what he was used to. Mana just made everything a bit different.

“Sam, how are the kids?” Dar changed to lighter topics. There were about two dozen little ones that ran around the village. They were mostly human, but there were a few young demons and spirits in the group. It was fun to watch them all play together, and it seemed to also help the adults get used to intermingling more than they had in Bellhaven.

After all, the kids didn’t seem to care if they were human or ancient. They were all just kids.

“Energetic. It would be easier to manage them if we had a proper building to help hold them and reinforce some structure. They like to wander too much.” There was a pointed look at Glump, who had a little one in the group that was a bit of a troublemaker.

Dar had seen similar incidents where the kids had all been running in different directions, Sam chasing after them. At her age, Sam struggled a bit to keep up with them.

“Our children are very active; it is okay to let them learn through error.” Glump defended himself.

Sensing potential conflict, Dar worked to try to move on without getting in the middle. It wasn’t wise to tell somebody how to raise their kids. “Either way, thank you Sam for working with the children.”

“My pleasure, Lord Yigg.” Despite his protests, she continued to stick to a formal title. After realizing he wasn’t a wizard, the people of Bellhaven had dropped that title and picked up Lord. Sam took it even further, using his last name as well.

“How much longer on the palisade?” Rex took the opportunity to change the topic.

Dar shared a glance with Glump and spoke for the both of them. “The biggest delay is the lumber, and I’m worried with the recent attack on Russ that we might not have many people willing to go out to collect logs the next few days.”

Cherry turned to him, a bit of sadness in her eyes. Her dao unfortunately wouldn’t help them with this task. They’d thought to use her dao to grow a tree, but it had limitations. She could create new growth or even speed up the growth of a harvest, but creating a several decade old oak that they could cut down for lumber took too much to be worth it.

Her dao worked more so to speed up growth than to magically create a tree.

“Cherry, how’s food production going?”

She shifted back to the group to report. “We are still gathering plenty of food. We’ll need more storage space soon. Dar, your solution to rotate beans into the field has helped significantly; it is much easier to encourage their growth now.”

“Good. How much more storage do you need?” Bart asked before turning to Dar. “Do you think that would be a suitable job for our first project with the concrete?”

“Yeah, that would work pretty well. It just needs to be a simple cellar. We could dig down maybe 6 feet and line it with concrete to keep the bugs out.”

“Couldn’t we just use the caves?” Rex asked. “The houses should be a priority.”

The group paused with that question, and Dar put it to a vote.

“Hands up if you think the priority should be housing.” The hands went up from Glump, Bart, Sam and Rex. A swift majority and put the issue to bed. “Focus on the first foundation then Bart.”

“Any other issues with the crops?” Dar asked. Last time, he’d had to prod Cherry to tell him that it was getting harder and harder to grow the crops. She’d been exhausting herself and just dealing with it. After a look at the little field they were using, it became apparent to Dar that they weren’t rotating the crops. They were just growing as much corn as they could because they thought it had the best yield.

Cherry might have been using her dao to speed it up, but the soil wasn’t being given time to recover. He’d then suggested growing a few cycles of beans and rotating the crops.

It confirmed while her Dao could make plants grow faster that it was less taxing if there were better conditions, like the mana and her dao, only helped supply what was missing for her to speed up the crop growths.

“None, besides the coming winter. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to coax crops up through the snow.” Cherry bit her lip. She put a lot of pressure on herself, especially as they tracked their current yields. They were doing impressively for a new settlement, but they still would have to work hard to stock enough before winter came.

“How long do we have before our first snow?” Dar shifted the question to address the entire group.

“A moon, maybe a little more if it comes later.” Cherry looked to the others for confirmation.

Everyone nodded at her assessment.

“If we could build an enclosure around the field and give it some heat, do you think we could extend it?” Bart asked.

Dar considered it, but realized there was more that they needed. “It’s the sun that’s the problem. In the winter, sunlight is weaker and doesn’t provide enough energy to sustain crops.”

A few of them looked at Dar like he had a new head growing out of his neck. They generally accepted his odd knowledge based on the story he’d told them that he was from a faraway area, but they got more curious the more that he said.

“Is that why it gets colder in the winter?” Glump asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“Sort of. It’s complicated.” Dar wasn’t about to get into planetary science, especially knowing he’d butcher it, anyway. He would have paid more attention in science classes if he’d known he’d have to represent it for an entire world.

“So, how do we make up for the weakened sunlight?” Sam asked before adding. “Also, you should teach the kids. You have a wealth of knowledge.”

Dar had to keep himself from laughing. Back on earth his general education and trade skills hadn’t made him stand out at all, but they seemed to put him into an elite category here. But he couldn’t think of how he’d fit it into his schedule.

“Maybe sometime once we are more set up. For now, I’m focused on getting everything built.”

“Bring the kids to the field. We’ll give them a lesson and they can pitch in. It should get some of their energy out.” Cherry offered, and Sam nodded agreement.

Dar couldn’t think of a strong reason not to. They could at least try it, and if it got too much in the way of their production, they’d just change their approach. “Sure. Priority stays on the crops. The kids would be a big help if we can get them to focus, but Sam, if they are more trouble than they are worth, we need to have enough food for the winter.”

Sam nodded, but Dar knew he’d have to keep an eye. She often put the kids above everything else, so he threw Cherry a knowing look, making sure she knew he wanted to know the moment there were issues.

Cherry nodded back. “I will not let you all go hungry. If that means shooing out some children from the field, then I’ll do it.”

“Good, we’ll have to think of some other ideas come winter. For now, we’ll keep on as we are.”

A loud belch resounded in the circle from Glump, breaking the moment and leading a few of the nearby men from other groups, challenging him with belches of their own. They’d all finished their food at that point, so some of the group started to clear out.

Sasha came over to Dar who had stayed seated. She wiped grime off her hands and settled down to finally enjoy her own bowl of stew. “He’ll live, but he’ll have a few new scars for it. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t let me look at you for all the grief you gave Mindy.” Sasha poked at his side where he’d been cut.

“It’s not bad at all.” There was a small patch of caked blood, but it looks like it was enough to clot itself.

“Mmm, we’ll look at it later.” Sasha promised before focusing on her stew.

Cherry handed off her and Dar’s empty bowls to Marcie, who’d been hovering nearby to clean.

“Would you like another bowl, Milord?” Amber asked before Marcie could get too far away.

“No, thank you. And please sit down with us when you are finished.” Dar added.

Both of them did a small curtsy before moving off. They’d been helpful and had been supporting Cherry in the field during the day. He felt a little guilty that they had signed up for something different, thinking he’d be some big shot wizard in Bellhaven.

They’d done well so far as the plans adjusted, and they seemed to be enjoying their time, but he still worried they wouldn’t say anything if they were unhappy.

Once the group had cleared out to just be Sasha, Cherry, and him, Dar broached a topic he’d been thinking about. “Cherry, do you think if I planted some trees in my inner world, you’d be able to help them get a head start?”

“Why not just gather some wild trees from the forest?”

Pausing, Dar didn’t have a good answer. He just hadn’t thought of doing that. “That… is a really good idea. I’ll see if I can’t spot any.”

“You should also invite Mika over here.” Cherry added, looking over at another group. It was filled with mostly unaffiliated spirits and demons; they’d formed their own small group of five women.

“She can decide on her own.” Dar grumped. Since they’d started the village, Mika had avoided him for the most part. He didn’t want to deal with whatever her problem was; he had enough going on.

“He really needs us to spell it out for him, doesn’t he?” Cherry asked Sasha, with a smile teasing at the edge of her lips.

“Right? It took brute force for him to win us over, saving me twice and binding you to him with oaths. And yet, he seems to think that if Mika wanted him, she’d just curl up like a little kitten waiting for attention.”

Dar stayed silent through their mock discussion, enjoying the light banter despite taking the brunt of their joking. He got their point. Granterra was different. Strong men had multiple women; it was expected of them. And in the communities of the ancient races, men sought strong dao companions.

But the concept of having multiple dao companions was still an odd concept to him. His brain still was stuck somewhat in how he’d been raised. At this point, he had Sasha and Cherry as dao companions and even used Amber for pleasure. That felt like more than enough. Going after another woman seemed selfish, but the girls had a different opinion. They wanted a stronger family unit that measured up to what they felt his prominence should be.

This wasn’t the first time Cherry and Sasha had brought up Mika, but they were definitely becoming more direct. He gave them a look, letting them know he heard them and would figure it out in his own time. They just smiled to themselves.

It was growing dark and groups were starting to break off to their huts, so Dar stood up. Whatever he did, it would have to wait for another night.

“Come on, you two. Time to go get some sleep so we are ready for tomorrow.”

“Sleep?” Cherry chuckled, “Is that what we are supposed to do in the hut?”

AN: So many new characters to flesh out a village. I had to make a cheat sheet. Then again, I have messed up minor character's names in the past so maybe that's a practice I should do anyway.