Dao Divinity 2 Chapter 15 (Patreon)

Dar wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at the giant tree section sitting to the side of the central hearth. It had taken most of the village, and half the afternoon, to move it, and he was still amazed they’d managed to do it.

“What now?” Shelia asked.

“Now we start carving a boat out of it.” Dar stated simply, knowing it wouldn’t be an easy task. With only hand saws, axes and chisels, it was going to be a massive labor effort.

While the men went to begin gathering their tools, Dar took the moment to go check in on Neko.

She wasn’t hard to find; Sasha always stood out like a beacon with her choice in clothing. Dar only had to look for the rich, vibrant colors of her dresses. Quickly spotting her, he headed her way.

“Hey love. How’s she doing?” Dar came up behind Sasha and wrapped his arms around her, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“Stable, but see for yourself.” Sasha moved over to where Neko was laying in a hut. Neko’s face was twisted up in pain, sweat beading down her body as she fought whatever venom the spiders had left in her wounds.

Sasha had Neko’s arm banded up tightly with a lump of a compress over her shoulder.

“Stitches to close it up?” Dar asked.

“We washed it out as best we could, but the venom had plenty of time to get in her system.” Sasha wrung out a fresh cloth and put it on Neko’s forehead, replacing an old one.

Dar reached down and stroked Neko’s hair and ruffled her ears. “Get better soon, Neko. But fair warning; I’ll have to bathe all this sweat off you when you feel better.”

Neko scrunched her eyes in pain before she opened them. She had trouble focusing, but her eyes finally settled on Dar’s face and she gave him a bright smile. “Dar.”

“Yes, I’m right here.” He sat down with her and just let his presence be there for her.

She nuzzled into his lap for a moment before she was struck with a coughing fit.

“I’ll get you some water.” Sasha left with a smile.

Dar sat there, rubbing Neko’s back as her body revolted against the venom. “Shhh, it’ll be okay.”

“Dar, Neko bad.”

“If it wasn’t for you, I’m not sure we would have seen them in time. Neko, you helped us. Now rest.” She really had caught the ettercaps before any of them had sensed their presence. While reckless, he couldn’t be upset with her. She’d wanted to protect them, and she did know the forest better than any of them.

Sasha brought back a bowl of water. “You’ll look after her? I have a few things to take care of.”

“Of course. I’ll stay with her until she falls asleep again.” Dar took the bowl of water and held it for Neko to sip.

Neko drank her fill, resting her head against his lap with a content groan and a lazy swish of her tail.

“Shh, rest. Your body needs it.” Dar ran his fingers through her hair, teasing out the black locks mixed in with the strawberry-blond.

It only took a few minutes, but Neko fell back asleep. Dar sat a bit longer, running his fingers through her hair and studying her. Somehow, the cat girl had wormed her way into his life and heart. There was something pure about her that called to him. And he’d almost lost her today.

It had shocked him how possessive he’d felt when he’d seen her in trouble. It was more than what he felt for his villagers; he was really starting to care for her and want her in his life.

Dar wasn’t sure what that would look like yet, but he knew he wasn’t going to give her up easily.

Sighing and giving Neko’s soft ears one last stroke, he gingerly slid her head off his lap and stuffed a blanket under it. As he walked out, Dar called over to Marcie to come watch Neko and make sure she was taken care of until Sasha was able to return.

Feeling it was safe to leave, Dar headed out and saw Frank and Bart had the initial boat work well in hand. He then pivoted and instead went to the cave, wanting to test out his new greater dao now that there was a bit of time.

Granite was a relatively common stone, but Dar figured that actually gave his dao a more strength. It wasn’t some rare mineral that he’d have to gather. No granite was common enough, he’d be able to find it when he needed it. After seeing Amelia’s struggle with limited salt around, he recognized the benefit of having a common resource.

As Dar stepped into the cave, a thrum immediately connected to him, the granite around him calling out to his body.

Using his hand, Dar scooped off a chunk of granite and molded it into the same shape as the tool they’d designed to help remove tree limbs. Smiling, he looked around, deciding to head further into the cave where he could get a greater amount of granite; the entrance was largely softer stone.

Miners waved as he walked deeper, coming up to a spot that had a good amount of granite around and fewer workers. Reaching forward, Dar touched the wall and imagined pulling out a huge chunk of stone, the size of a small car.

He could feel the rest of the stone and left enough behind that it wouldn’t collapse.

The stone flowed and shifted for Dar, until the wall of stone had molded into a lump with a handle that Dar was easily able to pull out from the wall. It was a few thousand pounds of stone, but with his dao helping move the stone, it wasn’t a great feat to drag it. When he was touching the granite, he found his power was much stronger.

“Hunky man meat, what on earth do you have there?” Amelia looked up from the same spot she’d been sitting in the day before. The larger crystals were gone, the start of smaller crystals all forming around her.

“I’ll tell you and everybody else about it at dinner. I want to keep focusing on this.” Dar waved to her and continued on out of the cave, receiving gawking looks from all the miners he passed with his giant chunk of granite.

A few people trailed behind him as he moved out of the cave with it and stopped at a patch of dirt, driving it into ground and forming the start of a stone foundation. Stepping back, Dar smiled, appreciating his work. But it was still smaller than he’d intended, so he headed back in to grab another piece.

Checking his reserves, his mana was already feeling sluggish from hauling that large piece for that far. Disappointed, Dar paused to try to think of a better way to do it, without using so much of his dao.

This time, when he pulled it out, he formed a large cylindrical wheel at the bottom, like a large rolling pin embedded in the bottom. Stone wasn’t going to make a good axle and wheel, but he didn’t need it to last long. He thought of it as a stone cart. 

Using his strength instead of his granite dao, Dar pulled it out and set it next to the original piece he’d used to start the foundation. Then he formed it once more, sinking it into the ground.

When he was done, the foundation formed a short, knee-high wall. Dusting himself off, Dar smiled as he looked over the foundation. It seemed like it would work. He could create foundations with half-height walls, which would also help with their lumber issue. Heck, he may even be able to carve out homes within the caves themselves.

Dar went back inside and made one more stone cart, bringing it out to the foundation and adding to the existing half-walls, making them even higher and thickening them to something closer to the cinder block walls he was used to. But as he added, he could sense the granite wasn’t the best material for tall walls or the ceiling. It just didn’t have any tensile strength, and you needed that for a roof.

He’d have to live with just making the foundations and part of the walls, adding some stability, strength, and warmth to the home. They’d need lumber or another material for the rest of the wall and ceilings.

Bart hovered over his work when he was done. “That was quick; maybe faster than the concrete.”

Dar wiped at his forehead. “Yeah, but I’m not sure how many of those I can do before getting warn out.”Dar could tell he needed to rest and restore his reserves of mana before he could do more.

“These walls, are they partially hollow?” Bart asked, rapping on one to listen to the sound.

“Sort of.” Dar explained what a cinder block looked like, and how they could be stacked in a staggered order to create a solid wall with less material.

“And we can do that with concrete too?” Bart asked.

“Typically, they are made with slightly different mixtures; you use cinders from a fire instead of gravel with the binding agent so they are lighter.” A few summers in construction taught him quite a bit.

“Got plenty of that from the central hearth. Haven’t had much to do with it until now besides soap. But if we shoot for a few foundations a day between now and winter, we might just have a shot at getting everyone in a winter home.”

“That would take a heavy burden off all our backs.” Dar agreed.

Behind Bart, people were crawling all over the massive log, still working to shave and chisel the bark off of it.

“Speaking of large projects, how’s that going?” Dark pointed to the log.

“People are eager to help with that one. As soon as Russ said that it would be used to hunt and bring back bison, people have started pitching in after they wrapped up with their tasks for the day.” Bart shook his head. “Still have a few things to work out, but with that many hands, we’ll get it done.”

“It’s going to be a big boat. You may want to save some of the larger pieces of wood; we’ll need paddles.”

“Aye, it is almost big enough to need a paddle wheel, but none of us have experience with making one.”

Dar remembered the large paddle wheel on the riverboat, but his mind drifted to an enchantment. Mika’s dao of waves might just work well enough to make something like a rear-mounted boat motor.

“I have some ideas, but we have time. That’s going to take days to carve out.”

“Dar.” Mika called, coming up from the river. Dar glanced over, his eyes catching on the wet clothing that was sticking to her body. He found himself gulping as he took in her curves, struggling to keep his focus on her face. It took him a moment to notice the net full of fish hanging over her shoulder, full down to her hips.

“I’ll catch you at dinner.” Bart clapped Dar’s shoulder, a smirk on his face as he went back to the massive log.

“Wow, Mika. That’s a lot of fish. Are you hoping to feed the whole village?” Dar teased.

She hefted the bag and eyed it critically. “There isn’t that much, but I’m glad you approve.” Mika stabbed the butt of her new spear into the ground and struck a pose.

What she’d gotten created was less like a spear and more like a trident. It had three prongs, with the middle one sticking out slightly above the other two.

“Seems to have worked well for you today.” He gave her an appreciative smile. “Want me to carry the fish the rest of the way?”

Mika squinted at Dar, distracted from his offer. “Uh huh. Something about you is different.”

Dar grinned, pleased that she could tell. “Yes. We’ll talk about it later. Let’s get your fish over to the women at the fire, and we can talk about the days we’ve had. I had some questions about your dao as well.” He took the heavy net of fish from her.

“Sure!” Mika hurried over to the group of women working at a table as Dar laid down her net. There were exclamations among the women as they quickly cast aside their current work and started sorting and prepping the fish.

With how much Mika was gathering, Dar was hopeful that they’d soon have more than they needed for the night’s dinner and could start packing them away for the winter. Although there may also be fishing as an option in the winter, depending on how Mika could do in the cold.

Heading over to the massive log, Dar saw Frank using his ax to shave some shape into it. “Which side is the front and which is the back?”

Frank jumped at Dar’s question. “Hi, uh.. Here’s your ax back.” He held it out for Dar.

“Thanks, but if it’s useful for you, feel free to keep using it. For now, I’d just like to make sure we’re on the same page around the plan for this boat.” Grabbing a lump of burnt out coal from the fire, Dar then snagged a nearby piece of extra wood. “Bart, come over here. Let’s sketch out how this is going to be cut.”

“It’s a boat, isn’t it? Seems straight forward.” Bart gave Dar a skeptical look.

“Right, I get that. But we went to a lot of work for this. We can’t afford over cutting it. Here,” Dar used the coal to mark the smoother of the two cuts with a nice flat bottomed U for the profile of the boat. “The top is here. We can mark the top out and the curve we want as we go, but we’ll make this side the back and the side that’s not quite as clean as the front.”

Bart whistled. “That’s a lot of wood we’ll need to shave off.”

“It’s not a day project for sure. If we can get the top flat we can use coals to burn down into it. Being able to cross the Bell and maybe even go up or down the Bell for trade will be worth it.”

“Can we get some more enchantments like what you have on your ax? Might speed it up.” Frank suggested.

Dar winced. “Neko did the enchantment with Sasha’s help; we won’t be able to make another till she’s back on her feet.”

“Sorry.” The old woodcutter ducked his head. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine.” Dar waved it off. “She’ll pull through and we can get some made. Can we use the mining picks at least for the rough stuff?”

“We could. You risk splitting the wood if you do it that way, but we can use the bills to pulp and scrape out the rough shape. But any of the final inches we should do more carefully.”

“Get the top flat so we can start with the coals, it’ll take time, but alot less effort. Let’s focus on that first, while we have a thicker exterior. We can trim up the side when we are done with that.”

Both men nodded, redirecting the workers to clearing away the top of the log.

The central hearth was bustling now. Everybody had finished up their tasks for the day and were coming back for dinner. But the log still drew a lot of excitement, different folks jumping in to help and taking over for those who had been going at it for a while. Dar smiled, once again enjoying the community that they’d built, something he hadn’t really felt before.

After grabbing his dinner in a newly formed clay bowl, Dar once again joined the leaders for an update. Samantha, Rex, Glump and Cherry were already there chatting.

“Evening folks. How’s the village today?”

Cherry looked a little worn down, but she gave a small smile. “Good. We managed to get two harvests planted today. We’ve run out of containers to store food though. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“That’s great news. It means we’ve made really good progress thanks to all your work Cherry.” Dar leaned over, giving her a kiss on the shoulder and enjoying the small delighted blush that spread across her face. “Let’s see if we can’t get a solid count of what we have and make sure we’re using it up now. We can replace it with what we make in the next few weeks. As for containers, I can make some stone boxes or barrels in one of the caves.”

“We still need meat.” Russ said, sitting down and examining his food.

“Yes. The good news is we have the fish as a meat source that we can get during the winter, thanks to Mika. And with the boat, I’m hopeful we can get you across the river to that Bison herd. That might be in...” Dar paused as Bart joined them and shifted what he was going to say into a question. “A week for the boat, Bart?”

“A week?” Bart snorted. “I’d have said it would be a whole winter project, but the way everyone is working it, I’m not sure.”

“Then we’ll just have to keep an eye on it and adjust. Until then, we have a plan to speed up winter housing and maybe lumber reduction.” Dar went into detail about how he and Bart were going to start setting foundations.

“Housing would make many of us feel more comfortable.” Rex agreed, “However, it seems like you are ignoring the issue of the ettercap.”

Dar winced, “It’s still on my mind, I just don’t have an answer to that yet. We don’t have the firepower to take them on, and we can’t move the village. So for now I don’t have an answer beyond keeping on alert and hoping they don’t leave the woods. But I’ll keep trying to figure out a better plan.”

“I don’t know how long we can sustain a high alert and double shifts. The men will start to lose their vigilance.” Rex muttered.

Leaning back, Dar looked up into the stars for an answer, but they didn’t have one. “We almost died out there today. If we had a full team of woodcutters out there with us, I’m not even sure we would have been able to get them all out alive. How do we fight that?”

“Maybe we could ask the capital for help?” Samantha spoke up. “This is a large enough issue that they should send an army to deal with it.”

Dar nodded. But he wasn’t sure a human army could do all that much. It would take something much more powerful. Dar looked over to their older member for ideas. “Glump, could we petition The White to act?”

“She would be unlikely to even hear your petition. However, there are many other powerful ancients that reside on her mountain. We could seek their help, but we would have to wait for spring for such a journey. Trying to climb Frost’s Fang in the winter is suicide.”

“Based on what we heard from the riverboat, Bellhaven already requested aid from Kindrake with their devil problem. If we see the aid, maybe we can ask them for assistance with the ettercap infestation as well.” Dar still didn’t like relying on that as the answer. For now they were safe, but he knew it may only last until the ettercap grew more bold, or more hungry.

“We may be able to slowly chip away at them, but I don’t want to risk causing enough trouble that we become a force the ettercaps feel they need to remove. As a first step, I think we should scout the area we fought in today and see if there’s anything new we can learn.” Dar tried to pitch it as a learning expedition, but he really wanted to gather the corpses he had to leave behind.

“Do we have anyone who used to be a soldier in the village? I’d feel better if we had more villagers with a basic understanding of how to organize and fight.”

“My husband was a soldier. He might be too old to fight now, and don’t you dare tell him I said that, but he knows how to train men and mold soldiers.” Samantha offered.

“That would be perfect.” Dar looked to Rex. “I’ll let you organize how, but I’d like the guard to start training for now. I think it would also be a great activity for the winter.”

Dar’s comment sparked a heated debate among the group about fighting and training. It seemed that it was a contentious topic, with many different views on the best way to train and the best styles of fighting.

Samantha cleared her throat, clearly tired of the bickering. “I can report that everything in the village is going well. The children and the parents are excited about this boat and eager to learn and work on it. The families see it as a sign of hope.”

“Good. That’s part of what it is. Let’s just make sure we don’t push people too hard on it. Finishing the boat is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.”

Several of them tilted their heads.

“What’s a ‘marathon’?” Glump asked.

“A race where you run 26 miles.” Dar realized it likely wasn’t something that would exist in Granterra.

Rex looked at him blankly. “Are they training to be runners between cities? Even then, they should learn to ride. Far easier.”

The avian demon’s blunt assessment brought a slight smile to Dar’s face. A marathon did seem pretty silly in a world where survival was still uncertain.

“I… never mind. We need to keep people excited about the boat. Don’t push too hard too fast, or we’ll tire them out. It’s a long job.”

Everyone nodded, and Dar clapped his hands to punctuate the end of the meeting. Rising, he and Cherry went to go sit with the rest of their family and enjoy the evening.

AN: Whoops sorry for the delay on this morning's chapter. I woke up and the rewrite for the ending of Dao 2 just sort of snapped into place. So I've been hammering at the keyboard since 5am. Good news. Dao 2 is officially done. There isn't a lot of resolution, but it leaves a few unanswered questions lingering that I think are always good for a book. Cliffs aren't good, but a sort of revelation and a 'what's that going to change' feeling is a nice ending.