Chapter 354 - Responsibility (Patreon)

Zeke paced back and forth, worried about Pudge. He’d been gone too long, and through the increasingly tenuous connection of their bond, he could tell that the former dire bear was in trouble. Normally, he couldn’t feel anything through the soul bond unless he focused on it with the entirety of his mind, but during Pudge’s scouting expedition, Zeke had felt brief spikes of pain, panic, and fear on more than one occasion. It was mostly quiet now, but he was on pins and needles as he waited for the next instance.

Or a worse one.

His own anxiety was so bad that even Eveline, as inexhaustibly quippy as she usually was, had gone silent. But that had probably had more to do with him threatening to completely sever her from his mind if she didn’t shut up. Could he do it? Probably not. But Eveline had seen the depths of his determination, and so, she’d chosen not to take any chances. Ever since, the mind spirit had been silent.  Still, every now and then Zeke heard a mental huff that could only be interpreted as annoyance.

He had no issues ignoring it. Not with Pudge’s fate so nebulous.

“He is fine,” Jasper said, sitting on one of the rocks near the fire. Most of the kobolds were standing guard, but Silik was hovering nearby, eager for a chance to prove himself.

“And what do you base that on?” asked Zeke glaring at the dark elf. “You’ve known him for a few weeks. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”

“If he’s half as –”

“He’s not. He’s barely more than a child,” Zeke interrupted. “I shouldn’t have let him go. I should have…I don’t know. I just shouldn’t have sent him out there alone.”

Zeke shook his head and looked out over the tundra. A storm stood on the horizon, its dark, ominous clouds promising to blanket them in mounds of snow. According to a few of the more worldly former slaves, the tundra known as the Ianthian Wastes was known for the fury of its storms. Zeke hadn’t experienced anything but light snow – and the ubiquitous bitter cold – but he imagined it was something like the hurricanes he’d lived through back on Earth. Only with ice and snow.

“He is more capable than you know,” came Sasha’s voice. The porcine beastkin was distinctly out-of-place among the warriors Zeke had brought along, but she’d held up to the rigors of rough living well enough. “He is strong.”

Zeke didn’t doubt that. He’d seen Pudge’s strength for himself. And besides, he’d spent months trekking across the wilderness of the Eternal Realm, surviving against monsters Zeke could only imagine. Pudge hadn’t spoken much of his journey, but Zeke knew enough about the world to infer plenty of danger.

Still, he had difficulty trusting Pudge to fend for himself.

Abby would have psychoanalyzed him, probably telling him that he had abandonment issues that stemmed from his relationship with his father. Or maybe she would simply say that he had trouble letting go of the cub he’d seen grow into a powerful being. Whatever the case, Zeke knew he had issues. He just didn’t know how to combat them.

So, he continued to pace. And his companions continued to assure him that Pudge was probably fine. However, their insistence fell on deaf ears as he stared out across the tundra, hoping to see Pudge’s dark form emerge from the snowy expanse.

After a couple of hours, time forged ahead into night, but still, there was no sign of Pudge. As the others huddled around the fire, Zeke continued his silent vigil. To stave off the effects of the cold, he’d activated [Triune Colossus]. It wasn’t wholly effective, but it was better than standing there with only his own skin and a few meager garments to protect him.

Around midnight, his watch bore fruit when, suddenly, Pudge appeared only a few dozen feet away. His fur was slick with blood and steaming – either because he’d overused his [Hellfire] skill or simply due to the difference in his body’s heat and the frigid cold surrounding him – and he bore a hundred small wounds. More, he looked absolutely exhausted as he staggered into the firelight.

“They come,” he grunted as he stumbled close to Zeke. “I’m sorry…”

Then, he collapsed into Zeke’s earthen arms. Still in his colossal form, Zeke caught him, and as he did so, he was beset by the intensity of his protective nature. Pudge felt so small. So vulnerable. And worst of all, he had gone completely limp.

“Help!” he rumbled, alerting the others to the situation. The spiritweaver Kianma was the first to react as she threw herself to her feet and rushed to Zeke’s side.  He breathed, “What can I do?”

“Nothing. Set him down, and I will tend to his wounds,” she said, her hands already tracing intricate lines in the air. Zeke felt the ambient mana stir slightly, but he couldn’t otherwise see what she was doing. However, as he obeyed her command, he could feel the power intensifying with every passing second. To him, it felt like a balloon slowly filling.

“She’s gathering power and holding it at bay until she can release her ritual,” said Eveline. “It’s similar to spellcraft, but…more limited. And it requires certain sacrifices.”

To punctuate that statement, Kianma drew a dagger, held up her hand, and sliced a line along her scaley palm. Blood spurted, but it didn’t fall. Instead, it flowed into a ball just below her hand – the same location where Zeke felt the overfilled bubble of mana. The moment the two connected – blood and mana – a flash of light erupted, encasing the kobold spiritweaver’s hand. Without hesitation, she knelt and placed her glowing hand on Pudge’s head.

Mana and vitality flowed into him.

And out of Kianma.

Even as Zeke watched, she seemed to shrivel. Not physically, but rather in his mana-attuned senses. It was as if she was using her own vitality as well as whatever mana she had in her core to enable the ritual.

“That’s precisely what she’s doing,” Eveline remarked. “It’s dangerous. Without the proper constitution, she could easily kill herself.”

“But…”

He wanted to stop it, but he knew he didn’t dare. Their little group had no dedicated healers – those sorts didn’t last long as slaves, after all – and the kobolds only had their spiritweavers. So, if he wanted Pudge healed, he had no choice cut to stand aside and let Kianma do what she needed to do. And if she took it too far? Well, that was a trade Zeke was more than willing to make.

He cared about the kobolds, but Pudge was family. He would sacrifice a thousand Kianmas if it meant Pudge would live even a day longer.

Of course, he didn’t like acknowledging that fact, but there it was all the same. Pudge was just more important to him, and nothing was likely to change that anytime soon.

By the time Kianma finished her ritual, a few of the others had reacted to Pudge’s sudden arrival. Sasha was the second to arrive, and she knelt beside Pudge’s collapsed form, tears already forming in her eyes. Those two had grown incredibly close during their travels – a good thing, as far as Zeke was concerned. Sasha was a good, honest person who truly cared about Pudge, and not just for his power.

Jasper was next, followed closely by Silik. Neither had a chance to speak before a wall of wind and ice overwhelmed them all. Suddenly, the blizzard was upon them – and without much in the way of warning. When it was still light, the storm was still on the horizon, so he hadn’t expected it to arrive until morning. Clearly, he was wrong.

With only a moment to think, Zeke summoned the tower.

His reasoning was twofold. First, it was the only viable shelter available to them. Camping on the tundra on a clear night was one thing – uncomfortable but doable. But doing so in the middle of a vicious blizzard was something else altogether. If they were going to survive, they needed a refuge from the storm. Staying under the radar was all well and good, but that goal went out the window when their survival was on the line.

But more than that, Zeke had the Crimson Spring on his mind. After all, Kianma was not a real healer. Unless Zeke misunderstood her power, her ritual was the equivalent of triage. It would not completely heal Pudge. But the Crimson Spring could do just that, which made Zeke’s decision to summon the tower an easy one.

About twenty yards away, it sprang into being. The others reacted with alarm, but Zeke paid them no mind. Instead, he scooped Pudge up and raced through the gates, through the Entry Hall, and to the teleporter that then took him to the Crimson Spring. He was not an agility-focused warrior, but with his stride enhanced by his colossal form, he could really cover some ground. So, it was only a few moments before he settled Pudge into the waters. A moment or two later, a pair of kobold spiritweavers arrived to tend to the fallen bearkin.

Only then did Zeke relax.

He well knew the power of the Crimson Spring, and so, he fully expected Pudge to recover. At that point, he began to process Pudge’s dire warning.

“They come,” he’d said.

Zeke had only just begun to wonder who the word “they” referred to when the rest of his companions arrived.

Still kneeling beside Pudge’s half-submerged form, he turned to Silik and asked, “What’s going on out there? That blizzard felt…”

“It wasn’t a blizzard,” Eveline said in his mind. “It was an attack.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you feel it?” she asked. “There was a powerful Will behind it.”

They come.

Apparently, Pudge had agitated someone within that ice palace, and now they’d come to make him pay for it.

Glancing back at Pudge, mostly to assure himself that his companion was healing properly – his condition had already begun to improve – Zeke said, “Well, we were hunting a powerful natural treasure for ice, right? This is probably a good indication we’re on the right track.”

“Perhaps,” Eveline said.

Zeke turned to Silik, saying, “Anything else?”

“There are goblins,” the kobold stated.

“A horde, one might say,” Jasper added. “Their numbers seemed endless.”

Zeke nodded, and Silik went on, “The rangers arrived just after Pudge. They say that these goblins are likely ice attuned.”

Then, via a combination of Jasper, Silik, and Eveline, Zeke discovered that these goblins were precisely what he imagined when heard the world. Short, spindly, and barely sentient – the things were seen as pests throughout the world. When he questioned how that made them any different than the kobolds, he got nothing but blank stares. It seemed that there were worlds of difference between the creatures.

Moreover, he was also informed that their apparent ice attunement made for a tricky situation. According to the rangers, when threatened, the goblins summoned icy armor that emitted a biting cold that could kill anyone without a sufficiently advanced constitution. Zeke, the centurions, and most of the legionnaires would probably be fine, but the juveniles as well as rangers would die almost the instant they came into contact with the frosty aura.

That’s when Jasper said, “I believe I can help with that.”

“How so?”

“One of my skills,” the dark elf said. “It is called [Frozen Melody].”

Then, Jasper went on to describe the skill. So long as he kept singing, he could raise the ice resistance of his allies by an entire tier. That would be enough to protect them, Zeke hoped. Still, Jasper didn’t seem happy about it. When Zeke asked him about it, he simply said that he hated singing.

Curious, for a bard, but Zeke didn’t press any further.

Thus prepared, the companions left the Crimson Spring behind and headed for the Entry Hall, where the kobold army had already amassed. They had been joined by the former slaves who’d remained within the tower.

“How does that work, anyway?” Zeke asked Eveline. Despite a horde of goblins knocking on his door, he was far more relaxed now that he knew Pudge was going to be fine. “With Jasper’s skills, I mean. How do they distinguish between allies and enemies?”

“Perception.”

Zeke gave a mental sigh. “I need more than a one-word answer,” he stated.

“Of course you do,” she said, still snippy after being ignored for almost an entire day. Or maybe it was Zeke’s threats that had put her in a bad mood. “Skills like that function off the user’s perception. If he thinks of someone as an ally, the skill treats them as such. If they are an enemy – or even neutral – it won’t work.”

“Oh. That’s good to know,” he said. Then, as he turned to the assembled contingent of warriors, he was awestruck by the sheer variety of races present. The bulk of the fighting force was comprised of kobolds. The hulking forms of the centurions and legionnaires towered over most of the other races, but there were a couple of half-giants and orcs who were almost as big. Woven between them were the smaller dwarves, a couple of gnomes, and elves – though only a couple of the latter had chosen to remain after the exodus of many of the other former slaves. Either way, it was humbling to think that so many disparate people had chosen to follow him.

“It’s not a real army yet, but it’s a good start,” said Eveline.

Zeke was about to disagree, but then he thought better of it. She was right. The kobolds alone were numerous enough to constitute an army, but they all lacked the discipline of a cohesive fighting force. It was at that moment, on the precipice of battle, that Zeke began to realize that, unless he wanted to do a disservice to the people who’d chosen to follow him, he needed to make some changes. No longer could he simply let them do as they pleased. They needed organization, purpose, and identity. Anything else, and they’d never be more than a horde.

But for now, they had some goblins to kill.

Zeke rolled his shoulders and said, “Let’s get this done, then. Everyone try to stay alive.”

Without saying anything else, he turned and strode toward the gate. As he did, Eveline said, “You really need to work on your oratory skills. You know that, right?”