13 Zavyyn expertly pilots a marvelous flying skiff
We've already gone through all the poles. As we moved along the river, we kept running into Sidhe merchant vessels that are heavily armed. I guess when most of your trade revolves around slaves, staying armed is normal. While my main tactic, to ascend when we get attacked and just wait them out, does in fact work, now we are waiting for a vessel to leave and we have no more poles. While we wait for the Sidhe to leave, I turn system notifications back on for a second, and I still get an unending stream of skill ups. Mixed in are skills besides Multicasting, like Spellsmithing, Gravity Magic, Cantrip Specialization: Molded Carpentry, and several others. While I scroll through a log of system announcements, an idea occurs.
The poles are large and easy to spot. Maybe I can come up with something smaller? I can conjure things with my cantrip, but I haven't tried anything especially exotic. Time to try something a little more difficult. First, I need something to write with. I could start by making a lump of graphite, but I think there is a small area with all our cooking stuff under the gazebo. Sure enough, there is some firewood. And here's a stick about the right size. I char the end of the stick, and now I have a writing utensil.
With that stick, I doodle on the deck. Some of the kids notice that I am drawing and make a ruckus, so I quickly make them all charred sticks of their own. The parents smile at me some, which is good, and the fact that the kids are approaching is good. I wonder how much of their willingness to approach me has more to do with a lack of familiarity with trolls and the boredom of small spaces. Anyway, that is not worth thinking about right now.
Staring at my doodle, I keep smashing shapes together until I have what I want. It looks like a series of hexagons in a tight bundle, but this 2-D representation is just to help me with setting up the 3-D model in my head. I take a deep breath, and with the image firmly in my head, begin replicating the model. I add in some irregular variations as I go for what I think is strength. With one end anchored in the skiff, and the other end dangling into the water several hundred feet below, I judge this a success. I have made something like a carbon fiber monofilament. It is difficult to see and should be better at sneaking around vessels patrolling the river.
I could probably also use this as a weapon. I make a few more lengths and try to manipulate them without touching them. Sure enough, I can whip them all around, although it is kind of difficult to move it just the way I want. I change from trying to move the entire wire at once to picturing it more like a whip, and just applying small points of motion to force a whipping motion while affixing one end of the fiber. Soon, I have trashed several trees on the shoreline and feel good about using this as a weapon.
As I put the extra fibers in my inventory, a wave of emotion crushes my chest and spine. I sink down and pull my knees into my chest and try to hold in some tears. I try to not remember those terrible, cold bodies. So small and unmoving. Dull, blank eyes that will never blink, slack mouths that will never babble again. I am a fucking monster. People should fear me.
Suddenly, Tuck is gently shaking me by the shoulder, and I realize the younger children, just toddlers, are patting me on the back. One, a little orc girl in braids, is stroking my cheek. No, not stroking my cheek. Rubbing tears into my fur.
"What's up?" I ask, rubbing my eyes.
"He sad. He crying," a toddler says.
"The Sidhe are long gone. We should go." Tuck was there and knows. His tone is gentle.
I get the feeling he and Jondahar have been designated as the main liaisons for talking to me.
I rub a kid's head and stand up.
"Then let's get out of here," and I set us to a decent cruising speed. I don't want to do this anymore; I want it to be done. I ratchet the speed up even more. The toddlers gather to their parents and huddle against the speed, even though I have set up a shield to divert the wind around our skiff. We coast along like this, blowing past ferries and small towns. My wire slices through a bridge, but it comes and goes so quickly I barely register it.
"We should stop soon. You just tore through one of Diversity's bridges." Tuck is looking at me with a weird expression on his face. Hey, you're a scaly dog-man, you shouldn't be able to make that expression!
"Yeah that was my bad. I think we're far enough away that nobody will have followed us." I slow down the craft and make the bottom stop glowing blue. We gently approach the ground until we're just above a sprawling forest. None of the trees are more than 30 or 40 feet tall, so this place had to have been cleared in the last century. The underbrush through the trees is thick, and I hear the buzz of insects.
As a cheer goes up, we head to the west, away from the river and towards safety.
The forest shrinks to overgrown meadows, and, in the distance, we can see the orderly checkerboard pattern of farmlands. The first big clearing we come across, however, has a unique sight. A large rock structure with an opening carved out in the shape of a fanged mouth and holes for beady eyes gives off a sinister, serpentine glare towards the farmlands. And in the clearing surrounding it are a group of odd beings rooting through grass that comes up to their waists, finding small animals and killing them. Where the grass is shorter, a large tarp laid out has a glowing circular pattern on it. Whenever one of the weird beings kills something, the thing they kill sparkles for a moment, and then the being throws a sparkling pebble at the tarp, where it flashes before vanishing.
Several of the beings down there are startled by our appearance, pointing and yelling. One that appears fancier than the rest pulls out a cone, lifts it to their head, and a voice echoes around us.
"Unidentified craft, you are in violation of the sovereign airspace of Diversity. Land and identify yourselves or we will take immediate action."
I do not like the sound of immediate action. I lower our skiff and move it towards the most open area where the tarp is located. Again, that voice echoes around us.
"Move further back. Everyone on board, raise your hands above your head. Failure to comply with instructions will be met with force."
I am liking this less and less, but I comply with the instructions. The weird beings are mostly out of the tall grass at this point, and several of them are pointing something at us. Their posture makes me think of the words rifle and shoot. The beings themselves look like they are made of polished stone. A glowing light covers the front of their heads like an oversized visor, or maybe a blast-shield. In those, a face can be seen, a different humanoid face for each being. There's something off about those faces but I can't place what it is.
We're on the ground, and everyone has their hands up. I stifle a laugh at the sight of the toddlers with their arms raised. Then I remember things and stifle a sob instead. My arms are raised, and all my items are in my inventory, so I just look like a troll in a ratty robe mixed in with the orcs and kobolds.
That echoing voice keeps giving us directions. We are grouped by race, and a few of the weird beings approach the kobolds. Shortly after speaking with them, all the kobolds get up and leave. Wait, what? I will miss you, Tuck.
Why are the kobolds allowed to get up and go? Is there something special about kobolds? The guys who were talking to the kobolds are now talking to the orcs. I can't make out what they are saying, but it does not seem great. After a little bit, the orcs settle in the shade of the skiff with a couple of the weird beings watching them. Finally, they approach me. Am I in trouble?
"State your name, alien." Alien? I guess the skiff could be called a UFO except for the part where I just identified it. Maybe it should be an IFO instead?
"Zavyyn Matrisyan." The visor I am talking to displays a handsome middle-aged man's face. This sounds like that echoing voice from earlier. The other three with weapons aimed at me have those odd faces.
"Sir that must be a unique. We should kill him for his loot!" One of the three suddenly rapid-fire spits out words, sounding as though he is speaking around an oversized tongue. It's like a lisp but is not a lisp. That person needs a speech therapist.
"Elric, he can speak and is obeying our orders. What does that indicate in our protocols?" His voice with me earlier was harsh, and the words clipped short. Now he speaks as though he is talking to a child. I'm not sure I like the idea of people who are like children pointing weapons at me.
"But he could drop good loot. I never heard of a talking troll. I bet talking trolls are rare monsters." The rapid-fire mushmouth takes a whining edge.
He really wants his way, and apparently his way involves me dying. I'm worried that if I act against these guys, though, bad things will happen to the orcs. I feel the bottom of my stomach drop out as I realize this.
"Elric, we are following protocols. If you keep questioning protocol, do you remember what happens?" The gentle tone has become stern.
Yeah, those protocols are important! I do not feel like getting shot. I'm probably allergic to it.
"Sir okay sir. But I bet he is unique. But I don't want to get disconnected."
Disconnected? So are these guys piloting these things at range? Fun stuff. That would mean even if I attacked these bodies, they would be aware of the attack and just be out some drone bodies. This situation is even worse than I thought. Also, if these are remote drones, there is a high likelihood they can self-destruct. This is especially bad. I can't control a crowd this large of exploding bots while protecting the orcs.
"Moving on, let's talk about why you are a talking troll, Mister Matrisyan. Is that a common thing where you come from?"
He's treating me like a foreigner! The nerve! Even though I've never been here, I still feel slightly insulted.
"I don't know where I am from. I think I got cursed and lost a lot of my memories."
Truth is an absolute defense, right?
"Huh. You can't remember where you're from but you can fly a boat without magic? You're a bad liar."
No magic? I was using so much magic! I was casting so many cantrips each second to keep that thing flying that I could probably win an award! And not just some participation trophy, either, an actual award with fancy ribbons and pride in my accomplishment.
"I thought I was using magic. If it isn't magic then I don't know what it is."
As I say this, I remember that truth is only an absolute defense against defamation, and I have no idea what form this trouble is taking. How exciting! Except this kind of excitement might be giving me an ulcer.
"Look, I have a comprehensive magic filter in my HUD. If you were flying that thing with magic it should have been glowing all sorts of crazy colors, and I didn't see a thing. Tell the truth about how you were flying it and we can go from there."
So my cantrips are invisible to this nation's magic detection systems. I'd like to say that is good, but this situation suggests otherwise..
"I don't know what else to tell you. I want to go to a university to see if my curse can be lifted."
I don't know enough about this world to come up with a plausible lie, so I will see how far the truth takes me.
"You sure you don't want to tell us anything else? Nothing about yourself that might be important for us to know?"
It seems like there is something specific he wants me to say, but I don't know what that is.
"I've told you everything I know."
"You're under arrest under suspicion of being an undeclared player. Any action outside of the law will be deemed a war crime. Resist and we will use lethal force."
I think I messed this one up.
