Born A Monster, Chapter 48 - Crushed

Born A Monster

Chapter 48

Crushed

I walked in the wake of fighting. The minotaurs communicated with each other using a variety of snorts, bellows, and … mooing noises.

The temple guard lay about in their falcon-styled helmets. I sure hope they weren't meant to be an elite guard. They were an embarrassment to the profession if they were.

Every invader was tired, was wounded, and was still fighting strong.

"<words, words>" Rakkal said, when the fighting was done. He pointed up at the statue of Montu.

He went behind the statue, into a massive throne room. The throne was built to be large and impressive, but he had to hack the arms off in order to sit on it.

He said some words, while his family sat lotus-style, listening to him.

He waved his arm, and they stood.

And then they swept through the fortress, slaughtering all they could find.

Oh, some survived, by virtue of escaping or hiding, or in the case of one cook, by having minotaur sized pastries to offer in exchange for her life.

Rakkal remained on the throne, said some words to me in a language I didn't recognize.

"Do you speak goblin?" I asked.

"Do you speak Achean?" he asked.

"I do."

"I'm tired." He said, "But not so tired that I cannot kill you. Go elsewhere."

"My name is Rhishisikk. I am contracted to the Guild of Guardsmen, Porters, Drovers, and Linkboys in Narrow Valley."

He slowly moved his hand to his axe.

"I am also a Truthspeaker."

He drew himself up straight, let a puff of breath out through his nostrils.

"You had the Uruk of Black Fist summon us to witness your victory here?"

"Harkulet's idea, not mine. Humans breed quickly; I'd rather trim those numbers down than just let them join without being humbled."

"Among humans, blood vengeance begets blood vengeance."

"Not if you crush them so hard that vengeance becomes impossible. In the last era, the Dragon of Wands left the management of races to his underlings. I will not be making that mistake. I plan to run an empire, not a petting zoo. Humans will obey, or there will be no humans."

"And you wish these words carried to the human town of Narrow Valley?"

"Bear whatever words you wish to them. Words will not save them; words will not let them escape my grasp. The humans will prostrate themselves either in life or in death."

He turned his head suddenly, and snorted. "And now, to work."

He hefted his axe. "I can smell you, humans! If you're rising up to kill me, come at me now!"

A beam of sunlight shot from the shadows. Rakkal deflected it off the blade of his axe, and it explosively removed chunks of the wall and ceiling.

Laughing, he waded into the Sun Guard (the Hawk Helmets), killing the five of them with seven strokes. As he proceeded toward that corner, there was the sound of a door slamming, and a bolt thrown so hard it was audible to me.

He returned to the throne, plopping down so hard that it groaned under his weight.

"So what words will you speak when asked of what happened here?"

I told him much the same words as you yourself have read earlier.

"That is more words than I like using, but yes. Speak those words to the mayor and council of Narrow Valley. Oh, and do be certain the Black Fist pays your Guild. I'll want those coins in your treasury should I need to sack another human infestation."

#

A week later, I recited the tale to Cosimo, to the assembled Guild officers, to the mayoral staff, and to the assembled town council of Narrow Valley. It took up the bulk of that day.

There were many questions, which I answered honestly.

No, I saw no hope of victory. The Red Tide had more than double our number of warriors.

Yes, the alliance would probably fall apart if we could kill Rakkal. No, I didn't think that was possible. I knew nothing of the ways of the assassin, but he seemed to have decent perceptions and an overwhelming combat ability. I just didn't think it could be done.

Although the Uruk weren't all fanatically loyal to him, I don't think they were going to turn against him for anything that Narrow Valley could offer him.

And no, I didn't think our wall enchantments would slow him down more than two blows.

He might not be coming in the summer, in the fall, or even in the coming winter. Sooner or later, he was coming. I saw no way to stop him, nor to stop the Uruk horde I expected him to lead with.

The one and only weakness I saw in his plan was his desire to do everything important personally. His plans revolved around himself, and didn't take into account what would happen were he to die.

Reynald offered the city discounts on contracts to improve the city's defenses.

The mayor wrote to the mayor of Whitehill, Baron Rothschild. Yeah, I wasn't holding my breath on that one, either.

The city council motioned that I be stripped of my Truthspeaker status, as I was clearly lying, or at least exaggerating. Whatever. It wasn't like any of their legislation would matter if they wanted to ignore my warning.

My problem was – how could I survive the coming disaster? Could I save Kismet? Could I ensure that Reynald or Helados or Nithya died without endangering myself?

I'd like to save Gemina, as well, but as an officer, I expected her to be in the corpse-pile of fallen soldiers.

From what I'd seen in Montu's Glory, there was no way to save the entire civilian populace. I actually wish I'd stayed there long enough to get an idea how much of the population had survived the fall of their town.

After all, I told myself, hadn't I seen the worst war had to offer?

And yes, I know that thought probably jinxed me.

#

Okay, time to start with one thing I'd have a problem losing: me.

I filtered out the XP development, concerning myself with just ratings.

[Rhishisikk

Level 5 magical shapeshifting beast [Titanspawn]

Might: 3

Agility: 3

Valor: 2

Valor/Melee Defense/Dodge/Dodge Natural Weapons: 3

Valor/Melee Defense/Block/Shield Block: 5 (max 3 effective)

Resolve: 2 (under development, rating 3 in 6 more days)

Insight: 3/2

Charisma: 1

Lore: 1

Lore/Elementalism/Fire Magic/Summon Fire: 2

Lore/Elementalism/Water Magic/River: 2

Lore/Elementalism/Water Magic/Ocean: 2

Lore/Tapping/Tap Environment/Tap Night: 2

Lore/Tapping/Tap Self/Dreams: 2

Classes

Pankratios: 1

Hunter: 1

Water Adept: 1

Shaman: 1

Herbalist: 1

Cook: 1

Manservant: 1

Lumberjack: 1

Truthspeaker: 1

Prospective Classes (classes under development, list limited to top three)

Lifeshaper, Telepath, Naturalist

Cultivation Methods

Level 3 – Omnivore

Level 2 – Labor, Service

Level 1 – Anatomy, Combat, Construction, Crafting, Culinarian, Exploration, Gathering, Medical Treatment, Mystic Research, Plainwise, Regimen (Physical Exercise), Regimen (Mystic)

Level 0 – Fae Lore, Faith, Hillwise, Household, Madness, Malice, Mountaineer, Political, Rampage, Spirit Pact, Streetwise, Theology, Willpower, Woodwise

Mystic Attunements

Level 1 – Death/Necromancy, Divine Mentalism, Dream, Fire, Nature, Water

Level 0 – Chaos, Moon, Shadow, Sun

You have 9 Development Points available.]

Nothing new or exciting under the sin wheel, but it was there, too. Vanity in the lead by a large margin, Lust, Envy, and Greed trailing.

Some of the System outputs looked different; I noticed that most of these changes reflected how I thought about or understood the world around me.

Perhaps the problem of survival during a war was a matter of how I looked at it as well?

Okay, I also had nine silver coins, five tin coins, and my gear kit. I could now afford that custom gambeson.

The problem was that custom armor, even mail, was expensive. Around eight gold coins, or eighty silver expensive.

Well, I wasn't about to suffer through a Guild meal when I could go out and have something that actually helped me pay back my biomass loan. Actually, four to six servings per meal… I ordered two meals.

[You have earned 1XP for Gluttony. After Sin Armor, no XP has been awarded.]

Well, good to know, but not why I was doing it. Stew, bread, and tea, each in their own stomach slot. Much burp, but it could be done.

I waddled back to the guildhall, almost convinced I could feel the layer of blubber adding to itself.

My body almost shut down to focus on digestion. I had enough energy to let Black Snake out.

I let myself go to sleep over Black Snake's protests.

[You have reached Omnivore level 4. You now have four stomach slots. 0/960 biomass currently stored.]

[You have reached size modifier 3. You now require 54 nutrition per day in upkeep.]

[Your magical beast level is now 6.]

Wait, what? No, I'd been spending biomass. I was nowhere near having enough to advance. Unless –

Unless there was something else my System wasn't telling me about how these things advanced.

On the plus side, I now required more upkeep per day than my minimum biomass loan payment. Downside – I could no longer live on what the Guild provided me.

#

I was distracted during training; I let the System handle the shield blocks, and suffered for it. Suffered in pain, I should say; my scales had enough Blunt protection now that I didn't suffer any damage.

I'd reached a manner of plateau in that skill, anyway. I needed to raise my Melee Defense sub-stat (1800 biomass points) or my Block skill (900 biomass points).

Or, maybe I needed to block with more things. Drawing out my knife, I began parrying blows to my right side with my Valor/Melee Defense/Block/Knife Parry skill. In theory, if I worked on enough subskills, the skill itself should also improve naturally.

Learning to block clubs with a knife? You need a firm grip, a good knowledge of where the knife is in relation to your hand, and you need that knife in good condition so that it doesn't break.

Mine broke.

I put the pieces into my inventory, and set it to deconstruct.

[System deconstruction has failed. No resources granted.]

[System has advanced to level 1. New System options unlocked.]

See, nothing unusual. Nothing unexpected. The knife was just GONE and…

Wait…

WHAT?

My System had always hidden things from me, or at least not revealed them. NOTHING I had heard from anyone even hinted to me that a system COULD advance.

A quick search revealed no newly activated features. None of the costs had been reduced. In fact, all new advanced options showed up, some as high as six hundred development points!

Okay. Okay. Breathe in. Breathe out. Nope, still lost four points of serenity.

I didn't even taste the cold porridge, and am told that I was unresponsive when people tried to talk to me.

I set the System to gather water for a bath, and invoked Calming Water, one of my earliest spells.

Ahhh… That was better. Stupid wars, Stupid System, Stupid XP and development points.

"Stupid mortal being." Black Snake said from inside her tortoise shell.

"Why are you even awake? It's daytime."

"No need to dream, Dream mana is at tops."

Mmm… soothing, supporting water.

Cosimo knocked, and entered the room without waiting for a response. "You have a valet job tomorrow. Get a uniform of dark blue, and charge it to the guild."

Mrng? "And report where?"

"Front negotiation room."

"Okay."

"Do you know the sizes for Kismet? She's trained as a valet herself, isn't she?"

"Same uniform color?" I asked.

"Obviously. She gets back tonight, see she gets the uniform."

Valet work was a copper per day, but it was better than nothing.

It took a bit of searching to find a tailor's shop that carried suits in dark blue in children's sizes. Honestly, I'm surprised that they had such items on hand. And, as the only one in town who carried those, they soaked me for three silver per uniform, although they included undergarments and shoes.

Tangars claimed I had gotten robbed, and refused to compensate even one tin of the cost.

When Kismet got back, I told her that we had new dress uniforms.

"It has a fail slot and everything! I can't wait to try it on!"

I sure hoped I'd gotten Kismet's measurements right; for someone not strong enough to damage me, she sure knew where to hit my face to make it hurt.

#