Chapter Forty-Nine — Rift
Chapter Forty-Nine — Rift I spent some time cleaning out my kettle with a cloth and setting everything away in my pack. It was just me and Gunther on the first floor of the fort. Amaryllis had left with Throat Ripper to go to the top of the tower to draw a map of the region, something that Gunther didn’t seem to mind at all.Gunther stayed in his seat and watched me work. It wasn’t an awkward silence; we had shared a meal and some tea together, which meant we were more than halfway to being friends already, and a little undeathiness didn’t bother me at all.“You never said where you were from,” Gunther said. It was a question, but without the tone of one. I think he wanted to make it easy for me to back out if it was awkward to answer.“I’m from Earth,” I said. “A place called Canada. It’s very cold.”“Interesting,” he said. “Which dungeon did you appear with?”I paused mid-motion. “Eh?”“You’re not from Dirt, are you?” He gestured my way with a still steaming teacup. “I couldn’t pin it at first, but you’re not from this world.”“How did you know?” I asked as I stood up. I... didn’t know exactly what to do. Fighting was out of the question, Gunther was a friend, or had the makings of one, and denying it was pointless when it was the truth. Still, of all the things I didn’t know, how people treated someone from another realm was... well it was somewhere in the big pile of unknowns.Gunther coughed. “Every sentence I just spoke was in a different language and you didn’t bat an eye. I don’t doubt that even someone your age could speak four tongues fluently, but I do think that most would be curious about the switches.”“You... what?”“You didn’t even notice? Interesting. There’s a Skill called Tongues that at the expert rank does something similar. Though it’s an advanced skill, and a difficult one to acquire. I don’t have it, I learned to speak a few languages the hard way, but people like you, Riftwalkers, the rumours all agree that you have the gift on arriving here.”“Wait, there are more people like me?” I asked.Gunther shrugged his shoulders. “One for nearly every new dungeon. Not always people. Those that can speak usually talk of some difficult or impossible quest. Most go on to live rather mundane lives. I’ve heard of strange and unique animals and creatures appearing next to new dungeons as well, so perhaps it is not just the sapient who are summoned.”“Whoa,” I said. “Ah, I don’t know what that means for me though.”Gunther hummed and took a long sip from his cup. “Nothing, I suspect. You’re not the first, you’re unlikely to be the last. The world might bless you or it might not. I know little more than rumours, truly. Even if a new dungeon appears every day, they appear so far apart and in such inhospitable locations that it is unlikely that most will meet someone like you.”“Oh,” I said. “Well, thanks for telling me, I guess.”He nodded over his cup. “I was merely curious. I have lots of time to wonder over things.”I wanted to ask more, but Amaryllis and Throat Ripper both returned, the dog with a clatter of boney paws across the stone ground. “We’re done,” Amaryllis said as she waved a rolled up sheet around.“Oh, good work Amaryllis!” I said.She scoffed. “Don’t praise me for drawing something so simple.” She shook her head. “We should be off soon, we’ve spent a fair deal of time here. We need to get back to Green Hold.”“In that case,” Gunther said as he stood up. “I’ll escort you ladies to the door.”“Thank you so much for your hospitality, Mister Gunther and Mister Throat Ripper. I’ll cherish the memories. And I do hope we meet again.”“It was nothing. A welcome distraction, in fact. And you, at least, were a welcome and interesting guest,” Gunther said.Amaryllis snorted and crossed her wings at that. “This could have been worse,” she said.Gunther, true to his word, escorted us all the way to the door. “Good bye, big boy,” I said to Throat Ripper before giving him a pat. Gunther only got a handshake because he was an older man and those were serious people that you weren’t supposed to hug. “We’ll see each other again!” I declared.“Good bye, miss Bunch,” he said. “And you as well, miss Albatross.”We left by skipping out the front gate.Well, I skipped. Amaryllis walked like the boring no-fun person she was.After taking our bearings for a moment, we aimed southwards along a well-trodden dirt path and started heading out. I soon stopped skipping, because even with my awesome calves bouncing around so much was taking a toll and I needed to even out my breathing if I wanted to be able to talk while walking.“That went well,” I said.“I suppose it did. A little unorthodox, but the results speak for themselves,” Amaryllis said. “Is walking up to strangers and threats and talking to them your solution to every problem?” she asked.“Pretty much, yeah,” I said. “I was raised to be as nice to people as I want them to be to me. You know, do nice things for your neighbour and they’ll help you out in turn.”Amaryllis made a strange trilling noise, almost like a hum but more... birdlike. “That wouldn’t fly where I’m from.”I had to restrain myself to stop from skipping again. This was my chance to dig into Amaryllis’ past and learn all about her. If I knew more about her then I could become an even better friend. I was already breaking through her antisocial walls! “You’re from the Nesting Kingdom, right?” I asked.“Most Harpies are. It’s our race's birthplace.”“Birthplace?” I repeated.Amaryllis sighed. “You really do need an education. It’s a wonder you know how to read at all.”“Sorry. Where I’m from it’s pretty much just humans all the way.”Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.“Ah,” she said as if she understood, though I kind of doubted that. Unless knowledge of riftwalkers was more common than Gunther had suggested. “Well, regardless. If we do end up staying partners in the future, then I’ll have to make sure you read at least the basic history texts.”A smile burst onto my face and I grabbed Amaryllis in a side hug that had her squawking. “You do want to be friends!”“Not if you don’t unhand me right this moment, you damnable ape!” she screamed.A few skeletons on a patrol nearby turned towards us and we both froze. Then they kept on trudging by without so much as a ‘rarr.’“Sorry,” I said. “Um, change of topic then. What was it like in the Nesting Kingdom? Are you some sort of big shot?”“I’m the third daughter of the Albatross family,” she said.“So... you have two big siblings?” I asked. That answer had been sort of strange.Amaryllis stared to the skies. “You know nothing. And to think I suspected you were a spy.”“I wish I was a spy,” I said. “It sounds so cool.” I put on my suavest voice. “The name is Bunch. Broccoli Bunch.”“You would make a horrible spy,” she said. “Unless this is all an act, in which case you’re being paid far too well to spy on someone like me.”“Was that an insult?” I asked.“You can assume that when I’m talking about your qualities it is in an insulting manner, yes.” She smiled as she said it though, and I didn’t feel any sting. “To get back to your earlier questions, no, I’m not important. My eldest sister Clementine is set to inherit everything. Which will make her a member of the ruling council of the entire kingdom in a few decades. My second eldest sister, Rosaline, has begun to run the family shipyards and she’s quite talented at it.”I recalled her mentioning something about Nesting Kingdom airships being the best, and her family being big in that industry, so Rosaline’s position had to be important. “And what about you?”“I’m the spare.”We walked a little bit more in a silence that grew increasingly uncomfortable. “What do you mean?”“Don’t get emotional on my account,” she said. “Spare me your pity. I merely mean that I was trained from birth to replace either one of my sisters if the need ever, in some nightmarish circumstance, arose and one of them needed to be replaced. The spare. Then I turned sixteen and I was let loose, so to speak. My sisters are both in good health, they’re wonderful people, in fact, and there’s no need for any sort of drastic measure. So I was told to just... mind my own business.”“Is that why you joined the Exploration Guild?” I asked.“Well, if I’m going to make my family proud it won’t be by sitting pretty in a mansion,” she said.I really wanted to hug her and tell her that she wasn’t just a spare or something like that, but we weren’t quite close enough for that just yet. Instead I made sure to walk close by her side so that she knew that she wasn’t alone.I was looking for something more to say when Amaryllis broke the silence. “Do you really not have magic rings where you come from? I thought they were common with humans, especially since you have fingers.” She brought her hand up to demonstrate the lack of fingers.“Ah, well,” I said. I wasn’t quite ready to tell the whole world that I wasn’t from this place. “We had some. They were called mood rings. They told people how you were feeling and stuff. But mine were useless. All they said was that I was happy all the time.”“That does sound useless,” she said.I suspected that if she wore one it would be a nice irritated orange most of the time, but I didn’t say as much. There was a layer of sadness under her prickly exterior, and I suspected that deeper still there was a core of niceness that was just well-buried. I would need to dig for it if I wanted her to become an even better friend.“Do you have any neat magic trinkets?” I asked.“I have plenty of them, though I wouldn’t call them mere trinkets,” Amaryllis said. “You have a few yourself, that kettle and that collar you’re wearing.”“Oh, they both came from a dungeon,” I said. “I think I got really lucky.”“Lucky that you survived?” she asked wryly.“Yeah. I really wasn’t as ready as I should have been for that one. But it’s done now.”“I’ll buy that collar off of you,” she said.I wrapped my hands around my neck. Sure, it was really ugly, but it would mean losing Orange. “No way,” I said.Amaryllis made that trilling noise again and shook her head.We were leaving the area around the fort now, our trek so far having been mostly downhill since the fort was built at the end of a chain of hillocks, probably for the better view they offered. I couldn’t imagine an army fighting around the fort, not with the amount of mud and swampland all around.There was a small stone bridge ahead that ran over a river. It wasn’t a very deep river, but judging by the marks left on the banks it was fairly dry at the moment. I didn’t want to imagine what the wet seasons around the area were like if this was a dry spell. The trees around us seemed a little parched though, so maybe some rain wouldn’t hurt.We were crossing the bridge, Amaryllis answering inane questions about growing up as a harpy, when the shadows of the deadened trees shifted.Three creatures stepped out before us. They were tall, horse like beings covered in loose clothes that draped back over their long bodies and over their more human-like torsos. Not horses, I realized as I looked at them, deer.“Cervids? Amaryllis asked.She looked over her shoulder and I did the same. There were three more of them.All six were armed, and I didn’t like the looks they were giving us.
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Chapter Fifty — Ambush
Chapter Fifty — Ambush “Drop all of your weapons and equipment and get onto your knees,” the deer-person (Cervid, Amaryllis had called them) in the middle of the pack before us said.“This isn’t good,” Amaryllis said. Her knife-wand slid into her hand from somewhere and began to crackle with an electric hum. “Cover the rear,” she said.I nodded and spun around, my backpack coming off to be tossed to the side as I pulled my shovel off my pack and held it before me. “Insight,” I muttered.A confident Cervid Lancer, level ?.A confident Cervid Runner, level ??.A bored Cervid Plains Speaker, level ?.“They’re pretty strong,” I said. That had just been the three that snuck up behind us. I was willing to bet the leader was even stronger.“We can take them,” Amaryllis said, her voice brimming with confidence that I didn’t doubt for a moment was fake. “It’s just three on six.”I wondered what she meant for a moment before I saw Orange wriggle out from her shirt to come padding through the air. She stood floating at shoulder height next to me.Licking my lips, I stepped up towards the nearest group of deer people and raised my voice so that they could all hear. “Hey everyone. My name is Broccoli. My friend and I were just travelling by here. If this is your bridge we apologies.”“Five, Six, you’re on the secondary target. Two, Three, Four, you’re with me on the primary,” the one I suspected was the leader said.Judging by the way the cervids shifted, the numbers were their names. Or at least, code names. Most of them were wearing helmets of one sort or another, and all of them had padded clothes on, like my gambeson but stretched out over their entire bodies. No markings that I could tell except for thin orange lines on their shoulders. Their equipment looked uniform, all made of the same materials and with the same cut.Were these soldiers?“Broccoli,” Amaryllis said. “You should run. It’s me they’re after.”“No,” I said. That wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t abandon friends, especially not when they were about to be attacked by some bandits or something.“Break!” the leader said, and that ended any hope that we could have a civil discussion.Amaryllis was the first to act, her knife hand stabbing at the air even as a thunderous boom sounded out and a pillar of bluish light as thick around as my wrist shot out and hit one of the deer folk.He screamed as his body convulsed and his charge turned into an ungainly flop to the ground.I didn’t have time to feel pity for him.Two of the deer people rushed straight at me. One with bare hands, the other with a long spear. The Lancer and Plains Speaker.I froze for just a moment, the cracking of their hooves on the stone bridge like machine gun fire in my ears and the focus in what I could see of their eyes in the slits of their helmets rooting me on the spot.Then Orange collided with the Lancer’s face and his spear slid past me, cutting a hot line into my sides as it caught on the edge of my gambeson.I screamed and did the first thing that I could think of. I jumped.The Plains Speaker looked up to me in time to win a foot to the face. I used him as a springboard to land on the hip-high stone railing of the bridge.This wasn’t some fight in a dungeon where the enemies were only mostly real. This was dangerous, truly dangerous.Amaryllis was ducking and weaving around a pair of spears trying to hit her, sparks flying out of her talons and skittering across the skin of her enemies. She was taking them four on one and, somehow, was holding her ground.One of the cervids was a mage of some sort, throwing translucent shields around that took Amaryllis’ attacks without so much as a shudder. “Orange, help her!” I screamed.I didn’t want to fight, I didn’t want to hurt people. I didn’t want to be attacked. And I especially didn’t want to fail a friend.I swallowed and tightened my grip on my spade.The Lancer spun around and his spear darted towards me. I batted it aside, jumped off the railing so that I was right up in front of him, then I fired a blast of cleaning magic right in his face. He stumbled back, which gave me all the time I needed to hop up so that I was a bit above him. I came down with my entire weight swinging the head of my spade down on his helmet.The ‘bong’ of steel meeting steel was like music.The Cervid Lancer said some rude things as he took a step back.I didn’t have time to follow up as the Plains Speaker flung his arms out at me, a net opening wide in the air between us.Eyes widening, I flung my spade at the net and, fortunately, slowed it down enough that I was able to side-step it.The Lancer shifted his helmet back in place with one hand and looked ready for more.And now I was without a weapon.I jumped, flying over the Plains Speaker.He raised both hands to catch me but I brought one arm up and pointed it at his face. “Fireball!” I screamed.The Plains Speaker shielded his face.No fireballs happened.I did get to land on the opposite railing without any issue though. My spear was next to my backpack, but I didn’t have time to grab it. Instead I pressed both feet against the rail and shot backwards as hard and fast as I could, my legs springing out to trail behind me.I crashed into the Plains Speaker shoulder-first.The breath escaped from his lungs with an ‘oomph’ and he stumbled backwards until he was pressed up against the rails.The Lancer had moved out of the way and was stabbing for me again. I don’t know how I avoided the stab, it was all a blur of scrambling limbs to try and not get poked by the shining tip of his spear.This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.I grabbed the end of the lance just behind the metal spike at its end and, with my entire weight behind it, swung it around and into the Plains Speaker’s side.The Plains Speaker yowled as his partner’s spear cut through his cloth armour. The Lancer yanked it back and out of my grip, but the damage was done.I froze for a moment as blood spurted out of the wound and onto my hands.It was hot.The Lancer’s foot kicked out and I coughed as a steel-shod hoof buried itself in my side.I crashed to the ground. Rocks dug into my palms and knees as I tried to gather my breath and fight through the pain.A shadow moved above me. The Lancer, his spear raised up to strike.I rolled backwards, a move that I hadn’t done since gym class some time ago. I was soon under the Lancer, on my back with my legs above me.My stamina dropped to near-empty. “Meanie!” I screamed as both feet crashed into his chest in what would have been the strongest jump I ever made, were I standing up.The Lancer went flying.He was lighter than I would have thought, barely heavier than I was when wearing my full pack and gear.The last I saw of him were flailing limbs as he went over the railing and splashed into the water.No ‘ding’ that announced that I had killed anyone. Good.I was panting and rolling onto my feet when a hoof rammed into my side and sent my rolling across the bridge. “Ah!” I tried to scream, but my lungs hurt too much.With tears in my eyes I looked up to find the Plains Speaker walking up to me. He was favouring his injured side and had taken off his helmet. It was laying off on the ground some feet away.His expression wasn’t pretty. “Filthy human scum,” he spat out before lashing out with another kick.I couldn't do much to stop this one either except to curl into a ball around the impact to my stomach and try to keep my lunch inside as pain roiled across my chest.“Making me look like an-” he began, then stopped.Amaryllis screamed.We both looked over to see her pinned to the ground, the long shaft of a spear through her thigh.“No,” I said.“Hah, see what happens when-” the Plains Speaker began to say as he turned back to me.I wasn’t where he had left me.My shaking hand clenched the edge of the helmet he dropped.The cervid turned around just as I swung with every last bit of strength I had left in me. His helmet caught him full in the side of the face.I saw a tooth fly.“Don’t!” I said.I swung in the other direction and caught him in the forehead.“Hurt.”This time the point of the helmet caught him across his deer-like nose. It crunched.“My.”He was falling back, eyes watery and wide, blood spurting out of his nose as he exhalled. I couldn’t reach his face anymore. I let my hand fall into the helmet, wearing it like an oversized glove as I pushed what little stamina I had left into a forward lunge.“Friends!”My wrist snapped.I cried out and pulled my hand back to my chest. The helmet, with its pointy edges, stayed stuck in the Cervid’s chest armour.I was breathing in gasps as I cradled a wrist that wasn’t bending the right way.The four remaining Cervids were moving closer. One had Amaryllis bound and unconscious on his back.“Kill her?” One of them asked.“No,” the leader said. “She’s a witness. Where’s Five?One of them, the mage, snorted. “Went over the edge. He’s swimming to shore.”The leader looked over the side of the bridge and sighed. “Against a level six. Sad. Four, knock her out. Two, give Five a healing potion.”I watched as one of them raised a wooden wand my way. Light gathered at the end of it.I tried to jump but my legs only wobbled.The ball of light crashed into my chest and sent me flying back.I wished that the world went black, that I would fade into the abyss of unconsciousness. No such luck. I writhed on the ground, tears streaming and teeth grit against the pain. I saw the Plains Speaker, looking the worse for wear, stopping above me.His hoof came down and planted itself on my leg and twisted.“Six!” the leader called back over my scream. “We’re going. Leave her.”“Tch,” Six, the Plains Speaker said.He spat on me and walked away with a limp.I heard them all moving off, five sets of hooves clacking across the bridge. They were joined by the lancer I had thrown off the edge.Then their voices faded away into the distance. It didn’t matter to me.My hand, my left hand that still shook, reached into my bandoleer. Fingers scrapped across broken glass as I pulled out my broken trifecta potion. The remains had leaked out.I flung the glass aside with a cry.My backpack was still there. Someone had kicked it, but it was otherwise untouched. They weren’t bandits here for our stuff.I crawled to it.Health 31/120Stamina 02/125Mana 79/115I wasn’t bleeding, not much that I could tell, but I was hurting all over. I didn’t want to wait and see if I would heal over time.Reaching my pack was hard, looking through it was harder.Then Orange came closer and I saw the kitty climb into the backpack. She came out with a potion between her teeth.“Thanks,” I said. The cork came off. I downed it in one swallow. It was surprisingly sweet.Health 37/120Stamina 02/125Mana 79/115My health was ticking upwars, a point every few seconds. I found a second potion and drank it too.The pain left, but it was slow. A soothing warmth that banished the hurt.I sat against the side of the bridge and waited for my health to climb back to full. And in the meantime, I allowed myself to cry.
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