| |
Runt was a broad man of about six foot three who kept his hair prickly short and his face clean. The furnishings in his home were simple: a bed, a chair, a table. It was not made to accommodate guests, but he accommodated them anyway, offering the chair to Melvin while the others found space on the floor or bed. Rich made use of a bucket to wash Jason’s blood out of his face and beard.
Runt prepared a stew in a small cauldron suspended over a hearth. Set in the middle of the room, the hearth was little more than a raised platform of bricks where a bed of embers quietly glowed. Melvin recounted their story as Runt made trips back and forth from table to cauldron.
“Magic of a powerful kind.” Runt said while stirring and adding spices to the pot. “Likely leads to the Hierophane.”
“What’s the Hierophane?” Melvin asked.
“You should know,” Jason answered. “We ran a campaign around it once. It’s the body of human arcane leadership, located in Ardenspar.”
Runt nodded. Melvin tried to think back to the Ardenspar campaign and saw only fragments. Ardenspar, Seat Esotera, people in robes, an illustration of a marbled promenade... that was about it.
Everything he remembered about this world was just bits and pieces. Before now, it was all disposable information, just a way to play with the few friends he had. He wished he had paid more attention to the scenarios and settings instead of being so impatient to jump ahead to the action.
Runt left the ladle in the pot and got settled on the floor with his back to the wall. “You all have time before this is ready. Should probably use it for rest.”
As if on cue, a light snore came out of Mike’s mouth. He was sprawled across the bed and drooling a little. The run had been the hardest on him and his little legs.
“How far away is Tirys?” Jason asked.
“Little over a day, due south. Not much in Tirys for you. Few mages, if any. None I’m sure powerful enough to help.”
“I need healing, for my arm.” Jason said.
Runt looked at Jason with steady eyes. “Jason Cephrin, your arm is dead. No healing to be done for it.”
“How would you know? You’re not a healer.”
“Seen enough battles. Arm is gone. Should bury it before rot brings creatures.”
Jason’s face reddened. “You underestimate the power of magic. It can do anything. All I need is a good healer.”
Runt said nothing. He just leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
“What he’s saying kind of makes sense though, Jason,” Rich said, dabbing his beard with his robe sleeve to dry it more. “Heals are used to augment the regenerative qualities of living tissue.”
Jason’s oscillating eyes looked Rich up and down. “Now you’re an expert? Are you sitting here trying to scientifically analyze magic?”
“Just because it’s fantastical doesn’t mean there aren’t rules and mechanics to it.”
“I’ve played the game enough to know any rule can be bent. It’s just a matter of figuring out the angles.”
Rich shrugged. “I just don’t see how you can bend the rules on healing living tissue.”
Jason shook his head and sighed. “Can’t read spell one and you’re already so quick to discard twenty-first century knowledge. Let me explain for all the slow mages out there.” Then he spoke with deliberate care. “From a medical perspective, the ability to save appendages directly correlates to how much time has passed since said appendage was severed. Why? Because the appendage still has living tissue. It’s just been cut off from the life source. Rejoin it to the life source and it’s back to life again. But you’re right. So stupid of me to think magic trumps needle and thread.”
Rich was clearly getting mad. He didn’t say anything else, though. Melvin knew why. Jason was understandably bent out of shape; he had been hacked out of shape. He just wanted to save his arm.
It was quiet in the house for a few moments. Jason spoke to Rich.
“I need to put it on ice. Let me see your spellbook. I can teach you some spells while we go through it.”
They began to go over the book. Rich held the pages and Jason told him what things meant and what the spell was likely used for.
Mike was asleep. Jason was teaching Rich. That left Melvin, Runt and a simmering pot.
“Are you asleep, Mr. Half-weagr?”
He kept his eyes closed when he replied. “Only relaxing. Have to stir the pot every now and again.”
“I just wanted to say thanks again for helping us out like this.”
He nodded.
“So... uh... what’s your story? Why are you out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“You should likely rest now, Miss Melvin.”
“Kind of hard to. So much has happened. Besides, I’ve never met a half-weagr before.”
“Hmmm. Likely never meet another. I never met one.”
“Why are you guys so rare?”
“Human males don’t take a liking to weagr women. Big. Hairy. Smelly. Aggressive. And human women almost always die birthing half-weagr babies.”
Melvin was about to ask what kind of woman took a liking to a weagr male. Then he thought about what the weagrs had wanted to do to him and he thought better of asking. He knew how Runt had come to be.
“Guess, uh, your mother was lucky enough to survive it.”
Runt opened his eyes, stirred the stew. He looked into the pot as he spoke. “Depends on how you see it. I was lucky. She didn’t think herself that until years later.”
“What happened years later?”
“I stopped being selfish. About her. About her life. Ended it for her.”
Melvin sat in mute shock. He looked over to Rich and Jason, who were staring open-mouthed at Runt, the spell book all but forgotten. Jason was the first to recover.
“Uh... as I was saying... we could go for the ice spell but I’m thinking the sleep spell would be even better.”
“I don’t see how casting sleep on the arm would do any good,” Rich said, eager to get back to something less awkward.
“It’ll act like stasis. It’ll put the living cells to sleep. It’ll also put any microorganisms to sleep. Since the cells don’t have a complex mind to fight off the sleep spell, it’ll stay in stasis until its reattached. And it’ll be much easier to carry around than a cold block of ice.”
Rich mulled it over. “That doesn’t sound half bad.”
“Half bad? It’s perfect! Plus you won’t have to keep refreezing it when it starts to thaw. Let’s do it.”
He reached behind his back and grabbed the arm by the hand, pulling it up and out like a club. He placed it on the ground and looked at Rich with expectation.
Rich stood over the arm. “Yorgun hal,” he intoned. The arm glowed yellow.
Jason pushed Rich. “Dude, it wasn’t hal. It was bolge. You changed the sleep from affecting a specific area to saying sleep and something I don’t even recognize.”
“No worries, I’ll just cast the right one.”
“Don’t be a nub. You know what happens when you start layering spells. Not on my arm.”
“Look, dude, I’m sure it’s fine.” Rich went to pick the arm up, but the moment he touched it he fell out on the floor, snoring soundly.
Jason and Melvin looked at each other then back to the arm and then back to each other.
“You touch it,” Jason said.
“No way. It’s your arm.”
“Nice going, Rich,” Jason said to the sleeping mage. “How is anyone going to carry an arm that induces sleep?”
“Maybe it won’t for you,” Melvin answered for Rich. “It is your arm, after all.”
Jason thought about it for a moment. “Guess I have to try. Runt recommended a nap anyway. Here goes.”
He touched it with a finger and nothing happened. He grabbed it by the hand, lifted it, waved it around a little. It did not move at the joints. Either rigor mortis or the sleep spell had made it very rigid.
Jason smiled. “Back in business.”
“Have about two hours before stew’s ready,” Runt said. “After we eat, we’ll clear out of here.”
“Wait,” Melvin said. “You’re coming with us?”
“A ways,” was all Runt said as he settled back against the wall. Melvin settled against the back of his chair as well. He closed his eyes to rest, allowing himself to focus on the sounds of stew simmering, fire crackling and hushed chatter between Jason and Runt. Occasionally a diminutive snore from Mike punctuated the air. The smell of the stew wafted to Melvin’s nostrils, a scent that hinted at exotic spices and game meat.
A person emerged out of the darkness. It was the weagr, the same one Melvin had killed at the forest. His body was mutilated, his eyes locked onto Melvin, a mixture of shock and accusation on his face.
“Aaah!” Melvin yelled himself awake. Jason and Mike looked at him as he nearly jumped out of his seat.
“Welcome back to the nightmare,” Mike said.
“How long was I sleep?”
“How the hell should I know? All I know is the stew’s gonna be ready in about half an hour. That’s why I’m up. Smells kinda like gumbo.”
“I can put you back to sleep if you want,” Jason said, waving his stiff, severed arm. “This thing rocks!” he pointed it at Rich, who was still snoring on the floor.
“Shouldn’t we pick him up off the floor?” Melvin asked.
“Sheeet,” Mike swore. “I ain’t giving up my seat for him. He’ll be alright. He getting better rest than you got.”
Melvin conceded Mike’s point with a nod. He noticed Runt, sitting on the floor, tightening the straps of a leather backpack. He remembered the big man had volunteered to come with them.
“Thank you for coming with us, Mr. Half-weagr. That’s extremely hospitable of you.” It would be nice to have a guide through the area to get to the mages and, hopefully, a way home.
Runt grunted. “The magic that brought you here is too strong. Concerns us all. Besides, no longer safe here for some time. Weagrs will come back.”
Melvin’s heart raced with panic. “What? Why? I settled the akhta.”
“Yes. Akhta settled. Not coming for grievance. Coming because they want to.”
“If they don’t want to settle the score, what do they want?”
“You.”
“Oh.”
“There is a reason why no one lives within a day’s march of a weagr village,” Runt said, checking the compartments of the backpack as if what he was talking about was routine. “Weagrs take what they want. They will always want more women. No akhta can change that.”
“Well, shouldn’t we leave, like right now?”
“Road unpredictable. Can never trust when another meal will come on it. We eat first.”
Melvin got to pacing, “But, oh my god, this stew is taking forever. Weagrs could be right outside the door by the time it’s finished stewing.”
“You won akhta. Victory rules keeps them from harming you for another eight hours.”
Melvin only paced faster. “Rules? What rules? What if they don’t follow the rules? I’ll be getting dragged back to weagrland by my hair, and all because of stew. This is bad.”
Runt stood up. His massive frame gave Melvin pause. Runt’s look was serious, his tone was calm.
“Weagrs take what they want. But they have some few rules. Simple rules. They will follow them.”
“But how...” Melvin started to ask how he could be sure. But he was looking at a half-weagr. Runt knew. Melvin shut up.
Melvin sat back down. Mike was hefting his club, getting a feel for its weight and balance. Jason was looking outside, at a beautiful day and a horizon full of danger. Rich was still snoring; in about twenty minutes he’d be waking up to stew. Then everyone would be out of the door and making time against a very big menace.