Chapter 88

As we move across the water tunnel things are getting easier.

 

We swim better but the water makes is move constantly a consistent rolling flow from the current which we still don’t know the origin of. I have to keep Asakura and Rina from trying to hold onto me or body warmth. I actually like it too much and I’m afraid of what will happen. They are also tempted to not just from warmth but because I’ve got the only light source as we all swim in our underwear.

After a few minutes in the water we still feel cold but are slowly getting desensitized to it.

We were surprised that the dwarves had us go last. It’s good in a way, but bad in others.

Were they trying to protect us? Or hope that we’d be ‘rear guard’ and have an accident?

Our group is the last to go across after the others are already there. It couldn’t be helped that for some reason they said…or rather their drawings said that they wanted to get a bunch of guards over on the other side before letting us across. That was the story and explanation from Pictionary but I couldn’t help but worry how it would turn out. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. I think it’s good and that they are being over protective of us. It’s also good that there’s a good force of dwarves already on the other side before we get there. But it worries me too because I won’t able to reinforce them fatigued, cold, and wet, on the other side if there is anything else there waiting for us.

So far all the other dwarves have gone ahead, except for the two guides. They are ahead of us a small ways and not really mixing with us it seems.

The anticipation is killing us, but we can’t do anything since they can’t talk to us. We’d already waited a long time. It takes about an hour between each stage going across the water tunnel. Some of that time is recharging stamina before crossing and warming up, some of it is because of going back and forth, and there’s also the problem of sending two dwarves across who drag a steady stream of helmets behind them on a leash.

Somehow, it’s amazing but nothing happens.

The water tunnel serpent had kept this area clear of riff-raff is my opinion of why we don’t have any problems. That was an unexpected bonus that wasn’t foreseeable until now.

We also had used the water ladder to get a good advantage and there are marks on the walls using some kind of glowy paste that the dwarves used to signal which way to go, plus having the two dwarves lead us across with some of the others.

But I can’t help but worry about how many goblins we’ll be facing when we reach this side of the tunnel system. Will there be nothing left or a whole army of them waiting.

We keep swimming and it isn’t long until my leg muscles are aching from the strain. We also have to retain a fairly good pace but manage not breathing all at once which is really hard to do together. It’s not really possible to do it well without training, and so it’s glad we already had the practice runs in the past.

Surprisingly Asakura is a good swimmer. She’s better than Sunghee at swimming, Rina, and myself. She insists on going ahead now to protect me. She has a spear out, while all of our gear and clothes are stowed away in my demon item box. But she does look a bit nervous, but not anymore than the rest of us. We also need the light spell radius out so we can keep a handle on where everything is, including the other dwarves that we are trying to follow. Because of the dark feel of the water there’s a constant eerie feeling that if we lose sight of their swimming feet ahead of us that we could be lost forever.

But I worry about how much air it will take for us to get across. I’d cast the resistance buff on each of us, for cold, to protect us while we crossed but still a lot could happen. Too late, about half way across I realize the dwarves built the air helmets using dwarven measurements for dwarven lung capacity on how much they thought was needed to cross the length of the tunnel.

Crap.

Dwarves have better and bigger lung capacities than humans do.

I didn’t realize that until now and it wasn’t foreseeable that we’d have to think about that. It makes sense though, because we’ve been having a hard time keeping up with them and that was what tipped it off. Of course they would have more consistent stamina over time in endurance type physical exertion and a strong pace if their lungs were bigger than ours.

I’m instantly afraid. I motion for the others to try to move quicker. They are trying but it’s not easy.

The dwarves don’t understand what I’m gesturing at and their swim speed is lower than ours. But they do understand that we want to do a slightly quicker pace. Is there something I can do to increase our ability to keep up with them?

I have to think fast! If I don’t do something we’ll be in serious trouble fast!

As we swim I suddenly have an idea. We’re falling behind them a bit. I don’t like it. We just can’t keep up with their better stamina fueled pace.

My telekinesis spell is weak and incomplete. But it can work sporadically!

If I rig it to help with swimming that could push us further to overcome less capacity with our air!

I can do pulses of telekinetic pushes that are still incomplete but will use more mana. Normally it would use more mana for a spell or skill that I’m less familiar with. This is the case now. But there’s an additional strain because I’m activating the spell formation without talking or drawing glyphs in the air and while my arms and legs are still swimming.

But the telekinetic pushes can be done in small spurts of half my body weight in force going forward like a pull. Because a body weighs less in water a push or pull in half my body weight can work. This is like when I’m a kid and I’m at the pool and using the ropes that make up the swimmer lanes and using the ropes to pull me through the water.

Then I chain a whole bunch of small telekinetic pushes together!

Asakura latched onto me then since I’m being propelled through the water by these mini rope pull like telekinetic bursts of one per second. It’s not terribly fast but lets me also pull Rina through the water too while Asakura is hanging on. She is in serious trouble and has run out of air I think and blacking out. This is the only way I can go such a long distance and rescue her while gaining ground to shorten the distance between us and the dwarves. The telekinetic pushes are firing on bursts of one per second but I’m burning mana faster than a shuttle burns rocket fuel. If I’d done this at the beginning I’d have run out of mana already. I can only hope that we reach the other side soon.

But it’s easily visible off my failure rate on telekinesis still and that it’s not a ready spell. I could venture to guess that if we weren’t in buoyancy in water this trick would be completely unusable. Every third telekinetic burst on average the spell burns out entirely with no effect in its ‘short circuit’ but still gobbing up tons of mana. These failures also cost more mana than a normal burst. It’s also true that on average about every sixth burst there’s also a corresponding push that is stronger and more powerful than it should be, but these bursts are somewhat violent in nature and sometimes put us in an uneven direction or with a torque like spin that is awkward to compensate for.

The telekinetic burst swimming works to my astonishment, though the failure rate is too high right now for any other usage in other tasks.

Somehow we finally got across, but not before Rina blacked out and the rest of us were seeing black spots and ready to burst. I cast heal on her many times as spamming once we got across. She finally coughs up water, and is hugging me while crying and choking on water. It’s also fortunate that she wasn’t under very long without air.

The dwarves probably don’t get it, but do look at us with pity.

As I finally get a chance to study our surroundings with the light spell still active it looks like we’re on the shore of an underground lake in a large cavern with a black sandy beach over a wide long swatch on our side of the lake. It’s strange looking sand though, maybe because of this being a formerly volcanic area? I’ve never actually seen a black sand beach so it makes the dark seem a bit worse than normal but has an occasional glitter like effect at odd intervals in the sand because of strange volcanic glass bits mixed in.

We’re rushed immediately around a fire and they throw blankets around us to warm us up. We treasure the blankets more than gold at this point, because we’re so cold. Both Rina and Asakura are trying to smother me to steal every bit of warmth available while we all huddle in the blankets. But because this condition is so hellish I can’t enjoy what they are doing. Having their wet cold hair drape into my head and neck doesn’t feel good right now either.

Like always Asakura is silent now.

But finally we’re shocked when we see the dwarves are cheering and loud. They aren’t cheering at us though.

Something else is going on?

They’ve received reinforcements it seems. The cavern is echoing with their united shout. The shout meets the shout of another much larger dwarven force. They also look like they are outfitted way better than this group and many times there number, hence the overjoyed looks on the other dwarven survivors.

They have hope now, where before they were just trying to avoid death flags!

That must be where these blankets have come from. It seems these are fresh supplies. The fire is built on like a huge pyre made of wood too, on a siege level of mentality. Everywhere we look we can see a ton of dwarves. They are heavily armed and armored to the point of making the caravan group look like yard trash.

Since we were the last to get across it took a minute to figure it out.

This is certainly getting interesting.

I can already see the officers Hrogin and the other lieutenants talking to the new dwarves but it’s hard to tell what’s going on because they always have overly stiff looking facial expressions.

Their armor for the bulk of many of their troops here appears to be quite strange too, and almost more machine like than human. How do they even lift it? I can see these types of heavy armors also look like they are so big and heavy that they have their own power sources to help them move. It’s some kind of arcane battery that they are wearing while the suit resembles something like a forklift cage around a body that’s built for fighting and carrying weapons. It seems like a portable mix of magic and machine somehow like a steam punk effect.

I guess this is one of the reasons Fox said humans are at the bottom of the food chain? If other creatures here have such things how do you deal with them?

Even just one of those things looks deadly. They have a whole slew of them. Of course not all of them have these special suits. But there are definitely enough to deal with trouble.

And the large underground cavern is full of dwarves!

Wait…there are many of these type of heavy armor units, but not all of them are like that. There are normal knightly looking armors of traditional medieval style as well. I can even see dwarven golems or something like an artificial intelligence dwarf made from rock and earth. It’s clearly not a real organism but there are whole squads of them moving and acting as if they are alive, except a bit more stiffly than normal humanoids.

The dwarves are impressive. There’s also a lot of diversity here of different types of units and engineering ingenuity.

Wow, it’s not just a small force. This is an entire army!

There are elaborately made banners on pikes and long wooden stakes everywhere and also messengers running back and forth between different squads often. It’s not disorganized though, and everything is put out very clean. I notice that each placement is very carefully measured and looks thorough. They have like …tents in very specific formations across this huge cavern and each group of tents has its own like a cloth barrier around it that resembles cloth fences. Are they for…?

Ah it’s a screen to keep people observing the camp on their toes and to hide which tents have officers and such in them.

Very clever…

I’m curious why they’d do such a thing, but it’s more for show, and showing a strong military parade face it seems.

“Wow, Shun. There are a lot of dwarves here…too many in fact,” Rina says quietly as she’s looking around.

We’re totally surrounded. It worries me. Now that they don’t have to help us will the dwarves help or hinder us? Before they had to help us for mutual cooperation to survive but right now things are very clearly in their favor.

In minutes we’re surprised again.

“Human survivors are you sure?” it’s a dwarf, but he’s speaking our language. He’s talking to someone else and then finally he ambles on over to us. Because he’s got his enchant active he doesn’t realize we caught pieces of his normal speech.

Does the language enchant act like a universal broadcast then? It’s interesting to think about how it might work.

He looks us over and he looks old with the longest beard of any dwarf I’ve seen so far. It’s so long he’s had to tuck part of it away. He’s wearing armor like the others, but not the heavy type. It’s almost strange looking as if he’s dressed in metal woven cloth of some kind in the style of a rich looking and stylish robe. So their technology is pretty impressive to be able to do something like that.

Curious…

It doesn’t take him long to have walked over to meet us.

“You must be the mage warrior the other dwarves are talking about,” he says sizing me up.

I’m not sure how to answer him. This like when you finish one chore, and you are afraid the person who asks when you finish is going to try to give you something else to do. I’m reluctant to respond.

“Yep, that’s our Shun,” Rina says cheerfully.

I give her a dour look, hopefully she gets the hint.

“Shun? That’s your name?” The dwarf asks to confirm.

It seems dwarves greet each other with salutes rather than handshakes or bowing. We return the greeting awkwardly. It implies a military culture as well.

“My name is Ingvarrin, official court diplomat of the royal court and courier for General Silverspur, of the Kingdom’s Southern Army. Pleased to make your acquaintance, and that of your kin,” he bows low tipping his hat before putting it on his head. Hmm, dwarves big on proper greetings it seems.

Kingdom?

So we’ve found a dwarf civilization, and perhaps can find shelter soon?

“Southern army? So does that mean the dwarves have many armies?” I asked politely.

Ingvarrin chuckled. “I can’t really reveal the nature of our forces to outsiders. But hopefully we’ll get to know each other better and when we do things will be different then.”

“I’m Shun’s woman,” Rina says before I can stop her. “We welcome you-“she’s interrupted as I put my hand over her mouth. She’s done enough damage already. What is she thinking telling people she’s my woman?

“I’ll be speaking for myself thanks,” I said.

I wanted to say, sorry she’s mentally ill, but that might make it worse.

Ingvarrin is confused, but nods slowly. It can’t be helped however. If he thinks Rina is my woman, what will happen when Asakura finds out. Currently Asakura is already distracted from being too cold and trying to warm up, but she will be really pissed and while she’s in this weird mode I don’t know what will happen. I’m glad she didn’t catch it.

“The General, Silverspur the great wishes you to accept accommodations and the protection of the camp while we march back to the Capital. You will be cared for and provided for while we move, during which time you will given housing accommodations when we reach the center of our Motherland.”

“Housing accommodations? That part sounds cool,” Rina managed to escape my grasp.

“Motherland? This capital is it a full city with normal city services then?” I inquired carefully.

Ingvarrin nods and smiles big, “The dwarven capital has access to the best the technology this world has to offer. There are great gardens, bakeries, libraries, and all the modern conveniences, such as anything a mage would want, including access to magic schools and the magic trading network.”

“Holy crap Shun! That’s exactly what we need!” Rina gasped.

But what worries me is the strings attached.

“Thank you,” I tell them.

“No problem. It’s the least I could do for your help in saving some of our forces,” he replied.

Ingvarrin is looking at us and definitely trying to size us up like a piece of meat. He’s mostly looking at me. It’s also the look of a coach scouting out new players for the team.

But I have a funny feeling about him and can’t tell why; I keep getting the impression he’s some kind of mage too. The way he’s dressed, plus his mannerisms, and the squarish looking bifocal glasses on his face. Plus he’s got some kind of rod staff thing hanging on his belt. He’s hiding his energy if he is one, so I’m not a hundred percent on that. But that’s what my gut is telling me.

Are we in the middle of some kind of goblin and dwarf war?

That seems to be the only explanation now that I see how armed to the teeth they are and what’s happened to us so far. The ease of which the goblins penetrated that colony in such large numbers suggests they must be having some kind of turf war right now.

Over the next few hours we’re fed and clothed. They give us lodgings and to my surprise we’re assigned a servant to take care of our tents and baggage. The servant doesn’t speak our language or have the language enchant, but is still helpful and salutes whenever he sees me.

He looks like a young fellow, probably a kid. Is it the dwarves’ version of an army type ‘cabin boy’ like on sailing ships? I can’t even ask his name, but he’s a diligent fellow, with no facial hair yet and very short. Was he a war orphan of some kind? He waits outside while we go change and clean up in our tent.

This tent is much better than the others. It seems we were given some kind of officer’s tent. Since we had nothing for so long, it feels very exciting. It’s also roomy and has some kind of portable plank wood flooring that appears to also be portable. It’s the first time we can stand up in our tent in who knows how long.

The girls are excited. Who wouldn’t be, since we thought we were going to be homeless.

We proceed to get rid of the wet blankets and hang them to try on a drying pole that also doubles as part of the tent’s ceiling support. Then get rid of our wet underwear. Neither Rina, nor Asakura want me to leave when they dress since they are both scared and because our bond is so well cemented. They also don’t trust the dwarves much yet. The overwhelming numbers of the dwarves has us on edge.

Naturally Asakura gets a bit pouty as we make her wear clothes. This time Rina helps me. She keeps giving me dirty looks and jokes about living every man’s dream. She reminds me that she’s part of the harem too, until I spank her ass.

“Not a chance,” I shut down that pipe dream. As a result she gives me some crocodile tears.

I try to not laugh to her face while shutting her down. I can’t help it. Seeing Rina gets spanked reminds me of the first time she got spanked. She pouted a bit after that, rubbing her sore but.

Each of us were given a long sleeved jerkin type shirt, a good pair of trousers, underwear, socks, and boots. These aren’t too bad actually, but with dwarven styles. Inspecting them shows good color combinations and they aren’t designed to look too ugly. Both these and the dwarven uniforms outside show the dwarves to have really good style; even if they were on Earth they wouldn’t be considered having drab hillbilly clothes.

It’s a bit strange that for this being a medieval world that dwarven clothes are still really nice. It’s almost like the look of a stylish motorcycle leather suit but only with a thin type of imitation leather that’s more some kind of cloth ally with good coloring. Dwarves seem to prefer black and red in their uniforms and clothes, but I don’t know if that’s a general theme or if it’s their country’s colors and emblems? Or it could even be a particular armed forces branch theme. I won’t know until I find out more later.

Partly I’m disappointed though; because seeing both Asakura and the other girls in school uniforms that were tore up was kind of fun. Still there might be some fun later since the shirt opens up really wide when the ties and buttons are opened up. But the girls like the clothes, even though they are a different style than they are used too.

We proceed to get the best sleep we’ve had the chance to have in a long time. This has been the only time we’ve not had to overly stress out about being ambushed in the dark.