Chapter 97

 

More Trekking in the dark

We kept sloshing down the stream as quietly as we could. Our shoes are in better condition now so we can do that without stumbling but still Rina isn’t really good at hiking and loses her balance a lot. More than once she falls into me. She only falls into me purposefully a few times, the rest really are accidents.

Asakura on the other hand doesn’t slip even once. She actually ended up steadying me a few times. She has an unnatural ability to just sort of slip through the water almost with very little noise. I keep worrying that every splash will draw attention to us, since the idea of tramping through the stream is to lose the trackers.

Still the stream seemed to be getting deeper the farther north we went in it, which slows us again a bit further. At the moment it was still around the range of my knees. The girls kept up as best they could, Asakura can do so easier but she’s had the disadvantage of using more energy to scout around and sniff at thinks near us while Rina is just weaker period.

We’re about fifteen minutes away when we heard barking and howling of some big wolf like animals from far away and see torches being lit up on the cavern floor about two miles away from where we’d left the two dead goblin scouts. There’s no mistaking the long and murderous howl of a predator like a wolf.

“Those didn’t sound like dogs,” Rina said quickly to me.

Dammit. She’s right.

“Probably some kind of wolves, since I can’t imagine goblins would like something without combat potential,” I said.

“Wolf?” Asakura looked up briefly seeing the torches in the distance. She seemed to pick up on the concept of a new predator. Her senses are the best so it must be something wolf, or wolf and dog hybridish.

“Yeah wild wolf, or rabid dogs take your pick. A little ratty poodle wouldn’t last a day in a goblin camp. Think about it,” I replied.

“That’s true,” she agreed.

Actually there was a tiny…really tiny possibility of wolf with something bigger hybridish but I didn’t relish thinking about that much.

“But goblins can see in the dark right? Do they even need torches?” Rina asked.

“Well I’m not entirely sure myself but it probably acts as a beacon to help them signal each other. If they see torches it means something is up, even for them. Also even if they can see in the dark, it would be hard to track living things that you are searching in the dark for without a light source. Like did you notice the dwarves can see in the dark for combat, but for crafting they needed light to help them catch small details?” I said.

I feel a bit nervous.

The sounds intensified.

“Oh I see. That makes sense. They might use it to study footprint details better though they could see a living being,” she agreed.

“Wolves will catch us right? Don’t they like go faster than people when they run?” Rina asked right after that. She looked worried.

“They sound far away, I’m not sure,” I said.

“We better move faster…to give Shun time to think of how to save us. You are going to save us right? You always do…,” Rina said fearfully.

The wolves can be heard again. It’s still far off.

“We need to go faster Asakura,” I said.

“Go faster,” she echoed back to me. “Got it.”

Sure enough we started to try to push our pace. It wouldn’t be long before one of the goblin trackers started decided the stream was the only place that looked like we could have gone.

I’m starting to have cold sweat on my face as we kept working forward about ten minutes later. I’d sweat from exertion and then the cold water vapor of the stream was coming up to hit us.

Streams underground are really cold. We won’t be able to stay in there long without getting hypothermia. I did think of adding the energy resistance buff to us which will absorb some of the cold but not all; all thanks to having to think about Rina and her health. That will give us some more time before we have to get out.

I can see Rina’s lips are turning blue too. I need to find her shelter soon.

“Move quicker,” Asakura said quickly, she nods at something behind us.

Sure enough we’re being pursued. We won’t be able to hide this time either, if they have wolves to help them track us, I realized.

“Crap.”

We’re now trying to go really fast, but we’re stumbling too much.

Then Rina tripped and spilled into the stream. She’s alive and unhurt, but it means there’s a real possibility of hypothermia if we don’t warm her up, with wet clothes.

I consider the use of the dimension door spell here. I could use it for mini travelling but the first few times I use a spell, it uses a lot more mana than normal. That means more risk for tiring out earlier in the day. Also full expenditure of my magic store with no energy left will surely get us killed. So I better not use it until there’s no other choice.

We decide to risk it a little bit longer trying to evade them before activating this skill.

Besides the maximum distance of the dimension door ability was four hundred feet and upwards. So that meant I needed to find a place where I could see a full four hundred feet ahead of us to risk using it, since it would be wasteful to try using it go less than a fourth of that distance.

Yeah, I don’t have a clean line of sight for max distance anyway.

We move forward some more.

But now we can tell there are things in the distance with torches. It seems that several groups with torches have fanned out from the crossing spot where we had our battle. The different groups can be seen moving as faint little fire torch specs in the distance. There are a lot of them spreading in all directions. We can see four main groups, one in each direction.

“Crap, there’s a lot of them aren’t there,” Rina asked , as we glance back but still try to stay moving.

“It won’t do any good to be dwelling on how fast they are catching up with us,” I said aloud.

“Uh huh, just ignore our problems?” Rina had a bit of a smirk.

“We’ll be fine kid. I have a backup plan. We should get moving quicker though,” I said.

“I just don’t get where the dwarves disappeared too,” she retorted.

That part was weird. There’s like no sign that they even existed.

Slowly the orange specks in the distance are getting closer. They are moving faster than we are too. Does that mean the wolves that were hinted at before?

Wolves worry me.

On Earth even the small wolves had jaws that are so strong they can snap bones. So stories I’d heard about them didn’t do them justice. It made it seem like you could just swipe any knife at them and they’d go down in one hit. For hell’s sakes a pack of wolves would even fight large animals sometimes. I have a feeling the wolves on this planet will be bigger than those since they’ve had access to goblin interference trying to make them into better weapons.

Crap…

“I’m scared Shun,” Rina said.

“Yeah me too, but we’ll get through it,” I retorted.

We both know running from wolves is really a bad situation. Wolves will always be faster than humans.

“Not scared,” Asakura said with angry eyes, as she hears the wolves getting closer.

I guess it’s the demon influencing her to protect the nest. It’s reassuring in a way.

Rina then trips again.

“Ouch. I think I hurt my knee,” she said as she gets up.

“Did you hit a rock?” I guessed.

“Yeah I think so.” Her knee is bleeding. Great, the smell of blood will inflame them even more.

I can heal it and do so. It takes only about three heals to close it. But the smell of the blood is going to still be there awhile.

We start moving again.

But we start seeing something black looming ahead of us. We can see a distinct shape ahead like a hill. There’s also something like strange flickering pinpoints of light ahead.

I’m curious what it is. But is it safer than the goblins? Since we can’t make out what it is I’m not sure if it’s even safe.

The goblins are getting closer behind us again.

“What is that Shun?” Rina asked.

I wait before commenting while we try to get closer. It’s still about a mile away.

As we get closer I can tell the goblins and their wolves will appear around the bend at any second. They’ve been moving quite quickly.

It makes sense though that the river would lead this direction. Of course if this is a settlement they would naturally put the settlement on the water. That also means we really hit the money by following the stream. Any settlement of any kind of demi-human or human would need access to water.

“Sweet. I think that’s the settlement we were looking for,” I said openly.

“I hope you’re right,” Rina said. She seemed to be keeping up still, so I wasn’t quite as worried about her now as I had been in times past.

“Me too. That it’s some kind of settlement is true. But it might not be the dwarves. There are all kinds of stuff down here,” I said.

We held our breath a bit further.

It was then that we saw the first goblins on the fastest wolves. We can’t afford a confrontation since even if my shields will absorb the damage, the massive inertia from the wolves charging will knock us prone and flying.

It’s now a good time to test the new dimension door spell. I’m curious how it’ll turn out. But I don’t like experimenting with a real life situation. We won’t have much time left.

“Asakura, Rina, come close quickly,” I said.

“We have to run,” Rina said crying.

“I got that covered. Get on my back Rina. Asakura, hold onto my wrists,” I said.

“OK,” Asakura acknowledged.

“But we have to run!” Rina exclaimed, still not trusting me completely.

“Rina! I need you to trust me. I know what I’m doing!” I said.

I calm Rina down quickly, but it takes like ten seconds that we don’t have.

The first time I cast the dimension door spell it fizzles and Rina freaks out while I’m carrying her on my back. I don’t like doing it this way but it’s the only way to make it work. I cast it again, and my mana dips a huge amount.

In two backfire fail fizzles I went from 90% mana to about 60%. Wow. I’m shocked. It’s not a good spell to mess up on and it’s already heavy usage for when it does work. I hadn’t expected a loss that huge! If its that much cost it may even be hard to train with it.

“Shun, you better get it right this time,” Rina says pointing at a wolf and its goblin rider that are charging at us. They will be here within seconds and I’m almost frozen in fear.

These wolves are as big as horses. And there’s about ten of them, each with their own riders.

Shit.

There’s no way we can take on ten of those monster freaks.

I cast the spell and picture the farthest point within our site that is the maximum distance possible.

It’s kind of like the gravity jump thing that Fox did when we were learning how to shift rooms in the demon box. It’s a bit more intense though because I’m holding onto two full grown women’s bodies at the same time. I feel like my stomach just turned upside down along with the whole rest of the world.

While we get up off the ground I can see the other two are also trying to get up. Rina has fallen off me in mid jump. We’re lucky we landed on the stream bank and not in the stream directly. We also avoided hitting rocks when we fell to the ground.

It makes me wonder if the amount of mass I’m carrying with me will affect how much mana is used up. I won’t know until I try using it again. I’m still pretty confident that with practice I could reduce the cost of mana, but with a spell like that it would take time to even start working on that.

Asakura is the first to get up, shaking it off quickly.

Rina and are slower.

It will throw off the wolves for a little while, and probably bought us a few minutes before they’d notice which way we’d disappeared too. At that time they’d be running like mad in our direction.

“Hurry, we need to move,” I said hoarsely.

I can’t help but feel really strained, losing that much mana quickly.

As I faintly feel at my mana core, it’s almost half gone. It’s really disappointing. Still, if it’d been anyone else they’d be empty already and probably being eaten by wolves. It’s only the shared mana pool that’s kept me this full.

“Where are we?” Rina said coughing as she stood up.

I glance around.

Thank goodness it worked. We’re where I pictured in my mind at the farthest point. Surprising the settlement is very close to us. We can see what looks like some type of fire pits on the top of the massive stone walls.

“This was a dwarven village? Those walls are better security than a military base,” Rina said in alarm.

“Were they lying to us?” I asked.

“It’s weird,” Rina said.

These walls are higher than even these giant wolves can jump and are like fifty feet high. They are made from massive stone blocks.

“Hey this would make a cool place for a base,” Rina said.

“Only if the dwarves accept us,” I said which happened to be my big worry since they might not accept us actually.

We start to run towards the well made walls. But we also have to figure out which part of the wall has the gate, while we’re trying to not trip in the dark. We then hear the wolves snarling as they get closer. It also means they’ve picked up the scent.

Hurry…

My inner fears are creeping up.

“Crap,” I hear Rina cursing.

“Dwarf settlement?” Asakura said.

“Hmm it could be the one we were sent to before we lost Oleg and his team huh?” Rina said.

“Asakura can you find the gate?” I asked, since she’s the only one of us that can see anything farther than a few feet.

She immediately points to a certain section of the wall. “There.”

While we move I have the girls put their shirts back on. I can’t risk them going into a dwarven town shirtless.

But that’s a let down by itself. It happens to be the part of the wall that is the hardest part to get to and the furthest away. We’re climbing and the elevation is starting to climb. It’s a feeling of relief in a way. Getting inside would be hell of a lot better than getting eaten by wolves. We run some more, but we’re still outnumbered and losing the chase.

“This must be how a rabbit feels while they are being hunted,” I hear Rina huffing.

“People on the walls,” Asakura said pointing up. She must mean the dwarves. “Up, they’re up there.”

“Help! Help! Don’t shoot!” Rina calls out to them.

We’re getting closer to the gate after wandering around the perimeter. It seems it’s designed to not be too obvious. But Rina’s calling out is inflaming the wolves and goblins’ lust for blood.

“I hope they don’t shoot us,” I said.

“They wouldn’t do that would they?” Rina asked in shock.

“They don’t know who we are. It’s also really dark out. Dwarven night vision isn’t perfect. I’m sure they see something approaching but they probably can’t tell what it is unless it’s something they are trained to see. Right now they are looking for goblins and orcs, and we have to just hope they don’t include everything that moves in that category. They can see the goblins are riled up but they are also protecting themselves. They might mix up the hunters and hunted,” I said coughing while we ran.

“You think they’d…shoot at anything that moves?” Rina asked.

“It’s happened before. There are stories in America about people going camping during the season for the deer hunt in the Rocky Mountains…and all kinds of accidents happening with someone claiming they thought it was a deer,” I said.

I didn’t like long distance running... ever pretty much. If I get shot by the dwarves on accident at least I wouldn’t have to keep running.

“What do …we do…?” Rina coughed out. She won’t be able to take running like this much longer.

“Gate close,” Asakura said. But her eyes are watching behind us. I can see her feeling uneasy about what’s chasing us.

It won’t be long now.

They are really close.

The dwarven gates ahead are still closed. Right now it’s still pretty dark and hard to make out much of its structure.

I’m cursing inside.

A huge gate like that they’ll never get it open in time, even if they are willing to risk it. It’s still pretty far away. But it also makes sense why the dwarves make such huge gates. They have to make them so big so that giant wolves can’t jump over the tops of them, and fight ogres, in addition to the goblin and orc yard trash that come against the walls.

“We’re close hang in there,” I huffed to the others. “We can do it.”

“…We can do it…” Asakura echoed after me. She’s got her weapons out.

But I’ve got to help Rina run. She’s also out of juice. I put her arm over my shoulder and tried to help her run faster. It’s not going well, and we can try to go faster but we’re seeing the wolves creep closer.

They used to be three hundred feet away.

Now it’s two hundred and we’re running as fast as we can.

Giant wolves run at up to 60 kilometers per hour. That’s a kilometer per minute. Which means about 0.621371 miles per minute and there are 5,280 feet in a mile. The wolves are faster than us by about double our speed. That’s roughly 3,280 feet per minute. They’ll be on us very quickly.

They’d have caught up to us long before, except the dimension door skill let us avoid their tracking abilities for a time.

The gate is about a hundred feet from here. It’s so close. I am looking at it with envy hoping to be on the other side.

“Help!” Rina cried out to the little men above us. I can see glimpses of movement out of the corner of my eyes. There are definitely little men on top.

Sweet! The dwarven settlement is still there! We found a refuge!

As soon as the goblins are in range I can hear crossbows going off. They have a funny sound when they go off like a heavy spring twanging, which means their using some kind of tight almost metallic chords to work. But it’s also quieter than a gun going off.

We duck and cover worried about if they are careful what they shoot at. To our relief it’s not us.

But there’s quite a few of them up there. They also don’t look very friendly.

Over and over there are sharp flicking sounds going off. Even down below the wall we can hear them. There must be quite a few dwarves up there, but they are good at hiding behind the crenellation archer positions. Can they even see what they are shooting in the dark?

We’re lucky they didn’t shoot us, I realized sweating fiercely. They could have easily have justified us as a threat. But because they are sharp shooting they don’t load us fast. They are trying to make every shot count.

There are still surviving wolves that are almost upon us.

I hit the first wolf closing at us at about a hundred feet away with a stun. It causes his rider to be crushed underneath him as the wolf ends up barrel rolling onto the ground.

There are still two more wolves with their riders that are rushing at us.

I release two sets of starry missile spells before they get in range which hit the lead wolf in the snout near the eyes. I frowned though, because I’d been trying to hit his eyes.

The last wolf is cut down by the dwarven crossbows about ten feet from where I stand.

The crossbows keep going off for about two hours. During that time a whole slew of goblins reach the area about thirty feet in front of us. They are dying pretty quickly. The dwarves are really good with their crossbows. I’m surprised that a medieval weapon like that can be so powerful. I hadn’t thought a medieval weapon could be so effective, but it can be.

They do pass for a gun of this era.

I am shocked that they can pull off shooting them so accurately, which is what has convinced me of their power. Even up to say…around 200 yards out they can still be accurate. They just can’t carry multiple shots before reloading as their only difference.

We can only tell what’s going on also because they keep ignited metal barrels of coal along the road way approaching the small stronghold.

It makes me uncomfortable.

Did they think about shooting us? To me when you are really far away it isn’t easy to tell what’s what. How did they know we aren’t goblins?

It’s a long time before any dwarves come down to greet us. I can hear some of them shouting each other at the top on the murder hole tower which is pretty much above us. Are they having a conflict about what to do with us?

Why are they arguing?

The shouting is getting worse. Eventually it starts to die down but I can tell one of them is being yelled at pretty badly. It takes some time but eventually there are sounds like steps on stone stairs.

The gate slowly winches open on some kind of chain lever mechanism over the small castle. It’s in great shape. This small castle is very sturdily built and has great stonework. It has a lot of really cool archer towers at different positions and the walls look not only tall but thicker than I thought they would be.

Was it really necessary to send us out here? The job was to escort the dwarven military and help save its towns and smaller settlements on the way to their capital right?

The portcullis opens in time and then a couple of dwarves come out with guards once the goblins are driven off. They have interesting metal helmets and a lot of really well made chain mail. They march in perfect formation in a way that is strangely uniform and symmetric from lots of practice. I realize that it’s going to be hell for us if we make them mad because they are so collectively unified, well armed, and very prepared.

It turns out chain mail is real too. It’s so shiny that it’s almost sparkling. Did they make it do that with some kind of oil polish? I mean when you actually read a story from the medieval era you often wonder if that stuff actually works. The dwarves can see I’m admiring their armor.

“Made it myself,” one of them says. He’s got a full black bushy board that is combed in a strange wide pattern to fan out the beard hair in all directions. It’s like the afro version of beard styles, except its straight haired instead of frizzly. They are proud of their armor like some people are proud of their cars it seems. It’s kind of funny how similar it is.

“My name’s Svinn,” he offered us a greeting.

Besides him the other fellow is looking down and ashamed. The guards behind him are all glaring at him with distrust.

Then I recognize him. It’s Oleg.

Why is Oleg here already…and not out looking for us? The girls with me are also steamed and glaring at him, probably thinking the same thing.

“On behalf of my people I apologize for my rudeness,” Oleg says bowing low.

“Rudeness?” Asakura asked, then looked at me.

“I don’t get it. What’s up?” Rina asked confused at what’s going on.

My eyes squint as I take it all in. Something happened and it’s obviously Oleg’s fault because all the dwarves are glaring at him.

Svinn nudges Oleg again, “I think you can do better than that. Go on.”

Oleg is teary eyed and ashamed, but I’m not sure how much of that visible look is coerced from being in trouble. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

Svinn clears his throat. “About an hour ago our scouts found out there was a flurry of activity outside the walls down in the valley with the goblins. We knew something was wrong. Then we investigated a bit more. The scouts, our scouts... were able to see you fleeing ahead of a goblin army that’s headed this way. We were hoping you survived. Especially since it was someone’s fault you were abandoned outside the gates.”

“So how come the goblin army isn’t here already? They marched right by us during the night,” I asked Svinn.

He nodded, “we think they were out looking for you and any scouts remaining outside. Temporarily you bought us a lot of time, and that helped us a lot to get more prepared. From what we can tell they were searching for someone or something out late and it delayed their hitting the walls. I don’t know for sure, but you may have helped with that.”

“Is that kind of bad though? Why would they delay that and not hit the walls early?” I asked.

Svinn shrugged, “As you know goblins are cannibals. They might be persuaded to delay attacking a walled small town if they thought there are still a group of several people outside. It’s also possible they thought you were scouts trying to get to a neighboring town to call for reinforcements.”

“Ah that makes a lot of sense now,” Rina said.

“Well I’d for sure want less people to fight than more if I were a goblin,” I admitted.

“But this guy shouldn’t have left you out in the dark alone. And he doesn’t have a good excuse for why he abandoned his own troops as sacrificial goats,” Svinn slapped Oleg in the back of the head. Oleg looked totally cowed and submissive, which was strange considering how burly he looked.

(Huh? Is that an idiom and grammar difference? It seems like dwarves say ‘sacrificial goat’ (or ram) with the same meaning as our term of ‘sacrificial lamb’.)

Oleg bowed low. “My shame is greater than I can bear. Please forgive me.”

He looks pitiful, but I don’t feel sorry for him because he was caught.

“We don’t hold grudges,” I said calmly.

“We don’t?” Rina asked genially but surprised.

Of course some of the dwarves have wide eyes seeing Asakura’s big boobs, even though she’s wearing a shirt. She conveniently hides behind me. It doesn’t work that well, but at least makes them stop staring since I’m staring back.

“Do you wish to file charges against the defendant for criminal negligence?” Svinn asked me directly. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He looks very stiff and almost like he’s holding his breath. I can feel the tenseness in the air and all of the dwarves have it.

“If we do what happens?” Rina asked before I could stop her.

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Let me handle this.”

Hearing that makes Rina scowl. “OK, fine. What do I know?” She’s anxious to see what I’ll do though. She does mask her interest a little bit.

“If I’m not mistaken this would cause a lot of problems for both the humans and dwarves in this area right?” I asked Svinn.

He nodded but only after studying my face for a minute. He looked really conflicted. “We want to do what’s right, not what’s convenient.”

“Was it an accident we were left behind or on purpose?” I asked.

Svinn looked at Oleg.

Oleg’s face is beat red. “I’m so sorry.” Of course he avoids the question and he’s sweating like crazy.

“Just answer the question,” Svinn said.

“It was an accident. I…we- ahh hell. We just …panicked. Goblins were overwhelming us. I couldn’t find you right away and thought you were already dead. But I felt bad later, realizing I hadn’t heard you screaming like you were dying or carried off. I should have led a search party to go find you later that night when I realized my mistake.”

Svinn’s eyes narrowed, going back and forth between me and Oleg. “What do you want to do?” he asked me carefully.

“The truth is, things like that are easy to do. There were a lot of goblins, so I’m not sure a lot of other people might have done differently. I can see how it could have been a legitimate mistake. I’m hoping our efforts made a difference though. Did any dwarves die? Did you recover all of the heavy armor units?” I asked.

Oleg shook his head. “We do have a few in critical conditions, but everyone is awake and alive. It was a confusion spell from goblin shamans at work. Sorry for the trouble I caused.”

Asakura gave a sharp intake that sounded happy and slapped me on the back for like an athlete’s pat on the back. “Good job Shun. You make that happen.”

Hmm that was interesting too. Yet another sign Asakura is still smart and her brain works. Every time I see something like that I’m relieved. That almost sounded like she was…awake.

“Well that settles it then. Can we go inside? I’d like to stay here on the door step to chat but there’s a goblin army less than an hour’s march from here,” Svinn said.

“Shit, no way!” Rina said.

As we are led through the portcullis it’s closing quickly behind us. There’s not just one portcullis and the gates covering both portcullises are really well made with a pit and huge moat on the outside. I hadn’t caught it before but part of the stream emptied to an area in the moat, but it’s so highly walled around the inside that it couldn’t be crossed without being someone being shot to death.

“Damn, these dwarves sure know how to make a fortress,” Rina said.

“It’s still not very big compared to some castles but it does look sturdy and well built,” I said.

Svinn looked offended. “This isn’t a real dwarf fortress. This is just a small stone keep protecting a mining village. I’m the Chief Sheriff here and oversee the defense.”

“Chief Sheriff?” Asakura asked me.

“Like police,” I said to her. Her eyes flared in recognition and she nodded with more certainty. “Got it,” she said, she understood.

Around us all the buildings were tall and big. Everything is made of stone, even the smallest of the cottages, but what’s interesting is that they have high angle roofs covered in really well made tile. Everything here is burn proof. I notice they also don’t keep wood next to buildings but in clever barns that are protected from above and on the sides.

“It looks like these guys are always prepared for war,” I exclaimed.

They don’t keep anything flammable out in open sight of the place.

“Their houses are beautiful and look well made,” Rina murmured.

Asakura is also wide eyed seeing them. “Yeah, those look really good.” Yet again Asakura is acting almost human.

“Hey Shun, do you realize what this means?” Rina’s eyes are back.

I’m alarmed, thinking she means some danger, “what?”

But then I noticed she’s excited, “baths, groceries, and housing.” She looks at me seriously.

“I like baths, Shun. Let’s get one,” Asakura said with her hand on my bicep.

“Man I’d almost forgotten what civilization was like because we were living in such weird holes and camps,” I admitted.

“I’ll say. Dang, I would love to have a real place to live that isn’t a campfire or tent,” Rina accidentally slipped out while wiping some drool off her chin.

“I wonder…what are their houses like?” Asakura said softly.

Ooh, I think she is waking up. But we need somewhere private for me to be sure and look her over.

“I hope it’s something we can afford,” I said, frowning. It has to cost more to live behind a full fortification.

“I…hadn’t thought about that…Shun, we’re going to need money,” Rina said aloud but not so loud the others walking near us would here.

I can see why both of them are wooed. Till now we haven’t seen any real towns, so it would be easy for someone to have a reaction like a sailor seeing land for the first time in a year at sea. But this is really good. Even by our world standards their houses are well made.

Svinn harrumphed, “I can see you appreciate dwarven architecture. That’s good. I think we’ll get along just fine.”

“But we have the goblins outside to deal with first, right boss?” Oleg said worriedly.

“Yeah I’m hoping we can close that up quickly,” Svinn said to him, as they walked side by side. They seemed to be getting along better now but it’s clear that Svinn still was eyeing Oleg a bit funny.

“Do you get any real action in a small keep like this?” I asked.

“Not often, but sometimes it happens. I bet at least once a month something happens. But the last couple of years have been crazy and don’t follow the pattern,” Oleg said to me.

“We’ll get through it, like we did those others.” Svinn said to Oleg, but then he turned to me. “I hear you are a mage?”

The corners of my lips gave the answer away before I’d even said anything. It’s hard to resist the prestige people attach on this world to mages.

“That’s really good.” Svinn’s smile is really big seeing my reaction. “Anything to help kill goblins. We can use any weapon we can get our hands on if it’ll save dwarven lives.”

“We’d show you to your quarters but right now there’s an army of goblins outside,” Oleg said right after him.

It’s then I notice every available person is on the walls. And beyond that, every available tub, pan, pot, or other device is holding water. I’m not used to seeing what a siege is really like. I can see a few dwarven family members watching through slits in their windows of the normal houses while we in what seems to be the main plaza. They of course don’t peek out very far, and are trying to minimize how much exposure they show.

“Are you expecting the water supply to dry up?” I asked.

Svinn chuckled. “It isn’t unusual for the goblins to use fire arrows to try to burn us out either for houses or to pick up a civilian casualty or three. We’ve gone a long way to invest in fire proofing buildings but old habits die hard. Even when they don’t achieve being able to burn us out the stream is going to be filled with goblin blood for days and who wants to drink that stuff?” he made a rancid face.

“Do civilian casualties happen often?” Rina asked suddenly curious.

“Are you asking because of thinking of staying home?” I asked her suddenly.

She shrugged, “it’s a possibility. But if the danger is just as big at home but a different flavor then I’m better off staying with you.”

“Well to answer your question, sometimes civilian casualties happen. They don’t happen if they stay locked up inside, but you can’t live in fear either. Dwarves don’t like our home life disturbed and our technology is good. It’s unfortunate but sometimes a stray or two over the wall will get more casualties than the people on the front line,” he shrugged.

“Wow, that’s not what you’d expect,” I said.

This town is kind of small, but looks very cool to stay in and well made.

Finally a real town!