Amdirlain’s PoV - Veht? - Norway


    When Amdirlain returned to the river bank where Sarah’s house had settled, she found Sarah clearing a swath of trees towards a rock face. The others were tending to the debris nearby and stopped when she arrived.


    “I found a friend,” quipped Amdirlain.


    “Then why do you smell of blood, fur, and Mana?” asked Sarah.


    Amdirlain smiled grimly. “He was a little frisky at first, but unlike the last fur ball, he stopped to listen.”


    “What type of fur ball?”


    “Turns out Grendel was the son of Caine and a J?tnar,” said Amdirlain. “He carried part of Caine’s curse, which made him murderous and cannibalistic. I broke it.”


    Sarah blinked, her mouth pursed in a silent O.


    “Why are those names so important?” asked Kadaklan.


    “Yet more fragments from religions and myths on our world,” explained Amdirlain. “The Norse stories paint Grendel as a murderous and cannibalistic being that terrorised some villages. Caine was in a religious tale as the first murderer, killed his brother from jealousy and was cursed by a God.”


    “You can’t exactly qualify him as cannibalistic,” observed Sarah. “After all, the term cannibal refers to a being that eats other members of its species. Since he is a unique hybrid between a cursed Human and a species of Norse Primal beings, it’s hard for him to find another member of his species.”


    “Details matter,” agreed Klipyl.


    Jinfeng glanced at Klipyl in surprise. “You’re worried about details? You come across as very carefree.”


    “What you put in holes can be extremely important,” laughed Klipyl.


    Slowly shaking her head, Jinfeng groaned. “I left myself open for that one.”


    Sarah’s attention remained on Amdirlain. “Does your Precognition flag anything else of interest in these parts?”


    Amdirlain frowned. “Not from Precognition, but Grendel said during deep winter he gets attacked by strange-looking creatures, whose poison rots his flesh.”


    She broadcast the images she’d taken from his mind. At the first glimpse of the creatures, Jinfeng flinched.


    “Those match tales of demons I’ve heard,” said Jinfeng. “Are you sure the venom from their claws rotted his flesh?”


    Amdirlain nodded in confirmation.


    “Odd. There are spider demons who attack villages in the North Wind’s Court whose descriptions are similar, but this is too far from the centre,” added Kadaklan. “He specified deep winter?”


    “Yep,” said Amdirlain.


    “They could cross the Arctic Circle, but what would draw them here is an interesting question,” said Jinfeng. “I’m surprised they can travel this far.”


    “Could they be here for Grendel?” asked Amdirlain.


    “I doubt it. Though, once in the area, his nature could have drawn their attention,” said Kadaklan.


    “What do you mean?”


    “The way you describe him sounds yang-focused. The spider demons that emerge in the far north have yin tendencies. They’d either seek him to feed off his energy or simply because of the evil deeds he’s committed,” explained Kadaklan.


    “Sounds like a tomorrow problem since they turn up in winter,” said Sarah. “Let’s continue sorting things out. We’ll be here a while, so let’s not take shortcuts.”


    ? ? ? ? ? ?


    The weeks after the confrontation with Grendel passed smoothly. Sarah positioned the house against the side of the valley and set all of them to work, building an expansion around it that sealed it against the valley wall. Beneath a high peaked roof to shed snow, they had walkways to access the chambers she carved from the hillside. Though the stone allowed seepage, Sarah soon had it sealed up with enchantments and drainage ditches that gave the compound orderly lines for her garden beds that, three weeks after they arrived, got buried in a flurry of late snow.


    Amdirlain looked through the windows to consider the snowfall that had covered the ground overnight. With the first rays of dawn, she sent a wash of Ki down the Allegiance Bond and, as usual, listened mentally for Sarah’s reaction, glad there’d been no signs of strain with all the energy she’d fed her to remain on the Material Plane between Qil Tris and now this trip.


    The scent of Sarah cooking her breakfast filled the living room of their expanded dwelling.


    “Is this normal?” asked Klipyl, watching the snowfall from the couch.


    “Your guess is as good as mine. There isn’t any magic involved,” replied Amdirlain.


    Klipyl pouted. “The early sprouts are all going to be frost-burnt. Could something unnatural do it besides a Spell? Maybe there are gates to the Elemental Plane of Ice nearby.”


    “If it isn’t natural, then an Ice Elemental could cool the clouds enough to cause a snowstorm,” offered Amdirlain. “I can think of other things that don’t involve any rifts or gates having opened.”


    “It’s brisk weather for a run,” commented Jinfeng, coming downstairs with her sword tucked in the crock of her arm and her braid already done. She’d donned white robes with black trim, and the loops securing her tunic hooked around mother-of-pearl fasteners.


    “What’s the special occasion to warrant fancy dress?” asked Klipyl.


    Jinfeng glanced down at herself ruefully. “Our increased training has had me distracted.”


    “Just get a ribbon,” Klipyl smirked. “It saves laundry.”


    “I’ll leave such attire to you, Klipyl,” Jinfeng politely replied. “I’ll arrange magical attire eventually, but it’d not been a priority before this trip.”


    “I’ll enchant some robes to match the self-repair of Am’s shadow vines,” offered Sarah. “It would give me something simple to do while figuring out Am’s project.”


    Jinfeng poked her head around the corner into the kitchen. “I would appreciate that, but I hadn’t thought to impose, considering I’m already intruding.”


    “If you were intruding, I’d have told you straight up,” said Sarah. “We’re all on the same trek, just learning different things.”


    “Where will you get silk from in a place like this?”


    “It will be silken material, but not silk,” clarified Sarah. “Breakfast will be in the warmer when you get back.”


    The thin layer of snow crunched underfoot in the morning stillness as Amdirlain headed towards the riverbank. A prickling up her spine prompted a quick scan of the horizon, and out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a hulking figure on a distant ridgeline, hand resting casually against a tree. Behind her, Jinfeng hissed as the icy air caught in her throat, and she went still at Amdirlain’s posture.


    It looks like Grendel followed my scent.


    “Is there a problem, Sifu?”


    “Time will tell,” replied Amdirlain. “Let me know if you spot signs of Grendel close by.”


    Jinfeng nodded sharply. “Is he nearby now? You’ve not mentioned him since our arrival here.”


    A head tilt guided Jinfeng’s gaze to the proper ridgeline, but she shook her head. “I can’t see him. Where is he?”


    “I’ll add some perception games to your training then,” said Amdirlain, and she sprinted out onto the river. Ki Movement pushed her fast enough that the surface tension allowed it to serve as a highway. As she raced towards the sea, Jinfeng passed her.


    I also need to improve this Power; there are places where flying will attract more attention.


    When they returned after the morning’s training, Grendel was nowhere to be seen, so Amdirlain moved to check his observation spot. Next to the tree was a small stack of rocks scratched with Norse runes, and their meaning was clear.


    A territory marker. He wanted to set a boundary line, or does he mean I shouldn’t approach closer than that?


    Klipyl was in the icy water when Amdirlain returned. She lay back and kicked her feet lazily. “I think you made a friend,” she said.


    “I threw him through some trees and into a boulder,” snorted Amdirlain. “And that wasn’t the worst of the injuries I inflicted.”


    “It’s one way to make an impression,” drawled Klipyl. “Among some species, the mating ceremony is a brawl to prove they’re marrying near-equals in battle. Are Dragon mating flights like that?”


    “Sounds frisky,” quipped Amdirlain. “Dragon mating flights are...”


    “Energetic?” supplied Klipyl. “How energetic was yours? Are you spilling the gossip at last?”


    “I meant dragons overall,” protested Amdirlain, blushing to the tips of her ears.


    “I’m going to have to report to Isa and Gail.”


    “Don’t you dare!”


    Klipyl’s laughter echoed warmly in contrast to the frosty morning air.


    “Jinfeng is having breakfast, so I’ll spar with you now,” announced Amdirlain, her gaze fierce.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Klipyl’s laughter stopped like someone had pulled her plug. “Be gentle.”


    “Not a chance. My sis needs to be tough.”


    ? ? ? ? ? ?


    Kadaklan took over the garden beds when he felt the spring had adequately settled in. The group settled into a routine of working and helping each other train in differing fields.


    The summer was at its height when Amdirlain caught Grendel’s approach, but she continued the morning sparring session in a clearing further along the valley, away from the blooming gardens. As his scent grew more apparent to Amdirlain, the others still hadn’t noticed him. He was only a few hundred metres away when Klipyl frowned and glanced to the northeast.


    Jinfeng’s fluid motions didn’t pause, though the shift in her movements showed she was ready to engage a foe emerging from the trees.


    Minutes later, with a dressed deer over one shoulder, Grendel slipped between the trees and stood at the clearing’s edge. His only clothing was a full deer pelt of rawhide wrapped around his waist.


    “Hello, Grendel. What brings you by?” asked Amdirlain, stepping aside from Jinfeng’s probing lunge.


    “I’ve been craving things since we met,” muttered Grendel unhappily.


    Amdirlain frowned with concern. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d cut the curse away.”


    “Not flesh, but without those cravings tormenting me...”


    Grendel tapped his chest with his free hand and shifted his weight from side to side, his gaze fixed on Amdirlain.


    “The days feel hollow and cold?” asked Klipyl.


    His gaze jumped to Klipyl. “Like the deepest winter night without wind. The ice cracking underfoot echoes through the hills, and no rage to warm my blood.”


    An odd poetry within him.


    “Your senses feel sharp and clear, but you’re craving something unknown instead of the blood and flesh that warmed your stomach,” Klipyl said. “Yet when you tried the types of flesh that filled you before, you felt nothing.”


    “Have you been spying on me?” grumbled Grendel.


    “Did you try it?” asked Klipyl softly.


    “Yes,” Grendel said, hanging the dressed deer from a nearby branch. “This deer is for you. I saw the other Human woman out hunting.”


    “Who did you eat?” asked Amdirlain, avoiding the topic change.


    Grendel flexed his shoulders as if loosening for a fight. “Some kobolds who were too slow to hide.”


    “We are not playing that game again, Grendel. You attack me, and I will end you,” stated Amdirlain firmly.


    He jerked his muzzle at Jinfeng. “Whenever I’ve seen you outdoors, you’ve crossed blades with her. Why not me?”


    I knew he’d been observing us, but I didn’t think it was more than neighbourly curiosity. I hadn’t expected him to visit.


    Amdirlain waggled her blade. “You want to spar?”


    “Whatever you call it. I’ve seen how she improves. She makes soaring eagles look clumsy now compared to how she was at summer’s dawn.”


    “What’s he saying?” asked Jinfeng. “I’m not an Immortal, so I can’t understand what’s being said.”


    “I’m sorry for leaving you out, Jinfeng. I’ve grown too used to understanding any language,” Amdirlain apologised.


    Didn’t Sarah make her something?


    Jinfeng tapped her chest. “It’s my oversight. Sarah made me that pendant to understand languages on our travels, but I left it inside.”


    “I’ll set a mental link and give you a translation.”


    As they spoke, Grendel edged back towards the trees as if set to flee.


    “My companion can’t understand your speech,” explained Amdirlain.


    Grendel shuffled further back. “I could understand your side of the conversation.”


    Amdirlain spread her hand. “That’s an ability I have to communicate with people. You’re not attacking, so you’re not in danger. I’m surprised you crossed your markers, as I’ve only seen you observing from them.”


    “They’re reminders,” rumbled Grendel.


    “Of?”


    “That you’re dangerous up close,” Grendel said, waving a hand at Amdirlain to clarify he didn’t mean all of them.


    Klipyl giggled. “She can be dangerous a world away. A few extra kilometres won’t help if you get her mad at you.”


    “Why do you want to improve your fighting?” Amdirlain quickly asked to head off that conversation.


    “The creatures we talked about,” Grendel raked the air to the north. “Some are strong, and I want to keep their claws out of my flesh.”


    “Do you have any of their remains?”


    Grendel nodded jerkily. “Bone pit. Why?”


    “I want to see what you’re dealing with,” said Amdirlain. “I’ve been thinking about the situation since we last spoke.”


    “Do this sparring with me, and I’ll find you the bones,” said Grendel.


    The blade disappeared from Amdirlain’s hand, and she motioned him forward. “Very well. I’ll avoid breaking you too much.”


    “You’re not worried that I might break your tiny body?”


    Does he think the Storm Giant form gave me the strength to crush him?


    “Not in the slightest,” replied Amdirlain.


    He crouched and moved forward in an explosive rush, his right arm lashed out, claws ripping the air. Though Jinfeng’s eyes widened in shock, Amdirlain felt like she was drifting forward against a lazily moving foe. Amdirlain casually jumped into the swing, held in position with Flight to shoulder-check the blow; she jarred his arm and forced him back a step. She followed up with rapid-fire punches to his ribs but let him disengage when he threw himself to the side.


    As he gathered himself, Amdirlain readied herself to meet his charge, but Grendel sidestepped neatly, circling her rather than charging recklessly as he had the first time they’d fought. He started with tight, probing claw swipes that clumsily mimicked some of Jinfeng’s swings. She moved with him, staying ahead of each attack, tempting him to push a little further, yet he never got off balance. With him keeping his distance, she turned her attention to the attacking limbs, breaking knuckles and, at one point, shattering a forearm when he finally pushed the limit of his balance. Yet the energy in his attack never faltered. He kept his rage contained throughout, fighting with a furious intensity, while he kept his rage heavily restrained. The sun was high in the sky when Amdirlain stepped back and motioned to stop.


    “Come again another time,” said Amdirlain.


    “I couldn’t even hit you,” muttered Grendel.


    Amdirlain nodded. “You’re too used to being stronger and faster than your foes—that, along with your confidence in taking the punishment, means you’ve got massive problems in your combat style. I’ve studied your approach and will consider if I should help you improve. Who taught you to fight?”


    “My mother’s kin, long ago,” said Grendel. “It’s easier to follow their advice about controlling my temper now, but I can’t remember everything. You’ll consider helping me?”


    “I’ve already helped you and don’t owe you anything, Grendel. I know you slaughtered people and ate them before Beowulf beheaded you,” said Amdirlain. “The situation with your previous curse means I won’t hold that completely against you, but I’ll need to consider your situation and my own.”


    Grendel scowled unhappily but only stalked away; once he hit the clearing’s edge, he sprinted between the trees.


    The trio watched him hurtle up the valley wall, and stride away along the clifftop in full view of their position.


    Is he showing off?


    “I could hear his claws rip through the air like a bird’s beating wings. He is more savage than the ancient tales paint Sun Wukong,” breathed Jinfeng, her eyes fixed on his broad shoulders.


    Amdirlain grunted. “I’m not making him a circlet.”


    A nervous laugh burst from Jinfeng’s lips, and Klipyl grinned. “All those muscles. You think he wears the hide to stop shrubs slapping his dick?”


    And Klipyl jumps straight for that low-hanging fruit.


    Amdirlain held back her snickers. “He heals fast, but he’s not immune to injury.”


    “That’s a yes.”


    “Let’s head back.”


    Klipyl snickered at Amdirlain’s phrasing while Jinfeng collected the deer from the tree and tightened the fresh-cut hide Grendel had fastened around it—perhaps so it wouldn’t stick to his furry shoulders? It was already noon, so Amdirlain teleported them to the front of the house. The garden bed with Kadaklan’s experimental crop showed signs of recent tending, and hot curry scented the air.


    “Kadaklan’s cooking,” noted Jinfeng. “I’ll store the deer in the walk-in cooler and chop it up later.”


    Though she could have just called out for Sarah, Amdirlain headed around the central core of the house and headed into the hill.


    As Amdirlain walked into the forge, Sarah plucked a stylus from the rack on her bench. “Why do you smell like fur ball and dead deer?”


    “Grendel stopped by and asked to spar. He included a deer as payment, neatly gutted and minus the head,” explained Amdirlain.


    “Kept all the organs for himself from the lack of odour about you,” noted Sarah.


    “Yep, no deer’s tongue or fried kidney,” quipped Amdirlain.


    “You’re just against fine food,” Sarah said. Turning her attention to a mithril plate, she traced a complex pattern across its surface. The line along the metal shone as more Mana flowed into it.


    Eyeing the first completed runes and the ease of the work, Amdirlain hazarded a guess. “Boundary marker?”


    “Yep, your challenge will require many parts to work properly, so I want to test each on a smaller scale,” advised Sarah. “Oddly enough, determining the barrier’s outer limits is the hardest. I can’t just use a circle without encountering issues.”


    “What if we start with a city-sized dome and confine them all to it?”


    “How are you going to get them inside?”


    “I might cheat for that part,” admitted Amdirlain. “But Planar Gate is usable between different places on a world, and I could open gates in the dragons’ flight paths.”


    “What idea do you have for controlling them in that small a space?”


    “It’s more a mix of ideas. The key goal I’ll need to achieve is to get them to police themselves and have their greed motivate those at the top of the hierarchy to keep the rest in check. I thought I’d make a cultivation academy come to life,” said Amdirlain.


    “What?”


    “Most of the cultivation novels I read had the cultivators portrayed as self-interested arseholes, with the strongest being the driving force for the functioning of the sect,” said Amdirlain. “The strongest get the most resources and get stronger. For the dragons, the strongest get the most shiny things added to their hoards instead of cultivation resources.”


    “How does that motivate them to keep the others in check?”


    “Their shiny prizes come from the levy those lower in the hierarchy provide from their minions,” advised Amdirlain. “I have to work out the weighting of the hierarchy. Maybe something determined by a mix of age and those who produce the most.”


    “You want the hierarchy to be flexible?”


    “If it’s rigid, those at the base will never want to work and, given their egos, there will be immediate violence. The system needs at least three, maybe even five, hierarchies, with the top rank in each on a council. That should make it so they’re competing against each other and ensuring the other groups follow the same rules,” said Amdirlain.


    “That sounds like you’re setting up five mob families working in the same city. Who are the poor minions?”


    “Maybe kobolds,” suggested Amdirlain. “I need to figure out a mechanism whereby the minions get life improvements out of the situation. If the dragons realise that trained and well-treated workers will make them nice things instead of providing raw metal nuggets to fill their hoard.”


    Sarah started laughing. “Vanity. You plan to use their vices of greed and vanity against them?”


    “I hope to, but we’ll have to see if I can. There are lots of details to work out. If it goes wrong, they’ll slaughter each other and any Kobold tribes in reach.”


    “Let’s not have that happen,” said Sarah. “If the workers get strong enough, they’ll kill lazy dragons that mistreat them.”


    “That’s not my problem,” replied Amdirlain. “There will be many other influences between my confining them and that occurring. We should make it so that kobolds or whatever other species we recruit to work for them can leave.”


    “No minions mean no new goods for their hoard unless they turn on each other.”


    “We’re setting up a McMansion competition,” observed Sarah. “Confine them in a restricted space so they have to take on a smaller form and make them compete. Who can have the biggest X? How do we stop them from killing each other?”


    “If one attacks and kills another first, all their hoard and that of the Dragon they killed gets disintegrated,” said Amdirlain. “But their violent nature needs a release, so maybe an allowed duelling system.”


    Sarah nodded to the plate before her. “I’ll see what I can develop after completing these markers. Even if we use a single dome, these will help reinforce it. Fair warning: it will need so much Mana to start the barrier that you might want to stockpile now.”


    “I’ve got millions of Mana stolen from Grendel’s curse. You could use that to speed up the construction process,” offered Amdirlain.


    “Not sure I’d trust energy that had been invested in a curse,” said Sarah.


    Amdirlain twitched her hand towards the valley. “Emptying my Mana pool into crystals regularly would be bad.”


    “You’d flare the local Mana flows by repeatedly refilling your full pool. You could always ask Ebusuku to have some folks sink Mana into some of Foundry’s crystals.”


    “I might send her a message. Let’s remember we can get other people to help,” Amdirlain said and smiled shyly. “I know that’s more my issue than yours.”


    “I’ll finish this plate, have some lunch, and then my afternoon will be clear,” Sarah offered.


    “No, I’ve just claimed it. Shall we go flying?”


    Sarah’s bright smile was answer enough.