NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10: Chances Of Survival
'They won't just give it to you,' Dominic replied, flustered at the thought but doing his best to present an impression of nonchalance. He should have considered that they would react like that. He searched for a way to avoid a load of beasts descending on the elves and demanding armour. 'We have an agreement – they will only make such things at my command.' Mostly true, from a certain perspective. 'And any who wish to change that will have to win against me in a Challenge first, or face my wrath if you go behind my back. But,' he continued, seeing an opportunity, 'there will be rewards for those who fight well in the coming battles – beasts who work well with the Pride, and direct their people to do the same. Armour will be one of the rewards on offer.' If he could, he'd cross his fingers, hoping that the leaders would accept this rather than going straight to the source.
'You say that we can receive this 'armour', these false skins if we fight well?' the scrin leader checks with a hint of suspicion.
'If you fight well, or carry out the tasks I or my deputy-leaders give you, or do something else amazing, yes,' Dominic confirmed. 'Already, I'm having some spiked collars made which will make everyone's neck more difficult to target in thanks for your efforts so far – just as is already part of our armour. Of course, the leaders will benefit first from these.' Why not get a double benefit out of it?
The scrin seemed to consider it for a long moment, and then she let out a huff of satisfaction.
'Very well. We will follow orders for now. You are strong, and you offer rewards. It is good.'
One by one, the other leaders who had seemed on the verge of running off to the elves to demand their own armour, settled down too, even if the wild dog leader took the longest to placate. He seemed to think that his people had already paid in blood for everything Dominic could give them. The lion had had to be quite short with the dog in the end, snapping at him threateningly with a brief growl. That seemed enough to stop anyone else from picking up the complaint. It didn't take too long after that until the leaders had left to go to their people and, presumably, give them their marching orders.
Dominic leapt down off the tree root, landing more heavily than intended – he was still a bit distracted.
'We'll need to warn Alwen that there are beasts who want the same armour we have – and that they should use the alert signal if that happens. I wanted the armour to show what the elves could do for us, but I didn't realise it would be such a big deal.'
'Something that increases the chances of survival? Come on, brother, you know better than that,' Leo told him with a hint of impatience. 'Still, I would not consider this a bad thing. They now know that encroaching on our territory will bring our wrath – the elves are our resource, not theirs.'
Though Dominic felt like rolling his eyes at Leo's possessiveness, he mostly agreed with the thought.
'Yes, perhaps it was something that needed to be said. Actually, thinking about it, maybe we should do the same for the dungeons – just in case they've got any thoughts about those. At least now they have even more reason to follow orders than just survival,' he decided and then turned his head as a large presence approached. It was Claude, the large male lion who they'd allowed to join after he'd lost a fight against Sekhmet and then Dominic himself. Apparently the lion thought it was a compliment to his claws and took a fancy to the suggestion.
'Big brother, can we have some of these second skins? My – our – females are interested, especially since many of their sisters already have them,' the lion asked tentatively.
He had a point. At the moment, not even all of the original Pride had the armour and Dominic could tell that those who hadn't yet got it were itching to do so. Once the elves had delivered the sets they had now finished, Dominic would have to put in an order for those who had stayed behind at the Place of Power – those came first. But Dominic could feel how much in agreement Leo was with the other females having armour too. They were, after all, now Leo's females as well – or so he felt.
'Yes, though it will take time for everyone to be outfitted,' Dominic answered, then cast a glance over the other lion's large form. 'Particularly you, with your size.' The other lion looked a little abashed.
'It seemed a good idea at the time,' he offered a little regretfully.
'And it will probably come in useful,' Dominic hurried to reassure him. His mind raced. Actually, it could come in very useful if Claude could be the equivalent of a tank, withstanding charges, breaking through enemy lines, and offering shelter for injured members of the team…. And for that, he would need heavy armour. 'I'll speak to the elves about it. In the meantime, prove yourself in battle and make sure I don't regret asking them for it, OK?'
'Of course, big brother,' Claude answered eagerly. Then, with a more hesitant air, he asked a further question. 'Where is the beautiful female? I thought she was with you?' He looked around as if the 'beautiful female' was hiding somewhere. It took a moment for Dominic to realise who he was talking about, and when he did, a surge of sudden intense emotion welled up inside him.
'She's fine,' he growled, glaring at the other lion and baring his teeth. Claude immediately ducked his head and put his ears back placatingly.
'I was just wondering. Apparently you were calling for her so I wondered–'
'She's. Fine.'
'Of course.' He looked like he wanted to continue walking with Dominic, but the smaller lion had other plans.
'OK, great talk, I'll catch up with you later, Claude,' he said in clear dismissal.
'Oh. Yes. I'll see you later, big brother.' Dominic felt a bit guilty at the clear disappointment in Claude's mental tone and body language as he slumped – Dominic might have overreacted just a tad there. But he definitely didn't want to do his next actions with an audience. He resolved to groom the other lion a bit later – since both he and Leo had accepted the lion as another adult male in the Pride, he ought to make sure they were on good terms.
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For now, he headed directly for the obsidian-like stone nestled in the roots of the massive tree. The flash of envy from the allied leaders was enough to remind him that he wanted to make sure it was secured. His solution probably wasn't foolproof – if it worked at all – but he'd rather avoid problems from an ally coming too close, touching what shouldn't be touched and getting killed for it. Or a cub being a little too curious for its own good and paying a heavy price for it.
Pulling out the hand-sized metal cube which was the Artifact of Zola, he tried to work out how to activate it. His paws were awkward when it came to any sort of detailed work and weren't nearly as sensitive as his fingers had been. He turned the cube over and over, looking for any change in the rippled metallic surface of the device. Any sign of a button, or touchpad or something that would turn it on.
When his eyes failed to spot anything, he used his Spatial Awareness, but that just told him what his eyes could see – that it was a solid-looking cube. When his paws felt nothing either, he even resorted to licking the thing – his tongue was far more sensitive than his paws were. But to no avail – it just seemed to be one seamless cube of metal. Though it did leave a slight metallic taste on his tongue which he was in two minds about – it reminded him of the taste of blood which in turn made him think about how much he'd changed because that was appetising rather than disgusting. He'd think it was solid except that it was far too light for that, unless it was made out of aluminium which it didn't appear to be – it had a reddish sheen to it which Dominic didn't think was part of aluminium's colour profile.
The material doesn't matter, Dominic reminded himself even as he glared hotly at the stubborn cube. Getting it to open does!
Abruptly, the cube shifted before his eyes, unfolding into a flatpack version of itself. Inside, there was a small ball of something very bright. Even as Dominic squinted to cope with its sheer luminosity, it started growing quickly. The lion only had a moment to wonder if he should back away when the ball expanded over him.
He felt nothing as the light passed him, so he stayed where he was. A moment later, the light seemed to have expanded to its limits as Dominic could see a faint twinkle just hanging around his hindquarters. He stepped inside fully, needing to step over the now-empty flatpack box, and looked around.
The shimmer in the air was very slight – the intense brightness of the small ball had been diffused significantly, reminding him of how the colour of balloons became so much less intense when blown up to full capacity than when deflated.
He could fit in the dome well enough, though its radius clearly was shorter than he was. Its diameter seemed to be about a third again his length – when his tail wasn't included. Since he was significantly longer than he was tall, the height wasn't too much of a problem, though if the barrier was solid, he'd feel quite claustrophobic. Fortunately, it seemed like the magic didn't have any issues with various body parts leaving and then returning, though he didn't want to test what would happen if he left the dome fully.
Actually, is it a dome or a sphere? Dominic wondered. Padding over to the inside edge of the barrier, he dug a little bit into the ground. Noticing that the sparkling shimmer continued even into the ground, Dominic had to guess that either it was a sphere, or the barrier filled in new space created as soon as it was revealed. After a moment of thought, he tried to dig a tunnel so that the earth separated the barrier from where he was digging.
Once more, he found the shimmering barrier underground, giving weight to his theory that it was a sphere.
Satisfied, Dominic returned to stand over the flatpack box. At the moment, it wasn't actually protecting the Place of Power – the barrier only reached halfway through the stone. Of course, checking that the two didn't react badly with each other was a good experiment in itself but he probably wouldn't have chosen to experiment in that way – what if the barrier had been solid and had cut through the stone? Then again in that case it would have cut into his hindquarters too. But he'd overestimated how big the sphere would be. 60 m3 had seemed like a big volume on the screen, but in practicality, it was a surprisingly small space.
Still, it should be enough for his purposes. Pushing with his paw, Dominic tried to move the flatpack. It took him several attempts to realise that no, the box, and therefore the barrier, were not moving. Not like this. It was like the flatpack had become welded to the ground.
Actually, not even that – Dominic tried digging under the flat pack to try to catch an edge to push, but even with nothing below it, the device just stayed hovering in the air. Very odd, though it did give Dominic a few ideas about things he could perhaps test out later.
'I think you will have to close or deactivate it somehow,' Leo suggested with a hint of uncertainty.
'I was thinking the same,' Dominic agreed. 'How, though?'
'Well, how did you get it open?'
'That's the issue – I don't know.' Dominic thought back to that moment. He'd been trying to open it with his tongue, but he'd stopped doing that before the box had opened. 'I was thinking that I wanted it to open,' he remembered. 'And thinking hard. Could it be operated by directed thoughts? Like Telepathy or the storage items?'
'Try it out,' Leo ordered. Dominic mentally rolled his eyes at his companion, but then focussed on the box.
Close, he thought, focussing on the box as if it were a beast he was trying to communicate with.
For a moment, it seemed like nothing was happening, and then Dominic noticed that the light was getting closer to him again. Within a few seconds, it had returned to that super-bright ball in the centre of the flatpack which quickly folded itself up around its cargo, becoming a seamless metal cube again.
'Alright, now we're talking,' Dominic crowed.
He continued testing, opening and closing the box a couple more times. Then he noticed that the brightness, while still overwhelming, appeared just a little less overwhelming than before. Since it seemed probable that activating and deactivating the barrier took energy – mana, maybe – he decided that he should stop with that line of testing, especially since it didn't provide any new insights.
Next, he wanted to work out how to assign access to other beings. Since he didn't want to risk being trapped outside the barrier if his command didn't work, he called Nyx and Jenkins over to help him out.
In the end, it turned out that assigning access was easy enough – he needed to direct a thought at the box to that effect. Generally, controlling the box was easier than he'd thought it was at first: the specific words didn't seem to matter, nor did it appear to be a problem that neither Nyx nor Jenkins had Telepathy; it was apparently the intention that counted, and the distance from the box – the closest being to it which told it to 'open' or the equivalent would gain control over it. After opening, it would only 'listen' to the commands of the one who had opened it – a safety measure, Dominic guessed. That person could close it or change the access, whether that was Dominic, Nyx, or Jenkins. The same was true of the 'close' command. Dominic would have to make sure not to leave the box around in its closed state, though, since apparently it would then be vulnerable to being stolen.
Those who had been given access were able to move in and out of the barrier easily enough even if they couldn't command it; those without access were stopped like it was made of something solid rather than light.
In the end, Dominic was pretty satisfied with his purchase, especially when it was proven that the tree which protected the stone didn't count as one of the three entities.
'Thanks, both of you,' Dominic told the two ladies, rubbing heads with them in gratitude, even as it reminded him once more of Sekhmet's absence.
As if the thought was the trigger, Tuft, the albuha he'd left to guard the dungeon entrance, called out through the Pride chat.
'Pack leader! They're out!'