NOVEL NEXT 2.50 - Has He Died?
Keeping the visiting adventurers from going bananas was only a matter of making sure they understood the rules. Mortals entering the grove wouldn't lose their way or their minds immediately. It took a few days, depending on the willpower of the person entering the forest. Anticipating the way information flowed down from Feather, the druid made his way to the forest's edge and waited.
It didn't take long for the adventurers to arrive.
"Wow, you were right," Nulsa said. "They're eager to tackle the dungeons."
"Yeah, they're little fiends for experience and items," Rud said, laughing as he watched a group of humans approaching. "Hello, folks! Got a few ground rules for you. If you could share them with all your adventuring friends, that'd be great."
The adventurers shared a look, eventually shrugging and settling in to listen to Rud's rules. They were simple enough to follow. Unless it was made on the road itself, no one should camp within the grove. Trips within the forest should be kept brief, lasting no more than a few hours. He also impressed the importance of respecting animals and plants while within their borders, otherwise the Sacred Beasts would get real mad.
"And that's about it," Rud said, clapping his hands together when he was done speaking. "Oh, last thing. Have fun! Experience is awesome, right!?"
That got a hearty cheer from the adventurers. As expected, they were interested in getting as much experience as possible while they were there. The appearance of so many random dungeons would represent a boom for those people. They were often cloistered in Barlgore, waiting for Feather to give them orders to head out. Now they had a ton of dungeons on their doorstep.
The grove was funny like that. Taking a trip through the forest would take forever, since the landscape didn't lend itself to travel. The road fixed that problem within the grove if one were traveling in a straight line. But the road the adventurers took to get to the dungeons today ran south along the grove, outside of its influence. Here the landscape was even, with few tricks to trip up a tired traveler.
"Look at them go," Nulsa said. "They arrived quickly, too. What was that? Four hours?"
"That group had mounts," Rud pointed out. "And the road they used is nice and smooth, even if they only have a dirt road."
"I didn't notice the horses," Nulsa said, rotating his head a bit too far.
"Yeah, cause you can't hear them screaming about oats… Like, seriously… You think they would scream about anything else. I'm turning off Clear Communication."
The sound of the horses screaming in the distance faded into the sound of whinnying.
Rud felt a faint tingle in his mind as a member of the grove approached. Taz stepped from a bush in the distance, dusting his hands off and sauntering over. "So, I've got a problem."
"Another problem?" Rud asked with a smile. He clapped a hand on the dwarf's shoulder when he had finally crossed the distance.
"Well, this is your problem more than mine," Taz said with a scoff. "Too much milk! I've got buckets and barrels of the stuff taking up space. I need room for my meat, Rud."
"Ah, crap," Rud said, his brows knitting. "Uh… Got any options?"
"Two. Ya gotta make cheese or ya gotta help me expand the storage area," Taz said. "I can't do any mining down there unless you get those bats outta there."
It had been a while since Rud had assumed the Aspect of Gug to do some mining. He had recently gained one point in Strength thanks to his staff. It wasn't a lot, but it would help a lot more than no points in Strength.
"Let's do some mining," Rud said. "My mining skill isn't terrible."
"Yeah, and I made some new picks," Taz said, jerking his head back toward the grove. "Let's go."
Nulsa departed there, leaving Taz and Rud to it. Traveling through the thicket, Rud accepted the Aspect of Gug before joining the dwarf in the mine. He was handed a pickaxe, and he activated his Clear Communication upgrade once again. As expected, the bats were silent for now.
"Sorry, guys," Rud said, wincing as the bats stirred. "We're going to do some mining."
"For what?" one bat asked.
Rud's new upgrade, Understanding, was already doing work. They didn't shriek at him, confused why he was there. He told them he was going to be doing something, and instead of freaking out they had at least some understanding that he wanted to accomplish his own goals without disturbing them too much.
"We're expanding our cold storage area," Rud said, gesturing back toward Taz's freezer. "It will be noisy, but you won't be harmed."
"Loud? Loud is fine," another bat said.
"We can deal with loud things. Thank you for the warning, spirit."
Rud turned to Taz, giving him the thumbs-up. "Hey, that worked really well. Also, are those new bats?"
"How can you tell?" Taz asked, scratching his beard. "They all look like bats to me."
Rud looked back to the bats, raising an eyebrow. That was a good question. The bats looked distinct enough to him, and he didn't see some bats he had seen before. But when he went to ask them where the others had gone, he saw they were all asleep yet again. Better not to disturb them, especially since they were cool with them doing some loud work in the cave.
"Best not to ask," Rud said. "So, do we have a plan?"
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"We're going to expand the room," Taz said. "So, we need to drag all that stuff out and smack away. I'd like to double the size of the room, if not more. Our current needs exceed our storage capacity."
That made enough sense, and Rud didn't want to question it. This was Taz's area, and he would do whatever the dwarf wanted. They started by moving all the preserved meat from inside the impossibly cold freezer, placing them on tables the dwarf had arranged outside. Then Taz stood in the freezer, stroking his beard as he planned the job out in his head.
"We'll take this down a level, angled to the south. Then go to either side. That should get us some more cold," Taz said. "The milk can freeze, right?"
"The milk is magical," Rud said, hoisting his pickaxe. "It can survive. Show me where to dig."
In truth, Taz was far more skilled at digging than Rud. However, many hands make light work, and the duo got to it. They started by cutting out a rough design for the expansion heading south. The druid's job was mostly to shovel and carry the stones outside of the room. Since it was a big job, he called for reinforcements.
"Cart-dog ready for action!" Sarya said, skidding across the floor as she entered the wide cavern in the mine.
Rud scratched the eager wolf behind the ear, smiling to himself as he looked at the excitement on her face. Not only was she a hard worker, but she was also powerful. He knew he could load her cart with a ton of rubble, and she would take it away without a problem.
"Thanks for coming on such short notice," Rud said, leading her into the freezer and gesturing to the pile of rocks. "We've got to clear these rocks. Unfortunately, Taz is working like a machine, and I can't keep up."
"Let's do it!" Sarya shouted, growling at the pile of rocks.
Taz had made all new tools for the job. Rud often had to enchant the ingots produced by the smelter, but he knew little about what the dwarf did with them after that. He thought he was just creating tools to gain experience and a hope of evolving his class into something more related to blacksmithing. However, he had apparently been focused on creating useful tools. The shovel was of very fine quality and even had a system message when inspected. Between loads, when Sarya was off dumping a bunch of rocks in a random spot in the grove, the druid inspected his shovel.
[Spirit Iron Shovel]
Epic
Description:
A Spirit Iron Shovel, infused with the power of Gladesbale Grove. This shovel holds the signature of Ban'tanthein, an industrious sacred tree, and Mint, her guardian.
Aspect Effect (Mint and Ban'tanthein):
The durability of this tool has increased significantly.
Items held in this should feel lighter, and using this tool incurs less fatigue on the user.
Using the ingots enchanted with the power of the grove always produced better items, and Rud was happy to see that the shovel was no different. When Sarya returned, he scraped it against the ground, hoisting a load that would have thrown his back out. However, as he deposited it into the wooden cart, he felt as though it was barely more than the weight of the shovel itself.
"We've got a vein of something nice back here," Taz said, running his fingers along the stone before him. He had already etched out the first three of five stairs. It was a span of about five feet from side to side and took the storage room down another five feet. Soon, he would start working on the extra storage area, but the temperature had decreased significantly within the room.
"Do you know what kind of metal it is?" Rud asked, trying to use the senses granted to him by Gug, but coming up short.
"It might be mana crystals," Taz said, shaking his head. "It's too hard to tell. Whatever it is, the material is extremely reactive toward magic. That reminds me of something. I've got some gemstones. I wonder if we can do anything with those."
"You're the prospector," Rud said with a shrug. "I thought you had uses for those."
"Mostly, it's trade material. We need to really make something interesting for anyone to buy it. Anyway, we're doing well. If we keep it up, I bet we'll be done before dusk."
Not that either of them could tell what time of day it was. There was no sunlight filtering into the cavern; they were simply too deep. The shape of the stairwell came quicker than the druid thought it would. Before long, they were shaping the downstairs storage area. Taz seemed to enter some sort of dwarven trance, smacking his pick against the wall without a break. Sarya and Rud couldn't keep up with his frantic pace. He shoveled loads of stone into the cart, only for more rubble to appear on the ground.
The sound of the bats flitting through the cave barely registered as Rud did his best to keep up. Night was falling outside if those creatures were anything to go by, and they had had no food. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the dwarf to cease his constant smacking. So he just rolled with it. Better to get the job done in a day rather than drag it out.
When the full shape of the new storage area was completed, Taz sagged to the side. Rud barely caught him before he hit his hard dwarven head against the stone floor. They had more than doubled their storage space. It was four or five times larger than before. He wasn't certain if they had enough tables and shelves to serve as storage racks, but the job was done.
"Just take a little nappy-poo here," Rud said, laying the dwarf down and turning his attention to the few piles of stone that remained. Sarya was still willing to continue her transport efforts, so they completed the job before turning their attention back to the unconscious dwarf.
"Has he died?" Sarya asked.
"Not likely," Rud said, grunting as he did his best to pull the dwarf into a fireman's carry. He failed, deciding to instead drag him up the stairs under the arms. It took great effort, but he dumped him in the wooden cart and dusted his hands off. With a sigh, the druid looked to Sarya. "Now come on. Let's get the meat back before it thaws."
"Right!"
Taz still insisted on living in the mine, but Rud wasn't comfortable leaving him there. After they transported the meat, he guided the wolf through the twisting tunnels, finally emerging into the nighttime of Gladesbale Grove. Smoke rose in the distance from the longhouse and the trio soon traveled through the thicket to arrive just outside of it. Several adventurers had taken up residence in the longhouse and were singing a merry tune. One of them played a lute-like instrument while another other banged on a drum. They all stopped as the party entered.
"No need to stop!" Rud shouted, clapping out the old beat they were playing. "Just a dwarf who can't hold his grog!"
The adventurers cheered, resuming the jaunty melody.
Rud got Taz near the fire, laying him on an animal skin he found nearby. The dwarf wasn't disturbed from his slumber, but he didn't seem to get worse. Which meant he was fine. Probably.
Good thing Taz alway had a pot of perpetual stew on, because the visiting mortals were tearing into it. Rud watched as they spooned bowl after bowl of the stuff, sucking it down like it was their last meal. The latest incarnation of the stew had mushrooms bobbing here and there, so Rud got himself a bowl. Mushrooms always reminded him of when he had first arrived in the grove, and those that grew in the rotting trees of the forest had an intense woody flavor that paired well with the stew.
When an hour passed and the dwarf still hadn't risen, Rud brewed a pot of tea. The adventurers went crazy for the tea, so he poured them each a cup.
"Someone help me force-feed him some tea," Rud said, kneeling next to the dwarf. A brave adventurer volunteered, helping to prop Taz's head up. They poured hot tea in his mouth, which made him sputter and sit bolt-upright.
"Where's the fight!" Taz shouted. "Protect the mountain homes!"
"You're fine buddy," Rud said, patting the agitated dwarf on the head. "You just passed out in the mine."
"I… what?" Taz asked. "Bah! I was possessed by the spirit of the mountain again. Last time that happened I ended up… Nevermind. Wait, did you feed me tea? At this hour!? Do you know how late I'm gonna be up!? And that stuff gives me the poops!"
"I did what I had to do," Rud said, chuckling. "Now come on. You can play the drums, right?"
Taz grumbled for a moment. "Yeah, where are they at?"