Oblivion's Stairway

Day 18 Farm Brackenmere Jord 

He worked the farm, slopping the hogs, fed hay to the goats, cows, and sheep, and started repairing a fence the cows had taken to leaning against. John watched a fox sneak into the chicken coop before one of his chains snatched before curling around the creature like a constrictor. With a loud crunch, the fox died. John quickly skinned the beast for its hide.

John stabbed sticks into the cold ground and slowly peeled the fat from the hide before soaking it and drying it. Thanks to a sudden windfall, all of this was possible.

It took two days to figure out how to add a thumb, which changed things. He could hold tools, which was the difference between surviving and thriving on the farm. It had been left, so John felt like the new owner.

Spring would come sooner rather than later, and he would need to find a bull for the cattle.

He liked to focus on things he could control. John had made himself a wooden box filled with warm hay with small holes for his chains. John could thin out the fingers on his chains enough to poke holes into his box so there was plenty of airflow.

This allowed him to work comfortably while he maintained the farm. He packed the area around his head to keep the shaking from causing damage. This increased the weight on his chains slowly, slowing him down but cutting down on the number of chains needed to work.

He exhausted his grace to pull motes closer during the day. After a hard day's work, he hardly had the grace left to pull in a mote, but the exertion ensured his grace grew by a small margin.

Some of the wool blankets he found were turned into cloth diapers, which he washed in rotation. Unfortunately, that was the end of the good news.

The temperature fell rapidly, and he was forced to work past nightfall to reinforce the barn and chicken coop. Ice was already falling, and even in his box, he shivered.

His body wasn't supernaturally tough. The wool helped, but adding holes on top allowed the ice to land, melt, and drip on him. He needed to get inside. John had sealed up every hole he could find in the barn, and he hoped it would be good enough.

A crack rang through the night before a massive branch slammed into the barn, tearing a hole into it. Then, torches invaded his spirit sense. He whirled around as if that would help. Riders carrying torches rode down the road to the farm.

He paced around a tree that might have pears on it next fall. It was so cold his little body could hardly stand it. The warm wood surrounding him kept his body temperature stable. Even the little icy drops weren't enough to be catastrophic yet.

John tried to relax, but he hadn't used any light. Spirit sense spat in the face of human senses. He knew what his nanny had for lunch by her flatulence. It was gross, but the sheer amount of information he could gather with his senses was beyond powerful. It was growing day by day with his Grace.

After a hard day of work, he was at 50% capacity. Walking on his chains didn't tire him out as much as it once had. After using them as tools to repair the farm, he was far more comfortable with them.

But was he willing to put his skills against men? Maybe they were villagers here seeking refuge. They wore chainmail, had well-crafted spears, and rode expensive saddles on 13 warhorses with 40 horses carrying supplies behind them. That made 53 horses of varying sizes, which was an insane amount to him. They broke off following different paths. That made a little more sense; they weren't all going to his farm. There must have been other farms.

As he watched them, he figured the chainmail they used would be better wrapped around his box. What did the red dragon symbol on their armor mean? Some wore coats with blue lions sewn into them instead of the dragon. Were they a part of the same group or not?

Four men traveled in his direction.

"Why do we have to go to the one without any farmer's daughters to plow?"

"Didn't you get enough in the raid?"

"That was then, this is now."

"Let's just get this over with."

John had already entered the farmhouse and climbed up into the loft. He sat his box down and wiped the ice off its lid. He couldn't wait for the fox hide to dry.

He waited well past when one butchered one of his heifers and began cutting parts off her. He only had three before. The horses were put in the barn before the four men went to the farmhouse.

His tiny heart hammered in his chest. All it would take was a single lucky hit to kill him. The force alone could snap his spine even if it hit his box instead of his body.

"Lots of goat droppings on the floor. That farmer was such a pig."

"Well, he didn't have a wife. Where else did he have to stick it."

"Talk about a sinful body."

The stove was lit, and the smell of beef filled the farmhouse. He wanted to eat steak; it wasn't fair that he was so young. It would take him six months before he could eat meat.

He listened to them talk and jeer at past victims of their raid before one stood up from his chair. "I'm going to take the bed. Wake me up when it's my turn to take watch."

"Go ahead," Reuel said.

The men started drinking the wine they brought in saddlebags.

John grinned as the fool crawled up the ladder and climbed into bed. He waited an hour and then two until the man on watch went out of the farmhouse to take a piss and molest the goat.

He slipped his chains out and tiptoed closer to the bed. The closer, the better. He needed to kill the man as quickly as possible. He went about it slowly, slipping a nice loose chain over and under the man's neck before tightening it.

The man's neck snapped, and the men didn't stir.

One was very friendly with the goat, while another saw to the horses in the barn. That left a single man in the farmhouse, with the other two distracted and in separate locations.

He could see the man was passed out from overdrinking. John moved smoothly, descending from the loft and landing quietly under the cover of the man's snores. He approached, wrapping his chains around the man's neck before snapping it. Half of them were down, and he suspected the horses might sense his approach and warn the man in the barn.

He approached the one giving a goat an anal search for its health. Ice pelted the lid of the box he hid within, dripping cold water down on him. He would have to endure it a little longer. Already, he was tired, ready for a nap after the intense exertion.

His chain lashed out, wrapping around the man's neck before snapping it. He fell on the ground, and the ice pinged off his chainmail. The cold would ensure he didn't rot quickly and could deal with the corpses later.

John felt good about himself. So long as he kept to the shadows, his life wasn't in danger.

The last one stepped out of the barn without his torch. In the dark, with ice falling all around him, he never saw John's chain wrapped around his neck.

With all four dead, John gathered their bodies, dragging them away from the farm into a sinkhole far away. He made a game of it using trees as handholds and placing their feet along the icy path before tossing them in.

Back at the farmhouse, he drank his fill after bringing the poor abused Nanny back inside. He slept comfortably. The men he killed had innocent blood on their hands. His spirit sense saw their blackened souls, and there was never a chance he would spare them. He would need to get the others, too. People like them were dangerous.

Day 19 Farm 

There were plenty of supplies to keep the horses fed. If the ground wasn't covered in ice, he would have let them graze in the pasture with his remaining two cows. However, they could easily slip and break a leg, so instead, he went to work breaking up the ice on the ground with his chains. Work on a farm was never done, it seemed.

The roads were impassable and would remain that way until they thawed. Fortunately, there was plenty of hay in the barn loft. Even frozen, there was still grass to feed the horses and cows.

John knew he would have to make some changes to the fence, both expanding it and breaking up the ice so they wouldn't slip and break their legs. He could also stand to build a new barn but didn't have the nails for it. Well, he had a chainsaw, trees, and time.

He spent the day drinking goat's milk, slowly but surely attracting another mote. When it entered him, he only felt sleepy instead of passing out completely. Progress?

Chapter 4 is up on my Patreon for $1 and 5 and 6 are up for $5.