Runt of the Litter - Tales from Alirast

Trillia was happy to see that most dungeons seemed to have hidden pathways to allow quick traversal. It did make her curious how the whole thing worked.

What was the original dungeon? It's purpose?

Heat began to emanate from the stone hallway in front of them. It only grew hotter and more uncomfortable as they delved further.

Vincere stopped and extended enough potions for each of them to drink one, including Ialu and Dire. "These will make it so that you don't die in the forge room."

Fred blinked at the potion but didn't hesitate in downing it, the others followed suit when he reported back that there were no ill effects.

The temperature was still oppressive, but the group quickly realized they probably wouldn't have been able to breathe were it not for the potions. The buff was keeping them safe, but it felt a bit like swallowing boiling hot soup whenever they took a breath.

The hallway finally gave way to a large open room, and the group paused once inside and looked up. It seemed like the sky was above them, the sun shining with rain clouds rolling in. "The dungeon is open to the outside? Isn't that dangerous?" Trillia spoke as they absently followed Vincere. A bubbly but rumbling voice was heard arguing with....itself.

"Sort of? I can't explain it well. Basically, the Viceroy is using some really odd enchantments to give us a little bit of sunlight and fresh air."

This was fresh air? The heat was still nearing lethal levels for someone who wasn't buffed or didn't have a reasonably high resistance.

Vincere led them around some buildings where other Cyclops were milling about. Their journey ended at a squat stone building, it was also the source of the arguing.

A cyclops stood with an axe in hand, one head peering down at the craftsmanship, the other looking at some cores in another set of hands. <Giant:> "I'm telling you, we're doing something wrong in the refining process. Even if the Viceroy is willing to supply us with cores, we need to make real progress. The last few sets of weapons have been duds."

<Giant:> "Just because we aren't advancing the research, doesn't mean we aren't learning things. Research doesn't have to be a strict upgrade. The last set of weapons were far easier to wield. That counts for something."

The language sounded harsh to Trillia. Her traits worked overtime to help her understand parts of the conversation, but she was realizing that she really needed to spend time learning more languages if she was going to travel a lot.

"Ladies! We have some guests. The Viceroy agreed to let them pester you a bit about your work here as a reward for beating Old Visus." The little cyclops smiled as he climbed up a stump to sit on it.

"This is Vicky and Victoria, our resident crafters." Vincere motioned to the two-headed cyclops who were peering down at the party. Most of the Cyclops people they had seen were huge. The race must have some form of giant in them.

The two heads looked at each other for a moment before looking back down at Trillia and her group. "Uhh...good working on Visus. Difficult challenge." The torso was huge and had three separate sets of arms on it, one set was crossed, and a hand had gone up to scratch each chin. Absentmindedly setting the axe they had been holding down.

"Not good at learning others." Vincere sat off to the side, doing his best not to giggle at the language struggle.

"This is why the Viceroy says it's important to speak many languages, but especially the human language. It is one of the most spoken languages in the realm."

<Giant:> "Words are difficult, Vincere. We seldom have visitors, there is no purpose to learning a new language."

"Maybe. But you have visitors now, and the Viceroy has tasked you with teaching them. You wouldn't want to disappoint him, would you?"

Both heads curled their faces up in disgust at that. Trillia felt a little bad watching the manipulation in real-time.

Fred stepped forward and looked around the forge and anvil. "Gonna be difficult to see stuff from down here. Is there a place I could climb to with a good vantage point?"

"We are to learn you?"

"Yes! I am the one being taught today! Thank you for your valuable time."

A hand came down and plucked Fred up and off the ground, setting him on their massive shoulders. "You ask questions, we answer questions."

The two of them turned away from the group and started chattering away with Fred who was lost in his own curiosity.

Vincere looked over at the others. "Are you sure it's ok that only he is learning?"

"Yeah. Fred and I work closely together, and we've gotten good at learning from one another. Once he has learned the basics, he can teach me, and we can refine it all together." Malor spoke as he looked up at the sky above again.

"If even for a day, I'd love to be a dungeon. Just to see the world as they see it."

Their guide frowned and hopped off the stump, motioning at them. "Come on, we can at least feed you while your friend is learning."

"Yay! Food!" Layla and Trillia said in unison. Amelia rolled her eyes as she followed along.

-=====-

Several hours later, Fred finally returned to the group, a leather-bound journal in his hands, scribbling away madly. The Cyclops maiden gently set him down. Fred smiled up at her, struggling to keep hold of the journal in his broken arm. "Thanks, Vivi! It was an eye-opening experience. I'll make sure to come back sometime in the next year or two and share anything that Malor and I discover with you! Assuming The Viceroy is ok with that!"

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A big, friendly smile was returned to him as the Cyclops squatted down next to him. "We look ahead to good talks and much learning. Goodbye, Freddierick." One hand came out and gently patted his head before the woman stood and took her leave.

Fred walked over and sat at a table, setting the journal down and scribbling away again with his good hand. "Malor, you wouldn't believe all of the things we've been missing. I told them about some of our own discoveries, namely how we have been trying to alloy metal and cores together. She was doing the same thing, but she'd crush the cores up into a fine powder first. Both result in a significant drop in weakness to both the core and the metal!"

Malor blinked a couple of times at the exchange but leaned in, happy to listen to his friend begin his rant. "That said, powdering the cores first instead of trying to melt them down does result in higher enchantability. But! Look at this!"

Fred hovered his hand over the table, and a small dagger plopped out of his ring onto it. It was an odd-looking dagger. The blade was normal-looking, but the handle was made with three holes and clasps in it. "She reinforces the handle with durability so that she could carve out sockets for cores. Turns out that so far from Vivi's experimentation, cores are universal in size. At least for their Tier!"

Next, the man dropped a couple of the cores they had gathered in their travels on the table. "See how all Tier one cores are the same size? Every tier you go up, it's the same! This dagger is a prototype for us to use. It is what she has started to use as well. That's the modular part that Vincere was speaking about before. If you insert cores into the hilt, some of the effects transfer over to the weapon itself! Here, add these two cores."

The man used his one good hand to slide the dagger and two glowing orange cores over to Malor. Who lifted the weapon and inspected it briefly before sliding one of the cores into a corresponding hole. "Now clasp it in place on both sides. This dagger can take tier one all the way up to tier three cores."

Malor did so. A puzzled look crossed his face, but he put the next core in. When he clasped it, small flames began to lick the sides of the blade. "This is like a minor flaming enchantment!" Malor's puzzled look turned to excitement as he pulled out a few tools of his own to inspect the clasps more closely.

"Yes! The dagger itself is made with the powdering method that Vivi has been using. It seems to resonate with the cores! Like...uhhh...like the dagger is the leader and all of the others are doing what it tells it."

"That must be the semi-sentient part?" Malor mused as he popped the cores in and out, watching as the blade reacted instantly to the change. "Fascinating. If we can figure out a better smithing and enchanting methodology, it would let us carry one weapon that has a dozen different uses with us. Did you test with the rock breaker cores?"

Fred nodded excitedly back. "Yes! Interestingly, it makes the edge appear dull, but the blade itself isn't stopped by wood or stone. It still has some resistance to metal. Oh! I hope you don't mind, I also traded a few dozen of the cores we were keeping for experimentation with cores we didn't have access to."

Malor shook his head and scooted closer to the human, pulling out a few cores of his own. "No, no! The more options we have available to use, the more easily we can advance what we're doing. Damn, if only we didn't have other business."

"Do you?" Trillia's words cut through the excitement as the two of them looked up at her.

"We finished the last of the seals for Lord Rubious two weeks ago. We have been traveling to gain experience and help maintain dungeon stability. But no demands are being made of us."

"Well, yeah. But we still have a few dungeons we can hit in the mountains." Fred motioned vaguely in the air as he spoke.

"Or...we could just camp out here for a month or two? The surrounding mountains have plenty of problematic monsters. The Viceroy seems happy to have us, and I'm sure we could do a lot of training here."

The group all looked at her oddly. Trillia didn't understand their hangup. "We did this with Red River. I don't see why we can't do it here?"

"We just...I guess we figured we'd keep moving along with you, and we weren't sure if you'd be willing to stay in one place. The experience gains get lower and lower every time we do the same thing. Aren't you rushing towards evolution?" Amelia voiced the thoughts of the group, given how they each nodded at her words.

"So? My evolution takes a little longer. This seems to be really important to the two of you, and the more you guys figure out about monster cores and the changes to the system, the stronger all of us will be because of it. It's something I've been giving some thought."

The group went quiet. Vincere, who was feeling significantly more like a rude eavesdropper, delivered some more food and left the friend group to their own talks.

"We're rushing about. My guess is that the gods know when that Eldritch is going to hit us. Or, at least, a vague idea. Sometime in the next fifty years." Trillia drummed her fingers on the table as she thought. "Why else would Lady Dawn give Alirast that time frame? It might not be exact, but my guess is fifty years is the absolute maximum. She also let Titan visit the realm."

"Who?" Layla asked curiously.

Ahhh...Trillia opened her mouth to speak but realized that she hadn't really checked that the others even knew what happened, she just assumed they had. After a brief prayer and discussion with Arlyss, she told them what transpired in her recovery.

"That's how you met Lord DuMont, right? In the same place?" Malor spoke softly as he asked the question, deep in thought.

"It is. He was kind to me and gave me some good advice. I pray to all of them on a regular basis. Titan isn't some young god, and he is certainly not native to Alirast. Which means the debuff on all of us seems to primarily be stopping Lord Darktone and the deities near his level of power from communicating."

"So you think we aren't as doomed as we all keep thinking?" Fred offered hopefully.

Immediately, she shook her head. "I have seen what they are capable of. I absolutely do not want us to let our guard down. But I think we should try to grow...I don't know what I'm trying to say."

"Out instead of up." Layla said. "It's what Master Stas keeps saying. That weaklings, like all mortals are, need an ever-expanding toolbox of options available to them. We will never overpower an immortal. We will never win in a fight with a deity. Instead, we must be more clever, we must utilize a variety of options instead of trying to use brute force. Then he said some very unkind things about General Demonsbane and General Shatterhoof, and how I'd be fighting against my nature to not use brute force at every chance I got."

Amelia burst into laughter. Layla looked at her, worried. "No, no. I love my Father dearly, and Aunt Amara has been like a second mom to me in terms of helping me grow and learn. But they will be the first to admit that any plan that isn't hit thing really hard, springs from the minds of Queen Alliyah and Uncle Stas."

Trillia snorted a bit at that. "I think they are just lazy, personally. Neither of them are stupid people."

Fred frowned as the group joked around. "Not to be a killjoy...but I have another theory."

The group paused as they looked at him before motioning for him to continue. "General Stas was a goblin...right?" They all nodded, somewhat unsure of themselves. "Goblins are traditionally very weak. As a human in a group of orcs and minotaur...I am very weak. You all cover for my weak spots because I have value. I think the Great Generals had a similar dynamic. Queen Alliyah and General Stas were probably weak combatants in their early careers. General Amara and General Cordaos were probably significantly stronger in terms of raw combat prowess."

Amelia seemed to be thinking of things in a different light. "You think that my dad and Trillia's mom were letting the two of them plot and plan because it made them feel like they had value?"

"No. More like...when they were all young, they were just big brutes, just like the others were weak plotters. They had centuries to get strong, constant fighting, and war. Now, years later, they are all clever, but also immensely powerful. They covered for each other's weaknesses until none of them had weaknesses."

Layla grinned. "Well, now we know what to shoot for! There will be no more talk of weakness or slowing the party down. We will continue to grow together until we can look back and laugh at our own ineptitudes centuries from now."

Trillia held out the hand with her ring on it. "To the Red River Ruffians and growing together?" The others groaned, rolled their eyes, and shot her dirty looks...as they put their own hands up to hers, and grins formed on their faces.