Born a Monster

Chapter 92

Einherjar

When I was done with what I could make out of two rams, I bathed and headed around the summit of the volcano. Many people forget volcanoes are still mountains. They’re big. And tall.

And oh, what I would have given for a functional set of wings.

Sulphur Springs was set into the southeastern face of that volcano, along a river that couldn’t possibly supply them with enough water, even before you counted the sulphur content.

Sulphur in and of itself wasn’t poisonous, but there were ... other reasons you didn’t want it in your drinking water.

.....

And, looking from above, that’s not where the aqueducts led. The foundries had a different layout, connected with pipes of copper and brass and bronze. And one line that was... pottery?

Whatever was going on down there, it wasn’t metalwork as I understood it.

I needed access to that complex, and had only the one way to get it.

So I descended the mountain at night. Goblins, uruk, better to wait for morning. Hobgoblins? They could see just fine in the daylight, and it was their time.

Like any other ruler, the Synod liked looking down upon their people. But I didn’t need access to them anymore.

The river, this time, was a poor choice. I could see it was gated and chained with iron.

I would have preferred a mist or storm of some kind, but I picked a spot on the wall between the Synod and the gate on the shadowed side of the wall and climbed.

Now, anyone who’s done that will tell you it’s a dumb choice. There’s an overhang called a rampart, which means at some point you’re climbing along wooden supports in clear view of machicolations, or murder holes.

And the transition from underhang back to wall is a good way to fall a good distance further than you can expect to survive from.

That night, my claws found purchase, and I made it atop the wall. My breath sounded like a bellows to me, and my heart beat as it always did when I was doing something fundamentally stupid.

Some fool hadn’t told the wall guards to be on alert, and so I crossed the wall, and began my descent into the town.

I’d like to say I found the butcher’s district on my own, but it was a pack of near-feral dogs. Near feral, but not so much they didn’t want in the side door of a warehouse with an open window on the second floor.

Next time? Next time I was just taking a few days in the wild to do nothing but heal.

But, the dogs got their meat, and I got what I needed. It took my entire inventory space, but it fit.

Don’t ask me how that works; System inventory slots are discrete spaces, except when they have to be merged.

I wanted to spend a day by the smelters, but the homeless of Sulphur Springs already knew that was a warm place to sleep.

I found a business that had been closed for heresy, broke in, and had a good day’s rest before returning to the compound that held the Pits. I carried a hammer in my mouth; my hands and feet were busy, and as I said my inventory was already full.

#

Ask me how I know normal people with serious injuries only get a health a day back; this was a huge gamble, and the moon was still a pale sliver.

But there were no ramparts, and apparently the guards didn’t care.

I crossed to the center of the inner courtyard, to the Pits, and apparently the guards didn’t care.

Pound a meat chain large enough to hang an aurochs from between some bricks? Throw fifty feet of chain into a pit holding a psychotic killing machine?

Oh, the guards were all over the gongs for THAT.

I ran even before the grunting began, as something began ascending that chain.

I am told that einherjar are no longer men, that their swollen muscles pull their body into different forms.

I only know that whatever I unleashed that night, it killed everything that came to its attention as it moved northward, and over the walls.

And while the entire town was distracted with that, I climbed up the aqueduct, and made my way to the not-a-foundry.

A chemical plant is a lot like an alchemist’s workbench on an industrial scale.

I found a quiet spot wedged under a water tower, and got some sleep.

If I’d had a hobgoblin transformation, I could’ve gotten in without an issue. But, for the two days a stomach full of raw meat could last me, I watched and waited. Workers came and went, but the bosses stayed, and they had their own building, which they just didn’t secure properly on the second floor.

Property books? Didn’t care.

Map of the plant, complete with weird symbols? Inventory. And then – I found them, in a laboratory. Formulae books.

Like I said, it was just like alchemy, just on an impossibly larger scale.

And a sample of what was made here.

The forges were just as bad. Maybe Oriestes-son had a point. My inventory was full again. In a society so full of back-stabbing opportunists, why were so many scrolls and books just left unguarded?

The guards didn’t even want to be on the wall. Not in the cold. And so, leaving the town was just as easy as coming in. I mean... this wasn’t even magic.

Hortiluk had gone through the valley. It wasn’t a dumb move, unless you knew about volcanic gasses. If someone was right on your heels, it was a good way to get them off.

I wasn’t being pursued; they were waiting for me with torches. Without the torches, I might very well have blundered right into them.

Just because it seemed like magic didn’t make it so. If someone had let a killing machine loose in my city, I’d put my best tracker on them, too.

So, down, down the mountain, on the north side. Natives know not to go down the north side.

Hortiluk knew not to go down the north side.

I got a paw the size of my back between my shoulder blades, and slammed into the snow.

Incidentally, don’t walk down the north side of that volcano.

#

He said, holding me down.

I sent him an image of the slaughterhouse in Sulphur Springs.

I sent him my tags for .

I put my mana into increasing the distance of my casting. “Move Water! Move Ice and Snow!”

Far above us, a sheet of ice cracked. Snow began falling. Slowly, at first.

Don’t count on an avalanche to save you from a hungry yeti. If he wanted to, there was plenty of time to rip my spine out and still make his getaway.

I didn’t have time to make mine. I just lay there, and held my breath.

It was still cascading downhill below me when I reached the surface.

I made good progress north and west and down.

They saw me, from the perch where I had woken up.

If I let them get within bowshot of me, I’d be dead.

And I thought I was, until I heard the shouts from above me. I looked.

Yeti travel in packs of multiple families. They share food. They were ALL hungry.

I had a grand total of three health. I ran.

Obviously, as I am writing this, I got away.

I hit the lowlands, and started to climb again. I had two days of food in my belly, the first time.

And, when your health is at three points, that’s the max of your fatigue gauge, as well.

One cold wind, and that was it. I was dead. I returned to the lowlands.

I stayed away from the boars and wolves, and gave other animals their space, and they gave me mine.

I stocked up on enough biomass to try brewing a healing potion. Naturally, I failed.

At the official start of winter, I was at 9/30 health, had picked up level one in Mountaineer cultivation, and had three weeks to go before my serious injuries were healed.

It was faster and more certain to just follow the foothills of the Daggers north, skirt around the tip, and get back south.

For all the times I’d said I was able to survive in the wilderness, now it was time to prove it.

#

Winter is a terrible time to cross unfamiliar terrain. The animals are more hostile, predators more likely to be hungry, and thus fatigue and wounds tend to be more deadly.

The weather, before I got the first blast of sandy wind from the Yellow Desert, was actually pleasant.

I know, it’s funny given that I later learned to live there. But my initial impression was that the desert was lifeless and unpleasant, a blight on lands even beyond its borders.

.....

It carried germs, and the disease they afflicted me with left me feverish for two days. I swung around the hook and began to travel south and slightly west.

They were on a hill in the unclaimed regions, so I approached.

“Little kobold, you are entering the lands of the Black Fist Clan.”

“I need only so much of your land as required to cross, and only such forage as needed to feed myself.”

“Is that what you think you need?”

“I admit I thought these lands were unclaimed; what else do you think I need?”

“I think you need more than three gold pieces.”

“Why do you feel I need that?”

“There are hobgoblins willing to pay six gold pieces for your head.”

I handed over four gold coins. “It would be unfortunate if hobgoblins were to learn I was heading to Red Tide lands before I could negotiate with noble uruk for passage.”

“I believe we can even provide a guide for this much.”

Thank you, Loki, for your 50% exchange fees. Had I traded my coins, praise be to your name, I wouldn’t have them when I attempted to return to my own lands.

Hortiluk may have had the loyalty of the hobgoblins, but I knew uruk customs.

“I will need a guide to Rakkal.” I said, at the border of the Red Tide lands.

“He resides at Hattan. I am told he was surrounded by near a hundred ghouls, and killed.”

“When did this happen?”

“Two days from now.”

“You have two days to reconsider your loyalties.”

He snorted. “The ghouls of Hattan were instrumental in crushing the Black Fist rebellion.”

“Yes, and they called forth every ghoul that the blood of fifty or more people could call. How many ghouls do you think still live there? Within calling range?”

“How many do YOU think there are?”

I spread my hands. “Not enough by far. I’ve seen ghouls, and I’ve seen Rakkal. There are not enough ghouls within calling range of Hattan, and I risk my status as a Truthspeaker on this claim.”

“We shall provide you a guide to Hattan.”

“Where does Rakkal believe the person behind the ghoul attack to be?”

“Orrukhan village. The necromancers live at Orrukhan village.”

“If your guide is quick, we can get to Orrukhan before he slays everyone he considers a threat from there.”

“I have a cousin in Orrukhan.”

“We can travel faster with cooked food. Do you have nut breads?”

#