60 – War

It turned out that Andy’s understanding of Smoke Drift and how it would affect his fall was rooted in something more than a gut feeling; just as he “understood” spears and the proper techniques for their use in all sorts of situations, his knowledge of the spell went deeper than just how to cast it. He had an instinctive understanding of its effects.

He supposed it all went back to the System and how it implanted the knowledge through its complex, ritualistic use of mana. Whatever the case, just as he’d imagined, he drifted through the brief, blustery flurries of raindrops toward the shore of the lake, falling much more like a feather might than a person ought to.

As he drifted, gliding toward the tall grass along the shore, he cast his new cloaking spell, Deepsmoke Shroud. It felt similar to the previous version of the spell, but the rush of mana was richer, stronger, and the smoke that wrapped his form was quicker to solidify and shimmer away into translucence. When he touched down, he made not a sound.

Crouching there amid the grass, standing on wet sand and gravel, Andy scanned the nearby woods. He couldn’t be certain, but he figured this had to be the Whisperwood Grove that his Boon Point had purchased. The trees weren’t very densely packed; they were tall and slender, and their branches were long and springy, bending in the gusts of wind still blowing in from the east. To Andy, unschooled in the subject though he was, they looked like they’d make good bows and staves. The trunks, too, looked perfectly suited to what the Lurikeens needed.

Filing the knowledge away, he drifted silently through the woods, moving around the perimeter of the mesa toward the road and the cliff-side trail that would lead him to the top. The nature of the underbrush, or, rather, the lack of it, confirmed to Andy that the System had put the grove there; all the cacti and native desert flora were absent and the ground was softer than it ought to be—not hard-packed dirt, clay, and sand. The soil was rich and dark, and there was already a layer of what seemed to be decomposing leaves—the kind of mulch you’d find in an older forest, not a grove of trees that had just appeared.

It made him wonder how the System provided boons. Did it just take this little forest from another world and plop it down there by the mesa? Did it magically plant seeds and accelerate their growth? Of course, he had no idea, but it was fun to speculate as he crept through the waterlogged gullies. His contemplations were cut short, though, when he heard voices. Like just another shadow in the dark desert, he crept between a pair of greasewood bushes and peered toward the sound.

The gravel road was mostly gone—washed away by the torrential rains—but the swath of empty desert remained in roughly the same shape. Even if it hadn’t, Andy would know he was looking at the former road because it came up against the base of the mesa and the stony trail remained, the switch-backs clear in his Flame Sight. Closer at hand, though, was another sight that brought a scowl of consternation to his face.

Three Lurikeens were there, and they were building something. They were wielding little hammers, beating some long, curved pieces of silvery metal into place. Andy watched, listening as the one without a hammer—bigger and with a longer beard than the others—gave instructions to the other two. “…like that! Yes! That’s part six, and it attaches there to part seven.”

“Haha!” one of the others crowed. “Halfway done! Enthian will be pleased.”

“That’s right,” the third said, “and it’ll mean a bigger share for us.”

“A share well-earned!” the bigger Lurikeen replied. “Trudging down that slippery trail with these heavy bits!” He pointed toward the dark desert. “Risking the Lady-knows-what! Earth’s different since the System came! Worse than the wildest parts of the Fae lands, even!”

“Say that again! You saw that human fight the thunderbird? Wouldn’t have seen that before—not for the last thousand years, at least.”

“Hah! They’d have used a bomb and driven the veil further away.”

“Well, they’re still humans—still iron-loving bastards best kept at arm’s length.”

“Best kept dumb and distant.”

“Best kept dead!”

All the while they jabbered on, the two smaller Lurikeens pounded away on the silvery lengths of metal, and Andy could see they were creating some sort of standing circle. Its feet were already well-planted in the muddy clay, and the circle was half-formed, stretching up from them. The idea of a circle put there, standing like an empty mirror frame, an empty doorway, brought plenty of paranoid thoughts to mind. The first thought was the loudest: were they building a portal?

Why down there? Why away from their ship? Maybe it was his improved Perception attribute, but Andy had no trouble coming up with a guess that sounded correct: they couldn’t make the portal on ground controlled by Mesquite Mesa. He clutched his spear, contemplating dark thoughts. Could he attack the almost cute, little men based on suspicions? They hadn’t said anything nice about humans, but that didn’t warrant an execution, did it? Maybe he could intimidate them into telling him their plans. Maybe he could just capture—

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“The long-legs will learn what a circle can invite when it’s not their own,” the bigger Lurikeen said, chuckling darkly.

“When our kin send the—”

“Redcaps!” the third Lurikeen finished, tilting his face to the sky and howling in an excellent imitation of a wolf—though a small one.

“Redcaps! Redcaps! Redcaps!” the other worker chanted, dancing in a circle, shaking his hammer in rhythm to his words.

“Back to it!” the bigger one growled. “There’ll be no Redcaps to spill blood for us if we don’t finish the circle!”

Andy tilted his head to the side, narrowing his eyes. What were the odds that he’d venture out of the underground shelter, leap from the waterfall, and arrive there just in time to hear these Lurikeens spell out their plans? If there were a luck attribute, his would have to be very high indeed. Or, he wondered, was the System messing with him? Was it playing him like an instrument, planting subtle impulses in his mind, guiding him along a path? Was it—

***Congratulations, Andy! You’ve uncovered a new quest opportunity: Halt the Lurikeens’ planned invasion of your settlement. Reward: Settlement Boon Point +1. Additional reward: System-generated treasure (potentially rare).***

Andy stared at the message, frowning. He’d thought the System didn’t take sides.

Unless it did—at least on this side of the veil. Refocusing on the Lurikeens, he saw they’d completed about two-thirds of the circle. If they didn’t have to do anything else after putting it together, he figured he had about five minutes to make a decision. Was he going to resort to violence?

Shifting his gaze, he looked up the stony path to the top of the mesa. His magically enhanced eyes provided a clear view of most of the trail, and though it looked wet, glistening in the dim light of cloud-filtered, pre-dawn light, he was sure he’d be able to climb it just fine. More importantly, it didn’t look like any other Lurikeens were standing watch or heading down. How many were there? Would they be willing to fight if Andy destroyed their circle?

He shifted, gliding around the brush on his left and working his way further around toward the cliff; if he were going to attack, he might as well try to take the leader from behind. Was he? Andy’s scowl deepened. He knew the answer. He’d killed to protect his settlement before, hadn’t he? Did it matter that these creatures were small? Despite their child-like appearance, he knew from talking to Enthian up-close that they weren’t anything like children. These Lurikeens could be vastly older than a human, and they were planning harm to the people he was responsible for.

Andy didn’t know exactly what Redcaps were, but it sounded like they were going to do the Lurikeens’ dirty work. It seemed to him that the Fae had a disdain for humanity; at least these Lurikeens did. If they thought they could just take what they wanted, killing or running off any people who got in their way, then he’d have to change their outlook. If there were just one there, Andy might have tried diplomacy, but there were three, and they’d already shown their intentions. He wasn’t going to give up his advantage.

That said, he drifted out of the brush, onto the sludge and gravel of the roadway, and focused on the larger of the Lurikeens, pulling his spear back, poised to strike. More than that, he prepped a spell, intending to fully capitalize on his element of surprise. One thing was sure: his Deepsmoke Mantle seemed to be working better.

His Critical Mastery helped him to focus on a perfect spot right at the nape of the little man’s neck, and Andy clenched his jaw and drove forward. His spear tip was a hair’s breadth away from striking flesh when the Lurikeen squealed, flashed with sparkling lights and then disappeared. Andy didn’t falter; he carried through with the second half of his attack, exhaling a plume of scalding black, fire-laced smoke.

The explosive attack roiled out of his mouth, expanding into a great cloud that engulfed not only the area where the larger Lurikeen had been standing but also his two workers and the magical circle. As high-pitched screams echoed strangely out of the cloud, Andy pushed forward, allowing his hot, magical smoke to wrap him in its smoldering embrace. The smoke did nothing to hamper his sight, and he breathed it like fresh mountain air. The Lurikeens couldn’t say the same.

There was no doubt that they were magical creatures; none of the three were alight; even so, their magical resistance wasn’t enough to grant them the ability to see or breathe in the cloud. They shouted their confusion, and the bigger one, no longer hidden by magic, tried to dart away. Andy wasn’t having it, and he was just as quick. His spear lanced out and pierced the little man in the side, sinking the full length of the blade into his torso.

“Argh! I’m struck! Bloody cold iron! My life, my wife, my—” His words faded as he slumped, sliding off Andy’s spear. Andy didn’t have time to wonder why he’d called his spear, clad in black balefire, cold. The other two Lurikeen were running away, trying to escape his cloud. Andy charged after them, but he could see they’d escape his smoke before he caught up, so he cast Smoke Cloud, and a much larger cloud of deep, black smoke exploded out of him, much-enhanced since he’d improved it to rank four.

The Lurikeen squealed and stumbled, and one of them reached into his coat and threw out a handful of sparkling dust—fairy dust?—but it had little effect, only dispelling a small part of the cloud. Still, the two creatures took refuge in the pocket of clean air, heaving for breath. Andy knew they might have more tricks up their sleeves, so he didn’t emerge from the smoke; he circled them, a silent stalker through the smoke, watching their every move as he once again took their flank.

“Devil! Devil!” one of the little men screamed. “Why? What dark force has taken root in this mortal realm? Leave us be, devil, and we’ll leave. We’ll finish our portal and slip away!”

Andy’s good nature was briefly tempted by the plea. He’d heard too much, though. These Lurikeens meant to kill his people and take what was theirs. In that moment, a cold realization gripped his heart: he couldn’t let any of them leave. If they returned to the Fae Realms and came back with their Redcaps or something worse…

Gripping his spear, taking comfort in the hard, unyielding wood, Andy darted out of the smoke and stabbed the Lurikeen on the left, his spear finding its way almost instinctively to its heart. The second Lurikeen, weeping in a panic, eyes darting this way and that, didn’t know his partner was dead before Andy’s spear found his heart, too.

Andy stood over the corpses, the gravity of his actions weighing heavily on him. He’d just declared war, and he had to finish the job, or, he was certain, much worse things than Lurikeens would be coming through the veil.

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