Eight: A LitRPG Novel of Magical Survival

We left the cave after a post-feast nap, and it was fascinating to watch the kids prepare. Billisha fought me to wear the backpack, while Aluali held my bow. Both were insistent that I carry only what was immediately useful—that nothing get in the way of my ability to respond to threats.

The kids also talked to each other about the list of things to bring: water, food, the first-aid kit, weapons, and rope. They made sure the backpack’s straps were tight and the weight of the equipment inside well balanced.

They taught me the Diaksh words for danger, attack, trap, run, hide, scatter, come closer, get away, forward, back, left, right, up, down, underground, near, middle-distance, and far. At the same time, they showed me the Signed Diaksh equivalents.

Not that the kids were experienced—their actions were hesitant, nervous, and sometimes faltered—but it was clear they’d been told what to do when heading out into the wilderness. My impression was that they were sensible about the danger, and did their best to remember and carry out those instructions. I overruled them on lugging the stuff up to the escarpment, but from there, I’d let them do as they pleased. They knew this world better than I did.

As for the rest of our stuff, we left it in the cave. There was a decent chance it’d take more than one day to clean up the Glen, so we’d come back for it later.

The kids turned on Meliune’s Blessing to walk up the narrow ledge to the escarpment. Once there, they turned it off to confer and make sure everything was ready. Then, they switched it back on again to wait blank-faced for me to lead them to the Glen. Their use of the blessing was as simple as putting on their coats before heading out into the rain.

The rest of the way, I wasn’t allowed to help them navigate the obstacles. Not with clambering over rocks. Not holding aside branches to let them through thick bushes. Nothing. All that was required of me was to keep watch and be ready with my spear.

I shook my head. This is a hell of a world.

Life-life-life. Loss-sorrow-hunger. Joy-family-delicious. Same-same-same. Tiny bits of the uekisheile poked out of my scalp to help sense for dangerous qi. I assumed that, unless I ran my hands through my hair, the thin tendrils wouldn’t be visible. Uekisheile-like-Billisha uekisheile-like-Aluali question-make-family?

Don’t-know-answer, I responded. Future-uncertain-future.

Inside me was a push-pull of emotions. The kids helped me recognize that I’d been lonely. Their singing and dancing were a delight, and they were well-behaved and assisted with whatever needed doing. I felt protective of them. At the same time, if I really wanted to protect them, I’d take them immediately to the farms east of the Glen. The children deserved better than to be constantly in danger in the woods

I hesitated, though, and my emotions were clouded. I kept getting flashbacks to when Alex and Daniel were little, and the longing for my own children interfered with my decision-making. I found myself wanting to keep Billishi and Aluali around, even if only for a little while.

Will Ikfael accept them? I just did her a big favor, so maybe?

The uekisheile seemed to pick up on my inner turmoil and let me be.

The bishkawi alpha’s corpse smelled of raw meat doused in mint extract. The combination was gag-inducing. The kids found it gross too, wrinkling their noses, but that was only after they’d picked up their jaws from the ground after seeing the size of him.

The body was as I’d left it, untouched by scavengers. I was surprised at first, but then realized it was likely the minty smell. Anything that lived in these woods would know that was a signal for poison.

The kids wanted to retrieve the arrows, but there was no way I was going to let them handle anything poisonous. I cut the argument short by saying, “I adult.”

Billisha’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. She turned to Aluali for support, but he shrugged and said, “He adult.”

So, I retrieved the arrows myself and carefully wrapped the heads in cloth before placing them in the backpack. Then, we had another argument when Billisha wanted to skin the alpha.

The hide was burned at the shoulder and poked full of holes everywhere else. There was a roughly circular patch on the back that was intact, but I wasn’t sure it was worth the danger. I’d used a lot of venom on the alpha, and I was leery of accidental contact.

Thinking about it, I decided not to pull the ‘adult’ card again. One, it was obnoxious and not necessarily good parenting. And two, the kids had been helpless while in Boscun’s and Kaad’s hands. They needed to feel like they now had some control over their own lives.

I explained that there were almost a dozen bodies waiting for us—less damaged ones with single wounds. It’d be a lot safer to skin them instead. I could see the reluctance in Billisha’s eyes—the alpha was clearly a prize—but she let herself be convinced. She expressed her determination, though, to skin the other bishkawi.

I agreed. It’d delay our arrival, but not significantly. Along the way, we also fought over who would pull the poisoned stakes and what to do with them. Short answer: I would, and I buried them. I didn’t want the kids carrying them, or some poor random hunter to accidentally stumble across them.

The kids made quick work of the three bishkawi that had been killed in the deer thicket, and it wasn’t just because of their Skinner talents. From the way the kids made their cuts and worked the hides loose from the bodies, they’d also clearly been trained. We had three rolled-up bishkawi hides with us when we left the deer thicket.

The Glen smelled ten times worse than the alpha, the scent of minty spoiled meat pervading the place. The bodies from the previous night weren’t too bad, but the dead from the fight between the turkeys and bishkawi had sat in the sun for a couple days now.

I managed to hold onto my breakfast, but barely, while poor Aluali dropped to all fours to vomit. That, in turn, triggered Billisha to toss up her share. I jumped to keep the yellow-blue, gruel-like stream from splattering my shoes. It was nasty.

While the kids recovered, I approached the pool. Ikfael needed to know it was safe to return, so I made a spirit mana ball and began roughing out the shapes for a bunch of bishkawi in a pile. Then came the alpha sprawled on top and me standing on him with my spear raised in victory.

The sculpture wouldn’t win any prizes, but I spent some time making sure the expression on my face was just right—pleased triumph.

Eh, good enough.

I tossed the sculpture into the water, and it passed through the spirit door without any problems. Moments later, Ikfael’s figure shot out of the pool to land beside me. She wore a Powell’s City of Books t-shirt, a ball cap, and cheap sunglasses, the kind you’d buy at Saturday Market.

Huh, they must be souvenirs from Diriktot’s visit to Portland.

Ikfael took off the sunglasses for a better look at the state of the Glen. Her face was expressive: shock, disgust, disbelief, anger, and a distressed expression that was hard for me to interpret.

I leaned in to explain. “I’m sorry I couldn’t—”

Bleurgh. Ikfael heaved onto me, a firehose blasting a blend of donuts and milky coffee. There was mushy cereal mixed in, probably from Voodoo Donuts. Yeah, that was likely. The shop was a popular spot for tourists. I just hadn’t expected their clientele to include a Fallen God of Order.

Ikfael grasped my shirt with both paws and vomited a second time. Just how many donuts had she eaten? I looked up and away, ignoring the warm fountain dousing my shirt.

The sky’s so blue. Dotted with a handful of feathered clouds… they look like brushstrokes.

An hour later, all the carcasses had been shoved to one corner by Ikfael’s water magic, and we waited for her to recover her mana. She sat at the edge of the pool, bent over and winded like she’d run a marathon. A part of me wondered if she was going to throw up again. The other part wondered just how the hell her magic was so strong.

I’d seen her create pseudopods before, but to clean up the Glen she’d raised half the pool’s water into a tsunami to carry away everything not attached to the ground. The children and I had been abruptly warned to get out of the area beforehand, so we were dry. The rest of the Glen was sodden with water, though.

Alas, I think Ikfael broke the kids. They had been surprised by my level, shocked at the alpha’s core, and amazed by the size of him. But apparently Ikfael was something else entirely.

As soon as they saw her, Billisha and Aluali had prostrated themselves and stayed that way. I’d had to drag them out of the Glen to make sure they didn’t get swept up by the water. When Ikfael had finished, though, they went right back to it.

Had I underestimated Dr. Otter? Was she even more amazing than I thought? Either that, or sapient animals were rare. But no, she wasn’t an animal, was she? According to the Status camera, she was a spirit of the land.

Click.

Last I checked, Foodie and Artist had been nascent. Her time with Diriktot must’ve triggered them into becoming full-blown talents. Just what exactly had they done while away?

A couple more nascent talents had revealed themselves. Ritualist wasn’t a surprise, given the number of rituals she’d performed on me. Door Guard though—I’d thought that the spirit passage at the bottom of the pool had been created by Ikfael, but the talent implied that it was there independently of her. Maybe all that time spent lazing in the pool, she was actually working?

I caught Ikfael glaring in my direction. Her eyes narrowed, like I was in big trouble. Her paws gestured, “Come here. Sit.”

This wasn’t the first time in my life I’d been in hot water. I knew it was best to face it head on and get through it as fast and cleanly as possible. I squared my shoulders and sat where she’d directed.

Ikfael surprised me by erecting a sheet of water, so that the kids could no longer see us. She pointed at my heart, exactly where the uekisheile resided, and signed, “Show me.”

My eyebrows rose. She knew?

The uekisheile and I had worked out a way to hide their qi behind mine, but apparently it wasn’t as effective as we’d thought it was. I mean, I had planned on telling Ikfael about the uekisheile. Eventually. After asking her about the kids.

Right. Jig’s up. It took a second to change mental gears. Come-out-friend.

The uekisheile sprouted abundantly, all over my face and neck, so much so that their tufts obscured my vision. They waved happily at Ikfael, tickling my nose. Joy-encounter-joy. Meet-visit-family.

I cleared the tufts out of the way and saw that Ikfael was suddenly standing ten yards back: looking dubiously in my direction. “It’s okay,” I signed, and pet the uekisheile to show that it was safe.

Ikfael watched, and the caution slowly—very slowly—melted into curiosity. She came closer, moved her shirt aside to pull—for a moment, I doubted my eyes—she pulled a pool cue from her pocket, and used it to poke the uekisheile.

Just how many souvenirs had Diriktot brought back?

The uekisheile wriggled, which in turn caused its tufts to tickle me. I giggled like a little kid, while Ikfael just stared at us. The moment drew out, and the uekisheile wondered if they should go over to make sure everything was all right with friend-family-Ikfael. Fortunately, that plan was cut short when Ikfael sighed and rubbed her face in disbelief.

She put the pool cue away, drew water from the pool to shape into a tablet, and used it to examine me. The expression on her face was what you might expect from someone who had seen a clown riding a unicycle down the street while singing opera and juggling apples.

By the way, my record seeing that was three times with three different clowns. Ah, Portland, my dear friend, I surely miss you.

I badly wanted to look at the screen, but Ikfael stirred when I moved to get closer. She stepped back to keep the distance between us and shook her head. “Stay there and hide that,” she gestured, pointing to the uekisheile.

When the lichen disappeared inside me, the water curtain fell to the ground.

Well, at least the uekisheile was enjoying things. Ikfael-fun-delicious. Glen-qi-delicious. Rich-creamy-dense.

No-eat-friend, I said to them.

Understand-friend-understand. Understand-family-understand, they happily replied. Family-grows-grows.

Huh. It was true that I was fond of Ikfael. She’d saved my life and given me the gift of magic. We’d worked together to fight off the monster flies and the unideer, and there was no denying that the otter was adorable, even when she rolled her eyes at me.

Family didn’t always mean the one you were born into. Often, they were assembled and built over time, with care and effort. I’d been half-lucky with my first family, and incredibly lucky with my second. Was this a chance for a third?

Ikfael pointed to the children. She signed, “I question who people.” She pointed to the pile of bishkawi and turkey carcasses. “I question hunt.”

So I told the story of the bishkawi troop’s invasion of the Glen. She’d likely witnessed the parts that had taken place in the Glen, but there was so much more that had happened. Using a mix of pantomime, Signed Diaksh, and my limited vocabulary in spoken Diaksh, I ran through the events of the past few days: the cunning of the bishkawi, being trapped in the cave, fighting the zombies, killing the chliapp lion, freeing the children—all of it.

The story was told plainly, without too many embellishments. I didn’t want it to feel like I was trying to win Ikfael’s praise or her favor. Our relationship had come farther than when we’d first bartered for the magic dagger.

It was Helen that had taught me plain, honest communication was best when situations became complicated—to listen and speak with the intent to connect. The act was simplicity itself, and yet so very hard to do.

So, I pretended I was talking to Helen, then explained all the things I’d had to do to make things right for the Glen. I made sure to credit the children for helping. They were instrumental in getting me ready for the fight. The uekisheile too, although I explained their role surreptitiously, since the children were likely listening.

The story was as honest as I could make it, and I felt my heart in my throat afterward. Only by telling the story did I realize just how hard the experience had been: the fear and the turmoil I’d had to overcome.

The look on Ikfael’s face was complicated, like I’d handed her a big problem. It was like she was pleased and embarrassed, and didn’t know what to do. She ran a paw through the fur on her head and sat down to think. The position was familiar—it was the same one she’d adopted when debating with herself about first teaching me magic.

Last time, it’d taken her hours for her to decide, so I walked over to where the children lay prostrated. “Come. Help with turkey and bishkawi,” I said.

Billisha looked up, tears and gratitude in her eyes. Aluali was blank-faced, but I saw that his hands trembled. They must’ve been eavesdropping after all. I sighed and patted their heads. They really were good kids.

“Work help quiet mind,” I said. “Come.”

I stood them up and led them to the carcasses piled up at the edge of the Glen. They were hesitant at first, but I pulled them along.

We sorted the bodies; the ravaged ones were dragged outside Ikfael’s territory, while the intact dead were kept behind. I recovered the arrows and let the kids do the skinning work. When we were done, I showed the kids how to knap flint and make wood-working tools. We had knives and axes, but I had a new spearhead in need of a haft. And maybe I’d make another spear just for fishing. Also, an adze and draw knife would be helpful in making racks for the bishkhawi hides. More cordage too. There was always a need for more cordage.

In the late afternoon, we went fishing. Ikfael still sat in the same place, her paw tapping as she thought.

We made short, improvised spears for Billisha and Aluali, but the kids were terrible at fishing. Too slow and not very good judges of movement underwater. It was an effort on my part not to laugh, but they took it so seriously. They were intent, as if their survival depended on how well they fished. Well, it did, but also didn’t. I was there, after all.

We stayed long enough for me to catch four fish: a trout, two bass, and a salmon. The salmon was a particularly chunky treat, almost two feet long. It didn’t look like the chinook I was used to, more like Atlantic. Well, whatever kind it was, my mouth watered in anticipation. I loved grilled salmon, and we had salt with us!

Billisha started the fire. She didn’t have any problems using the firestarter, so she must’ve had access to her mana.

“You use magic?” I’d been unsure about how common it was.

“Maegiic?” Obviously, Billisha didn’t know the English word.

I used the sign that Ikfael had taught me, and then I hesitated—but only for a moment—and showed her Cold Snap. Both kids gasped and jumped back. Their eyes went wide as they touched the frozen puddles on the ground.

“No, I no use magic,” Billisha said, using the Diaksh word. “I have no skill. I not trained.” She mimed repeating a task over and over in order to demonstrate the unfamiliar word.

I pointed to the firestarter. “How use?”

“Not need skill to use mana. Just eisendon.” Billisha opened her shirt to show a scar above her heart, shaped like a shepherd’s crook with filigreed wings.

“I have eisendon,” Aluali said, and he showed me his scar. “Get when small child.” He made the motion for rocking a baby. “You no have eisendon?”

“I have inside,” I said, showing them my bare chest. Whatever Ikfael had done to me, it hadn’t left any scars.

The kids looked at each other in surprise, but it passed quickly. The shocks had come often and quickly, and they were learning to adapt.

A moment later, Billisha nodded to herself. “Yes, I understand. We understand. Zasha is—” She frowned, searching for a way to explain the next word. She enlisted Alauli’s help, and they came up with a number of gestures.

Apparently, I was either a giant, the sun, a deep pool of water, and/or a wriggling motion of the fingers. I took it to mean something grand.

Gods help me, I blushed. The last time I’d done so was when Helen was alive. “And zasha?”

They struggled again to explain the meaning. I was a roof, a rain cloud, a stalk of corn, a protector and source of life. A benefactor.

These kids, they were just too sweet. That’s it. I can’t take it anymore. The heart wants what the heart wants. I’ll just have to do my best to protect them. “I question. You want stay—”

At the same time, Billisha started asking, “We question. We want stay—”

The three of us stared at each other for a beat, and then burst out laughing.

My smile faded, only the edges lingering. “You want stay here? You understand danger?”

Billisha also turned serious. “We understand danger. Forest danger. Village danger. All danger. We stay with Zasha. Zasha want us?”

“Yes, I want, but—” I looked over at Ikfael.

She’d been watching us for the past few minutes, and looked put upon. Like, incredibly put upon.

Ikfael shook her head in dismay, like she couldn’t believe what she was about to do. “You stay. You stay. You stay,” she said pointing to each of us. “I want fish. One day, one fish. You and you and you, each give one fish.” She looked at our stuff. “Knife. Two knife. Three knife. And you hunt food. You fight for Ikfael. We trade?”

I grinned, swiping away the notification. “No. We no trade. We share. We give. We give to Ikfael.”

After all, we give when it’s for family.