“War…War Never Changes,” hello and welcome back to the Lone Voice Radio Podcast, I’m your exhausted host Mr. Mann, and I apologize for being nearly two hours late with today’s broadcast.  I am reporting on the latest offensive by the Chinese forces into the panhandle, from the forward command post of the Texas Guard, and frankly…it’s a little hard to be heard when bombs are dropping on your roof.


    It looked like this new strategy of theirs, staggering artillery fire ahead of an infantry march on Amarillo, was going to work, with our brave patriots unable to gather to push back the creeping red tide thanks to the artillery bombardment.  However, it seems like god STILL loves Texas, since as the communist hoard hit Pampa the faint clouds thickened…and in the span of less than an hour formed into a full-on LIGHNING storm!


    Despite a weather forecast that predicted clear skies for a week…summer, am-I-right?.  NEITHER side expected this!  So there were the invaders, marching with giant 20-foot-long lightning rods, filled with high explosives…heh heh heh.


    It’s still true to this day: God Bless Texas!


    INTERRUPTION, DEEP MECHANICAL VOICE: Sure, why not?  Just don’t RELY on it.  I’m busy most of the time.


    Wait, who the FUCK was THAT?!


    Over the next few days the villagers strip the dead gnolls, and move their corpses to the flatland south of the creek, halfway down to the tree line.  A few gnolls sneak out to get the bodies, only to be picked off by archers stationed nearby to keep watch for scavengers, during the day.  Since they have to go inside at night, the gnolls decide to just grab them then.  Damn, I wish we had enough poison to dose those corpses, but no luck…another missed opportunity.


    In addition to all the bronze swords and javelins, many of them were carrying loot from all the settlements that they had raided…and probably none too few travelers too.  Most of it falls into the category of “shiny shit” such as gems and decorated cups, now filthy with years of grime, but still useful for the priests to make potions and such.  There are even small bars of copper, silver, and gold.  I guess coinage isn’t a thing yet.


    But my familiarity with playing The Harrowed Earth inspires me to convince Borden to allow my inspection of all the loot…and a good thing too.  Once I identify the magical items, with Venradik’s help, we figure out what they are.  And it’s not a bad haul!


    * One of the wide-bladed bronze swords has a +1 enhancement bonus, which Borden gives to Fjodr so that he can better protect Torden in battle.


    * Three of the javelins are also enchanted with a +1 enhancement bonus, which Borden keeps as a decoration behind his throne to impress visitors.  No judgment here.


    * Two of the gems actually contain psionic enchantments, one of spiritual weapon and the other of lesser restoration.  Both useful items for a fighter, but since she’s the only dedicated psychic in the village both are given to Aedirboa…who literally <SQUEES> with joy and begs me to make a necklace of them for her.  Sorry Venradik, but your psychic wound-stitching just isn’t enough.


    * A belt of giant’s strength, which makes Borden’s face droop, as he hands it to Torden since he refuses to be anywhere but on the front line…and Borden wants to make SURE he survives.  He’s a good dad.


    * Finally, a periapt of Wisdom +4!  We know because I put it on and check my character sheet to see how potent the bonus is, Character sheet cheat for the win.  Sikan and the other priests, on finding out that it will make their spellcasting more potent; literally get into a fist-fight over it!  Pissed at them acting so childish, Fürda snatches it from my hands and tosses it into Borden’s chest, “Maybe this will make you a BETTER Jarl, instead of laughing as your priests fight!”  With a final guffaw, Borden puts it on, and makes sure to wear it visibly as he fingers it whenever he has to deal with any of the priests.  I think he’s having WAY too much fun teasing them <heh>.


    Yeah, I end up with jack and shit, and Jack left town.  So I decide to re-start the “BIG bada-BOOM” project now that I have more bronze, and in private ask to be given it to “make thunder-sticks”.  Borden isn’t too happy with that, since so much of this nicely-ductile metal can be used to make heads for the Sk?rpn spears, and so decides to instead give me just about 30 pounds of bronze.  Enough for some experimentation and, if my efforts bear fruit, we can discuss the rest of it come spring.  “It is too hard to smelt all this ‘bronze’ metal in winter anyway, so you and the smith can toy around with a small bit of it, and let us see what you come up with.”  Well, THAT sounds…REASONABLE?  Huh, maybe that periapt is already bearing fruit.


    So after melting and smelting a piece off a javelin’s head into a plate to put the psychic gems into, then decorating it with carvings via a summoned weapon iron xacto knife, I get to work on making a gun.  And Aedirboa slobbers me with kisses each day after I get back from the smithy, thanks to her pretty present.  Sheesh, girls REALLY like fancy jewelry, don’t they?  At least my marital life is going well, Aedirboa’s happy tending to people’s injuries, and cooking our meals in the evening.  Normally a modern Western feminist would be throwing a shit-fit over being “a kitchen slave” when they are asked to cook dinner, since they are home while their man is at work.  NOT having that diseased philosophy is one of the things I found MOST attractive of Pia, and now here I am enjoying the same treatment again.


    As we are sitting at the table eating the diced-meat meal, Aedirboa reaches over to wipe the tear I didn’t know I was shedding off my face, “What is upsetting you, love.”


    I look at Aedirboa and smile shakily, “This, ALL of this, nice and pleasant home just…reminds me of my OTHER home.  I’m sorry that I am eating your wonderful spiced goat, thinking of another family, Boa…I don’t mean to make you feel neglected or anything.”


    “No Lou,” she says while smiling shyly.  “I am glad that the life I can give you here and now, reminds you so much of the HAPPY life you had before.  I know that I am not her, but I do not RESENT her, since she took such good care of your heart that I could share the joy she gave you, now that you are here with me.”


    I put down the two-pronged wooden fork we use for an eating utensil, and smile at her, before getting up to sweep her off her feet, “I can’t believe how much I love you Aedirboa, but there is ONE thing missing from our life together you know…”


    “Yes!,” she laughs excitedly as I stumble carrying her to the bed, “I look forward to seeing their face…”  Then she pulls me into a violent and hungry kiss, as I put her on the bed.


    We end up eating prestidigitation-reheated spiced goat the next morning, instead of the usual stew set to simmer overnight, but neither of us are upset by it.


    ***


    Its official, this blacksmith WORSHIPS me!  I try to ignore his awestruck face as he melts the stripped-clean bronze sword blade in the crucible, amazed at my seeming to “already know” how to use this easy-to-melt metal.  Well, there was a LOT of bronze fitting in the barn and house, so dad made sure I knew how to heat it up with a blowtorch and fix cracks in the bathtub or corner caps.


    Once it is nice and sloppy, glowing white-gold, he pours it into the clay pipe mold I made until it is about a third full.  Then I drop the straight clay rod I prepared down the top of it, feeling the four pegs on the top and bottom slide along the inside of the tube, raising the level of the bronze.  Eventually some of it overflows, into the same crucible as it is held below the mold.  It would be impossible to do this, without using my suped-up prestidigitation to hollow out the clay block and make it all straight!  And I can score the barrel by cutting the pegs down on the bottom, then spinning the plug as I pull it out, to get SOME rifling.


    We let it cool and harden slowly in the forge overnight, as he pours more bronze into the flat clay plate that has the various components of the trigger assembly and breach-loading mechanism.  If I’m going to be making a “thunder stick”, I want it to go <BOOM> as quickly as I can get it to!


    Since the flat pieces cool quicker, each being smaller and exposed to the air, I put them still-warm into a leather pouch to take back home to my workshop.  But I take a minor detour to Venradik’s place to see if he has managed to get what I need out of those rocks I found in the northern foothills, “Ah, Laughash, come in out of the snow!”


    “Brrr…thanks Venradik.  I’m just stopping on by to see if you have managed to ‘milk’ those stones yet?”


    As I put my fur-lined outer jacket over a peg in the wall besides his door, he gives me the good news, “Yes!  It’s not the yellow dust you wanted, though.  I had to drip a mixture of varying extracts onto it slowly, so that they can soak into the stone, and the yellow fades as it drips into a bowl below it!  Then, once all the yellow is gone, I spread it onto a goatskin near the fire to dry into a flaky substance.  But, like you said, it DOES stink and tastes like tangy dirt…so is THIS what you were looking for?”


    Passing me a small piece of leather with some flaked yellow substance on it, I gently crush some between two fingers to smell and taste…yep, this is the shit, “You did it!  Now I that we have Sulphur I can start working on the ‘thunder-dust’!  How many did you make?”


    “Yeah…,” he rubs the side of his head, looking deflated suddenly.  “THAT is the problem here.  Making the extract mix is careful work, doesn’t make much per batch, and the drip process is SLOW.  I am afraid that in these past two days I have only managed to pull all the yellow out of ONE stone…the SMALLEST one.”  Shit, that is NOT a fast enough production rate to field a bunch of riflemen.


    “Can you find another way to do it?  With a few stones done I can experiment, but we will need HUNDREDS, maybe THOUSANDS of stones done in order to make enough for the next winter’s war!,” My voice rises towards the end, and I catch myself after hearing what I sound like.  “I’m sorry Venradik, I know you are doing your best, and I don’t mean ANY disrespect.  I’m just worried.”


    His face stops hardening up at my confession, and his shoulders cease rising in anger, “I know, I understand, and I don’t BLAME you for being so disappointed.  If I confess, I am too.  I thought this would be EASY given how much more about alchemy that I know compared to everybody around here, and my centuries spent in my people’s workshops.  But this is something NEW to me, and I am sorry that it seems I must take my time figuring out the intricacies of it.”


    We clasp forearms briefly, one old friend to another, before he scoops the Sulphur he has finished into another leather pouch for me, “Here take this for now, and I will try to figure out a faster way to do this while waiting for the next stone to finish.”


    Feeling sad about the slow pace of our progress with making gunpowder, I walk home to Aedirboa’s gentle hug and a good meal.  At least the salt peter was easy, if slow, thanks to all the gnoll heads we have.  Good think Pia make me watch that “Drifters” anime <heh>.  It isn’t like there are bat caves around here.


    And so I spend most of winter making new designs at the smithy, collecting gunpowder ingredients, and experimenting at home after dinner in our spare room.  Nice that I can use my “Breaking the Limits”-powered prestidigitation as air freshener, otherwise this place would REEK!


    ***


    It takes me a month of small batches to figure out a functional ratio of my adulterated salt peter, charcoal, and purified Sulphur to get serpentine powder.  Since I have to mix them all wet, and then grind up the “serpent” rope, before drying it out in small batches.  You would THINK that using prestidigitation to do the drying would make it go faster, but I have to keep stopping to wait for a break in the snowstorms, before I can dig up a fresh batch of gnoll brain-fruit.  It’s ironic, that I am going to be using DEAD gnolls to kill MORE gnolls <heh>.


    Once I have my primitive single-barrel shotgun assembled, during the days the now keeps falling, I spend my spare time shaving down wooden dowels to fit it before hollowing them out into small cups.  There is a quartz-based volcanic obsidian around here, or at least I ASSUME that is what it is, that Venradik and the rest of the village uses like a primitive lighter by striking sparks against their slag-iron weapons.  I bore a tiny hole in the base of each wooden shell, and glue a tiny shard to the base…blasting caps!  A few dry fires with a wad of goat hair inside the shell shows, thanks to small patches of scorched hair (and the smell…ugg) that it DOES produce a spark INSIDE the shell when struck by the hammer.  Not spring-loaded though, just a triple-hinged lever mechanism, meaning I have to pull the “trigger” lever RAPIDLY to hit it hard enough to spark.  At least this means it can only be fired intentionally, so no safety mechanism is needed, but the rapid jerk WILL throw off my aim.  Well once I have this first one working, I can start working on a better firing mechanism.


    All that work was wasted when I take the first shell outside on a clear day, for the very first official test firing.  The “breach” mechanism evidently wasn’t strong enough, or the “shell” had too much tension on the slug, but for whatever reason it was ruined as the firing mechanism blew out in the shell’s detonation when I pulled the trigger.  I ended up losing a hunk of hair to the flying pieces of bronze, but thankfully wasn’t cut.  It took a couple weeks of Aedirboa laughing at me to re-grow that eye brow.  Lesson learned? Prop it in place with rocks and DON’T hold future versions next to my HEAD when test-firing, dumbass!  At least I know that the CONCEPT is sound…


    Once I have the back powder mix right, the bottleneck becomes reiterating the gunsmithing at the village forge.  This is a world without fine measurements, so no standardization, making EVERYTHING a bespoke piece.  So if “part X” works fine, unfortunately that is no guarantee that the same “part X” will even FIT in the next model!  The best I can do is keep the molds we use as intact as possible, and hope that variables in metal batches can be overcome through repeated re-forging, until we get a batch that works for that individual part.  I wasn’t expecting THIS to be the problem with the project!


    With a little over a month to go in winter, I FINALLY get a fully-functional prototype!  After pumping a dozen shells through it in a couple minutes, and adjusting the hand-tied bronze wire sights, I can even hit the same head-sized rock at twenty paces reliably…breaking it on the third hit.  Since I started this project the villagers have taken to using my, often SPECTACULAR, misfires as entertainment.  Even Borden and the family come out to laugh at my “rod of thunder”-ous failures.  So they are there to witness my ACHIEVEMENT…and the shattering of the stone.


    When there are no laughs or other sounds beyond the reverberating <CRACK> of the shattering rock in the cold winter air, I turn to look and make sure there is anybody THERE.  Well they are, although some of them have moved back an involuntary step, as they are all staring at me in (pardon the pun) thunderstruck awe.  That’s right you primitive screw-heads, this is my BOOM stick!


    “So…who wants to wield thunder?”


    ***


    I never realized how much American gun-culture gives us an almost instinctual knowledge of how to use firearms, until NOW.  Of the 14 villagers that aren’t grasped by some atavistic terror at the thought of even TOUCHING the thing, only Borden and his son aren’t thrown flat on their asses with the first shot.  Well…the first SUCCESSFUL shot, since it takes a bit to get them to squeeze fast enough to strike a spark, their hands been too accustomed to a STRONG grip instead of a FAST one.  Aedirboa just lays there in the snow laughing, being the only one to even HIT the boulder we are using as a training target, but also being taken from her feet by the kick.  Torden is the ONLY one to even figure out how to reliably pull the trigger to create a discharge, AND stay standing…but his aim?  Inside a barn, being told to hit ANY wall, he would miss…fucking hell, maybe if I figure out buckshot rounds he could be effective?


    Borden’s smoke-stained hand falls around my shoulder from behind as he walks up to meet me, long after most of the townsfolk have left, and Torden is STILL trying to hit the boulder…from ten paces away, “You have my apology Laughash, I never thought that this thing of yours was anything more than a toy that would give people some entertainment over the winter.  But here it is, an effective, and FRIGHTENING weapon.  It would seem that your other world is good for something BESIDES war plans and songs.”  He puts his arm around my shoulders as he said this, stepping up beside me, towering over two heads taller than I am.


    “<sigh> No apologies needed Father, for a while there I was starting to think the same thing.  I just wish Torden had better aim!  HEY BROTHER, it needs SMALL movements to aim, it is not a warhammer!.”  I don’t think he heard me, his ears probably still ringing from that last shot.


    “Yeah, I understand HOW we are supposed to use it after you explained it, but my old hands are too thick-fingered and OLD to make the small movements it needs.  And sadly, Torden takes after me, just twenty winters younger.  I’m afraid that unless you can come up with a way to make a strong arm more useful than quick hands, YOU will be the only one to find this thing useful,” Borden says with a sigh of resignation.  But that…twigs my member-berries…what IS it again?


    “Borden…can you say that again, there is something on the TIP of my mind, but it won’t come together…,” I absent-mindedly ask.


    He takes his arm from around my shoulder and turns to partly face me, as I turn to face him, “What part?  My old thick-fingered hands?  Torden being me but younger?  Our strong arms not being as-”


    A shock of realization, “YES THAT!”  I go running the dozen paces to Torden, grabbing his shoulder, then quickly stopping him as he turns with a LOADED shotgun, “Torden your aim is SHIT, so let’s not waste any more shells.”


    His face falls from the feral shit-eating grin he has had since he first managed to get it to fire, as he hands the firearm to me, “Aww damn, brother.  Can you make ME one?  I promise that I will figure it out!”


    I laugh maniacally, causing him to get a worried look in his eyes, “I will do no such thing brother, when I can give you something to put those strong arms of yours to USE instead!”


    “Huh?,” the guy looks like I just told him his britches flew south for the winter <heh>.


    “I have an IDEA Torden,” I say as I hear Borden stopping just behind me, and turn towards him.  “And it is an EVIL idea, father.”  Why does Borden have that shocked and scarred look?  Do I have something on my face?


    “Nevermind, just meet me here tomorrow morning, you do NOT want to miss THIS!,” heh, these people have no resistance to FOMO, a crack like THAT will have them here at dawn!


    And they were, along with…I think…the ENTIRE village.  Word must have spread yesterday.


    I hand Torden a wooden box the size of one of HIS fists, covered in small flecks of volcanic black/grey stone, “Here brother, throw this as FAR as you can up into the hillside, ok?”


    Torden looks at the box, rolling over between his hand, looking for something in confusion, “Laughash, where is the ‘tray-GAR’?”  Ugg, his English is HORRIBLE.


    With a grin so feral that it makes even HIM flinch back a little, despite having two heads of height on me and easily another 100 pounds of pure muscle, “Your ARM is the trigger, just make it hit as hard as you can, as far AWAY as you can!,” I say, with a chuckle even I have to admit is pure evil incarnate.


    So, unsure of what is about to happen, Torden turns away from the village and hauls back his arm.  With an almost-baseball like pitch, he hurls it maybe 30 or 40 paces away, as the wind catches it and pulls it to the side.  With a second or two of flight time, it strikes in some exposed wind-blown rocks…and EXPLODES, scattering several of the stones as far away as the height of a full-grown man.  YES!  “Close” only counts in a game of HAND GRENADES, you dog-faced motherfuckers!  Now THAT is a hot potato, let’s play “fetch”!  <ha ha ha>.


    Torden takes a couple steps backwards in shock, at the explosion creating a <BOOM!> at LEAST a dozen times louder than my shotgun, as several of the villagers fall on their asses in astonishment.  I move up to turn him around like a stunned child, both of us looking at the gob-smacked expression of his father and the other villagers nearby to be seen under their fur-lined hoods.  We can’t do any sort of reliable fuses in this day and age, but enough kinetic energy pumped into those sparking stones means a fuse isn’t NEEDED…if you can get the detonation far enough AWAY.  The sight of everybody’s astonished faces making the lyrics to “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC coming to mind.  Yep, they all look like they opened a wardrobe, and saw another world complete with roaring lion inside of it <heh>.


    Over the last month or so of winter Torden and I go out to keep practicing with our respective toys, although I manage to convince him to use wooden blocks so not as to waste a lot of black powder.  Even with small rocks mixed into it for shrapnel, those grenades use up at least TEN TIMES the powder as one of my shotgun shells!  Despite his almost-supernatural ability to hit a target with a thrown spear, Borden can’t get the “rock chucking” style needed to throw a grenade accurately, even after a couple days of practice.  But he still comes out every morning to watch us practice, along with increasingly fewer and fewer villagers, an open look of pride on his face every time I glance at him.


    I spend the evenings trying to get a second shotgun made, thinking that I might be able to get Aedirboa to use one if it is a smaller caliber with less kick.  However, despite the lessons learned from making MINE the smithy and I never seem to get one working.  I guess I’m sucking technology penalties for that “Primitive” era, and I just got lucky making ONE that works…right?  Well if so, that explains why so many of my summon weapon versions kept failing!


    By the time the winter winds die down, and the snow starts to melt, I can accurately hit the rock three out of four times from fifty paces.  Also, Torden’s managed to knock out goats with a hit to the head from about half that distance…usually when he wants to eat some for dinner.


    ***


    So while everybody else is bringing in the winter crops, Borden decides to send the warriors from Járn back.  The four of us who brought them here playing escort, and to plead for more help the following winter.  I manage to convince him to delay our leaving for a couple weeks, so that the pass gets clearer and I have time to make shells and grenades from the last batches of salt peter and Sulphur.  I don’t tell him it is because I FINALLY finished my first Hit Die, and want to train to spend the stuff I just got!  Plus, as a bonus, it seems that I retained about half of the XP that I need to go up a Hit Die, likely from the fight with the ogre and troll, but capped-out halfway to level 2.  I don’t remember any rule like that from The Harrowed Earth, maybe it was in an expansion book or something?


    NAME: Laughash


    RACE: Human


    SUBRACE: Primitive


    AGE: 16.2 years


    HIT DIE: 1


    ECL: 1


    XP TO NEXT LEVEL: 500/1,000


    SIZE: Medium


    SPEED: 30 ft.


    ERA: Bronze-Age (Primitive, use one Era lower)


    ABILITY SCORES: Cha 16, Wis 12, Int 15, Dex 13, Con 10, Str 8


    DURABILITY: 0 (due to Small size)


    SAVING THROWS: Fort +0 (1), Ref +3 (0), Will +5 (2).  +3 vs. Fear.


    SPECIAL ABILITIES


    * Trickery Domain spells: 2 per day.


    ATTACK: Base Attack Bonus +0, Melee –1, Ranged +1.


    SKILLS (–3 to Social skills from Primitive): [5 ranks remain to spend]


    * Charisma-Linked (+3)


    * * (CbF) Bluff +4 (4 ranks) [–3 Social]


    * * Diplomacy +5 (0 ranks) [+2 from Court Raised]


    * * (CbF) Disguise


    * * (P) Use Mystic Device +7 (4 rank)


    * Wisdom-Linked (+1)


    * * Heal +3 (2 ranks)


    * * Sense Motive +3 (0 ranks) [+2 from Court Raised]


    * * Spot +5 (4 rank)


    * * (P) Survival +4 (2 ranks) [+2 from Primitive]


    * Intelligence-Linked (+2)


    * * (P) Alchemy +6 (4 ranks)


    * * (P) Craft (medicine) +3 (1 rank)


    * * (P) Craft (tailoring) +4 (2 ranks)


    * * (P) Craft (weaponsmith) +6 (4 ranks)


    * * Knowledge (arcana) +6 (4 ranks)


    * * Knowledge (nature) +5 (3 ranks)


    * * Knowledge (nobility & royalty) +4 (0 ranks) [+2 from Court Raised]


    * * Spellcraft +6 (4 ranks)


    * Dexterity-Linked (+1)


    * * (CbF) Hide +3 (2 ranks)


    * Constitution-Linked (+0) [–2 from Court Raised]


    * * Concentration +4 (4 ranks)


    * * (P) Control Shape


    * * Strong Heart +4 (4 ranks)


    * Strength-Linked (–1) [–2 from Court Raised]


    * * (P) Climb


    * Linguistics +2 (2 ranks)


    * Tales & Legends +3 (1 trait)


    FEATS (Simple Weapon Proficiency, Firearms Proficiency, +Saber):


    * HD 1: Court Raised


    * Human: Chosen by Fate (Trickery)


    TRAITS (Mystical Hero):


    * Favored: Skillful ×1


    * HD 1: Eldritch Soul ×1


    * HD 1: Wildman ×1


    * HD 1: Loremaster ×1


    SPELLCASTING: +1 save DCs for Illusion except “phantasms”.


    * Chosen by Fate CL 1 (+2), Max SL 0th.


    * * 0th: summon weapon


    Summon Weapon (Conj): Creates a non-magical mundane weapon you are familiar with. [Summon]


    * Eldritch Soul CL 1 (+2), Max SL 1st.  Spell Level Pool Points: 17 (0th-Level are free)


    * * 0th: acid splash, detect magic, prestidigitation; 1st: color spray, mage armor


    Acid Splash (Evoc): Orb deals 1d3 (+6 Breaking the Limits) damage [to Con]. [Acid]


    Color Spray (Ill): Knocks unconscious, blinds, and/or stuns 1d6 (+5 Breaking the Limits) weak creatures [Material Consumed (colored red, yellow, and blue sand or powder)]. [Mind-Affecting; DC 14 Will save]


    Mage Armor (Conj): Gives subject +4 (+5 Breaking the Limits) armor bonus [Focus Needed (piece of cured leather)]. [Force]


    Prestidigitation (Universal): Performs minor tricks.  (+6 to relevant skill checks Breaking the Limits).


    SPECIAL ABILITIES:


    * Advantage: Breaking the Limits (Eldritch Soul) [Charisma score –10 –Spell Level to spell effects]


    * Extra skill points


    * Charged, Daily Use, and Use Consumed enchanted items get +1 Caster Level when used.


    I decided to put my free saving throw base point into Fortitude, just to get it out of the negatives, since I am sick of tired of getting sick and tired every damn winter!  As for the 20 skill points I had to distribute, I drop 3 each into Use Mystic Device and Spot, pick up 2 ranks in Craft (tailoring) and another 2 into Spellcraft, then top off Concentration with 1 point.  Then, thanks I think to the long walk to Valdi and back with a heavy pack, I’m able to pick up 4 ranks in Strong Heart…letting me increase my carrying capacity AND giving me a separate skill check to avoid being winded for such activities...go, go, cardio!


    Turns out that this makes my non-phantasm spells harder to resist, from a synergy bonus, thanks to the Bluff ranks.  My next synergy bonus is Concentration, taking my bonus on saves vs. Fear effects up to +3 instead of +2.  Lastly, Use Mystic Device increases the Caster Level of any charge-style magic item I use by +1, which can be handy when utilizing talismans from Venradik, if nothing else.  Not the BEST round of synergistic boosts, but if I remember right there are a LOT more once I can get 5 ranks maximum to my skills at Hit Die 2… but I still have 5 ranks left to train before I achieve it.


    Training those Craft (tailoring) ranks took some effort…and a LOT of goat hair thread from the village’s weaver women.  I first tried to make a loom of some sort, but frankly I have ZERO idea how they work, and wasted two whole days trying to puzzle one out.  All I was left with was a mess of broken shaved sticks, a tangle of wires, and a wife that couldn’t stop laughing at me since I was stuck in the MIDDLE of it all after it snapped from the tension.  Aedirboa, still laughing lightly, tried to help me untangle myself from the mess for over an hour until I got frustrated enough to cast “least wish” (i.e. prestidigitation) to unravel and wind up all the wires of thread.


    Then she just looked at me with a puzzled look, complete with raised eye brow, “If you don’t have the patience to make cloth the normal way, with combs, why not use that spell to REPLACE the combs?”  Awww….FUCK my life.


    After that it only took a couple hours to wind up all the goat-hair thread into patches of cloth of the sizes and shapes I needed, little cutting required!  I know she’s going to bring this up EVERY time I try to do something complicated again <heh>.


    So by the time I go to sleep that night, I have the bandoleer for the shotgun shells, which I wanted.  It takes a bit more finagling, plus a leather strap from Fjodr’s leatherworking eldest son, to make a thick-walled and compartmented satchel case for Torden’s grenades, after a few tries.  Then I spend the rest of the time until we leave over AT the weaver’s, helping make cloth “the usual way”, to train up the last rank in Craft (tailoring).


    So the morning two weeks later, I give Torden his well-padded high-yield, for the age, present…and the six of us set out.


    ***


    This time on the trip up we are dragging a canoe in the creek behind us on a rope, taking turns pulling it between the two Járn warriors in the morning, and both Hidl and Fjodr in the evening.  Torden and I get excused from this duty party for being princes, and partly because I weigh HALF as much as the next lightest person in the group while Torden is a walking WALL that is taking point on the trail.  Why bother taking it along?  Because as much as it suuuucks to have wet boots and britches from wading into the shallow sides of the creek when the trail disappears, it sucks MORE being soaked to the bone when we have to CROSS it at the “rainbow rock”!  If we have to move dozens of people across the river, this would be MUCH faster, anyway.


    Not even half a day out of the village, we get hit by three wolves running down at us from the increasingly-steep hill/cliffside beside the trail, attacking our two guests in the back while Hidl and Fjodr are taking the tow rope from them.  One of them is crushed and thrown to the side halfway towards us, without even a yip, by a hurled “Mister Slammy”-shaped missile.  Then one pushes away from the slope, leaping onto Hidl just as he manages to raise his shield between them, its snapping jaws slavering just inches from Hidl’s face.  The last one passes right by the warriors, to lunge at my leg and latch on, yanking me painfully to the ground.


    I’m wracked with pain, trying to grip and pull off the wolf as it shakes and savages at my leg, blood flying everywhere.  Then it lets out a pained <YIP!> releasing my thigh, as it is YANKED off me by Torden, his powerful gripping hands on the thing’s tail and a hind leg.  With a savage roar, my brother slams the wolf into the steep hillside besides the trail, before falling onto it lie he’s auditioning for a wrestling federation.  I start clutching at my leg while my eyes squint in agony, trying to stem the bleeding, as the two fight.  The wolf snaps at Torden’s face, but he just puts one powerful forearm into its mouth, and SHOVES the wolf’s head to the side, using it as a lever while his other hand holds it in place by its scruffy fur.  With a <CRACK> and a grunt of pained effort, the wolf stops moving…its neck snapped.


    My leg seems to have stopped bleeding while I’m sitting up clutching it, Torden rummaging around in my backpack, pulling out things until he reaches my medical bag.  Glancing to the side I see that the last wolf died unremarked, Hidl’s shield scoured from the blades of our Járn allies and covered in the beast’s blood as well as bits of hacked-off flesh.  Hidl’s face likewise bloody, but at least it doesn’t look to be HIS blood.  THAT was a short-and-sweet fight…just my bad luck to be the ONLY one hurt, right?


    Torden calls for us to camp out here early, to give the bandage and potions time to work, rather than risk the wounds reopening on the walk to the village we can still see below us.  As I lay there wrapped in my camping bed-furs, with Hidl watching over me, the rest split up to find firewood.  While Hidl is just staring off into the hills, a nervous but lost look on his face.  I think the kid’s in shock, from having that wolf right in his face.


    “Hey Hidl, you did a great job, you know.  Certainly better than ME <ha ha>.”


    “Excuse me prince, but no I didn’t.  All I did was lift a shield to keep my face safe, while everybody ELSE fought!  I’m just…I’m…I was AFRAID Laughash,” he says, his voice falling along with his gaze.


    “So was I.  So was Torden, even.  Want to know a secret, my friend?”


    With curiosity, he turns his head to look at me, “A secret, prince?  Are you going to tell me that you just lied to me, claiming Torden was afraid?”  Yeah, the kid doesn’t believe a word of THAT, does he?


    So I lift my shoulders to look him straight in the face, “No Hidl, that was no lie, and I am NOT trying to trick you.  Torden WAS afraid, as was Fjodr, and doubtlessly the others, although I doubt they will admit it since it doesn’t seem manly.  The secret, Hidl, is that you cannot be brave UNLESS you are afraid.  Bravery is not the ABSENCE of fear; it is the ability to act DESPITE the fear.  And you DID act; you lifted your shield, and used it to hold the Wolf in place, so that the OTHERS could kill it!  If you were a coward you would have frozen in place, while your throat was ripped out.”  Then, laughing to break the tense atmosphere, “Or you would have turned to run, and gotten a second craphole torn in your ass!”


    The guys return to find Hidl and I sharing jokes and laughing, Torden looking relieved to see the sight and he nods at me ingratitude.  <Heh> The guy is getting to know me too well.


    ***


    The next morning my leg is mostly patched-up, the skin having sealed together into scars from the cure light wounds-Anchored bandages and alchemical medicines, but the thigh muscle still stiff and knotted with damaged tissue.  As a result my leg is stiff from the hip to the knee, being hard to move, but at least I am in no danger, “Give it a few more days and I should be back to normal.”


    Shaking his head, Torden commands, “Hidl, help Laughash keep up with us, he’ll just have to heal on the walk.  The wolves will have kept most other threats from the area so it should be fairly safe.  Fjodr, you are going to be breaking the trail instead of me, and I will pull the boat alone in the afternoon.  We will be moving slower thanks to my brother’s leg, so I won’t have a problem keeping up.”


    With a shocked look Fjodr says, “No Torden, I cannot ALLOW you to do such a thing!  We can just go back to Askfj?r, and try again in a few days, once we are all hale.”


    “YOU are not in charge of this task Fjodr, father placed ME in charge.  I know you are only concerned for our safety, but if we let days pass something will have moved in to take the place of these wolves, and we could end up in a WORSE situation.  As for my dignity, it is MINE to do with as I choose, and I choose to sacrifice it if that means this trip is less likely to be a failure.”  With a firm commanding voice, Torden pushes Fjodr to the top of the trail, and picks up his own backpack to follow.  Sighing, Fjodr turns around with his enchanted bronze sword and shield, and starts walking.  The guy is his father’s son, it seems.


    I’m dying of curiosity during the trip, wanting to check my character sheet, but I lack the privacy I need to NOT look insane while doing so.  Guess I’ll have to wait until we are back home.


    After a couple days we reach the section of trail that leads to the split in the creek in the evening, intending to make camp there tonight rather than attempting a crossing in the dark.  My leg, thanks to the medicines Venradik gave me for the trip, is mostly fine.  At least well enough that I can usually walk on my own, just needing help from Hidl when we have to trudge through the creek or climb steep sections of trail.  Then Fjodr drops into a crouch up ahead, waving one hand for us to stop as he turns around and puts a hand over his mouth.  He wants us to be quiet, right?


    Everybody stops, the minor conversations ending immediately, to avoid making noise.  Yep, that’s a signal for silence.  Before he slowly walks back, shuffling past me to talk to Torden in a whisper, but close enough that I can hear what he says, “There’s a bear in the clearing, I think it is the one from last time.  It looks like it is trying to catch fish from the water.”


    Torden gets an evil grin on his bearded face, making him look like he is a savage with that red scruffy beard making his mouth look to have recently enjoyed a his bloody meal.  Passing the tow rope to Fjodr he moves to the front of the trail, “Finally…time to try this for REAL!”  Aww, damnit.


    I slowly put my pack on the ground to help my mobility, pulling out and slowly cocking my shotgun, before creeping up to ten or so feet behind him.  I know EXACTLY what the overgrown child is going to do…I DID give him a new toy, after all.


    Seeing him stop at the gentle curve that leads to the beach clearing on this side of the creek, he takes a grenade from the pouch I made him, and throws it with POWER around the corner where I cannot see.  With a thunderous <CRACK!> it detonates, quickly followed by a pained bellow from the still-living bear.  Torden falls back beside and in front of me, pulling out his warhammer, as I lift the shotgun to my shoulder and aim down the barrel, leaning over flexing my good leg to get a better line of fire.


    The bear, bloodied and limping with one trashed rear leg, its fur smoldering from the flash-detonation of the black powder, comes around the corner.  It sees us, and jerkily rears up to try and bear (pun intended) down on us, as I fire at where its head was.  Missing the head I hit it in the general area of the solar plexus as it stumbles forward, dropping again to all fours, just shy of reaching Torden.


    With joyful bloodthirsty shouted laughter, Torden leaps forward, “Mister Slammy” raised high overhead just before he brings it down.  Slamming into the bear’s skull, it lives up to its name, almost pulping it from the powerful blow knocking the head into the trail.  The obvious corpse just lays there and twitches for a couple minutes, before winding down to stillness.


    Panting great lungful’s of air from the adrenalin, Torden turns to grab me and my empty shotgun up in a bear hug, laughing uproariously, “My brother gives the BEST gifts!”  Despite the crushing arms keeping me from breathing easily, I can’t help but laugh in agreement.  Compared to LAST time, this was easy!


    So we camp at the small beach that night, enjoying some fresh bear meat, which tastes great to us despite being so objectively nasty.  Come the morning, my leg only twinges when I do a deep sitting bend, so it seems I have mostly if not completely recovered.  Hidl nimbly climbs up the side of the cliff face further up the creek, to wrap the canoe’s rope around a large rock jutting out of it, so the canoe won’t flow away with the water.  Getting inside once he is done, Torden in the front, he and Fjodr move across the way by the simple expedient of Toden reaching out to grasp the rope and pulling towards the side of the canoe closest to our own shore.


    He looks over at me before doing so, likely afraid he is going to overturn the boat, “Are you SURE this will work?  I’ve never heard of a boat moving against the flow WITHOUT pulling it from the land…”


    “Hey, who has the clever ideas in the family, you or me?”  Prepare to be shocked by the power of PHYSICS, you muscle-head <heh>.


    Sighing, he shakes his head, and pulls.  “WHAT THE FUCK!?,” Torden shouts, while Fjodr just clutches the sides in astonished fear, as the entire canoe moves across the river and UP-stream, using the other end of the rope as a pivot point.  The force of the water hitting the angled side of the canoe pushing it AWAY from the bank, with enough force to also push against itself to some degree, it slowly creeps across the river-wide section of the creek.


    Everybody left on the beach with me takes turns staring at the self-pushing boat, and at my shit-eating grin, while Torden laughs in shocked surprise over his trip.  A couple minutes later Fjodr jumps out onto the other bank, and ties off a second rope to the back of the canoe, looping it around a thickest cliffside scrub-tree he can find.  Torden releases the rope while Fjord leans back, letting out slack from the rope slowly as the boat moves back to our side.


    Thanks to Torden’s strength, we are ferried one at a time across the split, getting to the other side safely and dry in less than half an hour.  We leave the boat on the Askfj?r side of the “rainbow rock” split, tying off the other rope to the same scrub-tree, before walking down the trail to Járn.  And we didn’t have to spend an entire day drying off our gear and warming up…physics, bitches!


    So with that we come around the trailhead into the valley of Járn as the sun starts to set, to one HELL of a shock ahead of us!


    ***


    The giants are here!  We see four immense grey-skinned figures standing in the village’s center, one leaning down, surrounded by people.


    Turning to head back up the trail, to escape capture ourselves while we try to figure something out, the two Járn warriors who were travelling in the back of the column move to stand side-by-side, weapons already in hand.  With shock in his voice, Torden hisses out, “What do the two of you think you are doing?  Is THIS how you treat allies!”


    “<Sigh> Prince Torden, this is NOT what you think.  The giants of J?kulm are NOT enemies; we have been trading with them every spring and fall for generations.  Last year you just came before they did, which is why Jarl Vorn was so eager to send you BACK!”


    “Oh, and what EXACTLY do you trade?  How many PEOPLE do they take each year?,” Torden asks, angry and starting to shout, as the rest of us from Askfj?r are staring at the exchange.  I’m carefully trying to hide behind Hidl’s wide back, my shotgun in hand, as I load it as quietly as possible.


    Then, with the breach open and one hand holding a shell, a voice that is FELT as much as HEARD rumbles behind us, “No little prince, they give us iron from their mines, in exchange for our sheep.”


    With a falling heart, our faces pale, we all turn to see the giant white-haired…well…GIANT, standing there leaning on a staff made from an old-growth pine tree.  Wait, HAIR?


    With a rumbling thunderous chuckle, the thing says, “I assume from your reaction that you have come across our slave-taking stone cousins.  Well rest assured, your minds are safe from US, we would rather live in peace and solitude, trading for the things we cannot make ourselves.”


    It turns around, walking away from the blind corner that hid it from us initially, to walk through the treed hills towards its fellows, “Come, we were warned that you might arrive while we are still here, and I think both the Jarl of Járn and our own leader seek to talk about this invasion of yours.”


    We are pushed into motion by the warriors that barred our way, and must then follow the giant…shaman?  Well, whatever his role in their society, we follow it to the town center where the other four giants are located.  Coming through the trees we see that there are dozens of long-legged sheep there, coming up to the calves or knees of the giants, while Jarl Vorn is sitting on his throne outside talking to the giant that is kneeling.  That thing looks comfier than Borden’s throne…I better not tell EITHER of them that, though.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    What is probably the greatest indicator of the giants’ good intentions is that, unlike last time, nobody takes our weapons.  Then again, they are GIANTS…what fear would they have for toothpicks?  Despite this I’m glad of their hubris, since I think that Torden’s adamantine warhammer and my own shotgun can make them at least REGRET trying to enslave us.  Ok, they ALL have hair, and the kneeling guy even has a BEARD…they are certainly NOT those bald-ass stone giants.  And I see no decorative tattoos either, so WHAT kind of giant are they?  I remember from The Harrowed Earth that each species of “true” giant has widely different philosophies, and practices different kinds of psychic powers, but I don’t remember the specifics of them.  In the time period that I was playing Herr Grey, most giant species had died out, and the few that remained were “lost” in the deepest parts of the world far from civilization.


    Having seen the giant by the trailhead walk towards them, evidently Jarl Vorn had stools brought out for us to sit at the edge of the village’s cleared center, near him.  Well now I know why they had this big-ass clearing in the middle of the place, at least.  Then he turns to the giant and projects his voice with both confidence and VOLUME, “Let us finish the negotiations tomorrow, since it seems I have other guests I must see to.  Until we agree on a price, we will shelter the sheep in our pens, so that you can sleep without worrying over them.  Is this agreeable to you?”


    The giants in charge’s voice bellows out, but softer, like it is trying to SOUND smaller, “Yes Jarl Vorn, it gives us a chance to ask our Jarl for further instructions, if you tell us later tonight what news they bring.  Agreed?”


    “Agreed,” says Jarl Vorn, standing from his throne as it is then grabbed by two burly villagers and carried away to his own longhouse.  “Come, see our visitors to someplace comfortable, while you two tell me what happened this past winter,” he says pointing to us, before the two of them follow his throne to his longhouse.


    A large house is emptied to make room for us, which is an upgrade in prisons from the storehouse with a shitting bucket.  So there we are, sitting in the main room, eating the stew that they left behind rather than let it go to waste.  I lean over the corner of the table, to say in hushed tones in case we are being spied upon, “Brother your hammer will work well against these giants, as will the thunder-boxes I made you, and my own weapon.  If we have to fight our way out, it won’t be like the troll fight, we CAN hurt them…easier, I think, than they EXPECT we could.”


    Torden leans over to me to say in hushed deep tones, “I guessed as much, but SO FAR they have treated us like guests more than prisoners.  We will keep our weapons to hand, but it is a bad idea to fight this battle if we don’t NEED to.  Even should we win our freedom, our task is to get allies here in Járn, not to make enemies.”


    Hidl and Fjodr nod in agreement, evidently having followed our conversation despite the attempts to keep in quiet.  Then Fjodr, the veteran among us, cautions, “We should keep watch in any case, should the just be expecting us to let our guard down before slitting our throats as we sleep.”


    And so we are all tired come morning when a villager knocks on the door to escort us to the Jarl, having slept fitfully mostly due to the stress of our predicament.  We meet Jarl Vorn in his longhouse, sans throne since we see it being carried out as we walk up.  He says to us, as he leans against the table covered in a roughly-drawn and marked-up map of Askfj?r, “So it seems that you WEREN’T lying about the wolf-men threat.”


    He stands up to face us, speaking to Torden, “However you ALSO managed, with trickery and preparation, to wipe out the attackers.  So why do you need help from ME, if you are so capable?”


    Torden stand up straight, putting on his regal airs, “Jarl Vorn, from all we know this group was just the EDGE of the horde that is coming.  Yes we managed to kill all but a few of the HUNDREDS that came at us, but what of the THOUSANDS that will sweep upon us this winter?  We lost warriors in this attack, and our tricks are now known by them.  So our chances of victory are much less THIS winter, and can only go UP with your aid.  As you know, should Askfj?r fall, YOU will be their next meal!”


    After a minute’s thought, Vorn replies, “You make a good argument prince Torden, and you reflect my own thoughts from last night.  So you WILL have your allies from my people, but I CANNOT send all our warriors with you.  We need many HERE to keep the ogres and other threats in the mountains at bay, or else I risk DOOMING my village in the attempt to save it.”


    He then moves to the door behind us, before turning to command, “Now come, prince Ferkad wishes to speak with you this morning as well.”  Great, and the frying pan was JUST getting to a comfortable temperature.


    ***


    Despite my misgivings I have to admit, Ferkad is charming and does his best to come across as kind rather than threatening.  We are left sitting there on the same stools from before, while he and Vorn finish their negotiations; agreeing on the 40 sheep in exchange for a cartload of smelted iron rods, each the height of a man.  I guess they use them for construction?  Must be hard to build floors that can hold their weight without SOME reinforcement.


    Once the negotiations are over, and the villagers are carrying rods from around the village to the wooden cart for the giants, Jarl Vorn tells his attendants to move his throne back before turning to us, “And now I’ll leave you to your conversation.  But don’t expect much privacy, with how loud this guy is even when talking softly!,” he says, laughing as he walks away.


    Torden stands up as Vorn leaves, then turns towards Ferkad, his chest out and cloaked in pride to hide his fear.  “So, prince of the giants, what is it that YOU wanted from us?,” he says in as loud a bellow as he can manage.


    Ferkad releases a deep rumbling chuckle as he points at ME, and says, “That pale yellow metal rod your companion has in his hands, do you have more?  We have use of it but have not been able to FIND more, and my father bade me to trade with you for it if possible.”


    Shocked by this, my ship’s supply-officer (A.K.A. “scrounge master of horse trading”) instincts kick in.  Years of under-the-table dealing in the navy coming out before I can engage my mouth filter, “We have more bronze than you just trading for in iron, with more to come, but what can YOU give to US for it…since WE have uses for it as well, it needs to be something worth our loss after all.”  Afterwards I rub my throat, the need to shout starting to aggravate it.


    I don’t realize it until I am done talking, but I am already standing besides Torden, who is looking at me like I just grew a second head!  “Brother, I am in charge, so please sit down and-”


    “NO brother, I am a prince as well, and while father bade you to see to our alliance with Járn, MY orders are to use my wits to your benefit.  So now that YOUR authority has ended since the alliance is secure, it is time for ME to do what I do best, isn’t it?,” I ask with a feral grin, my eyes likely sparking with greed and an Evil Idea?.  From the look he gives me as he backs away after I interrupted him; he knows that the only way to stop me from taking over this conversation is to KILL me.


    And maybe not even then, heh heh heh.  You see I remembered something, from seeing the iron rods, and realizing that they are using them for construction.  A little tidbit from reading their entry in The Harrowed Earth: no matter the Era that they are in, all civilized “True Giants” have a MEDIEVAL level of technology.  Which doesn’t mean much, but since the human population seems to be stuck at a “Classical” Era of technology, they are still MORE advanced…and they are practiced at CONSTRUCTION.  So, how about getting stone walls complete with crenellations for Askfj?r?  It is a HELL of a lot easier to fight off an army from atop a 20 foot high stone wall with cover, after all!


    “I care not which of you two I deal with, so long as a deal is made,” rumbles Ferkad, obviously starting to lose patience.  I grin inside as I cast a prestidigitation spell to magnify my voice, and preserve my throat!


    “Well there doesn’t seem to be a deal OFFERED, prince Ferkad.  My brother and I may have disagreed about who has the authority to engage in a bargain with you, but we did NOT seek you out to offer any sort of deal.  However if you have one YOU would like to offer, I’m sure my brother agrees that doing so falls under MY authority, not his own.  Isn’t that correct Torden?,” I say, trying to tell Torden to BACK OFF with my look.  Thankfully he has always been more insightful with people than I am, and gets it.  I have a PLAN here, let me see it through.


    So as Torden holds up his hands in surrender, before going back to sitting with Hidl and Fjodr, Ferkad speaks up with conciliation in his voice, “I’m sorry little prince, I intended no insult, just seeking to gain whatever I can from your wealth.”  HAH, got ya!  Now I have the advantage in this negotiation…and I am going to get as many horses as I can out of it.


    “No apology needed Ferkad, the town of Askfj?r is willing to sell you the metal you want, if the offer is good enough.  But that still bears the burden in this conversation; what CAN you offer?  We have no need for herds of sheep after all.”  C’mon, take the damn bait…


    Ferkad pushes up on his extended knee from where he is kneeling, using his other hand to rub his thick beard, “Let me think, then…well I doubt you would welcome blocks of ice delivered to you, nor lumber since I hear that you live next to a deep woodland.  But I also hear that you are under attack, in the winter, and the cold has no effect on us.  So what if we provide you with some service to help fend off the attacks?”


    Ok now, let’s surf this wave, “We JUST closed a deal with Járn for warriors to address that very thing, warriors we don’t have to build immense homes for, and can also aid us with building up Askfj?r’s walls.”


    Raising pale eyebrow on his now-visibly deep BLUE skin (not grey as it appeared in yesterday’s failing light), “Walls did you say?  Well it happens that my people are well practiced at building such things.  So what if we assisted you in building up your defenses, and I even make them better than you could yourselves?,” he says, grinning with ill-concealed confidence.  So, you think you’ve WON, do you?


    I smile, from the familiar feeling of imminent victory, “Oh?  Do you think you with your giant hands could make walls we mere humans could use?  How are we to climb steps so high that we must PULL ourselves onto them? And what of the provisioning of your people while they are there?  It isn’t like our puny fields can feed ONE of you, let alone what…tens?  And what of the warriors that are to return to Askfj?r with us, what will THEY be doing while your folk are doing the labors THEY were going to undertake?  No, no, this doesn’t seem like a good trade for us at all.”  And now the hook is baited.


    Looking worried, Farkad holds out a hand between us, waving it back and forth in negation, creating a noticeable breeze as he does so, “Hold on, hold on, you misunderstand something.  I am offering that we use our skills to create defenses for you as good as those we use for ourselves, at OUR cost, completely.  Not to REPLACE your own efforts, but to ADD to them, and without your need to bear the price of any of it, INCLUDING feeding our larger stomachs.  All we ask for in return is whatever ‘bronze’ you are willing to give up, that at least makes the task worthwhile to us.  If you agree to this, I will have a work force at your Askfj?r in a tenday, to look the place over and bargain for the construction.  And THEN we can come to an agreement, if that is amenable to you.”  And that is how you get an open-ended deal with the giants to build advanced, for the age, defenses…for scrap metal.


    ***


    As the four of us the next morning, plus the original two Járn visitors, walk up the trail to where we left the canoe, Torden keeps looking at me strangely.  Finally, fed up with his side-eyes from the front of the column, I move up beside him at a wider section of the path, “Very well Torden, spit out whatever it is behind your teeth that you want to say.”


    Grumbling he says, “You traded all those weapons, to giants, for their building us…walls.  I don’t understand how you could do that.”  Damn, he’s upset that I overstepped, isn’t he.  Or maybe that I cut a deal with them, after the time we spent as slaves to the stone giants.


    I put a comforting hand up (WAY up) on his shoulder, “Look brother, those WEREN’T the same as the giants that made slaves of us; they are the ones FIGHTING them!  So I am sorry if I made you feel bad by stepping in and taking over like-”


    He shoves his thigh-thick forearm in front of my face, stopping me from talking as I flinch backwards and release his shoulder, “NO brother, you do not understand!  You traded those USELESS weapons, to GIANTS, and in exchange THEY are building WALLS for US!  I can’t puzzle out how you DID that!”  Oooooohhhhh…he is ASTONISHED!


    I…can’t resist the joke.  I haven’t been able to pull this gag since I was an arms-section NCO, training newbies.  So I reach out to push down his arm, patting it at his side like I’m comforting a small child, “Talent brother.  Pure Talent,” then with a straight face I slow down and fall back to my place in the column of nearly 100 people, before feeling my face crack open in an ear-to-ear grin.


    I’m holding my side as I feel my face, holding in my laughter as I make sure that my face hasn’t REALLY cracked into some horror-show grin, when Torden looks back at me once more.  Then I can’t take it anymore and start laughing uproariously, followed shortly by Torden as he falls back to hug me from the side.  We continue that way, each of us laughing as the other one starts to wind down, the release of the stress from the encounter and unbelieving astonishment that WE DID IT, washing relief through us.  Eventually, we wind down, and he goes back to the front of the column after gripping my shoulder with bruising force to show his pride in his little brother.  Is THIS what my own little brother felt like, back on Earth?


    For once, the memories of my life before this don’t hurt, just leaving a pleasant ache in my heart.


    But that column of 100 I mentioned?  Vorn spent the rest of the previous day organizing one able-bodied warrior from each house, sending about 2/3rds of the fighters from Járn to follow us, as well as our two visitors.  They are gathering food and goods to make the trip, with the earliest-ready following immediately and the rest coming along as their gear is prepared.  The two prior visitors are intended to stay at the canoe and ferry people back and forth, probably over the next few days, before returning home.


    So we lost 22 warriors, half to death and the others to infirmity, but gained 90…ish.  It isn’t like they were lined up to be counted; it is just an estimate that Jarl Vorn gave Torden before we started our march.  It is an increase, but I don’t know if it is to be ENOUGH of one!  Hopefully the walls the giants build are enough to make up for it.


    So we get to the boat as the sun starts to set, thankfully still tied off, and the four of us ferry ourselves across while our guests last winter (I really SHOULD have learned their names) pull the canoe back to their side before we all set up camp.  Once I am taking watch, I wait a bit to make sure everybody is asleep, before “going to take a leak” and whispering “character sheet”.


    XP TO NEXT LEVEL: 1,337/1,000 [cannot level up until skill points are spent]


    <Heh heh heh> Looks like I’m “LEET”!  Pity I never really got into computers, beyond the basic stuff I needed in the navy, but even I get that joke.  Hey, waitaminute, I can level up to 2nd Hit Die?  Don’t I just have to SLEEP for that?  So why haven’t…oooohhhh…I still have skill points to spend.  Well, I’ll do that, and see what traits I can get when I wake up.


    So I try to see what I can put points into, having “trained” it over this past week since leaving Askfj?r.  Unfortunately, no luck putting them into my Craft (tailoring).  But I CAN put points into Diplomacy, Heal, Knowledge (nature), and Survival.  After some experimentation I find that I can also put points into Craft (traps), Knowledge (geography), Move Silently, Profession (smithy), Profession (thievery), and likely others before I stop messing around with the character porn.  I’m still on watch for another hour or two; I don’t have to rush, so WHY should I put points into WHICH skills?  Ok, pros of each, since the cons are pretty obviously “missing points elsewhere”.


    Craft (traps) can be useful, and I can even go up to TWO points in it, but it isn’t like my one ass is going to be useful in the coming war…and the hunters in the village are already better trappers than I could ever be.  My only benefit is that I have knowledge of traps that haven’t been invented yet, but that doesn’t mean I’d be able to MAKE them!  Yeah, hard pass.


    Diplomacy means I will have an easier time schmoozing my way through life as a prince.  But I can only put ONE point in it right now, and these negotiations were my first chance to even USE it!  It isn’t like I’m in a major civilization that spans hundreds of miles…my “kingdom” is a single village!  I think I need to pass on this one.


    Heal can go up to 3 points now, probably because of all the “physician heal thyself” I had to do after the wolf fight.  And since I can pick up ANOTHER Chosen by Fate spell once I level up, I can grab cure minor wounds and start spamming it out, because I’ll have unlimited spells after learning the 1st-level “Trickery” domain spell…hmmmm…  I think it is worth it.


    Knowledge (geography) can get a point in it, which means I can break the “DC 15” cap limit on Knowledge skills, but I doubt that we are going to go marching across the CONTINENT any time soon.  And, once again, the local hunters have already been doing this for their entire LIVES.  So yeah, passing on this one as well.


    Knowledge (nature) can go up to 4 ranks, from the current 3, which means I MIGHT unlock a synergy bonus somewhere.  Even if I don’t, it WILL help me find crafting materials and stuff like that, as well as getting me closer to the synergies with Survival that I KNOW it has at 5 ranks.  Fuck, just talked myself into putting that point in here.


    Move Silently can go up 2 ranks, to a TOTAL of 2, from what...all the time I spent trying to move around and not wake people up when I use my “character sheet” ability?  Well either way, I am already pretty agile, thanks to this thin-ass body, and I don’t HUNT so sneaking up on game isn’t too useful.  While I would have loved to put points into it as a kid, as an ADULT it is just not useful to me or my future plans.


    Profession (smithy) could be handy for the synergy bonus when making firearms, but at the 2 ranks I can put into it I won’t be seeing THAT soon enough to be useful…if at all.  Plus portable tools just aren’t a THING around here, so I’ll have to pass on this one as well.


    Profession (thievery) is just a FUCK no!  Even if this society didn’t have its “thief-to-slavery pipeline” to deal with, my status as a prince is FAR more valuable compared to any pocket lint I might be able to get in a village with a BARTER economy!


    Survival can go up 2 ranks, all the way to 4, from what…all these long-ass walks through the wilderness and mountains?  Hey, I’ll take it, since it will help with my “Track” feat AND finding useful materials in the wilderness.


    So to summarize I put 1 point into each of Heal (bringing it up to 3 ranks) and Knowledge (nature) (4 ranks), 2 points into Survival (for a total of 4 ranks), leaving only 1 point.  After looking for a USEFUL place I can put it, I find that I can slip 1 point into Craft (handicrafts)…which I remember can be used to make tools.  Eh, at least it MIGHT be useful…  Then, after a synergy bonus to Craft (handicrafts) from Survival, my skill list looks like this.


    SKILLS (–3 to Social skills from Primitive):


    * Charisma-Linked (+3)


    * * (CbF) Bluff +4 (4 ranks) [–3 Social]


    * * Diplomacy +5 (0 ranks) [+2 from Court Raised]


    * * (CbF) Disguise


    * * (P) Use Mystic Device +7 (4 rank)


    * Wisdom-Linked (+1)


    * * Heal +4 (3 ranks)


    * * Sense Motive +3 (0 ranks) [+2 from Court Raised]


    * * Spot +5 (4 rank)


    * * (P) Survival +6 (4 ranks) [+2 from Primitive]


    * Intelligence-Linked (+2)


    * * (P) Alchemy +6 (4 ranks)


    * * (P) Craft (handicrafts) +4 (1 rank) [+1 synergy]


    * * (P) Craft (medicine) +3 (1 rank)


    * * (P) Craft (tailoring) +4 (2 ranks)


    * * (P) Craft (weaponsmith) +6 (4 ranks)


    * * Knowledge (arcana) +6 (4 ranks)


    * * Knowledge (nature) +6 (4 ranks)


    * * Knowledge (nobility & royalty) +4 (0 ranks) [+2 from Court Raised]


    * * Spellcraft +6 (4 ranks)


    * Dexterity-Linked (+1)


    * * (CbF) Hide +3 (2 ranks)


    * Constitution-Linked (+0) [–2 from Court Raised]


    * * Concentration +4 (4 ranks)


    * * (P) Control Shape


    * * Strong Heart +4 (4 ranks)


    * Strength-Linked (–1) [–2 from Court Raised]


    * * (P) Climb


    * Linguistics +2 (2 ranks)


    * Tales & Legends +3 (1 trait)


    Welp, time to wake up Torden and pass out myself.  I won’t be able to look at my character sheet in this kind of privacy until I get back home, but I look forward to finding out what I can snag for Hit Die 2 traits!


    ***


    Thankfully the walk back down was without any of the excitement we had on the way UP.  Not because we didn’t see anything, more than once we noticed shadows retreating on the cliffs above us, or animals scrabbling up the steep sides to get away from us.  Yep, more wolves moved in.


    In hindsight, it was probably because of the dozens of warriors following on our heels, scaring away the local wildlife.


    Not that I minded.  Even unable to secretly open my character sheet and poke around, I can still cast summon weapon, and I figure out that I picked up the 1st-level Trickery spell because I don’t get the “draining” feeling I once had from using it.  By just dicking around I get up past a dozen different weapons in a day, having lost count, before I drop the activity having grown bored of it.


    Evidently, Borden re-tasked one of the rear-most Skr?pn towers after we left, since I hear a smacking log-drum resounding from them shortly after they come into sight.  Guess he wanted to know the instant we came back.


    Then I notice, at the base of the trail going into the farms long after it split from the creek, a pair of oversized figures hanging from logs driven into the ground.  I lose sight of them as the trail dips down below the top of a hill, before it lazily curves around to pass between the…crucifixions?  What the hell is going on?


    I try to ask Torden about it before they came back in sight, but he just looks at me confused, “I wasn’t looking that way brother, so I did not see what you did.”  Well an hour later as our trail crests over the low saddle and turns to become the same trail, I see it again, up close and personal as we pass by them.


    On either side of the trail are two logs imbedded in the ground, having been dragged here from across the denuded ground, since they look pretty fresh.  Pity the 9 foot tall corpses hanging between each by the wrists, lashed to the tops of the logs, can’t have the same said about them.  They look half torn apart, most of their flesh and bowels laying splayed open and obviously missing, as their heads hunch over towards their chests.  It takes me a bit to realize WHAT I am looking at, and passing by way to close for my gorge’s comfort.  These are OGRE corpses, like that thing that nearly killed Torden when we escaped the stone giants!


    I am about to ask Torden if he recognizes them, but when I see him white-knuckling the handle of Mister Slammy with a feral grimace, I realize that he does.  And that it is best NOT to re-open old wounds.  Then the cheers start, shocking Torden out of his rage and myself out of my own funk.


    Looking in the direction of the din as it wells up from further down the trail, I see much of the village has turned out to cheer us on, probably drawn by the thumping of the watch-tower drum.  I can already pick out Borden and Freygi waving at us from the trail’s end, with Badrik off to the side arms crossed and sulking like the angsty teenager he is.  Then I see Venradik and Aedirboa, as I catch a bit of her voice calling to me with her hands around her mouth, trying to amplify her shout.  Poking Torden in the side with my elbow to get him moving again, I look up to him as he looks down to me, a joyous smile on BOTH our faces.  We did it, we are HOME.


    ***


    Sitting down with the entire extended family at the Jarl’s table that night, with my hips pleasantly aching from my PRIVATE homecoming earlier, I see that Torden is already there with a young woman beside him.  Isn’t that the girl that rejected him all those years ago?  WHAT was her name again?  All I remember is Borden’s nickname, “little status-hunting bitch”.  Back on Earth we would call her a “gold-digging THOT” <heh>.


    Raising an expensive horn-handled wooden mug from where he is sitting on his throne, Borden shouts out to us in joyful welcome, “Aaaahhh Laughash my son, and his WONDERFUL wife Aedirboa, come sit down!  Freygi has had her apprentice-wives frying sliced boar back, and baking honeyed apple stew, ever since the tower watch sighted your arrival.  Best not let her efforts be wasted, or I won’t hear the end of it! <oof>”  Freygi, sitting beside him and smiling innocently, pulls herself up in her chair from having just OBVIOUSLY kicked him under the table.  Since he’s grinning at her, he’s obviously not UPSET about it, though.


    On the other side of Borden sits Badrik then Venradik, with two empty seats towards the other end of the table, which the two of us take.  The far side of the table is taken up by Freygi, Torden, and…ummm….his female companion.  WHAT was her NAME, again?  Oh well, at least Venradik is here to keep Badrik from messing with me, since she’s taking HIS usual place at the table.


    Now that I have a chance to think about it, writing this in bed as my wonderful wife listens to me dictate it, this means that usually it is ME at Borden’s left-hand in the seating order.  Then Torden and Badrik, after Freygi, on his right-hand side.  I always thought sitting on that side of the table without any of his other family was just a sign of my place as the ADOPTED son, but from what my wife has said to me it is actually a sign of how much he relies on me, sitting on the same side as her OTHER advisor.  Hey, does this mean that Badrik is being relegated to the role of a mere advisor, or just that the table wasn’t that long?


    “So my son, Torden has told me what HE wants as a reward for bringing this alliance to bear fruit, and with GIANTS coming to our aid no less!  But I have not had a chance to ask you what it is that YOU wish to have?  Hopefully your desires are more reasonable <ha ha ha>.”  I see Torden give his father a brief frustrated side-eye, before going back to pay attention to…“her”.  Aaahhhh…it IS the same girl, and Borden STILL doesn’t like her, but Torden carries a torch for the “forbidden fruit” and has decided to take this chance to pluck it!


    Thinking quickly, using taking a bite of the crispy butter-fried bacon as a way to buy time, I try to come up with something.  Hmmmmm…baaaaaconnnn…  I KNEW that taming those boars was a good idea!  Hey, now THERE’S an idea.


    With a swallow followed by a swig of apple-juice-flavored small water, “Like Torden mentioned, these giants want bronze in exchange for their help, but we have SO MUCH of it.  And while I can’t seem to get another thunder-rod to work, that doesn’t mean it is useless, not given how much THEY want it!  So I would just ask for one cartload of the several that we have collected, for my own tinkering with, and that my home is expanded to place it within.  Otherwise it will be hard to work with it when it snows!”


    Borden laughs his relief at my simple request, “DONE!  I will task the carpenters to start work on your home tomorrow, and you can choose any of the leather-covered wagons that you wish to fill it with.  At least you didn’t ask for my permission to do something STUPID!”  Yep, there’s Torden’s glare again.  Borden, if you are trying to talk him OUT of this, you are NOT going about it the right way.


    I feel Aedirboa’s breath lightly against my ear as I am taking another drink, “The stupid idea’s name is Segg.”  Then I cough up and nearly spray drink from my nose, from the humor of that, before looking back into the cup with a sudden pang of heartache.  Pia used to do that kind of thing at the monthly Sunday dinner with the game gang.  Not ALL the time…she would make sure to surprise me with it.


    Then I feel Aedirboa squeeze my arm to pull me out of my thoughts, and back to the present.  Looking at her with a smile, I can only think, Most guys don’t get this lucky ONCE, let alone TWICE!  I’ll give Segg this though; at least all those braids match my brother’s dreadlocks <heh>.


    Trying to stay out of the family drama, I decide to ask Borden about something that has been bugging me, “So father, I saw some INTERESTING scenery on our way back into the village.  Where did they come from?”


    “Ah, you must mean the ogres!  No need to dance around the bonfire son, I doubt our woman’s stomachs are so weak to be upset over a little man’s-talk,” He cuts out with a deep belly laugh before continuing, as young brides-to-be bring out fruit-baked bread for the next course, the prior batch taking the remaining meats home for their own families.  Yep, that’s right, evidently Vikings recycle.


    Tearing a hunk of bread in half, he takes a bite from its steaming innards before continuing, “I thought that we would have more people coming in than we could put under a roof, and it takes too long to build a longhouse.  So we could use some TEMPORARY housing, capable of keeping our visitors safe through the winter.  I remember the mahgahto you made when we fought the troll, and so I sent out the warriors from that time with a carpenter to look it over, and figure out how you did it.  It wasn’t the most COMFORTABLE place, but it kept us all safe and warm for much of the winter, so if we could build them in the hills behind town…why not?  The worst that could happen is that they run into a few wolf-men in the place, and have to clean it out.  Or at least that is what I THOUGHT was the worst! <ha ha ha>”


    Borden takes another bite of his bread, while I swallow the bite I had been chewing and then comment, “I take it from the way the story is going, that you are admitting to being WRONG father? <heh>”


    He washes his mouthful down, then grins as he replies, “We are not MARRIED Laughash, I have NO need to make any such false admission to keep the peace.  <oof> Anyway, what happened was, (damn woman that one HURT) that it HAD been filled with wolf-men…until the OGRES came and ate them!  I found out about this AFTERWARDS, sadly, being out of town cutting the woods further back.  Thankfully they had enough wisdom to send somebody back to town after the fight was over, so that Venradik and Sikan could stitch together the worst of the wounded, so nobody died.  A couple of them won’t be walking again until closer to winter, but they didn’t DIE.


    “So I took a few of the fresher-cut logs, and we dragged them to the trailhead east of town, while I sent a crew to follow after the two of them and retrieve the bodies.  With so many warriors being welcomed into our home from that old bastard Vorn, I have NO ideas what his worm-nest of a mind might have planned, so it would be best if they didn’t think we would just roll over and present our bellies to their teeth!  Yes, I see the look, I know that NOW we are allies…but I am not going to put my people’s lives at stake on a bet against HIS good will,” with that he savagely bites down on the remainder of his loaf, taking his frustrations out on helpless bread.


    The rest of the dinner passes without such heavy conversation, but at least Torden wasn’t the brunt of Borden’s rough teasing for most of it.  Freygi made sure to needle ME over not giving her grandchildren yet, much to Aedirboa’s red-faced embarrassment and Torden’s amusement.  Although Badrik spent the rest of the meal looking like he just ate a turd after she brought the subject up.  We split up late into the night, promising to meet up the next evening for a council of war, and I walk home with Aedirboa on my arm.


    “Husband, I’m sorry that we are just the two of us, I know that you miss having a child to raise,” Aiderboa says once we are inside, having walked back quietly the whole way.  Uh oh, mother-in-law guilt trip alert.


    After putting our jackets on the pegs beside the door, I pull her into my arms, “No apology is needed love, it will happen when it happens.  And at least we won’t have to worry about a newborn while ALSO fighting a war, and in WINTER!”  Pulling her back until I can see her face, I tilt up her gently crying face and say with a smile, “Besides, I do NOT think of you as a replacement, and when we DO have children neither will they be.  I love you for YOU, Boa.  Not for what you can give me…OR Freygi,” the last bit I said with a wink.


    ***


    The next morning I get up and quietly use prestidigitation to warm up some water for a whore’s bath, before going to sit at the front room table and call up my character sheet.  Time to see what I can do after leveling up.


    By the time Aedirboa wakes up to see the now-familiar sight of me poking at mid-air, I’ve only selected Eldritch Soul again for one of my two Hit Die 2 traits.  Even if I have to wait thousands of years before Pia is even BORN, I still need the magic to survive this upcoming winter…AND to protect Aedirboa!


    She sets a bowl of overnight stew and a mug of small bear on the table for me, before joining me with her own, “So what secrets of the world attracted my husband’s attention this morning?”


    “I ‘leveled up’, gaining the opportunity for even MORE abilities, on the trip back.  I am looking at what I can currently access for doing so, and trying to remember what I can of the options from The Harrowed Earth.”  I admit it; I was kind of lost in experimentation, and replying on autopilot.


    Aedirboa must have noticed, since she waves a hand in front of my face to distract me, “EAT husband, then you can explain to me what you have found, once you are not doing it hungry and distracted!”  I laugh, thinking “Just like Pia used to do whenever I would get caught up in the bookkeeping for the ranch.”  Yeah, lucky as the devil TWICE in one lifetime!  Or is it two, since I died and was isekai’d?


    After eating my late-morning breakfast, I snuggle up to Aedirboa’s side, and try to explain what I’ve discovered, “I get two traits for going up a Hit Die, which I already described to you, as well as a saving throw point to put wherever I want.  However, much like skill points, I can only select ranks that I can JUSTIFY taking, with my actions since the time I gained my prior Hit Die.  Only I cannot spend time ‘training’ to gain new traits to access, unlike with skill points, what options I have now are ALL I will get for this Hit Die!  So far I have taken another ‘Eldritch Soul,’ since more magic means more options for this winter’s war, but I still need to select my OTHER trait as well as the bonuses these traits give me, like spells.  Unfortunately, I am at a loss as to which to take, love.”  She seems to have adapted well to the untranslatable English terms.


    Looking curious, Aedirboa gets up to get us another couple drinks, saying as she does, “So what ‘TRAY-tee’ options DO you have?  Maybe I can give some insight, as the town’s healer.”


    “Well darling, I’m afraid it isn’t much, but at least the selection is VARIED!,” I reply with admittedly child-like enthusiasm.


    “I’ve got Combat Bonuses, probably from all the fighting against wolves and bears, which would make me harder to hurt and my own attacks a little more reliable, but NOTHING else.


    “Then there is Enduring, which will make it harder for me to get sick AND give me a touch more skill points.


    “Unexpectedly, but probably not in hindsight, I can pick up Era Adaptation.  In addition to a single additional skill point, this trait just lets me utilize ‘Craft’ skills for more advanced technology…but all it would do at the moment is just remove SOME of the penalties that I have.


    “Loremaster is an interesting one, letting me increase my strength of will, but ALSO giving me a nice block of skill points…sadly, for skills that I don’t really need to invest in at the moment, nor have the option to train up.


    “Speaking of skill points my BEST option would be Wildman, again, but other than the large lump of skill points I don’t get access to much in the way of useful skill selections unless I’m hunting.


    “I had THOUGHT I would unlock some other options too, but I guess I didn’t do enough these past couple months to access them.  Which is a pity, another Skillful, or a Mystic Studies, and I could have gained some magical bonuses,” so with a sigh I look down from the roof I had been staring at, only to see my wife looking at me like I am an idiot.


    “Laughash, I know that in comparison to the world of your memories we must seem like the basest of savages, but ANYTHING you can show us how to do such things as you remember would be nearly-divine revelation to US!  So what if this ‘Era’ thingie just makes it easier for you to make what YOU would consider toys, it was those toys of yours on the towers that kept us all from being dog food LAST winter!,” she puts the back of a hand to her forehead, teasingly.  “Oh woe, for such TOYS to save us this winter…how EVER would we survive the embarrassment!”


    With a chagrined chuckle I reach out to make the selection, “Alright woman, you can stop poking at my manhood, I get that I was being a jerk.  You’ve made your point, I’m taking it already!”


    “Good!  Now, I have to go tend to the injured from the ogres a few days ago, and then I have a couple mothers-to-be to check up on.  I’ll leave you to playing with your TOYS, and don’t wake me when you get back in late tonight from the Jarl’s...I have to be up early tomorrow to go mushroom picking,” with that she finishes getting dressed, grabs her medical bag, and leaves after a quick kiss.


    Later that night I head to the Jarl’s fortress for the war council, having advanced my character sheet as much as I could, to provide what assistance I can for the winter.  I made MOST of my decisions with this winter’s war in mind, but a couple for more…personal reasons.  I am NOT going to risk my new family this winter!  I can use endure elements to keep us all safe from the WORST of the winter cold, and cure minor wounds is just obviously a good idea.  Unfortunately I don’t think my “Trickery” domain spell disguise self is going to be too terribly useful <heh>.  I will see what I can do for skill points over the summer, just in case something comes up.  Oh, and I put that base saving throw point into Fortitude again…I noticed certain “benefits” from last time, and want to see if it helps me out in bed even MORE.  Don’t judge me, you’d do it too.


    So with a thought to my new abilities, and how to utilize them to prepare for winter, I enter the Jarl’s longhouse.  Time to make the donuts!


    NAME: Laughash


    RACE: Human


    SUBRACE: Primitive


    AGE: 16.3 years


    HIT DIE: 2


    ECL: 2


    XP TO NEXT LEVEL: 1,337/3,000 [cannot level up until skill points are spent]


    SAVING THROWS: Fort +1 (2), Ref +3 (0), Will +5 (2).  +3 vs. Fear.


    SPECIAL ABILITIES


    * Trickery Domain spells (0th-level are free if any uses remain): 2 per day.


    TRAITS (Mystical Hero):


    * Favored: Skillful ×1


    * HD 1: Eldritch Soul ×1


    * HD 1: Wildman ×1


    * HD 1: Loremaster ×1


    * HD 2: Eldritch Soul ×2


    * HD 2: Era Adaptation ×1


    SPELLCASTING: +1 save DCs for Illusion except “phantasms”.


    * Chosen by Fate CL 2 (+3), Max SL 1st.


    * * 0th: cure minor wounds, summon weapon; 1st: disguise self


    Cure Minor Wounds (Conj): Heal check to cure 1 Str or Con damage. [Healing]


    Disguise Self (Ill): Disguise your appearance.


    Summon Weapon (Conj): Creates a non-magical mundane weapon you are familiar with. [Summon]


    * Eldritch Soul CL 2 (+2), Max SL 1st.  Spell Level Pool Points: 18 (0th-Level are free)


    * * 0th: acid splash, detect magic, flare, prestidigitation; 1st: color spray, endure elements, mage armor


    Acid Splash (Evoc): Orb deals 1d3 (+7 Breaking the Limits) damage [to Con]. [Acid]


    Color Spray (Ill): Knocks unconscious, blinds, and/or stuns 1d6 (+6 Breaking the Limits) weak creatures [Material Consumed (colored red, yellow, and blue sand or powder)]. [Mind-Affecting; DC 14 Will save]


    Detect Magic (Div): Detects spells and magic items within 60 ft. (+7 Knowledge:arcana and Spellcraft checks Breaking the Limits)


    Endure Elements (Abj): Ignores 5 (+6 Breaking the Limits) damage each round from one energy type, and a secondary effect. [see text]


    Flare: Creature is blinded or dazzled. [DC 13 Fortitude] [Fire, Light]


    Mage Armor (Conj): Gives subject +4 (+6 Breaking the Limits) armor bonus [Focus Needed (piece of cured leather)]. [Force]


    Prestidigitation (Universal): Performs minor tricks.  (+7 to relevant skill checks Breaking the Limits).


    ***


    Turns out I am not the last to arrive, THAT honor goes to Torden…surprising since he LIVES in the longhouse.  I hope THAT doesn’t indicate something rotten in the state of Denmark.  Oh who am I kidding…of COURSE it means trouble behind the scenes!


    While waiting for my older brother to arrive, I’m entertaining Borden by holding hot coals from the fireplace in the room, while Venradik looks like he’s fed up babysitting idiots.  After I shove a lit torch down the front of my britches and start doing a belly-dance, just because Borden said I wouldn’t, I have to acknowledge that Venradik MAY have a point.  Thankfully shortly after that Torden arrives, and after a puzzled look tries DESPERATELY not to notice me shamefully pulling it out and putting it back in the sconce.


    “Now that all my advisors are here, everybody make room on the table for the maps,” Borden calls over his shoulder as he moves into the back to grab the rolled-up goat skins on which we made maps last year.  After he quickly returns, the rest of us are standing around the table.  The chairs having been moved to the sides of the room, to more easily walk around as he lays the map skins on the table.


    Then, pulling a box out from under his arm, he starts putting down…war game figures?  Carved mock-ups of the Sk?rpn towers, men with bows, men with swords across their shields, and even a few sticks carved into wall segments that he arranges over the walls drawn on the map.  “Do you like them?  I had one of the carpenters make them as a winter project, after we spent so much time marking up the skin.  Laughash can’t be here to remove the marks ALL the time, after all,” Borden says with the light and joy of a child having discovered a new toy.  God no…I’ve turned the local king into a wargaming nerd!


    From a quick glance at Torden and Venradik, I’m the only one embarrassed at Borden’s “discovery”.  They seem EXCITED, particularly Torden.  Like father and all that, I guess.


    While I’m trying to hold in my atomic levels of cringe, we start discussing the preparations for this winter’s war.  The star of the show is Venradik, who announces that he has figured out a way to process “the yellow dust” from stones in QUANTITY, using the smithy.  So our bottleneck on making black powder becomes “head salt” from the fermenting brains of the gnolls, which should accelerate now that the ground is warming up.  Unfortunately, this means that I won’t be able to experiment around to try and make more firearms or cannons, now that I have my era increased to reduce the penalties for doing so, since my little free time will be taken up with black powder production.  But Torden has the bright idea of hollowing out the tree stumps in the cleared land, and turning them into gigantic grenades, that can be set off with flaming arrows.  He would make a good demolitions man, back on Earth <chuckle>.


    Borden likes that idea, but is concerned about the strength of our walls, and what to do with the prior-year’s killing ground now that the enemy knows of the pungi-pits, “The big problem we had in the LAST war was not being able to get all the warriors involved, because the wall funneled the enemy into a smaller area…and this year we have even MORE warriors!  They have axes, what if they just make their OWN hole in the wall now that they know not to take the bait?”


    “Fear not Borden, the giants that are coming will build our new walls from STONE, and twice as high as those we have now.  I even have an idea on how to block their access to the village through the creek-side.  I suggest that we focus on finding new uses for all the logs that make up our CURRENT wall, you mentioned needing shelter for the warriors from Járn?  What if we set them to making shelters out of the wall’s logs similar to the mahgahto?,” but despite my attempts to reassure him, Borden looks uneasy.


    “I am overjoyed that you two managed to find allies to help us prepare for winter Laughash, but I do not think it wise to put all our lives on the quality of their work, and the promises of its usefulness,” he says with furrowed brows.


    “Father, you know me, and when I say that this WILL work, please trust me on this.”  C’mon old man, trust my “other future memories”…


    He looks in my eyes inscrutably for a solid minute, the room silent, “Very well son, you haven’t been wrong on this kind of thing before.  Tomorrow I will have you start directing our allies on building their shelters, with Torden observing.”  He then turns to look at my brother, “Torden you need to learn how to make mahgahtos, so that when these giants arrive Laughash and myself can direct their efforts.  We have people trickling in for the next tenday, if not longer, and will NEED the room for them!”


    Not much of note gets done beyond that, and the conference ends early, with Torden asking to talk with me as we walk outside of the Jarl’s fortress, “Laughash, I am marrying Segg, but father STILL doesn’t approve of it, even after our successes in Járn.  He trusts your advice; do you have any that you could give me?”


    After thinking about it for a minute, “Yes Torden, I do.  Marry somebody ELSE.  Father has no problem with you getting married, just your choice in BRIDE.”


    After a minute of thought of his own he replies, with a pained <humph> of his own, “I cannot do that, I LOVE her.  I have been with several women, but SHE is the only one that puts a flame in my chest, instead of just my manhood.  I honestly cannot imagine having children with any other.  Can you talk to father on my behalf, in this?”


    “Well then brother, you are fucked.  Borden trusts my advice because I never purposefully mislead him, and if I were to tell him to accept Segg as his oldest son’s bride I would be doing exactly that!  I know that you care for her Torden, but she is NOT a good bride.  She cares nothing for YOU, only for your position as the prince, or have you forgotten WHY we went into the mountains and were made slaves?,” yeah, I know it is a low blow, but I’d rather not see Torden heartbroken WORSE later.


    “I know what she is Laughash, I know.  I remember that night, and I remember the mines.  Honestly I think some of the girls who treated to me there would make BETTER wives, but I never…felt…ANYTHING for them.  Despite their best efforts to inflame my passions.  Even if she only cares about the prince, and not the man, *I* care for HER.  Which is more than I can say for any other woman, I can see SEGG alone bearing my children,” Torden says, with an anguished sigh.


    So I stop him with a hand on his arm, turning him so he can see my face in the moonlight as we talk, “I know what you are saying, and I understand.  But I am TELLING you that this path will NOT lead to a happy married life like your parents have, but to misery.  Even if I am not the most versed in the mind of females, I am NOT stupid enough to advise marrying a woman who doesn’t even care about me!”


    Torden shakes his arm from my grip, anger on his face, before hissing out, “I WILL marry Segg even if father doesn’t approve, even if YOU don’t!  She WILL be my wife!”  Great, he’s whipped <groan>.


    As Torden storms off in anger I hustle to catch up to him, “Do not misunderstand me Torden, I don’t think this is a GOOD idea, and WILL warn against it.  But if you are determined to marry her I will NOT make you miserable over it!  You are my brother, Borden’s son, and we BOTH just want you to be happy…even if we think you are being a fool.”


    Torden stops in the village path and hangs his head in resignation, “Thank you brother, I get it, even if my short temper doesn’t.  And if this DOES look to be becoming a disaster, please help me try and prevent it, agreed?”


    I just pat him on the back and smile; walking him to the small area where he is building his own marriage home, to the leather tent set up in the frame of the house.  Saying goodbye to each other, I head home myself.  DAMN glad that Aedirboa isn’t like Segg.


    ***


    Over the next few days Torden and I are making giant log-based lean-tos, but with the logs being shorter than I originally used they wind up more like half-sided teepees.  The new warriors pick up the trick of using a rope to climb the central timber and cut grooves easy enough, but it is a LOT of sweat-equity to lift the logs to fit into them!  Thankfully Torden is as strong as any two of them, and more than happy to push upwards on a log once it is hoisted high enough for him to get under it.  After some thought, we put the “open” side of the teepees facing outside of the village, in a line where they will be facing the new wall.  That way fires lit between them in the winter will warm the stone, letting it radiate heat back INTO the teepee, to keep them warmer.  The bases of the logs, long since denuded of branches, are filled by another crew with gravel-filled clay, letting it dry out into a pseudo-brick, for the next layer(s) to be added until the gaps are filled.


    We have the process running smoothly, each work crew following the others as we make them, like an assembly-line, instead of the usual custom of doing something in a whole piece then starting the next.  Torden laughed at my foolishness not completing one before starting the next, but by the time the third one was fully-finished on the third day his laughter had stopped.  Hah, welcome to the industrial revolution, you primitive screw-heads!


    Then the giants arrived, walking in from the mountains to the east.  The Sk?rpn tower converted to a watchtower doesn’t stop thumping its drum, the watcher likely panicking when the MOUNTAINSIDE started walking towards him!  Sighing over it, I tell Torden that it looks like I’m off the teepee project, but he reassures me that he can keep it going.  I’m still surprised that such a mountain of a man likes to do woodworking…and is GOOD at it!


    By the time I make it to the other end of the village, Borden is atop the other Sk?rpn tower, talking with the Ferkad.  He looks down and spots me, before bellowing out a happy laugh, “So this IS the correct village!  My apologies, we got lost, and thought that the abandoned village on that lake south of here was Askfj?r, and had to go back to Járn for directions!”  I guess their home isn’t north of Járn then, otherwise they would have run into the line of warriors trickling in…good to know.


    “Welcome Ferkad!  Best late than never making it, am I right?,” I shout at him, as I start to climb up the tower to meet him eye-to-eye.


    “Yes, I guess it is, little prince.  As promised I have brought a few craftsmen to make the wall, and a shaman to tend to their needs, as well as sheep enough to kept us fed for a few tendays.  Some of our fellows will be bringing more later, and be taking back the first half of the payment for our services,” he says with a reassuring tone, waving his hand behind him to the other giants.  “So only the work to be done, and the price for it, needs to be discussed.  Where would you like us to quarry the stone from, to build the wall?”


    And so we walk Ferkad to where the wall is being converted, and use a branch in the dirt to finalize the design.  The edge of the mountain to the north-west of town, and the one which the creek passes by, is to be shaved down for the quarried stone.  A long flat tube is to built over the creek, to prevent swimmers making it through without drowning, with a flat top that can be accessed at several points by trap doors to clean out anything stuck on the pylons beneath.  The top of the wall is to be crenelated, with extra-wide platforms where the stairs up meet the wall, so we can emplace more siege engines.


    Borden is impressed with the description of the wall to be made, and after the giants start sheering off chunks of Cliffside he is confident the description isn’t a false promise.  Frankly, I am impressed with his negotiating skills, convincing them to take one wagon load of bronze weapons up front, and two more when finished, leaving two for us.  One of which is MINE!


    Despite my misconceptions, once the deal is made it is the shaman that directs the work, while Ferkad plays shepherd for the herds of sheep, sitting down and using a staff made from an entire tree to keep them from running off into the forest.  Normally we don’t let the village goats graze on that land, even before we removed the trees, out of fear of wolves and other predators.  But after Ferkad sends an overly-confident ogre flying with a swat of his staff, to turn into a windshield bug against the mountainside, it becomes obvious that HE doesn’t need to worry about that sort of thing.


    As the village’s representative, and one of the few that can speak Giant, I spend my days for much of the spring hanging out with the giant’s shaman, whose name is Sekim.  He is an older-looking “frost” giant larger than any of the others, even though he moves with the careful slow pace of an elderly man close to the end of his life.  It takes me a bit to break his disinterested shell, but once I introduce him to chess he opens up.  Sheesh, this guy is just…jaded and BORED?  How old IS he?


    But not all is good with our over-sized guests.  After the pit before the old wall, that is to serve as a foundation, is expanded and the first of the wall stones emplaced; the workers bring out bags made from sheep leather filled with human skeletons, and ANIMATE them to then carry smaller stones to fill the gaps!  Yeah, no wonder people freaked the fuck out…I was!


    Sekim and Ferkad are obviously confused when the villagers of Askf?r start nearly rioting over the sudden appearance of the undead…as they begin building a wall.  Seems to THEM that there is little difference between the living and the “sleeping dead.”  Since the giants keep their own in great galleries, so that their descendants can come to them for advice.  And they offer a similar service to those from Járn, who do not want to leave their families without aid in the winter; they offer their bones for small work like this in exchange for being allowed to guard the borders of their old home in the depths of winter.


    It takes some effort to negotiate a compromise.  The giants will have the undead work at night, since evidently their animation is a temporary effect, keeping them away from the Askfj?r villagers, even though the Járn villagers don’t seem to mind.  Well it IS their ancestors, after all.


    It is after this unpleasant revelation that I am standing on the giant-sized chess board, using quickly-carved logs made by Torden as playing piees with Sekim, when Aedirboa brings me lunch, showing off her newly-developed telekinetic abilities to carry them floating beside her.  With a curious tone he says, “I did not know that your village had access to mind-magic.  Tell me little human, what can YOU do, how did you discover these gifts?”


    As I am eating some meat-filled bread, and pluck the drink mug from the air, she pecks me on the cheek before answering with her loudest voice, “Actually I am half elf, my father, and seem to take after him.  He also had powers like this but not much of them.  It was after I met Laughash here that I was able to figure out how to do more than make snow-lights!  He knows a LOT about ALL kinds of magic, and is always interested in learning more.”  Sheesh, good thing she doesn’t have pom-poms!


    “Huh, curious, and your father passed these gifts to you?  Laughash and I will have to talk about this later, it will be a pleasant topic to cover in the days ahead, but YOU I only have at the moment to annoy with my questions <CHUCKLE>,” he said with jovial curiosity.


    As she opens her mouth to reply, I touch her arm to stop her, before casting prestidigitation, to magnify her voice and give her a nodding wave to keep talking.  “Well I can only do minor things compared to my husband.  I can do snow-lights and small rays of sunlight, enough to light a cook fire but that is about it.  Recently, with his assistance, I managed to make hands in my mind that I can use to move things, so long as they are small and I don’t need them to move terribly fast.  But for NOW, I must get back to the village, there is a woman going through a rough labor that I need to check up on,” then bowing her head in a courteous nod to him, she leaves me alone with Sekim.


    Speaking in Giant to my somewhat acquaintance, my voice long since magnified by magic, “I am the luckiest man in this or any other world.”  I said absent-mindedly with a dreamy longing look at my wife as she walks away, knowing that she heard every word.  And so did all the people in the area, thanks to the volume.


    Sekim roars with laughter before replying, “Yes my small friend that you CERTAINLY are!  So I take it she is a healer here in your village?”


    “Yeah, we were both raised to be healers, but my life took another path whereas her interest in patching people together never waned.  It is funny though, MY magic permits me to fix up scrapes and small things like that, yet HER’S is focused on destruction.  I know she has the physical capacity to share her health with others, but still can’t quite ‘get’ how to make it work.”


    Moving around the field with our chess statues set up, Sekim grunts as he sits his old stone bones down, “Fate is a fickle thing.  I myself have very little in the way of healing magic, largely because it takes SO MUCH to put us back together when we are broken that it just….doesn’t seem worth it.  Better that I use my magic to make stone easier to quarry, and give blessings, so that such injuries occur less frequently to start with!”


    I glance up at him out of the side of my eye, grinning, “A pebble of prevention is worth a boulder of healing, is it?”  He gives out a pained chuckle at my wise-crack, adapted from an Earth saying.


    “Yes little sage, I must say that for somebody so young you have impressive insights into the nature of the world.  Which brings up something that she said, which has stuck in my mind…,” Sekim trails off with a leading tone in his voice, and a smirking side-eye down at me.


    Sighing I give in to the inevitable.  No point trying to distract him anymore, he’s like a dog with a fresh bone, “Yes Sekim, I have put together a LOT of lore on the nature of magic, its sources, and uses.  Some from personal experience, some from legends heard around the campfire, and some from seeing its use by others.  However I am NOT some all-knowing oracle, just a clever guy who can see that water flows downhill, no matter where the river runs from.”


    “Hmmm…an apt comparison, now that I think of it.  But what of the similarities in divine and natural magic, and how so often one can access similar powers with mind-magic?,” he asks, starting our impromptu think-tank.


    Ever collaborate on making a magical lexicon of spells with a giant?  I recommend it, actually.  We spent days with goat-skins and charcoal sticks, making a master list of spells and how hard they are to achieve in different ways.  I contribute what I can remember from my fading memories of The Harrowed Earth rule book, and he contributes his decades of experience with their psychic necromancy and his own divine magic.  Not comprehensive, by a LONG shot, but far more than I had from looking at potential spells with my Eldritch Soul selections…and doubtlessly helpful in my future.


    We also cut a deal.  I’ll make a copy of it on their sheepskins, in exchange for a map of the area as they know it, including the settlements of both humans AND non-humans.  He will have it delivered before winter starts, giving me time to tan his sheepskins and copy the text over to them, since he has to use the records they have back at their village to copy the map from anyway.  The one they have is giant-sized, after all, and it will take animated skeletons a WHILE to copy it all over onto one skin accurately!


    Then, when the wall is close to completion, tragedy happens.


    ***


    I am with the tanner delivering the latest batch of sheep skins from the giants’ lunch.  They eat surprisingly little for beings so big, maybe their biology is augmented by magic?  When EVERYBODY in the village hears the deep resounding <ARRGGGHHH!> of soul-wracking pain echo around the place, bouncing from mountain to mountain, and slowly dying down to an unholy wail.


    Running outside of the awning where the tanned skins are curing, I look backwards towards the forest and the wall, a sick suspicion in my gut.  I can see giants’ heads running towards the back near the cliff-side, where something has crushed the top-layer of the first section of the wall.  I also see birds flying up from the forest in the distance; at least I am guessing they are birds because at THIS distance it is more like a haze of smoke rising into the air over the whole place.


    Then I begin running, hell-for-leather, to the collapsed section of the wall!  I get there just after Torden and Borden, and we watch as Ferkad is sitting there on the ground crying, holding Sekim’s head in his hands and trying to reassure him.  The two of them surrounded by the handful of giants in the work crew standing there in a circle, with depressed looks on their faces, “whispering” to each other in Giant.  It wouldn’t matter if they were talking at their normal felt-in-the-bones volume, since only Torden and I can speak the language…and Torden is FAR out of practice in comparison to me!


    Sekim is alive, nothing dead could whimper in pain that much, but his leg is SHATTERED.  The bone of his femur poking out through the flesh of his thigh, and the leather of his sheepskin robe, the leather having formed an impromptu bandage…but not COMPLETELY stopping the bleeding from the pressure created by his massive heart.  I pick up the words being spoken by the giants, saying how Sekim is going to die, and arguing if they should make it fast.  Complaints about how if he dies away from home he will be lost, unable to enter the vaults of their ancestors, and his spirit being doomed to an eternity of darkness.  Wonderings about if they can get him back home in time for him to die and his soul saved, but the impression I get is that these are more forlorn hopes than a serious proposition.


    Walking slowly to put a hand each on Ferkad’s thigh and Sekim’s cheek, I solemnly ask, “What happened?”  Then repeat the question in the giant’s language, since the shock of the event has evidently made them forget the human language of the area.


    Crying softly Ferkad answers, “I saw it all while I was pushing the sheep to the wall for the night’s grazing.  Sekim was on the cliff using his magic to soften the stone, as usual, from atop the steps of the prior times, when the stone beneath him cracked and broke.  He fell twice his height before he hit the wall’s top with is outstretched leg, and it just…crushed.  Then he screamed as he fell the rest of the way, but I think it slowed him down enough that he did not die outright when he hit the ground.  Still though, this kind of wound is…so many of us over the generations have died from similar injuries.  Even with all the shamans of the village healing him, the best they could do is keep him alive but lame, IF he could survive the trip!”


    Then Sekim manages to swallow his pain long enough to grunt out, this time in human language, “Remember we are guests here Ferkad, even if the young prince can speak our language I know I taught you better than this, my prince.  Don’t regret my loss, I lived a long life; and in my last years even found something NEW to add to the village, when I thought all novelty long since lost.  I can die happy.”


    At some time point in all this Aedirboa showed up, butting in to ask, “So it is merely a broken bone?  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve fixed these; I can try to fix yours as well.  But…I will need you to help me do it; he is too big for me to move.  Husband, can you ask the other giants to lend me their hands?”  Hey, I was a bit distracted, with the probably loss of my new friend.  I completely forgot that there was a chance to SAVE him!


    With Borden’s permission, I serving as translator, and Aedirboa uses up nearly her entire supply of pain-numbing drinks before we cut open Sekim’s robe and then YANK his leg back into place with the work-crew’s aid.  Even with the barrels of tea he drank, the pain was intense enough to make him cry out with the same world-spanning pain, before passing out with shock.  “


    Good, this is SO much easier when they aren’t awake!,” my wife says.  Yeeaaahhh…I’m NOT translating that.  She may be a good medic, but she has SHIT for bedside manner!


    Once his leg is straight, she tries to cut his skin to reach the bone, but even her sharpest knife cannot do more than scratch the wound.  On a hunch I cast summon weapon, and call Laevateinn to me to use its sharper Mithril-edge…but still no luck.  However thanks to his own strength, Torden can slowly open the leg up with my sword, while the other giants hold Sekim in place as he writhes from the pain even in his sleep.


    Once the skin around the break is opened, coating her hands and arms in strong mead (I taught her that!), Aedirboa reaches inside to loop mead-soaked ropes around his muscles so that they can be pulled away from the bone by a sweating Borden and Torden, allowing her to finally reach the bone.  Then it is a “simple” matter of moving the larger pieces back into their proper place, before filling in the smaller parts with the shattered stone-like pieces of the other smaller pieces imbedded in the surrounding muscles.


    Once it is all set into place she liberally coats the newly-rebuilt bone in honey, to stick it together, before slowly allowing my brother and Jarl to loosen their ropes and put the torn muscles back against the bone.  Then, she glues the skin back together with an entire cask of the skin-glue that Venradik taught her to make, before wrapping the wound over in the remains of Sekim’s mead-soaked robe.  Wiping the sweat from her face with one blood-smeared hand she says up to Ferkad who has been towering over her this whole time, “There, now he just needs to immobilize the leg for about a handful of tendays.  Well, if he was human it would be that long, but I have no idea about giants.  Normally I would tie a bunch of branches around the leg with wet ropes, so they will squeeze the leg and keep it together as it heals, but I doubt there is ANY amount of sticks and ropes that can hold THIS together!”


    “So why not use the softened stone he was making when he fell?,” I ask.  The words slipping out of my mouth before my brain can engage a filter to stop it.  How the hell did my wife get THIS skilled, without me noticing?!


    I feel a hand fall on my shoulder, as Venradik says behind me, “Because she has been the most diligent student I have EVER taught, in ALL my long long years, Laughash.  Not even *I* could have done this better, and that trick with the mead is something SHE taught ME!  But that doesn’t mean she knows everything.”


    So that is what we do.  We dig a hole underneath his leg in his sleep, to clump the clay below him, in a hands-thick cast around his ENTIRE leg AND foot.  That way he won’t aggravate the broken bone by standing on the foot, since the stone will transfer the pressure directly to his waist.  Recalling John’s own predicament from my time on earth, I direct Ferkad to help me find a tree with a “Y” split high enough up to be converted into a crutch, then tear it out of the ground and bring it back for Torden and I to shape it into a giant-sized crutch.  There goes most of the village’s remaining rope ALONG with our stockpile of mead…better tell Borden to get the old folks to make more.


    When he wakes up the following day around noon, Sekim is as shocked to be alive, as the other giants working to repair the wall are to hear him shout his pained surprise.  By the time I get there from the other side of the wall, where I am marking stumps to be hollowed out for bombs, Aedirboa is already there talking to him, “No you are NOT to move around if possible, not until the pain dies to AT LEAST a dull ache, and if I find you CLIMBING again I will personally kick your giant ass!”


    With a groaning pained chuckle he answers, “Yes ma’am, I will do as you say.  I expected never to see the sun again, I have YOU to thank for every sunrise I get from here on, and I will never disrespect that by thinking your words have less weight than my desires.”


    From my vantage point walking towards them I can see Aedirboa’s back curled up, her fists clenched outwards, in a familiar fury…thankfully not one ever directed at ME.  I can also see Sekim’s face, along with the astonished utter sincerity in it.  Then he reaches across his body to gently place a light hand on her back, before saying in whispered gratitude as he looks me in the eyes, “May all the gods of the north grant you and your progeny even half the gift you have given me…my eternal friends.”


    And that is how my wonderful wife got us allied to a village of frost giants.