A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands - Book 3: Chapter 6: Cultural Exchange

Of the Mer, the children of the salt and sea, not much is known. It is said in a few academic circles that in ages long past, they enjoyed an alliance with the Children when the Tides were a sea-going people. Some even speculate that it was, in fact, the Mer that taught humans how to use the element of water, a claim I find patently fantastical.

At first glance, the Mer bear some resemblance to humans, much as apes might seem kin to us. They possess a head, torso, two arms, and, peculiarly, two feet. However, the similarities abruptly cease there. The Mer are a diverse people, but their features often belong to the realm of nightmares. Some have large bulbous, unblinking eyes, while others have none, relying instead on quivering feelers that sample the air for sensory input. Their extremities are webbed, and some even have sinuous tails. Bony spines erupt along their dorsal ridges, providing an otherworldly contour to their forms. The hue of their blood ranges from emerald green to viscous purples and vivid reds, adding another layer to their arcane mystique. While some are encased in intricate scales, others have skin as sleek as that of eels.

According to seasoned adventurers, on land, the Mer make for fearsome adversaries, which leads me to conjecture that in their aquatic realm, they would be nigh unstoppable. An intriguing yet disquieting footnote: their flesh is considered a prized delicacy in the city-state of Al-Lazar, a detail that reveals as much about the Mer as it does about the peculiar tastes of Al-Lazar’s citizens.

– The Fanciful Travels by Beron de Laney 376 AC.

The pitter-patter of unsoled feet on smooth stone, came up from where the enigmatic dark sprawled before me. Shapes coalesced into vague mimicries of men, hunched, twisted, and albino pale. From the path directly in front of me they came, holding crude, primitive weapons. They waved clubs and simple spears at me in obvious threat. A part of me noticed that, for the better part, they did not look directly at me. They were all shying away, or shielding their eyes, from my golden light. Then suddenly, the leading figure, stooped, but larger than the rest of them, howled at me in primitive warning.

To their credit, these troglodytes, these crude approximations of the men, did not attack me. Perhaps they were not as stupid as I thought them to be, or maybe they just knew on an instinctual level that I was armored death, come from the surface.

Drawing myself to my full height, my head almost brushed the ceiling of the low tunnel, and looked down at them. Seeing them for the pathetic creatures that they were, a flicker of pity stirred within me.

Feeling generous, I decided that I would at least try to communicate with them before I sacrificed them all on the altar for more experience points. I began, as I always did, by casting an Identify on the leader of this ragged assembly. This was soon followed by another cast of Identify on his guttural howls that served as his language.

Glod – Troglodyte Ranger (Human lvl.10) Health: 176/180 Stamina: 41/44

Mana: 7/7

What struck me as most astonishing was the classification of the entity as a human, at least within the confines of this game’s taxonomy. The revelation piqued my curiosity, for at least in my opinion, the game had a rather expansive interpretation of the term “human.” Intriguing, indeed, for with such a loose definition, the term itself could suffer from a wide spectrum of abuse.

The threads of my last Identify spell came back to me, filling my mind with new meaning. With my increased Intelligence, along with the aid of the spell, I would be able to parse most of his words. Vastly improved, I could sense that the spell was doing more than just translating the words and inscribing them upon my memory. To me, it felt that it was searching for the very root, the essence of their communication. Images and sensations of the ancient Troglodytes filled my mind. I saw their brief lives filled with struggle, every day spent hiding from a burning sun.

As the last vestiges of the magic of the spell left me, I noticed that the leader even had the temerity to have a name, Glod. I took a moment to look more closely at this motley group of ‘humans’, noticing the mismatched series of leather strips and rags that served as their clothing, hiding only, for the most part, their genitalia. Of particular note was the curious way that they shaded their eyes with thin cloth. Light, it seemed, was not unknown here in the realm of the dark.

I had been taught in my old world that all cultures were beautiful, all of them equal and special, in their own ways. However, these things in front of me put paid to such fanciful and idealistic notions.

I saw the leader turn towards me after conferring with one of his seconds. Feeling that whatever came next might be of some import, I recast Identify to make sure I would understand their words fully.

“You have come from the place of the Darker Dark, Metal Giant. You do not belong here, for you trespass on the territory of the Stone. All must respect the Stone. I say, go back from where you came!” the leader stated, waving a club studded with teeth and claws. For added effect, he puffed out his chest, attempting vainly to somehow look down at me despite the disparity between our height.

Smiling within my helm, I pointed calmly at him with my sword, the smooth motion a juxtaposition against his erratic movements. Metal Giant, he said. I never considered myself to be exceptionally tall, but here I felt like an adult among infants. He looked at me worriedly, fearing a challenge. I lowered my blade to point at the flask I noticed at his hip. Hopefully, it was full of life-giving water.

Apprehension danced across his face. It was followed by incredulity, before finally changing into curiosity. Slowly, he understood my meaning and reached for the flask with his free hand, his club finally stopping its motion. Likewise, the others of the group, of whom seven I could see, also stopped waving their primitive weapons.

“You want water? Then you will go back?” he asked, placatingly. The last threads of my spell slowly faded, and the rest of his meaning escaped me. I found a small tick of anger begin to take root in me, for I found the sounds that served as his language offensive to my cultured ears.

Instead of responding, I decided that silence would be the more menacing answer. What came next was a series of nonsensical grunts.

No, that was a lie. The grunts were a part of their language. Thinking myself their superior, I had been closing my mind off to actually learning their language. As my mind puzzled over their gestures, their tone of voice, and the lines of their bodies, I was beginning to understand them. Truly understand.

With a new cast of Identify, I regained my boosted state of greater clarity.

Their leader, Glod, took a water skin from one of his group and offered it to me, which I accepted. Noticing that his water skin looked a little fancier than the one I had received, I pointed again to it, gesturing for him to hand it over.

“Give you my Zlesh Viper water skin? But why…? You have the water you want,” he asked, looking flummoxed. I did not appreciate being talked back to or second-guessed.

“No, Glod! Don’t do it. It is just playing with you, grow a backbone,” one of their number commented. For the life of me, I could not tell if the speaker had been male or female.

“Many of us. One of him…” a more belligerent member opined, swinging a crude sling. A ranged attack might be worrying…

“Fool! What if he can…” a more even-headed member chastised.

My precious time was being wasted and my patience was being sorely tested as they refused to give in to my demands. I longed to vent my frustrations on something that was weaker than me.

I was severely outnumbered, but from my magical analysis of their leader, I was far from outclassed. In this narrow tunnel, the advantage that they had in numbers would be difficult to bring to bear.

Annoyed, I decided to change the conditions of our little deal.

“All,” I barked in my deepest voice. With luck, my Charisma would be high enough to intimidate these pathetic creatures.

The leader, Glod, addressed me again, a little patronizingly, “Alright, alright! All of our water skins… but first, we need you to help us. There is a Metal Restless One, wandering close to our homes. Perhaps if you…”

“No,” was my sharp reply. A natural response to this stupid overture.

These pathetic worms were merely wasting my time. Their problems were not mine, and I was under no obligation to help them. Stubbornly, I did however still want all of their water skins. It was the principle of the matter.

I walked up to Glod and loomed over him. I could almost taste his fear.

“All,” I repeated. I definitely did not like repeating myself.

I flipped the weapon in my hand, causing them all to take a step back, and I smashed the hammer’s head against the wall. The force of the blow sent sparks, splinters and fragments of stone flying.

There was silence as I pointed once again to Glod’s precious water skin, before slicing it off the crude thing that served as his belt. Then, I pointed to them each in turn with my sword, gesturing at the skins at their hips before pointing downwards with my free hand.

“All,” I repeated yet again. If they still refused me I would cut them down to a man.

The message was clear, for almost all of them threw their water skins down. Slowly they started to back away. Wanting to expedite matters, I smashed my weapon against the wall again, causing fresh sparks to fly. Terrified, they all started to flee. In a moment of rare inspiration, I used Dash and grabbed one of them, a smaller individual, by its long dirty, and matted hair, causing it to scream in abject terror.

Completely abandoning their comrade, the rest of them continued to flee back to the place from which they had come. The fading echoes of their flight served as a testament to their haste. The one I had captured continued to gibber nonsense, most of it howls and grunts interspersed with entreaties for me to spare its little life. It spoke to their strength of character, that they chose to leave one of their own behind, I chuckled to myself. Or perhaps it was simply because their fear of me was just so great?

I lifted the creature I had captured off the ground with one hand. Raising it by the hair to eye level caused it to emit fresh new screams and I could not help but grin. My own Strength surprised me, as a feat such as this would have been impossible not long before.

The thing continued to bleat out nonsense, causing me to realize that the magic of my spell, Identify, had faded. Recasting the spell yet again, I focused on the troglodyte in front of me.

“Please! No! No! I have a family! My brothers and sisters will go hungry without me! After many turns, I finally became a Scout! To end like this…” the Troglodyte continued to beg. I felt an uncharacteristic shard of sympathy lodge itself in my heart before I mercilessly excised it. Perhaps, a side-effect from my constant use of Identify?

Listening intently to the meaning of its words, I began the task absorbing its random blatherings and let my magic do its work. It was almost as if I was downloading raw data, and the magic of the spell was acting as a sort of key that lifted the encryption.

Remembering my time in a cell in Ansan, a brief shiver overcame me. Luckily, my cell had a barred window that gave me a tiny view of a nearby market. There in that cage, I learned the Trade language, absorbing words and ideas while behind bars. In comparison to those early days, my language learning skills were improving, of that there was no doubt.

For the sake of completion, I cast another Identify, not on its words, but this time on the prisoner itself, giving me a vague understanding of its physical and mental capabilities.

Zala – Troglodyte Scout (Human lvl.9) Health: 121/137 Stamina: 32/41

Mana: 10/10

Zala the Troglodyte Scout was a non-threat, slightly weaker than Glod, but probably substantially more intelligent than him. If Zala’s and Glod’s attributes were anything to go by, they were both generally weak. Perhaps things would have been simpler if I had just rendered them all down for the experience? No, that would not do. A man had to live by the rules that he set for himself. They gave me what I wanted, so I let them live for another day.

Sometimes Zala would grow quiet. The stream of information from the spell would pause until I violently shook the humanoid, causing it to go on a fresh desperate rant. In this way, and over the course of a few experimental hours, I learned their primitive language. Well, at least, I gained a semblance of understanding. The world itself seemed to congratulate me.

You have learned Identify (lvl.4)

You have gained 1 Intelligence

Finally, a reward for my efforts. Though no improvements to my maximum Mana, at least not yet, I could already feel the gears within my mind turning that little smidgen faster.

I discovered that the troglodyte’s language was a tonal one. The inflections on certain grunts that served as words changed the meaning of them. From my improved intellect and my magic, I concluded that the Troglodyte language was also highly contextual. Various ‘words’ had very different meanings depending on the situation in which they were spoken. In short, it was a very difficult language. Odd, indeed, for such a primitive group of people.

When I thought I had learned enough of their cave speak, I waited for my prisoner to quiet down before taking a quick glance at my Status. I had only about a third of my Mana left. I ripped off the creature’s cloth shade and looked into its ever-widening eyes which were doing their very best to look away.

Taking a deep breath, I spoke to the creature thus in my most commanding voice, “Zala, you will take us to the surface.”