Beefs and Breads: A Cozy Dwarf Tale - Book 3: Chapter 4: I Should Have Knocked on Wood

The attack happened five days later.

“THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, PETE!” Aqua screamed as the enormous, granite-encrusted wallaby thing smashed its tail into the wagon we were hiding under.

“SLAGIT, HOW IS THIS MY ELFIN’ FAULT!?”

“YOU WERE THE ONE TALKING ABOUT FATE AND EVERYTHING BEING FINE JUST FIVE DAYS AGO!”

“I THINK FIVE DAYS IS MORE THAN ENOUGH TIME FOR IT TO BE CONSIDERED UNRELATED!”

“I’LL UNRELATE YOUR BEARD FROM YOUR FACE IF WE SURVIVE THIS!!”

“Both of you, shaddup!” Richter hissed from where he was crouched behind a wagon wheel. “Stoneskin wombats are mostly blind. It’s just goin’ after tha loudest sound!”

Eh, wombat, wallaby, same difference. It was just another garden-variety Aussie murder mammal. It looked like a squash-faced disproportionate kangaroo, with a sheath of stone on its back, kind of like an armadillo, and a club-like tail on its rear. It also had short stubby arms with wickedly long talons built for digging out stone and flesh and a mouth full of far too sharp teeth. Aqua and I shut up, and the wombat spun away as Balin came roaring up behind it. He smashed its nose with his axe and there was the sound of metal on stone as flakes of rock spun off in all directions, one narrowly avoiding my thigh. The wombat reared onto its hind legs, rising up to its full three-metre height, and roared back.

I moved further beneath the wagon and peeked at the quest in the side of my vision.

Quest: Roadside Rumble

Kill the monsters attacking your caravan or drive them off!

Monsters Defeated: 1/5

Rewards: +0.2 Strength

I’d wanted more Quests, but not like this!!!

The ground thundered as the monster traded blows with the ‘[Heroic Moment]’d Balin. Each rock-hard butt attack was met with an equally fearsome axe strike, or shield smash, and the sound reverberated in the space beneath the wagon. This was what Balin was doing in the dungeon all the time!? Dear Gods!!!

“Pete, where are the other ones?” Aqua asked, rubbing her hands worriedly. “And do you see Annie?”

I glanced at my mental [Minimap], where three large red dots were currently running amok in the caravan, each encircled by a group of green dots.

“Like I said before, I can’t tell who’s who on here, but there’s one wombat down, one fighting up by Copperpot’s wagon, the one over there, one down by Berry’s and I don’t know where the other one is. It’s just Balin and…”

There was a flash of light followed by Balin screaming, “It’s blind ya daft ninny!”

“ – Aishablue here fighting the adult. I think they’re just keeping it occupied until everyone else finishes off the small ones.” I finished.

“Annie should be at Berry’s wagon, I really hope she’s okay.” Aqua whimpered, and hid behind me as the wombat was beaten back and flung to the ground beside the wagon. It was close enough that we could feel the rancid wet breath whuff out of it.

Aqua’s hand was shaking where it held onto my shoulder. I considered that she’d once had her entire clan killed in front of her in a similar situation, and pulled her close.

“We’ll be fine. We’ve got great guards, and their ambush didn’t go off. It’s ooookay. Shh, shh, shh. Just keep your [Nothingness] activated and nothing will notice you.” I rocked her in my arms like I once had my little Sammy, and she shivered.

My [Minimap] was the only reason this wasn’t going much, much, worse.

We’d been traveling along the road to Kinshasa, enjoying the fine ‘weather’. The air in the more open cave system of Western Crack had a freshness to it, and there was a constant cool breeze as air cycled in from the sunlit crevice faaaar above us. Apparently there was a desert up there, caused by the same impact that’d created Crack.

So far, the trip had been fairly quiet. Unlike Minnova, it was a bit too dark here to really make out the landscape, and the only sights were fellow travelers and contingents of Highwatch. The everpresent squeak of wheels and whining of goats and Johnsson meant we were beginning to come down with mine fever, and we’d all found different ways of staving it off. The next town was only a day away, and we were all looking forward to sleeping in a real bed at the inn.

I’d been chatting with Richter about magic, and trying my hand at practicing some sigils. Erd Magic used mathematical sigils drawn with the caster’smana to change one Element into another Element by manipulating its internalmana. The Erdian Elements were Aether, Matter, Nether, and Mana. So, for example, when a caster drew the correct sigil, they could turn the air into stone, thus creating a [Stone Spike] spell. Without [Manasight] I couldn’t actually do magic, but that problem would sort itself out soon.

Our crew was scattered between the various wagons today, Annie having stepped out to chat with Berry, Johnsson was somewhere with Bran, and Aqua and Balin were doing some cleaning in the back. Kirk was at the very front scouting ahead for, as far as I could tell, shits and giggles. I think he was just bored, since he’d said we were ‘wallowing slower than a fat crayer’, whatever tha heck that meant.

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That was when I’d noticed five large red dots on my Minimap just off to our right, where a ridge was hiding our line of sight. I’d blinked at them a few times, wondering what the heck they were. Most of the dots on my minimap were either blue for items, or green for people and animals (whenever I bothered to turn those settings on). I’d only seen red once before, when we’d been attacked by gnomish ninjas, but these dots were huge!

It’d only taken me a second; I was never really into video games, I preferred movies and music, but I’d played enough to know what I was looking at.

My shout went up as a few other voices began to warn about [Dangersense] or [Sense Ambush] going off. “MONSTERS UP ON THAT RIDGE TO OUR RIGHT!!! FIVE BIG ONES!!!”

Team Brightstar had reacted the fastest, gathering into a single unit and heading towards the ridge as Balin hit them all with a [Rally].

So, when the family of wombats, two the size of vans, and three the size of cars, had leapt over the ridge, they were immediately stopped in their tracks. The small ones had quickly burrowed into the ground – far too rapidly – and disappeared from sight. I’d been able to follow where they were headed with the [Minimap] – one to each of the largest wagons – and notified the party. Starshine and the black-leather-bdsm-armor outfitted [Priest] Raysdotter had split away to warn everyone while the rest of the party battled what had to be the adults.

One of those adults now lay dead on the ridge, and the other was currently trying to use my brother as a chew toy.

The smaller wombats were doing hit and run attacks, burrowing up beneath large groups and attempting to drag people down as they surfaced. Thus far they hadn’t been successful due to a combination of [Sense Ambush] and [Dangersense] between the various guards and adventurers. If we didn’t have so many good fighters… I didn’t even want to think about it.

Suddenly, another red dot appeared directly beneath us, as the remaining young wombat entered the sphere of my [Minimap]. It was directly beneath us.

“Richter!” I said, keeping my voice level. “It’s coming up!”

“We are still da loudest noise!” Richter muttered back, as the adult wombat was flung into the wagon again. The ground bucked beneath us as the wheels rocked violently back and forth.

“Not my fault! Are you ready to test our plan?” I pointed at a small keg of lamp oil beside me. I’d snuck into the wagon and tossed it down a few minutes before. It was integral to an attack we’d cooked up. The little guy fights back!

“Aye, let’s do it!”

I gently shook Aqua and held her chin until she was looking me in the eye. Her pupils were spinning in obvious terror. “Aqua. AQUA. Listen, I need you to run out from under the wagon when I say ‘NOW’. Nod if you understand.”

Aqua eyes steadied. She nodded mutely, and began crawling to the edge of the wagon.

Richter had a book open in one hand, and was desperately copying a spell sigil out of it. His brand-spanking new wand, a golden glass affair with a glowing red stone at the tip, spun through the air, leaving a line of concentrated Mana that even my non-Blessed eyes could see.

I grabbed a small keg of lamp oil from beside me, and muttered. “Castor oil is a drink. Fish oil is a drink. Lamp oil can totally be a drink. All liquids are technically drinkable. If Bud Light can be a drink, so can lamp oil. [Bottomless Barrel].”

I felt the Ability activate and internally cheered. [Bottomless Barrel] specified that it only worked on a non-magical drink, but if there was one thing that’d been driven home by now, it was that intent mattered for Abilities. And it’d worked! Hah!

The smaller red dot had stopped directly beneath us. My [Minimap] wasn’t capable of showing height, so this was going to be a near thing. I thumped the keg on the ground to try and guide the monster.

“Waaait, for it. Waaaaaait for it…” Using the Goldstone warhammer that Jermiah had lent me I smashed the top off the barrel, and held it at the ready. As the pebbles beside me began to rattle from the baby behemoth beginning to breach, I shouted. “NOW!”

Aqua, Richter, and I jumped out from beneath the wagon, legs pumping, just as the soil erupted upwards. The wombat emerged claws first, and its wicked talons sunk into the underside of the wagon, spearing right through the wood. It roared and struggled for a moment, stuck, before it tore free, sniffed around blindly, then dove back underground.

But not before I’d dropped a bottomless barrel of highly flammable oil down the shaft it’d made.

“10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3. 2. 1…. That should be enough oil, do it.” I muttered, keeping an eye on the red dot. It hadn’t strayed far, and was probably coming around for another pass. From Richter’s wand a head-size bead of fire leapt out and down into the shaft.

A second later there was a WHOMP, and black smoke and flames erupted from the hole beneath the wagon. They were followed by a terrible screeching sound.

“Ooooh, I hope that doesn’t catch.” I groaned, but thankfully the flames quickly died down, leaving a plume of black smoke and scorched wood.

The red dot didn’t disappear from directly beneath us though, and I frowned. From the horrible sounds coming from the hole, we had to have bady hurt it, so where –

The ground beneath me jumped again, and I barely had time to push Aqua away and activate [Flesh of Stone] before a charred set of jaws clamped around my leg.

I was treated to a terrifying couple breaths of blackness. I watched my [Minimap], praying that my stoneified body wasn’t getting dragged underground into a fiery hell.

Then, the red dot winked out, and the world snapped back into focus along with a sharp pain in my ankle. I was halfway underground, and RIchter and Aqua had each grabbed an arm and were holding on tight. I could feel the wet-stickiness of the wombat’s saliva on my leg, and I kicked its teeth free from my armored boot. I was incredibly lucky the tunnel wasn’t more vertical, or its dead weight would’ve been enough to drag me down.

Aqua and Richter pulled me out of the hole, and we stared at each other in shock.

*Bing!*

Quest Updated: Roadside Rumble

Monsters Defeated: 2/5

Then Richter gave a bark of laughter, and I joined in a moment later. Relief poured out of us in waves of giggles. A sharp tooth the size of my fist was stuck into my boot, where it’d lodged into my armored sock.

A dwarf never left home without armored socks.

“I can’t believe that worked!” I wiped away a tear.

“Me neitha.” Richter chuckled.

Down the road behind us, Berry’s Ability boosted voice suddenly broke over the landscape. She was singing the words to Alicia Keys’s “Girl on Fire.”

Richter’s mouth dropped agape at something only he could see, and a moment later flaming meteors began to rain down from the empty black sky.

“Showoff…” I muttered.

*Bing!*

Quest Complete: Roadside Rumble

Are you really going to let other Chosen show you up like that?

Gained 0.2 Strength! Your new strength is 16.6!

“I am absolutely shaving you while you sleep tonight, Pete.” Aqua sniffed.

“Not. my. FAULT!”