Chapter 52
"Who was I?" He wordlessly questioned himself, utterly baffled. Then he finally remembered something more pressing.
"STONE!" He shouted in his protégé's mind, but there was no answer. He examined Stone's insides. The flickering golden celestian veins stabilized but were extremely faint. The lifeforce stopped trickling out but the number must be meagre.
"Mana! I need refined mana!" Lucifer panicked. He heaved in relief. Stone was still regenerating and refining mana as always. He willed the [Refined Mana Draining] on Stone and after a few minutes, his [SuperFlux] was filled to the brim again.
"Stone?" He attempted to wake him up, but Stone was completely unresponsive.
"What now? Should I reveal myself to the druegars? Hm… I could tell them… Yes! That is a good idea. Without help, I will die anyway. The village… Even though dangerous, it is a must. Luckily, we have allies there," he came up with a hasty and improvised plan. He utilized his technique [Weak Fluxkinesis] and slowly levitated to the resting druegars.
Stone's talking holes were a no-go. Lucifer could not use them at all. Something blocked him. He deduced it was due to the [Subordinate] talent.
He arrived next to Jarka and conjured a weak purplish [Flux Bubble] near her ear to gain attention.
It took a while to wake her up and as she looked around in distress that another attack came, he wrote on the ground before her with the goblin's; "I can't talk now. This refined mana crystal is made for communication. It's crude and incomplete, but we can talk only this way. Well, you talk, me writing."
Jarka blinked a few times to clear her eyes and to assure herself she was not dreaming or worse; insane.
"Scout-Durza! Com' her'!" She commanded with a tired but firm voice.
"Ya wish mae lady?" Scout-Durza immediately skipped. He was tired too, but he was the least wounded in the whole group.
"Do ya see it too?" She pointed at the spot with the message and a piece of almost 20 centimetres long, and 6 centimetres wide perfect ellipsoidal pebble with a smooth, white crust next to it.
"Yea, see it too. Boss, I need to make some food. Otherwise, others will eat mea alive."
"Yea, go for it."
He nodded and left with a goblin's corpse he picked up nearby. He went through the goblin's stuff, found some crude goblin-forged utensils and made a fire.
"Fine. Ya're real. Thank ya for savin' us. I'll report it to the chief and the shaman. They'll reward ya."
"Great. Now, please accept this communication stone and keep it. Or give it to someone you trust. I will contact you again soon," Lucifer replied with another message written in bloody letters.
"How will I contact ya?"
"You will not. I will when the time comes."
She agreed and pocketed Stone in her recently 'found' knapsack.
☁☁☁☁☁☁
The last two days were not easy for Dafur. The shaman fOrcefully made him his 'assistant', in truth, he was treated like a slave and a lab rat.
Theoretically, he was getting paid daily with two gold coins, three meals a day, a possibility to stay in the village and 'knowledge' from the shaman.
The problem was that the stronger druegars always stole from him. He suspected that the thugs were the shaman's minions, or at least his supporters who wanted to kiss his ass.
And the 'knowledge'? He was tortured to 'find the possibilities of his talent and the limits of his body after being blighted'.
Dafur even told him about Stone in the first round of the 'lesson' when the pain was unbearable; the shaman tempted him with gems, gold and authentic dwarven beer to see the detriments of blight-augmented greed. Dafur could recognise an aged Winter Ale closely before him, enough for him to smell but never able to touch. It was driving him insane.
The shaman observed as Dafur was slowly consumed by greed and madness, almost breaking his limbs from the chains on the experimentation table. The shaman shook his head and said something in the range of lost cause, not believing his story about the sapient mineral.
After the session, Dafur requested help from the village chief, but even though he was spying for him, the chief couldn't, or wouldn't, do much; all he did, was to send some strong ointments to ease the pain and a promise of better pay in the future to Dafur's immense despair.
On the last, but not final, 'lesson', the bastardly shaman permanently fused three unattuned low-grade mana crystals to his ribcage with acid.
Then he connected them with coiling bronze wires with small runes all around. They fOrced him to connect to them with his new talent, [Crystallizer], that allowed him to manipulate mana crystals to a certain degree.
The pieces of information about this talent were a little bit wonky on his explanation screen. He could not comprehend them properly as the runes were constantly changing. Only a few things were for sure.
He gained this talent due to the blight and the knowledge about the first sentient mana crystal, which was frankly completely insane. The Universum even refused to talk to him afterwards. He never heard something like that happen ever before.
The most important thing about it was that he could drain mana from them directly. Not too much, but he gained a technique [Weak Mana Drain] yesterday.
Dafur would bet his left nut that it had the potential to do much more.
His heart always palpitated with greed and curiousness when he read the explanatory runes about his talent and skill. The [Weak Mana Drain] was a great technique, found in certain types of Monsters, Undead, legendary Ethereals, or wizard-type classes, mostly those of more evil nature.
The shaman wanted to experiment more, but Dafur collapsed from overexposure to raw, concentrated mana. He did not die solely thanks to his runemaster training and higher resistance gained through his new talent.
These were actually the reasons he was putting up with the shaman and the little political game with the chief; the possibility to explore this, even though painfully. Well, that, and the reality that he was not able to run away even if he wanted to. He was constantly watched by both shaman's and chief's men around the clock.
Dafur woke up on the cold ground in the sibling's empty house after another round of the shaman's brutal experiments. He glanced with a vacant gaze on now-too-familiar bare walls and ceiling, pondering in a haze if he should end it now.
His eyes slowly regained clarity. He stood up and poured water into his mouth from a leather canteen he stole from a drunk druegar. He wrote a report about shaman's doings and left it at the agreed place inside the house, right behind the doors under a loose stone in the ground.
The mess hall was filthy, bustling, and noisy as always; drunk druegars were either fighting each other before the entrance, boozing even more or eating…
Three corpses lay near the entrance, waiting for the guards to dispose of them.
Dafur slipped unnoticed through the crowd, taking his portion of the discutable meat, he didn't want to know the origin of and a grilled mushroom.
"Well, well, well. The little shaman's assistant," a loud voice reverberated over the place as a robust druegar strolled next to him.
Dafur slumped his head and closed his eyes. "Why shoulda be today any different…" he muttered.
"What was that?"
"Nothin, Krag…"
"Better be! Now, hand over your meal, slave," he said with ridicule in his eyes.
Everyone in the mess hall froze as the dwarven forbidden word echoed.
Dafur's face hardened and his eyes gained a dangerous glint. He leapt towards Krag and tried to punch him in the guts, but the druegar was a hardened warrior with defence and strength as his main source of power.
'Crack!'
At least two of Dafur's finger broke. The pain woke him up and he retreated.
"Heh, ya shoulda have naet do this!" Krag dangerously gnarled and unsheath the mace. A small rune glowed on it and he prepared to strike.
But Dafur did not stay like a lamb on a sacrificial altar and conjured a fiery rune. The three mana crystals lodged in his chest shined and the rune enlarged. It was two times as big as normal and the surrounding mugs of booze hissed as the heat turned all the liquids into steam.
The rest of the druegars rapidly formed a ring around them, deafeningly cheered and placing bets.
Krag observed the hissing, fiery rune with regret that he had not brought his shield and proper armour. Someone would get badly hurt and he looked around for the guards. After all, fighting was forbidden in the mess hall, but no guards appeared within sight.
A two-meters long fiery spear emerged from the rune and travelled through the air towards the druegar. He hastily cast a [Mana Shield] around his body channeling most of his mana through a rune tattooed on his body, but it was not enough.
The spear impacted Krag's [Mana Shield] on the belly, though weakened a little bit, broke through, piercing his shoulder as he hastily attempted to evade. The searing pain paralyzed the druegar and he dropped to the ground.
Dafur conjures another fiery rune, this time a normal-sized one. However, right before the flaming arrow could appear, the rune fell apart like rotten wood.
Everyone watched as the motes of mana slowly faded into nothingness.
"Kakaka," a cackle sounded behind him and Dafur slowly turned to the shaman, "Dornus ass!"
"What do we have here? A blighted assistant of min' figtin' in the mess hall? Dinna they explain the rules to ya?"
"Shaman! Krag said forbidden dwarven word!" One of the spectators, a small female druegar with ample cleavage, said.
"Oh, did he now?" The shaman's smile deepened, but his eyes looked at her with a barely noticeable murderous glint. She whimpered and retreated back to the anonymity of the crowd. Not much with success as others stepped away from her. "Well, in that case I'll explain the situation to the chief and ask him for leniency'. Guards!"
Three guards came out from the crowd. "What do ya wish, shaman?" They asked as they lined up before him and saluted him with a closed fist on their heart.
"Take these two and follow," he calmly issued and they obeyed without hesitation. Two of them picked up the squirming Krag from the ground and one of them poured a healing potion into his mouth. Krag's contorted face relaxed as the wound closed with visible speed. The last guard grabbed Dafur by his broken hand and pressed. Dafur noted mocking eyes hidden in the helmet.
"Well… fuck. I wonder… what happens now," Dafur thought about what occurred. The realization hit him; "T'at fuck'r! It was sham'n's ploy… but why? He's already completely controlling mea! I can't run! I can't fight back! What does he want!" Even in his thoughts, he sought to avoid the word slave, but it always seemed to follow him, time and time again.
The gnawing realization bothered him the whole way into the chief's house. He hated to admit it. It went against everything he was, but… he truly was a slave. A pet. An experiment… His eyes swelled up and he began to silently cry. A humiliation… More than that…
The shaman did not even bother with the guards before the entrance and entered like it already belonged to him. They stopped in the reception room. "Tadra! Com' her'!" Again, the shaman did not bother even pretending basic respect.
"Oooh? I'm still the chief! What do ya wanna, bastard!" Chief-Tadra annoyedly exclaimed as he emerged out of his quarters.
"Hehe… your little boy here fought in the mess hall."
Upon these words, the chief froze and stared at the sobbing dwarf with a callous face, "Darkul ass! This's bad… It was mea who allowed him to stay to mess with the shaman…" He thought to himself. "And?" He carefully asked when he saw a deepening grin on the shaman's face.
"Ya know the rules! After all, they're yours! But!" The shaman paused and his eyes cheerfully glinted, "but, I won't insist on the punishment. Instead, he will become fully min'. Oh, and ya'll publicly and formally apologize to Krag," Shaman-Garza said with a low voice and almost laughed when he saw a flood of emotions on the chief's face, ranging from anger to humiliation.
"Fin'!" Chief-Tadra angrily agreed. He really did not have an option here now. Rules were rules and his fOrces were weakened right now. "FUCK! Krag… I killed his father to become the chief! This… will lower my standing! Heavily! Fucker… But I have no option here. My core people are taking down goblins… Why are they so active'? And where are they, anyway?" His mind spun.
Krag kneeled before the shaman completely disregarding the village chief, "thank ya, boss!"
"Hehe!" The shaman chuckled as he noted the chief's humiliation. Not only did he get acknowledged as a boss before the chief… He humiliated him, stole his spy and he was going to make sure Krag would spread the word. Still, he wanted more. "Oh, where is Jarka and the rest?" He smirked.
These words ripped the chief out of his deep thoughts and irked him even more.
"Why do ya ask? Huntin' the greenskins! Ya shoulda have joined!"
"Naet today, chief," he mockingly emphasized the chief's position, "but I hope' they're fin'!"
"What do you mean by that?" The chief intensely frowned, but the Shaman-Durza joyously walked out with his minions behind him, ignoring the question. The chief realized that something was wrong… This timing, Jarka being late. "Something is wrong!" he nervously muttered under his breath and called for another one of his loyal minions.
"Tak' a group and find Guard-Jarka! Understand?"
"Yes, chief!" The guard answered and saluted with an open hand on his chest.
Outside, the shaman spoke, "Krag! Don't forget to say what happened to everyone, understood? Everyone! But keep the apology for yourself for now."
"Yea, boss… don't ya worry! I can't wait!" Krag happily skipped away, his shoulder fully healed.
"Idiot… But useful. He'll lower standin' of the chief. Weakness cannot be tolerated!" The shaman smirked.
They arrived at the temple, and the sobbing Dafur was, once again, bound to the experimentation table again. An extremely happy shaman proceeded with a new 'lesson'. Thankfully, Dafur was unconscious... most of the time.
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