tMFUtM - b1c8 - Eight is Enough (Patreon)

AN: Why do I always feel like I've forgotten how things work a bit after an admin week? I've been doing this for quite a while now!

I've begun working on maybe making my own dividers for this series. If my sprite-work doesn't pan out I'll commission Neila again (they did Blind Chaos' set), but I think my idea might be cute and well-suited to tMFUtM. Assuming I can knock the rust off my sprite-art skills--not entirely happy with the progress thus far.

If Tin regretted their decision, they chose to remain silent about it. But considering the fact that Dawn had somehow managed to spend the bulk of the party’s funds on clothing, Rugrim was rather certain the golem was carrying regrets—along with the rest of their gear.

At least the floral motif on the new, dubiously practical dress Souna was wearing suited her. As much as anything that wasn’t well-crafted steel could suit anyone, anyway. He would never understand the surface dwellers’ eagerness to wear something that offered no real protection against anything more dangerous than a bit of lukewarm grease.

Getting out of the city wasn’t too great of an ordeal, though Rugrim couldn’t resist chuckling when the guards stressed—repeatedly—that they would be unable to provide any protection or assistance in the Forest of Spears. As if a single guard had provided a lick of protection past their own posting at any point during their journey! Still, once Dawn (enthusiastically) affirmed her understanding of the warning, they were waved through and went on their way.

<L2 Divide>

“There, there.” Dawn seemed to be under the remarkably misinformed impression that she was somehow helping.

Ever since he left his very sensibly underground home, Rugrim had been tormented by the most abundant lifeform on the surface. Not monsters—though getting attacked by those two or three times a day was getting old too—but rather plants. Roots had long been a thorn in the side of every dwarf and had sorely tested the structural integrity of more than a few tunnels and mineshafts, but he had never imagined that the roots were the polite part of any plant. The other end spewed “pollen” and other deadly toxins, seemingly out of little more than a hateful malice that outclassed even the most bloodthirsty of monsters.

The ordinary woodlands and heavily grazed grasslands had been bad enough, but the Forest of Spears seemed to recognize that he alone had right to walk under the cruel sun. Everyone else seemed to be fine! But instead of his nose becoming mostly useless, the appendage saw fit to betray him utterly. Its only remaining function was to produce snot, and it did so with as much drive and ambition as Rugrim himself possessed for mining. His sinuses no longer felt as though they were overstuffed with frayed mushroom leather—they burned like his mother’s firewine stew (may she rest in stone). And even his eyes watered and itched. Eyeballs shouldn’t itch! It just wasn’t right!

Not that any aspect of the muddy surface was ‘right’.

Rugrim was walking through a thick, wild forest with a golem that shouldn’t exist, an olore out of legend, something that people kept insisting was a gnome even though it very much was not, a demon that was probably somehow the most insane person there, and a loamy fey that was delusional enough to think that just walking beside Rugrim—patting his shoulder nonstop—while repeating “There, there” was doing anything more than tempt him to throw a punch. He probably would have thrown a punch if he could get a decent breath of the toxically fresh air!

The forest itself was probably something most people would consider ‘pretty’, since most people lacked any and all sense. The trees were large and varied and the soil was obviously fertile given the blooms of life that formed each and every time there was a gap in the canopy—with a few hardy shrubs and other small plants growing despite the shade. The plants themselves seemed to be remarkably diverse as well, which seemed unusual. Presumably that was just for tormenting him, specifically.

Seriously, he had heard of other dwarves suffering similar ailments when they found a cavern full of wild cave fungus—a damp place where the air was filled with spores. But such things were rare, they almost never connected to significant caverns, and they hadn’t found a new water source within Rugrim’s lifetime. “Allergies” was the surface-dweller word for the affliction, assuming anything that came out of Origin’s mouth could be trusted.

A simple and sweet word for death by tainted air. As a proper dwarven miner, he knew it as asphyxiation—which sounded properly ominous.

Mud it all, he wished more than ever that he could just go home. Yet every time he became tempted, he called up his System Output and glared at the results until he rediscovered his resolve.

-----

Magic Points: 5/5

Class: [Miner] (Lv. 14)

Class: [Primal Magic User] (Lv. 1)

-----

He couldn’t turn back, not while the magic class remained. He had no idea if he even could still level as a [Miner]! Unfortunately, at level 14, he was unlikely to find out the answer any time soon.

He just had to keep trudging through the forest. He had to endure.

…He had to trust that the muddy maniacs actually knew where they were going.

<L2 Divide>

“I feel like we should have had a monster encounter by now.” Origin vocalized words that should never even be thought.

Rugrim wanted to glare at the muddy madman, but he was busy trying to limit how severely he befouled his beard.

“We never encountered any when we last passed through.” Tin answered. Even with a wagonload worth of supplies and equipment strapped to their back, the golem was the least strained voice from their group after they spent the bulk of the day walking through the forest’s uneven floor.

“Yup, so long as you love the forest, there’s no danger here!” Dawn took a break from her grating reassurances to provide a mockery of an explanation.

Heh. Love the forest. As if. As far as Rugrim was concerned, the forest could be improved with an uncontrollable inferno and some good, reliable rocks. It was just plain unnatural for there to be so much nature!

He would have laughed if he was physically capable of it. Instead, he wiped more snot off his hand using a nearby tree.

“There is wisdom in the fairy’s words. No place such as this can exist without forming its own spirit—a god or goddess that watches over the domain. This place is ancient and is known to almost all of us, thus the local spirit would be fully fledged, if not for the state of the world.” Souna spoke up for the first time since she joined the party.

A loamy mild achievement at best. Every last mountain had a god.

“Huh, are you saying that not even an elder spirit can manifest anymore?” Origin asked yet another question that even a child could answer.

The man truly was strange. The spirits—the gods of the world—were well understood. They existed and there were those that could commune with them, albeit indirectly. They didn’t just live within the mountains (or forests, apparently)—they were their domain. What need would a god have to “manifest” in a single location? They had no place among people, nor any reason to interact with those that dwelled within their domain.

“We have no recollection of a manifested deity in… perhaps two thousand years.” Souna answered, albeit with visible hesitation.

“Is something wrong?” Dawn drifted away from Rugrim at long last.

“This vessel is no longer able to directly benefit from our collective wisdom. The question is on the outer periphery of what was deemed relevant to this vessel’s task, as such our information is… imperfect. We dislike this.” Souna couldn’t quite keep the pout out of her voice—or off her face, for that matter.

“There, there.” Dawn tried patting the olore’s shoulder.

“Our gratitude.” …Wait, they—er, she?—liked that?!

He supposed that he really should ask instead of making assumptions. Yet when he tried to open his mouth to give voice to the question, he instead found himself sneezing repeatedly—again!

“Muddy… worthless… forest…” Rugrim wheezed after the eleventh sneeze, his eyes blurry with tears while his sinuses reported a sensation not unlike steel needles worming through his skull and into his brain.

In the aftermath, all was silent. Aside from Rugrim’s raspy breaths, at least. The entire group had turned to face him, initially in sympathy.

There wasn’t a lick of sympathy on a single face by the time he recovered from his sneezing fit. Instead, the silted fools looked…

Concerned. And not the kind of concern people showed those that were afflicted by plagues or tainted air.

Before Rugrim could work up the energy to speak again, a bizarre sound, like two stones grinding against each other yet inexplicably producing a too-shrill noise, filled the air.

“Oh bloom.” Dawn cursed.

In the next instant, the forest itself practically exploded into motion. From above, two beings descended on widely spread wings—one grey skinned bipedal creature with twisted horns, the other quadrupedal, pale green and possessing alarmingly long claws. From the sides came others—mostly grey, with other washed-out hues found on individuals. Most of those on the ground were wingless, but there were a lot of them.

“Do not resist!” Dawn screamed a warning, tucking her hands into her own armpits as she worriedly chewed on her bottom lip.

Tin obeyed immediately, stiffening in place, even as enemies swarmed past them.

Origin hesitated, then sat down, disappearing into the growing number of bulky enemies.

Steel was chittering angrily somewhere, but the enemy had already passed them—they were too small to be seen.

“Agreed.” Souna sounded sad. Why did she sound sad?!

The first enemy reached Rugrim, but unlike the others, he alone wasn’t left unmolested. He wasn’t even surprised, he had seen it coming. After all, it was kind of hard to miss the bestial malice that radiated from the creatures. The winged beast with the twisted horns slammed into him, shoulder-first.

Rugrim hit the ground and rolled back to his feet. The hit had rattled him, but dwarves weren’t so easily put down! He prepared himself to throw a punch.

The second blow hit him from the side. Another foe—pale brown, with two legs and two massive arms—had punched him first, hard enough to knock him to the side.

The third blow came from the opposite side. A kick delivered by another winged foe—one Rugrim’s own height. The fifth and sixth blows followed swiftly, leaving him disoriented. But he was pretty sure he managed to headbutt one of the creatures in retaliation. Maybe.

The seventh blow came from a deceptively slender and sleek arm. Yet the blow to his stomach made the air rush from his lungs—taking a significant amount of snot and sludge with it.

The eighth blow struck the back of his legs and Rugrim found himself on his knees, looking up directly at the eyes of a tall, powerful looking being with a lilac coloration and a chiseled, strong chin.

“Have you had enough, intruder?” The strange being demanded.

Rugrim had to hope the choking sound he managed sounded like he was agreeing with the gargoyle. The Forest of Spears wasn’t just a place full of tainted air. In his misery, he had managed to forget that the mucking place had its guardians. And clearly, they considered the mildest aspersion cast against their forest to be a crime worthy of a full-on muddy beatdown!

Mud. It. All.