Arcanum - Of Steamwork and Magic Ch. 07

She scoffed. "It'll take more n' some arrows and rat poison to get me." She hiccuped. "I drink harder stuff than this garbage."

To prove it, she started to lick one of the barbed arrow heads - something that made me wince. However, the wererats, having seen the failure of the kites to force an entrance and witnessing now slowdown in the rate of fire from Maggie, who continued to lean around the corner and send shots down the corridor, decided on a new tactic. They would skitter out from cover, then fire arrows, then skitter back. The movement made them nearly impossible to tag with a bullet, and their arrows began to perforate the floor like a pincushion, forcing Maggie and I to both remain ducked out of cover. I frowned - and then shouted.

"Maggie! Door!"

The short, burly dwarvess kicked the door and it swung shut with a crash. The pattering, raindrop sound of arrows thumping home filled the air as I searched about the room and spotted what I had hoped to see: a set of stone triangles, designed to be hammered into the doorjam to keep it shut. Sally got to work, kicking the triangles into place, as I looked to Virginia, hurrying to her side.

"How is the scrollwork g-"

"Not now!" Virginia snapped.

"Ah, now we're brewing with yeast!" Maggie laughed.

I turned and saw that her examination of the inside of the door had born fruit: There was a slit within the doorway, at dwarf head height, clearly designed exactly for this eventuality. It made me wonder if Ore Bender had planned this final stand in his long vigil, watching the mine grow more and more infested with monsters. How long had he seen and gnashed his teeth as the beasts filled the mine? Had he simply been too willy for them to pin down and kill? I thought of all those traps - and wondered how many wererats they had slain before they had stopped seeking him out.

He was dead now.

Maggie opened the slit as the arrows ceased raining. She began to fire - again and again and again. From the squalls of fury from beyond, it was clear that her cover was giving the wererats a new reason to be furious.

"They're running!" Maggie said. "Hah! Bloody rats, they..." she stopped, then pressed her palm to the floor. "Do you feel that?"

I knelt down, pressing my palm there as well. I frowned.

"Sir?" Gillian cut into my attentiveness. "Should the battery be, uh, with this side or this side up?" she asked. I looked at her, blinking.

"The first way," I said, nodding. "You've already started assembling the power carriage?"

She smirked. "I can follow instructions well enough, sir," she said, then started to fiddle with the technological pieces that I had been experimenting with for this whole expedition. But then my attention was drawn once more to the rumbling transmitting through my palms. My brow furrowed and I looked at Maggie.

Maggie looked uncertain. "It feels like a rock fall. But these stones are steady."

I crawled up to the slit. I peeked through and heard the wererats chanting a single word.

"Grignak! Grignak! Grignak!"

They were out of sight, but they were far from out of hearing. The end of the corridor began to glow with a reddish light, as if some great flame was coming closer and closer to the corner. My eyes widened and I slammed the slit shut, then stood. I held out my hand to Maggie.

"I am going to need that," I said, quietly.

"Why? What is it?" Maggie asked, holding up the rifle.

I took it, checked it over, then worked the lever.

"They have a rock elemental," I said. "Sally, the door jams!"

The rumbling sound grew louder and louder and I grabbed onto the doorway, thinking quickly. There was no way that it'd be stopped by wood, no matter how thick and well made. And so, as Sally tugged the door jams free, I timed things by listening to the increasing sound of the footsteps. The lumbering beast was gaining in speed step by step and at the penultimate moment, I swung the door open. A blazing red light shone into the room as the elemental - glowing like a great mass of solidified lava - charged at the door. Expecting resistance, it stumbled a bit as it entered the room easily. It tripped and then rolled and smashed through Ore Bender's pillar of truth. As stone chips filled the aiir and the elemental roared in fury, I slammed the door shut.

I stepped up and began to fire round after round into the elemental. Bullets sparked off red stone and the elemental pushed itself slowly, ponderously, to its feet. If you have never seen a mountain move and glare and wish you to be dead, you have never felt the true fear that an elemental can imbue in even someone like me. I had faced a great many blackguards, even the undead. But even I felt my knees grow weak as the elemental turned to glare at me and I fired another bullet into its head, which sparked. The head did not even jerk.

"Sir! Look out!" Virginia shouted.

I sprang backwards as the elemental swung its fist at me. The fist struck the floor with a roar and a spray of debris. Meanwhile, Maggie began to fill the air with the sound of gunfire - she was using my revolver, shooting through the door. The wererats themselves fired back - arrows thudded into the door, and I could faintly hear the rattle of armor. The rats were coming, and they were going to get that damn door down while the elemental distracted us.

The elemental lifted its arm faster than I expected and caught my legs with its knuckles. Even that glancing impact sent me spinning and crashing to the ground. Virginia cried out, but I lifted one arm. "No!" I said. "The scroll!"

Virginia froze, her face a mask of terror as the elemental grabbed me by the back of my jacket. It swung its arm in a curved arc and flung me against the far wall. I rolled as best as I could with the impact, but the blow still drove the air from my lungs. Only luck kept my arm from snapping like a twig. I hit the ground and wheezed. Meanwhile, Maggie had backed away from the slit. Some wererat had stuck a spear through it and was wiggling it around. Sally, though, had snatched up the battle-ax again and was laying into the back of the rock elemental.

In the war between half-ogress, elemental and ax, the ax lost. The blade shattered into a thousand pieces. But the damage was clear: A V had been cut into the elemental's rocky skin. The elemental, though, brought its fist swinging around to smash into Sally's head. Sally lifted up her arm and blocked the blow. Even her massive strength was not quite equal to the task and she was sent staggering backwards, her feet skidding along the ground.

"Sir!" Gillian shouted to me. "It's done!"

I looked to her, then lifted my arm. I ignored the pain that roared through my side at the movement and focused only on Gillian as she tossed the technological device she had been crafting, following my blueprints. Nominally, I'd wish to test this kind of thing, but we had no time. I caught the muffler, wrapped in electrical cables and attached to a power supply, then stuck it upon the barrel of my repeating rifle. I flicked the crude toggles on both batteries and saw sparks fly for a moment, then felt the faint tremor of my rifle as the magnetic field within the accelerator acted upon the metal of the barrel. I snapped down the second handle that was attached to the accelerator and put my thumb on the second trigger there.

"Hey, blockhead!" I shouted at the rock elemental.

It turned its head with a slow groan and creak of stone.

I pulled on the triggers, carefully timing the two so that the bullet fired mere seconds before the accelerator went off. The expanding gasses of the bullet sent the round into the accelerator, then the accelerator buzzed with electricity, creating a rapidly spinning electromagnetic field, which caught the round and flung it yet faster. The bullet shot through the air, the earth elemental's head, and smashed into the wall on the far side of the room, so fast that the boom filling the room was closer to that of meteorite landing than a gunshot.

The earth elemental staggered backwards and I screamed against the sound as another accelerated slug struck the elemental in the chest. The weakened point that Sally had left on the stone beast flew apart and the whole elemental crumbled into dispersed rocks with a roar of stone.

My ears rung and I clapped my hands to my head, wincing as my rifle sparked and flashed with electrical charge. The accelerator smoked and an acrid scent filled the air. Okay, I'd definitely need to adjust that a bit. But for now, we were safe. I looked around and saw Gillian and Maggie and Sally were all clutching their ears too. Maggie's lips moved and I could not hear her past the ringing in my ears. But I could see the door starting to quiver and shake, rumbling as it was struck. Axes, I was sure. I picked up my rifle, but saw that it had been quite completely wrecked.

I looked to Virginia.

She was holding up the scroll, and shouted at me.

"What?" I bellowed.

She stamped her foot, then pointed to the ground next to her. I stood there and she took my hand. I held out my hand to Sally. Sally took it. Maggie took hers. Gillian took hers. We stood there, in a line, as the door started to come apart. Ax blades splintered the wood and I could see the gleaming, furious eyes of the ratfolk. Virginia, her brow furrowing, held up the scroll in her free hand and began to mouth words. As she spoke, the scroll crackled - and then sparked uncontrollably. Virginia's eyes widened and I realized the problem.

Without a second beat let go of Sally, took the rifle strap, then hurled the smoking rifle at the doorway. It struck a wererat square in the head and sent him staggering. I grabbed Sally's hand and the sparking on the scroll solidified into a sheet of purple fire. It swept along Virginia's arm, dissolving it into ash. Virginia clenched her eyes shut as the flames completed their sweep, burning along her body, reaching my hand. I felt my skin dissolving into ashy flakes and I closed my eyes as well. It did not hurt, but it felt...

Very.

Very odd.

The flames swept over me.

Blacknenss.

And then I was flung forward. I yelled and then hit the ground, rolling and coming to a halt a moment later, skidding my rump along wet grass. Sprawling there, I looked at the sky: A vast, dark, glittering sweep of stars. Virginia sprawled next to me, panting, as Sally, Maggie and Gillian were all flung from thin air as well. They collapsed onto the ground and we all took a few moments to simply breathe in outside air once more. For a time, I was sure each of us had been sure we never would breathe it again.

"Well," I said. "Who else thinks Mr. Bates should be paying us more?"

Every single girl nodded.

***

We trudged along for quite some time, heading back towards civilization. None of us felt much like speaking. What we had seen in the Black Mountain Mines had been sobering. A whole clan of dwarves, banished to the Isle of Despair? And by the command of elves? I shook my head. The whole thing was mysterious from top to bottom. Elves were not known for their litigiousness, nor their high handedness. Since the Age of Legends had come to a close, they had stayed within their enclaves, save for those who traveled the lands of humanity as adventurers. What was more, the ancient...enmity was the wrong word. The ancient dislike between elves and dwarves was well known.

The highest clan of the dwarves kowtowing to elves?

It was all so strange and unusual.

We made camp that night, and I found myself unable to sleep. All I could think of was the stone pillar and the words etched upon it and my own fate and how it was linked with these mysteries. Every single time I thought we were coming closer to a concrete answer, more mysteries were revealed. The ring, I had thought, would be the end of the story. That the 'GB' at the end of the trail would tell all. But Bates had merely had more questions. And now the Black Mountain Mines had left yet more riddles.

I shook my head and stood from my bedroll. I walked into the chilly night, shivering as I rubbed my palms together. I looked around the campsight - seeing the tents where Sally, Gillian, Virginia and Maggie slept. No. Where Sally, Gillian and Maggie slept. Virginia's tent was empty.

I found her a few minutes later, in a clearing a stones throw from the one we had set up in. She was knelt on the ground, her sword thrust into the ground before her. Her hands rested on the cross-guard and her forehead rested against the hilt. Her eyes were closed and I could hear her whispering quietly. My ears perked. "I'm sure you're calling me five kinds of fool," she whispered. "But I have to do it, brother..."

My weight shifted - and the loud crack of a snapping twig filled the air. Virginia was on her feet, her fists lifted up into a pugilist's stance. Then her hands lowered and even in the darkness, I could see her flushing. "Couldn't sleep either, sir?" she asked, trying to sound prim and proper. I shook my head, walking forward. I was dressed in my night clothes, and it felt fiercely cold out under the stars, but the idea of throwing on more clothes had felt like more trouble than it was worth. I hadn't expected to be out for more than a few moments, after all.

"No," I admitted. "Were you, uh, praying?"

"Yes!" Virginia said, quickly. "To you! Uh, that is...I mean, the...I...um, yes, I was...praying..." She shook her head, rubbing her shoulder. "And I'm done now!"

I nodded, feeling awkward. How long had it been since Virginia and I were alone? Without anyone else in the party nearby. I became suddenly extremely aware of how many women I had bedded while Virginia had been traveling with me. I looked at the sky, coughing. "Ah, you can see the Belt of the Archer tonight."

"C-Can you?" Virginia asked, immediately snapping her head up. "Quite fascinating."

"Yes, quite," I said.

"I can even see it," she said, looking completely in the wrong hemisphere of the sky. "Never seen anything so, uh, bright before."

I looked at her, glaring at the sky as if there was nothing else in the universe. I stepped a bit closer to her, watching as breath fogged the air around her. The months of hard travel with me had made her slightly round cheeks narrow slightly, giving her a more sharp edged, hawkish look. I wondered how the travel had altered the rest of her. I put my hand on her shoulder, my voice quiet. "You're, uh, looking at the Lion, Virginia."

"Bugger," she whispered, then looked at me. Her eyes were quite bright in the full moon's light.

"They don't teach you must astronomy in the Panarii?" I asked, my voice quiet.

"D-Divination is, uh, more of a..." She wrung her hands. "It's a tricky college of magic. V-Very prone to, um, you know. Strange. Things. And...uh, oddness. And such. And also, uh, I never, uh, tried." She gulped and looked at me.

Once more, an awkward lump sat in my throat. We looked into one another's eyes for what felt like a whole long turning of the world. It was as if the epoch between the Age of Legends and now had come and fallen to dust in the time it took for either of us to speak, and all of it spent in a tender tension between words that flitted, half-formed through my mind and the hammering of my heart and the adolescent shyness that felt as ill fitting as a lady's shoe on my own rough foot.

"Virginia I-"

"Sir, that-"

"Ray," I said.

"S-Sir, I...I can't call you! I, uh, you're...the Living One! I'm just a...a..." Virginia stammered. I enfolded her hands in mine, feeling her goosebumps and her shivering hands.

"Virginia," I said.

Virginia flinched. "I can't," she shook her head, then stepped back, jerking her hands from mine. "Sir, I can't-" she turned away. I reached out, grabbed her hand, then tugged her back. Virginia stumbled, her palm pressing to my chest. Her cheek molded against my neck, and I held her close to me. She put up a tiny, token struggle. I had seen her bowling the head off bandits with a longsword, and I felt her muscle through her night shirt. I knew that she could have pulled away. She looked up into my eyes and I captured her mouth with mine.

Another tiny wriggle, another tug at my hands with her wrists. But then her hands went slowly slack, no longer clenched into fists. Her tongue tentatively met mine and her moan was like liquid gold in my mouth, all the more beautiful for the fact it was muffled. Her body leaned more and more against mine, and I was positive the hardness of her nipples had very little to do with the chill, a chill that only enhanced the warmth of both of our bodies, the heat growing shocking where our forms touched. Her tongue went from tentative to questing to fierce, thrusting into my mouth as she squirmed, tugging with her arms again. But now, it was not to escape my grip. It was to lean deeper in, to slide her arms around my neck. I didn't release her, holding her was driving me nearly as wild as anything I had ever felt.

The kiss broke and our breath fogged the air, thicker than it ever had before.

"S-Sir..." she whispered.

I caught her neck with my mouth. The kiss was fierce, nearly a bite. My tusks teased her neck and Virginia rolled backwards, her whole body going slack as she leaned into me. I nipped at her again as she gasped out.

"Sir..." she closed her eyes. Her voice was softer still.

I nuzzled against her breasts through her nightshirt. My mouth whetted the cotton, slicking it to her nipple. I kept my mouth against her breast, feeling the fabric between me and her skin, keeping her warm with my breath and my closeness.

"Ray..." Virginia crooned.

I released her. Her arms wrapped about my neck, and freed my hands to grip her nightshirt. Laces rasped through cloth holes and Virginia was forced to wriggle her arms, her fingers caressing through my hair as she lifted her arms. Her breath was catching as her nightshirt hit the ground behind her. Silvery moonlight shone along her pale skin and I saw that her freckles continued along her chest. She had a few puckered scars on her belly, but other than that, her form was unblemished. Her nipples were a bright pink, even in the darkness of the night, and they called to me.

My hands cupped her tightly muscled ass and I sucked on her nipple.

Virginia, this time, did not moan a word. She merely moaned, her body quivering as my right hand reached up to caress her belly, feeling the hardness of her abdominal muscles. She had the body of a swordswoman, and it was delightful. But feeling her abs was secondary to the true quest of my hand: I slid my palm along her belly, past those puckered scars, and through the thick thatch of her pubic hair. Finally, I found her soaked little pussy and stroked it. She bit my shoulder. Hard. Muffling herself as my fingers crooked and thrust into her sex.

Playing Virginia like a violin was possibly one of the most delightful moments of my life. There was this wonderful combination of shyness and wantonness, shown through the way Virginia buried her face against my neck and shoulders, the way that she clung to me, the way that when she did form words, they were always my name...and the way she rocked her hips against me and spread her thighs. She had been finger-fucked before. But she had clearly never enjoyed it like this, evidenced by the shocked, sharp gasp as she came, soaking my palm with her juices.

"Nasrudin..." Virginia moaned.

"Yes?" I rumbled.

Virgina's entire body turned beat red. "N-Not you! I mean...ah, yes...you..." She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against my shoulder as my fingers continued to stroke her. Gently. Keeping the fire burning. She squirmed.

"Virginia," I said. "I- do you wish to me...have...I..."