The Ranger: Ch. 14

Welcome Back! Everyone depicted in this alternate universe, thousands of years in the futuristic past, is of age and have agreed to the their story being presented today. If you contribute ideas that come about and your story is added, you will need to pick out your background and class. (Soviet Degenday(Sword and Board) and Boulder Dash (NG Gnome Monk).

With so many people to juggle it might be nice to get them organized in your mind as well: (it expands in later chapters).

Team1: Heran, Evaine, Niviena, Ewlene, Yesime, Anders, Isabella

Team2: Sabina, Annalise, Desa, Abigale, Amber, Treya, Ivana, Joan

Team3: Katelyn, Beau, Erika, Alexandra, Triss, Abby, Jenna, Amelia

Team4: Jacob, Dustin, Jamison, Anton, Petra,Regina

Merchant Ship: Saedin, Agitha, Cassandra

Readers: Soviet Degenday's, Boulder Dash.

Learning how to write sci-fi (Brandon Sanderson) Youtube videos: *Going to take forever before I get better at this but, one question got to me: (How do you handle magic?) and there was a fight between rules and no rules people.

Majority: (No rules - magic fits the space given).

Minority: (Magic has rules see: DnD5e)

---This worlds Rules:

Circle of the Moon Druids lose quite a few spells but allow quick Wildshape into an animal as a fighting bonus move that then allows an attack after, easy to understand, AND, basically get all land animals at level two called "CR1" (where normal druids get CR 1/4).

The problem: "Dnd5e - *I* removed all of the dinosaur and fantasy creatures, (Which account for 95% of CR2-5 of all high-level animals), as it doesn't fit this world.

Kaethorn has seen bears, bears, alligators, shark, owl, eagle, jaguar, and he has not seen squid, monster 12' tall frogs, mammoths, teradactyl, sabertooth, hopefully you get the reasoning. The mages in this world use components and incantations, they won't be discussed before every use, Druids, use concentration and blessings from their deity.

Back to The Ranger: (It's time to clear the ruins so the mage council will leave me alone, well, at least for a little while).

'This is weird.' I say looking back at Soviet, he was sitting on my back with a pair of backpacks in front and behind him. I always wondered what it was like for a horse and it isn't much apparently, I could feel him back there but the weight was no different than when I had a basic backpack with me. Each step felt powerful, my want to run was both different and the same as when in wolf form, as a horse, it's just to run wild, as a wolf it's to hunt or chase a mate, which is just hunting for a different prize.

'How do you walk yourself down these disturbing thought holes?' Cinthia says interrupting my thoughts.

'Hey, I'm a horse, the want to run wild is very, very strong.' I send back.

'Try not to lose Soviet, you'll need him later.' Cinthia sends to me and then, "Mertil, let the rest know if we have the mana, Kae can infuse one team per every other night."

'We are leaving now,' I send out and start walking towards Mertil's house from the front of the Hall. All of those little hands all over me felt great and was going to get embarrassing, had to get away.

'Let me know if I go too fast or get to close to branches.' I send Soviet.

"Can do," Soviet says out loud, "I take back my statement about you not being all that helpful, this is great."

'OH, now you can make jokes?'

"I must say, I never saw this coming," Soviet sits up, "Good view from up here also."

I could keep a good pace, we went around a deep valley, I'd rather go left or right than go down and then back up again. Sunlight through the canopy was everywhere with the spotty canopy, plenty of room for additional growth.

Mertil, Beau, Katelyn, Evaine and Desa are walking around the hall answering the same questions over and over again in reference to becoming a mage or in this case a druid.

"You say it's voluntary, but, we have to submit to Kae to get it?" Isabella asks.

"IF you accept this blessing, the wolf has to be your primary form, you will join the pack and Kae will have an Alpha effect on you, if you don't want it, you don't have to take it, there are plenty of other things to do." Mertil answers.

"What if it doesn't work?" Yesime continues to ask questions but is excited to do what Kae can do, he transformed into a war horse right in front of them.

"It's going to work." Mertil answers.

"Can we keep our same squads no matter who takes it, and who doesn't?" Yesime asks.

"No changes in squad other than Evaine taking over for Kae while he is gone."

"What else do we have to do for this?" Ewlene asks.

"Depends on your role, you might get picked to fly or run from here to the Mountains or to the edge or Sreeport, go on a hunt, make your own gardens of trade goods and keep them sprouting.."

"Bah, all of that sounds freaking amazing, what do we have to do?" Triss interrupts Mertil.

"That's what you'll have to do." Mertil answers, "you've been handed the deadliest bow ever made and trained how to use it, then you get magic offered, what you will also do, is be forever grateful to the man that is doing this for us!" Mertil doesn't direct it at Triss, but the people in general, he's only saved their asses in a dozen different areas already.

"Who hasn't been grateful?" Niviena asks, "I understand as first team, we get picked often to be with him, are the other teams having issues?"

"Nah," Heran answers, "Jacobs team is equally tied to Jacob as they are to Kae and they're still rock solid."

"Aint no different for you hun," Isabella replies, "we are just as tied to you, might be the youngest, you have been doing all the heavy lifting and holding your own against Evaine and Kae and Jacob. You're a right badass."

Round and round the conversations go, there isn't anyone that doesn't want the benefits, many are just afraid of the too good to be true aspect of all this.

"Everyone stop for a moment!" Beau gets loud enough to catch everyone's attention. The Goddess isn't blessing us with all of these gifts for no reason, everyone should assume we will be called on to help with whatever Kae was brought here from his world to do, and before you ask, we don't know what it is." Beau looks around, "we went from weak starving women that were about to be taken, to this, look at yourselves."

"I see lots of fighting," Triss says, "everything we get is for fighting."

"Not necessarily," Yesime answers, Ninhersag is a goddess of nature, and why Kaethorn focuses on plants and animals."

"Protecting is still fighting," Triss smirks back and most agree with that.

___

"How many times can you transform?" Soviet asks Kae as the trees started to thin out, they were getting close, slight difference in smell if the wind shifted from the west.

'Two times between short rests, I don't know how long a short rest is yet.'

"Let me down so I can stretch my legs before we get much closer." Soviet grabs both bags, slides a leg over and drops to the ground with an grunt. "A bit of a drop than a regular horse."

"Do you have real warhorse abilities when you are like that?" I ask back in human form.

"Yep, though I'm a bit better with my bow and such out in the open." I laugh and stretch out a bit myself, walking feels odd on two feet and such tiny steps.

"What do the insides of that ruin look like?" I ask as he sides up next to me.

"Steep entrance down to a main long tunnel with side tunnels that end with deep drop shafts, used to be an opening on the other side, but that was caved in for almost half the tunnels. Figure we can get down in there and take it nice and slow, mark off everything we've seen and start anew the next day, it goes on all the way to those mountains." We have both been looking at the mountains, they are huge, but still a good ways off.

The wolves are sitting near the entrance off to the left where the treeline is closer. I greet the alpha and he acknowledges me back, 'Today.' He says and that was it.

"Are they close enough to the surface to get to today?" I ask out loud for Soviet to hear also.

'Close enough, smell other infected closer, small, no concern,' he answers and I pass that along.

"Small is good," Soviet says, "Just try not to get bit." He turns and walks to the entrance, pulls a rag out of his bag and wraps a stick with it, and then is tapping a flint stick to get it started.

Cinthia says through me, "Keep your hands free, I'll make the light," Soviet looking less surprised than I was dropping the stick and cloth on the ground, re-securing the backpack.

I get nervous underground, knowing that I tend to ramble on and try and keep it to a whisper. "If poison or disease, I can fix most anything, so far only a few frogs, mushrooms and a puffer fish have the poisons to kill before anything can be done. He glances at me and nods.

Cinthia steps out, touches my backpack and steps back in after it lights up. "Stay behind Soviet, set your pack down if you want to get to the edge to be stealthy or we can go ahead and look for you." It is steep going down with ridges dug into the rock, not quite stairs, but enough to keep you from sliding down into the dark, the light is good for about sixty feet before it fades out, the main tunnel is wide at twentyish feet across and six to seven feet up giving us both a few inches in most places with a little ducking and head tilted at an angle.

The smell is horrible, feels like it is all coming up the shafts towards us, I cover my face with my shirt. Walking down didn't show anything, we could hear murmurings as we got lower which was creepy.

As we leveled out, the ceiling had a few extra feet of space, the side tunnels were slightly bigger than the two of us side by side, "let's check every one to make sure nothing gets behind us, if there is anything." Soviet walks down the first side hall, nothing but bracers holding up the ceiling and a twenty-foot diameter hole drop at the end, further than the light could reach, the mining shafts.

"If all the side paths are like this, it will make this go a bit faster." Soviet turn and I follow him back to the main, reaching out I can feel the twenty little humanoids and half a dozen wolves.

"Little humanoids in front of and below us, the wolves are past them to our left."

"Leave the backpack here and lets walk forward, we'll meet back here and decide." Soviet put his hand up with a fist and then waved his hand forward, another hundred feet and the corridor starts down again, not as far as before, but still pretty far, I set darkvision on myself and Soviet so we wouldn't have to bring the light and let them see it, the faintest of lights from a portion of the gunk growing on the walls, most was just black mildew.

"Thanks," Soviet pulls me back just a bit and gets down on the ramp, I join him but don't know why we have to lay on the ground, those are goblins, they are terminally stupid on almost all occasions.

"How do you want to do this? I can probably take all of them with little issue if you stay out of the way." Soviet asks.

"I could cast spike growth and you could clean up the survivors? Even 20 children if timed right could do some damage."

We look back over the path and watch them long enough for Soviet to pull out something and eat it, he offers whatever it was to me, though I couldn't figure out what it was with darkvision so I waved it off.

"Most of them have tiny rusty weapons on them or nearby, spike growth is what it sounds like?" Soviet asks.

"Yeah, 20feet of thorn spikes centered on that one sitting down, a few might get through to us, lasts about 10minutes, I can concentrate while firing off a few arrows to get them moving." He just nods and turns back.

"Is this how you mollify the mages? Let them do things that are probably overkill?"

"The Goblins aren't going to kill themselves, so..." Soviet looks between me and the goblins, urging me to get going, I liked him better as the strong silent dude.

Spike Growth rises up in a 20-foot radius around my little target goblin, she looks unhappy even compared to the rest of them, it normally takes a wisdom check to see the spikes in the dark like this, but they are in the area so I expect most to notice right away, a few squeals happen immediately, none of them are looking for the reason this happened, they are staring at the floor and finding empty places to stand. Their tiny size does give them room to move around. Pulling up Ello and multishot from this distance and at a group of them hits three, the arrows go clean through pushing them back a few feet. Only a couple noticed as they were focused on not getting a spike in the foot. They saw Soviet stand up and start walking towards them, which caused many to start towards him, forgetting about their surroundings, their screams got others to look up and see Soviet, causing the same situation. The smarter ones were using the bodies of their 'kin'? to stand on to move forward, causing them to scream in protest. Watching the ones being stepped on trying to hold themselves up while also trying to throw the other off of them makes for some poor footing and at least three-quarters of them were down. Soviet stood just outside the ring and watched, I see him shake his head and agreed with his sentiment.

At the end of the 10minutes, the lil one sitting in the middle was unharmed, never moved, Soviet stabbed a few as he walked through them and I started to feel a little bad for this one, she seemed harmless. Soviet shooed at her with his sword, I walked back to get our packs and when I got back she was standing next to him, I patted its head on the way by, "Hey, you want a job?"

"Oh!" she looks up at me, "you speak Gob?" I didn't realize the diplomat stone actually worked with her.

"You want to bring, her, along?" Soviet looks at me.

'You need her,' Grayson sends me, so I nod to him and point up.

"What? Yes, I'm good, I know all of this better," she stood up and came up just above our hips.

"Sandy?" Oh my, I almost called her Sniffles and changed it at the last second, don't want to be an asshole to what looked like a rough day for her already. "Here is some bread and cheese, carry these two packs, stay behind us, do you know where the wizard's library is?"

She takes the packs and then drops them when I hand her the cheese and bread. "bah, put them on first, then get the food," I say pointing down at the bags. I help her sling them over each arm. She's pretty strong for her size.

"Sandy," she says looking up at me while taking the food, "No wizards here except this," she shakes the backpack with the light mote on it.

"Where do we go now Sandy?" I see the tiniest of smiles pull at the corner of Soviets mouth.

"Oh, you call me Sandy! Wolfs over there, they hunt us when they get hungry, we should leave, that way," she points the way we came in.

"We can't go that way until we get to the library or study; a place with books?" I say slowly and not even the faintest spark of recognition shows in Sandy's eyes.

"What is keeping them in that hallway?" Soviet asks Sandy.

She rubs her skin and shows her thumb," get too far from dusts, you die, they run out, take, run back in, bad wolfs, we were stuck. Sandy looked back to where her people were, "Throw them down hallway and we can walk right by."

"Great idea," I say and Sandy's face lit up with a giant shiny-toothed smile, nice teeth for living down here. "But, we promised to get them out of here."

"Ahh, still, give them Jiva and Peats, they biggest ones and make it easier to get them out," Sandy starts walking back to their area taking the light with her.

"Hey! Bring the light back here Sandy, we have an idea." Turning to Soviet who is watching the back and forth.

"I can only understand every couple of words." He says looking back and forth between us. "I'd suggest heroes feast, it will cure them and then we can shoo them out the entrance." Soviet says with his eyes on the tunnel, how close do you think we could get before they come out?"

"I need thirty feet for the spell, or however close I need to get with the dark vision to see a place to set it down, then we have to wait an hour before they are healed when it ends."

Soviet takes his backpack from Sandy and walks up the edge of the tunnel, calling me over, "go on, I'll distract them with the pack if they come out. "

Heroes feast is like concentration, but more a prayer to Ninhersag, asking for her to bless this food, for it to be used to fix the wolves to send them back to the Alpha waiting for them. The food showed up on the platters and trays on the floor. The wolves pounced on the meets and gravies, Soviet moved us back to the far wall and sat against his pack.

The noise of the platters and bowls on the floor was deafening, there is apparently nothing down here that hunts via noise or it would be here now.

Sandy took my pack, set it up against the wall just as Soviet had done, sits down and strikes the same pose, takes a bit of her cheese, and offers it to him..

"No thank you." Soviet says with sincerity and then looks over at me, I shrug and turn to keep an eye on the progress, an hour is such a short amount of time when you are trying to eat the food, and an incredibly long time when waiting for someone else to eat it.

Ten minutes later, I delve into Sandy and cure her disease. "OH, I have to pee," She says looking up at me, I point to the side tunnel on our side. She walks over and then comes back a few moments later. "It went away."

"Was it this feeling? I sent the healing into her again and she nods. "I just made it so the dust won't hurt you when you come with us."

"Oh, good." She sits down and looks back towards her old camp, maybe we should move down a little further.

"Do you have a name?" I ask to distract her a little.

"Sandy, hated old name, they pick on me cuz I was next to be eaten, but then lot of animals come down here from the woods above and I was saved, the wolfs not need me, but every day waiting for my day, now they gone, and I'm still here. Hey, do you think the wolfs would share, it smells good?"

"We have more food, don't go in there." Soviet hands her the same thing he offered me with Sandy taking it and chewing. "Good."

"What did you hear of that conversation?" I ask Soviet, he is only catching a few words?

"Sandy, next, animals, wolfs, gone, wolfs share food." Soviet replies.

"She was the next to be sacrificed to the wolves," Thank you Ninhersag if you helped feed the wolves and keep our little one here alive until we arrived. " They were mean to her, now they are gone and then she got sidetracked and asked if the wolves would share their food with her, seems like 'some' of the screeching noises is an actual conversation."

"Hey! You humans talk all day to say one thing." She points her food at me, I laugh as I was saying the same thing waiting for the interpretations to go back and forth. "You are right Sandy, I prefer your way of talking." She nodded and scooted to be exactly centered between me and Soviet, we waited another half an hour and heard the whines when the food vanished and their disease cured. Two of them came to the edge of the doorway, I tried animal friendship and they were too freaked out to pay it any attention.

"Alpha them," Cynthia says for all of us to hear, I concentrated down into combat form and started right at them moving fast. The first two fought back with lots of mouth and noise but no real fight in them, they rolled over without any blood spilled, the other four inside the room saw them and then me and slunk down and then gave up.

'The Alpha that asked me to heal you, is waiting for you to return to him outside this place, you were healed with that food, now go to him.'

Not a word back from them as they scrambled to their feet and their nails were scraping the floor making the corner and heading up the tunnels. Now that the fuss was over I turned back to human as fast as I could.