WilburWoods
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Chapter 36 - An Audience
🕑 Added 2023-09-19 16:52:47 +0000 UTCLogan ate like a fiend. This was real cooked food. They had pie. FRIGGIN’ PIE! And a sauce with. On the other side of the table the King watched him in wry amusement from the corner of his eye. There was also a circle of Faelves around Max, watching him with wide-eyed curiosity. They were whispering to each other, and Snoff was getting a lot of attention, which he was clearly enjoying.
“Did you hear? He leveled up in an attribute.”
“Snoff said he planted an A-grade seed…”
“He’s so tall…”
Logan was more interested in the butter and cheese on a little platter which he attacked with great fervor.
They have cheese! CHEESE! Good Lord, I forgot how much I missed cheese.
“So, Logan,” King Sluikumar said conversationally. “You must be rather low level to gain an attribute from the Blessing. Did you get it on your lowest stat?”
Logan smirked. “I got a level in all of my attributes.”
A gasp passed through the gathered Faelves around the table.
“But— this is… No surely not?” The King spluttered.
Logan raised his eyebrows, still giving them a dumb smile. Apparently this was a big deal?
The King seemed to have forgotten his words, so Logan picked up the conversation.
“What was that blessing thing? I have Numa inside me now? How does that work?”
“There is much to tell,” the King said and sipped on his tea. His beard was so lush, that half of the drink spilled. “Yes, you have eaten the fruit and drank from the well. Your Numa is recharged.
Logan picked up a piece of pie between two fingers.
“Make this pie into the shape of a rose.”
The pie morphed and a little pie-flower was soon upon Logan’s palm. He stared at it in open amazement.
King Sluikumar smiled. “These crystals you hold are but an attempt of the First Folk to make Numa available to all.”
“But you said only a select few can use the crystals,” Logan said, eating the pie-flower.
“You hold but bits of broken toys, boy,” the King said and wagged a finger at him. “First Folk made constructs. Fully shaped crystals with perfect form. Those can be used by anyone. As can pure natural Numa, which comes straight from the Spirit.”
“Oh yeah, I saw these crystal constructs in the ruins. They really helped me out of a jam.”
“Ohhoh, you found some that were unspent. The Dorves must be getting sloppy.”
“The who?”
“Dorves, boy,” Sluikumar said. “Have you not met them? I suppose you’ve not. They so rarely leave their underground dwellings.”
The crowd around them started to mutter amongst themselves in angry hushed tones.
“Cursed Dorves!”
“Lunatics.”
“Fools!
“They dare taunt…”
Logan made an expectant, questioning face to the king. The king stroked his massive beard with two hands.
“The Dorves live underground. We no longer deal with them. They are younger than us, but two generations old. They never learned anything, even if we tried to teach.”
“So, there's all sorts of species around?” Logan asked.
“Just us and the Dorves as far as we know. We are no longer in great numbers. There are only some thousands of us left in total, I reckon, yes. Most of us could not survive the wake of the Great Thief…”
“Are there a lot of you?” Logan asked. “We humans could use allies.”
“We have but three friendly towns of our cousins, scattered here and there nearby. There are more of us in the north. A city of Faelves, ten times large as our dwellings here, ‘tis. I am a king of dwindling people. ‘Tis hard to find ground to cultivate Numa upon.”
“Wait, back up,” Logan said and took a more comfortable position after pushing his pie plate away. “You only have a few settlements scattered around? Maybe one city. How is that possible?”
King Sluikumar watched him from the corner of his eyes. “We are the oldest folk here, but we are not old. ‘Twas the fathers of our fathers that came here. Our old world, Levenia, was dying. A great heat mounted and most of our kin perished. But the Strangers from Above brought the fathers of our fathers here.”
“Why!?” Logan asked sharply, half getting up from the ground. “Why are we here?”
The King stroked his beard with both of his hands. “‘Tis a good question, yes? Why indeed. We have but guesses.”
“Well, don’t hold me in suspense.”
The King watched him with a keen, serious stare and then nodded. “There be two forces in this realm we call Saeldar, the Eternal Spring. The Spirit Goddess Numa, who bestows life, and the Great Thief which we do not name, lest we call him here.
The Great Thief?” Logan said quietly. “Levem—”
“DO NOT CALL UPON HIS NAME,” The King flew up two feet and his eyes flashed with danger. Then he calmed down, and brought his hands to his voluminous, blue beard.
“We know not whether calling the Great Thief by name is safe,” Sluikumar explained. “Now shut up for half a moment, my young friend. Listen to me. Have some pie.”
Logan did what was told and a new full pie full of berries and nuts was soon brought to the table. It was steaming hot. Logan let out a little happy sigh.
“The Strangers from Above brought us here two hundred years ago. As they did the Dorves, a hundred years ago. And now you, the tall folk have arrived. There is a pattern at play.”
I should probably tell him to call us ‘Humans’.
[Reconfiguring Neural Matrix… 89% Completion]
Huh? What’s up, Tumor?
[I have done analysis on this ‘pie’ you have ingested. There are 62 different compounds in use, but after 1388 simulations, I cannot reproduce the configuration.]
“What?” Logan said.
“What?” King Sluikumar asked.
Since when is it ‘I’ instead of ‘this one’? Don’t answer that. You’re giving me a headache, Tumor. We’ll talk about pie later.
[Understood.]
“Sorry, Logan said, holding the spoon dumbly, not sure what to do with it. Apparently his AI liked pie… “Could you repeat what you said?”
“‘Tis our belief that a world like this is rare,” Sluikumar continued and helped himself a slice of the steaming pie himself. “The Spirit Goddess Numa is the essence of this world. It could be something entirely unique. We had nothing like such in our home world, only lesser spirits. Perhaps we are meant to commune with it, perhaps protect it.”
Logan faintly remembered the ‘Administrators’ before they had tossed him into this world. Day by day, the memory became like a faded dream. But he remembered that they had called him a candidate.
“I think you’re right,” Logan said. “I remember something about these people you called Strangers from Above.”
The entire crowd, the King included, leaned in closer with wide eyes. Some of the younger Faelves bounced excitedly and clapped. Logan told them what little he remembered.
“A candidate?” the King mouthed the word. “For what, I wonder.”
Then he pointed at the crowd around them. “You. My lovely fools! Go and think and discuss on this. We will hold court after our guest has been sufficiently entertained, yes!”
But the Faelves only laughed and raspberried. King Sluikumar shook a fist at them, but his sterness melted into a grandfatherly smile.
“Fine, you reckless rascals, you fools!” He said in his melodic tone. “But you will not shirk this duty forever.”
Logan finished his fill of the pie and picked up the conversation again. “So what are the Dorves doing?”
“They dwell in the remains of the cities of the First Folk. There are many devices by the First Folk left behind. But the Great Thief is cunning. He knows there is Numa down there, so monsters will flock to the ruins.”
“What kind of people are they?” Logan asked.
Scoffs and jeers came in rounds from the crowd circling them.
“They want to eat their berries and make juice too,” Sluikumar said and shook his head. “They think if they burrow underground, they can cheat the Great Thief. ‘Tis not so. They die by the score, and we suffer for it.”
“Why?” Logan asked. “I’m missing something here. Are they doing something bad?”
The crowd started its tinkling whispers immediately.
“He does not know.”
“They have been lucky.”
“Show it to him, King!”
“Show him of the Great Thief!”
King Sluikumar placed down his wooden spoon and looked at Logan as if not sure if the human was jesting or not. “Truly? You do not know why we so shun the Dorves? Why we ourselves live off the land and the tree?”
Logan shrugged.
The King sighed and stroked his blue beard with both of his hands. The he turned to Snoff in the crowd.
“‘Tis good you brought him sooner, not later, young one.”
Snoff gave the king a sober nod. King Sluikumar turned to Logan.
“Let me show you a vision,” the King said and gently lifted upwards and floated next to Logan.
Logan swallowed. “S-sure?”
“Do not fear;” The King said. “This is not something that can be told. To understand the Great Thief, you must see.”
The King gave him one of his grandfatherly smiles and placed his tiny porcelain hand on Logan’s forehead. A great white nothing filled Logan’s vision and he was transported some time far ago.
