“You, I expected better from!” Flux snapped at the creature that knelt before him, and its head lowered even further. “Return to your chambers…we will speak later!” Flux ordered, and the Mer got up and started walking quickly toward the water, pausing only when I called out.
“Lydia, is everyone okay? No damage?” When I got a shouted affirmative, I went on. “Well, no harm, no foul. Throw down the weapons.” Lydia paused at that, before slowly throwing the weapons down onto the ground one at a time. The young creature had been armed with two short spears and four long knives, almost short swords. The knives, like the spears, had no cross guards and looked very alien in that they had a strange bend in them: at about halfway up the haft, they kinked slightly to one side, and Flux caught me looking with interest.
He slowly drew one of the long knives with exaggerated care from the sheath at his side, passing it over to me. When I inspected it more closely, I realized I couldn’t tell if they were actually from an animal or man-made, but they looked like they’d be deadly in a fight either way.
The points were long and sharp, but behind the tips, on the backside of the blades, they had a scalloped design, with small ridges that looked designed to saw flesh. Lower down, the kink appeared to be a reinforcement that made it easier for their shaped arms to pull the weapons out, causing maximum damage.
“Nasty,” I commented, passing the weapon back.
“Effective!” Flux replied with a little shake of his head and a low ‘buzz’ that reverberated the air around us. I shrugged and gestured to the weapons Lydia had thrown down.
“I think they’re all his…”
“You would return him his weapons?” Flux asked and I shrugged again.
“Yeah, of course; as I said, no harm, no foul, I am sorry about the little one, though, I kinda kicked it pretty hard before I realized it wasn’t a threat.”
“Who attacked first?” Flux asked me intently.
“I really don’t know which of your younglings, but it was one of them. We were exploring the ship, looking for the crew when a…member of our group called out to me. The next thing I knew, knives were flying.”
“Small blades? Thrown weapons?” he asked, sounding angry, and I nodded.
“Yeah, short throwing knives; looked like they’d hurt.”
“If they were coated when they cut you, you’d not be standing here now.” Flux said with controlled fury evident in his voice. “The throwing knives are called ‘Ashik-tor’, and they are to be used in the direst need only, due to being coated in a deadly poison. That they used these weapons first? I fear they have brought more dishonor to our pod than I felt possible.” He barked something at the figure that had stopped halfway to the water, and the Mer quickly ran over to the weapons, picking them up and returning to stand behind Flux and Cheena, rather than heading into the water as it had been ordered previously. “This foolish child will now earn back his weapons threefold, due to this dishonor, or he will never again return to the pod!” Flux snarled at him before turning back to me and going down on one knee again. The other two did the same, and I started to step forward to help him back up when Oracle stopped me. She grabbed a handful of hair at the back of my head and yanked sharply. I barely managed to avoid swearing.
“Don’t…this is important to them,” she whispered, and I cleared my throat, swallowing my irritation.
“Flux…we can… ah, we will talk of the dishonor later…okay?” I said, I had no idea what he wanted or expected, and we didn’t have time for this shit right now.
“Very well, Lord Jax. We will earn your forgiveness this day,” he said, coming to his feet and snapping at the others to do the same.
Oren brought the warship to a halt a dozen feet away, appearing quickly at the edge of the railing to look down at us.
“Yer done found more followers already, laddie?” he called down. “Ah saw ‘em kneelin’. Damn, tha’ be fast work! Whut did I miss?”
“It’s not like that!” I called up to him, “Get your arse out of the way; we need to use the map in the captain’s cabin.” I said, striding over to the side of the ship and grabbing ahold of the rope ladder that was quickly thrown down. Flux followed me, at my invitation, and a few minutes later, Flux, Oracle, Oren, Lydia, and myself were gathered in the captain’s cabin, encircling the magical map I’d seen there earlier.
I’d spread it out across the table, and Oracle touched the activation rune, channeling a little mana into it to bring it to life.
Instantly, the map shifted from a flat drawing three feet by two, to a 3D representation of the same place. The major difference was that now we could zoom in on our location and expand it, making the valley we were in and the lake fill the map.
“Okay, where do you think the goblin camp is?” I asked Flux, and he shifted the perspective slowly, obviously having difficulty with it for a few seconds until he was happy with it. Once he had it centered over where we stood, he shifted it around and waved his hand in a circular motion over a raised area further up the side of the valley.
“I think…here. There was an old ruin up there somewhere; we found it when we explored, but it was deemed unsafe, and too far from the water. We left
