Chapter 30

  To Be Brave Enough

  Silence.

  A battle for their lives, and an enemy they’d been told to run from had fallen.

  In the wake of the battle, in the moment Nik looted that enemy, a faint pop sounded and he felt the air being tugged from his lungs. His feet slid several inches as he was briefly pulled toward the now empty space that the matron's body had filled.

  A deep breath and then silence fell.

  Pearl tilted her head at the party notification that informed each of them about the shared space and minimal remaining slots. “Interesting. A shared inventory could be useful,” said the mousey-haired, analytical sprite, bringing the first bit of sound back into the stillness of the tunnel.

  “That… was… awesome! And that’s a lot of chitin! We’ll need to get an armorsmith in our new burrow,” Kath’s exclamations echoed through the space.

  Sir BlackDagger's voice came from behind Nik, saying, “Bea, can you tell us what just happened?”

  “Um, maybe? Nik's group is talking about a shared inventory, and having a lot of chitin. They must have just unlocked it, because they sound just as surprised as we are,” she replied.

  Nik for his part had moved on to attempting to collect his spear.

  Climbing atop the chitin, he tried to avoid the spots slicked with insect or adventurer's blood and moved carefully over to find his spear. He gave another look around the battlefield and found one of the goblin spears that had apparently been pressed flat into the ground covering instead of snapping.

  Both spears vanished into his inventory, and he called out to his people.

  “Kath, Worik, put the cart into the party inventory, and start gathering any of the torches that are still lit or usable. Pearl, we need to talk.”

  “What do you need to discuss?” she asked.

  Nik smiled broadly at her and said, “Teacher, how would you like to learn flame? No, what I mean to ask is, will you let me teach you? Please?”

  Pearl's eyes looked into his soul as she considered her response.

  “I only have gotten to hear parts of the conversations you have been having, and only parts of your side of them. Why is it important to you that I have access to flame abilities?”

  “The king is sending shadow monsters, enemies that can only be hurt by light. I need you and my guards to have a defense against them. I don't want to lose you and I don't want to have to fight your corpse, because the shadows… The king's shadows can puppet the dead,” Nik forced the words out.

  The adventurers faced that, and they warned me. Maybe they were just delivering the message as ordered, but they could have run. Maybe it was that since they're stuck in Kyraneth they needed to look for answers, and I was the only lead they had?

  “I really need a day off to just look for shiny rocks,” Nik's eyes went a bit wide at the realization that he'd not only been so deep in his own head that he'd missed Pearl's response, but he'd accidentally interrupted her while giving voice to that last thought.

  The hardiest and most vibrant laughter he'd ever heard from his friend burst forth from her lips.

  Once she'd gained a modicum of control over the laughter, she hovered to his chest, ducked to the side of his chin and wrapped her arms around his neck in a sincere hug.

  “Of course you do, buddy, of course you do. I will let you teach me the skill, as well. I would like to have that to use against the shadows, should they come for you,” she said, while trying to contain the chuckling that still escaped her in small fits.

  Nik let the humor of the moment break a small laugh from him, too, and he felt his shoulders relax. A small, unseen weight lifted from his shoulders.

  With the invitation sent and accepted, his student slots filled to four out of five. Pearl would be safer with abilities from the flame skill.

  “I’m going to start with teaching this immediately, and Stics will have to catch up. When the clan arrives, our stoneshapers will get the rubble clear so we can move to the surface. I’ll work with him as much as I can while they work on that.”

  A calm settled around the adventurers, who were still recovering from the battle, while they watched Nik and his party out of curiosity more than boredom.

  Nik tried to keep an eye on them while he explained the process of producing Candlelight to his students.

  None of them had taken instantly to the skill, but it did take me days to learn wind. It will come with time. It has to, and it needs to be quicker than it was for me, he thought.

  A loud crack and a growl rang out from the side of the tunnel.

  Nobody had been paying any attention to Doggy and Ryan for a while now, and that, apparently, had been a problem.

  Doggy had stopped chewing and left the matron's broken leg to place himself between his master and the potential threat.

  “Ryan?” Nik asked, his voice an odd combination of awe and concern.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  Across from Doggy, still chewing on the skitterbug appendage, was the familiar fae-dragon. Familiar, but now he was nearing the size of a bramblestag beetle and probably the same weight as Nik.

  Their golden-orange traveling companion, behaving as if nothing whatsoever had happened, looked up at Nik. Ryan's tail wagged as chitin cracked under the force of his bite.

  He dropped the leg as Doggy returned to approach him, and after sniffing for a moment and touching snout to nose, they stepped back in beside each other to continue chewing on the limb.

  “Doggy got okay with that way too fast. I don't even know how to process this,” Nik said to his surrounding party.

  Pearl spoke up from beside him, saying, “He still only looks like an adolescent dragon, but he is quite large, so far as I have heard from the stories.”

  “Yes!” shouted Kath.

  Nik jumped, and let out an almost warbled, “Ah haha, thank you, so much for the near heart attack.”

  Then his eyes landed on the soft blue flame that flickered over her green index finger.

  Pearl swooped in to praise her favorite student before he had the chance to say anything else.

  “Excellent job, Kath! You picked that up very quickly. How did you make it work?” she added the question at the end as she realized that she had yet to unlock the flame skill herself.

  Nik didn't miss how easy it was for them all to be distracted from Ryan's rampant growth, but there was something else more important that had caught his attention.

  The other thing Nik hadn’t missed was the look on Worik’s face when he watched Kath getting praise over the skill that he hadn’t unlocked yet. The goblin warrior had lost much, and it had left him angry and frustrated with his own weakness. Even though he’d grown in strength at a breakneck speed over the last week.

  Nik thought, I don’t have much experience dealing with others, but I understand that feeling. It sucks. No matter how strong I get, there is always another threat. It can make you feel weak, no matter how strong you are.

  “Worik, let Kath and Pearl work together while you and I work on the skill,” he said to the warrior.

  The crease between his brows eased from his face as he said, “Yes, my lord.”

  And so they trained in their pairs, waiting for the Stormclaws to arrive.

  To Worik's frustration, Pearl zipped around the air above them less than three hours later with the light of a blue flame trailing from one hand.

  “Worik?” said Nik.

  “Lord Nik?” he replied.

  “Out of the three of you, who do you think would win the most fights if you were to take turns dueling each other in melee combat?” Nik asked.

  “In melee combat? It might sound arrogant, but I believe I would win almost every time against either of them. Maybe even both at once, sir,” Worik said.

  “Exactly. So don't get frustrated when they have different strengths than you do.”

  He gave his goblin subordinate a reassuring smile.

  “I see what you mean, but sayin’ that is still easier than knowin’ that I still haven't been able to make a Candlelight. I know you’re in a hurry for us to learn it, and I don't wanna be the weak link in your Lowerguard,” said the scar-jawed goblin.

  Nik rubbed the scales on the back of his neck. “Oh, huh… I'm not going to say that it isn't really important or that we have a lot of time, but I didn't expect that to be the reason you looked upset about it taking a while to learn.”

  Even though we’ve only spent a little bit of time together, I’ve already forgotten how much I still have to learn about my people. I know backstories and information. I’ve even learned how they move in combat, but I don’t really know much of who they are beyond that. Another thing I just don’t have the time to fix right now, Nik thought.

  Worik looked down at his upturned palms and said, “I want to be a Stormclaw in more than name, too. I don’t want to be the weak link in your defenses, but I do want to be an example of what our new burrow could become… I want to be strong like you.”

  Nik followed everything his guard had been saying up until the last sentence; that one sentence was enough to scramble his brain and leave him momentarily speechless.

  The look on his face must have shown some look other than confusion or dumbfoundedness because Worik said, “Are you alright, my lord?”

  “Yeah, I’ve just never heard another person say they want to be like me in any way, much less to be strong like me. It just caught me by surprise,” said the formerly weak kobold.

  “I don’t care how weak you were before you got the system, you have strength now and you use it to protect people. Tower help us, you even chose to save the adventurers, and now, as it apparently happens, your pet fae-dragon is the size of a baby thunderworm,” Worik said, shaking his head.

  “Wait, I thought the kids made thunderworms up,” Nik replied.

  “That wasn’t the point of the conversation. You’re powerful now and gettin’ stronger. I want to be strong enough to support you, and I want to be brave enough to make the choices I see you makin’. Because I’m not, my lord. I’m scared of what’s coming and I would’ve made the choice to let the adventurers die,” Worik admitted.

  “I’m scared, too, and honored by your words. I promise to keep pushing us all to get stronger, and I won’t let any of us fail the Stormclaw name. You are going to get there, I promise. Now, let’s go again. Show me what you can do, Worik Stormclaw. Let’s blaze a path together,” Nik said with a wide and honest smile.

  The fledgling burrowlord and his guard sat on the ground, facing each other while Nik offered guidance and the occasional reminder for Worik to be patient.

  After another two hours of persistent focus, that patience paid off with a small flicker of light between them.

  Once Nik’s student had successfully activated his first Candlelight ability, the little kobold considered the words that had been spoken to him. It took bravery to make choices that required trust and risk in order to do what was right.

  He needed to show some of that bravery now. If they were traveling with him, then the adventurers were in danger, too. Beatrice's friends among them. So he called over to her.

  Looking over from where she sat beside her party members, she replied, “What can I help you with, Nik?”

  “I want to offer you a sign of faith and trust,” Nik said.

  “I’ll bite. What are you offering?” she asked as she rose to her feet.

  “Which one of your people would benefit most from learning the flame skill? If they accept me as a teacher, then I will take them on as a student — no matter which of you it is,” he explained.

  Shock covered her features as she said, “You could do that? And you would accept one of us?”

  Walking over to position himself before the adventurers, he held a hand up between himself and their group to let a small blue flame rise from his finger.

  “I have one remaining slot, and I don’t see any reason I couldn’t take you or one of your people. You are stuck in a world that is not your own, and I would help to keep you safe, friend,” Nik said, and letting the fire go out, reached his hand up for her to shake.