A Soldier's Life

Chapter 136: Goliath Therapy

I returned to my room, stirred the coals in the fireplace, and added some boards to liven up the fire. Once the fire was going again, I lay out on the black desk. Maveith stirred, “Eryk, is everything alright?” He tried to whisper, but his baritone was still fairly loud.

“Yeah, Castile just used the amulet tonight.” I thought for a moment, “Maveith, you have a spell form, right? Can you direct the aether in your core?” I whispered.

“My spell form is weak. I can turn rock into clay for a brief time before it turns back to rock. But yes, I have enough awareness of my aether core to manipulate the aether,” he grumbled out in a softer voice, aware of how loud he was.

I produced the amulet. “Maveith, I am going to enter the dreamscape amulet first. You can touch it and channel aether into it after,” I offered.

“I am not interested in using your amulet,” Maveith replied. Felix stirred and mumbled something about us being quieter.

“Just trust me, Maveith. The city is doing something to us, and this will counter it,” I said pleadingly.

“Alright,” he said after a pause.

Maveith appeared in the dungeon entry room shortly after me. He immediately started spinning about, curious. He then looked at his hands and flexed them. “Everything looks so real,” he said in awe. His voice was back to his normal intrusive volume.

I started to explain, “The city is preventing us from dreaming. So even though everyone is sleeping, they are not getting any mental recovery. This amulet space allows you to dream because it is a dreamscape,” My explanation sounded lame, but Maveith nodded like it made complete sense.

I did the same thing I did for Castile and created a spread of food on the table. “It is not real but still tastes good,” I motioned for him to help himself. Maveith was too wide for the chair, so I created a bench for him, and he jumped when it appeared under him. I laughed, “Maveith, it is just a bench. You can create anything or anyone you ever knew here. However, you might suffer a slight headache when you leave, depending on how many things you create. Or maybe it has to do with complexity. I am still learning how the artifact works.”

Maveith seemed to consider and created a massive tray of some type of pasta dish. He tentatively tasted it and then smiled. “It tastes just like I remember it.” Maveith put some on a plate and offered it to me. I tried it, and the dish was mostly bland, with some pungent chunks of cheese in a thick, oily sauce.

“It is good,” I offered my filtered opinion to the goliath. It was all fake, but my taste buds still had me salivating. Maveith started eating everything on the table, and I just watched him for a bit. “We will leave after five hours and see if you are any better.”

“Nothing is wrong with me, Eryk,” he said while ripping meat off a large turkey leg with his teeth. I didn’t want to explain depression and irritability from lack of sleep to the goliath, so I just let him eat.

After he finished getting his fill of the food and asking a dozen questions about what things were on the table, we moved into the ankheg chamber. “Do you want to fight a monster?” I willed one of the two giant crawfish-like creatures to surface, and Maveith jumped back, unconsciously materializing his club in his hand.

It took Maveith some time to calm down, “I don’t know why you would want to fight monsters in here. You can...” Maveith stopped talking and was focused intently behind me. I turned to see an obviously feminine goliath. Maveith just stared as I studied her. Her gray skin, bald head, and emerald eyes reminded me of Maveith. She was shorter than him at only about 6’8” compared to Mavieth’s 7’6” frame and had a leaner upper body and feminine chest with a muscular build.

She spoke, “Brother, why did you not help us? The orcs killed me and took Myra.” Shit, Mavieth’s guilt was imprinted on his manifestation of his sister.

I focused, took control of the female goliath, and directed its speech, “I forgive you, brother. You could not have done anything to stop it, and they would have killed you if you had intervened.”

Maveith was tearing up and sobbing, “You don’t know that, Zorana. I might have been able to turn the tide and get you to a healer in the village.”

“Let it go, Maveith,” she reasserted. I had the female goliath move into him and hug him. Maveith’s massive body was suddenly wracked with heaving sobs as he squeezed his sister tight. I couldn’t stop tears of my own being released at the scene. I let him have a bit of private time with her and returned to the entry room to do a bit of studying. I could hear the two of them talking, both with deep baritones. Eventually, Maveith came back to the entry room.

“Thank you, Eryk. I know it was not real, but I missed her so much. I got a chance to say goodbye.” Maveith’s eyes were puffy, which made little sense in here unless he wanted it like that. I walked back into the ankheg room to find Zorana studying the creature. I sent her to the room to play with Oscar and the others.

When Maveith saw she was gone, he just nodded. “I think I would like to kill some monsters, Eryk. Can you dream up some orcs?”

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“I never met an orc. I think you should do it,” I replied as orc after orc materialized in the first ankheg room. After the seventh orc appeared, they stopped. Three of the orcs had nets, so I assumed these were the orcs that had killed his sister. They generally fell in what I imagined the race looked like, except they appeared—civilized. They wore tailored clothes under their armor and had unblemished skin and well-trimmed hair.

Maveith entered the fight before me, and I got to see a side of Maveith that I had never seen before. He was a violent and powerful goliath who ignored wounds to his body to get a killing blow on his foe. The orcs were mildly decent swordsmen, but not a challenge for me unless I got netted. I only needed to use a single air shield to avoid the nets, so it never reached me. We killed the seven orcs three times before Maveith’s lust for vengeance was finally satiated. “I can now see why you would want to practice your fighting skills here. Maybe we can do this again sometime?” His voice rang with satisfaction.

“It has been about six hours, so let’s get some breakfast and see what Castile wants to do.” We exited the dreamscape, and I found Maveith’s hand on my chest, reaching up from his position on the floor to grasp the amulet.

Benito was standing over me, “Eryk, I am hurt. You let the big man into your dreams but wouldn’t let me? I am much more fun than him.”

I sat up, working the kinks out of my back. “Maveith has control over his aether and can activate the amulet. Besides Benito, who says you do not already haunt my dreams?” I teased Benito.

Benito gave me a confused and dubious look. He shook his head, giving up on puzzling it out. “Castile wants to see you, Eryk. Bet you and her are going to have fancy dreams together, too.” Benito’s voice was slightly harsh and accusatory, and he lacked his normal joviality. Something was definitely affecting us.

I knocked and walked in on Castile and Adrian talking quietly. “Delmar is leading a trip for firewood. Did the goliath succeed?” Castile asked pointedly.

“Maveith was able to use it. I think it helped him.” I replied to Castile’s nod.

“Good. I have a plan. There is a spell called nightmare. It is an advanced form of the sleep spell, but it is the only spell I reviewed while at the Mage College that forces the target into a dream state. I want to borrow your amulet to learn it.” Castile looked at me expectantly.

I produced the amulet and handed it to her. Adrian added, “Eryk, if you have any food stored away, now would be a suitable time to share. The men are fraying from hunger and exhaustion and I fear we may see fighting soon.” I looked at Castile, who had a blank expression. She had obviously told him I had reserves.

I placed fourteen meal bars on the desk. His eyes went wide, “Anything else?”

I produced a small, wrapped bundle of food from when I had left the legionnaire training, I had never touched it. There were maybe eight or nine pounds of food in the bundle. Adrian carefully went through it, frowning the entire time. I could tell he realized how long I had the food as it had date stamps from the legion training camp on the items. I was clearly revealing my abilities to him, but Castile said he could be trusted, so I decided to trust him as well, if only a little more.

I was just as thin as everyone else, so I was obviously not partaking in the food. He didn’t ask if I had any more; he just mumbled that Delmar was going to accuse me of hoarding food. It was the only thing that made sense when food just appeared out of nowhere.

Adrian finally said unhappily, “Three more days of food here for the company. Welcome but not enough to make a huge difference.”

I produced the large three-gallon jar of honey on the desk. Delmar’s eyebrows went up as the jar was obviously bigger than my space as he knew it. He opened it and tasted crystals, “Honey?” I nodded. “Another three days,” he said, expecting me to produce more. I shrugged, indicating that was it. I still had twenty gallons of rum and whiskey along with about three dozen ration bars, the two backpacks from the griffon rider and summoner that probably had some food in them as well, but I would hold that in reserve for now.

Castile seemed to consider, “If I spend all day in the dreamscape amulet, I might be able to learn the nightmare spell in a week if Fortuna favors me. It is a difficult spell, but the amulet does focus your efforts allowing for faster learning.”

“We need to keep clearing the specters from the lower layers, Castile,” Adrian pronounced in a clearly scripted speech.

Castile tapped the kettle of souls on the desk, a small smile on her face, “It is just like a normal collector, Eryk. You aim the artifact at the disrupted body and push your aether into the device. It will feel slightly wrong as it pulls in the death essence, but that is normal.”

I didn’t like where this was going, “What if we encounter another wight? Or something more dangerous.”

“Konstantin, Adrian, Blaze, and Brutus will go with you. Just work the periphery of the complex for now.” She held up the amulet, “I think this is more important for the moment. After my own time in the dreamscape, I can sense some of the men ready to break.”

Adrian offered a weak, haggard smile. “The good news is the elven wine appears viable, Eryk. Most of our descents will focus on recovering as many bottles as we can.”

“How is this going to be explained?” I gestured at the honey and food.

“I will take responsibility, and we will dole it out slowly,” Castile said. “We are lucky you had it, Eryk.” I winced, remembering I had given away a few weeks of food just before we left to the old women who ran the herbalist shop in Sobral. It was not the first time I was lamenting that decision.

Delmar entered the room in a huff, “The men are getting lazy. Not carrying up a full load of shelving to burn.” He noticed me and asked tersely, “What is he doing here?” He noticed the food. “I told you he was hoarding food!”

Castile waved her hand and snapped her fingers, “I told him to, Delmar. Figure out how to stretch this,” she indicated everything. He was still clearly upset. I left them to get my breakfast of broth and rice.

As I sat down next to Maveith, he looked down at me, showing a smile for the first time since we got trapped in the city, “Eryk, do you want to play a game of checkers?”

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