Chapter 136: Goliath Therapy

  I returo my room, stirred the coals in the firepce, and added some boards to liven up the fire. Ohe fire was going again, I y out on the bck 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? you direct the aether in your core?” I whispered.

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

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

  “I am not ied 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 ter it,” I said pleadingly.

  “Alright,” he said after a pause.

  Maveith appeared in the dungeory 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 expin, “The city is preventing us from dreaming. So even though everyone is sleeping, they are not getting aal recovery. This amulet space allows you to dream because it is a dreamscape,” My expnation sounded me, but Maveith nodded like it made plete sense.

  I did the same thing I did for Castile and created a spread of food oable. “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 ughed, “Maveith, it is just a bench. You 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 plexity. I am still learning how the artifact works.”

  Maveith seemed to sider 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 pte and offered it to me. I tried it, and the dish was mostly bnd, with some pu ks 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 oable, and I just watched him for a bit. “We will leave after five hours and see if you are aer.”

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

  After he finished getting his fill of the food and asking a dozeions about what things were oable, 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, unsciously 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 ...” Maveith stopped talking and was focused ily behind me. I turo 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” pared to Mavieth’s 7’6” frame and had a leaner upper body and feminine chest with a muscur 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 maion of his sister.

  I focused, took trol of the female goliath, and directed its speech, “I five 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 turide a you to a healer in the vilge.”

  “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 se. I let him have a bit of private time with her auro 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 ce to say goodbye.” Maveith’s eyes were puffy, which made little sense in here unless he wa like that. I walked bato the ankheg room to find Zorana studying the creature. I seo the room to py with Oscar and the others.

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

  “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 s, so I assumed these were the orcs that had killed his sister. They generally fell in what I imagihe race looked like, except they appeared—civilized. They wore tailored clothes uheir armor and had unblemished skin arimmed hair.

  Maveith ehe 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 det swordsmen, but not a challenge for me unless I got ed. I only o use a single air shield to avoid the s, so it never reached me. We killed the seven orcs three times before Maveith’s lust for vengeance was finally satiated. “I ow see why you would want to practice yhting skills here. Maybe we do this again sometime?” His voice rang with satisfa.

  “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, reag 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, w the kinks out of my back. “Maveith has trol over his aether and activate the amulet. Besides Benito, who says you do not already haunt my dreams?” I teased Benito.

  Benito gave me a fused 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 cked his normal joviality. Something was definitely affeg 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 pn. 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 expetly.

  I produced the amulet and ha 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 bnk expression. She had obviously told him I had reserves.

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

  I produced a small, ed bundle of food from when I had left the legionraining, I had ouched it. There were maybe eight or nine pounds of food in the bundle. Adrian carefully went through it, frowning the eime. I could tell he realized how long I had the food as it had date stamps from the legion training camp oems. 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 h 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 pany. Wele but not enough to make a huge difference.”

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

  Castile seemed to sider, “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 o keep clearing the specters from the lower yers, 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 enter anht? Or something more dangerous.”

  “Konstantin, Adrian, Bze, and Brutus will go with you. Just work the periphery of the plex for now.” She held up the amulet, “I think this is more important for the moment. After my own time in the dreamscape, I 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 dests will focus on rec as many bottles as we .”

  “How is this going to be expined?” 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 menting that decision.

  Delmar ehe room in a huff, “The meting zy. 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 h 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 dowo Maveith, he looked down at me, showing a smile for the first time since we got trapped iy, “Eryk, do you want to py a game of checkers?”

  ? Chted 2024 by AlwaysRollsAOne

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