Jackal Among Snakes

Galamon blinked his eyes open. The whole of him felt heavy, but it was considerably better than the numbing pain that had come after his battle with the demon of ice. That had been one of the fiercest opponents he’d ever faced, beaten only by the Shadowlander in Dirracha. But for foes that he’d fought personally, and killed personally, it took the prize by a large degree.

He felt a slight grip on his hand, and remembered that the last time he’d awakened, his wife had been by his side. He saw her there even still, and felt a sense of peace that he had seldom felt in Berendar during all his years of wandering as a mercenary. But he also saw two others sitting quietly. They wore familiar dusters and a breastplate bearing an indented symbol he’d come to know quite well—the sun-and-snake, Argrave’s personal heraldry.

“I believe he’s awake, king,” Muriem said, grabbing Argrave’s attention.

King Argrave rose from his chair quickly and looked down at him, Queen Anneliese waiting patiently with arms behind her back. The king said, “Galamon. You had me worried there.” He planted his hand on his wrist, then said vigorously, “Getting injured after big battles was my thing. I never wanted you to take up that role. You’re feeling better, I hope?”

Galamon focused, briefly questioning if he was hallucinating. Finally, he said only, “Yes.”

“Anything about these wounds I should know? Is this concerning?” Argrave continued, looking over him.

“No,” Galamon answered. “It’s passed.”

Argrave let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good.” He sat back down in a chair he’d pulled up. “Provided you’re up to snuff… let’s talk about why there’s a big hole in the city wall, and why this out-of-place fellow is here.”

Galamon looked to his dwarven companion, Anestis. The man gave him very pleading eyes.

“I’m not sure myself.” Galamon rested his head back on his pillow.

#####

For the early game of Heroes of Berendar, warriors and rogues had quite the rough go of things. Sure, spellcasters started off very bad—F and D-rank spells could kill people, but generally a warrior or rogue could walk up and cut someone down far faster than a spellcaster might zap someone to death. Magic was a limited resource, too, by and large. Argrave had recklessly met Erlebnis to mitigate that fact, then pranced about avoiding battles when he couldn’t use the ancient god’s blessing.

But by C and B-rank, it was abundantly clear spellcasters had the true damage-dealing ability. The gap could be bridged with enchantments, and the physical classes were generally hardier than mages, but in terms of raw power magic users outclassed warriors and rogues by a good magnitude.

outperform another by an extremely obvious margin for the entire duration. The developers had to create some illusion of balance, even if it might not be totally so. And so by the midgame, options opened up for the mundane classes.

he could conjure waves of flames, sparking trails, and walls of ice. This power of his came from blessings. They were a part of his being, however, unable to be

magic, which employed spirits to achieve devastating effects. If spirits were only available

and Anneliese sat before Galamon’s bed. The snow elf had sat up, leaning against the back of his bed as he ate a huge bowl of stew. Muriem was returning home to fetch their son that he might speak to

described spirits as a sort of currency to me, once.” Anneliese said to Argrave

of the bed. “As a matter of fact… what happened was wasteful, dangerous, and

with dwarfism like Artur, but a racial dwarf born deep, deep within the depths of the earth. Their people persisted even below the Ebon Cult, exposed to extreme pressures and high temperatures at all times of the year. Down there, the Dwarven Senate colonized the underground bit by

were to describe their people physically, they dressed like the Greeks of antiquity, and ranged from all skin tones just as humans did. Anestis, though, had rather tan skin that contrasted harshly with the pale Veidimen. The dwarves were extremely isolationist and took many cues from ancient empires like Rome and Imperial China—namely,

a true democracy, quality of living relatively equal across most classes, and safety from war, Argrave might’ve enjoyed waking up there. After so long being seven feet tall, perhaps the other end of the height spectrum

this entire village, empowering this man as I did,” Anestis defended himself, the disdain on his voice bleeding through. “How

his arms. “Do you still have the device you used to

his eyes distrustfully.

device was round, and was made of an orangish dwarven metal, wasn’t it? It had four prongs in particular locations, each of which could be manipulated in specific ways for specific results. And it’s still trapped in the

a dwarven device that collects spirits. The way that you used it, the spirits were processed and projected into Galamon’s body, where their essence was expended to give him a temporary boost of strength. Mortal bodies weren’t made for divinity, and so it burned through his flesh

inch from his mouth, then lowered it back to his bowl. “I knew

could only sigh and sink back further into his chair. “Yes, well… the

somewhat. Using spirits to empower oneself was infinitely less useful than using shamanic magic. On the optimal side of things, one could offer spirits to gods, earning their favor and perhaps a blessing. Most blessings were geared towards

realms could be reached in Heroes of Berendar—consequently, he had substantially more knowledge about their cities than

more?” Argrave asked flatly. “I know a lot of your people do just

deem the dwarf some great person. Then again, judging

did come for precisely that,” Anneliese

results. Eventually, I found a lead. It was fading fast, so I took a risk, went into the undergrounds. Went into a dwarven city. Found this man… and the ice abomination shortly after.” He focused on Argrave, his vitality largely returned. “You can guess the rest.

protested. “It was the works of our ancestors, thousands of years ago. Our building techniques have

people can’t make weapons like you used to,” Argrave said sharply, shutting the dwarf up. He looked back to Galamon and asked in exasperation, “You really went looking for the Ebon

Galamon grunted in response.