CHAPTER 97 Storm-Giant Storm

CHAPTER 97

Storm-Giant Storm

Rufus

It wasn’t that I thought Bronwynn would ever need to defend herself against me or have cause to attack me, but it wasn’t really fair that I was twenty levels above her. Maybe we could swing by a dungeon after everything was said and done and level her up a bit. Only if she was interested in that, of course.

We said farewell to Tinker Tate and made our way to the Dark Enchanted Forest. As we approached the border into the magical wood, we prepared for the storm ahead.

The literal storm. The great trees and dense forest were covered in rolling black and gray clouds billowing in a magically charged rainstorm sweeping from the north to the south. Sheets of water fell from the sky, making it hard to see directly in front of the wagon.

Donna was not amused, stopping and backing up a bit when we got close to the enchanted tree line.

“Well, I guess we’ve found Madame Potts’ rainstorm.” The bard reached behind her and put the hay, water barrel, decoy bags, and boxes from the wagon into her storage ring. The wagon was left empty.

“Good idea.” I donned a hooded cloak with magical water-repellent spells cast on the fabric. When she was done with loading everything, Bronwynn put on her own red cloak. She tucked her stray curls under her hood and looked up at the sky.

Donna whinnied. I didn’t speak horse, but even I could guess it was probably something along the lines of “Do we have to?” or “Why don’t you have a horse cloak?” and I felt bad for the mare.

Bronwynn, however, had it covered. Donna covered, that was. She pulled out a giant coat designed just for the horse and hopped down to properly put it on the mare. “I’m sorry, but I’ll make sure you get a special treat when we get there. ”

The horse sighed.

“I’ve only seen this kind of summer storm a few times.” I marveled at a bolt of lightning that shot into the sky instead of to the ground.

“It’s a storm-giant storm,” Bronwynn mused, returning to her spot on the seat beside me. “I’ve seen them a couple times while visiting my grandparents’ family in the mountains.”

“Oh?” I’d only been to Baldorin, under the mountains, a handful of times, and never had the pleasure of traveling over the peaks.

“The storm giants collect ambient mana until they have a good storm going, and then release it toward the sea. They do it to help prevent dungeon breaks from too much mana build up. It also serves to strengthen the land where the water falls, giving mana back to the earth.” Bronwynn double-checked everything one last time and then called out, “Alright, Donna, let’s go!”

The pressure from the rain hitting us was accompanied by the sudden onslaught of my notification tab. On top of my usual commander general notifications tracking the Dark Horde and the King’s Dogs, my own unit of mediators, I had tabs from my passive skills.

[Passive Skill: Mediator has been activated by your Patient Cressy Verily. Primary emotion: Anger, Hostile. Subject may act irrationally. Threat Level: 2]

[Passive Skill: Patient has been activated. A Patient within the area of your Skill is in need of counsel.]

[Passive Skill: Mediator has been activated by your Patient Nelson Hedgemore. Primary emotion: Sad, Guilty. Subject in danger. Threat Level: 2]

[Passive Skill: Patient has been activated. A Patient within the area of your Skill is in need of counsel.]

[Passive Skill: Mediator has been activated by your Patient Jenny Verily. Primary emotion: Sad, Guilty. Subject in danger. Threat Level: 2]

And on and on the list came. I mentally scrolled through the first thirty or so updates in case of imminent danger, but Bronwynn and I were safe.

I sighed.

It would be better to just get everything out of the way on the outskirts of the Dark Enchanted Forest. Even though I couldn’t see Fiddles lurking in the rain, I knew he was there and guarding. My Commander title would have informed me if a position of border defense had been left unattended, and when I checked to confirm, just in case, there he was.

I could spend half an hour indisposed, so I closed my eyes and directly assumed the information from my notification tabs. It wasn’t so bad when I was managing the information on a daily basis, but I’d been away for a few days, and things had piled up. Luckily, we weren’t close to any of the major cities, or I’d be fielding the information from those places on top of my usual slog.

When Keith read a wall of information in a split second, he seemed otherwise unconcerned. He didn’t have a measly Intelligence thirty trying to process all of that information.

Alright, thirty was double the average Intelligence stat … but it wasn’t Intelligence eighty-five. And it wasn’t enough to let me get away with doing my job without a headache at the end.

I rubbed my temple with a hand and realized I still had hands. We were incredibly lucky that we hadn’t immediately had that encounter on this side of the border. People recognized me right away, and changing my form wouldn’t have affected that … though the rain might have.

I changed back.

We rolled down the road for an hour or two, the roaring of the storm making it impossible to properly converse. Donna was unimpressed, Brownie was unhappy, and I … Well, I was reminded I couldn’t just galivant about the countryside and enjoy life. I had a job to do.

A hand reached out and touched the paw I had balled into a fist in front of my face.

Brownie leaned in close and yelled over the rain, “When did we hear Madame Potts’s Cast? Was it the day before last?”

My Intelligence thirty wasn’t good enough to handle an entire kingdom’s worth of military information without giving me a headache, but it could recall these kinds of things easily. “It’s been four days.”

There was a mumble beside me, and when I leaned closer, she yelled again. “Madame Potts said five days of rain. We can’t wait it out if we’re going to make it to the Hollow in time for the festival.”

“At least it’ll be gone by the time the festival starts,” I yelled back.

We pressed forward for another hour, until all of us were at our wits’ end. It was one thing to be wet, and another to be doused with heavy rain so loud it made it hard to think straight.

And as Brownie said, there was mana in the rain. I wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse, and I didn’t care—I needed out of this rain.

As luck would have it, the turn off to Gren’s Keep appeared.

We could stay at the Damp Gizzard and have some of their famous stew.

I couldn’t wait.