More than a week had passed since their near-miss with the large rolling hills that were the [Puffball Yetis].
They were now deep in the land of Kaldrbiod far away from civilization. Currently, everyone in the scouting expedition was eating breakfast near the unfreezing river.
“This is farther than I have ever been so all I can’t really tell you where to go other than follow the unfreezing river. I think you’ll still need me to make sure you don’t go attacking baby dragons or something crazy like that. Who would have thought you would have attacked a puffball,” said Burkin shaking his head, he was still poking fun at Akira even a week after the event.
“Hey, I only kicked him away because he bit Fluffball. What’s with the puffball coming right up to our campsite anyway,” said Akira.
“Who knows how monsters think. The puffball may have just been nothing more than a spoiled baby because its parents are so strong. It probably didn’t think anything would ever attack it. Both you and Fluffball should think about what you fight next time. Just fight snow rabbits, they pose no danger and they can be roasted or cooked in a stew,” said Burkin as he finished eating.
“Rabbits are no challenge, right Fluffball? How are you going to get strong if all you fight are rabbits?” Akira asked Fluffball who was on Akira’s lap chewing on a bone from a past meal.
Fluffball stopped chewing on the bone and looked over at Burkin and let out a short squeaky “Yap!” before returning his attention back to the bone.
Nox was looking at Fluffball with a hint of jealousy in his expression.
Akira knew that Nox was jealous of Fluffball’s closeness with Akira and the large amount of attention he was getting. So he had been working extra hard to kill everything he could and be as helpful as he could. With his hard work, he had leveled up several times on the trip so far and was nearing lvl 50.
“So far the map has been accurate with only a few changes needed,” said Akira as he looked at the map and the surrounding land before rolling it back up and putting it back in his bag.
“That’s surprising since it has been a while since the map was made. I’ll have to make a copy of the new features and make sure that the map makers from my clan update the templates they use,” said Burkin.
“How old is the map?” asked Akira.
“About ten or twenty years older than me,” said Burkin casually.
Akira just shook his head amazed not at how old they were but the fact that the dwarfs had never updated the maps in those 140 to 150 years.
***
“The river seems to be widening up ahead, we might be getting close to Lake Mist,” shouted a scout that was several hundred yards in front of the others.
As they moved forward they entered a large snow-covered forest that blocked their view of what laid in front of them.
The numerous trees scattered everywhere caused them to have to travel in a single file line one sled following behind the others in order to get through the small openings.
Around mid-afternoon, they exited the forest and arrived at the shore of the large lake.
As they stopped for lunch Akira looked out over the lake and saw there was no ice anywhere. It was just like the unfreezing river with the top of the lake covered with a light misty fog.
He could see that there were two islands in the middle of the lake. One was several times larger than the other one.
While Akira stared at the large island he guessed that it was large enough to hold a large city possible one the size of Nofreegol.
“This the place you want to start your village?” asked Burkin as he chewed on a roasted rabbit. It had been one of the many Snow rabbits that Fluffball had caught while they had traveled through the forest.
“It looks big enough. We’ll just have to go and check the island to see if it has everything that would be needed to sustain a settlement,” said Akira as he stared at the island.
“You sure have a weird taste in picking places. Who would want to live all the way out here where the closest village is at least several weeks away,” said Burkin as he turned back towards the campfire.
When they had finished eating their lunch the werewolves started to create several makeshift rafts to help ferry them, the reindeer, and their sleds that held all of their supplies across the lake.
Akira hopped onto the first raft that was ready and his guards made sure to get on the raft to protect him. He held onto Fluffball in order to make sure he did not cause any trouble or have an accident such as falling into the lake.
As his guards began paddling across the misty lake with makeshift paddles several fish jumped out of the water and extended their silver-like wings and glided through the air for several seconds before diving back into the water.
Fluffball was squirming trying to get a closer look at flying fish that were constantly jumping out of the water.
“Hold still Fluffball,” ordered Akira.
Fluffball stopped struggling but turned his head to Akira and gave him a pitiful puppy dog eyes pleading to be allowed to catch them.
Ten minutes passed before they reached the shore of the island.
Now that he stood on the island he felt that the island was even bigger than he thought. The center of the island rose up to form a tall hill that overlooked the surrounding land.
From where he was standing he could see a few large rocks were scattered all across the top of the hill. There were several trees on the island enough to help build hundreds of houses.
Not long after Akira and his guards reached the shore the rest of the rafts arrived and unloaded the werewolves before heading back to the opposite shore to gather the sleds and reindeer.
“While we wait for the sleds let’s set up a temporary camp for now. We’ll start exploring the island tomorrow,” ordered Akira.
Ferrying all of the sleds and reindeer over to the island was quite a hassle and took over two hours. There were a few close calls where a sled or a reindeer or two almost fell into the lake while they were ferried across.
When the last sled was pulled off of the raft the night sky was already growing dark and the preparations for camping on the island were completed with a small snow wall being erected around the tents mainly for blocking the blowing wind.
***
Midnight.
A handful of warriors who were unlucky had picked the short stick and were now on night watch duty making sure that nothing came near or into the camp without their knowledge.
Rattle, rattle, clack, clack.
The warriors on night watch all became alert when they heard the rattling but could see nothing.
“Who’s there!?” asked one of the warriors.
Rattle, rattle, clack, clack.
A sharp smell of death reached their nose before they were able to see anything.
“Awoooo!” Reacting quickly the night watch warriors transformed and let out loud howls warning the others of the enemy.
Several hundreds of skeletons revealed themselves as they entered the light from the burning fires and torches.
“What’s attacking us!?” Asked Akira as he rushed out of his tent already transformed and holding his shield and sword.
“Undead skeletons!” shouted a warrior.
“Yap!”
“No Fluffball stay in the tent!”
Akira ran to the snow wall with his guards and Nox ran right behind him to make sure nothing happened to him.
Akira looked into the darkness to try and find the person or group of people controlling the undead but could not see anything.
The skeletons reached the snow wall and ran right into it with their stick figure bodies. Several of them got stuck in the snow walls while others used the bodies of the stuck skeletons to climb up the wall to where the werewolves were waiting.
“Use fire and blunt force damage to take care of these mindless idiots,” shouted Akira as he used the skill [Shield bash] to knock five skeletons back onto the ground. It was a good hit that separated their heads from their body but they still stood back up and wobbled back to the wall.
Ten minutes passed as they continued to smash and burn the skeletons but there seemed to be no end to them mostly due to the fact that they kept getting up even when they had only one leg or one arm to move.
“These damn puppets just won’t die!”
“They’re just a bunch of mindless idiots, just smash every bone in their body even if it takes us all night!” said Akira.
“Who are you calling mindless idiots!” shouted a nearby skeleton with an iron helmet on its head while pointing its sword at Akira.
Out of all the skeletons, this one had a full set of metal armor and was taller than the other skeletons around him.
“Hey, minion guy who can talk, who is controlling you guys? Where is your puppet master?” asked Akira.
Two fiery lights inside the skeleton’s helmet flared up in anger at the question.
“How dare you insult this king! I am not someone’s puppet or plaything! I have no clue what you are talking about!” shouted the armored skeleton as he launched an attack at Akira.
“Then why are you attacking us!” shouted Akira as he blocked the attack and countered with his own.
“I just wanted to see who was entering my territory… It was just a joke. But then you called us idiots, twice!” said the skeleton king.
“If you stop fighting us we can talk this over!” shouted Akira as his sword tip struck the skeletons head making it rotate several times.
“Why didn’t you say so sooner? I would have done that but I thought you wanted to have a fun night exercise with us,” said the skeleton king as he reached up and stopped his spinning head.
Without a command or hand signal, the skeletons that were fighting the werewolves all stopped their actions as if someone had cut their strings. They were all looking towards the skeleton king.
“So what is it you want to talk about?” asked the skeleton king.
“That’s supposed to be my line! You came to us!” said Akira.
“Hmmm… I guess you’re right. Can you answer me this question, why are you here?”
“We are just looking for a place to live and found this island. If this is your home we can leave,” said Akira.
The island from what Akira had seen so far was the best they could hope for in such a cold and desolate tundra, but if there was already a city here then they would have to leave.
“Why would you want to live on this piece of crap along with that damn lake!” said skeleton king shaking his head like Akira was an idiot for saying that.
“Is there something wrong with this place and the lake?” asked Akira.
“We have lived here for as long as I can remember. It is so boring here and we only see a living person every few hundred years. A few of those people even joined us, like Joe over there,” said the Skeleton king as he pointed at a skeleton that looked like all the others.
“As for the lake that damn water burns whenever one of us gets even a drop on our amazingly ugly bones.”
“I thought you couldn’t feel warmth or cold?” asked Akira.
“We can’t, the water has some type of purification quality to it. Whenever a skeleton tries to swim across to the other shore he is melted before he can even get halfway. I know because I send someone to try every hundred years,” said skeleton king as he nodded his head in a knowing way.
“Purification?”
“Yes, that is the reason that we have been stuck on this damn island year after year. If only there was some way to get off this island then you idiots could stay here.”
“So you need a ship?”
“What is a ship?” asked the skeleton king tilting his head at the unknown word.
“You don’t know? It’s a… floating thing that keeps you from touching the water. People use them to travel long distances over oceans and lakes like this.”
“You humans are super smart.”
“We’re werewolves.”
“Whatever, all you living things look the same to me. I have made my decision! Fight me one on one. The winner gets to stay on this crappy island and the loser gets this snip thing.”
“Ship. Why do you want to fight aren’t we supposed to be peacefully talking about this?”
“Are you a coward?” asked the skeleton king.
The guards near Akira tensed up and were ready to kill the king if Akira gave them the signal.
“Fine,” said Akira as he pulled out his sword and jumped off the wall to stand in an open space along with the king.
“Damn you look too handsome,” said skeleton king.
“Umm…Thanks?” said Akira.
“You shouldn’t be thanking me I just insulted you!”
“Look at how ugly my bones are! All the ladies love me. They always scream when they see me. Well, you guys are the first live humans I have seen in over 150 years.”
“I’m not sure that means what you think it means,” said Akira.
“Fight!” shouted skeleton king.
Akira swung his sword full force and surprisingly cut the skeleton king in half at the waist.
“You win!” said the skeleton king who was lying in two pieces on the ground.
“Are you okay?” asked Akira.
“No need to worry, it’s just a flesh wound. See?” said the skeleton king as he attached his lower and upper body back together.
“Your legs are on backward,” said Akira.
“Oh this is quite embarrassing,” said the skeleton king as he looked down at his legs and quickly fixed the problem.
“I lost the fight so now you have to give me that Smip thing you talked about,” said the skeleton king.
“You could have just asked me for a ship instead of faking a fight,” said Akira.
“Hey, I have my image as a king of the undead that I have to keep up, you know. I can’t let my men see me casually talking and trading with someone who is alive. They might think I’m your friend or something.”
“Who would think something like that after all that you have done!” shouted Akira in exasperation.
