ALL NOVEL 42
With Valariel returned, the magic and divinity seeping into the land grows stronger. Plants started to grow visibly faster. Helping the golden herd dwindling food supply and due to the increased size. While Robadel, the halfling cook has left with Valeria, he has teached some of the female beastmen and the few of Valariel’s lesser daemons to recognize edible plants and to cook a little. The Golden herd also starts to shift from eating corpses as raiding has resulted in less and less meat with most villages evacuating to bigger walled towns and cities. Many newcomers from the integrated small herds grew discontent from the shift as they saw it as a sign of growing weakness and turning away from the Chaos Gods. Hence most of them follow Valeria as she leaves and begins her journey to the east. All that is left on the Herdstone are those who are born under Valariel’s rule and do not worship the Four anymore but only their mother.
Divinity level up
Level 2 -> Level 3
I twist and turn on top of my pile of fur. Can’t sleep. The sound of the usual breeding orgy outside doesn’t help either. Remembering that Valeria had left on her journey, I did promise to make something for her. Standing up from my bed, I summoned my Soul forge. The screamers will not be enough as a material if I want something powerful enough. Since she will leave to a faraway place, something that either summon reinforcement or teleport her home if things don't work out will be preferable. Weapons would be good too but I am still short of materials and have not acquired new souls yet.
Thinking about what I have, an idea comes to mind. I touched my horns. Reminded on how I use them when I first break out and frequently use them at the start. But now it is mostly ornamental and I have three pairs of them. I can still use them for headbutting but at this point, I rarely use them anymore. If I break one to make something, will my regeneration mutation grow it back? With no other option, let’s find out.
I gripped one of my largest horn pairs. Gritting my teeth as I start to pull. A sickening crack sounds. Wincing as the pain goes from nothing to unbearable in an instant. My hand falters from pulling but that only makes the searing pain more extend deep into my skull as I accidently pulled it along with the exposed nerves to the side. Taking a deep breath, I pulled with all my strength.
Then I saw the ceiling. Immediately gritting my teeth as I almost opened my mouth to scream. My hands drifted up, touching the stump.
“SSSSSsssssssssss” Hissing through gritted teeth. I almost screamed again. This is my worst idea ever!
“Regenerate…” I immediately cast some spells and focused on my horn. The itchy tingling pain almost made me touch the stump again. But at least I know it can regenerate. Slowly standing up, it seems like I blacked out from the pain and fell to the ground. Only then I realized part of my face feels warm. I was bleeding excessively too.
From the sounds outside, it seems like they don’t know what happened here. Which is good I guess. Turning back to the Soul forge I stopped channeling my regeneration magic. There’s still the tingling feeling so I guess my regeneration mutation still works. This better be worth it.
Throw the horn to the Soul forge then 10 souls to the fire. Start forging and focusing, what is important is the teleportation aspect. Two ways connecting me and the artifact. 10 souls doesn’t seem enough for that, so I throw another 10. Thinking on what I could add, I focus on a repeatable use of teleportation into the artifact. Having my horn turned into a one time use artifact seems like wasting it. Then the blood from my face drips down into the fire. Will this increase the quality of the material? Deciding on taking the risk, I throw another 10 souls into the fire. The horn is still holding strong. Then I focus on those 3 aspects as I continue to forge. After a while, the flame died down and was absorbed by the horn. It succeed? I grabbed my horn that turned into a horn instrument.
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The Horn of the Golden Mother |
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Aspects: When the horn is blown by the selected user:
One month cooldown This artifact carries a fraction of the Golden Mother’s Divinity. Amplifies all stats by 50% to the selected user’s warherd |
The Horn has one circling loop along with red twisting lines from the tip to the base. The result is better than I expected. But I won’t be trying this again anytime soon.
—
Meanwhile, just outside of Grimminhagen at the evening
Bertrand feels the ground start shaking. Taurox and his Slaugtherhorn Tribe is near. The trap is set just in time. Bloods and bodies of dozens recently slaughtered cattle are strewn on the city center along with freshly executed heretics. Piles of manures from Middenheim and all nearby settlement farms are scattered around the streets along with barrels of beers from a certain famous tavern.
“Get ready boys!” Bertrand said on top of his horse. Other hunters are visibly nervous. Their horses move slightly back and forth. Their hooves kicking the ground in anxiety. The hunters lit their arrows with cold sweat running on their backs.
With the last light of the sun snuffed out and a loud bang, Grimminhagen’s south gate breached and with one charge from Taurox. His loud roar echoed by the dozens of Doombulls and a thousand minotaurs. They broke through the town but found no humans to slaughter and trample upon. Most inhabitants took refuge in Middenheim and the news of the impending beastmen attack convinced the most stubborn ones left.
Bertrand gave a nod. The hunters shot their arrows. Hitting the barrels of beers which swiftly exploded and started a chain of explosions. The scattered pile of manures combust into flames and spread to the town and burn the minotaurs not hit by the explosions
“That piss of a beer worth something after all!” Bertrand said as Grimminhagen burned.
“What the fuck!?” A hunter shouts as suddenly a rain falls down on the burning town.
Then Taurox let out a furious roar. While many of the minotaur died, Taurox and his Doombulls are no doubt blessed by Khorne. They won’t be killed easily with this kind of trap. The purpose of the trap is to reduce their numbers and expected to kill half of them. But with the sudden rain, they will be lucky if a third of the minotaurs died.
“The second part begins now lads!” He then pushed his horse into a gallop followed by the rest of the hunters. The sound of the north gate break and metallic hooves of the Slaughterhorn tribe echoed behind them.
Malagor, standing on a hill within the Drakwald, cursed Taurox and his mindless bloodthirstiness. The skull of the priest of Manaan, the god of sea and storm, on his hand crumbles into dust. Then he took flight, he must herd Taurox to where he was supposed to attack and kills the humans meddling in his plans
