“I think I won the bet…” Jay whispered, only Dys’ ears around to hear as the two continued down the road at a much slower pace than before. Jadis had to consider what to do, as from what she could see with her third self’s eyes, she’d run into a pair of dwarves.
Ahead of Syd, at a bend in the road where it looked to curve around a rocky hillock, stood two figures. Decidedly male with their thick light-brown beards, they had suntanned skin and straight shoulder length hair tied back and out of their eyes. At the distance Syd stood, she couldn’t make out their faces, but nothing of what she could see stood out to her as disturbing or unusual.
The two were about the same height, with stout builds and broad shoulders. They wore brigandine armor colored brown with green accents, letting them blend in with the forest environment. Both carried crossbows that they held in one hand, while their off hands were occupied with their helmets that they had taken off for some reason. Jadis could see that they also had swords belted to their waists. Overall, the two men looked well-armed and armored. If Jadis didn’t know with certainty that she had died and been reincarnated on another world filled with magic and demons, she would have thought she’d stumbled onto two medieval reenactors. Except, they were much too short for playing the part of a dark ages soldier.
With how far back Syd was standing from them, Jadis couldn’t tell exactly how tall the men were, but her best guess was waist height. The men didn’t have the stubby arm-and-leg build she expected from every depiction of dwarves she’d seen back on Earth, they actually looked quite proportional, but they were undeniably much too short to be anything but dwarves.
Since Jay had won the bet she had going with her selves on which species she’d come across first, Jadis planned on giving that third of her self a special treat when next feasible, but such considerations had to be put aside for the moment.
“Okay, we found people. Now what?” Dys murmured, she and Jay still about a hundred paces back from where Syd stood observing the two dwarves.
Jadis had been thinking a lot about what she should do when she did eventually meet people. She had no background or history to fall back on to explain her presence in the demon-infested forest. She didn’t know where she was, when she was, or who anyone else on Oros was. She didn’t even know if she spoke the same language as other people on this world. With so little to work with, Jadis had come up with a barebones backstory for herself to explain why she was alone in these lands, or rather, why three ‘sisters’ were alone and wearing clothes and armor made from scraps.
Her story was thus: The three of them were from a village up in the mountains to the north. Small and out of the way, they had spent their whole lives there and knew little of the world outside of their mountain home. A few months ago, demons had attacked the village, burning it down and killing everyone, the triplets being the only survivors who fled the catastrophe, wandering lost through the mountains until they found the abandoned dwarf mining village.
It wasn’t much of a story, and Jadis was fairly certain it could fall completely apart if the right questions were asked, but it was the best she could come up with. She wasn’t even sure if she should bother lying about her class and being three people, but as she had thought it out before, she planned on withholding that information until she had a better idea of how it would be perceived. Of course, if there were some way others had of seeing her class, that problem could be a moot point, but she’d tackle that concern when and if it came up.
Of course, if no one spoke English, Jadis didn’t need to concern herself with backstories or concealing her class and had a whole different problem to overcome, one she had no idea how she’d tackle.
God, she really hoped D hadn’t screwed her over by not giving her some kind of ability to understand the local language of where he’d dropped her off.
As Syd observed the two men, she couldn’t quite hear what they were saying to each other; either the distance was too great or they were speaking in hushed tones, but what she could tell was that they looked like they were arguing. Standing close, backs tense, occasionally throwing their arms up or out in wild gesticulations, the dwarves definitely looked heated.
Jadis wasn’t sure what to do. With how angry the two were acting, it almost looked like they were going to come to blows. Should she approach them mid-argument and interrupt, or wait until they were done? What if they did get violent and one attacked, maybe even tried to kill, the other? Should she intervene? Jadis hadn’t prepared for her first encounter with intelligent life on Oros to be like this, and indecision paralyzed her as she hid from sight, watching the two argue.
Suddenly, the dwarf on the left dropped his helmet and crossbow, quickly grabbing the dwarf on the right and putting him in a headlock. The other also dropped his helmet and crossbow and started flailing, beating on the first dwarf’s armored back and chest as the two struggled.
Jadis almost ran forward to intervene, not willing to watch the first two people she finally found try to kill each other, when she saw that the first dwarf was roughly rubbing his knuckles against the scalp of the dwarf he had put in a headlock.
“A noogie?” Jadis couldn’t help but ask aloud from her multiple selves, mouths hanging open in surprise.
At her exclamation, as relatively quiet as it had been, the two dwarves froze, then quickly dove to the ground, grabbing up their crossbows and pointing them in Syd’s general direction.
One called out a few words in a language Jadis didn’t understand, then the other called out as well, more words that sounded vaguely Germanic but held no meaning to her.
“Fuck, D, did you really fucking put me here without a way to talk to people?” Syd grumbled angrily while looking to the sky.
Acting in the moment the two had dived for their crossbows, Syd had ducked back behind the tree she’d been spying on the dwarves from. As the two shouted out a couple more unknown commands, their tones decidedly on edge, Jadis made the snap judgement to try and deescalate the situation.
Afterall, if they did shoot at her, she was fairly certain she had the speed to run away or the strength to fight if she had no choice. Probably.
Throwing her free hand out to the side from behind the pine tree, Syd held her palm out towards the two, waving in what she hoped would be taken as a sign of peace, or at least showing she meant no harm.
All was silent for a few moments, before one of the dwarves called out again. Jadis still didn’t know what he was saying, but she assumed it was probably something to the affect of ‘come out and show yourself’. She hoped that was what he was saying, because if he was actually saying ‘stay there or we shoot’ then she was about to make a terrible mistake.
Slowly, Syd stepped out from behind the tree. She did not drop her spear, keeping it to hand but also keeping the spearhead pointed up in the sky while keeping the other end on the ground. She hoped her grip conveyed that she wasn’t threatening the two dwarves. She only had one chance at a first impression after all.
As Syd emerged into view, she saw the two dwarves stare at her, slack jawed. Seeing as they were just standing there, making no move or reaction, Syd stepped just a little further out from behind the pine.
Since the two were still silent, Jadis decided to take a risk and spoke first, speaking for the first time to someone other than herself in over a month.
“Uh, Hello. Do you… understand me?” Syd asked, left hand still open and raised.
The two continued their gawking silence for a few moments longer before the one of the left slowly nodded his head and answered, “Aye, we speak Imperial.”
Relief washed through Jadis at the man’s words. D had done something to make sure she spoke the local language. He’d called it ‘Imperial’ instead of English, whatever that meant, but she’d figure it out later.
The man’s voice was gruff and held an accent, decidedly Germanic to her ears, though not exactly the same. She wasn’t sure what the difference was, but she’d heard enough of the German language and people who spoke English with the accent to tell that there was something slightly off about the way the man was pronouncing his vowels.
Syd let a grin spread over her face, not holding back a bit of the delight she felt at finally speaking with a native to the land she’d been transplanted to.
“Great! Do you think you can stop pointing those at me? It’s a little uncomfortable.”
The two seemed to startle at this, then lowered their weapons slightly, though not fully.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” The gruff dwarf on the left asked, his brow now furrowed in a scowl that didn’t seem to sit well on his otherwise pleasant face. “Speak truth, or I’ll know it! I’m an excellent judge of character.”
The right-side dwarf snorted at the last, though he quickly schooled his expression when the first dwarf briefly sent a glower his way.
“My name is Syd,” Jadis remembered to say, maintaining the cover story that she was three different people. If the dwarf was asking for her name, she assumed that meant he didn’t have some magical way of just knowing it like an identify skill or spell. “I’m lost. I’ve been following this road for a few days now. You’re the first people I’ve come across.”
“Hmph,” the dwarf seemingly in charge, at least between the two of them, grunted. “Lost, is it? Bad place to be wandering without a notion of where you are going. And in rags, to boot. Where did you come from?”
Syd pointed north, back they way the road led. “The mountains, to the north.”
“Which village?” he questioned, obviously suspicious. “Which valley?”
“The mountains, not a valley,” Syd lied, shrugging. “It was small, there were few of us. We didn’t call it anything but the village.”
The dwarf considered that, his stance relaxing just a bit. That answer seemed to be a reasonable one in his eyes.
The second dwarf finally spoke, lowering his crossbow and smiling in a reassuring manor. His voice was a little lighter, less gruff and more clear. “Syd, was it? It’s not that we mean to be rude, but you’ve caught us off guard and this is a dangerous land these days. Step a bit closer, would you? I’d like to check you with my Detect Stone, make sure you aren’t a demon playing an elaborate ruse.”
So they did have some way of casting a detect spell. Interesting. Despite the polite words and friendly smile, Jadis got the distinct impression that the request was more of a command, especially with how the first dwarf still glowered, his crossbow only a quick move away from being pointed at her.
“How close?” Syd asked, already slowly moving forward. She didn’t see a way to refuse without causing suspicion or alarm. “And what are your names? Like you said, I don’t want to be rude, but where I come from it’s only polite to introduce yourself when meeting strangers.”
As Jadis walked Syd forward, her other two selves had moved up behind her, standing back and off to the other side of the road. She felt they were far enough away that with their focus on Syd, Jadis doubted the dwarves noticed their approach. If these two turned hostile, she was ready to respond in kind.
“That’s close enough,” the second dwarf said as Syd closed the distance by about half, only a couple dozen paces away from the two now.
That much closer, Jadis had a much better view of their appearance, and was a tad disappointed. The famously bushy and braided beards of the dwarves she expected were not present on these two. In fact, she’d seen bigger beards on bikers back on Earth. They both looked remarkably similar to each other, and both looked middle-aged to Jadis, perhaps in their late thirties or early forties, but she had no idea what that meant on a dwarven timescale. While Jadis had no interest in men, she recognized that they were both handsome enough to warrant a second look from most women. Not movie star attractive or anything, but their faces were well put together, if a bit rugged.
Watching carefully for any sign of a trick, Jadis saw the second dwarf pull a small round stone from a pouch on his belt. It was red, with some blue, faintly glowing lines traced across it, and a hole in the middle. The dwarf held it up between thumb and forefinger, framing Syd in the hole Jadis assumed.
“Detect,” the dwarf said quietly, though loud enough for Jadis to hear. After a second, his brow wrinkled in confusion and he turned to the first dwarf.
“It says she’s a Nephilim, whatever that is. Level thirty combat class.”
Jadis breathed a mental sigh of relief, lowering Syd’s empty hand. Clearly, that Detect Stone, whatever it was, was limited in the information it provided. Race was provided, and her level, but nothing more specific it seemed.
“Not a demon, though,” the head dwarf said, finally lowering his crossbow completely. He shrugged a shoulder, looking up at her apologetically. “Sorry about that, miss. Can’t be too careful out in these woods. Didn’t think any civilians were left after the evacuation.”
Evacuation? Jadis wanted to ask but filed that bit of information away for later questions.
“Name’s Ludwas,” the second dwarf said as he put the little stone away. “And this old grump is my brother Gerwas.”
“Not that old,” Gerwas grumped, stooping down to pick up his helmet and planting it firmly on his head.
“You said you were lost, right?” Ludwas asked, picking up his own helmet though he didn’t put it on. “If you’re looking to make it to Felsen, you’re on the right road for it.”
“Sorry,” Syd said, shaking her head. Jadis decided admitting her ignorance in this situation would be better than trying to bluff knowledge of things she was ignorant to. “I don’t know what Felsen is. My village was very small, way back in the mountains. Never left it before a couple months ago.”
The dwarves looked momentarily taken aback, but Ludwas recovered quickly.
“Well, must have been far back in the Kalters Wall, eh?”
Syd nodded, not having a clue what that meant but making the logical assumption that was what the dwarves called the mountain or mountain range to the north.
“Why’d you come down here, then? Mountains are that way,” Gerwas said motioning back up the road, though it sounded less of an accusation and more of an honestly curious question.
“My village was destroyed by demons,” Jadis said, feeling more and more confident her fictional backstory would sound believable to these two.
Both pulled a face at the mention of demons, nodding sympathetically.
“We can take you back with us to the forward outpost. The captain will want to speak with you anyway,” Ludwas said with a comforting look. “You can tell him what happened and then send you along to Felsen. The port’s running again, so you can take a ship back to somewhere safe.”
“No one else made it? Just you?” Gerwas asked before Jadis could properly process everything Ludwas had said, his tone a lot less gruff than it had been at the start.
“Actually,” Syd said, seeing it was time she spilled the beans, “My sisters are with me. Can I tell them to come out?”
Gerwas and Ludwas both looked around them, scanning the trees. “Sisters? Aye, tell them to come out,” Gerwas said. “Tell them no funny business! You’ve been proper polite so far and they best be on their good behavior, too.”
Jadis was a bit amused by how Gerwas kept putting up a tough front that didn’t last long. Maybe he thought he had to show a tough face to intimidate her? It wasn’t effective, though, not coming from someone half her size.
“It’s safe!” Syd called out, keeping up the act.
Immediately, Jay and Dys moved forward, coming out from the trees on the far side of the road.
As they came into view, their makeshift mauls slung over their shoulders, the two dwarves both let out startled gasps.
“Fuck my ear, there’s two more of you!” Gerwas exclaimed, taking a step back as both Jay and Dys came to a stop next to Syd, Jay on the far left, Dys in the middle, and Syd on the right.
Jadis was gratified to learn that ‘fuck’ was an acceptable curse word to use. It would have been a pain to have to explain to others what it meant if it wasn’t a word used on Oros, because Jadis wasn’t going to stop using it anytime soon.
“Gerwas, Ludwas, these are my sisters Jay and Dys,” Syd said by way of introduction.
“We’re triplets,” Dys added, grinning down at the two gawking dwarves.
“…I can see that,” Ludwas said, scratching his beard. “And the whole, er, height, thing, what have you, that’s just how big you Neph-er-watzits come, eh?”
“Nephilim,” Jay corrected. “And yes. We’re normal for our race.”
Jadis wasn’t sure at all about the veracity of that statement, but the dwarves didn’t seem to know what Nephilim were anyway, so it didn’t seem likely they would be disputed on the matter.
“Not used to people of our size?” Dys asked, curious. All the buildings so far had been dwarf sized, so Jadis expected the dominant population to be the same height as these two, but did that mean there weren’t any other normal sized races in the area?
“Aye, aren’t many folk running around as tall as you lot,” Ludwas answered with a laugh.
“Try none,” Gerwas grunted. “Saw an orc once that would have come up to your shoulders, but you three knock that big man right off the scale.”
Wait. Orc? An orc came up to her shoulders? Weren’t orcs supposed to be hulking brutes, way bigger than the average man in most fantasy media? Maybe these were more like Tolkien orcs, more human or goblin-like in size.
“Ah, sorry to ask,” Jay said, trying not to sound too flustered by the odd thought that was slowly starting to push its way to the forefront of Jadis’ mind. “There were only other Nephilim in our village. We heard stories, but we never met any other races. You two are the first we’ve met that weren’t like us. Are you… dwarves? Is that the right word?”
“Dwarves!” Ludwas exclaimed, barking out a quick laugh.
“We’re taller than most men!” Gerwas shouted, looking somewhat insulted. “Just because you’re snow-skinned giants doesn’t mean you can call us short!”
“Ah, lay off them,” Ludwas said, putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “If they’re as sheltered as some of the folk back in Falk’s Reach, can’t blame them for not knowing a man from a sprite.”
Gerwas grunted, drawing himself up a little taller as he looked up into Jay’s eyes. “We’re humans. Normal sized humans, not like those short bronze-skinned ones from up past the Siren Sea.”
“Gerwas, Phelocians are not that short, stop being a prick just because you lost coin to Terentio last night,” Ludwas sighed in exasperation.
The two brothers turned towards each other, starting to squabble, becoming a background noise that Jadis tuned out. The unlikely truth she’d been perhaps willfully ignorant to the possibility of ever since she’d stumbled across the ‘dwarven’ village had sat its big fat butt right in the middle of her thoughts. A question that she’d dismissed as unimportant early on demanded an answer now.
Just how fucking tall was she?
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