[Mkguild] Nunly's Lutins - part 4

[Mythril Vulpes]

                          Nunly's Lutins

                         by Mythril Vulpes


------------ Part 4  - Taking charge  --------------

  Nunly shook the dust from the map on the back of his letter of appointment.
The ground was so dry, just walking caused a cloud of dust to hover
around him, coating his clothes, backpack, map, face and tongue.

  "Oh, for for just one of Muddo's ales!" he said aloud. Any last taste of
the ale had long been driven from his mount by the dust, but his sweat
made it all the easier to recall Muddo's brewing cellar, and the treats within.

  Nunly looked at his map. A magical map, showing the way through the land
to his destination.  As he drew closer to his destination, the map changed
so that it showed less and less territory, but with more and more details.
He could now see the outline of the Hi Ho Hock tribe's town on the map, with
indications of homes, open areas and what must be the palace from the size
of the markings on the map. Nunly anticipated a reception befitting his
position, if only he could find the town.

  The map placed him on the outskirts of the town, but he could see no
buildings.  Where there should be throngs of Lutins to welcome him was
only empty space. When he looked in the direction of palace, he could
only see a small mountain. It was almost as if the town had been blasted
into dust, or had never existed. Nunly reviewed all of the things he had
heard about the tribe, but had ignored. He thought the tales of the worst
tribe in the world were stories told by jealous competitors. Nunly's
paranoia began to surface as he wondered if one of his competitors had
blasted the tribe before he could arrive, or it this was all just some
joke by Nasoj.

  At last, Nunly saw movement. A Lutin came over a hill, wearing a shabby
headdress and holding an old stick that apparently had been gnawed on
by a deranged beaver. The Lutin moved slowly, and Nunly had the feeling
that the Lutin was putting off meeting him. This annoyed Nunly - he always
had a long list of excuses to give out when asked for magical help, but when
others failed his expectations, he always became annoyed. The more the
Lutin seemed to avoid him, the more annoyed Nunly became. Nunly really started
working himself up. Here he was, the new Clan Wizard, and the only pitifully
thin green stick-figure of a Lutin to be found couldn't be bothered to
even greet him.  Nunly began imagining the wonderful things he would have
done for the tribe if they had only greeted him properly, despite his lack
of actual effective magic. The more he thought on it, the darker his mood
became.  He decided that being avoided was not what he wanted, at least not now,
so he proceeded to head straight for the Lutin to find out what was going on.

  Nunly proceeded quickly toward the Lutin, who had stopped in a circular,
hard packed patch of dirt. As Nunly drew closer, he could smell the Lutin,
even though he was up wind. A quick, practiced wave of his hand, the correct
words, and the smell was gone. Nunly felt a small twinge of satisfaction
inside, but the smile it would generate died when it met the snarl on his face.
He pressed his lips tighter together and marched on.

  When Nunly was close enough to clearly see the Lutins eyes, the Lutin
cried out "Stop!" This startled Nunly to the point that he actually did stop.
He then stood bemused as the Lutin slowly pointed his stick at him.

  "Leave this place, intruder!" the Lutin cried. "Leave this place and do
not return under penalty of DEATH!"

  Nunly could only stare. Threatening a mage from a hostile tribe was not
unheard of, but the results were usually so devastating to the tribe making
the threats that it was used only as a last resort. Threatening a traveling
mage that might well be neutral, or possibly slightly inclined to help was
extraordinarily stupid.  Threatening your new Clan Wizard was, well, just wrong.
Had the Lutin totally lost his mind, or was there more at work here than it
seemed. Perhaps one of the other mages had beaten him here, and cast a
spell on the entire tribe. This seemed a very reasonable prospect to Nunly.

  "I, Chief Yammi, leader of the great Hi Ho Hock tribe, order you to leave
now or face the wrath of the greatest Lutin tribe on earth!" He roared.
"Leave now or be split by a flight of our sharpest arrows. Behold our fence
of DEATH!"

  Nunly watched the Chief point his stick at the ground between them.
A whistling sound from both sides heralded the arrival of two arrows,
inches in front of Nunly's feet. Nunly couldn't believe what he saw.
The source of the arrows was hidden, and the accuracy was magical.
This was totally contrary to what he had expected.  Despite his magical
prowess, he was ready to turn and run when he noticed the chief looking
out of the side of his eyes at something on the ground.  Glancing in the
direction the chief was looking, Nunly saw a number of arrows on the ground.
Turning to the other side, he saw more arrows, none of which had come close
to him. Looking at the chief, he could see the trace of something in his
eyes, and Nunly started to laugh.

  "You fraud!" Nunly choked out, and then started laughing even harder.

  The chief looked surprised, and then his shoulders dropped.

  "You almost managed to pull it off. You great, big, FRAUD!" Nunly
continued through his laughter. "You thought to bluff me off, and you
almost did it. I LOVE IT!"

  The chief first looked ready to melt into the ground, and then he
simply looked confused. The only response that anyone had ever heard of
to the challenge he made was fight or flight. Laughter was definitely not
part of the plan. The laughter was so unexpected that he could only stand
and wait to see what happened next.

  Nunly noted the confusion the chief's face, and decided that take
charge before anything happened.

  "Chief, you almost had me believing. I have heard little of the Hi Ho Hock
tribe, but what I have heard dose not place your tribe even close to being the
warriors you just pretended to be. No one, but no one, knows just how tricky
you are, and that pleases me more than any amount of warrior ability that
you could possess."

  Nunly took a deep breath to fully recover from laughing.

  "I say this is true, and that you may know this also, know that I have a
commission from Nasoj himself." Nunly waved his commission in the
air, leaving a trail of magical sparks for those who could see them.

  "I have been appointed Clan Wizard to the Hi Ho Hock tribe!" Nunly was
playing to he crowd he now knew had to be watching. "I, Clan Wizard Nunly,
have come to raise this tribe to the position it deserves!" Nunly stood
looking at the chief, but was waiting to see what the remainder of the
tribe would do.

  He didn't have to wait long. A roar rose up from around him, and Lutins
came pouring out from the ground. The Lutins were so well hidden it was
almost as if they were appearing from thin air. The fact that Lutins were
able to display such cunning was so unexpected, so unlike anything he knew
about the tribe, that Nunly realized he actually knew nothing about the
tribe at all. He also knew there had to be some way to use this hidden talent
for his own ends.  All of the stories he had heard on his travels to get
to the tribe said that this was the most worthless tribe of Lutins in the
world when it came to fighting. But then, Nunly was anything but a fighter
himself. This just might turn out to be the best possible thing that could
have happened to him.

  As the Lutins crowded around Nunly, he started to gag from the smell.
He tried to cast the same spell as before, but the number of Lutins was
too great for the limited power of the spell. He had more powerful spells
available, but they would need a bit of time to prepare.  As more Lutins
approached, he realized that he didn't have the time, and he would soon
start to gag.  He needed some time and some space. He needed them to..

  "STOP" he commanded. The rush of Lutins came to halt, with some confusion.
Nunly thought fast.  The Lutins had stopped, now he had to keep them where
they were.

  "Stop and consider this" he cried. "To show you that I am a part of this
tribe, I want you to make your life better. Talk among yourselves and come
up with the one thing that would make your life better, and I will do my best
to grant your wish!"

  The Lutins around Nunly started cheering louder than ever, and then quieted
down as the Chief Yammi raised his hands above his head. The chief looked
around at his people and said in a commanding voice "Clan Wizard Nunly, we
welcome your and your generous offer!"

Another cheer rose up from the gathered Lutins.

"I know that I speak for all my people when I ask you for only one thing"
the chief began. "For generations, we have lived on this same land, with
little food, little water and little shelter.  We have some of the hottest
summers and coldest winters of any tribe. Our children are always hungry in
winter, and often freeze or die of hunger. In the summer, they often die of
thirst."

  The chief gestured toward the members of the tribe. "All of us, we do
whatever we can, but it is never enough. If there is one thing you can do,
can you give us a way to feed the young."

  The surrounding Lutins nodded their heads in agreement, and then quietly
waited for Nunly's answer.

  Nunly stood in silence, shocked at the request. His first thought was the
chief made the request to strengthen his hold on the tribe; after all, that
is what he would have done. From the way the tribe agreed with the chief,
it was obvious that it was a request for the tribe, and not just the chief.
The thought of Lutins organized and thinking in this way was, well, insane.
In fact, the entire Hi Ho Hock tribe had acted totally unlike any Lutin tribe
he had heard of.  The question was, should he help them or run like the wind?

  Nunly looked at the Lutins around him, and was shocked again. Looking into
their eyes he could see hope. Hope, and a faint smattering of trust. The same
trust that Muddo had shown him. He looked over their heads at the barren
landscape, and reasoned with himself that there was nothing there for him,
or them.

  Nunly stood a moment longer, and then asked "With my power to aid you,
it should be easy to take over the land of a nearby tribe. Would this satisfy
you?"

  The chief slowly shook his head. "The tribe to the South, the Okis,  is 100
times our size.  To the West, the Una-na tribe is 10 times our size and has
the protection of several wizards.  And to the East is the Zacha Chan tribe.
Their tribe is a little smaller than us, but they have the favor of Nasoj,
often leading his troops into battle, and have magical arms and armor.  Oh
mage, you would have to be an exceptional mages indeed to defeat any one
of these tribes."

  Nunly looked at the chief and asked "And to the North?"

  "The Northern swamp, mud and bugs in the summer, a frozen sheet of ice in
the winter.  One of the few places worse than what we have."

  None of those options appealed to Nunly, so he sought to buy some extra time.
"Since the surrounding tribes are so powerful, is that why you developed all
of this?" he waved his hands in the general direction of the tribes hiding
spots.

  "Yes, if we were to fight any of them, we would loose. To survive, we trick
'em.  And we do good" he said with a bit of pride in his voice. "We have to"
he added, his voice dropping to a whisper.

  Now Nunly had managed to put himself right in the middle of things. He tried
to think of any possible idea to make their wish come true. The problem was,
he had no idea how to go about it.  This could create a real problem with
getting them to cooperate with any of his later schemes.

  "This is impossible" Nunly muttered. "I might as well just pick everyone up
and move them all."

  "Ok" said the chief. "Where we go?"

  Nunly was so involved with his own thoughts he almost missed what the chief
said. When he realized the chief had spoken, he had to replay the chiefs words
in his mind several times before they sunk in.  When they did, he realized
that the chief expected him to move the tribe to a new home. Nunly could not
understand How the chief could have come to that conclusion from his
mutterings.  He stared at the chief for a moment, and then held up the
map on the back of his commission. He pointed to some place near the edge
of the map and said:

  "I suppose you want me to just move everyone to some safe place around here
with a lot of food and water and such, and do this without anyone
finding out?"

  A small, bright symbol appeared on the map near where he was pointing.

  "I suppose this is the place..." and he glanced at the symbol on the map
again, distracted by the fact that it appeared, " err.. to move you, umm".

  The symbol glowed brighter. Nunly was mesmerized by the symbol. It should
not have been there.  In fact, the map itself should not be there, as the map
was supposed to disappear when he reached his goal, and this WAS his goal,
at least according to the map. He didn't understand why the map didn't
deactivate, or self-district, or vanish or whatever it was supposed to do.
And when he looked at where the symbol was, it was in a mountain range,
in the general direction of Metamor Keep.

  Nunly's heart sank. Metamor Keep, the bastion of humanity, the one place
Lutins would be least likely to survive.

  "Good, we move today" he chief said. The chief looked at the Lutins and
screamed "Get your stuff. We move now!"

  Nunly was swept up in the commotion that followed. He already had everything
packed that he had, but the Lutins needed to gather whatever they had. And
they did it quickly. What Nunly first thought was chaos, turned into an
organized dance once Nunly had a chance to actually think about it. Far sooner
than he could have expected, the Lutins were forming a long line, some pulling
carts, some carrying their possessions over their heads, but all of them
forming up behind the chief. When the last Lutin was in line, the chief
looked at Nunly.

  "Ready."

  Nunly looked at the map, and the symbol shown brightly. He concentrated on
the map, wishing he could see a path that avoided trouble, but was easy to
travel. Then, slowly, a wondering line appeared on the map, starting at the
Hi Ho Hock tribe's town, and wondering to the symbol on the map.

  "Good. This way." Said the chief, marching off toward the hills in the North.

  Nunly looked at the map and realized the line followed the only path out that
did not pass through one of the surrounding Lutin camps.  He wasn't sure why
the map was still working, or why it's target changed, but it was, and that
seemed a good thing.  He hurried to catch up to the chief, smiling. The future
leader of the Hi Ho Hock tribe should be leading, not following the tribe.

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