Bog Standard Isekai

Book 2 - Hogg Interlude

Book 2 - Hogg Interlude

He felt the shock of cold as he hit the water, even though he didn’t need to. He had the Achievements to ignore anything less extreme than magical ice and molten lava, but not noticing temperature differences was just another weakness, and weakness wasn’t something Hogg could abide in himself. He let himself feel the cold and everything else.

Some might say that it's a bad idea to jump fully clothed into a body of water, and for most people it would be. But if he had that particular weakness, he would’ve died twenty years ago. His black leather clothing was enchanted to aid his movement in every environment, even underwater.

He oriented his body and started a gentle flutter kick. His enchanted leathers took that gentle movement and magnified it, and soon he was zipping through the dark tunnel like a blink eel.

The tunnel was empty for now, and dark. The undead wouldn’t need light to make their way, so no light was provided. He swam into the deep, letting the quiet darkness overtake him.

One would think that after a lifetime of this sort of thing, he would get used to it, but he never did. That same old cocktail of leaden anxiety and burning excitement thrummed through his body. His heart pounded in his ears, louder somehow for being under water. No matter how many times you jumped into a zombie-infested underground river with no light to face who knew what under the nose of a cataclysmically powerful [Witch], it always felt like the first time.

His darksight was more than up to the task, small mercy. He could see better down here than most people could see in daylight.

Losing his illusionary light hadn’t blinded him, although that’s what it felt like. How strange, to only be able to see what he could see with his regular eyes, even boosted with Achievements like his were. The invisible eye that he always kept watching his back was the one he missed the most, but he also missed the top-down eye in the sky that provided him a real-time map of the area. He had to admit that that one had made him a little lazy; he hardly knew how to navigate based on memory any more.

The power, though, was more than compensation. He was like a paraplegic who’d spent his whole life inching around on the ground like a worm, only to make a deal with a fairy and trade his eyesight for arms and legs.

Speaking of power, there was something he’d been meaning to try. He formed the image in his mind: a sort of circular oar, rather more like a drill. He’d first seen it on the ship of the dread pirate Tiger-Eye. Interesting fellow, Tiger-Eye. Hogg had been sad to see him hang. The man had outpaced seasoned [Captains] and [Windbringers] by outfitting his ship with a magic and mechanical engine that could move without needing wind or sails. Hogg still remembered it well. Or, his second brain still remembered it. It was a miracle that the old thing had survived his Class change.

Speaking of his second brain, he’d almost forgotten something. Lightmind, set a thirty minute timer. No, make that twenty-nine minutes.

Timer set. 0:28:59.98

When that timer ran out he’d need to take another pill of Unbreathing. It wasn’t easy to swallow a pill while completely underwater, but he’d done it before.

That done, he summoned hard light to make the propeller, all shadowy black of course. As much as he liked being able to summon all sorts of vibrant colors, he knew he really should stick to the black. He’d accidentally let some other colors out when they’d been ambushed moments ago, but that was out of a desperate need to smash all of the enemies before any of them could hurt Brin. He’d be more careful in the future.

He placed the propeller at his feet, and then made it begin to spin. But that made him start to spin. Ok, second try. Two pieces: a spinny ring and then a platform for him to stand on. Friction was still something he was working on, as in, hard light was nearly frictionless by default. But that was perfect for this situation. This attempt was better and the hard light engine pushed him through the water.

It worked! He hadn’t known if it would. Hard light could be tricky. For some reason, he could push and pull other objects around, but he couldn’t push or pull himself. However, he could put the hard light in place and then push against it. Once, when he was sure no one was looking, he’d built himself a ten-story staircase and climbed up into the sky. The view had been astounding. The Boglands were so flat that any source of elevation made it so you could see forever in any direction.

Somehow this propeller was a loophole. He wasn’t pushing himself with the hard light, he was pushing the water. The fact that the water pushed back against the hard light, which in turn pushed him, was a favorable side-effect.

Sure, he didn’t really need the propeller. Swimming with aid from his leathers would’ve let him move pretty fast. But he didn’t want to go pretty fast. He wanted to go really fast.

He put some juice into his propeller, and he went really fast.

The uneven walls of the underground river zipped by. The tunnel made twists and turns, sometimes so sharp that he barely kept himself from crashing, but so many levels focusing on Dexterity made a man hard to trip.

He would have laughed at the thrill of it, but laughing wasn’t a smart thing to try underwater. The dread at what he might find down here hadn’t left him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t also feel the fun of it.

As horrible as it was to fear for your life, this was home. This was where he felt more alive. He’d built himself for adventure, and now he didn’t fit anywhere else.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. Brin had changed that, Nedramus bless him. Hogg had hunkered down expecting a tense and resentful relationship, but Brin hadn’t let that happen. He’d become, if not a son in truth, then something close to it. All the more reason to do this right and get back before the kid started to worry.

He met his first group of undead, a small party of twenty, and didn’t even slow down as he sent a wave of black spears to demolish them as he passed.

The spears didn’t quite do as well as he expected. Only about half of them were killed, the rest either dodged or took survivable wounds. It was the water; it slowed down the projectiles. He skidded to a stop, and swam back the other way to get to the group again.

This time he sent a flurry of different weapons. Bullets lost all momentum in a few feet and darts went off course, but the saw-blades did surprisingly well, though many still went off target. It was the motion, he realized. He needed to put a spin on it.

Only one undead survived his assault. Perfect. That meant Hogg had one more experiment subject. The undead swam towards him, but Hogg thought it moved slower than it should. These things weren’t very good underwater. They probably thought they didn’t need to be. What would bother them down here?

He made a long harpoon, twice as long as a normal throwing spear, and put a heavy cone head on the end. Before launching, he did what he did with his sawblades and built up a nice spin before launching it.

The harpoon blasted straight through the undead like it wasn’t there.

Twenty enemies defeated. Insignificant experience.

Their blood darkened the water to the point that even his eyes couldn’t penetrate it. This was the reason for the Unbreathing pills rather than the much cheaper Underwater Breathing pills. If he’d taken one of those, he’d be breathing that rotten blood right now.

Hogg swam on.

The tunnels twisted through the darkness, going on and on. It was hard to tell time and distance in this place. There was only Hogg, his magic, his protections, and an endless, spiraling abyss. The [Witches] hadn’t dug all of these tunnels, they’d followed the natural currents. These were the blood veins of the world, pumping its vital humors in and out in a great and unfathomable flow.

It made the path hard to follow. The river poured into a huge underground lake, and he realized there were more than three exits. Did he know what direction they led in? Well, yes, he had an Achievement for this. He quieted his mind and after a moment of meditation he felt the direction of true north. That tunnel might lead to Arcaena, but those others led north and west. And that’s only if they were straight and stayed the direction they were pointed to now. The one he’d come in sure hadn’t been a straight line.

He felt dread, a different sort of dread than the one for the danger he’d put himself in. What if there wasn’t a right direction? What if they were all the right direction?

He examined his choices carefully, and decided that the middle tunnel was a bit murkier than the others. He chose it, and swam faster.

Timer expired.

He popped another pill of Unbreathing, and kept swimming.

Up and down. Left and right, the tunnel didn’t seem to have any reason other than to confuse and mesmerize. He swam onwards, alone in the dark.

When he found another group of undead it was almost a relief. A group of fifty. He spun up ten of his new harpoons and watched them go to work.

The volley tore them to pieces. Only a few stragglers made it through the carnage. Hogg took care of them with a few quick chops of his hands as he passed by.

Fifty enemies defeated. Insignificant experience.

Hopefully he found something soon. That volley of ten had taken a small but noticeable bite out of his mana. He was in no danger from anything they could throw at him while he still had mana, but when that ran out he was just a guy with a pair of invisible shortswords, and he didn’t actually want anyone to know about the invisible shortswords. For as long as possible, he wanted his enemies to think that magic was now his only weapon.

Five minutes later, he found another group, and dispatched them in the same way. Another group this close might mean that he was on the trail of the main group. Assuming there was a main group.

Another tunnel intersected his, and then another, jutting from the ceiling and then the floor. They were both clearly small offshoots so he didn’t bother with them and swam on.

When he was further down the tunnel, he remembered that he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head any more, and looked behind him. Sure enough, a group of undead were slinking around behind him. He used [Exceptional Inspect].

A group of undead assassins. Median level 30. Minor threat.

Did people know how customizable System messages could be? Well, he knew for a fact that they didn’t. And honestly, mostly people wanted all the information the System was willing to give them. They didn’t understand the importance of only giving pertinent information in combat scenarios.

Hogg sent a couple of spinning harpoons at them, but otherwise ignored them. They wouldn’t catch up unless he stopped.

Up ahead, he saw the tunnel open up into another lake, only this one had a surface. He could tell from the shimmering up top, there was something up there with light and air.

There was also something down below. A mass of darkness lurked at the bottom of the lake. No doubt it would be completely disguised to anyone without perfect darkvision. Even Hogg couldn’t tell exactly what he was looking at. It had friends, though, little dots of darkness all around them. He [Inspected] them first.

Undead. Good at traveling under water. Mixed unit. Moderate threat.

Then the big one.

Undead Juvenile Leviathan. Major threat.

Had they seen him yet? The question was answered for him as a wave of projectiles zipped through the water at him. He got a shield up in time to block the ones aimed in his direction, but then the ones that missed changed course and swerved to hit him around the shield.

No time to block them all, he put some oomph into his propeller and flew forward through the water. The only problem was that he was moving the wrong direction. Toward the Leviathan.

He summoned dozens of spinning harpoons, covering the water in them as they passed. The Leviathan was big enough that just shooting them in its general direction should be enough.

At least, that’s what he thought until he saw it move. It flowed smoothly, moving through the water like a silk neckerchief. Hogg made the water thick with harpoons like raindrops in a summer storm, but the enormous, undulating mass didn’t seem to have any bones from the way it shifted and squeezed around them.

It moved towards him with a casual inevitability, laughing off his attempts to attack it. He turned his propeller and shot for the surface. Could he make it?

Two undead came at him from the sides, moving as fast as a bullet from a sling. He didn’t have time to get harpoons ready, so he summoned axes of hard light into his hands and slashed at them as they approached, one on each side. He got a clean hit into the one of the left, but the one on the right parried. Hogg barely stopped its spear with a last minute shield, inches away from his skin.

He put more power into the propeller, moving himself away from the undead attacker and hopefully the Leviathan.

He felt something enormous and strong wrap itself around his stomach, pulling him off his propeller engine. A tentacle, like a three-foot-wide string of tar, started dragging him away down.

Timer expired.

Perfect timing. His Unbreather had run out.

He resisted the urge to pull in a breath. He wanted to panic, to thrash and scream. Instead, he centered himself, and then started on his magic. First, he turned the propeller around, and launched it back down towards the Leviathan. He created twenty spinning harpoons, then twenty more, all pointed towards his enemy. He created chains, trying to heave the Leviathan’s grip off him. He created sawblades, spun them up, and then cut into the tentacle pulling him downward.

The tentacle loosed, and he wiggled free. His mana was nearly drained. His lungs were about to burst. He swam with all his might towards the surface. The glittering surface of the water was only feet away when he felt another tentacle wrap around his leg.

Glancing down, he acted on instinct and created a ball of hard light, right at the center of the inky mass. He expanded it, pushing the water out so that there was a void inside. He made it bigger and bigger until his mana exhausted itself trying to keep the void contained. Then, he let it go all at once.

His world erupted into pain; it felt like someone stomped on his head and jammed icepicks into his ears. He’d swallowed a lung-full of water on instinct, and couldn’t help a silent scream of panic.

The Leviathan might have shrieked, he didn’t know, but it retreated, down into the bottom of the lake.

Lungs still full of water, Hogg’s vision was going dark. He kicked up, covering those last few feet to the surface and puked his guts out into the air. Only after that, did his body let him take in a bit of air in the form of a ragged, gasping fit of coughs.

His vision was still blurry, but what he could see, it wasn’t safe up there. It wasn’t safe below, either. No notification. That Leviathan had survived.

He swam towards the edge, and felt a prick of pain in his thigh, then his arm. Projectiles, from the underwater specialist undead. His Lightmind gave him a notice.

Poison. A thirty second timer has been applied. 0:0:29.98

He struggled towards a flat area where he could pull up onto land and avoid the projectiles, only to see a group of heavily armored undead charging towards him.

Still hacking, blood and water streaming down his face, Hogg drew an invisible shortsword. He was using these sooner than he’d hoped.

With one hand, he parried the greatsword of the first charging undead, and then stabbed through the gap in the armpit of the platemail. With the other hand, he pulled a potion of antidote from his pockets.

A booted foot kicked the antidote out of his hand, and Hogg had to tumble to the side to avoid the follow-up swing of a cutlass. These guys were good.

Ten Elite Undead. [Warriors] or better in life. Enchanted armor. Moderate threat.

A greataxe swung down towards his head, and Hogg parried, but some enchantment or Skill made it hit much harder than it should. He was flung to the floor. An armored foot came down to smash his head, but he got around it, grabbed the leg, and lifted the undead off its feet.

Undead could be absurdly strong, but they were still very light. Hogg hadn’t prioritized Strength by any means, but really it was just the weight of the armor. He swung around and chucked the undead into the water behind him.

The water wouldn’t drown the undead of course, but good luck getting back out any time soon in that armor.

The next nine decided to play it smart and came at him all at once, but by now a little bit of his Mana had returned. He created a tall pillar, and then climbed up it into the air. He jumped off the top, past the ring of undead, and ran further into the cave.

He was still hacking up his lungs, but he was starting to take something close to what could be called a breath, and his vision cleared enough that he could see where he was.

Tall braziers dotted an enormous cavern, illuminating it, though the flickering flame had a sinister cast. It wouldn’t be cheap or easy to keep those banisters lit; there must be more than undead down here.

It was hard to see past all the undead, though. The nine behind him were far from the only ones. Masses of undead stood in lines, like the breadlines in Steamshield. Some of them turned to stare at him, but more stared listlessly ahead.

The undeads’ tidy lines were headed towards three official-looking undead in fine robes and elaborate headdresses. They sat on wooden thrones atop an elaborately carved stone dais.

Undead functionaries. Smart. Minor threat.

One thing not many people knew about undead was that they kept all the intelligence they had enjoyed in life. They just didn’t care to use it. They could be forced, however, with a very specific and careful set of commands by their [Witch] or [Necromancer]. These three were examples of that kind of undead. Destroying them would send a shockwave throughout the entire organization.

Poison timer: 0:0:02.33

Right. The poison. He pulled out another antidote and forced himself to stop coughing long enough to get it down. Thankfully, his catch-all antidote fixed whatever it was. For good measure, he knocked back a mana potion as well.

Timer stopped.

The undead functionaries stood, and glittering scythes appeared in their hands, as if being summoned from the ether. More likely they’d just been invisible like Hogg’s shortswords. They steamed black smoke into the air, and seemed to have a gravity all their own. He felt like if he fell off the ground, the scythes would pull him towards them.

Moderate threat.

Something reared up behind the undead. Something huge. It was furry and light blue, with glassy eyes and two enormous ears…

It was a giant stuffed bunny.

Zappo the Bunny. Major threat.

Hogg skidded to a stop. Normally he didn’t like to do a lot of reading in the middle of combat, but this was an exception. He had to know. He altered [Exceptional Inspect] to give a bit more.

Zappo the Bunny is the fourth and weakest familiar of the [Great Witch] Awnadil. Zappo’s abilities focus on smashing, crushing, and gravity manipulation. Please select here for a full list of Zappo’s abilities. Zappo likes chocolate cake. He can be very selfish, but will always share when reminded him that it’s important to be nice to friends. For a full personality analysis, select here. Major threat.

[Witch]-madness. He should’ve turned and fled the moment he saw that Leviathan. His body was tired, near the end of his endurance, but with each breath he felt his strength returning. His heart beat faster, and pushed life into his limbs, and with it, awareness of just how screwed he was. Excitement and terror, those dreadful twins. Was this the group that would finally kill him? This would be a fight to remember.

He drew his second shortsword and smiled with bloody teeth.

“No! Stop this!” shouted a female voice.

A short, plump figure erupted from the center of the cave in a spray of smoke and flutter of bat wings. She was dressed in black, with blonde hair, cherry red lipstick, blue eyeshadow, and perfect circles of pink blush on her cheeks. He didn’t need [Inspect] to tell him that this was the [Witch] Awnadil. He used it anyway, though.

Awnadil. Level 66 Great Witch. Age 81 but looks 25. Only five levels in [Clothier], the rest in [Witch]. She advanced to the Epic Class [Great Witch] at level 50. Interesting tidbit: She’s fluent in Pollisian.

Hogg pulled on his magic. He’d need to take her out first, and quickly.

“[Requiem]!” she shouted. “I promise you no harm will come to you inside this cave. Until… until… give me a second to think! Until you leave, or try to enter further, or attack or obstruct me or any of my servants, or until thirty minutes have passed. On my life and word.”

Hogg could feel the truth of her Skill settle on him. [Witch’s Requiem] was a level 40 capstone Skill in the [Witch] Class. It didn’t force Hogg to accept her peace, just the opposite. It forced her to keep her word. She wouldn’t be able to harm or hex him unless he broke her peace first. [Witches] could already do nearly anything. The one thing they couldn’t do, was be trusted. Hence the Skill.

Yes, she could be lying about using it, but she wasn’t. He could tell.

He bent over and coughed, hacking the last of the water out of his lungs and resisting the urge to puke. Then he straightened, examining the cavern again.

This was a waystation, a place where undead could report in and get their new orders. [Witches] didn’t have any special means to order their undead around that he knew of, they actually had to give spoken orders, or delegate, such as the case may be. This was a central hub, a base camp. An organizational necessity.

He could ask Awnadil what her plans were, what the army was doing, but he didn’t have to. The existence of this place spoke the truth much more clearly than she ever would.

This wasn’t an army on the move. This wasn’t a checkpoint for a one-time exodus. This was a permanent base. An entrenchment. There were probably dozens of little hideaways just like this all across Frenaria.

“I see now,” said Hogg. “This was never about getting them home to Arcaena. This was about getting everywhere.”

“Oh, so you see. So you understand the position I’m in, yes?”

He ignored her and kept thinking aloud. “See, I was confused, because it wasn’t clear to me that even a million undead could destroy Frenaria, Prinnash, and Olland. Your army is strong, but eventually it would wear out. Meanwhile your enemy would keep growing in levels. Unless you won every battle, they’d level quite quickly. Counter-leveling, and all that. But that was never the plan. [Witches] are never so direct. You’ve built a network of tunnels, all across Frenaria. You won’t be able to match the full strength of the King’s army on an open battlefield, but you won’t need to. You’ll be able to put tens of thousands of undead anywhere in Frenaria at basically any time. They’ll have no choice but to make peace.”

Awnadil’s eyes lit up. “The first real peace that Arcaena’s ever seen. We’ll have embassies, diplomats. Trade.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Hogg. There was no way Arcaena wouldn’t use her new power. He was certain that when she was discovered, she would attack everywhere at once. Every unguarded village in Frenaria would turn into more undead recruits and the world would erupt into bloody war with no end in sight.

Awnadil pursed her lips. “But that’s not what this is about. This is about you and me. And you–”

Just then, another stuffed bunny appeared around from behind Awnadil’s wide backside. This one was yellow, only two feet tall, and had a black ‘X’ sewn where its left eye should be.

“Is this guy bothering you, mom?” asked the stuffed bunny.

Basil the Bunny is the first and strongest familiar of the [Great Witch] Awnadil. Basil fights with blades and shadows. Please select here for a full list of Basil’s abilities. Basil likes strawberries and he loves to cut children. He is very bossy because he’s in charge, but he truly cares about the feelings of his friends. For a full personality analysis, select here. Major threat.

“No, no,” said Hogg. “No bother. We’re just having a conversation.”

“That’s right,” said Awnadil. “And I was just about to say, before you interrupted me…”

She waited, and Hogg didn’t take the bait. If he interrupted her again, it was very possible that he’d violate her [Requiem]. With that Basil thing here, he wasn’t sure if he would win.

“... I was just saying that I know who you are. You’re the one who adopted Cadwy and Aberfa’s brat. Little Aberthol.”

“Aberthol?” Basil jumped in the air and clapped his padded paws. “Aberthol! You know Aberthol? Can he come to play?”

“No,” said Hogg. Aberthol was dead; that was Brin now, but he didn’t correct them.

“Aw.” The little yellow bunny kicked the ground.

“Did he tell you about me? I’m his godmother, you know.”

“You’re also the one who ordered his death, I presume,” said Hogg.

“Well, yes, but I’m glad it didn’t take. And you didn’t answer my question,” said Awnadil.

“Rude!” thundered gigantic Zappo.

“Yes, very rude,” said Basil.

“Quite rude,” said Awnadil.

“He doesn’t remember you,” said Hogg. “Something about the Mother’s Knot erased his memories.”

Awnadil opened her eyes wide in shock. Then slowly she lowered them to heavy lids and a smile began to dawn. “Then that means… I can do it all again. He doesn’t remember any of my fun little surprises! I can do it all again, exactly like it was the very first time. ”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Hogg.

“If you keep pushing your luck, it will, and that’s a promise,” said Awnadil. “If we fought, you might win. Probably not, but maybe–”

Basil folded his arms. “Definitely not! I’ll protect you, mama.”

“Now, dear, what did we say about interrupting?” Awnadil patted his head. “Where was I? Oh, yes. You might win, so I’ll avoid it if I can. But if you keep on the path you’re on, that changes things. If you escape? If you break free or find some other way to send word of what we’re doing here? What reason would I have to keep Hammon’s Bog alive and unmolested? Your actions would embarrass me in front of my queen and I will not be embarrassed in front of the queen. I would do whatever it took to see you and your town destroyed.”

“And if I stay in town? Will you leave us alone?”

Awnadil slumped in on herself. “What promise could I make that you would believe? I tire. Go now.”

Hogg considered killing them. She was right, he might win. Wasn’t this a chance worth taking? Stopping her here might give Frenaria a real chance. Wasn’t one life worth that chance? Wasn’t it his duty?

But if he fought, Hammon’s Bog would die. The town he grew up in, where his drunken lout of an uncle had raised him. He’d left for decades at a time, but it was always a place to come back to, a place where people knew him.

Brin would die. Hogg had taken an Oath. Yes, that was his duty now. He hacked to spit a wad of bloody phlegm on the floor, but thought better of it. He swallowed. Best to not break hospitality.

“Fine, but one last thing. You and B– Aberthol have history, but that’s all it is. History. You touch one hair on his head, and I don’t care what it takes. I will destroy you. And that’s a promise that I think you do believe.”

Awnadil waved like he was a pesky fly. “Go. Go away. Leave.”

A knife appeared in Basil’s paw, nearly as tall as he was. Hogg couldn’t see how he was holding it; he didn’t have fingers. “You heard her! Go on! Git!”

Hogg turned and jumped back into the water. And because he wasn’t new at this, he wasn't even surprised when the Leviathan attacked him again.