Vel gets a taste of the world of the titans, where everything is now scaled to Iah instead of the other way around. It's a nice, fantastic experience as his journey seemingly nears its end. However, this new world may come with new surprises.

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Chapter 11

“Was your world always like this,” Vel asked, looking around at the dismal world he had been brought to. The sheer scale of everything here should have left him in awe. The landscape reminded him more of a savannah, even though the grass looked like it would have been more orangish in color if it was not so washed out. That grass was also around ankle height to the gnolls at the shortest points, meaning most towns Vel had ever seen could have been lost in that savannah. Then there were the trees, sparse as they were, that towered over the gnolls. They were not the size of actual mountains, but it was hard not to think of them in that fashion. But they also seemed like something was rotten about them, like they would blow right over if there were a strong enough gust of wind.

Hestrihz looked thoughtfully down at Vel, standing in the palm of her massive hand, and shrugged her huge, armored shoulders, “I hear it wasn’t, but I was born into things being like this.”

Then Hestrihz looked up from Vel and called out to Ryrrg, “Hey, old man, you remember if things looked better when you were young?”

“Wait, Ryrrg’s older than you,” Vel asked in surprise.

“Almost a century older,” Hestrihz smiled.

“For one thing, I’m still young,” Ryrrg responded as he walked closer to them, “And I’m only 84 years older than her, not a century.”

That was a staggering bit of information. He had no clue that Ryrrg was the oldest of the gnolls he had met, especially not older by that large a margin. Then he looked up at Hestrihz and wondered how old she actually was. She was the oldest sister, but what did that mean to creatures that lived for a thousand years? Hes chuckled at his look, “I’m only two years older than Iah. That makes me 180 years old, and Ryrrg is a ripe old 264.”

“I’ve still got most of my life ahead of me,” Ryrrg replied cynically before turning his attention to Vel, “And I’m assuming you’re the one that really wants to know what this world looked like since Hes is normally only interested in the here and now. Well, things were already going downhill when I was a cub, but they were better than now. Everything was a bit…livelier. It’s hard to explain, but I think you can tell there is something wrong if you even needed to ask that question. Things were a bit more like your world, just bigger, and the colors were different in some patches.”

“Patches?”

Hestrihz looked slightly surprised, “That’s right, I don’t think we’ve told you what this world is called. While the elder races still refer to it as the name of their original worlds, most of us call it the Patchwork World, or Patch for short. That’s because when Patch and new worlds merge, it’s not like the entire world gets connected all in one piece. We end up with a piece here, a part over there, and we call those patches. Since the colors of plants might not match up, it is sometimes easy to see when patches were originally from different worlds.”

“And things will supposedly improve once this convergence is complete?”

Hestrihz and Ryrrg looked at each other a little awkwardly before she said, “Yeah, we should see it in our lifetimes…”

Hestrihz let that thought trail off as the two gnolls looked down at him. That look was not just because he could not possibly live as long as they could, even under ideal conditions. Based on what Vel understood, they were nearing the conclusion of their journey. Vel knew he was about to be killed to make mana powder, which he could already make without sacrificing his life. It was tiring, but with enough rest and a good meal afterward, he thought he could make this powder for as long as he wanted to. Thoughts of mentioning this to the employer of the gnolls did cross his mind, but he did not think that would go well. Mana powder creation was supposedly a secret, and letting someone else that Iah and her clan now knew about it might only get them killed, too. If he was more vindictive that might have been appealing, but they promised to protect his people. Getting the gnolls killed would only expose everyone he knew to a new world of giants without protection, and he did not want that for them.

Vel’s thoughts were soon interrupted by Iah making some sort of call that made him wonder if her translation spell had suddenly failed. Like with Ryrrg’s growl that he had heard the other day, it was the sort of noise that sent a chill down his spine and reminded Vel that these gnolls were titanic predators. It certainly did sound like the noise a predator might make while out on the hunt. Then, there was a return call that made Vel feel more than a little nervous. However, by the way the three gnolls were looking toward the return call, all smiling pleasantly, it seemed like they thought this was a good thing.

Then Vel noticed movement from within the grass and he was startled when numerous other gnolls started poking their heads up out of the grass. It was disturbing that things as large as them could hide like that without Vel even being able to suspect that they were anywhere close. Vel counted nine more gnolls now standing up in the grass. None of them were as large as Iah, or even Hestrihz for that matter, but all of them were taller than Ryrrg. As hard as it was to believe, he really might have been short by gnoll standards.

At that moment, Vel was very happy to be in Hestrihz’s hand. The thudding of that many paws against the ground was very audible. And some of those paws were wearing some impressive looking armor. Vel had no desire to be on the ground with that many paws just stomping about.

All of the gnolls were warriors from their dress. Everyone was armed and armored. Vel was not the most experienced warrior himself, with him only having a few weeks of experience as a militiaman before being abducted by Iah. Still, he would like to think he could tell the difference between light and heavy armor. They were all in light armor, if armor that would have taken hundreds of people to lift could be called light. Still, it looked like they had mobility in mind when it came to their loadout. Some of the bigger ones had a bit more armor on them, mainly the females from what Vel could see, but none were wearing anything heavy. The armor made it hard to tell in some cases, but he thought that there was one more male among the group than females. Combined with Iah and her group, that evened things out at six males and six females.

It did look like they were going to be combining too. They were all exchanging pleasant greetings and there was also the occasional embrace and lick to emphasize Vel’s impression further. Hestrihz was keeping her distance from the other gnolls, probably fearful of what would happen if Vel should happen to get caught between an overly enthusiastic hug. Once the greetings were over, though, Vel became self-conscious as the attention of all the gnolls started to settle on him. There were a dozen of them now.

Just the three Vel had been traveling with would have probably been enough to conquer the Empire. This many of them would have been able to do so and might not have even noticed any resistance against them. Frankly, it would have been hard to believe if the entirety of the known world could have stopped them. And all of that power was looking directly at him.

One of the new gnolls was also having difficulty accepting this situation as she pointed at Vel and asked, “Is that the target, Iah? It under some new spell or something?”

All the gnolls Vel was familiar with chuckled at those questions before Iah responded, “Yes, this little fellow, Vel, is our target. And no, Vel is not under a spell. Believe it or not, he’s around normal-sized for his world.”

“You have to be joking,” one of the males said incredulously this time.

“It’s true,” Ryrrg chimed in that time, “I think he might even be a little above average in size for his race. It’s hard to tell due to how small everything is on his world though.”

After that, Iah had Hestrihz start passing Vel around, briefly introducing him to each of her clanmates as it happened. Iah had a pretty stern look on her face the entire time. All the gnolls that handled him looked nervous and awkward about doing so. It was hard to tell if that was because of how Iah looked at them or if they were afraid they would be the one to break the precious little creature they were all depending on for a big payoff. While getting handled by such massive creatures was nerve-wracking, it was also amusing to see how nervous these gigantic warriors were.

Among the new males were Aakx, Trikk, Rurox, Thetoun, and Myzekx. While Ryrrg was the shortest among them, it turned out he and Thetoun were the highest-ranking males in their hierarchy. Iah’s mate, the highest-ranking male in their clan, was back at their home, defending their young. All the males looked like they specialized in the bow. Despite being smaller and supposedly weaker than the females, they all carried bows that stunned Vel. He may have been a farmer, but he still needed to know how to use a bow to drive off wild animals from his farm. Vel had not noticed it at first when he was just looking at Ryrrg’s bow, but it was not impressive just due to its size. Those bows looked like even a very strong person would have had difficulty drawing them. Even if he and the gnolls were the same size, he would not have wanted to take a hit from one of them. They might just be able to take a person’s head off with a single swipe of their hands if they wanted to. And the females were supposed to be stronger.

The females now included Bahz, Lylneah, Vehz, and Knah. While Iah and Hestrihz were the highest-ranking females, they were actually among the youngest of them. It also seemed that they were all sisters, half-sisters, or cousins. Knah was the oldest at 691 years of age, making her well over half the age of the Empire itself. The scale these gnolls lived on was simply stunning to Vel. He was not as familiar with their weapons, but now that he looked at them more carefully, they seemed off, just like the bows the males used. Vel remembered when one of his fellow villagers who had been drafted into the militia asked about how small the war axes looked compared to wood-cutting axes. It had been said they needed to be smaller and lighter to allow people to swing them around repeatedly without exhausting themselves. However, Iah’s axes and those that the other gnolls were carrying were two or three times the size of a wood-cutting axe. Vel assumed that the other weapons they were carrying were similarly oversized.

After Vel’s introductions to everyone, Iah asked, “How far are we from Cado?”

“Just over a day’s journey. There’s a small hamlet we can stay in tonight before traveling the rest of the way tomorrow,” Lylneah responded.

“Good, it’s probably best we get this over with as quickly as possible. I have something to tell all of you,” Iah said. Then she explained what had happened in the destroyed city with the unicorn and how Vel could produce mana powder. She also emphasized how they all needed to keep that part a secret, but how they looked at him had changed. They were different races and it was not that obvious, but Vel thought they were looking at him with the same sort of awe that he looked at them.

Then, it was time for Vel to be put away in Hestrihz’s pocket as they made the journey to the hamlet that had been mentioned. It was an odd time for Vel as he rode along in that pocket. There were now twelve giant monsters capable of taking over the world, all dedicated to his protection. But they were also taking him to his death, which very well might happen the next day.

While he had his affairs in order about as well as could be expected, it was not like he was eager to go to his death. While Iah had been talking about going to different worlds and other such nonsense, it had all seemed so unreal to him. Everything felt more like a dream. But now it was really happening. For the first time in a while, he did think about trying to escape, but now he was on an alien world with twelve gnolls who considered him just about the most important thing in the world. Trying to escape from them was the dream. No matter what, this was going to happen. All an escape attempt would do was unnecessarily upset the gnolls.

The only thing Vel could do was contemplate his fate in the darkness of Hestrihz’s pocket. As nervous as he felt, it was surprisingly easy to fall asleep in the soft pocket, with the steady rhythm of the gnoll’s steps lulling him to slumber. When he woke next, he heard voices outside the pocket. There was a lot of conversation outside of it, which was worrying at first. That sort of activity could mean trouble, but then he noticed that the voices seemed almost jubilant.

As Vel wondered what was going on, a set of large furry fingers came questing carefully into the pocket for him. This used to be a bit frightening for him, but the gnolls had proven capable of handling him as long as he did not try to resist. So, he just moved into position for the fingers to grab him more easily and he was taken out of the pocket with no issues.

Vel was temporarily blinded by the light in the outside world, as usual, after being in a dark pocket for so long. He did recover quickly due to how dim the light was. At first, he thought it must be evening, but Vel was startled to discover that might not be true. He looked around and saw he was indoors, something that had not happened since Iah had first abducted him. It was not like the gnolls could fit inside any buildings, at least not back on his world.

That was not the case on their world, as was now being made clear. On Vel’s world, it had been the gnolls that had to get used to the smaller scale of things. Now Vel could see he was going to be the one who had to get used to the ridiculously colossal scale of their world. He had heard they were heading to a hamlet, which should have just been a set of a few buildings in an isolated area. Surely, that meant they would be camping outside again, but a hamlet on this world probably would have qualified as a collection of world wonders on Vel’s world.

Whatever the building was that Vel found himself in, it was large enough for most of the gnolls to fit inside of it from what he could see. Hestrihz sat him down on a table that was big enough for a few gnolls to sit at while a few other members of the group occupied different tables in the room. There were a few missing gnolls, but most were in the building, along with a few other giants. One was a crocodile working behind a counter that was around the size of the gnolls. The others were fennec foxes that were serving the gnolls. They were only around knee height to the gnolls, like the kobolds, but they brought food and drink to the gnolls without trouble.

While nothing dangerous was happening, this was still a lot for Vel to take in. He was inside a massive building with unfamiliar titans walking about and casting curious glances his way. While the foxes were small compared to the gnolls, they were still more than large enough to crush him beneath their thumbs if they wanted to. And like the gnolls, everything here had those same ominous black eyes. Iah and Hestrihz were sitting at the table with him, along with one of the other gnoll women, Lylneah. Ryrrg was sitting at another table.

The foxes were all evaluating him carefully, and Iah quickly noticed that all the strange gazes distressed Vel. He was used to Iah looking fairly kindly towards him. But her expression hardened, and he saw a glimpse of the mercenary she really was as she looked around at the foxes and the crocodile. She gave them all a warning growl that clearly indicated they should all mind their own business. The foxes were quick enough to avert their gaze, but the crocodile’s lingered for a bit longer before he shrugged his shoulders and found something else to look at.

That was better, but Vel could not help but look over to Ryrrg, sitting at another table. Iah and Hestrihz noticed the direction of his gaze, and their friendly expressions returned as Iah called out, “Ryrrg, come sit with us. I think Vel wants all his familiar bodyguards with him.”

“Really,” a somewhat surprised Ryrrg answered, “I’ll be right over.”

Vel noticed a certain pep in Ryrrg’s step as he rushed over to the table. At first, he moved to sit between Hestrihz and Lylneah, but Iah made room for him between herself and Hestrihz. By the way his tail wagged excitedly enough that Vel could feel the wind coming off of it, he assumed that this had something to do with their hierarchy, something good for Ryrrg. Iah and Hestrihz found his reaction amusing as he sat down between the two of them, their massive forms dwarfing him. Hestrihz draped a muscular arm around him and enjoyed a little laugh at how his ears were flushing red as he blushed, but he was also looking straight at Vel with an expression of unmistakable gratitude. It looked like this was all working out very well for him.

The cheer of the situation was reassuring for Vel, enough so that he was finally able to speak up, “Where are we?”

“Just a little inn that services travelers heading to and from Cado,” Iah replied.

“Little? The village I came from could fit in here.”

Hestrihz let out a chuckle, “I was still getting used to how small everything was on your world. I guess this does feel a bit more palatial after that, no matter how crowded it is right now.”

Vel looked around and finally noticed that things really were crowded between all the gnolls and inn staff. While there was no fire going in the fireplace yet, the room was still warming up with just the body heat of all the gnolls filling the space. This was by and far the largest building Vel had seen in his life, yet it was still small for this group of titans.

As he was still getting used to that fact, Vel started to think about other things. Eventually, he asked, “Is it alright for me to be out like this? I thought you were trying to keep my presence a secret.”

“We’re in our client’s territory now,” Iah waved off the concern, “If anyone finds out about you now, word will get to them first. And I want them to know that I have been successful.”

“Why is that?”

“If I just showed up with seemingly no gifted individual and a force of a dozen gnolls, they might think I was up to something,” Iah explained, “That would leave things open for a…tragic misunderstanding. So, I’d rather they know you exist and are just on the small side rather than thinking I have other more nefarious purposes in mind.”

Vel had not thought of that. This incredible size difference between humanity and these titans had more implications than he had considered. He was glad Iah was thinking about these things, too. If things went badly for her, they would probably go badly for him and everyone else she had promised to help.

As time passed, conversation changed between numerous subjects. Lylneah was the one who had quite a few questions for Vel about his world. She did have a hard time believing anything that had to do with humanity's numbers. Things did get a bit more awkward when it came time for dinner to be served, though, for Vel, at least. It was not like they cooked their food even now. Everything was still raw and bleeding. The only preparation involved seemed to be cutting things into portions small enough for the foxes to carry around. And he supposed everything had those preservation spells on them because he could not imagine the crocodile and foxes had just gone out and hunted enough for a group of gnolls of this size.

Their meal was still intact enough for Vel to tell what all the parts came from. Even worse, Iah, Hestrihz, and Ryrrg were sharing around the humans they had purchased with the rest of their clan and were introducing them to the concept of seasoning. Of course, Iah just had to tell all her clanmates the lie Vel had told her all those days ago, about not thinking humans were worthy of being eaten. So, that ended up getting Vel a lot of compliments on the brilliance of humans for coming up with the idea of seasoning as well as ones about the excellent flavor of humans.

Vel was able to get a little payback, though. His gear had been given to him, and Ryrrg had gathered what he considered splinters and woodchips, but they were more like logs to Vel. Iah, Hestrihz, and Ryrrg also cut off tiny slivers of their meals for Vel to try. Well, each one of their slivers was a substantial meal to him, but it was probably going to be one of his last meals, so he might as well indulge himself. Then he started a fire. The room may have been huge, but they all had sensitive enough noses to detect the smell of cooking meat. Vel could not help but be a little delighted at the slack-jawed looks he started to get from not just the gnolls but also the foxes and crocodile. Iah, Hestrihz, and Ryrrg had a good chuckle over everyone else’s reaction, too, and they seemed to enjoy explaining the concept of cooking to their incredulous audience.

It took a little while for the conversation to turn back to anything else, but once things had settled down for a bit, Vel was able to get around to asking, “Those weapons you all carry, I’ve noticed they all seem to be on the heavy side. Why is that?”

Vel had not asked the question to anyone in particular, just to any of the gnolls at the table. They all exchanged a look, and it was Iah who answered the question, “I remember you rather handily wielding a spear that any one of us would have used were we your size.”

“That was a modified heavy spear to deal with the monsters attacking us,” Vel explained, “We wouldn’t have normally used something that big against other humans. It would have been too exhausting.”

The gnolls all nodded knowingly, as if what Vel said made perfect sense. Then Iah asked, “Remember how there is a lifespan difference between some races, Vel?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there is a difference in strength too. Generally, a more predatory species is five times as strong as an herbivorous one, on average. Omnivores like yourself can fit in either category,” Iah said.

“On average, you say,” Vel shrugged his shoulders. It was another stunning fact, but he was getting used to it.

“Not that it matters to me all that much, for obvious reasons,” Vel looked over the collected gnolls, who, with every little movement, caused muscles to flex that dwarfed his own body and were more comparable to houses in size.

Iah and the other gnolls smiled, “For obvious reasons.”

Then Vel asked, “You just said on average, though.”

“I did.”

“But you don’t come off as average; none of you do really. How strong are you?”

Iah looked thoughtful for a moment, “I don’t mean to brag, but I’m probably somewhere between two to three times as strong as the average gnoll.”

That did not mean much to Vel. He was a bug to any of these titans, and they would not have needed a fraction of their might to deal with someone like him. What he was thinking about was what things must have been like for the herbivores and some of the omnivores that were in their size range. They were people who had once lived on their own worlds, separate from any others, just like Vel and the rest of humanity. Then, they found themselves in the company of beings where weak ones were probably still stronger than them. And Iah might be as strong as 15 people. Vel had thought the giant size of all these creatures was what made things so bad, but having a bunch of intelligent predators that were that much stronger than himself suddenly roaming the lands was still a nightmare on its own. The herbivores had been living that nightmare for thousands of years, possibly longer. He could see why some of them may have gone mad by this point.

“In that case, aren’t your weapons a little small for you then,” asked Vel.

“Just because we’re stronger does not mean we weigh that much more,” Hestrihz spoke up this time, “If the weapon weighs too much, we’ll pretty much start to tip over if we try to use them. So, it’s more of a weight issue than a strength issue.”

At that point, it was nice for Vel to hear they had limits. He had talked with the gnolls enough that they did talk like ordinary people, but they were just so powerful that it was almost like they were gods without realizing it. Any limits at all helped them seem mortal.

As time passed, Vel noticed that a few of the gnolls that had been sitting down at other tables walked outside and some others came inside to eat. Vel realized that as good a mood as Iah and the other gnolls seemed to be in, they had not let their guard down. Iah had arranged to have a few members of her clan stationed outside the inn as sentries at all times. No one would get into the inn to steal their prize away at the last moment.

As the last of the gnolls finished eating and the last light coming in through the inn’s window faded away, Iah sat her hand on the table next to Vel. It looked like it was time to retire for the night. The gnolls traveled in a group upstairs with Iah and Vel at the center, with even the sentries coming inside. They went upstairs and even though the inn seemed like a vast palace to Vel, there were still only three rooms. That did not seem to bother the gnolls in the least, as they only occupied two of the rooms, leaving a couple of sentries in the hallway.

Much to Vel’s surprise, the room he was staying in did not have what he would have considered a bed. It was more of a communal cushion on the floor, which also suited the gnolls since they seemed to enjoy sleeping in a group. Before settling down for the night, Iah gave Vel a somewhat curious look. Then she sat him down on the cushion beside her instead of making him sleep on her belly like usual.

“I thought you might appreciate sleeping in an actual bed for once,” Iah stated.

Vel did lay back on the bed and tried to get comfortable. It was a bed large enough that his house could have fit on it, and it was comfortable enough, at least as comfortable as his own bed. But it just did not feel right. So, he asked, “Iah, would it be alright if I slept on your belly fur? It’s just more comfortable.”

This very well might be his last night alive. Vel thought that he might as well be comfortable. The question was met with laughter from the other gnolls in the room. It was not derisive, though. There was honest humor in their voices. Ryrrg soon chimed in, “Quite a question to ask of the matriarch. It took me a while to work up to that privilege, and you just come right out and ask.”

Iah simply rolled her eye, “Ignore them, Vel. Of course you can sleep on my belly. It’s the least I can do for you.” Then Iah scooped Vel up and sat him back down in her delightfully soft belly fur. Then all the gnolls settled into the bed and it was not long before Vel started to drift off to sleep, even with the somewhat cacophonous sound of a few titans breathing deeply in the bed all around him. It was something he had grown used to surprisingly easily.

Sometime later that night, Vel’s rest started to grow restless, enough so that he was half awake. That was no surprise. He was supposed to die the next day. It would have been strange to be completely at rest. Or that was what his semiconscious mind thought at first. Just moments later, it felt like something was wrong with how he felt. His body was tingling in a way he could not describe. When it finally registered in his mind that there was something wrong, that he should call out for help, it was already too late.

******

Iah felt that there was something wrong almost right away. All her instincts were screaming at her that she needed to go into action, and she was reaching for a weapon before her eyes even managed to open up. It took a lot to fight the urge to sit up, fearing that she would fling Vel through the air if she did so. And that was when she realized just what was wrong. Vel may have been tiny, but he did have weight, and she knew precisely what that weight should have felt like. She then let out a roar that woke everyone in the inn, “Where in the name of the gods is Vel?”