72 Callum's Enticement

For a brief moment, silence descended upon the clearing after the last spell dissipated. That shocked silence was immediately broken by all of the cheering and hollering that broke out amongst the crowd of fighters.

Callum slid off the dead lindwurm and collapsed to his knees. The lindwurm's efforts to remove him meant that not all of the missiles or spells had struck their intended target, and some of them had come very close to hitting him.

He was quickly hauled up onto his feet. Boren looked up at him with a beaming smile on his face as he heartily clasped Callum's forearms.

"I'd be dead right now if you hadn't taken that hit! That bastard's claws were right about to rip my head off," Boren choked out with thick emotion.

"We're party members, it's what we do," Callum said as he recalled several instances when Boren's actions had saved him; particularly when he had been in an enraged state and completely surrounded by goblins.

Callum was distracted when Amarok pushed himself in between both men.

He knelt down and started to love on the Dire Wolf, happy that he was in one piece; he had lost track of Amarok when he had been knocked out. He knew that Amarok had been fine, but he wasn't sure what Amarok had been able to do to the heavily armored lindwurm.

As he cleaned himself with his trusty cantrip, he looked around at everyone else. It didn't look like anyone had lost their lives, but he knew that several people, including himself, had had close brushes with death.

Off to the side, Garrett patiently stood still while his wife, Cadiwynn, carefully checked him over since he had taken that heavy hit from the lindwurm.

One of the biggest issues remaining was that Jin's Fire Elemental form had radiated a lot of heat; heat that melted several feet of snow around where he had been. Because the fight had been so chaotic, most of the clearing was now a muddy mess.

This just compounded the issue of how they were going to deal with a 40-foot (12m) long corpse that weighed many tons. And unlike in a dungeon, they could not simply <Loot> the body; they needed to do it the hard way.

Which raised a question that Callum asked as he approached a knot of people that were gathering around the corpse.

"How are we going to cut this beast up? Our weapons barely scratched it."

"Start with the underbelly?" Esteban asked.

Wei Jin sent another runner back to the castle in order to request additional help from the butchers as well as the sleds. Ravi ignored everyone and pressed a dagger in between some scales, and found that he was able to slightly lift the scales above his knife.

"Someone hand me another dagger," Ravi said as he held out his free hand.

Seeing what he was doing, everyone was quick to volunteer their daggers, and he had a number of daggers to choose from. With two daggers, he alternately wedged one dagger after the other into the slowly growing hole.

After several minutes, he was able to reach and then subsequently cut the connecting tissue.

"It takes a bit of work, but I think it's doable," he said as he held up the hand-sized scale, "I'm far from the strongest, and a bit of practice should really cut down on the time."

The group quickly organized themselves around the corpse. Someone had some line and they used that to measure consistent sections of the corpse, and the rest used those markings as a guide on where to remove the scales.

The process sped up when Alea returned with the first batch of reinforcements. By the time the butchers arrived, Callum was starting to feel a little crowded with scores of people who were crawling all over the lindwurm.

Callum pulled Jin aside and asked him some questions regarding this beast's loot. He did the same with Folxi when she arrived.

A sliver of lindwurm meat was cut off, and was inspected by several rogue classes, who specialized in poison; several healers also performed several tests on it. All of them agreed that Greater Ice Lindwurm meat wasn't harmful.

As the first lindwurm steaks started cooking up, an aromatic fragrance wafted over the clearing.

Callum climbed up onto the lindwurm's head and gathered everyone's attention.

"First, and easiest to get out of the way, tomorrow's grand hunt is canceled," Callum waved his hand up and down the lindwurm's corpse, "I think our butchers will be a little busy over the next couple of days."

"Next, all of those who participated in the battle against the lindwurm will get a generous prize of gold and silver."

Callum waited for the roar of approval to die down before he moved on to the next part, he knew it wasn't going to be a popular decision. It was why he led with the coin prize.

"As the local ruler, I'm going to claim the entire body of the lindwurm and it's loot."

Another roar, this time of disapproval, washed over the small crowd. Callum hurried to finish the rest of what he was saying before the crowd got too worked up.

"I will commission the creation of lindwurm armor for all of those who participated in the battle. Those classes unable to wear armor, will instead receive an equal value in lindwurm parts to use in enchanting, spell creation, potions, etc."

Callum was glad that his Charisma score was much higher than when he had been a farmer, but this experience reinforced that he should focus on that a little bit more if he was going to be in charge of people.

Those who had participated in the battle were somewhat mollified when they learned that they wouldn't be coming out completely empty handed. They were at least getting some loot from the rare monster, even if they weren't getting as much as if it had been an even loot distribution.

Callum next moved on towards his primary reason for claiming all of the loot, bait.

"I'm sorry, but I need all of these materials in order to outfit my permanent soldiers in good armor and weapons. I'm sure that these spines, fangs, and claws should make great weapon components."

He could see some wheels turning in some people's eyes, especially those who witnessed how effective the lindwurm's scales were. Those scales had shrugged off most of the incoming damage, both mundane as well as magical.

Even the noncombatants looked interested; a strong army provided security for the population, and gearing his initial forces in lindwurm armor was a great start.

"Last thing, which one of us did the lindwurm launch the furthest? I sort of blacked out when I was flying," Callum asked with a grin.

Laughter rang out and shattered the last bit of tension from his claiming all of the loot. He felt satisfied: he had earned plenty of experience, his future forces would be well equipped, and he hoped to entice as many people to stay as he could.

((A/N: RedPandaChick will be editing my earliest chapters, from before I had her as an editor. Due to how WebNovel's software is designed, this will likely wipe out many paragraph comments, and there's not much I can do about that short of leaving those chapters alone.

Also, I'm going to be editing the first couple of chapters to add something that I think is missing. Lastly, I need to add some paragraphs that explain how Callum's and Amarok's bond actually formed.

I had an idea in my head, but I neglected to write it into the story. Which doesn't do you all much good. As it is currently written, it can be interpreted as brainwashing. Which wasn't my intention at all, so I need to clarify what actually happened.

I'll update you all when those changes occur.))