We all went to sleep a little easier that night.
Chapter Sixteen
“ATTAAAAAAAAACK!” Yohsuke shouted, and a second later, a resounding boom shattered our slumber.
I jolted upright, still half asleep, trying to figure out what was going on. Level 13 Lizardmen were swarming in—at least a dozen of them, and they were moving swiftly towards us.
Bokaj and James were the fastest to react since they were only in a sleep-like trance with Jaken right behind. Bokaj usually entered his trance with his bow in hand anyway, so he bolted into a tree using Nature’s Hidden Path, an ability we both now shared, and used the second spell I’d never actually seen him use—Barrage.
A blast of a hundred arrows rent the air and streaked toward the invaders—and me since I was still in the area. Jaken stepped in front of me with his shield raised, protecting me from the arrows. Balmur stepped through the shadows, and the other Elves were nimble enough to avoid the worst of the attack.
“You guys better get in on this. Try and get them close together, I’m gonna use my big attack but I need the time to down some mana potions!” the Ranger shouted to us.
“You heard the man!” Jaken yelled, spittle flying from his mouth. “Come on, you little bastards!”
“Get’em, Bonzer,” Yohsuke ordered, and the Skeleton lumbered into the fray.
With the party’s tank and the Skeleton fighting back to back, the rest of us fought the crowd from the outside. Bonzer wouldn’t last long, but we hoped to have a few of them finished before they tried Jaken all at once. The eight enemies who had taken the brunt of the damage were at seventy percent, so we tried to whittle them down first.
I brought my great axe out and started to hack at the Lizardmen in front of me. The damage dealers split up the group of enemies kind of like a pie. Yoh and I took the ones on Bonzer, and James and Balmur went for the ones attacking Jaken. Each of us had a section that we stuck to, and Kayda was raining lighting from above and clawing at their heads. The three directly in front of me were at sixty percent each when we got the call to clear the immediate area.
“Get to the trees!” ordered Bokaj. “Jaken, get as low as you can and put your shield toward the sound of my voice!”
Our Paladin roared, and red aura surrounded him, forcing the enemies there to focus on him again, then did as he was told.
The arrows rained down on the area for forty feet around the tank in a circle. It was quite literally raining arrows, and it didn’t stop for three seconds. I barely got away, taking an arrow through my left foot that disappeared as soon as I pulled it out and cast Regrowth on myself.
I couldn’t see Jaken to cast a heal on him, but his health was barely going back up now. The Lizardmen looked rough, but the scaly pincushions they had been reduced to were still there standing. One of the Lizardmen on Balmur’s side was dead, and then another on Yohsuke’s side fell. We went back to work, and Bokaj rained death from above. Within a couple more minutes, the last of our invaders had fallen. Bokaj, Jaken, James, and I leveled once more. Tmont had been asleep in a tree and hadn’t even bothered to wake up, lazy thing.
We decided to move on for the night. No point in staying here. I had gotten roughly six hours of sleep anyway, so that was a blessing. Balmur grumbled a little, but killing things and leveling up had helped calm him a bit. We looted the bodies and got some coin out of it and even one necklace that wasn’t anything special but just looked cool, so Bokaj held onto that.
We decided to set our new staging area up a little further north and east than we were currently, back toward the direction we had come from originally. While we waited for our personal chef to cook breakfast, all of us decided to practice our jobs. I took out some of the weapons I had collected from the Goblins and began enchanting them.
My results were pretty good actually; of the almost two dozen I had, all but two held an enchantment. The other two? Well, let’s say that those smoldering holes in the ground had always been there, shall we?
The enchantments I had gotten were pretty interesting. Lightning Damage was the one I was the most excited about. It was only +1, but still, it was a step in the right direction. The others I wasn’t sure about. On top of the four lightning Damage knives, I got Blur which made weapons fly faster—ten of those and four of Stun. Last but not least, four Magnetized, which attracted the weapon to armor a little better, like little homing missiles. I imagine that it wouldn’t do too well at plus one, but still, pretty cool. All of these would probably go really well for our Rogue, so I asked Balmur what he thought.
“Hmm…” He held the weapons for a moment each. “The Damage would be almost negligible. However, with the status effects, it could be worthwhile, especially if you were to level those skills up. Have you tried more than one enchantment on one piece?”
“Yeah, the metal these knives were made from isn’t very conducive to magic. They take a spell or enchantment, sure, but they resist it. If I had better materials, better metal, and some gems, I might be able to do more. I need to level my skill up, though, so I’m not too worried about materials just yet.”
“Sweet, man. You mind if I play with these? Maybe they could help in our coming battles?”
“Brother, nothing would make me more proud.” I patted his shoulder.
“Hey, man, you wanna try on some of these?” Bokaj had wandered over and held out a fist full of arrows. The heads were tipped with iron, a little more conducive to my magic than the odd knives—bronze?—I had been working with.
“Sure.” I shrugged and sat with them. This was the first time I think that the Ranger had gotten to see me work, so I let him watch me.
I focused on the arrow itself and brought my lightning infused mana into it, thinking of the speed of lightning flashing in a storm. The arrow disintegrated. All that was left was the head, so I picked up another. This time, I focused completely on the tip of the projectile. I held the same thought in my mind’s eye and let my mana flow and arc into the iron in front of me.
Arcing Iron Arrow
+1 Lightning Damage, +1 Arc
An arrow imbued with the power of lightning. When loosed upon the enemy, this arrow will release an arc of electricity to the closest metallic object.
“Okay. That’s pretty fucking cool.” I showed him my work and let him hold the arrow.
“Dude, that’s fucking sweet.”
“Wanna see what it does?”
“What will we shoot it at?”
I stood and walked across the camp to stand well away from the rest of the party and took out my great dagger.
“Shit dude, we don’t know what the hell this thing does. Wouldn’t it be better to…” he never even finished the sentence. He nocked, drew, and loosed in one fluid motion. It was fast enough that I hadn’t caught it with my response for him to just woman up and do it.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuu–” I seized as the arrow-turned-lightning bolt struck me in the chest, and I plopped to the ground.
Once I could move again, I sat up and got to witness the show that was my familiar chasing Bokaj around, her electrified feathers giving off static. I tugged on our bond and told her to relax.
She screeched and flew at me, landing on my shoulder. She actually had to straddle my head with a clawed foot on each shoulder to fit now. She settled her feathers before glaring at Bokaj still smiling across the clearing.
“So what happened?” I asked. I wasn’t mad. My health had taken a hit, about ten percent. The mana cost had been much steeper for that arrow as well at fifty MP.
“It zapped the hell out of you, added five percent more damage than my average shot, and when it hit you, electricity hit your weapon, adding a little more damage. Can you make more? Once it’s released, it eats the arrow.”
I nodded and sat back down. I made six more for him over the next few minutes, draining my mana completely. Then spent roughly two minutes resting to recover my mana. I repeated this process until breakfast—I went through a lot of arrows—som
e burst into flame, others the metal warped—but I managed to make about thirty of them. By the time I had finished, my enchanting had leaped to level 11—four higher than I had been.
We ate our meal in relative silence; the mushrooms had been sautéed with some nice, salted fish that we had in our chef’s inventory. I wasn’t one for fish or mushrooms back home, but here? We ate what we had, and Yoh was a damned fine cook, so I stuffed my food hole. It was better than the chow when I was in the field. Not to mention—we didn’t want the food to go to waste.
We entered into the bog again, and Bokaj whipped out his next surprise, Watery Path. None of us had to wade through the boggy grossness so we made great time, treating the mud and water as if it were grass.
We didn’t run into any more patrols as we traveled north once more. We did run into a few Bog Crocodiles, but they were only level 10 and left us alone, so we returned the favor. Although, Yoh did say something about boots at one point.
By the time we needed to set up camp for the night, we had returned to the tree the first Dryad had come out at. We spoke to him briefly and filled him in on our exploits. He took heart in knowing that a nest of Goblins had been wiped from this plane, especially if they had been attempting contact with Demons. The Dryad was also excited to hear that we were decimating the Lizardman ranks. We accepted his offer of protection so that we could sleep in peace once more.
The following morning we awoke to something rather odd.
Bokaj was gone.
Like, straight up gone. There were signs of a struggle outside the camp’s circle, well away from our camp. He had probably come out to do some business, and a group of Lizardmen had captured him and taken him hostage. Tmont was beside herself, hissing and spitting at anything that moved. She chomped on my tail, and when I went to swat at her, she hissed and growled at me before sitting down.
She must have something to say, I reasoned and cast Nature’s Voice.
“What’s up, T?”
“I have Master’s scent. You all will follow me, or I will do more than simply bite your tail.”
“Let us all eat first, and then we will move out.”
“We go now!” she spat at me and turned to leave.
“We go after we eat and gather our strength. If he’s in trouble, we are better off doing so without hunger gnawing at us. You too.”
The Dryad provided us with berries and some mushrooms to speed our departure. We left shortly after, following the cat’s nose northwest.
Going was slower without Bokaj’s spell, but we managed. It was dusk, and after a few patrols had been slaughtered mercilessly, by the time we found what we were looking for—the Lizardman village. The area was disgusting. There were bones of animals killed hanging from lines surrounding the place. The homes and buildings were a mix of tents, thatched overhangs, and mud-covered huts. Fire pits dotted the outskirts of the village, while a large bonfire marked the center. There, the largest hut was situated, and it seemed to have a large congregation of Lizardmen milling about making noises and celebrating something.
“Gah, if only we could understand what they’re saying,” Yoh said.
“They’re celebrating finding a mate for their chieftain,” came Balmur’s soft voice.
“How the hell do you know that?!” I whispered quietly.
“Spell. Shhh.”
He dropped into stealth and crept forward, followed by Tmont who looked like she was fading into stealth as well.
The rest of us waited patiently. Half an hour later, Balmur came back alone.
“We found him. T wouldn’t leave him. He had her stealth and hide. I don’t think he’s in as much danger as we thought.”
“What? Fucker was kidnapped. How is he not in trouble?” James said incredulously.
“Come on, better to let him explain,” Balmur said as he gestured for us to follow him.
Balmur led us through an offshoot path through some open buildings until we were back behind the Chieftain’s tent. There was an opening there that we filed through, and I had to admit, it looked great—furs on the floor, which was wooden, and there were colored sashes and what look like tapestries hung up. A makeshift bed of furs was piled in the corner to the back off to our right. There in a pile of furs, wearing a loincloth and a crown of crocodile teeth, was Bokaj, our mighty Ranger.
“Hey, guys!” He stood, and all of us made a pointed effort to avert our eyes to anywhere but him.
“What happened, dude?”
“Well, I went to use the little Elf’s room, and I got snatched up by these guys. They brought me back here to sacrifice me or something, but the chieftain took me as her own right after she saw me.”
“Her own?” I asked.
“Yeah!” He laughed and took a sip of a mug off to his right on a table. “She speaks decent common, and she’s treated me nicely.”
“I had hoped King would like,” came a deep, feminine voice from the front of the tent. “Who be, our guestsss?”
There in the doorway, silhouetted against the fire, was what could only be the chieftain. She stood taller than the male Lizardmen and had feminine features and finer scales, almost like our Dragon Elf companion. She wore a loincloth as well and several layers of beads and bits of precious stones about her neck that lowered and covered her… assets. Her facial features were attractive, odd, but attractive and distinctly humanoid. Thick pouty lips, a small nose, and high cheekbones. Her eyes were unsettling; they were a pale green that seemed to glow eerily with a reptilian slit in the center.
“These are my friends.” Bokaj waved to us as he walked closer to her. “They’re cool.”
“Cool? What isss thisss?” She frowned in confusion, and her dainty teeth flashed in the light. All of them were razor sharp and probably the reason she protracted her ‘s’ sounds so much. “It means that they are okay. They’re friends.”
“Ah.” She smiled, and it was both endearing and creepy at the same time. “Welcome then, friendsss of King. What you do here?”
“Uhm,” I muttered, uncertain as to what to say. Do we tell her we were sent here to cull her people’s’ numbers?
“We were sent here to try and make your people see that going into the forest is dangerous,” replied Yohsuke before anyone else could say anything.
“It jussst wood,” the chieftain said as she pet Bokaj’s arm absently, like he was some kind of pet. “How it dangerousss? My people ssstrong. Take what they want and need.”
“It hurts the forest,” Yoh pressed. “The Dryads are dying because their trees are being cut down and the bog spreads. The Dryads asked us to come stop you. We have been, and we will complete our quest.”
He shifted his stance, obviously ready to fight, and this is one of those times where I thought to myself, If this fucker gets us killed, I’m gonna kill him. I love Yohsuke; he is my brother. I would fight through Hell with a toothbrush beside him if he asked, but goddamn, can he be stubborn. I chuckled.
“You fight all outssside, tiny Elf?” She laughed, and it sounded like a hiss and a hiccup. “You die. Sssorry, King, but they all die.”
“What if we competed against your best warriors?” I asked as last ditch chance to get out of this alive.
“You cannot hope to win, and you kill my people,” she said, dismissing it outright. “You all die.”
“Let them try,” said Bokaj putting his hand on her hip. He leaned forward and whispered something in her ear that I’m pretty sure no one else wanted to hear and that I would not pass on.
The chieftain’s eyes widened, and she smiled fully. She clapped her hands and stepped outside, motioning for us to follow. In full view of her people, she began to speak; Balmur translated for us.
“These are the monsters stalking our lands.” She pointed to us. It was weird hearing her hiss and spit to her people and having our friend tell us what she was saying. “They wish to compete with our best in order to leave here unmolested. Our warriors will split them, and we shall dine on their flesh tom
orrow evening!”
She appointed five competitions. One each of strength, accuracy, magic, speed, and battle—all of which would take place the following morning.
The chieftain had us all taken to a building close to her own and put guards there to watch us. She even attempted to make us comfortable by having furs and food brought to us. Yohsuke looked the food over, deemed it something we could eat, and took the first bite. He closed his eyes and listed off ingredients that had been used to make it. I was impressed. We all took turns sleeping that night; the others kept a watch, as no one completely trusted the Lizardmen around us.
Bokaj went with the chieftain, no doubt paying for our chance at freedom.
* * *
We began at dawn. Bokaj, limping but happy, led us to the competition grounds.
The grounds themselves were actually very stable and dry. There were little weeded roots, and the setups were good too, probably so we couldn’t bitch about it being rigged. The islet itself was more than one hundred feet square and looked to be a training ground.
The first competition was for accuracy, and Balmur was the one who volunteered for that. The object of the match was to see who could get the most of ten weapons into a target at sixty feet. The Lizardman competing against Balmur was a lanky thing who wore a leather belt with knives on it. He looked competent, and I should have been worried to be honest; we had no clue what we were getting into here, but we had to hope we had some luck going on out there.
Two targets were set up at exactly sixty feet on posts with red and white circles painted on. The bullseye itself just a straight black circle. A small Lizardchild walked over to stand between the contestants and raised her palm, then dropped it, signaling for the start of the contest.
Arms blurred and knives sailed. Balmur’s arms swung in concert, each one tossing a blade end over end into his target. After each had thrown their weapons, Yohsuke stepped forward with the chieftain and looked over the targets. Balmur’s opponent had eight in the red circle around the bullseye and two in it. Balmur had six in the bullseye and four on the lines. Balmur collected his blades while we celebrated.
Into the Light (Axe Druid Book 1) Page 21