“You’ve surrounded yourself with very capable friends, Lyrian,” Aldwin said as we watched my friends, plus Ignis, walk towards the waiting Adventurers. “Getting so many Adventurers moving in such a short amount of time is nothing short of a miracle. I’ve known some military units that would struggle to move so efficiently.”
“Thanks, Fredric,” I replied, acknowledging the compliment with a smile as I looked back to the man. “We’ve been lucky that Aldford has attracted a higher caliber of Adventurer. That and everyone is extremely motivated to see things succeed today.”
“Our impending doom being a good reason,” Jenkins grunted, his tone prompting an elbow jab from Shelia. “Erm, I mean, good luck, Lyrian. I really hope things go as smoothly as they can go out there.”
“Smooth and successful,” Ritt added, jumping into the conversation.
“I appreciate that, Jenkins,” I said, giving both the men a smile in reply. “And here’s to hoping, Ritt. Though no matter what, we’ll try our best.”
“We don’t doubt that for a second,” Shelia stated, matching my smile with one of her own. “And we’ll make sure to keep the fires warm here for when you return. If anyone has injuries…or anything at all before then, just send them back, and we’ll sort them out as best as we can.”
“We’ll do that, Shelia,” I promised. “Hopefully we can keep a good pace moving for the night, though it’ll depend on how our battle with The Beast turns out.”
“I can’t say that I envy you all going after that thing,” Jenkins replied, shaking his head. “Based on the stories I’ve heard over the last week…”
“Bah, we’ll be fine,” I said, putting up my best attempt at bravado. “I think that your biggest concern should be figuring out how you’re going to mount that head in the Town Hall when we bring it back.”
“Ha!” Jenkins laughed. “Bring it back to me, and I’ll have it up within a day! Even if I have to chain it to the ceiling!”
“Won’t that be a sight for me to witness every morning when I have my breakfast,” Shelia commented dryly. “I’m not so sure turning our Town Hall into some sort of…hunting lodge...with a beast’s skull hanging from the ceiling strikes the proper cord for Aldford and its development, don’t you think, Aldwin?”
“Hmm,” Aldwin replied, running a hand through his beard as he considered the question. “I believe that you are quite right, Shelia; hanging such a display would send the wrong message.”
“I thought so,” she said, casting a glance at Jenkins and then over to me, a single eyebrow cocked in victory.
“No…no,” Aldwin continued. “Such a ferocious creature deserves to be preserved in all of its original glory and taxidermized. Then all who visit Aldford will be able to witness it as we did, not simply gaze upon a barren skull and wonder at what was.”
“W-wait, what?” The satisfied expression on Shelia’s face vanished as she processed Aldwin’s statement. “You want to do what?”
“I think that’s a great idea, Aldwin!” I exclaimed as everyone in the group, save for Shelia, broke into a laugh.
“Where are the other women when I need them?” the priestess muttered as she glanced around for support. “We don’t need such a…ghastly reminder…”
“I’m sure we can figure something out when the time comes,” I said to Shelia soothingly, still chuckling from the exchange. But before any of us could continue, Halcyon and Caius chose that moment to arrive, with Stanton, Veronia, and Donovan, following closely on their heels.
“Hey, everyone,” Halcyon greeted as we all readjusted our circle to include the new arrivals. “We’re all set to go on our end of things. We wanted to make sure we had enough copies of the spell fragment to go around, in case one of us goes down during the battle. I also asked around a bit, and I’ve found a few people with steady hands who can draw if you and I aren’t able to.”
“That’s great,” I replied, happy for my friend’s foresight. “I didn’t even think of doing that.”
“Thanks, and no worries,” Halcyon said with a shrug. “Just want to make sure all the bases are covered. The last thing we need to slow our night down is running out of something as simple as paper. We have Samuel and Quincy taking care of that now.”
“That would be something,” I agreed, shaking my head at the thought and looking over towards Stanton and Donovan, realizing that I’d barely seen either of them in the last few days, nor the other two Eberian mages, for even longer. The entire last week seemed to have flown by in the blink of an eye, and I felt that it was all I could do to keep up in the moment.
“We hope that your expedition tonight proves fruitful,” Stanton said to me by way of greeting, leaning heavily on his walking stick as he spoke. “I’d never thought that my journey here would lead to such a…precipitous event and leave us all standing on the brink of ruin.”
“I don’t think any of us could have,” I replied, recalling my first meeting with the elder noble. “But we will persevere. This isn’t the first occasion where we’ve been staring certain death and destruction in the eye.”
“You could say that,” Caius agreed with a snort. “Depends how we’re counting, this is what…the fourth time maybe?”
“Fifth from my point of view if you count the first attack by the goblins,” I said, seeing Aldwin and the other Townsfolk nod in agreement. “With so many crises one after the other, you’d almost start to think that this place is cursed.”
“Perhaps by an endless horde of Nafarrian spirits?” Donovan offered, prompting another round of dry, fatalistic chuckles, the joke going as far to crack even Veronia’s stony expression, her face softening ever so slightly before resuming its original shape.
“Nothing like the threat of unleashing a horrific blight of undead on the region to lighten the mood,” Halcyon quipped, then glanced to the side as movement caught his eye. “Anyway, looks like Sierra and the others have managed to get everyone sorted out. They’re on their way back.”
“In that case, we should finish our farewells for now and get out of the way,” Shelia said, giving both Aldwin and me one last look. “Good luck to all of you tonight.”
With that, everyone who wasn’t coming tonight offered us one last goodbye before returning to the camp, their departure signaling an increase of volume from the front ranks of the waiting Adventures as they realized that it was finally time to leave.
“Well,” I announced after Sierra and the others had rejoined our party, and confirmed that there weren’t any other details to be taken care of before we left. “Since I don’t think anyone will actually hear a speech over all this noise, and because we really don’t have time for one, we might as well get moving.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sierra said as she unslung her new bow from over her shoulder in preparation to leave. “Just lead the way, Lyr.”
Nodding, I took one last look at the camp behind me and all the gathered Adventurers, hoping that there wasn’t anything that we’d forgotten to prepare for. Taking in the sight for a few seconds, I then turned away and focused my attention on the tunnel ahead of me. With a deep breath, I took a step forward and quickly followed it with another. By the time I’d taken my third step, a roar of excitement had begun to fill the cavern, and by the time I’d taken my fifth step, it was all that I could hear.
The raid into Twilight Grove had begun.
Chapter 51
“Looks like there’s another one,” Constantine mused as a distant creature’s dying scream rang out through the otherwise silent jungle around us. “You’d think they’d know we’re coming through by now.”
“You’d think,” I agreed as I looked out at the thick foliage, unable to help but shake my head in sympathy at the poor Grove creature that had thought to attack, or had been caught by, one of the many groups following behind us. “But the creatures down in here tend to be all teeth and no brains, so I’m not that surprised they’re attacking every so often.”
“Heh, that’s a pretty
good way of describing them,” Constantine said with a chuckle before cocking his head at me. “But what does that say about us then? Seeing how we’re after the creature with the biggest teeth that this place has to offer.”
“That we think we have even bigger teeth?” I replied, giving the rogue a shrug before turning my attention back towards Ignis who was leading the way. So far, we’d made excellent time since leaving the camp, managing to make it deep into the jungle without losing anyone or forgetting something important - a small miracle that anyone who’s ever led raid could appreciate.
Especially when the particular raid in question is a loose collection of groups and guilds that have never worked with one another before, I thought, then glanced over to both Sierra and Freya who were walking beside one another and whispering softly. Though all the credit, in this case, goes to those two. Without them managing all the details, we would have never left on time. If at all.
“We’re just about there,” Ignis announced in a quiet voice, interrupting my thoughts as he looked over his shoulder and back towards me. “The jungle is starting to thin out, and the rest of my group is just up ahead.”
“Good,” I acknowledged, feeling my heart start to beat faster in anticipation of finally confronting the raid boss that had terrorized the Twilight Grove for the last week. “Let’s slow down a bit in that case and let the rest of the raid catch up. We’re stretched pretty far apart right now, and I want to make sure that we don’t make any more noise approaching the lair than we need to.”
“Good idea,” Ignis replied as we all slowed our pace to a crawl and drew closer.
“So, any plan how we’re going to approach this, Lyrian?” Freya asked in a hushed voice as we walked, our eyes watching the jungle ahead of us carefully. “None of us really know what to expect from The Beast or what it can really do.”
“I know,” I replied, the thought having crossed my mind while we were walking. Despite the countless people that had fallen prey to the creature over the last week the total sum of our knowledge of The Beast could be summed up as: it was strong, it was very fast, and that it was a near perfect ambush predator. That was it. Even after all the repeated attacks amongst the Adventurers, no one could completely agree how it looked. “But as for a plan…it’s going to depend on a lot the terrain we have to work with. To be honest, I’ll be happy just not to be surprised by the creature.”
“I could live with that too,” Freya agreed, using her spear to push a thick cluster of vines hanging from above out of our way, revealing the edge of the jungle as the foliage rapidly began to die off, and allowing the faint emerald gloom that now illuminated the Grove to shine through. “And it looks like we’re going to get that answer shortly.”
Stalking forward carefully, we picked our way through the final stretch of the jungle until all the plants gave way and gazed out at the now not so distant cavern wall, a chorus of sharp breaths filling the air as we witnessed what was ahead. Looming almost directly before us, was a large jagged cave, its yawning mouth standing out from the otherwise rough cavern wall.
“Well,” Freya whispered as we all looked into pitch the black entrance that led into The Beast’s lair. “Here we are.”
“Looks like it,” I replied, keeping my voice low as we all came to a stop at the jungle’s edge and surveyed our new surroundings.
Completely barren, the approach towards the cave was devoid of any plant life as if the jungle had simply decided to stop growing after a point, leaving nothing but a field of rough, volcanic rock between it and the cavern wall. As I turned my head to scan the area, a reflection caught my eye, and I reflexively shifted my attention towards it, finding myself staring into a not insubstantial pool of water just a short distance to our right.
“Well, cave notwithstanding, I guess that makes sense why it picked this spot for its lair,” I whispered to everyone in earshot, motioning in the direction of the pool. “Look over there.”
“Water,” Sierra said, following my hand as I pointed. “That’s not easy to find down here, and if anything is strong enough to claim an entire pool for itself…it sure as hell would be.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, slowly taking a few steps away from the jungle and towards the pool, hearing everyone shift to follow me. While water wasn’t exactly a scarce resource within the Grove, it wasn’t a plentiful one by any means either, and a large pool such as this would be hotly contested by the jungle creatures had it been anywhere else.
Though maybe even that didn’t stop other creatures from trying their luck, I thought to myself as we approached the pool, unable to help but notice a fairly large quantity of bones scattered around it, many of them having been crushed to splinters.
“Looks like it needs to enforce that claim every so often,” I said as we all came to a stop a short distance away from the water.
“No kidding,” Constantine stated as he bent down to pick up a shard of bone from the ground and then inspected it.
“Alright,” I stated in a quiet voice, my brain shifting into action as I began to plan out the coming battle. “The rest of the Adventurers are going to start showing up pretty soon, so let’s spread the word for them to keep as quiet as possible when they arrive. I have no idea how good The Beast’s hearing is, but let’s not take a chance.”
“No argument there,” Constantine agreed, everyone else murmuring in agreement.
“Good,” I continued, giving the group a nod. “I’ll leave that for all of you to sort out, but let’s also get all the group leaders organized and up front. I’m going to go up ahead and look over the approach into the cave to see what we have to work with. Then we can iron out a plan of attack and have the group leaders pass it on to their respective people.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sierra agreed, then winced as several voices filtered out from the jungle nearby. “Shit! Okay, we need to get on top of all that noise now if we’re going to keep things quiet. Let’s go.”
Moving with a sense of urgency, everyone save for Ignis, Amaranth and myself took off away from us as they rushed to quiet the arriving raid. Some of them headed straight into the jungle to head off nearby groups, while others made a beeline to those that had already emerged from the overgrowth.
“Hido is just up ahead, closer to the cave,” Ignis said to me, pointing to indicate his direction. “The rest look like they’ve circled back to join the raid already.”
“Then closer to the cave is where we need to go,” I replied, as we began to move, picking our way through the barren and uneven landscape until we eventually found the aforementioned elf, who had taken shelter behind a large mound of volcanic stone that offered a near perfect view of the cave ahead.
“You certainly brought the cavalry quickly,” Hido’s said by way of greeting, having sensed Ignis’s gradual approach through the Grove.
“We had good motivation to come,” I replied, motioning my head towards the cave. “Is it still in there?”
“Well, we’re all still alive, aren’t we?” Hido asked with a touch of sarcasm, before shaking his head at my question. “But really, we haven’t heard a peep since we all got here, I think it’s gone to sleep for the night…assuming that it sleeps in the first place.”
“Your guess is as good as mine on that front,” I said with a shrug as I moved to peer over the mound to get a better look at the cave, hoping that the closer view would give me some sort of inspiration of how to plan the coming battle.
Do we all try to rush into the cave and try to fight it inside? Or do we try to pull it out here and fight it in the open? I considered as I inspected the terrain, finding the approach to the cave rocky yet still relatively
flat. Fighting out here would let us all use our numbers more efficiently…but it would also let The Beast run around, and it’d be hard to keep it under control. Fighting it in the cave though…we’d be able to fight it head on and reduce its mobility, but we would be sacrificing the same—
“There it goes again,” Hido’s whispered voice interrupted my thoughts as a flash of green suddenly appeared near the right side of the cave’s mouth, illuminating a familiar shape.
“The Runestone,” I said as my eyes fixated on the distant light, watching it shift indecipherably for a time before fading. “Damn, I can’t make out anything from this far away.”
“Could try to get closer if you want to…” Hido suggested hesitantly. “It flashes often enough.”
“No,” I replied shaking my head, already having dismissed that option. “It’s not worth the risk. We need to deal with The Beast first.”
“And any ideas how exactly we’re going to do that?” the elf asked.
“Several,” I replied as I pulled my gaze off where I’d seen the Runestone and scanned the terrain a second time, hoping that I’d find something to make my decision easier. “But none that I’m really happy with.”
“So, now what then?” Ignis asked.
“Now, we go back and come up with a plan,” I stated, turning away from the cave and looking back towards the jungle, having noticed that Sierra and the others were moving towards us via Party Sense. It hadn’t taken her and the others long to organize the arriving raid behind us, and I could see that a smaller cluster of just over a dozen people had broken off from the main group and were slowly making their way towards us.
Deciding that it would be best to greet the oncoming group further away from the cave than where we currently were, I waved for the two to follow me, and moved to meet them halfway. As I walked, I could see a handful familiar faces in the group aside from my friends, marking them all as the group leaders from our raid.
Legacy of the Fallen Page 70