“Danny, you really need to work on your lying if you are going to survive both Diadem and the elven courts,” Arya admonished him.
Danny peered over his shoulder to meet the eyes of the older woman, “Arya, I have something I must take care of. Something the Diadem herself forbid me to tell anyone else about.”
Arya’s eyes closed slightly in suspicion as she watched Danny, who was grabbing random items and clothing from his shelves, ignore her. The Basalt leader would not be dissuaded, “I have been charged with ensuring your safe return here and back to the capital. I will not have you running off into who knows what danger. Especially not after you gave Ivy and her Trio those powers. I would venture those three girls are more powerful than the beastmen’s shamans.”
Danny shook his head, interrupting her, “I was told they are called arcane guardians.”
Arya looked as if she had bitten into something sour, “Those of us who have fought them agree the savages should just be called beastmen variants. Of course the politicians don’t want us publicly naming them something offensive in case we can one day make peace with them. These beastmen variants are rare, even moreso on the battlefield. I have heard that Diadem’s wizards outnumber them twenty to one, and I have seen their magics easily overwhelmed by our wizards’.
Danny, with the power you can give our people, Diadem cannot, now more than ever, afford to lose you. I am of half a mind for us to leave this minute, the eleven alliance be damned. So Danny, here is what you are going to do...”
Tired with the charade Danny focused on the three women, and they dropped to the floor, unconscious.
*Are you sure that was wise, Danny?*
Danny grabbed his pack and threw in the items he collected, replying, *It will buy us enough time to get away.*
Danny headed down the staircase in the center of the trees, passing Wizard Basalt on his way. Danny paused, turning back, “Wizard, you might want to go check on your wives in my room. Try not to destroy my tower while you are teaching them how to use their new magic, especially Arya.”
Danny briefly saw the wizard’s conflicted look as he debated between questioning Danny and rushing upstairs. As Danny reached the entrance at the bottom of the tower, he heard the heavy footfalls of the wizard as he raced to check on his wives.
Danny smiled as he opened the front door, *This was easier than I thoug…*
Ivy, Brook, and Jade were waiting out front. All three were packed for travel.
Danny fumed, *Cranny!*
*What? Oh no…when did they get there?* Cranny’s shock was anything but believable.
CHAPTER 28
“Danny! Can we please get down now?” Ivy begged, from where she was being carried high in the air in his arms.
“Not if we want to continue to throw off our guards,” Danny replied in his Air Aspect, “We both know you didn’t have to come with me. I wouldn’t have invited you three if you hadn’t caught me before I left. You are free to stay behind if you want to.”
Ivy hit him in the chest, causing him to wince in pain. Angrily, Ivy told him, “I am not letting you do this by yourself. Despite how utterly stupid and ridiculous it is. I know when you won’t be dissuaded. Good thing you’re such a bad liar.”
Brooke, who was floating along next to them, laughingly said, “Yeah, he was doing that thing where he makes his lips as small as possible. Why don’t you just wear of sign that says, ‘Lying in progress’?”
“That still doesn’t explain why you three already had your packs ready…,” Danny complained.
“Arya can tell when you are lying, Danny, but we can tell when you are up to something big,” Ivy said patronizingly as she patted his arm. The movement caused her to shift, and she yelped in alarm.
Jade moved herself over behind Danny, hugging him around the neck. She pouted, “I don’t see why Ivy always gets to be carried. When will it be my turn?”
Danny sighed and lowered them all to the ground. He had already used too much mana getting the four of them far enough away so that the guards would be hard pressed to locate them. He had used the blizzard to hide his movements, back-tracking a few times to obscure his movements.
Phantom was already waiting below, and Danny carefully placed Ivy on the cat’s back. Brooke climbed on behind her and grabbed hold of Phantom’s fur.
“We will be heading in that direction for a few days before we reach the goblins’ new fortress. This is your last chance to go back out. I would rather you three not go, but I figure you would warn the elves before I could get far enough away,” Danny explained.
Ivy ignored him, excitedly saying, “Danny, this is just going to be like old times!”
Rolling his eyes, Danny turned to Jade, asking, “Are you ready?”
Jade smiled as her body started to turn misty.
Danny took off through the snow in the direction of the goblin fortress.
***
The four teenagers traveled through the forest for five days, with three of those being through dense snowy weather. At night, Danny would put up a smaller version of his sacred tree tower, which he called a “hideaway,” making sure to hide it in a large group of trees. The bright leaves of the sacred trees were tricky to hide in the winter foliage of the forest. Danny was sure these interspersed sacred trees would leave a trail right to him, but he needed to stop and replenish his mana. Keeping the girls warm and moving them swiftly through the forest could take quite a toll on his mana stores.
By the evening of the fifth day, they reached the Dwarf Mountains. There was nothing small about them, as they rose high into the clouds and extended far off into the distance. They could just make out the goblin fortress built just outside where the surrounding forest ended. The fortress could easily look over the surrounding forest and any approaching threat.
The fortress itself was oddly angled so that a corner pointed toward the mountainside. Like a square with the only gatehouse on the tower at the corner of the southeast and northeast walls. Other towers had been built on the three other corners but had obviously collapsed some time ago.
The goblins occupied not only the fortress but the surrounding area. Spilling out to the edges of the forest, little huts and campfires dotted the landscape. Makeshift wooden walls were erected at intervals around the fortress. A large portion of the forest had been cleared away to make room for the teeming masses and to make supply wood for the walls and buildings. If the army that had just left had been significant, Danny wasn’t sure what this place had looked like before. Smoke rose up from the scattered campfires and a few locations inside the fortress.
Moving northeast of the fortress, Danny set to work creating another hideaway as the girls watched for threats below. Danny assured them that there were no goblins within three hundred yards, but they ignored him, intent on protecting him. Danny grew the trees around them to better hide the bright leaves of the new hideaway. Making sure the entrance was up high, Danny flew everyone inside. Danny didn’t bother to make furniture, and only added the bare necessities. There were only four rooms. The entryway, or communal room, a bathroom, and then two bedrooms.
“Do they not have any scouts at all? No wonder the elves know their every move,” Jade observed as she looked out the entrance. Her own ability to sense things far away was more of an instinct and didn’t have the pinpoint accuracy Danny enjoyed.
Ivy was boiling water in a pot for supper and asked, “Didn’t the elves leave anyone here?”
Danny was in his nature form, trying to recovering the last of his mana, and replied, “There are three of them stationed to the southeast of the fortress. I could sense them when we first arrived which is why I picked this location. We will have to be careful if we want to avoid their observation.”
Brooke rubbed her thawing hands over the bulb in the center of the room that was altered with Fire Affinity to be as hot as a fireplace, “I still don’t understand why we have to avoid the elves…”
“I am sorry; I can’t tell yo
u why. I was told to not tell anyone under penalty of death,” Danny replied, as he grew sacred tree fruits that hung down near where Ivy was preparing their food.
The three girls grew quiet and, to his surprise, didn’t press him for further clarification.
The four ate together and spent the evening discussing frivolous things, their training, and the girls’ new abilities. Brooke was the first to yawn and head off to bed quickly followed by Ivy. The room grew quiet, and Jade seemed content to just sit there with him.
Danny was in his Sacred Tree Form, preparing to make a few more seeds for use in his plans. He finally had enough mana regenerated to make a new one, and he opened his eyes, leaving his Sacred Tree Form. He was surprised to find Jade kneeling down right in front of where he was sitting, her face level with his own.
“Jade,” Danny asked cautiously.
Jade was taking a long time replying and just knelt there, studying his face. She took a deep breath before saying, “Danny.” Her big emerald eyes seemed to twinkle as they quickly completely fill his entire field of view. Jade closed the distance between them and confidently placed her lips against his. Warning bells went off in Danny’s head, and while he returned her kiss, he slowly tried to pull away. He didn’t want to hurt the girl’s feelings, but he was conflicted on how he felt and on Jade’s unexpected aggressiveness.
To his growing alarm, Jade easily continued their kiss by leaning with him until he fell backwards. Jade was now laying on top of him. Her long hair had fallen forward and tickled his face. Her hands went up to cup the back of his head, and Danny instinctively switched to Air Aspect.
Jade noticed his sudden transformation and released his head in reaction. While her guard was down, Danny floated up into the air, smirking as he said, “Jade, while that was nice, we don’t have time for that right now, and you need to get some sleep. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
Jade seemed emboldened by his response and smiled, smugly, saying, “I wasn’t last!”
“Last,” Danny asked in confusion.
Jade nodded, proudly explaining, “Yes, everyone has kissed you but Brooke and me. Now, I won’t be last.”
Danny had to strongly resist expressing his sudden frustration that this was all a competition now. Flying past Jade, he used his magic to float her into the room the girls shared. Danny raised a finger to his lips in silence as he laid her down in her bedroll. Danny could tell by Brooke and Ivy’s heartbeats that they were still thankfully fast asleep.
Jade released her aspect and lifted her arms to him, silently asking Danny for a hug. Chuckling softly, Danny shook his head as he backed out of the room.
Cranny laughed at Danny’s expense, *Well, looks like you are going to have your hands full figuring out how to balance all that out.*
*I will have to,* replied Danny, adding, *and you are going to be right there helping me.*
*Sure, sure…* Cranny said, noncommittally.
In the common room of the hideaway, Danny released his aspect and walked over to rub Phantom’s ears. Using Nature Affinity to convey his request, he asked the cat to watch over the three girls and to alert them should any trouble come sniffing around. The cat responded with a long lick to his face, which Danny promptly wiped away with the sleeve of his robe. “I will be back by morning,” Danny whispered.
Fortunately, the girls had learned to trust Danny to watch over them at night so that they could sleep. Danny wasn’t too worried, as Phantom’s senses could alert her to any threat posed to the girls, even if she too went to sleep.
With his backpack on, Danny activated his Air Aspect and slipped through the tops of the trees toward the fortress. His movements went unnoticed as he scanned for threats.
***
Danny had spent most the evening pondering how best to approach the task he had set for himself. The simplest path was to rain destruction down upon the mountainside and pick through the pieces. Unfortunately, Danny needed answers and there were probably also prisoners being kept somewhere.
Right before leaving the forest tree line, Danny used a considerable amount of mana to cover the whole mountainside in a dense fog. He then dropped to the ground and switched to Earth Aspect, before sinking deep into the ground, Danny moved through it like a fish by gathering earth from in front of him and moving it where he had been.
*Danny, I am picking up structured hallways, stairs, and rooms below the fortress. There is also an inordinate amount of freshly dug tunnels littered all throughout the soft soils of the surrounding hillside. The tunnels lead all over the place and hold no significant or discernible pattern.*
Danny looked over the image overlay Cranny brought in front of his normal vision, *Wow, it’s like an ant nest. How will we find anyone in all this?*
*I suggest we stick to the basement levels of the fortress. The goblins only bothered to make one tunnel from the soft soils of the hillside through to the hard stone of the mountain, where the fortress was built,* Cranny suggested.
Danny moved, careful to avoid the goblin tunnels and arrived just below the bottom basement level of the fortress. There were two basement levels with completely different layouts other than a single staircase leading from one to the other. The basement levels held numerous rooms of varying sizes along the branching hallways. The surface level was one long room, which Danny guessed was intended to be a great hall.
*Your mana is already down to fifty percent. That fog took more energy than we had estimated,* Cranny notified Danny.
Sticking with the plan, Danny opened up a space in the ground and pulled out three sacred tree seeds from his backpack. He made sure to always replace the seeds he used once he created a new tower. Using his Sacred Tree Form, Danny began growing his new trees. If he wanted a ready supply of mana, he would need a source closer than the hideaway in the nearby forest. Winding the roots through the soil, Danny had them rise up out the west wall of the fortress nearest to the mountainside. He noticed the goblins tended to prefer the eastern side where the soil was softer and where they could dig. He wasn’t concerned at all if they noticed the growing sacred tree limbs and leaves. In fact, these would probably provide a good distraction for what he planned to do next.
***
Still in his Sacred Tree Form and with roots attached to his three sacred trees, Danny moved to a central location and sealed off the entrance to the large room on the surface level from the outside. Then, he sealed the staircases between the basement levels and, finally, the lone stone tunnel at the bottom that led to the rest of the chaos inside the hill below.
*Danny, even though regeneration rates are up, your mana is down to thirty percent.*
Danny first went to where the goblin tunnel was attached to the lowest basement level. He stuck his head out the roof of the tunnel. Just on the other side of the entrance, the goblins had created the bottom basement. Danny saw a gathering of goblins trying to figure out what was happening and where the wall blocking of access to the lower basement level had appeared from. Danny, having seen what he expected, slowly rose back up into the ceiling of the tunnel.
The staircases between the two basement floors of the fortress were still sealed off. Blocks of stone bulged and fell over as Danny, already covered in stone armor, emerged from the floor of the bottom basement level. He chose a location at the end of a hallway near the stairway entrance to the upper floors. The room was starting to fill with smoke from the torches made of pitch burning from holders placed on the walls. Between the smoke and the stench of goblin, Danny wisely decided to quit breathing.
Danny briefly thought about just waiting until any goblins had time to succumb to the fumes, but it would have made it nearly impossible for him to see. Plus, if there were any prisoners, they could be already weakened and might die before he could reach them. Caring about others was so exhausting.
The short hallway he was in had bars across every visible doorway, and Danny recognized the tell-tail signs of a prison. He didn’t see any of the doors op
en, but at the other end of the hallway, Danny could make out dozens of goblins assessing the collapsed stairway.
Peering into the nearest cell door, Danny found the huddled bodies of goblins crammed as tightly as possible into the prison cell.
*That’s different. What do you make of it, Cranny?*
*No clue,* replied Cranny with interest.
Pulling on the door, Danny confirmed that it was locked and then repeated the process at every door as he continued down the hallway. When he passed the hallway’s single torch, he covered it with his stone hand, easily putting it out.
One of the goblins standing around at the collapsed stairway finally noticed Danny as he emerged from the dark hallway into the light of the torch near the collapsed stairwell. At first, the goblins didn’t know what to make of Danny, as he ignored them and continued to test doors. One of the goblins drew a crude sword and advanced toward Danny’s position.
Reaching his right hand out to the ground beside him, a short sword made of stone rose up out of the floor. Danny grabbed the handle and broke it off from the ground. In his Earth Aspect, he learned to create a fairly sharp edge on any weapon he made. It wouldn’t stand up long to a metal weapon, but it would cut flesh easily enough.
The goblin, seeing the stone blade now in Danny’s hand, approached cautiously. The goblin was holding his blade in an all too familiar way that Danny recognized from training in the Order. The goblin was but a few meters from him when Danny could tell the goblin was preparing to lunge at him.
A stone spike shot up out of the ground, impaling the goblin up through his groin.
*We don’t have time for this,* Cranny grumbled to Danny.
Danny ignored his counterpart and advanced on the remaining goblins. More than a few drew swords and clubs and rushed toward Danny. Danny moved around the impaled goblin and got into his sword stance. While they were still far enough away to give him room to fight, more spikes emerged, spearing the mass of goblins. Only a few goblins emerged unscathed to rush him in a desperate attempt to survive.
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