by Aleron Kong
Richter was smiling over the increase to his stats when he caught sight of a peculiar set of tracks. He immediately motioned for the sprites to stop. All ten immediately drew arrows and faded into the trees. If Richter didn’t know exactly where to look, he would not have been able to see them.
It was late afternoon and the sun was well on its way to setting, but there was still more than enough light to see by. The tracks glowed slightly brighter than the others he had been following, just as when he had found the kobolds’ trail. He assumed this meant he that something sentient had made the tracks. There were two problems though. One, he didn’t recognize the footprints. Two, there were a large number of them!
One of the sprites caught up with him and immediately drew an arrow. He called out in a loud voice, not in words, but in the trilling call of a bird. Three short trills echoed through the trees and were almost immediately answered by two answering chirps. Richter had heard both of the bird calls while walking through the forest, and if he hadn’t been looking right at the sprite, he wouldn’t have known the call was false. In just a few seconds, the entire troupe of ten sprites had materialized around him.
“What type of tracks are they?” Richter asked with quiet intensity.
Nine of the sprites had slowly started spreading out from Richter’s position. After just a few yards, their Wood Craft ability made them disappear from his sight. The lead sprite, Kenzo, stayed with Richter though. Both men knelt low in the brush, their cloaks keeping them mostly hidden from sight. The small archer had a mop of black hair that always seemed to threaten to fall into his eyes and beneath it he had a pair of flint grey cat eyes.
“Bugbears, Lord Richter. More than ten, maybe twenty,” Kenzo said softly. “My men will learn more and report back.”
Both Richter and Kenzo waited for five minutes before the first of the sprites returned. The female sprite gave a short report that she had found nothing to the east except for older tracks leading toward their position. Over the next half hour more and more came back with similar stories from different directions until only two sprites remained away. The nine of them waited another thirty minutes with no word back. Richter looked to Kenzo expecting an order to go after the missing men, but all he saw was calm patience. The sprite commander had the utmost confidence in his men.
Another ten minutes later, both of the missing sprites materialized out of the trees. The other sprites faced outward with arrows nocked, while the sprites gave their debriefing.
“We found them,” one said gravely. “At least fifteen, maybe twenty of them.”
“Are they all bugbears,” Kenzo asked. “Did you see any obvious casters?”
Richter knew too well how dangerous the bugbears could be after their raid on his village. They were large and ferocious opponents, but they were not gifted in the magical arts. They often had other races like orcs or dark elves travel with their war parties to fill that niche. Knowing if the nearby enemy band had magic users was a key piece of information.
“I was able to spy them as they were cresting a hill,” one of the sprites replied. Everyone I saw was a bugbear, but some had already disappeared to the other side of the hillock so I cannot say for sure. We decided to come back though, because we found something else while we searched for the bugbears. Another series of tracks appeared and it was obvious that the bugbears were following them. That was one of the only reasons we were able to catch up. They were taking care to move silently. They were not stealthed, but they were clearly on the hunt.”
Kenzo’s face hardened at that.
“What?” Richter asked. “What does that mean?”
“A band of bugbears will stealth right before they attack, but if they are moving silently, the attack will happen soon.”
“Well what tracks did you find?” Richter asked.
“It was a set of five people, all wearing shoes. One pair of footprints was small like a gnome’s and the others looked to be human or elfish.” The sprite looked pointedly at Richter. “I can only think of one settlement anywhere near here that would have a group like that.”
Richter’s eyes widened. His people! He quickly consulted his Map. They had made better time than he had thought. The mists weren’t more than fifteen miles away. He wasn’t sure why his people had left its protection, but they had been found! He had to do something. Richter made a decision.
“I have to go after these bastards,” he said to Kenzo. “I need to save my people. You did not sign up for this though. Neither I, nor my people, will hold it against you if you choose to head back to the Hearth Tree. This may be a hopeless fight.”
Kenzo stared at him and his eyes hardened. “I am not idly here with you on this trip. Hisako is my mother’s sister. When I heard that our ally, my beloved cousin’s Companion, needed to reach home. I volunteered. I did this not to accomplish one goal, but instead to serve my people and serve our alliance. The Wood Sprites of Nadria will not turn away from the cause of good. We will not allow your people to be slaughtered. Now my question for you is, are you ready to kill our enemies or do you want to waste more time speaking idle words?”
Richter looked at Kenzo for a long moment, and then reached a hand out. The sprite clasped his wrist and nodded. They spent less than a minute gathering more information from the sprites that had seen the enemy party. In that minute Richter handed out Potions of Clarity and loaded his Ring of Spell Storage with Charm and then they set off at a run.
The bugbears were roughly ten miles ahead of them. The sprites that had followed their trail, said the tracks of the mist villagers couldn’t be more than two to four hours old. If they were going to catch up with the bugbears before his people were dead, it was going to be close. Richter had Alma fly over watch.
The eleven of them sped through the forest as quickly as they could without giving away their position. The bugbears outnumbered them possibly two to one, and they couldn’t afford to lose the element of surprise. With every step, Richter imagined plunging his arrows into his enemies’ bodies. Hunt his people would they? They would pay for that mistake in blood.
He cast Haste on himself and raced ahead. One of the sprites had some skill with Earth magic and cast Forest Path on himself and two other sprites. The spell effectively increased the target’s ability to move quickly through wooded areas. Richter watched as branches seemed to lift out of their path and brambles refused to catch upon their clothes and cloaks.
Close to an hour passed before Richter’s advance group caught sight of the bugbears. The sun was close to setting and his group had used the climbing abilities of their Enhanced Sprite Armor to gain a bird’s eye view of the terrain. Richter looked out and what he first saw actually wasn’t the bugbears, it was his people.
Near a riverbed was an armed party of five. Two wood elves held swords and wore a mix of leather and chainmail armor. Another elf and a human wore leather armor and both held bows. Arrows were nocked to the string. A fifth villager was a gnome and she just wore leather armor. A yellow nimbus surrounded her hand as she cast a spell.
The group was standing in the middle of a meadow. Tall trees rose all around, but the group had a clear line of sight. It meant they could see the bugbears that were standing at the far edge of the meadow, but the shadows were getting long at this point. The goblinoids were using the trees as cover against the villagers’ arrows. What Richter was seeing didn’t seem to quite add up though.
The bugbears were roaring and beating their weapons and shields against the trees. They were making a terrible racket, which was how Richter and the sprites had known to climb the trees to get a better look. What didn’t make sense was why the bugbears would be scared of just two arrows. Why were they waiting? Also, it seemed like there were only ten hiding at the tree line. Where were the rest?
His eyes scanned the rest of the meadow his people were standing in, but he didn’t see the other bugbears. What he did see was a slight distortion in the air at the far side of the open space. It looked
like a slight haze as if he was seeing heat rising over the desert. Richter only observed it for a moment and that was only because he was using his Focus skill. He kept staring at his people and then he saw the distortion again, but in two different places, and each was ten yards closer to the villagers than before. Just like before, it disappeared.
Suddenly Richter knew what he was seeing and, more importantly, he knew why the glimmers had moved closer. The bugbears he could see were just a distraction! The remainder of the enemy party was stealthed and was making its way slowly towards his people. They would be slaughtered. Immediately, all hope for a nuanced approach fled from Richter’s mind. He looked at one of the sprites and said, “Help us!” Then he dropped out of the tree.
CHAPTER 21
Richter hit the ground hard and started running. He was able to absorb most of the force by flexing his knees, but it was still jarring to drop the twenty yards. Thankfully, his body was up to the task and he barely stumbled before he was moving at full speed. He had fuzzy men to kill!
The one good thing about the bugbears’ tactics was that it served to distract them from his approach. The Enhanced Sprite Armor reduced any noise he made by 50% when he was in the forest, but he still broke plenty of branches on his mad dash through the trees. He just prayed that he could get close enough that he could break through their ranks.
When he was three hundred yards away he recast Haste, Minor Life Armor, and Barkskin. He kept sprinting. His armor slowed him slightly, but he could definitely tell that he was moving easier than he had when fleeing the kobold warren. Richter’s legs flew across the ground!
At two hundred yards, he gave a quick mental order to Alma. She sent back her agreement and that she would wait for his signal. He hurdled over a bush easily clearing the four feet and landed with a grace he could never have matched on Earth. His bow was still held in one hand as he tried to stay low enough to avoid obstructions, but not enough to diminish his speed. Less than ten seconds later, he was only one hundred yards away!
When he was seventy-five yards away from the tree line, some of the bugbears noticed him and turned towards him with a smile. None were overly worried about the solitary human that was rushing into their midst, they were just happy to have another trophy to bring back to their base! That arrogance worked just fine for Richter! He started using Analyze in rapid fire. He didn’t have the time to read the prompts and as soon as one popped up he almost immediately dismissed it, but soon he found what he was looking for. The faintest of grins graced his face to celebrate his good luck. Angling to run right at a couple of the larger and better equipped bugbears, he threw out his hand and shouted a word of power!
Gold light pooled at his fingertips as Richter’s will twisted the fabric of reality. His powerful Life magic met the resistance of a sentient creature and in a contest measured in milliseconds, ruthlessly crushed the bugbear’s freewill. A Professed bugbear Ranger was now his to command! Richter’s other arm was already up and extended towards a second bugbear. A slightly flexing of his will was all that was required to release his stored spell. In less time than it took for his victim to consciously register what had happened, Richter had another thrall!
There were still two enemy bugbears between him and the tree line, and more converging from each side. He shouted a command while sending a second mental command to Alma. His two slaves turned their weapons on one of the other bugbears while his winged familiar cast a spell. A gold glow suffused her entire body and her eyes flashed as she unleashed her power. Her Charm spell was powered with the same 50% bonus as her master’s magic, and it easily overcame her target’s resistance.
Richter ran past the fighting bugbears and nocked an arrow to his bow. As soon as he was free of the trees, he drew and imbued for the briefest of moments. He sighted directly in line with his people, who were looking in utter confusion at the bugbears who now seemed to be fighting each other. He loosed his arrow!
His people were shaken from their befuddlement by the appearance of the bald man firing a glowing arrow at them! One loosed his bow ineffectually into the woods, but it was more a case of being startled than a conscious attack. No one else had time to react before the arrow reached their position, and then shot past. It traveled whistling through the air another fifteen yards before impacting with the ground with a loud bang!
Earthen clods were shot into the air, peppering the area for ten yards in every direction. The large pieces of dirt did not inflict direct damage of course, but when they impacted against the bodies of the concealed bugbears, it was enough to break their stealthed status!
“Behind you!” Richter shouted as he continued to sprint towards his people. Five bugbears had appeared less than ten yards from his people. One had been knocked off of his feet by his proximity to the detonating arrow, but the others were roaring in anger and were in the process of drawing their weapons. He took a second to command his bugbears to follow him then kept running.
His gnome villager finally recognized him and shouted “It’s Lord Richter!” At the same time, she turned around and saw the bugbears that had crept so close. Wasting no time at all, she started a chant and light surround her hand. A 5x5 foot area to the far left of where Richter’s arrow had struck the ground became full with a maelstrom of shining particles. This was one of the casters that had learned Glitterdust when he had awakened the Air magic of his villagers, Richter realized!
Two more bugbears appeared and one fell to his knees screaming and holding his eyes. The other took off running to close the final distance to the villagers. Richter was impressed by the quick thinking of the gnome aeromage, but now wasn’t the time for congratulations! He stopped thirty feet away from his people and drew an arrow. Before he could fire though, a final two bugbears unstealthed right behind two of his people!
One stabbed down into the neck of the elf archer with a heavy dagger. The elf fighter muttered a simple “awk” as his knees buckled under the heavy assault. The other bugbear was wearing a ridged gauntlet that he was able to smash into the face of a wood elf fighter. The armored elf was wearing a high steel helmet with a nose guard, which saved his face from being completely mauled, but he still dropped to the ground stunned. The bugbear’s gauntlet had a small piece of flesh in the sharp steel ridges and blood dripped off onto the ground.
While this happened, the other two villagers leapt to aid their attacked comrades. The other mailed elf swung his sword at the gauntleted bugbear and began trading blows. The human villager loosed an arrow at one of the bugbears revealed by Richter’s arrow. Then he dropped his bow and drew a short sword to attack the bugbear that had driven a dagger into his party member’s neck.
Richter drew, imbued and loosed an arrow at a bugbear closing with the caster. It struck the bear in the side and knocked him down. In the meantime, the two bugbears he had charmed caught up with him. Alma’s enchanted bugbear continued to fight a losing battle against seven other bugbears near the tree line. Alma used a Psi Blast on the tail end of the group attacking her pet and then winged towards Richter. Four bugbears fell to their knees screaming in her wake.
*Alma! Heal the villagers!* Richter thought to her frantically.
*Yes, master!* She flew towards the knot of fighting, her body already glowing gold as she cast Errant Wind to protect herself from any arrow shots.
“What is your command, master?” the Ranger asked.
“Save my people! Kill the other bugbears!” he shouted in response. He kept up his rate of fire while he answered. An imbued heavy arrow struck a bugbear in the chest, knocking the goblinoid to the ground. The gnome mage had unlimbered her crossbow and shot the downed bugbear in the chest. The powerful bolt sunk into the bugbears chest with a wet thunk!
The other bugbear Richter had chosen to enchant was a raider. The powerful goblinoid held a large warhammer and ran towards the villagers that were fighting for their lives. He came up behind another bugbear and slammed his sledge into the back of another bugbear. The swo
rd wielding villager looked up, bloodied but unbowed, and prepared to fight this new opponent. Richter’s raider just slammed his hammer into the fallen bugbear’s head once, twice, three more times. His victim’s head was a ruined mess, and one leg kicked spasmodically. The raider gave no acknowledgment to the villager before diving back into battle with another opponent.
Before the raider had even landed his first hammer blow, the Ranger had entered the fight as well. This bugbear was holding a five-foot-tall bow of brown wood so dark it was almost black. As he nocked a large arrow to the bow, the wood of the bow started to glow green. He sighted and released three seconds later. The bowstring made a noise louder than should have been possible, and a tactile THRUM shook the air. Richter jaw seemed to reverberate unpleasantly in response to the deep vibration. The effect was worth it though!
Though Richter was still firing he almost stopped in amazement. The dark arrow that the Ranger had shot shimmered in midair. As Richter watched, what had been one arrow, became five! The arrows were closely clustered and they hit the Ranger’s target almost as one! The bugbear saw the projectiles just in time to hunch slightly and raise his circular shield. It didn’t save him.
One arrow punched through the shield, puncturing through the wrist and sending a spray of blood and small bones onto the ground! Another two stuck the bugbear in the abdomen. One was only a glancing blow, and was turned by the bugbear’s boiled leather armor. The other struck just above the navel thought and sunk deep into the abdomen. A fourth arrow sunk into the goblinoid’s foot pinning it in place. The fifth saved the bugbear from any more pain though. The arrowhead sunk through the bugbear’s eye and into his brain, leaving a finger width black shaft sticking straight out like a pin in a pincushion.
Richter stared in shock at the power of the Ranger and thanked his lucky stars that he had charmed the Professed fighter at the start of the battle! He was about to start imbuing another arrow, when a massive shockwave threw him forward. He was able to keep his feet, but had to run forward three steps before he recovered his balance. When he looked back though, he didn’t mind being jostled a bit. The sprites had joined the fight!