I stare up at the break in the canopy overhead. I imagine that I am in a canyon instead of this forest, three-hundred-foot walls of tree trunks rising into the air to the north and south of me, a small gap of two-hundred or so feet breaking the perpetual green overhead. The spot Dovik found for us to make this temporary camp is along one of the narrower parts of the slope that stretches east and west as far as the eye can see, winding and bending this way and that like the path of a river through a canyon of trees. The light filters down, the gloom on the slope is far less than in the trees. No true sunlight reaches us.

I rub my eyes. I try to hold my tongue, be civil, but it’s getting harder and harder to do so. “I do not know another way to say it,” I tell the elven man in front of me. They way he stacks his hair on top of his head in braids and loops makes him look like an overstuffed bird. “I don’t have any more armor. It has all been given out already.”

“Then should you not be scrounging through the snow to find more? Do you expect us all to go naked?” he says at me.

I stave off a sigh. The top of the slope is busy now. It has been more than an hour, far longer than Dovik had predicted for the monsters and the red wall to reach us, and people continue to stumble upon our little encampment. The snow on the slope leading down towards the trees below lays pushed aside, melted in some places, the path up to the top made easier by the myriad of people that have come.

Forty-six people sit or stand at the top of the rise; Galea has kept an expert tally. The shock seems to have worn off for most by now, a little time spent not running for their lives or fighting a horde of monsters has done them wonders. Of course, as soon as people began to calm down, they began to whine.

“If you want to go and find some armor for your own self, then I suggest that you do so,” I say back to the little nobleman. Back home, saying such a thing to one with golden blood might have ended up with me and my tongue divorced. A beat passes as the man stares up at me, but no god comes out of the clouds to strike me down for my arrogance.

“Are you not the quartermaster?” he asks, his pride thoroughly affronted.

“No.”

“Yet, you saw yourself fit to select and divvy out the supplies left here and in the surrounding area to whomever you liked. Do you have any good reason as to why you thought excluding myself and my comrades from necessary supplies?”

“I don’t like you,” I say. “Reason enough?”

“You dare!”

“I dare!” I yell back at him before he can get much further. I feel my blood boiling in my veins and step away from the man. There is rage still climbing up onto his face as I leave him behind in the snow, walking to where Dovik stands, his black armor donned, face mostly hidden behind the mask of his helmet.

My armor clinks as I trudge through the snow toward him. I kept the best pieces that I could find for myself. Perhaps not as excellent as the ones that I gave to Dovik, but not nearly as heavy either.

The armor that my inventory classified as being for women was, for the most part, too small to fit me, and I needed to mix and match pieces before I could find something suitable. That mere fact led me to believe that the corpses of the soldiers strewn around the slope had not been magicians. There seemed to be a tendency for magicians to grow a bit with each rank increase, a change especially prominent in women. This further raises the question if the bodies had been real at all. It seems like an extreme waste of life for so many bodies to be out here just so we could steal their armor and weapons.

I also held out on selecting pieces until I was able to assemble a set that all had fur lining the inner parts of the armor. Was it a bit corrupt to keep the most desirable and warm pieces for myself? Probably. No one bothered calling me out on it.

The breastplate I wear covers most of my vital bits and is far heavier than the one that I had purchased in Westgrove all those weeks before. It gleams with the light of unblemished steel. My gauntlets and greaves match, the metallic boots being especially well insulated with rabbit fur and warm. There was plenty of chain mail and helmets to go along with the rest of the armor, but I held off on those pieces. Even with my increased strength, I still want to be light on my feet, especially in the shin-high snow, and a helmet would only obscure my vision when I needed to be attacking from far away.

Dovik turns and speaks to me before I can even stop near him. “People are becoming restless.”

I looked around at those milling about on the slope, a bit confused. “I don’t see that.”

“I’m sensing it. They are wondering when the red wall will arrive. It is making everyone nervous.”

“They seem more carefree than anything to me,” I say, shrugging. “You’re the boss though.”

“Did you need something?” he asks.

“Just to get away from that man,” I say, pointing with my thumb over my shoulder. “I don’t know what he expects, me to trudge off into the snow and get killed by a monster just so that he can have a little bit more protection?”

“That is likely exactly what he expects,” Dovik says. “Do you know where he is from?”

“Somewhere called the Graes Plains, a barony there. He is the son of the Baron,” I tell him.

“That would explain it. The Graes Plains are so far removed from any other land features that it is said the grass fields roll on for hundreds of miles in all directions. All the people there know is farming, trading, and horsemanship. They also get relatively few monsters, even near the cities; a cabal of high-ranking adventurers keep the plains clean from the skies. Not hard to do when all there is are grass fields and farms. Even the unwanted third son of a nobleman would feel entitled enough to try and order his peers around if he came from such a lackluster and peaceful stretch of the world,” Dovik says.

“You know quite a bit about it,” I say, looking back at the man twenty feet behind me whose face is still beet red. A woman, another elven noble, clings to his arm and whispers words into his ear while glancing sideways in my direction. “Are those plains close by or something?”

“No,” Dovik says. “I just have a knack for geography.”

“Impressive,” I say, meaning it.

“Not really.”

“How did you know he was the third son of a noble?” I ask. I scan the man with my eye again, but it doesn’t reveal such detailed information.

Dovik tilts his head at me for a moment before he snorts and looks back down the slope. “Did you really not know?”

“Oh, is there something else that I am ignorant of?” I ask, feeling a bit of temper leak into my voice. I ball my fist, feeling the cool metal of the gauntlet stiffen around my fingers. I must really be tired; this man is not someone I need to be getting angry with.

“I don’t mean to insult you,” he says. “You really are a farm girl, huh. It is refreshing in a way.”

“I’m glad that my rural drawl can put you at ease, my lord.” I say, chewing on the words for all that they are worth.

Dovik laughs. “It is strange that you didn’t know is all. You must not have spoken with those two nobles that Arabella picked up along with you all that much. Despite how these people behave, have you wondered why they haven’t gone ahead and tried to pressure you with their family name yet?”

“Pride,” I guess.

“Maybe a bit of that.” Dovik taps his chin. “No, for most I would say it is because they know that their powerful fathers, mothers, uncles, or aunts wouldn’t back them up. These are the spare children the aristocracy makes just in case their first and second born sons and daughters end up not making it to adulthood. These people will never inherit a position with real power in the title. It isn’t uncommon for such unwanted children to be sent to study either magic or the gods, to give service and acquire a different sort of power since they will never have any by birthright. That is why they are here.” He pauses for a long moment. “That must also be why the guild feels its fine to spend their lives so cheaply.”

“Our lives,” I say.

He looks at me with a sad smile. “They haven’t spent us yet.”

I grab the man’s armored hand and set a pair of magical bracers into his palm. The glow of Rohinda’s magic still lingers on them, an echo. I still haven’t looked to see what it is that they do, but I don’t want to hold onto them any longer.

“Thanks,” he says, voice devoid of any emotion.

“Who was she to you?” I ask.

“My cousin,” he says. Before I can ask more, he tucks the bracers away into the folds of his coat and walks past me. As he walks by, he points up to the sky where I spot Samielle flapping in place, waving his flaming mace.

Dovik’s movement at the top of the slope captures everyone’s attention. Silence falls over the group, mummering voices dying out as all attention turns to the man in the black armor and blue coat. Dovik unsheathes his weapon and points up to where Samielle continues to hover in the air.

“Today has been hard for everyone,” Dovik begins, his voice bouncing off of the snow and reaching everyone around. “I doubt any one of us expected the sheer brutality that we were met with this morning. We thought ourselves safe from death and destruction, imagining that we would all go on a little field trip to reach the end of the Passage. We were horribly wrong.

“My group risked our lives to clear a space on this rise so that the survivors of the carnage at the parade grounds could find a place to meet up and rest for a bit. We didn’t all make it. I have sent people to scout into the forest further north of here, finding that the woods go on for forever it seems. There is no better place to fight the Dire Bears that continue to chase us than right here. This is where we will wipe them out, all that come to our small stretch of the slope that is.”

A general air of disagreeable muttering follows Dovik’s words. A man stands from among the paying attention to Dovik’s proclamation. He is human, pale skin and bald head contrasting with the ginger beard he wears, sewn with big iron beads. He is short for a magician but exudes an air of competence about him that makes me instinctively want to respect him.

Casson Mayster, Son of Duke Ferdinand Mayster of Lieds

Boiling Conflux

“Wouldn’t it be a better idea to venture further into the forest and try to find more people before we attempted to fight the bears?” Casson asks. “There were over five hundred of us at the parade ground, and here we have less than fifty. If we can make our force stronger before the fight, then that would be the best approach.”

“Would that we were able to,” Dovik answers him. “This slope by itself likely covers almost forty miles of open space. People will have gathered at spots along it, like we have here, but those spaces could be miles apart. The likelihood of us finding another group of any substantial size in time before the red wall reaches us is low.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“If we keep moving, then the red wall won’t reach us,” Casson says.

“What then of when we need to stop to rest or to sleep?” Dovik asks. “I doubt that a group as large as ours will be able to stay on the move for too long. If we suspect that this competition began with nearly five hundred participants, we can expect that perhaps twenty percent of those did not make it out of the parade grounds. We can cut that number in half again to account for those in small group or by themselves who wouldn’t want to join us anyways. That would leave us with a potential hundred and fifty people that we could find, a maximum of three other groups as large as this one currently is. Our chances of finding such a group in time along an expanse of thousands of square miles is so unlikely that it isn’t worth losing the advantage that this high slope gives to us.”

After he explains his reasoning, the murmuring dies away somewhat. Though, I can still hear discordant voices speaking amongst the group as Dovik continues.

“For the most part, the bear monsters cannot do anything from a significant range.” Dovik points down the slope. “We will line the top of the slope with our Mages and Marksmen. The Guardians will be stationed along the slope to hold the monsters off from getting to the top. Everyone will do their best to keep the monsters away from the Mages and Marksmen. The operation will be simple, kill them before they kill us. Anything that we can do slow down the monsters’ climb will be worth it.

“I expect that the fact that we have already cleared out a passable space up the slope will force the monsters to congregate toward us, meaning that our section will be denser with enemies than others. While you may look at this as a bad thing, I like to see the bright side of it. I really want to kill these fucking monsters.”

“Why are we even listening to you!” A woman shouts out of the crowd.

Dovik stops his turn toward the slope, looking back at the assembled magicians spread out at the top of the slope. The wind has begun to pick up again, dusting snow across the ground and caking the metal armor most of us wear with rime.

“My name is Dovik Willian!” he proclaims. A shudder passes through the crowd at his words. “No one elected me your leader, and I don’t presume to appoint myself as such. If you have a better plan, then I am ready to hear it. This space is open to everyone. I won’t attempt to monopolize it.”

The woman that spoke up before says nothing, shrinking away from the attention that settles upon her.

“If there are no further suggestions,” Dovik says. “Then I would advise that we all get a move on. The red wall approaches, the monsters driven before it.” As Dovik speaks, a shadow of red creeps along the ground at an astounding pace, racing over the white, making it looks as if the ground is littered with piled and frozen blood. When the shadow crosses over Dovik’s helm, casting his face into stark shadow, no one dares to mutter any longer.

“If you are a Mage or Marksman, line yourselves up at the edge of the slope,” Dovik commands. “If you have abilities to apply magical aid or benefits to others, meet me with the ranged combatants. Everyone else, prepare for battle. Monsters approach.”

He doesn’t need to tell them a second time. I’m already standing at the edge of the slope, so I watch as others break away from the crowd of people to join me. Of the eleven that end up standing together, four carry bows, the magical items they brought into the competition. I was able to find more than a hundred arrows among the soldiers earlier and have long distributed them. The other six, Casson Mayster among them, seem to be Mages. It is going to be up to us to deal most of the damage in the upcoming fight.

A chill settles into me, the red wall, still too high and far out of view for me to see directly, casts its red light across the world, making everything crimson and black. We stand around, waiting on Dovik, who is still with the main group, speaking to a few individuals and motioning them in our direction.

I pool dragonfire into my hand to keep myself warm. A few of those around me see the magic in my hand but don’t comment.

“Not too much time,” Dovik says as he wanders over. Stragglers follow the man, Macille included. “Eleven, it will have to do.”

“How many bears are you expecting to come toward us?” I ask him. “You seem pretty good with numbers.”

“Hard to know,” Dovik says. “If they are just mindless monsters, no more than twenty I would imagine. If they have some kind of instinct or organization, impossible to tell.”

“That raises my spirits,” Eric says from my left.

“Glad to hear it,” Dovik says, ignoring the sarcasm. “Given that this is going to rely so heavily on you guys, I brought over these folks to lay down some beneficial magic before the fight begins.” He motions to Macille and the three others standing near him.

“I guess that’s my cue,” Macille says, stepping up and casting out his hand. Magic washes away from Macille’s palm, falling over us and sticking.

Guardian’s Bulwark

The defense of armor worn by individuals under this spell’s effect is greatly increased.

Those standing next to Macille also step forward, magic flying away from them as well.

Sage’s Insight

The mana regeneration of affected individuals is slightly increased for the next ten minutes.

Awareness

The vision of individuals this magic has been laid upon is acutely enhanced for the next half an hour. +10 Perception.

Blessing of the Creator

The Magic attribute of those blessed by the Creator is temporarily increased. Duration of this magical effect increases based on the affected individual’s base Magic attribute. +15 Magic.

The layering lights of the various magics fading onto my skin make my pale skin stand out like a painter’s canvas to my Dragon’s Eye. The woman that cast the magic boosting spell steps forward further, kneeling and drawing shapes in the snow with her finger. She is pale, alabaster skin purer than the snow she drawls on, and I might mistake her for a full elf if it weren’t for the telltale clipping of her ears that gives her away as a half-breed. I’ve never met a half-elf in my life before. Their existence is illegal in Gale. Her dress is modest, simple linens dyed orange and yellow. Despite that, the cold doesn’t seem to affect her much.

Miranada Borj, Daughter of Archduke Jason Borj

Alchemist Conflux

Miranada completes the design that she scribbles into the snow. She blows a long breath toward the snow, the pink sparkle of magic washing out with the air from her lungs, soaking into the lines she has drawn. An instant later, a box has appeared, laying in the snow where the drawing had just been. I can hardly believe what I see resting inside the box that resembles the pear crates we had back home. Bottles, each containing a deep blue liquid that sparkles with glittering power. There must be more than twenty.

Lesser Mana Potion(Uncommon):

Created by the novice alchemist Miranada Borj, this mana potion is capable of restoring five hundred mana to the imbiber.

“You have an ability that can create mana potions?” I ask, not realizing that I said it aloud until eyes turn on me.

Miranada squints up at me. “I summoned them with a spell…” she says, condescension dripping from her voice. I grimace at the woman’s words, my anger far too close to the surface, hard to control.

“I am sorry,” Miranada says before I can say anything. She shudders. “Today has been hard. I prepared these weeks ago before we set out to come here. I am hoping that they can come in handy.”

“It’s fine,” I tell her, my anger vanishing as fast as it had come.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to bring in things from the outside,” one of the mages next to me asks.

“And I thought that I wouldn’t have to see my brother have his head ripped off by a monster and eaten!” Miranada snaps back at him. “I guess that bastard Gaius will have to stomach it.”

The mage who made the complaint holds his hands up in surrender. We give Miranada a moment to calm back down, no one wanting to excite her more. The half-elf girl stands, brushing off her skirt, and looking between all of us. “These were supposed to be for me and Caleb. If you can use them to kill those monsters that took his life, I’ll consider it worth it. I don’t have many more potions than this, so make good use of them.” With her piece said, Miranada turns and walks back to the larger group. Already, men and women in the heavier sets of armor, most of which carry shields, are heading down the slope.

“You don’t have to use them if you are worried about getting kicked out of the competition,” Dovik tells us. “I, however, will be.” He bends and takes one of the bottles for himself. He offers another one of the bottles to me. “That last fight wasn’t too long ago,” he says.

I take the mana potion from him, dropping it into the pouch on my hip before subtly making it vanish with my storage ring. “My mana is topped off.”

Dovik smiles and nods at me. “Of course it is.”

It doesn’t take much longer before the growling and snuffling from the trees below draw our attention. The top of the thousand-foot wall peeks out from above the canopy. Vertigo overtakes me as I stare up at it. The wall comes to a rest less than two-hundred feet away from us, just inside of the trees at the bottom of the slope.

Their approach is slow–they don’t charge this time–but the oncoming of the Dire Bears is inevitable. Hulking forms of fur and fury amble out of the trees at the bottom of the slope, stopping as they approach the place where the land rises away from them. Beady red eyes stare up at the group of magicians waiting near the top of the rise. Scanning my eyes along the tree line at the bottom of the slope, I count sixty-two of the monsters with the aid of Volaash’s Eye. After seeing one, the eye keeps its location known to me, the message window above its head not disappearing until it breaks eyeline with me. Worse than the Dire Bears are the rank two monsters that are mingled in with their number.

Alpha Dire Bear

Dire Bear Abomination

Terror’s Voice

Dire Bear of Cutting Winds

Stone Bear

I feel sweat dripping down my back, making my clothes stick to the fur inside of my armor. The breathing of the people around me becomes tense, deliberate, and the bears at the bottom of the slope continue to stare up at us, none willing to move a muscle. Distantly, I hear the sound of fighting to the East, the roar of a savage Dire Bear being disemboweled by one of the Armors.

“No time like the present,” Casson says from my side. The short man casts his hand forward, red dust flying away from him and snaking through the air down the slope. The Dire Bear that it approaches sniffs the air, curious at the reddish particles. The dust settles over the monster, clinging to its fur, and as it does, the Dire Bear begins to roar in pain. I watch, unable to really understand what I am seeing, as the fur and skin of the Dire Bear starts to bubble and pop, smoking and flying away like wisps into the air. After a few seconds, nothing is left of the Dire Bear other than smoking clumps of muscle and bone.

A roar comes from deeper within the forest at the bottom of the slope. Some command passes through the Dire Bears, and they echo the roar, starting their charge up the slope. I throw my fire into the head of the closest monster, the fully charged Dragonfire Bolt blowing half of its face off. Before the Dire Bear can recover, a bolt of lightning screeches down from the sky, finishing the job.

“Give them everything you got!” Dovik roars before he starts pacing down the slope, the strikers of our makeshift group following him down.

Murder ensues.

As if in a cruel reversal of the charge the Dire Bears laid into the unsuspecting magicians just this morning, the lumbering monsters cannot find a clear purchase on the slope that they try to climb up, and the magicians waiting for them in the snow tear them apart. I throw dragonfire into the mass of snarling fangs trying to reach us, those beside me also letting loose with their own awesome magical powers. The Dire Bears continue to scramble up the slope, the red snow slickening with their blood and carcasses as they burn, freeze, boil, collapse, disintegrate, or are merely riven with arrows and stabs from magical and mundane weapons.

The rage that the Dire Bears scream at us as they charge and die only fuels me to push myself faster. My entire mana pool is used up in the first minute of the battle, my dragonfire apparently one of the fastest abilities in the group of mages to cast. Burning and exploded monsters litter the snow by the time that I have pulled free the first of the mana potions to chug down, and I watch with glee as the line displaying my mana in the top of my vision fills itself faster than ever before.

We continue hurling spells and arrows down at the monsters, more coming to our small patch of slope by the minute. The rank two monsters begin to climb the slope after the first few minutes have passed, more than eighty Dire Bears dead on the slope by the time they begin. The Guardians stop their ascent, these monsters, even the rank two ones, are far less dangerous than the Armors had been.

Not to say that they don’t get their licks in. At this point, we have four full-fledged healers in our makeshift group, and they work overtime to heal the wounds inflicted by the monsters. The barbs of bone that the Alpha Dire Bear fire into the mass of magicians leave especially nasty wounds behind, the bones splintering as soon as they enter a person’s body, being difficult to remove.

By the eighth minute, I am the only one of the mages still left hurling magic down at the monsters below us. We have run out of mana potions, and the rest of those around me sit in the red snow, faces slick with sweat and the exhaustion of spending their mana so freely. Only Eric stands with me still at the top of the slope, delivering death to the monsters below.

Fifteen minutes after the Casson boiled the first of the Dire Bears alive, no monsters linger on this side of the veil between life and death. The last of the monsters, the Terror’s Voice, falls as Macille’s glowing sword separates its thick skull from its body. Not many were able to approach the monster, but Macille had been able to for some reason.

As the last of the monsters falls into the snow, I am left to listen to the sound of panting breaths and moans from those still being healed. Those of us that still can, stand, waiting for some other shoe to drop, but none ever does. A whooping cheer echoes out in the air, drawing all eyes up to see Samielle floating above the battlefield, his mace and clothing slick with the blood of the monsters, only dark stains in the red light cast by the wall. The cheer passes through the magicians like an infection, and I find myself carried away by it as well. We did it! We actually did it, and no one died!

You have defeated Dire Bearx93

You have Defeated Alpha Dire Bearx2

You have Defeated Dire Bear Abomination

You have Defeated Terror’s Voice

You have Defeated Dire Bear of Cutting Winds

You have Defeated Stone Bear

You have Defeated Raging Menacex2

You have Defeated Corilon’s Chosen

You have Defeated Rust Bear

You have Defeated Eater of Mages

THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!

THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!

THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!

THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!

THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!

THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!

THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!

THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!