“You’re late.” Remy said.

“There were a few potential problems that outweighed even the clurichauns.” Thomas said. “Unless we have some reliable means to kill literally thousands of vespa all coming at once, that is.”

“Well, if you waited any longer then there wouldn't be a-” Remy complained.

“Where’s Dave?” Darryl quickly asked to change the topic before things turned into an argument.

“The bastard made a run for it.” Remy spat to the side. “Acting like the leader no one elected, always complaining behind people’s backs that no one listens to him and that everything would be okay if only everyone obeyed him better, but when that rage elemental appeared he just bolted.”

“It had been coming for a while now.” Jude softly added. “Anyone could see the frustration build up inside of him when we kept moving so slowly, and Dave had been ranting more and more often lately. I think he just gave up on the camp when he heard of the rage elemental.”

“Yeah, he was kind of a pushy asshole.” Ben said. “Not wrong and he tried to keep everyone on target, but he was too brash and demanding at times. Acted like he was in charge without the skills to earn it. Combined with his wannabe military theme and him being kind of low-level with poor gear, it got kind of jarring.”

“And he was a selfish jerk too. Bastard once tried to levy someone into giving him some of their loot and potions, probably would've made it mandatory if anyone helped him enforce it.” Remy said.

Darryl didn’t say anything. He assumed that taking a leadership role no one wanted to deal with an impossible situation had been a thankless job, so he didn’t want to judge Dave for trying. But right now, people didn’t need a voice of reason. They needed someone to shift blame to, so that they could still believe that they could succeed now that the scapegoat was gone.

“So, what’s the situation?” Thomas asked.

“We’ve tried our best to get everyone together again, and rallied about forty people. There’s another twenty out there, but we’ve lost a good thirty to Martin and those vespas.” Remy said. “We’re moving faster than before, more a courtesy of the fairies getting close than our organisation, but you cut it real close. They’ll probably hit us in about fifteen minutes. Less, if they pick up the pace for the last stretch.”

“Doesn’t seem like their numbers dwindled much, if at all.” Elise said. “They’re bunched up and whenever a vespa comes near them, it dies before it gets within spitting range. These clurichauns were stupidly ineffective when I fought them, but I think that off-screen they are fighting other mobs at full efficiency.”

“Whaddaya mean?” Ben asked.

“When I fought them, the clurichauns ran at us and tried to hug us to death. They’re very strong, so that actually works if you don’t stop them.” Elise explained. “They have slingshots though, which they simply won’t use unless a fairy tells them to. They’re using them now, killing these vespa before they come in spitting range, resulting in the Clurichaun army dwindling none despite the damned hornets buzzing around.”

“It’s possible that the fairies are using Magic Missile to protect the army, depleting their mana.” Thomas said. “But I agree that we have to assume the worst case scenario. An army still well-rested that comes at us unblemished by recent troubles.”

“And Martin?” Darryl asked.

“Nearby, far away enough to avoid the fairies’ attention but close enough to pounce us once we’re done fighting.” Elise said. “So don’t overextend and be ready for another fight once we’re done.”

“Can’t exactly avoid the fight, though. And luring the fairies towards Martin might work, but we’d either have to sacrifice someone to do it or find ourselves flanked from both sides if the whole party goes.” Ben said. “Tough call, but I don’t think we’ve got another choice.”

“Let’s get to the back of the convoy, at least. Can’t do much good if we all stay here at the front where there’s no danger.” Darryl said.

The rest nodded and began moving against the stream of people wandering their way.

“So, what do we bring to the table?” Elise asked.

“The four of you, Carter and the two of us. Merry is still blind and Pippins isn’t volunteering for this clash.” Remy said. “I'm afraid that's it.”

There was an awkward silence.

“That bad?” Elise asked.

“Hey, don’t forget about me!” Alexa squealed.

“There’s still the four members of Iota, but they’re not that experienced and have already flat-out refused fighting those fairies with these kind of numbers.” Remy continued. “They’ve been going around killing vespa and rescuing people stuck in bathrooms, and will handle the convoy’s front defence once the battle starts.

“A lot of the inconsistent groups and lone crawlers just left and didn't come back when the camp shattered, probably fed up with the whole situation. Many just wanted to protect one or two people they know, and now that they left the camp too there's no reason to come back.”Jude added.

“The French are elsewhere, as is Gamma. Guess it’s just the seven of us, then.” Thomas said.

“Eight!” Alexa said, before quickly counting on her fingers. “Yeah, eight!”

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“How accurate is your Awesome Princess Fire Blast?” Darryl said.

“My Awesome Fire Princess Blast is fairly accurate, I think.” Alexa said. “It shoots where I look.”

“But it’s around your neck, not firing from your eyes.” Darryl said. “Thomas?”

“These kind of spells don’t have auto-aim, no.” Thomas said. “Usually, at least.”

“Then don’t aim at the fairies, they’re small and nimble. Fire into the ranks of clurichauns instead, you can probably take out several of them in one go.” Darryl said. “Let us worry about the spellcasters.”

“Yeah, from the sound of it we have to worry about everything.” Ben sighed. “So, how do we want to handle this?”

“I think we just have wait for them to come to us.” Elise said. “I'm not seeing us pull off anything more complicated than that. Do we have a means to lay traps?”

“Don't think so, no. Some Fog Cloud scrolls, I guess.” Ben said. “We can drench the area with that moonshine and hope it doesn't dissipate before they walk over it, but splash and fire is so convoluted that we have options that are less risky than that. And we could combine the pots with a torch to turn them into throwable grenades, but doing that takes two gold per pot and we're still at zero.”

“Then let's just make some puddles, or maybe just leave a few pots out to hit with a fire spell.” Carter suggested. “And I've got some Fog Cloud spells too.”

“Thomas, what spells do you have, anyway?” Darryl asked. “What do we have to work with?”

“I could probably kill all of them in one go with Firestorm, but I don't nearly have the mana required to cast that spell.” Thomas said. “My two best spells right now are Torch and Fire Fingers, courtesy of using the former continuously and using the latter on all the brindle farms to make sure they won't sprout again. Then comes Poison Cloud, followed by the reliable Magic Missile and the less reliable Blinding Flash.”

Thomas was quiet for a moment, opening his menu to read up on the rest. “I've lost the two buff spells, I think they patched out me knotting this fur around my neck counting as 'wearing' an item not made for humans. My other new spells are the mana-efficient Frost Bolt, the Scorching Ray that we've already seen Alexa use before, and Chain Lightning. That one would consume almost all my mana at once, though. Oh, and Levitate Object, though I've had that one for days now without ever finding a use for it.”

“Magic Missile and Blinding Flash are still level 4, so I haven't unlocked anything new there yet. And Torch doesn't seem to give anything new at lvl5.” Thomas concluded. “But at level 8 Fire Fingers has a frankly ludicrous area of effect, and I can increase its range at expense of berth as its 5th level benefit. Meanwhile my 5th level Poison Cloud comes with a mild obscuring effect, whatever that entails.”

“Damn, I don't think we've got time to go ask Volos.” Darryl said. “Scrap that, we definitely don't have the time. How big is the area of your Fire Fingers?”

“Enough to cover this entire hallway, but only for about 5ft and it doesn't kill fast.” Thomas said. “And I can't use such suppressive fire for long, the spell drains mana fast. Two minutes at most. Poison Fog is more useful, the cost to maintain it is a lot lower after the initial casting.”

“Then I guess cast Poison Cloud on their front lines and cast Burning Hands to cover our retreat if we have to fall back.” Elise said. “Right?”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Ben said. “Shall I be in melee or take potshots at range?”

“Melee. Those fairies are real fast and they're the biggest problem, you're probably not going to hit them with the crossbow. Focus on them while I deal with those disgusting midgets.” Elise said. “Darryl defends Thomas and Carter watches my back. And Alexa, be awesome but in the rear.”

“What!? But it's the big battle!” Alexa pouted.

“I can't defend and fight at the same time, so you're going to have to take down the enemies that I stop. Okay?” Darryl asked.

“Fine. I guess I'll save your ass instead of defeating this whole army of fairies by myself.” Alexa said, still pouting but with a smile at the corner of her lips breaking the illusion. Then she switched to her deepest and most gravelly voice, which was to say it was slightly less high-pitched. “Yhe've got me axe.”

“And my bow.” Ben said.

“And my sword.” Carter pitched in.

“And my club.” Elise said.

“There's no mention of a club in that reference.” Ben said.

“Yeah!” Alexa said. “Guess you don't get to protect Darryl! Ha!”

Elise shrugged with a smile, and Darryl chuckled.

“Oh, and while we're on skills and abilities, I should mention that I gained a new benefit from my Protector's Aura reaching level 5.” Darryl said. “It now allows me to-”

He was interrupted by a sudden scream coming from up ahead, and Darryl immediately abandoned the line of exposition to start running.

“What's going on? The fairies haven't reached us yet!” Carter shouted over his shoulder, reacting faster than Darryl and already being ahead of him.

“I'll go find out!” Ben shouted, bolting with speed that none could match and leaving them behind in no time.

Darryl stopped running to return to a comfortable fast walk, mostly to not collide with any of the people running in the opposite direction rather than out of exhaustion. Judging from Thomas gasping behind him, not everyone had his stamina though.

No one said anything for a few minutes as Darryl looked at the three x's on the map that had once been people, and Ben's blue dot racing to their location. Then, a crossed red dot appeared right next to one of the surviving blue dots. A minute later Ben reached the area and two more crossed-out red dots appeared in quick succession.

Ben: guys, leperchans here. hidden on map till I saw them with eyes

Ben: no skills, just wearing tinfoil hats. here description

Ben: As we all know, even if some of us choose to be intentionally ignorant of the truth to sleep soundly at night, the government is monitoring our thoughts. They do this through phone towers, the chips that they put in vaccines and some special spells that only the lizard-people parading as politicians can cast, though obviously not 24/7. They're still bureaucrats, after all, so they only read our minds from nine to five on work-days except for the holidays.

There are some paranoid idiots that believe this dribble, including the delusional moron whose tinfoil hat you took. For some reason they believe that wearing it will do squat against any of these completely legal and state-sanctioned means to provide you with customised propaganda that is most certainly not real or being used by the Syndicate, but which would certainly only be used to protect all citizens if the government would be using them. Which they're not, and don't doubt it because that could flag you as a naughty civilian in need of re-education.

But whether we are monitoring your thoughts or not, (And can you really be sure I can't do that after what you've seen me do~?) these tinfoil hats really don't stop it. When an idiot dons it however, sheer ignorant faith may allow them to use skills available to everyone through the placebo effect. Most commonly the lesser stealth skill to not appear on your minimap until being spotted, and isn't it a lovely thought that literally every mob can use this skill if they want to?

Elise: Well that's ominous. And silly.

Elise: Oh, and we're coming.

Elise went into a jog with Thomas right behind her.

“Wait, why are we running now?” Darryl asked as he ran after them.

“Minimap!” Elise shouted over her shoulder. “The army went into high gear the moment their scouts died!”

“Impact in three minutes!” Thomas said. “Remy, tell the non-combatants to regroup and move north faster!”