[Elliot Springs][Session 2 - Level 1][Part 2]
“By the gods, you’ll kill us all.” Moindan said.
He motioned to the guards and they moved to form up around him. The other dwarf guard suddenly tripped, he landed in the tall grass, with a muffled scream, before being pulled into the underbrush by an unseen force.
“Fuck this, you’re on your own.” The Silver-Scaled Draconian turned to run back towards the road.
As he hit the tree line a humanoid shape stepped in his way. A being made of wood, gnarled branches for limbs, moss covering parts of its bark skin.
The Draconian’s silver scales frilled back around his neck as a light frosty mist started to float around him, and the guard spewed a fog out of his mouth. The fog hit the tree-man, ice crystallized on its bark, as it slowed to a halt. The Draconian hooked his crossbow to his belt, and began to draw his sword.
There was a crack of ice before a wooden hand burst out the guards back. The Draconian slumped down to the side, his sword only partially unsheathed, and he fell into the tall grass.
Moindan fired his crossbow, missing the creature, and began cursing to himself as he reloaded. The creature shambled towards Moindan as the dwarf guard pulled a new bolt into position.
Elliot grabbed the back of Moindan’s shirt and pulled him back as the creature slashed out where the guard was standing.
Elliot quickly stepped forward, and slashed down in an overhead arch with his shortsword. The sword cleaved into the head of the blighted creature, stopping where the bridge of the nose would be. The creature reached up, grabbing the sword’s blade, before its knees buckled, and it fell to the ground.
“Teinoz.” Elliot whispered over the corpse as he pulled his blade out.
The dead creature burst into flames. Its body writhed even in death. The fire and heat cascaded over Elliot.
“You know magic?” Moindan sounded shocked.
“A bit, I feel completely unarmed without my amulet though.” Elliot replied.
Another scream sounded from behind Elliot, full of rage, the young man turned to see the horned woman punching Moindan across the jaw. Her chain wrapped fists made a crunching sound against Moindan’s jaw and the dwarf staggered into Elliot.
“Hey wait, we need to work together.” Elliot held up his free hand defensively, his sword arm currently blocked by Moindan.
An iron bound fist cracked against Elliots chest, knocking him off his feet, and as he hit the ground Moindan fell as another blow found him.
“Drop dead.” The horned woman said before turning and running for the other side of the clearing.
Elliot scrambled to his feet, gasping for breath, as he looked up to see the woman had stopped in her tracks. Shambling beings, some wooden figures, others massive bushes like living shrubbery, moved out of the tree line. Elliot quickly counted fifteen or so, they gave the blight on fire a wide berth, as they started to close the circle on the three.
Elliot grabbed a branch out of the grass and stuck it into the flames. He drew the flaming branch out of the fire, holding the sword and torch out, as he backed up towards Moindan. The dwarf raised his crossbow, staying behind Elliot, as the blighted creatures approached.
“Have a plan?” Moindan asked with a shaky voice.
“Yeah, burn them.” Elliot replied without hesitation.
A wooden blight quickly lunged towards Elliot with a lurching motion, stabbing a spear tipped hand forward. Elliot side stepped, hacked the arm off, before thrusting his torch into the midsection of the creature. Its dry wood quickly caught fire.
The blight staggered past Elliot, collapsing closer to the dwarf, as the young druid sidestepped it. He looked back at the dwarf. The release on Moindan's crossbow snapped, a bolt flew, and another blighted creature dropped dead.
These creatures weren’t hard to kill and seemed to be adverse to fire. Elliot figured even when greatly outnumbered the three of them stood a chance.
“Little help.” Moindan took a step back.
He was reloading as another shrub rushed towards him. Elliot quickly moved in front of Moindan and raised his sword to strike through the shrub. The blight reached out for Elliot as he slashed downward into its shoulder, it took one last step forward as it started to slump downward. A branch shot out of its leaves and stabbed through Elliot's midsection. The young man winced, and broke the branch off with a swing of the torch.
Elliot stumbled back bumping into Moindan. Blood seeped out around the branch still lodged in his abdomen. He looked up as two more blighted woodmen came lurching forward. He raised his sword in defense, took one step backward with his left foot. He breathed slowly. Perhaps he needed to be a smaller target against these things.
The two creatures moved towards him with surprising speed, he raised his sword up to get a good swing in, as he moved his torch to block their attacks.
The horned woman barreled past Elliot, swinging a fist into the blight on the right, sending it reeling into the left blight. Elliot quickly moved beside her as she crashed her two fists down on the head of the first blight caving its face in. The young druid slashed with his sword chopping an arm off the second blight.
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“Teinoz.” Elliot whispered over one of the bodies.
It burst into flames. The three fighting for their life moved to have their backs to each other. Three burning bodies now lay around them making the blights approach more cautiously.
Three of the blights suddenly keeled over, arrows in their backs, as a man revealed his position in the tree line. A hunter in multiple layers of leather armor, with a red cloak, and a furry feline face. The hunter had strong masculine features on his sharp feline appearance, white and gray fur, with black tufts on his ears, and piercing yellow eyes. The cat notched two arrows in his bow and fired at two more blights. Killing one and catching the others attention.
Elliot, was starting to grow distrustful of meeting new people in these woods, and so he raised his sword. He pulled it back horizontal to his shoulder. The white catfolk moved in closer to the group disregarding Elliot.
“No worries friends, you see I am here to help.” He says with a slight accent.
Elliot couldn’t place it, but the catfolk spoke a much more romanticized dialect with emphasis on the s sounds.
“I’m sure we all appreciate the assistance.” Elliot said lowering his sword.
Moindan fired a bolt at a blight, dropping it, before he began reloading again. The blights were now few and not close enough to pose a serious threat.
“I’ve never seen so many of these things in one spot before.” The catfolk said before notching two more arrows.
Elliot sheathed his sword, dropping the torch, before reaching for the shortbow on his back.
“Maybe they just don’t like me.” Elliot spoke in jest, wincing as the branch in his side shifted.
He drew an arrow, notched it in his bow and fired at a blight. The horned woman stepped back as the others fired their bows at the animated plants. Elliot hoped she would take the opportunity to leave.
“So who are you?” Erevan asked, trying to keep the newcomer’s attention.
“Hircine, mercenary working for Trier, I was expecting to bag a squirrel or rabbit, maybe even a deer if I was lucky.” Hircine lowered his bow as Elliot and Moindan both shot the last of the blights. “So why were you out here?”
“Apprehending her.” Moindan turned and pointed to where the horned woman was standing.
She was now halfway across the clearing running the other way. Elliot may have bought her just enough time to escape. Unless they planned on shooting her.
“Understood.” Hircine said as his eyes fell on her.
Elliot had begun to come around to the Catfolk. He even viewed Hircine as their savior moments ago, but as looked into his eyes now he felt a pang of fear. Hircine’s legs tensed as one slid backwards in the grass. Suddenly he was sprinted forward, each step was a massive lunge, as his feline legs carried him across the clearing in a few steps. He spun around, sliding in the grass and mud, blocking the path of the woman.
She turned to run to the right. One of Moindan’s bolts hit the ground in front of her, sending her stumbling backwards. The dwarf started to rush forward. She was backpedaling before she turned to run the other way.
Hircine grabbed her right arm. She raised her left to punch him, a manacle slapped around her wrist and Hircine pulled it back. Moindan reached them and pulled her left arm behind her back as Hircine pulled her right. They cuffed her and ran the chains through it.
Elliot sighed, clipping the bow to his side once again. There was no sense in fighting these two who believed they were doing the right thing. Their previous fight proved that these two believed Elliot to be an ally.
The young Druid walked around pulling arrows out of the corpses of the blights. His were a basic iron arrowhead on a quickly made shaft, but Hircine’s were far more balanced steel arrowheads with silver tips. Elliot collected his arrows to give back to him, wondering why he would choose to silver the tips over just having completely steel arrows.
Moindan nodded to Hircine before taking the chained woman through the woods back towards the trail. The catfolk headed over to Elliot. He looked at the young druid as Elliot drew an arrow out of another corpse.
“Did one of them get a piece of you?” Hircine asked, seeing the blood seeping through Elliot's shirt. Elliot plopped down on a rock and lifted his shirt up around the wound.
“The stains will be hard to get out.” Elliot sighed. “How close are we to town?”
“About an hour away.” Hircine said.
“Then I can wait to treat it until we get there.” Elliot replied.
“That can’t be smart.” Hircine cocked an eyebrow as Elliot stood.
The young druid grabbed a bundle of arrows. It was all of Hircine's arrows that Elliot has collected. He held them out for the catfolk to take.
“I can get plenty more in town, you keep those. Most of the arrows you fired broke anyway.” Hircine said and Elliot shrugged, putting the arrows in his quiver.
“Thanks then.” Elliot said as he sat his pack on the ground.
“Are you really more concerned about your clothes being stained?” Hircine squatted next to Elliot as the young druid dug through his pack.
“Yeah, mother always hated when I came home with blood on my clothes. Even if we went hunting and it was technically Dad’s fault for making me field dress the kills.” Elliot said.
“A hunter. Maybe you and I could get along.” Hircine smiled.
Elliot pulled a cloth wrap out of his pack. He coiled it around his midsection, tight as he could, to keep the piece of branch still inside of him kept tightly in place.
“That looks unsanitary.” Hircine said. “You should at least let me clean the wound.”
“I’ll be fine.” Elliot responded.
“Let's get going then.” Moindan called out.
“I’m taking one with me.” Elliot pointed to the blights.
“They don’t have meat, why would you?” Hircine raised a brow.
“Might as well have proof of what happened. Send people back for the bodies of the guards.” Elliot found the smallest of the animated plant monsters and threw it over his shoulder.
“What bodies?” Hircine looked around the clearing.
“There were two…” Elliot turned around looking to where the Draconian died.
There was no body present but there was blood staining the trampled grass. He walked over and looked around the area, finding frost still settling. Hircine followed and looked around as well, spotting the same signs of the body being dragged away.
“The forest takes everything it can. It tried to take you. Count yourself as lucky and move on.” Hircine put a hand on Elliots shoulder.
The feeling seemed alien to the boy. Two people had died in the last few minutes here in this clearing.
“Move on.” Hircine repeated as he pulled away and started walking towards the direction of the main road.
Elliot followed, joining the catfolk, the dwarf guard, and the horned woman on the road. He walked with a blight over one shoulder. The catfolk led, a serious look on his face, the dwarf seemed silent and contemplating the loss of his companions, and the woman was enraged still. Angry that she was being dragged back to her imprisonment.
The young druid contemplated his next move.