"Ronia, the bandit's reinforcements are at least 150 men strong, we need to leave! Thats not a battle we should be taking." Ronia stopped what she was doing and stared at me for a second. She contemplated something before making a motion towards one of the mages. They nodded their head and fired a spell into the air. It was like a fireball except it blew up in the shape of some type of rune. After that was done she turned towards everyone and spoke up. "Everyone! We're retreating to the rendevous point the elder told us about! Get your things ready, we'll be moving in 30 seconds!"
Everyone was a flurry of activity. The healers finished bandaging or healing any wounds that people had and collected their things, while others collected any gear that was left to collect. Some that were looting the place finished gathering anything and put them into their storage pouches, an item enchanted to create storage larger on the inside than the outside. Everyone finished their tasks and we gathered up near the hole we made in the wall. Once everyone was there we started to leave but before we got far we heard warhorns blare near the bandit camp. Through the trees you could see the 150 strong army quickly heading towards the camp, weapons drawn. The leader was scouring the area near the camp for any signs of life but we were hidden thanks to the trees and kept travelling.
Or so we thought. The commander if the army seemed to notice us as he got a few metres from the camp walls. His glare seemed to pierce straight through you with malice. He turned to his army and barked some orders I couldn't hear. Ronia noticed too and yelled out to everyone. "Carry the villagers and double time it!" To my surprise the moon elves would carry several people with ease. Some even carried 7 or more villagers using magic to balance them and dashed forwards. We still couldn't carry all of the villagers, there were simply too many and so the mages used spells to buff the remaining villager's speed and we increased our pace that way.
Not a moment too soon as well since shortly after we increased our pace nearly a hundred spells streaked across the sky towards our previous location. The spells that bombarded the place were large fireballs. The sight of around 100 fireballs almost 1 metre in diametre streaking across the sky and bombarding the place like artillery is scary to say the least. The heat and shockwave of the blasts washed over us and prompted people to increase their paces lest they get burnt to a crisp. The spells kept flying down and hammering the ground, scorching the ground and kicking up dirt with each blast while we fled.
Several of the fireball artillery got too close and the mages created barriers of mana to block the blasts, but the blasts caused cracks to appear in the barriers with each blast. "Just how much mana do each of these things pack?! This isn't something a bandit army would ever have. What country lent these criminals siege mages?!" Yelled one of the mages creating barriers to stop the fireballs. I wondered the same thing, which country wanted slaves so badly they would send a small contingent of troops here?! I turned my head to catch a quick glimpse of the army and saw that they were still marching towards us. The area that was bombarded was now nothing but a burning wasteland. Burning trees collapsed and dirt was upturned everywhere. The line of sight towards us was made far clearer than before, which wasn't good. The army could keep tracking us if they had easy line of sight like that. No need for scrying magic or anything like that if they could simply see us.
We were near the front of the camp and saw the elder and his group. We quickly met up and Ronia told him about the approaching army, although I bet he was able to hear the army coming with all the damn explosions going off.
"We'll need to hold out in the village but before that we'll need to delay the army as much as possible, or make them turn and leave by simply causing too many losses." The elder stroked his beard as he thought for a moment and then decided. "Alright, gather the villagers, I'll be sending them back to the village using the warp spell. I don't have enough time to prepare the spell circle so it'll be a rough warp." With that the villagers quickly gathered into a tight circle and awaited the spell that would send them home. The elder worked his spell and after 30 seconds the spell was ready.
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Before he finished the spell he reminded the villagers one last time "When you get back, prepare the village for a battle. Reinforce the walls, gather weapons, but prepare for a battle. We will be there very soon to help defend the village." With that the villagers were warped out in a blinding flash of light. Mana sparked and crackled on the ground where the villagers once were, but we didn't get time sit around as we once again heard the war horns of the army. It seems they arrived at the camp and saw the damage we wrought.
The elder had us move to a relatively safer location and several mages used spells to prevent scrying and other far seeing spells. The elder told everyone they can rest and almost instantly over half of the mages collapsed to the ground, drained of mana and with severe headaches from constantly being low on mana and chugging potions to replenish it. We hadn't suffered any losses thanks to the elders spell that warped the person towards the medical tent when they were heavily injured. That said we had a few injuries which were being tended to right. Ronia went to work with her healing magic and joined the others to heal injuries. The rest of the moon elves sat down and pulled out some rations. Beef jerky, water and some bread. I also pulled out some food to eat but kept looking towards the direction of the army.
The army was still searching the area aroun the bandit camp but we were far off, camping out on a hill in the distance with people watching all of the possible directions enemies could come from.
After 40 minutes everyone was rested and had a meal. My mana pool as back to maximum and I had been planning several nasty traps to use on the army to slow them down with the elder and other moon elves. Ronia had been surprisingly nasty with one particular idea. She basically wanted us to use the magical equivalent of napalm by creating a flammable slime using magic and then firing it at the army before lighting it up. The problem with that was that it took way too much mana to create enough to douse the entire army, so we decreased the amount to a few dozen litres and would use that later. The group brainstormed and created many ways to slow the army and cause as much injury as possible. After the planning was done everyone had their orders and the moon elves split up into groups of 50. Our party's group was in charge of making magical traps using magic circles and enchanting things so over half of our group was magically inclined.
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The army had finished their sweep of the nearby surroundings of the camp and started to march in the direction of the village since that was the direction we were last seen moving. All of the traps were set up near the army with the ones farther back near the village being set up at the moment. A group of 50 had head to the village to enchant the walls and create additional defences, with the job of making that place into a veritable fortress, while the rest of us made traps to delay and injure the army. Ronia came up and held one of the arrows several mages had enchanted based on my specifications and wants with a questioning look.
She looked at the arrow one last time before saying "You really think these arrows will do much damage? I mean sure the enchantments will work but I don't see how using the flaming slime with arrows would do much damage to armoured troops." I looked towards her and smirked while saying "Well, you were the one that designed the flaming slime. I just put it to good use. Besides, theres no harm in us using these arrows. They work just like regular arrows do, just with an added bonus effect. Now help me make these arrows would you? I hate doing the trigger enchantment. It's so frustrating to do...I hate enchanting." Ronia giggled at my frustration and set to work helping me and the other 30 or so mages with the frustrating task of enchanting and preparing several hundred arrows. God this better work or i'm going to be rightly pissed off.