The group had made their way out of the cave faster than they had gone in, finding at the entrance that Kaedric had begun talking to Professor Roxanne. She was in a terrible state, she looked as though she was put into a similar situation as Lily. She was covered in bruises and scratches and much of her hair was singed near the ends.
“Oh my god, are you okay Professor Roxanne?” Valentine was the first to speak after seeing her state. Professor Roxanne turned her head and saw the state of Lily and Michael.
“I should be asking all of you, is Lily okay? Kaedric informed me of your situation, I was just about to enter the cave, but it looks like you made it out alright. What happened in there?” Professor Roxanne had said all of this while walking to the group and determining the state of both Lily and Michael’s injuries.
“There was this creature, like nothing we have ever seen or studied. I don’t think it was a magical beast that has been recorded before. It was unusual too, it seemed to possess intelligence, enough to possess clothes and use weapons. It was humanoid too, and while it was only the size of a Lily, it was able to knock me down and hurt me like this in one hit.” Michael was the first to inform Professor Roxanne as she made an emergency splint for his arm from sticks on the ground and some cloth she had ripped from her shirt.
“I was in a similar situation, when me and the girls went to explore the surrounding area, we quickly found a forest similar to this one. However it seemed to be much more dangerous, I only barely made it out alive after making sure the girls escaped. When I finally got out of the forest, I saw the flare you sent up near this forest. So, I made my way here and saw Kaedric.” Professor Roxanne had now moved onto Lily’s injuries, which were more many but not as impactful, simply inspecting the scratches and finding that there were no broken bones. “We need to head back to the library, it is too dangerous to be in this forest.” Professor got up from inspecting Lily and began leading the group out through the forest.
The group moved as a whole, while going as fast as possible they also made sure not to overly exert themselves, especially for the injured. Valentine rather than Terran was leading the group this time, his light was allowing the group to see ahead, with him was Professor Roxanne. In the middle was Michael, Lily, and Kaedric, with Kaedric carrying Lily. In the back was Terran, who kept an eye out for anything that might be following them front he rear. The group was overly cautious not to make too much noise or go too slowly, so that they would be in the least danger.
Finally, the group made their way to the edge of the forest, and back into the field that housed the library, and the only safe location they knew of. It wasn’t hard to find the direction to find the library, while they couldn’t see where it was, they could see the flare that was shot into the sky. Immediately upon seeing the flare the group picked up the pace. The group no longer needed the light now, and Valentine quickly dissipated the light allowing him to further focus on running.
“Valentine, you are in the best condition right now, go with Kaedric and Terran as fast as you can, but if you don’t think that you can do anything to help Taylor or Jesse, then don’t put yourself in danger. Try and help the first years if you can.” Professor Roxanne’s voice was shaky, but she seemed determined.
Kaedric stopped as with Professor Roxanne and Michael as Terran and Valentine picked up their pace to reach the flare as fast as possible. He slowly let Lily into Professor Roxanne’s arms, and then sped off in the same direction as Terran and Valentine. Professor Roxanne stayed with Michael and Lily, matching Michael’s pace so that he would be safe, and not left alone.
While Terran tried his hardest to match the pace of Valentine, it was not easy for him. His lanky body was not used to running that fast, and for as long as they had been on the move. Terran could also notice Valentine matching his own pace, to not leave him behind. Soon Kaedric had caught up to them, his own pace was faster than Valentine and Terran. He began to match their own pace so that the group could run together.
“No, go without me, I will be fine if I’m alone, I will only slow you down at this point” Terran’s words interrupted the silent running of the group. It was obvious that he was a little annoyed at showing his weakness.
“Are you sure Terran?” Valentine had looked back at him, giving him a worried look, which seemed to further annoy Terran.
“Hurry up already, go!” Terran had barely even let the words leave his mouth before Valentine and Kaedric sprinted ahead. Both were of similar builds and heights, even if Valentine was stronger in the upper body, they ran at the same speed as it seemed.
Valentine and Kaedric had only been running at their full speed for 5 minutes before they had made it to the source of the flare. In front of them was a large area in the field that was burned to the ground, and still burning. In the center of the burning area was Taylor and Jesse, both surrounded by the same creature that had been in the cave. This time however there were far more enemies, there were by a quick count by Valentine, 30 of them. While the one from the cave was small and had little muscle on it, these ones looked like they were in the best condition they could be. Their height was no different, but they were fuller, and with better weapons and clothes too, all of the creatures were covered in metal and leather armor, and all of them had weapons ranging from simple bows to copper swords.
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Valentine was the first to react to the situation, at once signaling Kaedric to put up a protective barrier around themselves, while also starting his own chant. “Flame shot… Spark”
The ball of fire hit the back of one of the creatures and set it on fire immediately. Valentine was unsure whether the spell would be effective or not because of the armor owned by the creatures but his doubts were unfounded. The creature that he hit with the spell was wearing metal armor, and it seemed that since it was caught by surprise with no way to block or dodge it. This allowed the spell to hit for its maximum damage, meaning the metal armor had become a molten prison for the creature, melting and searing itself against the body of the now-writhing creature.
After the creature was hit, 2 arrows shot towards Valentine and Kaedric. “Protect me… shield”, the simple words spoken by Kaedric created a barrier that stopped the arrows from hitting himself and Valentine. After taking the 2 hits from the arrows, the quickly made barrier dissipated, unable to withstand anymore. Kaedric and Valentine, however, had spotted a new position to occupy.
Valentine and Kaedric ran to the boulder to their left, it was about half the height of Kaedric, but its top was smooth and perfect for drawing a circle on. “Protect me… Shield” Valentine spoke the chant and created a new barrier to protect Kaedric while he drew the circle.
“Stand Strong… Fortress” Kaedric finished drawing the circle on the boulder and chanted his spell just as 2 more arrows dissipated the barrier created by Valentine. The new barrier created by Kaedric, however, was much stronger than the earlier two. While the barriers before were only a thin layer of transparent mana, the bluish hue of them easily recognizable, the new barrier was much more robust. It was made up of sections rather than one large blanket. Each section was a large green translucent hexagon, tiling together to create a dome around the boulder. Two more arrows tested the barrier, and rather than bouncing the arrows off and dissipating, the new barrier caused the arrows to snap and break upon impact and remained after impact.
This new barrier had finally given Valentine and Kaedric the confidence they needed to both go on the offensive. Likewise, the failure of the earlier attacks had angered the creatures, causing the rest of the group to divert their attention from Taylor and Jesse in the center of them, and start surrounding Kaedric and Valentine. Valentine, noticing this, realized that his previous method of attack would no longer work if the creatures weren’t caught off guard. Kneeling, he began to draw a circle of his own.
“Flame Shot… Spark” Kaedric shot a ball of fire from his palm toward the creature that was now closest to himself. However, before it could connect, it was shot through with an arrow, causing the ball to fall apart and create many small clusters of fire to fall to the ground.
“Flame Shot… Sparks” Valentine had finished drawing the magic circle onto the boulder. The magic circle was slightly modified from the original format of itself, rather than having one large triangle in the center of the circle with runic symbols surrounding it, there were 4 triangles that were each a part of a larger triangle. Some of the rules were changed too, and the chant added one letter. But each of these changes created a completely different effect from the original spelling. Instead of a soccer-ball-sized sphere of flames shooting from the palm of Valentine's hand, which was faced directly to the sky above, the sphere was the size of a large beach ball. That wasn’t the only change, instead of just shooting up into the sky to fall back down later like the original spell would have, the large ball of flames exploded in the air about 40 feet above its starting point.
The explosion created hundreds of softball-sized balls of flame, each going much faster than the spell would have originally gone. These balls rained down upon the creatures, who at this point had no way to defend themselves. The 2 bow and arrow creatures had shot a couple of the spheres but were quickly outnumbered, both being hit and succumbing to the same death as the first creature. The same was true for over half of the creatures, the only ones who survived the attack were those who had shields.
Taylor and Jesse, who were inside their own defensive spell, were unaffected by the attack too. However the attack had damaged the spell to its limit, and the spell then dissipated, leaving Taylor and Jesse defenseless. In that moment the focus of the creatures shifted from Kaedric and Valentine to Taylor and Jesse. However, before the creatures could regroup to attack, a huge gust of wind burst through the large grass of the field to the left and knocked the group over.
“Wind Rush… Gale” Along with the gust was the voice of Terran, who had finally caught up to Valentine and Kaedric to the battle. Almost instantly after he had sent out the gust of wind that had knocked over the creatures, he was raising his arm again to aim for another spell. “Flame Shot… Spark” shooting from the palm of Terran’s hand came a sphere of flames at least double the size of Valentine’s. The shot went directly into a group of 3 knocked over creatures, exploding on impact and covering the group in flames. The group having been hit twice in a row now by powerful spells was unable to resist and died to the flames engulfing them.
“Flame Shot… Spark” This time two voices rang out together, Taylor and Jesse both standing aiming for separate targets. Both hit their mark, engulfing a group of 2 and a single creature respectively. The creatures burned screaming and writhing in agony, but shortly stopped dying from the flames.
Only 2 of the creatures remained, their faces stricken with anger and fear at the turn of the situation. Getting up they began to run into the field, trying to escape from the battle, but before they could, both were shot in the back by spells from Valentine and Kaedric.
Entering the burned clearing behind Terran came Professor Roxanne holding Lily, closely followed by Michael. The clouds ahead partially covered the moon, and the limited visibility was provided instead by still-on-fire grass surrounding the clearing. Taylor and Jesse walked the short distance to join the rest of the group and collapsed, lying on their backs. Kaedric and Valentine joined in as well, followed by Terran, and finally Michael, Professor Roxanne, and Lily. Up until this moment they had been warmed up from the adrenaline of running and fighting, but now that they were stationary, they realized how cold the night was. The only source of warmth was the smoldering ground beneath them and the flames surrounding them.
Everyone lay still on the ground, soaking in the night and the events they all had to face. In their minds, it was a miracle that they had even gotten to this point. They had no idea what was going on, everything seemed to be hostile toward them, and they still had no idea where they were. But for a moment, on the ground, having just fought their first battle for many of them, they didn’t need to know, they just needed to rest.