Elaria had no chance to recover after taking control of the Silvermoon Denmother. The goblin chief immediately roared a command to the assembled monsters, and a wave of frenzied, hungry goblins and wolves that were too terrified of the huge painted goblin to refuse surged across the square towards her. The huge wolf standing guard above her did its best to resist the assault, but the sheer number of enemies was simply too overwhelming for it to deal with, and it faltered as blades and fangs pierced its hide one after the other. Elaria swung her sword without thinking, parrying one strike before immediately dodging the next. An errant spear carved a gash across her shoulder, and she winced as blood started to flow down her now sluggish arm.
The light of the blazing inferno disappeared as a wall of monsters formed, clambering over each other in a rush to slaughter the invader and the traitorous wolf. Elaria’s health points trickled down with each cut and hit the monsters landed. Refusing to give up until the very end, she gave as good as she got, evidenced by the growing mound of goblin and wolf corpses at her feet. Throughout the battle, she had been throwing points into whichever stat she felt would help most in that moment, but even that had stopped being effective. The amount of XP required for each level was slowly but surely increasing, and it seemed the more goblins and wolves she killed the less effective they were in levelling her up.
When her health reached just 2 points, it seemed as if her fate was sealed. A shield smashed into her forearm, sending her sword flying and rendering the arm limp and useless. Now she had just one point of health left. Staring down at the Silvermoon Denmother, similarly on the verge of death, bloodied and beaten after a valiant attempt to resist the goblins enslaving its kin. Through a gap in the monsters, Elaria spotted the goblin chief. It was staring smugly at her, large fangs poking through a twisted grin, the pyres of the goblin fortress providing a backdrop of orange hues reminiscent of a sunset. The view blurred as her consciousness began to fade. She didn’t want to die again, the first time had been traumatic enough.
A rusty blade flashed through the air, heading straight for her. Perhaps Zel would be able to save her, although given their lackadaisical attitude thus far and seeming inability to directly intervene in the world, she doubted it. Right before the goblin’s sword reached her chest, Elaria felt a ripple in the air. She focused on the fluctuation, and time seemed to slow down as her mind reached out. She had felt the circulation of her mana before, albeit briefly. The weird ripple felt similar, but fiercer and a little sharp. The more she focused, the more weird ripples she could feel, and they reacted intensely to the touch of her mind, dancing and buzzing with excitement. In fact, there was an entire sparkling web that surrounded the entire goblin fortress, floating through the air and up into the sky that trembled at her observation.
Was this natural mana? It was hard to stay focused with so many injuries and once or twice she almost lost consciousness. Touching the sparks of mana, they seemed to burn her mind. It was difficult to study them, each ripple seemed to want to explode, restrained only by an invisible force she wasn’t yet able to understand. With nothing else left for her, a monster’s sword just inches from her heart, Elaria grabbed onto the nearest ripple with her mind and squeezed with all the focus she could muster. The effect was immediate. The little node of mana shattered gleefully, visibly splintering the air around it. Like dominoes, the other mana fluctuations followed suit, almost as if they had just been waiting for her to reach out, the entire web exploding in a chain reaction. All this had happened in just a fraction of a second, but to Elaria the experience had felt like hours. The last thing she remembered before fainting was a searing heat that threatened to engulf her, exploding outwards and upwards as if a bomb had detonated.
– – –
Wren was worried. There was always minor crime in Felspire, but nothing that bothered the city guard too much. Occasionally they had groups of brave or foolish monsters that wandered closer to the city than they should, ambushing citizens or adventurers, but even then they were usually able to deal with it fairly quickly. It had been almost thirty years since something like this had happened. It was wrong, but he couldn’t deny he was a little excited. The fiery blood of adventure that he’d had in his misspent youth was pumping once more. It had been just another normal day in the city, patrolling and dealing with all the usual squabbles and troublemakers, when a tremendous explosion had rocked the entire city and surrounding lands. First came the earthquake.
The ground trembled and shook, and the ramshackle buildings of Felspire were unable to hold on. All across the city houses and inns, shops and manors collapsed. It was chaos. Next came the blast wave. A wall of superhot air flew across the city, knocking everyone to the ground, setting cloth and trees ablaze, burning many of the citizens with lower levels or weak abilities. Wren didn’t think the city had ever experienced a disaster of this scale since it was founded. He had led the city guard out, forming rescue parties, putting out fires and just generally assisting the population with anything they could. The royal knights didn’t lift a finger to help the ordinary folk of course, only rushing about Castle Cordwen to keep damage to a minimum and assist the Baron and his family.
Once the situation was mostly under control, the worst of the fires put out, and his men had begun to organise themselves, Wren led a few of his most trusted out of the walls in the direction the explosion had come from. It wasn’t difficult to spot, as a huge cloud of black smoke rose into the sky from deep in the forest in the direction of Lockmire. The same direction that little adventurer girl had gone. It was probably just a coincidence. On horseback, it took them just two hours to reach the forest, or what was left of it. Calling it a forest at this point would be an insult to forests. For miles in every direction the land was blackened and charred, malformed stumps that could’ve been trees at one point were dotted about, many still burning. The ground itself was scarred and cracked, streams of magma running towards the centre of the explosion like veins. Even standing at the edge of the site was difficult, and Wren could feel the hairs on his arms starting to burn even with his massive fortitude stat.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Gods be damned, I haven’t seen anything like this since I was serving on the northern border. A monster of this calibre is bad news, I reckon we’ll have to send a missive to the capital,” commented Wren.
“Reminds me of a dragon, like in Igmare,” said Gorn, the vice captain of the guard. Gorn was a weathered old man, similar in age to Wren but with the damage of time more obvious. His long hair was entirely grey and he sported more scars than skin. The two of them had served together in the royal army up north against the monster tides.
“I thought retiring out here to the sticks was supposed to be peaceful,” joked another veteran.
“I can see something in the distance. Looks like a wolf, but I can’t be sure. Gorn, come with me to investigate, the rest of you head back to the city and report this to the Baron and the adventurer’s guild,” said Wren.
Stepping foot into the wasteland, Wren immediately felt the scorching heat intensify, and it was only when Gorn raised a protective shield around the two of them that he felt comfortable moving forward. Their pace was slow, having to avoid the streams of magma, exploding tree stumps and heat exhaustion, but eventually they reached ground zero. The huge beast, a wolf with fur so covered in blood and ash it was impossible to tell the original colour, stood over something, guarding it intensely. It reacted viciously to the two men, growling at them and raising its hackles in warning.
“It’s got a collar on. Not a monster, or at least not a wild one,” noted Gorn.
“Seems like it’s too low levelled to cause an explosion like this. Why’s it just out here alone? Looks to be guarding something,” replied Wren.
Wren approached the beast slowly, hands raised in submission in an attempt to indicate that he wasn’t a threat. As he inched closer he realised that the thing on the floor that was being guarded was actually a person, or rather, a little girl. His first thought was that it must be the one from before, but her hair had been brunette, and the kid on the floor had bright red hair, mirroring the blazing landscape. Despite his calm demeanour, the wolf did not react kindly to his approach, baring its fangs and growling louder.
“Look beastie, I’m sure you want to protect that girl, but she looks injured. I can help her if you let me,” said Wren, his voice soft and friendly.
The wolf only relaxed a little, but it did back off and allow Wren to approach the girl. It stayed right next to her however, watching the man intently and ready to strike if necessary. To his shock, it actually was the girl he’d sent off the other day. What had happened for her hair to become bright red and for her to be at the centre of this devastating explosion. On the way he’d noticed what seemed to be the remains of some kind of village and hundreds of charred corpses. Too small to be humans, thankfully, so perhaps goblins. When have goblins ever built villages though? Too many questions he needed answers to, but for now he put them aside and focused on the girl. Her wounds were brutal, and her breathing light. She was on the border between life and death.
Strangely, there was almost no mana in the atmosphere. The natural mana in Teron was somewhat sparse, but it was unusual for there to be such depletion. Had the child caused it? If so, she was incredibly dangerous and lucky. Playing with natural mana was a risky game, especially if you didn’t know what you were doing. Only the most talented of mages and spellcasters could pull it off with regularity. The list of questions he needed to ask her was growing by the second, but his priority was treating her wounds. He waved over Gorn, who was able to use a spell to stabilise the girl and recover some of her health points. He fed her a potion, which brought some colour back to her and normalised her breathing. She remained unconscious, however.
Wren was torn. On one hand, he wanted to bring her back to Felspire so she could receive some proper medical treatment and recover in a comfortable environment. The problem was that if he brought her into the city, he had no doubt what the Baron would do. Given that she seemed to be fighting monsters when the explosion happened, it was probably not her fault that the aftereffects had reached Felspire, but Baron Faust would care little for the explanation. His justice tended to be ill informed and brutal. It would be a waste to let such a talented child meet such a fate. A conversation with the guildmaster of the Felspire Branch of the adventurer’s guild a few days ago popped into his mind.
He’d not asked the girl her full name when they’d met, but the guildmaster had mentioned it to him over drinks one evening. At the time, they’d both thought nothing of it. After all, while her family name wasn’t common, it certainly wasn’t unique. There were plenty of Highgroves throughout the world. However, seeing this carnage brought a certain legendary adventurer to mind. If this girl was his child, then Wren wouldn’t dare hand her over to the Baron. There were scarier things than upstart nobles with a thirst for punishment.
“Gorn, do what you can for the girl. We’ll heal her wounds here then send her on her way. I think she was heading to Lockmire,” said Wren.
“Are you sure about that? If Baron Faust finds out you might not get away with it this time, old friend,” replied Gorn.
“If we did hand her over to the Baron, there’d be a much worse fate in store for you and I. Do you remember the Battle of Tyehorn? I don’t want to end up like that Prakspawn General. Do you want to know this girl’s name?” Wren asked.
“Think she said it was Elaria when you brought her in the other day.”
“Aye. Elaria Highgrove,” said Wren.
Gorn grinned and whistled softly. “Well, looks like Cloudvale has a surprise on the way,” he said.
“They deserve it. The northern borders have been pretty quiet last I heard. Those rich bastards need something to remind them why they get those privileges in the first place,” cackled Wren.