A figure was seen flitting through the undergrowth of the forest at high speed. While at times, it performed nimble or even acrobatic maneuvers to get past objects barring his path, it was clear that it preferred a more direct approach. Without slowing down, the figure ran through large fallen tree trunks and big boulders by smashing them with his fists, either launching them away or shattering them to pieces. Either way, it cleared the path to continue his high-speed trek through the forest.
"Go to the Misty Forest, she said. It will be fun, she said"
"Pfft, fun my ass. This place is as dreary and stimulating as a Goblin breeding pool. And both places smell like shit too"
The figure, Oake, was talking to himself in a grumbling and clearly chagrined voice. His mother had tasked him two days ago to set out from the Grove, and to reach Misty Forest in three days. There he would apparently find a few beings in need of saving from whatever troubles they had.
Oake, ever the gentlemen, responded to the request with words that don't need repeating. His 'dads' and his mother in particular still resented Grrik for the vocabulary of uncouth words he rubbed off on Oake over the years. Grrik on the other hand, as a linguistic talent even among his High-Goblin kind, regarded Oake's talent and creativity for profanity as if exquisite poetry. Regardless, nothing Oake said could deter Celagaea, his mother, to change her mind. And he had learned through his more rebellious early teenage years that going against a powerful Dryad was just asking for trouble. And while often coarse - with full credits to Grrik - Oake loved his mother who raised him as her own son. Despite her being a Dryad. And him being a human. And her having green skin while his was pinkish. And, and, and... Or in other words, even at five years old, the little Oake could fathom the idea that the green lady probably wasn't his real mother. Well, likely. Very likely. So he reluctantly accepted his new task to set out towards the Misty Forest as requested. Because he loved his mother. It had nothing to do with the various 'corrections' he had received over the years. Nothing at all.
Oake, having now arrived at his namesake tree, the big oak at the center of the Misty Forest, climbed up with the dexterity of a large ape. Efficient, yes, but not quite graceful. Having arrived a day early, Oake figured he'd just laze about around the oak. He had been to this forest a few dozen times, and nothing here could fancy him to do.. well anything useful or fun. For one, there were no nymphs here to to spy on, his current favorite pastime. Even if he had been caught a handful of times and took a severe beating from them. Damn those nymphs could be fierce. Graceful, lithe, even seductive, and yet fierce like a hurricane. Still worth it, though.
Building, one of his other well liked pastimes, was out of the question too. All trees within the Misty Forest were between a state of life and death, and utterly unfit for anything other then perhaps a little bit of woodcarving. Let alone turning this big oak into a nice and comfortable tree house overnight. Which was too short a time to achieve such a thing anyway, even for Oake.
Reluctantly, he spent an hour making a very rough shelter within the lower branches of the tree to withstand the inevitable rain. Another reason he hated the Misty Forest. It was always wet here. Too lazy to even hunt, Oake just grabbed a few pieces of meat jerky for his late afternoon meal. Even if he did hunt, there would be no firewood to cook with anyway in this damnable damp place.
Making himself comfy under his improvised shelter, he took a book from his backpack, crouched down and continued his studies in draconic magic. That was the ongoing homework from one of his other interesting father figures, "Auram The First something something Dragon". Auram once told Oake that he was a big shot among dragons, a progenitor of his evolutionary line even. But to Oake, years of mundane interactions changed his perception of Auram to a grumpy old over-sized lizard that made him read a bazillion books. The book he was looking at now was the compendium of draconic incantations for non-dragons. A book co-written by dragons and elves, two of the more successful magical races of this world. With the help of this book, dragon language could be simplified somewhat and transformed into Elvish incantations that were more acceptable to pronounce for quite a few of the intelligent races, among which Oake, of course. The book was as thick as his underarm, mostly because the transformation of languages went from draconic language to runic symbols to Elvish language. The runic symbols for longer incantations in particular could take up a whole lot of space, sometimes a dozen or more pages. Even with Oake's high intelligence of a whopping 68, memorizing this book from cover to cover was something that had already taken many years, and will require many years more.
Sitting in that oak tree with his book in lap, an uneventful night and morning passed. Early afternoon, Oake jumped up, thinking he heard a faint sound coming from the western part of the Misty Forest. The swampiest part. The oak he sat in was a towering tree, easily reaching a few dozen meters higher than any other tree in a range of fifty kilometers. Which was why he chose to stake out in this tree in the first place. Quickly, Oake made his way to the top of the tree, and cast the spell [Enhanced Senses], which was a spell that drained mana for as long as it was active. Of course, for Oake, he could keep this spell active nearly indefinitely, because of his immense mana capacity and regeneration.
Immediately, an influx of sensory information hit his brain. Activating this spell the first few times, if not in a proper environment, would make even the most talented of casters faint, if not give them outright brain damage. As Auram has always says. 'Magic is all fun and games until a fireball goes ballistic and you burn yourself to a crisp.' Oake, now more used to this sensation of expanding his senses with years of practice, immediately started picking up on sounds from about ten kilometers away. The sounds of yells and shouts and combat made Oake turn his head in a specific direction, hoping to get a glimpse of what was happening. Sadly the canopy was too dense to see anything meaningful at all.
Remembering his mother's assignment to save a few beings who were being attacked, Oake immediately climbed down the tree and started sprinting in the direction. Even while sprinting and bulldozing through all obstacles, it would be at least a thirty minute hike, and that was without taking his mana and stamina drain in consideration. Or even whether he could move in a straight line towards his in goal in the first place. Oake just started running as fast as he could while sustaining his stamina to a reasonable degree fit for combat. And hoped that whoever was being attacked could last a little longer. Not necessarily for their sake, he just didn't want to tell his mother he failed. That would suck.
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Prince Eric was living a week long nightmare that just didn't seem to end. They were only planning to enter the fringes of the Endless Forest to find a few specific feral creatures to subdue and bound with. All preparations were made. Eric was accompanied by five classmates, all of them higher nobility in the Trelia Empire. All five of them brought along ten elite family guards, which combined with Eric's own retinue of twenty elite veterans, should have been enough to basically travel to most places on this continent safely.
However, through a combination of unfortunate events, they ended up all the way here in the Misty Forest with only about fifteen people remaining. Luckily Eric survived up til now, unharmed even, which was a blessing in disguise. The same couldn't be said for two of his friends, Leonard and Barry, who were wounded all over because of their role as front-line fighters. Had Selena not been such an accomplished healer, not just Leonard and Barry, even some of the few remaining guards would've surely died already. But as luck would have it, the only guard that was still in critical condition happened to be the only tracker their group had left. Of 75 people they set out with, at least five of them were trackers, to ensure they didn't get lost. And now the final tracker was delirious due to fever. To make matters worse, when they got lost and ended up on the outskirts of the Deadwood Swamp, they were ambushed by a group of Plated Lizards. Consider them something between a big lizard or a small crocodile. But with more scales which are as thick as metal plate armor and just as durable. From the swamp, they eventually ended up where they were now, within the Misty Forest, and the group of Plated Lizards never left their tail.
Plated Lizards are not necessarily a big danger to a strong enough and well equipped force. But they are hard to kill, especially when you've lost most of your equipment when fleeing from stampeding herds. And Plated Lizards can be active 24 hours a day in damp and cold environments such as this. The last time Prince Eric had a good sleep was two days ago, and Selena probably didn't have a good sleep for three days now. As the only healer, she was completely spent.
Prince Eric walked out of the cave towards his fighting guards. He wasn't getting any more sleep anyway, so he might as well take the spot of the weariest guard in the defense duty so he could let that man get some sleep. Unsheathing his Darksteel sword, he walked up to Alren, the youngest of the guards that accompanied him to flank one of two Plated Lizards that was attacking their camp. His sword, a dwarf-made masterpiece, made from a special alloy called Darksteel, had the highest kill count of everyone present due to its sheer quality, and perhaps not so much prince Eric's own strength. Seeing prince Eric strike the Plated Lizards front paw and immediately drawing blood, the two Plated Lizards promptly took off to harass them another time. Prince Eric repelling the Plated Lizards made the guards release a soft and subdued cheer. It's not that the guards didn't want to cheer louder, but they just didn't have the energy to do so.
A gruff guard, about forty years old with a face that spoke books about his life's experiences, walked up to prince Eric and saluted.
"Prince Eric"
"At ease"
The man visibly relaxed, almost slumping down on the spot in exhaustion. Prince Eric allowing the man to skip the salute was no longer just a formality, it was giving the man a well-needed rest.
"Um, sir. Did we disturb your sleep, or-"
"Captain, don't worry about that. I already slept for three hours, which is more than I expected... But with these Plated Lizards stalking us and not giving as any rest...", Prince Eric's voice trailed off near the end, with an undertone of despair seeping through, despite years of military training regarding morale and various subjects.
"I still think it's best if we continue pushing through now towards the east. At this point, getting past the Misty Forest and entering the Inner Domain or even the Sacred Grove where we may find shelter from the Dryad seems to be our best option. Or least north east to the Barren Reaches. Orcs at least can be negotiated with, which can't be said of all these fierce beasts we kept running into the past few weeks. Going back west would lead us home, but we'd have to go through the same dangers, while going east.. we just need to hold out for about a week. No, just five more days. I think that's our best best"
Prince Eric contemplated the issue one more time, before ordering the guards to prepare to set out at first light. While the Plated Lizards could be active at all times, the night was still their preferred hunting time. It would be bad to waste even a single minute of daylight by staying put instead of travelling east.
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"Geoffrey, block that lizard to the left, it's going for our backli- No! Liam! Fuck! I'm coming over, wait for me, Liam", captain Ryan was shouting orders left and right to keep some semblance of a defense line against this fierce assault of Plated Lizards. Unexpectedly, while travelling further east within the Misty Forest, the Plated Lizards suddenly launched a rather large daytime assault. The fiercest yet. With the sun standing at its highest point, this should've been when the beast should've been relaxing and saving their energy. Ryan's face was pale as he looked and ran around, trying to step in where needed. This last month had been really disastrous. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. If you planned this journey ahead of time, and then assumed the worst-case scenario for just about every part of the journey, you'd arrive at something very similar to their own journey.
Ryan noticed the group of youngsters he was in charge of protecting and sighed inwardly. Prince Eric really was an exceptional fighter for his age, and the fact he could still join in and fight alongside the veteran guards spoke volumes of his training. Leonard and Barry together somewhat counted as a passable soldier, with the two of them barely holding of a single Plated Lizard. Selena pulled more of her weight than any other person still remaining, so it was perfectly understandable she'd be sitting in the center, too weary to do anything. Rebecca and Roland was main the reason for Ryan's sigh, At the start, their capabilities as mages provided a lot of relief to the group. They could tackle multiple enemies at once or at least disable them, making it easier for soldiers to go in for the kill. But their lack of experience with real battle situations, especially demanding battles of attrition like these, disabled these two youngsters. 'Don't worry captain, all we need is a good night's sleep and a bit of meditation and our mana will be back and all good to go'. Even then, Ryan scoffed at their naive way of thinking. Indeed, with a good night of sleep, they might be capable of restoring their mana. But their eyes were now clearly sunken in. As mages, they already had far less physical stamina and endurance to put up with longer periods of strenuous activity. Combined with constant threat of battle, and overdrawing whatever mana they had at the wrong time made the two of them become dead weights for at least a few days now.
As Ryan hacked away at yet another snout that was about to finish of a soldier, he squinted his eyes and looked up at the sky. Or rather, a shadow in the trees moving at high speed in their direction. With a single final leap, the shadow jumped from the tree's branch down towards the Plated Lizards, right on top of one of two bigger lizards that seemed to be in charge. Gaping, Ryan stared at what seemed to be the shape of a person, but he was unsure because of the smokescreen the crash-landing caused. Before he had time to see what happened exactly, a jovial voice spoke from the site of impact. A voice so casual that it seemed worlds apart from the dreary situation they found themselves in.
"Yes yes yes, I made it. Fuuuu, I still overdid it, damn that was a good sprint. I reckon I did it in 45, no, perhaps 40 minutes. Haha, nice. At least mother can't complain now. Hahaha-ha - ha~. Uhm, you lot are alive, right? Yes, you, with the shocked face and the funny mustache. Why do you look so dead? Hmm, well anyway, now that I'm here, nothing bad is gonna happen. Let me take quick care of the lizards, okay~"
The only thing that could escape Ryan's mouth was a single word as he continued staring at the young man that was going through the lizards with his bare fists like an avalanche.. "What?"