CHAPTER 37: The Elf Forest
Adam saw the border of the dimension flash immediately after her got through.
“Damnit!” he snapped, after realizing he was trapped. “The food is all out there.”
He set down the drone since it wouldn’t be useful now. Then he raised the bomb shield to block the dozens of arrows flying towards him, propelled by the winds. The shield was large enough for him to duck down and block his whole body. He could hear the arrowheads become barbs as they made contact with the shield, but they bounced off harmlessly.
“Looks like the shield is sturdy enough. Now, do I try the barrier or just fight?”
Sticking his head out for just a second to look around, he marveled at the scenery. Huge trees formed a forest in front of him. Each tree had rough, dark brown bark. Their diameter was about the length of a mail truck. They reached up 60 feet into the air. No branches stuck out from them within 30 feet of the ground. The branches that appeared higher up looked sturdy and wide enough to support people, which was where Adam expected the arrows were coming from based on their entry angle.
The trees were spaced a bit too precisely to be natural, each 50 feet apart from the ones around them. Their upper branches had grown into each other with lush, dark green leaves, blocking the artificial sky from view. The shadows made everything dim, like twilight, making it harder to see movement. His sight would be negatively affected while in here. The air was stationary except for what surrounded the arrows being shot at him. The whole thing made him feel like he was in a horror movie, right before the killer jumped out at the protagonist.
“Guess I’ll need to add a giant axe to my weapons,” Adam sighed. “Let’s see if I can knock over a tree.”
The shield was tilted upwards as Adam aimed his body at the nearest tree. His foot planted into the ground. To make sure he had enough power, he activated the heat and river inside of him. The heat pulsed through his body, spreading into his limbs. Anger rode the pulses. CONQUER, the inner voice screamed as rage flowed throughout the river. Images of goblins and elves flashed through his mind, doing horrible things to his friends.
Once his skin started to smoke, Adam burst forward. He arrived at the tree and slammed the solid shield directly into the truck. A clank echoed through the forest and the bottom lip of the shield actually bent. Arrows had stopped tracking him as he charged, but now they came to his new position, so he turned the shield behind him and inspected the tree trunk.
While the shield had taken damage, the trunk of the tree was only scratched. It was clearly more solid than any plant on earth. In frustration, he kicked the tree as if he was kicking in a door. The strength flowing through him burst out as the sole of his shoe exploded, shredding into pieces while leaving the neck of the shoe and dangling laces.
“Damnit!” He cursed. Then an arrow snuck by the side of the shield and took him in the ribs. It didn’t penetrate deeply but the barb spiked inside, causing pain and annoying him as he moved. With all the anger and rage powering him up, he roared loudly. For a very short time new arrows stopped coming.
Adam barely had a thought as he rocketed upwards, catching on a branch. It was hard to see in the dim light, so he kicked off the branch he was on, moving towards the nearest shadow. His sledgehammer swung and connected with the head of an elf, bursting it. Before he even finished the swing, three arrows took him in the back. The burning from the poisons, and the barbs that formed inside his muscles continued to cause internal damage as he jumped in the direction the arrows had come from.
Landing on a branch that was protruding from a different area of the same tree, Adam once again swung at the shadows. This time, he felt no connection, but a knife bit into his calf. Automatically he swatted his shield towards the area, but the crouching elf used wind to float backwards, a cushion of air staying between the shield and elf. Two more arrows hit him in the thigh, tightening the muscles there and causing him to stand up straighter. Unfortunately, that opened his right shoulder to getting hit by an arrow that had a thick green barrier around it. This arrow penetrated halfway through his shoulder, with the arrowhead sticking out the back without a barb. Adam’s balance was thrown off and he couldn’t even pinwheel his arms as he fell backwards off the branch he was on.
There was no way to control his fall, since the weight of the shield pulled him straight down, shoulder and all. The impact with the ground was loud and painful. The shoulder tied to the shield was in agony, but that didn’t stop another volley of arrows which pierced his exposed side and hip. The barbs were getting into his joints now, and the irritation from them would just tear up his insides if this went on.
Instinct caused Adam to push his body onto his side, inching several arrows deeper, so that he could pull the shield above him for protection. He laid there in pain and anger for several minutes as the heat of his body burned off the poisons affecting his muscles. The arrows had quickly stopped, but there was no doubt they would come again as soon as he was uncovered. There were probably also stealthers heading towards him as he lay there.
During this time, Adam had been riding the river for power, but now he pulled back, reaching for the coolness waiting in his mind. It was a challenge to reach through the anger and pain, but he was getting able to grasp it and pull in down to calm the heat pulsing through him and slow the river.
Once he was calmer, he realized how obvious it was that he would fail at this type of combat. Even if he was faster and stronger than them, his vision was affected, he had no ranged weapon, and his approach to them was easy to read and took time. He needed to figure out a different way to fight. But before that, he needed to get these damn barbs out of him.
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The place he had fallen to was between three different trees. Trying to remember the directions he had jumped from, he was able to plot back to the entrance of the dimension. Very slowly and cautiously, Adam lifted the shield above him and squatted down. Once his balance was set, and before a new set of arrows reached him, he lunged towards where he had come from. When he reached the final tree, he dodged to the side, bringing himself up against the trunk, and then held the shield directly overhead.
Two arrows pinged off the shield from above, indicating that there were two archers there. He pulled out a smaller hunting knife and cut the strap tying the shield to his shoulder. This allowed him to hold the shield in a more outreached position, while he turned the knife on himself.
He cut the arrows out of his legs and hips, having to also cut slits in the sweat pants he had worn. Blood leaked all over them, stiffening the material as it dried. Cutting the barbs out wasn’t easy and at the end he had lost a moderate amount of blood and done quite a bit of damage to himself. Skin and muscles were sliced through and then shredded by the barbs coming out.
Getting the arrows out of his side and shoulder was even more challenging. The shoulder one didn’t have a barb, instead it had a natural roughness to it that stuck it to his insides. Because he still had to hold the shield up with his uninjured arm, he had to snap it in two using the trunk of the tree he was pressed against.
Since the pierced shoulder led to his only available arm, it was a difficult angle, and there was weakness caused by the injury. Adam was forced to angle oddly and cause more pain as it took several attempts to snap the shaft directly in the wound, causing yet more damage. Whoever thought of these arrows was a real bastard, and Adam would love to lodge his complaint in person.
The side ones were even more difficult to remove. He was wearing the heavy body armor, which didn’t have plating on the areas where the arm rested when down. Those were a strong fabric, like canvas. The armor couldn’t be taken off one handed, especially in the position he kept the shield. That meant he would need to cut through the fabric, making the armor unusable afterwards. It would become an extremely heavy, unsecured tabard that would flap from his movements and throw his balance off.
“Yeah, I’m a dumbass,” Adam said as he realized how unprepared he was for this battle. Never once had he thought it wouldn’t be his choice to be separated from his group. All those people meant other targets for the arrows, other arms to hold the shields, and projectiles the enemies needed to guard against. They would have had to choose between him or his ranged companions.
Now that was all moot. He couldn’t just plow through the enemies with force because he would run out of energy and food long before, even if he drank the elves’ blood to regenerate from the constant wounds. His body would become a pincushion and eventually all those barbs inside would slow him down too much.
How should he approach this, he wondered as he cut a slit down through the canvas side, and then his own side, and wiggled the barbs out. Even that little wiggling made the armor pull him back and forth. No matter how strong he was, he still weighed only 165 lbs, easily displaced by other heavy objects. Giving up on it he cut through the canvas on the shoulder of his shield arm and let the armored vest drop to the ground.
His body was a mess. Cuts from his own knife were all over him leaking blood. He could already feel a gnawing hunger building inside. At least for the moment he had a solution to his wounds.
“My spider sense is tingling,” he said sarcastically as he dodged to the side. It was a very awkward move, as his hip didn’t respond correctly while he was still holding a 300lb shield above his head.
The knife barely missed his wounded arm. His still sneakered foot came up and popped the attacking elf’s arm upwards, allowing him to grab the wrist. A knee rammed into the elf’s solar plexus, or where it would be on a human, with enough force that it didn’t matter if the anatomy was different. Bones cracked.
As the elf started to bend over from the force of the knee, Adam ripped the knife out of the elf’s hand and then raked it across the elf’s wrist. He clamped his mouth on the new wound. An exceptionally acidic taste came into his mouth, burning his lips, tongue, throat, and gums, as he drank, sucking in as much as he could. His wounds were numerous, but not deep, so it took a lot less blood to regenerate than it had after fighting the goblin chief.
Once the elf fell dead, no more blood flowing from the wounds. Adam spat several times, trying to clear out the taste.
“That is disgusting. I can’t believe that nasty goblin blood tasted better than the elf’s. These are wood elves, couldn’t they have been mint, or maple syrup flavored? I need to remember to carry a box or two of snack bars and canteens of juice with me to clear out the taste in the future.”
Two more knives were thrust at him at the same time from both sides. With his wounds now healed, it was easy for him to step forwards, then spin his leg behind him knocking both elves over with his kick. He quickly stomped their necks so that they wouldn’t get up again.
As quick as he had been with his kick, arrows had still come from above him and narrowly missed his leg when it was out from under the shield.
“Yup, this is gonna suck,” Adam mumbled as he backed to the tree and checked the position of his overhead shield. Even his arm was going to run out of strength holding such a heavy shield.
“Well, option 1 is to let all the assassins come to me. Somehow, I don’t think that’ll work though. Let’s see, what are my priorities. I want to kill all the elves, the corruption that says conquer is insisting on it, but I don’t think it’s actually necessary to. If I get control of the dimension’s control crystal, then I can let everyone else in. Besides, if I kill everyone then there is no XP for everyone else. I’m unable to use it, leaving our group unprepared for the next, stronger one.
“Unfortunately, if I don’t kill them all, then my group might rush right in to be attacked by the ones I left alive. That would be a slaughter for the police, which would also weaken us. Hmm… So I need to incapacitate them so they won’t die.
“Cutting their necks will cause them to bleed out. Concussions without brain damage will allow them to get back up, and I don’t know how long I’ll need to leave them unable to fight for. Anyone who seems like they might have healing powers will just need to die right away. That leaves precision cuts to their wrists, legs, and armpits that sever their tendons without causing much bleeding. Can I be that precise while in combat? Can I even be that cruel? I have to agree with Emily that they’re people, even if they’re enemies.”
Adam's arm shot out to his side as he snatched a single arrow out of the air. His arm then continued its motion, turning so the arrowhead stuck into the neck of an approaching elf who had blended with the bark of the tree. The arrowhead formed a barb upon penetration, and Adam simply ripped it back out, opening the neck to ensure the elf would die.
With the dim light, and the camouflage colors they wore, he also needed to think of a way to find them without sight. Using his danger sense would only keep him on his back foot and might lead him to ambushes.
“Ugh, more troubles. How many of them are there? How far is each one? How can I close the distance without having to dodge arrows all the time?”
This was going to take a lot of figuring out.