Chapter 15:
Daniel did not sleep well that night. For several reasons. The main one being that they weren’t all that safe. He’d made their campsite as secure as he could with what resources he had and his current ability. But that was far from perfect and he couldn’t help but worry about that.
The other reason was just something in his gut. Something was wrong yet he couldn’t tell what. They’d managed their first battle with only minor injuries and no deaths. People were a bit scared, but they were safe for now. Even Joseph and his group were less troublesome as they recovered from another brush with death.
Yet something still made him feel uneasy. It wasn’t a strong feeling but it was there in the back of his mind.
Which was why he ended up waking every hour or so to scry for trouble. Yet he never found any amiss. There were monsters in the forest but none ever approached their camp. But he never stopped checking.
Eventually, the sun rose and the dark forest was illuminated by what rays of sunlight could break through the dense canopy and Daniel was done trying to sleep. He’d worked with and fought with much worse sleep before. And while his body physically might not be all that up for it, he at least had a bit of a temporary solution for that.
Fifteen minutes after waking, Daniel had another ritual array inscribed on a flattened part of the forest floor. Instead of using any Monster cores, though, he used several plants with minor restorative properties in the center of the array. He could have used Monster Cores for it, as long as he was careful, but since it was a minor spell and he was trying to conserve them, he went with the reagents he gathered instead.
Once everything was in place, he cast Minor Restoration through the ritual. The abundant life-attuned mana in the various plant clippings was drawn out, concentrated, and then slowly infused with his body. Because of how he concentrated the energy, the mana could be seen as a dim green ball of light above the plants, which became a stream and went into his chest. The remaining feeling of fatigue ebbed out of him and he let out a soft sigh of contentment at the feeling.
It was a bit annoying to have to go through so much effort for something a potion could have done, but it was still a lot better than nothing.
“What was that?” A curious voice asked from his side.
Daniel didn’t react to the voice, as he’d heard and noted their approach as he’d been preparing the ritual. He was hardly so tired that he’d let himself get easily sneaked up on. Especially not by someone who wasn’t even trying to sneak.
“A minor restoration spell,” Daniel said, tossing the now-wilted plants into the forest. “It can heal cuts and bruises but it can also help with some fatigue.”
Sapphire hummed in acknowledgment from beside him. “How hard is something like this to learn?”
She was on her knees, peering at the ritual circle before turning those inquisitive bright blue eyes to look at him. Her blonde locks were a bit disheveled but it wasn’t a bad look on her. In fact, the slightly disheveled look had a certain amount of appeal on a woman as good-looking as her…
Daniel pushed away any stupid thoughts that bubbled up from the sight of her and looked down at his array to avoid distractions. He blamed his younger body for being hormonal and more easily susceptible to a beautiful woman. “Depends… On a lot of things. Talent. Specialization. Time. If you have a talent for healing and restoration magic, and you take that as your main focus, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to learn magic like this. Without talent and if you normally specialize in and spend your time on other types of magic, it could take a month just to learn a simple ritual cast version of the spell. And of course, before all that, you’ll need to get a grasp of your mana.”
“I see,” Sapphire said, just kneeling beside him for a moment. “Something to look into in the future, then. Once we are out of here. Seems useful.”
Daniel nodded at that. “It is. Most mages will at least dabble in this kind of magic. Just in case.”
Sapphire hummed in acknowledgment of that and silence fell between the two of them again for a moment. The only sounds were that of bugs and birds in the forest, along with some shuffling around the camp from the other early risers.
“How are we doing in terms of progress? Are we still on track to get out of here in two days?”
Daniel took a second to think about that before replying. He considered just what he’d seen of their surroundings, the estimated distance they needed to cross, and their progress yesterday before they were attacked. He also was mindful of the fact that they could be overheard by someone who didn’t know the full story. “I think so. This is a rough guess mind you, but then again my original estimate was on the conservative side as well. But even with the increase in Monsters in our way, and potentially more encounters, we can still make it in two more days.”
“And what if we’re slowed down by people being tired from yesterday?” Sapphire asked. “Even without major injuries, most of us are just not used to traveling through such harsh conditions. Can your spell help with that? Or maybe another one?”
Daniel frowned at that and shook his head. “The spell probably would help but we don’t have the resources to just cast it carelessly. Though I don’t think it will be that necessary. We covered a decent amount of ground yesterday, but we're closer to a lot more Monsters now, so we’ll be moving a lot slower today anyway. Hopefully that gives those who need it the rest they need to keep up.”
“Alright,” Sapphire said, nodding before looking up with a frown. “Though from what I’ve seen, some people might not be able to keep up, even with a slower pace. We might need to find somewhere to hole up for a day or at least half a day before we keep going.”
Adding another day to their journey? Or at least half a day? Not something Daniel liked the sound of. The forest was pretty dangerous, and while many Monsters were more active at night, there were still plenty active during the day. Staying in place to rest was potentially more dangerous.
But then again, if people just couldn’t keep up…
“Is it really that bad?” Daniel asked.
Sapphire took a second to think it over before answering. “Not right now. But just something to think about. Perhaps your slowed pace will be enough for them, or maybe it won’t be. Just something to consider… I’ll keep an eye on it. Let you know if it becomes an issue. But try and keep an eye out for places we can rest even during the day just in case.”
“Alright,” Daniel said, nodding. “I’ll leave that to you then. And I’ll make sure to keep an eye out.”
“Good,” Sapphire said, before she got up and brushed off her pants. “Now I’m gonna go wake up Jessy and the others. We should probably head out in an hour or so right?”
“Yeah,” Daniel said, looking up at her. “I got some things to prep to help out if we get into another fight. I’ll leave organizing up to you and Clark.”
Sapphire nodded at that and turned to walk away. “Let’s do our best and hopefully we’ll be out of this place in a couple of days.”
With that, she walked off back towards where the majority of her group was sleeping.
Daniel watched her go for a long moment then let out a small sigh.
“I just hope our best will be good enough.”
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Around an hour and a half passed before everyone had awoken. In that time, Daniel did some more scrying, and then worked on a bit more on the enchanting he’d started last night before going to sleep. He turned two of the large wolf Monster crystals into makeshift explosives. Then he carved two more and adjusted his force wand so that they could be used as replacements once his other Monster crystal ran out.
As for the last two crystals, he created two more wands. These were once again rather slapdash compared to his main wands, which were also still very much makeshift, but it was the best he could do in the given time. And while probably wasteful, they would allow him to fully utilize the mana in each of the larger crystals all at once for a single force bolt. Something his main wand couldn’t handle without breaking, but he might end up needing depending on their luck.
Once he was done with that, he ate some of the jerky he still had, drank some water, and helped refill any empty containers with a condensation spell. He also made time to check on Nathan, who seemed a lot better than he’d been yesterday after the battle. With all that done and his friend checked on, he was ready to head out and continue their journey.
Unfortunately, the rest of the group was not.
Many people were scared and worried, mainly those who’d fled from the fight yesterday. Some were still pretty tired from all the hiking so far and more had trouble sleeping. Because of all this many people wanted to rest for the day and head out tomorrow instead.
But Daniel was very much against this. This was the safest place he could find on short notice so everyone could recover from the fight. But all the scrying he’d been doing had given him a pretty good picture of the Monsters in the area and their patterns of movement. Combined with other Monsters continuing back in this direction, and it was very apparent to him that the longer they lingered here the more dangerous things would be.
At the very least, if people wanted to rest, then they needed to find a better location for it.
Getting people to understand that was difficult. Not that they couldn’t understand the logic, but they simply didn’t want to accept it. And while many claimed that it was because of their exhaustion, from the way those same people moved and spoke, Daniel felt it was far more likely that they were scared. They wanted to cling to the illusion of safety this little safe haven gave them.
If Daniel hadn’t had the help, he might have given in and just tried his best to protect the little clearing. But thankfully, he had people on his side, and Clark and Sapphire understood and agreed with his arguments.
So despite much grumbling, they ended up leaving the clearing only having wasted around half an hour. Not the worst and a testament to the two leaders' ability to convince a bunch of tired and scared people.
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The start of their journey through the forest was much more subdued than when they’d left the summoning zone. People were far more nervous. They mostly moved in silence, with only the occasional whispered conversation breaking through the sounds of birds and insects. And, despite having to do many more frequent stops and direction changes, there were a lot less complaints about that as well.
And yet, despite all that, the population of Monsters in the forest was just too great and their group was too large. It was impossible to fully avoid them.
This time though, they would be the ones who started the encounter, giving them much more initiative. Also, it gave time for Daniel to remind people that running away was one of the worst things they could do.
“Alright, everyone,” Daniel said as he stood up after casting another scrying ritual, bringing most of their group’s attention to him. “I’ve done the best I can to navigate around the Monsters, but there is a group up ahead that we can’t get around. Not without getting too close to stronger Monsters”
This drew a rush of whispered protest from many people who had started to crowd around him.
“Look I get it,” Daniel said, raising his hands placatingly. “That last encounter was pretty terrifying. But this forest has a lot of Monsters and I also scryed some slower ones following our trail that I haven’t been able to shake. Our best bet is to take the initiative and attack and get past them. Then I can break our trail there and we can use those carcasses to distract the Monsters after us.“
“You didn’t mention we were being followed!” Joseph whispered with a hiss and a glare.
“Why can’t we just hide again until they go away?” Someone else asked, almost desperately. It was a young woman with a scared look on her face. She was one of the girls that looked to Sapphire for leadership.
“I didn’t mention it,” Daniel said, glaring back at Joseph, “because they are still pretty far behind and they’re slow to boot. They won’t catch up any time soon if we keep moving.” Then he turned his attention to the scared woman, his expression softening. “And there isn’t any good place to hide around here. Not anywhere that I would consider safe and wouldn’t have Monsters wandering into the area. My magic can only do so much to dissuade them. We need to keep moving to find a location like that because at the moment we are out of safe places.”
“Better we take the fight on our own terms than end up hiding and having the Monsters attack us while we hide somewhere unsafe,” Sapphire said, as she moved to stand beside the woman and put her hand on her shoulders. “It’s scary, but this is our reality for now. Maybe when we find people we can avoid Monsters like this, but for now we have to be brave. And I’m assuming the group we're going to be attacking is manageable for us?”
She directed that last question to Daniel who nodded. “Yes. It’s only eight Monsters. More than before I know, but they're much smaller than the wolves we faced yesterday. Just goblins, like the ones that attacked the camp, and if we attack stealthily, we should be able to drop them all with guns or thrown spears before they even know what’s happening. Also we don’t all need to go. Some of us can hang back to avoid revealing ourselves early.”
“Perfect,” Sapphire said with a firm nod. “Then those willing will sneak up on them, drop them all from range, and move on.”
The scared young woman looked at Sapphire nervously for a moment before nodding. “Alright. I guess that doesn’t sound so bad.”
With that said, no one else brought up any more complaints. Probably both because they had so confidently stated how the plan would work and no one wanted to look less brave than the very obviously scared young woman.
“Alright then,” Daniel said and started towards the direction of where he knew where the Monsters lay. “Who’s willing to go?”
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Given their luck so far, Daniel had fully expected something to go wrong when they attacked the group of goblins in their way.
Either everyone they sent to throw their spears would miss, or the goblins would just decide to wander in their direction and spook someone. Hell, with the much smaller targets, maybe their backup gunmen would miss too and things would go all to hell.
Thankfully, though, none of that happened. When their group got close to the goblins, everyone confident enough to try throwing their spears along with more to back them up moved up with Daniel. They crept slowly and quietly through the forest while keeping each other in sight. And when they were within range that the spear throwers thought they’d manage to hit the goblins at, they stopped and waited for Daniel’s signal.
Then Daniel carefully crafted his mana bolt spell with his wand. With the time to be meticulous, he forged the bolt with as little wasted mana as possible, only producing the smallest glow that he hid in the underbrush. He also minimized the amount of mana he drew from the embedded Monster crystal of his wand, drawing only a bit more than what he would guess would be a lethal amount if striking a goblin in its head.
Slowly but smoothly, he raised his wand and pointed at the furthest goblin. Then, the moment he felt he was sure he would hit, he fired the spell.
The faintly glowing projectile soared quickly through the dimly lit forest and slammed into the head of the goblin he’d been aiming at. Almost a dozen spears were thrown and five of them even landed. Then four more were thrown and the last two goblins went down as they frantically looked around for what was attacking them.
Out of the eight goblins, only three of them were dead. One was of course the one Daniel took out, but the other two had been hit in the neck and center of the chest. The other five goblins writhed on the ground as they tried to pull the spears from them, but several were trying to get up despite their injuries.
“Finish them off!” Daniel shouted as he stood and pointed the spear he had in his other hand at the remaining goblins.
Daniel led the charge and rushed to one of the goblins which was on its feet already and speared it in the chest. Behind him everyone who’d kept their spears rushed close and finished the remaining goblins off. Some of them screamed as they blindly thrust their weapons into the struggling green forms. With the goblins injured and caught completely off guard, along with the numbers difference, it was enough.
And just like that, the goblins were dead.
When they went back to where the rest of their people had been waiting, there had been some quiet cheering about the safe victory. They’d managed a fight with Monsters, and this time no one was hurt and the Monsters were slain. That was rather good for morale, especially since some of them were able to gain classes.
Those who managed to actually finish off a goblin were chatting excitedly about their new Spearman Class and the Spear Mastery skill that came with it.
Yet Daniel didn’t really feel like celebrating. Taking out eight goblins with a group of their size or just the ones that had gone and fought was hardly worth celebrating. Also while the new Classes would help, they were still too low-level. And with them fighting in such large groups, that wouldn’t change anytime soon.
But he kept that to himself. For this group of untrained and unready people, it was at least a bit of an accomplishment. And he hardly wanted to spoil people’s mood when they finally seemed to be regaining some of their confidence.
He just hoped that they’d be able to keep this up against more powerful Monsters. Because basic goblins like these were some of the least impressive monsters out there. And while for now they still had ammo to help with larger threats, that would only last for so long.
Still, he didn’t let that worry show as they quickly moved on. He made sure to lead everyone to where the Monsters were, then scryed their area, before sending the group on ahead to the west while he harvested some of the goblins for their Monster cores. Only half of them, though. He hoped that if he left some for the Monsters following their trail, they would stop to consume the meat and the cores.
He also took the time to send a scrying eye back towards the following Monsters, just to see what they were, in case they would turn out to be something to worry about. Thankfully, they just seemed to be some Fanged Deer. They were large with big antlers and grotesque long fangs. But they were following at a more sedate pace. And while they were obviously not herbivores, they were also not as aggressive as most carnivorous Monsters despite their appearance. Hopefully, they’d give up once they were distracted by the food here and potentially lost their trail.
With that done, and after cleaning up with a spell, Daniel moved to catch up to the group. He was careful to not leave a trail himself, while at the same time doing his best to cover up the trail his large group led. That was done with a combination of magic as well as some more mundane work. It wouldn’t trick any proper tracker, like a hunter or a ranger, but would hopefully be enough for the Fanged Deers.
Once he caught up with the group, he stopped his efforts. Ideally, he would be able to keep at it, to avoid any more Monsters following them, but it just wasn’t feasible. It used too much mana for him to do it effectively, and it also distracted him from his scrying. He’d just have to hope for the best, and if something did catch onto their trail, he’d either do the same thing he’d done to the monstrous deer, or they’d have to fight.
And so they continued like this for some time. He made sure to keep an eye out for several defensible positions that they could rest at if it was needed. But as it turned out, after their more successful encounter with Monsters and with the desire to get out of the wilderness, the ones who’d been most eager to find a place to rest and set up camp early were convinced by others to tough it out.
It helped that they had to stop and wait several times for opportunities to slip by different groups of roaming Monsters. Just as Daniel had expected, this gave the weary among them plenty of time to rest their feet through the morning. But despite Daniel’s hopes that this might mean they’d be able to travel the whole day, it was not to be.
They ended up encountering two more groups of Monsters by the afternoon.
The first encounter of the two hadn’t been that bad, though was still more stressful than the first encounter of the day. It had been a family of Spiked Tusk Boars. Not the best kind of things to tackle with handguns, spears, and weak magic, but the best option available to them out of the other Monsters in the way. Daniel had to focus on the parents and bombarded them with spells as well as two of his weaker mana bombs, while the children—still large enough to reach Daniel’s waist on all fours—were handled by everyone else.
They’d managed to kill them but there were some minor injuries. To continue to conserve ammo, they only fired a couple of shots before trying to close in and kill them with spears. Unlike with the goblins though, the boars were far more resilient. Daniel had warned them of this, but the group had decided in a vote to continue to conserve ammo. So they ended up in close combat with the things. And while no one was gored by the boars, a couple had been knocked off their feet by flailing kicks and thrashing heads.
Less of a victory than the first fight of the day, but still much better than yesterday.
The battle that happened after that was much worse.
Daniel had been trying to sneak around a large group of Monsters that had congregated around the bank of a small river. They were too far to be seen, and had been downwind from the group. Yet either because of bad luck or a magical sense, the Monsters had moved in their direction.
They’d just crossed the small river when Daniel noticed the movement. Another group of Fanged Deer, but a much larger one. The river and the cautious nature of the Monsters gave their group time to get organized and meet the Monsters in a semblance of a battle formation. And unlike last time, their group didn’t break up as the Monsters charged.
But even then, there were injuries. They’d managed to at least knock down six of the Monsters before they got into melee range. But the three that had gotten close enough had managed to break one person's arm, another’s leg, and also tore a hunk of flesh from an arm before they were killed. Several other people were hit rather hard as well and were at least very bruised.
Everyone was still alive, and after some quick and rough healing no one was going to die, but all their building confidence was gone.
Seeing the mood people were in, Daniel had led them to an empty cave he’d scryed. It was quite spacious on the inside but was hidden by a copse of trees. A minor ritual enchantment on any fires within would keep them from having problems with smoke, and the narrow opening could be turned into a good choke point to easily take out any attacking Monsters. It wasn’t ideal, as there wasn’t an alternate escape route, but it was better than just relying on his spells and the foliage to hide them.
So they set up camp in that cave, around mid-afternoon, and would either move out again the day after, or perhaps a day after that if the people were too tired to continue.
It was far from what he wanted but it was probably a better outcome all things considered. While there were a couple more injuries, with the broken limbs needing magical attention to prevent them from healing wrong, it was better than anyone dying.
Still, not many people were feeling all that optimistic about that. As they got settled in, Daniel set up the spells needed to hide and protect them before double checking on the ones he’d healed. He could almost feel the anxiety and fear from the people around him.
But Daniel wasn’t the only one who noticed. Clark had as well, and after the fire was made, he tried to gather everyone up and have a pep talk or something.
Daniel was glad Clark would be trying that, as he didn’t feel like he would have been able to say anything that would have helped.
Unfortunately, not everyone was on board with Clark’s attempts at rousing everyone's spirits and reminding them of how well the first two fights went compared to the day before.