Six Months later.
Sken looks around, three broken down tents in front of him. “Jason, are you sure this is their camp?”
Jason turns around, several pieces of clothes in his hands. “Yeah, these are their clothes, but all the signs are pointing to this camp being abandoned for months. My guess is shortly after they sent their last message something got them.”
“Hmmm…” Sken ponders as he kicks over a nearby pot that had been filled with rain water. “Tell the men to setup camp, after everything has been setup, I want you to separate the men into five groups, about twenty men to go scout around the mountain, about fourty to scout the nearby woods, about ten to the nearby city of Flemmington, tell them to secure as much supplies as they can.” Sken pauses for a moment as if he is deep and thought.
“And the rest?” Jason asks as he watch Sken just seem to stop in place.
“Oh… yes… gather up as many that want to, but offer the men one gold coin to whoever finds the elven couple’s house. Only allow up to thirty to participate, and only ones that won’t get lost. Also, make sure they don’t alert the elves. The ones that don’t get assigned to any of the other groups, assign them to guarding and taking care of the camp.” Sken then turns around and walks away.
“Okay men! Gather up!” Jason yells. He watches as all two hundred men that make up the RexDevil group gather together. “Captain has given us our orders.”
-A tent in north eastern Charr-
“You may come in.” A large black beastkin says.
A female beastkin opens the door to the tent, she stares at the beastkin in front of her. In this world, not many things could catch her eye, but the beastkin in front of her always did. His large muscular frame was covered in old battle scars, but it didn’t make him look ugly, instead it seemed to add to his appeal. But the most striking feature was his eyes, his eyes glowed a dark red, which against his jet-black fur were even more breathtaking.
“Why are you here?” The beastkin asks the female beastkin that came in.
“I’m sorry Wraithclaw. I have received a letter from your brother Shadowclaw.” The female beastkin says as she kneels down, holding out a sealed letter.
Wraithclaw walks over to her and takes the letter. “I haven’t heard from him in years, why is he sending me a letter now?” Wraithclaw asks as he starts looking at the writing on the outside of the letter. “This letter is dated nearly six months ago, and it is labeled as urgent, why did it take so long to get here?”
The female beastkin looks up. “The caravan that was carrying it apparently got attacked by local wildlife on the way here. They tried to take a shortcut through the dunes, and they apparently got too close to a dune worm den.”
“Post a reward at the local adventure hall for dune worms. That should be all that I need from you for now so you may leave.” Wraithclaw says as he sits down and starts to open the letter. He skims through the letter, after a few minutes of reading he suddenly drops the letter. He then looks up, his mouth open slightly, revealing his fangs. “That child of mine! I will kill him!” He roars. He then storms out of the tent, causing several guards to look at him.
“Sir?” One asks as they walk up to him.
“Get a carriage and gather up a handful of guards, and do it fast. We are going to Flemmington.” Wraithclaw roars.
“But sir.” The guard attempts to say but collapses to his knees when Wraithclaws paw seems to blur.
“That did not look like you listening to my commands, now get up and get the rest of the guards, we are going.”
“Yes… sir…“ The guard says as he barely gets up, clutching his stomach as he does.
“That damnable cub. I knew I shouldn’t have let him go there.” Wraithclaw says as he goes back into his tent, gathering up the letter and some supplies for the trip. After about twenty minutes a guard comes into the tent.
“Sir, I have thirty guards ready to leave now.” The guard says as he lowers his head.
“Then let’s get going, I have a pup that needs to learn his place.”
-Flemmington Academy-
“Wake up sleepyhead!” An enthusiastic Brittany says as she shakes Astrid.
“Mrrrrrrrr….” Astrid says as she tries to roll away from Brittany.
“Come on Astrid, you know I am heading home for break tomorrow.” Brittany says pouting. She then grins as she reaches down and starts to fondle Astrid’s ears.
Astrid feels as two cold slender hands grip her ears. “EEEP!” She says as she sits up, pushing Brittany away. “You know it bothers me when you do that!”
“Then you should of woke up when I first started shaking you!” Brittany says with a large grin on her face.
Astrid sticks a tongue out at Brittany as she gets up out of bed.
“Heyyyyy, no fair.” Brittany says, pouting as she looks Astrid up and down. “You are growing taller still! Stop it, you are making me feel short now.”
Astrid looks down at her body, noticing that her pants she had since she got to school were several inches too short for her. “I can’t help it that I am a growing.”
“You should go and use some of that money from your job to get some new clothes finally.” Brittany says as she puts a hand on Astrid’s shoulder. “You want to look nice to go see your parents anyways correct? If you go wearing your too small clothes they will think you don’t have any money.”
“I guess, after the morning school meeting I will go clothes shopping, get me a few things.” Astrid says as she gathers a few pieces of clothing that still fit her.
During this entire conversation Viele wakes up, letting out a loud yawn. He stands up from his bed, he stretches out the legs of his new form. Recently due to both him and Astrid getting stronger he has been able to transform into his guardian form. His form is slightly different from the guardian that was slain. The first difference is his size, it is about a third of the size of the original guardian, only going up to Astrid’s waist. The second difference is instead of vines with spikes coming out of his back he has mimic snakes protruding from his back.
“Hungry.” Viele says as he takes a few steps forward.
“You can wait till after the school meeting.” Astrid says as she changes clothes.
Once Brittany and Astrid get dressed they leave, heading over towards the men’s dorm to meet up with Shortclaw and Richard. When they arrive at the dorm they see Shortclaw and Richard already waiting for them. Astrid and Shortclaw hug each other as Shortclaw gives Astrid a quick kiss. “So you ready for class break?” Shortclaw says with a chuckle.
Astrid nods as she is held by Shortclaw.
“Okay you two love birds let’s get going.” Brittany says as she separates the two of them.
They all walk together to the colosseum building that was used when they first joined the school. Instead of walking through the door that goes through to the center of the coliseum they go up some stairs, heading to the bleachers up top. When they reach the bleachers, they see that most of the coliseum is filled, in the center there is a large wooden platform, several teachers are sitting in chairs on it talking. After everyone grabs a seat Blaze appears down below, walking over to the wooden platform.
“Welcome students!” Blaze says, his voice crystal clear as his voice gets amplified by magic. “I am glad you all could make it to this special occasion. Every year at the end of the semester we like to give out awards to students that have shown great promise. Each student that gets awarded gets two things, a plaque showing the world that they excel, and a special gift.” Then afterwards we host a graduation for the senior students.” Blaze lets out a small chuckle that can clearly be heard by everyone. “So… lets go ahead and start giving out these awards! For the first semester students, we choose three, one from the warriors, one from the archery, and one from the mages. From the Archery division of the school the student who shows the greatest amount of promise is Sean Brown from Flemmington, come on down Sean.”
A tall and slender man with brown hair going down to his shoulders stands up in the bleachers and walks down to Blaze. Sean bows down to Blaze as Blaze brings out a leather chest piece with dark black fur. Straining her eyes Astrid can see small details on it that make it look familiar.
“Blaze bought it from uncles shop not that long ago, it’s one of the pieces of armor made from a devourer you killed.” Shortclaw says proudly, wrapping an arm around Astrid.
“Now the second person I would like to call up. She may not be the tallest person on campus, but she isn’t short on questions, or ability! Sherry Stonestomper!” Blaze nearly screams in excitement.
Everyone looks around, trying to see Sherry, finally people can see her as she steps out in the middle of the coliseum. Sherry walks up to Blaze and Blaze hands her a small white egg with a strange red symbol drawn on it. She bows gratefully and quickly tries to do a mixture of walking and running away as her face turns red.
“And last but not least, for the warrior division. This was a hard decision, but it came down to one recommendation from the warrior teacher Maria. That person’s name is Shortclaw! Shortclaw can you come on down?”
Astrid looks over at Shortclaw, Shortclaw doesn’t move for a moment, not believing his name was just called. “Hurry up and get down there!” She yells, nearly pushing him out of his seat as Richard and Brittany cheer Shortclaw on.
Shortclaw nearly sprints down the stairs in his excitement, upon reaching Blaze, blaze leans down and whispers.
“Good job at getting on Maria’s good graces, she usually never makes a recommendation, and definitely not for a man, for you to impress her you did something good.” Blaze reaches for a small wooden box, opening it reveals a gauntlet with several small mana stones embedded in it, all in various colors. “This is a special gauntlet; it is made from several different mana crystals and high quality enchanted steel. It has the ability to absorb mana from magical attacks that are to hit you, kind of like a magical shield. Just a warning though, they can only absorb a couple of small spells or one larger spell. After that they will fill and won’t be able to shield you from that type of mana anymore. So, don’t grow to rely on it, just have it for emergencies.” Blaze reaches over and then hands Shortclaw a plaque. “This is your plaque to show your achievement.”
Shortclaw does a bow as he gets his plaque. “Thank you.” He then turns around and heads back to with Astrid. When he arrives, Astrid gives him a big hug.
“Good job! How come you never told me about all this?” Astrid says excitedly.
“I didn’t even know myself!” Shortclaw says excitedly as he puts on the gauntlet, it seemed to conform to his paw. He wiggles his fingers getting used to the gauntlet.
The rest of the event went on with little attention from Astrid or Shortclaw, after the senior graduation it was already deep into the afternoon.
“So what is everyone’s plans for the break?” Astrid asks as Brittany, Shortclaw, Richard, and her walk away from the coliseum.
“Well, my brother and I have to go see our parents tomorrow. But we will be back at the end of the break.” Brittany says cheerfully.
“Well, I have to stay here, uncle needs my help. That and uncle is saying there is a good chance I may have a visitor during the break so I have to stay here.” Shortclaw says as he wraps an arm around Astrid. “Sorry, but you can do me a favor and tell your parents I say hello.”
“It’s okay.” Astrid says, looking down a little sad.
“Cheer up you silly elf, here how about this, let’s go get one last dinner, buy you some new clothes, and have some fun before everyone leaves tomorrow.” Shortclaw says with a giant grin on his face.
-A cabin near the cursed mountain-
“Will you get off your butt! Our daughter will be back any day now and the house has to be ready!” An exhausted Amber Thorn says as she watches her husband attempt to sit down.
“But the house is cleannnn.” Stratus says as he jolts off out of his seat, he slumps his shoulders, his long elven ears flat against his head as he pouts.
Amber taps her foot. “There are still areas you need to dust, and you need to do it fast before it gets dark. That and we keep on having mercenaries show up lately and I am tired of them having to wipe dust off their clothes when they sit down.”
“Speaking of mercenaries, have you noticed that there has been a large influx of new mercenaries the last day or so?” Stratus says as he lifts the chair he was attempting to sit on and wipes it down with the cloth.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Yeah, I have noticed, every time one wakes Fester up I have to go save them.” Amber says as she holds her forehead.
“How is that old bird doing anyways? All he has been doing is sleeping.”
“You know he hates when you call him a bird, he’s an owlbear. He’s been acting like an old man lately. My guess is it is due to owlbears are supposed to only live for around eighty years, and he is already over three hundred. If something ever happened to me he would probably just end up turning to dust. My guess is he’s just trying to get used to it.” Amber says as she uses wind magic to clean the ceiling.
“I wonder if our little one has grown any, she should be becoming a beautiful woman soon. Just like her mother.” Stratus says as he attempts to sit back down.
“Flattery won’t get you out of work.” Amber says as she blushes slightly. “I’m just glad that I will get to see her again, I know it hasn’t been long in the grand scheme of things but I do miss her.”
-Later that night in a nearby camp-
Jason walks through the camp, several fires are already lit, illuminating the nearby tents. Several mercenaries surrounding each fire. He walks into the largest tent in the camp, upon entering he sees his captain, Sken Rex, laying down in a cot. When Jason takes a step towards the man he appears on his feet, weapon in hand within a flash.
“I hope you have some good news for me Jason.” Sken says as he sheathes his weapon.
Jason bows slightly. “Sir, all men have returned except the ones sent to Flemmington. The reports came back that nothing was found on the mountain. In the forest check, the area seems almost abandoned by most of the wildlife, except for a white owlbear, which is strange due to all the intel we gathered this forest is a high-class danger zone. Also, the scouts looking for the elven home have reported to have found it.”
Sken mostly ignores what Jason says till the very end. “They found them? Then gather all the men, I have some new toys to acquire.” Sken says with a giant grin.
-A cabin near the cursed mountain-
“I have the bed made!” An excited Stratus says as he strips down to his underwear, hopping in the bed and attempting to make the sexiest pose he can.
“Oh dear, you think you are getting anything tonight? After you argued with me so much just to do a little bit of cleaning.” Amber says as she walks into the bedroom, wearing only a small pair of shorts, her overly developed breasts hanging out causing Stratus to stare like a hungry wolf.
“But I worked so hard!” Stratus pouts as Amber sits in bed, his eyes glued on her chest as it bounces ever so slightly when she sits down.
Amber leans forward, kissing her husband deeply before pulling back and smiling. “Okay, I guess you earned it, but no sex when Astrid is back visiting! She is getting old enough to know what we are doing now.”
“Then I have to make sure this night is special!” Stratus says as he pins Amber down, kissing her neck. After a few kisses they both freeze.
“I feel a strong bloodlust.” Stratus says as he stands up.
“Yeah, I just felt a large group of presences surrounding the house. It seems to be over two hundred.” Amber says as she runs over, grabbing a dress and throwing it on. “Two seem to be breaking away from largest part of the group and are heading this way, I will be waking up Fester so he will make his way here.”
Stratus finishes putting on his armor as he hears a knocking on the cabin door. “Well, we may not have to fight after all.” Stratus says as he puts his sword into his sheath.
“Babe, they literally have the cabin surrounded. You know what that means.” Amber says as she throws on a glowing white pendant and places it under her dress.
They both walk to the living area; Amber stands back away from the door as Stratus opens the door. Outside he sees two humans, one taller wearing black leather armor. He has short black hair and his face is covered in battle scars. Stratus can also clearly feel his bloodlust. The other one is shorter and has shoulder length brown hair, he is also wearing a long brown mage’s robe.
“Hello, it’s a little late for a hike in the woods, especially these, how can I help you fine gentlemen.” Stratus says, attempting to fake a smile.
The taller man lets out a loud laugh, startling both Amber and Stratus. “I am sorry for startling you two, let me introduce myself. I am Sken, and this is my second and command the earth mage Jason. I came by your house by chance, I am currently looking for some men that came to this area around five or six months ago, and they seem to have gone missing. One was a brown beastkin that goes by Earthtail, and the other two were humans, one had a bunch of daggers that he always carried around.”
“There has been a lot of mercenaries around here, especially recently. But I think I remember them, they came by seeing if we know anything about the mountain and a weapon of some sort. We told them that rumor was fake and they ended up heading towards the mountain to check it out. That was the last we ever heard of them, more than likely, one of the forest creatures got them.” Stratus says to the Sken. “Sorry we couldn’t be more helpful.”
Sken stands there for a few minutes, staring at Stratus and Amber. “Thanks for the help, if you remember anything else, or for some reason they show up here we will have a camp south east from here.”
Sken and Jason both turn around and head towards the group of soldiers.
Stratus closes the door and sighs in relief. “Thank Gaia, that could of went very bad very fast.” He then looks over at Astrid. “Can you sense them?”
“Yes, the two are walking to the main forces.” Amber’s eyes then grow wide. “About ten people just left the main group and are now heading our way.”
Stratus draws his sword. “Well, I now wish I would have kept up with my training.”
“Make sure they don’t hurt the elves too much; I hate my toys too injured.” Sken says as his men rush by him and Jason towards the house.
Sken and Jason both freeze in place as they hear an explosion behind them. A head and part of an upper body fly over Sken’s head, covering him in guts and bile. The body slams into a mercenary in front of him, his eyes widen as the head slams into the mercenary’s face. The man’s face caves in from the blow killing him instantly.
Sken turns around to see what happened. In front of him the bodies of the subordinates he sent, or what is left of the bodies are lying around. There is a large hole where the door of the cabin used to be, stepping out of the hole is the elf he was just talking to. Behind him is the female elf, her hair seems to be floating and her eyes are glowing a pure white color.
“Do I have to clean this up before our precious daughter gets home?” Stratus asks jokingly. He then looks over to see Amber giving him a dirty look. “Okay, I understand, I will clean up.”
Sken’s eyes grow wide and starts to holler at his troops. “High level air mage! Men get into a defensive anti-magic formation! Mages throw up mana shields and start using bombardment magic, defensive warriors defend the mages, archers fire at the mage! Take her out fast! Jason and I will deal with the warrior!”
“Well you heard the man.” Stratus charges towards Sken, he suddenly vanishes, only reappearing when his strike is stopped by Sken’s blade. “I wanted to finish you off fast, I am definitely rusty.” Stratus says as he dodges a jab from Sken’s armor piercer.
“I will have fun training you to be my toy.” Sken says as he dodges to the side, parrying a sword swipe from Stratus and attempts to jab him again but instead he jabs at air as Stratus disappears again.
Amber stares at the over two hundred soldiers gathering around her, she raises a hand and wind quickly gathers. She then forms a giant spear made from wind, she grasps it as if it were solid and tosses it at a group of the soldiers. She grins as the soldiers try to form a defensive position where the spear is landing. The soldier in front of the wind spear has a giant black shield. Believing the shield would defend him he stands there. His eyes grow wide as the spear penetrates his shield, stabbing him in the chest, before he can do anything, everything the spear penetrated starts to shatter and sling everywhere as there is an explosion. Pieces of the shield and parts of the mercenary’s body fling everywhere, injuring his allies around him.
The archers fire at Amber trying to take her down. The arrows just fall to the ground as they approach her, wind catching them and causing them to lose all power. Amber raises both her hands, condensing air into a small ball, she then throws it into the air.
“Mages! Get more shields up!” A mercenary hollers, several glowing shields get raised between the ball and the army.
The ball of air then expands towards the mages and archers being protected by the mana shields. As the expanded ball presses against the shields there is loud crackles and clanks like something is pressing against the shields threatening to destroy them.
Jason looks back at the scene behind him, his eyes grow wide as he sees the spell threatening his fellow mages. “We can’t let her keep that spell up!” He then starts chanting, his familiar, a small earth spider that is standing beside him, starts shuddering as the massive spell starts activating. “Meteor from heaven, fall to the world and end the life of the heretic that threatens the faithful!” Jason starts to feel exhausted as the spell activates, high in the sky above Amber appears a large rock. Roughly thirty feet wide it starts to plummet towards Amber, threatening to crush her.
Amber looks up as everything around her goes dark, she sees the large rock finish materializing above her. “You wish to bring out the big toys? Then I guess I must return the favor.” She raises both hands to the sky and closes her eyes. “Elven mana of wind, let me become the avatar of your destruction, with your power let me destroy everything!” Amber opens her eyes, something in the center of her chest seems to glow brightly.
The mercenaries watch as Amber chants; they quickly fire more arrows and cast more attack spells but they all get stopped by a strong wind. They all then widen their eyes in fear as the giant rock that was once falling towards the mage suddenly stops. Then instead of falling it changes direction, heading towards them. “Run!” One of the mage mercenaries holler. Their wall of shield soldiers have already separated and ran away from where the rock was being hurtled. Many of the slow mages and archers couldn’t get out of the way. The rock slammed into the ground, instantly crushing many of the mages and other mercenaries who couldn’t get out of the way, the rock then starts rolling from the way it was thrown, crushing more of the unfortunate men and women.
“How!” Jason yells as he looks at the destruction caused by the spell. “There is no way she could have done that!”
“Jason! Forget about them, I am having issues here!” Sken hollers.
Jason grits his teeth and looks as Sken gets pushed back by Stratus’s superior swordsmanship. “Men! All remaining mages and bowmen spread out and distract the mage. All warriors switch to offensive equipment and end her, the one to kill her gets ten gold!” He then casts an earthen bullet spell, the small stone excels from his hand at high speed towards Stratus.
Stratus deflects the spell with ease as he dodges another one of Sken’s thrusts.
“So elf, I heard interesting information in my travels, is it true that your heart is different from humans?” Sken asks trying to find an opening. “I heard that your hearts are in the center of your chest. And the only way to properly kill and elf is to pierce it.”
“Interesting story there, did you come here to talk or do this fight?” Stratus laughs as he jumps into the air, dodging an earthen spike that came up from the ground to skewer him.
“Now!” Sken yells as he jumps up to pierce Stratus as he is mid air and cannot properly defend himself. At the same time Jason fires off multiple earthen bullets directly at Stratus.
Stratus smiles as he watches his two enemies attack him, he twists his body midair. Suddenly his body seems to blur, when Jason’s bullets collide with the blur a tink noise is made and the bullets get blown back at their caster. The bullets slam into Jason, dropping him instantly.
Sken grins as he watches the blur, his trusty weapon armor piercer thrusted in front of him as he attempts to impale the elf hiding in the blur. As soon as the tip of the armor piercer hits the blur Sken’s eyes go wide. The weapon suddenly flies into a different direction, flying out of his hand and slamming into the ground, sinking to the hilt.
Stratus stops and swings his sword at Sken still midair. He grins as the human raises an arm to block the sword from hitting him. Stratus’s sword slices through Sken’s arm as Stratus falls to the ground. When he lands, he turns around to see Sken laying on the ground, the only thing left of his sword arm is a stub. He is also screaming. “I will kill you, you fucking elf!” Stratus slowly walks to Sken. “I should kill you first then.” Stratus walks towards Sken and starts to lift his sword to finish Sken off. Before he could bring down his blade and finish Sken off Stratus’s eyes grow wide as blood starts to flow from his mouth. He looks down to see part of an earthen spike protruding from the center of his chest. “I… guess I really was rusty.”
“Earthen tomb!” Jason yells as he drags himself closer, part of his leg missing from the earthen bullets being reflected.
Stratus closes his eyes as more earthen spikes erupt from the ground, penetrating him and finishing him off. “I’m… sorry.” He says as his thoughts fade.
“Fucking elf!” Sken hollers as he holds part of his shirt to his stump of an arm, trying to stop the bleeding. “Healing mage! We need one immediately!”
One of the surviving mages hear Sken yelling, running over to them he sees the first two in command with grave wounds. He then looks at the elf penetrated by several earthen spikes, his sword still in hand. He stops when he sees this.
“Ignore that! Hurry and heal us before we die from blood loss!” Sken hollers at the mage angrily, he is starting to become light headed. When the mage gets to Sken and casts healing spells to stop the blood loss he looks at the mage angrily. “Is that fucking mage dead?”
The mage looks at him fearfully. “No, we have taken heavy losses, we rushed her with our warriors but they were stopped by a large white owlbear. We have maybe seventy personnel left. About ten are archers, and three are mages. Thankfully she seems to be running low on mana so she won’t be able to last much longer.
“FUCK!” Sken tries to sit up but it just makes him light headed again and he nearly passes out. He grits his teeth as he watches the mage stop him from losing any more blood and run over to Jason to heal him.
“Noooo!” Amber cries out upon seeing her husband impaled by multiple earth spikes. Tears start to flow from her eyes, blurring her vision as she continues to cast spells, slowly trying to make her way to her downed husband. Her body aching as she casts spell after spell, killing the humans one by one. She knows her mana is quickly running low, it would have already been gone if not for her trusty familiar Fester appearing. He quickly tore through the helpless warriors, his large bear like claws tearing through their armor like they weren’t even wearing any. “Fester defend me! I have to save that idiot Stratus!” Tears still flowing from her eyes as she lifts a warrior that charges her into the air, dropping him on his head, his neck snaps as he lands on the ground.
“No! Master, we must escape, he is already dead!” The owlbear hollers in destress as he rips the arm off a warrior and starts to beat the same warrior to death with the arm, much to the horror of everyone around him.
“I’m sorry Fester, I can’t do that.” Amber continues crying as she walks slower and slower with each spell cast. She finally reaches Stratus, putting a hand on his cheek. “Come on babe, we have to clean up this mess before Astrid gets home.” She pauses as there is no reaction from Stratus’s corpse. “Oh, it must be from these dirty things attached to you.” She waves her hand and wind slices the spikes that have his body impaled. She watches as he crumples to the ground without the support of the spikes. “Oh… you must be tired, yeah you are just tired from all the cleaning.” Amber says with tears flowing faster. “Here, you can rest on my lap like we did when we first met, but after that you have to get up okay?” Amber kneels beside Stratus, lifting his head and putting it in her lap. She looks down into his lifeless eyes as her tears fall down splashing Stratus’s face.
The mage that just got done healing Jason stands up, slowly walking towards the crying Amber. “There is no way he survived that, he’s de…” His words get cut short as the mage falls to his knees, blood starts to flow from his neck as his head cleanly slides off his shoulders, his body then finishes falling onto the ground.
“Sorry about that, the trash tried to interrupt your sleep.” Amber says as she strokes Stratus’s head again. “Just hurry up and wake up okay? You wanted to see how much Astrid grew up while she was gone right? I love you.” Amber then pulls Stratus close as a volley of arrows fall from the sky, the arrows cover Amber, penetrating her body, killing her instantly.
“NOOOOOOOO!” An unhuman scream can be heard from the owlbear as he claws another warrior’s face, ripping part of the warrior’s skull off as he does. The owlbear’s movements suddenly stiffen, then stop. Everyone stares waiting for the owlbear to take another life but the owlbear seems to turn grey. It then seems to shatter, as the body parts hit the ground they explode into dust.
The mercenaries watch as the owlbear disappears in the wind. None of them saying a word as they look around to see nothing but their allies, or what is left of them scattered around. As they walk towards where their commander was last known to be all they can do is shudder knowing that they just fought a monster. As they get closer to where their commander is they all freeze, seeing the one who did this to them. “She may be unmoving and more arrow then elf now but I am not going near her.” A mercenary says as he stares at the two elves covered in arrows.
“You cowards, they are both dead!” Sken says as he gets up from his spot, still holding the stub where his arm used to be. “Where the fuck are all the healers? The one that was helping us ended up getting his self killed!”
“We only have one fire mage left sir, and about thirty other troops still alive, the rest all perished in the fight.” A random mercenary says.
Sken screams random obscenities. “Gather everything you can from the elves bodies and house. Get that fucking mage over here, burn those two fucking elves where they lay. Someone go retrieve my weapon. A few of you go help Jason up, we are regrouping and going back to camp. When the rest of the group that went to Flemmington get back with supplies we are getting out of this forsaken place!”