It wasn’t long after they returned from Nontorum that the first snow of the year hit, and boy did it hit. 3 days of constant snow, by the time the snow had finally stopped falling there was over 3 feet of snow. Bjorn got a good laugh out of Medera, as she was trying to get over to the shed the snow came up to her shoulders. She had to dig a path through the snow almost being buried in it. After she got to the shed and made it back to the cabin with a pair of snow shoes Bjorn was on the ground crying laughing at her predicament. Her response was to hit him with her snow shoes. Every time she hit him with the shoe he got flashbacks to watching her struggle in the snow causing a new round of laughter at her plight.
The next few days they spent it cooped up in the cabin, Medera grabbed her wood working tools and her leather working tools and taught Bjorn how to make snow shoes. They spent the next few days working on the snow shoes.
The snow shoes themselves were made out of a wooden frame that they cut the wood into long strips, then they added another layer of wood and bound them together. They used a piece of the black tar vine that they put into a pot of boiling water, which rendered down into a sticky fluid that they used in between the layers of wood. Once they layered the wood 5 times they bent it back on itself and tied it secure with the two ends connecting. Next they took the leather that they got in exchange for their deer hide and cut out 2 oblong circles. They then took the leather and applied a paste that they made out of a snagwort and glidegrass to the bottom of the leather, letting that cure for a day. After it had set they grabbed some rivets that Medera had bought from the blacksmith and used those to affix the leather to the wooden frame. Doing that twice, they then cut long thin straps of leather and affixed them to the wooden frame. Creating an elaborate knot system that Medera told Bjorn would hold the shoes to his feet. Once they finished the shoes Bjorn got 2 new prompts.
You have gained the skill: Carpentry. There are many things in life that are very satisfying. One of which is seeing your wood in all its glory after you are done working it, smoothing it, and polishing it. Today you start your journey at learning how to treat wood right.
You have gained the skill: Leatherworking. I’m sorry, I don't really have much for you here, it’s pretty self explanatory, you now are better at working with leather.
Telling Medera about the prompts she just laughed. “That’s not what it told me when I gained the woodworking skill. Maybe the universe is saying you like to handle wood.”
“Hey!” Exclaimed Bjorn, “I do not like to handle wood. That is an accusation that I won’t stand for.”
“One does protest too much I think. Whatever you say Bjorn, who am I to judge your proclivities? Just try and keep whatever you get from your wood polishing outside. I do not want to have to clean up anything that comes from that.”
Knowing that no matter what he said he wouldn’t be able to change Medera’s mind he just kept his thoughts to himself.
“I don’t know what to tell you about the leatherworking prompt, it is pretty self explanatory, if you can’t figure out the usefulness of leatherworking then you are hopeless.”
After making the snow shoes they settled into a routine, there wasn’t much to really talk about, the days got shorter, they spent most of their days inside. What few excursions they made outside were every few days, mostly to get more food, tend to the garden, checking up on how the plants were doing, and gather fresh drinking water from the well. It did continue to snow, not nearly as much as it did the first few days. Every 2 to 3 days there were new snow accumulations of 4 to 5 inches. It was a good thing that they stocked up on firewood to heat the house, the snow accumulation would have made it hard if not impossible to collect firewood to heat the cabin.
On the bright side Medera’s cabin had a pretty clever design, she had built an underground heating pit under the floorboards of her house, which once the fire had been lit down there, it was a slow burning fire, with it venting outside, it kept the house surprisingly warm throughout the day without much wood requirement for heating.
Most of their time together was spent cooking, brewing potions, Medera talking about plants, her teaching him languages, or even trying to teach him earth magic. It was a godsend that Bjorn had been found by Medera, she was an unending source of knowledge. It is honestly impressive that she was able to keep it all straight in her mind. She was a jack of all trades, everything she had taught him was useful and would make his life easier or more likely to survive in the future. Her unending fount of knowledge on plants alone. As she kept talking about all the various plants, where to find them, how to collect them, how to propagate them. It really drove home how much she knew, it felt like she was just breaching the tip of the ice berg of all of her knowledge.
“Medera, what is your skill level in herb-lore?” asked Bjorn one day as they were eating.
“Well you're awfully bold today.” She replied. “But to answer your question, my skill level is 67.”
When she said that, Bjorn choked on his water, and started coughing. Once his airways were clear again he asked. “I don’t think I heard you correctly, did you say 67?”
“I did in fact say 67, your ears did not deceive you.”
“And you aren’t considered a master in herb-lore?”
“No i am not considered a master, to be considered a master you need a skill level of at least 100, from skill level 0 to 9 you are a beginner, 10 to 24 you are considered a novice, from 25 to 49 an apprentice, 50 to 74 journeyman, and finally 75 to 99 an adept. So therefore I am a journeyman. Each rank you obtain in a skill gives you some sort of benefit, there as far as I know the benefits aren’t the same for each person. For example my first benefit I got for reaching novice was increased growth on any herb I cultivate. Through testing it seemed to double the rate at which my herbs grew.”
“That’s awesome.” interjected Bjorn.
With a glare Medera picked back up where she left off. “Yes it is awesome, it is honestly what has allowed me to get as far as I have as an alchemist. Normally people have to purchase the plants they want to continue to grow their craft, luckily for me I also grow my craft.” As she finished that last sentence she started to smile at her play on words.
“When I got to level 10 in alchemy I gained a benefit.” Said Bjorn. “It decreased my likelihood to fail potion brewing by 50%.”
“Now now, who really has the good bonus here? My level 10 benefit made me 25% more effective in teaching other people how to do alchemy. I would literally kill for my potions to fail less.” Medera shook her head in bewilderment. “Some people have all the luck.”
Another thing that took up a lot of their time was Medera trying to teach Bjorn earth magic. Apparently trying to learn a spell from scratch was hard, if not borderline impossible. There were so many different things that affected the spell. Once you had a decent enough grasp on how it worked though and how the spell interacted and was affected by the world around it, you would learn the spell, and then the ability to cast the spell becomes second nature. Again the answer as to how that happened was magic.
They spent countless hours trying to get Bjorn to feel the mana, to focus and form the mana in his body into whatever shape he willed. “Mana flows through your body just like how blood flows through you, but instead of the heart being the core of where it all flows it is the brain.” It was like trying to learn how to control his circulatory system. One day something inside of him just clicked, and it felt like he understood how to control it. Instead of trying to force the mana to be directed in his body it was like he just willed it and it should happen. Except nothing actually happened.
Explaining his feeling to Medera she told him “That is entirely wrong, you don't will, you don't force, you just do it.” That cryptic message from Medera didn’t help at all, how do you just do something you can’t do? Not being deterred Bjorn kept trying to learn how to manipulate the mana flow in his body.
That wasn’t the only thing they worked on, Medera also started to teach him the theory on how the spell works with the environment, how it changes based on the type of stone under the ground, the distance, even the moisture of the soil affected how the spell was cast. It was extremely tedious. If the stone was 4 feet down and the soil was wet, and the stone was a calcite you moved the mana in this direction through your body, all while making a slight horizontal cut through the air as the somatic component of the spell. The cut had to start right above the right shoulder and had to end at just below the armpit of the left side of his body. But god forbid that the stone was actually 3 feet down and was jagged. Because then you had to cut the other way starting from your left hip with the left hand up to your left shoulder with your right hand.
Needless to say they struggled to get Bjorn to even start to break ground on how to cast the spell, or how it even worked to begin with. But they still struggled on, Medera was trying to teach Bjorn a first level earth spell, called cast stone. Which did just that, formed a stone ball from the earth and cast it at whatever he was aiming at. Which really sounded useless.
One day there was a breakthrough and a stone that was on the ground moved 1 foot closer to Bjorn upon casting the spell. His mana decreased by 1 point. And what followed next was a godsend.
Congratulations you have gained a new school of magic: Earth magic. You have started your path down the most grounded (Ha nice pun.) of all the magic schools. Through the exploration of the concept of earth you will gain a better understanding of the world around you.
Spell: Cast stone
Cast time: 1 second
Components: Verble, Somatic
Range:100 feet*
Duration: 10 seconds
Effect: Summons a small stone from the ground which will slowly raise to eye level. You have 10 seconds after the spell has been cast before the magic of the spell fades and the stone will drop back to the ground. The stone will travel in a straight line for 100 feet and then lose momentum and height after the 100 feet. The stone can be cast at any target you choose within the 100 feet.
Sighing in relief they both took the next day off to celebrate the fact that Bjorn finally made headway, and was actually able to learn the spell.
“You know you are quite lucky. Most people go their entire life without ever learning how to cast magic, and you are now able to cast 2 different kinds of magic spells from different schools of magic. You now are able to do what most people only ever dream of.”
With a giant grin on his face he turned and hugged Medera. “Thank you Medera for teaching me earth magic, I didn’t ever think I'd learn how to do magic. Where I come from there isn’t any magic in the world. This is really a dream come true.”
“You’re welcome child, although if you had a more competent teacher we could have saved both of us a lot of time.”
“What do you mean? I think you did a wonderful job teaching me how to cast that spell.”
“Well, there are 3 different ways you can learn magic that I know of, the first one is with a spell book which you are already familiar with. The second way is by studying and learning how the spell works. Obviously as you have just learned it is a long and labor intensive way to learn. Once you have a good enough grasp on how the spell works you will learn the rest of the information by magic and gain access to casting the spell. The last one that i know of is by having a mage who is at least journeyman in rank in that school of magic teach it to you, it is the most surefire way to learn spells. You learn the spell in seconds rather than slowly over time, and when you learn spells from spellbooks there is a chance that you actually don't learn the spell. That isn’t the case when the spell is taught to you by a journeyman spellcaster, if you have some sort of affinity to a class of magic you will learn the spell being taught to you,”
“Reguardless, I am thankful that you have taken the time to teach me how to cast earth magic. I am sure it will come in handy in the future.”
They also made inroads on teaching Bjorn languages, he got his ability to speak common to an acceptable level, roughly where his mountain dwarvish was at. Once he got to that point Medera started to teach him the last language that she knew, which was Orcish. Their language lessons started to alternate between Orcish and back to mountain dwarvish. Medera kept telling Bjorn she was getting tired of listening to him butcher her language. She also told him it would be nice to talk to him with words that weren’t like a child's.
That is how half of the winter passed, nothing overly exciting, falling into a routine, and practicing his new spell. Bjorn started for an hour every day practicing with his cast stone spell. At first his aim was off, it wasn’t like shooting his bow, where you could sight down the arrow and it would go straight. The small stone ball would come out of the ground, and come to hover near Bjorn, he could then cast the stone whenever he wanted, aiming for whatever he wanted. But it wasn’t like throwing a ball, the stone wasn’t affected by gravity until it passed 100 feet. So aiming was odd, once the stone was “thrown” it would travel in a straight line from wherever it was hovering to the point he was aiming at. It traveled through the air like a vector, until it hit that 100 feet mark then it would start to drop off. So most of his 1 hour was spent casting the stone until his mana was almost depleted and then resting. All of his practice started to pay dividends though. His aim was starting to get better, and he no longer had to let the stone start to hover towards eye level to start to get close to the target. In all things, the closer the target the easier it was to hit.
Another added benefit to all the mental work he had been doing over the winter, he gained some stat points. He gained 2 in intelligence, and 1 point in wisdom. Apparently all it took to really train those stat points was to work your mind day and night for months at a time trying to learn and remember all sorts of asinine information. Almost like the school system back on earth.
It was on one of those days where Bjorn was working on his cast stone spell when something changed. He was continually casting his spell when there was a snap of breaking wood off to the side of the clearing. Wheeling around there was a skeleton standing there. This skeleton looked like a rotting corpse, in the later stages of decomposition. There were points on its body where the skeleton could easily be seen, and other points where the flesh was still hanging on the body. Its head was just like that, there was a line across its face going from left ear to upper right jaw where the top half still had flesh on it, oddly enough its eye sockets were empty. But below the line there wasn’t a bit of flesh and clean white bone could be seen until you got to its neck. The skeleton was on the taller side, around 6 and a half feet tall.
Seeing the skeleton Bjorn just froze, it was the middle of the day and Medera had told him that skeletons shouldn’t be out in the sun. The skeleton was just standing at the edge of the clearing staring at Bjorn. After a second it started running at him. Its movements did not seem to be impeded at all by the deep snow. Calling out for Medera he took aim at the skeleton and let the stone he had just formed fly. It flew with uncanny accuracy and hit the skeleton in the collar. There was a resounding snap as the stone came in contact with its collar bone. But even with the hit it didn’t slow down the skeleton at all. Casting again he threw the stone and it went wide. That is when the skeleton got to him and tackled him to the ground. The door to the cabin flew open and Medera was standing there. In a moment she took in what was happening and started to cast a spell. In the meantime when Bjorn was tackled to the ground they fell into the deep snow getting engulfed in it. As they were both on the ground wrestling to gain the upper hand, this skeleton wasn’t quite as strong as the last skeleton, but it was significantly more gross. As he was trying to gain control of the fight his hands kept slipping into the areas with the decomposing body getting covered in frozen gore.
Bjorn soon got the upper hand and started to extricate himself from the skeleton. As he was pulling himself back it got a good grasp on his right arm and started to pull itself towards his arm. As Bjorn got back to a standing position the skeleton had drug itself up as well and pulled itself towards Bjorn's arm. It sunk its teeth into the meat of his right upper arm. Blood started to well from where its teeth punctured his skin. Yelling in pain Bjorn raised his left arm preparing to strike down on the skeleton but he wasn’t fast enough. Medera’s spell had successfully been cast but she hadn’t dared cast it before she could see both Bjorn and the skeleton. As Bjorn had stood up and the skeleton started to pull itself towards his arm their fight had positioned them so that they were presenting a board side to Medera and she let her spell fly. 3 Stone spikes flew at the skeleton, and they flew true. Catching the skeleton in the side, they landed with a sickening crunch. Two of the stone spikes landed in the meaty part of the lower half of its body, the last one broke through its ribcage and severed the spine right before exiting the other side of its ribcage. As the skeleton’s lower half disconnected from the upper half Bjorn’s left hand came crashing down on its skull, with another crunch the skeleton went limp.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Pulling the skeleton off of his arm Bjorn threw it to the ground. Rushing over Medera took a look at Bjorn’s arm. “Why is it you always let yourself get in close to these damn creatures. That is why you keep getting hurt.”
“Yes.” Replied Bjorn, “I intentionally let the half falling apart skeleton tackle me. I woke up this morning and thought to myself ‘I want to let a rotting corpse pull me to the ground and try to bite me.’”
“Alright, your sarcasm is heard and understood. This is not good, the skeleton coming here in broad daylight, I think we need to do something about this. Tomorrow we should try and take the skeleton’s lair, if we can. If we are forced to retreat, we should relocate, otherwise it will be a problem we will have to put up with until we both die. We can’t get lucky forever.”
“I agree we should do something about them, but with that bite my hp is down by 8, we should let me heal up fully before we go looking for a fight.”
“That’s fair and I agree, if you take some kingsheart every 12 hours we should be ready to fight in about 4 days. Let’s do that, I'm going to make a poison from the nightsbane we have been using. If we coat your weapons in it, it will make you more effective at killing them.”
Over the next 3 days Medera spent it working on making a poison she called night's killer. Medera made a lot of the stuff, enough to coat the blade of his sword and the arrowheads of his arrows. The last day they spent it just sitting around. They set up a watch. All of Bjorn’s waking time was spent keeping an eye out for any more skeletons while Medera slept or spent it working on the poison. Medera just kept watch while Bjorn slept.
At the dawn of the 4th day Bjorn’s health was 119 out of 120. Agreeing that it wasn’t worth waiting any longer they both grabbed a few potions. Medera grabbed a stamina, a health, and a few mana potions. Bjorn on the other hand had a mana potion, and several stamina and health potions. They came up with the battle plan that Medera would be the back line. If they spotted a skeleton they both would stand back and hit it at a range before they were noticed. Once the skeleton was almost to them Bjorn would switch into using his sword.
Being fully stocked up, and with a battle plan, Bjorn finally grabbed the night’s killer poison and they set off for the cave. Their usual joviality was absent as they moved. Being a bit somber they continued to travel onwards. Soon they found the cave. As they approached the cave they took cover behind a large tree. Bjorn motioned to Medera to say put. Sneaking around the tree he got a good view of the cave entrance. In the entrance 2 skeletons were standing there as guards.
Slinking back to Medera, Bjorn spoke to her in a low voice. “There are two skeletons standing guard at the cave entrance. They have made no motion that indicates that they have seen us yet. Do you have a spell you can cast that doesn’t cause a light? Or one that allows you to prepare the spell here in cover?”
Medera nodded and started to cast her usual spell creating the stone spikes. “I think it is time you coat some of your arrows in that poison. When we come around I'll target the further one away, I’ll count to 3 and on 3 we will let our spells and arrows fly.”
Nodding in understanding Bjorn took one of the vials of the poison and used it to coat the head of 5 arrows. They both snuck around the tree again. Took aim at their respective skeletons and Medera started to count. “1. 2. 3!” on three they both let their attacks go. Bjorn’s arrow shot away from his bow, and caught his skeleton in the eye. Instantly killing it. As the arrow made contact with the eye socket a golden glow spread from the arrowhead and overpowered the blue the skeletons' eyes normally were. When the effect ended the skeleton’s eye sockets were empty and it collapsed in a pile of bones. As for Medera’s attack the 3 stone spikes shot forth from her hand and all three connected. The skeleton’s body crumbled to the ground as whatever magic was used to reanimate it was spent.
Pulling up his notifications because he was curious what the poison’s effect really was.
You have struck a level 8 skeleton with a sneak attack.
You have hit level 8 skeleton for 147 damage.
Night’s killer poison’s damage will be amplified due to the sneak attack.
Night’s killer poison deals 29 light poison damage per second for the next 10 seconds.
You have killed level 8 skeleton.
Level up!
“Medera, I could hug you.” said Bjorn, “This poison is amazing, every time I think I know everything you have you still surprise me.”
“I know you say you could hug me, but don’t. I don’t want to watch you try to figure out how to touch a woman for the first time in your life.”
“Hey! I’ve touched women.”
“Uh huh. Anyways we will have to be careful going forward, obviously whatever these skeletons have as something in charge is aware of us.”
They started to head into the cave all the while moving forward in stealth. It was weird, when Medera was in stealth, Bjorn could see her as she entered it, if he didn’t take his eyes off of her he could still see her. Once he looked away, he couldn’t really find her, it was like she blended into the rocks of the walls around them. As soon as she spoke or if Bjorn concentrated on the area she should be in he could find her again, but if he didn’t really look overly hard she was near invisible to him.
Soon they made it back to the first room, it looked just as disheveled as it did when Bjorn left it last. The hole was still there in the ground, the waterfall was still coming out of the hole in the middle of the ceiling, cascading into the middle of the room. The only notable exceptions were that the box and the skeleton were gone.
Pointing at the exit on the ledge Bjorn said. “That was the way I explored last time, where I got ambushed by the skeletons.”
“Well we should start there I guess.”
And onwards they went, as they went down the tunnel Bjorn resummoned his simple light spell providing them the light they needed to see the way forward. Once they got back to that same room that Bjorn got ambushed in he nodded to Medera. Nodding back she took a wide stance and started to cast a spell that Bjorn hadn’t seen her cast before. Her hands took on a pure white glow as she chanted the spell. Soon a ball of light condensed in between her hands and when she finished casting the ball of light shot forward from here towards the ceiling. Once it collided with the roof of the room a dim light spread throughout the entire cavern, illuminating the entire room. The light wasn’t bright enough to see everything clearly, but it was bright enough that they could see objects in the room.
The cavern was a large cavern, at least 4 to 5 hundred across and about the same in width. On the right side of the cavern there was an underground lake, which took up about half of the total space. On the left side of the cave there were the remains of a house. On the far side of the cavern there was another cave entrance. There was nothing else really in sight.
“This is where I got attacked last time.” Bjorn pointed to the ground where the ground of the cave was disturbed. It was fairly obvious where it had happened. Seeing how that was the only patch of disturbed ground in the entire cavern.
“Noted, no signs of skeletons yet, let’s check out that house.”
So off they went towards the house. As they got closer it was easier to make out details of the home. It looked like it was carved into the stone, with stone walls being built into the room giving the residence more space in their home. There was a stone roof, it looked to be a fairly large home, a 2 story building. Getting even nearer, they could see more details. The stone itself was blackened. Once they got to the home they touched the stone and their hands came away also blackened.
“Soot, someone burned what they could of the house down. Probably after killing the residents.” Nodding in agreement Bjorn walked over to one of the windows to get a better look inside, and all he could see was darkness. Throwing the simple light spell inside the building it came to rest on the far wall, the room was small in relation to the rest of the house, and was empty. The room had 2 different doorways leading further into the building. Each of the doorways were larger than what would be needed for a human to live in, being at least 8 feet tall.
Recasting his spell and drawing his sword, Bjorn walked through the door into the building with Medera trailing not too far behind him. Checking the first doorway it led to a hallway with multiple other doors leading off of it. As Bjorn started walking towards the other doorway, a large skeleton came lumbering through the doorway.
The skeleton could barely be called a humanoid. Towering at 7 feet tall. It stood upright and had 4 limbs, but that is where the similarities ended. The creature had two legs, which looked doglike in nature. At the base of the foot there was a bone that went straight up, and then came to an elbow which angled forward before coming to another elbow which led to the bone attaching to a hip socket. Its two arms were human like but long, too long. The upper part of the arm came down almost to its hipbones, where the lower part of its arms almost touched the ground as it moved. Each arm led down to its hand which had 4 fingers per hand, and each finger was long and narrow like a claw. Its head was that of a dog, being even larger than its form would suggest. Its eyes had the same blue glow to it that the other skeletons had.
After raising to its full height the skeleton dropped down onto all 4s and lunged at Bjorn. The entire time the skeleton was preparing for its attack Bjorn and Medera weren’t sitting around idle, Medera started to cast a spell and Bjorn assumed an athletic stance with his poison coated sword slightly in front of him.
As the skeleton lunged forward at Bjorn he dove to the side, landing in a roll he quickly got back on his feet and faced the skeleton. Having missed its lung the skeleton landed in a heep and quickly turned around. It wasn’t fast enough, Medera's attack landed on the skeleton, as the ceiling above where the skeleton landed crumbled falling onto it. Bjorn also charged forward bringing his poison coated sword down on the creature's arm. The sword came swishing down on its forearm splitting it in two. The amount of resistance that met the blade surprised Bjorn. Where the blade came in contact with the skeleton, tendrils of pure gold started to creep up the wound on the skeleton.
With an inhuman scream the skeleton tried to throw the stone off of itself, but the part of the ceiling that crumbled had landed on one of its legs pinning it to the ground. Bjorn didn’t waste the opportunity that Medera had given him and swung his sword again. This time his sword landed on its shoulder, cutting deep. The golden tendrils that were creeping up the skeleton’s arm accelerated as its attempts to free itself grew weaker and weaker. Eventually the skeleton succumbed to the combined efforts of Bjorn and Medera.
“What did this skeleton come from?” Asking Bjorn.
“I think it is from a gnoll, but I am not entirely sure. It’s nice to know that the poison is doing its job though. Let's not waste anymore time and get to the bottom of this.”
Nodding in agreement Bjorn and Medera search what was left of the house. Most every room had large raised ceilings, most likely from the fire. Surmising that the inside was made of wood there wasn’t much left to find. Just a bunch of large rooms of various sizes. Meeting back up in the first room there was a clacking sound that could be heard from down the next tunnel they haven’t checked yet.
Dropping into stealth again Medera had Bjorn dismiss the light he had attached to his hand. They walked into the room that the gnoll skeleton came out of and stealthed up to the window in that room. Looking out into the cavern it was still empty. They didn’t have to wait long before a small contingent of skeletons and a small reptilian creature came walking out of the tunnel. There were 3 skeletons total, all of various different sizes and shapes.
“Kobold.” Said Medera with a hiss. The creature was around 3 feet tall, with a mostly humanoid physique. The main difference was its dragon-like head and snout, its tail, and its scaled hide. With long reptilian legs and feet, it had a kind of shuffling gait as it walked through the cave. It wore a long dark robe covering its upper body, with the hood thrown back.
“Shit, well that isn’t good. That kobold is probably a caster based on its dress. We have 2 different options I can see. We can try to kill the kobold, it could be what is summoning these skeletons, if the summoner dies their summoned creature has a few different ways it can go. If it was a lower level spell used to create the skeletons they will just fall apart, if the magic comes from the kobold it might work. If it isn’t a lower level spell, or if it doesn’t come from that kobold then we will need to kill the skeletons anyways.” Medera paused for a few seconds letting them walk further into the cavern. “I don’t have any spells I can cast stealthily, so you should start by attacking it from stealth.”
Nodding in understanding Bjorn positioned himself by the door and prepared to shoot at the kobold. Taking one of his poison tipped arrows he set it to the string and sat to wait for the party to come closer. Once they got in range he looked over at Medera who just nodded back, and he drew his bow.
Pulling on the bowstring Bjorn started to prepare for his shot. Halfway through the drawing process the bow creaked. Not stopping for anything he finished drawing his bow. The group of skeletons and the kobold stopped in their tracks and looked in their direction. But unfortunately for them they were too slow to react. An arrow came streaking through the dim light and hit the kobold in the lower chest.
With a grunt of pain it started to cast a spell. Its hands became wreathed in a black light, and the syllables that it spoke were harsh and cutting coming from its reptilian mouth. 3 seconds later a barrier formed between it and the unseen archer. None too soon as a second arrow came streaking in and ricocheted off of the barrier. The skeletons weren’t idle when the arrow slammed into the shield, 2 of the skeletons took off in the direction that the arrow had come from, the last one drew a bow and started to shoot arrows back. As the two skeletons rushed forward out of the barrier the arrow that had ricocheted off of the barrier hit the larger of the 2 skeletons in the leg.
At the same time as the kobold casting its spell Medera immediately started casting a spell of her own. It was at that time that the skeletons had noticed what was going on and took off towards their position. In the low light Medera could not see that the last skeleton had drawn a bow and started to shoot at her. Right before she finished casting her spell an arrow streaked through the dark and hit her in the stomach. Grunting in pain she didn’t stop her spell. However she wasn’t a novice in casting and was able to hold her concentration to finish the spell. As soon as she finished the first spell she started working on a second spell.
Medera’s first spell had an immediate effect on the ground under the skeletons running at Medera and Bjorn. The ground that they were running on turned into a soupy mess and started to drag the skeletons under. “Shoot at the skeletons.” Cried Medera right before she started casting her second spell. Bjorn on his end had been bombarding the kobolds shield spell with arrows to no avail. Upon hearing Medera he switched his aim towards the two skeletons running at them.
Medera’s spell had slowed the skeletons but it hadn’t stopped their advance. Bjorn took full advantage of the slowing effect and switched his target to the larger skeleton. He was able to get another arrow off into the skeleton which didn’t seem to do much to it before it reached the end of Medera’s spell. Once it broke free Bjorn drew another arrow and aimed for the center of its chest. Connecting it staggered backwards and fell into the mud. The second skeleton continued to run towards Bjorn. Making a snap shot decision he drew one final arrow and shot the skeleton stuck in the mud finally stopping its struggles to free itself from the ground.
The smaller skeleton was upon Bjorn. It had a dagger in its hands taking a lunging swing at Bjorn; he deflected the swing with his bow. There was a snap as the dagger severed the bow string as the wood of the bow fell back into its normal resting position. Grabbing the bow by one of the ends he swung it at the skeleton like a club. It threw itself backwards in what looked like a botched attempt at a back handspring. Dropping his bow he drew his sword.
During that entire exchange the skeleton in the back kept shooting arrows at Medera making her duck back into the stone house trying to avoid the arrows. The kobold had started casting balls of black energy at Medera as well. Not finding its target it spoke in its harsh tongue. And the skeleton archer switched targets and started to aim towards Bjorn.
Once the sound of things hitting the stone Medera was hiding behind she dared to take a look, and saw the skeleton aiming at Bjorn. Swearing under her breath she took the stone shards that were floating by her and cast them towards the barrier. Where they landed cracks started to form on the barrier. So she started to cast a 3rd spell.
With his sword in hand Bjorn tried to lunge at the skeleton on the ground, but it rolled away from his swing and pushed itself away mid roll. In a feat of impressive athletics the skeleton was able to get its feet under itself and stand looking at Bjorn. That was when an arrow came streaking through the dark and hit Bjorn in the leg, and he went down onto one knee. The dagger wielding skeleton didn’t waste its chance and pounced at Bjorn. As its dagger started to arch down towards Bjorn's neck a stone came shot out from where he was kneeling and hit the skeleton in the head, making its head snap back and staggering it.
In a moment of quick thinking Bjorn used his body to shield the light that his hand created by casting his cast stone spell. Even though his leg protested from the arrow that went straight through his thigh he pushed himself up and took his sword burying it in the dagger wielding skeleton with a yell he yanked his sword to the side. There was a crunch as his sword ripped out of the ribcage and the skeleton fell to the ground in a pile of bones. Looking at where the two ranged enemies were, Bjorn started running at them, by taking cover.
With a smile at seeing her companion finish off the two melee skeletons, Medera completed her 3rd spell. There was a crack from above where the skeleton and kobold were as a stalactite broke free from the ceiling and fell on the shield of the kobold. The shield was not able to hold up to the force and weight of the stalactite and with a sound similar to breaking glass the shield shattered. The stalactite continued its trajectory downwards and fell on the bow wielding skeleton crushing it flat.
Seeing how it was all alone the kobold turned around to flee, taking off down the corridor as fast as it could. But the arrow that was embedded in its gut slowed its movements, and a stone came rocketing out of the dark slamming into its back. There was a crunch from its body and it went down with a scream, its legs stopped working. Its legs not working didn’t stop the kobold, it still tried to pull itself along the ground with its hands trying to escape.
Medera and Bjorn caught up to the debilitated kobold easily, they restrained the kobold. Looking at each other they both knew what needed to be done, without a word being said between them they started to ask questions.
The kobold was rather uncooperative to their questions, it didn’t actually say anything to them in any language they knew. And any of the prodding that they did, forcefully or gently hadn’t yielded any results. Eventually they realized the futility of their questions and Bjorn was the one to kill the creature. Even though he didn’t like killing a defenseless creature like they did, they really had no choice. It wouldn’t be right to leave it in the state that it was, and they couldn’t let it go. It had proven that it was a spell caster and they couldn’t just let it have the chance to cast even more spells at them.
“I see it as we have 2 choices.” Bjorn said to Medera. “Either we go home and recuperate and hope they don’t find us and kill us when we are underprepared. Or we dress our wounds and continue onwards. There was no guarantee that the kobold was our necromancer but I don’t want to leave it to chance. I would rather we move onwards. This leg wound is a pain but it's manageable. And your gut wound doesn’t seem to have slowed you down at all.”
“I agree, I think we should continue onwards. It would be unwise to stop, I am getting low on mana but I can just take my first potion. There is a chance that this kobold is actually our necromancer, he was casting death spells. That black light and the black energy are dead giveaways.”
Looking at Medera with a look of incredulity. “Really? Do you really think this is the best time for a pun?”
With a chuckle Medera replied. “Of course it is the best time. We just fought to the death with a death mage. Right now we need to relax, so we can prepare for our next fight. The art of returning to a clear state of mind is starting to become a dying practice for you.”
Bjorn just groaned.
They spent a few minutes addressing the wounds that they had, Medera drank down her mana potion, and then they both looked ahead and started down the tunnel with a walk of determination.