Chapter 15

The Calm Before the Storm, Part 2

Manuel had never felt more powerful as he flew through the air with augmented strength. He needed to keep a close watch from the air to make sure the dragons did not attack the wagons unaware. It was pretty much up to him, as the heroes needed some sleep as the wagons headed for the first town that had gone silent. He would fly over and see if there were goblins scavenging when they got closer. There, he had found a scout. It was a green dragon minion, for sure. It only had two legs and a head. The heroes didn't want to be scouted yet, so he flew down to combat it.

*Roll for initiative

Manuel dove at it and attacked it with his two-handed sword out of surprise. He knocked it out in a single attack!

* End combat; no experience is awarded; a single creature's power level is too low for Almeil to gain experience.

This is a great opportunity, he reasoned. He stabilized the dragon and went back to get Star to finish it off. It would take her to level three.

Other than Tira, the sleeping and reveling elfesses were not awake when there was an unexpected knock on the door. The dog started barking right in Star's ear, though, and she moved away from the doggo and to the door. As she unlocked the door, it opened, and she was suddenly grabbed and flown into the air!

"Eek," said Star, confused and suddenly flying through the air while in her shift. Rilmorn laughed at the situation, while Blue was briefly flashed by his cousin. as Manuel flew over his wagon back towards the dragon. "Rilmorn! What the heck?" he yelled at the first wagon driver.

"Oh, sorry, Star, I need you to kill a dragon real fast for me," said Manuel, "then I'll take you back to your wagon; it will only take a few turns."

Blue started to yell at the other drivers to ask what that was about. "Why is the princess being kidnapped by our angel?" he yelled at the other wagons.

"I don't know, but it was funny," said Rilmorn.

Merley yelled, "Something about killing a dragon?"

"In her underwear?" yelled Blue.

"I heard nobles were lazy, but that might be taking things too far!" said Merley.

"She should have at least taken her Elven sword; what is she going to do, punch it to death?" asked Blue.

"We are stronger now because of the summoner's spell," added Palidral."

"Palidral, the princess is not going to punch a dragon, you blockhead!" yelled Galiel.

"Yeah, she will kick it to death; that is why she is keeping her legs free," said Tassiran smugly, having figured it out.

"Idiots!" Gabriel yelled, "She'll use Manuel's weapon!" This is why he hated other elves.

"Who else is with me and Tassiran with the kicking?" yelled Palidral.

"I have punching; she is always quick with her hands when we play," Blue explained.

"Ok, I am with Galiel, and I say she borrows the sword," said Merely.

"Got to go with the borrowed sword," said Rilmorn.

The third wagon door opened as the other elves wanted to get in on the bet, and they began to talk about what the stakes were and that they needed an equal number of bets on all three suggestions. Ambrose and Hazazel were left with the choice of fisticuffs. The stakes were over who would be in charge of taking care of the horses for the week. Mistmoon was not qualified to bet but sided with kicking because Devoe would totally kick it. Olier and Syran, thinking about what kicking would look like, took kicking for fun as well.

Manuel flew Star to the downed dragon. "Kill the dragon, and you can level up before the fight!" said Manuel.

"With what? Am I supposed to kick it?"

"I wouldn't with those clothes, as you are very pretty right now, Star. How about just punching it?"

"How about you let me borrow your sword?" asked Star.

"I don't want an elfess touching my sword," said Manuel with a straight face.

Star kicked the dragon, showing off her legs. Manuel, who was aghast at this, quickly handed her his sword, and Star killed the dragon with his sword and threw it on the ground.

"No! My sword!" cried Manuel, hurrying over to pick it up.

"Angel with a sword joke," said Star in disgust. "Bring me back; you woke me up from puppy cuddles."

"I gift you a level, and this is how you treat my sword; you get it all bloody and dirty?" cried Manuel.

When they got back, Star made Manuel fly her around the wagons this time instead of over them. The boys were all shouting at her about how she killed the dragon. "I kicked it!" said Star. There were cries of victory from the six winners. Star knew her friends called her naïve, but there was no way she was going to say that she used Manuel's sword to slay the dragon. Manuel tossed her back in her wagon roughly, to pay her back for her cruelty, exposing her legs to the elves jeers.

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Star quickly leveled up, taking a 20% bonus to defense against social skills as an ability. Third level raised her attack, gave her six more hit points, ten skill slots, and a 5% bonus to all her saves. Then she went back to cuddling with the doggo.

Manuel went back to hunt for another dragon for Ambrose. Maybe he would be more appreciative. He didn't find another one until they were nearing the village, as it was trying to ambush goblins. Well, when it tried to sneak away when it saw the wagons, he would strike! He went back to tell Blaze she was on her way to try to hire some goblins and to stop the wagons before the alert goblins could hear them.

The caravan stopped, and Blaze made her way to the destroyed village, with Raine and Tira following behind in case she needed backup if the goblins decided to attack her. They were the only two elves stealthy enough for the task.

Blaze decided to simply walk down the road and then right into the village since she had come to talk. This would be my first time talking to other goblins in a few years. There were two guards stationed at the entrance to the village. She noticed the palisade was mostly intact, but there were large footprints around the area. The guards noticed her about the time she was almost to them, which was pretty typical for goblin "guards."

"Hey! It's a woman!" said one guard to the other, who looked up from his feet.

"How did she sneaks up on us?" said the second goblin guard.

"This is a dangerous situation, and you were not paying attention," said Blaze, shaking her head and wondering why her people had not been wiped out. "Take me to your leader."

"Why?" said guard one.

Blaze activated her level 12 charm skill and told them in a soft voice, "Cause."

"Right this way!" said guard one. "Of course, our leader!" said guard two. They started marching to the center of the village salvage operations to meet their leader. With a pained expression, Blaze went to negotiate, having great success against the goblin guard. She wondered if she had overdone it.

"Who dat?" said a slightly better-fed goblin when the guards stopped in front of him.

"A girl," the guard explained.

"She here, talk to you." said guard 2.

"So whaz you wanz?" said the slightly better fed goblin leader.

"Well, I am hiring goblins who may want to get all the food they can eat and guard some elves traveling to the GERV," replied Blaze, turning on her charm skill once again.

"Shinies?" asked the leader.

"Definitely shinies," said Blaze.

"What food?" asked guard one, salivating.

"Chicken" said Blaze

"Chickens!" said all three.

"Chickens" confirmed Blaze.

"Well, you sees, there were these draggos that attack us," said the leader. "We foughts and saved some of the village, but they think we weak. But then the chief say we leave tribe because we evolve to war gobbo. Elves not like war gobbo in village."

"So, we come to the elf village, but draggos take all the tasties," said guard one in an extremely sad voice.

"There is auchght of us, you take all and give chicken and shinies?" said the goblin leader.

Star nodded; at least they would get a last meal.

"Five shinies per day," said the leader.

"Dull shines ok?" said Blaze.

"Yes, but five!" said the leader.

"Fine, we have a deal; go get the others," said Blaze.

"You have to go getz them; they are under trees in the forest. They all hurt bad.

Blaze held up her right hand, and Raire and Tira soon appeared.

The three goblins stared hard at the two elfesses. "There are three here and five wounded that we will have to heal if we want their help." They have evolved into warriors, so they might be useful if we heal them, but should we use our magic for that?" said Blaze.

Scrolls are hard to use in combat anyway. We will use those on the goblins if they are conscious.

"You save all or we not fightz," said the leader.

"You drive a hard bargain, but I guess so. You will have to take care of them on top of the war wagons, though. We will treat them, but not with magic; the fight we need them for will be over before they would be useful," said Tira.

"War wagonez, for war gobbos!" said the leader excitedly.

"Yes, war wagons," said Tira.

*Roll for initiative

Manuel swooped down on the dragon, which was trying to sneak away.

His greatsword flashed, and once again the scout was felled.

Raire looked over and said, "Geesh, Manuel, maybe we just send you after the dragons by yourself?"

Manuel checked the dragon. He said, "Should we level up Ambrose?"

"He is the only one that would level, so sure."

"Since we are recovering the goblins, we might as well take the dragon, I guess, although we will get more."

"Probably a good idea; it might make them fight worse if we have one of them hanging from a wagon."

Raire touched her shoulder, and she looked over and saw the goblins worshiping Manuel.

"Oh greatz angel, please forgive us poor gobbos for looting this village!" they intoned while bowing and trembling.

"Great, more Allie's" said Tira.

A silver elfess's laugh echoed through the empty village, perhaps for the last time, as Raile couldn't help herself from laughing.

They discovered that only one of the male goblins was unconscious due to health damage; there were seven male and one female goblin in total.

The summoner added the goblins to the physical perfection spell as they ate. He didn't include them in the regeneration spell because it would be counterproductive. He then cast a mind spell to make them not realize that he had cast an illusion spell. He cleaned them with a clean cantrip, and then they had Zip rub against them to make them smell like woodlings.

It was then just a matter of organizing the last of their battle plans. The first level commoners and Zip would stay in the wagons, except for the drivers. Once the battle was about to start, the drivers would release the horses and go inside the wagons. Phenaquar's war horse would be in the lead guard wagon, and it would lead the other horse where it needed to be between the first wagon and the war wagon. They needed the horses to obey commands; that would be Devoe's job, as he could talk to them in some fashion. Horses that messed up would be in a lot of trouble, so they had Devoe practice with them some before moving on.

Raythiel and Syran would run the battle wands and turn on the wards. Each wand held five charges and would be critical in the battle, as these magicless dragons would take a lot of damage from elemental magic. The wards would negate the first 100 points of damage to the battle wagons, keeping Rathiel and Syran safe inside the battle wagons for a little while.

Raire, Allie, and Ambrose would be on the tallest wagon, the chicken wagon, to rain death with arrows. Olier and Phenaquar would be in the fourth wagon, and Tira and Star in the first wagon. They would come out to fight by the battle wagons after the first round of lightning and would then try to tempt the dragons into getting blasted again by grouping up. Manuel would blast some dragons with his icy cone breath attack, then close in and try to kill as many as he could, and again, try to get them to group up for the wands. While remaining invisible, the summoner would climb a tree about a hundred feet away from the action. If he dropped the illusion, Zip could join the fight.

The goblins would fight from the tops of the war wagons, as they had railings. tempting the dragons to group up. Devoe and Sylphianne would be in the middle of the wagons, directing the horses to not get in the way of the lightning bolts or run off. Once the dragons gathered, the war wagons would be driven to be offset from the rest of the train, so they could fire lines of lightning down the lines of wagons and horses, hopefully full of soon-to-be crispy dragons. Dragon minions were not the brightest of creatures, but they did think. Then they had to be concerned about more advanced ones or, in the worst-case scenario, an actual green dragon appearing. It's a piece of cake.