Bad Luck
Eana worked as fast as she could, eyes only for Galvar’s plummeting health. He gave a pained groan and passed out as she yanked the foot long insect spur from his leg, a spurt of blood dirtying her white blouse.
Around her the man’s companions, adventurers from the group known around town as Breakthrough, patrolled agitatedly.
“She’s going to kill him,” one of them said. Had to be Tomme. He had never liked Eana. He was probably trying to get her to notice him glaring at her, wishing she would kill his companion so he had an excuse to put a knife in her.
“Not today,” she muttered to herself as she drew mana from her purple gemmed bracelet and cast Minor Heal. The mana imbued charoite stone stone glowed as it added its power to her own. But the magic wasn’t taking. Galvar’s health shot up ten points, then immediately began to drop again.
She cast Assess again, hoping now that the spike was out the spell would offer new information.
Galvar Maystone, Human, Level 8
Class: Fighter (Common)
HP: 30/110.
Status Effects: Bleed - variable. Poison - minor
Poison? That made sense. Galvar and the rest of the Breakthrough adventurers had been delving deep into the nearby Hive Dungeon. The humanoid insect creatures the people of Irondale just called “bug men” were often poisonous.
She cast Minor Restoration and as the liquid gold light of the spell seeped into the wound a pus began to emerge. Pungent and whitish yellow, it bubbled out as if being pushed and then vaporized into mist.
Checking his status again, Eana verified the poison wouldn’t need a second cast before using Recover to counteract the bleeding with the spell’s heal over time.
More commotion. Couldn’t these adventurers let her work in peace? She came all the way out here into the Chaos Lands, almost out to the dungeon itself in order to heal Galvar because the runner who came to get her back in town - the runner who had wanted to bring her mentor and the only Healer the adventurers really wanted to work with - had told her that they couldn’t move the wounded man.
What was that clicking sound anyway? It echoed through the trees, sometimes light like twigs creaking, and sometimes deep like roots of falling trees snapping underground.
“Tomme, check it out,” a woman said. What was her name again? She was huge for a woman, armored and fearsome looking. Chrys…something.
“Something bad always happens when she’s around,” Tomme griped, "Bad luck. Like I've said before."
Eana finished another cast of Minor Heal to bring Galvar up to a safe line of over fifty health before chancing a look around.
The forest had been quiet when she arrived. But even now with the the clinking of armor and nervous shuffling of the adventurers there was something odd about the quality of the forest sounds. No birdsong or tweets. Only that clicking.
The trees around them looked as they always did, lush, unthreatening, yet Chrys had her sword out and looked wary. The newest member to the team, Eana didn’t even know his name, seemed to be trying to imitate her.
Then as Eana was deciding there was nothing to see and she could return to her patient, Tomme came crashing back through the trees. Crossbow over his shoulder and eyes wide he shouted, “Soldier! The cursed girl’s attracted a Hive Soldier!”
“I what?” Eana said, not meaning to acknowledge the ‘cursed’ remark.
“What do you mean she’s attracted one?” Chrys called back.
“I mean,” Tomme said, unslinging his crossbow and notching a bolt, “There’s a Chaos loving brute of a Soldier and all his Drone friends coming at us right now!”
Chrys sheathed her sword and motioned to the recruit before rounding on Eana and demanding, “Will he live? Can we move him?!”
Eana, not quite understanding the shift in mood and urgency was about to communicate that the worst was past, Galvar was going to make it despite remaining unconscious.
Chrys cut through her hesitation, “CAN WE MOVE HIM?” she shouted.
Eana dashed out one more Minor Heal and Chrys looked as though she might punch her.
Cringing back Eana said, “He’ll make it! He’s going to be fine!”
The armored woman signaled for the recruit to get the wounded Galvar’s legs. Together they lifted the man and began hurrying off into the brush and back to the road to Irondale and the safety of the Node of Order that surrounded it.
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Tomme followed up behind and whispered at Eana, “Find your own way.”
He hurried off but Eana was not about to run off on her own. What was he even playing at?
Ahead she heard Chrys call out, “Keep moving!” followed by a magically enhanced battlecry so powerful the trees around them shook.
The clicking was everywhere now, and through the trees back the way they had come Eana could just make out gray shapes of bug men from the Hive Dungeon creeping forward and into the clearing they had left behind.
They were man shaped, if you compared to a man on the edge of starvation. But instead of the rounds and curves that a human would still have in that state these things were all angles. Two arms and two legs like bones with no meat jutted from their bodies, and if it was dark Eana thought she might be able to mistake one for a real person.
But their motions were entirely insect-like. Quick darting movements into complete, deathly stillness. She realized the adventurers were making distance on her and decided to catch up while she still could.
She emerged onto the road in time to see Chrys cleave the head from a spindly Drone. Orange goo spurted from the neck and traced an arc behind the woman’s sword, the Drone’s flat face and bulging black eyes no more dead looking than when it was still whole. She bashed a second to the ground with her shield. It curled in on itself like a crushed spider as she caved its chest in with a heavy stomp.
“Where is it!? Where is the Soldier!?” the swordswoman shouted, kicking bug goo from her boot and looking around wildly.
Tomme, the crossbowman, had taken a knee up the road, the new recruit behind him body dragging the unconscious Galvar.
“He should be…” his eyes suddenly flashed with some kind of skill, “Oh shit, camouflage! Right side!”
Out of the trees a hulking monster crashed onto the path. The thing’s carapace faded from forest greens and browns into the uniform gray of most bug men.
It was like the Drones. Flat faced, black glossy eyes, but everything else was just… so much bigger.
Where the Drones were spindly and frail looking, this thing was to them what the adventurer woman was to Eana. It was huge with muscular limbs covered with thick shell plates like the thing was wearing armor and that camouflage skill it had used must have muffled its movement as well because Eana swore she could feel the thuds of its footfalls in her chest.
It swung its armored fist at the woman who brought her shield up just in time to ward off the blow. She struck back with her sword but the edge scraped right off the angled plates of the thing’s armored carapace.
They traded blows while Tomme kept the drones from swarming in on the sides, face a mask of concentration as he alternated between regular, slow loading shots while waiting for the cooldown of his main source of firepower. The crossbow glowed with the magic light of a skill and as he fired, the bolt split and flew off in several directions at once.
Exoskeletons of encroaching Drones cracked moistly as bolts, both magical and mundane, slammed into them. But for all his efforts protecting the flanks, Eana knew instinctively that his fight wasn’t the one that mattered.
The woman took a front kick to the chest, flying backward and skidding along the dirt path. The Hive Soldier threw out its arms and hissed an aggressive warcry that sent a jolt of fear down Eana’s spine. Had that been a magical skill? Could monsters access skills from Order’s Path as well?
“Chrys!” Tomme shouted, engaging another skill that sent a magical flurry of bolts not to different targets, but straight at the Hive Soldier in rapid succession, causing it to protect itself and retreat several paces. Most of the bolts glanced off its armor plating but a few found purchase before the magic dissipated and they vanished into wisps of smoke.
This was her moment, this was where Eana could prove her value and be a real part of the fight.
She darted in, sending sparks of light dancing over Chrys, the big woman, as she cast Recover. She figured the healing over time effect would be useful in a fight. Her hands glowed gold again as she followed it up with a Minor Heal and topped up the woman’s health. But rather than the grateful and confident smile she had expected, Chrys shoved Eana back hard, “Move it, kid!”
Eana tumbled backward and fell in the dirt. She looked up and saw the woman preparing a defensive stance, then back at Tomme who looked bizarrely like he was lost in thought. He had lowered his weapon and was staring past Eana and the woman at the Soldier. Eana turned, seeing now the same thing he did.
The Soldier had changed direction.
It wasn’t after the woman adventurer. It was coming for her. She screamed and scrambled back, turning and struggling to her feet. Tomme was pointing wildly and shouting at the woman, “You have to help Galvar! Go!” he fired more magical shots at the Soldier, which slowed but did not stop its advance.
The woman ran and Eana ran after her.
As she passed Tomme, suddenly, she jerked back. Something had hold of her collar! She turned and saw Tomme. His face was contorted in rage, the battle concentration from moments before completely lost. He glanced at the retreating adventurers and Eana couldn’t help but see they were putting serious distance between them now that the other two were carrying the unconscious Galvar.
They weren’t stopping to see if Tomme and Eana were following.
“Bad. Luck!” Tomme rasped at her, sour breath cascading over her nose. Then he threw her directly toward the Hive Soldier.
She looked up from the advancing monster and back to Tomme who was backing away, crossbow pointed not at the Soldier, but at her.
Eana had never felt fear like this before. It overwhelmed her. And before she knew what she was doing she was running toward the only thing that wasn’t trying to kill her.
She crashed through the bushes off the side of the path, opposite from where the bug men seemed to be coming from. Branches scraped and slapped at her as she ran harder than she had ever thought possible. All that mattered was that she did not stop. Behind her she heard the clicking and with every reverberation off the trees she felt like they would be on her.
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She ran until she had long since vomited out the last remnants of anything in her stomach. Dry heaving she wondered how long it had been. Minutes? Hours? The sun was already setting behind the trees.
A prompt popped into her vision.
Quest
Back from the Brink
[ 2/3]
Failed. The adventurers have fully healed without you.
She wiped her dirty sleeve across her face when she realized that, on top of everything, she was crying. Tears, snot, dirt and vomit caked what was at one point a clean white blouse. And was that blood? She nearly cast the Assess spell on herself when she realized it wasn’t hers. Just residue from healing Galvar.
She was OK.
She just had to get home. Gendra had been right after all. She never should have come out to the dungeon. It was too dangerous, she was only… twelve.
She was twelve now. Today was her birthday. Normally she’d be looking forward to home cooking, maybe even a present or two. But right now all she wanted was to escape.
She stumbled into a clearing and managed to collect herself enough to orient away from the mountain from which her brother, Idris, and her father would no doubt already be headed home.
Trying hard to steady her breathing, she moved off toward where she hoped she would eventually find the path back to Irondale.