[Baldr’s POV]

We followed Saaxol through the thick trees and flora, brown leaves littered the ground with some green pushing past the leaves.

Mansoon raised his voice, “How do we know Saaxol is leading us to the right place?”

“I just trust him!” I asserted “He’s lived in forests for years, so I’d assume he’s an expert”.

Saaxol stops and puts a hand out, we all stop behind him, I look over his shoulder and see a large skull looking cave. Inside the cave we could all see eight children lying still on straw.

Bud started to take a few steps and yelled, “Oh there the-”

Mansoon covered Bud’s mouth, “Shhh”

Hexa nods, “Something doesn’t seem right, we should enter this situation with care”.

Mansoon mumbles a small incantation, and an owl appears on Mansoon’s shoulder. The owl hops off Mansoon and flies up into the air, Mansoon closed his eyes and said,

“Wow. Remind me to never doubt Saaxol again, on top of the cave entrance there’s a Black Lion alright, also a Dire Wolf… And a little girl?”.

Mansoon opened his eyes and smirked, “There’s nothing else around, this is going to be a piece of cake”.

“Wait, I must have missed something… A piece of cake? Where? What will be a cake?” Bud had a wide simile at the mention of cake.

“Seriously, are you joking around or do you actually not know?” Mansoon asked.

“I’m dead serious. Where is the cake? I’d love a slice” Bud still had the silly smile wide across his face.

“There is no cake. It’s an expression.” Mansoon dryly replied

Bud’s large grin dropped and began to kick the dirt below, “You all and your stupid expressions”.

I stuck up my finger, “We should still come in cautiously, how about we come in at two different angles, Bud and I should attack that Black Lion while Saaxol, Hexa and Mansoon attack the Dire Wolf”.

“What about the little girl?” Bud asks.

“Probably won’t be a problem, let’s just go” Mansoon said impatiently, tapping his foot.

Bud and I started heading towards the left trying to avoid making any noise, Bud pulled out his crossbow and aimed up towards the ash pelted lion with a gray crown surrounding its neck. It moved its tail around as a small blue haired girl with a black dress that had a red cape hanging from the dress.

“Oh Bubbles, what a good kitty you are!” she babbled petting its stomach.

I stared ahead of me, waiting for the signal to start the attack until Bud starting mumbling,

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“They taking too long imma start”

I quickly turned over to him and talked in a hush tone, “No! Do not!”

But I was too late as Bud pulled the trigger to his crossbow cutting straight into the pelt of the oversized cat. It let out a furious roar and dropped down from the top of the cave.

“Bubbles! Do not go down there! Puffles, investigate it for Bubbles!” cried the small girl.

A gigantic, even bigger than Mansoon, brown wolf dropped down with a large growl as it defensively started walking towards Bud. Bud looked at me and shrugged as he shoved another arrow into the crossbow.

I drew my sword, how am I going to handle both a lion and a dire wolf? I looked around and noticed the lion vanished from where it dropped at. My heart dropped, where the hell-?

From behind I get pounced on and pinned to the ground with agonizing claws cutting into me.

From where I was on the ground I saw Mansoon come out lightning fast out with a light shining aura around him, the sound only barely keeping up with him as he pierced into the wolf’s back. The wolf let out a yelp and jumped back as Hexa and Saaxol came out surrounding the wolf.

I try to swing my sword back at the lion but it stomps on my hand making me drop my sword. Another arrow gets fired into its leg giving me some strength back in my arm, I quickly snatch my sword and twirl it back into the beast. It lets out an angry howl and backs up. I jump up and turn in the direction of the lion but… It vanished once again.

“Behind you!” Bud shouts as he runs behind a tree.

I quickly turn around to find the lion in the air about to jump on me once again.

“You can’t do that to me again” I snapped as I launched my sword straight into it, and using my momentum I swug it straight into a tree. The lion fell motionless.

“NO BUBBLES! HE WAS MY RIDE OUT OF HERE!” I heard the girl bellow.

I jumped into the dire wolf fight, in which the wolf wasn’t looking too good itself, with cuts all around the body with blood staining the brown coat. The small girl looked over us and waved her hands up, red runes started to appear above her and it got launched into the dire wolf.

Red smoke poured out of the wolf’s eyes as 3 more wolves formed from the smoke.

“Well shit” Mansoon said, his white shining light fades away. Mansoon jumped back over to me.

“I’ll go for the weaker wolf and take him out” Mansoon says, “You go for the wolf far to the left, Bud should hopefully cover you and then get that girl, the others should be able to handle the other wolves just fine. I can help them if needed”.

I nod and swing my sword in a circle as I stand up to the towering wolf, as I walk up the wolf backs up and circles around me.

I smile as Bud fires an arrow that lands into its eye. The wolf staggers back as I lash my sword out into its stomach. The wolf drops down on its side as a pool of blood surrounds it. I placed my shoe on its neck, it started to wiggle around and sank razor teeth into the side of my leg.

I wince, “I’m sorry, I’ll make it quick”.

I quickly dislocated its head with my sword. I noticed that the leg where I got bit started to have a black vapor hang off to the side. I waved my hand around my leg and it danced around my hand. What was this? Poison?

I turned to the little girl. She noticed I was looking and she crawled over to the other side of the cave and peaked her head over in the battlefield. I gave myself three long strides to leap and grab the side of the top of the cave. I push myself up the cold and flakey mossy surface. I see the girl's eyes widen as I walk up to her, I raise the back of my sword and hit the back of her head.

It felt a tiny bit wrong hitting a child, getting a closer look of her she looked to be in her teen years. I scanned over the field ahead of me, watching the fights slowly come to an end. I swung myself into the cave while holding the blue haired girl. I kneeled to all the kidnapped children and checked for a pulse, all good. I started to shake some of them awake.

“Hey it’s time to get you all home” I calmly said.