The party woke early after their first night in Sitensa. They gathered into the inn’s breakfast service and chewed through an overpriced, though still delicious and filling, meal. Then they headed out, towards a street on the outskirts of town that led into the woods. The cobbled road turned into packed dirt, then their path turned off into a thin trail as they made their way over the hill that borders Sitensa, towards the northwest.
As they followed the path, Ciel noticed Piera’s runes starting to glow more brightly as she cycled, no longer feeling the urge to suppress their light now that they were away from the fancy homes that lined the street. Her mouth turned down. Surely the people here weren’t so bad that she had to turn that off just walking down the street? But she hadn’t lived the woman’s life, and being largely from the upper crust herself, she wasn’t in a position to tell if everyone she knew was really so bad about hating Lanterns.
There were some – those who knew Ciel's family was only recently influential – that would treat her poorly based on her parentage. But that was often something that happened behind closed doors: a rumor that spread when she wasn’t around, a smirk at her expense when they speak of the parties they were invited to, a friend that drops contact after a whisper from their family.
But Ciel had never experienced hatred so overt that she would feel the need to hide herself the way that Piera seemed so careful to. Maybe there would have been more drama with her walking about town if she weren't accompanied by a gaggle of mercenary friends.
Deya kept a quick stride at the front of their pack, her crossbow swinging slightly behind her. Her eyes focused on the path ahead, peering out for any threats she could snipe from afar. Vex stayed right behind her, keeping a closer eye on the trees to their left and right, occasionally veering off the path to get a quick glance over a ridge or to peer into a blind spot ahead of them.
“Target,” Deya said, unslinging her crossbow. Vex stepped up next to her as she stepped into the stirrup, his Sight rune glowing.
“Yup. Rock golem,” he said to the others behind them. “Just one.”
Deya looked at him, disappointed. “Really, rock? Thought it was earth.” She shook her head as she returned her crossbow to her shoulder. She didn’t want to use a crystal bolt on a single creature and a regular one wouldn’t hurt a rock golem too bad. She looked over to Geon. “You want to take a crack at it?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Just stay on your toes, I’ll need to get its attention first; my range isn’t what it used to be.”
He stepped forward and Midaan came up behind him. “I’ll be here if it gets too close.”
Geon nodded to him, then focused on the creature. It was about sixty yards away, a bit outside of his maximum range. He pulled his wand out anyway, then cast a shot ahead. The golem noticed, then looked around the area until it spotted them. It clacked its rigid arms together and ran at them.
Geon nodded, glad that it was as aggressive as he’d assumed it would be. He pulled his arm back, letting the mana fill him, ready to try and hit the golem just as it got into his range. As he was about to bring his arm forward to cast, however, bushes behind the charging golem rustled, and five more ran out of the cover at them.
“Ah, hells.” Geon grit his teeth and launched the attack forward, throwing a ball of flame into the face of the golem in front from forty yards away. It was thrown back, flailing in pain, but not dead.
Deya moved up to Geon’s other side, her Ice rune glowing on her bare hand. She pitched an icicle forward and it shattered against the next golem in the crowd. It flew back as well, still moving, but when it got back up, there was a large chuck of rock missing from its chest.
Geon let fly with another shot, now that the whole group was within his range. Then another. The golems were shoved back, but were able to get up and continue their charge.
Geon grimaced and tucked his wand back into his sleeve, reaching back and unstrapping his staff. He took a deep breath as he held it out in front of him.
“Is that going to be a big fireball?” asked Midaan.
“It’ll probably be a thin stream of flame.”
Midaan nodded. “Just try to aim at not-me.” Midaan held in large blade in front of him, across his body.
Geon cast his flame, and a red tongue of fire raced out towards the golems. It struck the closest one in the chest, halting its forward movement and quickly heating the rock up such that it glowed orange. Geon let up, turning his attention to the next farthest golem and blasting that one, as one of Deya’s icicles smashed into the still-glowing stone of the front one. It’s limbs flew apart, flinging hot slag at it’s peers as they passed it.
Oren moved to the side so that he could see around the trio as they attacked the golems, his left Barrier hand ready to throw up a wall.
Geon and Deya alternated attacks, Geon lighting up the nearest golem, while Deya followed up with a piercing Ice attack. The elimination of the creatures wasn’t fast enough, though. At only fifteen yards away, a figure flew out of the woods next to the golems. It was Vex, and he threw himself directly at the golems, slicing at them with daggers in his hands. They attacked back, but he danced away from them before they could touch him, though it didn’t look like he hit them either. He dodged back in, thrusting forward at them and pulling back, again before either of them did any damage. The redirection of their attention did slow them down, though, and it was enough for Deya and Geon to kill two more of the golems.
The last two golems got into range of the party's vanguard, and Midaan held his arm out to signal to Geon to stop firing. He held his sword forward and crouched down as his hand started to glow red. Then with a flash, he lunged at them, crossing the remaining distance in a flash and slicing down with a flaming sword. It cut right through the closest golem, and a wave of fire spread from the cleaved stone body. The last golem tried to dance out of the way, but Midaan was already far too close, and it took a boot to the face as he repositioned the blade for a second attack. The creature raised its stiff arms over its head, as though it were trying to stop the blade in midair. But instead of a vertical strike, Midaan lashed out from the side, cutting it in half underneath its arms. A wave of fire continued forward for a time, licking the surrounding foliage.
Midaan stood up straight, staring around for any more of the creatures that might decide to attack. Nothing appeared. The rest of the group relaxed. Geon looked out for Vex ahead, trying to see where he had gone after his attack.
“Well, that wasn’t too bad.” Geon looked up at the voice, rhythmic in that Emmroh accent. “A few more than we thought, but nothing we couldn’t handle.” It was Vex, standing nonchalant behind them. Geon looked him over, puzzled, but Vex just held up his hand, showing off the Light rune that glowed there.
“Ah, right,” Geon said. “Forgot you could do illusions.”
Vex grinned. “That’s the idea.”
Ciel moved past them, her scepter raised. “Watch out, I’m going to clean all this up.” Her rune glowed blue as a stream of water spewed forth, spilling over the blackened ground where Midaan had started his part of the fight. Wisps of black smoke were raising from the piles of leaves and dried twigs. The air hissed with the sound of doused embers as Ciel’s water passed over them, then snaked off into the distance to clear out some of the more distant embers.
Geon watched as Midaan replaced his sword on his back, paying Ciel no mind, as though this was a regular occurrence whenever Midaan fought. Geon looked over at Ciel then, and she met his questioning eyes.
“Yeah, part of the reason I’m with him is to make sure he doesn’t burn down any more forests.”
Deya snorted. “More forests?”
Midaan looked back at Ciel, affronted. “It was only the one forest, Ciel.”
“Sure, but it was the whole forest, Midaan.” She said his name back to him in a mocking tone, a half-smirk on her face. “That’s one of the reason we came west,” she said to the others behind them. “He has something against being a responsible Fire mage.” She then looked over at Geon. “By the way, nice job with your control. You might teach this lug a thing or two.”
Geon just waved her off. “I appreciate that, but my lack of collateral damage is less ‘good control’, and more of a ‘me-being-weak’ thing. You might change your tune if I get stronger.”
Ciel shrugged, deciding silently to give him the benefit of the doubt.
As they started to move away, Midaan glanced down the hill behind them. “Did that attack seem a bit close to the town to you?”
Piera looked back as well. “A bit, maybe. I’m sure a patrol would have caught it eventually. These rich towns are good keeping the outskirts safe.”
Ciel shook her head. “You can’t take that for granted. You’re right in most cases, but there are a few rich towns that skate by on the appearance of being a rich town without the funds or the services to back the façade up. I have friends that got suckered into moving to those kinds of towns that wound up dead when the imps came calling.” She sighed. “You’re more right about this place, though. At least on the frontier, you mostly know what you’re getting into, and the families that run them need to put at least a bit of effort into the security of the place, or risk losing it within a week.”
Over the next hour, the incline leveled out and they got a view of the other side of the hill. This run of hills ran past the border of Sitensa, making a boundary that was difficult for a cart to climb over. Sitensa was meant to be working on a way to climb it easier, but no progress had been made yet.
The far side of the hill dropped out ahead of them, flowing down in a rippling blanket of canopy. A stream ran somewhere below the branches at the bottom of the valley ahead of them, flowing out of the forest and running parallel to the flat plains border of the Demon Lands.
There were no settlements in this wide valley; only an outpost for Scouts to gather to distribute information back to the King's Office. There was the odd cabin in the woods out there, but nothing like the towns they'd been through the previous day. As Midaan looked out over the lush valley, he sighed. He was so glad he’d insisted on eating at the Inn this morning – the thought of going nearly two weeks without a full breakfast spread was what really drove home the fact that they were now on contract, their work begun. He missed his bed already. But he hardened his resolve and led the rest of the party down the winding decline.
As the slope shallowed, they descended past groves of rockroot trees that collected the soil into tightly bound nooks, where the runoff collected into ponds that filtered slowly down to those beneath. The sound made by dozens of thin streams of falling water tickled the party’s ears as they weaved between the mounds of protruding soil, the air thick and humid, the ground damp and occasionally slippery. They had to take special care when routing their path down – some features of the descent were too risky to traverse given that fall that could result, and they had to double back several times in order to find safer paces to climb down.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
An hour later, as they neared the bottom of the large hill and the canopy above thinned to allow the sun overhead to beam down upon them, the party prepared for a fight. This valley was not considered to be a nice place. Imps were common there, wedged between two hills that separated the frontier into distinct sections. In this place, it was a lot easier for the imps to hide away, as the rockroot trees here provided a wealth of viable spaces to hole up and wait for friends.
They readied their weapons, and the relative calm with which they’d descended morphed into a keen wariness. There had been a few other contracts specifically for this region, but most of those had gone the day before they accepted this trek. Ciel hoped that this meant those camps would be cleared out. However, as these contracts were taken up by large groups of Rank 1 mercs, it wasn’t out of the question for some of these battles to have overwhelmed their takers. Better to be safe than dead, and they all prepared for the worst. That was the risk inherent to a Rank 2 job, and to a lesser extent, to any job on the frontier.
The rockroot groves turned from hillside outcroppings to small hills, their roots having dug under the soil and rocks, and over years, pulling them together underneath the ground, until the grove sat on top of an artificial mound, its canopy pushed higher than that of the surrounding forest, a ditch of collapsed earth surrounding it. Now that they were on level ground, they had to be more cautious of wandering imps and other creatures.
Vex grit his teeth as he observed the surroundings. He hated being this cut off from the sightlines around him. He moved away from the group, taking long paths around the groves of rockroot trees, making sure that he was always close enough to quickly run to the others if they called from him. He climbed up onto the mounds as they passed, trying to use them to keep a vantage on anything in the area.
As they made their way through the tangle and uneven terrain, new sounds started to fill the air around them. A scratching in mud, a long groaning that you could feel through the ground. Ciel heard and called out to the group, holding them all up. She and Vex locked eyes, and he nodded, moving off ahead to scout out the area. Piera and Deya spread out as well, trying to get sight lines around the nearest mounds.
Deya chirped aloud when she got to the far side of her path. She turned and ran back.
“Walker!” she called to the rest of them. She stepped into the stirrup of her crossbow and tensioned the string. Midaan moved past her, and the rest of the party followed behind him. Deya slapped a crystal bolt onto the crossbow and put herself in the best sightline to see the creature coming around the corner.
Midaan charged around the corner, his sword out and ignited. He watched in the foggy distance as a mass of earth and whipping roots crawled forward, wrapping around boulders and trees, and pulling the mobile grove along.
The seven trunks that rose up from the packed mass of earth waved in the air, groaning as the trees rocked back and forth with the motion of the creature.
“Why?” Midaan asked the air. “It’s way too early in the season for these. They should be hibernating for another couple months, at least.”
Deya came around the corner once enough of the party joined her, and took aim at the walking grove. It rocked with each movement, not seeming at all like it was aware of their presence or attention. But at some point they must have gained its attention – the roots whipped the ground harder, and the mass shifted forward faster in their direction. It rotated as it approached, shedding leaves as branches whirled around the crown of trees.
Deya poured piercing Ice power into the crystal head of her bolt and fired, firing a teal streak right into the heart of the earthy mound that hid the roots of the monster. It struck, freezing a patch of soil at the same time that the bolt blasted it apart. A thick sheet of frosty dirt broke apart and fell off the creature, and the beast rotated faster to put a thicker shield of dirt between its roots and the things that were shooting at it. Then it moved after them in earnest, clearing a dozen yards in a flash.
The roots slapped the ground in front of it, kicking up clouds of dirt as it approached. Midaan moved to the front, ready to start cutting as Oren’s rune illuminated and a Shield bloomed around Midaan’s body. Deya got another bolt in place, but held it steady as it filled with teal light. Geon started lashing out with his flames, red fire striking at any exposed root he could target. He swapped out for the staff once it was close enough, pouring a stream of blue fire into anywhere that looked more wooden than dirty.
Once the creature got close enough to the group to start threatening them with it’s roots, Middan looked back at Deya and nodded, and she let loose another streak of ice magic. It peeled off a new layer of frozen soil, and Middan took the chance to charge forward at the opening. He ran up to it with his blade out, red light turning into streaks of flame that trailed him as the blade plunged into the root ball.
Piera expected a scream, even though the creature clearly had no mouth.
Instead, the creature lashed downward with every forward-facing root, striking Midaan a dozen times over the next half-second. He was repelled backward, tumbling head over feet in an uncontrolled roll. Luckily, the shield took all the impact, cushioning him enough that his neck didn’t break, instead only driving the wind out of him. He struggled to get back to a knee, gasping.
Oren took the second to erect a Barrier in front of the Walker, and it immediately started to cut at it with a dozen roots. He grit his teeth as the hits drained far more of his mana than he expected, and he grunted to the group behind him.
“Get back, back! I can’t hold it off for too long!”
They retreated, before the creature reeled back, winding a tight group of roots around each other, forming a thick coil that it used to strike out at the barrier.
Oren’s eyes flashed worry, and he dropped the barrier just as the arm came down upon it, walloping the ground. Oren sighed in relief – until the root suddenly surged forward.
Oren tried to launch himself backward, but the end of the coil root unraveled and wrapped itself around Oren’s ankle.
“Aw, shit!” Geon yelled in concern. He stabbed his staff out, and a streak of blue flame poured into the root near the spot where it grabbed Oren’s leg. The appendage shivered with the hit, and the root started to smoke and crackle as it caught alight, but it still dragged Oren back towards it. Oren Shielded himself as the tendrils started to writhe in burning pain, tossing him back and forth as it continued to pull him along.
Another shot fired from Deya’s crossbow, and the bolt struck the tendril at the point where the binding started, near the body of the creature. Roots thrashed as her shot shattered the end of the coil, and Oren was able to kick off the limp remnants and crawl back into the group, gasping from two kinds of exertion as he reached for a mana potion.
Midaan was finally back up, sword out, ready to move in to attack the Walker again. Vex beat him to the attack, striking out with a lash of his Wind short sword. A stream of pressurized air flew at a grouping of roots, cutting through some of them, though not cleanly. It did recoil from the pain, however, and Vex was able to Speed toward the creature, quickly hopping up the side of the ball of soil and standing on the ground of wound roots in the center of the grove of trees. He started cutting at any of the roots he could, Oren throwing him a Shield to keep him from getting torn apart up on top of the Walker.
Deya slapped another bolt onto the runner, grimacing at the lack of effect in each shot. It felt like she was wasting these expensive bolts. Then, with a thought, her eyes widened.
“Ciel!” she called. When the woman looked back at her Deya, she pointed to the Walker’s soil body. “Drench it!”
She looked confused for only a second before realizing what she needed, and with a nod, she turned and raised her delicate-looking scepter at the creature. With a flash of blue light, she cast a torrent of water up from the damp earth and it crashed into the ball of compacted soil. Blackened water washed off the creature, and the water flowed up at it in a circle, drenching every angle Ciel could reach.
Deya smiled at the totality of her coverage. Much better, she thought, and poured power into the bolt for another piercing Ice shot. Then, as the Walker flailed in wet confusion, Deya fired.
This time, her shot froze the Walker deep, and the resulting shatter broke off a deep chunk of the thing’s body, revealing a ball of roots squirming deep within. Midaan took the chance, dashing at the opening with a flaming stab, as two of Geon’s wand shots arced around him into the root-heart just before Midaan’s blade reached it.
It plunged in deep, and Midaan’s rune flashed brightly as fire poured through the blade deep into the body of the Walker. The soil on top of the body seemed to roil, and Vex danced away and off the Walker just before flames poured out of the dirt by the trunks, burning through roots and bark and wood. The creature started to spin – as through it was trying to blow the flames out; but the thing itself was fuel, and it’s motion only made the fire burn hotter and faster. Midaan was thrown back and Soon the fire climbed up to the leaves and the branches far above the group, and whorling fires were tossed back and forth it entered something like death throes. The party danced back as intense heat washed over them and the tree-thing shook embers loose, flinging them far into the forest and starting small satellite fires in the area.
Ciel huffed and turned her attention to the cleanup, washing each stray fire with her waters, trying to keep the damage to a minimum as the creature kept spreading more flames. Geon kept throwing shots into the still-exposed heart of the beast, hoping he could do something to kill the thing faster.
Suddenly, the soil that held the carnivorous grove together broke apart, and all seven trees fell down. Two of them were able to catch themselves on still-burning roots, wobbling as they put every effort into staying upright. Roots started to lash out at the party again, and Oren formed another Barrier to block the strikes.
When the roots hit the barrier, the tree suddenly lunged towards it, like it had intuited that anything around it right now must be its attackers. The party tried to dash back again as the tree collapsed into the barrier, then tripped over it. The charred trunk of the last standing tree slammed into the ground, catching Deya under the smoldering branches. Ciel yelled after her, throwing a wave of water directly to the spot where she had disappeared under the smoking and flaming leaves.
Deya had to climb over or break through the thick branches of the tree as she passed through the roiling flames, her arm over her face as she blindly staggered ahead towards clean air. She pushed through the curtain of fire and smoke, her body shimming with a Shield, but still fell to the ground, her body wracked with a coughing fit. Oren dropped the Shield with a gasp once she was clear of the fire.
Piera moved forward, her Empty rune glowing slightly as she looked between the other members to see who else would step up to help her. Vex saw her and, familiar with her way of doing things, realized he was perfect for what she needed. He moved ahead to her, waiting as Ciel doused the flames that still covered Deya.
Vex knelt down besides Deya as she struggled for breath, her eyes clenched and tearing in pain. Vex’s face contorted in confusion, and he looked over at Oren with a questioning look. They locked eyes, and Oren shook his head.
“Smoke damage. Shields don’t block air.”
Vex nodded to him, then to Piera as a sign that they could begin. He felt Piera’s rune lock onto his own, then he placed his Wind hand up to Deya’s mouth, and pushed Healing Wind into her lungs. She coughed at the first breath, pushing his hand away as she tried to purge the strange air from her lungs. After another wracking breath, however, she looked around in less of a daze and, seeing Vex, came to something of an understanding.
Deya grabbed his wrist and nodded assent, and Vex placed his palm over her mouth again, directing a Healing breeze into her lungs. She breathed in deep, her fingers clenched around Vex’s wrist as she struggled not to cough the Wind back out.
Piera gasped as the Healing Wind drained the last of her mana, and Vex let the Wind fade as Piera recovered. Deya relaxed, her hand falling to her chest as her breath calmed and she felt the burning in her chest subside.
She looked up at the group standing and kneeling over her, and her face broke in a weak smile. Her lifted her hand and popped a thumb into the air.
“Thanks, everyone,” she croaked. “It’s dead, right?”
“Damn right, it is,” Midaan responded, and he sheathed his blade and strapped it back over his shoulder.
Deya looked over at Piera next, her runes glowing in a wave pattern up and down her body, her eyes closed in concentration as she cycled.
“You all might want to cycle, too, since I’m at it,” Piera muttered to the group.
Vex nodded, sitting down next to her and falling into the rhythm. Midaan and Ciel followed next, until one by one they all joined the circle, runes breathing as they each recovered their mana.
Geon’s eyes were shut tight as he focused. He’d heard tell of the effect the Lanterns could have on your mana recovery, but he hadn’t experienced it himself. He felt a brushing against his core, in a place he typically couldn’t feel anything – other than the relative pressures of his own mana control. When he cycled, he could feel energy filling him, and much faster than it usually did. With as empty as he was from the fight, it would typically take him a little more than ten minutes to fill his core back up. At the rate it was currently going, however, he should be full in about six or seven.
He looked over at Piera with astonishment. That was such a huge boost to his mana recovery! He instantly felt a little bad; when he’d first met Piera, he’d felt a little of the cultural disdain for the woman himself. It was only a conscious effort not to make an ass of himself in front of someone who could give him real help that he kept his mouth shut until he could develop a more valid judgment. This, however: this was way more than he’d expected. He looked at her as though she were some sort of hero, like a Healer, or a Shield mage like Oren.
And, for a second, he wondered what he might look like, decked out with a set of twelve powers and flickering like a candle in the middle of a tense fight.
After a few more minutes, the party was recovered enough to keep going. Midaan raised his head as he stood from his place on the ground to look at the light above. The sun had passed its zenith some time ago, and he felt a pressure to keep moving. The outpost they were headed to was supposed to be a bit less than a day’s trek from Sitensa. The fights they’d been in had slowed them more than he’d like.
He clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Alright, I know that was a lot, but we need to keep moving if we’re going to reach the Scoutpost before dark. We’ll have to push ourselves as it is.”
Deya grumbled at that, grabbing her crossbow by the stirrup and using it to prop herself up to a stand. “Alright, let’s move, I guess.”
Nobody was excited to keep walking, but they also didn’t want to be stuck out there in the dark – particularly not since the monsters appeared to be more active than they should have been.
Deya tilted her head as they started moving away. “Isn’t Walker season not supposed to be for another few months?”
Ciel nodded. “Yeah, this is really early for anything to be active. I’ve never seen that before.”
Oren spoke up. “I have. Not for a long time, but I have heard about that kind of thing. There were stories about Ice Queens coming down from the peaks in early autumn the last time the spectres started showing up. It makes me worried that we might be in for more out-of-season attacks. Keep your eyes and ears open.”
Midaan sighed quietly. They needed to be cautious, yes, but they couldn’t afford to slow down either. “Vex, think you can keep ahead of the rest of us? We need to know if anything else like that is going to be coming for us.”
Vex agreed, and the Speed runes on his legs lit up as he moved ahead of the rest of the party.
Midaan looked to the rest of them. “We’re going to have to count on him to alert us. We don't have time to spend being cautious. We need to move quickly if we’re going to reach the Scoutpost in time.”
The party nodded all around, and made their way through the last of the rockroot tree groves, towards the lowest point of the valley.