Leon, Maia, and Valeria tore off into the forest, leaving the Gorgon and the lake behind. He didn’t know exactly why, but it took the Gorgon a few seconds to start her pursuit, which he was immensely grateful for. As a creature of earth magic, her speed wasn’t anything to brag about, and that one trait was enough for the three to put some distance between her and them. Even Valeria, who was at least three tiers below her in power, was able to stay ahead.

Unfortunately, when she did get moving, the Gorgon moved quickly enough that the gap between them didn’t widen as much as Leon would’ve liked. However, what was much worse was the fact that he knew that she was powerful enough to easily blanket the entire Vale with her magic senses. There was effectively no way for them to escape her sight by running alone.

Leon’s mind raced through the possibilities as he led the other two deeper into the dark forest, over tree roots and past spectacularly glowing flowers. They moved swiftly, but even with Leon leading the way, the Gorgon stayed in hot pursuit, proving Leon correct over the course of about ten minutes that they weren’t going to be able to shake the monster from their trail.

As it so happened, they had started running in a roughly northwestern direction. Leon hadn’t intended to go that way, it had just worked out that way when they took off into the forest. That gave them a few options to consider.

Their destination was the northeastern corner of the Vale, where Leon felt certain this ‘pillar’ that Justin was seeking was located. There was the possibility that there might be something there they could use to escape the attention of the Gorgon, but Leon wasn’t hopeful enough to risk their lives on such a course of action. He was leaning towards something much more dangerous.

He still had his invisibility ring and his supply of spells had been largely restocked after two weeks in his workshop back in the capital. He felt like maybe he could pull off some kind of hit-and-run tactics with the Gorgon, trusting in his lightning magic to get away so long as he opened up enough of a window for Maia and Valeria to escape without him. He didn’t need much of his magic— less even than was required for a lightning bolt—in order to gain a boost to his speed.

There were so many other factors to consider, though, that kept Leon running even when that possible plan entered his mind. They could still keep running, he’d thought. They could probably just turn a little bit more to the west and figure out some way to run straight to the edge of the Vale and leave the Gorgon behind.

In doing so, they’d abandon any hope of seeing just what Justin had gone to investigate, and possibly even any hope of seeing Justin himself. Leon wasn’t ready to just let that go, he didn’t want to wait until he was ninth or tenth-tier to come back, not when the trail seemed so hot right now after they’d found Rhea.

For Leon, leaving the Vale would be the worst-case option, something to use just in case everything else failed.

So, after running almost three miles away from the lake in less than fifteen minutes, tearing through the forest’s underbrush along the way with little regard for caution or safety, Leon made his decision. The Gorgon hadn’t called off her pursuit, and it had become clear that whatever she wanted, she wasn’t going to stop until she had it. He’d have to directly act if he wanted her off their tail.

[Keep going north!] Leon shouted into Maia’s mind, trusting in his eighth-tier river nymph lover to keep herself and Valeria safe if he got himself tied down in a pitched battle. [I need to throw her off! I’ll find you later!]

Out loud and without waiting for Maia to respond, Leon shouted to Valeria, “Follow Naiad!”

A moment later, he activated his ring of invisibility. Light bent around him, flashing for a moment before his form seemed to wink out of existence.

[I’m not going to just leave you!] Maia then shouted into his mind, her pace slowing with Leon’s disappearance. [If you’re going to fight, then so will I!]

Leon grimaced as he turned around to face the Gorgon. He’d already called upon his bow and a few choice spell arrows and had one nocked. He hated this idea, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Maia to leave him behind again. His only real concern was Valeria. She was too weak to survive for long in the Forest of Black and White if she were to attract the attention of more ice wraiths, so he didn’t want her to go off on her own.

It seemed he wouldn’t have to worry about that, though, as Valeria followed Maia’s lead and slowed down. “I’m willing to fight!” Leon heard her say, though her flagging aura spoke volumes about how capable she was of following through.

He wasn’t able to hear Maia’s mental response to Valeria, but from the way she and Valeria looked at each other and nodded, it seemed that they’d come to a quick agreement about something. A moment later, light began to bend around Maia’s body as the emerald ring on her finger flashed with light.

Leon almost laughed at his own stupidity. He’d completely forgotten that Maia had an invisibility ring of her own. He still worried about their chances, but with the both of them preparing to make sneak attacks on the Gorgon, they might just be able to open enough of a window to escape, or even to win this fight.

Leon saw as he looked back a brief moment where the Gorgon paused. Clearly, the disappearance of the most powerful people that she was pursuing had caused her to raise her guard and give her a second thought or two. He felt the monster’s magic senses pulse out, searching for them, but he was gratified to see that the Gorgon apparently still couldn’t find them. The monster’s expression grew wrathful, and she made a beeline for Valeria.

Leon was a little frustrated to see that Valeria had stopped, but without him or Maia there to cover her, he couldn’t blame her. Moving through even the western half of the forest was dangerous enough alone at her power level, let alone the eastern half. But this also gave him a good opportunity.

[Take the Gorgon’s left,] Leon silently whispered to Maia. She didn’t respond in words, but he felt the vague notions of her whereabouts that he got from their connection indicate that she was moving in that direction. He then peeled off and got set up to attack the Gorgon’s right as the monster moved to reach Valeria about two hundred feet past him.

The Gorgon was moving quickly and didn’t seem to be taking any precautions. With Leon and Maia gone, she had only Valeria in her unwavering gaze. Despite her relative lack of speed, her long snake’s tail had her moving quite smoothly through the dense forest, and soon enough, she was coming close to Leon.

[Wait for it,] Leon whispered to his river nymph lover as he aimed his bow, a Thunderblast spell tied to the arrow. [Just another second…]

The Gorgon drew near Leon, almost passing him as she sprinted—or slithered quickly—for Valeria. Leon waited until right before she passed him before he drew the bowstring back and loosed his arrow.

There were only about thirty feet between them, and the arrow crossed that distance so quickly it was almost instantaneous. Leon’s aim was true enough, and the arrow hit the Gorgon in the side of her neck. The arrowhead didn’t penetrate far into the Gorgon’s skin, but that was hardly what Leon was counting on; as the arrowhead broke the Gorgon’s skin, the Thunderblast spell detonated in a terrific clap of thunder. Half a dozen young trees close to the blast were shattered into sawdust and splinters, while the spell’s tremendous lightning bathed the surroundings in light and sparks. Unfortunately, one of the arcs of lightning came close enough to Leon that his ring’s power failed, forcing him back into visibility.

Even worse, it had taken what little magic Leon had managed to regenerate to power that spell. But as he staggered back, he saw something that had him feeling more encouraged than dejected: he watched the Gorgon’s body go limp and be hurled by the blast roughly in Maia’s direction.

The river nymph, who was far enough away to maintain her invisibility, struck quickly, conjuring a water dragon and having it tear past the trees and savagely rip into the Gorgon.

Only a moment later, a stone spike erupted from the ground and ‘killed’ the dragon, but not before damage had been done. The Gorgon swiftly got back up and glared into the forest, locking eyes with Leon, but she both failed to find Maia and she was bleeding from a dozen wounds scattered all over her body. Most were superficial at best, but the bleeding from her neck and a gash on her abdomen where the water dragon had sunk its teeth indicated that the surprise attack wasn’t for naught.

[I am going to devour every bit of flesh on your body…] she furiously growled as she began to slither in Leon’s direction.

This, however, gave both Valeria and Maia a good shot at her back. Valeria took as much advantage of this as she could, pulling a bow from her soul realm and firing an arrow with one of Leon’s white fire spells attached at the monster’s back, while Maia summoned half a dozen water wolves that tore off after the Gorgon.

The Gorgon growled like a wild animal, stopped in her tracks, and conjured a stone wall to block Valeria’s arrow, having seemingly grown more cautious of such things after Leon’s surprise attack. The arrow hit the wall and exploded in white fire, proving the monster correct in her caution.

Maia’s wolves, on the other hand, rushed in from the side, with two of them managing to lock their jaws around parts of her serpentine tail before the Gorgon was able to rip a stone out of the earth and detonate it, killing all of them with stony shrapnel.

By then, Leon had already prepped another of his weakest spell arrows, took a dep breath to get a bit of magic power into his blood as he called upon scrap and spark of power that may have hidden itself in his body, and loosed the arrow at the Gorgon, just barely having a clear shot around her stone wall. The Gorgon shrieked and conjured another stone wall, blocking Leon’s arrow. What wasn’t blocked, however, was the fiery explosion that rippled out from the impact point and bent over the top of the wall, licking at the Gorgon’s head.

It didn’t seem like it did much in the way of damage, but it was enough to prove to all four combatants that the Gorgon was now on the defensive.

It seemed this was not a place that she wanted to be in, but she didn’t seem aware that her opponents were on their last legs, so after shooting Leon and Valeria one last hateful look as they prepared more arrows, the earth beneath the Gorgon opened up and she disappeared within.

Maia had just finished summoning a pair of water lions, but as the Gorgon vanished, she held them back. Leon and Valeria, too, relaxed their bows and waited, their magic senses projected, watching and waiting for any sign of the Gorgon’s reappearance, both barely managing to stay on their feet.

The Gorgon did not reappear, leaving the three to stand there for an entire minute in silence, their guard as raised as it could be.

After what seemed like an eternity, Maia spoke to them both. [I think she’s gone. Those injuries we inflicted were probably worse than they appeared.]

“Stay on alert, anyway,” Leon said, recalling his bow and arrows into his soul realm and half-walking half-staggering over to the broken section of forest, where the stone walls still stood and the broken trees lay and several fires were starting to burn. “If she can move through the earth like a stone giant, then she could pop up anywhere at any time.”

Maia let her invisibility drop as she took a few steps in his direction, though both she and Valeria refrained from getting too close to him. They both understood that it was better to remain a bit distant for a while, so that the Gorgon would have a tougher time attacking all of them at once than she would if they bunched up.

But there was no sign of the Gorgon still around, she’d vanished into the earth. Once Leon had confirmed that with his own eyes, his gaze turned upward. He could get a few tiny glimpses of the sky through the thick leafy canopy—more now that he’d destroyed several of the trees in his initial strike—and he could tell that the sky was growing dark. Night had almost fallen upon the Vale, and with it would come more ice wraiths and banshees.

“We need to move,” he said. “I want to keep going deeper. Your thoughts?”

His question was directed at both Maia and Valeria. If they both agreed to turn back, he’d do so, but he’d come so far and he didn’t want to turn back around now, despite the dangers they’d faced already since crossing the river and their current state of near-total magic depletion.

“I want to find my father,” Valeria firmly stated, her breath sounding thin and raspy. “If he’s out here as we think he is, then he’s probably in some kind of danger. I can’t leave until I know for sure.”

Leon nodded and turned his eyes toward Maia.

The river nymph Queen, the only one of them still capable of fighting with any magic at all, was staring at the ground where the Gorgon had disappeared, a look of muted fear and disgust on her face. A moment later, though, she looked up and met Leon’s eyes.

[I’ll not let that one run me out of this Vale like a beaten dog,] she viciously declared. [We keep moving.]

Leon nodded again as a smile appeared on his face. He expected no other answers from either of them, even though the day’s events had proven just how dangerous his old home could be.

“Very well. We need to find somewhere to spend the night, and we don’t have much time left to look, so let’s move fast.”