For the sake of entertainment, I’ve translated all of the words which I imagine to be Sir Grenzer’s expletives as various types of food that I’ve had time to think about, and quite dearly miss. As the calls rose up from each of the four directions, Grenzer threw some sort of fit atop Karavos’s back, whom I continued to heal.

“French fries!” he shouted. “All of the gingerbread Outriders at once?!” He grabbed a knife from his waist and hurled it into a tree. “How the falafel did this happen?!”

An arrow whizzed past my face.

Damn it, squire, leave me alone! Your mother was a hamster, and her father smelled like Macamme nuts!

“Shella!” the culprit called to the idiot mage climbing the hill below him. “Help!”

“I’m trying!” she called back, her face covered in mud. I could still clearly see the irritation on her face, though.

Heh. Well-deserved.

She managed to finally scamper up the distance towards Barlan, and covered him in a bright crimson light.

“Measure three!” she told him. Suddenly, Barlan was firing arrows at a crazy speed. Where he kept all these arrows, I had no idea, but three were flying towards me every second. I couldn’t dodge fast enough. One bit into my leg, and another into my tail.

Three more came flying towards me, followed by another six. My dancing wasn’t going to work to dodge them anymore. I glanced to my magic, seeing it was rapidly nearing zero.

There was no way I was going to heal myself out of this one. I stole a look at Karavos, and was surprised to see that the blisters had closed, and much of the skin around his face had returned to a healthy color.

Could I actually heal this guy?

The arrows ripped through the air, whistling death. There was nothing I could do. Three were firing to the sides, in case I tried to run, and three were flying towards me.

As much as you might be saying “jump, you idiot, jump!” In reality, that wasn’t an option either.

Let me ask you a question. If I had you stand against a wall, and told you that you could only jump straight up, then fired three arrows at your chest, would you be able to jump high enough to avoid them?

No? You’d duck? Well, say that one of those arrows was rocketing towards your feet. Add to all of this that I had an arrow in my leg, and this was all happening in the span of a few seconds.

Yeah, I was going to get hit by these arrows. So I did the only logical thing I could. I spun, turning my back to the arrows, and ducking my head. If they were going to hit, they weren’t going to hit my most vulnerable areas. My healing spell cut off abruptly as my mana hit zero, and I closed my eyes against the incoming strikes.

But the pain I’d expected never came. Instead, a thunderous crash exploded behind me, shaking the ground.

A cursory glance over my shoulder revealed two things to me.

Spikes, and spikes.

And big spikes. So maybe, three things?

Yeah, the dinosaur that landed between me and the arrows was only a bit larger than myself, but the white spikes that coated almost its entire body made it look far more threatening.

Was this… a turanta?

I observed it as it roared at the two idiots.

Scavva, Friend to Vara

I then watched as the beast whipped its tail forward, firing two spikes directly at the idiots. Barlan yelped, and both of them immediately started sliding down the hill, running back to Savage Santa.

“Son of a brownie!” the man in question shouted. “They even brought their garlic bread mounts!”

He reached down, ripping Titansbane out of Karavos’ belly. Another groan left his mouth, and it seemed as though he might’ve been more awake than before.

Santa jumped off the behemoth, landing on the ground in a roll. He waved the two idiots behind him, and held his sword outward, spinning as he looked towards the trees and, oddly enough, the bloody river.

“Show yourselves, you cowards!”

Nothing happened for a moment. I reached down to my leg, yanking out the arrow with a suppressed growl. Scavva stood before me, baring his teeth towards the three humans. The rain continued to pound against the earth, and I felt something touch my shoulder.

“If you insist, Grenzer,” a feminine voice called out as I jumped in shock. A serpentine head burst from the river, spraying blood across the three humans. A woman, dressed in a tight and shiny material emerged from the trees nearby.

Scilla of the West [Lvl ???]

I didn’t immediately examine the creature that came from the river, because I was now staring at the person who’d touched my shoulder.

She had long red hair, woven with what looked like dinosaur teeth. It hung down from underneath the horned skull she wore as a helmet. Two other skulls rested on her shoulders, pauldrons, and the rest of her armor was comprised of the same types of spikes that Scavva had fired from its tail.

Her large blue eyes showed concern as she examined me. A massive lance, possibly carved from a dinosaur’s thigh, rested on the ground beside her, underneath yet another skull. This one seemed to belong to one of the Aspisauruses. A horn, filed down to a more manageable size, jutted out from the front of the naturally shield-shaped head. I saw a few straps and realized she was actually using it as a shield.

Vara of the East [Lvl ???]

One of her gloved hands touched the blood leaking from my thigh, and she brought it to her face to smell it.

“Not poison,” she whispered with a smile. “You’ll heal just fine. Here.” She reached into a bag that had been concealed under Scavva’s spikes, and pulled forth two glass bottles filled with colored liquids. One was red, and the other blue. “Drink these.”

I eyed them skeptically. I mean, she could have speared me if she wanted to, and obviously, she was friends with the dinosaur behind her. Had she tamed it? Or were they something like partners?

Plus, if those two bottles held what I thought they did, then drinking them was the right choice. Vara popped the corks out of them, and held the red one towards my good hand. I grasped the bottle, and chugged the contents. YOLO, right?

“You’re a unique one… And, no name?” She frowned, pursing her lips.

Oh yeah. I guess she had a point. After I put the bottle down, Vara offered me the blue one, and I chugged that one as well. In moments, both my health and magic were filling themselves back up. The wound on my leg began to close, and I watched in wonder. A few pricks along my body indicated that Vara had also pulled out those arrows while I stared at my leg.

“Hot cinnamon buns with dripping frosting!” The shout drew my attention back to the four people standing down by the river. Two more humans had emerged from the woods, and now the three stooges were surrounded.

Brin of the South [Lvl ???] Haran of the North [Lvl ???]

Very helpful information, magic boxes.

Brin was covered from head to toe in armor made of rock. Only his head, bald but for a single lock of brown hair, was visible. Haran actually didn’t wear any armor. He was dressed in a light cotton shirt and pants, with a sash binding the shirt tightly to his waist. A huge bow was slung around his back, and a quiver filled with arrows the size of small spears hung from his waist.

Actually, maybe those were spears…

Brin didn’t have any weapons. Any visible ones, anyway.

The snake-headed dinosaur was snapping at Santa, and he sliced aggressively back at it.

“Back!” he shouted. “Back! Titansbane is a dangerous weapon! It’s a sacred artifact!”

Brin scoffed as Santa fended off the snake-head.

“Your people wouldn’t know sacred if it stabbed them in the gut, Grenzer! Do I have to send you running again, today?”

“I dare you!” Santa growled, baring his teeth savagely. “Fight me alone, Brin! Single combat. If you win, you can kill me. If I win, you let us leave, and I get to finish killing this beastie.” He swung a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to Karavos.

The rock-covered man paused for a moment. Scilla whistled, and the snake-head backed off.

“An intriguing offer, to be sure,” Brin said after a moment. “But, why would I do that when we have the obvious advantage here?”

It was Grenzer’s turn to scoff.

“You scared of my squires? I’m only asking you to allow they go free. They’ve done nothing wrong.” Rage flashed across Scilla’s face. Brin was also clearly irritated.

“They are party to an atrocity such as this!” the woman shouted, throwing her hands towards the diseased monster before her.

“Come, nameless one,” Vara said to me, drawing my attention back to her. Her lance and shield were gone, as were the bottles. I’d fully healed, but I hadn’t noticed. “You and I are going to save Karavos, the Magnificent.”