Chapter Thirty Three

John climbed up immediately after the drybolds and looked at the fight going on in front of him. He turned to Sam and said

“I think this might be a little more than we bargained for.”

Sam ducked under a fast moving stream of blood and replied “You think? This is closer to a war than a dungeon raid.”

After dodging she fired an arrow at the mage who attacked them and then stood guard while Camille came up. While she was getting ready to fight John did his best to take stock of his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was two dead bodies on the ground near his feet. Neither had a blood rune so he assumed they were from the tier two adventurers that just got to the settlement. Then he looked towards the center of the island and saw the tusked beasts fighting the blood mages and blurted out.

“How the fuck did those things get here? I’ve never even seen them leave the shore.”

Sam fired another arrow and responded “Figure it out another time John. I think we should attack the blood mages trapping the tier two adventurers at the front of the island. If we free them up we can team up with the dungeon to deal with the rest.”

They tried to work their way across the island, but they were so busy dodging blasts of blood that they didn’t manage to make any progress. John was just about to give up and try and kill the blood mages closest to them when he heard Snud yell. Even though he didn’t know the drybold language, he knew Snud said “Charge!” since all forty of the drybolds started to throw spears and sprint at the blood mages. That redirected their focus and made it possible for John, Camille, and Sam to get across the island.

The blood mages attacking the tier two adventurers were too busy to realize they had new opponents, so they took a second and prepared strong attacks. Camille was unable to use light since she would blind their allies as well, so she gathered up as much wind as she could and shot gale force winds at the blood mage closest to the edge of the island. The winds struck fast enough that they were accompanied by a deafening roar and then they had one less opponent to worry about as the mage went soaring off the waterfall.

Sam struck next. She pulled out one of the few blood river flower coated arrows they had been able to make and shot one of the mages in the neck. He fell to the ground as his blood added to the scarlet pools already set on the island.

Then it was John’s turn to attack. He didn’t dare to dash into the middle of all of them, so instead he heated up one of his hand axes with his fire rune and then threw it once the head was red hot. The axe spun through the air, its bright red head shining in the light. John watched in anticipation as the axe went right were he was aiming, and then it hit handle first and dropped to the ground without any effect.

John had just enough time to turn to Sam and Camille and say “I guess I need to work on my ranged attacks some more.” before the mages responded to their attack.

One crimson stream came flying for each of them. John deflected one with his shield, Camille stopped one with a blast of wind, and Sam disrupted the last attack by putting an arrow uncomfortably close to the mage's face. After dealing with the attacks the three of them tried to retaliate, but before they could more crimson streams were flying their way. John blocked one stream with his shield and yelled out

“Any ideas? I don't think we win at this rate.”

Sam dodged sideways and yelled back

“They can’t deal with us and Bjorn’s party at the same time. As long as we distract them long enough we should get the upper hand.”

John used the second in between attacks coming his way to look up at Bjorn’s party. With three less blood mages suppressing them they had moved onto the offensive. They quickly downed two of the mages and then John had to switch his attention back to his own fight. He blocked another attack from the mages and then threw his last axe before the next wave of attacks came in. He wasn’t able to enhance the throw with a rune this time, but he was more accurate. The axe went straight into one of the thighs of the mage Sam had been peppering with arrows and made him drop to one knee. Then he went back to blocking attacks with his shield while Sam and Camille attacked from a range.

Both sides bombarded each other from a distance for a minute before they were interrupted by a deafening boom and the ground shaking. John looked up to see a crater were the blood mages fighting the tier two adventurers used to be. Unfortunately, most of the tier two adventurers were gone as well. Only Bjorn was left standing. John watched as Bjorn charged the blood mages attacking them with rage in his eyes. Since he was coming from behind he managed to get one of them in a surprise attack before the other two turned towards him.

While that was happening Camille got close to John and said “Go help Bjorn distract them. I’m going to see if I can heal them.” Before sprinting off.

John wanted to make sure they were too busy to do anything to Camille so he channeled his earth rune, raised his sword, and charged in while screaming “Fuck You!”.

One of the mages turned back around in response to that, but not quickly enough to stop John from bringing his sword down with his full strength. He aimed for the arm holding the mage’s rune and managed to separate it from the mages body. Once the rune left his hand blood started to flow from all of his wounds and he dropped to the ground for good. John turned to help with the last mage to find that Bjorn and Sam had already finished him off.

Then the three of them ran over to Camille. Bjorn spoke first

“Are you going to be able to save them?

Camille looked like she was about to weep as she responded “I’m sorry, I’m not a full time healer. At best I can heal one and even then I’m not sure.”

“What do you need to save one?” Bjorn asked “I’ll get whatever it takes.”

Camille kept her head down and focused on healing as she responded “Anything that helps with coagulation should be enough. I can’t stop all this bleeding on my own.”

“I’m not a fucking healer how am I suppose to know what will stop the bleeding. Just hurry up and tell me what to bring to help save ” Bjorn said while lookingthem. down at his injured teammates.

Camille continued healing and said “I’ve already used all mine. As for where you can get them your healer might have had some, the demi-humans might have some, and I’d bet the dungeon grows some somewhere.” She switched to a slightly pleading tone and continued “Now please stop bothering me and let me focus.”

That prompted them to look towards the tree and the drybolds. They had taken out all the blood mages but more than half of them were on the ground Bjorn readied his weapons and prepared to charge towards the drybolds until John grabbed his shoulder and said

“We made a deal with the dungeon to come up and help deal with the blood mages. They shouldn’t attack us if we don’t do anything first.”

Instead of dropping his weapons like John expected, Bjorn kept them up and said “My team developed some bad blood with the dungeon. I’m not sure it's going to let me go.”

John looked at the exhausted and bloody drybolds “It looks like they aren’t going to want to fight anymore either. Don’t bother them for now and I’ll go get your healer's kit.”

Bjorn pointed him over to Fredericks body and John went straight there. He picked up the bag and hurried back to Camille. He gave her the bag and said

“I don’t know what I’m looking for. Is what you need in here?”

Camille grabbed the bag and rifled through it before saying “I don’t see any coagulants in here. If you want to help them you’ll need to get something from the dungeon.”

John went over to the drybolds and walked around till he found Snud. Once there he asked “Do you have any medicine? We need to treat our allies.”

Snud looked at the downed adventurers and said “They attack holy tree. Snud no help.”

Time was of the essence so John pleaded saying “Please, I promise to more than pay back anything we use. Just let us use some coagulants.”

Snud shook his head “Holy tree say no. Them dying valuable for holy tree.”

John ran his fingers through his hair and said “Look, We promise to give the holy tree many resources to make up for it. New flowers, new trees, maybe even new creatures. Can we please just have some medicine.”

Snud spent a few seconds conferring with the holy tree before calling another drybold over.

That drybold handed John a pouch and Snud said “Holy tree accept offer. Here no bleed powder.”

John mumbled a thanks before running back. He gave Camille the powder and then rested while she worked. Occasionally he would grab something for Camille or wrap a wound, but mainly he just watched her work. That is until he saw movement in the corner of his eye. One of the mages he thought was dead had stood back up, and he was glowing just like the mage that exploded in the village. No one else saw him yet so John got up while screaming

“Watch out!”

Then he tackled the mage to try and get him away from everyone else. They ended up rolling on the ground near the edge of the island. The mage still hadn’t dropped his rune so John took a risk and flipped him off the island. As he started his fall the mage dropped his rune, grabbed John’s arm, and pulled him down. John felt himself enter free fall. He ripped his arm out of the mage’s grasp and reached for his earth rune. He channeled as much mana through it as he could to try and strengthen his body, made sure to get his feet below him, and then he hit the water and lost consciousness.

When he woke up he was in a bed at the healers. Camille was asleep in a chair by his side and the other healers were still busy dealing with the wounded from the attack. He was parched so he tried to get up and get some water. Before he did more than swing his feet off the bed a healer rushed over and stopped him.

“You’ve got a concussion. Just stay in bed and I’ll get you something to drink”

That was enough to wake up Camille who jerked up in her chair then rushed to his side.

“Oh thank god. I haven’t had to deal with many concussions yet so I didn’t know how bad it was. How are you feeling?”

John examined his body for a while then said “I’m alright.” He gestured towards the camp and asked “How did I get back here anyway? Once I got pulled off of the island I thought for sure that I was a goner.”

“Lou was right about the dungeon” Camille responded “Since we helped it beat the blood mages it saved your life. We rushed down after seeing you go off the edge and found you being held above the water by a school of fish. We pulled you out and then had to carry you back to camp since we couldn’t get you to wake up.”

“I’m glad Lou was right, but I’m gonna have a hell of a time paying the dungeon back. Do you think I get reimbursed for it?”

As John was talking Olivia burst through the door and rushed over to John’s bed. She turned to Camille and asked “Is he alright?”

John tried to protest saying “I’m right here you know”, but he was completely ignored. Camille answered Olivia saying

“We don’t see much wrong with him other than some bad bruising and a concussion. He’ll have to stay in the settlement for a while so he doesn’t bump his head again but that's about it.”

Olivia punched him in the arm and said “So this is you being extra careful huh?”

John grinned and responded “That’s right. So when’s our date?”