Chapter 21

“Chirp, Chirp”, the freshly hatched crickets cried out in the night, outside Amy’s aperture. The moonlight poured through the window, alighting on the flowers in a trough on the window sill; as they reflected and amplified the soft silver rays of the three moons filling Amy’s room with light. While the others were coping with their inebriation, she who had remained sober, stayed up to study.

‘The most important thing for a mage is to never stop studying’, Liam had told her during her training, ‘The more you learn, and translate the ancient text, the stronger and more sophisticated your magic will be’.

That is what Amy was doing at the current moment. Although quite unlike how she envisioned a mage would be: in a desk with dusty scrolls and musty books sprawled across her desk. Instead, she had many windows open on her browser. She was studying the known translations of words and phrases of the magical text. One in particular phrase stood out amongst the translations: a shadow of a thought of darkness. She remembered it because Amy had heard Glyn mention the line earlier by coincidence, and she thought it was cool.

After a night’s rest, all hangovers were dealt with. Two dragons, an elf, and a dwarf; that would have been the casualty count if their bodies had worked like normal humans. However, they were not human; thus, their constitution mercifully denied them the unpleasant aftermath of a head splitting hangover. Shatira was an expert at partying, as Amy had learned, and had already deployed countermeasures to battle post inebriation. As such, her hangover was negligible.

Amy was moving up and down along with the gait of beast she was riding.

“I can’t believe I’m riding a forest stag!!”, Lorenn exclaimed, as Satriana giggled riding with him, “My dad would be so pissed, ‘high elves don’t ride wild beasts, its unsophisticated’”, he said with a rebellious mocking tone imitating his father.

“Those elves know how to party!”, Shatira said as she was riding another stag, a bow of unknown origin strapped across her back.

“Ugh, I wish they would be steadier”, Glyn complained her usual rosy cheeks drained of their color as she clung to the reins hunched over.

“My breakfast, I don’t want to lose my breakfast”, Sean said with a greenish grim face, clutching his stomach desperate to contain the delicious elven pancakes he ate too much of.

“Why don’t you like your own village Veve? Goddam you wood elves know how to party!”, Shatira said, unable to read the atmosphere as usual.

“It’s different if you are related!”, Veve complained as she squeezed Osgur tighter, as he stayed stoic, nodding, but his cheeks did flush a little.

“NNgg! This creature, not solid like our stone floors”, Minerva too was unsettled as she rode atop the white stag, clenching Amy’s waist.

“It was nice that your chieftain let us use them. I read they were very valuable and rare. You should thank your parents properly they were the ones who requested it after all”, Amy said a splinter of longing in her heart as her thoughts turned towards her mother.

“UGGHHH!! NO my food! UGHHH!”, Sean retched.

Indeed, dragons and dwarves were notoriously unaccustomed to riding creatures, one race preferring to be either ridden or flying free, the other too acclimatized to their stone sturdy halls hewn in rock.

As they rushed through the trees, ents occasionally walked around nurturing the saplings in their ‘secret forest’ that would mature into the wooden giants in the next three hundred years. The well-groomed and perfumed smell of the stag she was riding mixed with smell of dewy damp leaves. The wide ivory horns stretched before her, the neck sturdy and thick, the fur soft and downy.

The early sunlight flashed through the leaves giving the atmosphere a greenish tint as it filtered through the trees in the sunrise hour. At noon the suns path would cross in the blue sky. It would be around the time they estimated they would reach the mountain. Then their dangerous work would begin in earnest.

Veve uttered elven words at the white stags, as they turned around to return to their homes. Amy looked around, it was noon, and they were on the threshold.

“Alright guys”, Osgur said as he looked at the others, pulling out a Lucerne hammer style weapon, sunlight glistening off the metal, “Let’s keep it tight. A forest is great for ambushes, kobalds run in packs, and they like to flank. Shatira, you sense anything?”.

Amy saw Shatira eyes sharpen as she turned to lead the party forward north east up the slopes of the small coastal mountain. ‘I haven’t seen the fjord of Arbellon yet, Amy thought to herself, ‘I’ll go there sometime’.

“It seems we’re clear for now”, Shatira replied as she armed herself with her bow.

“I don’t feel anything from the earth” Minerva said glad to be on solid footing, hunched over squatting with her hands spread on the forest floor.

Lorenn took up the rear guard with Satrianna. A halberd and a long thin leave bladed glaive. Amy could hear the swoosh of the air being cut as Lorenn warmed up his shoulders with a few strokes. Minerva took a large Warhammer out of her inventory as her tablet circled around her with a soft glowing screen. They resumed the same formation they had engineered in the dwarven kingdom simulation. Sean readied his magic handcannons, whispering words to it as it glowed faintly, then holstered them. He was very proud as he made them himself. Glyn pulled a scroll from her pouch, and began chanting a light shined and a sword was produced; a large claymore suspended itself in the air before she grabbed it. A relic Amy had learned, Glyn’s specialty: she would write with her quill upon parchment generating a weapon once the user specified incantation was finished. A relic was a fabricated temporal magic armament. It was versatile form of magic, able to adapt to shifting circumstances. Veve walked with a wooden stave cut from the tree in their village. And of course, Amy drew her wand.

Today they had readied themselves, on top of their breathable hiking clothes, they wore various types of armor. Amy had a mail armor under her shirt, it was a gift from Minerva made from the fabled mithril. Amy had tried to refuse knowing the cost but Minerva stubbornly insisted. As a pure magician class, she needed mobility, not having much of a physical weapon, as such her shapely thighs were covered with elven leather armor that Veve had gifted her. Amy refused this gift as well, but Veve walked away with a regal smile ignoring her protests. Her heart felt warm as she checked her equipment gained from her comrades. This must have been how Jeremy felt when he was with his fellow soldiers. Her heart ached a little bit and her brows furrowed. Still, she worried about him. They plunged deeper into the forested slopes.

Having studied kobalds the night before to prepare herself Amy reviewed in her mind the creatures whose breath she would be stealing. Their appearance was like a grey mangy mutt except bipedal, and around six feet. They were built for speed and hidden ambushes, so while they were well muscled and lithe, their defense was weak. They had the same cognitive ability as a wild pack of dogs. However, the alphas resembled a hyena more than the large eared sharp-nosed hunters. They were clever, and always sought to attack from an unexpected direction. Then they would tear apart their victims devouring the soft organs first like any predator. They had strong necks for a strong bite, wielding clubs and spears to hook and incapacitate their prey. Amy knew they were more dangerous, more difficult than goblins.

“Phuuu”, Amy breathed to calm her tension, ‘Let’s do this’, she thought to herself.

Her magic detection app was low leveled, and she could only sense up to forty-five meters; not a close distance but not a far distance, just time enough to react. She wasn’t satisfied, the range was shorter than she liked, it would progress as her imagination and usage of it was refined, and the span would lengthen. But this was reality, and any mistake, as she learned through the bitter past two weeks, could kill her and her party, so she was still nervous.

The scale mail armor of Minerva whispered quietly. Suddenly Veve stopped, Amy watched Shatira and Veve exchange glances.

“The air is changing”, Veve whispered, in tune with nature they could read the weather like one reads a book, “The wind is pushing east over the mountain towards them. It is still during their sleep cycle, but they will have scouts patrolling most likely”.

As if on cue a gust of wind that had infiltrated the dense forest began to blow. The massive trees shook as the air shoved against their branches in a heated competition of strength.

“We may have a storm today”, Lorenn commented from the rear, “At least our scent will be covered, when it rains”.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t apply to us now. We only have a rough idea of their borders. Let’s hope they don’t get a whiff”, Shatira said with a sharp glance, her concentration focused and keen, they could die if they were careless.

A Kobald’s sense of smell was extraordinary; however, that was not the limit of their senses; for they could also smell magic with their noses, just as well as they smell physical scents. It rendered all types of odor charms and spells ineffective because the magic itself could be sniffed out in the air. The only method was to cover their scent physically and not with magic. So, the night before Veve and Osgur had covered all their armor and clothes with the dirt in the gardens of the elves to mask the smell of metal. While their clothes had been soaked with a special concoction of Veve’s to reduce the smell.

Amy looked up at the canopy, through the trees she could see it was noon. They were entering enemy territory with one more step.

Amy kept silent her thoughts to herself. She looked around, and continuously activated her detection. It was no more strenuous for her physically than breathing, but she had to say the words that she had set, in her mind at regular intervals. At the same time, she had to remain vigilant and be ready to respond as well. A mage’s role was mentally demanding, completely different than what she had imagined.

Descending downwards from the mountain the party ceased speaking, only the silence of the forest could be heard. A word said casually, even a whisper could be carried on the winds to koldald’s keen ears.

The party stopped; Shatira looked at Osgur. Quickly they hid, and crammed into an overhang underneath a massive root protruding from the forest floor. Du-dun, Du-dun, Amy’s heart beat quickened, her eyes strained, her breath held. She could hear sniffing in the air, not unlike the dog she had at home. Shatira held up two fingers: it was two scouts. They could have easily eliminated the ignorant duo, but that was not their aim. They had strategized that it would be better to infiltrate and kill the alpha, rather than moving discreetly to take out the patrols first. Why? It was because of their prey’s dependency on ambushes. Kobalds individually were not that strong, even as a group, if they did not have the element of surprise, they were easier to handle. If they wandered through the forest, looking for the guards and patrols first, the probability of being caught in an ambush grew higher as they spent more time searching for scouts. Therefore, the team had decided to attack the den kill the alpha, and kill all who came to defend their home, but they would be in chaos having lost their leader.

Sure, being surrounded was perilous as well, but in doing so they took away the advantage of the enemy. The party had the capability of fighting off hordes of other foul creatures that polluted the land causing wanton death and destruction. Although all of this was if they could infiltrate the den. This was reality after all not some video game or anime.

Amy’s heart rate slowed as she heard the steps walking away, and the sniffing ceased. They waited underneath the root for hours. As if they were already experts, not a single piece of armor clanked against another as they maintained utter silence, reducing their presence and footprint. Finally, after Shatira nodded, they all exited the root.

As soon as Amy turned around her eyes had met a pair of canine eyes. Instead of a mangy blueish grey coat of fur it was yellow and spotted like a hyena. ‘Dou ma’, Amy cursed to herself it was the alpha and twenty others. Judging by the surprise on their faces, Amy could tell this was not an ambush.

She saw an opportunity, a thought flashed in her mind. Was it a thought? It seemed more like a flash of instinct.

“Do Re Ka Lin To”, Amy said excitedly but clearly, with exquisite pronunciation.

Amy seized the initiative; she could feel her arms and chest vibrating as a current passed through them arching from the tip of her wand striking the Alpha and three others surrounding him. The lightning struck with a resounding boom, as it gradually began to rain. Amy could smell burnt fur, and cooked flesh amongst the pitter patter of the droplets as it began to pour down in earnest.

“Shit! A fight in the rain, muck, and mud. We need to finish this now!”, Lorenn said as he lunged forward with his leaf shaped glaive.