It was a long night and the morning sun glistened off the dew. They walked all this time in tense silence, that, at the very least as Syln thought, was because Hudal still didn’t trust Felia or Bokh. They continued walking for another couple of hours until Muscolo’s knee, who single handedly was carrying 5 of 7 hashtags, and eventually Muscolo himself was plastered on the ground.

Hudal looked at the lying human, clapped his hands and said: “Well, this calls for a rest!”

Out of breath elves, human and dwarf looked at him exhaustedly. Syln dropped his tag and sat down on it. Bokh put his staff and flopping cloth, that barely registered as a bag on the ground. The elf and woman took their tags from the pile that once was Muscolo and rested their heads on them, keeping a respective distance of not being able to see or hear each other. The halfling, however, seemed as energized as ever and his eyes were flying from one tree to another brushing off his companions and giving them goosebumps as if he was a loger looking for its prey.

Two minutes later Hudal clapped his hands again and exclaimed, bursting the ear drums of the people around: “Alright! That’s enough! Let’s go! We need to move!” Felia looked desperately at him as a forest deer desperately hoping it wouldn’t be eaten. Syln couldn’t manage to do the same, but he certainly tried. Cervella and Bokh were silent, unusual for the former and common for the latter. A low grunt could be heard from under the cloth pile, where Muscolo presumably was. “We need to move!” He looked them over. “If we don’t, they might catch up!”

“Speaking of ‘them’,” Syln raised his voice. “Who exactly are we running from?”

“First:” Hudal raised a finger, “we are not running away from anyone. Second: does it matter to you?”

“If we knew who ‘they’ are, we might get ready to fight them”. Syln took a deep breath. “Just in case, we don’t run fast enough”.

“We don’t need to run fast enough! We just need to get out from the prinzessin and we’d have a safe go from there!”

Then there was an awkward pause. Syln looked tired and angry. “You are running away from the elven guards...” He spoke in monotone, which made it impossible to tell if it was a question. The dwarf looked at Felia and Bokh. “A little bit hypocritical, don’t you think”. Felia absentmindedly nodded.

“Urgh...” Hudal rolled his eyes. “Look, if you stepped into some shit, doesn’t mean you should go stomping around knee-deep in the stuff. And now...” he moved his hands as if he was welcoming the rest of the group to step onto a royal carpet. “Can? We?! GO?!”

With a groan and crack of their backs everyone stood up. Everyone, except Muscolo. The pile of the packed up tents and weapons made the smallest of the efforts to move out from his way, but in middle of doing so, decided that it didn’t feel like it and moved back down. A dull grunt symbolized the man’s defeat, and a long sigh that followed up noticeably decreased the hashtags’ size.

“Looks like we aren’t going anywhere”, said Cervella and approached the vaguely Muscolo-shaped pile of the group’s belongings. “How are you doing under there?”

Another grunt and another shake of the cloth later, the woman nodded and placed herself upon the pile. She looked smugly at her companions, saving the most opposing stare for Hudal.

As visibly frustrated as he was, the halfling, surprisingly, didn’t make a sound. His dark skin turned unnatural red tone, and Felia could swear that she even saw smoke coming out of his ears, but his mouth remained shut. Hudal closed his eyes, took a deep breath that lasted for at least a minute and exhaled so violently, a mouse would be blown away. He raised his hands, eyes still closed: “Fine… We’ll stay here for the night”. As everyone went to the pile of hashtags, he interrupted them with a raised finger and wide mad eyes: “BUT! We’ll go as soon as the sun rises! Got it?” Only when he got his share of answers in form of dismissive ‘yes’ or nod from each member of the group, Hudal went to get his own hashtag from the pile along with everybody else.

Cervella moved down as each person got their tag and was left alone with Muscolo on the ground and their future tent on top of him, filled up to the brim with other gear of their possession. As the rest of them went about their own business, trying to put the tents in a way that wouldn’t immediately fall onto them, she watched them struggle with a little smirk. Only then did she realize that the bag she was sitting on was bigger than usual, even considering the mountain of muscles below. She looked down and saw two other hashtags sitting close by, as if waiting for someone to take some action. And in between them, stood the irritated Hudal tapping his foot.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Hudal faked an aghast look, putting his hand on his small chest. “Well!” he started. “I was just waiting for the gods to help me put this up”. Cervella raised an eyebrow. “But the hulk of a man beneath you should be enough for my needs. Just in case, they don’t reply to my prayers”.

Cervella sighed heavily. “Then you will have to wait until Muscolo can at least stand up”. To punctuate her point, a puff of dust went from where the man’s mouth was supposed to be.

Hudal sneered. “Just hopes it doesn’t take too long...”

*************************************************************************

When the high noon came the two tired bodies were looking at each other and at the Muscolo’s snoring body. At that point, they both guessed that the berserker wouldn’t be up and helping them, and, independently of each other, Hudal and Cervella decided to put their tents up themselves. Well, as much as asking the dwarf for help could be considered ‘doing it themselves’.

“Syln!” they shouted in unison and stared at each other with wild deer-like eyes.

“Ugh...” the dwarf grunted, as he was interrupted from his sleep. Ok, he was trying to sleep, but the day sun was just too much to work around, as his eyes weren’t fully opaque. Plus, the barbarian snoring wasn’t any help either. As the hashtag’s cloth doors rustled, he asked: “What is it you two want? Nevermind...” he interrupted them, when he saw the unpacked tents.

With a crack and sigh, the dwarf approached the tentless pair. Surely, putting up a tent or two wasn’t going to be any trouble.

However, what the fighter didn’t expect was that the only hashtag Hudal was carrying around was his market tent. Ghastly huge piece of cloth with wood stuck in it was so much trouble that it took, at least an hour to realize that the dwarf was putting it inside out, but at that point he didn’t care. Despite the hashtag owner’s baseless threats to ‘do it right or he would fire the entire group’.

When it was done, Syln turned around to them and said: “Alright, get in there, both of ya”.

Speechless stares boggled at him. “What do you mean… both of us?” found her voice Cervella.

“By ‘both of ya’ I mean”, the dwarf pointed his stubby finger first at the woman and then at the halfling, “both of ya”.

“You can’t be serious”, she started, but Syln interrupted her once more.

“Look, I ain’t gonna fuck around with another hashtag. We need to sleep, if we want to move out with the sunset. So”, he gestured at the newly arisen tent flaps, “get in. Both of you”.

Muttering under their breath, throwing death glances at each other they begrudgingly went into the tent. Felia watched this exchange take place and was somewhat fascinated by the dwarf’s natural charisma and leadership. It was well-known that dwarf’s only started out with a Charisma stat of 5 and, taking into account that he was just a fighter, which didn’t get any Charisma bonuses, was still able to manipulate others into acting against their will. While a low stat didn’t mean that it had no effect on the person’s ability to use it, it was incredible sight to behold. The only other person, who came to her mind and had same ability to use his low Charisma effectively was her ex-mentor, cleric Joseph. As a cleric, Joseph could only improve his Intelligence, Wisdom and Faith attributes, but the speeches he gave in the church every Sunday could bring even the most dedicated Dachin follower to change his life of slyness to the life of truth and honesty. The Parva’s path, as the cleric called it.

It was a shame that she had to run away without telling him about what happened, she thought. He was the one, who handpicked her and Al to serve Parva in diametrically different ways. Not telling him, now felt as if she betrayed his trust. But, it didn’t matter now, nor did it then. It was a simple choice of living another day or getting thrown to prison, if she was very lucky. Otherwise, she would just be executed in the name of Tohcraft. The family might have even ordered Joseph to do it. And as a good Parva and loyal Prinzessin servant, he would do their bidding.

When the unlikely couple got into the tent, Felia got back into hers. Whatever was going to happen next, didn’t matter as much as a good day sleep before the sunset departure.

**************************************

“GNOMES!!!”

Felia rushed out of her sleep with wind whooshing by her sensitive ears. Darkness outside with a lack of any orange light signified that she had overslept. Grunts of Syln and others, however, meant that they, in fact, did the same.

Vibrating almost laughing jittering voices formed a frightening and disturbing white noise of probable death. Small scratches and bite marks surrounded the bottom of the hashtag and through them elf could see small brown arms and legs of gnomes pouring in from somewhere behind her tent. She grabbed the mace to her right, opened the tent’s door and, as the flaps flattered in the late night breeze, she brought down her weapon onto the moving mass around her.

Felia’s mouth slowly opened ajar, as she took in the sight around. She expected to see five dozen or so of those pesky creatures, but what she did see was many, many more than five dozen. There must’ve been hundred of them, at least, almost two hundred.

This realization came to her during the time it took for the mace to get down upon three or four of the creatures. A wet and crispy squelch came from it. The two gnomes, who were spared the death’s grasp, but got extremely close to it, started screeching from the pain of their small arms, legs and flimsy ribcages being broken underneath the tool, several times heavier than them.

You have dealt 68 damage.

You have killed your target in a single blow. You’ve gained 5% more XP from this kill.

You have dealt 71 damage.

You have killed your target in a single blow. You’ve gained 5% more XP from this kill.

You have dealt 69 damage.

You have killed your target in a single blow. You’ve gained 5% more XP from this kill.

You have dealt 18 damage.

You have broken your target’s leg. You have inflicted ‘CRIPPLED’ effect on the target. You have inflicted ‘BLEEDING’ effect on the target.

You have dealt 11 damage.

You have broken your target’s arm. You have disarmed your target. You have inflicted ‘BLEEDING’ effect on the target.

As she slowly lifted her mace from the ground, strings of blood, meat and guts had risen with it. Felia’s wide eyes looked around to find the same look on the faces of others around. They all fought off the creatures as well, as they could. They kicked, they brought down their weapons, they stepped on the small still jittering gnomes.

“We must have stumbled upon a nest of theirs!” screamed Syln over them and kicked a couple of them as a child would kick a ball in the street. “Try to grab as much as possible and run!”

A small fireball has erupted right in the middle of brown jittering mass. A crackle of fire has taken the gnomes by surprise, but dozens more of them poured from all around them to replace their burning and screaming brethren. They scratched, bit and done as much damage as they could. A flood of messages had burst their way into the adventurer’s mind.

You have received a minor scratch. -1HP

You have received a minor scratch. -2HP

You have received a minor scratch. -1HP

You have received a minor scratch. -1HP

You have received a minor scratch. -0HP

You have received a minor scratch. -2HP

And many more had done the same. The rogue brought her mace down again and again, crushing the gnomes bones and skulls underneath. She even gained a level in both Light weapon mastery and Light armour mastery. But this was not the time, nor the place to celebrate this little victory.

She turned around and started packing up her hashtag, all the while kicking the pricks around her. Felia felt and heard another fireball explode right behind, a couple of burning gnomes falling right in front of her, almost ripping the bag apart.

An inhuman rage induced roar rang behind, which, ironically, came from a human. Disgusting squelch of dozen little bodies being crushed underneath a mountain of muscles forced the rogue to turn around to see Muscolo rising from the ground covered in gnome bits and his cloth pants soaked in their blood. But the creatures seemed only to increase in numbers.

Felia quickly finished packing up her hashtag and rushed to help Syln and Hudal finish up with theirs. The dwarf gave her a thankful nod, when she approached, and all three of them were able to fight the unwilling wooden beams much faster.

Then the cold hit all of them. The flood of insignificant, but very worrying damage messages has stopped along with the jittering and inhuman high pitch screeching. The ground was now light blue from the ice that covered it, as were the trees close by.

“What happened?” Felia asked, when she saw a snowflake form right in front of her eyes.

When no one answered her, she noticed that everyone was looking in the same direction. She turned around to do the same.

The hundreds of gnomes around them were all covered in ice. None of the could move, not to mention let any noise out of their encapsulated mouths. The gnomes’ eyes were full of terror, confusion and defeat. A couple of them darted their gazes from one person to another, but were utterly powerless.

And Bokh stood before them, his legs and arms wide apart and covered in blood, a little streak of dark red coming from both of his nostrils. His wide mouth barely opened, as he took in shallow short breaths. His eyes twitched every second or so accompanied by the bursts of blood from his nose. Syln took a step forward to the wizard elf, ready to leap to his rescue. Then Bokh collapsed.

************************************************************

They spent approximately an hour in dead silence. Muscolo was carrying the limp elf in his arms with Hudal’s hashtag on the back. Cervella threw a couple of somewhat jealous looks at Bokh, but didn’t say a word. Everybody else did likewise. Even Hudal didn’t barrade them for oversleeping.

The morning sun coloured the horizon behind them a wonderous shade of fiery orange. Or it could’ve been the two fireballs Hudal threw back, when some of the gnomes managed to break their ice cages. It could’ve started a fire, but the group was too exhausted from the encounter to care. The sight of them must’ve been depressively crushing, because Felia could swear that she saw a loger cub run away as soon as it saw them.

When the number of trees around them grew smaller and smaller, they started hearing faint sounds of people talking to each other, with wooden carts rumbling over the stone streets. Even Bokh’s breath seemed to calm down from shallow bursts of air into deep inhales, as the sounds reached him. That’s when Hudal lost it.

“What?! In Hera’s name?! Was that?!”

“It was the ‘Early Winter’ spell”, answered Syln with a calm voice.

“Don’t you bullshit me, dwarf! It’s a 30 level spell! What level is he?! And don’t tell me that he is above 30!”

Syln sighed. “He is level 16, if I didn’t mix it up”.

“Actually,” Felia interjected, “he should be a level 17”. When Syln shot her a questioning look, she answered: “I bragged that I gained some levels, and he told me he did too”.

Syln nodded. Hudal was mad as ever. “Level 17?! How the fuck does he know ‘Early Winter’?!”

The dwarf shrugged. “I don’t know. And, honestly, I don’t care. I’m just glad we survived”. Muscolo grunted in agreement.

What actually had happened was much more fascinating than anyone of them could think of. What Bokh experienced is called a self-obtained spell. What this phenomena does is, when a wizard or a sorcerer find themselves in high moments of stress can result in manifestation of a spell higher level than the person’s actual one. This rarely gives a spell 13 levels higher, however, but it wasn’t unheard of. A legend states that during one of the many skirmishes on the elven-human borders, a low level 5 human wizard managed to cast the Judgement Meteor, level 50 spell, successfully wiping out half of both Human Republic and Elven Prinzessin armies. As the story tells, he had to go rogue, forming a village at the border between the opposing countries, which kept peace between the two countries for almost 200 years. Today both the village and the meteor crater are now filled up with water. If one would look at the map of Moria, they would recognise the site by the name of Lake of Peace, the biggest lake on the continent.

Twenty minutes later, the group had reached the end of the forest and their tired gaze glazed over the horizon. Before them laid the City of Boremar. The capital of the Elven Prinzessin.