It was a week before they finally made it to the edge of the marking on his map.
During that time they did some testing and experiments with Adriana’s new skills and abilities. They found that Woodcraft worked exactly how he expected it to work. She was making great progress on her stealth ability, making her harder and harder to spot but he could still find her. However when she activated stealth at the same time as woodcraft Bjorn had a hard time finding her.
Even though Adriana gained the ability to speak to trees by being able to speak Entish, it didn’t mean that the trees would talk back. She was able to find out that most trees actually didn’t have that spark of life that led to sentience. The more common trees like oak, ash, hawthorne, and pine trees didn’t have sentience at all. However the more magical trees almost always had some sort of sentience. That didn’t mean that they were always awake however as most trees ended up sleeping for long stretches of time, besides they didn’t really have a sense of sight so oftentimes they weren’t actually useful even if they were awake.
Unperturbed by the usually unhelpful flora she still tried every time they stumbled upon a magical tree. At first she started with full sentences in Entish to try and get the trees to respond. This would sometimes take up to 15 to 20 minutes at a time. But with failure after failure she started cutting her opening statements down. Now when she would stop to talk to a tree it would be around 30 seconds to a minute. She normally just said something as simple as hi.
She also tried several different times to tame a woodland creature, normally the normal animals. She was able to get deer, elk, and water bucks to come close to her. But those weren’t the kind of creatures she really wanted to tame. There was only one time where they saw a wolf and it ran away at the sight of them.
There was only one time where Adriana was luring in a deer to try and befriend it. That time Bjorn decided he wanted to hunt and take down a deer so he shot it. This led to not only Adriana being angry at Bjorn but she actually lost access to the Animal handling skill for several days. The system said.
Due to your egregious use of your skill which goes completely against the purpose of the skill you have lost access to your Animal Handling skill for 3 days. Don’t abuse this skill again or it will result in loss of skill level.
Sure it was a bone headed move, but hey free food was free food. Even though she was angry she still ate the deer, they were slowly starting to run low on food supplies. So every little bit counted.
It was also good to know that there could be improper uses for skills. He was fairly certain that it could be true for magics as well. Such as using life magic to keep someone alive just to torture them longer. That would probably be anathema to the purpose of life magic. But until they knew for sure he wasn’t going to put it off the table.
One thing that did come as a bit of a surprise, though kind of not really, was that Malachi ended up reaching level 3. Which gained him 2 more attribute points to spend. After some mental gymnastics and mental calculations he determined that putting the two points into intelligence would actually benefit Malachi the best. The extra 20 points of mana in his mana pool would be the optimal way for the golem to generate mana. Seeing how its entire growth was dependent on its mana generation it had to be the best.
With the attribute points assigned he wanted to let Malachi continue to convert the mana it generated into xp but it probably wasn’t the best idea. If he dedicated his entire mana regeneration into xp for the next 4 months then he would probably hit level 4. However there was a good chance that they would find whatever they were looking for out here within the next 4 months. At least he hoped so.
Based on how far they have traveled the distance that they have to cover to try and find this fucking town was probably 100 miles across in both directions based on the area indicated on the map. It could be anywhere within this 10,000 square mile area.
There were a few things that could help cut down the total area they would have to search. The first was that the town would obviously need some sort of source of water. Bjorn could easily produce enough water for 50 maybe even 60 people to survive off of each day through his use of water magic. He was an anomaly, water magic was rare enough, and he has enough attributes that he can generate tons of water each day, not everyone has those advantages. So rivers or creeks would be their best chance to find the group. Unless they have built a well or they found a natural spring then that option was out.
For a village to really be built it has to be in kind of flatish ground, that doesn’t mean it has to be perfectly flat, or that there can’t be flat ground in hills. It should help cut down areas where they have to look. It takes less effort and is faster to build on flat ground than on the side of a hill. In this world where magically enhanced animals and monsters roam building shelters faster is in their best interest. So that is where they would start looking.
All of this was to say that Malachi isn’t much of an asset in a fight so it was time to change that. He ordered Malachi to let his mana fully regenerate and only then was he to use any access mana that he produced to help him gain some mass. It still would take Three full days for him to fully fill his mana pool.
When he finally did get a full mana pool Bjorn gave him instructions to use 10 of his total mana each time that it got full to use his grow mass ability. When it did so the procedure was very interesting watch.
Malachi first would kneel down placing its hand on a stone set in the ground or sitting on top of the ground. After around a minute a faint pale blue sheen would start to slowly flow out of the golem’s arm and into the stone. 30 seconds later the stone began to melt. 15 seconds after that the melted stone would flow up into the form of the stone golem, where the stone would assimilate with the rest of the black stone matching the same color and material that Malachi was made out of. Finally when the mana had been expended the golem would stand leaving behind an apple sized hole in the rock.
The entire process while very interesting watching solid rock flow like water was kind of disappointing. It took 2 minutes for a grand total of maybe half an apple to go into the stone golem. When Malachi was finished with absorbing all of the stone it barely looked any larger. Bjorn most definitely couldn’t see any difference.
At that moment Bjorn thought about ordering Malachi to not waste his mana on gaining more mass. It was impulsive but he ultimately decided against it. His earlier realization that Malachi wouldn’t be much help as he currently was still held true. So with a sigh he let Malachi continue wasting mana on its slow small growth.
As they drew nearer to their quarry Bjorn made sure that every morning he would milk himself for a vial of his venom to coat on a few arrows. It would be a waste to let the venom just sit there not being used, on top of that it would be helpful if they came across any animal which meant them harm. On two separate occasions it did come in handy. He quickly immobilized the monster attacking them with his venom tipped arrow and then ran up to drain the monster netting them both plenty of experience. He was slowly getting closer to level 21.
He also spent some time doing what alchemy that he could. The quality of potions that he could make as well as the quantity were limited due to the less then ideal circumstances. But he was able to make half a dozen healing, stamina, and mana potions each. He also successfully brewed 2 doses of the rage potion he learned how to make so long ago. He attempted to brew the rage potion 8 or 9 times with each ending in a failure. It opened his eyes to how much his profession hinged on good equipment and a good environment to brew potions successfully.
On the last day before they made it to the outside limit of where the village would be Bjorn took down a deer. They spent the entire day cooking it up and throwing it into his bag of holding. With that done they would be set for food for the next little while at least. They didn’t want to chance having to start a fire at night to cook dinner each night.
Finally the time had arrived and they were at the outer limit of where the village could be. All of this hinged on the fact that Zain hadn’t lied to them. The thought had crossed his mind several times during their travels. It was the only information that was given to them so it was the only thing that they had to go off of. There was a lot that depended on that one interaction.
From here on out there were several different things that they would do to help mitigate the chances that they were caught with their pants down. The first one being the no fire rule, which seemed fairly self explanatory. If they built a fire it was like making a beacon announcing their presence.
The next one being that they always had their armor and weapons on or at the ready. This rule was more of a formality, as they traveled they had some sort of armor on and usually carried a few weapons. Adriana always had one a leather cuirass, now she had on a set of hardened leggings to match her chestpiece. She also normally didn’t wear bracers or shin guards, she did now. She always carried her bow and arrows but she put on a thin rapier that she got from Blackrock Bay and finally a dagger.
Bjorn put on a leather jerkin that had metal rings that were stitched into it, the ringmail was his go to armor for the time being. He normally wore his enchanted braces as they were the best defense he got. He tied his high steel sword to his hip as it was still faster to draw it than to pull it out of his bag of holding. He had a quiver on his back which he filled with two different kinds of arrows, one had highsteel arrowheads, they were heavier than the other one so it was easy to tell which arrow he was grabbing, those were coated in his venom which he reapplied every morning. The other arrows were the lighter but more powerful moonstone arrowtips. He had his customary 5 daggers that he had hidden all over his body, as well as hardened studded leather leggings. If it came to a fight he was going to be the one to be their tank. His only wish was that he still had Alaric’s shield, only it was taken from him during the raid on his farm.
The last rule which was a safety precaution was that they would always be in a warparty. For obvious reasons they had this rule so they could communicate with each other. They also then had the ability to keep an eye on each other’s health, stamina, and mana, as long as the scout job was assigned to one of them. The scout job was always assigned to Adriana and Bjorn always assigned the tank job to himself. He would have been the better scout due to his higher skill levels and more experience, but he would be the one to take all of the damage if they could make it work that way. The war party also made sure that they wouldn’t get any further away from one another than his sphere of influence.
With everything prepared they finally crossed the invisible line on Bjorn’s map and were in the potential area for the village. It was fairly anticlimactic. To no one’s surprise there weren't any large declarations when they crossed over the invisible line, there wasn’t anyone just standing there waiting for them. Nothing happened. That didn’t help their nerves however as both of them were strung tight, the feeling continued for several days.
Their idea was to walk all along the southern edge of the area marked on the map then the east end of the area. As they went they would take note of any body of water as they went. This would give them the best chance to find where the village was hiding. The reasoning behind that was the topography. This entire land mass had a bit of a divide that ran down the center of it, mostly centered on the restless volcano. All the water to the east of the volcano ran eastward until it met up with the Glistening Sea. Everything to the west of the volcano ran westward.
If they didn’t come across anything that they deemed large enough to base a village on they would then map out the north side as well, The entire process would take weeks but it should bring them that much closer to their end goal. The clock was ticking. Soon the time would be up and the Eld would likely take back things given to him by his latent potential synergy. They only had 4 months left before it was fall and the timer ran out.
Not wanting to waste any time they got to work. It was much the same. Slowly walking through the woods, making their way eastward. It took over a week for them to clear the entire south side of the zone. There was only one river that could be considered large enough for someone to want to settle down at so that was a contender.
As they traveled this area that they were in seemed to have a higher density of monsters and magical creatures in it than the surrounding forest. They didn’t know why but instead of every 3 or 4 days they would have to fight something it went to once a day. Sometimes maybe even twice.
This increased chance of fights helped Adriana, Bjorn, and Malachi get a feel for each other. Bjorn and Adriana fought together plenty but there was something to be said with fighting every single day. They honed their reflexes, it helped them understand what the other was going to do, it helped them grow as fighters. There was only one time in his life where Bjorn had this kind of understanding with another person and that was when his party had been alive.
Malachi was a different story however. He wasn’t really a thinking creature so he didn’t really help when a fight broke out without orders. It became another thing that Bjorn had to balance while fighting, as Malachi wouldn’t listen to anyone else's orders even when he ordered Malachi to follow Adirana’s orders.
During lose stress situations when not in a fight Malachi would sort of listen to Adriana’s orders, when Bjorn gave it orders to follow her. It was like there was some sort of lack of understanding or haze that covered Malachi. He would listen and kind of half way follow what she told it to do. But the way that it wouldn’t follow orders would be in the most random ways.
For example Adriana might order Malachi to go gather some fire wood. It would then walk off into the woods, It would then bring back a stick. This stick would be a freshly broken branch or a branch that had recently fallen. Either way it is not good firewood, Or it would find some firewood, bring it back to the camp, and then proceed to immediately start breaking the stick through punches. Unless intervened, Malachi would not stop until the stick was pulp. If Bjorn gave the order then it would be followed without issue. Bjorn thought it had to do with its almost completely destroyed core.
On top of that it seemed like every day whatever outstanding orders that Malachi was given would just disappear. Bjorn could give the golem complex reactive orders which it would carry out without issue. However on the next day that entire order would seem to disappear from whatever memory a stone golem had.
Trying to get it so that Malachi did some sort of work while fighting was a challenge. Bjorn had to control its movements as he also had to try and fight. The only real saving grace was that Malachi being made out of stone made it so that most monsters had difficulties hurting him. There was one occasion where a snake creature had a venom that started to eat away at Malachi’s stone dealing damage to it.
That was when they got to use the last ability that Malachi had, Repair Mass. When it was ordered to Malachi placed its hand on a flat rock surface and almost exactly like how it grew its mass it started to channel. Mana quickly flowed out of Malachi’s body and into whatever stone it was touching and the stone slowly turned liquid. The stone then flowed into the body, instead of growing larger; however the stone started to get centralized on the wound. It would sit there for a few minutes as the two stones intermingled and slowly started to solidify again, repairing the weakened section of the golem.
It was always interesting and fun to watch as stone turned liquid and flowed into Malachi’s body. One thing that was an unintended consequence of this process was that Malachi’s body was slowly starting to lose its jet black coloration. It was slowly starting to turn a dark grey color. As if the two stones mixing was changing the composition of its body. Which was basically exactly what was happening.
Besides their teamwork getting better there were some other benefits to all the fighting. Bjorn managed to gain 2 levels while Adriana gained 1, almost 2. On top of that there were a lot of skill level advancements.
You have advanced your skill level in alchemy, reaching skill level 42. Potions you make will have 42% increased effect and 84% increased duration of effect.
You have advanced your skill level in archery, reaching skill level 32. Damage from arrows you shoot is increased by 48% over base damage.
You have advanced your skill level in bowyering, reaching skill level 8. The arrows and bows you create have a 8% chance to increase in quality.
You have advanced your skill level in climbing. reaching skill level 11. Scaling objects with handholds has become 66% easier.
Congratulations you have advanced from beginner to novice in your skill: Climbing. You have gained a perk. If you study a path for climbing for over a minute you may expend 50 stamina to have a possible route to the top highlighted for you.
You have increased your skill level in your skill: Delayed casting, reaching level 5. The duration at which you can hold back the mana before it becomes unstable is 5 seconds.
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Congratulations you have advanced your skill level in grappling. Reaching skill level 7. The effectiveness of your strength is increased by 7% while in a grapple.
Congratulations you have advanced your skill level in heavy armor, reaching skill level 15. The effectiveness of your heavy armor will be increased by 45%. Your 4% movement speed decrease per piece of heavy armor is still maintained.
You have advanced your skill level in Light Armor, reaching skill level 13. When wearing light armor your defensive value for the light armor is increased by 13%.
You have advanced your skill level in healing, reaching skill level 11. Wounds that you treat will heal 16.5% faster.
Congratulations you have advanced from beginner to novice in your skill: Healing. You have gained a perk. Any wound that you treat will heal twice as fast for the next 32 hours.
You have advanced your skill level in hand to hand combat. reaching skill level 18. Blows you land with bare fists and legs now deal 36% extra damage.
Congratulations you have advanced your skill level in: Inner peace. Reaching skill level 20. Your emotional stability has increased by 20%. Your resistance to mental manipulation has increased by 10%
You have advanced your skill level in small blades, reaching skill level 16. Your attacks with daggers and knives now deal 32% more damage over base value. Additionally critical strikes done with your small blades will deal 16% more damage.
You have advanced your skill level in stealth, reaching skill level 21. You will now be 84% harder to spot while stealthing.
Congratulations you have advanced in the skill: Survival, you are now skill level 5. You are now more likely to see dangerous situations before you are in them.
You have advanced your skill level in swordsmanship, reaching skill level 15. Your attacks with swords now deal 60% more damage over base value.
You have advanced in your skill: Teaching. You have reached skill level 7. The rate at which you are able to impart knowledge to a student is increased by 35%
You have advanced your skill level in tracking, reaching skill level 16. The tracks that creatures leave as they travel through the world make just a little more sense to you.
Congratulations you have advanced your skill: War leader, reaching skill level 12. The bonus offered by this skill is not a static thing. Spend your war points to gain your bonuses.
Congratulations you have advanced from beginner Warleader to a Novice Warleader. Your war party is no longer capped at 10, you may now have 25 in your war party without loss of xp gain. You have gained a perk. Total war points you gain will be increased by 25%.
You have advanced your skill level in Light magic. reaching skill level 20. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.
By passing a minor threshold in your skill advancement you are given 5% resistance to light magic.
You have advanced your skill level in Water magic. reaching skill level 24. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.
You have advanced your skill level in Fire magic. reaching skill level 9. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.
You have advanced your skill level in Sonic magic. reaching skill level 12. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.
By passing a minor threshold in your skill advancement you are given 5% resistance to Sonic magic.
Congratulations you have advanced from beginner to novice in your skill: Sonic Magic. You have gained a perk. When you cast a spell you may channel double the mana to double the duration of the spell.
You have advanced your skill level in Abyssal magic. reaching skill level 15. You have unlocked the ability to learn higher level spells.
Looking at his character sheet he was starting to become unbalanced. His 44 in strength was starting to get out of hand. To help combat this Bjorn placed 2 of his 10 free attribute points into both dexterity and agility. With his 6 remaining points he put two of the points into intelligence bringing it up to 32. Finally with his last 4 he ultimately decided that they had to go into dex and agil. They were lagging too far behind his strength and he was suffering while in combat because of it. He needed to pick up his speed and maneuverability if he was going to have a chance to be useful in a fight. This brought both up to 29.
For what felt like everytime he level he felt almost ecstasy like feeling as his muscles began to loosen. Although he didn’t mind buying the strength per level from his synergy, it was kind of a pain. He had to allocate at least 2 of his 5 free attributes per level to agility and dexterity to keep himself sort of well balanced, effectively only giving him 3 free points per level. But his slight annoyance was just that, as he understood that each point in an attribute had a tangible effect on his life.
During their travels he had managed to stockpile over 1135 warpoints to spend on his warleader skill. It wasn’t fancy but he used those points to buy two promotions. With his moving from beginner to novice it unlocked a few more promotions as well as other options for him to upgrade the skill. Of which there was now an option for scout II and tank II. He spent 1000 war points unlocking those two positions as Adriana did fantastic as a scout and Bjorn was ideal for the tank role.
The scout II role was great as there were a host of benefits from it over the scout I promotion.
Scout I: You gain a 5% increase to your stealth skill, as well as a 5% increase to your tracking skill.
Scout II: You may now “mark targets.” A marked target will show up for every member of a war party in a red outline. Stealth can still break the outline but as long as one person sees the target everyone else can as well. This mark will last for as long as the target remains either alive or within twice the sphere of influence’s radius of the war leader. Additionally the scout gains 10% to their stealth skill, as well as a 10% increase to their tracking skill. They now gain 5% increased ranged damage.
Whenever the warparty was formed Bjorn always gave Adriana the scout role. So this promotion would just right out buff her in combat, as well as give her more survivability. But the real reason he bought the role promotion was because of the mark that can be applied. He saw how powerful it could be during the raid he participated in in Blackrock Bay, and he wanted that.
As for the tank II promotion Bjorn bought that so he could use it himself. Ideally his build was still set up so that he could fill all the different types of roles as he attributes were almost evenly distributed. With no one else in their party he had to fill that role for now. Still the benefit was great all around, so he bought it for himself.
Tank I: You gain 5% increased defenses, as well as a 5% chance to taunt your enemies.
Tank II: You now gain a taunt power to be used. It doesn’t cost any resources to activate. This taunt scales with how much charisma you have. This aoe will be defended by charisma. On a failure they will be compelled to attack you instead of your allies. If they attack anyone other than you they will deal 10% less damage. They gain 10% increased defenses, as well as a 10% chance to taunt your enemies outside of the taunt power. They now gain a 5% increase to their constitution attribute while they have this role.
With the last 135 war points Bjorn decided to purchase a basic offense upgrade as well as a favored terrain. The basic offense to slashing weapons cost him 25 war points while the favored terrain cost him 50 war points. This increased their damage with slashing weapons to increase to 6%. At the same time their movement speed through forests was increased to 15%.
With the last 60 war points Bjorn decided that due how both he and Adriana’s main weapon of choice was the bow it would make sense to spend 35 war points on purchasing attack pierce twice.
Attack(Piercing) II: 50: Increases total piercing damage by a total of 6%
This left him with 25 points left to spend. Scrolling through the options there wasn’t much that jumped out at him that he would want to spend his points on. So for the time being he held onto those last 25 war points.
However there were two options that weren’t there before that interested him however he didn’t have the war points to spend on the upgrade.
Increased xp I: 250: Increases all experience that the war party gains by 5%
Power leveling I: 250: You may channel 5% of all experience that the war party gains into one single member of the war party.
He actually regretted his decision now. He knew that he was going to buy those two role upgrades when he saw them so in impulse he purchased the upgrades. It wasn’t until he had the two upgrades to the roles that he actually took the time to look at what else he had to purchase. It was a mistake, he should have looked before purchasing. But he hadn’t thought about it. He needed to stop making impulse decisions. It was going to get him into trouble one day.
They spent another full week searching the east side of the zone and found two full rivers that could potentially be the place they were looking for. They ended up wasting two weeks searching both of those two rivers. As it turned out it was a single larger river that forked roughly halfway through the area. With that being a bust they made their way through the forest heading for the last lead they currently have.
It was hard to stay motivated day after day there was no real progress towards their goal. There was nothing that gave them hope. No signs of people passing, no fires in the distance that would indicate a settlement.
With 1 of the 4 months remaining gone Bjorn was getting frustrated and wanted to change up their search pattern. Adriana was against it, very understandably. Even though the efforts seemed fruitless they were slowly mapping out the area.
They did occasionally find objects of note. There were a few abandoned houses here and there, crumbled stone fences. Areas of off green grass that hinted at a foundation just below the surface. Countless caves that lead down deep into the bowels of the earth. Occasional rusting metal tools or weapons.
Each new thing they came across never had anything of note, nothing worth taking or keeping. But each was still a place of interest. Each new place of interest led to a new location on his basic map that he and Adriana could come back to and explore if they wished to.
It was almost all fairly benign all except for one place of note. They never got close enough to really look into it but there was one camp that made them think that maybe it was the settlement. However there were frequent goblin patrols that constantly moved about in the area. It was honestly a miracle that they were never spotted. There were a few close calls but each time that a patrol came nearby Bjorn and Adriana hid in the forest.
Based on the regularity of the patrols the goblin camp probably was well over a thousand strong, if not several thousand strong. They actually stumbled upon it by following the river to the east. Logic dictated that there was a chance that Zain was wrong with his placement on their map so there was a chance that the settlement could have been outside of the zone. They had taken a few days to explore down river on both rivers. The camp was roughly 5 or 6 miles further downstream to the east of the location.
That was going to be a problem for someone who wasn’t them. So they left it just as it was and left the goblins untouched and backtracked up the river. The final river that they followed was the one that came from the south.
It was a wide, slow, almost lazy river, over 30 feet wide. They explored inland heading up the east bank. The topography around here was much the same as it has been for the last few months of travels. The landscape was postmarked with hundreds of ravines all of different sizes and depths. The trees grew tall and thick, they were all old woods, and Adriana was never able to get any of the magical trees to talk. According to Mosstoe as trees naturally age the time that they enter the deep slumber grows longer and happens more frequently. As they traveled through this section of the Summergate woods it felt as if this section of the forest was ancient.
They traveled up river for several days. The landscape had a raw kind of beauty to it. It was kind of hard to describe, the jagged rocks that had open maws leading into the depths of the Eld were almost mesmerizing to look at. The complex patterns that they formed was something that just drew the eye to it. Occasionally a small amount of the river would split off and create a cascading waterfall that was just swallowed by the dark. Often the sound of the waterfall was more muted than you would expect due to not being able to hear the water hit the bottom.
On more than one occasion Bjorn had to stop himself from staring down into the abyss that called to him. It wasn’t just calling to him but also to Adriana. The pull wasn’t overly strong when he thought about it but on more than one occasion he was filled with the desire to jump. Each time he had no idea why his mind was calling to him, begging him to jump, and each time he had to physically take a step back for the feeling to go away.
One thing that was actually quite nice to see was how Malachi grew. He had spent the last month doing nothing but adding baseball sized sections of stone to his body. There had to be some kind of compression going on as the amount of stone that was added to his body should have had a more marked difference to his body than it did.
Before he started absorbing massing Malachi would only come up to Bjorn’s knee at the best. However now he came up to right around mid thigh for Bjorn. More than that Malachi grew wider as well as heavier. He still looked like a human, just scaled down. He was roughly the size and shape of a gnome with less spindly and gangly extremities. He was also more barrel chested and looked to be more muscled, if that was the right word. It’s not like Malachi had any definition that could be considered muscle, he was just bulkier.
The biggest change to the golem was the weight. Before, when Bjorn first got him he was able to pick Malachi up, he was surprisingly heavy but it was still possible. That was including the 50% weight reduction to carrying stone. Now Bjorn had to strain to pick up the stone golem. Give it another month and there was no way that Bjorn would be able to pick up the stone golem.
More than his size and weight he actually gained physical attributes as well.
As his size grew he was starting to become more and more useful in a fight. He still had a long way to go to be able to keep up with Bjorn or Adriana but the golem’s high endurance and natural damage reduction due to the material that made up his body, he was surprisingly good at distracting. Still there was only so much force Malachi’s small stone arms could put out. But whatever little help he could provide was better than nothing.
On the second day of travel up the southern river it started to slowly turn westward. That was where they were able to hear a distant sound. They weren’t sure what it was at first, but as they drew closer they could start to make out the sound of heated words being exchanged.
Bjorn and Adriana exchanged glances before understanding what that meant, there was some sort of humanoid activity ahead, probably. The only other humanoid they ran into out here was the goblins. So they entered stealth and left Malachi where he was.
In their stealth they began to creep forward being very conscious of the sound off in the distance that was slowly drawing closer. As they drew closer they could start to make out words, the language being spoken wasn’t anything that Bjorn or Adriana knew. In the distance Bjorn could see a small hill that would give them a good vantage point. Hoping that they could tell where the conversation was happening they started to make their way to the hill.
In roughly 10 minutes they found themselves at the top of the small hill. It was completely devoid of large plants, but it was covered in jagged stones, moss, and short grass.
From their vantage point they could see along the river there were two groups of humanoids talking to one another. They were less than 400 yards away from where Bjorn and Adriana were hidden. One group was comprised of roughly 12 or 13 goblins on some sort of wolf mount. If Tolkin was to give them a name it would be warg but he couldn’t say for sure.
The other group was made up of 7 humanoids of various races. There was a half orc, A drow, an Aasimar, two humans, a hobgoblin, and finally an elf. Looking down at the group, three of the 7 were familiar. He would never forget who they were, their faces and images were burned into Bjorn’s mind forever.
The half orc was Vincent Skullcrusher, he was the half orc who mocked Bjorn for the way that Alaric died. The drow was Vivian the ranger, she made fun of Bjorn’s anguish at watching his family be destroyed. And the final one, the aasimar. The only aasimar he ever came across while in the Eld was Sonia, the lover of Vincent. Her mocking laughter at how both Bjorn and Meira struggled while she was being raped to death haunted his nightmares. As for the other 4, he had no idea who they were.
This was it, he finally found more. If they were here the rest of the group had to be close by. They must have been getting close to the village. Bjorn’s mind filled with a mix of emotions. There was fear, this was the normal reaction when faced with those who tore so much from him, destroyed his life so callously. Fear that he would fail, and not avenge his family. Fear that they would escape again and he would be hard pressed to hunt them down. He was also filled with anger, as the memories of the injustice done to him and Meira and Alaric that day flooded him. He drew strength from that pain and anger. Hope. Hope that his quest was finally coming to an end. Hope that he will finally get peace.
This overwhelming flood of emotions dulled his senses long enough that he didn’t see both sides of the group draw weapons. The hobgoblin spoke to the goblins on the wargs in a hostile tone. Not that they could tell as the guttural sounds of the goblin’s language always sounded hostile. Obviously the goblins didn’t like whatever was said as the one who was in the lead barked something.
Just like that the goblins on the wargs charged at the smaller group on the ground, their rusty weapons held high. You would think that the group on the wargs would have the element of surprise as their attack seemed to be provoked by nothing but that wasn’t the case.
As soon as the goblins barked that last thing Vivian sprung into action. She activated a ranger talent becoming shrouded in darkness for a moment. A second later she emerged from a shadow a hundred feet back and up in a tree. She had her bow in hand and an arrow knocked to the bowstring. She drew back and fired.
By the time her arrow was in the air the goblins and their wargs slammed into the remaining 6 on the ground. Even though the 6 remaining were fitted with better armor and weapons the numbers they faced were almost insurmountable. In a matter of moments the hobgoblin and one of the two humans fell. One with his throat torn out by a warg's teeth, the other by a vicious slash of a rusty scimitar one of the goblins swung as it rode by.
In a matter of moments it was 10 against 4 on the ground. It quickly became apparent that the 4 on the ground would lose. Seeing his vengeance, his quarry about to be snatched from himself Bjorn stood, breaking stealth to join the fray.
Adriana’s hand caught Bjorn’s. “What are you going to do?”
“I am going to help the bandits live so I can kill them myself.”
