Chapter 13 Part 1

We're in the cave now, and Llamiryl is being slowly spit-roasted by six trolls. Her saviours are hiding in the dark and ready for their assault. Thordis signals Mizubi to fire and he shoots off a spell arrow that splits into three, and those arrows also into three killing off half of the trolls before the fighting even begins.

"Go guys! I'll support you from here on out! Get to killing." Mizubi yells.

Haider stands in a trance and says, "Amazing." gawking at the effectiveness of his spell.

"Haider focus! Take out those flames!" Heather yells.

A split second later, the remaining trolls roar and Heather activates her mage sight.

"What did they do?" Thordis asks.

"I don't know. there was no magic used in those roars." Heather replies.

"So it was just a war cry?" Thordis asks again. Heather shrugs.

(Narrator) Did these idiots forget about that wolf fight! Why ain't they suspecting backup? I feel like you're annoyed. I'm sorry. Did I just spoil the fight again? Tough shit. Deal with it.

"I suddenly have a bad feeling about this." Haider says.

"Just take out the fire!" Heather yells in frustration.

"I got it. Fucking hell, calm down." Haider sasses. Haider uses flash freeze to surround one troll with dry ice, suffocating the flame and the troll simultaneously. Haider swings back round to Heather and throws his arm into the air and says, "Happy?"

"You should watch that attitude of yours before I hurt you." Heather says with confusing authority.

"Go fuck yourself. Oh, and I know about your little secret too, so don't you dare or I'll write it into the side of Elwinear's outer wall. In big, fat, letters." Haider threats.

"I have no idea what you two are talking about, but focus on the damn fight!" Thordis yells.

"Mizubi, how many enemies are in this cave?" Heather asks.

"I know I'm an elf, but seriously. There are bats flapping and insects crawling everywhere and it's drowning everything else out, so I can't hear shit." Mizubi fires off a shot to a troll's arm, delaying an attack on Krenn so he can strike first, taking off its arm.

"That won't be good enough. Keep striking!" Haider says, pulling out his sabres and almost cutting off its leg. "Fuck, not sharp enough!" He continues as the troll regenerates its arm and grabs him.

"They got Haider!" Mizubi yells.

"Just focus on killing the other one, I'm ok." Haider says. He looks to be straining as we see him get surrounded in ice.

"Did he just suicide?" Thordis asks.

"No, just look." Heather replies.

The iced Haider cuts off the troll's hand, falling to the floor. Mere moments pass before the ice around Haider turns into a sphere. "I'm not affected by ice. I told you not to worry." Haider stands inside the sphere and pumps himself up. "Time for the massacre to begin." He says.

"Thordis! Krenn! Get behind me now!" Heather says.

They retreat behind Heather, and Thordis says, "Why did you have us retreat?"

As the words left her lips, Heather makes an iron wood wall with some of the seeds from home. "The seeds will fall a bit, so be ready." She says.

Intense thumping, screaming, roaring and laughing can be heard from the other side of the trees.

"That's why I said retreat." Heather says, catching enough seeds to replenish what she used.

"What is he doing over there?" Mizubi asks.

"Making the trolls into swiss cheese." Heather replies.

"That's impossible. He can't take those trolls on his own. We need to get in there." Thordis says. The very moment she finished the sentence, an icicle lance blows through the tree wall, directly between the faces of her and Heather. Thordis stagers back while Heather is unphased.

"I think that proves your statement wrong there knight." Heather says, pointing to the hole in the wall.

Thordis, Krenn and Mizubi peek through the hole and Haider throws Llamiryl through. "Put the ring on her before she wanders again," He says.

Mizubi puts Llamiryl's ring on her finger while Heather decays the tree wall.

(Narrator) Huh, maybe I was wrong about the other enemies.

As the trees turn to rot on the floor, we come to see the horrific murder scene made by Haider. The two remaining trolls are splats on the wall and full of holes.

"That's scary Haider. Someone of your age shouldn't have this much destructive power. How hard did Heddwyn train you three?"

"Well, we don't know. Only Christopher got trained by Engilram for a brief amount of time. So honestly, ask him when you remember." Heather says.

"How long till she wakes up?" Haider asks.

"About now." Thordis replies.

In an instant, Llamiryl snaps her eyes open and springs to her feet. "Oh, fuck this place again!"

"Yeah, this place again." Mizubi says.

Llamiryl looks around, seeing the blood of the trolls smeared across the wall and scrunches her nose. "By the Mother, that smell is horrific."

"Yeah, that's troll guts for you." Haider says.

"Can we just get out of he-re? That would be a no." Mizubi says.

A horde of goblins blocked the path to the entrance of the cave, ambushing our group. Heather uses mage sight to count how many were there.

"I see thirty unique sources of mana. But there could be more outside the cave." Heather says.

"Crap, it's going to be tough to kill all these little green snot bags. Do you two have any potions?" Thordis says.

"No, Christopher has them inside his dimension. We don't have access to any of them." Haider yells.

"Shit, Krenn, how many do we have?" Thordis asks.

"Eight, not enough." Krenn says.

"Hold on guys, these goblins ain't fighters." Llamiryl says.

"What do you mean?" Mizubi asks.

"There are families here. I see kids and the elderly." Llamiryl points out.

One of the goblins females shakingly walks up to Thordis and, with a gritty and hoarse voice, says. "Please, we just want to reclaim our home. My mate was killed by those trolls."

Thordis stares the goblin in the eyes and says, "Your people kidnapped and raped one of us. I don't see why you should get to live after something like that."

"Understand, that wasn't the decision of the people. Some of the guards were disgusting savages. It takes so much for us goblins to survive. This home gave us just enough food to survive. You humans kill us without remorse. Do you blame us for defending ourselves?" A goblin elder says.

Thordis continues to stare at the goblins down with a death stare until Haider grabs her shoulder.

"Look, I understand how you feel. But this fight would be completely wasteful. If you're really that vengeful, talk it out. What the elder said is true, they are oppressed and killed by all other races. They have to defend themselves somehow." He says.

"*sigh* Fine, but if word gets out that you goblins are killing! I'll have all your heads on a pike." she angrily glared.

(Narrator) I never really thought about it that way before. I thought goblins were mindless monsters, like the trolls. But I guess not.

The party steps aside and lets the goblins pass. They slowly filter on into the cave and start rebuilding almost immediately. We follow the group out of the cave.

Back at the Elwinear north gate, a commotion has erupted from inside the guard-post. They run into it and we see two guards being pinned by Christopher.

"Where the hell are my friends!" Christopher yells.

"We already told you! They went to find Llamiryl, she wandered off." The guard gasped for air.

"And we're back from doing that. What the fuck are you doing!" Heather scolds.

"Nothing, anymore. Did you think I was just going to take them at their word? I don't even know them." Christopher says.

"Yes, I do expect that. They are guards hired by the Empire. If they decide to press charges, you could be taken to court." Heather explains.

"Yeah, I know that, but I needed to go through every possibility." Christopher says.

Heather ignores him and helps the guards up. "Are you ok?" she asks.

After brushing off the dirt on their uniforms, one of them coughs and says, "yeah, he didn't hurt us. It was more like an unnecessary interrogation, so we won't be taking any legal action."

Christopher throws his arms into the air and stares at heather. "What the hell, don't ignore me!"

Heather continues to pretend he doesn't exist and pulls out two gold pieces from one of her satchels, handing one to both of the guards. "I'm sorry about my brother's rudeness."

"Where the fuck? What? How long have you been stashing that away? What are you, a tourist?" Christopher yells.

Heather spins towards him and pulls on his ear. "If you go and mistreat another person just because you don't know them, I'll make sure I destroy this eardrum." She says bitterly.

"Ah! Ow! Ok, ok!" Christopher screeches.

"Let's get back to the inn. We don't need to put in our applications for college for a few days. Let's just settle in first." Haider says.

Heather lets go of Christopher's ear and takes a deep breath. Christopher holds his now red ear, soothing it with numbing magic.

"Wait, when did you get the chance to learn that? Heddwyn isn't a doctor." Llamiryl asks Christopher.

"I taught myself this. Heather hits me a bunch, so I thought it would be useful." Christopher says.

"Impressive. It's not an easy thing to use." Llamiryl says.

"Wait, are you serious?" Thordis asks.

"Completely. It wouldn't surprise me if Christopher is a prodigy." Llamiryl says.

(Narrator) ugh, what a cliche. Couldn't we find someone with a slightly less beneficial trait? I mean, we already knew he was impressive. But a prodigy? How lame.