Veiling Flames, Part Two
A loud argument breaks out among the townsfolk, and Oleane cringes in fear at the sudden loud noises. Some people want to just let the forest burn down, seeing no problem. Others shout that Allar, Jenneleth, and John are in those woods, so they have to at least rescue them. A few even try to make people understand that they need the forest for firewood, and for hunting. While they shout and debate, Harley, James, Roth, Bhurisrava, and Victorious move onto the half-built bridge that crosses part of the Churnette River. It’s the farthest they can get from the shouting crowd.
They all agree, even Bhurisrava, that they have to rescue Allar and the others. James doesn’t care very much about the woods themselves, but Harley and Bhurisrava (both Elves) and Roth (a woodsman) make it clear that they have to try to stop the fire if possible. If nothing else, Roth says, there are other people in the woods, with other houses. They’re in danger.
Bhurisrava tends to Oleane, and Harley tries to keep her calm and soothed while they try to think of things to do. Though Victorious is a water mage, he cannot control enough magic to put out more than a few small sections of the fire. They consider trying to get help from Tauster, but by the time they got to Thurmaster and back it would already be too late.
“What about that water elemental?” James asks. “The one those dam Goblins had? Could it help?”
Vic shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe, but it has to stay near a body of water at all times, or it’s powerless.”
Bhurisrava, who had paid attention while he and Allar were at the dam, says, “Didn’t that bird woman, Shasta, say that the ring was linked to water somehow?”
Harley nods. “I asked her about it. She said it taps directly into the elemental plane of water. So, that means if we had the ring, we’d be able to bring the elemental with us, right?”
“But then what?” Vic asks. “If it touches that much fire, it will just burn itself up. It was a big elemental, but not big enough.”
Bhurisrava shrugs. “If the ring is water, can’t the bastard just draw more water out of the ring as it gets burned? Of course, I’d have to stay close to it with the ring if I wanted to let the elemental do that.”
“You aren’t having the ring,” James states clearly. He gestures to Harley. “We’ll go get the ring from the dam Goblins. You two, since you can cast your own spells, go with anal leakage girl here and try to keep Allar safe. Roth, go with them and make sure they’re safe. When we get the ring back, . . . Vic will have it.”
Harley nods and adds, “Be on the look out for whenever Jenny and her fiance are. And make sure there’s someone waiting for us at the edge of the woods in a couple hours, to guide us to Oleane’s grove. We’re no good if we get lost.”
“You mean you’re good otherwise?” Bhurisrava jokes, grinning.
They head out immediately. As they leave, they see Old Grizzler trying to calm down a few hotheads who think the party is endangering Jenneleth’s and John’s lives. The old Dwarf tells them to make themselves useful by riding to the farms on the edge of the forest and alerting the farmers to be careful.
Harley and James take their horses and ride northwest toward the Eelhold dam, where the Goblins are. Bhurisrava, Vic, Roth, and Oleane cross the river again, heading south into the Thornwood. As they let Oleane lead the way, Vic and Bhur laugh that finally they get to save Allar’s life. Roth reminds them that this isn’t just a natural forest fire; some demon exploded to cause it. That sobers them up.
Harley and James, the dam Goblins and the bastard water elemental
They gallop the seventeen miles to the Eelhold, not talking much. It’s fully night when they arive, and the Goblins are having a large bonfire celebration, dancing and chortling. James and Harley make themselves known to the Goblins, most of whom don’t speak Lyceian, but who understand that they want to see the chieftan. Much shouting and insulting ensues as the Goblins complain about their party being disrupted.
When the chieftan of the tribe comes to them, Harley explains what they need, using small words. The Goblin chieftan is, of course, incredulous. He holds his position as tribal leader because of his control of the water elemental, and he won’t even consider letting someone else use the ring.
Harley corrects him. “But you let Shasta . . . um, I mean Shiraz. You let Shiraz use the ring to control the elemental.”
The Chieftan grimaces, then shrugs, demanding to know why he should bother trading. It will be nice to get rid of the ranger Allar, who makes their lives difficult with restrictions. If he’s going to give the two of them his ring, he demands something powerful in payment. And he wants the ring back by tomorrow night. And he wants to remind them that whatever they plan to pay him is payment, not a deposit.
James tells Harley he has a plan. In the short run, it will involve giving the Goblin what he wants. In the long run, though, it will involve coming back and beating the crap out of the dam Goblin for being so greedy.
Harley offers to pay the Chieftan with a magical crossbow that will always hit what you aim for. Back in the forest church, where another Goblin tribe lived, Roth found a hidden cache with a magical light crossbow. He gave Harley the crossbow, but she never learned how to use it (back in 2nd edition, crossbow was not a simple weapon). Now it would be useful, finally.
Then the Goblin says something horrible.
“Prove it.”
Harley almost blanches, and recovers by trying to smooth talk the Goblin into buying it, but the Chieftan demands to see that it really is magical like she claims. He grabs one of his tribesman, then gets an orange and puts it on the Goblin’s head.
Seeing that something interesting is going on, the rest of the dam Goblin tribe stops its reveling at the bonfire and turns its attention to the tall visitors. Harley gets nervous, wondering what the Goblin chieftan has planned.
In his harsh, high-pitched voice, the chieftan commands, “You will shoot the orange. Walk with me. Two hundred paces.”
“Um,” Harley gulps, “aren’t you worried that I might hit your man?”
“You say you gonna miss? With ‘magic’ bow?”
Harley shrugs, hiding her worry easily. “No, no. Not . . . not at all. I just thought you might be worried, since you don’t trust me. You must already realize that it’s magic.”
The Chieftan laughs, and they stop two hundred (Goblin-sized) paces from the target. About three hundred feet away, all told. Harley smiles weakly, then tries to hand the crossbow to James, so he can shoot. James shakes his head.
“Nuh uh. You’ve got a better Dexterity.” (and it’s true, Harley has a 20 Dex, vs. James’s 13 Dex)
Sighing, Harley shrugs, realizing she has to try. She recalls in the back of her mind what Bhurisrava had said back in Milbourne, commenting how she’s not any good. A nervous twinge goes through her that she’ll miss, kill the Goblin, and cause the tribe to attack them. She decides to aim a little high, so in case she misses, she won’t kill the poor fellow.
The Goblin chieftan shouts something, taking a few seconds, and the crowd around the Goblin with the orange parts quickly. The chieftan say something more, and the lone Goblin with the orange winces, nods, and puts the orange on his head carefully.
James wishes Harley good luck, then takes a step back.
“Thanks a lot,” Harley mutters. She takes aim, adjusts upward a notch just to be safe, and fires.
As she pulls the trigger, in the distance she sees the Goblin lose the balance of the orange. It rolls forward off his head, and he catches it in his hands, level with his throat. Harley gasps in relief, having an excuse for missing. But then the bolt sinks into the orange, spraying the Goblin’s face with citrus. The Goblin shrieks and falls to the ground, tossing the orange up into the air in shock.
The crowd of Goblins begins to laugh in delight, and Harley drops the crossbow, dumbfounded. The Chieftan snatches the crossbow off the ground, clutching it quickly. While Harley beams at her incredible luck, James steps close to the chieftan, towering over the short Goblin.
“Alright, you dam Goblin, hand over the ring. We’ll bring it back to you by tomorrow night.”
Bhurisrava, Victorious, and Roth encounter Nature
Oleane and one of her wolves lead them through the brambled underbrush of the Thornwood. Oleane travels as quickly as the others can keep up, but it still takes them over three hours to reach her grove. During the walk, Vic and Bhur both crack jokes to pass the time, most of their comments being lowly-muttered jokes about Oleane walking around naked with a wolf. As far as they can tell, Oleane doesn’t understand the language well enough to know what they’re talking about. As they get deeper into the woods, however, they can hear the distant roar of the fire, and smell ash on the wind, carried from perhaps twenty miles to the south.
Bhurisrava is about to complain again that he hates walking through the bristly brush when Oleane turns a corner around a large tree, and vanishes. Sputtering, Bhurisrava runs after her, looking to his left when he passes the tree. As soon as he does, he sees all around him a verdant, grassy grove, self-lit from a glowing spring in its middle. Tree boughs arc low above his head, but the grove is airy and wide despite being short. Unfortunately, Bhur doesn’t understand how it is there, because from his current perspective, he should have been walking through the grove for the past minute or so. Also, he can Oleane and her wolf walking toward a low flat stone, and there is some other woman sitting near the stone, but he can’t see Roth or Vic behind him.
Curiously, he takes three steps backward in the direction he came, turning back around the tree. When he does, he loses sight of the grove. Vic bumps into him and tells him to keep moving, and when Bhur turns to look at Vic, he can see both the water mage and Roth, but no sign of the grove.
“Weird,” he mutters, then walks back into the grove.
When Roth and Vic follow Bhur, they each have a similar doubletake when they see the grove appear illogically. The woman sitting near the stone chuckles softly, the sound of her voice filling the grove like music. They walk toward her and Oleane, and as they approach, they see that Allar is lying on the stone pallet, bright red burns covering his upper body. His right arm is burned more darkly, the cloth fused into his flesh.
Bhurisrava immediately kneels next to Allar, concentrating to draw divine healing with his touch. Allar’s gasping breath eases, and some of the more minor wounds are healed, but Allar doesn’t awaken. He’s still in shock from near death.
Once they’re confident that Allar is safe, they turn their attention to Oleane and the other woman present. The second woman is very slender, long-necked and smooth-skinned, dressed in a dark robe that looks almost like woven morning dew. Her skin has a slight green cast, but her hair and eyes are both hazel. They notice with some nervousness that she seems to have small brambles jutting from the long, sweeping strands of her hair.
The nymph introduces herself as “the local forest spirit, but you can call me Brookthorn.”
They make their mutual introductions, then get to the business of how to find Jenneleth and her fiance John. Oleane calls a few birds from the trees and asks them to search the area, starting near the fire to the south and moving northward. As they talk, Roth stares eagerly at Brookthorn, but he seems so innocently impressed that she just laughs in amusement.
Brookthorn empathizes with the danger to the human couple, and tries to help by explaining the local terrain within a few miles. There is a modest-sized stream to the west, and a small ravine southwest of that. To the east is an area with many older trees, and denser foliage. Somewhat to the south, between the grove and the fires, is a clearing that is open to the sky. When Brookthorn mentions that the clearing is not far from an abandoned human hut, Bhurisrava and Roth realize it is probably the same grove where they fought the Illithid a few days earlier.
Vic asks where a wizard might want to go to collect spell components in the woods, things like mandrake roots, nightshade, poison ivy, or fallen pine. Brookthorn replies that the most likely place is probably to the west, near the stream, and so they decide to head west. Oleane says a wolf will find them if she gets any information. They should follow a wolf if it approaches them. She’ll also send a wolf to the forest’s edge to wait for James and Harley.
Bhurisrava checks on Allar one more time, guesses that the man will probably be able to walk with another hour or two of rest, then leads the way out.
They have a harder time with the brambles now that Oleane isn’t leading the way, so it takes them almost another hour to reach the stream. Aided by a light spell from Vic, Roth is able to spot some horse hoofprints in a few spots near the bank, leading in the direction of the ravine. They check the stream for a few more minutes, then move on toward the ravine. As they leave the waters of the stream, they can see flames on the south horizon, glowing above the treeline. The inferno is less than three miles away.
Roth loses the trail in the dark woods, but they keep pressing west, and eventually come upon a long, ten foot wide ravine that stretches hundreds of feet in either direction. It looks as if the earth had just been torn open, leaving a gaping wound here. After a moment of looking around, Bhurisrava spots movement in the bottom of the ravine. About fifteen feet down, wedged in a narrow spot of the ravine, are Jenneleth, her fiance John, and their horse.
They call out to the couple, and Jenneleth stirs, groaning. The horse makes a noise as well, but it sounds like a painful mixture of a winny and a whimper. They discover that when Jenneleth and John spotted the fire in the distance, they tried to ride back to Milbourne, but in the dark their horse did not spot the ravine. It stumbled in, tumbling sideways, managing to trap both of the riders halfway under it. Jenneleth jokes that out of the three of them, there are probably at least five broken legs.
John waves weakly, thanking them for coming out to look for them. He looks fairly haggard; he managed to drag himself out from under the horse, but with two broken legs he wasn’t able to climb out. He was worried that they would be trapped there when the fire reached the ravine.
Roth climbs down into the ravine gingerly, lifting the horse enough so Jenny can drag herself free. One of her legs is broken as well, and she twisted the ankle on the other foot in the fall. Vic and Roth cooperate to pull the couple up to the top of the ravine.
Bhurisrava holds off healing them, however, saying that he has a plan. He wants to heal Jenny enough that she’s able to ride the horse and limp if necessary, and he’ll use most of his healing energy on the horse. It will be able to get them to Milbourne faster than if he healed both Jenny and John just a little each and let them limp. Bhurisrava, Roth, and Vic are too busy to go with them, so they need to get to safety on their own. Also, Bhurisrava has already lost three horses while in the Haranshire, so he doesn’t want the poor creature to die if he can avoid it.
Roth finds a very sturdy branch, flings a rope over it, and uses the branch as a pulley to lift the horse out of the ravine. Bhurisrava heals it, and then they get it to firm ground. Bhur manages to calm the creature enough for Jenny and John to get back onto it, and then they guide the steed around the ravine to safety. Jenny promises to try to come back if she can, but she’ll need at least 8 hours to prepare new spells.
Bhurisrava laughs, saying that in another 8 hours, the fire will probably already have reached Milbourne.
The couple rides off cautiously, not wanting to fall into any more ravines, and Roth, Bhur, and Vic head back toward Oleane’s grove. When they’re crossing the stream, they hear the howling of a wolf to the north of them, close, and they wait to see if anything happens. Less than five minutes later, they see several figures approaching through the woods, two mounted on horseback, and one a huge, dark shape, standing over fifteen feet tall.
Opposing Adventurers
Vic’s first line upon seeing Harley and James guiding the elemental is, “Gimme the ring.”
James shakes his head. “This thing tried to kill us when we first got it. It doesn’t like being controlled, and the moment I take off the ring, he’s going to try to break free. I can’t make him move more than fifty feet away, but that’s probably enough.”
James turns to the elemental. “Go forty feet upstream and stay there until you get another command.”
The elemental’s voice gurgles deeply in reply, steaming with anger, “When I have my freedom I shall kill all of you.”
“That thing’s a bastard,” Roth laughs.
Once the elemental is far enough away, James takes off the ring and hands it to Vic. As soon as the ring leaves James’s finger, they hear crashing in the distance as the elemental rushes toward them. Vic quickly takes the ring and puts it on, raising his hand triumphantly.
The elemental keeps charging.
“You have both rings on your same hand!” Harley shouts, and Vic’s mouth drops open. He put the elemental control ring on the same hand he wears his normal elementalist’s ring (he can only cast spells if he has his ring on).
Quickly, Vic yanks off the elemental control ring and puts it on the other hand, but just as he slides it on, the elemental slams a fist of water toward James. James, still mounted, can’t dodge, but his horse takes the brunt of the hit. The blow crumples the horse’s hips, and it falls to the ground.
“Stop!” Vic shouts, and the elemental stops moving. It bubbles angrily, hovering over James, poised to strike.
“Get over here,” Vic commands. “Do what I say, or it’ll be heck to pay. Don’t make me put you back in the ring.”
James grimaces that his horse is injured, but Bhurisrava doesn’t want to risk using what little healing he has left. Both Bhur and Harley state that they despise the elemental. However, they have to use it, so they set off quickly on foot, following the stream southward toward the flames. It takes them a few minutes to near the fire wall, but they are already sweating long before they reach it. Flames sear the air, trees crackle as their insides burn, and ash and smoke fill the air.
Vic has the elemental begin spraying water from itself onto the fire, trying to extinguish the flames little by little, and in the first minute they only manage to put out about a 15-foot by 15-foot patch. Realizing the fruitlessness of trying to put out the entire miles-long line of fire, they angle away from the fire, into the woods in the direction of Oleane’s grove. They know they can protect at least that much.
As they head through the woods, they spot a lot of wildlife fleeing the forest fire, which crisscross their path intermittently. The animals give the elemental a wide berth, and Vic has to explicitly tell the elemental not to injure any animals unless he says otherwise.
They go about two miles, almost to where they want to be, when Bhurisrava feels the hair rise on the back of his neck. He feels as though he just heard a call for help, and in curiosity he stops in his tracks and looks around. Since Bhurisrava is at the back of the group, no one notices him lagging behind.
The rest of the group presses forward toward the clearing where they encountered the Illithid drone several days earlier, but when they reach the grove, they see a group of ten men waiting nervously, all armed and armored.
“Those are the guys from the tavern,” Harley says in surprise. “The ones we took the treasure map from. What the hell are they doing here?”
The men begin to advance on the party, holding their weapons ready. From the trees behind them flaps a pair of dark crimson wings, and a small creature flies through the clearing, leaving a trail of smoke as it slices through the air. One of the men says to his companions, “Those are the ones working with the ranger. Time to earn our money, gentlemen.”
James and Roth ready their weapons, and Harley reaches for Ricochet. Vic glances nervously back at the water elemental, which is deep enough in the trees that perhaps the mercenaries haven’t seen it yet. But then Vic realizes that Bhurisrava is missing.
* * *
Bhurisrava follows the sound of the cries for help, wandering a few dozen feet off the path even though he knows that he shouldn’t split up with the others. He pushes his way through the thorny brush for a half-minute, making out the cries more clearly. He sees ahead of me what looks like it might be an overturned wagon, and despite the fact that he doesn’t think a wagon could have gotten this far into the forest, he moves forward to help.
He gets within ten feet of the shape, and sees . . . two things. At the same time, he sees a large, fallen tree trunk, and also a large, fallen wagon, both seeming to occupy the same space at the same time. He feels nervous suddenly, and starts to sweat, but then he realizes that it is the air that has suddenly gotten damper, as if the forest had grown more humid. Shaking off his nervousness, he readies his warhammer and moves forward to look for the source of the cries. He thinks he sees a crouching, huddled figure hiding under the wagon/log, and he bends down to look closer.
And pain washes over him.
He recognizes the sensation, like a wave of agony crashing across his body and pulling him into a deep darkness with its swirling undertow. His body convulses for a moment, but then he shakes it off, knowing that he is in danger. He rolls to the side desperately, struggling to force his muscles to pull him off the ground. When he gets to his feet, he stands face to slimy face with another Illithid, cloaked in heavy black, an organic blade extending from its sleeve. Unlike last time, it does not make any requests or give him a chance to negotiate. Before Bhurisrava can ready his defenses, the robed creature glides forward through the trees and thrusts out with its blade, digging into Bhur’s arm.
Bhurisrava gasps in pain and takes the lord’s name in vain as he tries to smash his warhammer at the Illithid. But his muscles are feeling weak, and he has to fight with his will to bring his arms to swing the weapon. His strikes are ineffective, while the Illithid’s repeatedly slip past his parries to strike him. Rather than let himself be killed by a dozen small wounds, Bhurisrava runs, sprinting for the a nearby patch of high brambles and thorns. Desperately he lunges, covering his face with his arm as he tears through the wall of sharply spiked foliage. The pain is severe, but less than what he experienced when the Illithid telepathically attacked him a moment before. He stumbles out the other side of the bramble bush and keeps running, glancing back long enough to see the Illithid get its heavy robe caught in the thorns.
Swearing under his breath, Bhur backtracks to find the trail, then runs at top speed after his friends, calling for help.
* * *
Standing about thirty feet apart, the two groups face off, waiting to make the first move. A hundred feet to the south, a tree at the edge of the clearing crackles from the flames, and light suddenly flashes above the treeline. In the glow of the flames, the mercenaries charge.
Harley shouts to Vic to have the elemental deal with the warriors first, then the fire, and so Vic orders the elemental to attack the men who came with the flaming imp. The elemental crashes forward, and as it clears the treeline, some of the mercenaries hesitate nervously. James and Roth rush in, staying close so the mercenaries can’t surround them. James tries to take his own warrior and defeat him singly, but Roth is more pragmatic and double-teams with James to take down their opponents faster.
Harley tries hurling Ricochet at the imp, and the blade clips one of its wings before whirling away. The imp snarls, flames bursting from its skin briefly, and it swoops downward toward her, its eyes glowing maliciously. Vic thrusts out his hands, firing forth two bursting lines of frigid water smash. They smash into the imp’s side, knocking it sideways so when it tries to strafe Harley it’s aim is off. The three-foot long beast swerves to avoid a tree and flies upward over Harley and Vic’s heads. As it flies through the trees, the leaves around it catch fire, and Vic and Harley quickly move away from the flaming trees.
As Roth and James slice their way into the mercenaries—Roth armed with a bastard sword and James armed with longsword called Ratbastard—the soldiers form a ring to surround them. The leader of the group tells them to stay close so the wizard won’t be able to hit them without risking his allies, and his men comply, staying close, harrassing James and Roth. Fortunately for them, the elemental wades in then, literally, splashing its body into two of the soldiers at once. This clears a path for James and Roth, who quickly make a break to avoid being overwhelmed. In just that brief moment, however, James has already been clubbed in the side of the face, and one of his eyes is blinded by blood running down his face.
James leads the run toward the fireline at the south side of the clearing. He shouts for Vic to have the elemental follow them, to clear away any fires in his way. The guards chase after them, trying to avoid the elemental. As James and Roth rush into the treeline, the fires around them begin to flare intensely, but the heat makes most of the mercenaries wary of following them. The leader of the mercenaries waves for his men to follow him, though, and he charges after Roth and James, heedless of the flames. Three of his men follow him, while a few of the others shout for the imp to come fight the elemental. The flaming imp chuckles and shrugs, then flies away from Harley and Vic to try and fend off the elemental. It flies close to the ground, igniting even the grass as it passes.
Harley curses the thing for getting away, and she runs to recover her chakram (now her only ranged weapon since she gave the crossbow to the Goblins), while Vic trudges after the imp, hoping to aid his pet elemental.
The fires rage around James and Roth as they cross blades with the mercenaries. The leader and one of his men goes after James, while the other two warriors take Roth. James parries a few blows and with a kick shatters the kneecap of the one who is not the mercenary leader. The wounded man groans and staggers sideways into a tree, searing his side and face in a branch covered with flaming leaves. Unfortunately, James can’t block the commander’s sword, and the blade slashes across his belly, ripping the chainmail and cutting shallowly across his flesh. James keeps his footing, confident that he can take the commander, when he notices that in fact the rest of the mercenaries were not cowards. Rather, four of the remaining men are trying to flank him and Roth, picking a precarious path through the burning underbrush.
The heat from the flames warms Roth’s blood, and he grins eagerly as he slams his bastard sword against the parrying blades of his two opponents. One of the soldiers sidesteps around his guard and stabs Roth in the kidney, but he ignores the injury and retaliates by shoving the man off his feet and into a flaming thornbush. The other warrior’s attacks are all blocked by Roth’s chainmail, but reinforcements are coming.
Vic runs up to alongside the elemental and commands it to help the fight in the forest, but the imps flies in then and spits a bolt of fire into the elemental’s face. The elemental sizzles with steam and tries to grab the imp out of the air, but the small demon is too quick for the huge elemental’s grasp. Vic again shouts for the elemental to ignore the imp and go help James, but just as it begins to slosh forward, Bhurisrava bursts out of the woods, calling for help.
Vic turns to look at Bhur, smiling momentarily until he realizes that he had been attacked. Before Vic can ask a question, though, Bhurisrava runs up and shouts, “Give me the ring! I need that elemental!”
“What?” Vic balks, trying to point out the fight in which James and Roth are in trouble, but Bhur’s wild and desperate expression convinces him. He slips off the ring and manages to give it to Bhurisrava before the elemental can retaliate at them.
Bhurisrava begins to run back into the woods, shouting for the elemental to follow. They rush away at a sprint, the elemental demolishing a wide trail in the forest as it pursues Bhur.
Harley recovers her chakram and runs toward the fight in the flaming forest. The soldiers are trying to move through the flames slowly, but Harley sees James and Roth in danger, leaving her no luxury of caution. She tumbles over and under flaming logs and branches, slipping sideways between narrow trees and dodging falling fiery debris, getting herself into the perfect position to catch the soldiers off guard. Amid the roar of the flames, they don’t hear approach, so she sprints up next to one and stabs him in the back with her dagger, then leaps upward to a non-flaming branch, swinging out reach of the mercenaries. They turn in surprise and try to slash at her, but miss widely.
James steels himself for a fight on two fronts, but when the others do not come up from behind, he redoubles his attack on the commander. They attack, parry, counterattack, counterparry, and drive each other back and forth through the searing heat of flames. One of James slashes bashes through the man’s guard and slashes across his forearm, and in pain the commander drops his sword. James slashes again at the man, but he sidesteps behind a tree that blocks James’ sword.
Nearby, Roth ignores the opponent who is still standing so he can pull the fallen man out of the flaming bush. The man is screaming, the fires searing his entire, but Roth shoves him away to a relatively safe location so he can put himself out. For his generosity, he’s repaid by the other soldier stabbing him in the stomach. Roth swerves his body to dodge most of the hit, and the blade just slashes shallowly instead of piercing his belly.
James pulls his sword out of the tree and tries again to hit the commander, but before he can he feels something gouge at the back of his head. Clenching his teeth in anger, he swings his sword blindly backward over his head, clipping the imp as it strafes past him. He realizes that his hair is on fire, and is about to take a moment to put out the flames when he sees the commander sprint out from behind the tree and snatch up his sword for attack. Feeling his scalp burning, James parries a blow aimed for his throat, then staggers backward, shouting for Vic.
Vic, in the middle of casting another watery spray attack, sees James in need but cannot stop his spell in mid-casting. He shouts for James to duck, and then fires in James’s direction, two sprays of arctic water lashing outward through the trees toward the commander. James ducks, and one spray hits him a glancing blow in the back of the head, while the other flies slightly higher, catching the mercenary leader in his chest. The man falls turns with the impact, but is too off balance to attack James as he pushes himself off the ground.
When James gets back to his feet, he pats his head briefly. It stings, but the fires are out. Despite the painful impact from Vic’s attack spell, James shouts out a curt, “Thanks,” before rejoining the battle.
One of the soldiers beneath Harley shouts for the imp to get her, since she’s out of reach of their blades. Harley cringes slightly as she sees the imp changes its course in mid-air to face her. It begins to swoop toward her, flying through the roaring fire unhindered. When it is still thirty feet away she hurls Ricochet at it, but the cover of the tree branches stops the attack. That gives her an idea, though, and she clambers around the trunk of the tree, balancing nimbly to avoid the flames that engulf most of the branches. The imp makes one strafe that misses, then turns to make another pass. As it banks to face her, Harley grabs a thin long branch and heaves back, bending it back. The imp snarls eagerly, claws outstretched to slash her, but right before it can reach her, Harley releases the branch, letting the limb snap lengthwise back, cracking into the imps face and hurling it away into the trees. It falls into a heap of bushes, which immediately catch flame.
The four soldiers beneath Harley have broken off from her, and half run to aid their commander while the other half head after Roth. One of the mercenaries trying to aid the commander falls unconscious when a burning tree limb falls from overhead and clobbers him in the face, bursting into cinders at it hits the ground. The other soldier with him pauses to push the flaming limb off his friend, giving James another moments reprieve before he is outnumbered.
Roth, however, does not fare so well. The opponent still in front of him distracts his attention so he doesn’t notice the two men coming in from behind. Roth swings fiercely at the soldier, hitting him hard and almost dropping him, but then the two flanking soldiers strike, one stabbing Roth in the back with a shortsword while the other slashes him in the back of his forearm. Roth roars in pain, dropping his weapon and slumping forward.
Harley sees Roth in pain and is about to go try to help him when she sees the imp begin to climb its way out of the flaming leaves. She aims her dagger for a throw to finish it off, then remembers what happened to the last imp when Allar killed it.
James engages the commander and one of his other men, and just as their blades clash together he hears Harley shout, “James, run for your life!”
Incredulous for a moment, James takes a moment to thrust kick into the commander’s gut before turning and running out of the flaming woods. In the trees overhead he hears Harley leaping desperately through the inferno of branches and leaves to get away from the imp. Then from behind there is a brief, hideous shriek, followed by a thunderous explosion. The blast knocks Harley out of the branches and onto the grass of the clearing, and knocks James off his feet. The flames spread out in a huge burst that engulfs the commander and his aiding man, and the concussion also knocks over the three soldiers around Roth.
A whistling sounds in the air, and Harley’s dagger tumbles overhead, landing in the ground, knocked out of the imp’s body when it exploded.
James rolls over and slowly gets up. Looking at Harley, he shouts, “Idiot!”
When Harley gets to her feet, she’s smiling sheepishly.
Vic, who had been out of the blast radius, runs up to help them, using a cantrip to put out the flames licking on the edges of Harley’s clothes. He’s about to congratulate her, but Harley shakes her head, looking around for Roth. As the smoke clears from the explosion, they see two haggard soldiers holding up Roth’s semi-conscious body, a sword lain across his throat.
* * *
Bhurisrava bolts through the trees, reaching the Illithid only moments after it manages to extricate its tangled robes from the thorn wall. Bhurisrava pauses for dramatic effect, long enough that he knows the Illithid has seen him, then thrusts out his ring-bearing hand.
“Kill the Illithid!”
The water elemental crashes through the trees, smashing a watery fist at the Illithid. It takes the blow to its face, and the force actually tears off one of its tentacles. Squealing in pain, the Illithid steps away in confusion, then tries to move past the elemental to get at Bhurisrava. Bhurisrava has his warhammer ready, and catches the floating mind flayer in the face. The thing’s cheek cracks, but it raises its armblade for a downward chop. Before it can attack, however, the elemental’s hand snaps out and grabs the Illithid’s head. Its fingers begin to swirl and surround the Illithid’s entire face, and then it draws its arm back into its body, fully engulfing the creature in water.
Bhurisrava steps back, an impressed grin on his face. He sees the surface of the elemental shudder, like its tensing its muscles, and inside the watery body, the Illithid’s body begins to twist in unnatural angles. With a dulled crack, the Illithid’s head begins to twist too far sideways, breaking its neck. But an instant later, just before the Illithid would die, the elemental takes a stunned step backward, then collapses, its body splashing to the ground in a huge, flat puddle. Bhurisrava figures that the creature telepathically stunned it, so he advances quickly to finish the Illithid can counterattack.
The Illithid sloshes forward clumsily, its body mangled from the force of the elemental’s crush, but somehow still managing to function. It reaches a tree stump and pulls itself halfway to its feet, then looks up to see Bhurisrava towering over it, warhammer raised in one hand. With an apologetic shrug, the priest smashes down and crushes the Illithid’s skull.
Bhurisrava gloats for a moment before he starts to head back to help the others. He stops briefly to see if he can tell whether the elemental is alive anymore, and he notices that the sky is growing light, light from day, not light from the fire. He suddenly feels very tired, realizing he must have been up all night looking through the woods.
He is about to head off when he hears a branch creak nearby overhead. He turns in surprise, just in time for something heavy and slimy to smash into his chest. He looks down in confusion, realizing that the glob of slime is keeping his warhammer arm stuck to his chest. He tries to pull free, but the glob begins to stretch out, little threads unraveling to spread around him.
“Elemental! You bastard, get up and help me!”
Another bolt hits him, this time catching his hip and a nearby tree trunk. As he looks closer in the slightly bright light of predawn, he realizes that the threads aren’t stretching out on their own, but rather dozens of small spiders are spinning the threads into a web around him. He looks around desperately and calls for help, trying to pull himself free, but the webs stick him fast to the tree.
A dark shape moves in a branch ten feet up and a few feet away. It creeps forward, bending the branch low, then curls forward and drops to the ground slowly, almost like a huge spider descending from its web. Then the form rises up, and Bhur recognizes it as a woman’s form, heavily covered, a veil over her face.
“Hey lady? Help me?”
She shakes her head, reaching up and pulling a long spear off the branch overhead. The blade at the end is single-edged and slightly curved, and its haft is almost solid black. Holding it lightly in one hand, she walks toward him. He can’t make out her face, but her posture makes it clear that she plans to kill him.
Unable to move, and with his weapon pinned to his chest, Bhurisrava screams for help.
* * *
“Now you don’t want your friend to die,” the soldier shouts, his voice haggard and worried, “and we don’t want ours to die. If you drop your weapons, and let us leave with our friends, we’ll let your friend here live.”
To emphasize that they’re in danger, an entire tree cracks from the flames that have eaten at it. It snaps near its base and nearly falls on top of the unconscious mercenary commander. Only another tree in its way stops the fall.
James looks momentarily at the fallen tree, then shrugs. “If you kill him, we’ll kill you.”
Vic nods. “Yeah, it’s not like we . . . y’know, like him or anything.”
“Shut up,” Harley snaps at them. “It’s not worth risking Roth’s life.
“Let him go,” she says back to the mercenaries, “and we’ll let you go.”
The two mercenaries let go of Roth. One rushes to try to help their leader, while the other pulls the man who had caught on fire to his feet. Harley rushes forward, not carrying any weapons, and tries to drag Roth out of the fire. Vic comes over warily, ready to cast a spell if the soldiers try any tricks, but they seem content to also just drag their friends safe from the reach of the fire.
Harley shouts for Bhurisrava to come heal Roth, but Bhur is no where to be seen. James comes up beside Vic and asks where the hell is their water elemental. Vic replies that Bhur ran off with the elemental, but didn’t say why. He points at the wide path torn through the trees by the elemental’s passing, and James breaks into a run toward it. Harley tells Vic to go to, and she stays there to try and tend to Roth’s various injuries.
Harley waits helplessly, watching the soldiers shamble away to a safe area of the clearing. As James and Vic run down the path, the flames of the forest fire lick at their heels, setting the trees along the path ablaze.
* * *
Hoping to stall, Bhurisrava tries to engage the woman in conversation. The sky is growing bright, both from the fire and from the early morning sun.
“Why do you want to kill me, huh? Was that squiddy thing there your pet?”
The woman tenses, glancing once at the mangled hump of Illithid flesh that lies next to a tree stump. She turns back to Bhurisrava and leans close to him. Through the veil, he sees that her eyes glow a bright red, and that her skin is a dark grey.
“You’re . . . a dark Elf, aren’t you? Well, that would explain the veil.”
She very meticulously uses the blade of her spear to slash along Bhurisrava’s leg. Because of the webbing, he can squirm and scream in pain, but he can’t dodge out of the way.
“Tell me where the ranger is, and I’ll let you live.”
Bhurisrava chuckles weakly, the pain making him feel cold. “Don’t you think it’s impolite to get this close without telling me your name first.”
Bhurisrava’s gaze sweeps over the woman’s body, lingering on her hips and breasts. He hears her snarl in anger, and then she punches him in the face. After his head snaps to the side, he shakes off the stun and prays, “Lord, forgive me for my lust. But I mean, she’s leaning right at me.”
“I can gouge out your eyes so you never lust again, light Elf.”
Bhur shakes his head desperately. The dark Elf woman flashes a dark smile across her purple lips, then digs the nails of her hand into the back of Bhurisrava’s neck. “Tell me where to find the ranger.”
An uncontrollable shudder runs up Bhur’s spine as she touches him; he’s always been sensitive around the back of his neck. He manages to shake off the feeling, though, and asks, “Why do you care about him? You already have the stupid book.”
“I’m feeling compassionate, and so I’ll give you one last chance to tell me. The fire is getting very close, and this wand has enough charges that you won’t be able to get free in time.”
Bhurisrava curses, then weakly tries to kick her, but his reach is limited by the webbing. Helplessly, he shrugs. “My friends will stop you before you can get to him. He . . . he’s in a hut, east of here. It used to belong to a woodsman, and that naked wilderness girl took him there after your imp exploded. After your ‘ex, imploded?’ Heh.”
The dark Elf woman smiles maliciously, then leans in close, pressing the blade of her polearm to his neck, staring eye to eye through her veil. Bhur gulps, and the blade cuts across his neck as his throat bobs up and down.
Suddenly, a rustling comes from nearby as the elemental begins to regain control of itself. The dark Elf half-turns to look, pulling away her blade just far enough. Straining, Bhurisrava presses against the bonds of the webbing and lunges forward, biting the edge of the veil on her face. He clamps his teeth down and yanks back, tearing the veil from her face. She stumbles back in shock, slashing at Bhur defensively. The cut digs into his weapon arm, but he is still too stuck even to properly wince in pain. Instead, he spits out the veil and shouts, “Water elemental, get ‘er!”
The water elemental lifts a few feet off the ground, still not fully in control of itself, and before it can move against her, the dark Elf slashes her blade through the air in a quick dance. Bhur can feel magic flow from her into the elemental, and suddenly Bhurisrava’s savior falls back to the ground. The woman turns back to Bhurisrava, squinting in the bright light of the forest fire. Her red eyes reflect the flames.
James appears at the edge of Bhur’s line of sight, and he calls for James’s help desperately. The dark Elf stabs at Bhurisrava quickly to shut him up, then backs up defensively. Fortunately for Bhurisrava, she only scraped his side, but he feigns death so she won’t try to use him as a hostage.
James bursts out of the woods, sword ready to swing, but the dark Elf draws her wand and fires a mass of webbing at his feet. He manages to get one foot free, but the other is stuck to the ground, tripping him. She moves forward to strike him while he’s down, but then Vic appears behind James. He skids to a stop and shouts out the words to a spell, holding forth his elementalist’s ring. The dark Elf woman very briefly feels thirsty, but her innate magic shunts the spell aside. She lackadaisically fires another charge of the wand at Vic, pinning his upper body to a tree.
“Tell me where the ranger is!” she snarls, raising her spear to behead James. Only one of James’s feet is caught, however, and he rolls to the side, parrying the killing blow so it strikes the ground beside him.
Meanwhile, barely hesitating, Vic digs his hands weakly into the pouch at his waist. He doesn’t have much movement for his arms, and thus can’t cast any spells, but he knows the properties of liquids very well, and alcohol cancels the adhesiveness of webbing. Triumphantly he pulls out the last of the Dwarven spirits Old Grizzler had given him, and he sprays himself with the fluid. The mind-numbingly powerful alcohol (in more ways than one) quickly begins to weaken the web-like glob, and Vic struggles to free himself.
Bhurisrava realizes that something is going on, so he squints and opens his eyes enough to see James struggling while on the ground to fight off the dark Elf, and Vic by the tree, freeing himself heroically from the web. Dropping the act of being dead, Bhurisrava shouts, “Cast a light spell. Her veil is off!”
With one surge of strength, Vic tears the weakened webbing, and raises his hand to display his ring. A flare of light appears directly in front of the woman’s eyes, surprising her and putting her off guard. Vic rushes forward and shoves her off her feet, then magically conjures a spray of alcohol over James’s foot to free him. At the same time, the elemental begins to overcome whatever spell the dark Elf woman used on it, and it rises ominously, towering behind James and Vic.
The dark Elf woman backflips to her feet, nearly slipping out of disorientation. The flames of the forest are fiercely bright, and in the sky overhead the stars are fading out to daylight. She sees a huge shadow cast before her from the elemental, and desperately, she slashes at both James and Vic. From the tip of her blade she conjures a bolt of flame that sears between them and into the elemental’s chest, and though Vic and the elemental are bunred, James twists to the side out of its path. He hooks his left arm around the shaft of the polearm, using his body as a fulcrum to snap the weapon out of the dark Elf’s grip. She gasps when she loses her weapon, then backs off nervously.
James tosses the weapon to the ground and raises his sword to strike, but the woman leaps away, thrusting out her wand toward the trees. A line of web spins out and grabs a high branch, and she pulls herself upward into the trees. James tries to leap after her, but she leaps to a yet higher branch. He loses her in the haze of the smoke.
James curses, then helps Vic extricate Bhurisrava from the webbing. As they rush back to where Roth and Harley are, Bhur and Vic tell each other what happened. Bhur tells the elemental to begin putting out the fires to stop at least part of the burn, so that Oleane’s grove will be safe. When they get to the clearing, Bhur uses the last of his healing magic to keep Roth from dying, and James tosses the dark Elf woman’s spear to Harley for safe-keeping. James shoulders Roth and carries him back to the general location of Oleane’s grove, escorted by Vic. Harley, Bhurisrava, and the elemental stay behind to manage the extinguishing of the fires. The whole time they do so, Bhur comments continually about how much he’s going to love having this water elemental for a pet. After about two hours, it begins to seriously disturb Harley.
A few hours later, a wearied, sleepless Bhurisrava and Harley find their way back to Oleane’s grove. James is still awake, watching over Vic and Allar while they doze. Oleane herself has apparently left to try and track the dark Elf woman, but since most of the terrain has been scorched, she’ll probably have little luck. Brookthorn is singing softly and soothingly, and it’s all Bhurisrava can do to command the elemental to sit still and do nothing. And so Bhurisrava, Roth, Allar, Vic, and Harley sleep soundly, while James guards stoically, and the elemental stews motionlessly.
And then in the early afternoon, true to form, James wakes Harley up before she can even get six hours of sleep.
Goblins
