NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1309721" data-attributes="member: 143">Remember, Zenna's the smart one <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> * * * * * Chapter 95Zenna was cold, and she knew that if she could feel the icy bite of the wind through the protection afforded by her demonic heritage, then the others had to be freezing.  But they offered no complaint, trudging across the mountain trails as the hours passed slowly but inexorably. The weather had been hit or miss over the last few days.  For every hour of clear skies it seemed they had been faced with an hour of frozen downpour, with apparently no middle ground in between.  At least it hadn’t been cold enough to snow, although the higher peaks to their right were already draped in a white shroud that seemed to dip closer to them the further north they marched.  Dannel’s wilderness skills were a godsend, and thus far he’d found them a dry and secure shelter every night of their travel, as well as enough food and fuel so that they’d barely had to dip into their iron rations.  Even with the spacious boost provided by Mole’s magical backpack, which was now packed full of gear and supplies, Zenna was concerned that the Underdark might tax their resources.  The sudden clatter of metal directly ahead drew her out of her reverie.  Arun was down, having slipped on a muddy patch of stone, part of a jagged bulge of rock that rose up out of the grond directly across their path.  They were making their way through a high meadow at the moment, but even here there was more barren stone than grassy earth.  Their trail led them to obstacles that had be surmounted at least a dozen times each day.  Mole reached the dwarf before Zenna could, but Arun refused her offered help, lifting himself cumbersomely to his feet with yet more clanking and clattering.  If there’s anything hostile in these mountains, it’ll hear us coming a dozen miles distant, Zenna thought to herself.  Thus far, however, their luck had held, and they had encountered nothing more threatening than a large mountain cat that had growled at them a few times from the safety of a nearby outcropping before withdrawing.  Arun returned to the stone ridge, clambering awkwardly up the slick stones using his hands as well as his feet, while Mole surmounted the barrier in a few magically-enhanced hops.  Zenna fell somewhere in between, climbing up the rocks carefully and methodically until she reached the summit of the ridge.  It wasn’t all that high, perhaps fifteen feet above the level of the meadow at its highest point, giving her an unobstructed view of what looked like an endless sequence of ridges, valleys, and hills stretching ahead of her as far as she could see.  Dannel had insisted that they were following the trail indicated on the map, but Zenna had to admit that the mountains all looked alike to her eyes. She saw Dannel up ahead, the elf returning from one of his frequent scouts.  With all the coming and going he did, he had to be covering twice the distance that the rest of them were in a given day, but she had to admit that the ranger was now in his element, more at home among the stark mountain landscape than in the civilized confines of Cauldron.  Dannel had kept all of their spirits up, singing songs or playing his flute at their camps each night.  Even Arun had let up on his criticisms; the dwarf had seemed quiet of late, Zenna mused, even more so than was usual for him.  Mole had shared with her what had transpired between them in the dwarven tavern and afterward, shedding some light on the complex machinations in the mind of their friend.  Perhaps she understood better what drove the man, she thought. “I think that we may have some company up ahead,” Dannel reported, once they’d joined him back on the meadow floor.  “I detected a faint smell of woodsmoke on the breeze when the wind shifted a short while ago, although I did not see any signs of habitation up ahead.”“You think?” Arun interjected.  “Bah—what’s the use of all them elfy skills of yours, if you cannot be certain?  Let me go on up ahead, and I’ll smoke ‘em out, if there be anything hostile waiting for us along the trail.”Dannel laughed.  “I am sure that any foe would depart in haste at your coming, ser paladin!  But I doubt it’s an ambush, else they wouldn’t have had a fire burning where it could be detected by anyone approaching.  Best to be cautious, though, then to blunder into trouble.”There was no denying that advice, so they continued on their way, passing out of the far edge of the meadow and into a long ravine that followed the course of what was probably a watershed, waiting patiently for the spring thaw to channel a deluge of water into the lowlands.  At the moment there was only a trickling spring winding its way through the hills.  Dannel said that the ravine offered a shortcut around a line of rough terrain to the north; they would be able to circumvent that obstacle and rejoin their general course without giving up too much in the way of time.  They hadn’t gone very far along the twisting course of the ravine, however, when Mole raised her hand.  “Do you hear that?” she asked.  Zenna listened, and a faint noise, barely distinguishable from the background noise of the wind through the hills, reached her ears.  “What is it?” she asked. “Trouble,” Dannel reported, stringing his bow and drawing out a long shaft from his quiver.  “Come!” The elf led them quickly down the length of the ravine toward the source of the noise, moving swiftly and stealthily across the rocks.  Arun fell behind, and Zenna suspected that this was a deliberate ploy on Dannel’s part, so that the noisy passage of the dwarf wouldn’t provide undue warning to whoever or whatever lay ahead.  Mole, hopping from boulder to boulder using the magical powers of her boots, had no difficulty keeping up, but Zenna wasn’t quite so adept and found the distance between her and the elf slowly widening. They reached a bend in the course of the ravine, and just like that the sounds grew more distinct, even as their source became obvious. A battle raged before them, situated within a small campsite constructed at the bend in the streambed.  Scattered about were the ruins of a heavy canvas tent, a shattered frame of what might have been a mining sluice, and a slain mule, its slashed body lying awkwardly across the course of the stream, forming an impromptu dam.  A dwarf was fighting off a strange creature shaped almost like a gaunt, violet-skinned hound, with a pair of tentacles tipped with sharp ridges jutting from its shoulders.  As Zenna’s eyes widened in surprise, she saw the creature shimmer and shift, its outline twisting as it seemed to travel back and forth a few paces without actually moving. Dannel had already drawn his bow and fired, aiming at the hindquarters of the beast so as not to threaten the embattled dwarf.  His shot was accurate, but the shot passed through empty air as the monster shifted again a pace to the left.  The dwarf appeared to be having similar difficulties.  “Stand still, ye blasted beastie, so I can smack ye!” he roared.  He was wielding a long-handled spade like a battleaxe, but the creature’s constant shifting was making it difficult for him to land a blow.  It, however, had no such hindrance, and it lashed out at the dwarf, scoring a painful blow across his torso that drove him back roughly.  “Right!  I’ll do yer for that one!” the dwarf yelled, jabbing upward with the shovel, catching the creature under the jaw as it snapped at him with its massive teeth.  This time the blow connected, and the displacer beast hissed in sudden pain.  It drew back reflexively, but clearly the attack had only momentarily discomfited the creature.  “Come on, we’ve got to help him!” Mole shouted, springing forward toward the melee.  “Mole, no!” Zenna cried in warning, but of course it was already too late.  She drew out her magical wand of burning hands, but held back, first calling upon her magic to protect herself with mage armor.  Prudently.  Unlike her heedless friends...Even as Dannel nocked and drew his second arrow, she could hear the clanking announcing Arun’s approach.  For once, she found the noise very reassuring.  But at the same time, she became aware of another noise, coming from further down the ravine...“Watch out, there’s another one!” she warned, unslinging her crossbow from across her back.    Dannel’s second shot was equally ineffective, foiled again by the displacement properties of the creature.  The elf cursed and started forward, his bow in one hand while he drew his sword with the other.  The dwarf cried out as the displacer beast savaged him, taking multiple hits to his body and only narrowly avoiding a snap of its jaws that would have turned his throat into red shreds.  He refused to go down, however, even with blood splattering on the rocks about him with every movement.  Mole reached the battle and leapt forward with a sudden heave.  She had targeted the creature’s back, but was prepared when its form shifted and she landed a pace away from its new location.  Continuing the momentum of her charge, she thrust her sword into its side, drawing a howl of pain from it as the blade bit deeply through real flesh and muscle.  Enraged, the displacer beast turned to face this new threat. Zenna moved toward the melee in Dannel’s wake, loading her crossbow as she went.  She looked nervously to her right, where the stream bent again around a rough outcropping of jumbled boulders.  As if summoned by her gaze, a second creature suddenly materialized atop the heap, carried there by a single great leap from the space beyond.  In dawning horror she realized that its tentacles and jaws alike were dripping with crimson, fresh blood that dripped from it in fat gobs.  The creature let out a great roar, and immediately leapt into the fray. Charging right toward her.</blockquote>

Verification