B01DCAV4W2 (S) (35 page)

Dozens of kobolds stared across the river at him, their eyes pregnant with hatred and promised retribution.  All were mounted on what looked like large black pit bulls.  More than half had crossbows and they all fired when they saw him peeking from behind the stone.  He ducked his head back down and let all of the missiles either hit the rock or pass him by.   Richter flipped them off and took off running.   

He cast
Haste
as he once more sped through a darkened forest in a desperate bid to survive.  Richter came to another river, but was able to wade across this one.  As soon as he hit the other side, he was off and running again.  Less than an hour later, the sun set making a dim world even darker.  Even with
Night Vision,
his sight was extremely limited.  He ran through the night, barely staying ahead of the mounted kobolds.  If the sky had been clear, he most likely would have been caught and killed, but again and again he was able to lose his pursuit in the storm.  Unfortunately, again and again they found him. 

He tried to make his way north more than once, but the kobolds had spread themselves out to the north of this position.  It was like they knew he was trying to get back to the Mist Village.  Whenever Richter was spotted, the rider would blow his horn and the rest of the kobolds would converge.  Richter would dash off and a game of cat and mouse would ensue.  He would find a convenient hollowed tree or fold in the land to hide in.  Richter’s stealth and cloak let him stay concealed until a hole appeared in their formation and he would again streak out into the night. 

Though Richter hadn’t been driven to ground yet, the kobolds continued driving him east and south.  He would have been screwed if his only safe haven was his village.  When he checked his map though, he was surprised by the amount of distance he had covered since making it above ground.  He smiled a vicious smile when he realized that the village
wasn’t
his only safe haven.  The kobold’s kept driving him south, but it was Richter that began to lead them east. 

He kept running when he could.  Hiding when he had to.  More hours passed. 

Richter’s legs were tight, and he was fairly certain one of his boots was filled with blood from a popped blister when he finally arrived at his destination.  He climbed a leafy tree and waited.  Before long, Richter watched a kobold rider stalk through the rain, not thirty yards away from his position.  He had hidden many times through the night, but this time was different.  He didn’t stay in his perch and just wait for the reptile to pass.  He was finally done running.  A mental message to Alma sent her winging silently into the higher limbs of the tree. 

Richter quietly lowered himself down from the branch he had been sitting on and he dropped noiselessly to the ground.  He stood and nocked a sprite arrow to the string and started imbuing.  He had been behind the rider, but the glow from the arrow immediately gave him away.  The rider saw him after two seconds and hurriedly raised a horn to his lips.  Richter just smiled, he had no intention of stopping the kobold from giving away their position.  In fact, for the first time he was looking forward to hearing the god awful racket the kobold horn made. 

The kobold paused for a moment, confused by Richter’s expression, but then placed the horn to his lips and blew a loud note.  The call was cut off when Richter’s arrow detonated against his chest and knocked him out of the saddle, but the damage was done.  As the dog mount ran off in fear, other horns echoed in the night. 

Richter raised his hand in the air and shot off several
Far Lights,
the balls of light rising in the air like fireworks.  Then he took off running east again.  After just a few minutes, the riders caught up with him.  Through the night, his host of pursuers had slowly closed in on his position.  The kobolds didn’t need to spread out their numbers as sightings of Richter became more common.  What they didn’t know, was that Richter had let himself be seen.

The dog mounts outpaced him, the steeds running faster than Richter could despite his prodigious use of
Haste. 
Soon, the kobolds came at him from all directions including dead ahead.   Richter found himself surrounded.  The reptiles barked angrily to each other and the mounts growled and snapped at him.  He cast
Simple Light.
  Richter knew it would piss them off more, but though the kobolds were clearly angered, they all maintained a distance of at least ten feet. 

Richter looked at the sea of angry kobolds.  There had to be at least two hundred of them!  He kept a smile on his face, but inside, his heart hammered wildly in fear.  He could only hope that what Hisako had told him was true, and that his plan would come to fruition before they all, quite literally, tore him apart.  After a few minutes, a particularly large kobold pushed out of Richter’s circle of enemies, riding a scarred pit bull.  The kobold wore robes, rings and held a wand clutched loosely his hand.  Richter analyzed him. 

Name: Yi’Asan.  Kobold Level 35. Health 280.  Mana 6300.  Stamina 190.  Disposition: Enmity… Profession: Mage.  Specialization: Battle Mage.

The Mage looked down at Richter from atop his mount.  The wand in his hand gleamed in Richter’s summoned globe of light.  Unlike most kobold weapons, this looked well-made and well maintained.  It possessed the milky white color of moonstone and had a large ruby affixed to the end.   Yi’Asan saw Richter looking at his weapons and the kobold seemed to sneer.  The Mage raised his arm almost lazily, then with a crook of his finger dark energy shot up to Richter’s ball of light and snuffed it out.  The forest dropped into almost complete blackness.  Though Richter couldn’t see the kobolds anymore, he could hear their excitement.  The ambient volume of conversation of the other kobolds rose at their leader’s casual display of power. 

Richter reestablished his
Night Vision
with a twist of his hand and a word of power.  As the black energy writhed into existence, he looked at the Mage and wondered if his spell casting might trigger a violent response from the Mage, but all he saw on the man’s face was smug superiority. 

When Yi’Asan spoke, he pointed the wand at Richter’s face, “You have come into our home and taken something.  We will take it back and for our trouble, we will take your heart as well!”  All of the kobolds yipped and barked loudly at their leader’s words.

Richter squinted at the large kobold.  “What if I just gave you the Focus Crystal back.  Would you be willing to forgive and forget?”

“I am not speaking about a mere crystal and you well know it!” the kobold shouted.  “I do not know how you knew to look beneath the crystals for what had long been lost, but you
will
tell me before you die!”

Richter looked about, honestly confused.  “If you don’t want the Focus Crystal, then what do you want?”  His
Night Vision
picked up a glimmer of movement.

“Enough games, human!  If you do not wish to speak the truth now, then we will take you back to the tunnels.  We shall see how resistant you are after the burrowing worms begin to nest within you!”  Yi’Asan barked an order and the ring of kobolds began to close in on Richter.

“Wait!  I’ll tell you what I know!” he said loudly holding his arms out. 

Yi’Asan barked another order and the kobolds stopped moving.   The rider looked at him pointedly. 

“I know that you feel wronged.  I know that I took something from you!  I also know something else!”  Richter let his last word hang in the air for several seconds.  The kobolds leaned in slightly as if afraid to miss his next words.  Yi’Asan had opened his mouth to speak when Richter continued, cutting the Mage off.  He lowered his voice slightly as if he was sharing a secret, “I
know
that you should be careful how you talk to me.  We are not in your dark little hole anymore!  And I KNOW, that when you step into someone else’s house, you should be damn careful how you speak!”  Richter’s voice rose through his speech and spittle flew from his lips as he shouted the last sentence at Yi’Asan.

The kobold bared his teeth.  “And this!” he said sweeping his arm around at the trees.  “Am I to understand that this forest is your house?  Is that what you wanted to tell me?  Was that the point of your useless speech and false bravado?”

Richter glared back, matching his enemy’s glare in both will and animosity.   Then he broke the gaze and smiled sheepishly, “No.  This isn’t my house.  It’s theirs,” he said gesturing behind the kobold, “and I was just talking until they had all got in position.”

Yi’Asan’s head whipped back and he saw that hundreds of blue glowing dots had lit up the darkness.  Then the sprites released their imbued arrows and the kobolds found another reason to fear the light.   

CHAPTER 20

When Richter came to, his head was cushioned atop something soft and a sweet scent filled the air.  He picked his head up and saw that he was inside of a small room.  A round yellow globe glowed softly in the corner.  When he looked around, he saw that he wasn’t alone.  A white haired sprite woman sat calmly in a chair at the foot of the bed.  She looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her. 

“Ah, he awakes.”  Her voice had a youthful tone that belied her apparent age.

He shook his head to clear the cobweb.  “Thank you for your help.  I am forever in your debt.”

“I should say so,” she replied.  “The magic to bring someone back from the dead is no easy thing!”

Richter’s eyes widened in alarm.  The last thing he remembered was imbued shots exploding all around him.  A few had struck the ground in front of him and thrown him through the air.  After that, his head had struck something hard and everything went back.  He quickly accessed his status page, concerned that he had lost levels again.  A girlish laugh made him look back at the sprite.  

She had her hand over her mouth in a poor attempt to stop the laughter that was spilling out into the room.  “Oh your face!  Just a joke, Lord Richter.  I had to pay you back for stealing my sister away.”  She stood and gave a small curtsy, “I am Fumiko.”

Hearing the name, it suddenly clicked. The sprite looked familiar because he had spent so much time with her family member.  This must be Sumiko’s sister.  “So I didn’t die.”

She laughed again, “No, though when we saw the state of your face, we thought that you had.  I
did
do something about that though,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.  Her gaze drifted up and she tapped her hair.

Confused Richter, placed his hand on his face and ran it up over his scalp.  For the first time in days, he didn’t feel the pocked texture of his burn scars, but instead only smooth and healthy skin.  His mouth dropped open and he quickly cast
Mirror.
  An unblemished face stared back at him.  He was bald as a cue ball, but other than that, his image was the old one he remembered.

“How?” he asked with wonder in his voice. 

“Let’s just say Sumiko isn’t the only Life master in the family.  The spell to remove your scars had to be cast in phases.  You also had a crack in your skull from when you struck a rock during the battle with the kobolds.  You have been asleep for the past two days.”

That explained why he was so hungry and thirsty, Richter thought.  He didn’t want to think about who had cleaned up after him when his body had done the necessary.  He knew for a fact that just because you were unconscious for a long period of time, it didn’t mean you stopped defecating.  Basically, he was pretty sure that he owed some sprite another fruit basket.

“We also shaved the patches of hair you still had left.  One, because you were quite filthy, and two, because you looked quite ridiculous.” 

Richter chuckled and looked at her, his gratitude so intense he couldn’t even really talk.  He simply stood and embraced her. 

She hugged him back, but then said into his ear, “Thank you for the offer, but you’re not my type.”  Then her hand moved down from his back to cup his bare ass.

Richter screwed his eyes shut and he started nodding, “I’m naked aren’t I?”

“See,” she whispered into his ear again, “I knew you weren’t just a cute butt and smile.”  Her hand was still cupping him. 

He stood there awkwardly for a few more seconds as he pondered how best to escape the situation, but when she started squeezing, he quickly backed up covering his privates with his hands as best he could.  She took one last look and then walked out of the room, her laughter trailing after her.  Richter stared after her, thinking how different she was from her sister. 

Another sprite, a male sprite this time Richter was happy to see, brought in his armor, weapons and a set of clothes.   The sprite told him that his armor had taken a beating in the initial barrage of imbued arrows the sprites had fired at the kobolds, but had been repaired.  He hadn’t taken any direct hits, but the concussive force of the arrows had still buffeted him around.  Richter thanked him and then closed the door to get dressed. 

His Bag was by the bedside; the magic of the item had ensured that it stayed near him.  He dressed and equipped himself, then sent out a mental call.