B01DCAV4W2 (S) (38 page)

Some of the information was what he expected, like the defenses, though he hadn’t known just how much more effective the marble walls were compared to the earthworks.  Some of the info was just depressing.  The diplomacy screen for instance just showed that he had managed to completely piss off basically EVERYONE he had met since coming to the land.  He dwelled on that for a while, but ultimately shrugged off his worry.  Can’t make an omelet and all that, he thought.

The ‘Buildings’ tab was surprising.  He had no idea that there were unique buildings for his village.  Of course he now knew he had to build a workshop to figure out what they were, but it was still fascinating.  He would have to get Roswan to build a workshop ASAP.  Each tab in fact seemed to require that he construct some type of building to unlock further functions.

Richter also hadn’t really thought too much about the health of his village, but it apparently had real consequences.  He was just happy that its level wasn’t lower than neutral.  What really caught his eye was the ‘Magic’ tab.  When he had seen it right after becoming Master of the village, he had thought it was just a list of potential spells.  The fact that he would be able to buy spells in the future was amazing.

Richter looked over all of the information that he could and yet there was still a great deal more to read and learn.  What he took away from the experience, was that he needed to be more proactive in building his village.  He closed the menu when he couldn’t just look at it anymore and then started focusing on other issues. 

While Richter and his party had been moving through the forest, he stealthily followed tracks that he saw, sometimes veering off from the main group.  One or two sprites accompanied him each time, but there was no concern for them startling his prey.  Their Wood Craft ability let them move as quietly as a leaf in the wind.  Richter was able to find many animals and analyzed each one.   He was able to level his Stealth skill twice, his Tracking skill four times and his Analyze skill twice. 

Even more importantly, while he was tracking, he picked every useful herb and plant he could find.  His Apprentice rank in Herb Lore let him see three uses for most of them.  Some had some truly wonderful effects, but others were just strange.  It was great news that Pewant leaf could make an anti-itch powder.  It was unfortunately ‘get in my van’ creepy though, that Redbark Sap could make an aromatic potion that attracted children.  The main point for Richter was that the next time he checked his status page, his Herb Lore skill advanced his progress to the next level by 28%.  Richter invested the 75% he had gotten from advancing the last three levels and he finally got to level forty in Herb Lore.  He eagerly read the prompt that described the bonus experience that came with it. 

You have received 10,000 (base 8,000) bonus experience for reaching level 40 in the skill: Herb Lore.

He also practiced his new Dual Casting skill by casting random spells.  He had to stay away from casting
Flame,
seeing as how he was walking through a heavily wooded area, but his other spells were fair game.  He soon found that his first success with Dual Casting did not predict any actual ability.  His spells fizzled more than once.  Richter noticed it was easier for him to cast spells where he had a more advanced skill level. 
Haste
for instance, had a higher success rate than
Ice Dagger. 
Despite the difficulty, by continually depleting his magic, his new skill reached level five and he also raised his skill level in all of his magics except Fire.  Richter found that he got some excruciating headaches by continually depleting his mana, but there was an unexpected benefit when his Wisdom rose by one point. 

Richter was smiling over the increase to his stats when he caught sight of a peculiar set of tracks.  He immediately motioned for the sprites to stop.  All ten immediately drew arrows and faded into the trees.  If Richter didn’t know exactly where to look, he would not have been able to see them.

It was late afternoon and the sun was well on its way to setting, but there was still more than enough light to see by.  The tracks glowed slightly brighter than the others he had been following, just as when he had found the kobolds’ trail.  He assumed this meant he that something sentient had made the tracks.  There were two problems though.  One, he didn’t recognize the footprints.  Two, there were a
large
number of them!

One of the sprites caught up with him and immediately drew an arrow.  He called out in a loud voice, not in words, but in the trilling call of a bird.  Three short trills echoed through the trees and were almost immediately answered by two answering chirps.  Richter had heard both of the bird calls while walking through the forest, and if he hadn’t been looking right at the sprite, he wouldn’t have known the call was false.  In just a few seconds, the entire troupe of ten sprites had materialized around him.

“What type of tracks are they?” Richter asked with quiet intensity.

Nine of the sprites had slowly started spreading out from Richter’s position.  After just a few yards, their Wood Craft ability made them disappear from his sight.  The lead sprite, Kenzo, stayed with Richter though.  Both men knelt low in the brush, their cloaks keeping them mostly hidden from sight.  The small archer had a mop of black hair that always seemed to threaten to fall into his eyes and beneath it he had a pair of flint grey cat eyes. 

“Bugbears, Lord Richter.  More than ten, maybe twenty,” Kenzo said softly.  “My men will learn more and report back.”

Both Richter and Kenzo waited for five minutes before the first of the sprites returned.  The female sprite gave a short report that she had found nothing to the east except for older tracks leading toward their position.  Over the next half hour more and more came back with similar stories from different directions until only two sprites remained away.  The nine of them waited another thirty minutes with no word back.  Richter looked to Kenzo expecting an order to go after the missing men, but all he saw was calm patience.  The sprite commander had the utmost confidence in his men.

Another ten minutes later, both of the missing sprites materialized out of the trees.  The other sprites faced outward with arrows nocked, while the sprites gave their debriefing. 

“We found them,” one said gravely.  “At least fifteen, maybe twenty of them.”

“Are they all bugbears,” Kenzo asked.  “Did you see any obvious casters?”

Richter knew too well how dangerous the bugbears could be after their raid on his village.  They were large and ferocious opponents, but they were not gifted in the magical arts.  They often had other races like orcs or dark elves travel with their war parties to fill that niche.  Knowing if the nearby enemy band had magic users was a key piece of information. 

“I was able to spy them as they were cresting a hill,” one of the sprites replied.  Everyone I saw was a bugbear, but some had already disappeared to the other side of the hillock so I cannot say for sure.  We decided to come back though, because we found something else while we searched for the bugbears.  Another series of tracks appeared and it was obvious that the bugbears were following them.  That was one of the only reasons we were able to catch up.  They were taking care to move silently.  They were not stealthed, but they were clearly on the hunt.”

Kenzo’s face hardened at that.

“What?” Richter asked.  “What does that mean?”

“A band of bugbears will stealth right before they attack, but if they are moving silently, the attack will happen soon.”

“Well what tracks did you find?” Richter asked. 

“It was a set of five people, all wearing shoes.  One pair of footprints was small like a gnome’s and the others looked to be human or elfish.”  The sprite looked pointedly at Richter.  “I can only think of one settlement anywhere near here that would have a group like that.”

Richter’s eyes widened.  His people!  He quickly consulted his Map.  They had made better time than he had thought.  The mists weren’t more than fifteen miles away.  He wasn’t sure why his people had left its protection, but they had been found!  He had to do something.  Richter made a decision.

“I have to go after these bastards,” he said to Kenzo.  “I need to save my people.  You did not sign up for this though.  Neither I, nor my people, will hold it against you if you choose to head back to the Hearth Tree.  This may be a hopeless fight.”

Kenzo stared at him and his eyes hardened.  “I am not idly here with you on this trip.  Hisako is my mother’s sister.  When I heard that our ally, my beloved cousin’s Companion, needed to reach home.  I volunteered.  I did this not to accomplish one goal, but instead to serve my people and serve our alliance.  The Wood Sprites of Nadria will not turn away from the cause of good.  We will not allow your people to be slaughtered.  Now my question for you is, are you ready to kill our enemies or do you want to waste more time speaking idle words?”

Richter looked at Kenzo for a long moment, and then reached a hand out.  The sprite clasped his wrist and nodded.  They spent less than a minute gathering more information from the sprites that had seen the enemy party.  In that minute Richter handed out Potions of Clarity and loaded his Ring of Spell Storage with
Charm
and then they set off at a run. 

The bugbears were roughly ten miles ahead of them.  The sprites that had followed their trail, said the tracks of the mist villagers couldn’t be more than two to four hours old.  If they were going to catch up with the bugbears before his people were dead, it was going to be close.  Richter had Alma fly over watch. 

The eleven of them sped through the forest as quickly as they could without giving away their position.  The bugbears outnumbered them possibly two to one, and they couldn’t afford to lose the element of surprise.  With every step, Richter imagined plunging his arrows into his enemies’ bodies.  Hunt his people would they?  They would pay for that mistake in blood. 

He cast
Haste
on himself and raced ahead.  One of the sprites had some skill with Earth magic and cast
Forest Path
on himself and two other sprites.  The spell effectively increased the target’s ability to move quickly through wooded areas.  Richter watched as branches seemed to lift out of their path and brambles refused to catch upon their clothes and cloaks. 

Close to an hour passed before Richter’s advance group caught sight of the bugbears.  The sun was close to setting and his group had used the climbing abilities of their Enhanced Sprite Armor to gain a bird’s eye view of the terrain.  Richter looked out and what he first saw actually wasn’t the bugbears, it was his people. 

Near a riverbed was an armed party of five.  Two wood elves held swords and wore a mix of leather and chainmail armor.  Another elf and a human wore leather armor and both held bows.  Arrows were nocked to the string.  A fifth villager was a gnome and she just wore leather armor.  A yellow nimbus surrounded her hand as she cast a spell.  

The group was standing in the middle of a meadow.  Tall trees rose all around, but the group had a clear line of sight.  It meant they could see the bugbears that were standing at the far edge of the meadow, but the shadows were getting long at this point.  The goblinoids were using the trees as cover against the villagers’ arrows.  What Richter was seeing didn’t seem to quite add up though.

The bugbears were roaring and beating their weapons and shields against the trees.  They were making a terrible racket, which was how Richter and the sprites had known to climb the trees to get a better look.  What didn’t make sense was why the bugbears would be scared of just two arrows.  Why were they waiting?  Also, it seemed like there were only ten hiding at the tree line.  Where were the rest?

His eyes scanned the rest of the meadow his people were standing in, but he didn’t see the other bugbears.  What he did see was a slight distortion in the air at the far side of the open space.  It looked like a slight haze as if he was seeing heat rising over the desert.  Richter only observed it for a moment and that was only because he was using his
Focus
skill.  He kept staring at his people and then he saw the distortion again, but in two different places, and each was ten yards closer to the villagers than before.  Just like before, it disappeared. 

Suddenly Richter knew what he was seeing and, more importantly, he knew why the glimmers had moved closer.  The bugbears he could see were just a distraction!  The remainder of the enemy party was stealthed and was making its way slowly towards his people.  They would be slaughtered.  Immediately, all hope for a nuanced approach fled from Richter’s mind.  He looked at one of the sprites and said, “Help us!”  Then he dropped out of the tree.

CHAPTER 21

Richter hit the ground hard and started running.  He was able to absorb most of the force by flexing his knees, but it was still jarring to drop the twenty yards.  Thankfully, his body was up to the task and he barely stumbled before he was moving at full speed.  He had fuzzy men to kill!