“You have got to be kidding me,” Nym growled. He shifted his passengers to the side and flung his mage blades out to slice through the ghouls. Fortunately, all three were still in the process of putting themselves back together and weren’t all that mobile yet.
The blades hacked the ghouls back apart without any trouble beyond the fact that he was already holding five people in the air and his arcana was spread thin. He brought the Earth Shapers up to the surface and set them down, then did a lap around the destroyed camp to cut apart two more ghouls that had pulled themselves into more or less one piece.
This time he hurled the pieces in different directions. The ghouls were guaranteed to put themselves back together, but his fire pit had been too hastily constructed and he’d crammed the parts too close together. It had taken barely ten minutes for most of them to become mobile again. Without the fire, it was basically a guarantee that they’d put themselves back together eventually, but by then Nym planned on being long gone.
“Last call,” he said into the bunker. “Anyone who’s coming needs to speak up now before this hole gets closed over.”
No one said anything, but there were a lot of apprehensive glances traded between the group. Nym looked over at the Earth Shapers, who just shrugged back. Nomick said, “If I didn’t trust you so much, I wouldn’t move either. On my own, I’m not going to make it out of this forest alive. At least in the bunker they’re safe from the undead.”
It was probably for the best. The original plan hadn’t included any other mages anyway. “Alright then, good luck guys. Feel free to close this thing back up once we’re gone,” he said.
“Wait, wait!” someone called out.
A thin woman shoved her way to the front of the group. She was tall and skinny, dressed in a boy’s shirt and trousers with a pair of suspenders holding them up. Several metallic objects were pinned to the suspenders, each one a different shape. “I want to go too!” she called out.
Nym fought to keep his expression neutral. He’d been so close, but here at the last second was some plain-faced woman who’d mustered up enough courage to not huddle in a hole and wait for death to find her. He was… almost impressed, if it wasn’t so annoying. He couldn’t just abandon her though, not with the audience.
He knew he shouldn’t abandon her anyway, that he really should be trying to save everyone. Those thoughts were given very little consideration before being brushed aside. He couldn’t do that even if he wanted to. One more person wouldn’t be too great a burden on his teleportation spell. Twenty-two more would be. It was that simple.
He wrapped the new girl in a cushion of air and pulled her up to ground level. “Alright, let’s get going,” he said. “The rest of you are walking for a bit while I float the baggage here behind us.”
“Hey!” Bildar said from his position in the air behind them.
“Talking baggage is still baggage,” Nym told him firmly. Banter was much harder than normal, but appearances had to be kept up.
Bildar subsided into grumbling that everyone ignored. The bunker closed up behind them, which got a wistful look from the new girl. Nym didn’t blame her for having second thoughts. “Probably not too late to go back,” he offered, trying not to sound hopeful that she’d change her mind.
“No, I can’t stay there and just wait to die while hoping someone will come along and tell me everything’s fine now.” She shook her head, then turned to look at Nym. “My name is Laraine.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Nym,” he told her. “What were you doing out here, working with the building crew?”
“Ah. No, I’m an enchanter.” She gestured towards the pins on her suspenders. “We were supposed to be installing scrying wards every few hundred feet to help feed information back about ghoul movements.”
“Interesting. You work for the army then?”
She shook her head. “Freelancer.”
“Me too,” he told her. “I did not get paid enough for all of this.”
Internally gritting his teeth, Nym started walking. He kept up a constant undead scan and, every time a ghoul got close to them, sent out his mage blades to intercept it. As long as they came in one at a time, it wasn’t too hard to keep on top of them. The others didn’t even usually see the ghoul.
“This would almost be a pleasant walk if not for the smell,” Ophelia said.
“There’s a spell to block that,” Nym said absently, frowning as a knot of three ghouls moved closer to them. He got one of them, but the other two made it through the trees as the blades circled back around for another pass. A pair of stunning spells gave him enough time to cut apart another one, and he took the legs off the last one first to keep it from reaching the group. That made it harder to attack, but he could adapt to the new angles to finish the job.
This wasn’t going to work. He was already starting to slow down after just a few minutes of walking. It would almost be less work to fly all six of them out if for no other reason than because they’d travel much faster. He’d probably drain himself dry in a matter of minutes, but for those few minutes, they’d get a mile or so of travel done.
“Ophelia, can we talk?” Nym said.
The woman moved to the front of the line and said in a low voice, “What’s wrong?”
“We’re not going to make it out like this,” Nym explained. “What do you know about Laraine? Can we trust her?”
“I don’t know. Sorry. We only met her yesterday. We can’t just leave her here though. What are our options?”
“If it were just her, I could fly her out. If she wasn’t here at all, I’d use teleportation. I can’t fly us all, and I am reluctant to let her know I can teleport.”
“Why is it a secret?” Ophelia asked.
Nym just gave her a flat stare.
“Oh, one of those geas things. That is so inconvenient. I’m sorry, I don’t have a good answer for you. We can build a small bunker if you need to rest for a bit.”
“Let’s do that. I think I have an idea. I’ll explain once we’re safe.”
The bunker was dug out quickly. It wasn’t as well hidden, but it was designed to be short term and didn’t need to be. Once they were safe, Nym said, “Here’s the new plan. Laraine, I’m going to fly you out. The Earth Shapers will wait here for me to come back. They should be safe, but if necessary, they can fortify the bunker further. I’ll have to fly everyone out one at a time, but that’s still faster than walking the whole way, and less dangerous.”
“Why didn’t we just stay at the main bunker then?” Laraine asked.
“Because I didn’t think the undead would be this thick out here,” Nym lied. “It wasn’t this bad before. Circumstances changed, so I’m going to adapt with them.”
He took a twenty-minute break and they broke the bunker open just as the sun came up. Nym lifted Laraine up into the air, and once she was overhead, said in a low voice to Ophelia, “Tell the rest the real plan about teleportation. I’ll be back in an hour, I hope.”
He joined Laraine up in the air. “Any preference on where you go?” he asked.
“Ebalsan, I suppose.”
“Might not be the best idea. I’m not sure the town is there anymore, but alright.”
They took off before Laraine could say anything else. It didn’t even take half an hour for the keep to come into sight, and Nym winced when he cast far sight on himself to get a better look. The keep itself was still standing, but the walls were crumbling in places. It looked like the wights had gotten off an artillery spell of some sort and completely blasted through the wall on the east side, along with vaporizing a corner of the town.
Of the rest of Ebalsan, maybe half of it was still standing. There was plenty of movement, but it all looked like ghoul activity to Nym. He stopped flying and turned to Laraine. “Do you have a backup location?”
“What? Why?”
“Ebalsan appears to be overrun. I don’t see any people left, but I do see a lot of ghouls.”
“What about the army?”
“The keep is still standing, more or less. Maybe people evacuated into it. Do you want to go there?”
“Can we swing by and see if it’s empty first?”
“We can,” Nym said. “Do you know where you want me to drop you off if it’s not full of soldiers and refugees?”
“I… no.”
“Think on it,” Nym advised her. “No offense, but I need to get back to my friends and start working on getting them safe too.”
“Are you going to go back for the rest of the people in the bunker?” Laraine asked.
“Probably not, no. It would take me a week to move them all just to here. Much faster to let the army know there are survivors there so they can send out people to help. If we’re lucky, the keep will not be abandoned and you can do that while I go back.”
They altered direction to fly by the upper reaches of the keep. As they closed in on it, Nym saw a trio of soldiers watching from a window. “Oh good,” he said, “there are still people alive.”
He peered at them closely, trying to make sure they were in fact living soldiers and not a pack of wights wearing soldier uniforms. Everything seemed to check out, so he flew close to the window with Laraine and knocked. One of the soldiers helpfully opened it from the inside, though he looked a bit confused.
“Hi,” Nym said. “I have a survivor from one of the camps in the woods. This is Laraine. Can you get her taken care of? She’s got the location of the underground bunker the rest of the survivors are in.”
“We… can we do that?” the soldier asked, looking over his shoulder at someone Nym couldn’t see. After a moment, he shrugged and said, “I guess we can. Here, miss, why don’t you take my hand and come on in. You too, sir.”
“I’m all set, thanks. I’ve got a lot more work to do.”
Nym handed Laraine off, and before anyone else could say anything, zipped away from the window. There was a shout behind him, which he ignored as he sped off into the open sky. Finally, the distractions were taken care of. He could fly back to the new bunker, teleport his allies out of the hot zone that was the entire forest, and start the next phase of finding Analia. If he was really lucky, she wouldn’t be with the army.
In fact, it would be best to get started on that now. The more he knew about her location, the better he could plan how to reach her. While he flew, he took the time to send her a message. [I’m about to get the Earth Shapers out of the forest. Bildar is injured. Where are you at so I can come get you too?]
He didn’t get an immediate reply, which wasn’t concerning. He also didn’t get a reply by the time he made it back to the rest of the group, which was less ideal. Considering how serious the situation was, that could mean a number of things, but he was sure she would reply if she was able. Hopefully it just meant she was sleeping.
Nym found the bunker and settled onto it. He dispatched the single ghoul that was sniffing around and then yelled an all clear through the chimney they’d set up to give them air. The ground fell away around it, giving him access to the bunker.
“Is it time?” Bildar asked, his face once again tight with pain.
“Soon,” Nym said. “I don’t know where Analia is now. We could leave, but if she tries to message me and I’m not nearby, I won’t get it.”
“We need to get Bildar to a healer soon,” Ophelia said.
“I know. I know. I’ll just… I’ll teleport you all somewhere else, then come back for Analia.”
“What about the rest of the people in the bunker?”
Nym shrugged. “I delivered that enchanter to the army. She’s letting them know so they can send a rescue party.”
A bit of tension went out of the earth mages when Nym said that. “Good. I think we have a solid plan,” Bildar said. “We’re ready.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Nym growled. He shifted his passengers to the side and flung his mage blades out to slice through the ghouls. Fortunately, all three were still in the process of putting themselves back together and weren’t all that mobile yet.
The blades hacked the ghouls back apart without any trouble beyond the fact that he was already holding five people in the air and his arcana was spread thin. He brought the Earth Shapers up to the surface and set them down, then did a lap around the destroyed camp to cut apart two more ghouls that had pulled themselves into more or less one piece.
This time he hurled the pieces in different directions. The ghouls were guaranteed to put themselves back together, but his fire pit had been too hastily constructed and he’d crammed the parts too close together. It had taken barely ten minutes for most of them to become mobile again. Without the fire, it was basically a guarantee that they’d put themselves back together eventually, but by then Nym planned on being long gone.
“Last call,” he said into the bunker. “Anyone who’s coming needs to speak up now before this hole gets closed over.”
No one said anything, but there were a lot of apprehensive glances traded between the group. Nym looked over at the Earth Shapers, who just shrugged back. Nomick said, “If I didn’t trust you so much, I wouldn’t move either. On my own, I’m not going to make it out of this forest alive. At least in the bunker they’re safe from the undead.”
It was probably for the best. The original plan hadn’t included any other mages anyway. “Alright then, good luck guys. Feel free to close this thing back up once we’re gone,” he said.
“Wait, wait!” someone called out.
A thin woman shoved her way to the front of the group. She was tall and skinny, dressed in a boy’s shirt and trousers with a pair of suspenders holding them up. Several metallic objects were pinned to the suspenders, each one a different shape. “I want to go too!” she called out.
Nym fought to keep his expression neutral. He’d been so close, but here at the last second was some plain-faced woman who’d mustered up enough courage to not huddle in a hole and wait for death to find her. He was… almost impressed, if it wasn’t so annoying. He couldn’t just abandon her though, not with the audience.
He knew he shouldn’t abandon her anyway, that he really should be trying to save everyone. Those thoughts were given very little consideration before being brushed aside. He couldn’t do that even if he wanted to. One more person wouldn’t be too great a burden on his teleportation spell. Twenty-two more would be. It was that simple.
He wrapped the new girl in a cushion of air and pulled her up to ground level. “Alright, let’s get going,” he said. “The rest of you are walking for a bit while I float the baggage here behind us.”
“Hey!” Bildar said from his position in the air behind them.
“Talking baggage is still baggage,” Nym told him firmly. Banter was much harder than normal, but appearances had to be kept up.
Bildar subsided into grumbling that everyone ignored. The bunker closed up behind them, which got a wistful look from the new girl. Nym didn’t blame her for having second thoughts. “Probably not too late to go back,” he offered, trying not to sound hopeful that she’d change her mind.
“No, I can’t stay there and just wait to die while hoping someone will come along and tell me everything’s fine now.” She shook her head, then turned to look at Nym. “My name is Laraine.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Nym,” he told her. “What were you doing out here, working with the building crew?”
“Ah. No, I’m an enchanter.” She gestured towards the pins on her suspenders. “We were supposed to be installing scrying wards every few hundred feet to help feed information back about ghoul movements.”
“Interesting. You work for the army then?”
She shook her head. “Freelancer.”
“Me too,” he told her. “I did not get paid enough for all of this.”
Internally gritting his teeth, Nym started walking. He kept up a constant undead scan and, every time a ghoul got close to them, sent out his mage blades to intercept it. As long as they came in one at a time, it wasn’t too hard to keep on top of them. The others didn’t even usually see the ghoul.
“This would almost be a pleasant walk if not for the smell,” Ophelia said.
“There’s a spell to block that,” Nym said absently, frowning as a knot of three ghouls moved closer to them. He got one of them, but the other two made it through the trees as the blades circled back around for another pass. A pair of stunning spells gave him enough time to cut apart another one, and he took the legs off the last one first to keep it from reaching the group. That made it harder to attack, but he could adapt to the new angles to finish the job.
This wasn’t going to work. He was already starting to slow down after just a few minutes of walking. It would almost be less work to fly all six of them out if for no other reason than because they’d travel much faster. He’d probably drain himself dry in a matter of minutes, but for those few minutes, they’d get a mile or so of travel done.
“Ophelia, can we talk?” Nym said.
The woman moved to the front of the line and said in a low voice, “What’s wrong?”
“We’re not going to make it out like this,” Nym explained. “What do you know about Laraine? Can we trust her?”
“I don’t know. Sorry. We only met her yesterday. We can’t just leave her here though. What are our options?”
“If it were just her, I could fly her out. If she wasn’t here at all, I’d use teleportation. I can’t fly us all, and I am reluctant to let her know I can teleport.”
“Why is it a secret?” Ophelia asked.
Nym just gave her a flat stare.
“Oh, one of those geas things. That is so inconvenient. I’m sorry, I don’t have a good answer for you. We can build a small bunker if you need to rest for a bit.”
“Let’s do that. I think I have an idea. I’ll explain once we’re safe.”
The bunker was dug out quickly. It wasn’t as well hidden, but it was designed to be short term and didn’t need to be. Once they were safe, Nym said, “Here’s the new plan. Laraine, I’m going to fly you out. The Earth Shapers will wait here for me to come back. They should be safe, but if necessary, they can fortify the bunker further. I’ll have to fly everyone out one at a time, but that’s still faster than walking the whole way, and less dangerous.”
“Why didn’t we just stay at the main bunker then?” Laraine asked.
“Because I didn’t think the undead would be this thick out here,” Nym lied. “It wasn’t this bad before. Circumstances changed, so I’m going to adapt with them.”
He took a twenty-minute break and they broke the bunker open just as the sun came up. Nym lifted Laraine up into the air, and once she was overhead, said in a low voice to Ophelia, “Tell the rest the real plan about teleportation. I’ll be back in an hour, I hope.”
He joined Laraine up in the air. “Any preference on where you go?” he asked.
“Ebalsan, I suppose.”
“Might not be the best idea. I’m not sure the town is there anymore, but alright.”
They took off before Laraine could say anything else. It didn’t even take half an hour for the keep to come into sight, and Nym winced when he cast far sight on himself to get a better look. The keep itself was still standing, but the walls were crumbling in places. It looked like the wights had gotten off an artillery spell of some sort and completely blasted through the wall on the east side, along with vaporizing a corner of the town.
Of the rest of Ebalsan, maybe half of it was still standing. There was plenty of movement, but it all looked like ghoul activity to Nym. He stopped flying and turned to Laraine. “Do you have a backup location?”
“What? Why?”
“Ebalsan appears to be overrun. I don’t see any people left, but I do see a lot of ghouls.”
“What about the army?”
“The keep is still standing, more or less. Maybe people evacuated into it. Do you want to go there?”
“Can we swing by and see if it’s empty first?”
“We can,” Nym said. “Do you know where you want me to drop you off if it’s not full of soldiers and refugees?”
“I… no.”
“Think on it,” Nym advised her. “No offense, but I need to get back to my friends and start working on getting them safe too.”
“Are you going to go back for the rest of the people in the bunker?” Laraine asked.
“Probably not, no. It would take me a week to move them all just to here. Much faster to let the army know there are survivors there so they can send out people to help. If we’re lucky, the keep will not be abandoned and you can do that while I go back.”
They altered direction to fly by the upper reaches of the keep. As they closed in on it, Nym saw a trio of soldiers watching from a window. “Oh good,” he said, “there are still people alive.”
He peered at them closely, trying to make sure they were in fact living soldiers and not a pack of wights wearing soldier uniforms. Everything seemed to check out, so he flew close to the window with Laraine and knocked. One of the soldiers helpfully opened it from the inside, though he looked a bit confused.
“Hi,” Nym said. “I have a survivor from one of the camps in the woods. This is Laraine. Can you get her taken care of? She’s got the location of the underground bunker the rest of the survivors are in.”
“We… can we do that?” the soldier asked, looking over his shoulder at someone Nym couldn’t see. After a moment, he shrugged and said, “I guess we can. Here, miss, why don’t you take my hand and come on in. You too, sir.”
“I’m all set, thanks. I’ve got a lot more work to do.”
Nym handed Laraine off, and before anyone else could say anything, zipped away from the window. There was a shout behind him, which he ignored as he sped off into the open sky. Finally, the distractions were taken care of. He could fly back to the new bunker, teleport his allies out of the hot zone that was the entire forest, and start the next phase of finding Analia. If he was really lucky, she wouldn’t be with the army.
In fact, it would be best to get started on that now. The more he knew about her location, the better he could plan how to reach her. While he flew, he took the time to send her a message. [I’m about to get the Earth Shapers out of the forest. Bildar is injured. Where are you at so I can come get you too?]
He didn’t get an immediate reply, which wasn’t concerning. He also didn’t get a reply by the time he made it back to the rest of the group, which was less ideal. Considering how serious the situation was, that could mean a number of things, but he was sure she would reply if she was able. Hopefully it just meant she was sleeping.
Nym found the bunker and settled onto it. He dispatched the single ghoul that was sniffing around and then yelled an all clear through the chimney they’d set up to give them air. The ground fell away around it, giving him access to the bunker.
“Is it time?” Bildar asked, his face once again tight with pain.
“Soon,” Nym said. “I don’t know where Analia is now. We could leave, but if she tries to message me and I’m not nearby, I won’t get it.”
“We need to get Bildar to a healer soon,” Ophelia said.
“I know. I know. I’ll just… I’ll teleport you all somewhere else, then come back for Analia.”
“What about the rest of the people in the bunker?”
Nym shrugged. “I delivered that enchanter to the army. She’s letting them know so they can send a rescue party.”
A bit of tension went out of the earth mages when Nym said that. “Good. I think we have a solid plan,” Bildar said. “We’re ready.”
