Shard

  Luckily, the local animals seemed to avoid the area, and nothing bothered the group ht. Ohey got up in the m, a short discussion occurred as to what to do for the day. While some had wao return to the vilge, the majority chose to tinue expl one more day, if possible.

  Due to this, Niphru found himself leading the group deeper into the forest again. As before, the group did their best to ighe normal wildlife, though two boar insisted on attag and were quickly taken down. They also found a few snakes, but all of these were simply resting and nonaggressive.

  The first challenge of the day came when an oversized attempted to sting Niphru from behind. Fortunately, he had been paying attention and had heard the buzzing approag well before it arrived. After iing the wings, it was easily disposed of. Not so easy, however, was the swarm that approached afterward.

  Fortunately, with three fire mages and twes, it was quite possible to hold them bad slowly whittle down their numbers with a bination of gusts of wind and sprays of fire. After Dawn had uhe first e of fire, Niphru realized that he had been an idiot yesterday. Obviously, such a spray of fire would have worked much better against something he could barely sehan targeted attacks.

  After deg he o remember that for the future, he joined her in burning the wings from the multitude of giant s. While it didn’t ht kill them, crawling s were of little threat, easily crushed by Thomas as they approached.

  It seemed that he might be beginning to specialize ih magic, given how often he had ended up using it sihey met. Niphru sidered this a good thing, as earth was great at f shields and ensnaring foes.

  Ohe swarm had been finished off, the group backtracked, following the dire the s had approached from. A short while ter, Niphru heard the buzz of wings ahem to the side. Not long after, a massive hive came into view, nearly c aire tree.

  Faced with this threat, the solution was clear: Kill it with fire! Thomas, Richard, and Lisryn prepared to keep the s away. Meanwhile, Dawn, Miana, and Niphru prepared to ighe in as many pces as they could.

  Moments ter, nearly a hundred bolts of fme streaked out and impacted the hive, which soon boiled with angry s. Seeing that the number was much rger than expected, the fire mages switched back to defense, beginning to fire spouts of fme into the approag hordes as wind desperately pushed back against the masses.

  Despite their best efforts, however, it wasn’t possible to block all of the approag threats, and several mao get through and begin stinging and biting. As shouts of paied, Niphru spoke to Dawheir bond, and she stopped to heal everyone as he began throwing out sawdust and woodchips.

  While the lessened sprays of fire resulted in even more of the s getting through, that only sted a few moments. After putting up the stro barrier he could in such a short time, Niphru detonated his cloud of fuel, the resulting bst ripping out through the forest, sending birds into the air far into the distanbsp; While it did have the desired effect of crippling or killing most of the swarm, it had also shattered the barrier and bathed the group in fire as well.

  As shrieks of pain rang out, Niphru quickly began putting out the fires as he swept all of his foxfire to attempt to heal everyone. It was only then that he noticed that he had four of them now, while he only had three yesterday. He certainly wasn’t going to pin, however, as it allowed him to provide more healing even faster.

  Fortunately, all the burns were minor from the speed at which the fire had fshed out, so it seemed it was more painful than actually harmful. Despite this, Niphru still apologized for his as. Everyone did five him, however, as it was better than being swarmed until they could individually kill all the s, all while being attacked the whole time.

  While they were still at work healing, Morris and Narath approached. As he reached the group, Morris focused on Niphru and ented, “That was quite the explosion you set off there. While it may not have been perfect, I believe you made the right choibsp; Such a swarm would have been difficult to block, even for me. All of you rest. We will up the survivors of that quite surprising use of fire.”

  Without waiting for a respohey both walked away, crushing the remaining s that were crawling around on the ground.

  Eventually, everyone agreed to tinue onward, and the group pushed deeper into the forest. The several enters were easily resolved, with the group w together to interfere with the movement of the beasts and blind them before focused attacks on the head and neck would bring them down.

  Later on, however, they met a very odd creature the size of a small house that no one could identify the base form of. It had a head simir to that of a wolf, yet it had no pabsp; It had legs simir to a lizard, a of them at that. There was a shell simir to a tortoise, and short fur across the rest of its body. Along the sides, it had spikes radiating outward, as well as a few shorter but thicker ones pointing downward.

  Evidently, it had not had the best time, judging by the number of wounds it bore. The shell was cracked and blood oozed from the side, while several of the spikes had snapped off. There was also a bloody gash across one eye and a much smaller spiuck through the bottom of its mouth. The worst, or most siing, perhaps, were several wounds where the flesh seemed to have melted off, bloody strips hanging down.

  Si was moving away and didn’t seem to be paying attention to them, the group stopped to discuss how to kill it. As usual, Viera would immediately blind it and then focus on assisting where she could, but others were less certain. Eight legs were a lot harder to pin down than four, or even six. They would have to stop at least three legs on a given side to do much to it, or two per side to try to weaken its movement, which put a kink iypical pn.

  The hard shell also meant that body strikes were uo do mubsp; This left attag the head while attempting to avoid anything it could do to attack them. Fortunately, they had already focused mostly on the heads of other creatures, so they had practice hitting small targets, and with the size of this creature, even the head was retively rge.

  A potential issue arose, however, if the beast could pull its head into the shell, as that would make striking it much more difficult. In the end, it was decided to proceed with the simple pn of just attag the head and dodging.

  It turned out even more difficult than inally anticipated. Instead of being slow, like its size and shape would suggest, the creature was surprisingly swift, easily dodging many attacks and shing out with its own.

  On the plus side, it didn’t appear to have any ratacks, but that wasn’t much of a relief when it could extend its neck several feet to snap at someone. Eventually, a rhythm was found, however. Lisryn, Richard, and Thomas stayed out of direbat and instead focused on using air or force magic to throw people backward when the beast strubsp; Miana and Dawn did their best to burn the creature, but with its speed, it regurly mao put out the fire by whipping its head around. Niphru himself switched between using his fire and joining the others with assisting movement through wind magic.

  Eventually, the deg factor wasn’t part of the group, but an ued arrival.

  Quite a few humaons silently walked into the nearby area, each decorated with strips of leather or cloth woveween the ribs, and small bands of wood or metal around their arms and legs. Oh an ornate dagger strapped to an arm stepped forward and raised its hand, leading all of the others to stop. Afterward, it took a few steps toward the group and the beast they were fighting dropped to the ground, screeg.

  Morris and Narath quickly arrived, spell and maul prepared to strike the new arrivals, but their eyes gzed over, and they struggled to remain upright. Morris’ spell crumbled, and the rock fell bit by bit, while Narath’s maul dropped from his hands. Oddly enough, however, the skeletons made no further moves, and none of the rest of the group were affected. It was only when Miana spotted them and pahrowing fmes towards them, that it ged.

  Her eyes gzed over, and she colpsed to the ground, twitg but silent. When Thomas leapt forward to pull her back, there was again no further a. Niphru turo watch the new arrivals, but sihe beast had colpsed, he focused all his fmes on burning it. Nearly half a mier, the beast finally rexed as it died, allowing the rest of the group to turn their full focus to the skeletons.

  At this point, the lead skeleton held up its hand again in a sign to stop, then poi the side of its head and back to them. At this point, Miana stopped twitg as Morris and Narath both stood straight once more. Another set of gestures were directed at them. Miana quickly rao Morris and hid behind him.

  After gng at the woman, the skeleto its gaze over the entire group, tilting its head as it looked at Niphru, then focused ily on Dawn. Worried about this, Niphru stepped forward and prepared multiple balls of fme as he spread out his four orbs of foxfire.

  The gaze returo him for a moment, then as he simply remained ready, turned back to Dawn. A moment ter, Niphru felt something incredibly odd through their link and staggered. Daw in a panic, “It’s in my mind!”

  As he struggled to attack the being, Niphru felt something cmp down on his mind ao the ground, much as the beast had before. Despite his magic faltering and sputtering out, his foxfire tinued as he had intended.

  Their bond seemed forced wide open, and Niphru could clearly make out Dawn as she panicked, with ghostly sensations dang at the edge of his mind. Very clearly, the thoughts came across, “No, don’t! Stop it! Leave him alone!”

  He then saw the skeleton tilt its head to the side, and suddenly he could move again. Dawn’s voice became much calmer, and suddenly he could hear an odd, eg voice that clearly did not belong, “I am sorry for the misuanding. You are the only one I could reach the mind of. The others are too closed off, and this bond is most iing, as well as the only way I could approach you. We mean no harm.”

  Niphru called back his foxfire just before it reached the undead, but he still remained on edge. Their bond was supposed to be private, and this thing had broken into it somehow.