I walked out of the city’s North Gate and across Barrowmound Road an hour later. I followed Hope Way through the graveyard just north of the city until I reached its end just before the tombs and cenotaphs. From there, I made my way east for another half mile before coming to Rosemary Woods, where my adventure would begin in earnest. From here, I would need to cut across the open fields north of the city. They were seldom empty of risks at night. I knew this and yet had agreed to this solo adventure.

  I saw signs of bats in the sky and a lone wolf in the distance. Hopefully, I would not encounter some random creature as I crossed the open grasslands north of Keelwell. I was confident I would handle most of what I could see. However, it was the unknown that gave me pause. The great land turtles, called snappers by local huntsmen and fishermen in the area, could be quite deadly if I encountered one alone. It was ponderous and slow in its movement at a size larger than an elephant, which meant I could outrun it in the short run. But if it got my scent and tracked me, I would lead it back to the city, and I was unsure how the walls might fare against such a powerful creature. Snappers moved constantly, and legend has said they never rested or slept. Fortunately, I couldn’t see any, and it was a bright and cloudless night. The night orbs seemed exceptionally bright tonight; I was thankful for that.

  Regardless, I kept a careful lookout as I passed through fields of knee-high wild grasses. Dangers around here did not have to come in giant size to be deadly.

  My task from Davon was to locate a boss wisp that went by the name of Blinky. Any magical creature with that hokey of a name would have to be deadly dangerous. And with the firepower I was packing, I was ready for it. Or I hoped that I was prepared for it.

  Davon told me that the named wisps were known as shocking orbs. Whereas a wisp could zap and sting with a small bolt of electrical static, a shocking orb could shoot full lightning bolts, any one of which could be deadly to me without protection.

  When I located Blinky, I was to irritate him, cause him to pulse that sent out a plea for help to as many wisps that might be in the vicinity or, if further away, capable of traveling here quickly. Davon theorized that these named shocking orbs had some kind of parental or progenitor relationship with the wisps and that the smaller ones would come to defend it if it was threatened.

  I planned to do the threatening.

  He had tracked this particular shocking orb over several months and discovered a pattern in its behavior. Once a week, it appears in a glen in the Rosemary Woods between 8 p.m. and midnight, where it either feeds or is fed by a double handful of wisps.

  The plan called for me to watch it to determine if it was doing the feeding or being fed, attack it, defend myself, wait as long as I could while other wisps arrived, try one insane experiment, and then dispatch them all in one shot if I was lucky.

  However, if I were unlucky, I was to flee as fast as I could and hope for the best. He admitted that he had measured the speed of wisps at twice that of human sprinting, so that was not the best option if I could avoid it.

  On the upside, each time a wisp was defeated, there appeared to be a one in three chance that a magical gem appeared and a one in three chance that a pure metal platinum piece appeared from a random age and kingdom. Some could be rare and valuable to collectors, as if a platinum piece were not valuable enough by itself. The other chance led to no discernible treasure. If there ended up being around a dozen wisps along with the shocking orb, I had a good chance to collect some magical gems or purified platinum, both of which were valuable to me.

  Davon alluded to the high treasure ratio of these creatures when he said adventurers used to farm them in the past decades. Adventurers would stake out known territories and hunt the orbs as they appeared.

  He promised that whatever treasure was recovered was mine for the risk. Davon just wanted the information; therefore, this experiment had to be done correctly, and he preferred that a mage perform the task because of our training, observation skills, and general ability to defend ourselves in a pinch.

  Davon admitted that he had no idea what treasure, if any, dropped from the shocking orb. “It could be considerable,” he said. “Or it might just explode.” He raised his hands palms up and waggled them. “Call it 50-50 and cross your fingers.”

  For someone who planned to do very little adventuring, and what adventuring I would do was planned to take place in a group of seven of us, my trudging alone across a graveyard at night and through open fields known to house wolves and serpents toward a known and expected danger was maybe not my brightest idea.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The lone wolf I saw earlier howled in the distance.

  “Great timing,” I said dryly. And shook my head.

  As I departed the gravel path and onto the last stretch of open fields, I muttered aloud, “At least no zombies, skeletons, or ghosts jumped out at me as I walked through the quiet graveyard at night.”

  I blinked as I said it, and my mind was suddenly abuzz with white noise. It only lasted a moment, but I stopped and shook my head as if cobwebs might fall out of my ears. I looked around quickly. “What am I doing? This is insane!”

  I nearly turned back, but caught a momentary flash in the distance from the entrance to Rosemary Woods. With a low groan, I continued on, mumbling to myself. “I paid way too much money to be this stupid right now.”

  I arrived at the woods without incident. I made my way along a path until I came to an open glade surrounded on three sides by large pine trees. Given their size, these trees were out of character with the rest of the woods and must have been planted here for aesthetics a few decades ago.

  I knelt at the edge of the first pine tree to my right and inspected the grove before me.

  Good old Blinky hovered in the center of the open grassy glade with what had to be a score of wisps floating around it. It was twice the number of wisps I had expected to see. They seemed to swoop in, shoot a little jolt of colored electricity into the shocking orb, and then dart off.

  “Ok, I can check box one. I found Blinky, and it appears that the wisps come to it and feed it if the jolts of electricity from the little ones to Blinky were any indication.” I said to myself.

  I hesitated. Box two involved getting Blinky’s attention and attacking it. If I did this wrong, there might not be a third box to check, just a box for burial. If I were lucky, there might be that much left.

  “There’s a happy thought,” I murmured to myself.

  I withdrew Davon’s four rune sticks. I memorized the runes before I departed his library and made sure I could identify them by both sight and feel. I’m glad I did because it was a lot darker here by the trees than in the open field.

  The plan was to snap the first rune stick, which provided protection from air elementals. Davon assured me that he had used this spell to protect himself from the wisps, which should also work against the shocking orb.

  Theoretically.

  When asked what would happen if it didn’t work on Blinky, he said, “It’ll work. But if not, it’ll happen so fast you won’t be able to do anything about it.” He paused. “But it’ll work. I’m nearly positive.”

  “Here goes nothing. Or maybe I should hope; here goes everything!” I said to myself as I snapped the first rune stick.

  I felt a tug of air pull away from me as if the wind was blowing air in every direction except toward me. It only lasted a couple of seconds. For a moment, I worried if it would also take my breathable air, but I was okay.

  Standing up, I walked out into the glade and shot a single charged Mage Blast I spell into Blinky.

  The night around me went insane.

  Lights blinked on and off like a wild disco, and I had a couple of dozen little colorful wisps dive-bomb me. Even though they seemed made of light or energy, they bounced off me with a clicking sound each time they attempted to impact against my elemental air shield.

  And they tried, really, really hard.

  And often.

  The question is, will the protection rune hold up.

  Lucky for me, the protection rune held up nicely.

  For now.

  The attacks, while many, were not that strong.

  That was, of course, when Blinky hit me.

  While his impact did not harm me in any way, his impact knocked me off my feet, and the rune sticks flew out of my hand.

  I crawled around hunting for them. “Like every B-rated sci-fi movie, I drop the only thing that will keep me alive a few seconds into the encounter. Stupid little lightning bugs. Give me space to find the sticks!” I yelled at them without effect.

  When I fell, the attacks increased into a frenzy. Still, I was not taking damage and would not for the spell's duration, which was good for a while. However, they were very distracting and made it hard for me to find those rune sticks.

  Wham! Blinky hit me again on the left side, sending me rolling across the glade, away from where I was sure the rune sticks had fallen.

  “Oh, that’s not cool!” I shouted as I ducked and avoided Blinky’s third attack.

  It seemed that his preferred manner of attack was to fling himself at a target and discharge a lightning bolt upon impact. That way, the creature would suffer both bludgeoning and magical lightning damage. It reminded me of using the Staffcraft skill. I’d mention that to Davon when I got out of this.

  If I get out of this.

  I scrambled back toward the location where I had fallen into the grass. I could see my body’s impression in the grass, but no rods. I searched as fast as I could. I looked over my shoulder to try to keep an eye on Blinky and got smashed as he struck me from a different direction.

  As I tumbled away a third time, doing somersaults from the attack on my back, I said, “This is getting ridiculous!”

  But as I landed, I felt a stick below me. In triumph, I reached down and pulled up a short stick with some leaves attached.

  I had time to say, “That’s not funny,” as I was pummeled again by good old Blinky.

  At least I was right about the creature being very dangerous.

  Not that it helped me at all.

  The open sky was above me, and I noticed that the crazy attacks by maybe twenty wisps had doubled in frequency. I could barely see as they swarmed me like an angry hive, which I realized they were.

  Blinky had friends. Lots of them.

  Davon would be thrilled.

  I crawled back where I hoped I had originally stood and swept my hands around. The flashing colors intensified again, and I was almost exclusively searching by blind touch. I began to worry that I might not find them when my fingers found another stick. My instinct was to snap it to stop these attacks, but I had a one-in-three chance to waste another shield spell or cast a lightning spell that Davon thought would supercharge them. The supercharge effect was his box three. The other one in three chance was to cast a powerful Scorching Light spell, which should take them all down.

  Or so Davon theorized.

  I had two chances in three for a less-than-perfect result.

  Those were not great odds…