Katarina descended upon the gnoll, digging the heel of her extended foot into the top of it’s head. She activated a charge of Kinetic Overload, sending a spray of bone and blood forward from the gnoll’s corpse and launching back into the air.

  I began performing Kinetic Overload again, jogging closer. Encore followed on my heels.

  The other five gnolls sniffed the air, snarling and regaining their vision as Katarina descended on another of their pack. She spun, connecting with the side of the beast’s head and releasing another explosive kick. It’s head erupted in a spray of blood and gore.

  She used the momentum from the explosion, flipping around and sending a blast of concentrated air at two more gnolls, slicing them almost completely in half. They fell, torsos held to their legs by bloody chunks of flesh and bone, screaming.

  The other two gnolls turned and fled.

  Encore: Get them! If they return to the pack we will be hunted to the ends of the mountains.

  Katarina sprinted forward, launching herself with an explosive jump as I finished another performance of Kinetic Overload. The gnolls were fast, dropping to all fours. Katarina was faster, enacting another explosive blast mid air as she used her Aery Monk skill to double jump, launching herself towards the fleeing gnolls like a rocket.

  She twisted through the air, swinging a foot around and catching one of the running gnolls in the ribs. She detonated a kick, sending the gnoll flying sideways into the last gnoll. The two fell in tangled heap, the last gnoll struggling free from the corpse of it’s companion as Katarina fell from above, slamming a foot down on the top of it’s head. I heard the snap of its neck breaking from twenty feet away as I hurried to them.

  “Was that the last one?” She asked, looking around.

  “I believe so, but I will look again.” Encore took flight as I caught up to Katarina.

  “You alright?” I asked.

  She was breathing heavily, a smile that underlined the fire in her eyes spreading across her face. “I’m great. Whew. Love it.”

  She stretched, shaking free a bit of gnoll flesh from her booted foot. “Messy though.”

  “Yeah, you have a bit of… brain… in your hair.”

  She blushed, turning away slightly as she reached up and combed her fingers through her hair, flinging aside the gray matter. “Sorry, it’s gross, I know.”

  “Are you kidding me? That was badass. You tore through those gnolls like paper.”

  “And I avoided getting blood and guts on the prosthetic. Abernathy should be proud.”

  I laughed. “Nicely done.”

  Encore: I don’t see others, but I am going to make another few loops to be sure. You should continue down the road, they may send others to check. That site is no longer safe.

  Abernathy: Is everyone alright?

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Katarina: Great!

  Abernathy: Fantastic. Okay, I am going to start down the path, catch up once you are done looting the place alright?

  Chanter: Sounds good!

  We looted the bodies, recovering twenty-eight javelins, a half dozen bone daggers, and several bundles of rough leather. We lined up the bodies so the pack could recover their dead and hurried after Abernathy. It was easy to catch up with the meandering cart.

  Encore: I see no other gnolls, though the smell of blood is on the air now. Predators will come.

  Chanter: We’re on the road again, we should be far enough away.

  Encore: I sense you, I’m on my way back.

  Abernathy cleared his throat a few minutes later. “If you guys want to try sleeping in the back of the cart, I can stay up for a few more hours.”

  Katarina looked up. The moon lit up the world in shades of blue and gray. It was easy to see the road, but shadows lingered in the progressively taller hills. We were beginning to enter the pass and the earthen heights ahead reflected that fact.

  “Think you’ll be able to see? Are the donkeys alright?” Katarina walked alongside one, patting its shoulder. The donkey swung its head towards her, its teeth biting the air with a click. “Ooh, someone’s grumpy.”

  “We should be fine, I have been tinkering with an alchemical substance that should hold off exhaustion.” Abernathy scratched behind an ear. “I can try soaking a carrot in it or something.”

  “What, like speed? Do you think it’s smart to do drugs at night on a mountain pass?”

  “No, not like speed. It’s… different. Alchemy shared components with chemistry, a surprising number of components, actually, but it is also magical. If my calculations are correct then it should just delay our exhaustion by several hours. We should be good until midnight at least without it. Can probably make it until dawn if it works as planned, then we can just rest once the sun is up. Chanter can practice songs and you can practice… I don’t know, kicks or something, while we sleep.”

  “Kicks or something,” Katarina snorted, looked at me. “What do you think? Trust Abernathy and the coked out donkeys while we get some rest?”

  “It isn’t cocaine —” Abernathy sighed as Katarina and I both laughed.

  I yawned, my jaw cracking. I was tired. I hadn’t realized how tired I was until I thought about sleeping. “I trust Abe, it would be nice to get some rest.”

  I looked around — more from habit than from an actual fear of being seen up along the mountain pass at night — and enacted Transform, shifting back to a Wood Elf. The shadows shrank with my enhanced night vision, retreating to visible hues of gray.

  Katarina hopped in the back of the cart and helped pull me up. We had no need to carry actual supplies in the cart — everything we needed could be kept in perperuity in our inventory until needed. As such, the cart was empty. There was space enough for Abernathy to pull up to two of his crafting tables out at once. We purchased the cart and donkeys with the hopes that he could do some tinkering during the long hours spent traveling, and he had spent a good number of hours doing just that throughout the day, but those tables were safely stored away in his inventory.

  We each pulled out quill mattresses, laying them side by side in the back of the cart. It was wide enough for two of the mattresses, taken from an inn as we left the city.

  “Goodnight boys. Please don’t kill us in our sleep, Abe.” Katarina pulled a blanket and pillow from her inventory, bundling up and laying on her side, facing me.

  I lay down and looked into her eyes. Her face was barely distinguishable in the dark of the covered wagon to my enhanced elven vision, I knew she was nothing more than vague, dark shapes.

  “Sure, sure. I’ll yell if something jumps out at us in the night. Just be ready. G’nite. ” Abernathy waved at us, his furry hand silhouetted by the moonlight through the opening in the front of the cart.

  “Goodnight,” I replied, pulling my blanket in tight against the cool mountain air. Encore curled up next to me on the mattress, both sets of wings and all but one tail absorbed back into his body. He usually slept like this, to all appearances just an ordinary white fox. Sleep greeted me like an old friend, whisking me away in a few heartbeats.

  I slept, a dreamless sleep. It felt less like sleep and more like blinking. I closed my eyes and when I opened them next, the donkeys were braying at the top of their lungs, the cart was jerking to a stop, and Abernathy was screaming.

  “Get out of the road, GET!”

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