Wu and the hammer guy rushed off ahead so that they could make up as much ground as they could before Wu was too petrified to move herself. I swiftly recovered my arrows from the fallen imps, then moved to help the kids. Chenowith picked up Darlington and we got moving to Madame Laurent’s.

  As we ran, the boys explained that they found the girl crying in the street just before the cockatrice showed up. They have no idea who she is and she is in no state to tell anybody anything. We will just have to drop her off at Madame Laurent’s and hope her parents show up later.

  We managed to get a street and a half before the petrification took Wu’s second leg. We caught up to them as the hammer guy picked up her mostly petrified body. The petrification accelerates the longer it is in the system. It wasn’t long after he picked her up that she was entirely stone.

  As we approached the turn off to Madame Laurent’s, we heard the clash of metal. There was fighting going on… and not between man and beast. As it transpired… it was Farrow and a couple of adventurers taking on another group of those moronic cultists.

  Farrow was wielding a pair of wind and fire wheels… which are a curious and rare weapon. They are effectively bladed rings and they aren’t exactly native to this area. I’ve never seen her use them before. She normally defaults to her flying swords, which are also weird and uncommon around here, but I have also seen her use a war hammer before.

  I am now wondering exactly how many weapons she keeps in that void of hers. And how the hell is she able to wield all of them with such skill? I am trained with a bow and with my daggers… and if I am being truly honest with myself, I’m not exactly the greatest with the daggers. Farrow seems to be a master of all of the weapons that she wields.

  She glided through the cultists… some of whom looked to be children. It was clear that Farrow did not wish to harm the children. She purposely disarmed the kids by hooking her rings over their weapons and flicking them to the side… sending the blades flying. This may be why she opted for the wheels… they seem quite good for disarming people.

  She was not so bothered about disarming the adults however and was perfectly happy to slice them open. The way she is able to switch between easy slaughter and careful disarming shows a great level of skill.

  They are surrounded by the bodies of dead adventurers and cultists. Clearly there was a big fight here and we are now looking at all that remains. I count at least eight dead adventurers and twenty cultists. The cultists may have numbers… but as I said before… they lack the skill of adventurers. Even though they have taken out most of the adventurers, they have lost a lot of their men and they are continuing to lose men to the three that remain.

  Farrow appears to be being backed up by a bloke who looks about eighty… his beard flows down to his stomach and is bright white. He is stood with a repeater crossbow by the entrance to Madame Laurent’s. The other guy backing her up wields daggers much like mine… although I must say… he wields them better than I do. He appears to be young, nimble, and agile. Swiftly appearing behind his opponents and slitting their throats while they are distracted by Farrow.

  That is probably where I have been going wrong with the daggers all these years. I only really bring them out when somebody is attacking me directly. Maybe I should use them more in situations like this… swiftly move around whilst the enemy is distracted and take them out quickly. Then again… if somebody else is available to distract them I can take them out quicker and easier with my bow.

  Farrow looked over and saw us getting ready to assist. She shook her head.

  Farrow: “Get them inside first. We are fine.”

  Dwynfel: “Are you sure?”

  Farrow: “Vite!”

  I may not speak her language fluently… but I have picked up a few words over the years… and that one definitely means ‘quickly.’

  Chenowith and the hammer guy quickly deposited Wu and Darlington and I hurried the kids inside. Johnny and Grant objected and said that they could help. But Chenowith reminded them of what Wu said earlier on and told them that they need to stay back and keep the others safe. Grant nodded, but Johnny didn’t seem convinced.

  As we went to rush back outside, Kiyui leapt across the room from behind the bar and wrapped his arms around me.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Dwynfel: “What are you still doing here?”

  Kiyui: “I promised to stay on to look after Jonty for another day… don’t worry… the twins went home this morning to help with the farm. What the hell is going on?”

  I gave him a very brief summary before rushing back outside. Chenowith was already outside and had joined the fight alongside Farrow. Kiyui rushed outside after me.

  Dwynfel: “What are you doing?”

  Kiyui: “No way am I letting you do this on your own.”

  Dwynfel: “You don’t have your armour… you can’t run through a bloody warzone in that ridiculous outfit! Besides… you said you didn’t want to do this dangerous stuff anymore.”

  Kiyui: “This is different! We didn’t seek this; it came to us. I’m not going to sit in the safe zone while my home is being destroyed around me. And as for my outfit… I’ve fought in less.”

  I am pretty sure that any less than what he is currently wearing would just be outright nakedness. He’s still in that bloody ridiculous outfit that he was wearing while he was working at the bar last night.

  Dwynfel: “But…”

  Kiyui: “Shut up, this is happening. You’ve already lost two of your protectors. You need me. Now, are you going to waste time arguing? Or are we doing this?”

  Dwynfel: “Urgh… fine… just… just stay back and don’t draw any unnecessary attention to yourself.”

  I drew my bow and went to assist… as I looked up there were only three armed adults still fighting… there were two unarmed kids and one small, unarmed, and immobilized child with them. The immobilized child lay at the crossbow guy’s feet with his hands tied behind his back. I assume the rogue had removed him from the fight when I was inside. He was wiggling and trying to escape, but the crossbow guy wasn’t having any of it.

  Farrow advanced on the remaining cultists when a slew of goblins and kobolds emerged from the street to the north. Kobolds are strange little creatures… they are effectively the goblins of the lizardman community. They are only about three feet tall… which is even smaller than your standard goblin. They come in a variety of colours, like the lizardmen… except their colours do not denote different abilities. The only interesting ability that kobolds possess is the ability to breathe fire. And they can all do that, regardless of colour.

  They all seem to be highly aggressive and violent, much like the Rakk. Chloe once described them as “Lizardmen with small man syndrome.” And Agaroth said that “they have the disposition and a grown ass man wi’ the cock of a toddler.”

  The cultists smiled at their backup arriving. They lowered their weapons and walked towards the ensuing horde with open arms.

  Cultist 1: “We welcome the new world.”

  Cultist 2: “Please, punish these heathens with your wrath!”

  The goblins and the kobolds descended upon the cultists and started tearing into them… ripping off limbs and taking bites from them. The cultists started screaming in confusion. They believed… truly believed what that insane demon had told them… they were truly expecting salvation from this swarm of monsters.

  Upon seeing the first two cultists being assaulted the third one turned and told the children to run. The final cultist attempted to fight but was overwhelmed in an instant. Farrow, Chenowith, the hammer guy, and the rogue rushed forward to attempt to save the kids.

  I drew my bow. The crossbow guy and I started taking out the creatures as they got close. Unfortunately, we were not quick enough. The first child had hesitated before he started to run… they caught up to him almost instantly. His scream was ear-piercing as they started to eat him alive.

  The second child almost made it to Farrow before being set on fire by one of the kobolds. Farrow sliced the kobold open. Chenowith stepped between Farrow and the rest of the horde, whilst the rogue wrapped the girl in his cloak and rushed her over to the fountain out the front of Madame Laurent’s. He flung her in it, but the girl had been badly burned.

  Farrow: “Void.”

  Farrow swiftly put her wind and fire wheels into the void and drew out her flying swords. Which makes sense… I’ve seen how good she is at crowd control with those things. But even she won’t be able to stay alive if they flank her.

  Chenowith: “We need to retreat. We can hold them off at the entrance… we must not let them encircle us.”

  Farrow: “Oui.”

  They pulled back as quicky as they could, whilst maintaining their defences. Chenowith blocked the head on assault with his shield while Farrow sliced open anything that tried to come round the left and the hammer guy took on anything that approached from the right. The enemy ended up fanning out quite wide… but they were not quick enough to flank them before they had reached the entrance.

  The crossbow guy picked up the cultist children and flung them inside the door to Madame Laurent’s. He then resumed picking the creatures off with his crossbow.

  Right… okay… we have two heavy duty frontliners… one adaptable frontliner and one nimble frontliner. They might be able to maintain a defensive position while the crossbow guy and I thin the herd with arrows and bolts.

  Kiyui: “How did all of them get in? I thought you said we just had to worry about flying enemies.”

  Dwynfel: “I don’t know… maybe the imps airdropped them all… it would explain why we have only seen small ground troops so far.”

  Kiyui: “They couldn’t airdrop this many… that’s insane.”

  Knight 3: “We don’t have time to think about how…”

  Chenowith: “He’s right… we need to concentrate on surviving first!”

  Oscar should have hazel eyes, not blue. Again... AI doesn't listen.