Emily, Nora and Alastair stand within the epicenter of a bloody field, all three of them desperately trying to catch their breaths as they scan the nearby foliage for the telltale rustle that usually announces another wave of goblins. They’ve been fighting for what feels like hours at this point, Nora and Emily long ago running out of arrows and mana respectively and resorting to cutting down their foes with whatever weapons they could snatch from their dead enemies. The fire died down ages ago, the darkness taking over and pressing in on them. They’ve had to fight almost blind, the occasional moonlight breaking through the canopy the only light source that they had.

  The silence seems to stretch for an eternity as they wait, certain that at any moment, they’ll hear the telltale pitter-patter of little green legs marching through the foliage.

  “Nora? Emily? You two okay?” Alastair half-whispers, trying not to disturb the forest’s silence.

  “I’ll live.” Nora replies, trying not to wince at the numerous cuts and stabs that she took in the melee.

  “Me, too,” Emily half-whispers back, her hands shaking as the adrenaline coursing through her body peters out. “Do you think Blue’s okay? Did you see where he went?”

  Alastair lets out a sigh. “No, I didn’t. But Emily, It’s an ostrich. A baby ostrich.”

  Emily frowns, not liking where this is going. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It means it’s probably dead.” Alastair snaps back, turning to look at her. “It was literally born today, and we were surrounded by goblins.”

  “He was the same size as them! With razor sharp claws!”, Emily holds out her arm to demonstrate the cut that Blue left her, forgetting for a moment that it was too dark for anyone to actually see it, including her. “He could still be out there, looking for us!”

  “Well, if it finds us, great. But it’s probably dead. Now stop worrying about him, and worry about us. We don’t know when another wave’s coming. Take this moment to drink something. Check on your head wound, cycle some mana.”

  Emily’s shoulders drop. “But he’s just a baby… He’s helpless without us.”

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  “What do you want us to do? Go look for him?”

  Emily stays silent, wrapping her arms around herself for comfort. Logically, she knows that Alastair is right. But her heart wasn’t ready to give up on the sharp-clawed baby.

  “He chose his own path. Now we need to choose ours.” Alastair says, cutting into the silence and walking up to Emily. He places a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. “And I choose the one that gets us out of this alive.” He lifts up a water canister, holding it out to Emily, waiting for her to take it. “Now come on. Drink up. We need our wind mage in top condition.”

  Emily lets out a sigh, feeling a pang in her chest at the thought of what fate must have awaited the sweet, not-so-little fluffball but resigning herself to his fate. Taking Alastair’s advice, she takes the water canister from him and sits down on the ground, cycling ambient mana from the air back into her body. Unfortunately, cycling mana is a terribly slow process that normally takes hours. But even a single casting could be the difference between life and death.

  Alastair walks up to Nora, reaching into her pack and rummaging around until he finds some unlit torches. He grabs two of them and lights them, the flame piercing the darkness of the night and providing some small comfort to the trio. They know that goblins have much better night vision than humans do, and they’re already being hunted. Stealth was out a long time ago, at this stage, they just needed to be able to see what’s stabbing at them. He walks over to Emily and plants one in the ground behind her, knowing that she’ll grab it when she’s done. Nora’s moving around the bodies scattered around them, trying to extract as many intact arrows as she can. Emily barely gives her teammates any notice, as she tries to gather as much of the wild energy surrounding her into her body as she can.

  Nora wiggles another arrow out of the chest of a dead goblin, cursing to herself when she feels the arrowhead snap off inside of it. She’s halfway to moving to the next one when she hears a slithering sound moving swiftly towards them. She nocks an arrow and points it towards the sound, letting out a “psst” to her party members in order to alert them.

  Alastair turns and walks in front of Nora, squaring his shoulders and letting out a tired sigh. Emily grabs the torch next to her and sits up quickly, swaying slightly as a sudden bout of dizziness comes over her. She channels what little mana she has into her hand and it starts glowing a dull, weak light.

  The trio peers into the darkness, both Alastair and Emily holding up their torches high as Nora keeps her bow nocked and ready. The noise grows louder and louder, the foliage starting to move and shake from the passage of whatever approaches.

  Alastair leans in towards Emily, whispering to her. “It’s a basilisk.”

  Emily scowls at Alastair. “Not funny.”

  Alastair shakes his head, turning back towards the sound. “I wasn’t joking.”

  With that terrifying thought in mind, Emily takes a deep breath, her heart racing as she hopes that a single wind bolt would be enough.