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The apple didn’t stand a chance against the wraith of my arrow.
The melon, on the other hand, did survive against the same wrath despite being a larger target. But I also put it much farther away and I’m still struggling with longer distances after only a week of training my archery skills. I have been showing some improvement overall. Just not nearly as much as I wanted.
Glish made himself a nice little crossbow and had also been drilling as much as possible. I couldn’t let that little shit get ahead of me. Not in either ranged or melee combat.
In the middle of my practice, Syrielle had finally returned from her trip a few days ago. She barely set foot in town before dragging me out to the woods to practice my swordplay. Her advanced skill set gave her just the right touch to bring out the best in me. And I could feel it in combat. My reflexes were quicker, and my wrists were plenty strong to block her attacks. It was much better than sparring the nearby local guards or other adventuring warriors.
I wasn’t a master, but my improvements were drastic with the sword. In my very egotistical opinion. My archery skills were just creeping by comparison. After my best training session yet, I decided to head back to the Titan’s Trap.
Despite insisting I wouldn’t sing that night, I had a few drinks and soon enough…
Those Scaly Creepy Bastards
Played With Sharp Toys
But In No Way Were They Ready
To Mess With The Boys
The crowd wasn’t large but I had several loyal fans around town. Besides the alcoholics who frequented the Titan’s Trap whether I played or not. There was Barney and Todd. A farmer named Gil. Also an old orc couple who seemed rather high society for their kind. They really liked my songs.
Though they were never particularly impressed when I tried to sing about my adventures with my comrades. And this time I wasn’t improvising. I actually tried to put some good stuff together and just couldn’t do it. So eventually I did what I always did, by delivering something less original.
Just a Small town girl
Living in a lonely world
Took the midnight train
Going Anywhere
That song was a much bigger hit. As long as I play to my strengths, other people’s songwriting, I do very well. My pen skills must improve. There may be holes in my fighting abilities, but they are being filled as quickly as my training would allow. Which in all honesty was more important in my line of work. Either way, I probably could have made more time to work on my writing. But I was typically rather exhausted, and when I wasn’t I felt like having a good time with the people around me.
Not long into the evening I noticed several ominous men in hooded black cloaks sitting in a booth in the corner of the Titan’s Trap. None of them were eating or drinking anything. They appeared to be observing us all, but it was hard to see through their hoods.
In the middle of not saying anything, Blondos abruptly stood up, pointed at them and very loudly announced, “They’re kinda spooky, I’m going to bed.” Then he did that. He had spent the majority of the evening complaining about ghosts anyways so it wasn’t that surprising he was paranoid.
I, on the other hand, remained curious of the strangers. My half-orc and the hafflin comrades both couldn’t have cared less if they tried. After a short time, Trant approached me at the bar. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the super nice looking people in the corner over there?”
“Oh who? The cloaked weirdos everyone is staring at? No, I barely noticed.”
After snickering he explained, “They’re priests of Hades. Looking for a little help.”
A lesser man would have turned down but I am, “Elrin Daun Of Gladland. The Fighting Writer. Pleasure to meet you. Trant tells me you death worshiping gentlemen are in a little need of help.”
There was silence for a moment, and I couldn’t see any of their faces through the shadows of their hoods. “One doesn’t worship death. Death worships us. We simply know it to be foolish not to understand the one thing all life encounters.” The man sitting closest to me removed his hood revealing the gaunt pale face of a fellah who doesn’t eat very much.
“Okay,” I don’t think he realized I had been drinking, “I’ll be honest, I don’t know what that means. Do you have bad guys you need killed? Maybe some stuff was stolen? A couple of monsters you need to have scared away?” I know I should be good at talking to people about this stuff, but I put a lot of troll in my belly before my performance even started. And since people love buying drinks for a great performer, my pace only increased.
I wasn’t hammered but I was good and drunk.
Without taking any pause he explained, “We have a temple, To the South East. A place where we pay our respects to Hades, and the River Styx. Any soul that has lost its way needs but only to be shown the waters. Our faith is dedicated to the duty of guiding them home. But a curse has fallen upon us I’m afraid.”
“Ghosts,” My eyes lit up.
“The dead have risen,” He spoke as if I hadn’t said anything.
“Yeah,” I tilted my eyebrows. “Ghosts?”
“No.” He stood still for a moment. “Flesh and blood has risen from their graves. They walk among the mortal plane. Wandering the nearby woods. Murdering any traveler that comes their way to add to their ranks.”
I nodded to them and for some reason I was feeling sassy, “Sounds like you boys done messed up. Fucked around and found out. That’s what happens when you play with dead shit.”
“It’s an abomination to our faith,” The priest didn’t sound angry, his voice never changed once during the whole conversation and the other two sat in complete silence. Motionless. “Death and the living are two things to be separated. That is the purpose of the River Styx. A soul that can’t find the river needs our guidance. But a soul that runs up the river, comes from a wickedness beyond our power.”
“Okay…” I held my hand out to gesture for him to calm down. “Love the drama. Really do. But just to clarify, we’re talking about Zombies right?” After he nodded I gestured to my squad behind me. “Because zombies sound pretty easy for us. You just relax, we’ll kill the dead in no time.”
“You don’t kill the dead you fool,” He replied irritated. “You guide it back home.”
My mouth was open as I drunkenly tried to come up with the right question. “Don’t you fight zombies by chopping their heads off?”
“Typically.”
“Then we’ll kill the dead in no time!”
We quickly agreed on a price. Though I of course had to negotiate with my allies. Verg and Glish were on board rather quickly. Blondos had arrived back at the Titan’s Trap pretty early in the morning, insisting he didn’t want to be around people.
When informed of the situation he declared, “The undead can’t be let to run through the continent. We must stop this before it gets out of hand…” He paused and blinked profusely, “Again I’m not scared of the undead or something like that, I just don’t like them.”
Yarrick and Roan were already waiting for us ready to go. Apparently Yarrick was listening to my conversation and grabbed Roan immediately to join the mission. I again asked who the little man was but he didn’t answer.
Syielle rarely ever turned down, especially when I was there.
I was told it’d be a three day walk, but thankfully The River Stoan was rather still at all times. It would be able to lead us most of the way there. Without a current to bother us that was the easiest and least wearing option.
It was a few hours walk to Big Pond. A port nearby where fishermen collect rare inland fish not found in the ocean. Roan insisted we’d find a boat there we’d be able to convince to ferry us down river.
We all hopped on Nydorri’s Elk once more. Heading straight south much like the first time I rode them. This time, they stopped at the edge of the forest and we were forced to walk. Which none of us were eager to do.
As the journey went along Glish and Vergusson were really curious about how the dead were walking. Both asked a variety of stupid questions, that basically just kept attaining the response, “Dark magic.”
Verg scratched his head and glared at Zorthos. “Isn’t this guy dark magic?”
Glish began to inspect the helkin as well. “You think he’s one of them?”
The devilman grew angry at these accusations. “I am not of the undead.”
“Prove it,” Gish retorted.
Zorthos raised his fist majestically, “When I get cut, don’t I bleed?”
Vergusson and Glish looked at each other and then back at Zorthos. The hafflin calmly replied, “Well I don’t know, I’ve never seen you get cut.”
Vergusson took out a small knife. I don’t know where it came from.
“Guys…” Zorthos waved his hands in the air, “trust me I bleed.”
It took them a minute, but they believed him.
Shortly after that we came upon a tiny collection of water barely larger than a wagon. Next to it was one hut made mostly of twigs. It connected to a small stream leading Northwest for nearly a quarter mile until it opened up to a river far wider than the pond itself.
At the mouth, sat several houses with a large dock and a collection of boats. But near the hut, sitting in a chair wearing overall jeans and glasses, was an orc, far larger than Vergusson. With the friendliest of smiles and the kindest of waves, his deep voice happily announced, “Welcome to Big Pond. If you’d like to join me I am currently having open visiting hours and would love the company.” He pointed towards the docks down the stream, “But if you’re looking for some time to yourselves, there’s not a whole lot of rules over there. As long as you don’t spoil the water you’re welcome in my neighborhood.”
Vergusson announced, “We’re killing dead people so we can’t fish dude.” Then he walked towards the boat. I wanted to talk to the guy, I think we all did, but one by one we just followed our big buddy.
As we got to the docks there were several fishermen gathered around having conversations among each other. Nearly a dozen boats were scattered about. Mostly canoes, but one medium sized sail ship.
It happened to be docked at the time. A few men were fishing off of it, but they were chatting with several others on the shore nearby who were likely also passengers of that vessel. I took a moment to absorb what information I could before I inquired what to do next, but Glish decided to take matters into his own hands before anyone could stop him.
“Excuse me, I require a boat,” The hafflin announced as if he were the boss.
A plump ginger man, with a hefty beard spun around. He very grumpily replied, “We’re not a ferry service. You want a boat, go buy one.”
Vergusson did not approve of that response. “Listen here you little shit…”
Syrielle and myself grabbed him by the shoulder. “Woah woah,” I barked, pulling him away. We certainly couldn’t have done so if he was resisting, but he also didn’t like being pushed.
“What’d I do?” He didn’t sound mad, he was actually asking.
“We’re not bandits dude,” I tried to be patient as I explained. “We’re adventurers.”
“Okay,” He nodded as he calculated. “I get it. We’re…”
Glish patted him on the calf, “We’re the good guys.”
This time Verg nodded with confidence. “Got it.” And honestly we were all pretty sure he did. I looked to Syrielle to see if she had anything to say but she didn’t. If anything she thought it was weird I asked.
When my attention returned to the boat Roan was smiling. “Got us a ride.” The man Verg just threatened only a moment ago had a smile on his face while counting coins in his hand. Our crude friend shook his head, “You forgot to speak the language shorty.”
Yarrick whined, “That was my gold.”
Once we loaded up three men who were fishing along the coast came running over. Of course they objected until they saw the gold and quickly helped their captain undock the ship to set it down the River Stoan.
Lucky for us, the wind pushed us in the right direction. Our shady sailor friend claimed, “I did a little prayer to Poseidon. He’s always got my back.” I just chose to believe him. Why not?
The journey took us less than a day with those conditions. I saw more plains and mountains. At one point there were deer, with bright blue fur, drinking from the river, while standing on leaves.
Our guides insisted they were nothing to be afraid of. We definitely were. All of us.
Several times there would be tiny little streams leading away from the extremely wide river. I counted 8 other docks. Some with nothing more than boats. A few were near small towns.
No such dock existed as we crossed by a large statue of Hades carved into a massive cliff. The captain of the boat, who went by the name Todd, dropped us off just before the beach connected to the cliff.
Standing under the cliff we inspected the eerie statue of the god of the underworld. Through my years I’ve probably seen a thousand different depictions of him. This one was a much thinner, much more gaunt face than I was used to. His hair almost appeared to be like the flames of Hell where devils come from.
“So…” Vergusson wondered out loud. “If the guy’s we’re working for worship death. Doesn’t that make them the bad guys?” He looked at his hands with more emotion than I’ve ever seen from him before. “Am I the bad guy?”
“I just said we’re the good guys like an hour ago,” Glish said.
Verg didn’t seem convinced so I decided to help him some more.“Death judges us far more fairly than the living. Your mother may have been burned at the stake by those whose hearts still beat, but she was led down the River Styx just as any other.”
Roan snidely patted me on the back, “Lookey here Mr. I don’t read much.”
There was a rocky path that Todd claimed would lead us directly to the temple. After thanking him and giving him a nice tip for his service, we hopped off the ship and ventured onwards towards death.
It took us only a few minutes before we happened upon a couple of rotting corpses walking on two feet. A male and a female, both were fully nude with wounds all over. Glish and I insisted we be the ones to handle it. As we walked over drawing our weapons dramatically. But then the actual fight wasn’t cool at all. They weren’t even armed so we sliced their heads off rather quickly.
The road is fairly rocky from there. We all took turns dicing up random zombies we found along the way. It wasn’t even an hour’s walk before we turned a corner around a hill and saw another rather large statue of Hades in a domineering pose. Behind him was a temple, with curvy features of a very gothic design.
At the base of the hades statue, was a fountain, with a smaller sculpture of the ferryman carrying a new soul. Similar statues to the passenger were scattered about the grass. Men and women, decaying much like the zombies in real life, posed as if they were wandering lost and alone.
After inspecting the team I realized that not only was our second smallest missing as usual, but so was the elf. “Where’s Nydorri?”
“Scouting with Yarrick,” Roan pointed at the temple. “Something’s off.”
Glish climbed up on Vergusson’s shoulders to look out over the field leading into the temple. “Looks good to me. Nothing too spooky.”
“That’s the problem, genius,” Roan explained.
Zorthos added, “There should be spooky stuff everywhere.”
Glish smiled at him very kindly, “You’re spooky.”
I believe the devilman blushed a little. He’s red so it’s hard to see.
Verg just walked in the middle of the field. Realizing there was no point in staying back so the rest of us followed. I closely examined the large statue first. It was much like the one by the cliff. Though the other sculptures were probably rather interesting. Unfortunately I was distracted by a bird flying in front of my face. Suddenly Nydorri was standing by my side.
“They’re coming in groups,” The elf announced. “All around us.”
She pointed at the temple, “Now!”
From both sides of the temple, I noticed multiple decayed faces exiting the trees. My comrades shouted there were more coming from the other direction, and the next thing I knew they were walking from every angle. I gazed at the horror with fascination. Roan shouted us all back to reality, “Ranged support quit holding your dicks.”
My bow and arrow were drawn in a moment. Glish was beside me with his brand new crossbow out. Zorthos had already launched a fire spear which connected on a nearby walking corpse. It immediately erupted into flames. The hafflin and I shot as well but both missed.
Vergusson had more enemies coming at him from all sides than anyone else. Glish and I both fired our bolts at a couple other targets charging at the half-orc. Our arrows struck our marks, but not in the skulls like we hoped. Still they turned their attention to us, and Verg was able to fight those in front of him without worrying about any coming from behind. For the moment.
The first zombie that got to me had three arrows in his chest by the time we collided. My rapier was out quick and I easily removed his hand. His head was soon to follow. So far guiding three souls back to the underworld, if that’s how it works. Glish had similar success to his own foe, which was also his third considering we literally paired up both times we killed zombies on the road coming here.
We both picked our ranged weapons back up. My tiny ally nailed a head shot, getting one kill ahead of me. I got one in the neck. Then Glish literally nailed another headshot. It had to be the crossbow, though in fairness to him he made the weapon himself.
The area had mostly cleared but they never seemed to stop coming. “There’s a bigger horde on the way” Nydorri pointed to the East. “Yarrick was holding them off as best he could but there’s too many for him alone.”
Roan was quick to say, “We need to keep that horde outside.”
Syrielle casually sliced through a lone zombie on her way to Vergusson. “We’ll stay out here. More room to slice and dice,” She declared and they fist bumped.
“I’ll head inside,” Roan wiggled his left hand. “I might be able to fuck with dark magic.” Then he looked to his right hand, “Actually, I might have a better ida…”
Nydorri walked right over to Zorthos, “They’ll need one of us inside. And the others should stay out here.” She looked around the forest, “The trees may be dead, but I’m better outside.”
Zorthos nodded and walked after Roan who was already heading towards the temple.
“Uhm…” I raised my hand.
“Just do whatever dude,” Syrielle told me.
“I’ll… Go inside…” I dashed after the helkin and the sailor. Getting to their side just as they stepped into the temple. At first I noticed the long rows of seats, with an altar at the other end. The walls were decorated with various paintings of Hades, both the god and the location.
Behind the altar was stairs leading down into dark catacombs. Besides the entrance there wasn’t so much as a door from what we saw. The three of us quickly descended into an incredibly dark tunnel. Thankfully Zorthos was there to brighten the whole thing up with his flames.
The hallway we found ourselves in was wide and long with about a dozen zombies scattered around. On the other side there was a massive metal door. Along the walls were several holes leading into tunnels where a few more of the dead were coming from. The openings did not look like they were intended to be part of the temple’s architecture.
I dashed to my left squaring up with a nearby zombie. At this point, I had noticed very consistent patterns in their movement and it was even easier to cut through him. Zorthos and Roan weren’t having any problems of their own. And neither did I with the next one.
We quickly made our way to the end of the hall, where Roan kicked the door hard, sending it wide open. I followed him into a massive room with gothic structures all over, and yet another altar in the middle
Kneeling at the base of the shrine, was a man in long black robes humming to himself. When I moved closer a baritone voice shouted out, “You dare step into something you couldn’t dream of understanding!”
I snipped back, “Can’t imagine it’s that complicated.”
Roan snidely pointed out, “I think that’s his point.”
Thinking about it, that actually was the stranger’s point.
A dark fog began to flow out of the stranger’s cloak. At first it simply acted in the way smoke typically does. Then he shouted and the black haze blasted towards us. Roan slipped off his left glove and stood in front of me. Then Zorthos stepped in front of both of us.
Like a dragon unleashing its fury, the hellkin blasted flames from his mouth. Keeping the dark curse at bay. After a moment the flames disappeared, the black fog had gone away. Zorthos leaned forward to his knees, breathing heavily. Roan patted him on the back, “We need to work on our communication. I had that one.” He wagged his left hand out inspecting our enemy.
The sorcerer stood to his feet. “I don’t have time for you.” He spun around revealing literally nothing. I couldn’t see a face through the shadows of his hood. Eerily similar to Father Jacob’s two associates.
More fog poured from his cloak, but this time it floated towards the ground between us. A massive hole seemed to open up in the dirt. There was silence for a moment, then a fleshless hand reached out, dragging a full skeleton behind it. Dozens more just like it crawled out an instant after.
Roan dashed towards the first skeleton, crushing the skull with a hand ax.
I dashed forward as well to stab one. My rapier managed to crack through the skull, but it got a little stuck and by the time I pulled it out I was forced to run away from like four of them. There appeared to be a lot more on the way.
Standing in the doorway back into the hall was another zombie, but he had his eye on Roan and I managed to slice his head off before he saw me. My skeleton pursuers nearly cut me down, but I was just a bit faster than them, escaping once more.
The large hallway we walked in through was filled with maybe thirty walking corpses with rotting flesh limping towards me. Nearly as many dry skeletons were in the room behind me, including the few pouring into the hallway after me.
Generally when I was faced with what I felt was sure death I was on my knees, weaponless at the end of my rope. But right here, right now, I was on my feet with rapier in hand.
I lunged at the nearest Zombie, and also the loneliest enemy near me.
It took me a few seconds to get the better of him and I was sure that other zombies and skeletons were going to end me in just a second. That’s when I heard a loud bang, followed by a crack. Then I heard another bang, and the skull right in front of my face exploded. The next bang was followed by a splat from behind me.
Roan stepped through the doorway aiming his right hand with his index finger pointed out. His thumb stuck upwards and a flame sat upon it like a candle. As the next few bangs happened, I saw a small explosion occur at the tip of his extended finger. Zombie heads would explode each time.
He quickly cleared out the skeletons between us. I saw Zorthos taking out several in the room on the other side. I almost went to join him before Roan shouted, “Get me stones now.”
“What?”
He stopped firing. “You got dicks in your ears?” He knelt down, picked up the tiny stone with his left hand, slipped it into his right hand, then fired it. “Little rocks and pebbles and shit.” He quickly did the same thing with another rock.
I scurried around gathering several tiny little rocks and dashed back to him. The horde had only grown larger as they poured out of the tunnels. After gathering dozens of pebbles I ran back to hand them off to the sailor.
One by one he slipped them into his right hand before shooting each shot. Up close, I noticed a tattoo on his gloveless right hand of what looked like a long wooden stick that extended from his index finger along the back of his hand. It bent at the end down along his wrist like a handle with little trigger at the curve almost like a crossbow. From this angle I couldn’t tell if that’s what it was. It shot stuff so it felt right to me.
We heard screams from the sorcerer behind us, as well as the roars of Zorthos. “Check on him,” Roan shouted, “Then get more rocks.”
I followed his orders because he was the one destroying zombies. Running back into the other room there were broken skeleton bones all over. The massive hole in the ground had closed. Zorthos was on his knees in front of the necromancer.
Both appeared worn out, but the sorcerer was far more ready for another attack whereas the hellkin wasn’t moving at all. I fired an arrow in an instant, but smoke whipped out of his cloaks to smack away the projectile. “ROAN!” I screamed for help.
He was there in an instant. I shot another arrow to show him what I’m dealing with. Naturally he blasted a stone immediately with the exact same effect. “Shit just get me more rocks then,” He spun around and blasted the zombies coming our way.
The sorcerer chuckled, “You wish to protect this creature?”
“He wishes to protect us all,” I replied. “It’s just smart hero work to save him back. Also…” With Zorthos asleep I could speak the truth, “I love him.”
Even though his hood covered his face, I could tell he was smiling. His hand raised above his head. A dark shadow began to form above him. I couldn’t tell what was going to happen, but it was definitely going to be bad.
Then I saw the ever so familiar sudden reaction of pain. His face was covered, but the way his body jerked backwards, it was quite obvious to me what had happened. And once my eyes confirmed what I already knew I said.
“Sorry… We forgot to tell you about our buddy Yarrick.”
From behind our enemy, my mysterious ally stepped to his left, so my right, and yanked the silver dagger out that he just stuck in. Then he stuck it in again in the stomach. Before he could attack a third time, the smoke whipped out and smacked him in the back of the head like a punch.
Then the sorcerer grabbed him by the throat and shouted something in a language I couldn’t understand. Yarrick quickly removed the necromancer’s hand with the dagger. Smoke floated behind our foe forming a much smaller hole than before. He stumbled backwards into the blackness before it all disappeared and he was nowhere to be seen.
Yarrick vomited violently, then fell over. I dashed over to him and Zorthos. The rogue was completely unconscious, but the helkin had slowly begun to regain his composure. “What happened? Where’d that evil bastard go?”
“I was hoping you knew.”
Roan shouted from the door, “Stones! Now!”
I couldn’t believe it. “They’re still coming?”
“Yup!”
He was handed another dozen stones very quickly, but the hallway was looking more and more filled. Lucky for us, it was also filled with Syrielle on the other side, just blasting through zombies three a stroke. It took the two of them a few minutes to clear the hallway. A few zombies would come through the tunnels here and there, but it wasn’t anything to be worried about.
Especially with Zorthos back on his feet ready to fight.
Nydorri, Glish and Vergusson eventually made their way down explaining that they’d pretty much slaughtered the entire horde outside as far as they knew.
A few stragglers would come in here and there, but never anything to worry about. Everyone was exhausted, bloodied and bruised. Zorthos and Nydorri both said they were pretty much at their mana’s end.
Yarrick still hadn’t woken up. My comrades tried waking him up in several different ways, but we had no success. He was cold to the touch, much like a dead person, but they insisted he wasn’t dead yet.
As they discussed what to do about his condition, I walked over to the fountain and examined it as best I could. Perhaps there was some sort of trap door the bastard slipped through. For all we know he’s hiding from us.
“What are you looking at?” Zorthos asked.
“I’m wondering if these are magic waters,” I explained.
The second I said that I heard thundering footsteps. Vergusson leapt through the air in full cannonball, splashing water all over the place.
Now soaking wet, I complained, “Dude what the hell are you doing?”
“Seeing if it would kill me,” He casually replied.
Glish hopped in right after him making an even smaller splash. “Yeah it’s not killing me either.” He turned and started flopping around like a fish, seeming to heal from his wounds much quicker than I did mine.
With a curious look on his face, Zorthos reached his hand into the fountain. Steam rose from his fingers and he pulled them back in pain. “Holy water!” He announced. “It’s far from cursed. Quite the opposite.”
Vergusson had been climbing out of the water when he heard that. With the quick thinking of a barbarian he promptly grabbed Yarrick and threw him in the water.
Roan dashed towards the drowning man, “Verg what the fuck are you doing?”
“Isn’t he cursed?”
Bubbles came out of the water as Yarrick began to drown. We swiftly pulled him out and his condition didn’t appear any worse than before the half-orc threw him in.
Thankfully, Zorthos, Vergusson, Syrielle and Roan had the energy to carry on destroying every last one of the undead in the area that stumbled their way towards us. After a long and grueling day, it was finally over.
Zorthos killed a zombie, and there just weren’t anymore.
“Sooner or later, you run out of corpses to raise,” Was a line I thought was cool to say.
We tended to our wounds. Thankfully Nydorri had plenty of berries to go around. One of which actually “Rejuiced” Roan a bit and he was able to stabilize a couple of our wounds with the cross on his left hand. Though he wasn’t quite at full power, and our injuries had sat for a while, making it harder for magic to affect them.
After the fighting was over we were genuinely confused about what to do next. It was pretty obvious that sorcerer was the cause of all of this. Was he gone for good? Will he come back? There were so many questions.
But the only question on anyone’s mind was asked of me, immediately, by the shortest of us, “How many did you get?”
“8.”
“Hah!’ The little douchebag couldn’t have been more excited after losing the bet on the previous adventure. “I got 10!” As per usual, he shadow boxed with excitement. The half-orc proudly gave him their low five/high five standard affirmation.
“Well I had to help Roan take out like thirty,” I added.
“And I hit a bunch in the leg when they were ganging up on my boys here,” He pointed to the devilman and the half-orc. “What’s your point?”
I decided to end the bickering there and just take the L. Next time I’ll get three up on the little shit. And lord knows how many everyone else took out. Syrielle and Verg were so exhausted they actually agreed to a tie. For all I know they killed a couple hundred each.
We inspected the area for useful items, but really couldn’t find anything interesting.
Roan reminded us that Yarrick looked like he was about to die. At which point we decided to begin our very quick journey home. I may not trust the tiny comrade, but he was a comrade, and I will do whatever it takes to save his life.