“Oh right,” said Cline. “We’re being chased.”
After a few more mild alterations, Dakkon could see the thermal shapes of creatures obscured behind brush and peeking out from behind trees. The amount of heat he saw forced him to involuntarily gulp. “Guys,” Dakkon drew the attention of the others. “We’ve got a problem.”
The forest was aglow with the amassing bodies of beastlike forms to every side save for the suspicious cave-like entrance. “I’ve unlocked a new skill—I can see heat signatures. There have to be 100 of them,” said Dakkon, who attributed any control over the panic he should have felt to the curious ‘Daring’ spell that Zelle had cast on him after the last attack.
Damak stopped rubbing his forehead and looked up. “100… tribesmen?” he asked. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m as serious as we’re about to be dead,” said Dakkon. “They’re still coming, too. I don’t think we’ve got a choice here—we’re completely surrounded.”
They appeared to have a poor choice to make. Either they hop in what looked like a trap, or they try to fight through a throng of angry shapeshifters.
Damak let out a powerful sigh and yelled, “All right, damn it! Everyone into the trap!” Then charged inward to lead the way.
The dip could fit two abreast with a smidgeon of room left over to unsheathe a weapon and, for at least one of each pair, to be able to swing it. It would be an extremely unpleasant location to meet up with a large beast able to take full advantage of its claws and fangs. The expeditionary force filed into the path quickly behind Damak, who spearheaded the group’s movement at a quick pace, taking the danger of the unknown upon his own shoulders in order to protect others from the danger they knew about from behind. He was a good tank.
Players filed in indiscriminately. As they moved forward at speed, the pathway became a tunnel, dipping deeper into the ground and hillside. The tunnel widened gradually and soon the force found itself inside a much larger, naturally-occurring cave.
C
HAPTER 25:
W
HEN IT
W
ON’T
B
LEED
“Well I’ll be damned,” said Damak. “It wasn’t a trap after all.”
“Unless we were just corralled in here to be fed to something nasty,” said Zelle.
After Zelle’s comment, the last two other shamans cast spells upon themselves which were visually similar to Zelle’s ‘Daring’ spell.
The inside of the cave appeared to be thoughtfully, if not meticulously, curated. A line of small, placed stones led deeper into the unknown in a path along the otherwise uncluttered floor.
“Maybe that way is the trap?” suggested one of the recently emboldened shamans.
“I think—maybe,” said Zelle, “this might be a place of worship for the Tribe.”
“What? Why push us down here then?” asked Dakkon.
“I don’t know. It’s just a hunch,” said Zelle, “but the path and those stones—none of it feels particularly sinister.”
Damak edged forward along the pathway marked by stones and the expeditionary force followed behind him. The extra space in the cavern allowed the force to fan out, repositioning themselves into their preferred, combat-ready groups.
The force moved forward, taking what precautions they could to move silently. In a cave without the nearby sounds of running water, the efforts were mostly futile and at best might disguise their numbers. They walked for an hour before reaching the end of the stones. When they had, the expeditionary force found itself emerging from an off-shoot cave of their destination. They were some 20 meters away from a maliciously battered ancient shrine; the ancient shrine which they sought.
“Dakkon, give the place a once over, would ya?” Damak asked.
Dakkon was already on it. No unusual heat signatures or pockets of cold could be seen from the cave ahead, but he was still unpracticed with the skill. He looked back at the members of the force as he tweaked his sight, comparing heat signatures as he worked. Dakkon noticed that two men were generating an exceptional amount of heat. They were two of the bunch of non-combatants from the earlier skirmishes. Dakkon wondered whether he was witnessing what fear looked like through heat vision.
After several adjustments, looking back and forth, Dakkon shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary that I can see,” he said before switching off the thermal sight to preserve and regenerate mana.
“Well, our path seems like it may have been off a bit, but that big, desecrated shrine over there appears to indicate we’re in the right spot,” said Damak. “If there was more than one shrine like this around here we’d have heard about it.” Damak looked over the remnants of the expeditionary force. “Before we give the shamans their turn, let’s go over some battle tactics.” Damak looked over to Zelle. “Just in case.”
Zelle nodded. She didn’t appear hopeful that the calming would go well, but perhaps fewer shamans meant less power-hungry meddling to mess things up.
The spell casters with the ability to do so buffed everyone with combat-focused alterations while Damak created a battle strategy focused around distracting the spirit and protecting the exorcists as they worked.
Damak was doing well filling in his superior’s boots as acting leader, but he had no experience fighting a large, ancient, pissed-off spirit so his guesswork would need to err on the side of caution. When he was done with his battle plans, he nodded.
The three remaining shamans, Zelle included, walked forward to the defiled, cottage-sized shrine. When they were about 10 paces away, white smoke began spraying out and upward from the broken stone obelisk at the shrine’s center. The three shamans halted and began to rhythmically chant words that had no meaning to laymen:
“Coo-lah, coo-lah, sah-nah, soo-nah,” they said.
A massive wolf’s head, with jaws as wide as a man is tall, peeked out through the fountain of white smoke. Its features were all gray, unlike the bluish spirits that the shamans were known to summon.
The shamans repeated their chant twice again, elongating the words more so with each verse. The massive smoke wolf opened its gray eyes and stared at the three shamans as they continued slowing their chant.
Whatever the three out ahead of the group were doing appeared to be working. The wolf head’s gray eyes were glassy, without a hint of malice. It appeared that after the trials of the forest, this portion of the quest might not come with a heavy toll.
“Cooooo-lah, Cooooo-lah,” continued the shamans.
Behind Dakkon, a voice said in a firm whisper, “Now!’ then he felt a stabbing pain in his left shoulder. Dakkon spun to see two men darting at him with weapons raised. A third readied another throwing dagger. Dakkon acted on instinct and side-stepped to place the first assailant in-between himself and the other as he stabbed.
The attacker fell in a single strike from his dagger. The second man fell dead from one of Cline’s arrows connecting with his sword arm.
[Kareen has stabbed you with a hurled dagger for 90 damage. Remaining HP 560/650]
[Poison courses through your veins! Your actions and reactions will be slowed.]
The message was accompanied by a flashing red skull and crossbones which was not so subtle that it had any chance of being missed.
[You have slashed Cid for 231 damage. You have slain a player: Cid]