Into the Light (Axe Druid Book 1)

by Christopher Johns

  Chapter Six

  I woke up feeling rough and thirsty. A pitcher of water and some roots were on my nightstand. I drank a good portion of the water and dumped the rest on my head over the basin on my desk to help wash the night’s sweat from my fur. I picked up the roots and walked to the commons where the party and some of the locals were eating.

  “Chew those roots, and it will help to ease the hangover,” said Sir Dillon.

  I did as he bid and was surprised to feel the pain and fuzziness ease a bit more.

  We all ate, and those who needed to return for other items left to do so. I wandered over to the armorers and wasn’t surprised to see Kynin and Farrin waiting for me. The lady bear smiled, and her brother dipped his head and motioned toward the back room.

  The back room was well lit with large windows. The walls were lined with shelves kind of like Rowland’s but they were loaded with leather, oils, and all sorts of leather working tools. In the back corner was a work table and a manikin to model the armor.

  The manikin sported some fine leather armor. Black leather with some fur trim near the chest and arms. It was beautiful. As I came closer, I noticed that there was a carving in the chest. It was a bear’s head, but not just any bear—this had to be Marin.

  I wanted to touch it. I wanted to run my fingers over the likeness of the bear who fought me with such honor and passion, but out of respect for Farrin, I waited.

  “Touch it,” the bear-man said at last. “It’s your’s. May she protect you as she protected her queen.”

  I nodded and stepped forward until I could do just that. The soft fur contrasted well with the sturdiness of the leather.

  Marin’s Black Leathers

  +3 to Defense.

  Marin gave her all in life as she will for you in death.

  Made by Apprentice Tanner Farrin of Sunrise Village.

  I smiled at the description. It seemed fitting for someone like her. Funny how fighting with someone full throttle makes you feel like you know them better than anyone.

  Farrin had left already. According to Kynin, he hadn’t slept or eaten so that he could make this armor as his final respects to his friend. When I asked the price, she just shook her furry head. Finally, I bought a belt and some bracers. Both only provided +1 Defense each. It wasn’t much, but I wasn’t planning on taking the brunt of the damage either. The belt and bracers only ran me fifty silver together.

  I put the belt on and stowed the chest piece and bracers in my inventory. I thanked Kynin, and she wished me luck on our hunt.

  I returned to the tavern and found my group ready to go. They all wore their gear. Yohsuke sported some thick, blood-red, padded armor with a flowing skirt. Normally, I’d tease him about the skirt, but the man had won my respect long ago, so I left it alone. Bokaj and Balmur both wore some nice leather armor similar to mine, but Bokaj’s was brown and Balmer’s was a mottled grey that looked like gravel. They had no fur, but I could see that they had their normal clothes on beneath so they would be set. They also had black padded pants with what looked like leather pads sewn in for added protection. An interesting concept that I was a little upset I didn’t think of.

  Our tank wore a chainmail shirt and a helmet with horns, like some kind of cartoon Viking. It was pretty neat. He also had leather pants on with metal greaves around his calves and metal plates covering his quads. It looked odd, but he assured me it would be effective. Most of us decided to travel with our weapons in our inventories since they were either heavy or unwieldy after long periods, like my great axe or Jaken’s shield. Yohsuke and Balmur wore their weapons since they were light and easily stowed.

  I put my great dagger onto my belt in the sheath. It was a weight to get used to, but it was fine after an hour of walking. I lead the way, having been there before. The forest around us felt a little less alive than what I had come to know with Dinnia and Sharo. Maybe it was because there were three more people and not one of them a Druid or attached to nature the way I was.

  We didn’t run into any trouble on the way there; all was suspiciously quiet. Last time I had been this close to the ruins, I had been farming the Insane Wolves in the area. Maybe they didn’t respawn like a normal game does? If so, that would be a blessing. I’d hate to have to get into a fight so close when we had no clue what to expect at the ruins.

  A little further in, the greens and browns of the forest proper began to thin out and the walls of the castle came into view. The walls stood just how I had seen them last. Nothing had changed.

  “How do we want to do this, gents?” I asked in a low voice. I wasn’t sure what was inside, but if they had senses like mine, I didn’t want them to know we were close by.

  Bokaj looked around and must have found what he was looking for because he scrambled up the tree next to us. He must have gone up to get a better view; can’t believe I didn’t think of that.

  He dropped back down a few minutes later.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “I saw a couple groups of mobs walking around. It looked like they were on some kind of patrol. Wolves, it looked like. They are too far to make out their levels. Each group had about three Wolves.”

  I’d fought more, and from the looks of it, so had these guys.

  What worried me was that before, the Wolves were mindless killing machines bent on destruction. These ones seemed to have some other purpose. Shit.

  “Someone could be controlling them,” Yohsuke echoed my own thoughts. “It happens often enough that I wouldn’t be surprised to see some kind of kennel master or controller type nearby making them do the patrols.”

  We nodded and proceeded to plan our entrance. Our Ranger had only seen one real entrance, so that was our way in. We didn’t have the luxury of trying to be sexy about it. We get in; they get dead. Simple but hopefully effective.

  “Hold up,” Yohsuke ordered softly. “Before we march in there, what can everybody do? Like, I know some of the basic shit, but what can we all do that may help?”

  I filled them all in on the few spells I had: Regrowth, Filgus’ Flaming Blade, Frozen Dagger and whatnot. Jaken had a couple of small healing spells and a hate generating ability that attracted the attention of hostile creatures near him, and Bokaj had a couple of bow abilities tied to being a Ranger. Balmur had a really interesting one where he could move quickly from one area to the next but didn’t want to give too many specifics because where’s the fun in that? Yoh finished it off by telling us about a spell he had called Astral Bolt and his main weapon which was a type of mana blade.

  We worked our way slowly up the hill toward a downed section of wall. When we got to the entryway, Jaken took the lead. I was right behind him, Yohsuke behind me, and Bokaj at the rear. Balmur, being a Rogue, was planning to use us as the distraction he needed to do the most damage to any controllers we found, if there was one.

  The outer wall was a barren area; we must have just missed the last patrol. There was a forty foot gap between the outer wall and the inner wall. Piles of stone, brick, and vegetation were scattered here and there. We decided to walk to our right and go counterclockwise to the next entrance. We tried to sneak as stealthily as possible. Yohsuke and Bokaj were quick and stealthy already, so we decided that they would trail behind Jaken and I from about ten to fifteen feet. That way, if we were spotted, they would have a chance to flank our attackers.

  Jaken and I had just reached cover a few minutes later when the first patrol had turned the corner. They moved at a trot, and I could see that the three Insane Wolves were level 6. They came our way and didn’t look to be aware of our presence yet.

  “Quietly,” I whispered to Jaken. He smiled and equipped his sword and shield. I pulled out my great axe just as they passed us.

  The Wolf in the rear saw us and growled, causing the others to stop and whirl on the spot. Jaken raised his shield just as two of them leapt at him. One hit the shield squarely and bounced off with ten percent of its health gone from hitting it so hard. The other got knocked off co
urse by an arrow in its back. Tmont charged into the fray joined by Yohsuke.

  Yoh had pulled out the base of what looked like a katana from his inventory, and a dark surge of astral burst from it. The blade was the color of the night sky with specks of white scattered throughout it. I didn’t have time to look much longer as the Wolf that bounced off Jaken’s shield was standing back up. I hefted my great axe and charged in.

  I brought my axe down on the Insane Wolf as soon as I was in range and cleaved the poor bastard in two. Then turned to see the walking pincushion the Wolf behind me had been turned into, courtesy of Bokaj. Tmont slapped it with her left claw then her right, and the beast was dead. Yohsuke had already finished his and tucked his sword away. We all smiled at each other and got ready for the next patrol.

  We looted the corpses of the Wolves, only getting a few coppers each, but hey, it’s money, baby. Bokaj collected what arrows from the Wolf that he could. Out of the eight he had fired, six had come out usable. It was good that he could collect some of the used ones. He had plenty from the way he made it sound, so I let it be.

  “Nice axe, dude,” Yohsuke fist bumped me as we moved away from the battle scene. We didn’t want to let the other patrol know that something was amiss before we could spring a trap on them.

  “Thanks, man,” I said back. “What the hell kind of weapon was that?! Was that your mana blade?”

  “Astral Blade,” he corrected mildly. “Takes half my mana to summon it and that mana doesn’t recover until the blade is dismissed, but that doesn’t matter much considering my stats and the spells I have at my disposal. It’s pretty sweet, man.”

  I nodded. I was pretty stoked to see what else my friends could do. It was one thing to hear about it but another completely to witness firsthand. We set up at a pile of rubble just around the bend. This time, we had our tank closer to the rear, while the three of us waited for him to draw their attention. Jaken stood there in the open once the Wolves were in sight. Once they saw him, all bets were off. They charged straight for him. He set his feet wide and brought his shield up to take their weight, but only one actually made it past our death trap.

  Yohsuke pushed his astral sword out and cut the leg off one, and I finished it off quickly. Tmont tackled another as her master put an arrow into the Insane Wolf’s exposed stomach. The last Wolf let momentum carry it over our trap, just to be speared by Jaken’s longsword. It looked like it was still alive but fading fast due to a bleeding debuff. A little blood drop symbol appeared beside its health bar, and the bar was shrinking quickly. He tugged on the blade the same time he smacked the beast with his shield and dropped it to the ground dead.

  I had to say, I was thoroughly impressed with how smoothly things were going. We were getting some nice experience so far, although since we had decided to make a party, it was distributed evenly. Instead of getting what I would for killing a level 6, I was getting a little more than the amount of experience I would for killing a level 1 Insane Wolf, but if this was anything like dungeons in any of the games I’d played, there would be more enemies and experience with them.

  We moved on cautiously; just because Bokaj had only seen two patrols didn’t mean that was all there was to the place.

  Once we hit the entrance to the inner courtyard, we were stopped by Balmur, who seemingly stepped out of the shadows of a building to our right. It wasn’t very tall, about fifteen to twenty feet, but it looked sturdy.

  “Good news… and bad news,” he said simply. “Good news, we were right about the Wolves being controlled. Bad news, he’s strong and definitely not alone.”

  He had us follow him slowly and quietly for about five minutes to where Balmur saw the problem. In the center of the courtyard near the gates to the castle proper, we saw a pack of twenty, not just Insane Wolves, but Undead Loyal Hounds, too.

  The Hounds laid at the guy’s feet like some kind of brown and white, mangy puppies, and the Wolves milled about restlessly. Whenever an Insane Wolf got too close to the Hounds, they would growl and snap at each other. There were four Hounds and sixteen Wolves. The guy—the Undead Kennel Master—was level 11, but the Wolves and Hounds were only level 6.

  The Undead Kennel Master looked like a better put together zombie from the movies: messed up brown hair, sallow skin drawn tight over his bones with age, and kept together by something evil. He wore brown breeches and a moldy, white shirt. He was barefoot and had a sword sheathed at his side.

  There wasn’t much in the courtyard really, but I did see what looked like an old training tower. Maybe when the guard or army would run formations, the brass would climb up to watch and make corrections? Who knows, but it could be useful. Maybe we could drop it on him? It looked tall enough.

  Jaken motioned for us to back off and go back to the shadows where we met Balmur.

  “We need to plan this right,” he sighed. “I can take a beating and heal well, but that will be bad news all around with him in there. My guess is that those Hounds will be his guards and the Wolves will attack anything that isn’t them. Any ideas?”

  We all considered the predicament for a moment, and then I smiled.

  “Yeah, ever heard of a fastball special?”

  After a ten-minute planning session, we had a solid enough plan of attack. Bokaj was going to get on the roof where we were planning and see how close he could get to the giant mob before having to stop or risk pulling some hate. The rest of us would be down below in the pit fighting directly. Bokaj nodded once and bolted up the side of the building with ease. His panther partner would be coming with us.

  We waited ten minutes to give our Ranger time to get into position, then sent Tmont in to raise hell. The Wolves did exactly what we thought they would and gave chase. The black cat shot to the training tower and bounded up it easily. Her job was to sell it to those Wolves that she would be within their grasp soon so they would be on her like white on rice.

  With a hiss and snarl from T, the obvious mini-boss’s Hounds had bolted upright and were standing between him and the Wolves.

  Good, all according to plan so far.

  The fun part came next. Now, in my fox form, I only weighed a good ten pounds or so. Jaken lifted me up and threw me straight at the Kennel Master with everything he had from about sixty feet away. I shot like a cannonball right at him while he was looking at the Wolves and barking orders in some kind of undead groan. The deadly thing about cannonballs is their velocity and density. See, when it hits, all that compact energy was going through whatever was in front of it—unless it was sturdy enough to stop the ball. That’s what I had thought anyway.

  As soon as I was a few feet away from the Kennel Master, I shapeshifted into my panther form and hit him in the chest with a solid three-hundred-pound-panther-push kick. My panther form had grown as my level increased, making it heavier. Thankfully.

  The bastard rocketed a good fifteen feet back and smacked into the dilapidated wall behind him next to the doors to get inside. His health went down a good fifteen percent, and while I wanted to celebrate my successful use of tactics, the Hounds were chomping wildly at my beautiful tail. A few of the Wolves had noticed what had happened and decided that the other panther wasn’t worth the wait. I began my own deadly game of tag as the Hounds began chasing me. I would smack one in the head then run, smack another then run, smack and run. I had taken a few bites and was down to about seventy-five percent HP myself, but I was good so far.

  I looked over just in time to see two arrows sprout from the Undead Kennel Master’s chest, and Balmur stepped out of the shadows behind him with his dual hand axes ready. He surged forward, and I saw him slice into the boss’s legs, then his back. But the damage didn’t stop there, oh no, because at the end of his combo, Balmur sank his axes into the exposed back in front of him, and there was a burst of black fire the same color as his hair and beard.

  The Hounds broke from their game with me and bolted to their master to try and help, but his health was well below thirty-five percent aft
er Balmur and Bokaj were finished. It was still falling because of a burn debuff from the flame. By the time the Kennel Master hit the ground on one knee, Bokaj had put two more arrows into his chest. A purple bolt flew past my left flank and hit the boss. I turned to see Yohsuke striding away from a pile of dead Wolves with an upraised hand pointed in my direction.

  I shifted back to my bipedal fox form and went to help finish off the Hounds. Too late, I noticed with the Kennel Master’s influence gone, the Insane Wolves’ blood lust had returned with a vengeance, and they had turned on the Hounds as well. A pile six deep was currently killing one of the Hounds, and its friend was harrying the ones closer to the edge of the frenzy.

  Tmont dropped on the two Wolves left beneath her, and Jaken was there to assist. He slashed with his sword, and a red aura began to cover him. All the creatures within thirty feet of him stopped what they were doing and rushed him. I pulled out my great axe and set to work. There were only five Wolves in that thirty feet, but it was still rough going. I plowed down one after three good hits, then shot another with an ice dagger. The Wolf was too busy trying to get to Jaken through its friends to care that it had taken a knife to the side.

  Yohsuke and Balmur dispatched the two Hounds closest to them, then joined us. A minute later, we all advanced on the feeding frenzy. I used Lightning Bolt to zap the nearest Wolf, and it whipped around to try and get to me. Yohsuke shot it with an astral bolt; then we laid into it together. He stabbed while I chopped. Jaken saw that we were getting roughed up and threw a heal our way. I felt a refreshing warmth and saw a golden glow encompass my skin, then noted that my health bar was full from seventy percent. Yohsuke looked to be healed about the same. He had sustained less damage—but it never hurts to be at full HP.

  Another five minutes and the courtyard was clear. We looted the corpses, and I went through my notifications. After that battle, I had managed to rake in ten silver from all the Wolves after the split loot and another ten from the Kennel Master. The boss of the courtyard also had a rusty sword that no one picked up and a key. We let Balmur take the key since he was the sneak amongst us, then moved to the shade of the castle wall near the door to recover our spent mana.