by Aleron Kong
Name: Krin’ak. Bugbear Level 8. Health 220. Mana 100. Stamina 190. Disposition: Enmity. Bugbears are the result of sorcerous experimentation blending cave bears with goblins. The race is naturally strong and hardy. They are adept at hiding. Warlike to a fault, it takes a strong leader to control them. Well known to incorporate other races in their war parties. Bugbears get one point to distribute per level, and each level gives +1 to strength, +1 to Constitution, +1 to Dexterity, +1 to Endurance.
The bugbears! They had found the village! But how, the mist was only down for… the Quickening! The beam of light that had shot into the sky would have acted like a beacon! Then once the defenses had fallen, it had led the bugbears straight to them. Then it would have been a simple matter of making a bridge to cross the trench. This was his fault!
The time for recriminations was not now, though. That point was made clear when the bugbears roared, and then rushed forward to attack. The first ran forward to attack the Hearth Mother. At six feet tall, the burly goblinoid must have thought that Hisako’s diminutive four feet would make her easy prey. He was wrong.
Without breaking her stride, she threw her hands out to the side, more magical words pouring from her throat. Two vertical panels of gold light appeared. Each was 5x10 feet, and hung a few feet off of the ground. The shields separated the three attackers in front of them, creating a hallway that flared out towards Hisako. It both left her only one enemy to directly confront, while simultaneously impeding the forward progress of the others. The bugbears on either side of the shields struck with axe and mace, but their strikes couldn’t penetrate the shield.
The middle attacker moved forward undaunted with a buckler raised and his sword poised to stab. Before he could make his lunge, though, she shouted and slapped both wrists together, fingers outstretched and separate. A bar of white light shot from between her fingers and struck the buckler. In an instant, the beam was gone, and only the afterimage of the light remained in Richter’s vision. Looking at the bugbear, though, Richter realized that a square hole six inches in diameter was missing from the buckler… and from the chest of the bugbear that had been holding it. It dropped to the ground in a clatter of armor. Holy shit! Was that a Kamehameha?!?
The other two struck the gold panels again, and a web of cracks appeared on the left panel. The two sprites ducked low and each shot an imbued arrow into one of the bugbears’ legs. Neither were wearing medium or heavy armor over their legs, and the strikes savaged their limbs. Both fell face first into the gold panels screaming, their furred hands scrabbling for purchase. You wouldn’t have expected such high-pitched noises from such big guys, Richter thought. Hisako swept her right arm down quickly, and both shields vanished. The bugbears collapsed to the ground. Before they could even try to roll over, a pair of swords stabbed into each neck and they lay still. Hisako and the sprites had killed four attackers in the space of ten seconds! He was glad they were allies!
The villagers behind him were in shock as well! Most were simple craftsmen or workers. Even the casters probably hadn’t been in combat before. The wood sprites, however, fought constantly to protect the forest from invaders and monsters. When faced with the fighting prowess of the sprites, the villagers were dumfounded. A feeling Richter could well understand. Despite having fought beside Sion, he had never seen the sprites working as a group before. His village had a long way to go if this was an indication of the level of battle that they would need to operate at.
He clapped his hands to break his people out of their reverie. If enemies hadn’t heard the short, but fierce battle then his clap wouldn’t alert them. And if they had heard the fight, then the element of surprise was gone anyway. “Grab their weapons!” He pointed to one of the villagers that he remembered was an Air caster. “Take the shield. Support our fighters! Those of you without weapons yet, stay in the center of the group!”
The better armed group continued to move toward the burning longhouse. The screams were getting louder and smoke was thick in the air. More than half of the roof was covered in flames. The goal of Richter’s group was to get to the doors of the longhouse. Ten bugbears were still hammering at the doors. If his people were going to survive, they would have to be dealt with.
A series of loud booms came from far ahead of them, heralding Yoshi’s arrival at the bridge. A fold in the land coupled with the distance and darkness kept Richter from seeing exactly what was happening, but the night was lit with blue flares of color. They provided brief moments of illumination, like a storm on the horizon. No time at all passed between the sprite’s initial attack and the responding roars of defiance from the bugbears. In the resulting clash, at least one scream ripped itself from a sprite throat.
Hisako looked at him upon hearing the pain of her people. Richter thought she would immediately run to their aid, but the only expression on her face was one of steely resolve. “We will finish our task and save your people. My warriors will last until we can join them.”
Richter just nodded back, “Onward!”
They hadn’t made it another one hundred yards when the next attack came. The bugbears had indeed heard their attack on their comrades, and they had prepared. The group of defenders was making their way to the longhouse when Richter heard Alma’s voice in his head, *Danger!*
Suddenly the air in front of them… rippled. There was shriek of pain, and whereas before there had been nothing but open space in front of them, they could now see bugbears arranged in broad horseshoe pattern no more than ten yards ahead. Directly in front of Richter’s group, at the tip of the arch formation, was a tall figure wearing black robes. The hood was thrown back showing a mostly bald head with a top knot tied in a bun on top. The face was green and the lower jaw protruded, two large fangs extended upward in place of incisors. At that moment, the robed figure’s face was screwed up into a rictus of pain, and both hands were slapped to the sides of his head. The wail of pain was tearing itself from his throat.
Richter looked in shock at the force arrayed against them. The bugbears had gotten so close! If the defenders had walked forward for only a few more seconds, they would have been hemmed in on three sides, and most likely slaughtered to the last man! Suddenly, he knew had happened. At least he knew part of it.
Alma had been flying above Richter and the others. Then she had felt the thought patterns of the hostile group in front of them. She could not read thoughts, but she had been unable to miss the clustered minds in front of Richter and his group. She had flown ahead, and as soon as she passed the veil of Dark magic, she saw the ambushers. She then dove and used a psi blast to distract the caster. The attack made him loose concentration and the ongoing enchantment was interrupted. The spell backlash coupled with the psi attack, had caused the shriek of pain that alerted them!
Richter had no time to wonder about how he instantly had this information. The dark veil had apparently protected the bugbears from the effects of Hisako’s spell. The removal of the concealment spell, however, made them shy from the light the same as the first three. That was probably the only reason that Richter’s group had not been immediately overwhelmed once the caster was distracted. Despite not being in the perfect position for them to spring their ambush, the fifteen or so skirmishers in front of them were still more than enough to cause serious damage.
“Shoot,” Richter shouted! His own target was the caster in front of him. The mage was the first enemy magic user Richter had seen so far, and he well knew that this battle could hinge on removing the caster from play. He imbued his arrow and shot, not taking much time to channel his mana. The pure gold aura around arrow made an after image in his sight as it sped towards the helpless mage. At the last moment, though, a large bugbear with a kite shield jumped in the path of arrow. The projectile struck the shield with a loud bang! The contact did knock the off balance bugbear backwards, but the mage was spared.
At the same time that Richter shot, Sion and Daniella both unloaded arrows into the closest bugbears. Bo
th were critical hits, one to the face and another to the knee, shearing off the lower part of the creature’s leg. Even if they weren’t immediate kill shots, the attackers wouldn’t be back in the fight anytime soon.
Hisako looked around at the enemies arrayed against them, and then fell to one knee. Both of her hands reached out at shoulder height, and then circled opposite each other until they were vertically in line with her sternum. Her finger tips touched in three complex hand configurations. Then her hands shot back out to shoulder height a second time, and she once again started circling them back. She looked off in the distance, completely focused on her casting, her lips forming words in an unbroken chant. Richter had no idea what spell she was casting, but it clearly required more than a one second casting time. It was also clear that she was vulnerable while she cast it. She had to be protected. He turned to the villagers with weapons, “Protect her at all costs! Whoever is unarmed, stay back!”
The other bugbears had started moving forward. The sprites’ fiendishly high Dexterity let them loose one more imbued arrow each, but only Daniella’s shot knocked an enemy down. Sion’s shot was blocked by a hasty side swipe of his target’s buckler. The arrow skewed past and detonated harmlessly on the ground twenty yards away. Richter knew that if the attackers made it to them, they would be torn apart. He did the first thing he could think of. He cast Grease.
The spell summoned a slippery substance coating the ground in a 10x10 area. The two enemies in front of him fell. Unfortunately, his aim was off, and he was inside of AoE (area of effect) as well. He fell as the two attackers continued to slide towards him. One had fallen forward and she raised her half- moon axe to chop down into Richter as soon as she got close.
Two of the villagers stood with Sion, fighting hand to hand against the goblinoids. Daniella had backed up several feet and continued to fire arrows past the defenders into the mass of enemies. In such close quarters however, imbuing her arrows would harm both friend and foe, so she relied on skill alone to make her kills. The remaining armed villagers and the Air mage holding the shield stood in front of Hisako who was still chanting her spell. The rest of the villagers remained in the background, throwing small rocks they found on the ground. It served as little more than a nuisance, however. The battle was joined!
The bugbear’s slide in the grease had ended only a few feet from Richter’s prone body. If she had slid the entire way, then he was sure that her axe would either be either battering at his armor or buried in his body. Even so, she was up on both legs and one arm. The other arm still held her axe aloft and was about to slam it down onto him. Praying that the spell was strong enough, he cast Charm.
The axe had already descending towards him when he finished the one-second cast. They made eye contact as the blade passed the halfway point. A brutal smile broke out over her face, and then she twisted her body like a corkscrew. She rolled over completely, and struck the bugbear to her right in the shoulder. The blade bit, but the thick leather armor her former comrade was wearing stopped any serious damage. He snarled and grappled with his traitorous ally. Though wounded, he was putting up a large fight, and her axe was useless in such close quarters. Richter rolled out of the AoE of his Grease spell. Carefully standing on his feet, he didn’t see how he could help his charmed fighter without risking damage to her as well. They were rolling around too fast for him to risk an arrow. He turned his attention to the rest of the fight.
Sion, Daniella and two armed villagers were facing off against five bugbears. Sion was holding his own, but the villagers were hard pressed. If it wasn’t for Daniella taking shots of opportunity the two would be dead already. The large bugbears were not appreciably slowed, however. Their leather armor was tough and hard to penetrate. Even the arrows that did strike flesh hit nothing critical. None of them could sink too deeply through the natural armor of their hide. The stalemate didn’t last long, however. With a terrified scream that became a wet burble, one of the villagers fell!
The bugbear that killed him had brought its warhammer down in a mighty overhand swing. The poor fool tried to parry with his sword. The blade was just swept down by the hammer and cut into the villager’s own flesh. It wouldn’t have made a difference if the sword were involved or not, once the hammer fell into the man’s chest. All that was left was a ruined bloody mess. The attacker pulled his weapon out with a horrible sucking sound.
Richter bellowed in outrage. These people were under his protection! He activated Double Shot. Two arrows flew from his bow in the space of a second. The only flaw to using this subskill of Archery was that both arrows had a greatly decreased accuracy than normal. The second arrow suffered twice as much penalty as the first. True to form, Richter’s first shot struck true, hitting the bugbear in the abdomen, but the second went wide. That didn’t matter though, because he immediately used Drill Shot. Aiming for the impact of site of the first arrow, he concentrated for a moment and then released. The arrow spun in the air true to its name and hit a bare centimeter to the side of the first strike. The already weakened armor gave way, and the arrow imbedded several inches into the bugbear’s stomach, continuing to spin. The invader gave a small groan and collapsed onto the wet ground. The attacker wasn’t dead, but at least Sion’s group won a few seconds of respite.
One look at the fallen villager made it clear that he would never be getting up again. His friend didn’t seem to know that though, and fought furiously to drive the attackers back. It was clear that he had no formal training with a blade, but the man still made two of the invaders fall back a step. It was the opening Daniella had been waiting for. She shot an Imbued arrow into the face of the bugbear on the left, and he collapsed. Richter fired an imbued arrow at the other but missed. A grunt drew his attention to the right. The brawl between Richter’s charmed bugbear and the one she had been fighting ended with her dagger sticking from the center of his chest. She stood tall, one ear having been torn off. She grinned with blood on her sharp teeth.
The group of villagers protecting Hisako were challenged by several bugbears. The awkward swings of the men and women were only completely ineffectual. The only thing they did accomplish was to make the bugbears they were fighting cautious. It was only their stronger numbers that made this particular part of the fight a stalemate.
Hoping that the villagers would remain safe, Richter began to take aim on the fallen mage again, but then he heard a scream. He looked around and saw that four of the ambush group had circled wide around the sprites who were fighting their fellows, and were now running with weapons raised towards the unarmed villagers. He pointed quickly and shouted, “Attack!” His charmed enemy began running towards them, but it was clear they would reach the villagers first. He drew and took aim, knowing full well that he would not be able to stop them all before they started laying to waste to his people.
A screech rent the air and a dark shape buzzed by the bugbears heads, too fast for them to react. Suddenly they stopped their run and began holding the sides of their head. Their weapons fell to the ground forgotten. In the heat of the battle, Richter had forgotten about Alma! Her psychic attack had dazed them all. He released his well-imbued arrow and shot one in the groin. Only a mist of blood and a ruin of flesh was left of the bugbear’s former pride and joy. A howl of despair and injustice filled the battle site.
Richter pointed at the bugbears and addressed the unarmed villagers, “Attack while they are vulnerable!” The mass of villagers fell on the bugbears who were already shaking off the psychic attack. Though they were no longer stunned, the attackers had lost all momentum and soon fell to the combined counterattack of the twenty plus villagers. A furious and bloody scuffle broke out, which left seven villagers injured, but all of the bugbears dead. Now six more villagers were armed and rushed forward to help.
A shout drew his attention back to Sion and the invaders he had been fighting. The other villager was still on his feet, though one arm hung limp and bloody. Next to him was the dwarf that had ch
osen to fight against the wishes of his woman. He had initially been guarding the Hearth Mother, but must have stepped forward when the other villager died. The dwarf was now trading blows with an attacker.
The shout had come when Sion had driven his needle-like sword into the knee of another bugbear. A vicious swipe of a studded mace made him let go of the handle as he rolled out of the way. He unshouldered his bow, but before he could nock an arrow, the mace wielder was on him again. It was all the sprite could do to keep out of the way of the swings.
Richter was knocking an arrow to help his Companion when his body was locked into immobility. Everything he could see had developed a purple tint, giving the world a surreal look. Just as importantly though, his health started falling at five points per second! From his vantage, he could see the air caster and one of the villagers guarding Hisako were also surrounded by an aura. Since everything was purple to him he couldn’t be sure theirs were as well, but it was a safe bet. That damn mage must have recovered from the spell backlash! At this rate he would be dead in less than two minutes. The villagers in even less time. Richter really hoped that they had invested the points from their leveling into Constitution. Without investing the points, they could be dead in twenty seconds!
Richter tried and strained, but he couldn’t break free. What was the duration on this damn spell? Twenty, forty, eighty health gone! And the pain! It felt like his muscles were being torn apart from the inside! He would scream if only he could. Worst of all though, was that he could see his people in the same spell. They couldn’t last much longer! And then, something amazing happened. Hisako finished casting her spell.
He had been wondering what spell would take such a long cast time. Richter wasn’t disappointed. Above her head a ribbon of gold light appeared stretching ten feet vertically into the air. It rotated clockwise began to form a window into a day lit realm. The area around the portal grew perceptibly warmer. It continued to spin until it was a perfect circle, the entire process taking no more than a few seconds. Through the hole in the air, Richter could glimpse endless fields of gold grass. They looked like the grasses surrounding the Hearth Tree, but whereas that was a small circular patch this was a plain that extended on into the distance. A figure emerged from the portal. Seven feet tall, the creature’s physique was astounding. Sculpted muscles were highlighted by tattoos that covered every area of exposed flesh. He was wearing a white sleeveless vest with a hood that was drawn up, hiding his face from view. Pants of the same color extended down to his ankles, and his feet were bare. On his back were two white wings that slowly flapped. They were longer than the man was tall when extended. In his hand, was a crystal sword that created rainbows when it refracted the light of the portal. Once he was out the summoning portal, he landed in front of the Hearth Mother. The light from the portal filled Richter with a sense of wellbeing.
