Chapter 28: Hunting Season

Rope, tight. Spring, locked. Blade, sharp. Trigger, ready.

Tobias covered the blade with a few leaves, and with a final inspection to see if his contraption was obvious and easily seen (which proved to not be the case, fortunately), he stood up from the ground. The tripwire was somewhat too low to ever be stepped on, unless one was truly unlucky, or one was occupied otherwise. And the wooden components only made it blend in much better.

He patted his knees, and clapped his hands together to dust away any dirt that might have clung to them. Releasing a short sigh of relief after maintaining such steady hands for a long while, he looked up at the sky. The sun was starting to sink into the horizon, and even with the summer days extending sunsets, he knew that it was already evening.

He looked over the forest trails. It appeared to be completely normal as usual, but he knew that he had set crippling traps over the place. If Stella and Bastille were to be believed, he knew that he needed this much leverage, especially against a group of hooded rogues who followed Verbantt Elreich’s commands.

Wait... Verbantt...? Where did he hear that name before...? The forests around him and the name provoked a reaction... but he can’t quite remember. Well, if he couldn’t remember, then it wasn’t important right?

No matter. It was time to go. He lowered his hood, and in combination with the looming darkness overhead, he knew that his face would be concealed by the shadows. His sword was exceptionally made, but it lacked any notable descriptions that would give away his identity, and not mention, he would be using a dagger in combat as well.

It would be impossible to link the Rogue to the Soldier Marcus, because no one knew that he could use a dagger in his off hand, after all. (And that he was ambidextrous, but nobody seemed to know that.)

He chuckled to himself. Would Marcus be content with using underhanded tactics to deal with these sorts of foes? Of course not.

While he was trained for this, this was also his first time fighting with live, deadly weapons against other people. Well, it didn’t matter. Magnus told him that as long as he was fighting, then he should try to stack the odds as much as possible in his favor – so that included his traps.

He cleared away his thoughts, and walked towards a nearby tree, hiding himself behind it. The natural shadows, and his own dark gray coat naturally provided him more than enough camouflage.

And – there. Within the shadows of the forest, there was a light source. He kept most of himself hidden, but he peeked slightly. The man who held the torch wore a dark, hooded coat much like himself, and from the description given by his party members, then they fit the description.

He walked towards him slowly, incredibly mindful of his steps. He kept his profile low, and when he was close enough, he only watched the man walk about, with torch in hand.

Well... what was he supposed to do now? Should he simply kill this man, who might not have been part of who ambushed his party, but simply involved in the act? No, Stella had already told him what he needed to do.

Capture and detain, and if that was impossible, then kill them off.

Somehow, the word was easy on his mind. It didn’t quite linger in his mind, heavily shackling him down with its moral violation, and its consequences. Yes, he had understood what would happen if he kills a person, but at the same time it was just... inconsequential to him.

The storm inside of him still wanted its revenge, after all.

No time for any more thoughts. It was time to move. He held rope in his hands, and crept silently towards the hooded man. When Tobias was in range, he stood up, swiftly draped the rope over the hooded man’s neck, and started to strangle him.

“Hrk! What are... you doing...!?” The hooded man choked out, and started to struggle against him. If he was still able to talk, then Tobias wasn’t doing it properly, right? So he pulled the rope even harder.

“Gck...!” Tobias grunted, right when the man elbowed him in the side. Again, and again, and again. “Kah... Just pass out already...!” He groaned, trying his best to ignore the elbows landing against his sides. His grip never let up, and eventually, the man he had been strangling stopped struggling, and stopped elbowing him as well.

Tobias let the man fall down with a thud. He brought his hands to his sides – it throbbed with vibrant, fresh pain, which dulled after a few moments of respite. It was a minor miracle of sorts that none of his internal organs had been hit directly, and his ribs were durable enough to withstand the repeated punishment.

But... it was only expected that he would be fine. Those elbow blows were nothing – Magnus was one hell of a puncher, after all.

“You there!” A voice came out from his right, and it revealed another similarly hooded man. His hooded head turned towards the ground, and finding the unconscious body, he only unsheathed his sword. “Traitor!”

Tobias had unsheathed his sword as well. With both hands holding it, he only stared down the man who had found him.

It was tense. Nobody moved for moments.

And suddenly, the man moved first. He rushed towards Tobias with an overhead strike, and he blocked it with his sword. The swords generated a loud, sharp clang when they met each other. Tobias had to step back when the man swung his torch towards his torso, before he parried another strike in that instant.

Torches were weapons too, after all.

In the next breath, Tobias withdrew his dagger with his left hand, and simply opted to use his right hand for his sword.

The man hesitated.

Tobias did not.

He charged forwards in a lunge, his sword being blocked at the last second with another sharp clang. Then his dagger came from above, digging into the man’s right shoulder.

“Fuck!”

Tobias did not let the man recuperate from his injuries. He pressed on, now that his opponent’s sword arm was weakened. Each strike was met by a weaker block. But he only struck harder the next time.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Tobias knew that he had been taught how to fight with a sword, but he knew that he could disarm his opponent with pure, unrelenting physical force. His heart pounded over his ears, as he desperately only sought out victory. Each strike was a strike of full force to sunder his opponent’s defenses.

And finally – the man let go of his blade. The pain in his shoulder must have gotten to him and forced him to drop it. Tobias stepped forwards and pointed his blade towards the man’s throat. “Surrender.”

Slowly, the man raised his arms above his head.

But right when he did, Tobias felt a sharp pain jolt through his left hind leg. And in that next instant, the man in front of him swept his legs out, and Tobias lost balance, as he fell to the ground –

“GAH...!”

It was painful. But that was an understatement. The sharp pain behind his leg doubled – no, tripled in intensity as he landed on his backside.

With a dazed gaze, he saw that his fall had only made the throwing knife sticking in his hind leg dig deeper. He let out strained breaths as he tried to suppress the pain as much as he could, and lifted his leg. He briefly cast his gaze behind him.

The hooded man he had choked... he was already conscious again. And his outstretched hand only proved that he had thrown the knife.

Tobias let out a pained hiss. It really wasn’t good. He was outnumbered, and to say that his left leg was covered in pain was a massive understatement. The hooded man that he had been fighting walked up to him, and raised him by his collar to meet him face-to-face.

At that distance, Tobias had seen the man’s face, and the man had seen his face.

The man’s face dawned with mild shock, maybe at the fact that he expected his aggressor to be much older. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, kid.” He growled.

“Don’t... have to tell me twice.” Tobias bit back.

His fingers were shivering from the pain, but they were still responding to him. He slid his fingers towards his throwing knives, and with a swift, practiced draw, he thrust the serrated knife towards the man’s throat, even as the knife’s handle dug against his palm.

“Ghrk!” The man dropped to the ground, clutching his throat which had a serrated throwing knife stuck in it. He was left to drown in his blood, if nothing else.

Tobias was dropped, and he knew to turn to the side this time. But he had no time to recover – the crunching of the dirt only indicated that the other hooded man had already begun walking to him. It was inevitable. The pain on his left calf made his vision ebb and flow, and everything seemed a bit too bright to him.

He felt that he was going to die. There was nothing he could do. His sword and daggers laid in the distance. His left leg wasn’t functioning properly.

“You cheeky brat.” The hooded man who threw the knife at him said, stepping closer towards him. “I’ve seen you before. You’re the guy with the party, right?” Another step. “You know, the girl was really cute.” Tobias turned to glare at him. “Too bad our boss was around to stop me from doing what I wanted.” He was only five steps away from Tobias now.

Tobias’ focus sharpened, and the shades of white burned away. “What... did you just say?” His hands went towards the knife embedded within his left calf, and with a subdued howl, he yanked it out, blood spraying from the blade. He knelt with his left knee, and pushed himself upwards with a hiss of breath.

Now that he was close... Tobias could see that the man was using a sword. His fingers moved swiftly to retrieve his remaining throwing knives, and he knew that he was heavily disadvantaged.

Four steps remaining. “You had a chance to walk away, kid. You weren’t even involved in the attack, but you still got yourself in this trouble.” Three steps remaining. Tobias held his knives with each hand, and raised it. “But no, you decided to be a hero to try to crack our case down. Don’t hold anything against me, kid. Your party will die, and that girl will be fun, once I’m done with you.”

Two steps. And then – the faint of sound of string snapping could be heard. The trap was triggered – the spring-like branch swung from the sides of the base of the tree, and in its middle was a blade. It met against the man’s hind calf, and repaid Tobias’ pain more than tenfold.

“FUCK!” The man immediately collapsed to the ground, kneeling in pain as his calf was still stuck to the scythe-like branch of pain. “YOU FUCKING SHIT!” He could not move – the blade dug deeply into his calf, and emerged from his front leg, bloodied and wickedly sharp. Blood leaked in gushes from his leg, as he only shouted profanities filled with pain.

Tobias only limped towards the suffering man. His trap was... too cruel, too vicious. But one cannot deny that it was simply effective at its job. His hands held his throwing knives – but they were knives, were they not? And without any more hesitation, he brought them down to end the man’s suffering.

After all, Tobias knew how painful it was to have one’s calf obliterated by bladed impact.

He sat down, and let a pain-filled breath out. He raised his trousers to see how gruesome the damage was to his calf. It was almost nauseating – but it wasn’t because of the injury; it was the way it throbbed in deep pain.

Well... there was a reason why Adventurers carried Healing Potions, did they not? So his shaking fingers moved towards his pouches, and withdrew a vial of blood-like liquid. With his other hand, he removed the cork, and downed it with one go.

The fruity, yet bitter taste of herbs brewed in magic worked quickly to seal and heal his wounds. The injury throbbed lightly with pain, and it would definitely leave a scar later, but for now it was good enough to not impair his mobility.

Well... he was already running behind schedule. He was supposed to already suppress two areas, but he had only been held up by these two rogues. He pushed himself upwards again, and collected his throwing knife stuck on the man’s throat, and the sword and dagger discarded in the nearby ground.

...

There was no more time for mercy. No time for hesitation. He simply wasn’t strong enough to capture his opponents without anyone dying, after all. If he wasn’t lucky with his trap, then he would have already died.

Without even looking back, he trudged to another mapped area, sword and dagger drawn and carried by hand. There was a letter-like symbol in the middle of the ground, near the man killed next to the trap.

Stella’s area sound suppressing Hexes was nothing but a mixed blessing this night.

***

“Guhh!” Tobias’ sword pierced through the hooded man’s back into his front side, before he slit the man’s throat with the dagger by his left hand. Without any more motions, he let the dead body drop to the ground, the body slicing against his sword in the process which drew even more blood.

There was no time to wipe the blood off his weapons. He only gave each blade a flick, and trudged forwards, his instincts and memory flaring to warn him of the trap hidden in the ground. He carefully stepped over the mostly hidden string, and moved towards the next area.

If one carefully looked at the forest floor that night, one could see the splatters of dripped blood stains, forming a trail.

And if one followed such a blood stained trail... It would only lead to corpses of hooded men.

And if one followed the trail of corpses... It would only lead to a man touched by Death, claiming more lives in its name.

Tobias had begun to move towards a newer area, when the letter-like symbol which bound itself next to his ear glowed, and a voice from it emerged.

“Rogue, I need you to assist me in the Central Forest Area.” It was Stella’s voice, and her urgent, hushed voice only confirmed that she most definitely needed help.

Right after she had finished speaking, he felt the symbol slowly peel away from his skin, before it was engulfed in flames; its power, consumed for its purpose.

And with new objective in mind, Tobias began to sprint into the forest, his sword and dagger only dripping blood stains behind him.

***

“Rogue, I need you to assist me in the Central Forest Area.” Stella whispered, right as the communicator rune burned away, having used up its stored power. “You sure made yourself such a pain to find.” She said, as her dark hood and porcelain mask only kept her identity hidden. A hex planted in her throat only modified her voice to become ambiguous and genderless. “But now, I’ve found you.”

“Interesting.” The man who wore a golden-laced, black hood intoned, his own face hidden by the shadows. “I can assume that you must be the one who set off my Forbidden Hex.”

“You’re correct.” She replied, and she raised her right hand to snap her fingers. Glowing runes of power emerged from the ground around them, and seemed to almost surround the night sky with a blinding array of white runes. “Now, I command you to surrender.”

The Warlock named Verbantt Eldreich only laughed to himself, cackling madly as his hands met his face. “You really think... you can just command me to surrender?”

“I have loaded this place with my runes.” Stella intoned. “And you are a Warlock, are you not? You surely know what that means.” In response, the man only brought out a grimoire from his robes. Stella’s eyes widened as she realized what he was holding.

“Have you gone mad...?”

Grimoire Schwarz. A fabled, cursed book said to be granted to those who sold their souls to the Devil itself... And this man in front of her had such cursed artifact...

Verbantt shrugged. “My Soul, or limitless power. I think the answer is simple.” And with that, demonic power surged through the book, and sent a dark curse towards Stella.

There was no technicality in that fight. No strategy, no predictions involved, Stella noted with a bitter click of her tongue.

There was no rune to counter the Warlock’s rune, to dispel, to block, or to ward off their effects.

Because the only thing that could match a Devil-dealt Grimoire... Was pure, unrelenting power.

Stella’s runes glowed to the point where if a person saw the countless inscriptions and symbols hovering in the air, they wouldn’t be blamed if they mistook such sight and thought that they saw a countless number of suns in the night sky.

***

Tobias’ dagger was bound against the hooded man’s sword, and with that opportunity, he lunged forwards into a fatal thrust towards the man’s chest.

The blade met flesh with a meaty chunk, as he angled his sword so that it would slip past his ribs, and the man’s life will cease to be in a few more moments. Tobias withdrew his sword, while his chest heaved with great breaths.

He leaned against a tree, panting for a few more seconds to regain his bearing, before standing and sprinting off towards the destination he was instructed on.

That was when light surged towards the night sky, forming a beacon of darkness-stained light.

It looked ominous, if nothing else...

So he sprinted faster.

***

“Oh, oh, what’s this.” The twisted grin on Verbantt’s face only moved to speak, as he looked at Stella with an insanity-induced curiosity. “Dark Curse wasn’t able to touch you?”

“Of course not.” Stella only replied, with steeled determination in her voice. “I told you, that as of right now, this area is my advantage.”

“That means I simply have to break through it, does it not?! Kahahahaha!” The demented Warlock raised his book again, and demonic power crackled through it, flipping its pages as manically as its owner.

Stella raised her hand, and the glowing runes in the air responded to her will. The runes surged with power, as each of them fired blast after blast of pure light. But dark, purple lightning only thundered from the book, and each arc of lightning shot down a blast of light.

The runes in the air fired barrage after barrage, and eventually, it only kicked up dust in the air. When the dust cleared itself, Verbantt was only standing there, with a bored expression on his face.

“Is that really all you’re able to do?” He asked, then his lips turned into a manic grin. “Oh, I know. Now that you’ve used up your turn, that would only mean it’s my turn, right?”

Even if he had asked, he was already moving. Corrupt lightning gathered above the book, and Stella felt the air turn very, very wrong. Her hands moved to direct the runes to protect her from whatever the Warlock came to do. The runes formed a wall of white light, shielding her from whatever came next.

“Nightshade Thorn!” The book projected forth a shadow-like tendril filled with thorns, and it crashed against the shield of light with a harsh, grating noise like nails grinding against a chalkboard. Stella winced at the noise, while Verbantt only let out another cackle. “Oh, oh! Your runes can withstand against that, I see. Well then, it looks like I’ll have to be serious, myself.”

Not on her watch. Stella raised her hand again, and the runes shifted in preparation to attack. If she was any Mage of sort, she would have called this attack as ‘Piercing Light’; for a grand, destructive wave of light formed itself, the very earth itself being scorched as it traveled through the air, headed towards the Warlock.

“Rising Eclipse!” And in response, the book projected a beam of twisted, corrupted purple light which withered the very grass below it as it was launched forwards.

Both beams met – light and corruption. But instead of clashing against each other meaninglessly, the corrupted light beam swirled around the beam of pure light, before both beams soared towards the skies. The pure light traveled straight as can be, and the corrupted light swirled around it. And eventually – the beam of pure light exploded into a miniature sun, while the corrupted light only served to cover it, except for the very edges.

It was, indeed, an Eclipse, however artificial.

“Magnificent...! Absolutely Magnificent...!” Verbantt cackled to himself, as he stared up at the sky with pure amazement which could only belong to children in his face. “I didn’t expect Rising Eclipse to be this beautiful...!” Then his cackling stopped, and turned towards Stella. He seemed to stare at her very soul. “And it’s all thanks to you... Oh, how could I ever repay you for such a beautiful sight...? Oh, I know...!”

Stella’s skin tingled. She shifted her runes to protect herself once more, and with a click of her tongue, pushed their defenses to their absolute maximum.

“You, who rule over the depths of Hell.” Verbantt began, his voice ominously lacking its unsettling cackle, and was much lower, much deeper than his normal voice was.

Stella’s eyes widened. What sort of Warlock chanted?!

“And I, who belong in this world. I have summoned you once, and I will summon you again. Fight for me, Devil of the—Gah!”

Marcus was behind the Warlock, his sword plunged behind his back. But the book had reacted swiftly – a tendril of darkness only prevented his sword from digging any deeper than a moderately deep wound at best. It wasn’t crippling, nor life threatening in any sort.

And another tendril had risen to strike him down. But Marcus only let the sword go, and hopped backwards to avoid the tendril which pierced through the earth.

“That’s annoying.” His flat voice intoned, as he stared at the tendrils which surrounded the Warlock.

“Kahahaha... Another person wants to join in our party...” Verbantt let out a cough of blood, staining the ground. “Well then... who am I deny you fun...” Tendrils began sprouting out, and eventually, there was a point that even Tobias felt sweat drip down his forehead as he tried to count them.

A mad cackle in the air, before the Warlock froze. Then he carefully peered within his book, and let out a thoughtful hum.

“Well... somebody I personally Hexed just died... Truly, truly sad.” He drawled slowly, as if it was a bitter shame. Then his face contorted into a grin, and he raised his arms. “Well then! Her soul is but a banquet for my Master. And when there’s a banquet...”

The Warlock smiled – a smile so ominous, it sent chills through Stella’s spine.

“There’s a feast. So let the feast begin!”