Chapter 27

[Jule]

Jule was a hardened Mercenary, with more completed red-ink contracts than he really cared to count.

Contracts for coin, he would do the work. With his bow at the ready, and his dagger at the hip, Jule always found it didn’t much matter what manner of creature happened to be facing him. Whatever, it was: if he filled it with enough arrows, just about everything died, eventually. He’d killed monsters, people, and just about anything that might fall somewhere in between those two.

As such, Jule treated himself as someone who was ready for anything, anytime.

But, he had to admit: he wasn’t ready for half the wagon’s crated storage runes to start drowning him in a torrent of water.

Or for that water to actually turn into a fist, and punch him in the groin.

Repeatedly.

Even if, by some miracle, he had been mentally or emotionally prepared for these sudden events: Jule certainly wasn’t ready for something blue to fling itself across the room and latch onto his face. And then [HEAL] him into a semi-lucid, but mostly unconscious, state.

By the time Jule was back in the land of the living, it seemed that things had taken a turn for the worse.

“They’re fucking gigantic!” One of his most reliable men, Hulder, was screaming like a little girl, hiding behind what remained of a flaming wagon. Because, Jule realized, it was very much on fire.

Dazed as he was, Jule found this to be a particularly troubling sight.

What was so terrifying, that it could make a man take shelter behind a wagon that was on fire?

“Nothing’s working! We should have brought a fucking Mage!” Someone else was shouting. “Why the hell didn’t we bring a fucking Mage?” Climbing to his feet, hands blindly fumbling about for his bow, Jule turned just in time to see another wagon pitched into the air.

As if it weighed nothing, an entire wagon, just loftly tossed up into the sky.

Jule watched it, blankly. Unable to quite process the event until it finally touched down several paces away in a rain of splinters, and he found himself staring up a giant stone frog.

For, that’s what was standing before him.

A giant frog.

Three of his men charged it. Two with hammers, one with a spear- all completely ineffective, as the frog swatted away their weapons, like a stern adult might swat off angry children. Whatever minor chips and breaks in its body this motion earned it, quickly resealed with sand. Reforming, as if there had never been damage in the first place.

Slowly, the giant turned turned about, surveying the scene of chaos below. As the stone head passed his direction by, Jule thought he saw a somewhat familiar shade of glowing blue, seated atop it all.

THIS IS A ROBBERY.

The voice that boomed out across the field of battle came in unison with another wave of [HEALING] that was strong enough to staggered him.

YOUR PROPERTY IS FORFEIT.

There were more giant stone monstrosities.

Jule realized, much to his horror, that three more of them seemed to be embracing the destruction. Each was almost joyfully tossing his men about like ragdolls, as they plucked crates from the wagons. The stone frogs seemed completely unconcerned by what meager attempts were still being mounted against them. In fact, it almost seemed playful, the way they pushed his men aside, to throw wagons skyward.

“Twack!” A familiar sound of a crossbow drew Jule’s attention. Someone, off to the backside of the Caravan, managed to loose an arrow towards the main statue’s head, and was loading up another one.

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

The shockwave of the blast that returned fire singed off Jule’s eyebrows and set his coat on fire. Spots flaring in his eyes, Jule saw that in the distance, the wagon that had previous mounted a resistance was no more. Barely, he could see a figure dancing in the night, swatting at the flaming on their clothes as two others helped to stamp the flames out.

It was a scene of ruin. Whatever defense they could have hoped to muster- by trained Mercenaries, no less, was being utterly annihilated.

All around him, was complete disorder. Roaring animals, screaming men, stomping statues of giant stone frogs.

And one laughing kid.

Shell-shocked as he was, Jules turned towards that last, eyes wide. There, he saw the peasant passengers, cowering in fear- but their child: the damn brat was laughing!

Laughing- right at him, he realized. Fearless, they looked out upon the carnage from one of the only unharmed wagons left in the entire caravan, pointing directly at Jule, himself.

“He still smells, mister snake!” They shouted. “He stinks!”

“What?” Jule coughed.

“I think he needs another bath!”

WHAT'S THAT? ANOTHER?

A heavy rumble of footsteps approached.

Then, stopped.

In the looming shadow, Jule looked up at the faces of madness. One stone, of a warrior who knew only of duty, and justice. And, another, smaller- tiny even, of blue scales and violence in their eyes. Shaking hands took clumsy so even light it, Jule somehow got his pipe to his mouth, mindlessly puffing on the instrument as he looked up at death itself.

WHY, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT...

The voice was like thunder. Louder than thunder, as all around him, water began to form.

I THINK YOU'RE RIGHT.