No matter how well the adventurers and Lupia could run, the Wind Wolves are much more efficient, and faster. So before we ran ourselves to exhaustion, we stopped at a spot that was somewhat defensible, a seemingly impenetrable wall of tangled vegetation and trees on three sides, coming together in a crescent to form a narrower chokepoint at the front.

Liz identified the mass of vegetation as containing plants called blood vines. “Nasty stuff,” she had commented, “brush past it and it’ll coil round you and crush your bones, sucking the blood from your veins with thousands of needle-like hairs as it does so.” So there was no way the wolves could get through it. I raised the question of a lack of escape route and was told there wasn’t any point trying to run any more. The only chance we had, according to Vyra, was “to make us not worth the wolves’ while to continue to fight.”

The adventurers discussed quickly, forming a basic battle plan, the three frontliners would occupy the chokepoint, Stone in the centre, Dranner to the right where he could swing his sword more widely, and Vyra to the left, Liz and Janet would provide support from behind, and Thora would heal anyone who got injured. Lupia, Tear, and I would stand at the back, out of the way. Everyone got to their positions, and we waited, tense. Even I’d was getting a bit concerned; everyone was hyping up the Wind Wolves to be some kind of incredible threat. Could they possibly take on an end-game Terrarian? I would only know once I’d seen them fight.

There! Movement!

Pale shapes slid amongst the trees, just out of sight, movements unnaturally smooth, almost ghostly, entrapping us in our position in an instant.

Only then did the wolves skim out from between the trees, riding on cushions of air between each contact with the ground, dragging a slight groove across the litter of the forest floor with a loud swoosh of wind. “Oh so that’s why their tracks look like that!” I exclaimed internally.

“It doesn’t look like there’re too many of them, we have a chance!” said Liz optimistically.

Then just keep prowling, not coming any closer.

“What are they waiting for?” murmured Thora, a slight frown on the dwarf’s face.

More wolves appeared through the trees, joining the few already facing us. The main pack had arrived.

“Reinforsssmentsss,” hissed Stone with unnatural calmness.

The largest wolf stepped forward, eyes glinting with malicious cunning as it observed us and the vegetation surrounding our position. Decision apparently made, it raised its head and howled. The wave of sound crashed over us like a physical blow, wind whipping at our clothing. Beside me, Tear fell to her knees, hand gripping her dragger, knuckles going white; Lupia stabilised herself against me with one trembling hand.

An arrow sprouted from the wolf’s throat, cutting the howl off abruptly. It choked, and batted at it with a paw, tearing it away. Blood stained its white fur, and it growled, a sound of pure malevolence rumbling through the air.

A distortion formed in the air in front of it, a blade of wind launching out a moment later, straight for Liz. Almost disdainfully, Dranner slashed it out of the air. The wolf’s growl intensified and an instant later, a dozen wind blades flew out of the trees. They were all scattered by sword, shield, and dagger before they reached their targets.

“Unleash your control over your auras!” Vyra instructed as the big wolf seemed to consider.

“What about attracting anything dangerous?” Liz queried.

“It’s already found us.” As though to illustrate his words, wolves rushed forward, leaping past the large wolf on cushions of air, closing the distance between us in an instant.

Just as they reached the frontliners, the wolves stumbled. A second later, 5 auras reached me, each more powerful than I had expected, definitely stronger than someone with only 100hp and 20mp.

The moment of distraction did not go unpunished; wolf blood sprayed, three died. But it was only a small victory, many more were lunging forward to tear Vyra, Stone, and Dranner to pieces.

As the sounds of claws meeting metal and metal meeting flesh filled the air, I relaxed back against the tree I was standing against and glanced down to Tear. I was shocked to see the young catgirl looking distinctly miserable, visibly struggling to breathe and shivering violently.

Lupia looked over as well. “Aura shock,” she said. “5 near-A-rank auras at once? Her aura can’t handle it.” The wolfkin noticed my obvious concern and shook her head. “Aura shock won’t kill. It’s just extremely uncomfortable; better than being eaten by Wind Wolves though.”

My fingers twitched towards the string of my yoyo, but was brought up short by Tear speaking.

“I’m fine.” she insisted, sounding very much not fine.

“You-“

“I’m fine!”

She forced herself back to her feet and stood trembling, her vibrant blue eyes fiercely locked with my silver ones, as though daring me to disagree.

I sighed. “Alright then. Just please tell me if it gets worse, ok?” She nodded and I turned my attention back to the fight.

We seemed to be doing well, the wolves had abandoned their tactic of leaping straight for us when Vyra, Dranner, and Stone noticed they couldn’t change direction easily and thus can be intercepted in the split second before they land. Now, instead of the rapid closing speed, they were highly manoeuvrable, changing direction mid-step with gusts of wind, darting around the adventurers, looking to attack out of their line of sight. But this was where our choice of position displayed its full importance: they couldn’t get round all three defenders without coming into contact with the blood vines, which they clearly shied away from after one wolf brushed past one with rather graphic results.

“We might yet come out of this alive,” Liz grunted, an arrow sinking to the fletching in the throat of a wolf with its jaws locked on Stone’s heavily armoured ankle.

That was when Dranner yelled a warning, turning and stepping away from his position in the front line after a wolf that had slipped past him and was charging for Thora. I seemed to see what happened next in slow motion. The dwarven priest, brought his mace, glowing with holy light, round into the side of the wolf, smacking it into the waiting grasp of a blood vine. At the same time, the large wolf leapt forward, crossing the distance between it and Dranner in an instant, its claws tearing through his armour as though it were tin foil, raking across his back, red blood drawn into the air in the claws’ wake.

Stone acted immediately, his steel-plated tail snapping round and impacting the wolf’s face with such weight the entire monster was thrown back with a yelp. A second later, a bolt of fire thrown by Janet engulfed the reeling wolf’s head, killing it instantly.

But the damage was done; the brief window of opportunity was not missed by the cunning wolves and they leapt for the throats of all three frontliners. Thora charged forward with a warcry to assist Dranner who was struggling to rise from the knee he had fallen to. Laying about himself wildly with his mace, the priest bought himself enough time to lay one glowing hand on Dranner’s back. Liz and Janet kept the wolves off him for a few seconds as the ragged gashes in the swordman’s flesh shrunk and closed.

As this was happening, the giant form of Stone was being forced back. Step by step, the armoured lizardman was forced to retreat from the chokepoint under the sheer weight of wolves crashing into his tower shield. Vyra followed suit, not willing to be surrounded by the vicious monsters. By the time Dranner was healed enough to stand and fight again, it was too late, they had moved too far back from the bottleneck. Now more wolves could engage them at once.

“Not much chance to survive now. We can only hope to get lucky.” Thora muttered, moving away from Dranner to the other side of Stone, healing both the lizardman and then Vyra. Wounds patched, the stocky dwarf took up position between Vyra and Stone, joining them at the frontline, a divine radiance glowing from around his mace.

It wasn’t going well. The wolves had much more room to manoeuvre now that the defenders were spread more thinly. The only advantage we had was that as soon as the wolves saw me they made a beeline straight for me, allowing the adventurers to predict their movements just a little better. Benefits of wearing aggro-increasing armour I suppose. On the other hand, the rate of spells Janet was continuously flinging was slowing down, and I’d just seen her down her third blue potion, and Liz only had a few arrows left in her quiver.

“Shit!” Liz swore. I followed her gaze to an absolutely huge wolf that had just stepped through the bottleneck together with a dozen wolves of a similar size to the one that had injured Dranner. A distortion formed in the air in front of each wolf, wind blades launching out a moment later.

Just in front of me, a wind blade caught Janet’s hood, pulling it back and leaving a bleeding red line across the cheek of the revealed face of a pretty but otherwise relatively plain young woman. I had a suddenly distinct feel of wrongness.

The wind blade of the huge wolf crashed against the tower shield of Stone, impact causing the armoured giant to take a heavy step back. I was certain I could feel the shock pass through the ground beneath me. But the tank held his ground, a low angry hiss escaping clenched teeth.

The huge Wind Wolf huffed angrily, a second wind blade forming in front of him. This one was sent flying at Dranner, who intercepted it with his sword. The damaged blade failed, snapping at the cut I left in it, the top half flying off over his head and into the blood vines.

The swordsman barely paused, only a brief moment of stunned silence, then hurling the handle at a Wind Wolf that was about to bite him, drawing and stabbing a dagger up under its chin, pinning its jaw shut. It fell on him, bearing him to the ground and attempting to claw him. The other wolves seized their opportunity to increase their pressure on the others, the huge wolf lunging forward in a blink of an eye, slamming down on Stone’s shield with a horrifying screech of claws on metal.

Liz, all arrows now spent, stepped forward, a dagger clutched in one hand, bow in the other. Lupia made to follow, quarterstaff in hand, but I stopped her with a tap on the shoulder. I was still leaning against the trunk my tree, Tear half crouched next to me, on guard with her dagger drawn and teeth bared, ears tall and tail puffed out, face still pale.

“So, uh, those ‘extenuating circumstances’ you were talking about in the town hall, would these be them?” I asked.

“What?” Lupia replied, with genuine confusion.

“Extenuating circumstances.” She still looked blank. “You know, when you said we wouldn’t step in to help fight unless there were extenuating circumstances. Does this count?”

“We’re going to die Lyte!”

“So I can fight then?”

“Please do!”

“Excellent.”

I calmly stood up and walked forward. I stepped past Stone and grabbed the huge wolf by the throat, dodging its attempts to bite me and batting aside its claws, forearm to foreleg. Lifting the huge monster off its front legs, I twisted, shielding myself from a lunging smaller wolf with the bigger beast’s body, and brought it crashing down, head slamming on the ground. It died instantly.

My hand whipped out, grabbing the tail of the wolf tearing at Dranner and hurling it into the small group harassing Vyra and Thora. A moment later, my yoyo, the Terrarian, one of the strongest weapons in the game, snaked out, blasts of green energy blasting off it and homing in on the monsters. Whenever the energy hit a wolf it just died. A second phantom yoyo appeared in rapid orbit round the first, this one also firing out green blasts.

The yoyo followed the wolves no matter how they tried to escape, zipping around trees and tearing the tangled mass of vegetation around us to shreds, blood vine and all, the string passing intangibly through all of it. All around, wolves yipped and yelped in brief panic and exceedingly brief pain.

Mere moments later and there was silence and stillness, both interrupted as a tree an energy blast had fired through slowly toppled over.

“When will I get a decent fight?” I sighed into the second silence.

Dranner just stared at me from where he lay, bloody chest heaving.