With dense mist shrouding our position, the initial ambush was broken, those precious first few seconds in which the ambushing force could unload on the ambushed, without fear of reprisal. The moments that it took to gather your bearings and wrap your head around what was happening, while your foes were already attacking, passed in silence. Of course, the mist meant that Sigmir, Rai and Olivia had little idea what was going on, other than Adra’s warning, and even Adra could only work with whatever had tipped her off.

But it was enough for her, maybe her annoyance motivated her to push her limits, and by the time I had created the misty cover and began linking up with Lenore for more information, she had transformed her spear into a bow, drawing it while infusing magic into the arrow. Thanks to Lenore, I could see the opponents and their movement, five humanoid figures moving in the underbrush above us, all of them equipped with either some sort of ranged weapon or beginning to radiate magic.

As I was watching, Adra's arrow shot out of the mist, towards the one that had moved first. She didn’t quite hit him, he managed to dodge by quickly dropping to the ground. But the arrow had merely been a carrier, the magic she had infused into it the real attack, exploding out in a burst of power, turning the arrow itself into magically forged shrapnell, akin to a grenade. The force was strong enough to shred their cover, likely injuring them in the process, while buying me time to prepare my own attack.

With the mist blocking the view of my Avatar, I had to either channel my magic through Lenore or estimate their position in relation to mine, by using Lenore’s vision and attack based on that estimation. Not wanting to exhaust Lenore by channelling Ice-Magic through her, I went with the second option, making up for the inaccuracy in aiming with a classical ploy. If you need to make an unlikely event happen, increase the numbers.

Instead of even trying to attack precisely, I condensed as much of the Astral Power still lingering in the mist around us, turning it into small, yet sharp, Icicles, launching them into their general direction. Dozens of sharp projectiles rained on our would-be ambushers, further decimating their cover, clearly indicating where they were hiding and taking away most of the mist around us, letting the others see clearly.

Our foes hadn’t been sitting idle, even if we had managed to break their initial plans by shrouding us in mist, they had been planning to ambush us and had been ready to fight. With my icicles hailing down on their position, they launched their own attacks, a spear, two arrows and a multitude of stones raining down on us. One of the spell-casters had obviously had a similar idea as I, if you can’t see your foe, simply inundate the area with attacks, a few will certainly hit. Only that their affinity was earth, or stone, showering us in gravel. Getting hit with rocks was not pleasant, even if a golden glow shrouded us, taking away a lot of their momentum.

For a moment, I paused, considering my next step. Sigmir was shrouded in her red aura, charging at the enemy with her Lok’nar and I noticed Rai had stepped into Adra’s shadow, using it to step out of another shadow, likely behind our foes. Seeing him perform in such a stable manner made me a little envious and annoyed at my inability but only for a moment. There was a time to be envious, namely once the battle was over and I could use my envy to motivate myself into figuring the ability out, not while there were enemies at hand.

My pause had the additional effect of making my next step clear when I realised that one of the enemies hadn’t acted yet, but was using their magic to infuse what remained of the vegetation around them, likely in an effort to influence the battlefield to their advantage, some sort of hindering or snaring effect.

“I’ll take care of the snares.” Olivia announced, just as I was drawing the first rune of a triangle designed to break their magic. Without time to consider, I simply ignored her, finishing the triangle just as she finished a chant on her own, golden light and an ominous, dark glow shrouding the area where our opponents had been hiding for a moment, washing away any and all magical effects, opening the field for Sigmir and Rai.

A smile formed on my lips as I realised that the ambush was only that, the enemies busy with defending against Sigmir and Rai who had managed to engage before their fighters had time to take up their melee-weapons after launching their earlier attacks. It was the disadvantage of equipping your frontline with ranged weapons as well, if the enemy was quicker to engage as planned, your frontline could be caught out.

Such was the case now, the magic that was likely supposed to buy them a moment was shattered under the combined onslaught of Oliva and me, allowing Sigmir to directly engage. Even worse, Rai had been able to engage from behind, after stepping through the shadows, announcing his presence with a vicious backstab, taking out the spellcaster who had tried to stone us earlier. Using magic after a pair of knives had ripped apart your internal organs was a difficult proposition.

With our foes' attention entirely focused on Sigmir and Rai, I decided that the correct cause of action would be to remind them of my existence. Focusing most of my attention on my magic, I slowly started to walk forward, as the flying shuttles of my Weaver’s Fury fanning out in groups behind me, almost akin to wings.

Gently waving my arms, the gestures allowing me to put just a little more power into the blades that followed the movement, the razor-sharp implements of frozen death shot towards our would-be ambushers, curving around Sigmir to distract and harass them into making mistakes. The shuttles themselves lacked the mass to cause serious damage, unless I managed to land a truly clean strike, but creating openings that Sigmir could exploit? That they could do.

And do very well, the instant they appeared, the dwarf that had managed to take up a shield and hand-axe and stand up to Sigmir for a few moments was distracted by glittering, flying blades coming for his side and hurriedly blocked them with his shield. But with the shield stopping the flying shuttles on his left side, his right side merely had his hand-axe to parry and the clash between hand-axe and Lok’nar wasn’t worth being called a contest, the massive, dwarven-reinforced Lok’nar easily smashing through the defense and ripping apart the dwarf’s torso.

Their frontliner gone, the already shaken formation crumbled to dust. The archer who had dropped her bow in order to ward off Rai in the back was getting distracted by the gurgling sounds of her team-mate, allowing Rai to force her short-sword wide and stab his second blade deeply into her gut.

At that point, the fight was essentially over but none of us was willing to take any chances, pressing the attack without hesitation. Another of the bandits, this one an orc with a club in hand, barely managed to ward off Sigmir’s attack but his stance was completely broken. A wave of my hands let the blades converge with him in the center, his inability to move in any meaningful way allowing me to skewer him through the openings in his leather-jerkin, causing blood to gush out as soon as I ripped the shuttles back out.

“No, no, no…” the last one was mumbling, his spear lying near his feet as he tried to back away, only for another one of Adra’s arrows to pierce through him from the side, nailing him against a nearby tree. As I felt the life drain from his body, I realised that we should have kept one of them alive, so that we could convince them to give up information regarding their base, their numbers and defenses but a quick check showed me that we had been remarkably efficient. None of their wounds was survivable, even with a combined effort from Olivia and me, trying to heal them back up. The closest to a survivor we had was the archer that Rai had stabbed in the stomach but when I looked closer, his attack had torn through the aorta, causing massive blood loss and trauma. Similarly, the one I had eviscerated with my frozen shuttles had his carotid artery severed, with some additional trauma but that was the big one. Again, no dice, unless I got to them within a few seconds.

“Bastards!” Adra snarled, as she walked up. From her stance, I could see that she was exhausted, the fight having taken a far larger toll on her than anticipated. Just before she got to us, she stumbled but Rai managed to catch her, before she hit the ground.

“Either by luck or cunning, they managed to strike just as I was almost out of Astral Power. I’ll need to rest.” she added, while Rai helped her into a more comfortable position.

“Rest, for now. We’ll check if they have anything of interest on them and you can look for tracks later.” I told her, after checking with Lenore, that nobody else was coming towards us.

“Did your quest track these kills?” Sigmir asked quietly, causing me to frown. Opening my quest-log, I realised that we still had thirty bandits and their leader to kill.