Ves'ra watched with interest as the humans vanished into thin air. Did they teleport? She told Arvog to fly a little lower and cast a spell that allowed her to see heat and lo and behold the humans were still there. The enemies retreated towards the south-west, so she decided to let them off with a small warning - an icicle directly next to their apparent commander.

She trusted Tes'va to handle the evacuation - they had been prepared for over a month now. With that in mind she decided to take the time to check on the main army, and perhaps leave a small ice-storm as a present before leaving herself. Arvog easily overtook the enemies below them, and they flew south - she doubted they could hide whatever army their attacks came from in the same manner as the smaller companies, so they ascended high enough to be mistaken for a bird - no need to tempt fate.

The main army was easy to find - they already left the forest and started ascending the pass. Ves'ra watched in fascination as the treacherous ground she passed a few months ago was flattened by the army's mages, continuing the road she could see snaking all the way through the forest, towards the horizon.

The human army looked a lot like ants, and she lacked the eyesight to see individual faces, but Ves'ra waited to see if someone would spot her - no one did, so she took control over the rest of the energy in her core - it grew to five times its previous size while living in the village - and unleashed a spell.

Ves'ra tested her storm-magic over the past months, whenever clouds hid the suns, and found out that using her energy to influence a storm was a lot easier than it should be. The impact her spells had pack five times the power of her magic when used directly, and this would be the biggest spell yet.

It was similar to the spell she used an hour prior, leaving out the lightning. It was perfect against single enemies, but not worth the cost against an army, especially because she had to shield herself and Arvog when in the air.

Half her energy went into the clouds, causing small shards unnaturally sharp of ice to fall down, while the other part went downwards, causing sharp whirlwinds to pick up around the human army.

She saw a ripple go through the army before her spell finished, so she turned Arvog around before they could be spotted.

She'd miss the impact of her spell, but her life was more precious. Either the humans didn't manage to spot her, or she was out of their range, so Ves'ra had no problem getting away from the army and returning towards the village.

Seeing the cave they lived in for the last few months was depressing, no kobold was left, the only sign of them the artificial caves and a single torch.

Originally Ves'ra planned to enchant herself a gate with the spacial-energy she extorted from the humans, but that turned out to be impossible - the energy was unable to do that!

Luckily they had a different mode of transport - Khu'va could do something similar, though the time spent in her shadow-realm increased with distance travelled. Moving through the whole mountain-range would take about seven hours, so she laid her claws on Arvog's back, activated the spell embedded into the keep and lit the torch.

Its fire seemed to leave the torch, so they followed the light to reach their direction.

---

Colonel Richards eyed the slowly forming road with appreciation. All was going perfectly, his two captains should clean up the monsters in a few hours, and join them tomorrow. He hoped Harrington would take Captain Wells seriously. The woman was an experienced commander, and the noble too reckless, too obsessed with glory - they'd make a fine team.

The feeling washed over the army like an approaching storm. He knew that feeling, it meant an archmage was getting serious. His soldiers felt it too - the huge amount of mana only grown core-mages possessed, used up in a single spell. When a whirl-wind picked up around his people and started knocking down soldiers, lifting tents and supplies into the air he knew they had a problem.

When the clouds darkened and ice began to fall he cursed. Colonel Richards watched in impotent rage as his regiment was torn apart by a storm of ice and supplies, all while he stood secure inside his enchanted command-tent.

---

Arvog and Ves'ra reached the temporary village roughly ten hours after they left the keep to its doom. She saw all the kobolds of her village, gathered in a forest clearing, their belongings around them.

"Everything ok?" She asked Tes'va.

"We are fine chieftain, some kobolds got wounded, but nothing I couldn't heal. The hatchlings are tired and will need a good night's rest before they can travel again, even with my support." She reported.

"Good, let's get a watch going and meet me here again." She commanded, walking over to her pack.

She searched for the next iron casing in her pack, before opening it and crushing the crystal within.

A cloud of energy formed above, and formed into an approximation of her head when she injected some energy within.

"They're coming, building a road through the pass. I left a small gift, but I doubt I saw more than a fraction of their army." She reported, before injecting energy again. The cloud compressed down to a fraction of its previous size, before shooting off somewhere north.

Tes'va joined her again just as she finished unrolling her map of the free cities on a table of ice.

"What do we do now?" Tes'va asked. Ves'ra gestured towards the map.

"What I have here is a map of the country we are in now. I'd suggest we move far north, in the forest of my birth." She explained.

"What would we do there?"

"Hunting obviously, the humans know of no other humans further north, so the deep forests should be filled with powerful monsters we can hunt and eat." She said.