Chapter 9

Four people, covered in dirt and sweat, were running across the forest while being chased by a pack of hungry looking Dire Wolves. One of these four was a woman, clad in a full set of plate armour and carried a longsword in her hand. One of her companions, a man who was wearing leather armour and holding a bow, yelled to her while he ran “Elena, I told you we shouldn’t have taken this job. There is a good reason why people don’t come to these woods.”

“Stop your whining Peter and keep running.”, Elena told him between heavy breaths. They managed to run only a short while before their escape was stopped by an old stonewall covered in moss and vines

“Shit!” she exclaimed while looking at the wall. “We might as well make our stand here. Garon, raise high walls around us, make sure that there only one entrance, we need to try and funnel them inside. Peter, you get a top the wall behind us, that should give you the best view to shoot your arrows, I will stay here with Flint. The plan is to kill them one or two at a time.” The group moved at her command, trusting in Elena´s plan.

Their spellcaster, Garon, started to move his hands in an intricate pattern while chanting his spell. He tried to finish his spell before the Dire Wolves reached them. Elena knew he was no slouch when it came to magic, in fact, he was fourth circle mage, so his skills were well above the average. She had always been proud to have him as part of their group, even if he was a half-elf. Knowing that the main reason why he stayed with them was the fact that he had a crush on her, but she didn’t mind. In fact, Elena encouraged his behaviour before in hopes of keeping Garon with them longer.

After a few seconds, the ground started to shake as Garon finished his spell. Two feet thick and fifteen feet high walls made from earth began to rise around them. Elena gave Garon a quick nod of approval before turning back towards the direction of the incoming Dire Wolves. Four wolves, about the size of horses, came running towards them. The wolf who was leading this little hunting pack started to run faster is it saw Elena and her companions, clearly wanting to be the first one to sink its teeth in her.

Elena took a ready stance while holding her longsword in a two-handed grip, preparing to meet the Dire Wolves charge. But before the first wolf could reach her, an arrow from Peter’s bow struck it, between its shoulder plate and the wolf stumbled to the ground. It wasn’t dead, based on the loud whining growl it was making, but at least it would take a few moments before it would start attacking them again. The second wolf quickly jumped over its fallen comrade and quickly reached Elena, who in a blur of motion stepped to the side of the charging wolf, striking a long and deep gash to its side when she did so. Simultaneously, Flint came up from the other side and hit the wolf on the head, with his heavy two-handed maul, felling the beast.

The whole fight took only a minute or so, but both Elena and Flint still managed to gather some bruises and scars. While Garon was bandaging the two warriors, Peter was climbing down the wall and said “Guys, there is a whole city behind that wall, it looks to be in total ruin. Does anyone know what this place is?”

“There were few books in the Academy, that talked about a lost city of the Rodan Empire, located somewhere in the Great Forest. But no one has been able to confirm that, like most of the knowledge concerning. I have never heard of anyone going this deep into the forest and surviving to tell about it.” Garon said to the group while tending to Elena’s bruises.

“The Rodan Empire? I thought that was just a myth you mages liked to toss around to scare little children” Flint muttered between his gritted teeth as he was applying a healing salve to his wounds.

“ It is not just a myth” Garon answered. “ It is in fact very real. As you know from the stories, Rodan Empire and their mages ruled over all of this continent with an iron fist. There are stories of the Empire mages being able to take down adult dragons single-handedly, and then there is the legend of Hadrax. If this city belonged to them, the Academy will want to know about it.” He said as he finished up bandaging Elena.

“Be that as it may, we are here on a mission to find the girl and take her back,” Elena told the group. “And nothing will stop us from accomplishing our mission. Garon, cast another location spell to see what direction she went.”

Garon gave Elena a nod, before taking a small bottle, filled with few drops of blood, out of his backpack and quickly cast a spell. After the spell was done, Garon said. “She is somewhere on the other side of this wall.”

“Okay, let’s go before any more monsters catch our scent,” said Elena while she stood up. And the adventurers started to head towards the ruined city.

Garon was still concentrating on his location spell, when they saw a long streak of melted cobblestone, crossing the ancient street. The group stopped about a hundred feet away from it, and Elena motioned for Peter to go ahead and scout the area. After a few minutes, rest of the group heard a sharp whistling sound, coming from the alleyway where the line of melted rock seemed to start from and saw Peter motioning to them that it was safe.

“I didn’t find any obvious threats around. Just a few empty nests of some large lizards and these.” He said pointing a few charred bones in the middle of the melted line of rock “What or whoever did this, I can’t say, but this looks like it was made by magic. I have certainly never heard of any kind of creature that could have done this, except for dragons maybe.”

“I concur,” Garon said “If this was done by casting a spell, it must have been at least fifth or sixth circle spell. We need to be really careful if we meet someone who is able to cast spells that powerful, I won’t be able to stand against them for long.”

Elena let out a sigh and said “If we meet anyone else here, we won’t be starting a fight. Unless it is vital to the success of our mission, I don’t feel like getting burned alive today.”

The group continued on their search, following Garon’s location spell. It wasn’t long until Garon motioned everyone to stop and pointed to a ruined house only fifty feet away. All of them took out their weapons and got ready to confront their prey. As they were creeping closer, Flint accidentally stepped on a dried twig, which let out a sharp snap as it broke under his foot.

They saw a small figure running out of the ruins and quickly gave chase. “Don’t let her escape!” Elena yelled as she started to run. The small figure was darting between ruined houses and alleyways. After a few minutes, the girl ran into a large courtyard surrounded by a grumbled wall. They were only thirty to forty feet behind her now and quickly closing the distance.

While they ran right behind the girl, almost catching her. They saw a man, wearing a white toga, appear right in front of her, so close that the girl didn’t have time to stop or change her path. She ran straight into him and with a loud thud, they were both knocked off their feet. Elena’s group stopped on their tracks, gawking at the strange man, as he was slowly standing up while rubbing at his backside.

“Ouch, that is going to leave a mark,” the man said before noticing them and continuing with” Uum… Hello?”