(SUN, WAKE UP!)

I awaken to the smell of smoke. I jump up from my sheets, brushing Ma off of me. Completely sobered from my usual sleep-induced stupor, I burst from the front of the hut, brandishing the dead swordsman’s double-bladed longsword. The forest is burning. The nearby ents scream for relief, their branches ablaze, and assistance nowhere to be seen. Small animals skitter amongst the forest floor, searching for clean air to breathe. The night is illuminated by the inferno.

The fire was started towards the south, in the direction of Kralbed.

This area is only 400 meters into the forest from the south, so, likely, the fire has already made a decent distance toward us. I dash back into the hut. I throw my short bow and string into a bag alongside the sword, shoulder as many packs as I can, and pick up Ma. No time for thinking or hesitation. Both could get us killed.

Just as I think such thoughts, Ma starts to struggle in my arms.

(Sun, we can’t leave yet. There’s something I can’t leave behind.) She shakes free of my grasp, catching her fall with her knee and elbow. She crawls into the center of the hut and begins to frantically dig with the only hand she has left.

(We don’t have time for this! Whatever it is can’t be more important than your life. We have to go now!)

She doesn’t listen to me. After a few seconds, her fingernails scratch the top of a wooden object. She continues to dig around the sides. Wanting to quickly get this over with, I drop to my knees and help her dig. My assistance expedites the process, and we unearth a small wooden chest, barely big enough to hold anything. Not caring what it is, I throw it into the pink pack. I pick Ma back up and start to run.

Not even before I take a couple of steps, an enormous broadsword embeds itself in the dirt in front of me, the angle of its blade betraying the position of its owner on our far right. That thing was thrown? It’s fucking huge.

I turn to face my attacker. It’s a hulking mass of a man, easily two meters tall and nearly just as thick. His ragged black beard stretches down to his bare brown chest, which is scarred from numerous battles fought and presumably won.

“Where do ya think you’re goin'? Can’t just get away with pickin’ on the little ones, can ya?”, the hulk growls.

“No, I don’t think he can”.

A blonde-haired figure steps out from behind the man, a snake coiled around his thin frame. The snake hisses and lashes at the air in front of it, but shows no sign of attacking the man it hangs from. A summoner too, huh?

I grit my teeth. They’re here for me. These people don’t have any business attacking anything else living in this forest. Their experience should be too advanced for any sort of request made in this area. That means that they’re here on the basis of me killing at least one of their companions yesterday, and I somehow didn’t notice anyone tailing me. How could I have been so oblivious?

As if reading my mind, the summoner speaks up.

“Don’t fault yourself, boy. You did a good job covering up your tracks. There was hardly even a trace of blood left in that field. You lick it clean or something?” The summoner guffaws at his joke, if you can call it one.

He snaps and the snake opens its mouth. A distinctly familiar venom begins to drip from its fangs. The bottles.

“I know where any part of my summon is at any given moment. That includes the neurotoxins it secretes. After numerous attempts at convincing my little brother to line his sword with said neurotoxins, he finally agreed; only to be killed by a flesh-eating humanoid impostor. What a sick joke life has played on me.” His anger begins to rise, but he cools himself off. He’s aware that making an ill-advised move in this situation could be the difference between life or death. He opens his mouth to talk again.

“Please, let me introduce myself. My name is Joseph, just a humble summoner." He bows.

"Oh and this is Khan. I think his area of expertise is rather self-evident. He's also Anabelle’s boyfriend". He spins his finger around his head as if trying to remember something.

“The pink one”, grunts Khan, obviously not terribly upset at her loss.

“Right, the pink one. I figured he would want to come along”. Khan swings his broadsword in a backhanded diagonal slash, as if he had just been given his queue to enter the stage.

“She was my favorite. You’ll pay for what ya did.”

His grin grows wide and wicked.

“And so will that there lady”.

He charges, dragging his broadsword on the ground. The man howls as he closes the distance.

“RUN BOY, RUNNNNNNNNN!”

His steps are heavy, each sounding out a distinct thud as they crush the earth beneath them.

I ease my mother to the floor and draw my dagger. No time for my short bow this time. I look the hulk up and down. His reckless charge looks just like the axeman from before. I’m disappointed in the adventurer's lack of creativity.

“You people never learn, do you?”

I lean forward on my left leg, straining the entire lower side of my body. My right leg tenses and releases its strain.

“Why carry such a big sword if you’re just gonna drag it on the floor like that?”

Where I once was, a geyser of dirt erupts.

“Huh?”

I’m suspended in the air behind the brute, having already finished my cut. The man's head rises and falls, and the fastest trimming of a beard is complete. The clank of broadsword on pebbles and the crunch of a huge body into equally dead leaves. Yet another unlearned man falls, only bigger.

The summoner is unfazed. While I’m still stuck in the air he sics his serpent on me, fangs threatening a quick death. Knowing that I have no option of dodging the attack, I flex my body into a rotation. My back creates enough torque for my legs to whip over my head and strike down in an arc.

My timing is correct and my heel connects with the top of the serpent’s head, shutting its mouth and crushing its skull into the ground. I land unbitten, but there is no time to relax. Two more serpents of identical form are already on me, forming a pincer attack. It’s too high. I duck, and the serpents’ heads overlap where my chest once was. As I return to a standing position, a single rising slice of my dagger severs the heads of both creatures. Focusing on my vision, I see that the summoner is now mid-spell. I close about half the distance to him before he finishes his chant.

A crocodilian head spouts from the ground, snapping at the air and cutting off my line of attack. It struggles to free its body from the dirt. Two arms and a torso emerge before I realize that it has a humanoid figure. A single scaly leg steps out onto even ground, leveraging the rest of its lower half out. Its body is covered in a hardened green scale which shines bright even with little light, and it grasps a long spear in its right hand. I peer past the creature and see that the summoner is fully spent. This is his last-ditch effort then.

The crocodilian assumes a traditional spearman’s stance. This confirms all I need to know about its intelligence. I taunt the summoner, thoroughly angered at this point.

“How funny that you humans are of no true skill, so you call upon a monster that has such talents. You would have us kill our brethren before killing us yourself. Such cowardice”.

The summoner pays me no mind and motions his hand at his new servant. The crocodilian slowly stalks toward me.