At first light, we gathered up camp and were ready to hit the road. I looked at Shamus and asked, "Are you ready for this?"

"Let's find this monster," he said with true grit and determination.

"Could you take us to what you found?" I asked looking at the pack leader.

He yipped at his pack and they headed out. We followed them and ended up hiking about a mile away and when they stopped and went into stealth mode, we did the same. The pack leader looked at me then quickly out in front of us.

"I think whatever they found is just ahead," I whispered to Shamus.

Shamus took the lead sneaking through the trees with me following closely behind. We peaked out through some brush and saw an orcish encampment with a large enough landing area for a van-sized dragon. There were about a half dozen orcs and at least double that in goblins. We moved back enough to strategize and tried to come up with a game plan.

I turned to the pack leader and asked, "Do you want to help us deal with these enemies? We are still allies either way."

He turned his head toward the encampment and growled a low, frightening growl. I guessed that the wolves disliked orcs and goblins more than I did. Shamus seemed to understand that the wolves were in because as soon as he heard that growl I could see a slight smile on his face and a plan growing in his head.

After a few minutes, Shamus was ready. He laid out a basic map of the encampment in the dirt using rocks and twigs. He let me know what he had thought up and I relayed the plan to the wolves. I didn't have much fear of them misunderstanding since their part was fairly basic.

"Once you see that we are in position you can begin your part when you see an opening," I said to the wolves. They quietly started to move to the other side of the enemy.

Shamus and I worked our way to a good overwatch position and waited. We were covered fairly well by trees on either side with enough room for us to stand side-by-side and still use our bows comfortably. This way you had to be in our kill zone in order to have a shot at us. The camp was laid out in almost a perfect square the one corner of the square abutting the mountainside with a cave mouth that was about 15 feet below us. Around the edges of the square were sleeping mats most of which were accompanied by a pack and a weapon. There was a cooking pot in the center of the encampment over a decently large fire.

After a few more minutes the wolves initiated the plan. I heard a bark from the far side of camp and a wolf pulled a loose blanket off towards the woods. When an orc ran over to grab the blanket back it put him right in our line of sight. Shamus already had his bow drawn and let his arrow fly. It struck the orc in the back of the neck and he went tumbling down and out of sight. The wolves were able to get five more of the enemies to fall for the same type of trick and each one went down with a sneak attack arrow. The kills were quiet and these enemies were not the smartest, but eventually, they realized that no one was coming back and the dozen that were left formed a defensive line outside of the cave mouth.

They all faced the direction the wolves were in since that's where they thought the attack was coming from. We figured on one of three options happening when they got wise. Either they would run out en masse to try and kill the wolves and recover what they could from the fallen, run into the cave for protection, or do something stupid like form a defensive line facing the wrong direction. We got lucky with them choosing option three.

I had told Shamus about my ability to imbue my arrows with the waterball spell and we incorporated it into this plan. The idea was really to use it to try and disorient them and that was the signal the wolves were waiting for so I started to imbue.

I put in 25 points of mana which was more than I had tried before, but I was confident it would work from what Mae had told me about arrowmancy. I pulled back the arrow and let it fly. It struck the ground right under the legs of an unfortunate goblin archer and a ball of water the size of a small sedan formed in a fraction of a second. The rapid expansion sent the goblin archer flying almost straight up in the air almost twenty feet and sent each side of the line flying away from the point of impact violently.

New Special Ability! x2

I was too distracted by the flying enemies to worry about the notice that had popped up and just put it out of my mind for now. The wolves flew into action and between their fangs and our arrows, all of the orcs and goblins that were in the camp were neutralized in minutes.

"That was impressive," said Shamus patting me on the back, "I've never seen a goblin go flying like that. Why don't you go loot the bodies with your special dimensional pocket thing while I cover the mine entrance?"

I ran down and started with the line that went flying and just hit "loot all" so it went quickly. Then a ran down to the ones that fell to our sneak attack arrows and did the same with them. I was able to collect all of the uncommon level arrows and stopped for a brief minute to see if I had found anything rare.

I sorted my inventory by rarity and found that the only thing I had found of any note was a couple of fireball scrolls. I really hoped that I would start finding some better loot soon. I heard a wolf howl and ran back up to the enemy camp. As soon I came to a point where I could see our firing spot my heart dropped and I was filled with sadness and guilt.

I saw Shamus' lifeless form being held aloft by a dragonlike creature that stood about 20 feet tall. The monster was staring right at me and the corners of its mouth turned up in an evil smile. It threw Shamus' body down on my side of the camp, but nearer the central fire. I ran over to the body and checked for signs of life finding none. I may not have known him long, but we had become fast friends over the last few days. I began to cry as knelt beside him. Why did I spend time looking at my stupid inventory? I should've been there to help.

The monster flew down to the ground level and started walking towards me. I saw the wolves over to the side growling at the beast and I yelled, "Run!" They chose not to listen and instead attacked in unison. The enemy made quick work of the wolves. He dug his massive claws into each one flinging them to the side as if they weighed nothing. None of them looked to be breathing.

The dragon refocused his gaze on me and continued walking towards me. I shot both fireballs at him in quick succession and he made no indication that anything had happened. He continued walking and I noticed that he was shrinking. By the time he was directly in front of me he was about 8 feet tall and looked like a humanoid dragon. I was frozen in fear and couldn't summon the will to move.

"Who are you?" I managed to ask the creature.

He reached out and grabbed me by the throat lifting me off the ground. "I was going to ask you the same question," he said squeezing slightly harder. He tossed me towards the cave entrance and I blacked out.