Kadin brought his horse to a gallop as he made his way out of the small town – there had been more than the four people at the table earlier on in the night why had only four attacked him? – he was in no mood for a second attempt to kill him – especially as the people who had tried to kill him were

stronger than most humans, didn’t die no matter how many times you killed them and that could explode with enough force to bring down a building, from his experience Kadin had a working theory that these people were already dead and had been possessed that would explain the minimal blood loss due to decapitation, also why they were stronger than most races – especially if they were possessed with demons rather than reanimation magic – but on the up side .. at least for Kadin as they were already dead the tended to move slower making it easier to parry and dodge incoming attacks ... that is until he sensed people ahead then a split second later caught the flash of a arrow – he had less than a second to throw himself flat on the horse and heard the whistle as the arrow passed just missing his head, he pulled the horse to a stop and threw a spell barrier around him as he looked for the source, he also expanded his mental mana to search for any hidden foes, his search was not a long one a couple of carts had been flipped on there sides blocking the road just after a turn by a crops of trees , an archer stood on each cart and in front of the carts were another six men, Kadin turned the horse to the side and flipped of it giving the horse a light slap on the flank it sauntered into the nearby grass land and began to graze, putting a hunch to the test Kadin turned towards the men blocking his path, the archers had already knocked and drawn there bows – when Kadin heard the twang of the bow strings he just soot there – he made no effort to block or dodge either of the arrows – they both impacted his shield a hand width out from his chest, there was a slight ripple from the impact and the arrows fell harmlessly to his feet. Theory paid off – they don’t seem to be fully possessed yet they were still human and did not have any enhanced strength or magical effects that’s when he thought to himself ‘OK, great.... now what?’ having another rash thought Kadin decided to toss the dice. He held up both hands to show he did not have a weapon drawn and shouted.

“Wait! .. just tell me where he is?” Kadin was surprised to see one of the six men on the ground take a couple of steps forwards, he held a large wooden club with several metal nails sticking out at various angles at its head other than that he seemed like a typical farmer, Kadins hopes raised as he thought he might not need to fight his way out, that is until the man spoke.

“You killed ma brothers!” then screamed in rage as all six men began to charge forwards with the two archers already sighting in on him again. Being more prepared this time around as soon as the men charged Kadin drew two throwing knifes in to each hand and imbued them with a large amount of air and fire mana then in two quick flashes of his hands he sent the four blades forwards – his targets being the archers each archer took a blade in the lower stomach and through the neck a second later Kadin’s enchantments kicked in and a firey explosion blasted both bodies to a ruined mass of gore.

Turning his focus on the remaining six who were quickly closing the distance, crossing his swords again he imbued them with air and earth magic, this time when he slashed his blades forwards a visible ripple flew through the air, which hit three of the charging me. This attack didn’t pierce or burn but instead hit with a kinetic force that hit so hard that all three men were thrown back a good thirty feet before tumbling over a couple of times and coming to a stop, they would be a little dazed but would be quickly back in the fight, readying himself Kadin crouched into an impossibly low stance with one arm held out in front of him with the blade held horizontal at eye level and the other arm back and up over his head with the blade pointing down - the stance of the scorpion. When they were almost in melee range Kadin acted, he sprung forwards in a blur of speed as he moved he charged each of his blades with the same mix of Fire and Air as he did the throwing knifes,

his back hand blade swung forwards and down an attacking scorpion, his blade entered through a neck penetrating down through heart and lungs, in the same motion his other hand had swung back and up and the scorpion stung again hitting another man in the same way, leaving his swords in the two men Kadin used his momentum to carry him past the last man and turn to the side slightly to keep all his attackers in view, as he did this he also drew Auroras twin elf blades from his back as he drew them the elfin enchantments activated and to Kadin it seemed the movement of his attackers slowed and his own body felt lighter and quicker as his speed, agility and strength were all boosted by Auroras enchantments. The three men on the ground had been picking themselves up and the other man was staring in shock at his brothers who each had a sword through their bodies, for a half second everything was quite then Kadin’s spells kicked in, the two men still with a look of semi confusion as their brains processed the fact they each had a sword sheathed in there bodies never had a chance to finish the thought, a wet smacking sound emanated as they fell to the ground in two slushy puddle of intestine, bone and blood. Giving the other attackers no chance to recover Kadin sprung forwards again, a quick flash and the closest man’s head fell to the ground another quick three flashes of elfin steel removed the mans arms and legs as the torso fell to the ground Kadin could see the green glow start to expand from the severed neck and arms, charging power into his legs he channelled a power enhanced kick at the torso vaulting it to the road barricade, he quickly cast a weak but large shell across the road not as any kind of protection but to dampen the noise just as he cast he felt more than heard the explosion rumble through his feet, not being confined to a small room anymore Kadin saw the blast, a giant green fireball at least fifteen feet in diameter erupt into the sky, as a shockwave hit his shell a large ripple of the colours of the rainbow covered and rippled across the shell. Most of the blast went up and he was much further away so his larger shell was sufficient to what little made its way there – little sound came through and the shockwave that hit Kaden was no more than a light gust of wind – as the colours faded and Kadin dropped the shell he saw the barricade was gone and the 3 remaining men were smoking ruins on the ground, but as he watched they began to stir and push themselves up on too hands and knees, Kaden sheathed his swords having a better Idea, he pulled out one of the frost bombs that he used on the spiders, he only carried three of these so only had one more remaining but the 3 were close enough together so he threw the bomb – a white flash and a blast of cold air hit him but as the mist quickly disappeared Kaden saw the bodies white as snow and frozen solid..

Or at least he thought they were.... as he watched he saw a green flame come to life in each of the frozen men’s eyes he heard a loud hissing noise as the necromantic flame started to fight away the ice.

‘ What the fu..’ Kadin thought but was quickly taken by another idea he charged forwards sending power to his arms – three power enchanted punches later and the road ahead was clear ... if covered with white shards of frozen people.

Kadin went off to the side of the road and found his horse – it had wandered away a little during the fight but not by much, after retrieving it he took it back to the road way mounted and set off on his way again to Ashvale.

As he was heading north past the few outlying farms and hamlets that surrounded the village the land began to turn more natural, gentle sweeping hills with small clumps of trees or bushes dotting the landscape the area around him was fairly open and Kadin had a good view in all directions –

enjoying the relative safely and peacefulness of the land around him Kadin decided to make the most of things. As a few days ahead the road skirted the silver fang forest home to the wood elfs, the elfs had no real love of humans and thought they were open to trade the forest was closed all but those of elven blood and it was normally the elfs that came to the human settlements as any going there needed to trade in a field or by the road side. To make things worse one of the larger goblin tribes of the mountains had been thrown out by the larger and stronger Orc tribes so the elfs were now waged in a war with the goblins who had dared to set up home in the silver fang – because of this the Elfs had recently started a shoot first approach to anyone or anything getting too near the trees. But as the road ahead was clear for the moment and the forest was still two days or so away Kadin put himself in to a half sleep, letting his mind wonder and his body relax and rest – it was only mid morning but already people had tried to kill him today only to be killed them self then come back and tried to kill him again – twice!

In this state of half sleep half meditation the day wore on in an uneventful way. As the miles passed the landscape around him began to grow more rugged and wild, waist high grass and brush, larger and larger thickets of trees and the path itself moved from paved to gravel to what was now little more than a dirt track. By late afternoon he stopped to eat and feed his horse he felt refreshed and fully awake, as he was rubbing his horse down he started to get that feeling of being watched again it was similar to the feeling he had a couple of days ago when his last horse had disappeared during the night, being more on guard this time he quickly eat a lunch of dry meat and bread before quickly mounting again and getting back on the road – the feeling of being watched still hung heavy in the air and put Kadin more on guard, as the horse plodded along at a steady pace that itch between his shoulders never left him like someone just out of view looking over his shoulder but he didn’t see any sign of being followed, he eventually came to the conclusion that someone was using a spell of far sight or another sort of magical ability to find him, this was only the second time this had happened to him that he could tell but it was very quickly climbing his list of dislikes and he needed to do something about it, so that became another item on his to do list – when he got back to the guild he was going to ask Aurora to make some sort of anti-scry talisman so people couldn’t track him.

The road ahead had a twist to the right and a large clump of trees blocked everything from view past the turn whats more the trees came very close to the road edge – a good position for an ambush. Everything around Kadin still seemed peaceful and quite; he began to think he was being paranoid however the last time he thought that then dismiss it, people blew up his room – with him still inside it. So just in case he easy his short swords to within easy reach, he also moved some throwing knifes into a sheath running around the horn of his saddle, he then cast two shell spells around him one of fire and the other of ice – they worked similar to a shield spell but would either burn or freeze on contact, lastly he unhooked one of his fire bombs – he only had one freeze bomb left but still had all three fire bombs.

As the trees grew closer Kadin slowed his horse to a gentle walk, the road was right by the tree line at this stage and the branches cast long shadows over the road, the day was pleasantly warm but with the tree cover Kadin felt a bit of a cold bite in the breeze, the eastern mountains were little over a day and a half away as the crow flies. Looking into the trees there was nothing out of place a few large branches and a fallen trunk, the spacing between the trees were wide enough that he had a good view into the woodland, and the sound of the wildlife could be heard all round him, birds

calling from the branches the chittering of small woodland creatures and the buzzing of various insects in the air. Kadin reached out with his senses and could find nothing unusual, he could feel the life essence for a number of creatures in the woodland, a few voles and mice in underground dens, a hare at the edge of his aura and several bird in the branches this area was only a few hundred feet wide so not large enough to support any of the larger forest creatures, everything still seemed normal peaceful and quite, apart from the fact Kadin still felt like someone was observing him then he felt it, a triggering of magic it was very light and subtle but as he was actively looking he felt it trigger and could feel the location. Kadin cast his own scry spell on the area and an scene formed in his mind in black and white and had blurry edges that got worse the further out from his area of focus. He was looking at the woodland floor, a few leaves brown and dead and a light patch of grassland with the occasional weed or vine, Kadin could only view an area a few feet wide so this spell was almost useless in most circumstances but here as he was looking at the exact source of where he felt the magic emanate it could help him find whoever had been tracking him. After a few seconds of nothing unusual he noticed something, a slight shifting in the ground focusing more on the area and looking closer he seen it again the ground seemed to split open a small hole appeared it looked like a small rabbit burrow had just created itself in front of his eyes after a few more second a figure emerged, roughly human in shape with patched green and brown skin it was a little larger than a mouse with stumpy legs and arms that were long enough to trail on the ground he recognised it after a few seconds as a Thrift – distant cousin of the forest wisp, however they didn’t have wings and couldn’t fly instead they lived a few feet underground and used magic to open tunnels to travel. He watched the creature slowly shuffle forwards waddling side to side as it moved until it came across a particularly tricky leaf stem the caught its foot and made it fall flat on its face, after a few seconds of it lying still it propped itself up on its long arms and gave a long annoyed look at the leaf that had tripped it. Before it began to move on all fours actually moving substantially faster than before, there was another quick triggering of magic and a tree trunk seemed to stretch and move at its base opening up a little arch way that the thrift scurried inside before it closed then everything was quite again, Kadin decided he was being paranoid and after a few more moments was clear of the small thicket, the area around him was clear again steady ground littered with small rocks and stones, bushes and clumps of grassland. With the path ahead empty twisting its way around a small hill then up another small rise of land, when Kadin crested the hill he could see the long track in front of him and far off to his right the starting of the forest of the elf realm... or rather the trees surrounding it, the start of the actual home of the elfs was apparently still several days travel through the trees. But the regular patrol and elf scouts meant that it was better to stay out of the trees all together. The sun was still a few hours from setting but the gentle warmth and heat of the day had now gone – being replaced by the steady biting wind from the mountains. Deciding to call it a day before getting to close to the forest Kadin found a small thicket with some heavy brush at one side and looked to set up a small camp there. Remembering the last time he set up camp and his horse disappearing despite his protection spells Kadin decided in a different approach – as the other and main reason he chose this spot was he found a wayward pine tree at the edge of the thicket the branches swooped so low they actually touched the ground leaving the area by the trunk completely concealed the branches were also high enough up that Kadin could stand to his full height and still have head room, the branches split in just the right way on one side of the tree that was facing away from the road and roughly towards the thick underbrush leaving only one easy entrance to concealment of the pine. Again this site had obviously been used recently there it was a bit of a squeeze to fit the horse in but once there and setting up a roughly hued cover to the entrance the

pine was completely enclosed. Kadin drew a few runes round the interior of the pine but instead of a magical trap set up a mechanical trap by the easy entrance to his camp site once done he tended the horse rubbing it down checking its shoes and fed it before having a quick meal sitting with his back to the trunk facing his trap and his ‘door’ made of rough cut branches and grass with the horse tied to the trunk at the other side of the pine trunk. Kadin was weary and tired after his day but routine would not yet let him rest – the last thing he did every night was to check, clean and sharpen his weapons, his Demon forged blades and Auroras long knifes were still pristine and flawless and would likely remain so for the next hundred years, but they were still oiled and checked, then the various throwing knifes and daggers that were situated around his body and lastly a review of his potions and bombs. Finally deciding to stay fully clothed and armoured... just in case... Kadin drew his cloak around him threw up his hood and drifted off still sitting with his back to the trunk of the tree.