When I woke up, I was happy to be out of that dream. It was one of the harder ones that I had. To poison so many people and the fires and then get run down by a horseman and captured. That was one of the odd things. I knew looking at my memory that I was seeing a horseman, but when I was in my dream, I could not call it that. Nonetheless, I was happy that the dream was done with. Being in a cage was no fun.

“Blink, let’s get out of here. I am ready to get to town.” I said as we climbed out of the room.

We got up and started to move back down to the river. There wasn’t much out here, but at least this morning, I was beginning to hear some birds and other animals. Perhaps last night was just an odd time of the day when everything was quiet.

We hiked south for about an hour before I started to see signs of animals. They had become abundant like near the dungeon. There were plenty of prey prints around, and I was happy to see at least where I was walking; I hadn’t seen any hunters. I even sent over to Blink the happy feeling of being out hiking.

Blink sent laughing to me a single word that set me off, “Bait!”

It wasn’t two seconds later that I heard the howling of wolves as they began to circle me. The pack was huge; I didn’t know that they would get this big without spitting. I was getting surrounded by at least twenty wolves. It was kind of odd to me that there would be so many, but it just meant that the fight would be that much harder.

I grinned and pulled out two of my throwing spikes. This was going to be one of those fights where it would get ugly before it got better, I thought as the wolves started to trot around me. They were still out about twelve feet away, and one would dart in and bark.

It all felt like I was in a National Geographic film about how dogs fight lions. I also was getting almost flashbacks to my skill memories of how Wild Humans hunt. The slow fight and the running in and out to keep the prey’s eyes forward. With that memory, I turned and threw my first spike.

The wolf behind me was in the air when the spike took it in the throat. The time in the safe room growing the trees had improved my skills greatly, and with my equipment bonus, the thrown weapon packed enough damage to kill one of these low-level wolves in a single hit. That death, however, started to whole fight.

The short grows and yips that the pack had been doing turned into full-fledged howls and barking as they rushed in. There were only a few paces between the lead wolves and me as I threw my second knife. I really should have taken the time to learn dual knife throwing; it would have made the battle much more manageable. So that both blades could have been thrown at the same time.

When the second knife left my hand, I reached to rip out my sword, only to have my arm stuffed back down by the impact of a wolf. The old saying about thrown weapons came to my mind as I hit the ground. Why throw away a perfectly good weapon? I was stuck without anything drawn because of the simple error of drawing a second knife.

I knew that Blink was among them as I could hear their cries as she ripped into them, but I was also giving my own screams of pain. When my arm was knocked back, keeping from drawing the wolf had also caused me to trip. Then the others were on me. I felt them trying to find places to bite, but finding that I had armor most everywhere. Until one latched onto my under-protected thigh.

I had been trying to get up, but there were so many of them. I was weighed down by their shifting bodies and by them pulling at me. I couldn’t get to any of my weapons, and as my thigh started to bleed, I punched out, dropping all my mana into a fire strike. The wolf that was working on making me a chew toy caught the fist right in the face. His body lit up from the flames that streamed over my arm.

I felt my mana drop faster than it should as my whole body covered itself in flame and then exploded out. However, the flame only shot out about eight inches from my body before I felt the impending mana headache. All of the wolves that were on me jumped back, whining and giving me the time to get to my feet.

My leather skirt triggered, and the wounds on my legs healed up. I drew my sword and advanced. My head was throbbing, and I had only killed one of the wolves. However, Blink had been working the back of the pack, thinning it out for us. The wolves were still focused on me because I appeared to be the only one around. After all, I was bait…

The lull in the fight from my odd fire explosion ended almost as suddenly as it started with the wolves in front leaping at me. If it had been just one wolf, things truly would have gone my way as it was; however, I at least wasn’t knocked over again. I caught the brown one with my mini kite shield and the black one with the tip of my sword. The one on my sword at least had the decency to die. He, however, chose to die by removing my sword from my hand.

The one on my shield I tipped around to my left. As I came around with my foot to kick it, another one latched onto my right leg and pulled me back. So I turned toward the tan wolf that was attached to my leg, and I drove the edge of my shield into its head. That one let go, but once again, I had wolves pushing me down.

As I went down again, I slipped my dagger of pausing into my hand and drove it into the one that I could reach. It didn’t yelp as it couldn’t move and so I pushed off and turned. I rose to a kneeling when I was knocked over again. The idea of a dog pile was accurate to them as it seemed like I just couldn’t get up. Every chance I got, I drove my dagger into a wolf, but they seemed to be trying to control my arm.

Then one was pushing down on my neck with its slobbering teeth. I felt my neck closing up as its jaws were trying to close around. The mail was at least keeping it from drawing blood, but I could feel my throat slowly get crushed. My blood started to pump louder, and my vision began to close in. Then I felt my grip on my dagger loosen.

I was sending panic off to the bond, and I felt a response of anger. Then the wolf that was on my neck was ripped off. Blink was standing over me, and her claws were slashing around. Finally, I heard her bellow a hissing roar causing the last of the wolves to scatter.

I had half a dozen debuffs and could hardly stand up, but I gathered my weapons and slowly limped to the cave we had finished that morning. I collapsed in the bunkeresque room and slowly came down from the adrenalin. While that wasn’t the best fight, I at least lived.

I should have already downed the mana and health potions, but I hadn’t, so I did then, and slowly I fell asleep, knowing that right now I was alive and safe.

I awoke, and before I even got up, I took a look at my new spell.

Spell/Level/Mana cost/ Cast time

Fire spell

Flame pulse/1/30-~/4 seconds

This spell causes a pulse of fire that travels out from the caster in all directions. As the spell levels the distance of the pulse increases as does the damage.

Damage is 1 per mana used.

Range is base of 6 inches range is doubled for every thirty mana added.

So for me right now, it was mostly worthless. It seemed to have worked to remove the dogs to some extent, but it wasn’t something that I was seeing myself use that often. Also, the range was extremely short, so unless I got more mana, this spell would be on the back burner for a while.

I set up and stretched. This cave, while serviceable, sucked when it came to comfort. There was only hard stone in it, and the way that air got in and out was when I opened the door or the little through the smoke hole. After the second night of sleeping here, it felt like it was a little stuffy. I didn’t want this to become a death trap for those who came after.

Since I was here, I figured I would take the time to make this one a little less rough. First, I added air holes running from the other side of the room from the fire. These finger size holes, I ran up and away from the chimney. I wanted them to bring in fresh air so that when the fire was running, it would breathe.

Then I created a second passage out that ran about thirty feet away. It took about an hour with the wands to get the space made. In this second passage, I turned into what would be the primary way in. It was a more gentle slope and so would make coming and going easier. I didn’t bother removing any of the roots, however, as I wanted to press on.

“Time to go girl,” I said as I pulled on my pack. I was missing much of the equipment that I had back at the waterfall.

I needed to finish out those last few days of the trip, but I had to build the dumb rooms for those who would come to worship the Sisters. It didn’t matter that some other god brought me here. Nope, I was working for the Sisters now, it seemed.