Snakes and Ladders-21

Chapter 21

I’m a little freaked by jumping into this sucking hole in the air but I steel my nerves and jump into the thing and sort of try to prepare myself for the whole thing.

There’s this pause barely there but enough that you know that it happened then you’re sucked through to the other side with this fastest roller coaster ride ever and you see everything you pass by or through too fast to track but like the pause something in your head tells you yes…this happened.

I actually focus my sight on what’s right just ahead and the image is less screwy, and I see the fog, the trees and the slope I’m coming out on and I manage to land on my feet. It sort of feels like that moment of nothingness when you jump off a swing at the playground.

Kind of fun.

In that same sort of way soldiers must get when Para diving into a war zone. Okay I know not “Fun” but there’s this sheer sense of thrill and almost messing one’s panties. Adrenaline…I’m actually used to adrenaline and pretty good at dealing with being calm under the effects of it.

Lot’s of fights and you spend any real amount of time doing long haul you can get familiar with those adrenaline filled “Oh crap.” moments. And that’s just with the weather in mind. Just think about ten plus tons that you’re trying to control when it’s raining and you hit that spot where the tar’s been brought to the surface of the pavement by way too many cars and too much heat…and that’s not counting the other people on the road.

Then being a bouncer, and just life in general being as big as I was sometimes trouble could just find me whether I wanted it to or not.

But I have a feeling I’m going to need the edge it’ll give me on this.

I still sort of stumble as I land in a mini trot and I have to stop myself from hitting some trees. It’s thick in here, like a needle leaf forest up in these rocky steep hills but like overgrown if while it had been overgrowing nature didn’t put on the brakes.

The pines and spruces and stuff are really thick and twisted up and still blotting out lots of the light what they’re not doing the fog Shaya’s conjured is doing the rest…I can sort of feel her in the fog and the mist…everywhere. I get it instead of hiding her and Bhlaze in it when they come they’re sort of everywhere and that’ll distract them from sensing us.

I look at the others and join them and wait feeling the sweat starting to form under my armor. The forward rangers are out scouting the way that we need to go according to the word of that nasty faerie thing.

I see some weapons out mostly axes and short blades and a few guns well blasters but not the one’s I’m used to seeing. Yes there’s bows but their not being used right now, it’s just too thick in here.

I’m really glad for all the training and all the working out that I’ve been doing even with the fact that my female form has all of the raw power that my old frame had. I’m in armor, with weapons and some other gear. I never realized that soldiers carry water and food with them into a combat zone, and I didn’t get that those ten extra pounds weight a lot more than you think after awhile.

Miles and miles we move from one spot to another fast and into these best places to hide and advance from under the guide of our forward rangers. There’s a lot of rough ground that would’ve broken me in the first mile years ago. The forest is so thick and overgrown it’s a huge obstacle and the terrain is really hard to with a series of up and down hills that are full of ravines almost rather than valleys.

There is a learning curve, use the vegetation to move over the terrain.

The forest as dark and twisted as it is does have this sort of beauty to it. Thorn bearing trees and bushes, thistles are common and there’s even a thistle ivy stuff that’s pretty common here. There are flowers and the nicer looking plants too but are all sorts of really deeper earthy toned variations of things. Lot’s of Venus flytraps around or things like it, and there’s lots of insects but there’s also lots of spiders.

I get a heebie geebie moment when I seen a web just aways from us thirty feet wide and a big fuzzy black spider watching us go passed the size of a dog…like a German Sheppard kind of dog.

I really didn’t like the way that the thing was looking at us and the way it moved to look at us but the others didn’t seen that phased by the thing. Okay…well they live and fight and guard this area and maybe they’re used to these things but I’m having flashbacks to LOTR and Harry Potter and stuff.

I’m so glad that I’m wearing armor.

I’m not even sure how far we’ve gotten when we have the first encounter. Goblins on a patrol about a dozen of them and they were definitely looking for us or someone and It’s not what I thought the first encounter would be like. Fast and quiet the rangers came in first from the sides and axe strikes to the heads, knives and daggers slitting jugulars in a passing stroke to be shoved through an eye socket and then yanked free to be thrown into the head of another.

A dozen patrolling goblins and four rangers and it was over before sounds could be made or the goblins could scream and it was scary. But it was like seeing Special Forces work from home really these guys just fading in from the forest and taking them like the shadows of death.

How long have they been doing this? It was almost scary in how ballet like it was and fast, did I mention fast? I’m also going to remember that these are the rangers that came in with the Loremistress.

I’m half scared and curious as to what she can do herself.

They’re searching the bodies and holding things up to each other and us as silent clues that I’m not getting but the others are. They are taking the coins that they were carrying too…that’s just very…mercenary?

I’ll have to ask Shaya about that.

We press on but I think we’re back tracking the goblins for awhile and it’s a bit easier going as they seem to have trails and such through here and the rangers are at it several more times with what looks like blinds in the trees and areas where they disarmed booby traps.

Like spiked log kill you hard and fast traps.

The fog is beginning to darken more and more off to one side when I slowly start to realize that it’s not the fog but the large mass of those mountains they had called The Hammer and we’re right up to them.

We stop.

~Everyone stop take a breather and rest eat and drink something because we’re walking into the pit very, very soon. ~

The Loremistress speaking in my head.

Oh…that’s why I didn’t get the stuff that they were showing us with the things on the goblins, they were using telepathy. Beats using a radio I guess.

I stop and eat chewing on that wheybread they have. Yeah it’s real but not some magic bread but nut and other flour and into that there’s like soy and whey from cheese and other things made into it and made into a sort of a dense cracker sheet with a lot of stuff in it. Basically an old school elfin energy bar. It goes down okay with the bit of honey in a tube and some of the cheese…kind of Greek actually with the cheese being really salty to help us retain moisture.

I have time to use the little girls bush and thankfully I also have like this paper wipe in a tube that is supposed to serve as tissue here in the wild. I was pretty danged fast too not wanting to get jumped during the whole thing. I’m done and so are the others when we hear the pulse of wingbeats over us. It’s funny even without the link I know its Bhlaze because I recognize the sound like knowing who’s pulling into your yard by the sound of the engine.

I can sort of see the shape of him coming down over the mountain area where we think the place might be and hovering. The plan or part of it is that he’ll be dropping off troops and the troops will cover the fact that we’re coming, that they’re the assault force.

I see stars? No… ball lightning coming from Bhlaze and I can sort of feel and sense that they’re under fire.

~Wren? ~ The Loremistress… ~You’re linked are they engaged? ~

I concentrate; this is still a long ways off for us.

I see, a small winding valley very rocky and there’s what looks like caves dotting the area and there’s dozens of goblins out on the valley floor in cover and the fighting has started….I see orcs with bigger weapons firing at Bhlaze and Shaya and there are about twenty elfin soldiers there in a firefight with the goblins.

Shaya has an energy shield of some kind up taking the brunt of the damage from the orcs weapons and Bhlaze is spitting ball lightning at them only they explode like some kind of electrical grenade when they hit an area where there’s orcs.

~Yes they’re getting into it pretty heavy over there and they might need help. ~

~There’s another ranger group with soldiers that’s not too far off from them that I gated in. They should be there in less than an hour. ~

~It might be over before then. ~

~Not if Shaya holds, the goblins they’re facing are cannon fodder at this point they’ll just send up more to deal with Shaya.~

~Up? ~

~Yes, Up even here the best way to move unseen is on the ground, the way in that we’re looking for is around the edge of that ridge hidden away, the upper levels are where those bat things are roosting or stabled and that’s Shaya’s mission. They’ll assume it’s her mission and will try and take the chance to kill her if they can but they’ll seal off the real operation. The summoner…the bio-alchemist and Lyam’s allied are down lower where the real work is being done. ~

~Oh…~

~They’ll be readying to escape in case it looks like Shaya will break through and take the place. We’re going in before it gets to that point. ~

~Gotcha….~ I feel Bhlaze and Shaya lift off into the mists again and from the few bursts of ball lightning she’s circling the area… but keeping from being seen or felt and I feel Shaya do something and the wingbeats are echoing all over the place.

I grin and so does the Loremistress. ~You have an interesting beloved Erendae; remind me to keep on her good side. ~

We head off and I’m keeping my head on the task at hand and there’s another bunch of goblins camped at the edge of the forest and where it get’s close to the ridge and it’s sort of hidden behind the rocks.

I’m running into help as soon as we get that first sound of weapons on weapons and there’s more goblins here than just a dozen with them having dug in a cave of sorts as a hidden shelter or a dug out.

But even this you’d sort of think would be the fighting and the war cries instead it’s this fast running up into the fighting with weapons drawn trying not to be seen until the last minute then trying not to get shot while you’re shooting into them and in just seconds you’re in this fight weapon to weapon and trying to take them out as fast as you can.

I think I shot three of them and cut down a fourth and was in a two on one sword fight with five and six when I see Kyte and people she’s been leading making a charge for the ridge and a fire fight starts there.

“They’re pushing trying to get through.” The Loremistress yells at us. “C’mon let the rangers take care of these we need to keep them from breaking through!”

I run in with her and several of the soldiers and there’s a wedge of goblins backed by orcs in a much more organized way trying to get through and in the distance I can see what looks like a large cleft in the rocks that seems to have a huge set of doors in the very end of that.

“We have to make them head back inside their hole, they’ll box themselves in and be too busy trying to get fortified they won’t see you coming Wren.”

“Since when is all of this riding on me?!” I’m yelling and fighting. My blaster goes dark and is out of power. Great hand to hand now…

“Since the gods seen fit to send you to us and you to the Dragon rider!”

She points up and Bhlaze and Shaya come gliding in out of the mist and fog with Bhlaze’s eyes glowing electric blue white and Shaya shooting her blaster with one hand and hurling something bag shaped with the other as hard as she can with strength magic behind the throw.

Bhlaze spits those ball of lightning that are like ovals of white and blue and they hit with this explosion that’s like a….. well I guess it’s like an EMP that you could see going off that has a concussive thing to it like the edge of the blast wave was like solid? Like a force field or something and what wasn’t fried was stunned like a taser and knocked down as well.

Zap-boom.

Zap-boom.

The third one hit’s the satchel Shaya threw. I yell. “Fire in the hole!”

No one get’s it and I tackle Kyte down as the satchel has that stuff Shaya makes from the Dragon stuff of Bhlaze and it explodes like one of his ball lightning’s only it’s ten times the size.

Some of our side got stunned in the blast and a whole lot of the enemy and their in full retreat heading back inside except for a dozen huge shapes that pass by even over the retreating forces.

Ten to twelve feet tall in heavy, half plated armor with red eyes, flat noses, fanged and tusked mouths and grey green skin hulking with muscles with huge bladed swords and axes and hammers.

They’re running at us full force and the big doors are closing…suicide mission?

Kyte looks up as she’s getting her senses back as she’s getting to her feet only to stop and stare turning white or paler than she is.

“Oh dear sweet gods…” Her voice is faint and frightened.

I hear one of the Rymoran soldiers with us scream something I never thought I’d hear before.

“TROLLS!”