Chapter 44: Dumb and Deadly
Draven was ecstatic. His new sword was as large as he was and as wide as his hips. He felt like he was playing Monster Hunter or something. Picking it up he could feel the significant weight such a weapon had and with that weight came great destructive force. He couldn't help his mouth curling up forming a wide grin. Like a child on Christmas, he had to play with his new toy. Still smiling he jumped through the window and flew out of town into the night sky to find something to kill.
Jennifer POV
Their trek on the path toward Ironforge had extended when nearly half of their recruits sucumbed to illness,likely due to having inhaled small amounts of the deadly gas. May and the lower-level healers had demanded to make camp as they all needed to be treated immediately and possibly wouldn't survive the rest of the trip if not cured. Allowing them to rest would give the Healers more time to cure the poison from their bodies. they had spent over half the day on the side of the path waiting for the healers to do their thing regain their mana and repeat. Greg suggested a few people leave to get more healers and help from town but their group was the highest level of all of them and it would already be difficult to protect the villagers if something happened. They didn't trust any of the recruits to go as they couldn't get in town and might die or get lost on the way.
The sun began to set and Jennifer walked around the perimeter of the camp again for the umpteenth time. The group was very vulnerable right now and she wanted to catch any threat before it had a chance to make a move on them. Nothing had attacked them through the entirety of the day. "If Draven were here we would already be back and none of these people would have gotten poisoned in the first place." She murmured to herself feeling guilty and that she had failed the first mission Draven gave them. "Don't blame yourself Jenny we were ambushed that's just the world we live in now. And you can't compare yourself to Draven no one can fill his shoes and I don't think he expects anyone to do so either." Celine said as she became visible walking alongside Jennifer.
"Jennifer sighed, "your right I should just focus on getting as many people back alive as I can for now thinking about anything else will just make the situation worse." She replied. Celine pouted a bit „you guys aren't getting scared anymore when I pop up beside you." She said as she started thinking of different ways to jump-scare the group. "We are used to it now we just assume that you are around when we're alone." Celine looked crestfallen after hearing that. "Fine I guess I'll cut it out then." she said with a sad look on her face. "You're just saying that so we let our guard down," Jennifer said without batting an eye. "Tsk" Celine clicked her tongue in frustration. They both began to laugh and Jennifer was feeling much better now. However, that feeling was short-lived as several boulders started rolling along the mountain ridge revealing large cave entrances. Out of each cave, large crouched creatures began to emerge. Once out of the cave, they stretched their backs while standing at their full height. these things were massive standing as tall as some of the shorter trees. One of the creatures even casually ripped a tree out of the ground like it was nothing as it used the tree as a backscratcher.
"Celine, how many wire traps did you make around the camp?" Jennifer asked wide-eyed as 18 of these creatures emerged from various caves in the mountain. "Not enough she said staring at the colossal army of what she assumed were trolls. They had all the fitting characteristics: Large, Greyish skin color, large bulbous eyes, very dumb looks on their faces some even drooled while staring at a rock, and hygiene that she could smell from over here. "Celine you reinforce your wires. I will alert the camp to stay quiet and get one of the people who can fly to try and lure them away." Celine nodded and they dashed back to the center of their Camp. "EVERYONE MONSTERS! WE ARE BEING ATTACKED!" Someone yelled out as they saw the trolls walking about. Of course, every single Troll lifted their heads turned to face the group in the distance, and began walking over. "Shit! Everyone shut your trap what the hell is wrong with you? Jennifer said angrily whispering at the idiot who alerted the trolls to their presence.
"No point in crying over spilled milk now Greg said as he furrowed his brows trying to quickly understand the situation. They are moving slowly but that doesn't mean they can't run we don't have enough time to grab all the sick and get away. Greg said as he analyzed the situation. "I think they are Trolls Celine said as she returned to camp after making her traps as strong as she could with her self-made silk wires. "Trolls? In that case, sunlight and fire nearly every game and story I can think of that deals with trolls say they have those weaknesses." Jennifer's Fox ears perked up after hearing that. Fire was her specialty so maybe they had a chance after all but there were still also many and without Draven, she had no idea what their level was. She then had another idea as she walked near the edge of camp Her eyes glowed a mixture of purple and pink before a large Illusion of a wall made of fire surrounded them. There wasn't enough to burn in the surroundings to actually create that large of a flame and she did not have the mana reserves to keep a spell of that magnitude active for very long but this illusion she could keep going for a long time possibly even till morning.
Good thinking Jennifer!" Ross exclaimed, "Now we can go out and pulverize them while the camp is safe." He said looking eager to level up. Draven had said they should level up while they were gone but they didn't have the opportunity to do so as they wouldn't have been able to reenter the village had they farmed any orbs. Rebecca came over and whacked him on the head. "Are you out of your mind? Jennifer has to focus to keep this spell active so we are one person short who happens to also be the person among us who can use fire spells. We have no idea how strong they are and if they see us walking through the fire unharmed they might try it too." She said lecturing him with a look that said how stupid came you be written all over her face. I'm also very low on mana so if any of you get hurt you are on your own. May said. she had been spending every bit of her mana curing the poison from all the Villagers throughout the day and she was exhausted.
"So we're trapped here then until morning," Greg said. "We can't attack, we can't leave, we can only hope they think we are not worth the trouble and leave us alone until morning." He said with a grim expression on his face. The Trolls in the meantime stopped their advance when they saw the flame wall flickering in front of them. One of the trolls stretched their hand forward to touch the flame while another slapped their hand away. Jennifer couldn't understand the guttural sounds they used as a language but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the troll was explaining to the other as it pointed to the fire.
The trolls waited for roughly an hour hoping the fire would extinguish given time but after seeing it was still going strong after so much time had passed many of them began looking for food elsewhere leaving only a smaller group of 5 Trolls remaining. They intently stared at the fire knowing a feast lay beyond the flickering danger. One of the Trolls became frustrated and threw a large rock at the fire only for it to continue through nearly crushing a group of scared Villagers. They cried out in shock and surprise as they nearly dodged the attack. Hearing them scream gave the troll an idea as he laughed and jumped around in joy before alerting the other trolls to his genius idea. They all clapped at his words while the "smart" one looked as smug as a troll could be. They then all gathered a bunch of rocks that were small to them but to the villagers were practically boulders. They then began to throw them at the crowd hoping they would try to escape or they would hit the person causing this fire. Maybe they could hit someone so hard it would knock them out of the fire.
This was the gameplan the trolls had formed and they were having fun executing it. On the other side of the fire, the Villagers were not having fun at all as they dodged the flying rocks while Greg, Ross, and a few others formed a line in front of the sickly villagers doing their best to protect them from being turned into meatpaste. Greg was able to deflect a few rocks with his shield but after the third his shield broke and his arm began to swell from taking too much damage. Ross was trying to use his greatsword to cut the rocks which worked for some of the smaller ones but as soon as a larger one came flying in he swung his sword like a baseball bat and it bent from the impact. "We need mages that can create a wall of earth over here!" Greg yelled out but no one knew any earth spells. Greg just assumed that someone could do it as it was a pretty useful spell after seeing Draven immobilize all the Orbhunters in the training grounds. Singe then learning earth magic became very popular among the rest of the mages from their village. But these people mostly spent their time learning Fire or Wind magic as those were cooler.
Seeing no one step up Greg ran out of ideas he couldn't protect these people anymore and had to make the call to let them die. He wouldn't sacrifice himself for their sake he was no hero he planned to get much stronger in the future and survive till the end. Seeing Greg and Ross in a tight spot Celine formed a few Silk wires and while invisible loosely wrapped them around the feet of the Troll that was targeting them specifically as he went to throw the next rock she tightened the wires causing it to lose his balance and fall forward. The troll not only fell forward but as he let go of his rock felt a need to do its best to retrieve it and ended up falling again after trying to stand up but this time fell into the fire. It screamed in pain and rolled around trying to put out the fire that was causing so much harm but after a few seconds of unimaginable pain and suffering it realized the fire wasn't hurting it at all. It got back up and the wire finally broke from the strain. Looking perplexed it stood in the fire and looked back to its Troll comrades waving them to follow as it walked through the flames and into the camp.
Luckily for them, the other Trolls were reluctant to follow it through the flames even though they saw that it was able to cross unharmed their instincts still screamed at them to not go near the flame. The Troll that made it through started going on a rampage. Finally, it could eat! It ran towards the center of the camp when suddenly it couldn't move forward anymore. Trapped in Celine's web of silk Wires she did her best to pull as tight as she could. The wire even managed to dig into the thick skin of the ogre but to her shock, it barely scratched it. It began to thrash around wildly and Celine couldn't hold on anymore and let go of the wires. Free of the wires the Troll ran forward to meet a charging Bear and Oni. Greg slid underneath its body trying to slash at its ankle while Ross who grabbed a random sword from one of the Villagers jumped high trying to stab it in the eye. Greg was unable to cut its skin while Ross had even less luck and got swatted with a backhand that flung him into last week as his body bounced off the ground a few times like a rock skipping water before crashing into a tree. Jennifer saw that the other trolls were eagerly watching hoping they could have a turn as well but refused to enter the wall of fire she Head to maintain the illusion. If they couldn't handle one what would they do when another 4 joined?
Rebecca kept firing arrows and managed to lodge one into the Troll's Left eye causing it to stumble backward. Blood began to ooze through the wound as the troll charged the one that managed to hurt it. Rebecca's face went pale as she started to run away. Celine then took this opportunity to crawl up its body and bit into a small cut made by her wires hoping she could squeeze her fangs through the opening to inject her poison into it. With much fiddling and and prying with her claws she managed to sink her fangs into the cut and inject it with a load of her toxic venom. The Troll didn't even notice her latching onto his stomach in his rage and desire to crush Rebecca. Celine then quickly got off and hoped that her poison was strong enough to kill it if not at least weaken it.
The rest of the villagers did their best throwing one spell after another but the majority of them were barely level 5 and other than making pretty lights that might distract it their attacks did not affect the troll. Even those with fire attacks could Not muster up enough mana to form a spell strong enough to injure it. To everyone's surprise, the Troll began to slow down its breathing was strained and it began to wildly punch the air in front of it before falling to its knees panting for breath. The poison was effective. Rebecca quickly turned around and fired another arrow at its other eye blinding it permanently. It screamed in pain but it was too tired to stand up again. Jennifer sighed in relief as long as the other trolls didn't try anything they might be okay now. Greg ran over and plunged his sword into its eye as it seemed to be the only vulnerable spot the creature had hoping he would reach its brain. The troll did not take this lying down as it attempted to swat Greg away. Greg quickly backed up and avoided its attack. Realizing it had missed Greg after it swung and hit nothing but air The Troll got angry again and in a latch ditch effort it dug into the ground with its hand and ripped a chunk of earth out of the ground and threw it.
Jennifer was not expecting a huge chunk of earth to come flying at her she tried to get out of the way but the pieces broke off in the air forming multiple projectiles that struck all over her body. Luckily the dirt wasn't dense or sharp enough to break her skin but it still felt like someone threw a bunch of metal balls at her. She lost focus of the spell and the Walls of Fire faded. Eager to join in the Battle the other 4 Trolls quickly ran into the camp as everyone watched in horror. "Everyone move your asses and run!" Greg yelled out. There was no point in staying any longer they could not defeat another 4 trolls. He wasn't even sure if the first one was going to die or not. Everyone snapped out of their life's worth of flashbacks and scrambled away as quickly as they could. Those who could fly quickly took to the skies as everyone else ran for their lives. Greg could only hope they would think it would be too much trouble to chase them when there were plenty of people lying on the ground.
He didn't like using them as bait but when push came to shove he would always choose himself. He did his best and it wasn't enough. The only thing he could do was to get stronger so that this wouldn't happen again. All of the Villagers including the gang ran away from the camp and the Trolls stopped giving chase when they saw a few hundred living people sleeping on the ground. The four of them made their way to the poisoned Villagers and were about to partake in their well-deserved feast.
Lightning formed in the skies and they could hear a rumble in the distance. Then suddenly lightning flashed again and standing in front of the Sickly Villagers was Draven as sparks of electricity crackled around his body as whips of electricity from his body slapped against the ground around him. In his hand, he held a gigantic Sword made of red and brown scales and with one swing he severed the Troll's head. The sheer force of swinging that sword caused a gust of wind that flexed the nearby trees as if a storm had just come through. "Looks like you guys need a hand," Draven said smiling while resting the blade on the back of his shoulders.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone