“Where are you pnning on taking us?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice calm and even.

  “Why, to the holy city of…” replied Vanes cordially, seeing that I was receptive.

  As he was finishing his sentence, I moved another half-step forward, lowering my weapons close to the ground as if to relinquish them. I was just a few steps out of measure now. There was only one way to deal with the threat of violence. Real violence. Taking the initiative, I rushed at the bandit leader with a snarl. Kidu, drawn in my wake, started to engage the bandits to the side with his serpent-swift spear.

  Even through the rush of my charge, I saw that all of the ambushers, except the leader, had various blunt instruments and nets, confirming the leader’s words that they were here to capture us. This meant that they would have to take care in how they engaged us. For some reason, these men wanted us alive. The thought that they wanted to possibly make us sves once more gave strength to my resolve as I closed the distance.

  Channeling the internal energy of my own body, I swung out at their leader with the edge of my shield. The sensation was much akin to using a Power Strike, but subtly different.

  You have learned Shield Bash (lvl.1)

  The notification crossed the bottom of my vision and I dismissed it.

  Snarling guttural invectives at me, he dodged my blow and drew his weapon in a single motion before swinging the war cleaver in a swift counterattack.

  I raised my kite shield in defense and angled it, more to deflect the leader's weapon than to absorb the blow outright.

  I was still a novice at the art of war, and made a fool’s mistake. My own shield blocked my vision as I raised it high to intercept the oncoming bde. Had I known better, I would have unched an attack of my own to make up for my temporary blindness, instead of taking turns at defense and attack.

  The heavy bde crashed against my shield and caused a shock to go down my arm from the impact. Upon deducing that he was fighting a beginner, the bandit leader charged in and pced his forward leg behind my rear leg, and pushed me to the ground. The world changed angles as I crashed onto the soft forest floor. Looking up, I saw him reversing his grip and the blunt back of his weapon began its descent.

  Luckily, the weapon was deflected by the haft of Kidu’s lightning-quick spear. There was a grace and speed to his movement that spoke of more than just raw talent. It was a water-fluid dance, borne of a thousand repetitions, and driven by a spirit that was determined to remain free from the shackles of svery. The hunter formed a fshing circle with his weapon that drove off the attackers on my right, creating a null zone around its length as he fended off the bandit leader and his men.

  I looked around for Elwin, but of the Rogue, there was no sign. Where could he have gotten to? Soon enough, however, I heard a scream that was not his. I could only assume that his knives had cimed another life.

  Awkwardly, I scrambled to my feet as quickly as possible, adrenalin running flush through my system. Amon had retreated a small distance and had begun to chant, his face furrowed with concentration as he gripped his staff with both hands. The fat man looked triumphantly in my direction as he finished chanting, and a pall of exhaustion fell over me. My eyelids grew heavy, my limbs leaden, and my weapon and shield felt like sinking heavy weights in my hands.

  The voices, the echoes of the void that had always been in the back pces of my mind, cmored in rebellion against this arcane intrusion. Still, it was not enough to stop the insidious effects of the magic until I felt an impact in the flesh of my upper right arm. This was quickly followed by a sharp stab of pain in my leg and I looked to see that an arrow had dug into my thigh. The arrowhead had lodged itself a few centimeters deep, having punched through the mail, and had dropped my Health by around thirty points.

  The blossoming pain filled me, sharp and insistent, but it stopped the progress of my magically-induced stupor. It was time to fight magic with greater magic. Entropic Aura begged to be released, promising a swift answer to my current predicament. Who was I to deny such a faithful friend?

  Bck waves pulsed from me, and the dark energies began to eat away at Amon’s debilitating curse. He narrowed his porcine eyes and spoke a few arcane words, wiggling his fat fingers in my direction again. I could feel something trying to cut the connection to my Aura. The man looked absolutely stupefied when his attempt to counter my spell failed.

  Just as the realization of this failure truly began to settle, from behind him a dark shape arose and stabbed him in his corpulent gut. He screamed in a girlishly high pitch as he fell to the forest floor in agony, holding his sides with his fbby hands.

  The spellcaster must have been an intrinsic part of their group because, in no short order, the leader disengaged from Kidu, pulling one of his men with him before shouting, “Retreat!”

  Roaring in rage and frustration, Kidu made to give chase but grunted in pain as an arrow hit him, piercing through the mail that covered his dominant arm. Like the wildman, I wanted to run them down, and so I began to hobble after them. I made little progress, however, thanks to the lingering effects of the fat man’s magic and, equally debilitating, the arrow sticking out of my thigh.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and spun around to deal with the new threat, only to see that it was Elwin.

  “Hey! Hey! Calm! Calm! We’re in no shape to go chasing through the woods, ds. Best we start running in a different direction… They could have friends, after all, somewhere nearby,” he said to me in a cool voice that cut through the haze of my battle rage.

  I drew in a deep breath to reign in my anger, but Kidu, having caught up to us, yelled at the retreating brigands. A seething frustration at having been ambushed again demanded satisfaction. I kicked at the forest floor, sending up clods of humus and fallen leaves in anger as I turned back. I needed to vent, and as luck would have it, I id eyes upon Amon, who was struggling and whimpering as he tried to hold in his life fluids. I needed to control the flood of emotion that threatened to overwhelm me. As a symbol of control, I reined in my Entropic Aura.

  “Hold him down,” I barked, ordering my group. My two companions looked at each before they moved to restrain the fat man by his corpulent limbs.

  He screamed and struggled, but in his current state was no match for the two. His jowls quivered in fear as he looked up at me, his piggy eyes wide with powerless fear. Looking deep into his eyes, I searched them for answers. How had they found me? I would get to the bottom of this. These were no simple bandits led by a Friar Tuck.

  “Who sent you?” I asked in a ft tone, mimicking the Overseer Degei’s neutral and uncaring inflection from the sve pits. The man just stilled his whimpers and grew suddenly silent. It was not like I was looking for an answer at this point anyway. This was simply the beginning of the dance.

  Seeking answers, I cast Identify on the reticent man. This time there was no counterspell, but there seemed to be resistance, the magic having difficulty in finding purchase on the subject. To my dismay, the spell’s energy simply dissipated, which proved to just vex me further.

  “Use us,” the voice of the deep magic within insisted. I felt no urge to resist Entropic Aura’s call and power that bloomed from within, the pulse of the raw decay of the universe. The sibint voice assured me that the dark energies would make short work of the mage’s magical resistance.

  In hindsight, I should have just kept channeling the spell. It would have saved me two Mana from not having to recast it again. Oh well, I guess that was the price of learning.

  “Now, let’s try that again…” I said, a wolfish grin growing ever wider as I showed the fat man my teeth, my eyes filled with cold promise. My companions looked at each other for a moment, before their faces settled in grim determination.

  It was time to have a few questions answered.