Chapter 16: Luce

  I couldn’t wait to get back to Night Glen Township and enjoy a nice hot meal and a comfy bed at the inn. My party and I had been out here in the Night Glen Forest for several days now hunting down the Nightmare Jackals the Adventurers Guild said were beginning to run rampant and kill the local livestock.

  Nightmare Jackals were a C-Rank monster that were usually clustered together in packs of ten or more. That is what made them so dangerous. It was the fact that when you faced one Nightmare Jackal, you faced several more.

  Being the Mage of my party, it was my job to control the Nightmare Jackal’s movements so that the other members of my party could finish them off without getting overwhelmed. I was also responsible for healing any wounds incurred during battle that could cause problems later if not treated right away.

  And after days of fighting one Nightmare Jackal pack after another, my mana reserves were getting low enough that me and my party would have to head back to the Township soon. Our party leader, Jack, made sure to always check on how my mana reserves were fairing, and it was him that had made the call for us to head back.

  The job posting from the Adventurer’s Guild had stated we needed to kill two or three Nightmare Jackal Packs and with the last pack we had encountered, we had fulfilled that request. We had enough Jackal claws and Mana Stones gathered to substantiate that claim to the Guild.

  As we began to trek through the forest back towards the Township, I got a sudden chill down my spine. I frantically began swiveling my head back and forth trying to locate where that feeling had come from.

  I had felt this sensation in the past and it usually meant that something nasty was watching us from afar. At this point, my party had noticed my frantic state and Jack was the first to speak to me in a concerned tone of voice, “Is something wrong Luce? You are moving about like something is crawling all over your body.”

  I quickly answered Jack’s observation with an urgent reply of my own. “Something is watching us, something ‘really’ bad. I am getting the same feeling I had when that pack of A-Rank Night Crawlers ambushed us in the Nova Providence.”

  This caused all my party members to instantly take up battle-ready positions with our tank and his tower shield up front, Jack and our assassin in the middle and me in the rear to provide magical support.

  Everyone quickly began scanning our surroundings to locate the source of what I was feeling. My party didn’t always believe in this feeling I would occasionally get, but after that terrifying ambush, they now took this ‘precognitive’ sense I had very seriously.

  Without any warning a giant Murder Ape burst forth from the bushes and started charging towards our party. As the monster began to rampage towards our tank out front, several more Murder Apes appeared all around us and began to swarm our formation.

  Our party had been completely surrounded.

  Jack and our assassin acted quickly to engage the pack of Murder Apes, buying me just enough time to manipulate my mana and cast my Fire Wall spell. As my spell took shape a wall of reddish-orange flames erupted from the ground and began to surround my party on three sides.

  The wall of flames covered our back and sides, forcing the Murder Apes to engage our party where our tank was stationed out front and not allowing them the opportunity to attack any random member of the party.

  Once the Murder Apes were forced to engage from the front of our formation, our two DPS fighters were able to score successive hits against the monster’s from behind the safety our tanks tower shield and start to wear them down.

  With the initial chaos of the encounter beginning to taper off, the feeling that had alerted me to this encounter should have been slowly dying down. But it hadn’t.

  In fact, that feeling had only been getting steadily worse as the battle continued to rage in front of me. Fearing the worst, I quickly cast a buffing spell called Bulwark on all the members of my party. This spell would enhance the defenses of my party members and make them harder to injure.

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  Unfortunately, this would be the last spell I would ever cast as the next thing I knew, my entire party and me were face down on the ground unable to move.

  I tried to manipulate my mana to keep my Fire Wall spell active, but I suddenly felt my mana become unresponsive to my intentions. In response the wall of fire, that had been keeping my party and me safe, came crashing down and exposed us on all sides to the pack of Murder Apes.

  I feared that this was the end, but, oddly, the Murder Apes were not attacking. Instead, they just stood there looking at us with their large red eyes.

  Trying to piece together what was happening, I began looking towards the other members of my party and noticed something odd attached to Jack’s left leg which was in my line of sight. Sticking out of his leg was what looked like a dart of some kind.

  Moving my eyes, which seemed the only part of me that could freely move, I noticed similar darts clinging to the other members of my party. That was all I needed to see to know that this was an intentional attack to render us defenseless.

  But who would do that. As far as I was aware our party had not made any enemies. We had no gambling debts, we never took on bandit suppression jobs from the Guild, and we made sure to always leave criminal matters to the City Watch soldiers.

  As my mind began to ponder why this was happening, the sound of leaves and twigs could be heard crunching underfoot of someone approaching our downed party from behind.

  Out of the corner of my eye a humanoid shape started to enter my field of vision, but they were shrouded so heavily that I could not make out any discerning features. A voice then began to speak and just the sound of their voice made me feel as if my very existence was being pulled into darkness.

  “It seems this new batch of paralyzing toxin works quite effectively. It will definitely make the task of eliminating the other targets much easier.”

  The figure then bent down and began to remove the darts from my party and me. Such an action caused me to ask in my head, “Why was the mysterious figure doing this, they already had us incapacitated; therefore, why go through the effort of retrieving the darts?”

  The shrouded figure then stooped near my head and the same dark voice whispered in my ear, “This is all because of YOU. If you did not have any magical capabilities, you and all your companions would not need to be removed.”

  This statement made my eyes go wide in a panic as I tried to piece together why they were targeting me and the meaning behind what they had said about my party members.

  The veiled figure then raised themselves up and spoke in a louder, more commanding voice that could be heard not only by my party and me, but also the Murder Apes that surrounded us.

  “Be thorough my kin. We cannot let the other humans or races realize what happened here. Make sure that that only scraps of clothing, some blood, and evidence of your presence are all that are left.”

  With those orders it all became clear. This veiled assailant’s goal was to eliminate me and because I was with my party members they had to make it all look like we had fallen to a swarm of monsters to cover-up who they were after.

  A deep dread formed in my gut as I tried to move my body even a little bit to try and cast a spell and save my party from being killed, but it was in vain. The toxin that was coursing through my body had rendered me useless.

  The next thing I saw was the giant, hairy foot of a Murder Ape right next to my head and then nothing as an excruciating pain radiated from my back followed by the sound of pulverized flesh being beaten upon.

  From the other side of the massacre that was occurring, the veiled figure watched with a sadistic smile, somehow, being visible upon their face. Their red eyes showing a great mirth at the suffering they had caused for these inferior humans.

  Morphing from the shadows, another shadowy figure appeared behind the spectating assailant and bowed with one knee upon the ground as they prostrated themselves before the figure.

  “Commander.” The prostrated figure said in a low deep whisper.

  At those words the figure that had been occupied with watching the destruction of the humans turned around and clasped their hands behind their back giving the prostrated figure a single response, “Speak.” They said in a tone of authority.

  “The other operatives have identified the next target and are awaiting your commands on how to go about dispatching them.”

  The shadowy commander then looked down upon the prostrated subordinate and asked, “What is the intelligence on the next target?”

  Without hesitating the prostrating figure answered, “They are alone most of the day and night. They appear to be a solo magical practitioner that takes jobs by request from any who can sufficiently pay them.”

  “What are the particulars of their daily habits?” The commander inquired.

  “Sir, they wander Night Glen looking for any work they can find during the day and at night they are known to frequent a moderate inn where they drink until sufficiently satiated.”

  The light of an idea could be seen forming in the red eyes of the commander before they spoke in a pleased tone, “Lace their drinks with the simplified version of the toxin and eliminate them by making it look like he had an accident due to being sufficiently inebriated. If what you said about their habits is well known, then others will not question this manner of death.”

  The other figure did not waste a single moment as they blended back into the shadows and disappeared. Presumably to carry out their objective with great haste.

  The commander then turned around to watch the final moments of the doomed humans and thought to himself, “Soon all these ‘so-called’ intelligent races will either be dead or enslaved as the Great King decrees.”