Chapter 24 – Through the forest

She could have just left.  That would have been too simple though, and she didn’t like leaving things alone.

And of course, the foe.

After the first behir, she had to find more.  Well, she had gone towards the exit mainly to see where it was and what to do with it.  There was a cave, it was mentioned in the stories as some sort of storehouse for Grebthar’s special experiments.  The fact that there was a closed portal directly from Windfall to Newark was comical.

She knew that Grebthar the Destroyer was going mad, but this was something the Dark Overlord would have appreciated.

While she was there, she decided that testing the way out was probably smart.  After all, it would be terrible if she found out that the only beings that could escape were beings, she had just setup for a massive ambush.

It was a good thing too because that seemed to be the case.  She used every skill she still possessed, and the portal stayed very much closed.  While she  wasn’t quite a full arcane locksmith with all of the accompanying skills that required, she did at least recognize the work.  She also recognized that the lock was keyed to a War Badger.

That just made things more complicated, and she was fine with complexity if it got her what she wanted. These portals had a bit of a window between when they opened and shut.  She might be able to squeeze past that.  The problem was that all of her advantages in stealth might let her sneak past an army of War Badgers in Newark.  When she got to Ordinal, she was going to stand out until she could reacclimate to the local Mana.

It would be just her luck to escape only to get annihilated right as she made it out.

That meant she needed a plan.  She needed an AWOL War Badger. A challenge to find to be certain, but in this terrible place they certainly would let one go missing in action.  Then she could trick it into escaping with her, and of course kill it when they got to the other side.

After all, who honestly cared about war badgers?

***

There were four dead war badgers wrapped up in the dead Behir.  They had gone out doing as much damage to the creature as possible, but they’d gone.  Badgelor looked ashen.  He had searched for his people for literally centuries and found nothing.

Now he had four war badgers who died while we were in the castle.

“It's just,” he stammered.  Stammered.  Badgerlor stared at their bodies, unmoving as I searched the area.

“They broke off, one group went towards Ironpass mine, the other group ran towards the Western Gate Fortress,” I said, assuming that both groups stayed in a straight line, “Which way to the exit?”

“What?” said Badgelor, shaking his head.

“WHICH WAY TO THE EXIT,” I yelled, my voice loud enough that Badgelor shook and both ladies fell on the ground with their hands over their ears.

“West, the cave,” said Badgelor.  “If we’d just killed the behir.”

“We didn’t, we don't have time for this,” I said, grabbing the badger by his head.

“I let them die,” he whined.

“You are letting them die right now,” I yelled, but not quite so loudly.  “There are tracks, they escaped, you need to go save them.  I’ll take the ones that broke south.  I’ll bring them back, badger’s promise!”

Badgelor shook his head, staring at me as his mental processes started coming back on center.  He looked shattered, like all of the fire had just gone out of him.

I pulled his head to mine, looking at the tired old badger eye to eye, “They are out there, you are their LORD.  You will save them because that is what you do.  You are goddamn Badgelor, go save your people.”

Badgelor got to his feet, looking around and spotting the tracks.  He started walking, slowly at first then more purposefully.  “Bashara, take Jarra and go with him.  You are heading towards the exit.  I’m going away from it.  I don’t know what’s coming, but I do know that going with Badgelor puts you closer to escaping.”

She nodded and grabbed Jarra’s hand.  “We’re moving, hurry up.”

Jarra pushed her hand away and started to walk but regretted it almost instantly.  I’d topped off her hit points and regenerated as much damage as I could, but neither of those were the source of her problems.  It was the fanger’s draining of almost all of her ‘age’ that was slowing her, and I didn’t have a fix for that.

“Blanket, would you mind,” asked Bashara.  Badgelor paused, turning towards the woman, then he nodded slowly and shifted to ultimate form, even sticking his knee out so Jarra could climb onto his back.

Badgie, Blanket, and all I can call him is Badgelor.  So unfair.

I turned and started after the path to the south.  It didn’t take long until I found another war badger.  This one was stuck in his war form, and there were four dead drop pumas next to him.  They were getting attacked from all sides and wouldn’t or couldn’t stop.

There was no way to tell the hard numbers for how many war badgers had been alive this morning, but the numbers were dropping quickly.  I didn’t initially understand why they would have broken into two groups, but it became apparent quickly enough as I spotted the piles of dead drop pumas with the occasional war badger tossed into the mix.

They had managed to thin the number of drop pumas out significantly though.  It wasn’t enough.  Three times they had tried to cut west, but all three times they had been forced back.

The last time had been the worst.  Five dead war badgers had perished here in a massive pile of drop bears.  I heard rustling in the trees and was about to fry whatever it was when I heard a slow dirge from a war badger.

I found the broken creature with no fewer than seven drop pumas next to her.  Her remaining eye flickered purple as I approached, but the light faded and her head slackened.

“I’m Jim, I’m here to help?” I asked, reaching for her and casting Regenerate followed by Treatment.

· Derguer: Level 32 War Badger, Lieutenant.  HP -387/640

Her list of wounds was so extensive that there was no reason she should even be alive.

“She’s using a Stamina based skill,” said Shart, “And she’s just about out.”

“Can I dump stamina into her?” I asked.

“Not fast enough,” said Shart.

If I had an hour, I couldn’t have saved her, she was missing huge chunks of flesh and I could see her brain.

“Derguar, Lieutenant, system number X-11387.”

“I’m here to help, where is the rest of your company,” I said.  She sniffed me and relaxed. I smelled like a friend.

“The general took them towards the mountain, good defensive cover there, need to wait for reinforcements,” said Derguer.  She was flickering in and out.

“How many survivors,” I said.

“Only the general is still in fighting shape, she has all the cubs with her,” said Derguer.  She struggled to stand, trying to head south.  She made it three steps before her stamina ran out.

Shart said nothing.  There was nothing to say here.  Even the demon wasn’t stupid enough to snark at that.

I turned towards the mountain as I got a communication from Badgelor.

“Jim, it's Bashara,” said not Badgelor through our mental link.

“How,” I began.

“I hacked his channel if Badgelor wasn’t insane from grief, we’ve found nearly a dozen dead war badgers so far and he is getting more frantic as we go.  We should be to them soon, the exit is less than 20 minutes from here at this speed.”

She paused, “The last few were fresh.  Please tell me you found someone alive.”

“I’m about to,” I replied.