Morning came in what felt like no time at all, nobody slept well with the threat of the werewolves looming just below them. But at this point, there was nothing more they could do, they were stuck up in this tree until the werewolves left. When morning came Mendores was on his shift, watching over the group. He watched as the werewolves turned back into humans, and those humans saw the bags of loot that had been thrown down at them during the previous night. They took all of the bags before running off, and Mendores was too high up in the tree to get down in time to stop them. All of that food and survival supplies, they had just gotten it, and now it was gone.
Kadin still had his bag of food, and Zanath still had his bags of water and candy. But everything else they had picked up on their way here was gone. “We are right back to where we started...” Kadin spoke up, walking over to Mendores and watching as the werewolves ran off with their things. “Completely helpless against the countless beasts all around us... With no supplies to survive... What do we do now?”
“We are stuck between a rock and a hard place.” Mendores replied. “It seems like no matter where we go, we will be nothing more then food for the locals.”
“I would say, we were safer in the city though.” Kadin replied. When he spoke Mendores paused to think about it. But before he could answer Estellese spoke up.
“Are you insane?” Estellese countered. “The city had a fricken dragon!”
“I would have to agree with Kadin on this one.” Mendores answered. “The city had a dragon, yes. But only one that we know of. We can hide in the houses to keep out of the dragon's sight, but out here in the woods, if these werewolves come after us again. We can't escape them. We were lucky we got away the first time, they just move too fast for us, and we can't do anything to harm them.” He said.
“What about the goblins?” Estellese countered. “Those things have nearly superhuman strength. And the giant spiders we saw before?”
“The goblins may be strong, but they are dumb as bricks.” Zanath interrupted as he joined the others. “And the giant spiders have the disadvantage of being giant. Their size won't help them much in the tight alleyways.” Plus, he himself felt safer in the city. With his skills in parkour, the buildings offered much more safety to him then they did to others.
“So. We are heading back to the city then?” Mendores asked.
“My vote is go back to the city.” Kadin answered. “We have no chance of survival out here.”
“City.” Zanath replied.
“Fine...” Estellese sighed. “I just think we would be safer finding a new place.”
“It is just too much of a risk.” Mendores replied. “What if whatever else is out there is worse? Werewolves are low on the chain of dangerous monsters, all things considered. We have nothing to defend ourselves with, but we know we can handle the monsters in the city. It is our safest bet right now.” He explained. “Lets go everyone.”
“Which way is it?” Estellese asked.
“South west.” Zanath replied, pointing to their right. “We ran north east to get here, and the sun is rising in that direction.” He explained, pointing to the sun in a left-ish direction.
“How do you notice these things?” Estellese questioned.
“Isn't it obvious? Everyone knows where the sun is.” Zanath answered.
“It's not obvious... When ou are running from hordes of giblins that are trying to kill you, who pays attention to the sun?” Estellese replied. To which Zanath just shrugged.
Everyone made their way down the tree, and quickly headed back in the direction of town. They were all exhausted from that sleepless night, and they wanted to conserve their energy, so they did not run and instead jogged back towards town. Mendores and Estellese lead the way; Kadin trailed behind them a little, not being in as good shape as they were; and Zanath, despite being able to easily outrun them all, trailed in the back not far behind Kadin.
They had a rather uneventful jog back towards the city. They avoided the place where they saw the minotaur before and quickly were out of the forest. They did notice that there was a mountain south of the forest and east of the field that was surrounding Oline city, but they opted to not check that out. The dangerous mountain paths were not what they needed right now. It was a few hours later that they finally reached Oline city again.
They stood on that weird city limit where the city met the surrounding grassy field, where the road out of the city just stopped and suddenly became grass. “Hey, Kadin. I broke my club in the last fight, can I have yours? Since you aren't using it?” Estellese asked, noting that Kadin had chosen to carry two knives and had his club just lying in his bag.
“Sure.” Kadin said, he took the makeshift club out of his bag and handed it to Estellese.
“Can I have your knife? You don't use it and I threw all but one of mine.” Zanath asked Estellese.
“Uh...” Estellese hesitated. “Sure.” She said and handed him her knife, he was pretty good at throwing those things. She just hoped he didn't lose this one too.
Mendores took a deep breath. “Alright, lets go everyone. Keep your weapons in your hands, as always.” He said before he began leading the way into the city.
Estellese shook her head a little and followed along. “So, now that we are here. What exactly are we doing here?”
“Surviving.” Kadin answered simply and bluntly.
“Searching for supplies.” Mendores answered. “We need weapons, food, and shelter. We can probably find food and shelter here. Maybe weapons if we are lucky.”
“Overall, we just need to find a safe place to stay, we could probably eat goblin if we needed to.” Kadin spoke up.
“Eew!” Estellese countered. “What the hell is wrong with you? Those things are dirty, disgusting, they smell horrible, and they look like people.” When Kadin gave her a rather unamused look she added “You are either insane, or an idiot.”
Kadin raised an eyebrow. “Why not both?” He asked, causing Zanath and Mendores to chuckle very briefly.
“You are right, definitely both, my bad.” Estellese replied and shook her head.
Mendores chuckled a little, “We do need to focus and keep quiet guys. We are not exactly walking through a field of lilies.” He stated as they turned the corner and froze. Lying in the middle of the road was the sleeping dragon, or, what was a sleeping dragon. The dragon growled quietly and slowly opened it's eyes, looking up at the four humans.
“Ooooh, you woke up the dragooon” Kadin said in a teasing tone as he turned to Mendores. Mendores and Estellese both shot Kadin a glare. “What? He did.” Kadin replied.
“Slowly back away, maybe it won't attack us.” Mendores said quietly, trying to ignore Kadin for the time being. The four of them began very slowly backing away, trying not to anger the dragon and hoping it would just go back to sleep. Maybe, if they were lucky, it wouldn't be hungry and would have eaten a few goblins or something.
But it was no good, the dragon stood up and let out a loud roar. Baring it's teeth and staring down at the humans who had trespassed in her domain yet again. Kadin, Mendores, and Estellese quickly spun around and began sprinting down the street, but Zanath did not run just yet.
Zanath took the knife Estellese had handed him and took advantage of the fact that the dragon was close to him. With a flick of his wrist he threw the knife point-first straight into the dragon's right eye. As soon as the knife struck the dragon's eye the dragon let out a roar so loud that the ground shook, and Zanath spun around and sprinted after the others, his speed allowing him to catch up to the rest of the group in no time flat.
“I just gave you that knife and you already lost it?!” Estellese questioned him.
“I got the dragon's right eye, probably blinded the thing in that eye. With the way a dragon's head is shaped, the eyes are on the sides. It probably can't see anything on its right side now.” Zanath stated. “We should stay to its right.” He added.
Mendores nodded “Good thinking.” He replied. Then, as a strong gust of wind signaled to the group that the sleepy dragon had taken flight, he began giving out instructions. “Dragon's probably going to try another flyby fireball. Be ready to dodge then rush to the alleyways on the left before it can turn around. We need to lose the dragon and get some distance from the area before that roar attracts the hordes again.”
“Got it.” Kadin and Zanath replied.
“Why the left? He's blind in his right eye we should go right.” Estellese questioned.
“When the dragon turns around, his right side will be our left.” Mendores answered.
“Oh, makes sense.” Estellese replied.
As he had predicted, the dragon swooped down from above and spat another fireball down at them once it was directly over their heads. The four of them could feel the searing heat from the fireball before it even came close to them and immediately all four of them dove to the sides to get out of the way. Kadin and Estellese landed on their stomachs while Mendores and Zanath tucked into a roll and ended up back on their feet.
Mendores grabbed Estellese's arm to help her up, and Zanath did the same for Kadin. Once they were up they looked to the sky and saw the dragon starting to circle around to come back at them again. “Quick!” Mendores called out as he sprinted off into the alleyway to their left with the three others following right behind him.
As they ran down the alleyway they heard the dragon swooping past and felt the gust of wind as it flew by them. They could hear the distant roar of the furious dragon, having lost its prey. But as Kadin looked up at the sky he could see that it was circling around the area, searching for them. “We need to get somewhere where it can't find us. Fast.” Kadin stated “It is flying around and looking for us.” He added.
“That's not all that is looking for us, eyes on the road not the sky. We'll hear the dragon if it comes after us.” Mendores replied as they ran out the other side of the alleyway, only to see the goblins pouring out of the houses and alleyways yet again. But, oddly enough, there was one place the goblins were not coming out of, an old subway entrance. Just a big staircase going underground, of all the places the goblins wouldn't be, that was the one place Mendores had expected the goblins to be. And they were not there. Why? “The subway entrance. Only place they are not coming out of. It's very risky, I don't know why they aren't coming out of there, but the dragon won't find us there and it's the only place we will be able to get into from here without fighting through the horde of goblins. Unless we do another rooftop run, but if we did that the dragon would surely spot us.” He instructed.
The group was hesitant about this idea, the fact that goblins were not coming out of there was both a relief an a concern. It was great they had a seemingly goblin free place to run to, but what was in there that was keeping the goblins out? Then again they didn't have much choice in the matter, so the four of them sprinted for the subway as the goblins started closing in on them from all sides. They made it in and rushed down the stairs, with hundreds of goblins right on their heels. But... It was not a subway entrance. The stairs came to an abrupt end.
At the bottom of the straight subway stairs was not a subway, but a very deep hole with a small spiral staircase going straight down, so far down that the bottom could not be seen, looking down the humans only saw black. Having nowhere else to go, the four humans rushed down the spiral staircase with the goblins following right behind them. The goblins were fighting each other to get down the stairs first, each one of them wanted to get the humans for themselves and were shoving the others out of the way. This resulted in several of the goblins being pushed off the stairs and plummeting down to their deaths.
They rushed down the stairs for what felt like forever, evading the occasional falling goblin on their way down. When the four humans reached the bottom of the stairs they found themselves in one very small room. The only things in the room were the stairs, the dead goblins who fell off the stairs, and a big eerie looking double door. The door was black, metal, and huge with pointy iron poles sticking out of it as part of the design.
The door looked anything but inviting, it was pretty clear that whatever was behind that door was not happiness and sunshine, most likely the complete opposite. But as they looked back and saw the hordes of goblins rushing down the stairs after them… There wasn’t much choice.
“Through the door, push it open and watch for the points. Be ready for whatever is on the other side.” Mendores instructed. “And pray it isn’t worse then the hordes of goblins…” He silently added in his head.
Mendores and Zanath took the left side of the double door while Kadin and Estellese took the other side. Being careful not to jab themselves on the metal bits sticking out of the doors, they pushed the heavy doors open. An eerie blue glow emitted from inside the room but they didn’t have time to figure out what it was. All four of them rushed into the room and then slammed the big doors shut behind themselves just as the goblins started reaching the bottom of the stairs.
They could hear the shouting of the goblins on the other side of the door that didn’t have the reaction speeds to stop in time, and ended up running into the sharp metal bits sticking out of the door. The door shook as several of the goblins hit it, but they couldn’t maneuver around the spikes well enough to get a firm grip on the door and push it. And then, there was silence, for now.
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Next Chapter: Into the fire.
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