Melody of Mana

We trudged through the paths until we finally came to our section. Said paths were actually very clean looking, and for some reason nothing seemed to bother us while we were on them. While that seemed a bit odd to me, others in the group didn't seem to think it was out of the norm, so I just went with it.

The area we'd been assigned was probably twenty acres total, in a triangular section. It spread out from the point we first arrived at and could only be described as dense. I looked to the others for how they wished to tackle this particular problem, but there seemed to be no consensus. Ean was in favor of going straight in, as he said most of the plants he thought would be best for us to find wouldn't grow too close to the path. Ethbert on the other hand was in favor of circling around the edge first, as to scout out any potential beast tracks. While both ideas had some points Ean was making significantly more sensible points.

"Ethbert, are you a hunter?" I asked when I'd finally gotten tired of the back and forth.

"What? Well I dabble of course." He seemed a bit confused by my question.

"Then we should go with Ean's plan. He claims to be expert in this kind of thing. His job is to help us with beasts and plants while we deal with the fighting."

That seemed to settle it and while Ethbert was a bit peeved by the decision he was overruled by the rest of the group. We dove in at the smallest point and began a snaking search pattern through the wood. It was painfully slow going, with rather thick underbrush until we got well away from the path.

A few hours in and all of us were tired, we'd found a few good plants but nothing else, and it was getting rather exhausting to walk all this way. I made some mental notes about getting better hiking shoes specifically for this class around the time we decided to take a short break.

"What?" Etta said, most of our group had turned to her as she pulled out a bit of jerky and began to munch, "I told you, I've done this exercise before. Learning to bring food is part of it."

"The rest of us were not informed of that," Ethbert stated, getting a grunt of approval from Glen.

"That is unfortunate, but I'm sure you'll do better next time."

"Did anyone else bring anything?" I asked, stretching a bit.

The answer to that from our boys was a resounding no, but a few songs later and we all had cold water and a rather plain sandwich. It was in times like these that I felt better about my lack of direct combat capability, because the lot of us would have just gone hungry had I been a wizard.

A half-hour after our little break we found a clearing, in which was our first real enemy. Across from us, and about fifty feet away was a dog-looking beast, covered head to toe with spines like a porcupine. It's muzzle was buried in a deer carcass, ripping and tearing the thing apart. My first move was to put a sound dampening barrier between us.

"Okay, it shouldn't be able to hear us. Ean, what in the world is that thing."

"Spinewolf, highly aggressive, highly resistant to direct magic attack. It can launch some of those spines so watch out for that. There are a few of the spines on its underbelly that are white, we want those, they're good for making items."

"Dangerous?" Glen asked. He was more the quiet sort, so speaking up caught me a bit off guard.

"Commoners with shields and clubs could take it out, it shouldn't be a problem for us."

After a few moments to plan out we moved. Glen and I, covered by silence and invisibility, moved around, flanking the beast. He was to be the initial attack, charging headlong toward the spinewolf and doing his best to draw its ire while Ethbert closed in from behind. I took a few moments extra to toss up some spells, before tapping Glen's shoulder, our signal for him to go.

He was nearly on top of the beast before I couldn't maintain the invisibility. I'd not worked too much on keeping others unseen and found it much more difficult than doing the same to myself, and anyway, he was supposed to be drawing attacks.

As Glen charged it the monster jumped back, spinning it's tail forward in an arc and throwing a hail of spines. They peppered the forest around me, slamming into trees with a wicked 'thunk' a few even bounced off of the shield I'd set up to keep myself safe, giving it its first live test.

While Glen weathered the storm Ethbert closed in from behind like an arrow. He blurred a bit as he ran from the trees to the monster's side. His longsword flashed in the sunlight as he struck, sending a spray of red out from the beast's back leg.

It was a good blow, but not enough and the spinewolf turned again. This time the rain of missiles flew towards Ethbert, who promptly ducked under the attack, only a few slammed into the armor covering his biceps.

While it was distracted Glen had closed in. His attack did not have the speed of Ethbert's, but it frankly didn't need it. The blow was titanic, cleaving through the spine of the monster in the middle of its back and out through the chest. He sliced through the spine, ribs, shoulders, I was guessing he got several internal organs as well. The legs were still held on by the skin but the spinewolf's head, neck, and parts of its upper body flew right off. Had that been a man he might have been able to go through him, horizontally.

I hurried over as I saw Glen helping Ethbert to his feet. Blood was flowing freely from the where the latter had been struck by the spines, several having pierced the lighter mail he was wearing and sinking deep. The young man just clenched his teeth and began walking towards Etta.

We found her over Ean, who'd been hit several times as well. He had three of the projectiles lodged in his leg, with another in his upper arm. Needless to say, Ean couldn't really stand and looked like he was in rather severe pain.

"You knew it could throw those, why the fuck weren't you behind cover?" She snapped as she ripped one of the spines out of his leg. Her other hand slammed a healing spell over the wound, not seeming to really care that his eyes rolled back in agony at the pull. "Waste of mana..."

When she saw Ethbert's injuries she immediately moved to treating him instead. She was no more gentle than she had been with Ean, but didn't seem nearly as pissed about fixing him up.

"Are you just leaving me here?" Ean asked as she moved to the armored lad's side.

"Your wounds are not critical, and we'll need our fighters up if something else happens. So shut up and I'll deal with you when I get the time."

I considered dealing with Ean's wounds myself. On the other hand she was right, his wounds wouldn't kill him, and I did need to conserve mana just in case. In the end I decided to let the generally angry priestess deal with it.

Etta was absolutely brutal in her behavior. She seemed to be of the opinion that if we screwed up... that was our problem, so long as it didn't endanger our lives or our mission. That did not particularly endear her to anyone, though I suspected that she didn't honestly care. Ean in particular seemed a bit peeved by her, understandably.

It took awhile, but eventually everyone was healed up and ready to continue. The spinewolf spines were easy enough to harvest. Mostly you just ripped them out of the thing's skin once it was dead. Ean wrapped them in cloth and put them with the other items he'd been gathering.

About the time he finished there was a noise like thunder crashing nearby and an actinic blue flash off from our side. It was followed by another, and another, and another. As I spun my head, looking for what was going on I saw from the middle of the clearing something pop up, flying into the air. In an instant I recognized the method of attack properly, my brain catching up to what was going on.

"GET DOWN!" I screamed, grabbing the priestess and the wizard as I flung myself to the dirt.

The earth-shattering noise and bright blue flash as the lightning bomb went off drowned out the rest of the world. Even though we were low to the ground I could still feel the lashing of electricity against my skin, burning and charring as it passed over me.

It passed quickly and I knew I'd survived the initial assault, albeit very injured. As vision returned I could see the weak wards of our armor an angry glowing red. Those had probably had a fair hand in keeping us alive, being that the whole clearing was covered in scorch marks. Even the trees had been broken, their sap vaporized and the bark blown apart. I knew I wasn't the only one to have made it too, judging by the chocking, pained noises from around me.

I also heard more explosions. One came after another almost like a chain. I could see a few here and there but mercifully there were none close enough to finish us off. Though there were definitely more in our section of the copse, as well as in those around us.

I was hurt, badly so. I could tell that places where the lightning had run over my body had been burnt as if by a brand. As I gasped and tried to stop myself from sobbing I looked at my allies. Etta and Ean had both definitely made it. Etta was rolling a bit, seemingly unable to do much through her pain. Ean... Ean was having a bad day, he currently looked like he was in the middle of a seizure. My guess was that my training pushing my aura out to defend against harmful spells had helped me significantly.

As for our two knight apprentices, they were a mixed bag. Ethbert was on the ground, unmoving. I couldn't tell if he was alive or not, and had other issues to sort before checking. Glen, that crazy bastard was trying to stand up. He looked to be having a hard time of it, but he'd somehow managed to weather that storm the best out of all of us.

The first step in triage was understanding the basic situation, if possible. I'd managed that and moved to the second step. I was a healer, and very injured, so I needed to get myself up asap. I wasn't even going to try and sing with how messed up I was, but I could hum, so hum I did. I focused on the areas that hurt the worst. Before anything else I needed to be able to think, and to cast. Glen briefly tried to talk to me, but I flailed an arm at him to shut up, I was busy.

Once I had myself in a state that I considered... acceptable. I stopped and looked over at the other member of my team. "What do you need?"

"Personally healing, and we need shelter in case there's another hit."

"Etta is next on the list. Where I'm at right now I could move, but we could kill the others if we move them."

"Ethbert is worse off."

"Ethbert can't help anyone else though, she can. Basic triage, get your healers up first."

Etta was still shaking. From the looks of it she was still doing well enough to stay alive and conscious, but probably too injured to think straight. Fixing that would be my first priority.