3rd Book: the Book of the Mountain
Copyright© 2025 by Luvirini
Chapter 16: Mischief
October 19
Ra heals Neeia and Kieron with tree healing magic. After that, the night passes peacefully.
October 20
In the morning, the group starts following the doppelgangers’ tracks to where they had come from. When they have walked for about an hour, they hear singing from behind them. The voice sings
“If you go down in the woods today,
You’re sure of a big surprise.
If you go down in the woods today,
You’d better go in disguise.
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain because
Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic.”
The voice sounds like a little girl’s voice. They go closer and see a little girl on a clearing who is singing and teaching a black bear to sing. The girl is wearing a dress and looks about 10-12 years old. The group tries to chat with the girl, but she complains not to disturb her when she is training and doing her work. In addition, she thinks they are quite stupid to come openly introducing themselves in a forest that is full of doppelgangers, rakhasas, and other dangerous creatures. All seemingly harmless creatures here are dangerous. The group leaves, as they don’t get any more information.
They decide to forget following the tracks here into the deeper forest and start following the enemies who fled in the other direction. They follow the tracks for two hours, and after that, the tracks go into a river, so they can no longer follow them. Ra transforms into a hawk and goes to look around but, as usual, doesn’t see anything. The group continues the journey. Four hours later, they hear howling from a tree, and it causes fear in almost everyone. Four shadow dogs attack them. Two of them attack Ra and Neeia and give them quite bad injuries. The third attacks one pack horse and kills it.
Ra rides away and then gets off his horse. Neeia jumps off her horse and begins to fight with one dog. Kieron and Jaysek descend from the horse and draw their weapons. The last one, the howling dog, attacks Kieron’s horse and kills it with a couple of strikes. Kieron tries to hack away the dog attacking her horse but doesn’t succeed. The dog that was attacking Ra goes to help the one that killed the pack horse, and they begin to drag the horse with its goods away. Ra drags himself into the battle, though his horse arrives on the scene earlier and runs over one dog, and when the dog moves forward by teleportation, the horse attacks again right away. When Kieron’s horse has fallen too, those two other dogs begin to drag it away too. Neeia hits one of the dogs dragging Kieron’s horse, and it lets go and attacks Neeia again. Neeia hits the enemy well, and the dog flees. The other dog also flees when Kieron hits it with her sword. Jaysek casts helper spells on Kieron and Ra, and they go after the slowly fleeing dog. Neeia shoots it with lightning bolts, Kieron strikes with her sword, whereupon the dog dodges and hits its head on a stone. Ra flies energetically to the scene, strikes the dog a couple of times, and the dog falls unconsciously to the ground. After this, the group continues after those two last dogs. Meanwhile, Ra’s horse has attacked those dogs, and the dogs have killed it off. Kieron and Jaysek take on one dog and fight with it; Neeia and Ra fight with the other dog.
Kieron and Jaysek’s dog flees, and after that, when all attack the last dog, it is killed. Neeia, Jaysek, and Ra go after one limping dog that fled, but they don’t find it. Ra brings one horse out of the forest, and after that, Jaysek and Neeia give first aid to Ra and Kieron before going into the forest to look for the last horse.
They return to the others, and the group sets up camp. Ra takes a healing potion, and Neeia begins to smoke horse meat. Neeia also heals Kieron. When Ra is in good condition, he begins to fry horse steaks. While he is doing this, a voice from beside him says, “A little more spice and it will be better.” Ra doesn’t see anyone beside him, but when they look more carefully, at least those equipped with good vision detect that familiar black figure. The Dark Elf tells that he has been pulled here because big things are happening around here. There are parties that can use his thirst for knowledge for their own purposes. He came to greet them. The Dark Elf recommends that we think about who we are, the depth of self-image especially, not the profession, but what we ourselves are in the deep levels.
The Dark Elf tells that he has to go talk with another significant person who has meaning for his soul. He refuses to tell where the holy warrior is whom we are looking for because that is apparently against the rules. After that, he says that he has to leave now as according to him it is two minutes to their next guest. Then he leaves.
Ra takes a new steak on a plate and prepares it neatly, ready to welcome the next guest. The group assumes that Ageiaa is coming to the scene, but Am arrives instead. Ra offers Am a steak. Am tells that he had come here because he couldn’t find anyone else to volunteer to come here. He has apparently come to investigate that cult. He tells that he left from Sandpoint in the morning, and he notes that he still wants to reach Wartle today. He tells that he got a ride from Ageiaa. Am continues forward.
The night passes peacefully.
October 21
In the morning, an older man who looks like a mage dressed in a red cloak arrives. Jaysek recognizes that this is some high-ranking mage from the mage cities. The mage tells that he has been sent because something affecting the fate of the world is happening here. The mage gives Jaysek a crystal, saying to use this when you find out things. After this, he rings another crystal, and from an airship, a ladder descends, and he climbs into the ship. Jaysek notes that he is from Kaddastrei city.
A moment later, a blue-haired guy arrives who says to Jaysek, “It’s all your fault, fix it.” The man continues, “Hopefully you have taken good care of it, fix this matter right now, or I will get angry with you.” A little after this, the man leaves. Jaysek recognizes the man from his brilliant blue eyes; it’s the same blue dragon who gave Jaysek that baby dragon back then.
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