Microsoft Zone Archive/Player Chronicles/Mutual Rescue

Original Link (now dead) - http://zone.msn.com/asheronscall/ASHEmage.asp

Mutual Rescue

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I stop at the city gate and look at the road vanishing before me. I am headed to Hebian-To alone. My fellow adventurers wanted to stay and hunt in the Grotto, but I had bigger aspirations, and they required a better selection of spell components. A rain starts from the dark foredawn skies as I trot forth. I will stick to the road and hope to outrun any of the monsters that live off of the suffering of travelers. To be safe, I hold my wand tight in my hand as I warily survey the land ahead for any sign of creatures. Seeing some wasps, I turn off the road. Normally wasps would be one of my favorite things to hunt -- I would find some high ground and launch spell after spell, watching their red bodies fall one by one. This time the wasps are the more ferocious green ones, and I have no life mage backing me up. I steadily run on, past drudges and shreths. Occasionally I see a party hunting among the trees. I check the map; I still have a way to go . . . Then I see her.

She is being chased by a shreth (a big one, a "hunter"). She is heading straight for me, and she needs help, my help. I have run across hunter shreths before and many times found myself staring at a lifestone after the meeting. I figure I am going to have to make the run a second time as I launch a bolt at the creature. I get a second spell off before its first strike takes half my health. The end is near. Perhaps she'll have enough time to get away. Perhaps this will be a heroic death, an honorable one, helping out my fellow adventurer. Maybe I will see her on the road after I recover at the lifestone and head back to claim my meager possessions from my ravaged corpse. I evade the next hits and lose some more mana as I fire off another spell.

The shreth has been hurt before this encounter, but my spells seem to have little effect. I evade a second time -- luck is with me -- but then no . . . my spell fizzles in front of me and a hit takes me to all but dead. I can launch one more spell, but it won't be enough . . . merely a last act of defiance, a way of saying, "I may be dead but you will be an easier kill for the next adventurer." I start to conjure, the beast right in my face, its fetid breath filling my lungs. I hardly notice the lights dancing around me. A surge of fresh life energy fills me just as the creature swipes me with what would have been a fatal blow. Another spell of life heals me. The rush of adrenaline causes me to try to conjure too quickly, but the second spell hits. The shreth lets out a howl of pain. I evade the next blow and finish the creature off with a series of bolts. I sink to the ground.

Several breaths later, I recall where I am and snap to attention. No creatures are stalking me. I'm safe for the moment. I start to thank my savior, the very one I was attempting to save. She has already vanished up the road. I never even got her name.

I pick myself up and start down the road again. But it's different. The rain has stopped, and I realize that on Dereth's roads, you are never truly alone. There may be creatures around every turn, but there are adventurers willing to lend steel or mana. My pace quickens as the sun starts to shine. Hebian-To beckons.

--Fahrenheit

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