The three months had passed, rather quickly for them even though it was quite uneventful. Vakai did suggest to practice with their abilities, skill and techniques, that way when they do arrive at their destination, they wouldn’t be completely unprepared. As soon as Vakai was certain they were getting close enough, they ties off their horses, hoping that they won’t be gone too long, and went rest of the way on foot while keeping low when ever they saw a patrol and every patrol was different. One had a couple skeletons, either bowmen or swordsmen while having a couple odd looking beasts, kind of like jackals or hyenas. Then another patrol would have ghouls and zombie looking orcs. Third patrol was hunchback orges with skeleton archers. It was hardly the same each time they had to quietly sneak past a patrol, and there was many. At this point, Vakai felt that they were close to the source, as it would make sense for all of these patrols and the further in they got, the worse the patrols became. Vile black slimes with glowing violet auras, small and scrawny green to big and muscular red imps, low class looking demons to higher class with bigger horns that had balls of flames in between the horns, just above their heads.

They took every precaution, every careful step closer to what they hope was the source of all of this strange alliance of all of these different creatures. Luckily the patrols seemed rather stagnant, like they seemed to not be expecting anyone to be crazy enough to attempt what Vakai and his team was attempting, even as they grew closer and worse the patrols looked, they were quite a bit of gaps that they could sneak through. And they knew they were getting very close when they noticed a crater. With night time and the moon hidden behind the clouds, they had the advantage and made it through the final patrol.

As they got over the lip and started to descend down into the crater, they noticed something that was impossible to not see right in the center. It wasn’t a very largr crater and the depth was pretty small but there was a small meteorite in the center, about half the size of a standard shuttlecraft. But what the meteorite had sticking out was what got them staring at it. Some massive black crystal sticking out of the top and glowing which as they looked further, it was glowing because of some person who stood nust a few feet from it with their arms up, chanting.

“Guess we found it.” Said Ryker.

“Indeed.” Said Sivol.

“It’s four of us against one, right? Maybe we can eliminate them before the patrols notice, and stop this from spreading.” Said Gomez.

Vakai sighed, “Not sure it would be that easy. We may have to destroy the crystal more than eliminate this…sorcerer.”

Ryker shrugged one of his shoulders. “Well we are here now, why not? We’re supposedly the best right? We got this.”

Vakai sighed once more, “All right but we get the hell out of here as soon as this goes south and I mean really south.” They nodded their heads to him and got themselves ready. “Sivol, think you can hit that crystal with one of your abilities?”

“I can enchant one of my arrows to be explosive, that should cause some damage.” She replied.

Vakai nodded his head, “Do it. All right,” he pulled out his sword. “Go!” The four of them charged towards the sorcerer while Sivol pulled an arrow out of her quiver, whispered to the tip before setting it up and launching it at the crystal at an incredible speed. The tip suddenly was encased in a strangr orange aura before it hit the crystal, which immediately exploded on impact and caused massive spider web of cracks all over it.

The sorcerer, or in this case as they could now see the face and hear the voice, sorceress screamed, “NOOooo!”

Vakai lept into the air towards her, raising his sword up and over his head as the blade started to have a bright white aura form around it and as he was coming to land he swinged it downward at her to hit her with his holy attack but she somehow quickly raised up some black shield right in front of her and in front of the path of his attack, blocking most of it. What force that there was left shoved her back about a foot.

The sorceress quickly raised another barrier when she sensed another attack and the barrier blocked three arrows from hitting her. Cursing as she was then forced into a close combat with now three opponents, she casted a spell that created barriers over her arms like second skin, but with a bunch of small hexagons, kind of like scales. She then used her arms to block essentially every assault that they made on her, from Vakai’s sword to Ryker’s mace to Ashley’s stone sledgehammer. But when she noticed Sivol was about to launch another explosive arrow to the crystal, she first slammed her right fist into the palm of her left hand which somehow created some unknown force that shoved the three of them away from her and then she shoved her right arm out, extended completely towards Sivol with her right hand open, palm aimed right at her which a solid ball of light with a red aura and a tail at the end of it launched right out of the woman’s hand and headed straight to Sivol.

Vakai got up on his right elbow in time to see the attack and shouted, “Sivol, look out!”

But that attack was quick and by the time she saw it, it hit her right in her right side and sent ber flying several feet before hitting the dirt.

“Ryker, go check on her!” Vakai ordered as they got back onto their feet. Ryker nodded and ran to Sivol while Vakai and Ashley charged to attack.

“ENOUGH!” The sorceress voice boomed and her next attack wasn’t even an attack at all, but more of a hold. Vakai, Ashley, even Ryker were suddenly held in place by some dark restraint around their arms and waist, even around their arms and chest. What’s more, the restraints were holding them up a couple feet from the ground. “You have no idea what you have done! You have no idea what you are messing with, and whom you are messing with.” She brought them closer, especially Sivol who was barely conscious, “You have made a grave error attacking me and the crystal. So I shall make you understand.” She started to close her hand towards a fist and the restraints not only started to squeeze them but also send painful shocks throughout their body, forcing them to cry out in pain. She laughed maniacally, as she tortured them even more.

What happened next…was a complete blur to them as the four of them were losing consciousness.

– Did they make the right choice attacking the sorceress and the crystla rather than returning to the Kingdom and reporting what they saw?

– Of course the Episode isn’t over for these four! Stay tuned for the next Chapter for the reveal!