Chapter 154: Dragged

“Damned Plains, what happened here?” Emily asked, staring at the blackened trees in shock. Monsters littered the ground in the clearing, their bodies carved apart and badly burned. The dirt was covered by furrows and ripped to shreds, and fallen trees laid all around it.

The group had arrived at the clearing minutes ago and had been standing at its edge ever since, trying to figure out what could have caused so much damage.

“A Great Monster?” Todd guessed, his eyes darting around the clearing. He stood at ready, prepared to summon his magic at a moment’s notice.

“The Great Monsters in the Vibrant Woods don’t have any fire affinities,” Moxie said with a shake of her head. She glanced back at Lee, who was still limp against Noah’s chest, and pursed her lips. “Then again, the rain pulled out one powerful monster. It’s always possible it can bring others.”

“Would a monster just leave all these corpses lying around, though?” Noah asked. “In my experience, they tend to like eating the things they kill.”

“I’d agree,” Moxie said with a nod. “Which means this was either a human or a monster that takes pleasure in killing more than just getting stronger.”

All of their expressions darkened.

“Let’s skirt the clearing,” Noah suggested. “I don’t think now is the time to be looking for more fights.”

“Agreed,” Moxie said.

The group walked along the clearing’s edge, keeping to the trees. They all kept their guards up, and Noah continued to watch the forest with his tremorsense, but aside from the occasional snake or other unimportant monster hiding within the woods, there was nothing.

Minutes passed as they continued deeper into the forest. Even as the students’ guard started to lower, Noah’s only rose. After the jaguar, he refused to let anything else get the jump on him so easily.

The tremorsense was proving to be far more valuable than he’d initially expected. Even though it couldn’t get information about anything in the air, knowing that he could feel the immediate area around them did a lot to ease his worries.

But it still had one other significant drawback aside from its inability to see things that weren’t touching the ground – namely, its 20 foot range.

Todd, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly so limited.

“Trees straight ahead of us,” Todd hissed, freezing in place and striking his bracelets together, bringing forth a swirling orb of fire above his palm. “Forty feet out, roughly, heading toward us from the north.”

Noah and Moxie both tensed, preparing to move, but Emily didn’t even bother waiting to see what was coming. An ice bow materialized in her hands and she pulled back on its string, forming an arrow.

“How high?”

“About twenty feet off the ground.”

Emily adjusted her angle, then released. The blue bolt of ice streaked through the air, vanishing through the trees. Before it had even finished flying, Isabel was encased in stone armor. She stepped forward, a shield rising up and forming at her side, and both Todd and Emily moved to take cover behind her.

Despite himself, Noah couldn’t help but being slightly impressed. The difference between now and when they’d arrived in the forest was so stark that it was almost palpable.

Damn, Moxie. It’s been a few days, but you’ve already got them working as a team.

There was a surprised grunt from the forest, and a dark form tumbled out of the trees. Moxie thrust her hands forward and roots erupted from the ground, shooting up toward it. The form twirled, and a flash of dark light carved through Moxie’s magic.

It was only then that Noah realized that the form wasn’t another jaguar – or any sort of monster, for that matter. It was a man.

The man straightened, his black, tattered robes fluttering around him as he flourished a jagged scythe. The robes rose up to his neck and jutted out at a sharp angle. They looked how Noah would have imagined Dracula’s clothes would have if they’d been chewed on by a pack of rabid dogs for a few hours.

But, as dark as his clothes were, he’d taken no efforts to hide the bright orange hair on the top of his head.

“What in the Damned Plains?” Moxie asked. “A person?”

“Talk about rude,” the man said, tapping the butt of his scythe on the ground. “You shot me before I could even introduce myself.”

Emily elbowed Todd in the back.

“How was I supposed to know? He just looked like a blob,” Todd muttered, reddening in embarrassment. “Humans don’t normally look that condensed. All his heat is in his chest and nowhere else.”

“Ah. An effect of my Runes,” the man said with a flourish. “They fill my body with dark energy, leaving only a small part of me as truly human. An understandable mistake, though it did completely ruin my entrance. If you don’t mind, I’m just going to do it again.”

And, with that, he turned and strode back into the woods. Noah and Moxie exchanged a glance, and Moxie’s eyes spoke words in response to the confusion in Noah’s.

Mostly, they said, this guy is insane.

Isabel stared at where the man had disappeared into the darkness. “What the f–”

The man leapt out of the shadows, flipping as he flew through the air, and landed on a single foot directly before them, sweeping into a deep bow and holding his scythe out to the side. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Revin.”

“He’s insane,” Todd said.

Revin straightened, ignoring Todd. Isabel shifted her stance uncomfortably, clearly trying to figure out if the man was a threat or not. In the end, she settled for keeping a close eye on him and not letting her magic recede.

Noah didn’t blame her.

“Did you get hit on the head or something?” Moxie asked suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”

“Training, of course. I sensed some people traveling through the forest near where I was practicing, so I came to investigate,” Revin replied.

Todd opened his mouth, his eyes flicking to the trees off to Revin’s side, then let it close with a frown. Leaves rustled as a stout boy stormed out from within them, glaring daggers at Revin.

He kicked at Revin’s shins, but Revin slipped to the side and easily avoided the blow. Revin smacked the boy on the back of the head and ruffled his hair.

“This is my student, James.”

“I’m sorry for any trouble he caused you,” James said, sending an exasperated look at Revin. “My professor was thrown headfirst against a wall as a child.”

“Professor?” Isabel didn’t even sound slightly convinced.

“I was just getting around to that,” Revin said, adjusting his tattered cloak. “My name is Revin, a Rank 3 Mage at Arbitage. This is James, my fat, Rank 1 Student.”

The look James sent them told Noah that this wasn’t nearly the first time he’d been introduced like this. James missed a step as he spotted Lee lying limp in Noah’s hands. He opened his mouth, then sent a glance at Revin and closed it.

“We’re also from Arbitage,” Noah said. Revin seemed strange, but the man didn’t look like he was about to attack them, so there was no reason to be rude. “I’m Vermil, Rank 2. This is Moxie, a Rank 3 – and these are our students, Isabel, Todd, and Emily.”

Emily and Todd stepped out from behind Isabel, who was still completely encased within her armor and showing no signs of planning to release it. James’ eyes widened slightly as he saw them.

“You should both probably leave,” Moxie said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder in the direction they’d come. Noah noticed that her eyes didn’t leave Revin, and he could see from her stance that Moxie was still ready to drop into a fight at a moment’s notice. “The Vibrant Woods aren’t safe right now. We got attacked by a Rank 3 monster a little while ago – an intelligent one.”

“Seriously?” James turned to glare at Revin. “I told you this damn forest was cursed.”

“Sounds like an excellent training opportunity for you,” Revin said. “Where is this Rank 3?”

“Dead,” Noah said.

Revin scrunched his nose in disappointment. “Ah. Unfortunate. Sorry, James.”

“Don’t apologize for that! A Rank 3 would kill me!”

“Death is part of every valiant warrior’s life.”

“Only once. You realize that you’ll definitely get a pay dock if you end up getting me killed, right?” James asked.

Revin scratched the side of his neck. “That wouldn’t be a problem if you just won the fight.”

Is Revin what I sounded like to the others when I was talking about dying? Whoops.

Noah cleared his throat. “We should probably mention that there was also some carnage pretty close by. Looks like a large fight happened in a clearing. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

James’ face instantly darkened. Revin clapped him on the shoulder and gave Noah a curt nod.

“Ah, yes. We were training.”

“You were the ones that burned the clearing down?” Moxie asked.

“Well, no. That was the monsters. I only set a few of them on fire,” Revin replied, rubbing his chin. “But then they ran around and spread the flame, and that ended up burning things a bit more than I had initially intended. My idiot student barely killed any of them.”

“That’s because you lured a bunch of strong monsters over to me at once! How is a Rank 1 supposed to fight that many monsters on their own?”

Revin shook his head in disappointment. “You’ll get there one day, James. Losing fights and then complaining about it is the farthest from cool that you could possibly get.”

“You only put me in that fight to avoid having to pay off your bet.”

“Semantics,” Revin declared, flicking his tattered robes with a flourish. He glanced back at Noah’s group, seemingly remembering that they were still there. “Ah. You must have all been preparing for the survival exams coming up, yes?”

“We were training,” Moxie said, offering up no more information.

“As were we,” Revin said. “And, speaking of training, we still have much to accomplish. Come, James. There may be more Rank 3 monsters to practice against.”

Revin clapped James on the shoulder and dragged him into the forest. James sent them all a desperate glance before he disappeared into the darkness together with his professor. A moment of silence passed.

“He’s definitely going to die,” Todd said.

“Yep,” Isabel agreed. “His professor is insane.”

They both looked back at Noah.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Isabel replied. “We should get moving again while they distract any other monsters in the area. Even if that professor is insane, he said he tore up the clearing. He’s probably pretty strong.”

Moxie nodded. “The faster we get out of here, the better. It’s interesting that we ran into someone else practicing in the Vibrant Woods, though. They’re not that popular of an area.”

They set off once more.

***

Behind them, cloaked in the darkness, stood Revin, his hand over James’ mouth. Once the group grew far enough away, Revin released James.

“What was that for?” James demanded.

“Keeping you quiet,” Revin replied, heading in the direction that the group had left in. “Come on.”

“Come on where?” James hissed, jogging to catch up with Revin. “What are we doing?”

“Following them, of course. They seemed interesting. Two of them had ways to detect our presence, and their students attacked without hesitation. It was pretty cool.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

James’ eyes narrowed. “You’re following them because you think they’re cool? One of the professors was carrying a dead body around!”

“Precisely. And she wasn’t dead, just unconscious,” Revin replied. “Now move faster. If you fall out of my shadows, the boy will see you and you’ll get an ice arrow through your head. You don’t want that, do you?”

James suppressed a sigh, not bothering to offer up any further contest. When Revin set his mind on something, it was completely impossible to change it. All James could do was follow and hope that the professor didn’t get them both into too much trouble this time around.

Sometimes, at night, James could still smell the ash and hear the screams from the last time Revin had dragged them into something they shouldn’t have been in.