Hear shouting a little ways off

I moved away from the direction I figured Legs and Co. were headed. Flew for a good while without any particular destination. Just patrolling my turf, a hunter on the prowl. As I flitted from one tree to another, pausing periodically to get a feel for the pulse of the land or just take a moment to relax. I was in no hurry, and knew I was still weak enough that a slip at the wrong time could mean my immediate end. There were still a great many things much, well, perhaps not scarier, per se, but deadlier than I.

I recalled the look of abject horror on the face of my elf princess when she fully understood what was happening to her. Knowing she couldn't defend herself or cry for help. I savored that memory. The tears and inaudible weeping that had followed were already like a **** for me and I needed more.

So when I heard the pitched cry of a feminine voice, followed by shouting, I of course had to investigate.

I heard the tell-tale signs of some kind of battle well before I saw anything. Men yelling in alarm or anger, grunting, cries of pain. I heard some women screaming the screams of frightened non-combatants, the clanging of steel. Through the rest, I singled out one female voice that wasn't afraid at all. Shouting in a commanding voice, even laughing once.

I had to see. Betting on the participants of the battle being too engaged to notice my approach, I slipped through the low branches of the trees to a position overlooking the action. If my face had the capacity to smile, I'd have grinned like an idiot at the scene playing out below.

A group of human men—apparently slavers or kidnappers of some kind—were defending a small caravan of cage-wagons from a single attacking female demi-human. The smallish cages each held a female captive of various races, each wearing nothing but a heavy metal collar. My God's Eye revealed the collars to be heavily enchanted with several layered spells and wards. One of the girls, a freckled dryad with long hair like some kind of vines and what looked like deer's antlers, watched the fight with a hopeful expression. She showed to my eyes as a mid-level Sorceress, but zero power showed through the blanket of spells the collar carried.

Thanking the time-bending powers of my _Timefruit Juice _for allowing me the luxury of assessing the situation in an instant, I finally turned my attention to the woman crazy enough to take on some dozen well-armed slavers by herself.

She was a golden fox-kin. An extremely rare variant of the usual foxmen beast-tribes. The sunlight glittered where it touched her furry ears and her tail. What's more, she was young and attractive. Clad entirely in form-fitting leathers, from her knee-length boots to the molded chest-piece that gave off a faint aura of magical protection, the woman wielded a pair of very dangerous magic blades. She wasn't frightened in the least, having already dropped two of the men while the others formed a plan. My eyes revealed her age to be 28. Healthy, fertile. I spied five levels of the Tier 3 class, Manslayer, as well as a few levels of Ranger and Fighter. Very impressive; she was a perfect killing machine, as deadly as she was beautiful.

It was clear they wanted her alive. Perhaps the main reason she wasn't already injured, as several of the men carried crossbows. The combined power of the remaining men should have been more than enough to challenge one woman, even one with such impressive abilities. These men were far from helpless; but a golden fox was apparently worth risking their lives for. Two of the men carried the magical, power-suppressing collars in their hands, trying to find an opening. These men were slavers, after all. She'd be worth a fortune if they could take her.

As a matter of fact, so did I. And I wasn't interested in sharing with these humans.

The fox girl was clearly aware of the threat the collars posed. As she sparred with three men wielding spears, and one of the collar-men tried to flank her, she broke off to throw her full fury at that man. He didn't react in him, and it cost him the hand that was holding the collar. Both went flying off somewhere into the woods before her other knife found his throat. Even as he fell, the girl swept his limp legs out from under him to catch his body and hurl it directly at the men with spears so she could reposition safely.

She was actually smiling as they spread out again to keep her from retreating. "You human bastards picked the wrong woods for your rapin' and your thievin'." Her voice had a hint of some accent but I couldn't place it. What did I know about this place? She spit angrily on the ground beside her. "An' if you think for one second I'll be lettin' you lot put me in one of your cages, then yer fuckin' dreamin'." She flashed a pair of fangs as she smiled at another man joining the spear-circle. "But it's cute that yer tryin'."

I could see from my tree what she seemed not to notice: the spears were a diversion. The men were laying down some kind of filament for a magic circle around the girl. I wouldn't be able to tell what it was meant to do until after they'd made more progress building it, unfortunately. But it wouldn't help me at all if the men won this fight. I didn't want to fight my way through their group to get to the fox or the other women. It was in my best interest that the girl win the fight, ideally exhausting herself in the process.

One human—a hulking slab of muscle with 24 levels in Barbarian to prove his dedication to ****—stepped forward to challenge the Manslayer. "I'm gonna wipe that smirk off your face, bitch. I'll teach you to sit up, roll over, and beg like a good little doggy. If you drop your weapons now, I'll even let you keep your eyes and hands."

He was another distraction. This group was better than I'd given them credit for.

Goldie growled. "Yer a beast." She charged him, throwing a series of smaller knives at him as she closed the distance. Their fight was hectic. The man seemed to absorb an inhuman amount of damage without falling, and his vicious swings of his heavy club **** the girl to keep moving. I wanted to watch it all play out, but the men forming the circle around her demanded my attention.

It became clear they were laying down some kind of magic net. Upon activation, the whole area inside the circle would be ensnared by thousands of strands of magical thread. That would definitely put an end to the show.

Goldie had identified a Priest among the slavers who was keeping the Barbarian healthy, and had managed to pierce his heart with some kind of hidden crossbow she'd since dropped. The result was that the Barbarian was now clearly losing the fight, being worn down by countless slashes and cuts, but he was doing an impressive job of avoiding **** while also managing to keep the girl in the middle of the circle.

The fox wasn't going to be able to keep this energy up forever. She understood that, and stopped mocking and laughing while she fought. She was all business, capitalizing on any break in the duel to throw a knife or take a shot at one of the men on the perimeter. She managed to even score lethal wounds on a few of them before they started guarding themselves.

The number of men on their feet was dwindling, and the net-circle was nearing completion. If I was going to do anything at all, it was time.