Investigating the site of an ambush.

On either side of the overgrown, seldom-travelled dirt road, forests and hills surrounded a small clearing. Although not particularly dense, the forest offered shade, and the relative seclusion of this spot must have made it a popular resting point for wagon drivers in some distant, more-peaceful past. However, it was now a perfect spot to be ambushed, as hills rose in every direction around the clearing.

Attackers could come from any angle, and still have the high ground.

People who lived in this time, a time of wilderness and monsters broken only by the occasional point of light, had to always think in the same terms as prey. Every rustle in the grass, a potential threat. Which is how you stayed alive.

Allegedly, wagons had been raided in this very spot, but there wasn’t a single trace of them. No scraps of cloth, no knocked-over trees, no splintered wood or torn canvas. It was like the entire wagon, goods and all, had simply vanished into thin air, leaving nothing but a bewildered driver behind to stumble into town a day later than expected, with no memory of anything beyond waking up in the middle of the road, wagonless.

His survival was the strangest part of all, and part of why this expedition was even mounted.

As usual, Astrid took point in both position and conversation.

“This is really the place? It’s hard to believe an entire wagon vanished without a trace.”

“Three, actually. All from different companies, too. If not for the tight schedule those kitsune trading companies keep, we wouldn’t have any idea of where to look.” Asya had read over the quest’s details a second time on the ride over, to try and gain some insight where there were simply no clues to go on.

“Rival companies- no, kitsune, working together? How terrifying.”

In front of him, Olivia made her obvious and rational distaste for the rich, powerful, and long-lived well known, again. Although her long, pointed elven ears and rich, dark-elven skin tone afforded her a much longer life than many of her companions, it was a mere fourth of what a kitsune could expect.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure that meeting cost more in tea than all the missing wagons combined.”

Before the front half of the party could follow that line of thinking any further, Fadime perked up from the very back, making a low shushing noise. Instantly, the rest of the party was on guard- Astrid raising her silver-tipped spear, Olivia behind her gripping her daggers tighter, Aysa reaching for his wand and Julitta hefting her immense crossbow into firing position, watching the treeline for targets.

A lazy breeze blew between the trees, shaking the leaves and filling the silence.

Fadime’s sixth sense was never wrong, and Julitta’s eye was sharp. The silence of the forest was broken by a javelin-sized bolt crashing through foliage and striking true, followed by the frenzied war-cry of half a dozen imps charging in from their failed ambush. What they lacked in durability or surprise, they made up for in fervor and numbers.

As chaotic as first contact was, as fast as everything happened, it wasn’t the first time this party had gone up against monsters. Fadime clasped her hands together and began chanting, an eerie glow radiating out from her feet and leaving in its wake a toxic, swampy ooze that would slow and poison anything caught in it. Julitta, equipped with enchanted boots to protect against that very thing, could now safely reload with impunity. Astrid banged her spear against her shield to distract and intimidate her foes, while Olivia darted off into the treeline where the first imp had fallen, disappearing from their view. Finally, in the middle of it all, Asya pointed his wand to the sky, chanting and drawing sigils as it left glowing trails in the air.

For their part in all of this, the imps had a much simpler plan- to charge in and get ‘em. Their squat, humanoid forms might have implied some intelligence, but their unintelligible utterances and mad, frenzied flailing proved they lacked more than they had. Four of them charged directly at Astrid, while three more ignored her clamoring shield and dashed on all fours for Aysa.

Of those three, one was sent far back into the forest by a crossbow bolt bigger than the creature’s own arm, and the other two were dispatched by knives seemingly thrown from two wildly different locations. The four that charged Astrid all found their mark, though they could do little against the shining armor they now clung to, their claws insufficient to so much as scratch it. As futile as it was, they tried anyway- giving Astrid more than enough time for an incantation of her own.

There was a bright flash, as Astrid’s lightning magic flowed through her armor, frying each of the imps clinging to it and sending their smoldering bodies flying off in every direction.

Although the battle was more or less finished, the group still had one trick up their sleeve. Fadime had prepared another spell while the battle raged around her- a ball of unstable arcane energy hovering at the very tip of her gnarled, gemstone-laden staff. She pointed it above Aysa, where his glowing wand-strokes had created a trio of circles inside one another.

The bolt of energy entered the circles as a single arcane projectile, and exited as a dozen. Each arced far up into the air, hesitating for just a moment, before raining down in bunches on targets somewhere beyond the treeline. The sound of a dozen magical explosions- and a handful of hidden imps being vaporized in them- echoed throughout the forest.

“Skewer!”

That sound was rapidly followed by Olivia rolling back into view, narrowly dodging a thin, red line of light that scorched the ground where it struck. Two more followed, pushing Olivia back to the rest of the party- though neither came quite so close as the first had. Soon enough, the source of those beams made herself apparent, emerging from the foliage without once touching the ground.

An Infernal mage, levitating slightly above the ground, black wings beating hard and pointed tail wiggling playfully, wearing very little over bountiful curves. Holding a blackened tome in one hand and balancing three very familiar balls of arcane energy in the other.

“That was a really neat trick and all, but you can keep these. I don’t want ‘em.”

With a flick of her wrist, the three projectiles sailed back towards Aysa and Fadime.

“Counter!”

And, with a flick of Aysa’s wand, just as quickly dismissed into thin air.

“Oh, countermagic? That’s cute. Tell me, can you counter this~?”