Path of Dragons

Even in the old world, badgers were fearsome creatures that no sane person would confront unless absolutely necessary. And since Earth had been transformed, they had grown even more terrifying – a fact of which Carmen was intimately aware, considering she was facing one such monster armed only with her summoned blacksmithing hammer.

From its snout to the end of its tail, the low-slung creature was almost ten feet long, making it nearly the size of a grizzly bear. Yet, snarling and hissing, it was far more aggressive than even the most territorial bear.

Carmen shouted, “Now!”

Then, pushing her understandable fear aside, she threw herself at the creature. It dipped to the side, then snapped out with its sharp teeth. They clamped down on Carmen’s torso, but they were incapable of piercing her makeshift chainmail armor. It had been hastily constructed from scrap metal only that morning, but even then, it had reached low Simple-Grade. As a result, it held.

Barely.

But it did nothing to dissipate the enormous biting force the monster could bring to bear. Nor did it protect her legs, which were suddenly vulnerable to the badger’s sharp claws.

Carmen let out another scream, though this time, it wasn’t meant as a signal. Rather, it was one of pure pain as the claws tore through the thick leather pants she’d made – which weren’t even Crude-Grade – and bit into her soft flesh. Her Constitution, inflated by her time at the forge as well as her automatic attribute allocation, mitigated some of the damage, but it was incapable of protecting her completely.

Yet, Carmen knew that she only had to hold on for a few more seconds. As she gritted her teeth, she brought her hammer down on the overgrown badger’s head. It thudded as it connected with the monster’s skull, but despite Carmen’s immense Strength, the creature barely even reacted to the blow.

So, she hit it again.

All the while, it shredded Carmen’s legs with its sharp claws while it attempted to shake her like a dog with a toy. She held her feet, but she knew it was only temporary. The beast was too large and too strong to resist for much longer.

Finally, the rest of her people arrived.

Armed with the spears she’d made soon after their exile, they descended on the badger, stabbing with the practiced precision of the experienced hunters they had been forced to become. Meanwhile, Colt slashed with his own shortened spear, sending a Blade Storm at the monster. He followed it up with another ability that added quite a bit of momentum to a thrusting attack. It wasn’t a fancy maneuver, but it was incredibly effective, especially with the aim of a veteran warrior like him.

The blade of the spear bit into the creature’s throat, and when he ripped the weapon free, it came with a gout of blood.

But badgers were well-known for their immense durability, and the touch of the World Tree hadn’t robbed the mutated version of that trait. It fought on, even with a dozen spears repeatedly needling into its thick hide. Carmen bore the brunt of its thrashing, and it never released the vice-like grip of its jaws.

However, the badger wasn’t the only one with unnatural toughness. Indeed, if there ever was a person who personified the badger, it was Carmen, and she endured with all the resilience she’d developed over the long and difficult years she’d experienced since the touch of World Tree had descended upon Earth.

And all the while, she repeated brought her hammer down on the monster’s skull. One blow after another descended until she felt its skull crack. Then, it shattered. Still, it fought on, albeit with a drunken stagger that robbed it of much of its lethality. Even then, Carmen didn’t let up until, at last, she felt an influx of experience that announced the creature’s demise.

As it collapsed, so did she. Gasping for breath, she looked down at her legs. They weren’t in great shape, though much of the damage was superficial. Still, she was glad to see Miguel running in her direction and carrying their cobbled-together first aid kit.

“Don’t cut them,” she muttered, already unfastening her pants. It was no time for modesty, so she agonizingly ripped the pants off – taking blood and flesh with them – and straightened her legs. That’s when Miguel went to work, cleaning the wounds with water and an antiseptic that had been mixed by one of the other refugees. Theresa wasn’t an alchemist – that was a Tradesman class – but there was some overlap with her Chemist class that made her a decent substitute. As such, she’d been able to mix not only the antiseptic, but also a healing unguent that Miguel applied after cleaning the wounds.

“Did the teeth go through?” Miguel asked.

Carmen shook her head. “No. I think I broke a rib or two, though,” she said as he bandaged her legs. Already, she could feel the foul-smelling paste going to work. It didn’t act as quickly or as well as a real Alchemist’s concoction, but it still resulted in miraculous healing. In the old world, the gashes and claw marks on her legs would have taken weeks – or perhaps even months – to completely heal. But with Theresa’s unguent, she’d be back on her feet in less than an hour, and the wounds would be completely closed in a week.

Without the woman’s contribution, Carmen would have already been dead, and the same could be said for almost everyone else in the party of refugees. Even with that miraculous healing paste, they’d had enough close calls over the past weeks that Carmen found herself dreading the dawn of each day. After all, if they could only look forward to more death, danger, and hardship, it was difficult to keep putting one foot in front of the other, especially when they weren’t even certain of their destination.

But one look at Miguel as he bandaged her wounds told Carmen that she had no choice. Even if she was on the verge of giving up on herself, she could never abandon him. That was what being a mother was.

As Miguel applied first aid, the other refugees descended upon the enormous badger’s corpse. Normally, processing such a large animal would have been a difficult and time-consuming process. However, when fifteen experienced people fell upon the task, it was quite a bit easier. As a result, by the time Miguel had finished bandaging Carmen’s wounds, they’d already skinned the creature.

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“Save that hide. We can make decent armor out of it,” she called.

Colt responded with his customary, “Yes, ma’am.”

With that, Carmen reached out and tousled her son’s hair. “Thanks, mijo.”

Of course, he pulled away from that show of affection with an annoyed, “Mom…”

That brought a rare smile to Carmen’s face. The weeks since they’d been banished from Easton had been wrought with difficulties, and, as a consequence, her attitude had suffered. Not since the weeks after Alyssa’s death had she felt so defeated.

Perhaps that feeling was even more appropriate, given her current situation. After all, Alyssa’s death was less of a defeat than simple loss. However, the recent events could unequivocally be categorized as the former. She had chosen to rebel – for good reason, she thought – but that had led to quite a few deaths. Roman had beaten her, and not by a slim margin.

That was difficult to accept.

“You okay?” asked Colt, looking down on her. Miguel had gone to help with processing the animal – the meat was important for their survival, after all – and she’d been staring off into space.

She shook her head, then extended her hand, “Help me up?”

He grasped her hand in his, then hauled her to her feet. Pointedly, his eyes never wavered from her face. But he did say, “Might want to put on some pants, boss.”

“What? You don’t like bandage chic?” she asked, trying to force some levity into the situation. “I –”

At that very moment, an arrow thudded into Colt’s shoulder. He stumbled, but to his credit, he maintained his feet, letting out a shout, “Marauders!”

Carmen whipped her head around, her injuries forgotten, and what she saw was not encouraging. Ten men, each armed with swords as well as bows, surrounded them. They’d clearly been living in the wilderness, because they were dirty, and their equipment was in a state of disrepair. Yet, if they could survive the wilds, they were dangerous.

The leader – a dirty and thin-faced man with a ragged beard – stepped forward, saying, “Weapons down. We don’t want to hurt nobody. Just give us your women, your gear, and your critter, and we’ll leave on good terms. If you don’t, we’ll have to take it by force. You don’t want that.”

Carmen knew that even that offer wasn’t genuine. The Marauders were well known to take slaves, and when they got tired of them – which didn’t take long – they slaughtered them like animals. There were even rumors that the bandits were cannibals, though Carmen wasn’t certain she believed those stories. Whatever the case, she recognized that complying with the Marauders’ orders was a good way to end up dead.

And she didn’t want to think about what would happen in the interim.

So, rather than respond, she signaled Colt, who immediately used Blade Storm. Due to using a spear rather than a sword, the ability wasn’t nearly as strong as normal, but it was still potentially deadly. However, the bandit leader wasn’t without skills of his own, and the moment he felt Colt’s ability activate, he summoned some sort of green shield. The Blade Storm ripped into it with the sound of metal clashing with metal, but the shield did its job.

“Get ‘em boys!” the leader screamed.

Carmen spared a glance back to see that Miguel had taken cover, but to her horror, he’d armed himself with a spear and planted himself in front of a cowering Theresa. That filled her with a brief surge of mingled terror and pride, but she didn’t have time for anything else.

Because one of the bandits was bearing down on her with what looked like a large net. Clearly, they didn’t want to damage her – or the other women, likely – which was why they hadn’t simply filled them all full of arrows. That was their mistake.

Using her massive Strength, Carmen threw herself to the side just in time to avoid the net. When she planted her foot and reversed course, pain shot through her legs, but she ignored it. Instead, she once again used Summon Tool to manifest a heavy blacksmithing hammer, and brought it down on the man’s shoulder. She’d been aiming for his head, but he dodged at the last moment.

It didn’t matter.

A scream of pure agony filled the air as his shoulder crumpled. The rest of his body followed soon after when Carmen dipped low, shattering his knee with another sweeping attack. Even as he hit the ground, Carmen was charging the leader. He tried to summon another one of his green shields, but against Carmen’s Strength, the plane of ethera was entirely insufficient to arrest her momentum.

It shattered with a sound like tinkling glass, and she hit the leader with a shoulder charge that bore him to the ground. To his credit, he managed to wrest Carmen’s hammer from her clutches, and it dissipated into motes of ethera the moment she lost her grip.

As the pair grappled, the rest of the refugees responded to the threat.

None of them were Warriors. They weren’t even Rangers or Tradesmen. But what the group of Scholars lacked in spells and skills, they made up for in sheer determination, survival instinct, and experience. Over the past weeks, they’d been pushed to their limits – past them, really – and the result was a disregard for their own safety that was shocking to behold.

Even as the stunned bandits tried to respond with a volley of arrows, the group of Scholars let out a roar of wanton determination as they fell upon their attackers. And their deceptively high-quality spears were the perfect tool for the job. The blades, wrought by one of the highest-level Blacksmiths in the world, sliced through the bandits’ makeshift armor with ease, piercing organs and ripping gaping wounds in the Marauders’ bodies.

Meanwhile, Carmen’s struggle continued until she finally managed to get her hands on the leaders’ head. Then, she used Smolder.

The ability was meant to heat metal, but it worked well enough against a skull.

He screamed as his skin blistered, and he tried to escape. Yet, Carmen’s grip was like iron, and she channeled as much ethera through the ability as she could manage, and the results were predictable. Even as the leader’s brain boiled, she let out a scream of rage and pain until, at last, she experienced yet another wave of experience that announced his demise.

When she finally let him go, his head was a blackened husk.

Looking around, she saw that the vaunted Marauders had all been slain by her refugees, proving that, even in a world of inflated attributes and powerful skills, determination and desperation had their place. Still, she knew that her people wouldn’t survive long armed only with that and a few spears. So, as she pushed herself to her feet, she said, “Strip them of anything useful. We’re going to need this gear, I think.”

Then, she reached down to the sword the leader had never even drawn. It wasn’t a great blade, but she didn’t care about that. Instead, she was more interested in the metal. It was just normal steel, but that was better than a few nails she’d melded.

Finally, she glanced back at Miguel, who still hadn’t moved from in front of Theresa. He was safe and uninjured, which couldn’t be said for the rest of her people. They’d all picked up wounds, and though they were capable of ignoring those in the heat of battle, now that the adrenaline of the fight had faded, they needed treatment.

So, she called out to Miguel and Theresa, telling them to get to work. On the one hand, she was furious that her son hadn’t found cover. Instead, he’d been fully prepared to defend Theresa. However, on the other, she couldn’t help but see hints of his mother in his actions. Sure, Alyssa’s blood didn’t run through his veins, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t her son.

As Miguel scurried to do as he’d been ordered, Colt said, “He’s smart. Protected the only healer we have.”

“I know,” Carmen said. “I just wish it wasn’t necessary.”

“My dad used to have a sayin’ for that kind of thing,” Colt stated. “Shit in one hand and wish in the other, and see which hand fills up first.”

“That’s gross.”

“Yep. Accurate, though.”

Then, he set about helping everyone else gather gear and finish processing the badger. Carmen knew that if the Marauders had been intent on killing them, they would be dead. The only reason they’d managed to survive was a combination of underestimation and a desire to take some of them hostage. That just served to reiterate how thin the margins were out in the wilderness.

So, Carmen let out a sigh, then found her pants. That was the first step. Whatever happened next, she wanted to be fully clothed.

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