Congratulations! Your relationship with Sword Adept Yoshi has increased from Friendly to Happy.
Apparently, despite his initial anger, Yoshi appreciated either Richter’s honesty and what he was bringing to the table. Though “Happy” was still not the word that came to mind when Richter examined the adept. After the vicious smile had faded from the Warrior’s face, the half-sprite had gone back to his usual glare.
Richter handed the vials of poison out, and everyone began to prepare for the attack. Because the potion’s level was solution, each vial was sufficient to poison three arrow heads. The poison’s level determined how many arrowheads it could be spread on before losing potency. The number also equated to how many hits a melee weapon could make before it lost its poisoned status. Tabia had been clear that spreading the poison any more thinly risked making the poison too weak to be properly effective. The sprites applied the poison to three arrowheads each, and all of them kept another vial in reserve. Richter was twenty-four vials poorer, but their chances of success had just improved dramatically.
He and Yoshi had a hurried discussion in hand speak, and they decided on Richter’s targets: the two goblins hidden in the thick bushes. Their position made it extremely difficult to reliably hit them with arrows, and they were situated in the middle of a clearing. The lack of trees greatly reduced the sprites’ ability to move unseen as they could not rely on their Forest Concealment ability, but Richter’s Stealth skill still worked fine. The sky was only partially cloudy, but none of the moons were full. If he moved slowly, he should be able to approach their position undetected. After that, he would be able to use his Dark magic spell, Troubled Sleep, to render them unconscious. The two goblins were only scout station so their magical resistance should be fairly low.
There was a final goblin fighter positioned directly at the mouth of the pass. His role was obvious. If he heard anything, he was to run down the ravine, raising holy hell, and let the guard post know there was an attack. Yoshi asked if Richter’s pet snake could handle that. The adder lay in the grass not five feet away, but nearly invisible thanks to its camouflage ability. Richter nodded in assent but said it would take time for the snake to get there. The adept told him to get to it.
The chaos seed gave his pet a command and activated Stealth. He was a bit concerned the snake might not be able to follow his instructions, seeing as how the target was out of visual range. Their improved mental connection seemed to be working, though, because it just started sliding forward. The sprites activated their Forest Concealment ability, and they all moved off. Only Richter didn’t have his bow out and nocked. While his abilities as an archer had improved dramatically since coming to The Land, he was still no match for the sprites’ pinpoint accuracy. Anything less than a kill shot, or a silencing shot to the throat, was unacceptable.
Instead, Richter had his knife in hand, and the blade had been coated with leech poison. The white of the moonstone metal did not make it any easier for him to blend with the shadows, so he kept it hidden in the folds of his cloak. The strike team moved forward en masse towards the first knot of enemies. Three goblin scouts stood huddled in the lee of a large tree, doing their best to stay out of the cold night wind. The scouts were complaining softly in goblin-speak. If they had been paying more attention to their surroundings, they might have been able to do something about what was coming.
Three arrows sprouted from their faces. Two arrows found the eyes of two different scouts, and the third entered the mouth of the remaining goblin. That arrow punctured the soft tissue of his throat, traveling at hundreds of feet per second, and exited the back of his neck, having severed the brainstem. As the bodies started to fall, three other sprites rushed forward and caught them. There was no clatter of dropped weapons or final death rattle. There was only the sound of snapped strings and the ending of three lives. The bodies were left in darkness, and the strike force moved on.
The sprites split into groups of four and made for their designated targets. Sion went with Yoshi, leaving Richter to move forward alone. The shale adder had slithered ahead, having to cross a good distance to make its target. Richter reached the edge of the trees and crossed into the open.
He had never relied on Stealth for his very life like this before. When he had been running from the kobolds, he had hidden from time to time, but it had mostly been an exhausting flight through the wilderness. This was different. Richter moved slowly through the clearing, knowing that enemies were all around him. It kept going through his mind that one break in his concealment could cause his death, the deaths of his warband and would most certainly spell death for the captives they were trying to save.
Richter’s heart beat heavy in his chest, THUD-THUD, THUD-THUD. He tried to remain calm, mentally understanding that panic was not helping him, but his emotions did not listen, and soon his palms were drenched with sweat. As much as he wanted to cover the hundred yards to the bush quickly, he forced himself to move slowly and maintain his Stealth. All the while, he prayed that the clouds would continue to protect him from the moonlight.
Alma continued to fly above, sending him images. On his left, he saw four more goblins die, one of them a fighter. On his left, a strike squad planted two arrows in the face of a scout, and another into the throat of a fighter standing nearby. The fighter had time to reach out, but then the poison took effect, robbing him of his final health, and he dropped to the ground. The sprites positioned the bodies so they wouldn’t be conspicuous and moved on to their next targets. Richter kept edging forward.
The chaos seed’s heart started beating faster when the clouds shifted, and a shaft of moonlight illuminated the ground not ten feet from his position. It wasn’t too bright, but to him, it may as well have been a spotlight. The reddish-white light started moving towards him. For once, his luck was working against him.