First Anchor

Setting off in the middle of the night, Aura, Tom and Dan travelled by carriage escorted by a small group of Warren estate soldiers on horseback, the group travelled at such a speed they needed to swap out their horses at every available opportunity along their way south.

"So, where are we going first?"

While the general direction of travel had been settled on, Aura wanted to know which area they were exploring first. While the dungeon near the village of Denor was the closest area of interest, it would undoubtedly also take a long time to search with the increase in local monster activity which might or might not have anything to do with the so-called 'anchor' they had been tasked by the goddess of war to eliminate. The second option was any better either, as the area of interest was only vaguely defined as a stretch of barely travelled road east of Denor village which might just turn out to be bandits.

"To the dungeon near Denor village, the locals might know something important and it'll be the most tedious to search. If we don't find anything there, then chances are we'll immediately find out if there's anything of interest travelling to the second area of interest."

"How so? John wasn't even sure about the area, he could just point to the single road…"

"Yeah, but he said traders had disappeared in the area, in that case searching the stretch of the road it should be easy to determine if there are bandits in the area or if it is something else based on if we find the goods of those traders or not. If we find the leftovers of those traders with their goods then it'll be cause for concern since bandits are not known to leave their loot behind."

"That makes sense, but it'll still take a while to search the second area. Shouldn't we do that first?"

"No, we focus on one the dungeon area first to take advantage of the locals, since we don't know what we're looking for we shouldn't split our focus."

Tom, Aura and Dan were all very much aware that time was of the essence, even if they had multiple full teams of veteran adventures, but Tom knew from his experience working as a waiter that they needed to not spread their efforts thin. Focusing on both areas might end up with two half-hearted efforts.

-

Travelling throughout the night, Tom and the others arrived at the village of Denor at first light to find a small community of farmers surrounded by heavy birch forest very confused by the sudden arrival of a group of people carrying declarations signed by the domain lord.

"H-how can I be of assistance?"

Meeting a very flustered and slightly frightened village lord, Tom got straight to the point.

"We're here under the behest of the domain lord, reports say that monster activity in the nearby dungeon has spiked, what can you tell me about that?"

"The dungeon? It has gotten significantly more active as of late, one of our hunters disappeared about a month ago and we hired a group of adventurers to find out why that's what they told us. After that happened I instructed all the villagers to not venture near it for any reason."

(A reasonable thing to do, but that doesn't leave us with any useful information… But then again, there's a decent chance the adventurers didn't do their job and just choked the death of the hunter up to the normal excuse of 'increased monster activity')

"Are there any hunters still alive? If so, I would like to talk with them too."

"Certainly."

While the local hunters were knowledgeable about the surroundings, none of them knew anything about the dungeon so Tom and the others were forced to examine it themselves. Leaving John's soldiers behind as they would most likely get caught up in Aura's spells, Dan, Tom and Aura left towards the dungeon just the 3 of them.

"It's been a while since we went hunting like this."

Falling into formation with a familiarity almost on instinct, Dan couldn't help but mutter those words as the group entered the birch forest in the direction of the dungeon. With Dan and Tom in front, it quickly became clear how laughably lacking the trio's long-range firepower was.

Particularly after encountering the monsters which appeared in the dungeon.

"Aura! Hit them!"

After making himself a target by shouting, Tom quickly dodged in behind a tree trunk which was immediately pelted with wooden arrows. The reason this dungeon was particularly disliked and therefore not frequented by adventurers had nothing to do with the monster cores which could be gained there, but everything to do with the monsters. Standing no more than a meter tall, the small, green-skinned creatures known by the all-encompassing therm 'goblin' were normally child's play to deal with, but these kinds of goblin known as forest or tree goblins had to be the only exception to that rule.

"I'm trying!"

Loading her staff with mana, Aura released a maelstrom of air blades which hit the overgrowth in vain as they only deprived a few trees of their branches.

"Stand still so I can kill you already!"

Loading her staff again as she loudly cursed, Aura made herself an easy target except for the fact that Dan was taking care of her defence. Moving in front of Aura, Dan deflected the first arrow meant for Aura's head with his sword before splitting the second one which came just after.

(Holy shit Dan has only gotten faster with that sword of his, then again I can't really be mad when he draws their attention like that.)

Stepping out from cover, Tom focused on one of the small green creatures hiding among the treetops and shooting arrows at Aura and Dan as he loaded his [catalyst] with mana.

"Die you fucking pest."

Using a fairly trivial amount of mana and a lot of concentration, Tom compressed the monster's skull about 2 centimetres with a wet splat. As the tree goblin fell to the ground leaking green ooze its comrades quickly retreated, returning the forest to the same eerie calm it had been just a few minutes before that.

"Thanks for that Tom, Those things are fucking pests."

Finally calming down a bit as she realized she was about to blow a fuse, Aura wiped the sweat off her brows before she regrouped with Dan and Tom.

"No prob, but I couldn't find the moment to hit one of them before you drew their attention. Without that, I don't think I could ever nail that goblin."

Although he was primarily a close-range fighter, recent gains in [mana control] allowed Tom to more easily hit targets at range, he needed time to line up his shots.

"Man, we really need some more long-range firepower…"

"You can say that again, then again these goblins are regarded as properly the worst kind of monsters. Not only are they crafty and good at fighting dirty, but they also keep retreating to save their losses."

After fighting the group of forest goblins a single time, it was clear the trio stood at a clear disadvantage. If they had the time, Tom would definitely have agreed to retreat and get some reinforcements.

"Okay, then we wipe them out next chance we get. Dan keep Aura safe, I'll do pest control."

With a cold smile on his face, Tom reminded Dan and Aura of their teacher.

"Agreed."

"Don't worry, just do your thing and leave Aura to me."

Continuing further into the dungeon, the trio encountered groups of orcs and even a smaller ground dragon before the pack of tree goblins reared their ugly heads again. As the first arrow flew towards Aura, Dan immediately reflected it. As the wooden arrow laced with some sort of brown matter hit a nearby tree trunk Tom was already moving. With [strengthening] and [fine-motor control], reaching the 20-meter treetops in a few seconds was surprisingly easy when jumping from trunk to trunk. The surprise on the tree goblin's face just before Tom smashed his face with his knee was priceless. While spreading the goblin's brain matter all over the place, Tom had already acquired his next target and even as it tried to run there would be no escape.

"There's nothing here. Sure, the monster activity has picked up but nothing really tried to kill us."

Back at the village around sundown, Tom shared his findings with the commanding soldier named Mike from the small number of forces John could spare.

"What do you mean 'nothing really tried to kill us'?"

While Mike was elite, he wasn't used to dealing with monsters, his field of expertise was human elements, as far as he knew someone or something either tried to kill you or it didn't, there was no in-between or middle ground in such a situation.

"We're after the kind of thing that'll make the massacre at the academy look like an everyday occurrence, there's no way all we meet is a group of tree goblins, orcs and a single puny ground dragon. What we're facing knows they're almost done with what we're here to prevent and vice versa they know we're coming for them."

"Roger… So what do we do now?"

Somewhat understanding where Tom was coming from, Mike asked about their next action to which Tom answered something quite unexpected.

"Right now? nothing. I'm going to get some sleep, same with Aura and Dan. We burned most of our mana clearing the dungeon at the speed we did."

While expended mana naturally recovered over time, the fastest way to do so was sleep. Having made clear what they were up against, Tom made the decision that they couldn't half-ass any effort to do whatever they were supposed to do.

"Stay put while we rest, but if you really want to do anything, please interview the villagers about the missing traders."

[IMMINENT COLLAPSE OF LOCAL NODE, DELTA LEVEL BREACH IMMINENT. MOVE TO SUPPRESS INCURSION.]

(... I'll never get used to that.)

Waking up with a set as something shouted out inside his head, Tom shook off his grogginess in a few seconds before leaving the carriage he had slept in to go and find Dan and Aura. Breathing in the cold morning air energized Tom's mind as he got used to the defused but still sharp light of sunrise.

"Morning. I take it we're moving out now?"

Meeting Mike who looked like he had also just woken up Tom put on a wry smile in response to his question.

"Yeah, I was just woken up by an oracle telling me to hurry up."

Setting off eastward from the village where they had stayed the night, the quality of roads quickly deteriorated as they moved ever deeper into the massive birch forest.

"Whatever it is we're looking for, I'm pretty sure we found it."

Glancing out the window as the carriage moved as fast as it possibly could on the poorly maintained road, Mike had a grim look on his face.

"What, why?"

"The air absolutely reeks of death and bloodlust."

While Aura was a little bit slower on the uptake, both Dan and Tom had already noticed how the air had changed. The somewhat lively forest was dead quiet, it was like all the forest critters had either been killed off, learned to avoid this area like the plague, or both.

With Aura also being brought up to speed it was clear that her mind started racing as she brought her senses to high alert as her ears poking up through her hat started darting around in response to even the smallest sound. Travelling for a few minutes in eerie silence, the already lethargic phase of the carriage eventually ground to a halt as one of Mike's subordinates opened the carriage door to report.

"Sir, the road is blocked. It'll be a moment before we can clear it."

Glancing to Tom and quickly reading his expression, Mike's face hardened further as he turned to his subordinate.

"Don't bother."

"Sir?"

"We're continuing on foot, preparing for combat."

Exiting the carriage to find the road blocked by the wreck of a trade caravan still filled with all of its goods and the rotting corpses of the former escort surrounding it, 3 things became immediately clear to Tom.

First, this was the area they had been searching for, untouched corpses and trade goods confirmed that it couldn't have been monsters or bandits that had attacked the caravan.

Secondly, looking at the number of dead adventurers surrounding the caravan it was clear that the merchants had taken the danger of the route into account, yet they had still been slaughtered before they could fight back.

Third and most importantly, where Tom was currently standing was what Lizzy would describe as a kill zone.

Even looking out for an attack Tom never saw it coming. From one second to the other, a steel crossbow bolt tore straight through Mike's skull and instantly killed him. In a split second, it became clear that Tom, Dan, Aura and the soldiers were surrounded, furthermore judging by the effectiveness of the ambush it was apparent that they had been surrounded and shadowed for a very long time.

"AMBUSH!"

By the time one of the soldiers shouted in panic it was clear that the fight was already lost, with already overwhelming casualties Tom's mind switched from fighting back to breaking out of the enclosure to escape before they were wiped out entirely.

"AURA!"

Loading his own [catalyst] with mana, Tom dashed forward to take the heat while Aura prepared.

"ON IT!"

Ducking out of the way of a crossbow bolt meant for her head as Dan took over her defence, Aura switched her focus entirely to offence as she loaded her staff with mana. This time Aura didn't have the spare fortitude or nerve to hold back as people were dying around her. Pointing her staff at some kind of creature hiding inside a tree in front of her, Aura grit her teeth as she released a flurry of wind blades that acted unlike any spell she had ever created before. While the mass of wind blades Aura created would normally leave only deeply gash the trees hit while maiming any unarmored beings caught in their path, these blades tore straight through everything.

"More of that please!"

Watching a large part of the forest to the right of him disappear along with whatever was attacking them, Tom loudly voiced his approval as he jumped forward into a roll, avoiding a crossbow bolt as he picked up a small shield from one of the adventurers that had fallen protecting the convoy. Immediately deflecting a crossbow bolt with the shield he had just looted, Tom only took him a split second to adjust to the change in his centre of mass as he loaded both his lower body and [catalyst] as he found a target to kill.

"FOLLOW OUR SAINT!"

Motivating the troops for their best chance of survival, Dan started charging to follow Tom's breakout as he focused on deflecting attacks.

"They quickly realized the futility of being surrounded and immediately shifted to trying to break out under fire… I want those 3."

Standing at her field office far from the sight of the battle, a commander made the decision which doomed the rest of Mike's men, but she hardly cared for any of that, all she cared about was the 3 people reflected in the device in front of her, nothing else mattered.