Return to Jorgaldur Volume II: the druid archer

The hunting (II)

The forest dwellers were restless, intimidated by high-level presences, so the predators didn't take the risk to attack and be discovered. They were in hiding, or had fled the area. Therefore, the sisters didn't have to face any of them.

However, their problem was much worse. There were tracking experts behind them, and of greater power.

They managed to mislead three more in a lake. By using two respirators from the game, one for the elf and one for her sister, they managed to hide at the bottom long enough for their enemies to leave, one of them definitely. He had been wounded by another in a surprise attack, and he had no choice but to use one of the aces up his sleeve in order to mislead his attacker and flee. However, in his condition, he had no choice but to abandon the search.

Other classes had skills to breathe underwater at lower levels, but not hers. Therefore, she had bought those respirators in the game. Thanks to it, she now had them at her disposal, and could use it instead of the spell, whose mana fluctuations could be discovered.

The other two hunters had similar strength. They looked at each other, evaluated their opponent, and each headed in one direction. A fight without a clear favorite could only diminish their chances of achieving the tantalizing reward, and there were other competitors.

If they had stayed a little longer, they would have seen the blood of a water snake, a victim of Sharp Bubbles. It was two levels higher and with a terrain advantage, so the snake had believed that it could hunt some easy preys, but it had ended up being the prey instead.

They thought of going backwards, but there was someone approaching from that way. So, they continued in the only direction that they didn't know there was anyone, but feeling that the net was tightening around. They had almost been caught this time. After all, they were up against expert hunters and trackers, so it was quite an achievement to have escaped until then.

The last option was to run on the feline's back, but that would expose them, and reveal their position to all pursuers. They didn't even know how many of them there were, where each of them was, or how fast they could pursue them.

"She has arrived," the beaver-man murmured with a smile. He had been waiting for them for hours.

He had set several traps that needed him to activate, so they hadn't fired when other hunters had passed nearby. That had worried him, as fearing that she would be captured before he could, but now he felt that the wait had been worth it.

"She should be close. There's no other path," the arachne told herself, not far from there.

She had been monitoring the hunters, and guessed that her prey had managed to elude them several times. Therefore, she was weaving some traps, to capture her, and maybe some hunters.

"Damn, she cheated on me..." the tracker muttered.

She had recovered and lost the trail several times, but she knew she was close. The leaves torn by the footsteps of her prey were recent. They had been there not long ago.

The albino goshawk was extremely worried. There were fewer and fewer options, since their enemies were getting closer. There were some just a hundred meters from her sisters.

Their only chance was that her enemies fight each other, but they probably wouldn't unless they had a clear advantage. It was what they had done until then.

"There's something strange in this part of the forest, maybe traps," the lynx sensed.

The smell, the movements of the insects, the gaps letting the sun pass. Something was wrong in that area.

Detect Mana and Detect Energy discovered several of them, but she didn't have time to disarm the traps. They could only try to avoid them, since their enemies were too close.

As they dodged the traps, the Alarms the elf had set went off one after another, and the lynx could hear the footsteps of their pursuers. It meant that, maybe, their enemies could hear theirs too. Besides, Life Detection gave a lot of results.

"Turn right! Someone is approaching in your direction!" the winged sister warned anxiously "Sisters? Sisters!!"

Suddenly, she had lost the bond with them, which could only happen if they were far away, or if they had died. Panicking, she Plummeted toward where they should be, ready to find out what had happened. If that was the case, she would die with them.

Her sudden descent was detected by the hunters, without knowing very well what it was. However, suddenly, her aura was gone.

"What was that?" one of them wondered.

"Where are they? I can't hear them anymore. Have they hidden their presence? I'm not going to let them escape this time," another said to herself.

However, despite roaming the place for hours, none of them managed to find more than a trail that suddenly ended.

There was more than one conflict between them, especially with the arachne, when someone fell on her webs. Nearly a dozen of them had ended up in a small area, and they all distrusted each other. Some even believed that someone else had hidden her. Nonetheless, it was impossible for them to figure out who, how or where.

Finally, after inspecting under each stone, they began to scatter, as they wanted to find the trail of their prey again, the trail of a juicy reward.

It didn't take long for Goldmi and the lynx to realize that something had changed. What was worse, they had lost contact with their sister.

"Winged sister? Where are you?" the feline called her very worried, but there was no answer.

They were in a forest, but there was something different there, something that, however, didn't seem threatening. If something had caught them, they didn't seem to have bad intentions, although that was just their perception. It could even be some kind of disguise.

Suddenly, something entered there, as if breaking through an invisible barrier, like teleporting.

"Sisters!" the new presence exclaimed, braked, and landed on the elf's shoulder.

"Where were you? Did you get lost?", the feline teased her, as forgetting her previous concern.

"You're the ones who got lost!" she accused her. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," the elf answered.

"Welcome!" a voice greeted them suddenly.

They turned to meet a dryad, who had appeared behind a tree, or maybe from inside a tree. She was smiling broadly.

"Thank you for saving us, I'm Goldmi. They're my sisters lynx and goshawk.

"I know who you are, hehe. I'm Ribvla, but I haven't saved you. I can't meddle just like that," she denied.

"Then, what're we doing here?" the elf asked.

"I have invited you! Miletna and Maldoa have told us a lot about you and, I was wondering... if... would you cook me something?"

The dryad's eyes seemed to sparkle as she made her request, something that left the three sisters stunned. Although to Goldmi it was stranger, since the other two fully understood the appeal of the food cooked by her elf sister.