“Everyone remember the plan?” Maia asked quietly, looking at the Deepwood’s edge for any sign of movement.
“Yep.” Elise said. “Rush the bridge, Emily takes down the fortifications with her lava, you go for the wagons, the rest of us hit them hard and fast while they’re still reeling from the attack. Knock everyone out so you can cure them. Kill only if necessary. That it?”
“Yes.” Maia confirmed. “Everyone got that?”
Everyone nodded, and Maia summoned her spear. “Alright. Follow my lead.”
Maia rushed out of the woods, barreling towards the small stone bridge that Violet had mentioned. And, sure enough, waiting on the other side were a bunch of uniformed men and women moving about purposefully.
A cry of alarm sounded, and the soldiers stopped, turning to face the Deepwood. Just as Maia was stepping onto the bridge, an arrow was loosed in her direction and a man took position at the other end of the bridge, a fancy spear in his hand and a sword at his waist.
He regarded Maia with disdain as she slowed slightly, spear still gripped tightly. “Not one step further, monsters.” He spat. “I, Sergeant Sylvain of Miral, will stop you here! Men, to arms! Those who defeat one of these beasts will get the first crack at them tonight!”
“I don’t suppose talking is an option, then?” Maia said, stopping just outside of the man’s reach and batting another arrow out of the way, almost surprised at how quickly she was able to react to the projectile. “We’re on a pilgrimage and are just passing through. If you have a priest with you, they can vouch that I have been blessed by the goddesses.”
“A likely story.” Sylvain said. “A bishop of the church was the one who alerted us to your incursion in the first place!”
“Well, thought I’d try, the hard way it is.” Maia said, elongating her spear and taking a stab at Sylvain. He deftly stepped out of the way, but Maia had never actually intended to hit him with that strike. Instead, she used the magic the goddesses had given her to blind him and throw him backwards, giving her enough time to close the distance and grab his forehead. “We’ll talk once you’re in your right mind again.” She said, initiating the cure and letting go, allowing him to fall to the floor.
From there, she could either go left or right; the palisade, oddly enough, didn’t actually cover the bridge. Instead, it had been constructed far enough back to allow for a single person to walk between it and the river. Maia could only imagine that they wanted their melee fighters to be able to fight without the palisade getting in their way, but that seemed foolish; surely, they would be better served by forcing Maia and her group to either ford the river or deal with the palisade, right?
Then again, the palisade was low enough that Maia could easily vault it, and if they wanted to make it higher, they would need to either have places for people to stand near the top or holes from which arrows could be fired. Perhaps they just didn’t have time for that? It did seem like the palisade was two layers deep, and mostly surrounded the makeshift watch tower Violet had mentioned, so it might have been more about protecting that archer than anything.
Whatever the case, a glob of lava impacted the front layer, and it instantly burst into flames. Maia pulled Sylvain away from the wall, far enough that he probably wouldn’t be hit by falling wood, then dashed down one of the corridors formed by the bank of the river and the palisade wall.
The moment she had passed the edge of the palisade, she found herself assaulted by a biting gale of wind that tore at her clothes and left tiny cuts in her skin. And, sure enough, a mage had been waiting in ambush to her right, just out of sight from the corridor Maia had been running down.
Judging by the look of surprise on the woman’s face, she hadn’t expected Maia to be more or less unharmed by the magic, and she certainly hadn’t expected Maia to simply raise her hand and unleash a blast of light.
While the woman was fit, she clearly wasn’t as sturdy as Sylvain, and just that attack was enough to leave her badly wounded. Burns ran up and down her body, and she swayed unsteadily as Maia rushed up to her and began her cure as well.
A shout and the thunder of hooves alerted Maia to a small squad of three cavalrymen charging at her, but she didn’t have time to properly engage them before Elise was up in their faces, Violet in tow. They clearly hadn’t expected anyone to run towards their charge, and they very much hadn’t expected anyone to grab one of their horses. Elise’s muscles bulged as she pushed back against the horse’s charge, and she not only managed to stop the horse, but managed to lift it, rider and all. She gave a growl of exertion as she threw it a short distance before rushing after the other riders while Violet ran towards the downed rider to ensure he was out of the fight for good.
As the riders turned their attention towards their new threat, Maia continued dashing towards the wagons, easily dispatching the couple of soldiers that scrambled to intercept her. While their technique was much more refined than that of the people from Maia’s village, the weight behind their blows just…wasn’t the same. Galiena had been right; these people hadn’t been given the same sort of boost that the villagers had.
The soldiers just felt…slow and weak, and proved no real threat, even as Maia began smashing the wheels of the carts. She didn’t do too much damage, just broke the front wheels so they’d be incapable of moving, then turned back to the battlefield. To Maia’s surprise, it seemed that there was only one real group of holdouts remaining.
Those who had been behind the palisades and on the makeshift watch tower had retreated as those fortifications had caught on fire, the area close to Maia had been handled by Elise and Violet, and the area on the far side of the palisade seemed mostly bare of soldiers. Everyone left seemed to have formed into one group of fifteen or so, huddled defensively near the center of the area.
“What now?” Violet asked, running up to Maia with Elise following a short distance behind. “ Do we go after that big group or try and meet up with the others?”
“How are you two feeling?” Maia asked, looking over the two of them. “Do you need healing?”
“I took a couple of nicks, but nothing major.” Elise said. “My skin is a lot tougher than it used to be, but we should still look into getting some armor made, I think.”
“I’m fine.” Violet replied. “Elise drew the attention away from me.”
Maia healed her wife, keeping one eye on the remaining group of soldiers as she did. And, just as she was finishing with Elise, she caught sight of Emily, Steph, and Galiena emerging from the other end of the palisade. Emily and Steph seemed more or less fine, but Galiena was covered in blood, and it took Maia a second to realize that it probably wasn’t Galiena’s. Maia couldn’t make out any actual wounds or torn bits of clothing that would indicate that she had been on the losing end in a fight.
Galiena glanced over at Maia, then nodded at the clump of soldiers that remained. It didn’t take a practiced strategist to realize that she wanted to attack the group together, so Maia gave a nod in return. “We’re going.” She instructed Elise and Violet. “Follow my lead.”
Maia waited a moment before rushing towards the group, and Galiena and her group did the same a moment after. As they approached, arrows and magic were fired at Maia, but she was able to deal with them with little issue; the arrows could be dodged or deflected, and while most magic had to be dodged, there was a light mage among them, and Maia didn’t even have to acknowledge that; she could just take the hit and keep on going like nothing had happened. In fact, she felt better after the magic impacted her, like she had been suddenly energized.
In response, she let off her own magic, pushing back one of the heavily armored people near the front of the group. That was the thing about armor; while it worked wonders against physical weapons, most armor did little against magic. That was why Maia had never even bothered considering anything heavier than leather for her hunts; even if it was completely silent, most monsters in the Deepwood had some form of magic, and heavy armor would just slow her down.
Violet dashed forward, using the falling soldier as a springboard and launching herself into the back of the group, where she got to work downing the mages and archers that had been hiding. Some of the soldiers nearest to her turned to attack, but Steph held them back with some well-placed bursts of magic, and Elise soon demanded attention by virtue of knocking a few people over with a tackle.
Emily and Galiena were upon the front lines a moment later, and by that point the fight was over. With the people in the back taken out by Violet, the front line in disarray, and their numbers dwindling rapidly, the only actual damage was Emily taking a few hits from a sword or spear, but she seemed almost entirely unbothered.
When the last of them was down, Emily turned to Maia. “Mind giving me a little healing?” She asked. “Turns out weapons are absolutely abysmal at hurting me, but I have lost a bit of liquid, and your healing will top me right up.”
“Can it wait until after I start the cure on these people?” Maia asked. “I don’t want to risk anyone waking up and ambushing us.”
“Oh, right.” Emily replied. “Yeah, no sweat. It doesn’t even hurt, not really, just figured I’d ask.”
“Please keep an eye on enemy weapons in the future.” Galiena said. “While it is true that most normal metals can do little to elementals such as yourself, there do exist weapons that can do a significant amount of damage to you. I do not know if any have survived to this day, but if they have, we will be seeing them relatively soon.”
“Yeah, guess it was a bit too good to be true.” Emily said. “What do they look like?”
“It varies depending on the elemental they are made to combat, but for you…I would keep an eye out for any weapons with blue tint. Water-aligned weapons are often favored for dealing with fire-adjacent elementals such as yourself.”
“Well, that’s still way better than regular steel being a threat.” Emily said. “Alright, how are we doing this?”
“Will you and Elise begin carrying over people from the side with the wagons while I finish with the people here?” Maia asked. “She can help lead you to the ones that I didn’t start curing before making my way over here. Once I’m done, I’ll take Steph and Galiena and start on the people you dealt with, and meet you back here when it’s done.”
“Speaking of, are you okay, Galiena?” Elise asked. “You’ve got a lot of blood on you.”
“And none of it is mine.” Galiena replied. “Remember that my own bones are my preferred weapons for many situations; that naturally leads to a rather messy style of combat. That is not to say that I am completely unharmed, I am actually in need of some healing, but Steph is more than capable of healing that.”
Elise frowned. “So…you don’t have any wounds, but need healing?” She asked. “How does that make sense?”
“I have several cracked or broken bones.” Galiena said. “I am ashamed to admit that I underestimated the extent to which I was weakened and was fighting as if I was much sturdier than I was.”
“You should have said something!” Steph said, holding out her healing staff and beginning to channel magic into Galiena. “That must hurt like crazy!”
“Not really. I am reinforcing those bones with other bones to prevent a loss of function, and boneshifters do not feel pain from our bones in the same way normal people do unless the bones are grievously injured. As mine are now, it is simply somewhat uncomfortable.”
“I’ll head off now.” Elise said. “Emily, you ready?”
“Yup, lead the way.”
Galiena gently pushed Steph’s staff away. “I only have a few cracks now.” She said. “Let’s finish this after everyone is cured.”
They hurried off with Maia, and began the work of curing the unconscious. Fortunately, no one seemed to be waking up, so Maia was able to get everyone curing without issue. When she was finished, Steph got back to healing Galiena, while Maia healed Emily. Then, once they were back at full health, they made their way to the bridge, where Sergeant Sylvain was in the middle of being cured, and waited.
“I never thought the day would come where I would be fighting the soldiers of my motherland.” Maia sighed. “I just…I just wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
“As much as I may go on about the superiority of monster girls, I do as well.” Galiena said. “This curse is an unnatural perversion of the world’s order, and the fact that we have to go through such lengths to correct it is appalling.”
“I agree, but I’m not gonna lie, it was really satisfying to knock out the ones who were talking about how much they’d enjoy using me after they defeated me.” Elise said. “And…that was going to be us if we hadn’t been cured. Can you imagine?”
“I really wish I couldn’t, but I can.” Emily said sadly. “I said some similar stuff to you all and to other people in the village, and I’m still ashamed about it.”
“Do not be.” Galiena said firmly. “While you are cursed, your actions are not you own. You have little more control than someone under deep hypnosis. Your conduct thus far has shown me that you would not dream of such saying such vulgarities if you were in your right mind. That being said, I would advise getting used to such threats; the curse is remarkably predictable, and allowing these tactics to shake you will only serve to get you injured or killed later on.”
There was a short silence before Maia spoke again. “While we wait, why don’t we talk about the plan after we’re done here?” She suggested. “Things might need to change a little depending on what we’re told.”
“An excellent idea.” Galiena said. “To begin with, on the matter of supplies…”