adow stepped out through the archway into sumr from winter. It was nice to leave the icy stillness behind, but she didn’t welco the rest of what ca from stepping through the gate. To most, the group gathered there, slowly passing through one team at a ti, was quiet. To adow, they were almost shouting their presence with their noise, their sll, and even their very presence.
She might not be able to see as far as the Nightowl Strix, but adow had far more than sight going for her. Right now, that ant that she knew exactly where the Shade was, now that she was on the sa side of the link-gate. She waved at a few of the people she knew as she made her way over to him, then stopped, carefully within his line of sight.
“...after the Blue Brotherhood. We’ll know soon enough - ah, there she is. adow!” Arak Shade smiled as he looked up at her. “You know what we’re facing, then?”
“A Hunger,” adow answered heavily. She knew just how bad that was for a first encounter. She also knew that it wasn’t an on about the expedition until after they finished the first zone. If it went poorly, everyone would be on edge, and fighting a Hunger often went poorly. If it went well, on the other hand, they’d be in a good place to move forward. It was her job to make sure they had the information necessary for that to happen. “We’ve identified wolves and bears, so far. I have to give Strix and, uh, what’s her na. The one with blonde hair and horns.”
“The elf? You an Coatl,” the Shade supplied.
“Yeah, her. They noticed the ice bears and saw the eyes. I ca back after setting Jace to tell them about the Hunger.” adow hated it when she forgot soone’s na, even when it was just an Arena title. She definitely needed to learn the nas of that team.
And to think she’d wondered why the Shade put her team through the link-gate first. It wasn’t normal; they were usually a scout team for later in the day, when people were tired. A Hunger was justification enough, but that couldn’t be the whole reason; even the Shade didn’t know what was in a zone before anyone entered. It was far more likely that he wanted adow’s team to ntor the Flying Stars. He had to see sothing she didn’t; they were Arena darlings, but that wasn’t the sa thing as being good on an expedition.
The sheer distance they could see was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. At least they didn’t seem as overly proud as many of the top Arena teams; they were willing to listen. It was a start.
“Eh, unfortunate.” Arak Shade didn’t seem to react as if it was anything worse than dropping sothing. “Waves, then, you think? Are they team-sized or do we need a fortification?”
“Teams, maybe double teams,” adow stated, thinking about the number of bears and wolves she’d seen. “Any more than that and we risk upsetting the Hunger. You’re thinking we do the long fight to get people ward up, then?”
adow didn’t think she liked that. The long fight was fine in a forest or on the plains, where you could really rest between waves, but adow hated doing the long fight in snow. The cold and the effort wore at you in a way that fighting in a forest didn’t. Only sand in a hot desert was worse. A single mass engagent where they baited the Hunger into attacking them with its full forces and desperately tried to kill the Hunger before it killed anyone on their side was more her style.
At least, in the snow. On different terrain against a different wave-leader, she’d choose other tactics. This early in the expedition, taking the waves as they ca was probably the best choice; after all, they could still mass against the Hunger if sothing went wrong. She just hated fighting in the snow.
“Yeah, there are a couple of teams that have never been on an expedition before; double teams will be the perfect way for them to start getting used to fighting with others who aren’t in their team.” The Shade paused and gave adow a considering look. “The Flying Stars are one of them. Is Rockfist willing to work with them?”
adow snorted. “I know that’s why you sent us through first. You were hoping for sothing like this, weren’t you?”
The Shade shrugged, but the grin on his face told a different story. “I wasn’t sure it would happen during the first zone, but this is convenient. I want your honest assessnt of them; are they good enough for a full expedition slot or not? They’re only second upgrade, but they’re unusually flexible; if they make it through to the third, I’d like to see how far they can get. Have you heard about the young woman who can pick almost any magical lock?”
adow wanted to ask if the Shade was thinking about recruiting the Flying Stars, but this was far too public a location for the question. It was just as likely that he wanted to prevent the Blade from recruiting them or that he had so other plan, and none of those should be spoken of in public. She shook her head without voicing her thoughts. “I haven’t.”
The Shade actually looked a little disappointed at her negative answer. “Ah. Well, that’s Coatl. I want you to keep an eye out for anything we might be able to get through with her. You know what I an.”
adow nodded; she did. Sotis the locked-off areas were obvious, but most of the ti they were hidden. No one knew how to get through a locked link-gate in a link, but most locked doors in a zone could either be bashed through or unlocked by finding a key hidden sowhere in the zone. Of course, if you tried to beat down the door first and didn’t succeed … sotis the key didn’t work.
More importantly, however, adow could guess what the Shade was thinking about. There was a locked link-gate deep in the Maze that had been found several tis. No one had ever managed to get through it, but there were people who wanted to. It was the only gate anyone had ever seen marked with the Broken Lord’s sigil, the Broken Sword.
The Blade wanted to get through it. She said she wanted to free the Broken Lord. Whether that was her true motivation or she simply wanted whatever prize was hidden behind the link-gate was hard to say, but either way, adow did not want her to succeed.
The Broken Lord was almost certainly not behind that link-gate. If he was, he didn’t want people to disturb him; after all, no one had ever reported a Quest to open the gate and there were generally one or two Quests from the Broken Lord every year in Mazehold. It seed far more likely that the Broken Lord did not want the link-gate opened, no matter what was behind it.
The Blade didn’t listen to anyone’s argunts on the matter, so they’d learned to be quiet about it. It didn’t help that none of the Blade’s true inner circle ever chose to disagree with her; instead, it was the outer circle that saw the inconsistencies. Sothing was hidden, but no one who wasn’t Hallowed by the Broken Lord was ever going to be allowed to see what it was.
adow nodded confidently. “I do. I’ll keep an eye out. I want to see her ability for myself, and who’s going to turn down an extra reward?” She waited a single beat, then turned the conversation back to more imdiate matters. “We have enough distance for everyone to get through the gate, even with the ss I saw on the way in.”
Arak Shade snorted and shook his head. “I’d better get back to handling that. It’s good that we don’t all have to pile in, but you’ll have to set things up early on. If I’m not through in ti, Rockfist and the Stars can take the first wave; Shimring Steel and Wooden Relic will take the second wave. Head on back through; this is going to take longer than I’d like.”
adow nodded, then slipped quietly past the line of teams waiting to get through the link-gate. It was a ss, but that was unfortunately normal for the beginning of an expedition. In a tenday, they’d all know who was supposed to be where, but for now it took three tis as long as it should have.
Even with that delay, everyone was through the gate before the first wave ca far enough down the mountain to matter. The Shade didn’t change his orders; this was supposed to be nothing more than an initial practice fight to learn about each other. Two teams should absolutely rip through the first wave, especially since Rockfist was entirely third upgrade.
The ti was more than fine with adow. It gave them ti to figure out what they were doing and even more ti to answer questions. She didn’t know why they asked many of the questions they did, but adow definitely approved of the fact that they did ask questions rather than simply assuming what ice beasts were like.
She also approved of the fact that they introduced themselves again and told the team to use their actual nas because they’d respond better to them than they did to the Arena nas. She did not approve of the fact that one of them was nad Jaycen when Rockfist already had a Jace. Fortunately, he had a nickna that he’d respond to; she was just going to have to rember to call him Jax. That was different enough.
The first wave was larger than adow expected. She’d expected either the wolves or the bears, but both ca together. The defenders’ plan was relatively simple; Sophia and adow would try to counter the bears’ snow control while the others killed the beasts. The Flying Stars tried to propose having Dav take over one of the ice-spells, but adow shot that down before Rockfist had to get involved. Fighting ice with ice was a bad move in an icy environnt like this; there were too many ice-beasts. Other than that, they were going to stick to the normal expedition assignnts. It would be good practice.
The only real oddity during the preparation ti was that Sophia seed to keep stacks of feathers in her backpack. So of them were red and others seed to be both blue and red. adow recognized the red ones as the feathers of a fire-aligned skyeagle, everything from down to major flight feathers. All of the blue and red ones looked like flight feathers, but adow wasn’t certain what bird they were from. She couldn’t rember any with that coloration, much less one with feathers that glowed softly the way those did.
The feathers apparently had sothing to do with how Sophia was going to gather heat in the area to help counteract the snow. adow didn’t know the details, but she didn’t need to; all she needed to know was that there would be fire for her to draw from. It changed how she was going to handle the bears and might even give her so options against the wolves.
The fight opened as expected, with the ranged attackers concentrating their fire on a few of the ice statues until they broke as the wave rushed towards them. There was no “right” answer on which was more dangerous, so team Rockfist concentrated on bears while the Flying Stars killed wolves. The bears were slightly tougher, so it was no real surprise that only four bears died as five wolves did.
The surprise ca when they were close enough for Sophia to decide it was ti to start her counterasures. adow had already started to grow her bushes and vines; her preparation always took a little longer.
Sophia disappeared and the feathers she’d set out began floating in the air. adow could feel the warmth they emitted; it was like standing near a fire.
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