A Warlock's Ascent

The area surrounding him had caught on fire, and it was spreading in every possible direction, fast, the site of the explosion had become this charcoal pit, it had created a crator as if a star had fallen there. The sheer amount of destruction looked like something straight out of movies.

As he looked at the inferno around him, he wondered about what could have caused that explosion in the first place. 'Those mountain bears that were chasing me… Did they do this? Do those monsters pack this kind of firepower?

As he stood there inhaling the smoke, he started cursing his luck. Everything was going smoothly he was making tremendous strides while traveling, then this happened.

ROAAAR

The roar was enough to get him out of his stupor, immediately he started pushing the branches away, trying to get out there. After a struggle to get his leg out, which was stuck between some branches, he eventually got out. Then straight away, he turned around and started making some distance between himself and this place.

After taking a few steps, he realized that the stone was not with him anymore, he came back, tried moving branches around to see whether that thing was stuck somewhere underneath, but he couldn't find it, he thought leaving the stone behind.

Even without it, he could travel to the back bridge, without any problem. He would have to struggle a lot to find their camp, near the bridge, but it was something that he could take care of. He was about to move, but it is then he spotted that little thing.

Not too far away from where he was lying, he spotted the stone, the blue color needle on the stone made it easy for him to spot the thing. He immediately went to it and grabbed that little thing…

After picking it up, he almost dropped the thing, it was hot, so he then carefully use his sleeve to pick the thing up. He turned around and was about to go when he heard trembling of the ground, he immediately looked to his east, only to see a silhouette of a mountain bear, not too far away from him.

The monster was facing the other way, he could slowly fall back and sneak past the bear, without causing any trouble. But before he could move…

SPLLIICH

That monster's body was penetrated by something sharp, he only saw the tip of a spike coming out of the monster's body, someone or something had killed him, with only one attack.

"GET OUT OF MY WAY TO MAGGOT!" came a voice of a woman, and he recognized the voice straight away.

Instead of running away, he instantly jumped to the side and crawled his way under the branches of a broken tree. He tried to hide himself to best of his abilities, his opponent was someone he could run away from, he could only hide.

Soon the sound of footsteps started resounding in the area, through the shrubbery of the branches, he peeked out and saw the silhouette of a woman, standing not too far away from him. He was right, that woman was Angela.

The raging inferno around them acted like a spotlight, because of which he saw her face clearly, it was badly scarred. Half of her face was deformed, the skin in that area had become cherry red, while the area was also swollen like a ripe tomato. Long gone was her beautiful face, now the only thing left was her zombie-like face.

As she stood there, the ground started rumbling, it is then a mountain Bear made its way into the inferno, when it spotted her, it charged towards her. Unbothered by the monster charging in her direction, she stood her ground.

As the monster came close to her, she raised her hand, a big ball of fire formed in her hand, and without any warning, she shot that ball of fire, toward the monster. As soon as the ball made contact with the bear, it exploded.

BOOOOM

The sound of the explosion almost made him deaf, while the light almost made him blind. When he got clarity back again, he saw that she was standing before what used to be a Mountain Bear, now only bits of its legs were left, while its torso was fully blown away.

Seeing this gruesome scene, he got scared to his core. The firepower that she had shown him was unlike he had ever seen, she was literally a one-man army. Another thing that scared him was that she was probably looking for him, the guy responsible for deforming her face.

It is then, the ground started rumbling, more mountain bears entered the inferno, and pounced at her. The number of bears that attacked her made him think that they might be able to overpower her, but he was not wrong. That woman knew how to handle trouble…

She flew in the air, like superman, and fired various spells at the bears attacking her. Most of the bears went down with those spells, one of them even tried to grab her in mid-air, by jumping over a fallen bear's body, but she simply deflected the attack by conjuring what looked like a gold shield made of golden light and weird symbols.

The carnage in front of him made him glued to his place, while his eyes followed every spell fired by the lady. The agility and control over spells showed him how terrifying his opponent was.  He was only brought back to his senses when he started feeling hot, it is then he realized the tree he was hiding under had caught on fire.

He immediately got up and started running away from the fight. Angela was so busy fighting that she didn't realize that someone ran away from under her nose…

***

Moon had come up in the sky, the forest was shrouded in darkness, noises of various beasts could be heard throughout the forest, yet Dave's legs showed no sign of stopping. Since he had run away from Angela, he hadn't stopped, the memory of her destroying a fleet of mountain bears was still fresh in his mind, making him extra motivated to find Grump and his group fast.

Grump was the only one that could help him, or at least give him some advice on how to handle the situation, that is why he was showing haste. Luckily he had not encountered any monsters yet, so his journey had been very peaceful till now.

His steps came to a near stop, the needle on the rock had started shining brightly. He didn't know what that meant, still, he followed the direction the needle was pointing towards, and soon found out what it meant…

Before he could not see anything, but with a blink of an eye suddenly a camp manifested itself in front of him. The camp appeared so suddenly, which caught him off guard, it is then he saw Hamel sitting on a rock, by the ambers of fire, absent-mindedly staring at them. He instantly put on his mask and went up to him.

Hearing someone walking up to him, the old man looked up. "YOU ARE BACK!" he yelled came, he ran towards him and then grabbed his shoulders. "Did you have the antidote?"

"Couldn't find it, but I got yellow tail instead." Hearing his words, a smile bloomed on the old man's face. He instantly wrapped his hand around him and gave him a bear hug.

"Come, we should not waste any more time." He then dragged him to the camp. There he saw old man Grump sleeping comfortably, wrapped in a cozy blanket.

Hamel shook him, startling him in the process. "WHAT!" Grump shouted, but soon came to his senses when he saw him standing beside Hamel.

"Davvy, you are back." He muttered.

It is the Hamel chimed in. "Yeah, he is back. Now we dont have any time to waste, get up and watch the area."

Grump's face scrunched with anger, he muttered some profanities under his breath, but soon got up. "Quickly, take out the trunks from your inventory." Hamel then commanded. He did as he said, the old man then fished out a few barrels from the trunks and started working.

He had been walking for a long time, so he wanted to rest a little bit, but before he could do so, Grump dragged him with him to the corner, while Hamel was busy preparing the potion. As they got out of earshot of Hamel, Grump's expression turned serious.

"We are fucked, Davvy." He said in a low voice. His grim voice was enough to make him realize that something was up. He started wondering what the hell was this about.

Did these guys hear about what happened with Angela Stross? He thought