A short Rest

A howl in the night, almost loud enough to make one scared of wolves but still too far off to be no more than the sound of the forest as you travel the long roads. It's said that some sort of monster walks the roads at night with a Moonwolf; he walks with ease through the night with no fear of bandits or being prey. Supposedly he wears a cloak of pure darkness that hides him in the night and makes him a shadow in the day, he also wields an oaken staff with ravens' feathers and its tip is carved into the bird itself.

A sudden flash of light blinds the four gnomes, they all cry out and go to grab for their weapons and cast spells in self-defence. A loud cackling erupts from behind them and a fifth gnome appears from the shadows. She's dressed in red cloaks with blond hair. She smiles wide then emits a bright magic from her hands.

"Thought I told you no campfire stories." she says raising an eyebrow to the red eyed gnome, "like really do you want to scare off the new guys? King, this is why we can never keep our recruits…"

The red eyed gnome sighs and puts away his small dagger, "so what? If they're scared then they won't be of any use to us anyway. And besides that story is just a legend, no one's ever actually seen the dwarf, Ellie." He scoffs.

She sighs deeply rubbing her eyes in frustration then looks over to see the other three gnomes looking physically relieved, a flash of light in the darkness of the forest catches her eye then the sound of a soft hum could be heard as she goes still. "Well dwarf or not we haven't been able to test these new guys" she says quietly as she motions to the forest, "it's show time, get on your feet and rob that unsuspecting fool."

The soft hum gets closer along with his rough voice as he sang out the tune.

"Your gold is now gone…. Your lives are now…"

The voice goes silent and the gleam of light disappears as a wolf howl is heard behind the gnomish bandits. Ellie sighs softly and looks at her partner in crime. "This is your fault, telling a story…" a sudden blast of hot air makes the girl turn and come face to muzzle with a large black wolf slowly stepping out of the forest as she glares at King. "About that damn dwarf and his wolf," She goes still as she feels the wolves' breath on her face as it stands over her, towering above her by a head. The wolfs bright white teeth, along with its dark purple eyes gleam in the campfire light as he pants and glances around at the small creatures whilst they gather their weapons. A bright purple magic makes the group of bandits temporarily forget about the wolf and look towards the source of the light, an outline of a tall dwarf casting a spell catches the leader gnomes' eye.

" Get down now!" she yells pulling the red eyed one to the ground as bolts of pure arcane magic shoots out of the forest crashing into the other three gnomes sending them flying back as a fourth hits a tree and the third narrowly shoots past her head hitting the wolf in his large furred chest. A second past and she sighed softly as she stood back up and looked to the forest; she saw the slight movement of another wolf but didn't hear any panting from behind her. She sighed softly then patted the other gnomes shoulder. "maybe we'll leave that one alone.." she awkwardly sighed as looked towards her three new recruits at the fire as they slowly stood up then looked petrified as they looked towards their leader.

The soft humming returned but not in the forest, she turned quickly drawing her short bow then quickly losing the arrow narrowly missing the cloaked dwarf. The dwarf looks down at the gnomes then sighs softly as he slowly pulls a wanted poster from his belt. The gnomes look onto him in a catatonic state.

"It says here you two are wanted criminals, broke into a Sunsword encampment and well…" he chuckles softly then grins, "caused a bit of a commotion."

The three gnomes suddenly charge at the dwarf while the blond haired and red eyed ones backed away slowly. "No one threatens our bosses!" one screams as she swings two large axes at the dwarfs face, backs up then twirls his large oaken staff sending the gnome flying into the woods. The other two start firing spell after spell at him while he lazily dodged them. King grabs Ellie's hand and run into the forest. "Crap, I guess we'll start this gang over again." He says while running full force.

The two remaining gnomes fall to their knees then glared up at the dwarf. He sighs then walks over to them as he conjures an arcane bolt. "This wasn't very interesting at all, no fight and all flight I guess." He shrugs as he loses the bolts; they impale the small creatures in the hearts. A scream sounds from the forest as the third gnome runs out conjuring her own magic. Her form slowly grows into that of a large black bear, she growls lunging at the dwarf. She pushes him down to the ground with his staff holding back her large claws. He looks up at the bear with a look of pity then looks back at the dead gnomes. "You cared for them? That was your first mistake." His cloaks glow purple in the shadows then his very body catches flame, the darkness burns at her hair and flesh but se only pushes harder making his staff creak then suddenly snap. Almost in slow motion his eyes close then reopen glaring back into her eyes. They too are aflame with dark magic. A second of hesitation lead to the dwarfs' foot coming up pushing her whole heavy bear body off of him and over his head flying into a tree. The bear cries out in pain then goes still as she has trouble keeping her eyes open. "Remember this Gnome, I left you hear to die with your so called friends and what did your leaders do? Nothing, they fled like cowards while you took the fall for them." She growls softly slowly closing her eyes. "I pray you live for we'll need strong warriors like you in the long night." He whispers then walks away. The last thing she sees before passing out is an arcane flower blooming next to her and feeling at peace.