A wide spread rescue (1/2)

Contrary to their expectation, the last night had been completely silent. Once the men got softly woken up by Cerea, everyone stated that they hadn't even heard something like an animal in the surrounding.

Marrec had extinguished the fire once everyone was asleep as the moon had been bright enough to see a good distance. No one seemed to mind the night under the open sky and Jay had quite liked it.

Thanks to his camping skill he even slept well, so after swiftly packing everything together and storing it in the canoes, the group was nearly ready to once again close in on the ruins.

Jay had fetched a sandwich for each, what everyone munched with glee. Still chewing on the last bites, hey left to not waste time. With the help of Jay's map they were a good bit faster than when they had to track the trails left behind.

This time though, Adohan stopped the group when they were still some distance away from the Ruins.

On their way there he had already explained the general layout of the Perilous Ruins. They expanded over a huge area of about 2 miles in diameter and if Jay was right with the totem, the whole area could be infested with those Gnolls.

As the area was definitely too big to search if they stayed together, they had decided to split up and explained how the missing recruits looked to Jay.

Marrec and Cerea would take the route from the north and zigzag through the smaller paths on both sides. This was to make them stay clear from the wider main path that went from the gate straight to the middle of the old ruins.

Jay and Adohan would take the eastern and western routes respectively. The aged leader repeated once again that this was a search and rescue mission, so they had to keep the fighting at a minimum. If they made too much noise, the whole pack with however many monsters might come rushing for them.

With one last good luck wish, they all left and hurried to their positions. Jay of course summoned his horse once he was far enough from the others and like this arrived at his destined entrance point in no time.

The huge gate he spotted there was already rotted and tilted to the side, but at least he could pass through it without problem thanks to that.

He found himself on a paved road behind the gate. Who or whatever had erected this long abandoned city had been advanced as though the buildings seemed brittle, the structures were all neat and still mostly intact. But seemingly just to pull Jay out of his thoughts, he heard a creepy laugh coming from close by.

Jay had never planned to follow Adohan's orders and stay clear from battle. The sole reason he had joined them was to possibly find another totem and for the XP.

Following the noises he had heard, Jay went into a passage to the left. He ascended a short staircase and turned to the right. From there he went around three more corners until he found the source of the laughter.

Two Gnolls kept gnawing on something as Jay peeked around the corner. Glad it was only some deer they hunted, Jay fired two arcane missiles to their heads and instantly killed the two monsters.

The boost his skill got was no laughing matter: Both of the monsters heads had completely vanished, leaving only smoking and bleeding necks.

Jay jumped over the corpses not to leave bloody steps behind and continued down the passage. Thanks to his map he had no trouble navigating back to the road he had first been on.

But looking at his map had nearly ended in him getting hurt. An arrow suddenly hit the wall right next to his head, so Jay rolled forward behind some debris and took cover. As he looked over the pile he hid behind, four Gnolls could be seen on a small plaza. One of them had a bow equipped and was once again shooting at Jay.

Instead of his arrow hitting, it lost it's head though.

Jay had once again fired an arcane missile and instantly killed it. For the other three he went with a fireball and just for fun an (Ice Lance), a spell he had barely used.

Like he had guessed it didn't deal much damage but at least slowed the monster down. After taking care of the third with another fireball and turning it into a torch, Jay grind down the last one with ice magic.

Once he was finished, Jay left the completely messy area and went into the next alley.

He hadn't noticed it until then, but the sun had risen enough to illuminate the ruins pretty well. They had arrived in the proximity while it was still pretty dark and Jay had arrived at the gate in twilight.

While thinking such things, Jay had proceeded and already encountered the next group of Gnolls. It seemed that even if he had intended to not fight them, Jay would have encountered some monsters either way.

Making use of the Gnolls to train his lacking skills, Jay alternated between ice and air magic. Latter had once been his spell of choice, but since his mana surged and arcane magic got way higher in level, he had seldomnly used it.

Not that it was to weak for his average opponents, what got proven by the first Gnoll Jay hit with it. It got completely stunned by the first lightning and burned to death internally by the second.

That wasn't weak at all…

A few encounters later, Jay arrived at some stairs leading down onto a relatively wide plaza. It was only fifteen to thirty yards in width and length, but that was the biggest he had seen in the small alleys and areas he had been at.

The complete absence of monsters in such a place totally irritated him.

His intuition was spot on once again.

The moment Jay arrived at the middle of the small square, a relatively big Gnoll holding a huge wooden mace jumped down from a balcony and landed at the foot of the stairs. Contrary to the normal Gnolls that were about the size of a human, only bulkier, this one was more than a head taller.

It also had none of the typical spots on its light brown fur.

Using analyze Jay learned the reason for the differences. It was named monster called Wolftail, probably due to it's bushy appendage waving left and right. But Jay had no time to check further as the level 25 monster rushed in with the mace held high.

Jumping to the side, Jay saw how the mace shattered even the ground where he just stood. The power this Gnoll held was nothing to scoff at.

But at the same time the attack had been easy to predict, similar to the second.

Wolftail first turned it's body to use the centrifugal force for freeing his mace and then try to hit Jay from the side with it. But of course latter easily dodged the wide swing by rolling forward. The moment he reached next to the Gnoll he punched the monsters ribs with a lightning fist.

To his surprise, it withstood the heavy impact, though with only this nearly half of its health was gone.

But the next to swings got sharper and left Jay no chance to easily counter them barehanded. At the same time they got a lot slower though, so dodging was absolutely no issue for him.

With a bit of distance between him and Wolftail, Jay first thought the monster needed a breather. This though got betrayed the next second as the massive figure rushed in on him while pulling the mace behind.

Hastily dodging to the side, Jay felt the wooden weapon pass only a few inches behind him, but the wind pressure still got transmitted.

Wolftail had used some kind of martial skill Jay hadn't had enough time to read, but it still couldn't hit him. Instead, Jay found himself facing the monsters back and didn't miss this chance. In quick succession he fired three (Ice Lances) on it and managed to partially freeze the Gnoll.

While the damage he had dealt wasn't too much, Jay used this moment and rushed in.

Wolftail barely managed to turn around, but had no chance to defend against Jay's punch. After his straight right connected to the monsters right rib-cage, a shattering sound rang out and a whimper escaped the Gnolls maw.

Passing the monster low on the side, Jay found the reason for that pitiful noise. The spot Jay had previously frozen on Wolftails back had gotten shattered and gouged out, leaving a deep wound.

The damage it had taken was also considerably.

Going into a rage from the lost health, the Gnoll disregarded its state and aimlessly trashed it's mace round. Jay took some distance again and kept himself out of range from the wooden weapon. Instead he cast another lightning spell and bloated it until it was nearly exploding.

The moment Wolftail had just ended a heavy swing Jay let the spell fly, resulting in a flash going right through the Gnoll and into the building behind it. Even the mace it had held turned into charcoal until the attack was finished.

Jay blinked a few times as he looked at the hole his attack had left in the building on the other side of the square. He did so through the charred and still glimmering hole in the dead Wolftail's chest as it still kept standing for a few seconds.

It seemed that his growing mana pool, INT rating and auxiliary skills for magic had boosted even his weaker attacks to a frightening degree.

As Jay checked on the corpse he noticed it had been internally charred until it got brittle and died long before the attack had ended, even though it only took some seconds.

He left the area over the stairs he came from and took another side alley to travel on. The square had been completely devoid of any signs for life, so searching would have been a waste of time.

Walking down another set of stairs, Jay reached a slightly wider alley next.

It felt a little bit too clean for him as until then a few bricks or rubbish had been littered around on the ground. Even the nature claiming back the ruins seemed to be less in this spot.

Looking around more careful, Jay spotted a fine cord mounted only a few inches from the ground at about halfway to the high building he was walking towards.

His (trap) skill had alarmed him of this and so Jay stepped over it. As he passed through a passage under the higher structure, he saw a thick tree trunk with mounted spikes hanging on the roof.

Had he activated the trap he would most certainly have ended impaled by that.

Not sure whether Gnolls had really been able to set up something like that and at the same time pondering if it really had been able to kill him, Jay proceeded along the following narrow passage. Of course he kept looking for more traps from then on, but at least in this place there weren't any.

That wasn't true for Gnoll patrols though, so Jay had to defeat four more of those monsters if counted all together. It was only two pairs and had not posed a problem. But as he reached the next open area, two completely different looking Gnolls had mixed within the group.

Contrary to their two normal brethren that came rushing in on Jay, they kept in cover behind some broken pillars.

He soon learned the reason for that as both of the Gnoll Veteran called monsters fired their longbows with astonishing accuracy. Jay for the first time cast a barrier around himself after he narrowly dodged the first arrow. At the same time he disposed of one normal Gnoll with a lightning fist.

The rest of the fight was nothing too serious as though both Veterans had way more health than the other Gnolls, they were neither very good in close combat nor had they any magic resistance.

Jay disposed of them in the same manner like most other Gnolls, training his spells in the process. If anything at all, Jay got really surprised the moment he had defeated the last one.

As he got closer to the corpses to check on them, he felt the ground under his feet slightly tremor. Out of instinct he stepped to the side and got a real surprise the next second.

A huge worm with sharp looking fangs around its maw shot out of the ground.

Astonished by his own reaction, Jay equipped his Wingblade via the quick-button while already turning on the spot and lashed out at the monster. He even had pushed some mana into his weapon and activated (slash), so the result was obviously a cut in half creature that kept wriggling around for a second while spraying purple blood.

The moment he realized his reaction, Jay had already taken a step back not to get sullied.

What he learned from analyzing the worm halves, was that it was called Hemdril and of Level twenty. With everything soaked in the Hemdril's blood, Jay refrained from checking the other corpses and left the area.

Taking the direction towards the center of the ruins as he had slightly gotten off trail towards the south following his encounter with Wolftail, Jay went down a wide passage. From there he could already see the next plaza only a few dozen yards away. It was a bit smaller than the last area with the pillars and higher buildings surrounded it.

Jay kept his vigilance up and watched for traps when he suddenly noticed movement in one of the higher ruins to the side. The moment he looked over there, a pure white figure jumped onto a close by brittle wall. Jay didn't even have the time to analyze it as the Gnoll propelled itself further down towards him.

With barely enough time to dodge, Jay rolled over the ground and tried to find cover. But the whole area was devoid of any rubbish or broken off parts.

Like this he once again had to roll to the side when he had just gotten back to his feet.

At least he had gotten his opponent as target set thanks to his system andJay learned it was another named monster. Mad Grizzlepaw was it's name and this one was of Level 26, even a bit higher than the last one.

The speed with which it attacked also was on another level.

But at the third rushing attack, Jay managed to get an ice lance in after he sidestepped the Gnoll. As this one was only a little bit taller than Jay and even more unarmed, it's range was far shorter than with his last encounter.

And from the moment Jay had hit it with ice once, the speed it attacked with had decreased by a good margin, so dodging got even less of a problem.

Jay alternated between frost and lightning attacks following a dodge from then on. To even his own surprise, Mad Grizzlepaw went down after a few attacks.

It clearly had been the light attacker with no endurance type. The white fur had by then partially been charred or frozen off, so Jay refrained from skinning it of taking the corpse.

Following this encounter he chose the alley leading towards the north west as it looked like another plaza was there. Until that point Jay had only encountered stronger opponents in such places, and the XP they gave him was completely different to the small fry in the passages.

Closing in on the plaza, Jay first heard them before he saw the monsters.

Slightly to the side, a group of four Veteran Gnolls were munching on something and was so indulged on it that they even ignored Jay. He carefully got a bit closer until he could see what it was they were chewing on.

At first glance, Jay nearly yelled out as he thought it had been Marrec the monsters were ripping apart. On second glance he noticed the helm was different, though the armor looked really similar.

Certain that it was one of the recruits their group was meant to rescue that got eaten there, Jay equipped his two swords and rushed over there in stealth. Magic was out of question as there could be other victims still alive close by.

Opening the fight with a horizontal slash, Jay plunged his Cruel Barb through the back of the next Gnoll. As he pulled it back and ripped the wound open even further, he made a turning motion and slashed his both edges along the torso of the third monster.

For the last one he used a slashing attack coming from below after he finished turning around. This resulted in the hook on his Cruel Barb getting stuck at the Gnolls rib cage and lifting the whole monster up into the air.

It crashed back down at about the same moment when the first head he had cut clean off hit the ground as well. That it still had the mercenaries arm in its maw was creepy even for Jay.

The worst thing with the scene Jay found himself in was that he had found the leftovers of not only one but two of the rookies they came for. Those two men had been half eaten at this point in time, so his hopes to find the other two alive was close to zero.

In pity for the end of their lives, Jay incinerated the leftovers as well as the four Gnolls that lay practically within them. He then turned away from the scene and hurried onward.

Not only did he want to hurry in case he still might be able to save someone, but thanks to the fire his position got pretty much revealed.

In a light jog he continued down some alleys towards the center of the ruins while still searching for traps or ambushes. He wasn't sure if the fire had possibly distracted the Gnolls, but for the whole distance he had traveled from there, Jay didn't encounter a single opponent.

Just as he had finished this thought, sounds of battle could be heard though.

It wasn't far from his position, slightly to the northern direction like Jay's orientation told him. Without wait he jumped into a run along some smaller paths, hoping he would arrive in time…