"No, we can't just leave them to die."
You look Grand Axe in the eye. He raises his hand and begins to speak. Before you can hear anything he says, you start swinging your sword, cutting distance away as you pace rapidly fought. He shouts something behind you, a little incoherent. You shout back at him.
"I'll go ahead! Follow me as fast as you can, back me up when you can."
With swift strikes of the sword you quickly outpace Grand Axe, and while he follows behind you, you are quickly into the fray. You have not moved like this, not yet. While you have advanced before, you have not advanced into combat unsupported. As you move towards the wagons, you see the faces of the merchants, filled with fear as the Spinewolves snap and snarl at them.
Each of the five Spinewolves looks different, some with lengthened muzzles, others with weird misshapen maws that almost seem as though they retract into their skulls. One stands tall in the rest, long gangly legs letting a tower foot or more above the others. They tear and hack into the wooden sides of the wagons, two merchants striking at them with swords to little effect. Another merchant jabs at them with a spear, and after a moment the spear gets stuck, caught in the scales of one of the Spinewolves. It rears up and tears across his face, leaving nothing but ragged bone behind.
As you run in, you find the Spinewolves turn on you with a frightening efficiency. Where five were harassing the merchants before, they now move towards you, spreading around in a half circle around you. You curse under your breath, cutting distance behind you and retreating for a moment. It does little good, as they approach towards you quickly, though one turns savaging the wagon once again.
You swing at one desperately, your sword catching on the scales barely cutting to the surface. The Spinewolf looks at you curiously, before batting at you with a clawed and gnarled paw. You fall to the ground, any thought to cut through the distance gone, the Spinewolf diving to your throat. You raise your sword desperately barely keeping its jaws off you, and another paw crashes down next to your head, avoiding pulverising your skull by mere inches.
You jab upwardly, desperately hoping to hit something before it strikes again. You see your sword pierced the Spinewolf's throat, and well into its brain. You pull your short sword but it is decidedly stuck, and so you roll away taking your only sword with you. There are still four left, and the merchants do not seem inclined to leave the wagons to help. You look around you consider Spinewolves still closing on you, you dart to the left hoping to take out the one furthest from the others. It is the tallest and you hack its leg savagely, it falls to the ground wounded.
There are three left now, and you feel a little more confident. One of the Spinewolves dives at you, and with casual ease bats your sword out of your hand. It goes flying, and while you twist your head to look at it the approaching Spinewolves demand all your attention. You start retreating in earnest now, but know better than to turn your back to the creatures.
As you back away another Spinewolf jumps on you another paw throwing you to the ground again. You look up and see death in the shape of yellowed broken teeth. The creature widens its jaw, preparing to tear you into pieces. As it descends, it simply topples, one half falling one way - the other half falling another.
"HEY! I'M GRAND AXE, AND IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO LET YOU IDIOTS KILL THAT IDIOT..."
The roar trails off for a moment. Another Spinewolf is simply obliterated, separated down the middle with one eye either side of the cut. The third comes rushing towards you, but before it can descend, it is thrown to the side by an axe which is then swung down repeatedly on its head leaving it whimpering and unable to move.
A massive hand comes down towards you and roughly pulls you up right.
"Then you got another thing coming."
Grand Axe's face, puffy and red with exertion looks down on you. He shakes his head, beads of sweat dripping off it as he gasps for breath.
"Now, Swallow, go get your swords."
You run over to your swords eager to rearm yourself, and feel much safer once they are in your hands again. Grand Axe merely nods at the two remaining Spinewolves.
"Do it."
You walk over to the first one, hand shaking with fear. Still you bring the sword down cutting through its throat and for the first time feel a trickle of… Something in the back of your mind. You realise now it happened before, when you killed the first Spinewolf but you had other things on your mind then.
The second Spinewolf is lying on the ground, the still slavering, still dangerous. Grand Axe hefts his axe and casually slices off both of its forepaws from thirty paces away. You walk over unevenly, and jam your swords into its eye sockets. It ceases moving within a few seconds, and if you feel another small trickle of something again.
Grand Axe looks you, and inhales before speaking.
"Idiot. Idiot! IDIOT!"
He takes a deep breath.
"Go see to the merchants - we will speak of this afterwards."
The merchants are still huddled in the wagons, looking at you to see if it's safe. You wave to them, and shout.
"Hey! Come down here. We're mages from Madalgia, come to clear the Darklings out of the area. Where are you headed?"
One man looks down at you and speaks.
"Back to Madalgia. We've come from Rosolin, bearing important goods."
You look at him critically. Important goods? If they were so important…
"Why have you no escort? If these goods are so important where are your mages?"
"Well, halfway through the trip they left us, heading south towards The Pit. Don't know why, just told us to get this to Madalgia."
You jump up onto the wagon, and see a series of tightly bound iron chests.
"What's in there?"
"Don't rightly know, just told us these are important and to get into the city. I know you've already saved us, but you mind helping us again?"
Grand Axe strides over to one of the chests before you can speak, cracking one open with the haft of his axe, revealing what is inside.
He raises an eyebrow. Small black spirals made of some curiously hard material are revealed, glinting in the sun.
"I've never seen these before, what are they?"
One of the merchants looks up at him nervously.
"I don't know, sorry. All I really know that they're important."
Grand Axe grunts.
"Sorry Swallow. Depends if these really are important, I guess."
He looks over the merchants with a critical eye.
"Though to be honest, I don't see a caravan with no escort being that important to begin with."
You look over to Grand Axe, hoping for his opinion. He shrugs his shoulders, clearly leaving it up to you.
[ ] Return to the City
If this is truly an important shipment, helping these merchants may be the most valuable thing. Of course there is a better than even chance that they are simply lying to you to make the return trip safer. In that case you'd just be failing your mission.
[ ] Continue Your Mission
The shipment is one thing, but you largely have cleared out the road behind you. More important is keeping this area clear, these are hardly going to be the only merchants on the road at this time of year.
YOU NOW HAVE ZERO FATE POINTS.
