"Did I hear them right, captain?" Syldric blinks, and puts a finger into his ear, as though checking whether his hearing is blocked. "The woman this man just described... Doesn't that sound like the Two-Faced Goddess?"
"What? Did you think we were
stupid?!" Agrellon growls. "You're not only brought here from beyond the Great Barrier, but also by
the Goddess herself?!" He nocks an arrow on his bow, and the arrow's tip begins glowing with a green energy. "Enough with your lies, demon! I'll-"
"Agrellon!
Put away your weapon!" The elven captain shouts, having finally lost his temper. "There will be no more patrolling for you today! Return to base at once, or you'll no longer have the right to be a village guard!"
"Captain, I-" Agrellon begins, but then meets the captain's furious eyes, flinches, and forces his mouth shut. He shoots a murderous glare at John, then turns around and stomps away. Soon, his form can no longer be seen among the trees.
"Sorry about that," the captain says, looking ashamed for both Agrellon and himself. "It's just that, well, our home has been under assault by demons for the past few weeks, and most of us are on edge. However... If you're really sent here by the High Goddess herself, a force above the Blightmother, then I suppose you can't really be the Blightmother's minions, can you?"
"But captain... Should we really trust them?" Syldric asks, looking clearly uneasy. "The words of these two still
are very far-fetched, no matter how you look at it."
"...no, we shouldn't, at least not yet," the captain says after thinking for a moment. He looks at Darius and John, warily, and wearily. "You're here to defeat 'six powerful beings', you say... I assume you're referring to the Holy Trinity and the Abyssarchs? Such a thing sounds as impossible as extinguishing the Sun itself, but that's beside the point... Though they're gods, we have no love for those six, given how much destruction and suffering their accursed followers have brought to the Middle World. If you mean to fight the gods, I won't stop you."
"Captain! Surely we aren't going to help those two in a war against the gods?!" Syldric asks, his eyes wide.
"No, no, of course not." The captain shakes his head, and sighs. "But if they want to get to the gods, they'd need to go through the gods' servants, wouldn't they? So if they must take care of the demons for us along the way..."
"I'm still not sure about this," Syldric murmurs, half to himself. But it sounds like he knows he doesn't have anything more convincing to say.
"Neither am I, Syldric. Neither am I..." The older elf looks at the two transhumans. "As long as you don't cause trouble for us, strangers, we won't cause trouble for you. And if you're new to our world, and want somewhere to stay..." For a second, he looks almost hopeful, despite his weariness earlier. "Help us, and you earn our gratitude and trust. And we're in rather dire need of help at the moment... What do you say?"
Faced with Alison's furious assault, at least two spiders fall victim. Another of the spiders abruptly finds itself impaled by Aron's spear projectile. Emeka pounces toward a third spider, his strengthened fist easily bashing through the creature's exoskeleton, the heat of his magic rapidly melting its flesh. Five spiders are now down, and only one remains.
The surviving spider is becoming aware that it's clearly at a massive disadvantage in this battle. Perhaps retreat is a concept too much for its primitive mind, but the creature is at least capable of some form of tactics. Instead of fighting Alison, Aron, or Emeka, who have all proven themselves to be dangerous combatants, the spider leaps toward Rina, who hasn't displayed any form of offensive magic so far. Given its agility, and the fact that everyone else has just finished attacking, it seems that no one can act quickly enough to defend Rina...
Except for the orcs. The fire-wielding male orc, Olaghog, hurls an orb of bright orange flames at the spider, the fireball propelled by a stream of red heat to move at incredible speeds; its path even curves to seek out the spider. As the spider is struck by the ball of fire, it is pushed off its leaping trajectory, falling to the ground a meter or so away from Rina as a charred corpse.
"You alright?" The orc shouts, and begins rushing toward Rina, clearly concerned for a member of the group of strangers that had just helped the orcs fight off the spiders.
[Helltank asked me to write the scene above for his character's development.]
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