Under the Light of the World at War: Early Chapter 27

“Ow.” I wheezed, finally managing to get some air into my lungs. I hadn’t had my chest caved in, it just felt like it.

“Dorah!”

“I’m-Okay.” I continued to gasp, slowly sitting up, my whole body ached, phantom healing pain filled every inch of my body, the sharp pain where the splinters had struck me mixing into the dull ache across most of the rest of me.

But..

I glanced at my character sheet. I couldn’t help it, how could I avoid it, when I felt so different.

Stats gained!

Strength +2. Agility +2. Stamina +2. Intellect +2. Spirit +2. 

Alah’Dorah

High Elf

Level 5 [310/500 XP]

Strength 21 +5

Agility 21 +1

Stamina 22 +2

Intellect 15 +71

Spirit 16 +12

I’d gained a thousand Xp for killing the Stag

A thousand. Felt like a lot, and not nearly enough at the same time.

Whatever that thing was, it was insane. I shook it off, my level ups were awesome, but not the priority. I had started catching my breath, so I pushed up from the loam and groaned a bit, but managed to sit up.

“I’m so sorry Dorah… I didn’t think it would be that strong, it shouldn’t be. I’ve never… I’m so sorry.” Mama was whispering I realized and although my ears were still ringing a bit I heard it. I shook my head.

“It’s okay Mama… I don’t… I don’t think either of us expected that.” I said, throwing a hand at the dead stag, and wincing at the pain of my arm as I did.

“I should have sent you off, this isn’t, you aren’t!” Mama was panicking, I noticed and I did the only thing I could, I reached up no matter how much it hurt my right side, and put both of my palms on her cheeks. 

“Mama. Breathe.” I said calmly, as calm as I could anyways, I really wanted a hug right now, but Mama was panicking over me.

“Ha-” She breathed out, almost panting which wasn’t really proper breathing, but then she winced, and her arm shot to her side. Then I noticed the blood…

“Mama?”

“It’s okay Dorah. I’m okay… You’re okay.”

“Mama, you’re bleeding.” I said pushing aside her panic and realized yeah, she was definitely hurt.

Crap. I was low on Mana. The last Holy Light desperate to get my breathing back in order in case my chest was crushed had drained me.

Stupid Dorah, never use up all your mana when someone else could be hurt!

I rose up fighting to stand, as Mama wanted to push me back down.

“Stop it Mama, Stay there!” I demanded at her, as loud and firm as I could, startling her. I raised my hands.

“Evocation.” I said, and Mana surged around me, sparkling off my hands as the static mana lightning appeared as I sucked in Mana.

Once I was topped up did I look at Mama, She was pale, and blood was definitely leaking out of her side.

She’d either gotten gored, or splinters had gotten her just like me.

To think she’d fought on through it all. Mama was a badass, but a badass needed healing after a fight too!

I brought my hand up to the sky and light formed, flaring brightly. 

You will heal Mama! You will do it! Nothing will stop you! I roared internally, as I pumped my Mana into the Light, daring the spell to dare try and fail and then dropped it on Mama.

My Mana dropped quite a bit, but.

[Holy Light Lv. 6 2/60]

I’d cast it at full power and… I still had plenty left… That was weird. Why did I have so much Mana?

Sure my Mana Pool had increased a lot but-

I shook it off, and focused on Mama as she let out a much deeper breath of relief.

“Are you okay? Still hurt anywhere?” I demanded, and she finally seemed to have calmed down somewhat as she properly pulled her leathers aside and checked her side. There was a lot of blood, but the wound was missing. 

I’d healed her.

“No, I think you got it. Dorah… My little Light, look at you.” Mama whispered pride, and horror as she reached up and finally hugged me, which is what I really wanted.

I sank into her hug just pushing my face into her shoulder. Tears wanted to come, but I fought them off.

That… That was really scary.

Finally I pushed away, although Mama made no motion to want me to leave her arms as I leaned back, my eyes were watery, but I wasn’t crying too badly.

“What was that thing?” I whispered, because, what the hell? I mean… Sure there were like super strong animals around in WoW, but that thing talked!

“One of the Troll Spirits.” Mama said finally, but she shook her head. “But they’re never that strong! I’ve killed one before, a Lynx, and it only took a few shots before it died.”

“Well that thing was strong.” I whispered… A Loa? Was that what it was? Did the Amani have a Stag Loa? I thought they were like Dragonhawk, and Bear… There was something else too… A bird?

Ugh I don’t remember. 

I don’t remember a Stag, but…

“Wait. The deer… What was it doing? What was the point of all this?”

“Poaching, probably. I’ve heard of it, the Trolls like to gather up all the animals in an area sometimes either to try and starve us out, or to supply themselves with food, or resources. It takes forever to rebalance the ecosystem when they do it.” Mama grumbled, and I took it all in.

Hundreds of Deer, all being led away, We were farther east than normal, it would take a while, but if the Loa had kept leading the deer away, they would reach Troll Lands…

What was the point of stealing an entire herd of deer? I looked at the Loa, trying to process what it could do… Did the Loa empower animals? Would we have faced a horde of Troll riding Stags or something? Or… Did the Loa care about their animals they represent, were the Loa bringing the deer to slaughter…

If so…

That would be a lot of food. A feast fit for a war party.

My mind was racing with all the possibilities when I heard it.

A whining cry.

“What? What was that?” I asked, rising up shakily, and Mama held up her hands easing me to relax. 

“Just the Wolves. Don’t worry, they won’t bother us after that beating they took.”

I blinked and then looked up… Right, the Wolves. My feet moved, and I walked forward. 

“Dorah?”

“I just need to see.” I told Mama as I walked and I headed back across broken trees and rough torn up loam to look out over the clear field and see what had happened. The deer had scattered, but one of them, the one the wolves had jumped, had been crippled, and it was now dead.

The wolf pack was feasting, all but two. 

One lay still in the field, the one that had been gored. It was definitely dead.

The other? The crippled wolf whined as it moved, its legs not moving, and its pack was obviously concerned. 

But there was nothing they could do.

“Dorah?”

“Sorry I just…” I sighed, what a mess. I felt completely lopsided. It was just because of the adrenaline rush. It was kind of hard to think about magic or grinding or having fun when you just survived a lethal encounter. 

“It’s fine Dorah. Wolves die, the rest of the pack will survive. Come on.” She urged me on, and I turned, and saw she was holding my sword. 

The fire flickered, and I looked at it for a moment, staring in the flames.

“The wolf was innocent.” I said slowly, tasting the truth of  it.

That wolf had just done what was natural, hunted a deer, and was struck by the Loa. 

“It’s just a wolf.”

“Yeah… But that’s that, and this is this.” I decided, I reached out. “Can I have my sword?”

“Sure, sure, Dorah, what’s wrong?”

“I’m gonna go help.” I said grabbing my sword, and sheathing it and turning. I was tired, and everything hurt, and I just wanted to sleep and not think about setting camp or doing anything else, but that was that, and this was this.

“Dorah, the wolves will attack you.”

“I need to do this.” I said, without hesitation, and Mama wasn’t about to let me just go, but she was just as tired as I was, and I slipped free, and jogged out. 

“Dorah!”

“It’ll be fine!” I called back, as I hurried over. The wolves did notice, and very quickly formed up. Stalking around, watching and growling warning me away.

I took a breath, I should have enough Mana, so when I was close enough as the Wolves were closing in, and Mama was about to grab me and run I brought my hand up and drew on my Mana, the Light burst forth.

I swore to protect the innocent. It wouldn’t always be simple. A wolf attacking a deer and getting hurt by the deer, were they at fault? Was the Loa? I don’t know, all I knew is that I felt like helping. So I would.

“Holy Light!” I shouted, loud enough to startle the wolves, and the injured one was bathed in the light, bathed in what I could give. 

It yelped, jerking as its vision was filled with bright light, but a moment later it faded, the Wolves had scrambled away, and the injured wolf jumped to its feet, spinning and snarling, shocked, and panicking before it simply rushed over to the rest of the wolves.

I breathed out. I was tired, but the wolf pack, still shocked, accepted its member back instantly, still growling and snarling at me.

So I slowly started walking backwards, backing away without turning my back.

“Okay… Now I’m done.” I decided as Mama grabbed me and urged me on further away.

“Dorah… That was very silly.” She finally said, and all I could do was nod.

Yeah, but… Silly or not, it was the right thing to do.

—---

We made camp right next to the corpse, getting a fire going to warn away any wolves that might want to come check, and mostly just crashed onto the ground. Both of us were exhausted.

“We need to… I need to get the corpse butchered out. No point wasting it.”

“We need to.” I said, groaning as I sat up from the ground.

“Just rest Dorah, you look like you’re going to fall asleep.”

“So do you.” I reminded her bluntly, as I got up. Mama sent me a look, but I wasn’t going to let her work hard while so exhausted. I would help.

So I pulled out my knife, and right alongside her started butchering the Loa.

Or was it an avatar? It was obviously still here and not just disappearing. Honestly I just didn’t know what it would technically be called. Either way, we went to work, mostly focusing on the pelt, rather than the meat. The thing had been tough after all.

Besides, having something to do helped me ignore the pain that while fading was still running up and down my right side.

We eventually did enough that we were both ready to take a break and we collapsed next to the fire. Mama had enough strength to put some of the meat on the fire, apparently it was safe to eat, so no point wasting it.

Not sure I was really comfortable eating something that could talk, but the meat looked normal, and even with all my magical awareness it didn’t feel different from normal.

The meat was a bit gamey, but it was fine. I was starving. 

After I stumbled to my feet, and looked around… I had no idea where it landed.

“Dorah?”

“I don’t know where my Bow is.” I admitted, and Mama instantly nodded, understanding, she made to stand, but I waved her down. “I’m just gonna look around for it, don’t worry. I need to stretch my legs.”

“Dorah you should rest, you got hurt.”

Yeah my side hurt like crazy, but I shrugged. “It’s not that bad.” I assured her and started looking around. The Forest was just a complete mess. Knocked over trees were only one of the issues I had to deal with as I crawled around trying to remember where I had been when I lost my bow. In the end it was stumbling upon my own blood that gave me a place to really look.

Pulling up fallen branches and looking around, I circled where I found my blood and the splinters of wood that had been shrapnel digging into me.

I honestly didn’t want to look at it, but it was fine. Everything was fine. I just needed to find… “Oof!” I pinwheeled my arms a bit as I nearly completely ate shit, but managed to keep myself from falling on my ass as something rolled under my foot.

I looked down.

“Hey I found it!” The bow was under a tree branch, but it was still there. The string was snapped, but, as I worked to clear it and pulled it free… Yep, the bow was okay.

I brushed it off a bit and just looked it over for a moment. The bow was okay. 

“You found it?”

“Aaah!?” I jumped as Mama’s voice came from right beside me, and then winced as that made my side hurt.

“Dorah?”

“I’m okay. Just tender. Ow. You startled me.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.”She whispered, checking me over, but I didn’t have any wounds to baby.

“It’s okay Mama. Look, I found it. Need a new string though.”

“I have spares, let’s get your bow restrung, okay?”

“Cool.”

—--

It took a while to get everything sorted, and eventually we moved on. The Wolf pack was long gone by the time we left, but either they would be back, or something would eat the rest of the meat. There was just too much for us to transport. 

We ate a bunch for breakfast before heading out. The massive pelt bundled in Mama’s pack, and the antlers roped to my own bag. 

We didn’t head home, instead shifting to another direction, and hitting another village that was a bit closer. 

We moved as fast as we could, to get back to civilization, and the reason made sense to me.

Mama wasn’t the only Rangers out there, and if anyone else ran into a Loa like that without expecting it, they could end up dead. 

There were some negatives for the whole deal. Mama was babying me.

“I got it.”

“Are you sure, I can carry it!” Mama offered but I shook my head and picked up my bag, throwing it over my shoulder and securing it.

“No, I’m good. Let’s go.” I said firmly, and Mama wavered, looking like she wanted to argue again, but she slowly nodded, and off we went the final stretch. 

The village we came upon was different from home. Bigger for one, but not in the right way, each home was like four times the size of back home, and it had the feel of a golf course more than a forest. Every inch of it seemed to be spotlessly maintained.

“Weird.”

“It’s a resort village. Nobles from the city come out here to relax from time to time, but because of that, it has a lot of Ranger presence. The Ranger watchtower is over there.” Mama pointed and I could see it. The only building that didn’t look like it was made to eat grapes while seated on a couch.

I shook my thoughts away as we made it to the Rangers tower, and Mama entered without hesitation.

“I need a message to all Ranger stations immediately!” She called out in her authoritative Ranger voice,

“You need what?” The voice called out and I watched as a woman came down, wearing rather casual ranger gear. And she looked half asleep, as she came down the spiraling sort of ramp that made up the inside of the tower. 

“We ran into Troll activity, something is up, and I need to send an emergency alert, where is your messenger bird?”

“Ugh, great, we don’t have one.”

“Then how do you get messages out?”

“I don’t, but if I did, I’d go find a mailbox, like a normal person.” She grumbled, rubbing at her hair then she seemed to notice me as well, and took Mama and I in as she finished stepping onto the first floor. “And who are you two supposed to be?”

“Felomin Dawnspear, Ranger of The Eastern Forest Outpost, number 4.”

“Riiight. Never heard of it.” She grumbled, then she did seem to find some sliver of responsibility. “What’s this message that’s got you banging around in my tower anyways?”

“We came across a Troll Spirit, a powerful one, more powerful than it should be, it was leading deers away, hundreds of them.” Mama said instantly, and the woman just looked unimpressed.

“A Troll spirit? Like… Those slightly smarter animals that we have to kill every once in a while… Seriously?”

“This one was strong enough to throw trees around and used some Troll Magic. We need to send a warning that the Troll Spirits are more powerful, and any Ranger that comes across them is going to need backup… A lot of backup.”

“Riiight. Sure.” She shrugged, “You can send a message through the mail-”

“This is an emergency. People could die trying to kill a spirit they think is an easy kill.”

“Yeah yeah, I heard you! Or you can take a Hawkstrider, I don’t have a Messenger bird out here but half a day's ride down the road is the Central outpost.”

“I know where it is.” Mama said flatly, and the woman just shrugged.

“Yeah alright… Oh, those are some nice antlers.”

“The beasts.” Mama added and the woman circled around me, and I let her as she checked over the massive antlers strapped to my back.

“A big one wasn’t it.”

“Big enough to tear through a tree on a charge.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I’m not joking, that beast could have killed us, should have killed us… We got lucky.” Mama said with dead seriousness.

“Yeah well, you took it out, good job and stuff… The kid?”

“My Daughter Dorah, she was accompanying me on the hunt.”

“Aww, that’s cute, you get any shots at the Troll spirit?” The elf asked, and I just kinda looked at her, before deciding I didn’t like her much.

“Well after my arrows did almost nothing, and it used its magic to shatter the trees and I removed all the massive splinters in my side with some healing magic we managed to bring it down with Arcane Arrow, and smashing a shield into the arrow Mama shot in its eye… And I shot it in the butt a few times which really pissed it off.”

The woman looked at me, blinking her glowy blue eyes for a second before she just started laughing.

“Sounds fun! Good story kid.” She said throwing a hand onto the top of my head, and coming close to losing it, but I ignored it.

We had more important things to worry about.

“The Hawkstrider?”

“Yeah she’s out back, come on. Don’t bother bringing her back, leave her at the Ranger outpost, I hate clearing out the stables.” She grumbled and led us out through the tower to the back where a small stable was set up. The Darker blue Hawkstrider looked up as we entered, she was laying on her belly, looking almost like a cushion except her big head sticking out.

“Come on up ya get.” The woman called, and the Strider huffed, fluffing up and chittering her beak as the Ranger approached. Only when the woman actually walked fully up and pushed the hawkstrider up with her foot did it move, slowly rising to its feet showing it was fairly muddy on the bottom and also irritable as it snapped at her.

“Yeah yeah, here you go, take her off my hands, the girl has been broody, but we don’t have any males around to calm her down.”

“Thanks I’ll be able to handle her… Hey, I don’t care if you don’t believe us about the danger, but take the warning as time to be more prepared. Keep your bow close.”

“Yeah yeah. Go on, Aldiel shala.”

“My thanks.” Mama responded, the woman wasn’t what I thought of as a ranger but she wished us safe travels so fair enough.

I watched as Mama prepared the Hawkstriders saddle. The bird didn’t look very happy about it, but Mama had a different energy and the bird didn’t bite or cause too many problems.

“Okay Dorah, climb on behind me okay?”

“Yeah.” I said a bit hesitant, I mean, a giant chocobo was fucking cool and everything, but the bird was also very big, and angry looking. Mama slipped into the saddle and I took a bit more time with a bit of help, slipped up behind her and held on. As the bird huffed and then started walking out of the stable.