Chapter 44 – Stampede

Huge wolf monster's wide open jaws, full of razor sharp teeth, was met with a shield, smashing its mug with a loud crunching sound. The next moment a sharp sword point came from behind the shield and pierced the falling back wolf's neck, leaving it shuddering on the ground while its blood made a black pond barely visible in the red light that shone from the sky. Just a second later the sword hid behind the shield and another beast hit the shield with its paw just to have that paw cut off the very next moment.

Loud roar of a bipedal monster sounded somewhere behind Jake and a moment later was silenced when a fireball magic hit its opened mouth and blew up within its jaws pulverizing the upper part of its head. Monster dropped dead to the ground convulsing in its death throes, but soon was smashed to paste with chaotic stomps of other monsters' feet.

The wooden wall they were standing on was creaking and shaking from all the hits of maddened monsters that could not get to them and hit the wall with their bodies in rage until some arrow or magic killed them making them a part of a pile of corpses at the feet of the wall that was growing by the moment.

Sixty adventurers from twelve adventurer teams that were sent to this village now were cut down to fourty people. Some were hit with the stone thrown by the bipedal monsters and flew off the wall into the poisonous fog. Some were caught by the jaws of monsters that could reach the top of the wall jumping from the pile of corpses under the wall, and were dragged into the horde of monsters underneath, where their death screams were shortly cut off when frenzy monsters tore them apart while fighting and biting each other for a bit of their meat.

Loud screams, roars and sounds of hits and slashes of shield and swords muffled only by occasional explosions of magic were mixed into one unending noise.

Adventurers spread over the massive wooden wall that was erected to guard the village from the monster attacks that lived in the forest. However now the piece of wall they occupied looked like an island in the sea.

From one side they were faced with the horde of monsters that kept streaming toward them from the forest. From the other side it was a sea of poisonous fog that luckily crawled close to the ground and did not rise higher than human shoulders near the wall, allowing them to breathe freely while standing a few meters above it on top of the wall.

Even though adventurers carry standard antidotes with them at all times, they were more than sure that it would be useless against the poison fumes that came from the trap, left by the enemies specifically for them.

Seeing how the monsters that went around their island of safety through the huge breaches in the parts of the wall were quickly waning after running through the cloud of poison, adventurers were pretty sure that trying to escape through smoke was a bad idea. This must have been one of the reasons why monsters from the other side of the village still did not attack them. They all probably died while running through the cloud of smoke before even reaching them.

Which was just a bit of relief as thanks to this they only had to face horde of monsters from one side and bunch of most stupid monsters dumb enough to jump into poison fog through holes in the wall to surround them. When they reached the stairs that Jake guarded they were already sluggish and barely posed a threat.

However all their jumping and thrashing around circulated the fog under him, dragging it up with them when they ran at his shield making him inhale just a slight bit. Yet he already started to feel the effect.

Jake downed a few standard antidotes just to have it slightly relieve his worsening condition but as expected did not help much. The only reason he still stood was that some of the clerics would heal him, which only brought him to better health without purging the poison within him. However every heal was less effective as the poison was accumulating within him.

"Keena" Heard the enraged feline cat woman silent call of her beloved one's voice startling her from her mad slashing and punching the monsters around. Her cat ears above the head moved around trying to hear the sound again, but all she could hear was the noise of fighting. She shook her head thinking it was just her imagination when the voice called her again

"Keena." She heard barely a whisper from the direction of the poison fog, surprising her so much she almost was bitten by a monster. She protected herself from the wolf's jaw with a knife that she pierced into its jaw at the last moment making it unable to close the jaws, but its weight piling on her made her fall with a monster standing on the wall over her. The next moment monsters neck and back was pierced by a few swords of man near her and with two feet pulled to her chest she pushed at the dieing wolf's belly from underneath and threw it with the force of her legs away from herself dropping it on the ground under the wall. She jumped back to her feet and looked around, occasionally slashing at some other monster. Her ears however were pointed to the fog at all times.

"Keena, crazy cat! Get your ass over here or I am never dating you!" She heard the voice from the fog through all the noise of battle.

"Marge!" She screamed toward her party leader who was throwing magic at the most dangerous monsters only, to save up on mana as much as she could. "I'll be back!"  Added Keena and jumped off the wall into the poisonous fog, disappearing within moments.

"KEENA!" Screamed Marge shocked after seeing her friend commit suicide, but could not do anything but clench her fists and keep fighting.

"The hell, Keena?" Muttered Jake after seeing cat woman drop into the fog where a few monsters that he was fending off on this side of the wall noticed her and tried to run after her, disappearing in the fog.

"Damn beast woman has she gone crazy?" Asked Edd that fought near Jake.

"Speaking of beasts," said Jake without answering Edd's question. "Where's our Tamer newbie?" He asked

"I did not see him ever since we rushed to the wall." Said Edd, piercing a monster that jumped around Jake to rush for the people on the wall.

"Damn. Did he die?" Muttered Jake.

*****

"Rey." A blurry voice sounded in the darkness.

"Rey" Someone repeated his name making him struggle to open the heavy eyelids.

"Rey! Can you hear me?" Called the voice again making him finally wake up.

"Who..? Where am..?" Muttered Rey laying on the ground in the thick fog.

"Rey! Are you awake?"

"Who is it? What's going on?"

"It's Noah."

"Who?"

"The newbie Tamer, remember?"

"Oh. Newbie? What's going on?"

"Rey, I need you to concentrate. Your team needs your help. If you don't snap out of it they'll die."

After hearing this, Rey struggled to stand up from the ground. "Team? What about it? Wait! Trap! I was hit by a blast!"

"You remember now?"

"Yeah." Said Rey trying to stand up on his shaky legs but could not hold his own weight.

"Noah! I can't stand up. Fuck."

"You were hit by poison quite hard. I managed to neutralize it and made you drink a potion but it can only do so much" Said Noah's voice from the fog.

"Poison?" Asked Rey while crawling toward Noah's voice.

"Yeah. The fog we are in. It's poisonous fume from the bomb that blew up at your face. You got a high concentrated dose instantly. It's a miracle you were still alive when I found you."

"This fog? All of it is poison? Where are the others? Why are we the only ones here?" Asked Rey when he crawled close to Noah seeing him sitting on the ground with many empty bottles of potions laying around him.

"They escaped the poison fog to the wall. You and I are in the center of the village, where the trap appeared."

"You said they are in danger?"

"Monster Bait."

"Oh, fuck. Right. There was monster bait. It should have broken when the bomb blew up. Did the horde come?"

"Yes I can hear them fight in the direction of the wall."

"I can't hear it well. Everything's so blurry."

"They can't escape to the forest because of monsters and can't come here because of poison. Even if city guards rushed here when they saw the red signal flare, there is no way they could get to us soon enough."

"Alright. What can I do?" Asked Rey.

"See these globs of goo in front of me?" Said Noah pointing at the small round beads on the ground in front of him

"What's that?" Asked Rey.

"Our chance to survive. They are my special slimes that can absorb poison. I fed you one of them to make it absorb poison from within you."

"Fed me the slime?" Asked Rey shocked.

"Don't worry, they are my tamed creatures. They listen to me and only absorb poison. This can help our guys survive in this fog, just like me and you."

"Alright? Why did you not give it to them yet."

"I…I need to nurture them to make them effective. They are too weak to help us at the state they are in right now. The one I fed you was the most nurtured one."

"I see. What do you need for this?"

"Potions! It takes too much mana for me to nurture enough for everyone. I thought of doing a batch of them that we can share between a few people but I used up almost all the potions I had and the first batch is not even ready yet. And I need to stay here to nurture them with the most concentrated poison to make them grow faster." Said Noah.

"Share between several people?" Asked Rey.

"Once it absorbs all the poison in you it will come out through your mouth, just feed it to the other person. Then repeat this over and over to stay alive in this poison fog until I nurture another batch to give everyone one of it."

"That's the craziest plan I heard. But I don't see another way." Rey said.

"That's all I could come up with, to help others. Otherwise me and you will be the only ones staying alive by the end of this night."

"Okay. I get it. I'll bring potions. You make sure to do all you can to make them quicker. The time is of the essence. If I am right, the monster bait I saw was of the highest grade and called up half the monsters in the whole forest. Guy's must be running on fumes fighting that horde. We need to hurry up." Said Rey, struggling to his legs. "I am going" He said and limped away disappearing in the fog.

****

After making a few dozen steps, Rey understood how wrong he was about his own condition. His vision was blurry and legs shook so hard he was sure he would not make it all the way to the wall.

"Fuck it. I don't need to get all the way to the wall. Just close enough for her to get to me." Muttered Rey, struggling against his own body to make it walk at least a few more meters. He walked half the way to the wall when he could not walk anymore, dropping to the ground.

"Keena!" He screamed to the sky, while laying in the thick fog. Even screaming was proving to become hard. His body was too tired. Healing potions increase your regeneration but use your own body resources for that, weakening you at the same time. In combination with the damage he received from poison it squeezed all juices out of his body.

"Keena!" He screamed, concentrating his last powers.

"Keena, crazy cat! Get your ass over here or I am never dating you!" He screamed again after breathing hard for some time and finally dropped to the ground barely able to even twitch.

"I am here, love!" Said happy voice from the fog dropping to the ground near him with eyes full of tears. "I am here!" Whispered Keena.

"No time." Said Rey. "Come closer!" He whizzed out with force.

"What is it…" started to say Keena bending towards Rey, but his sudden kiss interrupted her words, shocking her senseless. A moment later her cat ears stood up straight and her tail sticking out of her armor's pants pointed straight up with a shudder going all over her body.

"This is antidote." Said Rey after pushing something into her mouth with his tongue and breaking their lips contact. "It can be used in turns. Noah in the center of the village is making more. He needs potions. Get them to him as fast as you can."

"Alright! I understand." Said Keena trying to lift him up.

"Leave me. I will slow you down."

"No fucking way I am leaving you after I just got my first kiss from you! Don't you dare take this hope away from me! Do you even know how much I did to get you?" She said lifting him in her hand and standing up.

"I know." Whispered Rey.

"Bastard if you knew, how could you leave me without a straight answer to my feelings?" She said angrily and started to run towards the wall.

"Was afraid."

"Of me? You thought I would, what? Eat you?"

"Play with me and then move on." Whispered Rey, surprising her so much she almost fell barely keeping standing without dropping him to the ground.

"What?"

"You came at me so suddenly and flirtatiously. I felt it was just a game to you. Just another fun."

"Rey, I would never joke with…"

"I know that now. I was a fool." Said Rey. "But I was in love with you ever since I first saw you and was afraid that it would just turn into a momentary thing for you and then you'll leave me all brokenhearted and walk away…" he said and started to lose consciousness again.

When she heard these words her tears started to stream like rivers.

"Don't you fucking dare to die on me here after a confession, Rey!" She said starting to run even faster.