Melody of Mana

Traveling with our new friend was quite a bit quicker, in that he knew his way around like the back of his hand. With a flick of his fingers a mask and hooded cloak appeared before him and we began moving. As we got back into the den of the umbral wolves he looked around in shock.

"Oh... this should have never been possible. The security systems should have prevented..." he mumbled, looking around at the carnage. "I need to check on the systems. You have friends here yes?" Justin looked over at us.

"Yeah, they were up a few flights if what we saw on the energy use charts were correct," I responded.

He nodded and moved over to the broken golem. "Stand close, I'll take us up to ground level."

As we teleported I was jealous. My portals worked sure, but the little bubble that formed around us only to pop an instant later was seamless. One second we were standing in an abattoir, the next a clean hallway, I didn't even feel the shift.

"They should be just down, we'll go warn them that there might be more," I said, pointing towards the stairs sign.

"Good, I'll head to the control room. We need the lights on and reliable at the very least to extricate these beasts." He turned and the broken golem floated off behind him.

I looked to Ulanion who nodded and followed me to the stairs. The symbol was a bit weird, of a person with a few rectangles by it, but it was clear what it was. We made our way quickly towards our friends, knowing that they might yet be in danger.

Dras

It had been about an hour since the incident with the elevator and we'd successfully found the stairs, about ten minutes after Ormien had gone for his dive. We were loath to split and eventually headed down together, only to find the stairs destroyed a good portion of the way down.

For the moment we decided to pull back to the portal room and set it up as a fallback position. None of us knew this facility well enough and a known point to begin our search for both the elves and our missing bard was the best plan.

This situation was bad. We'd found our objective, but almost half of our team was now either missing or dead. We couldn't continue getting split up, and there might be a real need to fall back. The ambassador might be able to get us backup if we could get back to our enclave, that seemed unlikely as a possibility. We might also try to fix this portal. It was known that there were some portals in Emperor Durin's facility that had missing links, but not if they lead anywhere or were planned to. If this connected to those... a risk either way.

"Activity!" Glen shouted from the hallway as we were going over what defensive spells might actually work.

Selene and I got out first, throwing up our strongest shields on both sides while the twins managed light spells. As we looked towards the stairwell where Glen was staring the door flew open and a familiar blonde ran into the hall, followed after by a certain elf, sans his bow, but with a sword from somewhere.

"Dras!" Alana yelled, "Thank goodness we found you, that wolf, it wasn't the only one." She ran over and I let her past my shield.

"Explains how it seemed to be getting around so quick," Glen said. "Don't suppose you found that idiot Ormien did you?"

Both of them winced, it was Ulanion who answered. "Dead, managed to get revenge on one of them though."

"What's the plan now?" I asked.

"Well, since there are more of those things around..." As she spoke the lights flickered and went out, leaving us with only the twins' light to see. I saw something move into the hall.

Two of the wolves poured into the hall, shadows dancing around them. They stalked forward, streams of saliva dripping from their jowls. As a reaction I tossed up my shield. Seemed like they'd found us.

Our physical users noticed only a second after myself and took point as the beasts charged. Alana fell back a bit, and began singing up a spell of some kind. As she did though I head a yell from behind.

"Incoming!" Selene screamed, her own shield flashing to life as a third wolf pounced down the hall the other direction.

While the twins and Selene kept our back-line protected the rest of us turned towards the pair advancing. It seemed they'd come to the conclusion that we needed to be dealt with, perhaps because of their fellow. They streaked forward, only to be met by blade and spell.

Individually neither of our physical users was a match for these opponents, but with the shield slowing them and Alana letting a potent bit of lightning loose we held. I focused mainly on supporting Glen, while she kept Ulanion from falling. The warriors held, if only barely under the onslaught. Sadly both of our opponents were tricky, fast and stronger than I'd like.

It looked like we might lose. Behind us I could hear Robert cease his light spell to reinforce Selene's shield. Neither were trained in war magic, but we just needed them to hold and keep the light on.

Alana loosed another spear of electricity at the wolves, causing Ulanion's to slip and him to get a solid cut on its side. They didn't seem to be sticking though, the injuries stopped bleeding only a second or two after they retreated into the darkness, some kind of light healing effect.

On my side I saw something that pained me. Glen's off hand had been grabbed, and as I charged a ball of fire to slam into the creature it bit down, causing his armor to creak under the pressure. Just as I thought it might break though the lights came back on everywhere. The burst of sight was surprising, but more than that they kept getting brighter and brighter, until the hallway was almost painful to look down. That was enough to cause the beast to release the warrior and stumble back.

That wasn't all though, a second later a loud clanking sounded and another lupine form joined us. Unlike the other two this one was metallic, with red claws and jaws as it bolted down the same hallway our enemies had come. I internally groaned, the last thing we needed was another bleeding wolf.

I was pleasantly surprised though as it spoke. "Umbral wolves found, commencing combat." It then lunged at the beast before Ulanion, sinking its crimson teeth into the creatures back leg.

Alana didn't miss a beat and loosed another bolt of lightning, slamming it down into the very surprised monster who'd looked back to see what bit him. It passed right through the thing's skull and left it a smoking ruin.

"The golem is on our side, attack the umbral one, not it," she said breathlessly.

I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was on her last leg, and to be honest I wasn't far behind. I'd have to ask her later what she knew about these, but for now another bit of help was too badly needed to care.

The second wolf on our side fell shortly after the first to the blades of the warriors. As it tried to flee I managed to snatch it round the leg with a spell to keep it in place before the two angry swordsmen cut it to ribbons.

Our front-line turned as one and the wolf behind looked up in alarm. It had been trying to rip apart the shields from our back-line casters, to some success, before its fellows had fallen. Now seeing all of us turn to it the beast seemed to decide to flee, turning tail and trying to bolt.

As it did though a small bubble formed at the end of that hall, popping to reveal a cloaked and masked figure. The monster pounced towards it, only to suddenly slam into the ground, like a pillar had fallen down, pinning it in place.

"I think that's more than enough out of you," the figure coldly said, lifting its hand.

In my first year of school I'd seen the ancient archmage who was our headmaster at that time lose his temper. It wasn't clear exactly what had been said, but some student had spoken out of turn, and when he'd opened up the repression he kept on his aura I'd nearly fallen over. As the hallway flooded with green bubbles in my aura-sight I trembled, because he'd been nothing but a mewling babe before whoever this was.

From the hooded man's hand a brilliant beam of golden light flowed. It was like looking at the sun itself as he casually vaporized the monster who'd been capable of giving us so much trouble. As the light faded and I blinked the spots from my vision I saw that Selene had fallen over, her eyes huge, and the twins were not far behind in their looks of surprise.

"T-thank you, s-sir," Leah stuttered, the other two still hadn't found their voices yet.

"Of course, I received a report that umbral wolves had been spotted in the area and came to clean them out." He reached down and helped Selene to her feet with a kind nod. "I think that was the last of them, but you children might want to wait here while I do a few checks. Safer that way."

Before any of us could interrupt he turned and with another popping bubble was gone.

After a few second I found my voice. "Okay everyone, whatever we do, we can't piss that guy off." Alana chuckled, as did Ulanion, which got them looks from the rest of us.

"Don't suppose you found a room with chairs or something?" Alana asked, looking at us.

"I think there were a few in the portal room," I said, pointing.

"Portal? Whatever, let's all go rest in there till our friend comes back then," the exhausted bard started to walk, only to be interrupted by a mechanical voice in that ancient Atali dialect.

"Yes, your Highness," the golem said to the bard as it followed. Ulanion almost fell over as he began to laugh at her sigh.