The Drow Ranger stumbled upon the craggy rocks that dotted the dark trail as she sprinted back toward her fountain, her calves burning and her chest throbbing from the various nasty wounds she had acquired. Traxex felt the adrenaline pulsing through her body as she clambered away from the site of the meeting, knowing very well that she would have been killed if she had not carried such escape items with her.
The resistance put up by the Dire had proven to be much more impenetrable than she had initially anticipated, although to be fair, Traxex went into battle far too lightly. One of her allies, the mighty Omniknight Purist Thunderwrath, had initially warned her of the dangers of overconfidence. But Traxex had not heeded their warnings, slightly touched at Purist's solicitude but determined to enjoy herself. And now she slightly, slightly regretted her recklessness. After all, it ended up landing her in a situation where she could barely take two steps without feeling nauseous.
She pressed on, leaping over the ruts that had formed through hundreds and hundreds of marches through the road, wincing in pain every step and flinching at every noise until she realized that it was merely one of the Radiant's creeps – in this case, a relatively deformed creep holding a gnarled wooden club. Slightly embarrassed at her jumpiness, Traxex continued back to her fountain, albeit at a slightly slower pace. Once again, she began replaying the day's previous events in the eye of her mind.
Once again, another new day had brought another chance to destroy the Dire Ancient. And so, Purist Thunderwrath called upon four other heroes of the Radiant to take different lanes in the dense forest. What he did to pull the stoic Anti-Mage out of his reclusive activities, Traxex had no idea, but the first and foremost of the Radiant heroes had finally been brought out to head what was expected to be the final and greatest assault on the Dire. Along with the veteran hero that had represented righteousness and power, Purist had also called the fiery Lina, and the Grand Magus Rubick. Out of all the heroes, Traxex had still gotten along best with Purist – Lina was too annoying for her to handle and Anti-Mage was simply too…detached. Her feelings toward Rubick were simply ambivalent, with nothing much to be said. They had always gotten along well, but Purist had represented a sort of father figure to Traxex – one of unyielding confidence and an unshakable faith in the Omniscience, one that Traxex found had helped her in many situations.
As the early dawn arrived, the heroes were divided up into three different routes, each path a different way to the Dire Ancient. Traxex had been assigned a direct route to the Dire side, one that was affectionately dubbed "mid." Purist himself took a more southern route, one that Lina jokingly called "the suicide lane", one that Traxex knew as "bottom." Rubick was assigned the same route as Lina – an obvious attempt by Purist to keep Lina under check, as Rubick was just as wise as the Omniknight – and the Anti-Mage was left to his own devices, which usually resulted in extensive training amongst the numerous neutral creep camps that surrounded the battlefield.
Before departing, the Omniknight had bestowed upon them information regarding the characters that they would be facing on the battlefield, ranging from the quirky Chaos Knight to the evil Mordred the Phantom Assassin. Traxex had encountered several of the heroes that Purist mentioned, but others she had never heard of, such as the Enigma and N'aix, the Lifestealer. Amongst the many names mentioned, Purist outlined a few that were known to be amongst the more powerful of the Dire, Lucifer the Doom, Darkterror the Faceless Void, Meepo the Geomancer and the most dangerous one of them all, the legendary Invoker. He instructed the Radiant team to inform each other of the presence of any of the few heroes classified as major threats through a series of aerial signals and animal messaging, repeatedly stressing that taking on any of the aforementioned names would not be a wise choice.
Taking off by herself, and with the well-wishes of Purist, Lina and a simple nod from the Anti-Mage, Traxex worked her way up "mid" over a course of several hours, lurking in the shadows and picking off any creeps that were getting too rowdy along the way. As the two sides collided for the first time in the center of the battlefield, Traxex had finally glimpsed two of the five heroes that the Dire had recruited: a hulking blue brute known as the Night Stalker, a fiend whose powers were rumoured to grow exponentially in the absence of the shining sun, and a slightly smaller, but much more built red Orcish being. Traxex knew this adversary was called Mogul Khan the Axe, but she did not believe half the rumours surrounding him: a particular one told of campaign, one that was called Thousand Tarns, and lore told of his single-handed victory over hundreds of opposing troops. Of course, there was no way that a single warrior could take out hundreds of soldiers by himself – dozens, of course, was plausible, but hundreds?
Nonetheless, the Drow Ranger exercised caution. She had previously went on assaults although she had not had to take the middle route by herself before, and therefore was not used to how she would lead this. Was she to stay at the front lines in front of her creeps, or assist them from afar with her prodigious archery talents while they hacked away at themselves? She had slayed a fair share of heroes in her own right, although Traxex knew that this time the Dire would only send their most powerful heroes. Furthermore, the presence of Axe disturbed her – the Night Stalker was a foe that was relatively straightforward, a predictable beast that grew stronger in the dark and thus in Traxex' book an enemy to take lightly, but Axe was an unknown quantity, one that, if legends were true, was to be amongst the Dire's strongest warriors.
She had therefore stayed in the shadows of the surrounding trees for several hours and slowly moved up "mid", wary of letting her presence be known to the opposing heroes, when darkness suddenly descended upon the route. Disturbed by the sudden change in ambience, Traxex was even more shocked to realize that the darkness was caused by the powers of the Night Stalker, who evidently could block out the sun's light. Cursing, she readied her bow for several well-placed shots at the Stalker, until it had suddenly, seemingly teleported right in front of her. Gasping in shock and realizing that the so-called teleportation was actually sheer speed, she was met with a swift slash to the chest as the Night Stalker lacerated her with his long talons. He then opened his gaping maw in a twisted approximation of a lopsided grin to reveal several layers of sharp white teeth.
"Well, well…look who we have here, Axe," the Night Stalker had hissed maliciously. "Come here! This is the Drow Ranger, the girly who killed Lion!"
Immediately following the Night Stalker's notification, Mogul Khan began slowly lumbering over to the Drow Ranger, smashing the trees out of his way with his bare hands.
Her heart pounding and a trickle of sweat rolling down her brow, Traxex began firing arrows rapidly at the Night Stalker, intent on getting back to the Radiant Ancient and escaping this dangerous fate. Much to her surprise, however, the Night Stalker simply dodged them and seemed to grow even larger, opening his maw fully to reveal a twisting black tongue that seemed to drip venom.
"I thought you would have known…that I become stronger in the dark! You cannot outmatch me in my element, Drow Ranger!"
By then, Axe had finally ripped out the last of the trees separating him and Traxex. She could see every vein that lined his arms, and was particularly displeased to see that his namesake axe was covered in shining red blood, and how it looked very very sharp. Night Stalker began laughing, drips of saliva falling on Traxex and burning her skin. Grimacing, Traxex jumped back several feet and began channeling her Drow heritage into her bows, while focusing more on Axe than Night Stalker. The resulting frost arrows hit Axe across his pectorals, resulting in evident pain from the Khan. Night Stalker, however, dodged most of the arrows while getting hit from two, and noticeably slowed down from the freezing magic covering the arrows. Roaring in frustration, the Night Stalker screamed a terrifying scream, one that was so tearing that Traxex dropped her bow to cover her ears. In a few seconds, the enraged Stalker was on Traxex, ripping at her chestplate to expose the softer belly underneath. Axe, however, merely stayed back and observed dispassionately, almost as if he was bored. Resorting to using the arcane items that she had brought with her, Traxex raised one hand at the Night Stalker and cast a silencing spell, one that ended the terrifying noise. Choking, the Night Stalker stumbled back a few meters while clutching his throat, as Traxex quickly picked up her bow and took from her bag a dark purple blade. Frantically channeling the energy in the weapon, the Drow Ranger melted away into the darkness as the Night Stalker, bewildered, looked around for her.
"Shadow blade."
The only words that Mogul Khan had said thus far, Axe raised his namesake axe and set it on his back, lumbering back towards the line of attacking creeps. As Traxex began running back to the Radiant camp, the silence over Night Stalker wore off and his final scream of terror rang through the forest, a noise that reverberated the very depths of Traxex' soul.
Snapping out of her reverie, Traxex found herself walking towards the Radiant fountain, having managed to make her way back to the camp without any other troubles. Sparing a glance at the beautiful Ancient that made up the centerpiece of the Radiant alliance, the Drow Ranger was greeted by Purist Thunderwrath, who was sitting next to the Radiant fountain tending to a couple of injured creeps. He was obviously worried about her various wounds, looking at the large cut across the Drow Ranger's abdomen with a pained expression on his face.
"How did your trek go, Traxex?" muttered the Omniknight as he raised his heavy paladin hammer and began channeling the Omniscience, purifying her and healing her various wounds. Traxex spared a faint grin at her friend as she closed her eyes and slumped onto the rock next to the Omniknight.
"This is going to be much tougher than I thought."