Chapter 28

Weed Out

On one of the outermost farms, Erica knelt by one of the potato-plants, her hand gently touching some leaves that had yet to fully open from their buds, and with a careful stroke of her fingers and a silent whisper, all the leaves opened up as if in bloom.

"There, that should do it." she said, standing back up.

"And I thought I had a good hand with plants, but you really have a magic touch now." said Patch. "I must admit, I'm actually very jealous of you."

"I can understand that, and trust me, this wasn't anything I thought I'd ever learn, and much less before you at that. I can't help but think that you would have been a better candidate than me for learning Druidic magic."

"Me too, or I would have had I known it existed in the first place. Still, considering your son, I guess it makes more sense that you had a magical gift."

"What do you mean, Patch?"

"Well, we've never had a dragon mutant before Tyroth, or anyone with magic, and granted, we still don't know what decides what we become, but what if he had a certain spark of magic in him that caused him to become one? And if that's the case, then maybe you also have that same kind of spark, which helped you learning this magic."

"That's not the way Tyroth or Zaleria explained how Druidic magic works, but I do see what you mean. Still, Amber didn't become a dragon like her brother, but she might just not have inherited this spark then."

"All I'm saying is that it's a possibility, I don't have any hard facts to back it up with. But we are also on another world, from another world even, the rules here may not properly apply to us in the same way."

"Well, who truly knows." Erica said and looked up into the sky. Holding out her open hand in front of her, she again whispered something, and a small orb of golden light formed above her hand, only to disappear a few seconds later. "Seems the weather will remain clear for another day."

"Again, I'm very jealous of you, Erica."

"Don't be. Just because I got some magic now, doesn't mean that your skills are worth any less. We'll just have to work together to benefit the village. All of us."

Erica and Patch looked out over the field they were in, seeing the others, Sonia, Amber, Sarah, Heather, Jake, Barry, and Velnak, working hard with harvesting the crops and digging the irrigation canal. And Velnak was also working hard complaining about his predicament.

"I can't believe this is really happening. One whole week of… manual labour." the noble-born human almost stuttered at the mere mention of it. "Who would have thought that I, Velnak Byronir, would muck around in the dirt like some pig."

At that very moment, Barry, who were working next to Velnak, put his arm the human's shoulder.

"Yeah, just look at us, like two peas in a pod. Oink oink!" the warthog said with a wide grin, before returning to his work, laughing while he was at it. All while Velnak was left stunned and confused, contemplating his new lot in life.

"One year… one whole year… of this… I won't survive it…"

"You'll be fine. We'll make sure not to work you to death." said Sonia.

With some more muttering, Velnak continued to dig the canal they were working on.

"It's going to be a long year for him." Amber whispered to Jake.

"He's not used to this kind of work." said Jake. "Can't say that I am either, but it still needs to be done."

"Just between you and me, Jake, you're doing a lot better." Amber said with a wink, making Jake blush ever so slightly.

"Um, excuse me." a voice asked from a bit away. Looking at the source, the group saw one of the elves Tyroth had saved walking up to them.

"Oh, hey, um… Valynore, was it?" Sarah said a bit uncertain, embarrassed that she didn't quite remember the name.

"Yes, that is correct." the elf replied with a smile.

Since she and the other elves had been taken in nearly two weeks earlier, they had all recovered quite a lot. They were still not back to full strength yet, but they were clearly and visibly better off than when they arrived.

With new clothes made by Tania, they all looked like completely new people, and Valynore's dark blue hair almost glittered in the sun's rays.

"Can we help you with anything?" Erica asked.

"Actually, I would like to help you instead." said Valynore.

"With the farm-work?" Heather asked, and Valynore nodded. "I, for one, would not mind some extra help, but are you sure you are well enough. I mean, you and the other elves have had a very rough time, to put it lightly."

"Your compassion is greatly appreciated, and I am much better than then. I just want to be able to repay you all for taking us in."

"As long as you don't overexert yourself, I don't think anyone here will say no to your help." said Amber. "But, that doesn't mean that you're repaying any debt to us, because there is none. What my brother did, he did because it was the right thing to do, and so would we."

"You are all too kind. Still, I want to help, however I can."

The others gratefully accepted Valynore's offer, but before they could resume working, they spotted something coming down the road.

A small caravan consisting of two covered wagons, each drawn by two horses, and after a short while, they both turned off the road and headed towards the group, stopping before they entered the field. The travellers seemed to consist of four humans, one tiefling with dark grey skin, a silver coloured dragonborn, a minotaur and two gnomes. All save for the dragonborn and minotaur wore dark grey cloaks with the hoods up, which made it hard to make out most facial features at a distance.

One of the cloaked humans, a woman on closer inspection, walked up to the Mutopians with two other humans and the tiefling in tow, while the rest remained by the wagons.

"Hi there." the woman greeted the group. "Nice weather we got, huh?"

"Can we help you with something?" Patch asked.

"Oh, I'm sure you can." the woman said with a grin, tilting her head slightly, which brought into light a large x-shaped scar over her left eye.

Valynore's eyes went wide, memories flooding her mind from years past.

Travelling alone across the lands, she had just made camp for the night, when a lone stranger suddenly approached her from the shadows.

Suddenly, a net was thrown over her, and several more strangers emerged from hiding.

Chains rattled, binding her tightly as she was gagged and a sack was placed over her head.

So began what would be the darkest, most horrible part of her life, that of nothing more than a slave. But the one thing that was forever engraved in her memory, was the last thing that she saw before the sack blinded her.

A human woman with a wide grin, and a large x-shaped scar over the left eye.

"… i-it's her…" Valynore stuttered, before finally being able to pull herself together and find her voice again. "That's her!" she yelled loudly. "She's the one that kidnapped me! She's a slaver!"

"Slavers?!" several of the others exclaimed, and the woman's grin was quickly replaced by a scowl.

"Gig's up, boys! Let's grab'em and run!" she shouted, and everyone of her group drew their weapons, and two more jumped out from each wagon, having hidden inside and armed with nets, and all of them rushed towards the Mutopians.

But they were in for a rougher time than they thought, as half of the Mutopians were also Knights prior to leaving Earth, and had their weapons with them. And they weren't going down without a fight.

Amber instantly met the scarred woman in combat, her butterfly swords clashing with the slaver's own shortsword, something that the slaver wasn't really ready for.

Heather took to the air and dived into the midst of the attackers, disarming and kicking away one of the humans as she landed, before being forced to parry multiple attacks from the rest, sparks flying from her two katar as she did.

Sonia and Sarah quickly joined the dragonfly, taking several of her attackers by surprise as they were suddenly surrounded.

Even Velnak and Barry joined the fighting, with sword and shovel respectively, leaving Erica, Patch, Valynore and Jake to try and keep out of the fighting. Jake drew and readied his gun, one of the few modern things that had been allowed to follow on the journey, taking aim at the enemy, but held his fire until he had a clear shot and a need to shoot.

Erica, however, did not want to be reactive like Jake, but rather took a more active role in the fighting, even if it was from a distance. As their friends fought, they saw a small group of the attackers trying to flank them, and this gave Erica the opportunity she wanted.

With one finger, she quickly wiped her brow, collecting enough sweat to form a small drop on the tip. Quickly flexing the finger on her other hand in specific ways around the drop, it quickly grew in size and shape into a shard of ice, large as a kitchen knife.

A flick of her hand, and the shard was launched as if from a crossbow, embedding itself in the shoulder of one of the slaver. But the human didn't even have time to cry out in pain before the shard exploded into a shower of ice shrapnel, which showered the other nearby slavers, leaving them all with dozens of rather deep cuts.

"Magic-user!" one of the slavers shouted.

"Someone take her down! Now!" the scarred woman yelled, only to get a headbutt from Amber.

"You won't lay a finger on my Mom!" the lizard snarled, pressing her advantage and pushing the woman backwards before she recovered and they started trading blows again.

In the bulk of the fight, the slavers were starting to rethink their chances as the Mutopians held their ground even against a larger force. Heather continued to dart into the air and strike whenever she got the chance, while Sarah used her tonfas to block and disarm their foes as she went on.

Sonia, on the other hand, was keeping on the outskirts of the fight, dealing with those that had tried to flank them just a moment earlier, expertly wielding her longsword against the enemy. As she had deflected an attack and pushed that slaver back, she noticed another one in the corner of her eye, and focusing that eye on the slaver, she saw that it was one armed with a net.

Thinking quickly, she jumped to the side just as the net was thrown, and used her chameleon tongue to latch on to the edge of the net, tugging on it to change it's trajectory so that it landed on two of the slavers instead of her. She also made a mental note to wash her tongue later.

With two of his comrades now entangled in a net, one of the gnomes made a mad dash for Erica and the others. Armed with a long dagger, he hoped to take one of them hostage and force the others to surrender.

But he never got that far, as Sarah spotted him and threw one of her tonfas at him, striking the back of his knee, tripping him in the process and leaving him face down on the ground.

The tiefling, whom had stayed out of the worst of the fighting, made a tactical withdrawal towards the wagons, and retrieved a crossbow, which he loaded and aimed at his target, the airborne Heather. Without hesitation, he fired the crossbow, and hit her in her upper arm.

The pain was sudden, yet dull, but it was still enough to knock Heather out of the air. After hitting the ground, she quickly tried to get back up, only to learn that her injured arm wasn't fully responsive, and she was starting to feel sluggish.

Putting everything together, she quickly came to the conclusion that the bolt had to have been coated in some kind of tranquilliser, and that meant that they were in greater danger than they originally thought.

The tiefling, smiling at his successful hit, was about to reload and fire at another target, but stopped dead in his tracks when a loud bang was heard, instantly followed by great pain in his hand. Falling to his knees in pain and holding his injured hand, he saw that there was a hole right through it.

On the other side of the battlefield, Jake stood with his gun trained on the tiefling, a small trickle of smoke emanating from it's barrel as he prepared to fire again if needed.

The sudden gunshot caused all of the slavers to stop in their tracks, as they weren't used to such weapons, and the Mutopians didn't let that advantage slip them by.

Up until that point, Barry had been locked in combat with the minotaur, forced to swat away the blows of the double-edged axe with his shovel, but when the minotaur was interrupted by the gunshot, Barry quickly countered and struck the minotaur right on the head with the flat side of the shovel, knocking him out.

With a strong kick, Sonia pushed away the human she was fighting, knocking his daggers out of his hands with a quick swipe from her longsword before trying to follow up with another blow to the head to knock him out.

"Behind you!" Sarah cried out, and Sonia instantly turned around.

There was the second gnome, armed with two daggers that seemed to drip with a thick liquid. Yet, as the gnome lunged at Sonia, she quickly dealt with him, with an over-head kick to his head, dropping him in an instant.

However, the gnome had proven to be distracting enough for the human to recover, both his footing and his weapons, and he again came for Sonia. But luckily, the chameleon noticed the attacker and reacted accordingly, by grabbing one of the gnome's daggers and throwing it at the human, though she only managed to hit him in the thigh.

The man looked down at the dagger, and then at Sonia, his eyes getting hazier by the second.

"Not fair…" he said, only to collapse and start snoring.

Amber kept the pressure on the scarred woman, who was almost as good with her blade as Amber, as neither side had scored any real hits. As their blades clashed again and they pressed against each other, Amber noticed a reflection on the smooth side of one of her blades, another one of the slavers was coming up behind her.

With very little time to react, Amber broke of from the woman, quickly flipped her butterfly swords in her hands, and again engaged the woman, this time with only one blade, catching the woman's sword with the prong on the backside of her own, just barely not wrenching it out of the woman's hand as Amber turned around and threw her other sword at the second slaver.

The slaver saw the attack coming and tried to dodge it, but he misjudged both the speed of the thrown blade and his own, so rather than having the blade hit him in the arm, it instead buried itself in his throat.

Amber grimaced slightly as the man fell backwards, quickly choking to death on his own blood. That hadn't gone as she wanted, but she didn't have time to dwell on it and turned her attention back to the woman.

The sudden grapple of her sword had caught the woman off guard, but she quickly recovered and pulled her sword free in the short time that Amber had been busy with the other slaver, and swung it at her neck. But the sword was suddenly knocked out of the woman's hand, accompanied by another loud bang, as Jake shot the sword.

Amber once again pressed the advantage given to her, and this time, it paid off better. Rather than attacking with her sword, Amber instead lashed out with her clawed hand, leaving several cuts across the woman's face, which would most likely give her new scars.

As the woman recoiled from the wounds, Amber grabbed her by the side of her head, and slammed it down onto her knee, breaking the woman's nose and knocking out a couple of teeth, while also causing her to fall backwards, holding her broken face.

Only three of the original eight human slavers were left standing, and they were rethinking their odds, especially with how Sarah had been able to hold them off pretty much on her own. Not wanting to wait for his comrades, one of the three turned around and ran as fast as he could, making a bee-line for one of their wagons.

By the time the other two realised that their friend had abandoned them, Sarah dashed past them, while also delivering decisive blows to their heads, knocking them out in the process.

In the meantime, the other slaver had already reached the wagon, quickly taking the reins and urging the horses to hurry. It didn't take very long for the horses to get up to high speed, but it also didn't take very long for the much faster Sarah to catch up with them, and she was even faster at delivering a jump kick to the slaver's head, knocking him off of the wagon while she took his place and pulled on the reins to slow down the horses.

At that same time, Velnak was still locked in battle with the silver dragonborn, and despite the young noble being quite the braggart, his skill with the sword was real. Having kept the dragonborn on the defensive for most of the fight, Velnak ended it with a swift slash at the dragonborn's own sword, knocking it out of his hands, followed by a kick to the abdomen, knocking the dragonborn on his back.

Velnak was about to end the dragonborn's life as well, by jabbing his blade into the chest of his foe, but he was stopped when Sonia stepped between them, blocking his attempt.

"Get out of the way, girl! I was just about to end this lowly bandit!" Velnak objected.

"He's already lost, you don't have to kill him!" Sonia snapped back.

"Are you daft?! They tried to kidnap us! Death is what they deserve!"

"No, Sonia's right." said Amber as she dragged the scarred woman over to them by her collar. "Killing is not the answer, it never is, though sometimes it can't be avoided. This time, however, we have defeated them, while keeping death to a minimum, and that doesn't mean that we can execute our foes."

"Fine, have it your way." Velnak sneered and sheathed his sword. "But don't come whining when this comes back to bite you."

Despite Velnak's complaints, the group was able to quickly disarm and properly restrain the slavers, something that was made easier by the big metal cages that were onboard the covered wagons that they themselves had brought.

Aside from one of the humans, there had been one more casualty among the slavers, namely the gnome that Sarah had tripped. It so happened that when he was tripped, he landed on the blade of his own dagger, and if that hadn't been what killed him, he had surely bled out by the time the fight was over.

It wasn't a flawless battle, but what battles truly are.

Still, it could have been worse. Aside from some minor bruises, the only real injury the Mutopians had suffered was the crossbow bolt that Heather took in her arm, an easy injury for a true Mutopian to heal.

In any case, they still had a lot of work to do, especially now that they had prisoners to deal with.
What they would do with the prisoners, however, would fall on Tyroth, with him being their leader now.

Amber felt very sorry for adding something like this to her brother's workload, but she also couldn't help but feel relieved that she didn't have to deal with it.

Despite having settled for a peaceful life on this new world, trouble have a way of finding our heroes, this time in the form of slavers, but those fools bit of a bit more than they could chew.
Next time, we'll see just what will befall this bunch.