The third dwarf only glances at his companion and says, "Once a fool always a fool."

He turns his attention back to the ranger who starts to come out from his hiding spot. This captures the attention of the first dwarf, Keegan, who is still being preached to by the second dwarf, "I wear black because my family still mourns the loss of warriors slain by Orcs in a fortress you claim doesn't exist. And we will mourn for many generations yet to come in respect of the stalwarts who fell honorably on the field of battle. We should all be so lucky as to be remembered so long after our bones have turned to earth."

The ranger enters the sun lit clearing and the two dwarves can see him clearly. Standing fairly tall for a human, his flaming red hair is the first thing the dwarves notice. That is when the second dwarf notices that his companions are slightly distracted. The sunlight glints off the metal studs on the humans leather armor as he says, "I'm sorry if you thought that I was spying on you, but I wasn't. I was simply passing through and didn't think that there was anyone else in the area. I decided to find out who it was that was making all that noise."

The second dwarf, suddenly alert, quickly scans the forest edge.

The ranger says, "I can tell you that you have nothing to fear from me, my friends."

The third dwarf rolls his eyes in disgust and relaxes as much as a dwarf in scale armor, can. "It’s only a human. And here I was hoping it was an Orc. I’ve been itching for a real fight." He turns his back on the human, "Even Zabzug’s forces got a chance to go on the offensive before the barrier clamped down." The dissapointment is obvious in his voice.

Keegan looks at the ranger and mutters, "He’s pretty tall for a human, you sure he’s not an ogre?" He waits a moment then says, "Nah, too ugly and scrawny to be…."

At that precise moment there the faint echo of a scream to the south, a few moments later there is also a crashing as if something heavy fell over in the distance.

As the ants explode outward from the hole, he quickly readies his bow. The amber haired elf wields the clumsy looking bow made of the bone of some strange animal. He moves away from the carriages so that he can get a better view of the creatures attacking. He notches an arrow and aims it at the nearest ant, but he does not fire.
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Inside the carriage the mage puts away his letter and pokes his head out of the carriage. From his vantage he notices an amber haired elf wielding a clumsy looking bow made of bone. He seems to be aiming but not shooting. The mage looks toward the front of the caravan and toward the rear of the caravan but only sees a few men running around. Muttering a few choice epithets he sits back down in his carriage closing the curtains. Deciding that there is nothing of any important happening outside, he pulls out his spell book and begins studying it.
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The merchant’s eyes go wide with terror, "B.B.B.Boy! You there!" He points to the guard he was speaking to earlier, "Do something about th-th-those things!" As he speaks his voices goes up several octaves and he moves over as if trying to escape the ant’s who haven’t even gotten close to him yet, threatening to push the driver off the other side.

At the first sound of thunder, The guards look around nervously as they have second thoughts about staying. There spirits are bolstered a moment later when, quick as a flash the second ant in line goes flying off to the left as something hits it hard. The other ant’s continue their charge and a few moments later the sound of thunder returns and the ant that was hit before is hit again this time the shell around its head shatters and it falls to the ground lifeless.
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The ants continue their charge and reach the line of guards. Deciding to stick it out the guards move forward and engage the ants. Two of the guards, armed with pikes keep one of the ants at bay, but another ant moves around from behind its leader forcing the guard on the left side to fend for himself rather than help his comrade.

A guard with a mace seems to be having better luck than most as he snaps his mace back and forth like a whip, when an ant attacks him. After the third shot to the head the ant starts to back off then charges and receives yet another shot to the head but it continues to move forward bowling the guard over and breaking the line. The ant reaches down to attack the guard but its speed had carried it a bit too far and the guard tries to scramble out from under the rear of the ant.

With the giant ant so close, the horses rear and begin to pull off toward the right. It is all the driver can do to keep them from bolting, but it seems they are ready to go anyway.

The horses block any further shots from the elf as they try and pull away from the rest of the caravan heading in his general direction. The driver holds on to the reigns, but just barely though.
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Forgetting the bothersome minstrel, who reminds him of that father he never knew, the father who cowardly abandoned his mother. The white haired guard scrambles on top of the nearest carriage to get a better vantage point...and finds himself next to the bothersome minstrel, who of all things begins shouting orders to the guards who have already gone to join the battle. The minstrel turns around and sees the white-haired guard glaring at him. "Don’t just stand there take those arrows and shoot the ants! Hurry!" What ever else he had to say is drowned out by the sound of thunder rolling over the battlefield. They both look up confused to see a cloudless sky, before looking back down at each other.

The white haired guard glares at him for a moment longer, making the man distinctly uncomfortable, before turning his back on him and trotting toward the rear of the caravan, leaping from cariage to carriage with ease. When he reaches the second to the last carriage he sees the five guards there already engaged with the ants. One of the guards has already been killed and is being carried away on the back of one of the ants.

He goes down to one knee and nimbly positions his quivers of heavy arrows so that he can easily reach into them. Touching his good luck charms, he mumbles, "May my hand and eyes aim steadily!" He bends his bow back, fitting in his first arrow aiming at one of the closest of the giant ants, he whispers to his bow, "May their blood or ichor rot and burn with poison." He fires and the arrow flies straight over the head of the guard in the center of the line and slams into body of one of the ant, the ant pauses only for a moment before continuing his charge. Reaching for another arrow a shadow passes over him as the music making guard leaps over him and heads toward the last carriage in the caravan. The white haired guard finds himself getting quite irritated with this this particular person. "He's worse than the ants! Always hovering about!"

But he has no time to complain further as a moment later he hears thunder rumbling behind him and the carriage behind him suddenly creaks and turns over. The two carriages attached to it tilt for a moment, nearly sending him over the side. Before the beam holding them together shears off and they right themselves.

He regains his composure and touching his charms he turns and aims toward one of the ants that has sprung up under the carriage behind him. His arrow flies toward the creature and hits the shell and bounces off, the arrow snapping upon impact. He quickly readies another arrow and after touching his good luck charms he takes careful aim and fires. The arrow flies true piercing the eye of one of the closest ants on his left.
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Tyrion Hightower studies for several minutes when suddenly, there is the sound of thunder outside and the carriage he is in begins to tilt over. He holds on for several moments when he hears the sound of snapping wood and the carriage he is in fall back to its normal upright position.

Frustrated the minstrel pulls out his short sword and leaps down onto the battlefield to help the attacking guards.

He joins the guard closest to him and attacks the ant with a mighty swing and giving a feral yell. The sword slams into the shell of the creature and bounces off.

The white haired guard grumpily shakes his head, "All song and dance, but no brains nor brawn..."

The ant turns toward the minstrel and thrusts forward. The minstrel leaps back giving the guard the opening he needed. He brings his mace up, over and down on the back of the head of the ant. With a loud sharp crack the carapace shatters. The ant keels over and it’s legs dangle in the air moving frantically for several moment before falling still.

In the distance, some creature roars.

Asura begins to walk in the direction that Mizar indicated. Keeping her sword in her hand she moves at a slow but steady pace. "Mizar", she asks, "Is there any danger involved with far sight?"

"Danger?" She begins to see a transparent image of him in front of her, "What kind of danger do you mean?"

"Can it be traced back to me?"

"No, of course not! You are simply manipulating light as it reaches you." He looks disgustedly at her proceeds to expound on something he calls ‘light theory and particle physics’ Asura tries to follow but soon realizes that she has no idea what he is talking about and gives up trying.

She interrupts him and says, "Can I use it to see through walls?"

Irritated he sighs and gives her one of his looks that says, ‘I am dealing with a complete moron.’ This look changes one of long suffering, ‘Why am I here? Who did I offend to get this as punishment?’

After several moments he finally answers, "You cannot see through walls. However if the room you wish to look into has an opening that has light going into or out of it, then you can see into the room as if you were standing at the window or doorway. But this is true only so as long as you share a similar or connected light sources then its’ possible for you to see around walls, which could give you the sight of whatever is on the other side of the wall, but you cannot see through the wall. For example you are in a hallway and you hear a noise of the other side of the wall. If the hallway is lit to the end with little or no shadows all the way around on both sides of the wall, you could see what caused the noise because light would bounce off of it and at least one particle would go down the hall, boosted by the other light sources and not expended in lighting a dark area. The particle would lose some of its energy as it bounced around the wall, but it will still be boosted by the continuous stream of light sources. That particle could then be seen by you, with the help of me focusing it for you of course."

"Well, then can it be used to view invisible objects?"

"No, by definition, light bends around invisible objects so you still can’t see them."

By this time she has gotten much nearer the battle and sees a group of soldiers attacking something, And whatever it is seems to be giving them a hard time. As she nears she sees what is beleaguering the group so much.

At the far end of the battle is a giant anthill. All around it are soldiers battling with giant ants. There are two groups of three soldiers and one group with two pikemen and three archers. Each group is nearly surrounded by ants.
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Zraxin clears the forest and his keen eye sight picks up two possible sources for the crash. Each pretty distant away. "There hasn’t been much trouble in the forest lately", he thinks, "but the creatures of the meadow can be nasty. Especially recently." He makes his decision and heads almost due south.
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Voreas knows that he must prevent the ants from flanking them. He issues his commands with a loud, calm but decisive voice. At the same time he watches the movement of the ants and wonders if one of them is the leader.

The finely dressed elf in the dark blue brimmed hat begins moving as if he is tracing a rune in the air before him. He uses the grand movements reminiscent of a theatrical performance. This rune however is all too real as the arcane words are spoken in a deep, strong voice. The voice rises in pitch before again sinking to its original state. "Darik ma zarul fete, Sigorum va kariis fete... Sarius sas tam ala fete... fete ma karul... BAO TZE!" Feldemaan finishes his rune and the release command is shouted as the rune is completed. It produces a small dark purple ball of light, seemingly unimpressive considering the theatrics. The dark ball of light immediately flies towards the group of ants in a high, fast arc. The ball gradually changes to a deep red, and then to a brighter shade red as it streaks outward over the charging ants. As the now bright red light reaches its target, it explodes in a tremendous explosion of light and sound finally worthy of the show the caster performed. The flames race out in a circle engulfing the ants.

Still not having mastered this spell to its fullest extent, the elf staggers slightly but recovers so quickly as to make the movement hardly perceptible.

Hardly perceptible to any except his companion Ulqik. Ulqik draws his twin swords and says, "Excellent! Come! The commander has given his orders." He smiles, his brilliant white teeth a striking contrast to his sun darkened skin, "Besides I should keep you safe. The front line is for warriors, but I’m sure he has a plan."

Ulqik and Feldemaan move to the position indicated by their commander as the rest of the troops line up.

The explosive display, however, apparently meets with Pyros approval as he cheers up and takes his post next to Voreas.

Somewhere between Pyros forced retreat and the release Feldemaan’s fireball a volley of arrows was launched. Unfortunately the fireball destroyed them before they could do any damage, but the second volley makes up for it by hitting the ants scattered by the original explosion.

After firing the volley, the archers retreat behind the pikemen and the soldiers move forward creating a hedge of pikes.

Of the dozen ants that streamed outward only eight are still moving, one of those was killed after taking three arrows from the follow up flight of arrows.

Voreas unsheathes his sword and gives the signal.

The soldiers move forward slowly matching their leaders pace. More than one soldier looks quite nervous. Ulqik looks calm, almost bored. Pyros however is clashing his swords together causing sparks to shoot outward.

While most of the ants survived the initial blast, it doesn’t matter as several more stream out of the hole charging blindly forward, though a few stop to recover the body of other ants and take them back into the hole, which is quickly becoming a small hill.

Once the ant’s reach the soldiers, they spread out attacking individual targets. The pikemen manage to keep them a few at bay as the archers begin peppering the hole the ants are coming out of the hole with arrows.

Ulqik smiles and says, "Feldemaan, you stay back. I’ll take care of this." An ant charges the elf while he has is back turned. Some of the soldiers shout a warning but it is unnecessary. In one smooth motion the elf draws his swords and spins around. The first blade takes out part of the ants front legs, the second slices clean through its armored head like a hot knife through butter.

Buoyed by this first attack the group of soldiers wielding maces attack with wild abandon...which was foolish to say the least.

Within moments one of the soldiers has been caught in pincers and is crushed to death while his companion bangs on the ants’ hard shell making little more than a dent. One man charges in, jumps in the air and comes down on top of the ant right into its waiting pincers. The pincers don’t get a chance to crush him as his mace smashes down on the ants’ head hard enough to crush his shell. This knocks it flat and two others join in as the three pound on it until it is dead. Unfortunately that left them open and a couple of ants charged in forcing them to retreat after losing a man.

On the other side of the field, the soldiers with the long swords don’t seem to be faring quite as well, as they find themselves reduced to jabbing at the creatures eyes after find thing that their swords bounce off of the ants hard shells. Only Voreas seems strong enough for his normal attacks to do any damage against the ants who don't seem to care about the fact that they are taking immense amounts of damage and keep on coming back for more.

Pyros is another matter altogether. As soon as the ants attacked he dodge them and ran into their midst vanishing amongst thier number. After a long while, smoke suddenly appears in the center of the ants and a moment later streamers of fire go blasting off in all directions. The wind picks up the smoke and soon the battlefield is engulfed in it.

Many of the soldiers curse their luck, as they cannot see the ants. As such, when the ants do attack it is with sudden swiftness. The man to Voreas right screams as his arm is ripped off along with a good portion of his middle. Voreas quickly moves to attack the creature but it is too late to save the man. Another attacks the man at his back and bears him down. Oddly enough the creature stops moving. The reason becomes clear when the ant rolls over and reveals the blade of the dead soldier in its head.

When the smoke finally clears, Pyros stand laughing with three ants piled under him. His laugh is cut short when he realizes they are in worse trouble than before. Pyros charges down his hill of corpses his flaming swords taking pieces of various ants as he runs by.

Military lines shattered, it becomes a free for all.

A group of archers and pikemen are surrounded and a charge from the ants results in one of the men being carried away to feed the colony. The archers are shooting as fast as they can and at such close range their arrows are having a devastating effect, but not nearly as much as they would like as two ants charge in a row. The first ant falls but the second climbs over the body of the first and lands on an archer. As the ant dismembers the poor archer a soldier shoves his pike into the creatures skull and earns himself an early grave as the ant, which seems unwilling to die begins to crush him. Quick action by an archer who fires directly into the eye of the creature at a range of two feet keeps the soldier from being ripped in half, but the damage is already done as the pikeman begins violently coughing up blood.

Ulqik looks around as he rallies the remaining two soldiers of his group together. He looks around for Feldemaan but the mage is nowhere to be found.

Voreas thrusts his sword forcing an ant back and he takes a look around. The good news is that no more ants are coming from the hole. The bad news is that he has lost about nine men, and Feldemaan, the only mage in the group seems to be one of them.

Over the sounds of battle comes a roar that shakes the battlefield. A sound unlike anything they've heard before.

The men stare in horror at the giant creatures bearing down on them

Stamm Hammerfist, the leader of the group, looks on. The big man's heart goes out to the scout's mother and father as he watches helplessly as the man, not more than a boy, gets torn in half by the huge insect.

"Stand Ready!" Stamm shouts above the growing confusion. "Archers! Go for the eyes and antennae! The rest of you go for the legs!"

Several of the soldiers snap out of their daze and the archers ready their bows.

"If you want to keep your hides, watch out for those jaws!" Stamm dismounts, joining his men on foot, never once taking his eyes off the approaching ants. "Defend, Forge", he whispers to the horse.

Forge nods his head and prances a few steps away. Obviously wishing to be somewhere else at the moment the horse stands by its masters side.

The rest of the soldiers form a tight group, more for the comfort of safety in numbers than any real plan.

Stamm Hammerfist unsheathes his sword and mouths a silent command. The sword instantly springs to flame. "Match up in groups of four!" He shouts to his troops, "Archers! Fire at will! The rest of you stand ready!"

Within moments a flight of arrows arc outward toward the ants, but only one or two actually hit their target. A second flight of arrows is more successful as the several of the archers concentrate their fire, piercing the shell of several of the monsters, but this only slows them down.

The soldiers watch helplessly as the first ant takes the body of the scout back underground, a few moments later another half dozen ants come out of the hole which is rapidly becoming a hill.

Stamm moves to join a group of two soldiers who look like they are ready to bolt without help. He stands ready his sword poised to strike, and prepares to meet the onslaught of rushing insects. The first pair of insects that reach the defensive line are riddled with arrows, one goes straight for Stamm the other right at his horse, Forge. Stamm meets the ants charge with a slash that misses but forces the ant back, the soldier to his right, moves up to the ant tries to hack at the ants legs. The archer behind Stamm falls back a few steps and concentrates his fire on the second ant attacking the horse.

Forge rears up as the ant charges in and brings slams both hooves into the creatures' head. The shock forces it back a bit where an arrow slams into its side. Forge rears up again and steps forward with its hooves in the air bringing them down on the ant. The ant however jumps back waiting a moment then striking when Forge is vulnerable. The horse dances back out of the way, just barely missing the pincers. Forge quickly regains his footing and strikes back using only one hoof, but the ant quickly dodges it. Another ant joins the attack pressing the horse back.

The second group of soldiers is attacked by a giant ant. The three soldiers quickly hack and thrust at the creatures legs, but their swords seem to do little damage. The archer near them moves back a few steps and begins to aim toward the ants still advancing.

One of the ants near the back takes one arrow too many and collapses. It keels over with it legs sticking up in the air and lies still.

The group of soldiers on the far left moves forward flanking the ants and engaging two of them before they can press the line.

The third group of soldiers' move to Forges aid attacking the ants and allowing the horse to retreat with only a few minor scrapes.

Three more ants appear out of the ant hill, one takes the corpse of an ant and returns with it to the ant hill.
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Meanwhile a short distance away....

Xedel for his part looks back at the group with wide innocent eyes, "What did I say?"

Shocked Tristan looks at Xedel, "What?! This may be an outing with the possibly of mischief to you! But the rest of us our on our way to Torana's Tower to help the Alliance!"

Xedel rolls his eyes at Tristan.

Pheras says, "Old man have you lost all of your marbles? Those people need our help! There could be Orcs attacking with all that weird magic we kept hearing about!"

"So?"

"I've fought the Orcs before." Tristan says, "and only they would cause the kind of destruction that was found at Kimmersan. If you remember, we are on our way to give what ever aid to the Alliance that we can!"

"So?"

Sindel snorts in disgust and checks her horse. She speaks to it in a soothing tone.

Pheras says, "I thought you liked learning about new magic?"

"Well, yes that is true." Xedel replies while scratching his chin.

"For all we know, Torana's barrier could have failed!" Tristan says, "I for one suggest we investigate! If it is nothing we can continue on our way to Torana's Tower. But if it is our worst fears, then taking no action could be the end of us all. Our allies, our friends, even our families!"

At this Xedel looks up and glances around spots Sindel and goes back to his normal distracted look.

Missing the glance entirely, Tristan continues, "I for one don't like it when I don't know what is going on. Pheras... we should investigate. If it is the Orcs, those soldiers will need our arms. We should help them."

Pheras nods toward Tristan and looks at Xedel and shakes his head sadly.

Tristan turns to Sindel and finds that she has already started heading over toward the soldiers.

Pheras notices this as well. He adjusts his backpack and heads out after her.

Tristan leaves Xedel behind with one final comment, "We can not just pass this by. If we should find that this is nothing more than a minor skirmish and none of our business, we shall continue or journey. But we must know...either way." He takes off after Sindel and Pheras leaving Xedel behind.

Xedel stares at the ground for a moment then looks at the battle through the gem on his rod and says, "Amateurs. They just don't know."

He pulls off his backpack and starts rummaging through it.

Sindel, Pheras and Tristan move quickly and soon they have the battlefield in sight. They see that there are soldiers and archers attacking what appear to be giant ant-like creatures as they watch more ants come pouring out of a giant ant hill. As they watch the inexperienced soldiers attempt to flank the ants. They attack without fear, but it seems their weapons are doing little other irritating the ants.
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Crow looks at Stash shrugs his broad shoulders and says, "You know some times I really do miss the old days."

The group climbs back into the wagon and Gwydeon takes the reigns. They head out toward the dust to investigate the disturbance.

As they near the disturbance, it becomes clear what is going on. They watch as the soldiers struggle against the ants.

A few moments later over the sounds of battle comes a roar that shakes the battlefield. The four men search their memories, but none can place the creature that created the sound.