From the Shadows, Into the Ashes

Watching his Gerudo ally take care of his previous attackers, he went right to business. Shooting his arrows to take care of enemies from afar. Only six more enemies charged at them. Two of the moblins he had to shot twice at. The last Moblin got shot in the arm and turned away screaming. At least he is not any threat right now, he can run away and hide all he wants, Kalvar had thought to himself. But then again, he always could be problematic later, such as alerting more of the camp to their presence. He took aim, and fired. The beast never saw it coming, and dropped dead.

Dark red blood started pooling up. There were already a lot of corpses, and there were still more to deal with. Kalvar grit his teeth, he hoped this didn't take longer than it needed to be. He looked over at the Mess Hall area, and saw that Terentia's fire arrows did a good job. Fire was sprouting from most of the tents. Then Kalvar saw perhaps the funniest sight he ever had saw. Moblins dropped their weapons and grabbed buckets of water to put out the fire. The way they ran with the water was so haphazardly, that almost all the water was gone by the time they go to the fire itself. He kept himself from laughing, he did however crack a smile.

Kalvar jumped down to his companion behind the tent. "The rest are too busy trying to put out a the fire then stop us. Something must have caused the fire to get worse, perhaps you hit a tub of oil?" Kalvar shrugged "While they are busy, should we at least attempt to sneak to the storage. "I am almost positive that there will be some alert moblins at the storage area though." Almost as soon as he said that, a scream could be heard coming from the other side of the tent. It was more beastial in nature, nothing like a human scream. Peering out from behind the tent, Kalvar could see a rather large moblin standing amongst the pile of corpses.

This moblin much taller than the rest. Wearing heavy metal armor, wielding a large heavy metal shield and a spear longer than it was tall. It walked over to one of the other tents, and smacked it right off the ground. The stakes were ripped right out of the ground. His eyes widened as he saw the brute stop and sniff the air. "I think now is a good time to move."

Terentia took to resting behind the corner as she listened to Moblins fall at the harsh bite of Kalvar's arrows. She was ready to go as soon as the archer met up with her, but until he did she had to bide her time. Glancing off into the distance, she could hear the panicked shouts and see the burning flames of her mountainside assault, the mess hall having caught alight with ease. A smirk flashed across her face, glad that all was going according to the plan, catching herself as her companion rounded the corner. As she listened to him report on what he had noted, they both heard the echoing scream nearby.

Peering around to find the source of the cry, the warrior noted the towering foe in well-fitted metal armor, then turned to leave. "Agreed," she nodded as they started away from their hiding spot. As if it knew their plan though, the armored Moblin jerked his head to the side and started forward. Maybe not a visual confirmation, but the beast had obviously caught their scent and was gaining ground with his thunderous steps. Picking up her pace, Terentia kept herself close behind the archer, ready to intercept if the beast caught up.

The Moblin roared as it saw the two run away from behind the tent. He took a rumbling step forward, and the proceeded to charge forward. Running forward faster than it seemed the large brute capable of. Nothing seemed to stop the Moblin, as it ran directly over the tent that they had just hidden behind. It held its spear out front, ready to ram it through them. It seemed possible that he would be able to skewer them straight through. However, another moblin, the exact same size, came running out of the army of tents, and slammed right into the previous one. They both tumbled to the ground, and seemed to be yelling at each other.

Kalvar and his ally had successfully gotten away from their previous attackers. Looking over his shoulder, Kalvar saw the collision between the two monsters. He laughed, "Not the brightest beasts I've seen." Continuing his run, Kalvar jumped and climbed up onto a nearby building. They were much closer to the storage area now. He could see Moblins standing guard around a large building. "Something tells me that this is the place."

As soon as those words were spoken, another scream was heard. This one sounded very human, female in nature. It seemed to come from the storage building. The moblin guards seemed unaffected. Words like "Help!" and "Let go of me!" could be heard very easily. He quickly pulled out his bow and pointed it at the nearest guard. "I don't think there is time for stealth when someone is in immediate danger" Notching another arrow on his bow, he took aim.

Despite running forward as fast as they could, the armored Moblin was slowly gaining ground. Glancing over her shoulder, Terentia could see the spear lowered ready to run through them, so she spun in place to defend herself. As she lifted her shield, another armored foe dashed around the corner, taking it too sharp and smashing into his ally and causing both to crash into the wall. Not planning to stick around and wait for them to get up, the Gerudo turned about and continued after Kalvar. As the archer climbed upon another roof to scout, the warrior stopped by the wall to catch her breath and scan the street ahead.

Hearing the screams for help caused Terentia concern. They hadn't taken into account having to rescue people, which would complicate things. At the very least, she was glad they had opted to not put the storage to flame. As Kalvar made a comment about it, Terentia was already moving out from the cover of the wall, charging the guards. Upon seeing the armored warrior, the Moblins shouted a course battle cry and hefted their spears in the ready to combat their new foe, as the red-headed fighter brought her shield up to meet their challenge.

Kalvar stood at the edge of the roof and fired his arrows, striking several guards in the head, others running. Seeing the only remaining Moblins were closing in on Terentia, he figured shooting an arrow in her direction would not be a wise move. Placing the bow on his back as fast as he could, he unsheathed his longsword from his side, and jumped off the building. Landing as gently as he could, he ran forward, slamming his sword into the side of a beast taking a swing at his ally. Blood sprayed all over his blade. He quickly removed it, and swung around to fight another enemy.

At the same time. A young hylian women holding a small child, about 6 years old, burst out of the tent. She looked bewildered and frightened out of her mind. She was only equipped with a small dagger, which she presumably used to free herself. She caught the site of the the duo and her eyes widened, she had not expected anyone else here. She was struck with fear, as blood from their enemies littered the ground. She pressed herself against the building and almost screamed again.

Arrows rained down on some of the guards, striking some of them down and causing fear in others as the Gerudo clashed with the few who dared to stand before her. Two of the Moblins leaped forward, spears thrusting in an attempt to impale Terentia, only to be met with her skilled use of the shield. As the spears made contact, the warrior pushed forward and up, raising their strikes into the air and allowing her to drive her blade into the gut of one. Her blade effortlessly tore out of the body as she spun about, the pommel of her blade cracking the rib of the second Moblin as she deflected another spear with her shield. Bringing her sword up, she elbowed the newest attacker in the snout then brought the blade forward to slice the neck of the second guard.

As she brought her blade around and left a gaping slash in the third Moblin's chest, Terentia saw the screaming Hylian woman rush out of the storage, child in her arms. In the moment she had taken to glance at the woman, another guard came up from behind, shouting in his guttural tongue and lunging towards her. The warrior swung around as the spear came towards her, sidestepping the strike narrowly as the blade flashed in between her torso and arm. She could feel the warmth trickle down her arm as the spearhead narrowly sliced her arm. Giving her foe no time to take advantage of his position though, she quickly locked her arm down on the spear and jumped forward and kicked off the beast's gut, springing upward before thundering down with her shield, cracking the edge across the skull of the Moblin.

As her foe collapsed to the ground, Terentia glanced around and saw Kalvar dealing with the last few and quickly moved over to the two Hylian civilians. "Are you injured? How many more of you are here?"

He was immediately confronted with another moblin guard. This one weilded a rather long scythe. Screaming, it swung its blade at Kalvar's neck. His battle training kicked in, and he quickly raised his longsword. The hooked weapon caught on Kalvar's blade. He twisted his sword, and the beasts hand let go. The scythe went flying out of its hands, and over near the Hylian woman. Before the beast got a chance to react, his chest was stabbed with a sword. Removing his blade quickly, the monsters eyes widened, and he fell over.

Turning around, he saw Terentia talking to another Hylian woman. This girl seemed quite young, even so young that it seemed unlikely the child she was holding was hers. To Kalvar, she looked about his age. Even if she had a child, it would definitely not be this old. It was more likely her younger sister. Seeing no more immediate enemies, he ran over to his ally and the woman. The woman stared at him, focusing on the many blood stains from the current battle. "I... I.." The lady said, attempting to answer the Gerudo's question. "I'm fine, she's not." She let go of the child and showed her the childs face. A large wound had covered most of her face. Blood covered her hair. "I'm not a doctor, but she needs help."

Terentia stood with the woman, sword still tightly held in hand, and glanced around as she waited for a response. She seemed too shaken from the battle to respond though, so all the Gerudo could do was stand waiting for a response of some kind. As Kalvar finished with the remaining guards, it seemed the lack of foes coaxed words from the young Hylian's lips. Terentia looked the wound up and down, no stranger to injury on the battlefield, she had only guesses about the severity. "Despite the blood, it looks to be shallow. A scar may be the most it comes out to, as long as we stop the bleeding."

Pushing open the door to the storage once more, the warrior motioned for the Hylians to come inside where they would be out of sight. Sheathing her blade, Terentia took a fistful of the cloth adorning her armor and ripped a chunk of it off. Along with water skin in her meager supplies, she started to clean the child's head. While she worked, she turned to the older sister and asked, "is there any other captured people here?" The tear-stained girl lifted her head and nodded before freezing. Turning to see what she saw, the Gerudo narrowly lifted her shield in time to catch an arrow, it shattering on impact.

"I'll finish here, start on those Moblins!" she told Kalvar in a haste as she kept her shield held to defending the three of them, looking back to the younger girl to wipe blood from her brow. They could see two bow-wielding Moblins farther in the storage, but there was no telling how many might be prowling the impromptu crate hallways.

Kalvar led the Gerudo lead the way in the storage room. As she started to clean the wound, the Gerudo just barely had time to lift her shield before an arrow struck. The arrow shattered on impact, and Kalvar quickly pulled out his bow. Two archer Moblins had appeared at the end of the makeshift hallway. Terentia didn't even have to tell him to attack. Once she spoke, he was gone, charging at the moblins. With bow in hand, he quickly pulled back an arrow, and shot at the beast. The hastily shot arrow embedded itself in the beasts thigh.

The other moblin started to prepare a shot. Kalvar swung his bow at the monster, hitting the Moblins bow, and knocking its arrow far to the left. He pulled back his fist, and punched the brute right in the jaw. It fell over in a heap, his knuckles stung, but he could deal with that. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the other moblin was still dealing with the arrow in its leg, so he decided to finish them quickly. He notched an arrow on his bow, and aimed straight in between the eyes. Kalvar didn't have time to blink, as the moblin suddenly died, life flowing from its fresh wound. He turned around and did the same the other monster with no hesitation.

After that, he climbed the inside wall of the building and surprisingly, found that he was able to climb onto the ceiling. Not much surprise there. He had already suspected as much when he could climb the walls with no difficulty. It only seemed like the next logical step. He started scouting for more hidden moblins inside. There was only one other moblin, and it seemed to be taking a nap on some stolen tapestries. Kalvar let go of his grip, and fell to the floor. Running over to the beast, he pulled his bow out. With not even a second spared, he shot an arrow right through the beasts side of its head.

While she worked away with one hand, it was awkward to try and defend the three of them while also tending a wound. As soon as Kalvar had reached the archers though, she merely leaned the shield against her shoulder as she carefully continued to treat the young child with both hands. Most of the blood had been cleared away, revealing the long shallow cut on the girl's head. With a bit more fabric from her outfit, cleaned with water, Terentia slowly wrapped the makeshift bandages around the forehead to cover the wound. "It seems she passed out from shock or the impact that cut her head rendered her unconscious. She should hopefully be ok," the warrior explained to the woman.

"For now though," she continued, "we have to keep moving. Stay close to us, and out of the way if a fight breaks out." Sliding her arm back to grab hold of her shield, the Gerudo stood up and helped the young lady up before drawing her sword. She slowly made her way forward, watching her surroundings carefully until she came upon a turn leading to Kalvar, who had just slain another Moblin. "We need to find the remaining people held captive in here before we make for the gates," she informed the archer as she turned to another path. "The front gates will likely be our only escape route with people in our care."

The girl nodded, overhearing the conversation. "The only other people here were our parents. I hope they are okay." Her expression was one of horror, she was deathly afraid her parents were harmed. "They were taken from us.. and.. and.." Tears started to flow down her face. she started hugging the child tighter, and buried her face. "I want to go home." The girl said, just barely heard. The small child started to shiver, and said quietly, "Where am I?" The older girl shrieked and hugged the girl tighter. "I thought you were dead! I'll never leave you again!"

Kalvar walked over the the girl, "Where did they take your parents?" He asked her, hoping that they were all right. Helping these two out was already going to be a pain. Having two extra injured people to take care of would be extremely difficult. "Let's hope, for all of our sakes, that they are not injured." The girl looked up, tears running down her face. "I don't know where they are..."

Sighing, he walked over to the door and pulled out his bow. Prying the door open slightly, he could see the two large moblins from before, waiting outside. He gently closed the door. "No sense going out that way if we can help it." Kalvar said. "There must be a back door in this building somewhere." A mischievous smile appeared on his face. "If not, we can always make one."

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Sorry for the wait, I got distracted.

With the entranceway blocked for their escape, Terentia took to musing on the possible solution Kalvar had brought up. "Assuming no other civilians are in this place, we can proceed with lighting it aflame as we had planned. But first," she said, sheathing her blade, "we should find out exit." Heading over to one of the crates, the warrior lifted the lid and started to dig around within. "Junk," she murmured as she dropped the lid and went to another box. "When you checked for hostiles you searched the whole building, right?" she asked over her shoulder of her companion as she dug through a third crate.

While waiting for a response, Terentia found what she had in mind, a nice sized battle axe, perfect for chopping through the wooden walls of the crudely constructed building. Lifting the axe, she also noted a wrapped scroll underneath, the parchment thick and course and finely tied with red ribbon. Setting the weapon aside for a moment, she picked up the scroll and undid the ribbon to unroll it a few inches. When she saw the symbol of her people though, she set down her shield to open it further. Written across the page was instructions and diagrams of combat stances, some kind of manual for learning some technique. A treasure of the Gerudo people surely, and one she was glad to liberate from the Moblins.

Rolling up the scroll and tucking it away where it would be safe, she donned her shield once more and lifted the axe effortlessly onto her shoulder, ready to go make a back door for the warehouse.

Kalvar nodded, "I searched the whole building. No other moblins, nor humans." He watched as his ally as she rummaged through the storage piles. Just as he was about to ask, she pulled out a large battle axe out of the pile. Kalvar smiled, that would be perfect for cutting through the back walls. She also pulled out a strange scroll, but Kalvar didn't question it. If she wanted to keep it, she can have it if she wants.

He walked over to the girl, and grabbed her shoulder comfortingly. "We will get you two out safe." She just nodded in agreement, hugging her sister tighter. He motioned for her to follow him, and walked off to find Terentia near the back of the building. At the back, the storage was much more crowded than near the front. Gold jewelry, paintings, and many other expensive things seemed to litter the back. There was almost no room to stand in the back of the building. Kalvar laughed. "And to think that they actually use none of this. They just take it so we don't have it."

Suddenly, a loud thump came from the front of the building. The girl shrieked. Without warning, the front door slammed open, and a large face peered inside. It was the face of the large moblin they had ran from earlier. Grunting, it stood up, and slammed its heavy shield into the wall. Flipping out, the girl ran behind Kalvar and Terentia. "Don't let him get in here! Please!" She said extremely frightened.

She had just slammed the battle axe into the wall for the first chop of their new exit, when the building seemed to shake viciously. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the monstrous foe enter and knew it was going to cause problems for them all. "Can you deal with it?" she grunted at Kalvar as she slammed the axe into the wall again. She had get through the wall, enemy or no enemy. Despite continuing to slam the heavy blade into the weakening walls, she kept a wayward eye on the nearing foe. If she needed to, she could quickly swing around and defend against an attack, hopefully to protect the Hylians they had found.

Pulling the impromptu tool out of the wall once more, Terentia took another mighty swing at the wall. One of the crudely made boards shattered as she could suddenly see the mountainous terrain outside. It was a start, but hopefully she would be able to clear the rest away. "If you can't," she continued her earlier thought, "tell me and I'll kill it. Otherwise, deal with it." She punctuated that with another meaty chop at the weakening wall. It was a tough decision when she knew she had the strength for both making the exit and dealing with their foe, but at this point she had to just trust that the archer could at least slow it down until she was done.

Kalvar was more than confident that he could slay the beast. He had fought worse things before. Admittedly, in this close quarters it was rather hard. Two girls to protect at the same time didn't make it any easier. "Go! Run over to Terentia, run with her when you get the chance. Don't look back for me."

Nodding, the girl immediately ran over to the Gerudo, arms holding her little sister tightly. A soft frown spread across his face as he quickly made his way towards the top of stashed goods. He'd make it out of here alive, guaranteed. Time to prove that to himself.

The Moblin at the doorway finally smashed it's way in from the tiny doorway, causing the girl to shriek in terror. Kalvar however, leapt into action. Quickly firing an arrow, Kalvar began to run in the opposite direction atop the treasure pile. Trying to draw attention away from the injured girls. Hopefully it would take the bait...

And it did indeed. The massive Moblin, already enraged began to charge straight through the piles of antiques and valuables. What did rupees mean to such a beast anyways? Absolutely nothing. Kalvar continued to run, slipping slightly on a rug haphazardly placed atop the pile. The only way he could figure to slay the ugly pig, was to slip around it and somehow put an arrow into its tiny brain.

Reaching the far end of the building, Kalvar immediately leapt up and grabbed onto the wall. As fast as he could, he began climbing along the ceiling back over the Moblin. It wasn't a very big building, and the Moblin could definitely strike at him with it's spear if it realized what he was doing soon enough. Thankfully, the big brute ended up just charging straight into the wall. The whole building shuttered and Kalvar lost his grip, falling down onto a pile of paintings. Not worried about the destruction of a few beautiful faces, he quickly scrambled back to his feet.

The moblin had fallen onto its rear after the charge, disoriented and clearly dizzy. Before it could begin to scramble itself Kalvar charged at it. Dropping his bow entirely, he pulled his sword from its sheath. Now was the time to strike! Holding his sword out in front of him, he quickly thrust upwards into the back of the moblins neck right underneath its helmet.

Kalvar quickly twisted his sword, making sure that whatever damage done was fatal. He didn't even wait to make sure it was dead before he pulled the sword. It was time to make a break for it.

Turning around, he noticed that Terentia and the girls were long gone. Hopefully already escaped the camp by now. Terentia was a strong Gerudo, she could protect them.

Grabbing his bow on the run, he heard the giant moblin behind him crash into the ground, falling backwards in death. Thankfully he had moved when he did, otherwise he'd be squished beneath the thing. Kalvar couldn't help but grimly chuckle at the idea.

Quickly, he squeezed out of the hole in the wall to see total and utter chaos. The moblins were not good fire fighters, and almost everything was quickly catching fire. Hopefully some of the valuables were still retrievable after this was over, and the majority of the moblins scattered or dead.

Kalvar was just about to climb the perimeter wall, when he found another giant hole practically carved into it. The battle axe that Terentia had been using earlier to break out of the storage room laid nearby, so he could only assume it was her doing. Quickly squeezing through himself, he began to sprint out of the Moblin encampment as fast as he could.

Once out, he could easily see Terentia and the girls making their way down the path back to civilization. Thank goodness they had all made it out okay... A shame about the ladies parents though. They'd be alright, he hoped. The people back at Ruto could take care of them.

Only when Kalvar was far enough away, he glanced back at the encampment. The walls had begun to fall down, and practically everything he could see from this distance was on fire. No need to equip his hawkeye to see that much. Guess Moblins should put more effort into learning basic fire safety then spending time looting.

Letting out a soft sigh, he finally began to relax. He'd catch up to the girls ahead here in a bit, time to just catch his breath in the scorching heat of the sun. Regardless, he'd much rather be under the scorching sun and have burning sands at his feet than burning in a fire like those moblins. The thought made him smile somewhat.

[End Quest]