The kobold's blade, although small, suddenly looked very big as it zoomed towards Leon's eye. Leon quickly realized that his chance of avoiding the blade were very slim, and the kobold knew it too. It's victory was all but assured at this point. Turning its attention back to the previous victim, the kobold considered what it could do with her. The tribe had enough food, and they had no need for breeding companions at the time, meaning that the girl might be useless, assuming she had no metal on her. What to do then? Just kill her? Perhaps it could just leave her to nature, as she wouldn't be welcomed back at the camp due to having no purpose.
Whatever the kobold's choice, it would have to wait. For just as the blade reached Leon's face, it stopped mere millimeters from his face! Brilliant pain spread through the center of the kobold's chest. The beast looked down, eyes widening in shock and horror as it saw a long spider leg entering it's chest from the front. It didn't need to check behind it to know that the leg had fully punctured it's body. It looked back at Leon and saw that the leg protruded from his back, having sprouted there as a result of some kind of magic too advanced for the kobold to understand.
The spider leg snapped to the left, hurling the kobold off of it and slamming it into the soil hard enough to crater it. Blood spurted from the wound and the monster yelped upon impact. Leon looked down at the kobold and sighed.
"You shouldn't have come out tonight. You might have lived another day." Leon told the monster, glaring down at it with pity. The dying creature looked pitiful, but that didn't deter Leon from what he was about to do. After all, his friends were hungry. The spider leg retracted, and Leon activated another magical work, a spell this time.
"Consume him, my friends!" Leon snapped his fingers, and hundreds of small beetles formed in the air and dropped onto the kobold, immediately ripping into the beat's flesh around the puncture wound. Some fell onto its skin and began to gnaw at it, chewing through the thick scales and into tough flesh within a dozen seconds.
The kobold screamed and flailed, trying to throw the bugs off with little success. As its efforts ceased, Leon hobbled over to the kobold's victim, who seemed to be unconscious. She had long blonde hair and fair skin. Her face was cute, and her body was small. She appeared to be young, perhaps twenty or twenty-three at the oldest.
The girl's clothing was torn in some areas, and looked very expensive. Leon had seen his fair share of expensive dresses, many of which he considered pretty, but her dress was far greater than any he'd ever seen before. So much greater, that curiosity built in Leon's mind until he couldn't take it anymore. He reached down and moved her hair, which was extremely soft, he noted, and sure enough, the girl's ears were long and pointed.
This girl was an elf. As Leon made note of this and began to consider what to do, the sudden snapping of a twig alerted him to someone approaching. He whirled around, expecting to see another kobold. Imagine his surprise when he saw a combat cleaver swinging towards him at subsonic speeds! Without wasting any time, Leon hexed the spider leg into existence, thrusting it up into the cleaver's path. His attacker, a masked person clothed in gray and black pushed him back and seemingly drew another blade from nowhere and slashed again.
Leon responded in kind, calling up another spider leg and blocking the attack again, all the while bracing himself against the masked assailant's offense. Blades and appendages blurred, striking each other at speeds nearing the sound barrier and showering the earth with sparks.
Both Leon and his attacker drew back their respective weapons and launched forth particularly powerful strikes, colliding with such force that Leon's spider legs and the attacker's blades shattered into thousands of pieces, both fighters being knocked back from the residual force. Leon landed on his left leg. A stunning crack sounded, and pain spread through his leg as he sprained his ankle. He merely grunted, as if used to this kind of injury. The masked individual was up first, dashing towards Leon and throwing a kick at the young mage, who barely managed to throw his good arm up in time to block the blow.
"Quit it! I assume you're here to help that person, right?!" Leon managed to utter before the masked attacker could strike again, raising his hands in surrender.
"I am." They answered curtly, their voice deep and husky, ceasing the attack temporarily.
"Well you can relax, because I already did! She was attacked by a kobold, and I killed it. There should be a skeleton left over if you don't believe me." Leon pointed in the direction of the girl.
"I see." They responded. After hearing his attacker's voice again, Leon was sure that his assailant was male, and likely a hex user.
The masked man walked off in the direction of the girl, quickly crafting new cleavers in case the bug legged freak attacked him. Sure enough, there was at least something there, as the thing was covered by a mass of skittering bugs that seemed to be eating it. With a quick swipe of his cleaver, the man knocked off enough bugs to see the kobold's skull, which was nearly picked clean.
"See? I already took care of it." Leon said, limping up behind the masked man. Leon's voice was light and raspy, making this sentence sound rather sinister, given the context.
"My apologies. Name's Knox." The masked man responded, keeping the cleavers in hand, despite Leon's innocence. Something about him just seemed off to Knox, but he didn't quite know why.
"You're forgiven. Must have looked pretty suspicious, leaning over her like that, huh? Nice to meet you, I'm Leon." He didn't extend his hand, already knowing Knox wouldn't shake it. He could sense Knox's dislike, but chose to ignore it. That was a normal reaction to a vile magic user, at least to his knowledge.
"What were you doing?"
"Simply satisfying a suspicion."
"And what was that?"
"I suspected that she was an elf, based on her clothing. I was right."
"I see."
After the two finished speaking, they heard the girl move. Knox looked over at her and saw her staring at him. He stared back, neither saying anything to each other. The situation quickly became awkward, and Leon decided that it would be better to leave. His hood had been knocked off in the scuffle, so he pulled it back up and lowered his head, hiding his face and turning away. Leon began to hobble away, now having to favor his bad leg.
"Hey, wait!" The woman's voice was high pitched and somewhat squeaky. Leon turned around, still keeping his head down.
"Yeah?"
"One of you helped me, yes? Who was it?" Her question was met with a quick nod from both men. Knox then shook his head and pointed to Leon. Leon scratched the back of his head and confirmed, nodding.
"Thank you. That monster caught me by surprise and I couldn't get away. I'm not much of a fight, you see, so I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't shown up." The girl bowed her head to Leon while she spoke, and he nervously scratched his face, embarrassed at the sudden gratitude. He received nothing like that at home, so he felt his face heating up. Leon pulled his hood tighter and mumbled something before limping away significantly faster than before.
"Wait another second! My name's Rebecca, but I prefer to be called Beck. Would you tell me your name?" Her tone was kind. Leon, once again, was not used to such a tone and blushed harder.
"I'm, uh, Leon." He didn't turn around while he spoke, and then got back to walking. Both Beck and Knox knew he wasn't going to turn around again.
Knox dismissed his creations, the black combat cleavers fading away in a slow wave of golden sparks. Beck turned to him, but Knox was already walking away, feeling like he'd thoroughly wasted his time. Not only had the situation already been solved, he also nearly lost to a crippled mage with spider legs that were on par with his hex craft.
Beck followed him, stopping only to look at the now clean kobold skeleton. She blinked hard as she saw hundreds of small beetles dissolving into dark purple sparks. Obviously, Beck wasn't a stranger to magic, but she'd never seen magic bugs before. They obviously belonged to Leon, as the masked man had conjured bladed weapons.
She figured the masked man had also come to help her, so she decided that he seemed trustworthy enough. Taking a quick look around, she quickly realized that she didn't know where she was in the slightest. The man's shape was quickly fading, leaving her with little choice but to follow him. Knox heard her immediately, and looked behind him. To him, she seemed to be just over five feet tall. He looked for a little longer, as one thing about the elf confused him. He couldn't quite tell what color her eyes were. It was as if they changed colors every time she looked somewhere different.
Knox looked away when she noticed him looking at her, waving at him. He did not return her wave, but slowed his pace. If she was following him, she was most likely lost, meaning he should at least help her find her way to the city. He hadn't been taught very much about people as a child, but he figured it was bad manners to leave someone who clearly needed help alone on a monster infested road in the wee hours of the morning.
Taking a deep breath, Knox stopped walking altogether, now waiting for Beck to catch up. She smiled and moved a little faster.
"You know, I never did get your name." She said as soon as she got close enough to him for them to talk at a normal volume.
"It's Knox. I'll take you to the city, and then you do whatever you want." Knox spoke in what he thought was a kind tone, and nodded, pleased with himself as he started walking again. Beck sighed. She'd never been to the city. Did it have monsters too? Perhaps she'd run into Leon again, as they seemed to be going the same direction he'd gone.
However, no matter what happened, the city was a new experience, and a place she had wanted to since she was a child. She should be excited about this, right? After all, a life long dream was about to come to fruition.
Then why did she feel so on edge?