Blake left 5 soldiers guarding the horses. The others came with us. Their job would most likely be to protect the mages. We had not brought any spears, expecting our enemy to be plants. The soldiers only had swords. Well, they also had brought some axes for chopping but we left them with the horses.

We wore chain shirts but I was additionally protected by Helena's ice armour. Skadi did not use her blood armour yet, it was an ongoing spell and exhausting to keep up. She did have a two handed axe, a weapon she favoured.

Hatsumi took the lead. It turned out she was rather good at tracking blood. Likely a side effect from being a vampire. I certainly could not smell anything.

It was still winter but the forest had quite a few evergreen plants. Here and there a bit of snow covered the ground. Shrubs and bushes seemed rather plentiful as we moved deeper into the forest. It not only impeded our vision, it would make it hard to identify a vampiric nightshade. Blake recast his spell on occasion, just to be sure.

Another concern was the noise. We were a rather large group. Moving through the vegetation was not silent. We knew our enemies had arrows. Then again, the limited vision would work in our favour when it came to ranged attacks.

"Halt!" Blake said, suddenly. "My magic is picking something up…" Then he frowned. "Ok, move forward, slowly."

We continued carefully.

"Is it me, or is it getting warmer?" Cassie whispered.

"I think you might be right. Look, all the snow is now gone and the sheen of frost covering the ground is no longer there either." Helena pointed out.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"I assume someone put a heating crystal into the soil to keep the nightshades comfortable." Blake replied.

"Those are expensive." Skadi replied.

"Yes but… I sense at least ten nightshades." Blake replied. "Someone set up a farm here. Maybe they sell some of the seeds to make money."

"How do you collect the seeds without killing the plant, or getting eaten?" I wondered.

"You need magic to conceal yourself, or levitate them away from a range, or you need to have good enough protection against the vines. It certainly is not easy." Blake replied.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"So, we are tracking bandits. Why does the trail lead into a field of nightshades?" Cassie asked.

"Because they are feeding them…" Skadi suggested.

Blake nodded, looking grim. "If someone is going through the trouble of melting the ice on the ground for those plants they are certainly feeding them too. But the important part is, we need a plan. Those plants will have some overlap so expect to be attacked by multiple vines. Skadi, can you taint your blood armour? Poison it?"

Skadi shook her head. "Not really."

Blake nodded. "Better to not use it then. The plants will try to drink it. Hatsumi, you can use your necrotic blood. But be careful, those plants can drain a lot."

"I am not going to fall to some vegetation." Hatsumi replied with a dangerous smile.

Cassie pulled a bottle from her bag. "I have something that should stick to them and burn. I know they are somewhat resistant but I think it will do the trick. I only have two bottles though. I can add some regular explosions as well."

"What about your magic?" Blake asked.

"I can throw some fire bolts too, I suppose." Cassie was still not used to her larger core. She was more capable with her magic than she realised, in my opinion.

Blake nodded. "I know this is not your first fight but remember to watch the ground. A tank can't protect you from an attack under your feet. Koyuki, if those plants have been fed there should be a lot of bones. Use them. Generally try to stick together and take them down from the outside. We don't want to be in range of all of those nightshades at once."

Then he addressed the soldiers: "Stay back and deal with any vines. Free the mages if they are caught. Don't get close to the main plants, let us mages handle them."

Blake seemed to trust us a lot, considering that we had only finished the first year at the academy. Then again, we had two senior mages. We likely had a bigger core than he did. And he was aware of our past achievements.

Nyx grew to her full size and took the lead, next to Skadi and Hatsumi. I kept Frank close, for now. He would need orders to be effective and I was not sure yet how the battle would go. Ivy and Yoru were on Nyx' back. I trusted Nyx to make use of their powers.

"I think I see one of the nightshades." Hatsumi announced. "See those little red things? Those are berries."

We had reached a circular area without any trees. Instead there were a lot of bushes. And strangely some green grass, during winter. Ferns, lichen, even a flower or two filled the strange area. It certainly did not look normal. And I spotted the bush Hatsumi was pointing at. It was partially hidden behind other vegetation.

"I will try to raise any bones it has nearby." I announced.

Then I focused on the area. And I felt… nothing. I tried again. Then I tried to widen my radius. But there was no corpse, no bone, nothing reacted to my magic.

"There is nothing here. No corpse, no bones…" I said.

"That makes no sense. There are nightshades here. There has to be something, even if it is an animal…" Blake said, then he looked around. "Something is not right…"

"What do we do?" I asked.

"Cassie, throw your potion at that bush. Then we fall back a bit. The fire might draw some attention. I want to see if those bandits show up. They might care about their farm and I don't want to be caught between them and the nightshades." Blake said.

Cassie nodded and threw the potion. As it shattered and released an orange mist, a mist that settled onto the leaves and branches of the bush. Then it ignited. The entire bush was covered in an angry flame. Vines moved on the ground. They were thrashing, searching, desperate to find an attacker. But we were out of reach. At first the bush refused to burn, only the coating of the potion was on fire. But soon its resistance wore down. The vines stopped moving as the main plant was damaged.

"That is quite the potion." Blake said, looking impressed.

"Hehe. Sadly, it's kind of expensive…" Cassie admitted.

"Ok, Let's fall back to those trees and wait. We can hide there." Blake ordered.

We took our positions and waited.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.