WITH A JUMP onto her staff and Percy taking the reins of the wagon back, they shot after the dogs running away with Scanlan as hostage. Opium also took off after his master, keeping up at her side.

Korelia reached a hand out, trying to grab a hold of the gnome as she caught up with the monster, but it was quick to notice her and b-lined in between some trees. Korelia gasped, quickly pulling to the other side to avoid a crash, but ended up changing directions.

She could hear Percy trying to make the horses go faster, his teeth clenching in anger. Korelia turned when a cliff was coming up, Keyleth quickly making a bridge with plants to get to the other side.

When Korelia caught up with Scanlan again, the ledge they made it to fell steeply to the side, the girl trying to fly faster to avoid a drop.

When she made it to the tongue, Korelia held her arm out and made a slicing motion; her yellow magic cutting the tongue of the dog off causing Scanlan to scream from being dropped. However, another one of the monsters had jumped onto Korelia's staff, causing it to loose balance in the air. The gnome was quickly caught again before he hit the ground, another tongue wrapping around him to keep him in the air.

Korelia grunted as the wolf that attacked her launched its tongue at her, her staff falling to the ground and being left behind. She tried to wiggle her hand out from being wrapped in the creature's mouth, but suddenly she felt a stabbing pain in her abdomen.

"Keeper, brace yourself!" Vex shouted, gearing up an enchanted arrow. Just as Korelia pulled up a magic coating around her body, the arrow made contact with the dog, causing it to explode. While falling back to the ground from the explosion, Grog shot a hand out to catch her in time and pull her into the back of the wagon.

While groaning from the internal pain, Korelia crawled in the wagon, moving to look out. The wolf with Scanlan kept running, coming up on a cliff.

"Are they going over the cliff?" Keyleth asked astounded.

"They're not the only ones!" Vax shouted.

"They have Scanlan. We have no choice!"

"I'm not dying to save that gnome!" Vex grabbed another arrow, this one attached to a rope. "Get me closer!"

"Shoot for his head! Neck! Dick!" Scanlan shouted, finally being undone from the tongue but now hanging from the monsters mouth as he gripped the book. "Come on, Vex! No one breaks balls better than you!"

"He's not wrong!" Vex aimed up, letting go of the string as it shot up into the sky and past Scanlan and the dog.

"You missed!"

"Let go of the book dumbass!" Just as the wolf jumped, Scanlan reached over for the rope. Opium flew forward, flying to make sure Scanlan had grabbed a hold correctly just in case he needed help.

Everyone else was to focused to notice Percy wasn't going to stop on time, which led to Vex pulling him off the wagon.

"Off the cart!"

Korelia let out a small grunt as Vax picked her up bridal style before jumping off the cart that was already heading down. He grunted in Korelia's ear, as the girl let out pained moans from hitting the ground; more bruising sure to happen now.

Her hand made its way towards her torso, feeling pain starting to come from it. Lifting up her shirt, she saw three stab wounds going down her side; the creature must have stabbed her with something on its tongue.

She picked up her head, looking over at the cliff to see if Scanlan had made it. Though her shoulders sagged once she saw Vex pull up the ripped rope; the half elf herself was suddenly looking gloomy as well.

"Scanlan." Keyleth gasped.

"He didn't make it." Vax said, slamming his hand down. Grog sniffled, looking down at the ground.

There was a tune resounding from the air, the tone catching on Korelia's ears. Opium had begun to tweet, catching her attention at the edge of the cliff as he flew back towards them.

"You've got to be joking." She spoke, causing everyone to look up.

"Rise! Mighty Scanlan, rise!" A large purple hand lifted the gnome into the air, the man playing his lute to conduct his magic.

Everyone chuckled, happy to see their little companion come up from the dead practically.

"Yeah, when I die it'll be the way the gods intended-" Scanlan explained. "Choked to death by a disgruntled pimp."

"Careful what you wish for." Vax teased, going up to the gnome to give him a high-five.

"We lost everything."

"Well, I mean, at least we still have our holy water-" Just as Scanlan was speaking of it, they all noticed the bag at the very edge of the cliff was beginning to fall.

"No! No! No! No!" Everyone rushed to try and save their only weapon against, Sylas. But they ended up short as everything fell down into the abyss.

"Perfect." Vax said as everyone sighed in disappointment.

Growling was heard down the cliff, the group all turning to see the creature waking up and twisting its body to get off the spike that had impaled it. It walked over to the book Scanlan had let go, glancing back at Vox Machina before taking off once more with just two legs.

Percy walked off in despair, catching everyone's attention.

"She got what she wanted. Again." The human rage. "We need to keep moving. Without a cart we won't get there fast so might as well start moving."

Everyone glanced at one another, choosing to follow with the human's orders to continue. As they began their journey back to the road that led to Whitestone.

On the way, Korelia sighed looking at her staff that was laying on the ground. With one hand holding onto her wounds, she wobbled over to it, watching as the other began to walk up to it.

"Oh, here!" Keyleth said as she was the first to pass by it. She went to pick it up, but frowned when she was suddenly brought back down to the ground from not being able to pick it up.

"How heavy is this!?" Keyleth groaned, now using her knees to pick up the staff and swinging it around with force. Korelia giggled, watching as Vax walked up to the elf to help her.

"Can't be that heavy." Vax grunted as Keyleth suddenly let go of the staff, the rogue kneeling over from not putting much thought into carrying the weapon. Once he realized he would need to put some sort of muscles into it, he picked it up with some resistance.

"Here you are." Korelia smiled at the half elf, giving him a thank you as she twirled it around with one hand leaving the elf and rogue in disbelief.

"Let's get going."

"FIND A SPOT to stay for the night. I hear a river nearby, I'm going to see if I can find a place to heal." Korelia let her hand drop some from trying to keep her cloak tightly against her torso.

"You can heal?" Percy asked, titling his head.

"Only with certain magic. I have to have a base for it, such as water." Korelia explained.

"Oh! I can do that too but with plant matter!" Keyleth spoke.

"Good to know we have medics." Scanlan retorted.

"I'll be back in a bit."

As the others began to make their way to a spot to rest, Korelia began her trek to the running water she hears, trying her hardest not to wince from the pain of walking so much. When she made it to the small stream, she dropped to her knees carefully. Unwrapping her cloak from its makeshift wrap, the fabric sticking some to her shirt from the blood.

She took a breath, trying to ready herself to peel her shirt from her skin. With a sharp breath, she held it as the fabric began to un-stick from her body and allowed the stab wounds to meet the air. Raising her back up to keep from folding her body onto the wounds, she raised her hands, getting the shirt to pull over her chest.

The three stab wounds were relatively muscle deep, the wolf must have had some spikes that penetrated her. Not hitting anything vital but still enough to damage her muscles in that part of her body. One hand had a hold on her shirt while the other moved over the water, yellow mist flowing from her hands.

With a bit of a wave, the water moved up to follow after her magic, the liquid and wispy air mixing together. She shakily moved her hand over to her torso, wincing when the cool water made contact with her skin.

When she was able to at least displease some of the pain, she moved to take her entire shirt off, the fabric starting to harden from the blood soaking it which annoyed her. She tossed the heavy fabric into the stream along with her cloak to soak and get rid of the blood. She would thoroughly clean them in a bit.

With both of her hands free she used them to gather globs of water and place them back onto her skin where her blood had slowly stopped gushing out from any movement. She sighed some, the cold soothing her as the pain slowly disappeared from her nerves. The cells in her muscle began to rapidly grow, connecting together to close the wound.

"Oh wow, that is one nasty bruise."

Word Count: 1627