DotA One vs. One Character Battle: Chapter 2
Aim Dead Center
Traxex wiped the sweat from her brow and looked up as the sun beat down on her mercilessly through the thin canopy of leaves provided by the trees. The area was once scourge land and only recently reacquired by the sentinels. Though Furion had done his best to revive the land, there was only so much he could do in a few months time, the rest, he said, was up to the earth. Sighing, she pulled her hood down to help relieve some of the heat and continued with her search.
“Even after all this time on the surface, I still can’t get used to the sun…” she grumbled as her eyes scanned the nearly bare ground. “It’s got to be here somewhere.”
During the very same battle to regain this forest, the sentinels forces had been spread quite thin, most of them stationed further north of Azeroth, near the dwarven capital of Khaz Modan, where Leoric himself had lead the attack. Upon hearing of the Skeleton King’s appearance, Sven himself had journeyed north, along with his three companies of soldiers considerably weakening their defenses at Elwynn. Furion had been forced to hire a shady band of mercenaries to help them drive off the scourge. Though the mercenaries had fallen during the battle, one of the night elven archers swore that one of them had pulled out a majestic golden bow from her bag, striking down enemy after enemy before a bloody hook had snagged her into a horde of undead troops dropping her bow when the hook bit into her shoulder. Rumors began to spread that one of them had found the legendary Eaglehorn, a swift, true-firing bow that was said to aim itself. Traxex had immediately set out with a small group of archers hoping to verify if the rumors were true. So far, she had no luck and as her troop of six archers approached her, her face fell when she saw that none of them was carrying a golden bow.
“Nothing?” the drow ranger queried
Six archers shook their heads in unison
“We’ve combed as much space as we could,” one of them reported “Nothing.”
“Well, we will search this whole forest if it takes all night.” Traxex sighed “I doubt night elf eyes will have a problem with that?”
The pack shook their heads and were about to split and search again when a stench filled the air, the unmistakable air of the Scourge. Traxex and her group turned around to see a similar number of ghouls waltz into the area, growling and snarling.
“Ghouls never wander around alone.” Traxex said, talking to herself “Unless…”
An evil grin spread across his bony face as he whipped around the forest, slipping through trees and gliding like the wind itself, in fact, he was the wind. He watched the hated night elves scour the forest searching for the fabled bow. He had been at that battle, firing his arrows at a safe distance from behind a meat shield of ghouls and that wretched Pudge. In fact, he had been the one to order Pudge to hook the girl in only to have the weak human drop her bow in surprise. His attempt to come after it had failed, Luna had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and both Pudge and he did not want to risk the wrath of Elune’s most favored warrior.
“Foolish night elves!” he croaked softly as he resisted the attempt to kick the inviting behind of an archer bent over a rock, searching for the Eaglehorn “My ghouls and I can cover more ground faster than all of you.”
But he knew they had to move fast, night would put a veil of darkness over the forest in a few hours time and all the time in the world wouldn’t do them any good against the night elves’ superior vision at night. An hour had passed and still no sign of the Eaglehorn when he saw his ghouls pack together.
“Idiots!” he hissed as he took off after them, fully intending to drill into their thick skulls that he wanted them to spread out.
He stopped however as he saw what his ghouls were approaching.
“Well well…” he grinned as he took a bow from behind him and pulled taut on his bow’s string “If it isn’t the traitor herself…”
Traxex knew that feeling and saw a skeletal figure appear from thin air just in time to roll to her left. And just in time, and arrow whizzed past her barely missing her right ear and stuck itself into the dry soil. She quickly raised herself as the skeleton let out a hollow cackling laugh. Angrily, the drow ranger sprang back to her feat brushing dust and leaves off her cloak.
“Bone Clinkz… I knew I saw you hiding behind Pudge…” Traxex said grimly, clutching her bow “Come for the Eaglehorn too haven’t you?”
“Eaglehorn?” Clinkz asked, feigning surprise “Now I knew I came here for something, thanks for the tip.”
“Spare me your games.” The drow ranger said rolling her eyes “Pretty brave of you to come alone, if I recall correctly, you never go anywhere without Pudge, quite queer isn’t it?”
“Funny…” the bone fletcher growled “Very funny.”
Traxex grinned openly, she had hit a nerve. She moved her shoulders, shifting the weight of her arrows to her left side. One of the ghouls started to move forward, Clinkz turned at it to order it to hold position. It was all the drow ranger needed. Before any of her archers could even blink, Traxex had drawn an arrow and shot it with perfect aim, a bull’s eye that shot through one of Clinkz’ hollow eye sockets and out the back. The bone fletcher howled in pain as black sand poured out of the socket and the hole in the back of his head. Her archers took her lead and began firing arrows at the enemy ghouls. Inspired by Traxex’ impressive shot, her archers let loose a rain of arrows that had the ghouls howling in pain. Traxex herself had drawn another arrow to finish of the skeletal archer when one of the ghouls withered and fell to the ground, a dry corpse. She looked up to see a malicious grin on the bone fletcher’s face, his eye showing no sign of injury, and disappeared into thin air.
Clinkz wind walked and disappeared as he watched Traxex stomp her foot in frustration. He’d had no choice and no qualms about death pact on one of his own, after all, at this rate, the rest of the idiots would be looking like pin cushions with all the arrows sticking out of them in a few seconds, they were much better of dying to save him. But if he decided to fight, he was outnumbered, seven arrows to one with a bunch of idiot ghouls to pact.
“I have one chance at this, one…”
Carefully taking aim, he aimed the barbed head of his arrow at the exact spot where he knew his opponent’s heart to be, and let it fly. The strafe broke his invisibility and before the group could notice him, another five arrows had been sent flying. Six archers fell to the ground like flies and Clinkz turned invisible just in time as Traxex let loose another one of her arrows. The arrow missed, albeit closely, it had shot through the narrow space between two ribs. The ghouls, seeing the party of archers fall quickly made their way towards Traxex. Without even bothering to aim, Traxex shot one, two, three, four, five arrows and the bone fletcher watched in half anger, half amazement as the drow ranger’s impressive marksmanship buried an arrow dead center in the forehead of all his remaining ghouls.
“Damn…”
In the span of a few seconds, the fight had become a one on one situation. Clinkz warily eyed and circled the drow ranger. Though he knew Traxex could not see him, he had the sinking feeling that she just might if he stood still for too long.
“Come on Clinkz we’re wasting time.” She sighed drawing another arrow and placing it on her bow “I could wait all day, all night for you.”
The bone fletcher cursed silently, he had forgotten that night as approaching and when that happened, there was no way he would find the Eaglehorn before Traxex did. Given the circumstances, he decided to risk it. Carefully, Bone Clinkz took an arrow and drew it back…
Drow may not have seen it, but her acute elven hearing heard the familiar sound of string drawing taut, and whirled around to fire an arrow at the sound. She had barely let the first fly and she was already pulling back for another when she noticed that no arrow came flying at her, she hesitated. It was all the opening Clinkz needed, who had frozen up on purpose to hide his location. He let a flaming arrow fly snagging the drow ranger’s robe and setting it on fire.
“Sneaky bastard!” she spat as she stomped on the flames frantically trying to extinguish them.
In the confusion provided by smoke and flames, the bone fletcher had once again wind walked into invisibility. ‘I won’t be caught with the same trick twice.” Traxex thought grimly as she listened carefully for any sound that could have revealed Clinkz’ presence. Seconds turned into minutes but Traxex refused to let her guard down, Clinkz would have to break out of his invisibility soon… a movement to her left quickly caught her eye and she let fly with an arrow. A rain of ten arrows however was the site that greeted her and she quickly rolled aside. However, even she couldn’t completely avoid a volley that big and one buried itself into her leg causing the drow ranger to hiss in pain as she quickly grabbed at the protruding end and pulled it out. Dark, black blood oozed out from the wound and flowed down her leg, dripping into the charred end of her cloak as she struggled to stand. Again, the bone fletcher was invisible. Then, the heat. Looking around wildly, she saw the skeletal archer break his invisibility just long enough to fire two or three searing arrows into the trees and wind walk again.
“Furion is not going to be happy…” Traxex winced as she watched the trees burn
As she stared, one of the trees began to weaken and fall towards here. Despite the pain in her injured leg, Traxex jumped out of the way barely managing to pull her cloak away from the hungry flames.
Clinkz was smiling manically as he burned down tree after tree, with that injured leg, the drow couldn’t move very much and sooner or later, the flames would engulf her and allow him to continue his search another day. Everyone would think she had decided to return to her homeland, very few of the sentinels fully trusted the undead archer. Clinkz watched happily as the desperate archer swung her head wildly from side to side, hoping to find an escape, or him. Her head froze as something caught her eye. ‘Poor girl, the flames must be blinding her, looking for me in all the wrong directions’ he mused ‘Ah well, might as well end this quickly for her.’ Drawing three arrows at the same time, he set them aflame with magic Kel’thuzad had taught him and broke his invisibility just long enough for him to shoot them at the drow. All three missed of course but sent even more of the ground afire as another tree finally gave in to the flames and collapsed behind Traxex. Drawing another three arrows, he fired another flaming volley and drew another set. It was only then that he noticed Traxex was looking in his direction.
The drow ranger smiled as she drew an arrow and aimed it at the bone fletcher. If there was one thing she learned in the underworld, it was the Silence spell. Krobelus had taught her the basics of silencing and Nortrom had enhanced that knowledge with his expertise on the matter. Clinkz had always been too focused on his archery to listen to anything else and didn’t try to wind walk again not knowing the silence had worn off. An arrow buried itself into the bone fletcher’s knee cap and immune to pain, the archer ran on, unaware of another of Traxex tricks.
‘Maybe I can still lose her in the flames’ the bone fletcher thoughtin panic as he ran on trying to keep an eye on the drow ranger over the jumping flames. He watched as Traxex drew another arrow and fired, scraping the bones on his hip and he laughed, her accuracy was waning over the thick smoke and bright flames. So why did his body begin to start feeling paralyzed with fear?
Traxex grinned as she drew her bow and fired another shot. The fletcher’s dead nerves were now a liability to him more than an asset in battle, because of them, he failed to notice that cold waves that rippled through his old, dead bones. As Traxex watched her arrow fly, it hit the bone fletcher straight in the sternum and buried itself into the thick bone. Clinkz croaked, took three steps, and stopped moving.
“What dark magic is this?!” he demanded shrilly as he willed his frozen body to move
“No dark magic.” Traxex smiled showing him one of her blue-tipped arrows “Just a simple spell of frost.”
If he had eyes, they would have widened in realization as he realized he was now frozen in place at the mercy of the drow ranger. Fully expecting the archer to finish him off, he was surprised as Traxex took a few pained steps back and walked away. Snarling at the insult, the bone fletcher found that his hands could finally move and placed an arrow in his bow and aimed it at the back of the drow ranger’s head…
Traxex smiled as a gratifying crunch came from behind her. She had seen the tree begin to fall and decided to deny herself the pleasure of killing Clinkz herself. Smiling, she mad her way to the spot that had attracted her attention minutes ago. The flames caused by Clinkz arrows had reflected off the shiny golden surface of something at the base of a young oak. Brushing the leaves aside, she saw an elaborate golden bow laying there, waiting to be found. Smiling, Traxex picked up the legendary Eaglehorn, the weight feeling comfortable in her arms. With prize in hand, Traxex left the burning forest behind her and limped back home to the sentinel camp.