Forest of Kresh, approximately 200 miles Northwest of Forest's Edge

  "Attack back withdraw," Sara signaled with a series of hand signs. Several trees away, her fellow scout Dane nodded and repeated the series of hand signals. While they were well hidden in the snowcapped trees on the shore of a frozen lake, Sara knew through her new aura sense that the other four scouts got the message as each of them prepared to attack. Further back, she knew Gareth and the other four parties they were working with laid in wait for the scouts to finish. Though she could still sense the mix of Iron auras that made up the rest of her raid group, missing were the four Silver ranked auras of her own team, though she wasn't surprised. Each of them learned their own form of aura suppression once they hit Silver, while the scouts with her had to rely on expensive enchanted items to hide their auras.

  Several hundred feet away, a horde of well-armed goblins crossed the ice, their banners proclaiming them a part of the Long Knives tribe. From the intel the guild shared and the scouts' own investigations, this horde was moving out to secure a new area for a war camp ahead of their tribe's full might. The documents they'd taken from the horde's advanced scouting parties had of course been written in the goblin's own script, and coded beyond that, but Sara and the other scouts made quick work of breaking the cipher and translating the scouts' orders. From it they knew one of the Long Knives' chief's sons, a "third step war leader" named Kranok led the force.

  As the last of the horde stepped onto the ice, Sara finally felt the unrestrained auras of the goblins wash over her. Over a thousand Bronze ranked auras, weak and thin, overshadowed by hundreds of Iron ranked auras, firm and solid. But overwhelming all of them was a trio of Silver auras, strong and steady, coating every other aura around and pressing down hard, with one far stronger than the others. The pressure was immense, far stronger than Sara's own, or anyone else on her team. That had to be Kranok, and their intel was wrong. He wasn't just a Sil, he was peak Sil, probably on the verge of breaking through to Gold. A simple attack wouldn't be enough.

  "Wait me attack you attack withdraw," she signaled to Dane again, seeing the man nod and repeat her hand signals to the others. Orders sent, Sara focused on the horde in front of her, all of her senses turned to scanning over the horde as she searched for her target.

  While she searched, Sara pulled out an arrow and ran mana through her spellforms. [Piercing Arrow]. [Explosive Shot]. [Silent Strike]. [Viper Bite]. Thousands of mana funneled into a series of augment spells, each of them mixing with and reinforcing the others. A wave of exhaustion flooded through her as she dumped most of her mana pool into a single attack, but training and experience kept her steady and unmoving on her hidden perch halfway up the tree.

  Nocking the enchanted arrow to her bow, Sara finally spotted her target. A group of three marching together towards the back, surrounded by over a dozen well-armed warriors. A hulking brute of a goblin, easily half again as tall as the others and probably taller than her as well, walked with confidence next to an old goblin with saggy, yellowing skin and a middle-aged goblin woman. The brute was covered in fine steel and leather armor, and would probably have been able to pass as a human adventurer or knight if he wore a helmet. That had to be Kranok. The intel said he was a melee fighter. The old goblin man carried a staff, and Sara's guess was that he was a shaman, definitely a powerful one. The goblin woman wore leathers and carried a bow and arrows, probably a scout or hunter of some sort. The three of them alone would be a threat to their group.

  Well, they would be a threat if they were paying attention.

  Sara pulled back into a full draw and released in one smooth motion, her arrow snapping forward in the blink of an eye, silently speeding towards the unsuspecting goblins. A bright flash and the sound of glass shattering echoed out over the lake as Sara's arrow pierced through an invisible barrier, Kranok and his two companions looking up in alarm at the sound. Using the immense stats of a Silver ranker, the old shaman started to move his hands and lips as mana flooded into one of the Silver auras.

  Too late, Sara viciously thought. Before the shaman could finish casting, Sara's arrow smashed into, and through Kranok's breastplate before an explosion of noxious green flames engulfed the goblin leaders, obscuring them from view for a few seconds.

  The horde stopped in place as the barrier shattered, moments later falling into chaos as goblins wearing marks of command found arrows sprouting from their chests and toppled to the ice. Despite the chaos of the sudden attack, the horde regained discipline quickly as warriors raised shields to intercept arrows and shamans began to chant, balls of flame appearing before the horde and blasting out into the forest in retaliation!

  As the spells manifested, Sara leapt from branch to branch in the treetops, quickly putting distance between herself and her hidden perch just before a series of fireballs landed in the area, putting parts of the Forest up in flame. As the goblin shamans continued their bombardment, the front elements of the horde charged onto the shores of the frozen lake, the goblins' faces twisted with rage as they hunted for whoever attacked their leader.

  At least, until one of the goblins' Silver auras vanished, followed quickly by another. Kranok had definitely been peak Silver, Sara thought to herself as she felt a flood of strength fill her as his aura vanished, signaling his death. It was a good thing she dumped all of her mana into that shot, otherwise he would've been a nightmare for their raid group. Whether it was stats, protective spells, or a mixture of things, the goblin leader had managed to survive an exploding arrow to the chest, long enough that the shaman had probably been able to heal him, keeping the leader up until the shaman succumbed to the burns and poison. With his healer dead, Kranok soon followed.

  The quick-thinking warriors stumbled as the reassuring pressure of their war leader's aura vanished, leaving them feeling weak and exposed. Sara saw panic and fear come over their faces and they milled about in a confused clump on the shore, separated from the rest of their horde.

  Bellowing a war cry, Gareth charged out of the forest, the other frontliners just a step behind him as they crashed into the confused group, trampling the first ranks and cutting down over a dozen before they could react. As the fight on the shore devolved into a melee, the green flames vanished, revealing the singed but still alive form of the goblin woman as she chugged a flask of something and bellowed orders. Order started to take form again as the horde surged forward to engage in the melee on the shore.

  One of the adventurers, a man named Henry, was engaged in a fight with a dozen goblins at once. Blood flowed freely from several wounds to his arms and legs as the goblins used their numbers to their advantage, scoring small hits while he was busy defending. It was death by a thousand cuts, and despite the healing he was getting from their healers, he wasn't the only one of them taking hits. As he defended from another set of blows, taking several on his shield as he parried another and accepted yet another blow to his calf, one of the goblins got to his side and sent a thrust with it's spear at his side. Even with five healers healing him, it would be a fatal blow.

  Before the goblin could finish its blow, an arrow pierced through its heart and spine, sending it crumpling to the ground as a corpse. From her hidden perch, Sara scanned for more threats to the frontliners, supporting anyone who was about to be overwhelmed. As the rest of the horde advanced, the other scouts let loose with skill-backed arrows, slowing their advance as the goblins moved to reinforce their forward element and kill the adventurers.

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  For many of the goblins, that was their last mistake.

  A series of magical spells crashed into the ice of the lake in a circle around most of the horde while a massive fireball manifested and crashed down in the center, incinerating a score of unsuspecting goblins and shattering the ice and sending hundreds into the bone-chilling waters below.

  It wasn't long after that the final Silver aura vanished.

  Forest of Kresh, approximately 100 miles West of Forest's Edge

  Moving from the Forest to the foothills proved to be an interesting experience. The strange snowcap that blocked most of the light from the Forest floor meant that when they finally got close to the foothills, the bright midmorning light reflecting off fallen snow nearly blinded them. It also marked the edge of the Iron region they were aiming for. Somewhere in the foothills lay enough goblins that the entire region had been deemed an Iron ranked area.

  A couple hours after leaving the snowcapped forest behind, Jun's party made camp in a small valley amongst a grove of trees, laying out their tents as they shoveled snow and cut still green branches from the interior trees to create a hidden camp. It wasn't perfect, but it should be good enough to give them a safe spot while they hunted for the horde in the area. With a base camp secured, Keira set out to scout the area while the rest of the party secured the camp.

  "We have a problem," Keira said as she ghosted into the camp in the early afternoon.

  "Before that, eat." Michael stood up from the small fire in the center of camp with a plate of food he'd kept warm for the scout.

  Nodding her thanks, Keira took the plate and set it down on a fallen tree in the clearing they camped in, spreading her map out next to it. As the rest of the party joined her around the tree, even Arwen silently trailing along, she started setting markers down on the map. A small pebble, a larger stone, and a small handful of red beads marking different things before she picked up her plate and started shoveling food into her mouth.

  "The smaller stone is where we are right now, our camp," Keira said between bites, before pointing to the red beads one by one. "These are goblin patrols in the area."

  Jun counted a half dozen red beads on the map close to them, and a dozen more within half a day's walk of their camp. As she looked at the positions of the patrols, her eyes widened. That was a lot of patrols, far more than made sense for a single raiding group.

  Jun wasn't the only one to notice as she shared a concerned look with Aya and Cian, while Michael stared intensely at the map.

  Seeing the looks, Keira nodded as she hurriedly chewed and swallowed a mouthful of food. "Way more patrols than a single raiding group should have. Each of the patrols had at least five warriors. That's at least half a raiding party just out patrolling the area. But it's worse than that," the scout said, tapping at the larger rock just a couple dozen miles to the North. "I dodged a few patrols and was able to get a good view of the area from one of the ridges to the North. There's a lot of smoke coming from one of the valleys, way more than makes sense for a single raiding party. I think our information was wrong. This isn't an Iron ranked area; it's Silver."

  Galimund frowned as he looked at the latest movements in the Expedition headquarters. He had a few low Gold scouts with flying spells bringing him daily reports, but what he saw concerned him. To the North, a scout reported that a group of Iron ranked students led by one of the few Academy Silver ranked teams had taken down a full war horde led by a peak Silver and two mid Silvers. Several more peak Silvers had been detected in the area leading hordes, and the scout said she'd briefly felt an unknown mid Gold near the known war camp, though the aura disappeared before she could learn much more.

  The scouts and advisors to the South reported far denser goblin patrols than there should have been for a Bronze ranked area, and several Bronze and Iron IAG teams failed to report in to their expedition leader for the Southern area. However the IAG Advisors for the Academy teams to the South didn't report anything too strange, though one party had to be bailed out and was already returning to the city after they tried to take on an Iron ranked area.

  More concerning was that three Academy teams had traveled West and their advisors failed to report in to the scouts. The scout for the area hadn't been able to see much from above, the snowcap phenomena prevented anyone without an esoteric scouting skill from knowing much of what happened under the unnatural ice cap.

  As Galimund read over the profiles for the missing teams to the West, he frowned. Paladin Brava's group, Ghorro's group, and Arwen's group. Brava was a serious man who knew better than to play games with the safety of younglings, especially after his group got caught up in that mess alongside Ghorro and Arwen. That the Paladin hadn't reported in yet was concerning. Then there were his chapter's troublemakers Ghorro and Arwen.

  He wasn't surprised that the two's groups were in the same area since they'd had a rivalry going ever since Arwen came to the region a decade ago. They'd often competed against each other in everything, but the incident last year made things worse. Galimund hadn't been able to prove anything, but he suspected that Arwen something to do with multiple teams getting attacked by threats a full rank beyond their capabilities, including Ghorro's. The orc had had to bail out his entire team against a full raiding group that was well beyond the mid Bronze team's capabilities. That Arwen's team had to deal with the same, and yet the elf didn't step in until after several students died, was suspicious. Paladin Brava showing up to heal the survivors after had been fortuitous.

  Still, that all three advisors who got caught up in last year's debacle were in the same area again was a matter of concern, especially since they'd all missed their check-ins with the scouts and multiple areas were reporting threats beyond their assessments from just a week ago.

  As Galimund looked over the list of students under the three advisors, his frown deepened. As a policy, he tried to ignore much of the rumors that spread about the campus. He was an IAG officer first, professor second, and the social lives of young nobles normally was irrelevant to him. Still, this year had tested his policy immensely. Sergeant Wade and Professor Lorne had already reported to him that several of his students seemed to have issues with each other, specifically Brava's student Melody and Arwen's student Jun. The girls' spars in Wade's courses had been especially brutal, and Lorne mentioned something about the girl Aya on Arwen's team nearly burning Mara and Gina on Brava's team several times during practice.

  Then there was Ivar, Boris, and Grekar on Ghorro's team. He watched the three boys try to force Jun and Aya onto their team and considered stepping in before the girls handled it. The girl Jun's bind had been so powerful that they hadn't been able to join a team and he'd been forced to assign them with the remaining students who hadn't paired off. Unfortunate for them that they lacked a healer, any mages, or scouts, but that had made Ghorro the perfect choice of advisor for them. But knowing Ghorro and Arwen had issues, and half of their teams had issues with each other as well, having both of them in the same region while multiple irregularities in the threat assessments were revealing themselves was dangerous. Too dangerous.

  "Lana," he said finally, talking to no one in particular.

  "Yes Vice Leader?" a woman's voice replied as the Platinum scout appeared.

  Galimund handed her the three team dossiers and pointed at the area to the West of Forest's Edge. "Brava, Ghorro, and Arwen failed to check in after heading towards the foothills to the West."

  The woman skimmed through the dossiers, frowning the further she read. "That's a problem, especially with those three and their students. I doubt any of them would work together if the situation demanded it," she finally said.

  Galimund sighed and nodded in agreement. "Especially since the threat assessments this year are off. Half the Bronze zones are bordering on Iron if not already there, while a couple of the Iron zones have reports of Silver goblin commanders. A group of Academy teams took down a war band led by a peak Silver to the Northwest, and there's been unconfirmed reports of a Gold ranked threat in area. Something strange is going on."

  Lana's eyes narrowed as she looked down at the map spread out on the table in front of the Vice Leader. "What do you want to do sir?"

  "New threat assessments based on the latest are being drafted up as we speak. Send teams to the South and the Northwest and have the IAG and Academy regroup. I don't like having all these teams spread out and isolated. As for the West, send a team out to track down Brava, Ghorro, and Arwen. They're the only teams operating that far out, recall and direct them South."

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