The four of them skulked from shadow to shadow as they made their way across the castle’s inner courtyard when they didn’t think anyone was looking. It was sometime before one, which was pretty much the dead of night.

The guards probably thought this was exactly the right time to slack off. That probably meant that they had a couple of hours, but as far as Lucas was concerned, they were all on borrowed time.

The paranoid part of his mind that had been sharpened by years of sketchy late-night deals and even more years of drug abuse was screaming that something terrible was going to happen if they didn’t get the hell out of there. For now, he ignored it and got them to the stables as fast as they could, hoping to find another guard in there who was slacking off.

The walls or the keep would have been a surer thing, of course, but the former was so damn exposed that someone was bound to see, and the latter - well, that really would be like doing a half gainer out of the frying pan and into the flames.

Sadly, they struck out in the stables. There were a dozen horses, a few mules, and some vitriolic earth, but no one they could kill and no armor they could steal. That was just as well. He was unlikely to do too well with such a heavy weapon and much preferred his knives. Plus, when he noticed their half-orc getting paler, he decided everyone needed a break.

Vitriolic Earth (unrefined): Poison 1, air aligned, strong catalyst (alters the alignment of the highest attribute in the current mixture.)

“Alright, change of plans,” Lucas said, looking around at his motley team. “I’m going to go up the stairs, disarm the first guard I can find with my charming personality, and then once I’ve done that, I want Mr. fancy pants here to come up behind him and take him down with one clean stab.”

“But I don’t have a weapon,” Lord Parin said, obviously looking for an excuse not to get his hands dirty. “Why not—”

“Because if you haven’t noticed, every guard in this place is human, Kar’gandin is a little short for a stormtrooper, and Hura’gh needs a little break. So, you’re going to take his knife and stab the other guy right in the ear, okay? The spine would be okay too, but there’s less blood if—”

“I can fight!” Hura’gh said, but there was no strength in his voice.

“I know you can, buddy, but those strength potions can take a lot out of you,” Lucas lied, “so you just chill out here, catch your breath, and save your breath for when the fighting starts, alright?”

Boosting potions did have harsh comedowns when they faded, but there was no way the big guy’s strength was falling yet. That meant that as tough as he was, the poison was chewing on the man pretty hard.

Lucas hadn’t meant to kill the guy. He’d thought the poison was low enough in a foul potion that the dude would be able to take it. He probably would have if the big lug had only taken one dose rather than two, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that now.

He wasn’t going to lose any sleep over one more dead stranger in his path, he decided halfheartedly as he walked out into the night. This time, he wasn’t skulking or sneaking. He was trying his hardest to look like a man on patrol. He even picked up a torch out of a bracket before he climbed the stairs, just to make absolutely sure that no one would miss him.

He couldn’t see the Viscount following him, but he could hear the man’s footsteps as he tried not to fall too far behind. Hopefully, that rich asshole doesn’t do anything stupid, Lucas thought to himself as he stepped off on the covered parapet that lined the top of the four-story wall and looked out over the city.

He doubted the man would, though. He’d had the balls to stand up to his Lord over his sister, so he had to be a stand-up guy on some level. Most of the rich dudes that Lucas knew up until this point would sell their own mother for another eight-ball, so, by that standard, Lord Parin was a real saint.

When Lucas finally saw someone ahead on the walk, he approached him casually like he didn’t have a care in the world and held the torch in the way to blind the man.

“Quiet night, huh?” Lucas said in a deeper voice, doing his best imitation of the guard that had tossed him down the stairs earlier.

“Every night’s a quiet night on castle duty, ”the other man said absently. “You want action; you get yourself on the city watch. Plenty of heads to smash, but that’s a young man’s game.”

The guard had more than a little gray in his beard, and his breath smelled of booze, which made him pretty much the perfect candidate for what came next as far as Lucas was concerned. As the man looked out over the city through one of the large loopholes Lucas moved to join him, doing everything he could to make their mark feel at ease. They were meant to shelter a man with a crossbow in a siege, but right now, they served to do a good job of framing the medieval city that was stretched out before them.

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Lucas hadn’t been into nerd shit since he discovered girls and weed in junior high, but he’d lost plenty of afternoons getting high and watching movies with wizards, and elves duke it out while he got blazed out of his mind. Out of all the vistas he’d seen, though, this was hardly the nicest.

Up here, in the moonlight, it looked pretty enough, but he’d walked the muddy streets, and he knew that it was only height and distance that hid the smell. Being in a magical world was cool, and all until you remembered they hadn’t exactly invented indoor plumbing yet.

Still, while he listened to the older guard offering unasked advice, he realized that he was going to miss the place, however shitty it was. Down there on the streets of Lordanin, there were fifty thousand people trying to make their way in life and maybe scrape together a couple golden crowns in the process. He’d be sad to toss away all those opportunities when he skipped town.

Lucas nodded along, asking inane questions and pretending he gave a shit as he watched Lord fancy pants sneak ever closer with his knife. The man had gotten just behind him and was working up the courage to strike the killing blow when a roar split the night.

Everything changed in that moment. One second, they were about to assassinate this asshole and the next, everything was thrown into chaos.

The drunk guard whirled around, freezing both Lord Parin and his victim in shock for different reasons. The guard flinched and was about to beg for his life until he realized that his assailant lacked the nerve to commit murder while looking into the eyes of another man. Instead, he drew his sword, but Lucas was faster.

While the two of them were trying to figure out who was going to kill who and what the right and wrong of the situation was, Lucas was already drawing his sword. However, instead of plunging it into the assailant’s heart, he shoved it in the guard’s face. He’d meant to stab the man in the throat, but instead he’d just sort of brandished it there and the man had jumped back in surprise, toppling off the wall and straight down into the moat

He no longer cared about the guard or getting a disguise. The half-orc had ruined all that by roaring into the night and waking up half the castle. Lucas looked down and saw a shape that was almost certainly Hura’gh charging across the courtyard at the nearest guard. By the time he reached the man and began pummeling him with manic fury, he already had two arrows in him, but that didn’t seem to be slowing him down any.

“Mother fucker’s gone berserk,” he said to himself before turning to the noble, who was still standing there holding the knife like he was about to stab the guard that was now floating in the moat far below them. ”We gotta get the hell out of here.”

“But the gate… the guards…” Lord Parin sputtered as Lucas took away the man’s weapon before he hurt himself with it. “There’s no way we can sneak out now.”

“That ship has sailed,” Lucas agreed, unbuckling the straps of his armor as the bell in the gatehouse started to ring in alarm. “We’re going to have to jump and then swim for it now.”

“Jump?” the noble asked, paling at the very idea. “How could you possibly—”

He was cut off as a crossbow bolt buried itself in a wooden post between the two of them. “There’s more of them up there!” one of the guards yelled.

The whole castle was coming alive like an angry hornet’s nest. Torches were being lit, men were beginning to run here and there, and the battle in the courtyard between their berserk half-orc and literally anyone he could find to fight was only growing.

“Fuck arguing, we gotta go!” Lucas yelled as he pushed the noble to the same loophole he’d just thrown the guard out of a minute before. “You’re either flying or dying, man; the choice is yours!”

Lord Parin looked at him like he was crazy, but he still got up on the stone sill and prepared to jump. The man wasn’t fast enough, though, so Lucas helped him with another push and waited to make sure that the noble hit the water before he climbed up on the wall to follow.

Then, he gave the courtyard one last look and saw that Hura’gh was still standing even though he was being swarmed by the guards and muttered, “Give ‘em hell, man,” before he jumped into the night.

Lucas had just enough time to feel how crazy this was and suppress his need to yell out, “Holy shit!” before he hit the water, stunning him briefly as he began to sink toward the bottom of the murky water. For a few seconds after that, he tried to swim, but he realized that was going to be pretty much impossible until he got this armor off.

He pulled out the dwarf’s fine stiletto as he sank to the silty bottom of the watery ditch, he started cutting away at the straps of his anchor. The skirt came off immediately, but the heavy ass coat tied in the back, which meant he was left to try to squirm out of it after he cut away at the collar enough to get his head out.

It was a race against time, and he was no Houdini. So, all he could do was fight back against his rising panic. For a moment, he thought for sure he was screwed and that he should just try walking out of there along the bottom as best he could.

Lucas knew that there was no way he was walking up that muddy slope, though. Instead, he struggled harder, and moment by moment, heartbeat by heartbeat, he eventually worked himself free of his leaden straight jacket.

You can do this, man, he thought, trying to psych himself up as he pushed off the ground and toward the surface.

Lucas didn’t really believe it, though. All he believed was that there was no way he was going back to that DMV excuse for heaven so fucking soon. All he wanted right now was to breathe one last deep breath, even though he knew that decision would be fatal. Even if it was water that filled his lungs, that would still be enough to stop the terrible burning that had started there.

He resisted that terrible urge and kicked hard toward the surface. The water cleared as he rose, but with each stroke, he weakened. He went from fighting for feet to fighting for inches. Finally, only a few feet beneath the surface, he ran out of strength and while the trail of bubbles from his mouth continued on toward the surface, Lucas began to slowly sink back into the darkness.