"I mean how could anyone have seen this coming?!" Wailed a woman, as she was comforted by her husband. "He seemed really nice when I met him at that bar!"

Josef - watching this - looked about ready to pop a blood vessel. It had been several hours since the passengers had been made aware of their impending status as hostages, and most of them were still in a state of shock or disbelief.

There were several that weren't afraid. Chiros - the venerable swordsman - was walking around, attempting to comfort the tourists where he could. Unfortunately Ellian was undoing his hard work by laughing, and calling them idiots for falling for such an obvious trap.

Avakian sighed, ignoring the palpable irony. This was a side to life he hadn't yet had to deal with in Aemonsford, the cruelty of his fellow man.

It almost seemed worse than the beast he was forced to fight back in the forests of the 74th Fold. At least the critter didn't know what it was doing was wrong. The green-skinned man and his companions clearly knew what they were doing was wrong, but pursued it anyway for selfish gain.

Chiros agreed with him, and had to be dissuaded from breaking out and killing those that had been responsible for their lockup. Avakian and Ellian had argued that if they broke out now, they would be stuck in the middle of a desert with no idea what direction to travel in, with a truck they had no idea how to drive.

He could tell that Chiros was discontent, the young man worshipped justice, and it rankled him to let even the smallest crimes go unpunished. Avakian figured their kidnappers were in for a very poor reception when they arrived in Marisia.

Eventually the 'passengers' could feel a shift in the terrain. The truck was travelling along tarmac or packed earth instead of the loose sand of the desert.

The revs of the engine quietened, the truck going at a slower pace. Avakian assumed that meant they had arrived at the city.

Sure enough, after twenty minutes of slow driving, the vehicle stopped. Avakian could hear the sounds of work taking place, orders being shouted and the beeping of heavy equipment.

"What's the plan?" Avakian asked apprehensively.

"Do we need one?" Ellian waved her hand. "Let's just gank 'em and get out."

Chiros glared at her. "Yes, we do. If we screw up it may cost us lives. I doubt any of these heathens could put me down, but one stray bullet could kill any of the other travellers."

"Alright, alright, I was mostly joking. We can do it your way." She rolled her eyes.

"Good. Here's the plan."

---

Fifteen minutes later, there still had been no-one to come and open their truck. Avakian was beginning to get sceptical about Chiros' scheme. Their plan was shockingly simple, and truthfully was not much more complicated than what Ellian had suggested in the first place.

A philosophical principle floated to the forefront of Avakian's mind; Occam's razor. Cited in Latin as 'Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem' or 'Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity'. In layman's terms it was 'keep it simple, jackass'.

He started to hear footsteps approaching the vehicle. Multiple pairs. He kept his eyes focused on Chiros, who was completely motionless, hand raised and open. Avakian's part in the plan was simple, he would wait until Chiros gave the signal, then run the biggest current he could manage through the corrugated metal door.

A bead of sweat rolled down his face, dripping off his nose and sizzling on the superheated metal floor. The unknown assailant had started to take the locks off the back of the truck; they could feel him undoing latches through the reverberating steel.

Throughout all this Chiros didn't move an inch, still with his hand raised and open. Suddenly a screeching of steel on steel sounded out, the last latch had been undone.

Chiros closed his hand.

Avakian - both his hands on the steel handle of the door - released the lightning. He expected screams or yells as he electrocuted the door, but all he heard was the soft wumph of flesh hitting concrete.

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And then things really kicked off.

Chiros front kicked one of the double-doors, shocking the passengers with light. The view outside of the truck was that of a warehouse, filled with about thirty workers. Fortunately most of them looked unarmed and unarmoured, and none looked particularly enthused with the prospect of fighting a pissed off spell-knight.

Avakian grabbed the unconscious man's firearm - some kind of repeating sidearm - and chucked it back to Josef. When he turned around to find Chiros, he was gone, already in the midst of combat.

"Ellian!" He yelled. "Let's go."

Avakian and Ellian left the truck, Josef behind them. They exited to find the warehouse in absolute shambles. Most of the employees had fled in terror, the few who remained were wearing the same clothes as their captor; quasi-military attire, and carrying rifles. They were in a group and seemed to be looking around frantically, pointing their guns in random directions.

"STICK TOGETHER, SHOOT IT WHEN YOU SEE IT!" One gunman yelled.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING, CHIEF!?" Another screamed.

Chiros had done his job impeccably, their captors were looking everywhere around the warehouse for him. Everywhere except at Avakian and Ellian.

Ellian started casting; bits of rubble and detritus started flying at the group. None of it was particularly lethal, but the speed at which the projectiles were moving battered the group off their feet.

Only one of the gunmen seemed conscious, a woman who started firing her rifle from a prone position as soon as she was knocked down.

Avakian and Josef flinched and ducked at the barrage. Ellian didn't. Whenever bullets got within a few feet of any of them, they were slowed down and pushed into the concrete below, skidding away harmlessly.

After several seconds of firing the woman either gave up or ran out of ammo. She clumsily got to her feet, drawing a large kukri - a cross between a knife and a club.

"Seriously not a good idea, love." Ellian drawled. The other woman snarled in anger.

"Do you have any idea what you've ruined?!"

"Nope. I'm guessing some kinda sketchy drug-ring? Terrorist supplies? Illegal Void-weapons? Not really my problem, we just needed a cheap lift." Ellian snarked.

"You.. You.." The woman spluttered. "You ruined years of government planning for a free ride?"

This gave Ellian pause. "Wait, what."

Behind her Josef facepalmed. "Well, this just became a hell of a lot more complicated."

"With the funds we raised here we could've changed the entirety of Marisia! We could've changed the entire 73rd Fold!" She ranted.

"What do we do now?" Avakian hissed to Ellian.

"I don't know, this wasn't my idea!" She hissed back.

"It was! It quite literally was your idea, Ellian!" Accused Josef, still justifiably upset about the entire situation.

"This money could've changed lives! Good Marisian lives! We would've ridded the country of democracy, and made Aruzas our Monarch Supreme. We could've finally cleansed the 73rd from inferior ethnic groups, and brought--"

Her last sentence was cut off by a folding chair hitting her at 100mph.

Finally, silence reigned the warehouse. Ellian still had her arm outstretched from casting the last spell.

"Are.. You guys thinking what I'm thinking." Ellian asked, voice thick with disbelief.

"That we accidentally halted a coup that might've plunged the country into a totalitarian dictatorship?" Avakian confirmed. "Yes. I think so."

"Damn." She whistled. "Am I a badass or what!"

Chiros appeared, leaping down from a steel crate with the grace of a panther. "Stay alert. We still have a job to finish."

---

As they walked around the facility, Avakian started to realise what they were attempting to manufacture here. In the warehouse there were multiple conveyor belts, on each of the belts were pieces of stacks of different materials, each engraved with a glyph.

These glyphs weren't like Ellian's beautiful looping forms, or even Samuel's more boring calligraphy. They were..

Disgusting.

Every time he looked at the glyphs an intense feeling of wrongness emanated from somewhere inside of him. The something inside of him felt like a regal prince looking down upon dung-covered peasants.

"Hey Ellian, check these out." He called to the young witch, figuring she could help figure out why he felt this way.

She walked over, and snorted when she saw the glyphs.

"Wow, these are spectacularly shit. These simpletons must've gotten random prisoners to draw glyphs for them. If I had to guess I would say half of them won't work, and the other half will work, but with an incredibly diminished efficiency." She shook her head. "If these guys were twice as clever, they'd still be halfwits."

He continued searching for valuables to loot. Each of the unconscious men had rifles, but he didn't really need one, and Josef had told him not to try and sell anything they found here.

"I found something!" Chiros called out, the other three came clamouring over.

Clasped between the young man's hands was an orb bigger than his head. As Avakian drew closer he realised what the orb was.

It was a Void crystal, the biggest one he'd ever seen.