The leg deprived canyon crawler struggled and roared on the ground.

The elf span and promptly lodged her glaive into a soft spot between its eyes; I noted that, information of the weak point could be useful.

Her words had some merit, but still.. I could barely see through the raging dirt and debris, and yet shadows of blades and beasts peaked from the thick brown winds at random intervals.

"These people!" I screamed to Nazanin. "We can't just leave them chained to die!"

The elf withdrew her weapon from the monster's flesh.

"Already he regroups the men," she said. "I have freed you, but I will need your help to distract the girl."

"The girl?" I asked.

Was she talking about the small redheaded slave?

"She is mageborn," Nazanin revealed what she'd apparently learned from her time with the mercenaries. "Sorcery is best to counter sorcery."

My mind went over the options.

I heard a man's scream and a loud thudding. No doubt another mercenary had been claimed as a victim of the crawlers, somewhere in the raging sands.

How many of the monsters were there? If there were too many, we might actually need the guards on our side to beat the crawlers off.

I gritted my teeth. This was truly the worst time to escape, but also possibly the only one we'd have; I couldn't fault Nazanin for commiting to it.

Sometimes plans got in the way of action. Instinct could be a plan all its own as long as you weren't rigid in your assessing of situations.

"What magic can she use and for how long?" I asked through the storm. "How many crawlers are there?"

Her golden-amber eyes squinted. "They do not hunt in large packs. There should not be many left, they will focus on threats, not food now that some have passed from this world."

She was standing and ready to move. "The girl summons flames; I know not how well."

"They're animals? They won't run?" I asked of the crawlers.

"They're monsters," she corrected. "They will not run from blades alone."

"We must go," the elf hurried me and her eyes drifted the the body of the monster I'd strangled. "I do not know all your magics, but I will trust you to act as a warrior and not a child, as I have seen you do."

She approached the half-suffocated crawler and drove her weapon directly into the same soft spot as before.

"We go. Now," she ordered me.

Or we'd miss our chance, I realized. She'd bet on me; I understood that she had every right to expect me not to fall through on her.

"Let's go," I said. "I don't have anything long range. You lead. I'll make it harder to hit you if I have to."

She inclined her head. "We will move fast. It may be our only chance."

The elf and I charged through the sandstorm. The convoy was still not very large, though very well obscured by the raging winds. The merchant's carriage would be to the front.

Not thirty feet into the sandstorm, we watched as two guards finished off a crawler. Without mercy and before they could understand her intentions, Nazanin attacked.

The elf whirled in a pirouette of death, dragging her blade across the neck of the first enemy. The next man moved quickly to defend himself, but was caught with the momentum of her glaive's haft. The wooden end of the polearm cracked against the mercenary's cheekbone.

The fighter stumbled, too slow to recoup as his enemy impaled his unprotected lower abdomen. He crumpled and the elf finished him off quickly and without ceremony.

She hardly looked like she needed my help. Still, the guards were tired and under-leveled. The captain would be a closer match and the girl, well, she was as much his wildcard as I was Nazanin's.

"Move to cover the flanks! Get everyone in a wedge--" Captain Alister's voice broke off as he saw us approaching from out of the howling dust.

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The door to the merchant's caravan was closed. The man was nowhere to be seen. I imagined he was still hiding; I'd hardly seen him throughout the past few days of this journey regardless.

The bodies of three crawlers lay in the small gap between the lead coach and the rest of the precession. The five men that surrounded Alister were glistening with sweat and one of them, at least, was visibly wounded.

They still outnumbered us quite a bit and, by levels alone, Alister should've been a match for Nazanin.

The redheaded girl stood beside the man. Her full nameplate was now visible.

[Slave, Level 5 Sorcerer]

[HP: 19/19]

"Why do you have him with you?" the Captain called out to my ally.

We halted ourselves some thirty feet from the armed party.

Nazanin was silent.

Alister studied her. "I see."

"You weren't a woman of your word, after all." he said, "but why the boy? He has no weapon--"

A pause. A suspicion came into his eyes. The man raised his free hand.

What was he doing?

A jeweled ring flashed on his index finger.

Searing pain entered my body.

It was hard to explain what it felt like. In basic combat training, I'd been forced to inhale chemical gas to come to learn to don and trust the equipment that would protect me from it in such a situation. I felt the same helpless burning spread through my lungs, but also every single pore and bit of marrow.

My knees smashed into the sand.

[You have resisted 90% of Slave Collar's effect.]

My eyes blurred. I noticed that I wasn't taking HP damage, but the searing agony made it hard to even read the World Spirit notification. If this was only ten-percent of the intended pain, then I could only imagine that the full one-hundred would be something that would quickly train anyone to never disobey an order.

I felt a cold fury rise up in me as my body locked up in magical agony. To train a human? Who dared to think they had that right?

My vision swayed and unfocused itself. Sounds were lost to me, but I could see as a silent image of Nazanin charged in to meet our enemies.

The sandstorm was brutal and without mercy, but it didn't fully obscure the elf from the guards now that we were all so close to one another.

I reached into my will and focused every last bit of my remaining conscious mind on activating [Hellish Illusion].

[Hellish Illusion drains 5 HP.]

I felt my world rock and I barely managed to not instantly lose a hold on the spell. I felt my magics expand out from me, like a silent wave, to touch the eyes of the five guards. I purposefully left the captain out from this casting of the spell.

Black smoke filled my vision. The guards were instantly blinded by the thick and noxious-looking fog and I couldn't see into the cloud either, whereas Nazanin remained only hindered by the manageable sand that swirled all about--something she apparently seemed all too used to.

The guards presumably halted in their illusionary blindness. Some of them shouted in their alarm to each other. One or two of them even tried to coordinate verbally, but it was no use.

Nazanin cut into one and was then spinning out of the way of the smoke and his instinctive counterattack, on her way to fully cut down an ally next to him. I didn't see her finish off the others as she ducked further into my illusion.

Captain Allister moved into the fray then, but did not enter the smoke so I could, thankfully, still see him. I ended the first casting then, assuming Nazanin had already done her work--and valuing my ability to see the battlefield more than keeping the spell going.

Sure enough as the smoke cleared, there were only bodies where the five guards had stood.

I reached for another casting of [Hellish Illusion.]

My mind summoned the magics, but the sudden spiking pain of the collar caused my vision to falter just as the magics began to shape into my intended form.

[Hellish Illusion drains 5 HP.]

I grabbed at my neck and clenched the iron ring. It was all I could do to force myself to keeps my squinting eyes open enough to maintain the illusionary black smoke I'd made; the second casting of [Hellish Illusion] and the HP cost it had inflicted had been wasted, I'd already lost the spell under the stress of the magical collar.

Nazanin met Captain Allister's sword with her glaive. She deflected the weapon as it came in horizontally, but failed to force her way through it's protective bubble.

The elf parried a return strike and tried her best to spin around to catch her glaive's edge across Alister's exposed achilles. Her bicep instead caught the cutting metal of the captain's repositioning sword.

The elf didn't so much as falter under the somewhat deep injury. Her blood leaked down her previously spotless flesh, but nevertheless she finished her maneuver and managed to dig deep into her enemy's calf instead of her original target.

Alister reached up with a backhand that smacked into the face of the woman and sent her staggering back.

He raised his hand yet again. Another ring flared.

My eyes shot to the small redheaded girl. Her bejeweled collar glowed a vibrant red and her eyes too were soon filled with a spark and then a sheathing of orange flames.

The slave's hands raised up in a stiff pose and strange utterings left her small mouth. It was almost as if something else was speaking for her, but it was still her voice that left her lips.

Flames spun up from her feet and wrapped around her body and across her upturned palm.

If only I could--

[Lingering Rot has left your system.]

[You have resisted the Slave Collar's effect.]

The pain left my body completely as if it had never been there to begin with.

I sprang to my feet. I could barely believe it.

I raised my own hand and felt my powers fly from me as I cast one [Hellish Illusion] at two different targets.

I had to get in-between Nazanin and whatever the girl was doing, or rather being forced to do. If it was Personal Magic then it shouldn't affect me.

I just needed to buy myself and the elf the time for me to cross the thirty feet, but with the casting of [Hellish Illusion] active I'd have to keep an eye on my health.

I had 11 HP left. I needed to preserve my HP as much as I could. Already I could feel the vertigo spinning my mind.

My Intelligence was tracking the seconds as they ticked by. I'd have to end the spells before a minute passed or I'd almost literally cast myself to death.

My booted feet dug into the sand as I lunged forward into action towards the battle.