Rothburn cursed, after all this time, after all he had done, all he had sacrificed, betrayed, and done. He was nearly done, so nearly done. He wasn’t a bad person, okay so maybe he was, but he had done it all for a reason. It would all be worth it once his great working was complete. He would repay those he had wronged several fold, or if not them then their descendants. And it had all been going so well. Years of planning had gone into ensuring that he would succeed. Contingencies on backups on alternative avenues. Making sure that the absolute minimum harm would be done. Making sure that THIS wouldn’t happen. But it had, it was happening. First those adventurers had stumbled through his plans in the Cheertop mountains, and he could forgive that, they didn’t know. Then that oaf of a Barron had been deposed by his oaf of a son, and he had lost that avenue to obtain Magicite. Those adventurers had shown up at his mines to save some lost heirloom or other and blundered through slaughtering his workers.

Of course, once they realised someone was doing something, they had to investigate, and that led them through weavarach forest, where threw the local arachnae into chaos, cutting off the trade routes for months on end. He hadn't even been doing anything nearly close to there! Even after all that, they weren’t acting against him, though it sure felt like it. That is until the king, greedy moneygrubber that he was, sent them to retrieve some ‘royal artifacts’ he had, in truth, stolen. Still, it wasn’t his fault that the royal family owned seemingly every speck of Mythril in existence. And the awful jewellery hadn’t been worn in decades, mouldering in a forgotten chest below the castle. So, he had taken them, and the do-gooding brats had followed. It had been obvious they were after him after that, they got it into their heads to stop him, and they had pursued with the single-minded obsession that only the naive could wield.

In the end he didn’t even know how they were messing up his plans, not until now. Those adventurers were scary, the sort that shouldn’t exist. The one in front, the leader it seemed, was some sort of unkillable close range fighter. His first impression was [Vanguard], a common enough class, but then there was the [Juggernaut] class that ran through it, two front line classes was rare, but impossible was that his third class seemed to be [Berserker]. Three front line classes, no one had three front line classes, it simply never happened. Even those who were raised from birth to serve a purpose, fill a role, couldn’t control the third. It was a wildcard, random, chaos. The more similar the first two classes one had were, the more disparate the third.

The others were like him too, three complimentary classes. The [Ranger] had [Archer] and [Duellist], if he wasn’t mistaken, deadly at any distance. But not unheard of. There had been another, some sort of stealth class, but he hadn’t seen them in a while, though that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Then there was the mage. It was the mage he was most wary of, and not just for his abilities. The goblins he had guarding the entrance had all gone, not a spell, just good old fashioned betrayal. The traps had been marked; false passages ignored. The mage knew all his tricks. He knew them before he got there. After all he had done, Rothburn had been betrayed to the other mage. It was almost poetic, after all the deceit he had peddled to get here.

But that wasn’t all, the mage was like his friends, three magic focussed classes. [Mage], obviously, but also a [Sorcerer], and [Warlock]? If the others made no sense for being unfairly powerful this was absurd. A cosmic joke, these three classes, all magic focused classes, were almost identical, but they each approached the same issue, magic, from a different angle. It was widely accepted that whatever prevented someone from getting three similar classes made it so a second magical class couldn’t be gained. What was worse was these weren’t his only classes. There was another, his scrying showed. A fourth. People gained classes at milestone points in their progression, level ten, twenty-five, and fifty. Beyond that there was a single other class available. Level one hundred. Most people never reached fifty, some never made it to twenty-five. Those who made it to one hundred were legends.

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It was inevitable that they would break through. Nothing he had could stop them, but he tried to slow them down. Hoping he could buy more time, enough time. He didn’t make it. They had shown up once he was committed, so he split his attention, slowing the progress in order to hold them off himself. And then the impossible, he held them off. The meathead took blast after blast, slowly advancing only to get thrown back, the archer sent arrow after arrow into his shields, but couldn’t get through, the mage stood at the back making arcane gestures, and didn’t do anything more than flashes of light. The mage tore his magic apart, yes, but he never launched an attack of his own. It was after one especially powerful attack of his that he dared change strategy, pushing all his attention into the working for a few precious moments, lowering his guard while the others were recovering. And the mage tore his wards to shreds. In a moment he was defenceless, and the shadow struck. A single blade in his side, and then they were gone. His shields raised again. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. It was a brush with failure, with death, but it was worth it. In those moments he could devote himself to one task he made more progress than he had made since the fight started. One more would drive him to the edge, a few precious seconds, a minute, and he could be done, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t do it. The next blade could, would, end him.

Perhaps heartened by his injury, seeing him bleed for the first time, the party redoubled their efforts, the lug took more hits, brought the ranger more time, she moved into melee, striking again and again at his shields, taking hits herself, splitting his attention. The shadow, revealed, joined themselves, delivering potions to the others, taunting him into attacking them which he ignored. And the mage fought as well. Tearing his shields, unravelling his spells, healing his team mates.

He had no choice, he turned his attention from the great work, holding it in place, throwing his all at the invaders, gambling on being able to make up the lapse with moments gained as they recovered. Seconds spent and lost. More wounds, perhaps, but he knew where the shadow was, he only struck when he could get all of them at once. Seconds lost for moments gained. An arrow to the knee for progressing a crucial part, a minute of pushing back the shield when it got too close the cost of using more magic than he had to spare, emptying his reserve of one resource to protect him as he found his wards failing. The shadow fell back choking as he did the same, the space between them a cloud of ash, blood flowed from a dozen wounds as the archer collapsed.

Then the unthinkable, the [Mage] behind him, through his wards, and the dagger in his side was now in his back. And as he fell, throwing away any attempt at preserving himself, turning his last moments to finishing what he has started, what he had given his life for, he saw that same mage smiling as he planted more daggers in the backs of his own teammates.