I looked behind me but saw no one and then turned to the others, their faces showed that they also heard the voice. I said "We need to leave, now. Take your recall magic tool and use it right away.". The others nodded and I quickly pulled out my own device and started to use it but was shocked when a golden wave flew through the walls and slammed into everyone, causing the magic devices to stutter and shut off.

I quickly realized what had happened. "Rooting Light Wave...shit. The damn Retributionist again... Alright plan B anyone?" I heard footsteps coming from the distance at a quick pace and used my mana sense to see where they were. There were over a dozen signatures rapidly closing on our location along with 1 massive signature. I quickly steered us the opposite direction and we booked it. The others followed and Ronia spoke up while we fled with Ray practically pissing himself.

"How long does this skill last? Do you know Zane? If not we could try climbing the wall. I know a friend who's in the city and owes me a favour." Herald was puffing as he sprinted in full gear, trying to not lag behind and spat out his next words with venom.

"That damn assassin? I thought you agreed to never talk to them! He's nothing but trouble! Last time we nearly died cause of the favour we did for him!" Herald growled the last bit out but I latched onto the idea when I remembered a skill that some assassins had. "Does your friend have the group shadow cloak spell? If so this could wor-" I was interrupted by the voice again. It spoke in that creepy voice, with a not so hidden tone of someone at a dirty bug.

"Me and my brothers shall not let you hide. Retributionist's Light Pillar!" All of us started to glow and had massive pillars of light extend into the sky. They were visible for quite a distance and went through anything above us. This wasn't good. We were blocked from escaping and we couldn't escape anytime soon.

Cornered and running I looked at Ronia and Herald. Herald gave in and screamed "FINE, we go visit your friend and escape. Now's not the time to argue I suppose." Ronia instantly turned around a corner and started sprinting, we followed along as she twisted and turned through the alleyways. The light pillars faded slowly and disappeared after 30 seconds but I heard shouting from a distance from the town guards and from some others who I assumed were the priests.

We kept booking it, making sure to take twists and turns to try and lose them but the retributionist seemed to know where we roughly were. I thought it might be the mana sense and tried to block that off in a half assed attempt while we fled. I didn't know if it worked or not but we gained some distance from the chasing group, but not before the pillars of light flew from us again. I quickly went to use dark magic but remembered its considered close to necromancers and stopped. I was biting my nails as we fled towards this assassin friend of Ronia and decided on whether I should use the dark magic or not. I was conflicted because I didn't want to be revealed as a necromancer but didn't want to die from the church either. I was still debating it when I heard Ronia shout "Look out!".

A massive arrow of light followed by dozens of smaller arrows of light fell from the sky at our pillars of light. I was struck in the arm by one of the smaller ones but we dodged the larger one. Herald pulled out his shield and raised it above him while growling out a skill. Herald's shield started to glow and the projectiles flew towards his shield instead of us. Herald stopped and dug his feet into the ground and braced for impact as we hid under the shield. There wasn't any cover besides Herald's shield nearby so we had no choice.

I heard Herald grunt as repeated impacts could be heard from the shield. When it finally seemed over I heard a sizzling sound and remembered something. My eyes widened and I screamed "The arrows will explode!" Herald's eyes widened but he instantly moved his shield away from the sky and towards where the massive arrow of light was imbedded into the ground. Right after there was a loud boom and bright light blinded us along with a searing heat.

The light faded after a few seconds and what was left was a large burnt patch on the ground where the large arrow pierced the ground, along with smaller burnt spots pock marking the area. Ronia spoke up and said "We need to go, we're almost there! The assassin I know can use dark magic and can hide us using it!"

We turned to run and heard the voice once again, calmly speaking. "Where do you think you're scurrying off to? This city is locked down. You're trapped like rats! Surrender now."

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I hated how the voice sounded like it was standing behind you, whispering into your ear. It felt like the voice messed with my head somehow but I couldn't describe the feeling. It just felt wrong somehow. The others didn't notice but Ray surprisingly did. He looked at me and had an equal look of shock when we both looked at eachother.

I shook the feeling off and we kept running and eventually got to the place Ronia was talking about. There was a shabby stone building that looked very old. We seemed to have entered the slums at some point during our escape. Herald spoke with disgust evident in his voice. "I really don't like that assassin of yours. How he knows dark magic like those damn necromancers I don't know, but he's our best shot at escaping so lets go."

We bolted over but there was a commotion nearby. I heard a person yell, Priest! Heal my son, hes dying! Please!" followed by several other people begging priests to help them. The people of the slums were very poor and wore ragged clothing and lived in worn down buildings or on the streets if they were unlucky enough. I sweat bullets as I realized just how close the priests really were. I tried my magic tool again but it sputtered and shook but turned inert once more while we entered the building. "Damn, still rooted. Oi Is there anyone there?" I turned to Ronia but didn't get to ask my question as I heard someone speak up behind me in a creepy voice say "What do we have here?".

I spun around and fired a ice shard point blank and slashed with my sword horizontally. I was readying another shard but heard the voice yell "Woah, calm down! Ronia, get your crazy friend to chill. He nearly took my damn head off with that spell."

I saw that there was an elf clad in black leather that had strange carvings on it, smiling like nothing was wrong here despite him nearly becoming headless. He also had some tattooes on his skin that looked like they were glowing with moonlight, and yet strangely didn't reveal him from the dark. They somehow made him harder to see despite the complete backwardness of that. I was still prepped with my spell but heard Ronia speak up, saying "Zane this is Ornal, a rare moon elf assassin. He's the one who knows dark magic and can help us escape the city. Right?" She then looked at him and quickly back outside as the clammering voices from the masses begging the priests were getting louder. We were running out of time. I was wondering how much mana that god damn retributionist had. He had cast several powerful spells to reveal our location multiple times via those massive light pillars and was still chugging along just fine. I was just hoping this Moon elf, Ornal could help us out. Otherwise I was going to cast aside all regrets and break out of here using dark magic and necromancy, reputation be damned!

I wasn't about to be captured by the damn church. That was practically the worst way anyone considered 'evil' could die. I shivered as I recalled some of the stuff written in the lore that was said to be done by the church. I turned back to Ornal and he looked at Ronia, this time without a smile. He heard the voices and what Ronia said, and pieced together what was happening. He looked at Ronia dead in the eyes and said "I'll help you escape the city and I won't dig into what happened, but I'll ask once more Ronia. Come home, back to the elven capital, where you belong. Not here."

He looked pleadingly at her but Ronia just grit her teeth and responded with "No, I won't head back yet. And Right now we have more pressing matters, such as the church trying to catch us for god knows why, so help us get out of here."

There was a loud bang as a golden arrow of light slammed into the building and blew up, followed by another, and then more. They caught up and we were out of time. I looked at the moon elf and said "You helping us escape or no?" I was starting to feel the weight of something pressing down on me, like I had chains wrapped around my arms, legs and my neck. It felt like I was going to to die and I wasn't in the right state of mind anymore. I was panicking and my mind was just imagining the horrible ways I was going to die.

I was unconsciously starting to leak dark mana from my body, which wasn't visible to anyone here as it was very hard to see inside the building with no lights, but Ornal seemed to have noticed the look in my eyes and the mana leaking out. He smiled after thinking for a second and then with a jovial tone said "Oh I'll make sure you escape my friend. As a good friend of Ronia, I can guarantee your freedom." He smiled started walking towards us, wielding dark mana and whispered into my ear when he got close. "You're leaking dark mana my friend. Better hide it before they notice."

I quickly snapped out of it and stopped using dark mana and turned to look at Ornal, who had ordered some people in the dark to do various things. The exploding light arrows were still pelting the building and yet it didn't crumble like I thought it would. It seemed there was more to this building than met the eyes, that included the moon elf Ornal. I glossed over most of this and just heaved a sigh of relief as I now had hope to escape the city. What I didn't notice was Ornal look towards me once more when I had turned away to speak with Ronia, nor did I see the sharp look in his eyes as he stared at me hard for a second, before turning away to get down to business at hand.