The following morning everyone aboard the airship gets ready for the fight ahead. They land a two-hour walk away from the Cult of Chaos’s tower, the menacing stone building standing on the horizon amidst the mountains. It’s form almost completely covered in a combination of mist and cloud, giving off an ominous feeling. Before Gwendolyn tells all of her troops the battle plan, she approaches Xander’s group.

“I have a special mission for you guys. Our intention here is to wipe out the Cult of Chaos, but we do want the Scientist alive. What I need you guys to do is sneak in while we distract them at the front. Find the Scientist and get him to safety so we can question him,” she explains.

Xander agrees instantly, “No problem. We will get the Scientist out of there, you have my word”.

“This type of thing is better for me anyway, I’m excited,” Kayde comments, specializing in stealth due to his ability to turn himself invisible.

“Whatever keeps me off the front lines,” Alcaeus notes, scared of involving himself in a full-scale battle.

“Thanks, guys. Good luck and I will see you after this is over,” Gwendolyn moves forward, kissing Xander one last time before going off to lead her men.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” Alcaeus comments, still planning on taking Gwendolyn for himself at some point.

“Shut up, you should be staying focused instead of trying to pick a fight,” Xander responds, not having the patience to deal with Alcaeus’s bullshit right now.

They head towards the tower staying distant enough to avoid detection. A disturbing feeling suddenly washes over Drakthar as he walks. Turning, he sees twelve fire like distortions chasing them.

Drakthar alerts the others to their presence, “Guys, distortions!”. He walks towards them, now regretting the decision to leave his power armor on the airship. He is immediately surrounded by five of them, but only smirks, confidently meeting the challenge head-on.

Oddly enough, the other abominations seem to be attracted to Jorge. The seven of them slowly surround the former priest while Xander and Kayde are busy, trying to support the already surrounded Drakthar.

“Jorge get out of there!” Alcaeus calls out to his friend, throwing a smoke bomb around Jorge and the distortions in a desperate bid to save him.

Drakthar, Xander, and Kayde finish off the five distortions surrounding Drakthar, causing them to vanish, as if they never existed. They look towards the smoke Alcaeus created around Jorge. Jorge does not emerge from the smoke as Alcaeus had hoped. Instead, they see the biggest fireball Jorge has ever produced appear above the smoke. It reaches its peak in the air and begins to plummet towards the smoke below it at a meteoric pace. It explodes within the mob, kicking up a torrent of dirt and thickening the existing haze.

Hearing screaming from within that could only come from Jorge, the group runs towards it, but the smoke clears before they get close. They see Jorge standing alone amidst the scorched earth, his clothes burnt, with a devious smile on his face.

“I AM GOD! I AM GWYN HIMSELF!” He then falls back and passes out.

Drakthar picks the hysterical drunk up and throws him over his shoulder. They keep their distance until they see the Silent Brotherhood approach the tower from the front.

“Let’s go now guys,” Kayde suggests upon seeing the battle begin in earnest.

“Should we leave Jorge? He could slow us down,” Drakthar suggests, partially not wanting to have to carry him and sneak around at the same time.

“No, someone could find him. We need to bring him with us,” Xander points out, not wishing for Jorge to die asleep on a battlefield.

They head towards the back of the massive circular tower. It looks like it must be at least fifteen stories tall. As they search for an entrance, Kayde notices a window that is accessible from the ground. He easily removes the glass and goes invisible to investigate. Upon entry, he sees a long, empty stone hallway with an open door in the center and a spiral staircase heading up.

“It seems clear guys,” Kayde lets the others know. They quickly slip in through the window and head up the stairs.

“I’ll head up one staircase ahead of you guys and check out what is there. Wait until I come back to move on,” Kayde advises the others so he can use his invisibility to their advantage.

For the first six floors, Kayde finds nothing but empty rooms. They appear to be bedrooms, each with a row of cots and dressers on the opposite wall; likely the lodgings of the Cult of Chaos soldiers that are fighting outside.

On the seventh floor, Kayde notes two guards standing in front of a door across the way. Before he alerts the others, he checks the entire floor to see if there are other rooms being guarded but notices nothing.

Kayde returns down a flight of stairs and fills the others in, “There are two guards standing outside a door on the next floor”.

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“Xander, let’s go with the same plan we did back in the sewers, you switch one of the guards so that he’s in front of Drakthar, and I’ll take out the other one while I am invisible,” Kayde suggests how to handle the guards.

They slowly creep up the steps waiting for Kayde to make his move and take out the first guard. As soon as Xander sees the guard start to go down he switches the other guard into Drakthar’s arms. Without a second to react or even realize what is happening, the guard’s neck is snapped.

Kayde remains invisible and slowly opens the door, half expecting to find the Scientist behind it. Unfortunately, he does not see what he hoped. Inside is simply a priest sitting at a desk in the far side of the room. He opens the door wide enough for the others to see inside. They all slowly creep up on the priest his back turned.

Kayde and Alcaeus restrain him and cover his mouth so he can’t scream. Alcaeus feels teeth slowly sink into his hand as the priest bites down.

“What the fuck?” Alcaeus pulls his hand away for a second.

The priest asks furiously, “Do you all know who I am? You will be hunted and killed for this!”

“So you’re saying you’re someone important,” Alcaeus seems proud of himself.

“Of course you low class buffoon,” the priest insults his obvious assertion. Alcaeus has Jean the Blacksmith flashbacks and slaps the priest across the face.

Kayde uses this outburst from Alcaeus as a way to intimidate the priest, “You tell us what we want to know”.

“And why would I do that?” The priest smugly responds.

Xander tries to use common ground to make the priest feel more at ease with them, “Maybe we want to help you take down the Sacrosanct Empire”.

The priest is impressed by their response, “That is interesting. Alright, I’ll bite, what is it you want to know?”

“Yeah, I bet you will,” Alcaeus comments under his breath, rubbing the teeth marks on his hands.

“We want to know where the Scientist is,” Kayde eagerly explains, desperately wanting to know that information.

“I know where he is, but I am not going to tell you,” the priest smirks at them.

“This is a waste of time, we aren’t going to get anything out of him. We need to keep searching for him ourselves,” Drakthar can tell the priest is playing games with them. Kayde gags the priest, who tries to talk them out of it, but is silenced anyway.

Alcaeus drags the priest along. Unfortunately for the priest, he can’t carry him like Drakthar is carrying Jorge so it’s a bumpy ride. This doesn’t last for long because Jorge finally comes to his senses.

“Aye, lads where are we?” He asks, thinking they were in the mountains.

“We are inside the Cult of Chaos’s tower Jorge,” Xander informs him. Drakthar puts him down and picks up the priest.

They continue on for four more floors.

“Don’t you guys think it’s weird that we haven’t encountered anyone on the stairs? Like, shouldn’t people be moving around during the middle of a battle?” Alcaeus explains the question that has been nagging him.

The priest mumbles something through the gag. It is barely intelligible, “This isn’t the main stairwell. There is one in the front that you need to go through to get to this one”.

“Oh that makes sense,” Alcaeus isn’t worried anymore, having understood the mumblings of the priest.

They search every floor on their way up to the top. Every single one of them is empty. The stairs eventually lead up to a door on the roof. They step out onto it, harsh winds buffeting them as they try to get their bearings.

On the roof is an airship. They see the Scientist board it, but that isn’t what catches their eye. With him and a bunch of soldiers is an imposing man who seems to be surrounded by distorted fire, the same kind of fire that the distortion creatures are made of.

The airship starts to take off once they see the people who have just arrived on the roof. Surprisingly, they do not close the bay doors; instead, the human-like distortion raises a hand starting to channel something.

The priest wiggles around in Drakthar’s arms, frantically trying to break free. Drakthar rips the gag off him, “what?”

“We need to leave here now. We will all die if we don’t run,” the priest explains, his eyes displaying the deepest fear any of them have ever seen.

“Slow down what is going on?” Xander asks him, not sure if this is a trick.

“He is summoning the monster. We can’t…” the priest stops talking, his eyes locking onto the monster he just mentioned. A creature with one large eye, surrounded by twelve long arms emerges from a portal above them. It begins to descend upon the battlefield, it’s a menacing black body, surrounded by distorted fire threatening to turn the battle in their favor no matter how many Silent Brotherhood soldiers are fighting below.

In front of them, a smaller portal appears.

“We have to go through that right now,” the priest points at the portal in despair.

Alcaeus having seen the fear in the man’s eyes suggests, “I say we trust the man. It doesn’t look like this is the type of thing we can fight”.

Kayde looks the monster directly in the eye and agrees, “I think we should listen to him too. He has a better idea of what is going on. It’s probably a good idea to retreat for now”.

“Whatever keeps me alive and with access to alcohol and ladies,” Jorge doesn’t have to be told twice not to fight.

Drakthar looks over and sees how uncertain Xander is right now.

“It looks like everyone wants to go through and I agree with them, what do you want to do friend?” Drakthar gives him the courtesy of asking even though he is outnumbered.

Xander doesn’t hear Drakthar; he hasn’t been listening since the priest told them to go through the portal. He gets out of his own head and rushes towards the edge of the tower. He looks down and sees the battlefield below. He scans it frantically trying to find Gwendolyn. He looks and looks, but never sees her.

“Xander you need to make a decision now!” Drakthar calls out to him.

Xander screams back, “I cannot leave without her!” He continues looking for her long blonde hair amidst the fighting.

Xander feels his body restrained, Drakthar has grabbed him from behind.

“Stop! What are you doing!” Xander desperately tries to break free wanting every second left to be spent trying to find Gwendolyn. Tears start to flow down his face as he watches Kayde, Alcaeus and Jorge enter the portal with the priest.

“I’m sorry… friend,” Drakthar tells him as he forces both of them through the portal as well.