Burning a city block hadn’t been part of the plan.

Burning anything usually wasn’t part of the plan. What was she? Some fireball crazed wizard?

It had made a mess of things.

That was an understatement. And what was “it” in this situation? Her? The Golden Bulls? The fire?

Nobody liked taking responsibility for mistakes. Even in her own mind, Potilia didn’t want to admit she had fucked up.

Magna Regum had sent a squad of high level heroes to investigate. They had obviously already found Yasuari’s body in the alley and were now on alert. Something suspicious was going on.

Luckily, Potilia was great at blending in if nobody looked at her. Calm and collected weren’t words often used to describe any part of her life.

Magna Regum’s attention meant Caspius’s attention, and that would only complicate taking out the last spies.

Golden Bulls - dead.

Security Regime - dead.

Unity Force - Currently talking to Magna Regum.

Three Heads - Unknown and/or alive. Did they even send a spy? Did they care?

Sylmare and Void Nexus - very alive and probably hunting for Potilia.

Caspius and Magna Regum - annoying and awful, and probably watching her at the moment.

She looked entirely less calm and collected as she sat on a bench and whipped her head about, searching for the smug face of Caspius.

Natholdros Ozzoad was an old man. Old enough to be considered old, but not Chorsay levels of old. Natholdros was also a wizard employed by the Unity Force of Izylia. The same Unity Force that desperately wanted to kill Owin to contain the “mob that escaped the Great Forest” as if Owin was somehow their responsibility and not Ruvaine’s.

Even if they were somehow to blame for Owin . . . how could they be? And who cared?

Natholdros was old enough to say that he had lived a ‘good life’ or something. She was going to smash his skull in. The old wizard had been on missions near Potilia before, but he had never been one of her targets. Sylmare had brought him near death once to send a message. It looked like he had recovered fine from that beating.

Natholdros glanced at Potilia under his overly bushy, unkempt eyebrows. What made old people grow such wild eyebrows? Was it all old people? Would she one day have crazy eyebrows?

Calm and collected.

Natholdros slowly walked over. He wore a robe that was oddly short, showing his scrawny, bare legs from the knee down. His sandals were weathered and dragged as he approached.

“Potilia Ennia,” he said.

“Don’t act like you know me. I saw you use Examine.” She leaned back on the bench with the kanabo resting on her lap. Did he know who she was?

“Magna Regum heroes are running all through the city looking for a criminal.”

Potilia nodded. “Something to do with that fire?”

Dark smoke still hung in the sky above the tenements. It really did spread much farther than she had anticipated.

“Something like that.” Natholdros had a wand attached to the inside of his sleeve. The tip poked out near his wrist with each little arm movement. He had no other visible weapons, but that wasn’t uncommon for wizards.

“Crazy,” she said a little too loud.

“Indeed.”

The old man was slow, making it more and more difficult to see how he would possibly prove to be an effective spy. Maybe he just stood around idly all day and observed. Every other spy tried to blend in or to use some abilities or spells to make their spying easier. What would a wiz—

Where was his familiar?

Potilia wanted to smack herself in the face. Natholdros wasn’t the spy. He was a decoy. Killing the familiar would only be temporary if Natholdros lived, but did she want to be responsible for sending a familiar to a home? Or would she need to kill the familiar too?

It was too much.

She would need to observe longer, but her time was more than gone. Sylmare could make a move at any moment.

Caspius or Sylmare could ruin her whole mission. Just another couple of hours. If she could find the familiar, she could stop the Unity Force.

***

A beautiful brick building sat at the base of the seamount following its curve. The door leading inside was on a curved wall and upon opening it, a cetanthro threw a grenade. There was no hesitation from the mobs.

There was plenty of hesitation as the grenade smacked Shade in the face. It didn’t explode on contact, giving the skeleton time to catch it and hold it awkwardly up to his face. “Some grenades are on a timer. Do you think—”

Owin, Myrsvai, and Suta had all jumped to the side as soon as the cetanthro had thrown the grenade.

Owin pressed his face into the rocky ground and felt the explosion pass through the water. Without armor, he may have felt some type of pain, but with armor on, he was untouched.

Upon sitting up, Owin spotted the cloud of gray dust that had once been Shade.

Suta pulled Myrsvai away as an Abyssal Blast flew from the magus’s staff. Owin sprinted in through the doorway and drove the lich bone knife into the head of the injured grenadier fish. Myrsvai’s attack had taken part of its face off, but at the higher level, things weren’t just dying in a single hit.

Another cetanthro watched from the other side of the room. Before it could grab a grenade, Owin was tearing through its head.

“Owin!” Myrsvai shouted.

His eyes widened. Had that explosion done real damage? Owin sprinted back outside and grabbed Suta by the shoulders. “Is he okay?”

“Who?” Myrsvai asked.

Owin shook Suta. “Are you hurt?”

Suta shook his head quickly.

“Why are you yelling for me? I thought Suta was hurt.”

“If he was hurt, I would simply send him away to let him regenerate, as you did with Shade.” Myrsvai nodded toward the cloud of gray dust.

“I didn’t unsummon him, actually. I didn’t think I had to if there was nothing left.”

Myrsvai got close enough to move his staff through the dust. “Perhaps you’re correct, though this may be a situation in which we need to test to verify.”

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Summon the Withered Shade

The skeleton appeared directly beside Owin. He wobbled once, then let himself fall back. “How many times have I died since you first summoned me?”

“A few.” Owin pointed. “See?”

“I do see. Welcome back, Shade.”

The skeleton raised a brow, making one eye socket bigger than the other. “Are you admiring my mortal remains?”

Suta offered a hand and pulled Shade back to his feet. Even with the size difference, Suta was strong enough to yank the skeleton off the ground.

“You aren’t mortal, Shade,” Myrsvai said.

“While you aren’t wrong, I am right. ‘Immortal remains’ doesn’t have the same ring to it. So . . . that’s the end of the argument, I suppose.” The skeleton peeked his head back in the building. “I see those bomb loving fish are dead.”

“There will be more.” Owin looked to the top of the mount where there were definitely fish spying on them.

“What I find fascinating is the design of this floor. Look at this,” Myrsvai said, pointing with his staff.

Owin followed the gesture and noticed the boundary wall above the building. By stepping through the front door, he was passing underneath a section of the boundary. From where they stood, the outer boundary was also visible. Going through the building was the only option to progress.

“I didn’t know there could be walls other than the one all the way around the floor.” He wanted to go touch it. Not that touching it would do much. He had poked boundary walls before and nothing happened. He just couldn't pass through.

“These are placed in a way to suggest there is something special or necessary about this building. A boss of some kind, perhaps. There are open floors like this in many of the towers, and most of those that I have seen don’t have boundaries guiding us like this.” Myrsvai stared quietly for another minute.

Shade waved his hands through the dust cloud that acted as his remains.

“Is it weird?” Owin asked.

“Reappearing in my box after catching a grenade? I cannot say I’m surprised. How many directions could that have gone? Two? No. Just the one. Boom. Gone. Dead. Vanished from this plane of existence.” Shade made a noise like an explosion and swung his arms around wildly.

“You didn’t vanish.” Owin pointed at the gray cloud.

“Ha. So funny. Look at the skeleton who is now just dust. Isn’t it funny that he experienced incredible pain and was brutally murdered?”

“You don’t feel pain.”

Shade sighed. “Yeah. I’m aware.” He tried to pinch himself, but his skeletal fingers just scraped on his arm bone. “Existence is a horror and we’re all going to suffer for eternity.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling so happy,” Myrsvai said. “How should we approach this building?”

Owin looked back through the door. It was narrow and curved, so even if there was a long room, attacking any mobs from a range would be difficult. Myrsvai was far from slow, but his attacks required time and range.

“I should lead. Suta can stay close to me to help when there’s more than one cetanthro. If anything gets past me, you can hit it with a spell.” Owin adjusted his grip on the lich bone knife. The Incandescent Blade would be too big and unwieldy in a small space. The classic jump and stab technique would be the most helpful when rushing from room to room.

“Shade, stay behind me so I don’t accidentally hit you with any magic.” Myrsvai used his staff to help push the skeleton into the back of the line they had formed outside the doorway.

Another distant explosion passed through the water.

“That sounded like it was likely from the same place as before,” Myrsvai said, looking past the boundary wall and into the distance.

Nobody had paid much attention to the explosion before. Owin had been wondering if he was imagining things. “Other heroes?”

“Likely, yes. We spent a long time in the cathkabel fortress. There is no way to tell who may have passed in that time. It could be the Void Nexus heroes or it could be someone who showed up after we entered. The only thing I am certain of, is that whoever is ahead of us is not Vondaire.”

“He’s probably already done,” Owin said.

Myrsvai nodded slowly. “It’s possible. He doesn’t seem like the type to find secrets or spend time looting. His focus was entirely on acquiring his first shard.”

Owin took a step inside the building. “Then we should try to hurry. The people ahead of us might need help.”

“What if enemies?” Suta asked.

“Like Siora and Nikoletta?”

Suta nodded.

“I’ll handle it.” Owin strode through the room with the dead grenadiers and kicked open the next door.

Itajara brutes, the same kind as the third floor, sat in chairs facing the wall. On a little table, some herengo danced. The only other time Owin could remember seeing a herengo was in Miya’s lab where she burned a dead fish. Herengo were barely the size of Owin’s knife. Were they even considered real mobs?

In hindsight, kicking the door open was a bad idea. Being a goblin darkblade meant sneaking and hiding. After all, he had spent most of his life hiding in the shadowy recesses of a cave, jumping out only to stab. When did he decide that it was a good idea to make so much noise? Did he ever really sneak?

Itajara brutes stood and charged immediately, forcing Owin to dive to the side. With such a narrow room, diving only brought him into the wall. The brute was tall enough that only his hip caught Owin, causing him to hit the wall a second time and bounce back into the fish’s leg.

Suta had a similar problem on the opposite side.

Magenta light flashed in rapid succession as an Abyssal Barrage ripped through the brute pummeling Owin. As soon as it lulled, he slipped between its legs, leapt and stabbed the lich bone into the top of the other itajara’s head. With both hands, he tore through the skull. Before he could leap again, the first brute swiped its finned hand, catching Owin’s whole body. He flipped through the room and crashed against the table with the herengo.

0 Experience

0 Experience

“Sorry,” he whispered.

As the itajara brute attacking Suta fell limp, the familiar jumped through the floating viscera and clung to the other cetanthro, punching over and over until the brute collapsed.

Owin brushed the herengo remains from his bottom and checked the room for loot.

Nothing worthwhile.

“Are you hurt?” Myrsvai asked, looking between Suta and Owin.

Owin shrugged. He had taken a few points of damage, though nothing concerning. The armor had dampened all hits.

Suta looked at Owin and mimicked his shrug.

“I can tell you took damage,” Myrsvai said. “Do you need to heal?”

Suta shook his head.

“If you get injured and need to rest, I won’t be asking. I’ll make you go away.”

Suta nodded quickly.

“Try opening the next door quietly,” Shade said as he entered the room. “Or do you need me to do it?”

“You’ll get in the way.”

“That’s my name!” The skeleton walked right up and opened the door.

“You don’t know your name.” Owin pushed him aside as two cetanthro watched.

Both mobs were sitting at a short table. The middle of the room had a calm fountain that somehow ran underwater. Each fish had a mug with a steaming drink inside.

Owin grinned. “Katalin would love this.”

One cetanthro was a grenadier, the other was a phyraena with a long, pointed face. They didn’t move quickly as the door opened. Instead, they each reached for nearby weapons and kept watching.

“At least this room isn’t curved.” Myrsvai sent an Abyssal Blast over Owin’s head, striking the grenadier in the face as it reached for the nearby explosive.

Owin sprinted and chopped with the knife, cutting off the fish’s hand before it could get its grenade. The phyraena grabbed a sword and swung from overhead. Owin rolled to the side, using his pauldron to let the sword slide off. Suta used the opening, striking the fish right in the face.

The phyraena staggered. Before it could recover, Myrsvai’s staff smashed against its throat, tossing the fish into the fountain.

Meanwhile, Owin swung back around, jamming the lich bone through the grenadier’s eye. The fish somehow survived until Owin tore the knife out.

Shade walked in and grabbed a grenade from a small pile beside the grenadier’s corpse. “What are the chances I’m an alchemist?”

Suta finished killing the phyraena in the fountain, then sat where the fish had been. He picked up the mug and tried to drink it, but as expected, the steaming liquid just poured into the water and spread out in a dark cloud.

“You’re probably not an alchemist. Even if you are, do you know how to use their spells?” Owin asked.

“If I say yes, are you going to believe me?”

“No.”

Shade gathered the rest of the grenades and held them cradled in his arms. A few rolled oddly along his ribs. The skeleton made an odd noise, then tried putting a grenade inside his ribcage. After a few adjustments, he balanced them atop one arm with his ribcage full of incredibly dangerous grenades.

“Look at me,” he said.

“Please get away from me.” Owin pushed the grenadier’s corpse. It dropped an empty glass bottle, which he slipped into his bag.

Suta grabbed the phyraena’s corpse from the fountain and shook it violently. Some coins fell out.

Myrsvai sighed. “How does he manage to do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s like me finding all the armor pieces.” Owin tried to shake the grenadier’s body, but all he did was throw viscera onto Shade, who stood perfectly still.

“That seemed unnecessary.” The skeleton used his free hand to wipe fish entrails from his face. “Do you feel better now?”

“I didn’t feel bad, but . . .” Owin shrugged. “I feel better than I did before shaking it.”

“Great.” Shade waddled across the room, keeping the grenades balanced inside his ribs. He cracked the next door open and stuck his head inside. “Oh, a boss. Oh! A—”

Something bright flashed inside. Before Shade could back away, something struck the skeleton. Magenta flames immediately engulfed Suta, causing the familiar to vanish.

Owin only had the thought of covering his face by bringing both gauntlets together as every grenade within Shade’s ribs exploded.