The concussion wave of a massive blast was both felt and heard, even from our position. Which should not have been possible. At most, we should have heard a small popping sound and not felt anything. Something had gone sideways in a big way. I looked at my combat messages, there were five new entries.

Geomancer takes 715 damage

Scout/Sniper takes 670 damage

Fencer takes 278 damage

Guardian takes 256 damage

Void Stalker takes 255 damage

Oh hell, that was a lot more damage than should have been possible. I popped my head out of the building to see the destruction. A crater a good ten feet across dominated the area, along with three mostly intact bodies. There was no sign of the other two. What worried me most was the large plume of smoke that now dominated the area.

"Ok we need to move, now," I said, rushing from the building and heading away from the area. At this point, it didn't matter where we headed, as long as it wasn't here.

We must have covered three miles before we stopped. Along the way, we had to avoid three groups of Black Dragons that were rushing towards the explosion site. These were much larger groups of between ten and fifteen people. Mostly, slaves, I noticed sourly.

"They must be response units," I whispered to Fiona, who nodded in reply.

We waited a few minutes after the last group ran out of sight. Before stepping out to continue towards our first destination. The Army's headquarters, where we spoke with Sergeant Cunningham. I hoped the place was still standing. It was obvious as we got closer that the smoke we spotted earlier had indeed come from their compound. I knew from the frequent sounds of gunfire in the distance that the city had at least a few holdouts.

It took us another ten minutes and one more fight with a small patrol of three low-level Black Dragon members to reach the HQ. Bodies littered the street, a cursory glance showed they were mostly slaves, with a few Black Dragon members and soldiers mixed in.

"Oh god, there must be over a hundred dead," Fiona said, shocked.

Seeing this many dead innocents shocked me as well. The poor unwilling pawns had been force-fed into a grinder. I had a feeling the main checkpoint would have looked similar. The Black Dragons didn't care about individual lives, these people were resources in their goals. Whatever those goals may be. I doubt they even cared much about the members that fell here. The bodies left to rot along with the slaves.

Looking around, the area was clear and quiet. The front gate had been blasted aside, not that I was all that surprised. Wisps of smoke still curling over the wall from what I could only assume had been the armory, a now smoking crater. It was possible something survived, I wasn't about to try to dig through that mess. Especially with hostiles all over the area.

"Come on, we need to go see if there are any survivors," I said, waving Fiona to follow.

I kept looking left and right as we neared the main gate. Expecting an army of Black Dragons to pour out from every corner to attack us. Nothing came out to meet us as we passed through the dead, making sure to avoid stepping on the bodies as much as possible. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. The pervasive stench of iron and viscera clinging to the inside of my nostrils. My shoes making sucking sounds as I stepped through the congealing blood, impossible to avoid as we got closer to the gate.

I peered through the torn opening, seeing more bodies on the other side. It looked like most were soldiers, but there was a scattering of slaves and a few more Black Dragon members.

"At least they put up a fight. I wonder why the bodies were left?"

From what I could tell all the Black Dragon bodies still had their gear. I could even see a few rings but we didn't have time to search the bodies. We needed to see if anyone was left alive, to that end we made our way to the Sergeants command building. The simple house still stood but it had seen better days. I could see the doors had been smashed open but no bodies were littered out front. Stepping inside revealed the place to be a mess but again no bodies, not even any signs of blood.

"Hmm, looks like they may have survived the attack and were able to flee."

"I think you may be ri-," Fiona was saying before a creak sounded down the hall.

We both went deadly silent, waiting to see if the noise returned. After a few seconds, we heard it again and I motioned Fiona to take the lead. She was much lighter on her feet than I was.

We slowly made our way down the hallway. Trying to remain as quiet as possible. The noises continued, appearing to come from the last room on the left. If I recalled correctly this was the Cunningham's office The door was slightly open and I could hear the soft rustling of papers and the squeak of desk drawers opening. It sounded like someone was looking for something.

We each covered one side of the door. I remembered this room not having a window. So that meant they had to come out eventually.

I heard a whispered voice, "It's not here, could they have taken it?"

"I don't know but we need to leave before they come back or a patrol comes through."

"Fine, fine," the last voice said as he opened the door.

I grabbed the startled man as he let out a surprised squeak, pushing him up against the wall. Fiona ran into the room and secured the second individual. I could see my man was wearing standard-issue Army attire but that didn't mean much, it could have easily been stolen.

"Who are you," I said in an angry hiss. Checking him with Identify, making sure to enable his name.

Corporal Fred Jenkins | Intelligence Officer | Level 6

I saw the man glance at my arms and neck likely looking for the signature armband or collar. I could see him relax a little seeing that I had neither.

"Corporal Jenkins... Wait... I remember you, you and your partner came in here to speak with the Sergeant. Look we need to return to the fallback point before we are captured."

Fiona dragged the other soldier out and I checked him as well.

Specialist Harold Wellman | Scout | Level 6

I released the Corporal and he brushed himself off while looking at us both.

"Were you in town when the attack hit?"

"No, we saw the smoke and managed to make our way through the blockade."

"Was that explosion your doing? If so you did us a big favor, it pulled most of the local patrols and we were able to come out of hiding. Unfortunately, we don't have the fallback coordinates as they should have been here," he said, pointing to the room.

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"Wait you don' know where the rest of your force went?"

"Not exactly..., we had four possible locations, I know each one, but it's too dangerous to search them all with this many enemy forces scattered about. Also, it's possible the enemy already has all the locations."

"Well the way I see it you have a few choices. You can follow us, you can go on your own, or you can follow the gunfire to see if you can locate some more friendlies."

"And what are your plans?" the Corporal asked.

"Easy, try to save as many civilians as possible while also hampering any efforts of the Black Dragons."

"I guess that makes our choice easy enough. We will come with you. Although, neither of us has a weapon and our skills aren't really combat-focused."

I remembered I had the pistol so I took it out and handed it the Corporal.

He shook his head, "Give it to Specialist Wellman here, he is a much better shot. If we find more I'll take the next one."

On our way out from the compound, we checked a few of the bodies. I removed any storage rings from the Black Dragons we came across stuffing them into my boots to look through later. We did manage to find another pistol and M16 rifle along with a few magazines of ammo. The Corporal took the pistol and now the Specialist had two weapons. Well, three if you included the maces I gave to each of them.

The Scout actually came in quite handy on our trip. He could sense hostiles within a certain range, allowing us to avoid a few patrols and letting us know it was clear. I checked anyway just to be extra cautious. Trust but verify.

"Ok where to?" I asked our guides.

"Well, the first place they could have gone was to link up with the Matron and her people."

I grumbled at that thought. I didn't really want to interact with the cantankerous old crone again. I was also starting to suspect that she had an ability that allowed her to leach experience due to her high level. The only other explanation was that she was an outsider like Fiona. She sounded normal but who was to say she didn't have some weird skill that allowed her to mimic speech patterns. I also felt like this mess was partially her doing. If she hadn't hired Fiona and me to stir up trouble with the Black Dragon, maybe they would have held off the assault longer. Then again maybe they would have attacked sooner. Too late to change the past.

"Fine we can head that way, but I suggest we steer clear of the Bazaar, I suspect that securing that building was the Black Dragons true goal here."

Everyone nodded at that and we moved off towards the last known location of the Matron, her impromptu market.

As we were transitioning across an intersection Specialist Wellman was struck by an arrow through his leg. The man went down, screaming in pain. I looked up the street to see a group of eight running towards us. Apparently, they were well outside of the Scouts detection range or they had some ability to mask their presence.

Fiona used her impressive sword skills to bat away the next arrow as I grabbed the injured man. lifting him onto my shoulder. We bolted across the intersection, Fiona holding off the incoming projectiles. Once we got into cover I could remove the arrow and heal him. Another arrow whizzed by my head and I ran harder.

As I cleared the intersection I set the man down, none too gently.

"Sorry, but this is going to hurt."

"Wai-," he began to say as I snapped the arrow in two and pulled it out. He let out a scream but I quickly cast Rejuvenate on him, the wound healing over in a few seconds.

"We're going to have to fight," I said to the group.

I could see both soldiers nod, they already had their guns out. I pulled my old staff out, it was time to try something and if it backfired I didn't want to damage my good staff.

Fiona gave me a curious look but otherwise remained silent. Luckily the group had been buffed by me as we set out and I didn't need to refresh any of them soon.

I was about to cast Impact on my staff again but thought better of it. No, if I wanted this to work I would need to cast as few skills as possible on my Iron tipped staff.

I took a deep breath and cast Imbue selecting Earth as the element. Unlike the electrical damage, I used before this time the staff seemed to take on additional weight. Next, I used Multicast followed by Imbue again. This time I choose fire as the element. It worked, I wasn't sure it would at first. The staff seemed to groan in protest as the dual elements combined, causing the rocky covered ends to start to crack and glow an ominous red color. The heat that poured off of the staff was tremendous even to the point that my allies took a step back. I was sweating from the heat but I would bear it. Prepared to bolt and launch the staff at any point if it looked or felt like it was about to explode.

Eventually, the staff settled in my hand the ends glowing fiercely with molten rock. The only reason I tried this was due to the spell's text, saying it couldn't be changed while active.

I could hear shouts, the enemies were closing in.. I gave Fiona a wink, she just shook her head. Then I cast Blink Step, leaving a glowing trail behind me. My abrupt move stunned the three closest, they just so happened to be slaves. I blew past, the heat trail scorching them as I passed. My target was the commanders and here came one of the stooges now.

Archer | Level 9

I used all my impressive speed and strength to smash my staff into the man's side as I ran past him to get to the next. I didn't feel the normal impact of my staff but I did feel an enormous wave of heat. I had to glance back to see what happened.

It appeared that the molten stone coating my staff had splattered off and onto the unfortunate individual. I could see the fire spreading along the man's clothing, his attempts at archery forgotten as he tried to rid himself of the sticky burning rock. All of this happened in a heartbeat as I continued my approach to the second target.

Shield Bearer | Level 10

Seeing what happened to his ally the man was quick enough to get his shield up. I slammed my staff down with a powerful overhead strike, enhanced by my forward momentum. The shield dented in where my staff landed, pushing the man back a few feet. He managed to remain on his feet but that wasn't the best part. My impact left a large glowing pool of lava sticking to his metal shield.

I gotta say the man did not handle that very well. He screeched and flailed around trying to get the shield or the molten rock off. He eventually managed to discard the quickly heating shield. I used that opportunity to slap him upside the head with my staff, setting his greasy hair alight. A human torch is not a pretty sight. The man screamed trying to use his hands to put out the flames only managing to spread the lava onto those same hands.

I ducked back as a third man swung at me with a massive cleaver that was glowing a putrid yellow color.

Vile Cutter | Level 12

I slapped away his next attack with my staff, taking a grazing slice to my arm and throwing bits of glowing lava around.

You have been infected

I looked at the debuff icon.

You are suffering from rotting death, 5 damage every second for 45 seconds

That was one nasty debuff, I clenched my teeth as the vile substance seemed to tear at my insides. I stepped back and glanced over the battlefield. The soldiers were engaged with the slaves as Fiona fought off the last two attackers. I could see at least one was heavily wounded from Fiona already. My opponent tried to take advantage of this moment to cut into me again but I stepped out of his reach casting Earth Fist.

The man managed to avoid most of my attack but the spell still cut a line up his leg. We circled each other looking for an opening and I took the opportunity to try and Cleanse myself of the infection. This made the man angry and I assumed he stacked damage using whatever skill he had. Oh well, I didn't have time to play with him. I rushed in and our weapons clashed repeatedly. This man was easily as fast as I was, perhaps even a bit faster as none of my attacks were landing.

Sweat was pouring off of me from the heat caused by my staff, I needed to end this. So I did something I would probably regret. On my next attack, I cast Flurry of Blows, hammering through his defense to strike him four times out of twelve. One would have been enough as the man was coated by molten rock. At first, I thought the man was able to shrug off the attack as he was silent. I only realized after that his lungs had been seared shut by the heat and he wasn't able to scream. I felt the staff start to fracture, my added spell destabilizing the item. I threw it as far as I could and ran in the opposite direction.

By this time Fiona had taken down her two targets and the Soldiers were down to the last one. I was thrown to the ground a moment later by a monumental whoosh of superheated air as the staff finally failed. I pushed myself off the ground, looking around I could see everyone getting up, they had all been knocked to the ground as well. I hit the last enemy with an Earth Fist finishing them off and cast healing all around. Looking back I could see a small volcano with a glowing pool of lava that rose up about five feet.

What I didn't expect was Identify to activate as I studied what had happened.

Lava Elemental | Level XX

You have discovered a new location do you wish to name it?

I groaned, "Sure, call it the Lava Field."

You have earned 500 XP for naming an unknown landmark

I could see a small football-sized blob of living lava pull itself out from the top of the miniature volcano. Upon seeing the people close to its home it screeched. It pulled its amorphous body from the lava and ran over to the closest dead body, burning it to ash. I shuddered.

"Time to go," I said, running up to the rest of the group.

"What the hell is that!" Fiona said, pointing her sword at the elemental.

"Um, yeah so apparently when my staff exploded it created the Lava Elemental."

I didn't think it was all that bad but the look of horror on her face told me it probably was worse than I thought. I also made a note to probably not try that again anytime soon. Or at least use a better weapon when I did.