“We can go back and loot,” said Cuby, kneeling down to get Iriet. “Or we can do it later.”

Don’t we need to reclaim the mine beacon? I asked, using thought-speech as I replenished my Overcharged Fragmented Implosive Missile.

Cuby shrugged. “I don’t even know where it is.”

I paused and considered this. I don’t either, I said. An objective marker had appeared in my ui, next to my buffs:

Beacon of Safety – 2/4

I spoke:

I’m guessing the mine beacon is theirs right now, though. And they’ve taken either the east gate, the south gate, or the observatory. Let’s get up on the church and see what we can see, it’s tallest.

I leapt onto the roof of the church clocktower once I’d finished applying my Moment of Mastery, and I recast both our Supercharged Mana Shields as Cuby followed me with her grappling gun and we looked around. My Heightened Sight made it easy to see figures and flashes of light at the south gate, but the east was out of view, obscured by the peak of the mountain.

“There,” Cuby said as she finished reloading her grappling gun, nodding off into the distance. “I guess we know which of the other beacons they’ve taken.”

She hadn’t nodded to the south gate, but rather the west side of town, where the rooftops tapered down and the winding streets led toward the observatory. Three figures were running through one of the streets toward the town square and when I tagged one of them:

Mirran – Level 8 Attacker

“You think they’ll take the other two beacons, or get fought off?” I asked.

Cuby shrugged. “There were a lot of players who might’ve helped, but I don’t think many of them got involved. Could go either way, but we should assume we’ll lose—the NPCs are so low level they’re mostly useless.”

I glanced over at the entrance to the mine lift, where many corpses of dwarves littered the ground. She was right.

“If we help the south beacons, that pack will come after us, and so might their other force, once the east beacon is won. Their whole team could collapse onto us.”

“Let’s get them and take the observatory beacon, then?”

I jumped off the rooftop, casting the Charm of Gliding spell, and Cuby fell in beside me. Once we kill them and recapture the node, I said, they’ll have to split their force to come take it back. They’ll be slow as they move through the city, because not everyone has glide.

We shed altitude as we went, then—once we were about to land in the street—both moved onto a nearby tall building and jumped off that as well, Cuby with her grappling gun and I with my Mighty Leap. We were moving fast, very fast. I kept talking:

If that happens, we’ll have a better chance of taking them out, or heading around them to pick off another beacon, since we move faster.

In my mind, I got the sense of Cuby laughing. You know, Alatar, you’re much more obvious about being good at this when you’re on a focus potion.

I could’ve laughed. I did not feel “good at this.” I’d played objective-centered team games before, and so I understood basic ideas like commit threshold, focusing on the objectives and not on kills, supporting your allies—the very basics.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

But I’d made a lot of mistakes since I’d woken up, and I had every reason not to. Even if I had made the right call in hiding my Chosen Boon, or was making the right calls now, I was all right at best.

The enemy group was coming up on us fast—and there was no way that they hadn’t seen us. Their movements had halted in the street, the three of them hesitant, making a formation.

I toss a big slab of damage for distraction, and you do the real work? I asked.

That’s my favorite plan! Cuby said cheerily.

The three of them lay before us:

Mirran – Level 8 Attacker

Taelin – Level 8 Attacker

Elos – Level 7 Attacker

Taelin, in front, was a massive hybrid between a cat and bear. Mirran, behind him, was still in mage starter robes. And Elos, even further back, was wearing the heavier, patterned robes that I had begun to associate with the priest class.

I swooped low to the ground, conscious that they might have some way of pulling me from the sky. Just as I landed, they set their plan into motion—the mage seemed to finish a Haste spell on their shapeshifter, who leapt through the air to grab me in their massive claws and bear me down to the ground before I had either of his allies in range of my Implosive Missile. A silver light shone from their claws, which they struck down at me with for an extraordinary amount of damage—almost 200.

The Mana Shield shattered as I scrambled to my feet, and the bear-cat struck out at me with another melee attack, one that did almost 40 damage.

Even as a shifter, even with their face contorted in rage, even with animal features that I shouldn’t have been able to read, I could still see a kind of shock and surprise enter their face, their mannerisms. I understood it, of course. I wasn’t supposed to be this hard to kill.

I used my Mighty Leap to land next to their Mage. As I did, a strange thing happened—my Elemental Aegis buff disappeared as they completed the spell they’d been casting. They’d… dispelled me.

I cracked my Moment of Mastery and shot them with a Supercharged Fragmented Implosive Missile for 423 damage—high spirit meant high Magic Resistance—and was a little surprised to see that it didn’t kill them, instead breaking their Mana Shield and leaving them with a smidge of HP remaining.

I started casting a Supercharged Fragmented Haste as I watched one of Cuby’s kukri’s fly in from overhead and take out the last of the Mage’s Hit Points, so fast I thought that she must have been waiting.

I got him! Cuby said delightedly in thought-speech. Half you, half me, right Alatar?

I blinked. Was she joking at a time like this? The mage was in front of me, fallen, blood gushing from a hole in her neck. The focus potion might’ve dulled my emotions enough to keep me concentrating on winning, but even with that, Cuby seemed cold.

Taelin had run to my side in the meantime, and when they reached me they swatted me down to the ground, momentarily pausing my casting, but Cuby had landed right after she’d thrown her knife and engaged the priest.

I could have used my Rousing Command on myself, perhaps grappled to a nearby roof, cast Hex of Chains on both enemies as Cuby tore them to pieces—but I saw no need for it. Taelin’s melee attacks were dealing a pittance, and the Priest had panicked and used some kind of blind ability on Cuby, who still had her full Mana Shield. There was no need, I thought, for me to do anything—their abilities were buying them a few seconds of meaningless damage in the face of death.

I finished my Haste spell, buffing Cuby before beginning a Fragmented Hex of Chains. Taelin roared a movement-speed reducing shout that interrupted my Hex of Chains, but Fragmented Spell meant that I didn’t lose the cast. I threw it on the Priest, and watched the remainder of their HP disappear in seconds under Cuby’s absurdly fast damage.

Taelin turned to run, leaping onto a nearby building-top, but Cuby grappled after them, striking them with her blinding strike and easily keeping up with them because of her Haste. My Supercharged Hex of Chains finished a moment later, and that was the last of Taelin.

Let’s keep moving, said Cuby, running along the rooftops. I started to replenish my spell combo as I ran alongside her in the street, waiting for my Mighty Leap to cooldown.

While we had been fighting, the ui had changed:

Beacon of Safety – 1/4

Not good. Any moment now the town could lose its Safe Zone status and a massacre might begin.

We needed to get to the observatory beacon, fast.