Mel dropped to the ground and used [Hidden Mist].

Might as well trigger this delicious trap to see what they’ve got up their sleeves.

Mel rarely passed up an opportunity to kill a Copper Stolst gang member. It didn’t hurt that they were almost always chasing her, rendering the choice moot. So many of them thought they were on her level, lying in wait for her as if they weren’t clearly visible to her infravision.

Her mist mingled with the natural fog of the swamp. Icy patches formed over damp soil, deep pools of water, and green bogs. Without realizing it, Mel’s [Hidden Mist] was turning the surrounding swampland into the Shiverglades.

This place has nothing on the Shiverglades in winter though. She shivered at the memory of the bone-deep cold.

Dalmanii’s desert heat had been a welcome reprieve from the oppressive cold. It ended up being far more comfortable than she would have ever thought possible.

She missed those black sands.

The question of how Mel had arrived here was still a mystery to her. She didn’t even know the name of this Worldshard or its Shardrune for crying out loud! All her memories told her that she should still be on Aldim, with her favorite Beastborne.

She pushed the thoughts from her mind for the time being. It was time to focus. Mel skulked closer, but still couldn’t hear what the five men were saying to the group she’d been shadowing.

Once she saw a small satchel filled with potions being taken from a roughshod wagon, Mel realized that whatever was going on was about to go from bad to worse.

Any fight would go much better for her if her enemies didn’t have access to health potions. It wasn’t like they could chug them non-stop while she wailed on them. They’d just waste the excess potions and get a nasty debuff at the same time.

Still, health potions were a bad sign. Especially when she was already outnumbered.

She had been systematically destroying and stealing all potions she could find in an attempt to cripple their groups. She knew they didn’t have enough Acolytes for healing. Mel would make damn sure they didn’t get healing any other way.

She rushed out under the cover of her [Hidden Mist], using [Windstorm] at the last possible moment to avoid disturbing the fog and giving away her position.

Her opening salvo, [Bane of Tartarus], gathered in her upraised palm. She flung the black ball with all her strength while sprinting. Her practice with the skill paid off. It landed precisely where she had intended.

The sphere of darkness expanded, the sound of a thousand damned souls crying out for succor at once. The destruction rolled over the wagon and the group of men, including those with the potions.

Mel heard the bottles drop and shatter to the ground. She smiled.

As she poured on the speed, Mel ran Jimmy through with her twinblade, ripping it out as she continued running without breaking her stride. On the back slice, she cut one of the robed men for good measure.

Man, I love twinblades!

There was no weapon better suited to her aggressive fighting style. It excelled at reach and speed, all without sacrificing damage like a dagger or short sword might. Even when she was defending, she could shift to be on the offensive easily.

Something was wrong, however, because she didn’t feel the expected jolt of hitting flesh either time.

Skirting around the shrinking half-sphere of [Bane of Tartarus], Mel looked over her shoulder and realized the trouble she was in.

Jimmy’s form wavered and vanished into smoke along with the robed figure.

A man in shining plate mail rushed out of the dome of darkness, his skin blistered and fuming oily smoke from [Bane of Tartarus’] Omen damage.

Ahead of her, two more burst out from behind a tree, armed with an axe and sword.

On her left, another two rushed out, bearing a shield and sword apiece.

Break me! Mel cursed.

It was a pretty good trap.

Only Mel’s [Windstorm] kept her alive against the bunch of Copper rankers. The added speed allowed her to pivot immediately and switch direction. They had every side covered but the way she had come.

I would really like to know what they used to manage that illusion. There was no telling whether aspect skills that employed deception would reveal themselves with a system nameplate. It could have been an item as well.

Mud and frost were thrown up in thick clods as she reversed direction. Wind billowed around her, deflecting a throwing axe that would have buried itself in her spine. Instead, it struck her shoulder and bit deeply with a flash of harsh pain.

Mel’s only thought was of escape at that moment. She had fallen right into their trap. Being alone against five others of comparative strength, she needed to regroup. She had lost every advantage, and fighting them head on would be suicidal.

As she passed the caravan, she realized that she wasn’t the only one who fell for the ruse.

The men and women of the Stolst gang that she had been shadowing lay dead in the mud. Some of the wounds looked like they were inflicted by the robed men instead of her attack.

Jimmy was nowhere to be seen, but Mel had no time to think about him anymore. They had expertly turned the tables on her, sacrificing their own people to sell it.

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Wounded, Mel’s only option for survival was to flee.

The icy patches worked to keep her pursuers off her tail. Mel was faster than most, and [Windstorm] pushed her ahead even further. They had nearly caught her in those first few moments. Only a mixture of luck, and the awareness to seize that luck, saved her hide.

Mel ran, her feet guided by an instinct she hardly recognized. They were surprisingly strong. As they pursued her, attacks rushed out around her. Bolts of blood-red lightning, conjured daggers of magic, even whips of water assaulted her.

She kept ahead of them all. Mel was at the top of her game. She dodged like her life depended on it, because it did.

It was disturbing to suddenly be the one ambushed by a stronger force. They were clearly skilled, because she hadn’t felt their true power until the trap was sprung on her.

Against one, maybe two, Mel might have been able to eke out a victory, but surrounded by five? There was no way.

Mel’s back ached something fierce, but it didn’t hurt as badly as she feared. Once the sound of pursuit had died away some, Mel slowed her pace and eventually came to rest at the edge of a large bog.

To the casual observer, the green-brown muck looked like solid ground. That would likely be the last mistake you ever made.

Mel stopped just short of it, icy patches forming on the top and all around her. She reached around to her back, pawing for the handle. The jolt of nauseating pain told her she’d found it.

With gloved fingers wrapped around the handle, Mel wrenched it out. Relief and dizzying pain warred with each other for several long moments until she came out on top.

Mel looked at the axe in her hand, frowning. It was small and compact. The blood on the blade–her blood–flowed into small etchings that–

Shit!

Without looking, Mel whipped the axe into the fog, cut off [Windstorm], and dropped to the ground. Without the wind, the mist closed in over her completely.

She heard the throwing axe go ping! as it hit metal armor seconds before her pursuers burst through the brush and came upon the edge of the bog.

Mel kept herself as still as possible, working out what her best move was and trying to avoid the only option open to her.

Her health bar sported a larger wound marker than she was used to. Quietly as she could, Mel reached into her stolen bag and pulled out a [Small Health Potion]. She knocked it back awkwardly, keeping as low as possible. The potion worked on her wound, but she wasn’t sure it would close up in time as she eyed her only feasible escape route.

Not for the first time, Mel wished that potions healed more than just wounds. She could really benefit from being at full health right now!

I’m going to get so many infections, Mel thought to herself as the five men slipped in closer. They had been able to hide themselves from her better than she would have thought.

Underestimating her enemies would be the death of her. It was hard not to as her memories came back in full and she remembered lifetimes of training and fighting and adventure. She never would have been so cocky if she had been as scared and alone as she had been when she first woke up.

Desperately hoping the Shardrune wouldn’t reveal what she was doing, Mel slowly guided [Hidden Mist] through the area. Even while running, the aspect skill remained active.

The surviving Stolst gang was growing familiar enough with her tactics and skill set that it wasn’t unreasonable they might be highly suspicious of mist.

Then again, they decided to camp out in a bog, where mist was already commonplace.

Instead of searching her last location, courtesy of the tracking sigil carved into that axe that had been in her back–something Mel would love to know how they pulled off–they spread out to cut off any avenue of escape.

They know I’m here, Mel assumed. They just don’t know where.

That ignorance wouldn’t last as their earlier bloodlust was tempered with the overriding will that she had only ever seen on Magi.

And a Beastborne, Mel admitted.

They searched methodically, never letting their hunger for battle cause a lapse in judgment. There wasn’t enough room to slip out between them without taking another hit, and Mel guessed the next attack would be far more grievous.

Luckily, her armor and [Sanguine Coat] took the brunt of the damage from the axe, and the potion finished off the wound.

Mel mentally mapped out all the paths available to her and soon came to the same conclusion she had come to less than a minute ago when they first cornered her.

There was no way she would get past them. Speed alone wouldn’t be enough to solve this.

Taking a deep breath, Mel rolled away from the group and into the thick, soupy water. She tensed, bracing for the morbid chill that would run through her body, but her clothing kept her surprisingly warm.

She silently thanked her armor’s cold insulation, made all the more effective from the [Soul Kiln] boosting their rarity to Epic.

She turned and swam to the side, keeping her hands just under the lip of loose soil and rotting vegetation that ran across the edge of the bog.

Coming up quietly, Mel pulled herself out of the water some 20 feet to the side, outside their tightening ring as they closed in on where she had just been.

Covered in muck, Mel eased herself out of the water, but she needn’t have bothered. Her fog muffled the faint plops of the muck sliding free. Thick as it was, it didn’t drip nearly as much as she would have hoped. It clung to her like a bad reputation in high school.

There would be no getting that smell out for a long while.

Crouched, her twinblade still grasped in one hand, Mel knew her best chance of survival was to flee. It would take them a few minutes, tops, to realize she had gone.

Whatever they used to track her clearly wasn’t able to pierce her fog, cluing her in to their limitations. However, she was up against five skilled Coppers. That meant a staggering 25 aspects between them, and they were clearly used to working together.

That much Mel could piece together from what little experience she’d had with them.

As they stalked in for the kill, Mel’s time was running out.

Her heart was hammering in her chest so hard that she was surprised they couldn’t hear it.

Mel couldn’t help thinking, You just triggered my fight-or-flight response. Joke’s on you, I’m a flightless bird.

Pouring all her strength into her cold legs, Mel rushed the back of the nearest hulking figure. She used the few seconds it took her to close the distance to summon [Bane of Tartarus] again and identify a gap in his plate armor.