Darius arrived through an entry portal eight kilometers away from Daraken's suspected trap, in the middle of a dry forest. The dry forests of Garnoth had an unusual ecology, with the stone-like trees having deep, interconnected root systems, leaves year-round, and incredibly slow growth. This created stable soil, but sucked the little water remaining in it into the trees, resulting in very little other vegetation.

Eight kilometers would be an hour's march for most (more, in fact), but Darius enhanced his speed greatly through his enchanted boots. His boots greatly enhanced the force of his jumps and reduced the force of gravity on him. With long jumps leveraging that enchantment, he could cross large distances incredibly quickly. He reached close proximity to the site in just thirty minutes, and then slowed down to utilize stealth for the final approach.

As he peeked out from behind a tree, he found that the divination report was accurate. In a clearing, there were chests full of supplies and crates full of food laid out around a central pile of multicolored crystals and gold. But where was the trap?

He cautiously approached the clearing, scanning for an enemy threat. At the same time, he whispered a message into his communicator, relaying the information back to Sanctuary. They began the process to open the portal, and the portal would be fully opened in about five minutes.

But of course, this wasn't just an open target. No one just left a cache of supplies in the middle of a forest. Almost as soon as he stepped into the clearing, he heard the distinct whoosh of short-range teleportation behind him, and turned just in time to see one of Daraken's apprentices.

Daraken's apprentices had the same fashion sense as him, wearing a black longcoat full of pockets for various spellcasting odds and ends, and wielding a staff as their primary weapon and casting implement. However, though Daraken showed his face the few times he appeared in public, his apprentices nearly always wore masks. Maybe it was so they could keep a secret identity while still moving around in public and studying at the College.

The mage's staff glowed purple as he made a short incantation, and he fired several arcane bolts, seeing straight through Darius' cloak of concealment. Darius quickly dove behind a supply crate, and as the missiles homed in on him, they slammed into the supply crate instead of his body. Before the mage could cast another spell, he popped out of cover, threw one of his daggers at him, then stepped off the craft and leaped towards him. Mages were powerful, but if caught in close combat they could easily be prevented from getting a spell off.

The mage dodged his initial dagger throw, and then wildly swung his staff as Darius landed a few feet in front of him. Darius ducked the mage's clearly-telegraphed swing, stepped in, and stabbed the mage in the gut, before calling his thrown dagger back to him to hit the mage in the rear before he recovered it.

The mage retaliated with a burning palm strike, hitting Darius with a flaming burst that blew him backwards and set him on fire.

Darius quickly rolled to put the fire out, giving the mage time to cast another arcane bolt. Darius tried to get to cover, but didn't reach it fast enough, and his body shook as the bolts slammed into him. He had picked up a bit of toughness from his experience, but he wouldn't be able to take another hit.

At least, not without healing. He grabbed a healing orb off of his belt and broke it in his fist, absorbing the healing energy. Healing orbs were a recent concept, one designed to be practical to utilize in combat. Not only were they smaller than potions and easier to carry, but breaking one took a bit less than a second, compared to the long process that it took to pull out a potion, uncork it, and chug the whole thing.

Then, as his body began to mend, he threw himself forward on all fours, practically launching himself at the mage, and knocking him down on impact. The mage struggled to escape his attack, as he stabbed him over and over until his body disintegrated.

Wait, disintegrated? He realized that he had been tricked by a decoy a few seconds too late, as a spell overcame him and stunned him with a mental assault.

The mage took the time to gloat over his victory. "Your Resistance has pulled off something that should be impossible: they used magic inside of an antimagic field. Your arrival gives me a very convenient way to figure out how. Now, give me your secrets."

His gloating successfully stirred up his memories of Annabelle. Darius tried to suppress them, but the mage managed to read off his surface thoughts. He struggled to resist before he got anything else, and managed to activate one of the wands on his belt, hitting himself with a dispelling burst. It temporarilly disabled the magic in his own equipment, but it also disrupted the magic of the spell the mage was using to breach his mind.

Even without his augmented speed, Darius was able to take down his surprised opponent, tackling him to the ground and then stabbing one of his knives straight into the mage's eye. When that wasn't enough to kill him, Darius finished him off by slashing open his throat, resulting in a spray of blood. Then, a few more slashes to key arteries, just to make sure.

With the primary threat dead, Darius felt somewhat safe in calling for the portal to be opened. Because instant teleportation without portals was limited by range and accuracy, Daraken himself would probably be the only individual capable of teleporting in for a second wave attack, and he wouldn't deem this sort of endeavor worthy of his time. They'd only get the logistics personnel, after all.

Still, Darius remained nervous until the portal opened a few minutes later, and reinforcements stepped through to assist in transferring the supplies to Sanctuary.

**********

At the same time as Darius' mission, Raiks commanded a team of four: Scars, the Resistance's strongest berserker, Robin Heartseeker, their best archer, Alicia, and Gamma, a defensive warrior. Even though his team was significantly outnumbered, they could make up for it with a massive edge in skill and ability. In fact, there were good odds that they wouldn't even need his assistance.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Still, he was observing the battle through his command table. One of its most useful capabilities that Turb had developed through it was the ability to be linked to an overhead scrying eye, which allowed Raiks to observe a battle without ever having to leave Sanctuary. When combined with the Resistance's magical commlink tokens, it would allow Raiks to control the fight without ever leaving Sanctuary.

The plan was simple: break in, use shock and awe to scare off the guards, load everything in the mayor's stash into bags of holding, then bail out.

Furion was not developed enough to have stone walls like a more major city would, instead relying on a wooden palisade for protection. Thus, all that was needed to blow a hole through it was an explosively-charged arrow fired from Robin's longbow. Though longbows were much more difficult to use than a bolter, in the hands of a master they had much more range, enough to shoot over 200 meters to detonate in the wall, and could achieve a greater fire rate and impact velocity.

The explosion blew a hole in the palisade, and the guards took a long time to respond. The team rushed the hole, and almost reached it before a few dazed guards peeked out to engage. Two of them fell to Robin's sniper fire, and the third managed to fire a single bolter shot into Gamma's shield, before Scars bull-rushed him and then caved his head in with an overhead smash from his axe.

The breach point had a building in front of it protecting the team from ranged attacks, and Raiks advised the team to take cover behind it until Robin joined up with them inside the city. The team had to cross several blocks of the city to reach the treasury, and would then have to evacuate back to the extraction point a mile or so outside the city.

In the time it took for Robin to move from his sniper position to inside the city, the guards formed an organized response, forming two wings that advanced on the team's position from either side. However, this was exactly what Raiks was looking for.

"Scars, breach the left flank. Alicia, support."

Scars waited a few seconds, giving Alicia the chance to empower him with divine energy, significantly increasing his size, strength, and toughness. Then, he went all-out, turning into a close combat monster. Though the guards immediately opened fire on him with bolters, his armor and divine enhancements meant he took minimal damage, and he then smashed through the entire formation in just a few swings of his axe. The rest of his team followed behind, finishing off anyone fortunate enough to survive Scars's assault.

With one side of the pincer maneuver dismantled, the other half of the enemy guards were not in a position to engage effectively. Before they could engage, the team broke out in a run towards the city treasury, and Robin slowed the guards down further by discouraging their pursuit by sniping off anyone who peeked out.

Raiks spotted a problem with this strategy, however. "I've spotted a shield wall up ahead. Gamma, hold the rear."

Ahead of the formation was an elite squad, a dozen heavily armored soldiers in a shield wall, with a bolter-equipped squad behind. Scars, in his rage, attempted to charge the spearline, only to nearly get himself impaled. He staggered backwards, and only managed to stay up due to Alicia's healing.

At the rear, Gamma broke off to stall their pursuers, fighting more than a dozen to one. He used his tower shield to block incoming fire, waited until most of the enemy squad had consumed their ammo, and then returned fire with his own bolter, taking down four enemies with five shots. However, one guard held his fire and managed to hit him in the shoulder when he fired his own burst, and the group spread out as they reloaded, forcing him to fall back to avoid being flanked.

"Robin, blast that shieldwall," Raiks ordered. Scars wisely decided to take a step back (not just because he was still being healed), as Robin drew his second explosive arrow and fired it at the feet of the shieldwall. The shieldwall scattered just a second before the explosion scattered the group, and before the dust cleared, Scars re-engaged, smashing two spearmen with one hit and then ignoring the rest of them to smash through the bolter group. Robin and Alicia switched to melee weapons and followed him in, preventing the spearmen from regrouping to surround Scars.

Gamma managed to retreat far enough to have buildings covering his flanks, but the enemy squad adjusted their strategy again, with half of them switching to swords to engage him in melee. He took down a few more after reloading, but was then forced to drop his bolter and switch to his sword.

However, his disruption action was successful in giving the rest of the squad the time it needed to win their battle, allowing Scars, Robin, and Alicia to clear out their forces and turn to support him. The guards, seeing how they were outmatched, now surrendered, dropping their weapons and putting their hands up.

Another group of guards arrived from the other side of the city, but they surrendered as well.

Then, at the city hall, the mayor, Nemora, stormed out of a door, and yelled "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?" He was wearing ornate robes adorned with an excessive amount of jewelry, and was carrying a magic staff like it was a fancy walking stick.

As it turns out, wizards were surprisingly common among the wealthy of Garnoth. All it took was a a few years and a large investment of money, and anyone could get educated and gain knowledge of the arcane arts (at least if they didn't fail the tests and drop out). However, knowing arcane arts and being able to use them in combat without getting destroyed were two different things.

"We are seizing the treasury of this town to bolster the Resistance," Alicia said. Robin, noticing the potential for danger, nocked an arrow to his bow, prepared to take the mayor out instantly if he did anything stupid.

"These. Treasures. Are. MINE!" Nemora screamed. "YOU CANNOT HAVE THEM!" Robin raised his bow and fired, but the mayor triggered a spell embedded in the staff, and a semicircular wall of crystal spikes popped up out of the ground, blocking the arrow.

"Take cover!" Raiks called, recognizing the spell that was about to hit his team. Gamma moved forward to cover himself and Alicia with his tower shield, and Robin ducked down to allow the blast to go over his head, but Scars did neither. Thus, when the crystal barrier erupted in an explosive burst, throwing shards of razor-sharp crystal in all directions, Scars was eviscerated.

Robin's crouching position caused him to suffer minimal damage as the shrapnel from the explosion shot out in an upwards arc, and immediately after the blast, he shot an arrow into the mayor's leg to cripple him, then followed up with a second shot, straight to the heart.

"Scars's down, moving to stabilize," Alicia called out, as she moved in to apply emergency aid.

Now, with their lead warrior down and their healer busy, the team was two against dozens. The guards could easily have chosen to pick their weapons back up and overwhelm them. But instead, they were cheering.

"You have deposed Nemora," one of them, likely a captain, announced. "Daraken did nothing about his corruption, his malicious behavior. But you stopped him. We now pledge our support to you."

"Commander, we appear to have taken control of this city," Robin said.

That wasn't part of the plan.

"Why did you fight us?" Alicia asked. "We could have done this with only one casualty on either side."

"Fear," some of them admitted. "We didn't know this was what you were doing," others said.

"Raiks, I'd like approval to attempt to heal any guards who are still alive," Alicia whispered. "And, potentially, to have additional healers brought in."

"Granted," Raiks said. He sent a message to Lunima to send two extra healers into the field as well. If they were fast enough, they could probably save a majority of those that had been brought down.

But there was a reason that taking the city wasn't in the plan. Soon, they would have to go on the defensive.