Driven entirely by routine, Davon woke up at sunrise the following day. This routine, however, failed to comfort him like it usually did.

It was hard to appreciate a new day’s warmth when that new day included the crimson tint of the Red Dawn.

Trying not to dwell on it, Davon made his way to the Guild’s mess hall. Only a few people were gathered there so early in the morning. He had plenty of options for places to sit, but before he could choose, he felt himself being drawn towards the quest board.

The stone slab on the wall displayed a long list of tasks for his perusal, which surprised Davon. Compared to the previous day’s offer of only one quest, the array of choices was almost overwhelming. He found everything from simple tasks like tracking and killing monsters, to escorting merchants, to research expeditions into various… interesting subjects.

After scanning the list for several minutes, he found his eyes returning again and again to one specific quest. It was one he’d dismissed at first, thinking it was yet another basic ‘search and destroy’ mission. And while, in essence, the quest was to search and destroy, the subject was undoubtedly intriguing.

‘Unknown invasion forces’: that was what this quest wanted dead. Equally intriguing, the quest was marked with an ‘unknown’ difficulty rating.

Davon was so intent on these mysterious words that he didn’t notice someone approaching until a voice sounded in his ear.

“Already busy, Davon?”

Startled, Davon jumped and turned on his heel. His hand was halfway to his weapon before he recognized his spellbook-loving teammate.

“For brine’s sake, Lyla, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“Oh?” A devilish grin spread across Lyla’s face. “Didn’t realize you were a scaredy cat.”

Davon scoffed, turning back towards the quest board. “Yes, already busy. There are a lot of new quests. This one looks interesting.”

He tapped his finger gently on the board. Lyla took a moment to look over the quest, her face swiftly returning to its customary neutral expression.

“Yes… Yes, that does look interesting,” Lyla said.

Davon contemplated accepting the quest right then and there. He doubted that Kai would have any qualms about it, seeing as the young man was more than keen to rush into danger at a moment’s notice. But in the end, he decided to wait for the third member of their party to show up before making any decisions that would affect the whole group.

However eager they all were to get out there, caution was always a better strategy.

They lingered by the quest board, waiting for Kai. Lyla pulled out one of her books and was soon lost in its pages. Davon, meanwhile, was equally lost in thought.

‘Unknown invasion forces’… what does that even mean?

Before he could follow even one of the many thought-trails this question provoked, Lyla’s voice sounded again in his ear.

“I’m curious, Davon.”

He just managed to stop himself from jumping again at her voice. Instead, he looked at her, raising his eyebrow.

The petite blonde woman held her book open in one hand, leaning heavily on her spear. “Grant mentioned some rumors about small-scale attacks on cities further inland, so I’m curious… how familiar are you with warfare strategies?”

She locked eyes with Davon, scrutinizing him.

“Familiar enough to recognize probing attacks when I see them,” he replied.

Lyla held his gaze one more moment before slowly nodding in agreement. “Then we’re on the same page.”

Kai showed up a few minutes later, greeting his teammates with his usual optimism. It took an even shorter time for the bold young man to agree to the ‘unknown invasion forces’ quest. Flanked by his teammates, Davon reached out his hand and touched the quest board.

It was time for the trio to set off once again.

—

Unlike their griffin hunt, this quest didn’t come with the convenience of a tracking hex already on the target. Instead, the three new Revenants were given a general location and some vague ‘Good hunting!’ well-wishes.

Thankfully, under Lyla’s careful guidance, reading maps wasn’t an issue. By midday, the team found themselves beside one of the many streams in the forests surrounding Walden’s Hold.

Davon kept his eyes peeled on the nearby foliage and other vegetation, looking for any sign of passage that wasn’t an animal, but with no luck. It wasn’t long before Kai recommended splitting up to cover a larger area. Unable to think of any better options, Davon and Lyla agreed.

What followed was an agonizing hour of searching, each of them doing their best to inspect every single detail of their surroundings. By the end of hour two, Davon began to feel desperate. He was keeping his whole body poised, ready for sudden battle, and his muscles ached from the constant tension.

Halfway through hour three, he called the group together.

“I have an idea, but I need you to trust me,” he said, scanning his teammates for their reactions.

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“After using Kai as bait last time?” Lyla retorted. “You want me to trust you?”

Davon smiled weakly. “Yes. But this time, it would be all three of us as the bait.”

“Hah, sounds like my kind of plan!” Kai put in enthusiastically, though his smile faded when Lyla shot him a furious look.

“Look, we’re not exactly making much progress looking for these things the old-fashioned way,” Davon pointed out. “So, we can try the same thing that provoked that griffin in the first place.”

Both Lyla and Kai just looked at him in confusion.

“Think about it. If these ‘unknown invasion forces’ really are some sort of advance scouts, as the guild seems to suspect, then they will want to learn where their enemies are,” Davon explained. “If we make a lot of noise, they might be compelled to come and look, just in case they find something. We hide until they show themselves. Then, we ambush them.”

To Davon’s surprise, Kai didn’t object to the sneak-attack strategy. In fact, he was practically vibrating with excitement at the thought of an actual battle with ‘unknown invasion forces.’

Lyla, on the other hand, took a few moments to consider.

“Well… I suppose that makes sense,” she finally conceded. Then her expression brightened. “As a matter of fact, I think I could help. Find some cover.”

Davon and Kai didn’t argue. Immediately, they ducked into the nearby foliage to hide.

Once she was certain her teammates were hidden, Lyla raised her spear towards the sky and chanted a few words. Enchanted flames appeared along the weapon. With one sharp motion, Lyla thrust the spear upward. All the flames surged to the spear’s tip and burst up into the sky, creating a makeshift flare.

Then Lyla herself dashed for a nearby hiding spot, and the trio began to wait.

A minute passed, then five, then ten.

Just as Davon was beginning to consider leaving his hiding spot, he caught a foul smell. The mixed scent of rot and sulfur heralded the arrival of the targets long before Davon could see them.

And when he finally did lay eyes on the enemy, Davon’s heart grew cold with fear.

One by one, five small humanoid entities emerged from the surrounding forest. Calling them ‘humanoid’ was probably too generous. Though the creatures’ heads and torsos were covered in black armor, Davon could tell they were heavily disfigured. The tallest was roughly half Davon’s height. Their exposed limbs were disproportionately long and twisted at odd angles. Every bit of skin he saw appeared to be burned.

Quieting the anxious thoughts screaming for his attention, Davon tried to focus on the task at hand. He considered his options. There was no way of knowing whether his bow would be strong enough to pierce the armor, and he wasn’t willing to test it. So, his only real targets were the monster’s exposed limbs.

Quietly as he could, Davon nocked an arrow and prepared for things to kick off.

The creatures drew closer and closer. Anxiety crept back into Davon’s mind. Why hadn’t he arranged a signal with his teammates? Were Kai and Lyla ready? What if the creatures found one of them before the trio could attack?

Then, even as he was preparing to launch into the ambush himself, Davon saw Kai crash through the foliage with his axe at the ready.

Kai swung his axe in a low, sweeping motion, directly into the unprotected legs of one of the creatures. Davon watched as the axe effortlessly cut through the thing’s flesh, severing both legs right from under it. Kai continued, using the momentum of his strike in an attempt to bring his axe down on the thing’s chest, but he was interrupted when the rest of the creatures swarmed him with unnatural speed.

Kai was tackled by four different creatures and brought onto the ground. Davon could no longer see Kai beneath the pile of bodies, only hear the man’s grunts of pain. Davon raised his bow and aimed at the creature on the top of the pile. He couldn’t get a clear shot at the unprotected limbs, so he aimed at the monster’s torso and hoped it would be enough to do something at least.

His perception of time slowing in the familiar rush of adrenaline, Davon watched his arrow fly… and bounce off the armor. Thankfully, the blow still had enough force to push the creature off of the pile, but the monster remained unharmed.

From somewhere on his left, Davon heard the crackle of electricity. The next instant, another creature was blasted off of the pile by Lyla. Davon readied his bow again, but before he could shoot, a sharp pain in his left thigh made him cry out. Looking down, he saw the creature he had knocked off the pile snarling at his feet. The monster must have crawled over. Still on the ground, it had dug its disfigured nails into Davon’s thigh.

Compelled by unnatural instinct, Davon unlatched his bow’s mechanism and invoked one of the new runes. Immediately, his blades released a dull, amber glow, and he swung without hesitation at the creature clawing at his thigh. One blade, then the other, each blow taking a segment of the thing’s arms. Davon continued to swing, again and again, until he was slicing into the creature’s torso. His blades found no resistance, even against the armor.

Before Davon was fully aware of his actions, all that remained of the creature was a pile of blood, flesh, and bone.

The glow on his blades faded. As he stood there, panting and covered in gore, Davon felt knowledge course through him from his connection to the Reliquary. He knew he wouldn’t be able to invoke that particular power again for a while, but it had saved his life.

A sudden flash of golden light brought Davon back to the present moment. He looked over to see the familiar golden barrier wrapped around Kai, who was still lying on the ground. Two creatures were repeatedly smashing their limbs against the barrier.

Realizing that Kai would be fine for a few moments, Davon turned his attention to Lyla — just in time to see a creature leap towards her.

Once again, time slowed for Davon. An unpleasant flashback to that day at the docks flared across his mind.

In one smooth motion, Davon reattached the limbs of his bow and nocked an arrow. As he aimed at the creature, still mid-leap, he spotted his opportunity: the monster’s armpits weren’t armored.

That was when Davon made a calculated risk.

With his bow raised and ready, he waited for the creature to tackle Lyla to the ground. Then, just as the thing raised its arm to strike, he let his arrow fly. An agonizing eternity passed for Davon as he watched the arrow race against the creature’s arm, which was already in a downwards arc and headed directly for Lyla’s head.

The arrow won.

The sound of tearing flesh filled Davon’s ears as the arrow impacted the creature, throwing its arm off of its intended trajectory. A pit opened in Davon’s stomach as the thing’s arm still slammed downward, but it hit the ground instead and left a miniature crater.

“The armpit is unprotected!” Davon shouted towards Lyla, then watched as she brought her spear up directly into the creature’s vulnerable part. It collapsed on top of her, limp and motionless.

The sound of shattering glass drew Davon’s gaze back towards Kai. The sight left Davon speechless. Covered in cuts and bruises, Kai stood before his foes like a feral beast, his face twisted in a grimace of pure rage.

Then Davon spotted a new glowing rune on Kai’s axe.

In a movement almost too fast for Davon to follow, Kai both raised and dropped his axe down into one of the creatures, cutting the monster in half. The next instant, the final creature leapt at Kai, wrapping itself around the man’s torso and dragging its claws across his back. In a show of brutality Davon had only seen once before, Kai simply grabbed his enemy by the top of its head with one arm, and the base of the neck with the other, and pulled. A fountain of gore showered Kai as the creature fell to the ground in pieces.

For a moment, the two men just stared at each other, each covered in the blood of their foes.

“Well, that was a bit too close for comfort,” Davon finally stated, watching his teammate closely.

“Yeah… yeah, you could say that again.” Kai was breathing hard, his face still a mask of animalistic rage. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the young man’s fury subsided. He grinned broadly at Davon. “But we lived, right?”

Lyla’s muffled cry drew the attention of the two men, sending them rushing to her aid.

“Please help me, I’m stuck under this damn thing!”