Ruby smacked another mosquito. “Boy, It’s humid today.”

Lars laid in a prone position just across from them.

“It’s the damn mosquitos!” He said, with a bit of amusement in his voice.

“Shut up already.”

Ruby had a nice looking mechanical bow which must have been expensive, but she shurgged it off. Hadwyn had one too, but it was a crossbow. Prototypes, is what they were called.

"Libertatem a magica." She had called it, which meant independence from magic.

"Is that a sermon or passage?" Hadwyn had remembered asking.

She shook her head, smiling. "No, It's a Versudi saying."

Hadwyn was confused. "I thought Versudi were atheists?"

"No." Ruby turned to him in disbelief. "Who ever told you that?"

"Elves." Lars grinned. He was using some sort of spyglass to scope his surroundings.

"Elves." Hadwyn admitted.

She put her finger to her lips. "Probably a missionary, then."

"Did you guys have a holy war?" Lars asked. "Like Ywvn?"

"No, we deviated from Aetlen-versurdi interpretations of the holy scrolls." Ruby remarked. We split because we realized just how, inhumane Ywvn was with its "enemies." She made air quotes.

Hadwyn would have put his hands up, but he was in a position where he could easily be compromised, so he settled for a weak shrug. "I don't know where I heard it. I think it was farther east." He tilted his head. "I don't want to start, well... A religious disagreement. All I know is that It was an elven missionary wandering around and handing out flyers. "

"Ah..." Ruby said. "The Elves have their own little thing going on with the Versudi.

"Not the high elves." Lars remarked. "Though I have heard of crimes specifically targeting Versurdi."

Hadwyn winced. He remembered reading in a textbook sometime about the round world controversy. The Elves, even the high elves, had always displayed contempt, (at least, according to the history books.) even before the controversy, but they dialed up their disdain towards the Versudi in general following it.

When Adonys wanted to locate the first demon king's hideout, he would have to know where the rift was. So Adonys would have to take a long trip across the sea in order to discover new land and find the rift.

There was a problem though. The prophecy.

The prophecy stated that Adonis would have to sail without turning back and when he arrived home, he would find the rift.

The Elves dismissed this and had insisted that if he looked hard enough, he would find it. They had created the finest of boats, and were about to send him on his way, when a versurdi messenger showed up, and told everyone that the world was round.

Naturally, people were shocked at this. Today, of course, people didn't really see it as surprising that the world was round. But up until that point, the Elves had preached that the world was on a flat plane.

What the Versurdi were saying was blasphemous. A round world? Who would come up with such nonsense?

Yet Adonys had been intrigued. So he had asked the messenger why, and the messenger simply responded:

"Three point one four."

Exactly why Adonys changed his mind is unclear, but he did. The Versurdi messenger had told him to follow the prophecy.

The Elves had stifled their laughter, according to an elven historian, presumably one who held no bias, and was thus granted permission to give input into the anthology works, not because they didn't want to ridicule the seemingly foolish versurdi, but because since adonis was entertaining this man, they wouldn't dare laugh at him, because in doing so, they would be laughing at Adonys.

And they wouldn't dare laugh at Adonys.

"Wait wait, I see something!" Lars said, excitedly.

Hadwyn immediately clutched right ear, which was adjacent to where he and Ruby were located.

Ruby did this as well. "Lars." She threw her voice back at him in a softer tone. "Volume, Lars. Volume. We're throwing voices, remember?"

Ruby turned to Hadwyn and in her normal voice; "Hadwyn, I am resisting the urge to throw a scream in his ear, you're a logical guy. Please give me a reason not to?"

Hadwyn shrugged again. "It would give away our position?”

She gritted her teeth. “Good enough.”

Hadwyn pressed his body to the ground further.

“That’s Baluk.” Lars whispered.

“What are we going to do?”

Hadwyn flinched at the voice. Sophia had been so silent that Hadwyn had forgotten she was even there.

“Sophia, I’m going to need you to come with me if we go into battle.”

Sophia nodded.

“I don’t like this.” Hadwyn said. “He’s just standing there. He wants us to come out and engage.”

“So we won’t.” Ruby said. “They don’t know where we are, especially with our camo spells.”

Ruby was right. The camo spells were so effective, that when Hadwyn wasn’t actively looking at Ruby, she would fade out of the corner of his eye.

“We need to ambush them and fight them all at once.” Ruby continued. And Hadwyn nodded.

Almost the past two weeks, they had tried many different tactics to win. All had failed.

Hadwyn had noticed that even if they were able to take down one person from the team, they would still be beaten once they had their shit together.

Hadwyn realized not only that, but he saw a pattern where one person would wander around.

Specifically Baluk.

Which meant that this was intentional. A distraction.

“Don’t attack until we see at least two people.” Hadwyn hissed. “They always send Baluk or Marco out.”

Ruby nodded. “I get you.”

“Shit!”

Suddenly, a vortex arrow hit the tree, causing Lars to fall off.

Ruby drew her bow. “Stick together!”

Hadwyn pulled out his own weapon: A mechanical crossbow. He had never been all that accurate with a bow, so he settled for a crossbow.

He felt the heavy springs locked and loaded.

He fired a mill arrow.

The arrow pierced the trees in the direction and kept going, tearing through whatever was in its way.

Baluk dodged the arrow, but couldn’t dodge the trees, which smacked him.

He hit the floor and surrendered without a fight.

“I'm honestly just tired.” He said, then he put on a white sheet and walked away from the battlefield.

“Sophia! We need a shockwave!” Ruby yelled.

Sophia clasped her hands together. “I’m trying, I really am!”

Immediately, Hadwyn saw the flash of a stinger arrow.

“Fuck! Ruby, get down!”

When Ruby still had another arrow primed, Hadwyn threw himself on her to shove her to ground. He felt it whistle by his head.

“It’s gonna come back!” Lars shouted. “We have to fight them head on!”

Sure enough, the stinger arrow did come back, and it brought with it all the air it stole. It followed the same trajectory and flew directly back to its point of origin.

SCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERN

“Well I’ll be damned! They just gave away their location!” Hadwyn hollered.

Then Marco appeared.

“Wassup losers?!” He launched himself at Lars, but Ruby shot to her feet and blocked the sword.”

“Hey, that cut wasn’t for you! Wait your turn!” Marco taunted.

Ruby responded by smacking away his blade and punching him. He stared in shock and amusement.

She hefted her sword. “Come on, Marco. At some point, you have to get tired of hearing Lars screaming in pain every time he takes a shower.”

“You really want to fight me in my area of expertise?”

“I don’t care if you’re a damn blademaster, I’m gonna kick your ass!” Ruby yelled.

Hadwyn got up from his hiding spot.

Akoto leveled his sword at him. “Just surrender Hadwyn, there’s always tomorrow.”

“Bite me.”

Hadwyn pulled up his crossbow, which he had loaded with a blunt arrow. Akoto didn’t expect Hadwyn to pull out a crossbow, which made Hadwyn glad he had taken such measures to keep the purchase a secret.

The ball tip of the arrow appeared to knock the wind out of him for a brief period, but that was all Hadwyn needed.

“HITBOX!” He shouted.

Hadwyn swung his baton at Akoto, who naturally dodged it.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Or, at least he attempted to, but luckily, hitbox actually worked.

The look of triumph disappeared from Akotos face when he felt the impact of the baton- well, not the baton, but whatever field of effect it had.

He was out and on the ground. Hadwyn tackled him.

“I got him!” Hadwyn shouted with glee.

“Ruby continued clashing with Marco, who looked really scared of her. And rightfully so, Ruby was swinging her sword like a maniac.

“Why can’t you just surrender?!” She demanded.

“You said you were gonna kick my ass.” Marco said. “I’m not just gonna take that.”

She shouted and smacked a blade out of his hand.

Lars and Sophia ran up with a net.

Marco didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.

“Wha-”

Ruby sucker punched him across the cheek. Not strongly enough to put a bruise on his tough skin, but enough to send him flying backward.

Lars and Sophia. Lifted the net and pinned him to the ground.

She kicked him semi-aggressively. “Haha! That tickles! You have to hit me harder than that!”

She jumped down on him and began choking him with her legs. “SURRENDER, GODAMMIT!”

Hadwyn could understand why she was going to extreme lengths to get him to verbally announce his surrenderance. Because if Teresa showed up and managed to squad wipe them somehow, (which Hadwyn had a gut feeling might happen) Any person who didn’t verbally surrender, could be freed by Teresa.

“I think he’s enjoying it.” Lars said.

She slapped him again. “You got a better idea?”

Hadwyn had none.

“Just keep him pinned down.” Ruby said to Sophia.

Sophia nodded, and using her magic, she began to allow the net to sink into the dirt.

“Hey hey hey!” Marco protested.

Suddenly, before they could think about what their next plan was, Hadwyn saw something brown fly towards them.

A stick?

Nope, it was too big to be a stick…

“LOG!” Hadwyn shouted.

“What?”

A tree trunk pulverized the ground where they had been standing. Lars had saved them by moving quickly.

“What the hell?!” Ruby shouted.

“That’s Teresa for you!” Marco cackled.

Suddenly, an an arrow flew from behind them, it sliced through the net and Marco shot up and shoved Sophia into a tree.

“I surrender, I surrender!” Sophia whimpered.

Marco retrieved his blades. “Finally, a rational individual.”

Ruby leveled her sword. “Get back down on the ground, before I put you down a second time.”

While Ruby was locked in a standoff with Marco, Hadwyn noticed that Akoto was gone.

“Wait, where's Akoto?” Hadwyn asked Lars.

“Right here.”

Hadwyn whirled around and was immediately slugged by Akoto. He stumbled back, dazed.

Teresa was there too. She leveled a sword at him.

“Surrender Hadwyn.”

“No.”

She shrugged. “We already have the rest of your team.”

Sure enough. Ruby and Lars we wrapped back-to-back with a net. Sophia cowered against a tree, and Marco twirled his blades triumphantly.

“Easy peasy.” He grinned.

Ruby slammed her fist on the table. “We almost had them! What went wrong, huh?!”

Lars shrank into his seat.

Sophia had her two index fingers together. “I don’t know… Maybe we should-”

“What’s up guys!?” Marco plopped himself down in an empty chair. “He swiveled his head left and right, reading their expressions.

“We’re cool, right?”

Ruby coughed. “I don’t want to be that person, but why didn’t you just surrender?”

Hadwyns stroked his chin. “The whole point is that this isn’t a real test, it's just practice.”

“Why the hell are you even here?” Ruby demanded. “What about your team?”

“We’re winning.” He gave a wolfish smile. “I think I can rest a bit.

“It’s an unforgiving world, Marco.”

Everyone jumped at the voice. Peter had snuck up on them again.

Peter also sat down. “You guys fought really well. I’m proud.”

Everyone nodded.

Peter shrugged. “Marco?”

“Yeah.”

“Get your ass back to Teresa’s team.”

He got up and left.

He leaned in.

“I'm so goddamned disappointed in you. What the hell were you all doing?”

“Fighting.” Lars responded.

“Yeah, you were fighting. But you guys didn’t have any plans.”

“How would you know anyway?” Ruby asked.

He shrugged again. “I have my ways.”

Hadwyn gritted his teeth. “We’re getting chewed up out there. Any, I don’t know, hints that might be useful.

He smiled. Sticking up just one finger. “One more hint,” He flattened his hand and waved.

“That’s it.”

Everyone nodded.

He straightened his back. “If you’re fighting stronger opponents, what do you do?”

No one answered.

“For god’s sake, Guuuhh!” He facepalmed and squished his face. “Everybody give an answer.”

“If you’re fighting stronger opponents, what do you do?”

“Retreat.” Lars said.

“Call for backup.” Hadwyn answered.

“Hide.” Sophia replied.

“Give it all you got!” Ruby said proudly, “If you go down, go down fighting.”

A disgusted look spread across Peter’s face.

All of you are wrong, especially Ruby. Ruby, what the hell?

Ruby rolled her eyes. “Well what's the answer then?”

“All of them.”

“I’m sorry?”

Peter smiled.

“You literally just said we were all wrong!” Ruby scoffed.

“All of you were wrong, but your answers together were right. If you all can’t work together, like I said, your team will be doomed.”

“Y'all need to play it smart. How many ways can you use a spell?”

No answer.

“Any way you want. There are no boundaries. You can combine them at your own risk.”

Hadwyn nodded, as did the rest of the team.

“He smiled again.” You don’t just have to use guerilla warfare, you can also use social warfare.”

“How?” Hadwyn found himself asking.

“Well, how many times have you heard of a turncoat?” He raised an eyebrow. “It's happened a million times.

“The Iron legion gets people inside GOAG to steal info. You alway see it on the front page!” He smacked his hand against the table. “How can a little guild steal from a big one? Well, you choose the people who already want things to change, right?”

Hadwyn’s eyes lit up. “Baluk!”

Peter grinned. “Precisely.” Shit if I know why, but he and Akoto hate each other. You can do something with that, can’t you?”

Hadwyn felt the group light up with confidence.

Satisfied with his speech, Peter got up and left.

Lars looked excited. “We can trick Baluk into coming to our side.

“True!” He never said anything about that.”

Hadwyn scratched his neck, “We have to be careful, remember Peter said that you can’t fight for another team.

“But can you help them?”

Lars smacked his forehead. “Of course! I'm surprised I didn’t realize that! I mean, back when I was still at GOAG I used to get my friend to c-”

He stopped. “It's a great idea.” He said. “Let’s do it then. I’m going to get Baluk alone to convince him.” He turned to Sophia. “Come on!”

They left the table, probably to chat with Baluk.

Hadwyn and Ruby got up too. But right as they reached the exit, Ruby pulled him aside.

“Hadwyn…” She said, inspecting his expression, “Hadwyn, this doesn’t feel right… I can’t be the only one… can I?”

Hadwyn sighed. “I don’t know anymore. It’s just a game…

“But Hadwyn knew that was a lie. Even if it was a game, the idea of lying to a bunch of people he would be working with in the future kind of rubbed him the wrong way.

“They’ll understand.” He said, confidently.

She nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. “C’mon then, let's go.”

Peter entered his office.

Berkeley stood on the balcony, smoking.

Peter was genuinely surprised to find him there.

“What are you doing here?” Peter asked.

Berkeley spat out the cigar and crushed it with his fist. Then he dropped it to the floor and faced Peter.

“I came here directly because it’s closer.” He said quietly.

Peter rolled his eyes. “It's winter, get in and shut the door. And why are you smoking? It’s gonna smell like tobacco in here.

Berkeley shuffled in. “Takes the edge off.”

Peter bit his upper lip uncomfortably. Berkeley had casually mentioned a problem with his lungs in many conversations. Peter had dismissed it, at least on the surface. He knew deep down that it was something serious. But he didn’t want to think about the implications.

“Well, smoking isn’t gonna make it any better.” Peter said.

“Takes the edge off.” Berkeley repeated.

Peter feigned indifference, leaning forward and sliding the balcony door shut.

“You came to talk, right?” Peter made himself comfortable on a sofa.

“Let's talk then. How's the spy stuff?”

“I came here without telling anyone.” He said grimly. “What do you think?”

“I was trying to lighten the mood. I’ve been preoccupied with the trainees. What's the status of espionage?”

“Bad. Very bad. We keep intercepting documents, but we can’t narrow down who the spy is.”

Peter leaned forward. “Anything serious?”

Berkeley blinked. “All of it is serious.”

Peter threw up his hands. “You know what I mean! Weapon projects! Aetlea doesn’t give a crap if they take a document about how we make superior horseshoes.”

Berkeley gritted his teeth. “You really think we’re so stupid to keep information like that in filing cabinets?”

Peter didn’t respond.

“We can’t forget how easily this situation could get worse. The longer a spy stays, the more effective they become, and even if they don’t take any classified papers, they can still report our schedules and layout.”

“I know this.” Peter answered.

“Good. I came here to tell you to keep an eye out. It could very well be one of your trainees.”

Peter observed his face. “You suspect someone… Who do you think it is?”

Berkeley leaned in.

“Confound their superior hearing! My back hurts like hell. I suspect it may be Baluk, or perhaps Lars.”

Peter stroked his chin. “A good assumption, but let me be honest with you. Lars is an idiot, and of course,” He relaxed his posture. “Lars, if you’re listening, I mean that in the kindest way possible.”

“He is just a conspiracy theorist, or whatever they call them now, I don’t know, but he poses no threat to us.”

“I hope this is worth it.” Mumbled Berkeley.

“What is?”

“This whole thing.” Berkeley raised his wrinkled hands. “This…”

“The military base?” Peter waved his hand. “What, do they want it back?”

He scoffed. We both know about the tensions with Paknov.

“What about Zyenur?”

“Zyenur is the least of our concerns. Our navy’s are equally matched. And so far, Zynenur seems to be calming down from its… warlord frenzy.”

“If a country can't even stand on its feet, how can it run?”

Peter chuckled. “Knight theo once said…”

“Theo said a lot of things.” Berkeley grumbled. “And if a man says enough things, he ought’ to get one of them right.”

Peter was about to ask Berkeley what he thought of Theo’s works and him as a person, but right at that moment, Berkeley doubled over coughing.

Peter made no move to help him, because he knew that Berkeley would hate him, and hate himself for being this way.

Peter waited for Berkeley and watched him leave through the balcony, until he disappeared in the darkness.

Then Peter sat down and wiped his face in his hands. He grabbed a pencil and put it on his finger, trying to balance it. He did things like this to concentrate. But his finger was so shaky, the pencil kept falling off. Frustrated, he threw the pencil against the wall.

The end of the month was nearing. If he didn’t get his pupils ready, one of two things would happen: One; The Aetlen funding he would get would cease, therefore they would have to disband his trainees.

He prayed this would happen, because the other possibility would be that their training would be accepted, and they would be sent to their demise.

And Peter would have the blood of his own students on his hands.