“I don’t see them.” Basem reported, tension and vigilance straining his presence sharp. From the perch of vision of Vantage Point and with the aid of Farsight, the hunter could see for hundreds of miles with extreme clarity. For there to be no trace of them anywhere boded poorly.

“There’s no way they got taken out this fast, not with Karla and Ashley.” Yen’s words held confidence even in the situation they found themselves, but worry could not be banished from her face nor the trace of urgency underneath the confidence.

“No sign of a fight…” Donny added.

“Kamala wouldn’t move unless they really needed to, but they would have left some clue. There has to be something here.”

“Nothing’s here…” Jean had been checking as much from the start and for all his efforts he gained nothing. Instead, he had been solemnly racking his brain to solve the mystery.

“Forced teleportation.” Dante spoke suddenly from a crouch, his deep meditative eyes focused on the ground beneath them.

“What, like Blink? No way there could all be teleported away, not without a fight. Blink’s range isn’t even that much, even if enemies caught them off guard, they couldn’t get moved far.”

“If someone prepared a trap, like molten lava and brought them in…” Jean suggested a grim scenario.

“Can’t blink into stuff.” A scenario Basem refuted immediately to the puppetmaster’s very subtle relief.

“A portal.” Dante informed them. “Remember. The one that brought all the mindless in the festival.”

“And what, they were just thrown in?” Yen didn’t buy into the theory for a second.

“They went willingly.” Jean calmly realized.

“What?”

“They had no choice, and weren’t allowed to leave a message. Someone was taken hostage. Kamala would be the easiest. Donny took control and got them all to walk through.” Jean spelled out his theory.

“No footprints.” Basem criticized.

“Multiple people. Someone cleaned up afterwards, made sure there was nothing left to learn from. Not as simple as kicking over dirt, a rogue spell.”

“Okay, so someone vanished everyone away and left no clues, what the fuck are we supposed to do?” Yen grew increasingly worried.

“It had to be one gate. Different locations are too dangerous, they would have risked it and attacked the one holding Kamala hostage. Donny would have checked it wasn’t something instantly deadly, and insisted the enemy move with Kamala at the same time as the last person.” Dante rose to a stand, a loose seriousness about him. “Going to a different spot doesn’t change anything, unless it fundamentally gives them the advantage. Allies or favorable ground… We’re not that far, but the paladins aren’t chasing us.”

“You mean…” Yen looked back at the capital as Dante did, and Shin sped passed with deep prismatic eyes, unshakably focused.

“Hurry.” Dante spoke as the rest of them followed, Basem more reluctantly. “Before it’s too late.”

---

Remus strolled through the corridor of the underground prison, hands held dignified behind his back causing his large stomach to jut even further pronounced. A slight hum drifted from his lips, the remnants of joy having just left a newly inhabited cell. The appearance of otherworlders might have sparked fear in many of the church but Remus himself could only feel delighted at the opportunity to interrogate new types of heathens with a medley of new responses to his work.

The system was not entirely welcome to him, however. Mind reading and mind controlling spells had taken much of the fun out of it lately, though he didn’t need to use the, at least not right away. Charm wouldn’t work on the first he had tried, regardless, and she showed no respond to the torture. He left her half dead, just to be sure, but if she held no value as a source, then she could be a catalyst. Remus had interrogated many like her, so while he was somewhat disappointed, it would not ruin his day. After all, he had four others waiting for him.

The stout interrogator withdrew an iron key for a magical lock and opened the door to a red headed young man bound with chains to a chair, striped of his gear and clothes to take his sense of security and dignity. Although by the blood knight’s hardened and patient expression, it would take much more than that to break him. Just as Remus liked his guests.

“I do apologize for the wait.” The interrogator asked with a pleasant tone and ill fitting oblivious smile that easily grated on ones nerves. “I hope the room is, to your liking?”

“Not really my style though, you get me?” Donny glanced as the man withdrew a cloth to wipe the fresh blood from his hands, dumping the red soaked rag on the table next to the instruments of torture waiting for him, ignoring the obvious provocation no matter how concerning it was.

Remus looked over and gave a slight humming laugh of courtesy before turning back to comb through his tools, inspecting them one by one at random, calmly and slowly. “Wonderful tools those chains are, aren’t they? Less than comfortable, I know but without it, well we, we would have our drainers running around without end.” He finally chose a thin scalpel and walked over to Donny.

“It’s calm, fam.”

Remus paused before him for a moment before giving a slight chuckle and lowered the blade to Donny’s hand as he leaned forward. Donny lurched, suddenly and violently, his strength not enough to break out of his confinement but enough to make the interrogator recoil on reflex.

“Sorry.” Donny settled back in his seat. “Had to shift over, innit.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“I do understand.” Remus gave him an empathetic look and resumed his work.

He picked a finger on Donny’s hand chained to the armrest and prodded it carefully with the scalpel. The Blood Knight’s face twitched just slightly from the pain far greater than it should be, endlessly attacking his senses as he willed it not to show on his face as much as possible.

“Good, you feel pain. The first one did not so I was, well I’m embarrassed to admit I was a little worried.” Remus spoke as he moved on to the next finger, the first wound still inflicting the same amount of agony. The two sources compounding on one another to the point where Donny couldn’t fully hide it anymore. “How many are you?”

“Don’t understand the question.” Donny strained out the words to sound mostly unbothered.

Remus put down his tool for a moment and raised his hand quickly, enthralling force molding Donny’s mind compliant. “How large is the force you came here with?”

“...ten…” Remus dropped his hand at the response and Donny crawled back to his senses. “...why don’t you just charm me and get it over with?”

The interrogator beamed at the question. “I’m glad you asked. You see… these heretical powers have taken away the… sport of it all. But I am allowed my methods so long as I get results.”

“You’re demented, mate.”

“Now there’s a word I do get a lot. Albeit usually in more colorful vocabulary.” Remus’ expression switched back seamlessly to one of casual understanding, as one might find on an old confidant. “Is it because you have such faith in those other five that you remain so calm? The, ah, mhmh, two ‘geniuses’? No matter how highly you think of them, there is no hope of them finding you. Let alone in time.”

Donny became stiller at those words. “Ah, yes, I forgot to mention. I read minds now as well. These new powers aren’t all bad. Now I can know when my work is truly having an effect.”

Before Remus resumed his work, his expression shifted as he pursed through new information of significant importance. “The champion… Well now… This is certainly a significant discovery. I should very much like to have a guest of such importance.”

The interrogator paced around slowly as Donny’s eyes followed him, doing his best to think surface thoughts of no importance. “Alas. Work before pleasure. The blue haired one does not seem the type to give much. I think I will bring you her head.”

A whirling disk of three green orbs ate a hole up through the ground and Remus was severed in a flash of white before he could even speak. Shin kicked off the air and raced down the corridor, followed by Dante, Basem, and Jean. Sudden yells were silenced before they even fully formed, replaced by the sound of doors being carved or broken into.

“What are you doing getting captured, dumbass.” Yen said bluntly as she burned away his chains with a thin concentrated stream of fire, careful not to hit him with it. “Did you even have a plan or were you just counting on this team being full of freaks?”

Donny rose to his feet and the molten chains hit the floor, blood from the slain interrogator flowing into his body, restoring some of his lost energy, as he equipped some spare gear from a spatial bag Yen tossed him. “I mean, that’s always the plan, innit?”

“Time to go.” Basem informed them at the door, and left with haste.

The two headed after them, regrouping with the rest of the party, the captured five all sporting spare gear. The party moved swiftly through the catacomb like maze of the prison, giving enough time to allow those able to restore aura and mana through the slaughter.

Donny glanced at Karla, her injuries fully healed but the evidence still stained her skin. “You alright?”

“Yeah~” Karla returned a cheery smile, no different than how she always was. It was a good thing the order of interrogation started with them, Donny thought. Yen floated some raw mana for her to absorb as they spoke.

“We don’t have much time. They’ll swarm us again soon.” Jean warned.

“Need to get back our gear first.” Donny insisted. It was far too valuable to leave behind.

“They took it somewhere. We didn’t have time to find out where that is.”

“How’d you find us then?”

“Brute forced it.” Yen answered. “Dug under the walls again and tortured paladins until we learned where they keep prisoners. You’re lucky they prioritize reducing the risk to themselves, since it isn’t in the cathedral or barracks.”

“Yeah, I feel lucky.”

Ashley dropped a shriveled body with fang marks on his neck, flesh quickly writhing until it rose as a pale purple skinned vampire of the same rank. The paladins who weren’t slaughtered for Donny’s Bloodthirst were Ashley’s to drain and turn, a platoon of vampires quickly formed behind them, following their gleeful maker.

Chariot rushed into a great hall and found themselves flanked by dozens of paladins armed with ranged weapons aimed right at them. But their arrows and ranged stopped short on the ward Mara formed and gaps opened up as the party burst off at their whim to slaughter them all.

With a mighty roar, a bearded man in captain’s uniform grew three times larger and rushed them, only for his attack to stop short on Donny’s Bastion and his mind wrack with pain at Shin’s Paralytic Mindfray. Ashley’s mesmerizing eyes enthralled him before he could move again and soon he was under her control.

“Where’s our things~?”

“...armory…”

“Where~?”

“...north… the walled fortress…”

“Thanks~” Ashley thrust a dagger through his throat, the vile energy of ghoulification transforming him with horrified agony into a legendary tier death knight.

“We should go!” Basem argued.

“Gear first.” Shin said.

“It’s decided.” Donny tapped the hunter on the back. “Might get some good gear out of it.”

Shin flickered out of the exited and with a swipe of black and white ripples, burst a formidable looking legendary tier paladin to a puddle of blood. In the second moment, he struck out on all sides except the others behind him to send the paladins crashing away. A few well timed explosions decimated what was left.

Ashley sent her disposable minions in all directions to wreck havoc indiscriminately as the party slaughtered their way north, none more viciously than the hollowed eye invoker of outward composure. A firebolt blasted open the walls surrounding the armor and a rapid volley of arrows put down any guards standing in their way.

The party broke through the vaults and treasuries, scouring for any trace of their gear. One by one they found them, most in the process of being recorded and itemized by clerks who met the same fate as the paladins beside them. Donny tossed Kamala a ring, allowing her drain enough mana to cast her wings, who then handed it to Mujin, giving him access to the ever important Greater Swiftness if needed.

“That everything?” Donny asked.

“Yeah.”

“We leave now!” Basem truly demanded.

A giant cross slash of molten red severed through air and ground towards them the moment they stepped out and Shin blasted it away once more. The red haired flame knight appeared again, pushing himself beyond what was sensible by his strained expression and the remnants of truestrike still visible.

But Shin had no mercy to spare. Pulse draped his body, and he burst before the greater monarch in an instant. Prismatic mana swirled off his fist as the paladin realized his own sword would fall too late. Shin struck, but his fist landed on a woman mage that blinked between, taking the soul destroying strike in the flame knight’s place as both were sent crashing through a building.

Shin paid them not even a second glance as he followed after the others fighting desperately through the sea of enemies. Yen took the form of fire and scorched through the air, burning away waves of enemies unable to withstand the sheer might of her flames.

Kong lept from paladin to paladin, tearing and breaking with nearly as much vigor as Karla did by the sheer durability of her bones, as Mara shielded and warded as they fled. A flying dagger tapped a magic arrow off course before it could reach Yen, to the grim faced Warden’s intense chagrin. But there was nothing he could do as the party broke through his wall a second time and escaped.

He vowed, deeply to do anything it took to see them took apart in the name of Sol, and Basem sunk an arrow in his unwitting head. None of those around even registered his existence before the Warden fell dead and the Strider had already bounded down the walls too quickly for them to catch.

As quickly and destructively as they came, Chariot disappeared over the horizon as swiftly as the wind. Shin glanced back as the grand city faded away, deciding with just a whim and casual fleeting emotion, that he would kill nearly all the people that resided there.