A burst of magical power exuded off Evelyn’s blade. It coursed through her armor as well causing the cave walls and ground to glow.

Without further delay, she came for Kiran. No one else but him mattered. He had to die from her perspective before all others.

Right as their swords met, he channeled a ton of mana into the blade. Unlike the last time their swords met each other, he was able to keep this one intact.

At least that was the case for now. With the help of the arcane root, his sword continued to maintain its strength not bowing down to her deathly resolve.

She pulled away and blocked Lar’s fauchard which came in response. While she kept her busy and Kiran prepared to follow up, large jagged objects began to form way above Evelyn. Yorais muttered the words of some spell while contorting her fingertips in a specific manner. When her eyes snapped open, the objects went hurdling down towards Evelyn.

They came down fast and were propelled at a rate far greater than what gravity would accomplish alone. Despite that, Evelyn dodged each and every one of them with ease.

Plumes of dirt shot up into the air from the newly formed craters that formed in the rocky ground beneath their feet. One last jagged object came right for Evelyn. Her sword pierced through it slicing it in half causing chunks to explode out near Abigail’s feet and Lar’s. Debris landed on his chest as he blocked any from hitting his face.

He lowered his hand. Everyone began to appear a little hazy due to the atmosphere that had formed. The glowing orbs above them provided plenty of light, but the haze made things a little more difficult.

Evelyn cracked a smile. With an upward swipe of her sword to the ceiling, an arc-like spell began breaking apart the ceiling above their heads. Debris began to fall towards them all forcing them to dodge out of the way.

As they did so, she came straight for him while the others had no choice but to focus on dodging the still-falling debris.

“You thought this would be easy, huh?” she said.

He adjusted his position on the uneven foundation trying his hardest to not trip on any of the debris. Right as he firmly took up a position, he blocked her sword just in time and began motioning forward. She dug her heels in as he got closer to her face. “Let us know when you’re ready to put an end to this. We don’t want to hurt you.”

She furrowed her brows. Their swords pulled away only for hers to motion backward to block Lar’s strike from behind. She swiftly deflected Lar’s fauchard and spun back around to deflect more of his attacks.

There’s no doubt about it. She’s an incredible fighter. But there are six of us and only one of her. I don’t care how much power that armor gives her, she’ll lose this engagement eventually.

Her focus and attention began to go towards Yorais who began preparing another attack of her own. While she muttered the words beneath her breath, Evelyn ran towards her. Yorais began muttering a different spell having no choice but to take a different approach to her oncoming opponent.

The greatest weakness a sorcerer or sorceress ever had, was an opponent getting right up to them. Sorcery was best suited to moderate or far distances. Up close, things tended to get ugly. People like Kiran were best suited for close engagements.

Thankfully, Frederek was there to defend Yorais before they could reach her. Frederek blocked Evelyn’s approach. “Why don’t you lift that visor of yours? I imagine it must be sweaty under there.”

She began to grimace as she worked towards striking him down. She tried to motion by him, but he kept her entirely unable to do so as they ran up behind her.

Frederek was somehow managing to smile and appear even thrilled in a strange way. “A beautiful face like yours doesn’t deserve to be hidden away in a helmet. Come now, lift it already!”

His words only infuriated her further. Her attacks became more intense but also more sloppy as a result.

With a simple smirk, he kicked her right in the chest. Evelyn found herself off balance just a little right as Abigail neared her backside.

“Do it, now!” Frederek yelled out.

Abigail thrust one of her red swords toward her. Evelyn tried to reposition, but she was too late. The tip of the red blade infused with aura pierced through the black plate armor near the shoulder area.

Within that closed helm, a loud pained moan reverberated out. The pleased look on Abigail’s face wavered as soon as Evelyn became fixated on her rather than the others.

Even with an injury, she fought just the same. If anything she became even more strong. Abigail struggled to defend herself against her rapid attacks. She found herself on one knee grimacing whilst holding both of her red blades up to defend herself.

Sparks flew out as her two swords struggled to prevent it from going right into her body. However, she lasted long enough for Aphelia to come in for an attack.

It must’ve pained her immensely to fight her sister. The look in those eyes made that incredibly clear to him. “Just stop this already! We…we don’t have to fight.”

“No,” Evelyn said. “You’ve made your true allegiances clear. Now you can die with the rest of them for all I care,” she said whilst trying her hardest to pierce through Aphelia. Her sister managed to defend herself well enough but if they didn’t assist her soon, he didn’t imagine she’d make it for long.

Luckily for her, Abigail and Frederek quickly came to her assistance.

“Kiran,” Yorais said catching his attention. “You and I should go and complete our objective while the others remain here.”

“Are you certain?” Kiran said questioning whether they ought to split up during this skirmish.

“We must accomplish our goal, even if it costs some of us our lives.”

Lar looked him directly in the eye as she fought Evelyn from a distance. “We’ll take care of her. Go already!”

Kiran began making his way up the ascending slope that would take them to the raised rocky platform with the route to their destination behind it. However, Evelyn wasn’t at all interested in allowing the two of them to carry on.

She leaped in the air with her enhanced armor giving her the strength to jump much higher than normal. She landed on a raised rocky platform looking down at them. Kiran and Yorais stopped their ascent up the slope as she pointed her sword down towards them. “You will go no further.”

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“This is all pointless,” Kiran said. “You’re only delaying the inevitable.”

“I agree with you.” You do? “You are all walking into your graves by remaining here. These ridiculous efforts of yours will ensure you all die. So why not take this chance and leave? I will grant you this opportunity right now, but I will not grant it again.”

“How kind of you,” Abigail said appearing quite agitated. “That armor of yours has given you a lot of strength, but even it isn’t enough to allow you to defeat us.”

He could already tell what her plan was. She wanted to grasp onto an arcane root that wasn’t fully disconnected from the ground. It had given her enormous power before. He could only imagine how much harder she would be if she touched one and wore this armor at the same time.

Before he could do anything else, her sword began to change into a giant hammer. She rushed into the dark cavernous hall ahead and sent the hammer up into the ceiling.

The ceiling began to crumble and fall ensuring they’d struggle to get through. They all rushed to the debris that settled on top of each other blocking them from proceeding any further.

“That little—”

“Now, now, Abigail,” Frederek said placing a hand on his right hip. “This will only delay us shortly. Isn’t that right Yorais?”

She nodded her head. “It will take me some time, but I should be able to clear this.”

If she could clear a collapsed cave, then he was all for it. Otherwise, he wasn’t sure what they were to do. He did question Evelyn’s plan to do this in the long run. Perhaps they had stores of food in there that he wasn’t aware of. Or not. Either way, Yorais held onto the arcane root in one hand and contorted her other free hand to begin lifting giant rocks into the air and pull them away.

Kiran approached Aphelia who appeared a bit sad. “I’m sorry you’ve had to fight her.”

The lines on her face softened a little. “Your apology isn’t necessary. I chose this for myself. I can live with it. I still believe there’s a chance to get through to her. I’m just not sure what it will take. So long as she can breathe, there’s always the chance.” She spoke with a level of certainty that he thought she might just be right. Until she achieved this, however, he had to remain skeptical to a certain degree and embrace the possibility that they would have to eliminate her.

Lar began crossing her arms beside him. “She’s lucky to have someone like you who’s not just willing to give up on her. I imagine most would’ve by now, especially when that same person is trying to kill or maim you.”

“I don’t believe she has it in it to actually kill me. I’ve seen her fight before. When she directly attacks me, she holds back every time.”

“Really?” Abigail said. “I didn’t notice any difference in how strong her attacks were whether she was attacking me, someone else, or you.”

“We have fought many times before. I suppose you could say I’ve become quite good at noticing these kinds of subtle things.” She shook her head with a smile. “No, I’m sure she’s been holding back whenever engaging with me. I can just sense it. A little bit of doubt exists in her heart even if she would suggest otherwise by her words and actions.”

More rocks floated above in the air forming a new pile. Judging by Yorais’s speed, it would take half an hour or more before she cleared all the debris allowing them to continue going on through.

At least they could rest their feet and arms a little. He found himself sitting down with his back to this cave chamber’s walls. Lar came to sit by him and let out a long drawn-out sigh.

“You’re looking a little tired,” he said.

“Noticed, huh? Yeah, it turns out fighting without one of those fancy little things drains me a lot quicker.”

“I’m sure if Lucias had any more arcane roots to spare, he would’ve wanted you to have one for this mission.”

She began stretching her arms out in front of her. “I’m doing well enough without one. I do have to be more careful though.”

With her arms and now legs stretched out, she balanced her fauchard with the shaft resting on her thighs. She eyed Yorais. “Do you think once we’re done here, that this darkness will truly go away?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. Yorais seems quite confident that removing that woman from the altar will restore things to how they ought to be.” He looked up to the expansive dark ceiling above them. “Are you not convinced that it will?”

She didn’t appear all that eager to respond. She eventually did whilst keeping a close eye on Yorais. “She knows a lot of things. An enormous amount of things truthfully speaking. If anyone would know, it would be me. But she’s not infallible. Even for someone like her who has read hundreds of books that are many hundreds of pages each, cannot know everything.”

“You don’t think she’s being dishonest, do you?”

“No. She’s a true believer. Whether that belief constitutes as reality, is another thing entirely.”

Frederek approached with his arms crossed. Abigail stood by him as well. He crouched down at them managing to make him have similar height to Abigail as he did so. “And what are you two whispering on and on about? I hope it’s nothing salacious. If it were, you’d have no choice but to tell me!” He began to laugh as Abigail appeared ready to slap him in the face.

“Oh,” Lar said. “You can’t even begin to imagine the salacious things we were just gossiping about, and about whom it was directed towards. It was about someone here in fact. Someone of this size,” she said using her hands to equate distance, “and this large. In fact, that person is crouching down right in front of me.”

“You’re a devious familiar Lar. Not as devious as her, mind you,” he said gently elbowing Abigail, “but devious nonetheless. What pray tell, were you uttering about myself then? I am most curious.”

Lar began to stroke her chin as he wondered where she was going with this. “You know Frederek, these sorts of things are better left unknown by a person like yourself. Who would I be to just tell you? That’s between myself and Kiran.”

Abigail began to mumble something grotesque beneath her breath. “You were talking about Yorais, weren’t you?” She kept eyeing Lar and smiled a moment later. “Yes, I knew it. You absolutely were talking about her.” She began to approach Lar and hunch down a little as if she were deeply examining Lar’s physical features on her face. “The two of you have always had an uncanny resemblance to one another. I’ve always wondered whether that’s purely a coincidence or if there’s more to it.”

“What does it matter?” Lar said casually.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter all that much. But I am a curious person who specializes in information and secrets. What secret, dare I even ask, do you and Yorais have with one another?”

Lar chose to not respond. This only made Abigail even more curious. “I like to think of myself as an observant person. Sure, laugh all you like. Me observant? I’d rather just go into tough situations blindly, right? Wrong!” She began to strut around only to stop and point a finger at Lar. “Since I’ve seen you in the coalition, you and Yorais always seem to keep some distance between yourselves, unless absolutely necessary. Why is that?”

“Don’t we have more important things to worry about?” she replied. “Like, I don’t know, focusing on our current mission.”

Abigail began opening and closing her hands in a silly kind of way. “Yeah, yeah. Just be straight with me already. I’m dying to know. Besides, we’ve still got time to spare. I mean Yorais still has a fair bit of rocks and debris to deal with so what better to do in a situation like this, than to get to know each other better? That’s what familiars like ourselves are supposed to do anyways.”

“I’ll pass,” Lar said.

She puffed out her chest and pressed her hands on her hips.

“You know better than to pry into people’s private lives Abigail,” Frederek muttered aloud.

“I’m only trying to get closer to everyone. Didn’t you just tell me the other day that I should try doing that or did I imagine it?”

“You didn’t imagine it. But there’s a wrong way to do it and a correct way to do it.”

After a short while, Yorais began to approach them. She pocketed her arcane root as everyone stood back up.

“The way is clear,” she said. “The chamber lies right before us. Let us finally reach it and finish this for good.”

They had a brief moment to just relax a little. But now it was time to go towards the danger once more.

He controlled his breathing and gripped the handle of his sheathed sword. Let’s finish this.