Ariaska was already running toward the mob frantically trying to think of what she could do, while simultaneously mentally cursing at herself for being an idiot, when she heard the first crack.

Five more followed in quick succession.

Six.

She knew Strella’s metal shooter held six balls.

The justiciar was going to die unless she did something, which would probably mean that she’d die shortly after. The bloodthirsty mob would single her out as an outsider as soon as they laid eyes on her.

Unless…

She saw a burning torch on the ground. She picked it up and ran toward the mob, waving it and yelling at the top of her lungs.

Create A Story, she whispered.

“Brothers! Sisters! We must aid our fellows at the council hall!”

She injected as much rage into her voice as she could. She pictured her own grievances with the ruling class of their society. Held it in her thoughts, allowing it to fill her heart. Believed that she wanted them to pay for their crimes just as the mob did.

“Quickly! Reinforcements are arriving!” she pointed down a side street. Toward, she hoped, was the council hall.

The outer edges of the mob were the first heads to turn to her.

“We must fight together!”

Slowly, more heads turned to the sound of her shrill shouts.

“Our strength is greater as one! United we stand! Divided we fall!” she urged. She didn’t remember if that had been in the leaflet. Hysterically, she decided that it sounded good and probably should be added if it wasn’t.

“Down with the lord! Crush the council!” Ariaska threw her head to the sky and let loose a primal roar, just like the vicious mist lions of the Shadow Steps Forest.

The mob eyed her… a moment passed and they too roared to the night sky.

Ariaska urgently gestured down the side street while waving the burning torch over her head like a madwoman. She had lost track of what she was screaming as the mob charged past her and turned down the street.

She ran behind the last of them for a block before slowing down until they had pulled far ahead. It took her a few moments to get her breath back.

“That was the craziest, most intense thing I’ve ever done.” She couldn’t believe herself. Couldn’t believe that it had actually worked.

She sprinted back and found Strella, calmly reloading her shooter amidst several dozen bodies.

The iron tang of blood mingled freely with pungent and foul odors of human waste.

Ariaska gagged, but managed to keep the bile from rising into her mouth.

“You need a healer!” Ariaska said as she rushed to Strella’s side.

The justiciar shook her head as she put the metal shooter back into the holster underneath her right arm. “There’s no time for that.”

Several fingers on the justiciar’s right hand were bent and twisted in wrong directions.

Ariaska winced as Strella bent them back into place one by one with nary a flinch.

“I think I saw Jocuvel running away in that direction,” Ariaska pointed to a dark alley.

“You’re correct on that account,” Strella said as she staggered over to retrieve her rapier.

“Are you going after her or…” Ariaska began.

“Or?”

“Well… I may have sent your mob over to join the one attacking the council hall,” she continued.

“Yes, I recognized your voice. Quite creative in your exhortations to revolt and to murder our lawful leaders.”

Ariaska blanched. “I didn’t mean any of it! I did it to save your life!” her voice lowered, “okay, maybe I sorta felt that some of the things in the leaflet made sense.”

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“Don’t worry. Thoughts aren’t sufficient to charge one with sedition. The actions are what count.” Strella stumbled toward the alley that Jocuvel had fled into at the start of the fight. “There is nothing we can do for the council hall. The best thing we can do is capture Jocuvel before she escapes.”

“Yes, I agree, however, you can barely walk,” Ariaska hovered at Strella’s side as the justiciar swayed with each step. “Perhaps it’d be best if we found you a healer.”

Strella shook her head. A mistake. It spun as stars blinked in and out at the edges of her vision. “I can’t lose her.”

“Well… she’s got a head start and she’s running, while you’re sort of just shambling along!” Ariaska raised her voice. “What I’m saying is that you’re not catching up at this rate anyways. So, why not get healed up and pick up her trail later.”

“Perhaps—”

Strella pitched forward into darkness.

She didn’t hear the fear in Ariaska’s voice as the Chronicler barely prevented her from hitting her head on the ground.

Strella opened her eyes to confusion. She squinted against the bright sun. What she lay on was a lot more comfortable and warm than the dirty, wet ground in an alley.

The sound of snoring drew her attention. Like a bear. She found Ariaska with her head in her arms on the small desk near the bed.

They were back in the inn.

Strella sat up and was surprised to find that her head was clear. In her experience surviving strikes to the head, despite a helm usually led to a few days of dizzy spells and the feeling that her brain was clouded, mired in mud.

She went through her customary after battle assessment. Starting from her head and moving down the rest of her body.

She felt at the stitches in multiple cuts in her arms. Tender, but nothing more. The fingers of her right hand were lightly bandaged. She bent them experimentally and found that they were stiff, but lacked the shooting pain she would’ve expected from the condition they had been in the previous night.

Her chest and back hurt. Bruised from being struck by blunt weapons and fists.

She moved her right knee and was surprised to feel no pain.

Ariaska must’ve found a good healer.

Strella rose from bed and proceeded to get dressed.

The cuts and bloodstains on her clothing reminded her that she had gotten close, perhaps the closest she had ever to the end.

Her movement woke Ariaska.

The Chronicler yawned and stretched her arms out. “You don’t stop do you?” she regarded Strella. “You should be in bed.”

“Thank you for fetching a healer.”

Ariaska shrugged. “Thank the innkeeper. He’s the one that pointed me in the direction of the local House of the Lone Mother. Got real Mother of Light to come fix you.”

“As opposed to an imaginary one,” Strella raised a brow. “How did you manage to do that?”

“Well… told her you were a justiciar and showed her this,” Ariaska took the Imperial Badge out of her pocket and tossed it back to Strella. “The first part wasn’t enough for them, but the badge did the trick.”

“She did well.”

“I had her focus on fixing your brain, hand and knee. The brain cause I’ve been around enough adventurers that took hard shots to the head. Figured you wouldn’t want to spend the next several days getting dizzy, fainting and vomiting. The hand’s self-explanatory. You can’t fight if your sword hand is useless. Same with the knee,” Ariaska said.

“Well thought out,” Strella said as she continued to dress and gather her things.

“So, we having breakfast? Or…”

“Something we can take on the road. I don’t know the state of the town and my continued presence may endanger the innkeeper and his employees.”

“Probably the right call,” Ariaska sighed. She had been looking forward to a huge, hearty breakfast. “I talked to a few of them, the innkeeper and the workers, I mean. Things are bad if you’re wealthy or a town guard,” she held up two fingers, “what’s left of the latter is trying to defend the former’s homes from the parts of the mob that are still looking for blood. For some of them, killing the lord and several councilmen was enough. Not that they can just go home and forget what they did. The 7th Army certainly won’t let them.”

“They will suffer if they don’t flee and find a way to disappear in another town far from here.”

“One doesn’t really think about what comes after when they’re incited into chaos and violence,” Ariaska mused.

Strella thoughts turned to last night’s events. The sheer number of ordinary townsfolk she had personally killed gnawed at her.

“At least you got a look at Jocuvel, right?”

Strella nodded.

The yellow-haired young woman with a strange Class that she hadn’t recognized.

Anarchist.

The word itself wasn’t one she knew.

She’d pass the information along to the Office of the Emperor.

“I failed,” she said flatly.

“Did you though?” You discovered the identity of the one responsible,” Ariaska said.

“I had her in my grasp and let her slip away. She’ll continue to light fires everywhere she goes.”

“I wonder what kind of Class she’s got that lets her do that,” Ariaska said.

Strella decided against sharing that piece of information at the moment.

“We depart immediately. I need to return to the city. The Office of the Emperor needs to be informed of what I’ve learned and what transpired here.”

“Good thing I borrowed a new horse from the guard stables after I brought the mother to you,” Ariaska grinned. “Who knows, we might even get lucky and catch up to Jocuvel somewhere on road… or those damn bandits get her and solve the problem for us.”