--- Rania ---

Rania could hear faint shouts from the other side of the camp. Elves had great hearing, and the Law of Adversity helped to improve all of her senses. By the time she consciously registered the emergency, her feet had already carried her out of the tent.

She left confused and stunned soldiers in her wake as she sprinted at super-humanoid speed, jumping over tables and tents to save time.

When the alarm klaxons sounded, she was already halfway across the camp.

She used a conveniently placed rampart to launch herself into the air and get a good look at the source of the noise in the distance.

Vampires! And werewolves! And lots of vampire spawn!

So cool! Almost as cool as dragons! Fighting vampires and werewolves was a classic, and every proper adventurer should do it at least once.

But then she caught herself. It was a bad thought. The vampires and werewolves were killing the Good Guys, and that made them the Bad Guys.

It was understandable to think that they were cool, but that didn't make them any less evil. Vampires were very stylish, with billowing cloaks, and teeth that reflected the moonlight just so. They always looked like they were posing for a poster. And werewolves were cool too, but in a different way, with primal violence and dominance instead of class and sophistication.

The Living City really knew how to design its Bad Guys well. They were very popular with a certain subset of the population, especially edgy teenagers who thought that evil was cool. Rania was glad that she was never a teenager. It was so embarrassing to think about.

She used to think that being sufficiently cool could make a Bad Guy awesome, but she knew better now.

It was simple, really: No matter how cool a Bad Guy was, being a Bad Guy was Bad, and therefore there should be fewer of them.

Yes, more Bad Guys did mean more adventures, and cooler Bad Guys meant cooler adventures. That was still valid reasoning. But it was no longer the only reasoning that mattered to her. It also mattered that Bad Guys, no matter how cool, would hurt Innocent Civilians. Adventures were fun, without a doubt, but they were much less fun if other people suffered for them. It would maybe be fine so long as the Bad Guys only fought each other, but alas they rarely did.

Adding more Bad Guys to cause more adventure was not a good thing, on balance. If she ever ran out of Bad Guys to fight, she would rather have fun in other ways than ask for more Bad Guys to appear. Maybe she could play Walmarts and Karens with her friends instead?

She thought all of this in the half second or so that she caught a glimpse of the enemy in the distance, while she was at the zenith of her jump. Introspection was a free action during dramatic moments, after all. She shot an arrow at the same time from sheer muscle memory, and killed a werewolf with it.

She continued jumping and shooting as she got closer to the fight. But shortly before she arrived, her arrows started hitting a magical barrier instead of a monster.

The caster was a Shan soldier!

Fortunately, Rania's shock and confusion did not last long: She recognized the subtle signs of mind control on the mage, and vampires were known to be very good at that type of magic.

It wasn't much of a problem: Her speed, strength and reaction time were far greater than his. She simply rushed at him and punched him in the head, knocking him out.

Unfortunately the mage wasn't the only one who had fallen under a vampire's control. Rania quickly found herself caught in a melee with a dozen soldiers, all of them Good Guys. Knocking out this many people would be very difficult, and somebody innocent might get hurt if she stopped holding back against them.

She felt very conflicted about the situation.

At least a werewolf rushed into the fight and tried to kill her. She didn't need to feel conflicted about killing that one. It lightened her mood a little, to make mincemeat out of the beast while she dodged the other soldiers trying to fight her.

After a frantic minute of running and jumping, she finally spotted the vampire controlling all the soldiers. She was standing on a rampart, illuminated by moonlight, and smiling evilly. Rania was annoyed with herself. She should have known to look in the most dramatic location first. Vampires were naturally drawn to those.

Her Arrow of Bad Guy Slaying briefly lit up the night sky as it instantly obliterated the vampire in an explosion of bright light. Vampires really were among the most Bad of Bad Guys, and so her arrows worked very well against them.

The soldiers around her stopped fighting and looked around in confusion as the spell on them ended.

Rania was glad to see that, but like every badass hero in an adventure novel she wasted no time on explaining things to bystanders and just rushed ahead into the next fight instead. If the audience already knew what was going on, what would be the point in explaining it to side characters?

She engaged another werewolf in melee. This one was bigger and faster than the ones before, a sure sign that she was getting closer to the boss. She managed to kill it without taking an injury, but the monster killed three of the Shan soldiers during their fight, when she dodged his claws and it hit someone else instead. It disturbed her greatly.

Most of the Shan soldiers were just standing around in a trance and getting killed without fighting back. It looked like the Living City's assault included wide-ranging enchantments to incapacitate most of the soldiers.

Rania herself wore powerful defensive talismans to protect against such effects, as all powerful adventurers did. The empowerment through the Law of Adversity added to that, and so she barely registered the charms and enchantments that were taking out most of the army around her.

Only the most powerful of the soldiers were similarly resistant. The rest were sitting ducks that the monsters could pick off at their leisure.

The soldiers had basically become Innocent Bystanders. It made Rania so mad!

The vampires even had a way to control the war beasts. She saw an animal handler get torn apart by his own chimera. He wore a look of shock at the betrayal on his face as he died. It was terrible! Rania was really not enjoying this fight at all!

At least the vampire responsible for that got his comeuppance: He tried to bite another chimera that proved resistant to his enchantments. A vampire's bite should normally give the vampire greater control over his victim.

But instead, the vampire exploded after he took a bite.

The handler riding that chimera started laughing: "Ha, that dwarf was right after all. Injecting holy water into its blood really was a smart precaution."

Heh. typical Balron. She was glad to hear that other people were listening to the old professor's advice.

Rania took aim at another vampire, but before she could loose her arrow the creature was hit by lightning and disintegrated on the spot. Lilian walked up to the ashes and gave them a skeptical look.

"This is suspicious. There are far too few of them." She said. "They have no hope of taking on the whole army. What are they trying to accomplish here?"

It was true. There were very few proper vampires here, and not that many werewolves either. They were supported by a large number of vampire spawn, but those were much weaker. This many enemies would be far too much for team Nundru on their own, but for an entire army they posed little threat. The mind control was an important force multiplier of course, but it wouldn’t work on the Shan’s elite troops. Most importantly, Elona, Tanya and Xilly were extremely powerful adventurers in their own right, even if they rarely fought directly.

Lilian intoned and cast a spell: "Detect Plot Relevance!"

Rania had never heard of that spell before, but she was not surprised to see Lilian cast it. The half-drow surveyed the fight before her with a critical eye. Then she ran off without a word. Rania suspected that Lilian would return when she was needed the most.

As Rania made her way closer to the thick of the fighting, she finally encountered some of her friends.

Atrog was engaged in a duel with a powerful master vampire. The corpses of two lesser ones lay to either side of him.

She briefly considered helping him out, but then she realized that there was no way his epic duel would end before the other fights. It just wouldn't be dramatically appropriate at all. In larger skirmishes, individual battles should be finished in ascending order of epicness. The most awesome and important fight should be finished last.

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Additionally, Atrog's continued survival was guaranteed not only by narrative convention, but also by the master vampire's own liege: The Living City itself.

Atrog was wearing Victor Cale's armor and wielding a magical sword from the feywild with its own prophecy, which made him look really cool. His divine smites looked very impressive, too. That was important. The Living City cared about glory, and Atrog was the most badass fighter on the battlefield. The longer its champion fought with Atrog, and the more witnesses there were to the fight, the more glory would be generated. The Living City would milk this for all it was worth. The vampire would probably not be happy about that, but he was a Bad Guy, so it didn't matter.

Atrog would be fine for now. Better to help other people first, whose fights were less epic and narratively important. She just had to remember to come back for Atrog later, as the smaller fights finished up. It would also be a good idea to keep an eye out for Lilian, whose grasp of these things was better than her own.

Dov was standing some distance away, rallying the Shan troops. The soldiers around her were snapping out of the vampires' enchantments. It looked like she was using her telepathy to counteract their mind control.

Balron was standing in front of the group, to shield them from the spells and projectiles that the vampires kept launching their way. He was surrounded by a telekinetic whirlwind of stakes, garlic and silver spikes. While his usual telekinetic storm would be enough to kill most enemies, vampires and werewolves were both capable of regenerating if they did not get injured by their bane materials. Fortunately, these weaknesses were commonly known and even without Balron's advanced preparedness, any larger army carried stockpiles of common bane materials as a basic precaution.

Her own Arrows of Bad Guy Slaying were even better: They contained a universal Bad Guy Bane material. Balron had been excited when he first found out about it, but then got mad when he realized it couldn't be extracted or replicated because the arrows were Fey Bullshit, his words, not hers, and refused to be studied.

The werewolves and the vampire spawn were keeping their distance from Balron. Not just because of the blender of death that surrounded him, but also because they kept getting distracted by illusionary enemies, or wasted time jumping over illusionary pitfalls.

That was Galanys' work, she knew. Casting illusion spells in combat was normally tricky because it was very difficult to create plausible-looking illusions quickly enough to fool someone. An ordinary mage would likely have forgotten to add a convincing smell to the illusion, and the werewolves would have noticed that immediately. But Galanys had an eidetic memory, so instead of imagining an illusion piece by piece, she just created an exact replica of something she had seen before.

Rania had to suppress a giggle as she noticed a vampire spawn who was being held at bay not by a generic illusionary soldier, but by a picture-perfect illusion of Draxus the Eccentric, as played by the famous actor Arran Black. He even used the same quips and one-liners to taunt his opponent! If the vampire spawn only spent more time watching theater plays, he might have noticed the illusion for what it was.

Together, her friends were keeping the Shan soldiers safe and buying them time while they got organized.

She was a bit surprised she couldn't find all of them, though. She supposed her group of friends and allies had grown too large for each of them to get a spot in the limelight in a fight. Presumably some of them were being heroic off-stage, somewhere else on the battlefield. She knew that Aranea was with Tanya. She was probably fighting alongside team Delta. Maybe they had even teamed up with team Shevon, the Shan adventurer group? They had their own prophecy and their own adventure, after all.

Rania was happy. She had made so many friends that they didn't even all fit in a single scene anymore.

She joined her companions and stood next to Balron, so she could help him fend off attackers.

A large group of vampire spawn was readying itself to attack, led by two proper vampires. She readied herself for a dangerous fight.

"*Time for the artillery.*" Balron said, and pressed a button on his arm. The remote controls for Boomwagon the first.

A hundred meters behind them, the tank's Cataclyst cannon roared once, and the whole group of monsters disappeared in a flash of light.

"*They are not regenerating.*" Rania wondered aloud. "*It looks like vampires are weak against plasma. Why is that? Oh, is it because vampires are harmed by the sun and the sun is made of plasma?*"

"*No, it's because plasma is plasma. Almost everything is weak against plasma. Regenerating from a single cell only works if there is a cell left.*" Balron responded.

That made sense. As she watched the ashen remains of the monsters drift off into the wind, Rania couldn't help but agree that most things were weak against plasma.

Unfortunately the tank needed time to recharge, especially without a mage present to speed up the process. It was great for emergencies like this one, but they couldn't rely on it. It had bought them a temporary reprieve, but more enemies arrived soon after. Many of them were mind controlled Good Guys and their war beasts, sent on suicidal attacks as sacrificial pawns.

She was glad that she could focus on killing the monsters, because her Arrows of Bad Guy Slaying worked so well against them. She tried to avoid hitting any of the charmed soldiers as best she could, but it was not always possible. Some of them tried to rush at Balron in melee, and it took time for Dov to undo their enchantments after they got close. A few times Rania had no choice but to strike the soldiers. It was either them or her friends. She tried to keep her punches weak enough that they would only knock the soldiers out and not kill them, but she wasn't sure if it worked.

It made her feel terrible. Bad Guys who turned Good Guys or Innocent Civilians into more Bad Guys against their will were just the absolute worst.

It shouldn't happen!

Ethics was already hard enough as it was, and this made it so much worse!

She was angry at the universe for allowing something like this to happen.

But unfortunately she was just a Perfectly Normal Elf and the universe probably did not really care about her opinion.

Then things got worse.

She had just finished beheading an enchanted chimera, when she noticed that one of the soldiers was getting back up. At first she was glad to see that the man had only been unconscious, but then she saw the deep gash in his face and the empty look in his eyes.

It was a zombie, and not the ethical kind used by Ossor, either.

The man swung at her with his sword. He was slow and weak, and had no chance at all of inflicting any physical damage on Rania.

The emotional damage was another matter, though.

She stood stock still in shock. A few seconds later, Balron's telekinetic death storm caught the zombie and pulverized its head, and only then did she snap out of it.

After that, her heart was no longer in it. She kept fighting as they had practiced, but it was no longer any fun. This adventure was terrible.

She barely paid any attention as Lilian returned, with Elona in tow.

The priestess of Duna started casting a spell that enveloped the entire battlefield. It had no practical effect that she could sense at all, but the vampires immediately switched targets. Where before they seemed to be intent on killing as many people as possible, they now focused all of their attacks on Elona.

"Focus on the vampires! Some of them are infiltrating and subverting the camp! We need to find and kill them all!" Lilian shouted.

At least she had a proper goal now, to take her mind off things. She was the fastest of them after all, and could ask the spirits for help to find her targets in the thick of the fight. She trusted her teammates to keep themselves safe, and went on the hunt.

She was angry at the vampires. Really angry. Being a Bad Guy was all well and good. They all had their roles to play. But mind controlling the Good Guys and forcing her to kill them was going too far. They made it personal.

She quickly lost herself in the hunt as she killed Bad Guy after Bad Guy.

As the spirits guided her, she found herself far away from the others. A shapeshifted vampire was infiltrating the camp and subverting forces before they could be mobilized. Luckily, that vampire made a mistake.

Bob the Senior Dungeon Builder was there, minding his own business. Rania knew that the archfey in charge forbade him from interfering in a conflict like this, but the vampire did not know that. He attacked Bob, and that broke the truce. Bob made a complicated hand movement, and all the space before him folded itself up into a pocket dimension, taking the vampire with it. He would be going on a dungeon dive in the feywild, Rania knew.

A few seconds later, reality unfolded again and deposited a dead vampire on the ground. The creature was riddled with arrows, his cloak was on fire, and his face covered in acid. Bob just shook his head with a disappointed look as he marked the vampire's poor performance on a clipboard. He was not called the Senior Dungeon Builder for nothing.

She continued her hunt, and shortly afterwards found a second vampire who was seriously bad at threat estimation. The vampire had cut her own arm and was launching bolts of blood at Adam, who was floating in the air and slowly moving towards the front.

It wasn't a terrible idea on its own. Most countries had a rule not to attack the Historians of Secrets under any circumstances, but the Living City was permanently at war with everyone, including House Mardok, so this did not apply to them. It looked like Adam had only just started to move, so taking him out with a surprise attack as that vampire tried would actually be a smart move. But Rania knew that Adam was meant to be a background character, and would not be a level-appropriate encounter for a vampire. The fight was a foregone conclusion.

The bolts of blood impacted Adam, killing him instantly.

Huh. What?

She blinked, and looked again. Adam was fine after all. The bolts of blood had missed him by a hair's breadth. It must have been her imagination.

The bard looked in the vampire's direction with a nervous expression as he fumbled with a wand in his hand. It was clear that he didn't know how to fight.

When he finally managed to shoot the wand, a beam of light erupted from it and annihilated the vampire on the spot. The wand seemed to have some unexpected recoil though, as Adam lost control of the beam and it cut a swath of destruction across the camp.

Rania just barely threw herself out of the way of the beam and watched as the ground she just left turned into a fissure several meters wide and deep.

She watched in shock as the beam reached Boomwagon the First and instantly destroyed the tank.

"Sorry!" She heard Adam embarrassedly whisper from above.

At least nobody got hurt! It was a small miracle that the beam had only destroyed the tank and not hurt anyone else. Of course, the tank's destruction had been a foregone conclusion, given its name. But with its destruction it had served its purpose: They would now all have some additional narrative protection because they needed to build a Boomwagon the Second for the trope to work, and obviously that couldn't happen if they all died first.

Rania continued her hunt for the vampires, and this time she finally got to kill them herself. That felt much more satisfying for her than just standing by and watching while side characters experienced an establishing character scene.

When she killed the second vampire she found on her hunt, the soldiers around the vampire snapped out of their enchantment. Half of them were in the process of murdering the other half, but now they all returned to their senses.

As she left to continue her mission, she heard a whispered "Thank you." from one of the soldiers. It warmed her heart, and briefly overpowered her anger.

This was why she fought now. To save the Good Guys from the Bad Guys, and to make sure they could have happy and long lives. It felt nice to be appreciated for that.

The spirits told her to jump over a tent to find her next target, and she did.

But at the apex of her flight, she suddenly lost control over her body!

Her arms and legs wouldn't move!

She crashed into the ground, and came to a stop right in front of a vampire. He looked even fancier and edgier than the other vampires she fought so far. He must be another master vampire!

He stood in front of her with an arrogant aristocratic bearing and sneered: "You have been causing us a lot of trouble. I am going to enjoy turning you into a puppet."