--- Rania ---

They were moving through the hallways at a brisk pace, at Lilian's suggestion.

They weren't quite running, though. The ominous alien writing on the walls said "No running in the hallways", and after Rania offered her theories about the nature of the building, none of them felt like testing fate and possibly angering an Outer God. Dov probably knew what was going on due to all the infohazards stuck in her head, but she said she couldn't possibly comment on this.

Rania had tried asking the building's spirits for clarification, but they were oddly reluctant to talk to her at all. Apparently the Living City had talked to them and made it clear that they were supposed to be quiet and ignore her. That was very rude of the Living City, but she had to admit that turnabout was fair play after she spent so much time waging psychological warfare against it by dressing in pink.

They entered a larger room and immediately came under attack by enemies lying in ambush for them.

Atrog and Balron were taking point and the barrage of arrows bounced off their armor and shields to little effect. Several enemy mages tried to cast spells at them, but Balron and Galanys easily counterspelled most of them and one of the wizards never finished his spell as Rania's arrow pierced his head.

Only a single enemy spell got through, and against all odds it bounced off of a wall, ricocheted, and hit Lilian square in the chest, who immediately collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

"*Uh. I'm paralyzed. Again.*" She said.

She radiated feelings of annoyance and resignation rather than fear.

"*Cover her!*" Atrog said, as he and Balron took up positions close to Lilian's prone form.

They were standing in the open, and unable to take cover without leaving Lilian exposed.

This time team Nundru did not try to repeat their strategy of covering the area in smoke and using Dov's heat vision to see through it. Vampires and werewolves both had excellent senses, and the enemy had known about this tactic for long enough that even their normal soldiers almost certainly had counters for it.

They had originally still planned to use Dov's screaming to prevent the enemy from talking, but Lilian had been horrified at the idea. If they did that, it would prevent them from randomly overhearing useful information from the Bad Guys, and it would disincentivize them from holding villainous monologues.

After much arguing Atrog had conceded that she did know what she was talking about, and not pissing off Tonos was probably more important than causing small communication problems to the enemy.

They had other strategies to use instead.

Atrog stretched out his arms, channeled his divine magic, and conjured a small orb of concentrated daylight.

He had only recently become powerful enough to cast this spell, and in Rania's opinion it made him look totally awesome as it illuminated him. Carrying a sword from the feywild with a mysterious prophecy and wearing a powerful magical armor from Oruk's technological heyday, Atrog looked like he belonged on the cover of a book. If it was not clear before, Rania was certainly convinced at this moment that he was the Main Character.

The vampires charging at them seemed to come to the same realization as they suddenly stopped in their tracks, started screaming and ran away to take cover. Or maybe that was more because the sunlight hurt them and not because they realized they were about to attack a Main Character and were certain to lose? who could say? In her mind, both possibilities were about equally likely.

Rania kept shooting enemies as she usually did, killing them like clockwork. But then one of her Arrows of Bad Guy Slaying was diverted from its target as an imp jumped in its way.

Just like when she fought that big shot vampire whose name she forgot! The one Elona had killed! It looked like the enemy had somehow found out about that tactic and they were now summoning imps to counter her.

She stopped using Arrows of Bad Guy Slaying and switched to a different type of arrow instead, this one equipped with an explosive head that fragmented into silver and holy water. She was very annoyed that she had to resort to the explosive arrows, even though they were very powerful, too. Balron had asked some specialists from his university to make them specifically for this mission, because they were very effective against both vampires and werewolves. Still, her Arrows of Bad Guy Slaying were even better, and at this point they felt like her signature weapon. Not getting to use them sucked.

She felt feelings of sympathy from Aranea, who must have noticed her distress. The giant spider was climbing on the ceiling and setting enemies on fire with her eye lasers.

As the enemy soldiers fell to their attacks, Rania noticed some of them dissolve into a blue puddle. All of those seemed to be dressed very similarly, too.

"*Oh great. More foreshadowing.*" She said. "*Maybe the guy at the entrance wasn't a Named Character after all, if he isn't special? It's a whole bunch of minions with a shared theme, instead.*"

"*That's good for us.*" Lilian responded from where she lay unmoving on the ground. "*Conservation of Narrative Significance implies that they must be individually weaker, much in the same way that fighting off ten ninjas is easy, but when there is a single ninja standing in your way, that is when you need to worry.*"

Rania suddenly felt a stab of pain in her head as Dov forced additional power into her telepathy.

The imps started screaming, and running away in terror.

"*There you go.*" Dov said. "*Those lesser demons are really weak-willed.*"

"*Thank you!*" Rania responded, as she switched back to her Arrows of Bad Guy Slaying, now that the stupid suicidal demons were no longer a hindrance.

Unfortunately, that was when Atrog's Daylight spell ended. The vampires it had kept at bay immediately seized the opportunity to attack them in melee again.

Their attack was ferocious, and soon Rania found herself spending more time dodging than shooting. Fortunately, at this point team Nundru had already killed enough of the other enemies in the room that the vampires did not overwhelm them immediately.

"*Formation Three!*" Atrog shouted, and they all reacted immediately: Rania and Galanys crowded around Balron, who turned his telekinesis into a whirl storm around them.

It would burn through his mana reserves quickly, but it did its job: The vampires decided to go for Atrog and Dov instead, and that gave Rania a chance to go on the offensive again. Dov was hard pressed by the assault. Even with her enhanced physique she could only do so much to fight off multiple vampires at once.

Then somebody kicked in the door, and another dozen enemies rushed in.

"*Wait! What's happening?*" Lilian asked in alarm from where she was lying on the ground. "*That's far too many! They should be attacking in small chunks, not all at once!*"

"*That's because they are using actual tactics that make sense. Not everything is a story!*" Atrog responded with annoyance that barely masked his rising fear.

He had to take a step back as two vampire spawn crashed into him at the same time, and it was only Balron's quick reaction speed in redirecting his telekinetic storm that prevented him from cutting up his own friend and ally.

"*I can't keep this up for long!*" Balron said.

Atrog looked around and saw how poorly the fight was going.

After a second's hesitation, he came to a decision: "*Galanys, do your thing.*"

Oh wow! The thing! Their trump card that they had been saving for an emergency. Galanys would only be able to do this once. Even if it didn't drain her mana completely, the enemy would be able to adapt to it and the trick wouldn't work a second time.

At least that was what Galanys had claimed a few weeks ago when she explained the plan. Rania's and Atrog's eyes had glazed over during the explanation. Only Balron and Dov had been able to follow her explanation. Lilian had been present as well, but she had deliberately tuned her out because of the Unspoken Plan guarantee. Rania had been very grateful for that because it meant that she had been free to listen to the plan herself for once, even if she didn't end up understanding it.

"*No! Don't do it!*" Lilian said. "*Save your trump card for the boss fight! Whatever it is, it's too early to use it now.*"

But it was too late. Galanys was already doing the thing.

First, she threw some mirrors on the ground. Rania could understand that part: Vampires didn't show up in mirrors. Except for Rania herself, of course, because she had been very polite to the spirits in the mirror when she asked for an exception so that she could make her Magical Girl cosplay work. There had been some bribery involved, too.

Then, Galanys cast an illusion spell that created illusionary mirrors floating in the air. The vampires did not show up in those, either.

Rania was not super sure what the point of that was. But the important part that she remembered from Galanys' explanation was this: Spells sometimes reacted weirdly to exceptional circumstances, and with a little creativity you could abuse that.

So Galanys cast a second, much more powerful spell: This one would take an illusion and briefly make it real. And somehow, that would interact with the mirrors? And the lack of reflections?

Rania really didn't get it. She was glad she didn't need to understand it, though. She trusted that her friend knew what she was doing.

So when Galanys finished doing her thing, Rania was not at all surprised as she watched all of the vampires nearby suddenly ripple, reflect themselves counterclockwise through the fifth dimension, and suffer something that Galanys referred to as a "violent reality discombobulation".

There was a wet slurping sound as reality recombobulated, and suddenly everything was quiet.

The ground was covered in non-euclidean pieces of ex-vampire.

Seconds later, they finished killing the remaining few non-vampire enemies, who were too shocked by the vampires' sudden de-euclideanization to put up much of a fight.

Galanys collapsed in exhaustion. "*Careful, don't cut yourself on the blood on the ground.*" she warned. "*It doesn't have any dimensionality withershins, and that makes it very sharp if you touch it from an Eastern direction.*"

Rania still had no idea what just happened, but she was happy that they all came out of this alive. Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed one of the spirits in the room freaking out and crying. Apparently it was very disturbed by Galanys’ spell. Luckily Pebble was talking to it, and trying to console it.

"*Ah, finally I can move again.*" Lilian mentioned from where she lay on the ground. "*Thank you for protecting me.*"

Rania was about to respond to Lilian, when she suddenly felt a strong sense of panic from Atrog.

She followed his gaze and noticed the crumpled form of Balron on the ground. Her heart skipped a beat in shock.

He wasn't moving, and he was surrounded by blood. His own blood, judging by how looking at it did not make Rania's eyes water like the vampire remains did.

Atrog reacted immediately and knelt down to cast his healing magic on Balron, while Rania held her breath.

"*Keep watch and guard us! They might take the opportunity to attack again!*" Atrog told her.

She focused back on the room's entrances, as did Dov and Galanys. Judging by their telepathic chatter, they did not like this any more than she did, but Atrog was right: Letting your guard down would mean that more of them could get hurt.

Lilian looked at them in disbelief and confusion as she stood up, but didn't comment as she joined them in protecting Atrog and Balron. Ironically, since she spent the whole fight unable to move, she was the only one of them who wasn't exhausted.

After an incredibly tense half minute, Rania suddenly noticed another voice in their telepathic web. Balron was back!

She looked at him lying on the ground and saw to her dismay that he wasn't fully healed. There was an awful gash at his throat, and he really lost a lot of blood.

He looked himself up and down, and made strange noises from his throat. "*Well. It looks like I can't speak anymore. This is going to make spell casting difficult. At least telepathy still works. Is everyone else alright?*"

"*We are alright, and I'm glad you are back.*" Atrog responded as he clapped him on the shoulder, then helped him stand up.

Aranea jumped from the ceiling and hugged Balron. Feelings of relief radiated off of her in waves.

"*We are all exhausted though, and Galanys is mostly out of mana. We need to find a safe place to rest and recover.*"

Naturally, that was when another door to the room opened and another dozen people rushed in. All of them were humans, and dressed in the same way as the Named Characters from before.

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"Oh hell no!" Lilian immediately shouted at them while pointing fingers, without any regard for her safety or taking cover. "Not again! We just got done with a huge fight against you guys and had a dramatic scene! I call a timeout!"

The Named Characters all stopped, and just blinked at her in confusion. "What. You are calling a 'timeout'? Are you crazy?" one of them said.

"*Good. Keep them distracted.*" Atrog said as Aranea put Balron on her back and started carrying him to a corner of the room. As they were, the entire team was standing in the open and getting him to cover was very important.

Then the yet-to-be-named Named Character took a good look around and noticed the chunks of unreality that used to be vampires covering the ground.

"Wait. What the fuck happened here?" He asked.

"They were like this when we got here." Dov quipped, as she spread her arms and moved forward with a creepy smile, putting herself between her friends and the enemy.

"Seriously. What the hell is this?" Another one of the Named Characters asked. "I'm not even going to comment on the giant spider walking off to eat that poor dwarf. But looking at this blood is making my head hurt and I think my eyes are bleeding. This is so messed up."

Then another one of the Named Characters suddenly vomited on the ground.

Rania did not know how to feel about this. Did discombobulating reality make Galanys a Bad Guy? These people seemed to think so. But Rania was sure that Galanys was a Good Guy. And the spirit who was crying earlier had stopped crying by now, after Pebble hugged it. If reality calmed down so quickly, then it couldn't be so bad, could it? They were probably just overreacting.

"You are summoned creatures, aren't you?" Galanys asked. "Why do you puke? You shouldn’t have the organs for it." Below the feelings of terror and exhaustion, Rania could sense genuine curiosity from her as she asked the question.

"Yes and no." One of them responded. "We are not summons in the conventional sense. There is quite a bit of extra work going into these bodies."

"Our name is Myr. We are many. One mind, but many bodies." Another one added.

How ominous! This sounded like a person with lots of backstory. Or was it people with lots of backstory? They were all dressed similarly and all of them looked kind of young, but they were several different species and sexes. The language Common really was not designed with pronouns for addressing something like that.

That sounded like a pretty cool concept for a recurring villain to her. There was just one major problem: "*Lilian, I'm worried. Why are they getting introduced so late? Does that mean we are not as close to finishing our quest as we thought?*"

"*Don't worry. My intuition says they are more like a hook for a sequel. Presumably we will encounter them many times over after our trip through the multiverse. Their nature as a hive mind or whatever fits thematically to a multiversal adventure where we could encounter alternate versions of ourselves.

"*I'm going to see if I can get some details out of them.*"

Then Lilian pointed her hand dramatically at the Myr-individual who seemed to be the main speaker for the group and said: "Induce Villainous Monologue!"

And the Myr-dude immediately continued talking: "Although we are not really a hivemind. It is far more complicated and subtle than that. You see..."

"*Wait.*" Atrog thought at them. "*When you said 'Induce Villainous Monologue', was that an actual spell? I didn't sense any mana usage at all.*"

"*It wasn't a spell. It was a prayer to Tonos, and he responded. My curse does have its benefits.*"

"...which is why our method is far superior to what the Mind Warpers use." The Myr-guy continued.

"*That's odd*" Lilian said "I think I just missed part of Myr's backstory exposition while talking to you. Normally Tonos puts conversations on hold so I don't miss anything while I banter with my allies. Talking is supposed to be a free action. What's going on?*"

Lilian felt really disturbed by it. Rania was a bit annoyed herself. They had both missed out on part of the exposition, but it was probably nothing important. The Myr-person looked like he liked hearing himself talk. A lot of people from the Living City were like that.

"All of that sounds fascinating!" Galanys enthused, and somehow she made it sound convincing enough that none of the Myr-people took it for the manipulation it was. "Can you elaborate on how the mental synchronization process works? I imagine it must be difficult to deal with, emotionally."

Rania noticed that Lilian was no longer there. She must have disappeared while they were talking. The others didn't even notice, but Rania's awareness of narrative convention allowed her to see what must have really happened: Lilian used her nature as a designated background character to simply fade into the background and disappear from people's perception. Even the spirits weren't paying much attention to Lilian now, and that allowed her to slip between the cracks in reality and get away with things that didn’t quite make physical sense. In a way, it was the opposite of Rania's highly conspicuous pink dress and the Somebody Else's Problem Field it generated.

"...the worst part is when one of us had a great day and another one had a terrible one." One of the Myr-lasses was saying. "The mental disjunction when we merge just feels so bizarre."

Galanys was nodding along and making sounds of interest at the appropriate places. Curiously, judging by her telepathic thought she seemed to be genuinely interested in the conversation, too.

"It's almost as bad as the headache that comes from interfacing with an unaligned divine entity." The Myr-person continued.

"Yeah, like a couple days ago when we had to study Tonos to figure out how to thwart his divine intervention." Another Myrmite said. "I hate Tonos. I can't wait for the ritual to finish."

"Don't say that out loud!" The Myr-lass from before interrupted him in shock.

"*Why are they still not attacking us?*" Atrog wondered. "*They must have realized that we are slowly moving into better positions. Are they stalling for time, too?*"

"*Let's find out!*" Rania responded.

"What ritual are you talking about?" She asked out loud. "Tell us about your evil plan!"

The Myr-crowd looked unimpressed by her direct question, and she felt a sense of embarrassment from Galanys. But it was ok. That was part of the plan, her friend just didn't know it, yet. Rania was going to use reverse psychology on the Myr-group and keep them talking that way:

"Actually, nevermind." She added. "I bet your evil plan is lame anyway, and the ritual must be pretty inglorious, too. I can't even hear any ominous chanting from here."

"...actually, the ritual chamber is soundproofed. You would normally totally be able to hear it from here, because it is an awesome ritual." One of the Myr-beings responded, taking the bait.

"And it seems to be working perfectly, too." He smiled as he pointed at Balron. "It looks like it has already stripped away some of your divine protection by that stupid meddler, Tonos. Soon the rite of Az'ule will be finished. Then you will no longer be able to rely on divine intervention to save you."

"I wouldn’t claim that. They can always rely on me..." Lilian suddenly interrupted loudly.

Then she dropped from the ceiling directly above the Myr-gathering and landed on one knee: "...and I am the closest thing to divine intervention you are ever going to see."

She paused dramatically for a few seconds, but nobody moved as they were all stunned by her dramatic entrance.

Then she rose and immediately burst into a blur of movement. She drew a dagger from her belt and cut the throat of the Myr-man in front of her before he could even turn around. She cut to the left, and killed a Myr-girl and a Myr-boy in a single motion.

Only then did the Myr-group start to move. They all rushed at her, stabbing and shooting and blasting spells all over the place.

But Lilian artfully dodged every single attack aimed against her, and with every step she took to evade an attack, she killed a Myr-entity in the same motion.

It was an intricate dance of violence and artistry that belonged on a stage. Seriously. In Rania's professional opinion as a very fast and stabby person, Lilian's fighting style belonged on a stage and nowhere else. It was incredibly wasteful and inefficient. It looked amazing, but it had a lot of needless flourishes.

Somehow, it worked anyway. After less than twenty seconds, Lilian killed her last opponent and then paused dramatically, her dagger extended threateningly. She was surrounded by Myr-corpses that were already beginning to evaporate and looked like she belonged on the cover of a book.

It was only then that it occurred to Rania that she should probably have joined in and helped Lilian, instead of just standing there.

"*That was amazing!*" Atrog said. "*I did not know you could do that.*"

"*Thanks!*" Lilian replied. "*But I'm afraid it's the dagger that did most of the work here. It's a magic artifact.*"

"*Oh, so you can only use it a limited number of times, then? That sounds like a resource you should have told us about beforehand, so we could plan for it.*"

"*No. I can use this as often as I want. The problem is that this dagger only works during cutscenes, and I haven't yet found a reliable way to trigger those.*"

"*...I see.*" Atrog responded, but it was clear that he did not see.

"*That was awesome, Lilian!*" Rania said. "*But I have to say I'm a bit disappointed that you interrupted their speech.*"

"*Don't worry. They are clearly a recurring villain. We will probably meet them again after we leave this universe behind, and there will be more time for speeches then. I just couldn't miss the opportunity to sell myself as the incarnation of divine intervention. They handed me a trigger for a cutscene on a silver platter.*"

"*I would have preferred to hear their backstory now, but maybe it is for the best that we avoided a fight. We are all super exhausted already.*" Rania responded.

"*That is true, and to be honest what they said has me very worried. They talked about the rite of Az'ule, and how it will weaken Tonos' influence. I have heard of that rite before, and it is no joke. When I was in the middle of the cutscene earlier, I actually had a few seconds of doubt if it would work. There was a moment where I even thought that my backflip was needless and stupid. I mean, it objectively was, but acknowledging that weakens the effect of the dagger. Self-doubt like this could get me killed.

"*I can not allow this to continue. Fortunately, I have some ideas for how to disrupt the rite, but I can only do it alone. I wish you luck with your own adventure, while I make sure the rite will not interfere.*"

"*Why can you only do it alone? Is there anything else you can tell us?*" Atrog asked.

Lilian just gave him a look.

"*It's the Unspoken Plan Guarantee, Atrog.*" Galanys said. "*It's Tonos bullshit. Just roll with it, or you will jinx it.*"

Atrog sighed. "*Best of luck, Lilian.*" He nodded to her.

They all said their goodbyes, and then Lilian walked off, at a pace that was exactly as fast as necessary to show that she was in a hurry and knew what she was doing, but not so much in a hurry that any viewer would think she was uncertain or nervous.

"*Well, there goes our second trump card.*" Dov commented. "*I am not liking our odds anymore.*"

Rania had to agree as she took a look around. All of her friends were exhausted and injured.

Balron was the worst off. He still couldn't talk, and was barely coherent. He was using a mana battery to recharge his magic, but it was a slow process.

"*You can't keep fighting in this condition, Balron*" Atrog said.

"*I haven't come this far to back out now.*" Balron responded. "*I may be injured and low on mana, but I can still contribute. It isn't over until I'm dead. And even then, I have contingencies in place. I won't be as much help in whatever fight comes next as I would like, but what if you need my knowledge? Imagine letting Cilia Ulein win and threaten the entire world, just because you left me behind and I wasn't there to disarm a trap, or point out a weakness in a spell matrix.*"

He gave Atrog a long, unflinching stare. After a few seconds, the paladin nodded. Balron would be going with them, despite his injuries.

Rania looked at her other friends. Galanys looked drained. Dov was sporting enough minor injuries that a normal person would almost certainly have collapsed already, but the Davlash was still standing.

"*I can feel the effects of the rite of Az'ule as well.*" Atrog said. "*It is weakening some of my connection to the divine. Most of the gods I pray to are still responding, but some have gone silent, and it is getting worse by the minute. We can't afford to rest for long.*"

Only Aranea and Rania herself were still mostly fine. Everyone else was on death's door. Rania really did not like their odds.

In the books she read, the final confrontation was usually the most exciting and fun part of the book, but she was not having very much fun at all right now. Her head was filled with worry instead.

As Atrog continued healing their injuries, Dov pulled a communication device from her backpack and started contacting their other friends.

"*None of the other teams are nearby, and they are all busy with their missions. We can not rely on their help, and we can not afford to draw them away from their own objectives.*"

Rania had no idea what those objectives might be since she hadn't been listening at the time, but she was sure they were very important, too.

One thing struck her as odd, though: "*I'm surprised that they all replied. Did none of them mysteriously fail to respond?*"

"*No. It looks like they are luckier than we. They are all making good progress on their respective missions.*" Dov replied.

Lucky. Right. They all responded, which meant that they were all alive, she supposed. But it also meant that, since they were all accounted for, none of them could heroically show up and rescue them if team Nundru ran into a greater threat than expected. Rania would have preferred the uncertainty. It would have left the universe more wiggle-room.

Atrog spent another couple of minutes healing the worst of their injuries, and then they went on their way.

The mood was somber and they were all on edge, but they encountered no more enemies on their way.

"*Server Room C. This is it.*" Dov said as they arrived, and took up positions next to the door.

They could hear ritual chanting through the door.

Atrog gave a wordless command, and they all readied themselves for their hopefully final confrontation with the servants of the Living City.

Rania was excited, but she also felt a strange knot in her stomach. This was not as much fun as she had been hoping. Her friends were hurt, and she didn't like it.

"*Lilian isn't here. Don't try to engage them in dialogue, Rania. Just fight.*"

She wanted to argue. Just because Tonos wasn't listening didn't mean that the spirits didn't care. Except that the spirits were silent, too. Pebble was trying to talk to them, but they were strangely reluctant. The Living City must have been very convincing when it asked them not to talk to her.

Rania sent a wordless feeling of acknowledgement to Atrog. No dramatics, this time. She just wanted to win, and save the world, and make sure all of her friends got out of this alive.

Atrog opened the door and rushed in. Rania followed directly behind him.

She saw a target, another Myr-mook, and immediately took the shot.

The arrow bounced off of an invisible wall of force, causing a ripple in the air. That didn't work, but at least Rania was happy that she finally found a good way to refer to the Myr-people in her internal narration. "Myr-mook" just felt correct to her.

She took cover behind a nearby piece of strange machinery and surveyed the room.

The place was covered in strange, alien looking machinery. On the far side of the room, a Hench Squad was gathered around what looked like a Standard Issue Mysterious Glowing Orb. Rania had decided that Hench Squad was the collective noun for multiple Myr-mooks.

The whole Hench Squad was wearing very traditional cultist robes and chanting ominously. Rania was not an expert on occultism, but she knew that wearing traditional robes made the spirits take you more seriously and increased the chance of a ritual's success. The spirits all seemed to be paying attention and looked excited, so their ritual was probably very professionally done.

None of the Myr-mooks reacted to her arrow, and they all just kept chanting.

"*That wall won't last long, but there is no chance we can break through it by force.*" Balron said as he cast a diagnostic spell. "*Don't waste your energy on it. It will run out long before that ritual finishes. It's going to be at least another half hour before it’s done. They are probably trying to bait us into wasting our mana on taking down the wall.*"

Rania was confused. They had half an hour to stop the ritual? Fights happened much faster than this. There might as well be no time pressure at all. It was good for them of course, but it just felt wrong.

Her eyes darted through the room, trying to find a threat, but she found nothing.

Wasn't this supposed to be the Boss Room?

Wait. There was something there. Her eyes had skipped over it on instinct, because it just didn't look threatening enough.

A kobold was standing right behind the wall of force. He was a tiny little thing, but his robes looked fancy and ornate.

Was this the guy in charge? Really?

"I see you have finally found your way here." The man addressed them from behind the safety of the invisible wall.

"My name is Sophus. I am..."

"Oh come on!" Rania interrupted him. "That's so lame!"

He didn't look or sound threatening at all! He even had a bit of a high-pitched voice, like many kobolds did. It was kind of adorable, and totally ruined the drama! She was expecting a dragon! Or more vampires! Certainly not a kobold. It was so anticlimactic.

"Excuse me?" The kobold responded.

He sounded really offended!

"Oh no!" Rania added belatedly. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to imply that kobolds are lame! Kobolds can be cool, too. It's just, you know..."

She found it difficult to put her thoughts into works.

"No, no. I get it." Sophus responded. "I'm not very intimidating to the people who don't already know me. This is not the first time I've had to deal with prejudice like that. When I was a teenager, I used to dream of being a dragon instead. They are much more imposing. But I have grown out of that phase. I have a vampire dragon working for me now, so what does it matter that I don't look intimidating myself?"

Rania was glad he understood, but also a little bit hurt that he still thought she was prejudiced. Maybe she was? A little? She would like to be better, but she had never in all her life read a story where the Main Bad Guy was half the size of the hero and had a funny voice.

She was also elated to hear that he had a vampire dragon lieutenant. It sounded so cool! Although she did feel guilty about her excitement, too. What if her friends got hurt because the vampire dragon was too badass? She felt conflicted by the thought.

"Anyways, it's too bad my vampire dragon lieutenant isn't here right now. I sent him on an errand. You are dealing with me, instead."

Rania's heart dropped. There was no vampire dragon for her to fight, after all. The kobold was truly heinous, to get her hopes up like that, and then to crush them. The fight hadn't even started, and already she wanted to cry.