The blinding white light faded from the magic circle beneath.

Kari could see a spacious, well-lit ceiling, and large, hewn marble arches. Various noises echoed through the space. Distant voices, footsteps, the sounds of fluttering fabric. Cold air blew through and caressed his face. Based on the temperature, Kari surmised that they were underground.

It was some kind of warehouse. An even light covered the large space, perhaps the size of an entire city block by Kari’s reckoning. Nearby boxes lay scattered all over the place. Some had been broken open. In other places, there were black scorch marks, smelling of smoke. Bent metal rails ran along the entire room’s length, carrying along under a gigantic solid metal shutter in the distance. Closed. Based on signage near the shutter, Kari wouldn’t have been surprised to see a crane beyond it.

Kari pushed past the swell of Sarigoldians who had come with him. The adventurers had taken the initiative and were organising themselves into groups.

“We need information. The last we heard from Al Dherjza, there was some sort of disturbance within the city. That was two hours ago…”

Kari walked past them all. He had his own goals. Something Franklin had told him just an hour ago rang through his mind.

“Karl, before you go, there’s something I have to tell you. Lady Carmen works at the hospital in the east of Al Dherjza. I know you hold little hope for ever wielding your Gift like you used to… but you should try and talk to her at the very least. I can’t promise anything, but they say that she’s a miracle worker. Never been someone that she couldn’t fix.”

To the hospital in the east of Al Dherjza. That was where Kari was headed. If he was going to save the world, he would do it with his Gift. Of that, he was determined.

Kari reached a straight stone staircase that seemed to lead to the surface. Noises echoed down from above. Distant fighting. But beneath it all, a dreadful silence. There was no sound of animals such as birds, or dogs. Just disparate, desperate shouts and cries for help.

With survival instincts in high gear, Kari drew the wand-pistol that Lorrie had entrusted to him and loaded the yellow vial. The yellow vial caused the weapon to fire a piercing bolt of air that caused whatever it collided with to violently implode. It was the most stealthy of the four spells he had at his disposal.

He made his way up the stairs, where there was a wooden door that had been blown off its hinges. Air softly blew past him into the warehouse. Kari made his way to the doorframe and peered cautiously outside. Long shadows and faint orange-red light covered the city. It felt strange, like Kari had skipped forward in time. When he had teleported from Sarigold, it had still been early evening; the sun had yet to set in the west. Outside was a main road, which made sense given the warehouse likely needed space to move goods around the city, Kari thought. It was lined by commercial buildings. Some were shuttered and boarded up. Others had had their storefronts destroyed; their contents vandalised.

To the human’s surprise, the deserted streets were completely covered in the runic lines and geometric patterns of enchantment. Kari had never seen a sight like it before in his life. Most of the buildings made of relatively soft, polished sandstone were intact. Many of them did show signs of damage such as cracks and missing pieces. But there was nothing so severe as a building reduced to rubble, or even chunks of sandstone littering the ground. Most notably, there was no fine layer of dust covering everything. The city appeared almost normal. But Kari knew that was just a comforting illusion; this was the eye of the storm.

There may not have been chunks of sandstone, but there was a corpse simply laying in the road, unattended even by scavenger birds.

The smell of ozone hung faintly in the breeze.

The Intercessor hung directly overhead, though its shadow was skewed far to the east, where distant stars peaked over the mountains of the Grand Plateau.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Kari reflexively gulped. He was so used to seeing the Intercessor in the far distance. Seeing it hanging directly over his head, red eye glaring down, filled him with a most uncomfortable feeling. He couldn’t shake the sense that something terrible was about to happen.

Kari snuck out, onto the street, taking a right turn to stay in the shadows, close to the storefronts. There was an alley across the road, heading eastwards.

Coming in line with the alley, Kari’s eyes searched eastward, scanning the horizon. There, to the southeast, he found what he had been searching for. A gilded dome, much like the prominent buildings in Sarigold also had. It had to be the hospital.

He began sneaking his way towards the structure. If he had his Gift, he would’ve had a much easier time, being able to simply turn himself invisible, and detect the presence of people with their sweat. But, he couldn’t do that anymore. Kari simply clutched the wand-pistol tight in his hands and moved as carefully as he could.

The distant sound of fighting was growing louder as Kari ventured further east. Familiar beams of bright blue light illuminated the darkening city streets and facades. Angels. The street opened up in front of him.

A skirmish was taking place right in the middle of the road; A wagon carrying boxes of supplies had spilt over, providing cover for a ragtag group of six or so Al Dherjzans. A similar number of Angels approached, moving from cover to cover along the doorways and storefronts as the two sides exchanged attacks. Shrieking gunfire, clangs of metal, and cries of agony accompanied a most familiar sense of danger. The sense that one wrong move could result in unforgiving death.

Having seen what was going on, Kari’s old habits took over. He turned to leave without delay, taking a few steps back down the street he had come down before stopping.

He had faced similar situations before. But strangely, this time his heart was pounding loudly in his chest. What was this feeling?

“Damnit.” He muttered to himself, turning back.

Kari crouched down and peeked his head around the corner briefly, learning the positions of two Angels.

He readied the wand-pistol and focused. He visualised the next few actions he would take in his mind, just like he would had he been firing ice spears. He would peek again, only enough to see the leftmost Angel. Then he would shoot and peek further, firing at the second Angel. It was crucial that he act as quickly as possible, to reduce the odds of the enemy reacting to his presence.

Kari took a deep breath and sprung into action.

Just as he had planned, he peeked, confirming the location of the first Angel he had seen just seconds earlier, and squeezed the trigger. A near-invisible bolt of air flew out of the wand, which briefly glowed with a bright blue light. The Angel reacted to the bright light, instinctively turning to look at it.

The projectile slammed into the Angel’s left shoulder, passing right through his body, shiny white armour and all. With a gut-wrenching sound of twisting flesh, snapping bone, and crunching metal, the Angel’s torso was sucked into the spot that Kari’s bolt had passed through like a tablecloth being sucked through a gap in the middle of a table. Behind the Angel, the bolt struck the façade of the street. Dust swirled towards the point of impact and the enchantments all over the building flashed briefly blue.

The Angel’s mangled corpse fell to the ground, a startling amount of blood pouring onto the cobbled sandstone street.

But Kari was already taking his second shot before the corpse of the first Angel fell to the ground. He took another step around the corner for a clear shot at his second target, but just as he squeezed the trigger, his target crouched down in disciplined reaction to the death of his comrade. Kari’s second shot missed.

“There’s another one!” the Angels shouted.

“Shit…” Kari muttered.

But the Al Dherjzans pinned behind the collapsed wagon saw their opportunity. A javelin of hardened black tar materialised, controlled by a Gift. It flew towards one of the four remaining Angels, skewering them to the ground. A purple ball of mist swam through the air from a slung wand, engulfing two more Angels in a debilitating mist. They fell to the ground, coughing as their skin sloughed off their faces beneath their full-faced helms. The last Angel fired back, scorching the hand of one of the male Al Dherjzans. Their blood boiled, and their flesh was rent from their bones as their skin exploded up to their elbow. They screamed in fear and shock. In retaliation, one of the Al Dherjzans stood, bow drawn, and loosed a shining arrow that struck the last Angel cleanly in the neck. They fell to the ground, drowning in their own blood.

It was over.

Or so Kari thought.

A beam of blue light flew down to Kari’s hiding place from the rooftop on Kari’s right. It somehow missed the oblivious human, painfully scorching the hair off the side of his neck as it whizzed past between his head and shoulder.

Kari flinched and turned to see who had fired the shot at him. It was an Angel, standing on the edge of the rooftop. Kari began to bring his wand-pistol up to return fire, but he only had enough time to see his own startled reflection in the Angel’s shiny reflective visor.