Chapter 154: The Rescue Pt. II

For the second time in five minutes, Senior-Lieutenant Haisel Ragora, the current acting leader of the Royal Roses, dismissed his call with Lord Oren of the Lords of Justice and then briefly closed his eyes as a rush of wind from the ocean blew over him. At the moment, he was standing on the deck of The Piercing Thorn, his aircraft carrier. On several occasions, the Guild of Gentleman had demanded the entire fleet be turned over, and at the risk of retaliation, Haisel had made continuous excuses, stalling and delaying while he tried to think up some kind of plan. Thankfully, the surrender of Vim Alazar had been enough to stay the enemy’s hand—or at least it’d seemed so at the time.

But now I know they never could’ve attacked us in the first place.

If only he had known what he knew now—what Lord Oren had shared with him only a few hours prior: that the Guild of Gentlemen had been bluffing all along, and that, for the past several weeks, they did not actually possess any more of those destructive weapons. If only he had known this, he would have continued his assault on Shadowfall Coast. This would have been over with already. But now, however, it, looked as though there was a real chance to set things right. At some point in the next twelve hours, the Gentlemen were expected to have another weapon ready to fire. They would not allow this to happen. Haisel could feel the million lives ended in Ogre’s Axe demanding justice from beyond the grave, and by the Gods, they would have it!

They played us like fools!

Haisel had no idea how Lord Oren’s spies had managed to gather such valuable intelligence, yet he had no doubt that the intel was correct and reliable, as Lord Oren’s actions suggested a firm certainty of it. For his guild to have not only declined surrender, but to have begun marching on the offense—it suggested he must have had a very, very high level of confidence in whatever reports he’d been receiving. Thus, if the Lords of Justice were going to act, the Royal Roses would act as well.

Haisel’s attention became diverted at the sound of boots stomping along the deck, which added a constant, thudding drumbeat to the windy night. All around him, hundreds of uniformed, level-1 troops shuffled about, attending to various tasks. It was nearly impossible to see anyone clearly, as all lights had been ordered extinguished. Between their radar-jamming equipment and the dark of night serving as cover, Haisel hoped to get into position momentarily without the enemy noticing their approach.

Why didn’t the kid tell me he was going to do this? Haisel thought to himself with a grunt, both annoyed and impressed.

Right now, Zachys Calador was on a solo mission to rescue Vim—something Haisel should have been informed of immediately and yet had only found out a short while ago. On the one hand, Haisel was heartened by his courage and willingness to act; on the other hand, this was incredibly irresponsible and irksome. Zachys needed to understand that he had an entire guild behind him: a guild that would willingly die to rescue their leader. There was never any need for him to act alone. And now, it was all Haisel could do to rush every asset under his command in to support him.

“Senior-Lieutenant Ragora, please,” the voice of Lord Oren said, having once again reestablished contact despite Haisel terminating their link for the second time in a row.

“There is nothing left to discuss, Lord Oren,” he replied curtly. “The Royal Roses will support you the moment that we can.”

“We need support immediately!” he insisted. “We must prioritize the weapon!”

Haisel folded his hands behind his back, stood up straight, and gazed out into the dark ocean before him. “We will provide you with our complete and total support the moment that Sir Alazar and Zachys Calador are safe and returned to us.”

“Zach already has a plan to escape. I implore you to let him do this his way.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m leaving nothing up to chance. Running Sir Alazar through the dungeons is too risky. We will intercept Vim and the boy with the Piercing Thorn.”

“Respectfully, I don’t believe you fully understand the nature of the situation,” Lord Oren said, his tone taking on a note of worry. “I’m expecting Zach to use a certain…ability: one that will exert him to the point of death if he’s not healed the moment it concludes.”

“Not to worry then,” Haisel said in reply. “We have everything needed for his recovery aboard, including freshly acquired healing stones. I’m not about to trust the Elvish queen with the two of them, especially in light of the fact that she’s already tried to murder one of them in a similar situation.”

“But…but things have changed since then.”

“So they have,” Haisel agreed. “Even still, I stand firm in what I’ve said. The moment Zachys Calador and Sir Alazar are in hand, we will divert all of our resources towards a bombardment of the enemy’s production facilities.”

Lord Oren sighed. “Fine. If you really won’t budge, then at least promise me you won’t get Zach killed. I genuinely believe his plan of running Vim through the dungeons and returning to Queen Vayra for healing is the best move.”

“I appreciate your input.” Haisel grinned despite knowing Lord Oren could not see it. “But I am not a man known for failure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to devote my full attention towards supporting the rescue operation.”

“Understood. May the Gods grant you favor.”

“And you, Lord Oren.”

Their discussion hopefully over—for good, this time—Haisel turned his head as his eyes barely made out the forms of several-dozen troops and a few low-ranking, leveled members of the guild dashing forward in diving gear. They marched to the end of the stern then leapt up, off, and over the safety railing; a moment later, a series of splashing sounds could be heard from where Haisel continued to stand resolutely as things proceeded.

“Diving Team 11,” the voice of a sergeant said over the Comm in his ear. “Go!”

The sounds of more running along the deck and then more splashing came, but this time from somewhere to Haisel’s left. He continued to watch and listen as the rest of the diving teams were able to get into the water and begin their swim towards the coast. Once he doubly confirmed that all diving teams were outbound and heading towards enemy territory, he felt a slight tensing in his shoulder muscles, because he knew that the moment had come to give an order—one that there would be no turning back from.

It’s time.

The significance of the action he was about to take was not lost on him. In order to assist Zachys in recovering their leader, he was about to risk far more than just the lives of himself and those here with him. No, he was essentially putting the lives of millions upon millions of innocent people in peril; for this reason, failure was unthinkable. Haisel fully understood that, once he gave the order, there would be no reversing things—no do-overs. He would reignite a flame that had only just been extinguished.

It's this or tyranny.

Keeping his back perfectly straight, and with strength and resolve in each of his words, he opened his mouth and at last gave the order that would plunge his already devastated guild back into the fires of war and death.

“All battlecruisers!” he shouted. “Open fire! Target the enemy SAM sites along the beach!”

From various positions in the water all around the aircraft carrier, the lights aboard five accompanying battlecruiser ships began to activate in such a way that they’d immediately be detected by the enemy. His aircraft carrier also lit up as well; having turned the lights back on, they were essentially announcing the presence of their forces to anyone in Shadowfall Coast who merely happened to be looking out towards the ocean. Yet it didn’t matter, because having already successfully gained the element of surprise, there would be no way for the Guild of Gentlemen to react in time to mount a defense. And so now, following a rapid period of flashing lights, a deafening series of loud bangs rang out in the night as numerous, high-caliber MK 45 artillery guns announced the Royal Roses’ defiance and resistance.

“FOR OGRE’S AXE!” soldiers cried out on the deck, throwing their arms up in cheer and a palpable sense of vengeance. Seconds later, their cheers turned into even louder shouts of victory as secondary explosions could be heard from the coast, which became absolutely hammered with the cannon-like artillery shells. All along the beach, where the Guild of Gentlemen’s anti-aircraft SAM turrets had been placed, there were now tremendous eruptions of smoke and sand. And even from here in the ocean, Haisel could also detect loud cracks as several shells strayed from targets and crashed down on civilian infrastructure, such as the nearby boardwalk.

I better not find out anyone is intentionally missing, he thought. The last thing he wanted was an all-out assault on innocent civilian life, but given the anger felt in Giant’s Fall and Spider’s Eye Oasis over the attack on Ogre’s Axe, he knew that preventing such acts of retribution was going to be a very difficult challenge.

“Watch your aim!” he angrily demanded as an MK 45 from one of the five battlecruiser warships orbiting The Piercing Thorn fired a shot that went indefensibly off course. About eight seconds after it was fired, Haisel could just make out a three-story apartment complex suffering a direct impact; the artillery shell ripped the entire structure apart, obliterating it and almost certainly killing every family that lived inside. This, he was able to see as the entire city lit up with red lights while a loud, shrill warning siren began to blare.

Now, there were several-dozen “thuds” audible from the direction of the city, and soon there came a return hissing sound as the enemy launched SSMs—Surface-to-Surface Missiles—at their position. Due to the dark of night, the smoky tails of dozens of SSMs streaking across the sky were not visible, but it made no difference, as their detection capabilities did not require eyesight in order to defend against such an attack.

“Deploy counter measures!” Haisel ordered.

The ships under his command obeyed, and they retaliated with a series of SAMs, which utilized advanced, onboard targeting computers capable of seeking out and intercepting airborne threats. Thanks to their technological superiority, they managed to shoot down the approaching SSMs; the result was numerous detonations that filled the air above them. One missile, however, did manage to slip through their guard, causing a much closer explosion that resonated from a battlecruiser a bit behind and to the left of the Piercing Thorn.

“We’ve taken a hit!” announced the captain of the vessel.

“How serious?” Haisel asked.

“We’re patching it now. The enemy missile struck the hull near the bow of the ship. There may be several KIA. The Gods curse those bastards!”

From the very same ship that had just been struck, a lone artillery cannon fired, and Haisel tensed up, as he knew right away that it portended nothing good. A few moments went by, and then very far into the distance, at what he estimated to be right near the center of the city, there was a dull boom that was only slightly audible from this distance. Despite this, he was fairly sure he knew what had just been struck. Almost certainly, the battlecruiser had targeted—and destroyed—one of the most significant cultural landmarks in Shadowfall Coast: The Garden of Ancient Kings, which was one of the only tourist spots to be found in the relatively modest city.

“The Gods help whoever fired that shell!” Haisel snapped. “I will not tolerate war crimes! Captain, get control over your men immediately or I’ll hold you responsible for their actions!”

“Y-yes, Senior-Lieutenant Ragora!”

Haisel groaned. He knew how badly the men and women serving under him wanted—craved—revenge. But he would not have his guild suffer the disgrace of it! It was bad enough he’d been forced to allow the true depths of Lieutenant Varsh’s depravity to become public knowledge, but having the world associate their guild with war crimes such as the intentional destruction of cultural or religious landmarks was a whole different level of bad. As things stood, the Royal Roses needed to clean up their act—and so did the other guilds—if they wanted the rest of the world to take humanity seriously. Humans needed to improve. They needed to be better than this!

“All gun crews, steady your aim,” he ordered into the Comm. “Military targets only! We are not going to reduce ourselves to the level of our—”

Haisel snapped his mouth shut as something caught his eyes. Far in the distance, he spotted emergency vehicles, military convoys, and a tremendously larger-than-expected number of reinforcements emerging from within the city like a nest full of disturbed bees. With a surprising quickness, they arrived on the beach, many hopping over the smashed ledges of broken and shelled sections of the boardwalk, with numerous others sliding down the sand wherever it happened to form an incline.

“Enemy reinforcements!” a woman shouted over the Comm.

“How did they get here so fast?” another asked.

Haisel clenched his hands into fists as he watched them approach. “It doesn’t matter how,” he said over the Comm. “All ship captains, take us in closer!”

“Sir?” one of them asked as though uncertain.

“You heard me!”

“Understood.”

Directing his fleet nearer to the shore, he felt the wind beat against his face as they moved perilously closer to the enemy. It was a risky move, but this was an all-or-nothing operation. Having already opened fire on the Guild of Gentlemen, the war was now back on, and surrender was off the table. They would either succeed here tonight or die. There was simply no undoing what had already been done.

“Attack the enemy reinforcements!” Haisel ordered.

All around him came the sound of electrical hums as onboard gatling guns mounted on every ship were turned at the coast. Now, the night erupted with the loud, overwhelming, and repeating crack of gunfire as munitions were set to bear against the scores of level-1 troops rushing to the beach to defend against the surprise invasion. Beneath the moonlight, Haisel could partially see the forms of human soldiers running, diving into cover, or falling dead on the sand. Right around this time, his diving teams began to surface. Several members were cut down immediately by return fire as they struggled to remove their guns from their water-proof carrying bags, but most were able to lie prone on dryer sand and use the dark as cover to avoid being easily targeted. Caught off guard, the enemy had not sent in troops with night-vision capability, and their flashlights and spotlights could only cover so much terrain.

“Protect our troops!” Haisel ordered. “Fire on the enemy!”

A storm of gunfire ripped across the sand, causing sprays of it to shoot upwards like miniature geysers. On the ocean’s wind, the sound of screams and rage managed to carry its way to his ears as his fleet unloaded upon the level-1 troops attempting to guard their shores. At the same time, his own level-1 troops began delivering a salvo of return fire while the leveled members of the diving teams dashed straight into the combat without regard for the stray bullets flying everywhere; briefly, they were permitted to rip apart the enemy’s troops uninhibited. Haisel watched with approval as the leveled members of the diving teams swung around their weapons and butchered one troop after the next. Eventually, however, they were met with leveled members from the Guild of Gentlemen, requiring them to disengage and deal with foes who could rival their own strength.

Not far from the shore, two of his men slammed their shields forward, bashing them directly into rival shields opposite them from two officers of the Guild of Gentlemen. The four men struggled, pressing their shields into one another, locked in a contest of strength. Beside them, two women, both wielding spears, whipped their weapons around in a frenzy of dodging and striking. Regrettably, it was the taller, sturdier-looking woman from the Guild of Gentlemen who won out, and with a fast, spinning slash, she decapitated her foe.

With leveled guild members facing one another in direct combat, a whole different dynamic began to play out. Now, in addition to the back-and-forth of gunfire, a variety of melee weapons were clashing together, which created an odd contrast with the tools of conventional warfare. Magic soon entered the fray, and the worlds of science and adventuring intermingled in an unsightly free-for-all that brought about a horrendous and rapidly rising death toll.

Giant balls of fire conjured out of thin air crashed down upon scores of enemy troops, setting them ablaze. At the same time, electrified rain began to pour over numerous level-1 troops from the diving teams; due to the light from the fire magic illuminating the coast, Haisel was able to see their bodies begin to smoke and char and twitch as the electric rain cooked them alive; this, as gatling guns, artillery, and counter-missiles from his fleet continued to deal with their persistent enemy. Thus far, the Gentlemen were dividing their fire between the diving teams and Haisel’s fleet, which served their purposes perfectly.

The goals here were simple and twofold: one, to clear out a path and make it easier for their divers to perform a successful land assault on the coast, which would hopefully result in the diving teams crippling whatever remnants of their recently bolstered anti-aircraft capability still existed along the southeast—and two, Haisel hoped it would make the Guild of Gentlemen pull some of their units away from their manufacturing district, where Zachys Calador was currently attempting a rescue of Vim.

At first, the enemy fared poorly and was ineffective in defending against Haisel’s forces. But then, something changed. Something that Haisel did not see coming. Abruptly, dozens of belt-fed HMGs farther inland that Haisel had not known existed began firing at his fleet, which had come close enough to be within their range. As one gun after the next began sending out a steady stream of highly lethal machine-gun rounds, he was taken by surprise.

Have they been preparing for an attack like this? Haisel wondered, shocked.

Given the Gentlemen’s belief that they had suppressed all of North Bastia via fear of their weapons, Haisel did not think they would have spent the time, gold, and effort ramping up their coastal defenses—but quite obviously, they had. Thus, despite launching such an initially strong and successful surprise attack against the Guild of Gentlemen, the guild now began putting up a formidable defense.

Having fallen into a trap of their own, Haisel now discovered that the enemy had indeed significantly improved upon their ability to deal with another naval assault. In this case, it appeared they’d merely been waiting patiently for the perfect moment with which to act. Having sailed in close, the Gentlemen launched a return attack with an intensity, far, far higher than Haisel had believed them capable of delivering.

Less than five feet to Haisel’s right, a man’s head snapped backwards as a bullet fired by the HMGs killed him instantly—as well as eight more troops on the deck behind him with more falling each second. Numerous medics rushed across the deck and dove on top of the bloodied and dying troops, but they too were blasted to pieces as they attempted to shield their comrades with their own flesh. Screams began to reverberate all around the aircraft carrier as dozens of additional men and women—including some leveled members of the guild with low constitution—were ripped apart and shredded by the heavy machine guns.

“Get behind cover!” he shouted. “Protect the fighter jets!”

A loud, constant “pop-pop-pop” continued to echo from the HMGs, ramping up the sustained pressure of the Guild of Gentlemen’s counterattack. Yet these machine guns became almost something of an afterthought as, from much farther in the distance, a number of distinct booms caused Haisel to flood with alarm. And the reason for this was simple: because they sounded very much like artillery being fired.

That’s definitely artillery!

Haisel swore. Then he swore again. Unless his ears were lying to him—and he very much wished that was the case—it meant that the Guild of Gentlemen had set up anti-naval artillery guns, and these, by far, would prove to be the most threatening new additions to their southeastern defensive capabilities. The sound of them alone signaled that the odds had just shifted wildly against him, and things were about to become immensely bloodier. Between the HMGs, the addition of artillery, and the increased barrage of incoming missiles, the level of resistance they were now encountering had not only become vastly amplified, but it was also much, much greater than it had been during their initial invasion a few weeks ago.

“No!” a voice cried. Haisel turned to look. A young man with blond-colored haired was squirming on the deck, blood hemorrhaging out of a gaping wound running from his belly to his lower chest. “No! No! N…nooo,” he finished in a whisper, becoming quiet and still.

Above, numerous detonations rang out like angry roars as another, far larger barrage of missiles and artillery shells rained down upon his fleet. Like before, they deployed their countermeasures, but this time, several shells managed to get through. Unlike guided missiles, artillery was inherently unpredictable and more difficult to neutralize, and that became readily apparent as more than a dozen shells pounded their forces. With an unusually loud bang, a shell landed directly on top of one of his precious, invaluable fighter jets, blowing it to pieces. Haisel opened his mouth to issue a command, but then he shut it as a massive explosion along with a giant ball of flame came from somewhere to the right of their formation. There was also a blast of heat that could actually be felt.

Gods damn them!

One of his five battlecruisers had gone completely up in flames. Hundreds were hastily evacuating with many desperately leaping into the ocean to escape the rapidly spreading fire. Hundreds more would inevitably be trapped inside, and many beyond that were already likely dead. Haisel tried to raise the vessel’s captain over the Comm, but he was unable to do so; this, as more troops were cut down by the HMGs the enemy had hidden along the beach.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!

Haisel leapt away from the site of another explosion, this one very close. Right in the middle of the deck, an artillery shell crashed down, and in addition to blowing a hole straight through to a lower level, it left fifteen uniformed men and women in various pieces to the extent that it became impossible to know which body part belonged to who.

“Help me!” a voice begged. “Help me!”

Haisel searched for the source of it, and the sight that greeted him caused him to recoil in horror. Two men, both struck by the HMGs, were now stuck together, their intestines literally tangled into one another. Or at least it appeared that way. Haisel did not let his gaze linger on the unfortunate souls. Peeling back his lips and snarling, he raised his hands and shielded his eyes to prevent being irritated by shrapnel as yet another shell breached their defenses and caused another section of his beautiful aircraft carrier to be destroyed.

“Senior-Lieutenant Ragora!” a moderately high-ranking member of the Royal Roses said over the Comm. “We should retreat!”

“No!” he roared defiantly. “We’re fighting to the end, Gods damn you! Hear me clearly: if you all want to live to see tomorrow, then get off your asses, get on the guns, and fire on those sons of bitches—they, who murdered a million of our people in Ogre’s Axe!”

His words seemed to restore some of the conviction in his badly rattled men. Haisel exuded as much confidence as he could muster. He stood tall, extended his arm, and pointed at the enemy even as bullets whizzed by his ears and in some cases struck him directly. “If anyone sees a dead gunner, take their place. For the love of the Gods, attack!”

His fleet’s MK 45s fired off another round of shells, and he frowned as he saw only a few of them land in close enough proximity to destroy the heavy machine guns they were targeting; the rest resulted in wayward explosions that narrowly missed the persistently flashing muzzles of the HMGs.

“Ignore the enemy’s machine guns for now!” he yelled into his Comm, as a significant portion of their outgoing firepower had been directed at them. “Focus everything on disabling their artillery!” He waved his opposite hand at a number of very shaken-looking troops hiding behind a thin wall behind him. “Low level and level-1 crew who aren’t currently manning a gun—get behind cover or retreat below deck.”

Demanding more from his forces, he wrangled them into continuing the fight as more explosions, more gunfire, and more death turned what was supposed to be a surprise attack into the single-deadliest battle he had ever borne witness to. And nowhere was this made clearer than on the beach, where a sight so horrible it would never fade from memory presented itself to him.

There were now so many bodies—on both sides. Many were piling up as though they were lifeless pieces of inventory in an open-air warehouse. Half of the members of the diving teams had been killed—more than five-hundred good men and women—and what looked like two- or three-thousand enemy troops had died across from them. For the Guild of Gentlemen to have so rapidly increased their number, it could only mean they had conscripted a great number of citizens of Shadowfall Coast. These were townspeople that were dying—and in greater and greater numbers.

Never had Haisel seen a death-toll skyrocket like this. Before his very eyes, he witnessed one person after the next perishing from existence. And the bitter irony of it all was that the Brayspark Monarchy’s defining achievement had been to create a world where this didn’t happen anymore—where this kind of barbaric inhumanity had been replaced with voluntary open-field combat. The Guild of Gentlemen had turned war from this into something that could almost be called a deadly sport or a contest, one in which everyone understood and obeyed the rules of the game, and all participants knew beforehand what they were getting into. But humans being humans, Haisel supposed it was inevitable that things would revert right back to the ways of old. A century of a more sophisticated, honorable means of battle—lost in a matter of weeks.

This is going to be the new normal, isn’t it? he thought, disturbed and disgusted. There’s no going back after this.

Piles of corpses. Literal piles of corpses were filling up on the beach. And that was assuming the bodies were all, in fact, corpses. This was actually something that couldn’t be taken for granted. Many of the level-1 troops were only half dead: young men and women left to squirm bloodied on the sand, moaning and crying for their mothers and fathers or their Gods as their allies abandoned them to focus on saving those less critically wounded.

In this moment, Haisel realized that the people of Shadowfall Coast were actually willing to die down to the last man and woman just to avoid having to live next door to a Dwarf or a Lizardman. That was what all this was about, wasn’t it? Their hatred and disgust and paranoia of the global world: a loathing so powerful that they were willing to drop something called a “nuclear bomb” on a human city just to prevent the very possibility of having to live in a world where their children learned math from an Orcish teacher.

Haisel pitied them. He truly pitied them. But this was war.

“Keep firing!”

As the battle raged on around him, he paused just a moment to switch to a private Comm channel, and quickly, he asked, “Have you made contact yet?”

“Almost,” replied a female voice. “Hang tight.”

******

In the exact instant that Zach darted through another door-less entryway and into a very narrow passage, a constant, powerful chain of successive explosions caused an earthquake-like shifting of everything around him. Zach halted immediately and threw out his arms so that his palms pressed against the walls to both sides of him. Steadying himself, he maintained his balance as the world continued to shake while the loud, rumbling booms continued to rock the filthy flooring beneath him. Dust and pebbles also leaked down from the stone ceiling above. Moments later, a siren of some sort became activated, one loud enough that he could hear it even from all the way down here.

The fuck is going on up there? he thought, confused and worried. It sounds like a war is going on, but Mr. Oren’s not supposed to be invading yet.

With his eight cards in tow, he waited for the shaking to stop, and then he proceeded onwards, only to pause again as it worsened. Eventually, he realized these ground-shaking detonations were likely to continue intermittently for at least a good while, so he adapted to it, running more carefully even as subsequent explosions rocked the entire subterranean prison-dungeon.

Troubled, he listened more attentively to the distressed voices blaring through his stolen Comm as he moved. Initially, it was difficult to decipher exactly what was being said, as too many voices were saying too many things at once, but eventually, some semblance of order was established, and Zach was able to piece together what was happening as a panicked-sounding man began to air his fears over the Comm.

“They won’t tell us shit,” a young and male voice said. “Are we winning? Losing? I’m so fucking nervous. I can’t take this anymore.”

“Then stop thinking about it!” an older, female voice ordered. “I know everyone is worried, but this Comm line is exclusively for patrol and prison-guard squads. Focus on dealing with our own crisis, and let others worry about the Royal Roses.”

“I’m sorry, Captain. It’s just my brother’s down there fighting on the southeast coast.”

“Yeah, well, my brother’s already dead. And so are both my parents. Deal with it!”

From this—as well as other bits and pieces—it sounded like the Royal Roses had launched some kind of surprise naval attack on the city of Shadowfall Coast not all that far from the Yorna exit. This alone was shocking, but even more so was the fact that they’d apparently done so ahead of the arrival of the Lords of Justice and the Elves. What were they up to?

I’ll find out later.

Right now, he had to focus on getting to Vim, and he knew he was close. The people he’d spared on the floor above this one had told him that he’d only have to travel down two more flights of stairs, and that the entrance to the final one would be well guarded. Luckily, he had his eight cards from Trials of Nolak with him. Four of them, the Sneering Imp Troublemakers, made soft, mischievous-sounding tapping noises as they scampered along beside him. His other four—called Sneering Imp Warriors—filled the quiet passage with a slight buzzing as they flew forward, maintaining a constant few feet of distance behind Zach.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

As he reached the end of this narrow passage, he bolted down an equally narrow ramp until arriving upon another framed entryway that let out into a much wider, square-shaped area containing rusted, ancient-looking gymnastics equipment, none of which appeared operable. Thus far, it was the single-largest individual area that Zach had seen since breaking his way in, and from looks alone, Zach figured it had been a place for the prisoners kept here a very long time ago to exercise and work out. It was also a place he was likely to encounter one of the last remaining obstacles between himself and Vim Alazar.

There they are, he thought, his body tightening apprehensively.

There were only two entrances into this disused gym room: the one that Zach had come in from and the one that led to what he presumed would be the final, spiraling staircase, beyond which Vim would be waiting. And in front of this staircase, just as he’d been told, an entire formation of guild members stood at the ready as though waiting specifically for Zach to arrive. And Gods, there were a lot of them.

By Zach’s estimation, there appeared to be about twenty-one people blocking off the small entrance he needed to travel through, and all of them were arrayed in a tight, orderly formation. Five burly men stood frontmost, each lined up side by side. Their bodies were partially concealed behind gigantic shields; in fact, their shields were so large that they didn’t so much as “hold them” as they did rest the base of them on the grimy dungeon flooring like improvised barricades, spanning from the floor all the way up to their chests. All five men were also heavily armored, and they did not look like they were willing to budge.

Behind these five men were another five people, and these were a mix of two men and three women. They were slightly less armored but carried larger weapons, such as two-handed swords, long spears, and one woman had a trident. Through the eye sockets in her helmet, Zach could see her pupils enlarge as she spotted Zach’s arrival. Was it because of fear? Maybe. But to Zach, it seemed far more suggestive of determination as opposed to terror or surprise, which made sense since she—along with the rest of them—had been both expecting and awaiting Zach’s appearance here.

A few feet behind the trident-wielding woman and the four beside her was another line of five of the guild’s members, four of which were men. All five wielded small, rounded shields in one hand and a modestly sized, one-handed weapon in the other, and the one in the middle had a golden insignia of crossed swords tattooed on his forehead, which Zach took to imply he was an officer in the guild. Of the entire group, it was his eyes that seemed to burn with the harshest intensity.

Finally, behind this officer, there were six more members of the guild, two of them equipped with bows and the other four with staves. These stood closest to the entrance to the staircase, with a woman in white robes physically positioned such that she was standing right between the frame of it; with her curved, short staff gripped tightly in both of her hands, Zach thought he detected her shoulders trembling.

Put together, the twenty-one guild members created a large enough obstacle that Zach could not simply charge his way through them. And as Zach came blasting into this ancient prison gym at a run, he was forced to plant his feet and come to such an abrupt and harsh stop that his shoes actually dug into the stone flooring and created a trail of sparks as he skidded to a halt.

Every head turned to look at him, which caused numerous clanking sounds from the large helmets worn by the shield-bearing men positioned up front. There was recognition in all of their eyes. Clearly, they knew who he was and why he had come. Zach might have even heard some of them over the Comm on his way down here.

I don’t want to kill these people, he thought to himself as his eyes studied the significant force barring his passage. I’m tired of all the killing!

Zach kept his arms at his sides. He did not draw his weapon. Instead, he struck a firm, upright posture and addressed them without fear or hesitation. “Listen to me,” he began. “You don’t have to die today. The truth is I don’t actually want to kill any of you, and I won’t if you drop your weapons and—”

“Attack!” shouted the officer with the golden tattoo on his forehead. “Kill him!”

Idiots!

Zach scowled as he watched two of the men up front pull away from one another, their shields creating an opening similar to the parting of elevator doors. Directly behind them, a man with a large sword and the woman with the trident also stepped away in opposite directions, and so too did the two men with smaller shields even farther behind them. Now, a tiny pocket leading all the way to the back of their formation opened up, and it all happened so quickly, too.

In total, this “opening” of their formation lasted less than a second, and it was all so that the two archers in the back could fire off dual arrows that had already been nocked and drawn, which resulted in two distinct snaps followed by a whistling on the air as they made straight for Zach.

With almost perfect timing, the guild members returned to their earlier position, sealing the hole in their formation at nearly the precise instant in time that the arrows crossed the air of the rotten gym room directly in front of the five large, shield-bearing men. Given how fast the arrows were traveling, this level of coordination was impressive and unexpected after facing so many unprepared kids who hadn’t stood a chance against him.

But it still wouldn’t be good enough.

Reacting with an even greater speed than the projectiles, Zach whipped his right hand over his left shoulder, grabbed the hilt of his sword, ripped it free of its scabbard, and then made two slashes back and forth in the empty space before him that were so fast that they created a hissing sound even louder than the arrows, both of which were cut right out of the air and snapped in half.

From the tightening of faces Zach saw popping up in numerous guild members, he could tell that they were intimidated by his display of swordsmanship. And this, Zach was glad to see, because he reckoned it meant they might be a bit more persuadable having seen firsthand what he was capable of. And so, once more, Zach tried to convince them to stand down.

“Don’t make me do this,” he pleaded with them. “I really don’t want to hurt any of you.” As he spoke, there were a few slight clacks as multiple pieces of wood from the destroyed arrows landed on the floor. “But I have to get to Vim, and I’m running out of time. So if you people don’t get out of my way, I’m sorry, but…” He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll carve my way through you!”

“Attack!” the officer shouted again, not even bothering to consider his words.

Zach squeezed his hands around his sword. It looked like they were going to force him into ending their lives. It wasn’t what he wanted, but he simply did not have the time to beat them down until they submitted. No, if they weren’t willing to let him pass uninhibited, then the only choice left to him was to slay those who stood in his way. This meant that things were about to turn incredibly bloody. Truly, he wished these morons would’ve just thrown down their weapons, because not only would he now have to take away their lives, but also of concern was the fact that Zach truly did not know if he could handle this many of them at once without entering Unleashed Phase, which would start the clock on it well before he intended to use it.

If I have to use it now, I might not have enough time to make it back with Vim!

From the moment he activated his ability, he would have somewhere around fifteen minutes—plus or minus the use of abilities or procs on his sword—to free Vim, run him through the city, get to Yorna’s, whisk him down to B10, elevator him back up to the Whispery Woods entrance, and then finally rendezvous with Queen Vayra for healing. It was a lot.

I have my cards, he reminded himself. And these are members of a political guild I’m dealing with. I’ll be fine as is.

After a very quick, internal deliberation, Zach decided to hold off on using Unleashed Phase just yet. Sure, there were a lot of enemies in his path, and yes, they appeared to be a bit older, stronger, and overall more experienced than their younger counterparts, whose lives they had used as fodder up until this point, but even considering all those factors, these were still just pampered, political guild members. He would cut right through them!

First, however, he needed to kick off his front foot and retreat backwards as the formation opened up yet again to allow two mages in the back to launch two large, cannon-ball-like masses of orange-colored energy at him. Each moved as though it were a heavy, weighty object, traveling upwards at an arc before dropping down with a loud thud onto the antiquated stone flooring, leaving a crack in it before rolling several feet forward. For two or perhaps three seconds, these cannon-like balls then began to shine very brightly before turning from orange to pure white—and then they both exploded with a painful-to-look-at flash.

Zach removed his left hand from his blade and then raised it to shield his eyes. A moment later, the light faded, but by this point, the formation had already once again tightened—only to open up a third time. Now, Zach had to urgently jump to his left side as, from the tip of a staff, one of the mages fired out a thin, laser-like projectile about the size and width of a piece of straw; it traveled towards him with a genuinely surprising speed and made a subtle fush sound as it came within inches of striking his belly. It then continued onwards until hitting the wall behind him with an equally soft pfft.

Risking a very quick peek over his shoulder, Zach saw that there was now a very small hole in the wall that, in terms of width, was just as thin as the projectile. Nevertheless, it seemed to penetrate very, very deeply into the stone, and that much, at least, was worrying. Growling, he looked ahead of him and said, “You asked for this!”

Zach prepared himself to charge his enemy, but once again, they managed to strike first. Like with the previous attempts, the first three rows parted to allow those in the rear to attack, but this time, all six mages and archers struck out at him at once. Now, Zach was forced to contend with two arrows, two more cannonball-like clumps of green energy, another small, thin, and laser-like beam, and a missile-shaped bolt of fire. There was also one other magical attack, but it was one that he was not aware had been cast until he looked down and realized he was standing on a circular shadow of sorts that made him feel like he was under some kind of spotlight, only one that drained light as opposed to shining it.

Having no idea what he was about to be hit with, he hurriedly dashed away just as the outer edges of the shadow darkened and a semi-transparent pillar made of steaming-hot mist began shooting upwards, covering the area in a width three times his body and at a height of about ten feet. This mist then continued to shoot out and upwards at a faster and faster rate like gas being ejected from a shower hose until, finally, it began to fizzle out. Had Zach been standing within its perimeter, he might well have been boiled to death.

Having escaped the attack, he readied himself as, from beyond this mist, which partially obscured his visibility, he reacted the moment the small, laser-like beam zipped across the gym room, spinning around it. Then, following this, the two arrows emerged, and like before, Zach cut them down. Finally, he leaned backwards and out of the way of the firebolt before back-flipping away from the two heavy, cannon-ball-shaped masses of energy that plopped down and cracked more of the stone before detonating with a painful flash.

I don’t have time for this shit! he thought to himself. I need to get to Vim!

Mentally targeting the casters in the back row, Zach ordered all four of his Sneering Imp Warriors to attack. At the same time, he sent his Troublemakers forward as well. And now, with an ominous “He-he-he-he-he!” his cards soared into action, moving far, far faster than they had back in Trials of Nolak when Jimmy had slowed them. The Troublemakers threw daggers while running along the roach-infested stone flooring, and the Warriors made much louder buzzing sounds from their wings as they raced across the air. Zach joined them in their charge, once more gripping his sword with both hands and rushing at his enemy. Through narrow slits in their thick helmets, he could see their eyes begin to widen with fear.

They had their chance.

“Tanks!” the officer cried aloud as Zach and his cards sprinted across the room. “Taunt!”

Zach felt a pinch of nerves in his belly as the word “taunt” reached his ears. Could pets be taunted like mobs? Could cards be? Was that even something that could happen? He knew that regular mobs and even bosses could be taunted, but one thing he’d never before seen was whether or not it was possible for something like a card to be—

FORGET ALL THAT! WHAT REALLY MATTERED WAS THAT ZACH REALLY, REALLY HATED THAT ONE GUY OVER THERE! THE SECOND ONE IN THE FIRST ROW. YES, HIM! ZACH HATED HIM MORE THAN HE’D EVER HATED ANYONE! HE HAD TO DIE! NOW!

Feeling his eyes bulge with a tremendous wrath for a reason he did not understand, Zach suddenly realized that he would willingly trade the life of himself and everyone he’d ever loved if, in return, it meant that the man would be given so much as a paper cut: that was the extent to which Zach hated the heavily armored, shield-bearing son of a bitch. Screaming in outrage, Zach forgot everything he’d just been thinking—including why he was here—and with his mouth literally drooling with hatred, he stomped his feet down onto the stone hard enough to leave permanent, foot-shaped cracks in it as he burned his way over to the man with the massive shield who dared to exist in the same universe as him!

“You mother fucker!” Zach roared, overflowing with white-hot rage. His imps, too, seemed to find the shield-bearing tanks up front to be just as insufferable and intolerable as Zach did, because the whole lot of them disregarded all the orders he’d given them and instead focused on attacking one of the five tanks. Now, just ahead of Zach, four daggers thrown by Sneering Imp Troublemakers sailed across the room and made echoing thuds as they bounced off the shields of the five men that formed the heavily armored front line of the guild members’ formation. An instant following that, Zach reached his target.

With reckless abandon, he lifted his sword high and then screamed in fury as he swung it back downwards with all his strength. In response, the man he was targeting dropped down to a crouch, lifted his shield off the ground, and hid behind it; the shield was so massive it managed to protect his entire body. This meant that Zach’s blade, which very much craved blood, instead slammed furiously into the metal shield, resulting in a high-pitched crack that was so loud it sounded like a gunshot.

“Die!” Zach screamed at him, lifting his blade and striking a second time. Then a third. Then a fourth. In a total mad frenzy, he began hammering away at the shield. On the fifth and sixth hits, the man began to grunt, and Zach could tell he was beginning to hurt. At the same time, his Sneering Imp warriors were flying all over the place, causing total disarray. Yet no matter where they flew, they always seemed to converge upon one of the heavily armored tanks up front, causing a constant pang, pang, pang as their gilded spears met one of these massive, mighty shields.

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that all four of his winged cards were suffering an unsustainable amount of damage from a constant barrage of arrow-fire and magic, as well as the occasional pierce from a spear or swipe of an axe as they flew low above the formation. To be sure, his cards, by virtue of their speed and unpredictable movements, did manage to avoid most things sent their way. Yet amid a flurry of arrows, a multitude of stabbing attempts, and a large, variously colored assortment of magical projectiles that brightened the room, a certain percentage of attacks did manage to land, and given the sheer number of them, this meant that his cards were plummeting in HP. Still, Zach did not care. All he cared about was killing this son of a bitch before him.

“Why!” he shouted, slamming his sword down. “Won’t!” he yelled, bashing it a second time. The man grunted, then wheezed. “You!” He brought his sword down again, and now the crack sounded a bit different than any of those that had come before. It was deeper and lower pitched. “Just. Die!” he finished in a scream, bludgeoning the man’s shield twice more. Now, following the second of these two strikes, there was a lower, but far more satisfying-sounding snap, and the man’s shield at last broke, splitting down the middle and causing both pieces to vanish shortly after, suffering a full break.

Zach hatefully eyed the man, whose eyes shone back with an equal hate—but also fear. And then Zach lifted his blade one final time and crashed it down over the side of the man’s neck, cutting deeply into it and causing the man’s fingers to make a strange twitching gesture before he fell forward, plopping down onto his stomach. With Zach’s blade practically stuck in the back-right corner of his neck, Zach was almost pulled down to the floor along with him. Exerting his own strength in the opposite direction, he yanked his sword, ripping it free, and then he stared at it a moment in confusion as it dripped blood.

What the fuck am I doing? he asked himself, having become very confused.

Zach shook his head, realizing he’d been taunted. Yet the taunt must have ended when he killed the tank who’d used it on him. Now, he became aware that he was staring directly into the vengeful face of the woman with the trident in the second row who’d been standing behind the man. She shouted out in rage and took a swipe at him. Having returned to his senses, Zach hopped backwards and away from the weapon, then sprang forwards again to deliver a follow-up, counter slash. But it was too late; despite having lost a comrade, the four remaining tanks, showing no hesitation, swiftly pressed in closer together, recreating the closed-wall formation even if now a bit less effectively. The result was that Zach’s blade crashed into another shield and made another loud crack.

Retreating a bit, Zach ducked beneath a missile-shaped firebolt and cut down another arrow before scanning the gym room with his eyes, attempting to reassess the situation. But by this point, the damage had already been done. Ahead of him and a bit off to his right, he now saw the HP of one of his Sneering Imp Warriors reach 0, and then, with a rush of dread sweeping over him, Zach watched as his card turned to sand and fell out of the air as it was killed. Then another died immediately after, this one also transforming into sand, which glided softly down to the stone. A moment later, his two remaining Sneering Imp Warriors, which had both been attacking the same target but from completely opposite ends, managed to score a killing blow on another of the heavily armored, shield-bearing tanks.

The first Warrior attacked from ahead, striking the man’s shield, but the second one at last flew around his guard and pierced him straight through his spine. His mouth opened for a silent scream, and then he too fell forward and died. Any sense of victory was short-lived, however, as less than a half-second later, both of those imps were incinerated by a massive ball of fire that appeared from out of nothingness several feet above the stone floor, which burned and consumed them midair for a short while before both ultimately transformed into two more clumps of ordinary-looking sand, which trickled down onto the stone. And it was here that Zach realized things had just gone terribly, terribly wrong.

I screwed up. I really screwed up bad!

With just two of the guild members dead and all four of his four Sneering Imp Warrior cards destroyed, it finally occurred to Zach that he’d badly underestimated his enemy—maybe to the extent that he’d botched the entire rescue operation. It wasn’t just because he’d been overconfident, either, but also because he’d been in a rush. Hell, he was still in a rush, only now, he had no idea how he was supposed to break through and get to Vim.

As though sensing the momentum had shifted to their side, the front of the enemy’s formation, which now consisted of just three shield-bearing men, began to “push” their shields forward, which caused a grating sound to fill the room as they slid their shields along the stone ground, advancing slowly towards Zach. Behind them, the three women and two men followed closely, as did the line of five guild members carrying rounded shields; all three groups maintained a set, constant amount of distance from one another as they pressed forward towards Zach in a way that seemed cautious and careful, all while holding their formation steady. The back-most row, however, remained right where they were, and as a gradually increasing space began to form between them and their allies, the extra room enabled them to fire upon Zach and his four Sneering Elf Troublemakers without the risk of hitting their allies, though it was the Troublemakers in particular that absorbed the brunt of their onslaught.

Much less nimble and not nearly as fast as the winged Warriors, the Troublemakers continued to launch dagger after dagger at the enemy while doing little to avoid the sudden storm of incoming arrows and magic that struck at them for thousands of points of damage with each hit. Numerous such attacks were also sent Zach’s way as well, but he managed to dodge or cut them down as he backpedaled towards the entrance he’d used to get here. Yet for all the incoming threats coming his way, one woman in particular was clearly giving him the hardest time.

Zach frowned at the mage closest to the staircase, who was clearly the most powerful of the bunch. She was also the oldest, too: possibly even in her late twenties, though looks could be deceiving. She had cherry-blonde hair, and she was chanting something while the bulbous tip of her oaken staff began to glow. Then, several blue streaks began shooting off her staff, curving themselves midair and traveling halfway towards the ceiling before coming to a stop; the streaks, Zach noted, also moved in a bizarre way that briefly caused objects in front of them to become invisible as though they were causing light to bend around their location.

Very quickly, all these streaks began accumulating together, creating a giant, sparking, flickering, and spherical-shaped mass roughly three times the size of a large beach ball. Eventually, the woman raised her staff and swung it downwards, and following that gesture, the giant blue ball began to slowly shrink in size as, one after the next, at random points along its surface, it unleashed beams that moved incredibly fast across the room, causing miniature explosions wherever they struck.

Faced with a volley of powerful, unexpected attacks, Zach was now forced to duck, leap, side-step, or otherwise roll his way around this impressive but destructive spell while his Troublemakers continued to obliviously throw more daggers as they sustained intense damage from numerous direct hits of the beam, with one beam in particular blowing the entire nose off a Troublemaker and causing blood to drip down its chin and onto the floor.

6,217

HP

18,555/72,500

Name

Sneering Imp Troublemaker B

Level

45

At the same time, the Troublemakers were also assaulted by fire, arrows, exploding cannonballs, and even water, as powerful jets of boiling liquid that materialized out of thin air above the mobs poured down on top of them, causing their red skin to smoke and sizzle while dealing between four- and five-thousand damage to each one. To make things worse, none of their thrown daggers were doing any damage to the enemy either, as every single one ended up absorbed by one shield or another with a loud thud that rang out with each impact.

In disbelief, Zach watched as his cards were at last killed, each one turning to clumps of sand and leaving him to fight alone against the nineteen advancing, angry, and vengeful members of the Guild of Gentlemen. Yet, despite this, Zach’s mind did not at all fill with thoughts of retreat or surrender, and he did not once consider turning around and fleeing in the direction he had come. No, the stakes were too high, and he’d already spilled too much blood to leave here empty handed.

And so, rather than retreat a single additional step, Zach came to a halt, raised his blade, and made the decision to risk his life by activating Unleashed Phase significantly earlier than he’d hoped for. He knew it might get him killed. He knew that he might not be able to get back to Queen Vayra in time. But he also knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with the knowledge that he’d killed so many people tonight for nothing.

I have to see this through to the end!

Truly, if he fled and survived, he’d be forced to witness his failures play out over the coming years and decades, and he’d know that all the pain would be his fault. Day after day, he’d watch the news and see society break down in multiple regions. He’d see the hate and vitriol skyrocket among the people of Giant’s Fall and Spider’s Eye Oasis as they vented their rage at the slaying of their guild leader, who they for some strange reason actually liked and cherished. And through it all, he’d think back to today, wondering if he could’ve prevented it by having succeeded instead of failing.

I can survive this, he thought. I really can. If I get to B8 and realize I’m running too low on time, I can always just hit mobs and proc my stamina regen to build it back up.

It was true. If absolutely necessary, there were ways for Zach to prolong Unleashed Phase. But then he remembered something else: an incredibly important detail that he couldn’t believe he only recalled right now. Feeling around the chest area of his robes for something concealed inside, his hand brushed against several items that provided him the greatest reassurance of all.

Right! he thought to himself, filling with relief. How could I forget? I also still have a red stone, two yellows, and a purple on me if I absolutely need them. And the purple will definitely stop me from dying if I don’t make it far enough in time. Especially if I only have to pay half of a Very High debt.

Though a Very High exertion debt might be too much for a single purple stone to heal, surely it would at least be able to keep him from dying if he cut the debt in half and then tried to use one. It likely wouldn’t be enough to prevent him from taking a several-hour-long, unconscious nap, but surely it would keep his heart from failing.

With that thought in mind, Zach activated Phase Reset followed by the weekly ability on his Sword of Light Amidst Darkness, which made it so that the next ability he used had its exertion cost cut in half. Then, his mind fully made up, he activated Unleashed Phase. Or, at the very least, he mentally commanded himself to do so. Yet something happened. Something he did not foresee. Something that caused him to become overwhelmed with panic and disbelief.

In the mere instant before he activated his ability, one of the mages extended their arm in his direction, and the tip of her staff began to glow a very bright whitish color. Then, a moment later, an equally bright halo appeared around Zach’s neck just as he’d activated Unleashed Phase.

And nothing happened. His hands did not begin spraying embers, his stats did not rise, and his skin did not take on a dull glow. His ability, quite simply, did not activate.

Zach tensed up, becoming confused and alarmed. Instinctively, he tried to dodge, pulling backwards and away, but the halo moved right along with him. He soon realized that this was because the shining halo was wrapped tightly around his throat like a collar, though he couldn’t feel its presence and it caused him no pain whatsoever. On edge, he wondered what the hell it was and what it would do to him. Would it explode and take his head off? Would it tighten and choke him out? With a sense of desperation creeping into him, he again tried to activate Unleashed Phase, and like before, it failed to go off.

“I’ve got him silenced!” the woman who’d casted the spell shouted.

So that’s why!

Very quickly, Zach pulled forward the information, as he now realized there was a red icon on the bar of buffs that he kept above him and in his peripheral vision.

Name

(T2) Promise of Silence

Effect

The user is silenced. While silenced, the user is unable to activate abilities, item abilities, equipment abilities, or spells.

Duration

0:55

Zach swore. This was badly inconvenient but not life-endingly so. Perhaps he did need to retreat after all, but only just for a minute until this fucking thing wore off. And so that was what he continued to do. But first, he cut down yet another two arrows, leapt aside to get out of the way of another missile-shaped flame, pulled himself back and away from another cannon-ball-like bomb, and then just as he was about to turn around and make a run for the frameless entrance and the ramp that’d taken him down here, a speeding ball made of pure grey smoke streaked across the room and struck him dead center in his chest, entering inside of him and vanishing.

Terrified, Zach wondered what in the name of the Gods had hit him this time. Once again, there was no pain. But he knew right away that something was seriously wrong with him. It became immediately obvious that something had changed. And it didn’t take him long to figure out what it was as he tried to get himself out of here before he took any more hits from any more strange shit.

As Zach commanded his body to move, he found that it was no longer obeying him. It wasn’t quite that he was “stuck” the way he typically was when hit with a root, but rather, he felt sluggish in an unbearable, horrifying sort of way. Every time he tried to move his body or one of his limbs, it reminded him very much of trying to wade through neck-high water. There was a certain resistance to the air around him. Even just lowering or raising his arms required him to fight with gravity.

I’m slowed! he shouted in his head. They slowed me!

He opened his mouth to shout, but he soon realized the silence was also a literal silence, as he could no longer do even that. Rattled, he tried to force himself to run towards the entrance as fast as he could. Yet it was like trying to run in a nightmare. His body was moving too slowly. He was barely even able to turn around, and he did so in such an uncoordinated way that he actually ended up tripping over his own two feet and falling down onto his side while dropping his sword. This actually turned out to be a miracle, however, because two arrows and one of those straw-sized lasers zipped across the air where his head had been, and all three met their end upon colliding into the wall behind him.

“Finish him off!” the officer with the tattoo shouted. “Before he recovers!”

Zach very slowly turned himself so that he was sitting up on his rear end with his palms laid flat on the stone floor while his body faced the direction of the guild members, who were now beginning to break away from one another as though sensing it was no longer necessary for them to maintain their formation. Quite a few of them began charging Zach, shouting out obscenities and hateful threats as they eagerly rushed towards him as though wishing desperately to be the one to deliver the killing blow. One of them in particular seemed to have already gotten ahead of the pack: the girl wielding the trident. With the weapon extended fully in both hands, she charged forward at Zach, clearly intending to skewer him right then and there.

Despite fighting for all he was worth, Zach was simply unable to maneuver his body in any meaningful way, nor was he able to shout out in horror as he watched the woman draw closer and closer and closer. Finally, she arrived before him: she, in a standing position, and he, still sitting on the floor and helplessly gazing up at her. With a loud grunt, she hopped into the air, angled the trident downwards, began falling straight on top of Zach, and then right before her trident tore through his flesh, she immediately changed directions mid-fall, flinging confusingly backwards and away from Zach in the opposite direction as a loud, startling bang filled the room.

Coinciding with this loud, echoing crack, the woman’s entire forehead exploded, sending brain matter, blood, and tissue all over a man wielding a two-handed sword that had been charging right behind her. Confused and clearly frightened, the man made a baffled-sounding half-yell, half-cry that was almost comical as he came to an immediate stop. He then looked around as though to ascertain just what in the Gods was happening. He never found out. A quarter of a second later, there was another stunningly loud bang, and now this man’s head was blown apart even worse than hers was. Following the bang, all that remained was a piece of mouth barely attached to a section of jaw on top of a stump of neck. With that, the man fell backwards and landed with a plop on the stone.

“What are you doing to them, you bastard!” cried a man wielding a small round shield and a similarly small hand axe. Zach tried to crawl backwards away from him as he closed enough distance that he was now only a few feet away. Yet his body would not respond, and he was unable to gain any meaningful distance from the howling man.

“What the fuck did you do, you Gods-be-damned devil! What did you—”

BANG!

The man dropped his axe, and then his shield. He fell forward, his jaw hitting the stone floor. Zach looked at the top of his head—or rather, he looked through the top of his head, as it had been cracked open just like an egg.

“What’s going on?” another of the men shouted. “What the fuck is—”

BANG, BANG!

A hole erupted in the man’s chest, blood spraying out of it. Then another one opened up in his belly, and he clutched it and made a strange groaning noise as he squatted down, whimpering as all the blood in him seemed to rush out at once. He fell over onto his side, and he began to shake. “Wh-what’s…”

“Kill him!” the officer shouted. “Kill him before he kills us all!”

At once, all four mages unleashed their most powerful spells—and all at the same time, too. A blinding array of light and color made it so that Zach couldn’t even be sure what was heading towards him, yet he had to imagine it would be deadly enough to take him out of his world in an instant. Yet, somehow, he was spared from facing death. He felt something strange on his back—and then he felt a tightening on his neck, which he soon realized was the result of someone grabbing the back of his robe and dragging him. He felt himself moving backwards along the stone flooring.

Then there were two successive bangs, one after the next, followed by an eruption of sounds, light, and vibrations as whatever magic the mages had used on him all seemed to go off at once, creating a nightmare that his eyes could barely discern. Eventually, however, things settled, and when they did, Zach realized he was now safely inside a bubble of some kind: a barrier made of green, wavy light that surrounded him entirely. He vaguely recognized it. He’d seen something like this before, hadn’t he?

“Barely made it,” a familiar-sounding voice said with a sigh.

Zach looked to his left, where someone was now standing inside the bubble beside him. It was a man whose entire face aside from his nose and mouth was concealed behind a scale helmet, and whose body was covered from head to toe in the very same silvery armor. His rescuer, whoever he was, appeared to be a large man with broad shoulders and a large, muscular frame, and he appeared to have saved Zach from certain death.

No, not ‘he,’ Zach thought with a gasp as he finally recognized the individual beside him. She!

Without a shadow of a doubt, the armored figure next to him was none other than Anelia Hellcrest, the bounty hunter and hitwoman who had been trying to kill Zach in the Den of Ziragoth. The two had been locked into a pretty brutal battle, but they’d mutually agreed to a truce after the dragon had spawned, because at that point, everything else had stopped mattering. He never thought he'd see her again after that day. Why had she come? What was she doing here? Was it to finish what she’d started last time?

No, he thought. She’s clearly here to help me. But why?

In both of her hands, she wielded large pistols that looked more like hand cannons, the grips of which were decorated with fiery streaks that actually glowed a bright orange, indicating that they were not regular guns, but equipment from the adventuring world. With her knees bent, she had both arms extended and the barrels of her guns pressed against the barrier as though they were the source of its existence. She grunted as several more deadly attacks pummeled the green, wavy protective bubble, causing it to flicker but not fade.

“Anelia,” he said, unable to control the astonishment in his voice as the silence debuff finally wore off. “Why’re you here? Why are you helping me?”

“Why do ya think, kid?” she asked, spitting out a wad of saliva as sweat ran out of the openings in her helmet. “It’s ‘cause I got paid a lot of fuckin’ money to be here, that’s why. Now shut your trap and get back on your feet.”

Zach had a billion questions he wanted to ask her, but none of them were appropriate right now, so instead, he tried to explain his situation to the woman. “I can barely move. I got hit with a slow.”

“No shit? How much longer until it’s over?”

Zach quickly checked. “Twenty-five seconds.”

Several more bangs followed shortly by an equal number of zaps came from the barrier as Aneila’s guns continued to produce and reinforce the protective, wavy-green bubble, which clearly had some kind of constant exertion requirement to keep active judging by the increasing amount of sweat pouring out of the few openings in her large, armored helm.

“Why are you here?” he asked her again.

“I told ya. Work.”

“Someone paid you to help me?” he asked. She nodded, and the motion of her head caused sweat to fall down her nose and plop onto the stone. “Who paid you?”

“Who do you think? Your guild.”

This, Zach found hard to believe. “Meaning the Royal Roses? Wait, they know that I’m here?”

“Guess so,” she said with an exhausted-sounding sigh.

“But how?” Zach asked, shocked.

The question seemed to annoy her. “Kid, I don’t know. I’m not an encyclopedia of guild decision-making. I get a job, I do a job. That’s as far as I know about any of this shit.”

“Okay, okay, I get it, sheesh,” Zach said as she glanced down at him with an angry stare. Zach averted his gaze and instead decided to try looking around himself. Right now, the world outside of the bubble appeared just as wavy as the light surrounding them, which was likely an illusion caused by it. “So, what’s the plan then, Anelia?”

“Uh…plan?”

“Y-yeah. You came here with a plan, right?”

“Mhm.”

“What is it?”

“Don’t get myself killed.”

“Thanks, that’s really helpful,” Zach said dryly. “How did you come up with something so clever?"

Anelia grunted. “Hey, kid, you can kiss my ass with an attitude like that. Let me make something clear to you: I’m paid to shoot people, beat people, and steal from people. I’m not some tactician like your fancy-pants ex professor—or whatever the fuck that glasses-wearing nerdy bitch was to you.”

“But you’re here to help me, right?” Zach asked, ignoring her rudeness.

“This time, yeah.”

Zach slowly lifted his arm, which required a great deal of effort. He pointed. “Those people are guarding the staircase that leads right to Vim Alazar. We need to fight our way through them to get to him.”

“Dumb,” she said dismissively in reply. “You want a plan? Here’s a plan. I’ll hold them off up here, and you go on and save your Gnome. Sound good?”

Zach eyed the woman skeptically. “Do you really believe you can handle all these people by yourself?”

“I just need to keep ‘em busy, right? Make sure they don’t follow you down? I can handle it.”

The slow finally having ended, Zach sprang right back up to his feet with a sense of urgency, but not before grabbing his sword off the floor. Now, gripping it with both hands, he nodded at Anelia. “Let’s do it.”

His sense of hope renewed, Zach activated Unleashed Phase with a Phase Level of 2 as Anelia released the triggers on both her guns, causing the green, wavy barrier to fade. The moment that it vanished out of existence, the scale-armored woman began shooting.

Say what you will, but she clearly works hard for her gold.

Zach smirked. Now that was something he could respect.