Barely had Elzio’s vision cleared from the teleportation magic, before he was hurrying back out of the base, fully healed and restored, clutching an empowered mana charm and a third cooldown gem. God what he wouldn’t do for an Armorsmith to craft the components into actual artifacts.

As he ran back to the gate, his eyes fell on his minimap. Nance had tried valiantly, but at the end of the day, her own clones had done too much damage to the gate, and it fell just as the last stone minion did. Good. Now Elzio just had to—

Bereth is back. Echo sounded nervous, and Elzio understood her concerns. Both strategically, given Bereth’s regeneration put them at a severe disadvantage, and her personal concerns. She had, after all, been the one to suggest Elzio fall back. But he’d agreed. And if they lost here, they both died. So blame wasn’t really in the cards here.

What about Peter? he asked.

Dead again. They really do not trust him.

Good. This would be okay. It would still work. Bereth would push with Nance, unlikely to split off from his team. I have a plan. But it requires letting them push out a bit.

How much is ‘a bit?’

Enough to draw them away from the gate.

But their gate is destroyed.

Elzio grinned. Exactly.

As his feet pounded the dirt underfoot, his heart began to race. With Nance’s power spike and Bereth’s ability to burst down an enemy, Elzio wouldn’t stand a chance against either. He had no more aces, no more secrets, no more hidden traps. He didn’t need them, though.

Elzio. Echo sounded urgent. Bereth is not with Nance. He has not shown up on any part of the map.

At her words, the smile slipped off his face. Of course Bereth had stayed to guard the nexus. Elzio could only count on their lapses in judgment so much. They may have relied on him for strategy, but they weren’t imbeciles. Finally, they were taking him seriously.

He’ll take out my doppels if I send any in to attack. But Nance will easily take out any I use to defend. She’s not here to passively soak lanes. She’s pushing to win. Elzio inwardly cursed the situation as he continued his race towards the enemy nexus. There had to be something he could do here.

What tools have you not yet used? Echo asked. You could summon more minions.

Won’t help here. Branches whipped past Elzio’s face as he tore through the forest. They’re too slow. It’ll take Bereth a while to kill them but he can take his time at the speed they move.

And you are certain no doppels could contest Bereth’s power.

Absolutely. It wasn’t fair to be angry at Echo here, but he couldn’t help but feel his hackles rise as he shot down her ideas.

What could you do to lure him away from the Nexus? she asked. There must be something.

There doesn’t. Not really.

His voice was sharp, but so was his frustration. There didn’t have to be a way around this. There was no guarantee that there had ever been a path where he and Echo won.

The Pyrthet Nexus sat at the center of a large area of stone, much like Echo did, surrounded on two sides by walls—only broken by the gates—on the far edges of the battlefield. It was at the furthest corner of the base that heroes spawned. Kia, Peter, and Bereth were all likely in there. Elzio didn’t stand a chance.

His mind was still spinning when he reached the shattered gate. A minion wave had just finished flooding out, and Elzio waited several seconds for them to disappear. From where he stood, he could hear the dull clang of Kia’s hammer echoing out from within the base. She was inside, as he had expected.

After another second, to make sure the minions were clear, he stepped closer to the gate and peered around the corner. Again as he’d predicted, Bereth stood between him and the nexus. At the far end, in the respawn zone, Kia sat several feet from a panicked Peter, whose eyes shifted frantically from her to Bereth. The poor man looked desperate to say anything, but anytime his lips parted, even briefly, the shut after a second. Not worth the risk.

Elzio’s eyes stayed on where Kia worked at her bench, toiling away at a Great Zenith Blade, one that would empower any fighter, regardless of weapon, to deal massive basic attack damage. The rhythmic beating of Kia’s heart seemed to mock Elzio’s racing pulse, its slow, heavy beat comparatively lazy and relaxed.

The Pyrthet Nexus didn’t have many hit points. It didn’t need them. With Elzio’s speed, he’d need ten seconds to get within range. Bereth would have him dead to rights in five. If Elzio had a stronger Invisibility, he could run in, run right up to the nexus, without Bereth noticing him, but even if he could get there, he would become visible once he started attacking. There wouldn’t be the time to kill it. He couldn’t summon help either, because the cooldown on his doppel spell was too high. He could summon one copy, but Bereth would kill him and his doppel long before Elzio could cast a second. It wasn’t enough. None of it was enough.

As he despondently contemplated the situation, Elzio’s eyes wandered back to where Peter stood, almost unnaturally rigid. Elzio could easily tell what the poor man was thinking, why he was so stiff. If he twitched a muscle, Bereth would descend upon him like a hound from hell. Every now and then, Kia’s hammer would hit her latest creation extra hard, and he’d wince. Poor Peter.

A new wave of minions spawned, swirling into being in front of the Nexus, and Elzio ducked back into the shadows. He could stay hidden at the mouth of the gate, where the enemy didn’t have vision, but once the minions lit up the path, it grew too dangerous. Elzio would have to wait.

Anything? Echo asked.

She wouldn’t get a response. Not yet. Probably not ever. Elzio just couldn’t think of a way out of this. His thoughts were as silent as the quieting battlefield around him. The only noise that punctuated his empty brain was the sound of the retreating minions, and after only another second or two, even those faded.

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Elzio?

He remained quiet. There was something about the silence that soothed him, something that called to him, something that urged him to keep it. It was as if the quiet itself was a secret, one he could only unfold in peace.

The quiet.

Kia had finished the blade. She’d finished the blade and would now move to binding the enchantment. This would take another few minutes, and then it would be done.

Suddenly, Elzio knew what to do.

He summoned a low level Peter clone and immediately cloaked the both of them in a level 1 Invisibility. It wouldn’t help them if any of the enemy looked at them directly while they walked, but the Peter doppel didn’t have to walk. It had a Quick Dash. To give the doppelganger a head start, Elzio teleported it 60 feet into the base, but instead of moving it towards the center, Elzio landed the spell along the wall. It would take longer for the doppel, but the Invisibility spell would fade briefly every time it cast Quick Dash. Fade, not end. If he was in the middle of the base, they’d notice the disruption, but pressed against the wall and out of direct line of sight of any enemies, it could move in relative stealth.

This is going to take me a bit of time, he told Echo. How are you holding up?

I am holding up well. They have destroyed the North Tower and are making quick work of the Gate. Then I shall die. How are you holding up?

Do you have two minutes?

She was quiet for a second, perhaps not appreciating his brusque tone. Yes, she finally said. I have two minutes.

Hang in there. As they’d been speaking, the Peter doppel continued its slow dash around the perimeter of the base. No one had noticed it. They all knew Elzio couldn’t dash, blink, or teleport. He had to come in through the gate. So that’s where Bereth’s eyes stayed.

Elzio, meanwhile, kept his consciousness firmly inside the doppel. He needed full control as he crept against the wall. About a minute into the two Echo had promised him, the Peter doppel reached Kia’s workbench, just as she stood up from her completed project. Perhaps creating the blade was overkill, but it would have been more arrogant to assume the battle had been so decisively won already that she could slack off.

The problem was that between the completion of a project and the bestowing of it to a new hero, the artifact could be stolen. Stealing artifacts rarely occurred, since there was such a small window where it could be taken before it was permanently bound to a hero, and Armorsmiths rarely left their bases. To make it even harder, an enemy couldn’t use an artifact until it had gone Cold, meaning a full minute had passed after completion with no ally touching it.

“Bereth,” Kia said, “it’s done. You can—hey! Hey no!”

Her scream was utter panic as the Peter doppel grabbed the blade from her bench and began to run.

“Bereth! Bereth he blinked to my sword! He stole it!”

Bereth spun on his heel to see the Peter doppel, no doubt the real Peter in his mind, sprinting at the nexus with the powerful artifact.

The moment Bereth’s eyes left the gate, Elzio charged in. The invisibility spell was just enough for them to not peripherally detect him as both heroes’ eyes fixated on the doppel.

“That’s not me!” Peter’s cry was utterly useless. His eyes were huge, wide like a rabbit caught between a hunter and a wolf. Did he run? Attack? How could he prove himself here? “Ignore it! It’s a diversion.”

That was not the right call as far as Peter’s allies were concerned, and Bereth pulled out his arrow, winding up a stun.

The doppel was out of mana after so many blinks, but that wasn’t important anymore. It was a diversion. It only needed to give Elzio the ten seconds he needed to get within casting range of the nexus.

Just dodge, he ordered the doppel. Dodge and weave. Buy me time.

The doppel ducked the stunning shot—an absolute essential victory—just as Elzio cleared the halfway mark between gate and nexus. Bereth gave a roar of frustration and began firing basic attack after basic attack.

All told, if Peter had been a traitor, the attack would have come damn near to working. The clone had just reached the nexus, sword raised high, when Bereth’s final auto landed, and the doppel fell to the ground.

“Another doppelganger?” Bereth whirled on Peter. “Did you make that? Elzio must be somewhere in here.”

Elzio had to resist the urge to confess his position. There would be no points for style. He’d reached the nexus and it was time to summon. Echo had been right, the stone minions were the play here. He’d just needed to get close enough.

As the doppel vanished, it was replaced by Elzio’s three new minions, which all began bashing their fists against Loreth. It was the first time Elzio had been this close to the entity since turn-coating. He couldn’t hear what the nexus had to say, but he almost felt bad. Loreth had been doomed since doubting Elzio’s warning. That really had been the only path to salvation. Now Elzio was doing what he could to save the people who wanted him dead most.

“Elzio! You fucking—how did you—” Bereth couldn’t quite get the words out. He didn’t have time. He needed to protect his nexus, and he rushed directly into melee range of the minions, anything to pull their aggro onto him and away from the damaged core.

Without responding to Bereth, Elzio walked around him, around the combat raging, the life and death struggle between Bereth and the minions.

“Well done, Peter,” Elzio said. “Now. Kill Kia.”

Peter looked ready to cry. “I’m not—”

That was as far as he got before Kia, taking it on herself to stay alive, launched a flurry of basic attacks at him, shooting bolts of energy at him from her bench. Her face was screwed up in anger and determination. Peter looked at her, eyebrows scrunched in defeat. He couldn’t fight her, couldn’t defend himself, couldn’t do anything. He could only run, and that’s what he did.

Elzio watched as Kia launched herself after him. Then his eyes fell on where Bereth had slain the first of the stone minions and was now pounding away at a second. Good. They seemed busy.

His feet fell in silent footfalls as he approached the fallen Zenith Blade. While it had glowed golden when the Peter doppel had held it, indicating it was still bound to Kia, it now held a dull bronze color. It had gone Cold.

Not for long, though. It was Elzio’s now.

Elzio. I am out of time.

Elzio’s eyes snapped from the blade to his display. Echo was indeed out of time. Nance was upon her, and the Melting Magma spell had already started burning away at her health points. Nance had comboed up her spells with perfect efficiency. She didn’t need to land one more attack or ability to seal Echo’s fate. The damage over time was enough.

Or it would have been, if not for the fact that Elzio would win this battle before the last tick of the spell.

No. They are.

He brought the sword down hard on the nexus, channeling all of Kia’s painstakingly crafted handiwork into the nexus she swore to protect.

The nexus he swore to protect.

The Zenith Blade made contact, and a shockwave ran through Elzio’s body, one that rippled throughout the entire map. Elzio heard a scream. Kia’s? Bereth’s? Peter’s? Or was it the dying shriek of Loreth, the once great leader of Pyrthet, the once beloved ruler. The man that once stood as an icon of strength and power, but had become reduced to a stagnant crystal of energy.

Loreth had died before, but he hadn’t screamed then. He knew he’d be back. Now, however, now he died eternally. Perhaps the sound was his death shriek.

It was too hard to say, and all too soon, the scream faded away, leaving the arena in a split second of perfect silence, perfect stillness.

Then the world fell away, and with it, all combatants.

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Elzio Shilon: Level 9 (+1!) Mage

[Echo Nexus]: Level 1 (+2!) Nexus