Berthold stood between us with two arms stretched out, grasping the back of our necks. Another set of arms held a massive glass orb, illuminating the entire vault with a brilliant white light. The glass shattered between his fingers, raining down shards of light-imbued glass across the three of us.

"You decided to come back, after all, Locerys, or I hear you prefer Berthold now," Pheralynn said, unbothered by his presence. "Well, since you've used the palimpsest to fix yourself, let me be the first to welcome you back into the DeBrazier family."

Berthold dropped to the ground, helping me back to my feet. After, he lifted a single hand, displaying his middle finger toward his sister-in-law. Nev stood still, looking down at the pair of us.

"Oh, come now, little brother. Very well, if it has to be that way. Neverel, kill them both." Pheralynn approached to see her orders performed up close.

Nev took a step closer to the two of us. Just as Pheralynn stepped by their side, a vine jetted off Nev's armor, wrapping itself effortlessly around Pheralynn. She turned to Nev in disbelief.

"Let me go and kill them, now!" Pheralynn ordered.

Berthold's outstretched arm shifted rapidly into a set of five, leaving a dumbfounded expression across his sister-in-law's face.

"If you didn't perfect your gift, then..." Pheralynn asked, realizing far too late.

Nev lifted her effortlessly into the air, retracting their vine while keeping her position perfectly in place. Spinning suspended in the air Pheralynn only managed to let off a panicked shriek before being flung back toward the entrance of the vault like a human-shaped frisbee. Surprisingly, this wasn't enough to leave their former captor unconscious.

"You idiots, they're trying to escape. Capture them!" Pheralynn shouted out.

The sounds of marching boots echoed from the entryway. Within seconds, dozens of guards surrounded us, each soldier emblazoned with the Sun of Dulcrois.

"It was a nice gesture but ultimately a waste. Each of you no longer holds any value to me. Truly a shame." Pheralynn stated, dusting herself off after being turned into a human whirligig.

The men closed the gaps between us quickly, surrounding us from all sides and preventing our escape deeper into the vault. We each took defensive positions. My fabric arms grabbed treasure to desperately fling toward our attackers. Berthold emerged another two sets of arms and raised them defensively like a multiarmed boxer. Nev, somewhat tired from our previous fight, extended their armor but only had enough strength to cover three-fourths of their person, exposing their head and right arm. I stood to their right side to support them when I noticed a white film spreading across the vault's stone floor.

The film grew, becoming ankle height, then knee, and then hip within seconds. Everyone in the room became aware of this, some guards taking tentative steps forward, unsure of the nature of this white mass. Pheralynn, however, seemed to know the exact source of this substance.

"Now you, idiots! Grab them now!" She demanded from her men.

Qued up from Pheralynn's command, a ten-foot-tall tidal wave of smoke rushed from the entrance of the vault with enough mass to knock everyone off their feet. As the smoke thinned out, two familiar figures stood between the guards and us, and a hand outstretched itself toward me.

"Look at you, boss. Laying down on the fucking job."

"Like, sorry for knocking you down, dude. Precision isn't exactly my specialty."

"Gemma? Leif?" I said, perplexed. "Durella was supposed to take you guys and leave."

"Yeah, I said no. It's not like I can let you guys have all the fun. Then the burnout tagged along. I'm not sure if he really knows what's happening."

"That's not fair, man. We're like robbing the cess... Right?"

"You're about thirty minutes too late for that part," I told Leif, taking Gemma's hand and helping the others up. "But I'm glad you came."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"So is the plan still just... fight to the death?" Berthold asked.

"With Leif here, we may have another option," I replied, pulling out the grimoire I had stolen earlier from the vault.

"This is," Bert paused as a smile crept across his face. "You're insane."

I shrugged in response. "Can you do it?"

"I'll need a minute to concentrate."

"We'll see what we can do. Gemma, focus on protecting Bert. Leif, guard the flank. Nev, you're with me."

"What are you doing!?" Pheralynn screamed as she and her men scrambled back to their feet. "Kill them no-"

Before finishing the order, Gemma quickly closed the distance between herself and the Crafter, throwing her fist into the older woman's jaw. She was launched by the impact back toward the entrance to the vault, this time struggling to get back onto her feet. I wanted to be mad at Gemma for not following the plan, but seeing my old captor get absolutely rocked more than made up for the insubordination.

"Okay... I'll guard Bert. Gemma, just keep doing what you're doing." I said as Gemma blurred toward the next set of guards.

On our backline, guards swung swords through smoke doppelgangers made to appear like Leif. After dispersing the smoke, one guard was overcome with laughter while another dropped to the ground sobbing in the fetal position. The rest of the guards at our rear tentatively looked from their cohorts to the unkempt blonde man dragging hard into his baseball bat-sized blunt.

Gemma blurred from guard to guard, each soldier barely able to track her movements before she was on top of them. Some got away easy with nut punches dropping them to the ground. While others were not quite as fortunate, Gemma would scale them like a squirrel up a tree, then claw at their face while holding onto their neck with her thighs.

Despite being weakened from our previous fight, Nev had no issue dispatching our attackers in masse. Instead, they broke down the lower half of their iron oak armor and outstretched their left arm, guiding a series of wooden branches chasing and piercing our attackers.

Despite the difference in strength, the DeBrazier family had numbers. For every five that our team could dispatch, ten more came to take their place. It wasn't long before the guards had us pinned. Sensing my crew running out of strength, I reached for a nearby treasure pile and broke down all the gold, reforming it into a dome that perfectly surrounded us. I sat down on the ground, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Hey, Mercy, that was cool. But you know gold is fragile, right?" Nev said.

On cue, a soldier's sword effortlessly sliced through the gold dome, leaving light pouring in from the outside. Other soldiers followed suit, cutting away large chunks of our golden shield. We braced ourselves for one last wave.

"Done!" Berthold shouted out, turning our attention away from our attackers. "Everyone, hold on."

We each touched Berthold's back as powerful winds surged, stemming from the old book emblazoned with the sun and wind, creating whistles through the sliced gold. The ground seemed to dissipate beneath our feet, replaced with the unsupportive sky. The last sword swing broke apart the dome as a powerful gust launched pieces of gold in every direction. The guards probably shared a look of confusion, seeing that the now-destroyed dome was unoccupied.

We hung suspended in the air momentarily before gravity took hold, pulling us back to terra firma. Gemma began screaming as I disassembled whatever fabrics I had left, forming them into a massive sheet and binding those threads to everyone's person. Nev caught wind immediately, using branches to create a base for the enormous formed sheet. This helped break our fall somewhat, but we were still falling too quickly to survive an impact. I turned to Leif, who didn't seem to realize I had fastened him to the middle of our makeshift glider.

"Leif! I need you to smoke!" I yelled over the sound of wind crashing around us.

"I don't know what you said, dude, but this really sobered me up," Leif said, taking a long drag from his neverending blunt.

The suspended fabric immediately caught hot air, slowing our fall to a gentle glide above Dulcrois. From above, we could see the city's infrastructure shifting place and rebuilding as well as a more unfamiliar sight. The encampment of Aramaz followers that had generally been surrounding the city now gathered solely at the entrance of the city's gates.

Far outside the city's reach, our makeshift hot air balloon landed in the beige hell. We set up a simple fire and tent with whatever fabric I could salvage from our escape. Nev sat atop a sandy hill looking down at the city.

"Nev," I called out, knowing they were thinking about the seed left to them by a friend, taken by the city.

Berthold put his arm out to stop me and approached them instead, plopping down on the sand beside them. Nev didn't even glance in his direction.

"What I did was wrong, and I know it can never be taken back. But still, I'll try to make things right with you and Mersault as long as it takes. I know it's only a start..." Berthold said, fishing through his pockets.

As Berthold lifted a small object between his thumb and pointer, reflective light flashed across Nev's face. In his hand was a seed, iridescent and more reflective than polished gold. Instead of snatching it away like the last time I had presented it to them, tears began streaming down their face for the final time today.

"Thank you."

They wrapped their arms around Berthold, and he matched the action. As the two held one another, the rest of our group watched the embrace, knowing that while the city took its toll on each of us, it wasn't strong enough to take everything.