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"We ready for this?" Jamal asked while pacing around.

Scoffing, Marisol retorted with, "is that really something to be asking now?"

"I just mean," he began and lifted his hands. "We might maybe die here. Does everyone have a will?"

Carlo makes a face and says, "that's ghoulish. Do wills even work in the system?"

No Pings.

"It's likely that our effects and Coin will simply disappear with us," I said. I was still trying to wake up. Usually, I woke up two hours early, drank tea and watched videos online. Then got ready for work. We had to sleep to recharge our mana and I just woke up fifteen minutes ago. I have to make Vara cards for everyone and that's four spells. I'll only have two spells left and I'll be extremely exhausted after I use the second.

"Here," I lifted the cards into the air and spread them in a fan.

Marisol was sitting next to me and quickly plucked one. "Ohhhh, this weird grid thing isn't pretty but the letter things are."

"Sigils," I replied. "I think. Considering my Class is 'Sigilrant'."

"Sigilrant?" Carlo walked over to take one of the cards and then walked away, staring at the wall. "I'm checking the Gloss."

Which reminded me that no one knew my class until now. I'd somehow allowed it to keep escaping my mind, not really bothering with it. I'd told them my abilities, so I hadn't thought to mention the actual name. I felt a bit conflicted over it. Was it really important when they already knew everything else? But it was withholding information, wasn't it? I didn't intend to... does that change anything?

Jamal took the remaining card and pursed his lips. "So… do you think you could make Tarot cards?"

"I have no idea and at present, do not care," I replied. "Everything is ready now, and Carlo is outfitted."

"Yeah, we should get ready," Jamal stared over at Carlo looking at the wall. "Carlo! Check the glossary later!"

"Nah, nah, I found it," he turned back to face us and cracked his neck. His newly bought armor was much more suitable to be fighting Wargs. All he had before was some kind of leather vest fashioned after a ballistic vest, some leather pants and leather vambraces with leather boots.

Now, the top half of his armor actually covered all of him and left none of his arms exposed. And he now had head protection. It was just a leather headband, but it had Concussion Protection on its info page when we were looking for the full sets and we all greed the other leather headpieces were just too flimsy and seemed to have no effects.

His armor appeared to be fashioned after Motorcycle gear.

"We're ready to go," Carlo said.

"Are we?" Jamal asked. "I absolutely think Derek is a dumbass and a traitor... or whatever you call it, deserter? But I also think he knew damn well that we're too low level to be handlin' a whole pack'a Wargs!"

He appeared to be changing the Cadence of his voice to make a point but I didn't really understand when people changed tones like that. I know what sarcasm is and it certainly wasn't that...

"So we just leave them To move around as they please? Come after us later in a big wave?" Carlo asked.

"Hell no," Jamal replied. "I just think we need to be extra careful and aware that this isn't actually a game! I think we've got a Dream Team here, really... it's just that, I feel like we're not taking this as seriously as we should be?”

"Because we’re not quaking in fear?" I asked.

"Yeah, we know all the risks. just cuz we're not cryin’ doesn't mean we don't know." Marisol said.

Carlo took a pair of what looked like brand new throwing axes, out of his inventory. "We wanna do this, because we do know. I don't want these things coming to the building and trying to eat my Abuela."

Marisol gasped. "You live with your vovó?" She appeared to be quite taken aback. "Don't you have a place to live at the fire station?"

"Did you really think that firefighters all live in the station all the time?" Marco asked with an amused grin. "Or are you just shocked that a fine specimen like myself isn't married yet?”

Marisol’s skintone is a bit too dark to see if she's blushing or not at first glance, but the rich brown of her cheeks, becomes even richer.

“No flirting while the rest of us can't escape,” Jamal stated. “I know we already figured out the ‘plan’...” His tone was skeptical. “ But if we could just have more to go off of than ‘attack the stragglers’, I'd feel a whole lot better.”

“Me, Lila and you are all small and pretty quiet,” Marisol said. “So it shouldn't be hard to sneak around and find ‘em, bring ‘em this way and kill ‘em in small numbers.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Jamal nodded tightly, lips pursed. “But, yesterday we thought we were movin’ around pretty quiet and it didn't matter, because when we rounded the corner, there was a herd. what if we poke our head around, they see us… and we have to run again?”

“That's why we're doing this so close to the building and the bank,” I replied. “So we will have a place to run to.”

“Look,” Marisol said. “I get where you're comin’ from, but one way or the other, we gotta do this.”

“I know, I just don't like it,” Jamal said. “I should’ve never told people that I could use Entangle.”

“Opening the door,” Carlo said as he walked back toward the teller area.

At that point, when the shutters opened, we were ready. Walked slowly and peeked around the doorjamb before moving out into the alley. But when we did, I almost double-checked we hadn't exited from the front door somehow. It looked entirely different, with wreckage everywhere. Torn bits of refuse, broken pieces of furniture.

“What did they do? Rip everything apart because we might have been hiding in it?” Jamal asked.

It may have seemed a ridiculous question, though considering they also ripped apart an old broken down sofa… it could have been merely to assert dominance or show their displeasure with us...

“These things really are pretty dumb, huh?” Marisol stated. “Looks like they don't even know how small we can fold ourselves down or not. Even wild Earth animals can usually make a good guess.”

That is true of the smarter animals, though some will keep trying to fit something in something that doesn't fit– but that is likely due to a belief that they can simply break or fold things into shape, rather than thinking the shapes match.

“They may have never seen humans before,” Jamal said. “Maybe the only reason they attacked us, was confusion. we were suddenly in their territory, but their territory didn't look or smell right.”

“We'll worry about that when we have the resources to pin them up and breed them for domestication,” I replied. “For now, we need to thin their numbers, so they will be easier to control.”

“Doesn't seem like any around here,” Marisol said. “Do we spread out? Or keep together?”

“If one of us were to encounter a full herd again,” I mused. “ The rest would be left scrambling and we might not get to a safe spot before the herd was upon us. staying together ensures that everyone runs away together.”

No one had an argument against that, so we crept together to the end of the alley. Marisol produced a pocket mirror to look around the corner with.

“You didn't say you had that,” Jamal muttered.

Marisol simply smirked to herself and did not reply.

I tapped Jamal on the shoulder and put my finger across my lips, then tugged on my ear. He seemed to understand fine enough, considering his eyes widened and he firmly closed his mouth.

Marisol put a finger up.

One Warg, is what I understood that to mean.

Carlo stepped out and around the corner, then gently tapped his axes together.

It caught the Warg’s attention, as it quickly whipped around with a snarl.

The only problem was, it's body had been hiding the other two behind it. Then, when they came abreast of their companion, there was a third behind them.

Four Wargs.

Marisol cursed in Portuguese again. Carlo did the same in Spanish. It was near-simultaneous and their words became a confused jumble. But the tone was clearly cursing.

“I told you this was gonna go bad!” Jamal said. ”What do we do?”

“Same plan as before,” I said while retrieving one of my two knives from my belt. They were actually fairly cheap. Likely because they were made of a metal that would melt as soon as I wrote Brenna on them. “I only bought two knives, so I'll kill two Wargs, or try to.”

“We got the other two,” Carlo said while shifting into an aggressive posture.

The Wargs were watching us, and it was odd. They were giving us so much time to discuss our strategy. If they were smarter, I'd say it was because they were stalling until their friends could get here. But I realized it was likely a much simpler answer.

“Do you think they can tell that we are four individuals and not one big creature?” I asked.

“You think they have bad vision?” Jamal asked.

“They do look like they're trying to figure somethin’ out about us,” Marisol said as we all stood there, watching them watch us.

“It's more likely,” Carlo stated as he walked forward. “That they're tryin' to see if they can take us or not. They look like hyenas… I know they aren't... but hey could have similar habits. I mean, if they're D class, that's one of the lower rungs.”

That's true, and after yesterday they might have found the bodies lying around. Plus, those Vines are more like brambles. Maybe they've decided we're too dangerous to fight. Which could be a good thing.

We appeared to have spoken to soon as one of the Wargs lunged just then, trying to snap his jaws around Carlo’s head. Carlo had fast enough reflexes to dodge out of the way, but that single action, galvanized the rest of them into movement.

I'd waited until then to write the sigil on the knife, because I knew I had a time limit. So, when Marisol threw the stun balls, it gave me the moment I needed.

It was almost the same as before, Jamal threw his seeds and two of the Wargs were wrapped up in them, ready and waiting. Except now, I was aware of my every movement and I wasn't sure if I could stab down hard enough. Before in the apartment, I was caught up in some kind of adrenaline rush and since then I'd only been running support.

Right now, I didn't feel the situation was so urgent that I had to go mindless to defend myself. I was confident we could handle it.

The feeling of stabbing through an eyeball is one of the grossest I have ever experienced in my life. But it appeared to work, and kept the Warg down at least. Screaming and thrashing, but down. Which is when I noticed the other two getting up.

I tried to shout a warning, as Jamal was getting too close, assumedly trying to throw some more tangling vines– but my shout was too slow and only served to distract him.

Jamal yelled as the one nearest him, snarled and lunged at his leg.

It's jaw clamped down and it attempted to lift him into the air, but Carlo was there. He immediately abandoned his own Warg to throw an axe into the side of the head of the one attacking Jamal- and though it did drop him, it was a bit late. Jamal's leg appeared to be hanging on by a thread.

He was screaming and I've never heard anything like it. Even the screams of the two residents dying in the building seemed melodramatic and unreal. Jamal's scream had an effect on me that I'd never experienced before. My body shook and went cold. That was only supposed to happen when I didn't take my meds!

While Carlo was attempting to finish off his own Warg so that he could help Jamal, I realized he wasn't going to make it there fast enough.

Everything was happening so slowly, too quickly-

“Eat this!” Marisol once again threw a handful of stun balls- this time directly at the Warg about to finish off Jamal.

I took the opportunity, immediately. The Warg that I had stabbed was slowly dying, constricted by petrified vines and unable to move as it began going through its death throes.

So I climbed it.

Even as it thrashed, I was able to get a handhold and get on its back because of the vines. From there, I was able to draw my last knife and write the sigil.

The one free Warg was after Marisol, so I shouted at her to head for the bank as I leapt from the Warg’s back and onto the stunned Warg that had been menacing Jamal.

It jerked… and I missed.

I may have planted the knife in its flesh, but it wasn't anywhere near anything vital.

We were screwed.