Surprisingly few people died in that confrontation, including among the group of arsonists. Most were heavily wounded, with broken arms or legs and occasional concussion. It was hardly much of a surprise, seeing as most of their weapons were blunt.

After the final count, it was revealed that Michael's little militia group had only two deceased members, one man and one woman. After those too weak to continue, whether it was in body or in spirit, left Andrei was left with a total of nine people, including himself. To his surprise all of Gabriel's men remained, as reliable as he claimed them to be.

Technically they had lost more than half of their fighting force in the first engagement and while most of that was due to morale, it didn't bode well for their chances against the second group of arsonists. Especially if whatever runaways managed to make their way out of the trap regrouped with the other part of their force. Not only would they bolster their numbers but warn them of the possible danger.

He needed to find a way to turn the chances back in their favor, but this was something Michael was much better at. He could lead his men into battle, but his ability to recruit forces and prepare strategy remained ordinary, not enhanced by whatever powers the obelisks wielded.

He dove into their mind, looking for what he already knew would be waiting for him.

"That didn't go as well as I hoped," commented Michael from his place in the cabinet.

"Two people died, I did what I could," defended himself Andrei.

"No, I mean, so many of them just... left," said his jailer, voice filled with worry.

"Unfortunate, but I would like to remind you that you did tell them this was a one time thing," retorted Andrei accusation carried in his voice.

"I would say it's more to do with the tactics you employ than anything else," Michael replied with indignation.

"If I didn't employ them, those guys would be dead cowards, rather than living ones. If you have a problem with it you can file a complaint," as far as Andrei was considered that was the end of the conversation.

"What now?" questioned Michael.

He obviously didn't agree with Andrei's assessment of their talk, "We look for the second group of arsonists, they won't fall into another trap."

Michael was not satisfied with his answer, "And how do you plan on dealing with them?"

"I would like to remind you that all this was your idea, so you better think of something. Just because you are on a vacation doesn't mean you get to do nothing," angrily answered Andrei.

Silence was his only response, huffing in annoyance Andrei found what he was looking for. Grabbing the skill hole puncher, he inspected the carved numeral, two. However this thing distributed skills it was obviously looking for some kinds of performances, likely shows of the skills themselves.

Regardless, two was more than he expected so it came as a pleasant surprise. He needed to inform his prisoner of the situation, he knew his idiotic self tended to forget about these things, self absorbed in his musings as he was.

"You should spend the points we received for that fight, it could help you come up with a plan," commented Andrei.

"Huh, and how am I supposed to do that when locked in here, you are holding my skill puncher," Michael retorted.

Andrei rolled his eyes, "You are too attached to things, just use mine on your skill sheets, they are on the ground."

"What?!" Michael exclaimed, followed by a moment of silence. "How did I not notice the first time I was here?" he questioned.

"My skill board only showed up in your mind after I got released back in the forest, yours only showed up in the cabinet after as well," answered Andrei. He saw nothing weird about that, his mind worked in weird ways, but ones that were natural to him, unlike Michael.

There was a moment of silence followed by, "You first."

Rolling his eyes, Andrei turned to the copy of his own mess of skills sheets he kept in the cabinet, sorted perfectly here. He could appreciate the structure, despite it being boring as hell.

He pulled off a slip of paper holding the Authority tag. It irked him to spend his skill points on something that was not directly beneficial to him, but it might just prove to the difference between victory and defeat today. If he had two more points of Authority mere minutes ago, his forces could be considerably bigger.

But after punching the first hole in the paper his hands stopped, unable to press the paper puncher against the sheet of paper. However hard he tried, it felt as if the paper was made of titanium where the paper puncher was merely a steel toy in comparison.

Curious, did skills have upper limits? What affected those? He had to act normal, as if he intended to only allocated one point there to begin with, it would be not good to alert Michael to it.

Casually returning Authority back with its two holes, Andrei took Reaction Speed next, bringing it to a total of six points. If the limit was the double of the attribute that governed it, he would confirm that next time he received skill points, as it would be impossible to add another point to Reaction Speed.

Turning back toward the cabinet, he said in a casual tone, "Your turn."

Once again, silence was his only response, Michael no doubt going through all the possibilities in his mind, calculating what was likely to be the most useful to him. What a fuss.

Soon enough, small round pieces of paper floated off of Logic and Conceptualization. Curious choices, no doubt inspired by their current predicament and Michael's inability to affect the world more directly until he retook control.

Regardless, Andrei didn't have the time to analyze his captor's decisions. He dove straight back to reality, noticing Gabriel trying to get his attention. As soon as his eyes focused on his comrade, relief flooded Gabriel's features, although some of the worry was still present. "Are you alright?"

The man was worried about? How innocent, "Yeah, just got lost in thoughts."

Gabriel mulled over his words, looking like he wanted to say something more, but thought otherwise, "Alright then, we should move out I think, nothing to be gained by staying here."

The man wasn't wrong, but without a way to achieve their goal, the next steps were in question, "You are right, have you thought of anything we could use to out advantage?"

Gabriel looked uncomfortable, "I didn't... but someone had," he gestured with his hand, waving someone over. That someone was the young teen that has joined them of his own volition. "Javier here did," he said as he pushed the teen closer to Andrei, holding a supporting hand on his shoulder.

Andrei was rather impressed, a youth that disobeyed his parents and charged into danger against stacked odds. Many adult men his superior would soil their pants.

"I-I sorry sir, it was just an idea," he said, refusing to meet Andrei's eyes, looking at his feet.

The young man felt intimidated, that much was obvious to Andrei, so he helped him out, "Don't worry about sharing anything that can be of use, I am not a local, there's many things I am unaware of."

The young man eyes matched his own for a second before breaking contact again, "I-I just, uhm, used to help out at a dog shelter. I mean, it's not far from here, uhm. I thought we could maybe, uhm, somehow use that."

That didn't seem like such a bad idea, but how would they use the dogs there? Besides how would they even control the dogs, would they follow Javier, knowing him from when he worked there? Another problem was that most of the dogs in the shelter were unlikely to be the aggressive kind, or dangerous all together. What would happen when they released a bunch of poodles and chihuahuas on the gangsters? Probably nothing good. Still, it remained an option.

"I have an idea, two of them actually, but first I need to see the shelter," sounded Michael in his mind. Well, seems like the his choice of Logic and Conceptualization didn't disappoint.

He focused on the kid, no a young man, brave one too, "Show me," he commanded.

----------------------------------------

Javier led Andrei to the dog shelter. The young man and the ex-mafioso made their way through the streets of the town. If it weren't for the ash, rising smoke and the light of fires in the neighborhoods to the east, it would be quite an idyllic scenery, assuming one liked contemporary medieval architecture, whatever that was.

The rest of their group stayed behind, under Gabriel's command. Michael's second idea required a lot of manpower, whereas the dog kennels were mostly a matter of confirming their usefulness.

Upon reaching the shelter, Andrei was rather impressed. The place was big, much bigger than what he had originally expected. Its walls were built of stones placed atop each other, held together by mortar. It was one of the few buildings in the town that was neither built from wood, nor limited to a single floor. He turned to Javier with questioning expression, "How many dogs are in there?"

The youth leading him looked back, but kept nervously glancing around, searching for any signs of danger, "Last time I helped out there were almost three hundred, but who knows what happened to them, I haven't been there since..." he gestured at the sky.

Right, it was unlikely the dogs would survive for several days with no care, especially if they stayed locked in cages and kennels. Who would feed them? And what would they feed them? What happened to dog food after the transformation that took over the world? He really hoped this would lead somewhere.

"Can you show me around?" he asked Javier.

The young man nodded and led Andrei into the shelter. The place was eerily quiet, with no barking or wagging tails to be seen. They passed by rows and rows of empty cages and kennels, all of them open. It was clear that most of the dogs had either escaped or been taken.

But then, they entered a storage room that used to hold the dog food and came face to face with a pack of dogs. There were about almost two dozen of them, ranging in size from small terriers to large pit bulls. They were eating some disgusting mixture of ground meat and vegetables from torn sacks. Majority of it has already started to rot. They all stood up and started barking excitedly as soon as they saw Javier.

Andrei watched in amazement as the dogs crowded around Javier, licking his face and wagging their tails furiously. It was clear that he had a special bond with them.

"It's amazing these dogs managed to escape," Javier explained. "I wouldn't have guess they could make their way out of the cages."

"Someone released them," Andrei piped in. At Javier's questioning look, he pointed at one of the pit bulls. It had blood around its mouth, "I think that someone quickly regretted their decision, we better be careful. They could have been starving for a while when released, lashing out."

Javier nodded, looking worried by the revelation. Andrei looked around, taking in the rest of the shelter. It was clear that there weren't many dogs left, but Michael had an idea and these dogs might just work out.

"Javier, do you think you could gather as many of these dogs as possible and get them back inside cages?" he asked. "We will need to get them out of here."

The young man looked up at him, eyes wide with surprise. "But sir, what would we do with them?"

Andrei grinned, feeling a sense of excitement building within him. "I have a plan," he said. "We're going to use these dogs to distract the gangsters and give us a chance to take them down."

Javier hesitated, unwilling to use the innocent animals as weapons of war. But he was even less willing to argue with Andrei. He nodded slowly. "I'll do my best, sir," he said.

Andrei clapped him on the shoulder. "Good man," he said. "Let's get to work."

Javier quickly set to work gathering as many of the dogs as he could find. It wasn't an easy task, as some of the dogs were skittish and scared, while others were too aggressive to handle. But with his gentle touch and kind words, he managed to coax most of them into cages. The remaining dogs were left behind in the room with what used to be dog food.

Andrei watched with a sense of admiration as Javier worked. The young man had a real gift with animals, and it was clear that he cared deeply for these dogs. More importantly, the dogs cared for Javier.

Once they had gathered as many dogs as possible, they set out to wait for Gabriel and the rest to arrive. Andrei knew their work would be a slow and laborious process but waiting was all they could do, he refused to carry the cages with dogs by hand.

Eventually, they arrived at the shelter, not with one cart, but four, each pulled by its own horse. The real ingenuity of the plan rested in the modifications they have done to the cart. Axles of the front wheels had attachments in the form of short swords, weapons so kindly left behind by the first group of arsonists. Unnecessary weight was removed where possible, leaving the carts looking more like four wheeled chariots.

Each cart would be driven by a man from Michael's militia, including Andrei, with Gabriel and his men, armed with makeshift spears, in the back. Michael's mind was more devious than Andrei gave it credit for. The drivers were not defenseless either. Wooden boards were worked together into large and unwieldy shields. They wouldn't need to maneuver them so size and safety were preferably to practicality.

Andrei had his militia men load the carts up with all the cages Javier managed to fill. Meanwhile, he gathered the rest of the group and briefed them on his plan.

"We're going to use these dogs to create a distraction," he said. "We'll release them onto the street, and the gangsters will be forced to deal with them. That will give us a chance to move in with the chariots. Then we run down the ones that break formation and run for the safety of the backyards around the neighborhood. It's important the drivers never stop and only ever pick us up far enough from the main group of enemies."

There were some murmurs of dissent from the group, about the safety of drivers, about the dangers of hunting scattered group of gangsters in a group of four, but Andrei held up a hand to silence them.

"I know it's risky," he said. "But we don't have any other options. We can't take them on head-on, and we can't just sit here and wait for them to come to us. This is our best chance to turn the tide of the battle."

The group nodded slowly, and Andrei could see the determination in their eyes.

"Alright, let's do this," he said.