"I'm telling you kid, if I were you, I'd get the fuck out of here."

Dove's normally flippant manner was nowhere to be seen, replaced by this grim faced man who looked as if he hadn't rested in days. Tyron had a sense of the worsening situation by the frequency of rift-kin he was encountering in the forest, but he certainly didn't think it was this bad.

"Are you seriously suggesting there's going to be a break?" Tyron asked.

Something that rarely occurred and no-one wanted to be close to when it did: a rift-break.

"What is the keep doing? There was no sign of this happening as recently as a week ago!"

The Summoner scowled.

"If you think back, there actually might have been. The mission we took prior to your… experimental ritual practice grounded me to town was definitely more hectic than we might normally expect. Activity around the rifts always fluctuates so we didn't think much of it, but if the upswing started back then the timing checks out."

"And the Keep?"

"Look, the Slayer Keeps are run by the Magisters and nobody knows what those piss ants are doing at the best of times. The restriction on the number of slayer teams allowed to be active around the rifts couldn't have come at a worse time. Under normal circumstances, we would have put out a call for your parents to turn up and they would have, but we can't even do that much right now."

A shiver ran down Tyron's spine.

"Is this… my fault?" he mumbled.

"What? Of course it's fucking not. I know you've got a lot of heft in your sack, kid, but don't fool yourself into thinking that you alone can influence something like this."

"But if I didn't cast that ritual then would the slayers have been contained the way they were? And if I weren't a Necromancer, if I'd surrendered my Class, then my parents would be free to come and settle things. How is this not my fault?"

The older man sighed and shook his head.

"You didn't choose your Class, so you aren't responsible for it," he held up a finger, and continued to tick off his fingers as he went on, "you didn't outlaw the Class, you didn't choose the Steelarms to chase you down, you didn't make the decision to lock down Woodsedge at a horrible timing, you didn't refuse to allow your parents to help. The Magisters did all of those things, except for the Class picking bit, fuck knows how that happens. My point is, there's no reason to take this load on your shoulders. As far as I can tell, you've been doing your bit to help out."

He nodded toward the row of skeletons behind the young Necromancer.

"You must have killed a few rift-kin with those bone-boys."

Tyron's expression became pained.

"Please don't call my skeletons 'bone-boys'."

Dove rolled his eyes.

"Fine. Seriously though, what level are you now?"

"… nine."

"Really? You're shooting up. Another eleven levels and you won't be a completely useless chunk of shit."

The scrawny mage grinned as he joked with him, but Tyron could sense it was at least a little forced. Dove was tired, and trying not to show it. The weight of the situation, along with the guilt that he could not shake, settled around his shoulders like a cloak.

"It's… it's really bad, isn't it?"

The smile faded from the face of the Summoner and all of a sudden he didn't look like Dove, but a fatigued warrior with few options left.

"Rogil nearly lost an arm when we tried to thin the monsters in the broken lands. That man has skin as hard as steel and some giant lobster looking bastard damn near cut through him in a single snip. It'll be weeks before he can use it properly unless a silver rank miracle healer just happens to descend from the fucking heavens. I've been working this Nagrythyn rift for three years now and never seen anything like the kin I saw two days ago. Not even on the other side. Rogil has though. We're his second team. He was the only survivor of his first group after the Illica rift to the west broke. According to him, all sorts of bullshit starts to roll up when the rifts get too large. Only Gold rank or higher can fight those pricks directly, and we don't have any."

A slow realisation was starting to dawn on Tyron and he did not like it.

"You think it's going to break, don't you?" he said. "You don't think they can hold it off."

Dove looked him in the eye and slowly shook his head.

"No," he admitted, "I don't think they can."

His admission hung in the air for a long moment as Tyron's mind raced, flitting from thought to thought without settling on a single one. If it really broke, then Woodsedge was done. Unless help came quickly, the entire town, along with the Keep, would be swept off the map. He thought of Hak, and his daughter Madeline. Hard working and honest folks, dead. He thought of Rell by the side of Victory road, and his dream to become a slayer, dead. He thought of Rogil, Dove, Aryll and Monica.

The Summoner held up a hand before Tyron could speak.

"Don't even say it. Your thoughts are written all over your face. The teams are gathering and preparing right now for one final lunge toward the broken lands and there is no fucking way I'm backing out of that party. Besides the fact that my brand would sear me like a chuck steak if I tried, nobody became a slayer to run away from danger. Most of the glory they throw on this job is complete bullshit. The adoration, the parades, I hate that. But when things get rough, people are going to die, I'm not going to turn tail and not a single slayer would. If we succeed, we are going to save tens of thousands of lives."

"But you don't think you will," Tyron pointed out softly.

Dove grinned fiercely.

"I intend to take as many of those fuckers down with me as I possibly can. Maybe that way a few of the weak and pathetic people, people like you, will survive. That's what it means to be a slayer, kid."

A memory flashed through his mind.

Magnin smiled brightly as he reached out to ruffle a young Tyron's hair.

"If you aren't prepared to die, you have no business killing rift-kin, son. We put our lives on the line to protect others, that's what it means to be a slayer."

He drew a slow, ragged breath.

"How long do you think we have?"

The older mage shrugged.

"It's genuinely hard to know. We are setting off in twelve hours' time. The fighting will probably last a couple of days, three at the most. If we succeed, you have all the time in the world; if we don't, hopefully we manage to buy a few more days."

He fidgeted awkwardly for a second before he stuck out his hand. Tyron stared at it for a moment.

"You shake it," Dove told him flatly.

Tyron jumped before he extended his own and gripped the Summoner's hand before they shook firmly.

"I'm not good at this sort of thing," Dove coughed, "but it's been good to meet you, kid. Your situation is pretty much the most fucked up thing I've ever seen, and I was happy I could help out in my own small way. Best of luck to you. And please, if you ever happen to meet a Magister face to face, kill him and raise him would you? That'd be fucking hilarious."

Tyron swallowed the lump in his throat.

"I will," he promised.

With a final pump of his arm, Dove let him go and gave him a quick pat on the shoulder before he turned and began to walk back to town. Tyron watched him go, feeling a crushing mix of despair and guilt sloshing through his gut.

Once the mage could no longer be seen, he ordered his skeletons to collect the supplies Dove had brought out and began the long trek back to his current camp. He had a lot to think about.

Back at the keep.

Rogil carefully flexed the fingers of his left arm, ignoring the twinges of pain he felt as he did so. The healer had done an incredible job, all things considered. He'd been seriously worried he was going to lose the limb, only to be told he'd be right as rain in a matter of weeks. A pity he didn't have weeks to spare. The digits were mobile enough to grip the hilt of a weapon, which was good, but the upper bicep area where the arm had been reattached was far too weak to handle the strain of actually wielding one. He could fight one handed, he had in the past, but he felt like rushing headlong into a breaking rift wasn't the time to have one arm literally tied behind his back.

"I need to go and get a shield," he muttered to himself.

"Ask and ye shall receive!" declared a loud voice from behind him, followed by a loud thunk as something was dropped behind him.

The warrior turned to see a grinning Dove standing over a heavy steel-banded shield, hands on his hips and posing as if he'd just performed a most heroic feat.

"Where the hell were you this afternoon?" he growled. "You know there was a meeting."

"A meeting?" Dove recoiled in horror. "I never attend those, you know that."

"I thought your policy might change on this occasion."

"You thought wrong. If I was at the meeting, how would I have found the time to snag this hefty shield?"

"What if I don't want a shield?" Rogil asked even as he wondered why he bothered.

In response, the Summoner simply rolled his eyes before he collapsed into the nearest chair.

"Of course you don't want one. Unfortunately your arm nearly got hacked off, so it's useless for anything other than gripping a shield. Hence," he gestured to the shield, "that whole situation."

Rogil sighed and gave up, settling back into his own chair and continuing to flex his fingers.

"So… how'd it all go?" Dove asked.

His team leader turned a flat stare at him.

"If you want to know what goes on at the meetings then you should, I don't know, attend them," Rogil grunted.

"Your point is well made and my balls have shrunk into my torso from shame. Happy? Spill the beans already."

"Fine. It went about as well as you'd expect. Magister Thuran chaired it and everyone cursed him and his family back for eight generations for the idiotic handling of the situation allowing it to get this bad in the first place."

"Let me guess, he smiled like a smug dickhead and told everyone to fuck off."

"Basically. After telling us to deal with it he up and admitted that there was an 'emergency recall' for all Magisters resident in the Keep and they would be returning to the capital immediately."

"I wonder if there actually is an emergency recall, or if they just pretend so they can up and run," Dove mused.

"Who cares," the warrior shrugged, "the net result is the same, they won't be around if things go badly."

"Always there to start the boulder rolling downhill, never there to stop it."

"Can we not whine about the Magisters? It's not like I don't agree, but I've been listening to those rants all day long. My arm hurts, I'm tired and I'd rather get some rest than piss and moan about things I can't change."

A little chagrined, Dove nodded and gestured for him to continue.

"With that out of the way, we got to the business of planning. I'm going to assume you don't care about the details. We go in, clear the broken lands and then go through the rifts. If we can relieve the pressure on the other side there's a chance we can avoid a break. If we can't, we stage a fighting retreat back to Woodsedge and try to get as many people out as we can."

As if retreating through a rift on the verge of breaking was an easy thing to do. Anyone who went through wasn't likely to come back and they both knew it. As he sat, Dove began to think over his career as a slayer. The risks he'd taken, the triumphs and failures. He'd lost a lot of friends along the way, it was part of the job, but somehow he'd never thought that a situation like this would happen to him. Perhaps he was too conceited after all.

"What's it like?" he asked finally.

Rogil turned to him, a brow raised.

"When a break occurs," the mage clarified. "I've never seen one, and I've never asked you about it because I understand its a painful topic, but, right now I would like to know. If that's all right."

His leader leaned to the side and rested his chin on his right hand propped up on the arm of his chair.

"It's unlike you to be maudlin. You could have asked me about it anytime you know."

"It didn't seem appropriate."

"Fair enough," he leaned back in his chair. "What do you want to know?"

"I don't know," Dove waved his hands vaguely in the air. "What happens? What sort of monsters come out? Were you close enough to see it happen? That sort of shit."

Rogil chewed on the questions for a moment before he answered.

"No, I wasn't close enough to see it happen. I was only Iron rank back then, hardly front line material. My team was part of the rear guard and when everything fell apart we were quickly overwhelmed. A fighting retreat from a crumbling rift is… not something I'm eager to attempt twice."

He took a breath.

"The rift-kin that emerge during the break are bad news Dove. I'm sure I don't need to tell you about it, you've studied them at length I'm sure."

He waited and Dove gave him a reluctant nod.

"In terms of what happens… it's like the world just… broke. Time didn't make sense, up or down didn't make sense, nothing made sense. I swear to god the person next to me turned inside out on the spot. The normal effects of the broken lands turned up a hundred times over. The roars of the rift-kin blowing up your ears, you can barely see straight, the ground feels like it's melting beneath your feet… I've never experienced anything close to it since. It's terrifying."

"How did you get out?" Dove asked him quietly.

Rogil barked a harsh laugh.

"Luck. And Gold ranks. We were close enough to the capital that they were able to arrive fairly quickly and throw back the worst of it. My team was dead by that point. A day later the Steelarms arrived and rolled the whole thing up inside a week."

"I heard."

The warrior shook his head.

"I saw him do it. Magnin, I mean. Just for a little while I got to watch the century slayer fight. Some huge furred behemoth had rumbled towards us, knocking over the trees as it went. I swear by the goddess this monster was as tall as a building. Eight metres at least. There were twenty of us there to hold it off and this guy just walks up to it and…" he trailed off. "I didn't see his hands move, didn't see his blade at all. One minute the kin is standing in front of him and the next it just falls to the side, cut clean in half."

Rogil's eyes had unfocused as he stared into the past, recalling how he'd felt in that moment. He'd been so young. Still wounded and grieving, his emotions so raw.

"He was like a god. I thought that if he could do that, what in this world could possibly harm him?"

"And then you decided you'd climb the ranks, you'd be just like him and reach the pinnacle of the slayers."

He snorted.

"What? No. I knew I'd never reach that level, no matter what. But I didn’t have any other skills and there were expenses. Funerals for my team members, making sure their families were looked after."

"Family, huh? You know, it's times like this I wish I'd gotten married."

"Dove, you would be the world's worst husband. There can be no question of this."

"Ouch."

"And it's precisely because of times like this that I never married."

"Good point."