Nic waited through the night. He pushed himself into a corner where nobody could see him, flattening his body out behind a mossy outcropping of rock.

Minutes bled into hours.

Another ogreblood returned to camp. This one was thin and slender, with white-clay markings painted across his jet blue skin. He rapped his knuckles against the wards, and the others looked up with hesitation.

Nic read the air and knew two things. One: this was the person the gargoyles had warned him about, the one who’d been infected by some form of parasitic thing. Two: the others knew. They weren’t directly challenging him, or letting him know what they knew…

But they were wary.

After a moment the priest waved his hand and the wards split open to let the newcomer into their camp.

Nic watched. Was the parasite some kind of bargain they’d made? A hidden weapon? Or were they simply unwilling to attack and drive it out while they were so deep in enemy territory…?

He made a decision. When morning came and it was time to attack, he’d kill the host first. Cutting an unknown out of the equation was the best way to avoid unwelcome surprises.

---

The third and final day begins. Today, twice as many prisoners will be released.

At this time, the highest ranking individual tally is:

Rakdhat - 386

And the highest Settlement tally is:

Westdawn Clan - 722

The doors opened.

The bodies fell.

Hundreds of prisoners, stripped of their original bodies. Locked into the form of weak bottom-feeders, tortured by a living armor of magmatic rock. Thrown into the open sky alongside countless others, all howling and clawing for the chance to live.

Winterhome opened its mouth.

The great turtle’s beak was as scarred and pockmarked as the surface of the moon, so vast it was closer to geography than biology. Within the depths streams of water began to pour through the air, forming a spiral, a maelstrom, the eye of a storm.

The city-beast roared.

A wave of water rippled through the sky. The falling wretches were thrown in all directions, dragged under, drowned in mid-air. Their bodies smashed together as whirlpools dragged them in. The sheer force pulverized bones and crushed organs.

It was a slaughter.

The highest Settlement tally is:

Winterhome - 749

And still more fell towards the earth; the masses screamed for the fear of death and the joy of a new world.

---

Nic was shadowing the Westdawn Clan when Winterhome shook the earth and skies with its roar. He was following them back through the tunnels towards the central lake; He watched as they flinched, guards raised. Dust cascaded from the ceiling as the roar echoed and echoed.

“Mm.” The priest drew a sign in the air. “Things are falling into motion.”

Tharsa just cursed, drawing her sword. The goblinoid thing and the possessed ogre both seemed unphased; they shared a particularly dull glaze to their eyes, as if the world was a great bore.

“Winterhome? Ha. Didn’t think they’d be the ones lapping us…” Their leader, however, bore the news with good cheer. “Just keep an eye out for the dhampirs. If we keep going at the rate we’ve been holding, we’ll be back on top by midnight…”

Nic smiled in the dark. They seemed to be aware the dhampirs were planning to win by slaughter, but here he was, a spider on the wall, and they were unaware.

One by one they dived into the water and swum out into the lake.

---

Falling wretches filled the depths. They smashed into the water and sank, clawing at those above them to try and reach for breathable air.

Waiting for them were the Westdawn warriors. They stood atop the mountain of rubble at the top of the lake, cutting down each time a wretch rose out of the water. It was a prime position; most of the wretches who broke free of the lake had already killed their way up to F-Class, making each kill worth five, but there was no chance of being mobbed and worn away by sheer numbers.

It was as easy as fishing. When a body broke free of the lake, it was hammered down by Rakdhat’s staff. The staff itself was enchanted to stretch, bend, and expand, allowing him to cover the distance with ease. Anything that escaped was cut down by Tharsa’s swordlights.

Nic watched from behind a stalagmite that emerged from the water, letting them rack up the kills.

His hands itched to intervene, but he was waiting, waiting…

“You can come out.”

The words were soft but filled the entire underground space, echoing through the cathedral of stalactites and dripping water, overwhelming the frantic splash and splatter of wretches fighting their way up to the lake’s surface.

Nic didn’t move.

Someone else did.

The air rippled and a robed dhampir stepped onto an outer island. It was the assassin with the prosthetic arms of bone, bound together in red string.

But the creature’s aura had completely changed. Dark, violent threads of energy swirled around its skin, and its veins boiled black against its blue skin.

The Westdawn ogres braced-

But they couldn’t have possibly been expecting the sheer speed the assassin displayed. It rushed across the water like a dancing shadow, its left arm coming undone as the intricately-crafted prosthetic unfolded into a spray of bone hooks connected to the stump by threads.

They reached for Rakdhat.

Old 13 stepped in the way, his face solemn, the simple quarterstaff spinning in his hands as if it weighed nothing. With three swift blows, he struck aside the hooks and sent them skidding away across the water.

The dhampir’s right hand reached out, and from a pipe in the palm’s heel came three poison darts. This time the old man had to dodge aside, shoving Rakhdat out of the way as he did. The darts bit into the ground…

But in the space it had taken to deflect those two attacks, the assassin had closed the gap. The hooks had flown back and reassembled into a hand, and with both arms the assassin cut out, slicing the air with two fingertips formed into a ‘blade’ that rippled with swordlight. A silver cross swept towards Rakdhat.

This time it was Rakdhat who saved his own life. He threw a paper talisman into the air and it exploded into a massive, blazing palm, eight feet tall and made of blue-white fire. The swordlights vanished without a trace and the assassin was flung back, sent flying through the air by a ripple of force that emerged from the massive hand.

He crashed into the lake and vanished.

It had been so fast the others hadn’t even reacted- as if they were frozen in place.

Nic watched with glee.

“Tharsa, keep killing. Noeme, Rathmet, help her. Eleven!” Rakhdat swung back onto his feet. There was a shimmer in the air behind him and the shadow-skinned goblinoid appeared, hunched over and cradling a rusted sickle with the affection you might show a child. “You and Thirteen help me kill this one…”

The others nodded. Already, wretches were beginning to pull free of the lake and mass up to attack them. Even a small distraction would give the horrid things a chance to overwhelm someone. Tharsa stepped forward and sent her swordlight shimmering across the water, scything down the masses.

The two slaves and their master braced for impact.

With a quick, sharp splash, a bone hook rocketed out of the lake to grab hold of a stone balcony above. The assassin came flying out like a puppet on a string, firing off a blast of green flame from the canon barrel in its arm. The blast forced the three defenders to dive aside, and in the instant they were in disarray, the assassin let the hook detach from the ceiling above and dropped-

A two-fingered strike shot for Rakdhat’s heart.

The ogre’s own hand shot out and grabbed the bone prosthetic by the wrist, holding on desperately as the force of the blow shoved him back, feet skidding across the island of rubble. The swordlight gathering around the fingertips stabbed into his chest, but only brought out a shallow wound.

In sheer strength, the ogre was still superior.

There was a flicker and the shadow goblin appeared behind the assassin, scythe ripping down through the air. In response the robes ripped along the dhampir’s back to reveal a pair of long, spider-like limbs made from silver, attached to either shoulderblade. One easily parried the strike, while the other plunged out and pierced the goblin through the waist.

There was a pained shriek and the goblinoid disappeared, flickering into place on a distant island.

With his one hand trapping the assassin’s advancing ‘sword’ Rakhdat was suddenly under the blade of the three remaining limbs. His staff was clumsy to maneuver in such tight quarters, so he threw it aside, lifting his freed hand to catch one of the spider-limbs as it jabbed down from above. The second blade-limb shoved a brutal cut through his leg, nearly sending him to the ground. The hook that had pulled the assassin up out of the water snapped back into place, reforming the dhampir’s left arm, and it drew back a fist to finish things.

Old 13 arrived in a blur of pure, furious force. His staff swept up and collided with the dhampir’s midsection, lifting it off the ground with a single, deafening collision. The assassin folded around the blow like cheap cardboard and was flicked away, flying off towards the edge of the lake and crashing into the cavern’s walls.

The slave was just moments behind the landing. He was ready, dealing out another killing blow before the assassin could recover. The goblinoid was following, flickering from one shadow to the next with an eerie, rippling movement.

Nic saw his window of opportunity closing.

He moved.

“Lasso!” Gwungo shot out from Nic’s left hand, grabbed hold of the far side of the cavern, and sent Nic rocketing out of hiding at the end of an elastic leash. As Nic sailed through the air his right hand carved a line of black ink, using the paintbrush weapon he’d taken from the locust-demon.

That scything line of black intersected squarely with the neck of the possessed ogre.

The man’s head tumbled to the ground.

“Release!” Gwungo let go, snapping back to Nic’s arm as he dropped down onto the island, stumbling under his own forward momentum. He spun about, sending two sharp lines of ink cutting for the back of Tharsa’s leg to cripple her.

His left hand was already reaching for his magic bag.

Tharsa cried out as she dropped down to her knees, the back of her thigh torn open to the bone.

Nic drew out the Hydra Mist Gourd and ripped a cork out with his teeth. Instantly a wave of poison smoke poured out, black and insidious, blanketing the island in choking smog. Tharsa and the priest began to cough, crying out in pain as the caustic fog bit into their eyes and the soft lining of their throats.

Nic dove back into the water.

In, out, gone.