It happened so fast.

Chase fought to bring the crossbow up, grabbed for the trigger, missed it, then found it.

SNAP!

The next thing she knew she was flat on her butt, and the crossbow was crashing off a shelf nearby, knocking the stack of staves over.

Critical Hit!

Your Archery skill is now level 1!

LUCK+1

From somewhere far away, she heard someone coughing and choking, hard, like he was vomiting. A red '143' drifted up into the air, and she blinked in surprise. I killed him?

Then something hit her side, hard, and she screamed. The force of the strike rolled her over and she crashed into a shelf as the last of the staves clattered and rattled down, thumping off of her. She heard a muffled curse from behind her, near, so near, and scrambled for all she was worth. Her side was on fire, and it hurt to move, but they'd drawn swords and she thought that getting stabbed would hurt far more.

“Chase!” She heard Renny yell, then there was a rip of cloth, and she felt cold pain lick against one calf as she pushed aside a box of things that clattered and hummed and shattered, and crawled back into the space. There behind the shelf she crouched and listened to cursing as whoever was behind her tried to maneuver through. She blinked, confused at the words that showed up in her sight as she went.

You have gained the Bleeding condition!

“Manipulate Air!” Renny called, and Chase shook, feeling cold, wondering why...

...until the pain blossomed from her leg, cold pain and warm wetness, and she gasped as she realized she was bleeding.

How? How hurt am I?

“Phantasmal Picture!” Renny called, and her attacker yelled in alarm, heading further away from her shelf. Renny had bought her time, Chase knew. Time to... what? The crossbow was out there, and she didn't have enough room to draw and use her hurler stones, and... and...

Wow, it was hard to think.

She pulled her legs up, and her side flashed with pain, and Chase gasped. Something. She had something for this. It was just so hard to remember. Healing. It was healing something.

“Healing?”

Nothing.

“Minor healing...”

No, no, that wasn't it. Now it was getting harder to see. Renny was shouting something outside, and someone was shouting back, and everything was darkened.

“Less... healing...” That was close, that was so close, Chase thought, feeling the blood around her breasts now, where she lay. I'm in a puddle of my own blood, Chase realized. I'm going to die.

No!

I am NOT going to die here! Not like this!

She forced her mind back, forced herself to ignore the grinding pain in her side, and the throbbing wet pulse from her leg, and cast her mind back to the last time she'd seen her status sheet.

And Chase remembered.

INT+1

“Lesser.... Heal... ing.” She sighed.

You have healed yourself 12 points!

Your Lesser Healing skill is now level 4!

Her head unmuddled, just a bit, and her leg throbbed, and Chase gasped again, “Lesser Healing!”

WIS+1

You have healed yourself 13 points!

Your Lesser Healing skill is now level 5!

You are no longer bleeding!

Twice more she shouted her skill, almost sobbing with relief, and each time the skill rose and the pain eased.

“Chase no!” Renny's voice came... and Chase flinched, as a sword stabbed straight through the boxes in front of her, and narrowly missed shearing her nose clean off. “Be quiet! I'll get him eventually!”

Eventually, Chase thought, squirming back along the shelf, as the guard jabbed the sword around, clearly trying to catch her. Eventually was such a loaded word. And those alarms weren't stopping, which meant that more guards would show up. They'd show up eventually, which meant that eventually wasn't at all a good idea.

But Renny telling her to be quiet had given her an idea. She had a skill to help with that sort of thing, now didn't she.

Chase took a second, took two, then took a deep breath and mouthed the words “Silent Activation, Foresight.”

Your Silent Activation skill is now level 3!

Your Foresight skill is now level 12!

Everything slowed. Chase watched her ghostly self go, scrambling out to fight the ghostly guard... and she gasped as she watched herself die horribly.

This time there was no backlash, and she rode out the tightening pain with no consequence other than discomfort. Blasts of air rocked the room as she waited it out, armor clanging to the ground, shelves rocking and spilling their contents all over, the guard yelling incoherently as he struck at shadows and illusions.

And even the shelf Chase was behind rocked, making her tuck in tight, to avoid being crushed.

Avoid being crushed... Chase thought, and there was the spark of an idea there.

Silently she activated another foresight, and watched herself go... and the second it was done, she twisted, braced her feet against the middle of the shelf above her, and pushed.

Then Chase rolled to the side and covered her head.

A cacophony of sound, a despairing wail, and some nasty crunches later, Chase dared to stand up and look around.

She was in time to see Renny sinking a nasty looking knife into the squirming guard, and the halven covered her mouth as blood sprayed high, coating the fox's face. It was swift, brutal, and Chase knew she'd never look at the little golem in the same way again. But after a second she put that from her mind, as her halven mental fortitude did its trick. Now was not for panicking. Now was for—

“We need to go!” Chase burst out, looking back at the door they'd come through. The alarms were still going, and they'd passed several guards in the halls just outside. Out through there wasn't an option, so she grabbed the nearest stick, smashed things out of her way haphazardly, and charged toward the door on the opposite side of the room. “Come on!” she said to Renny. “We'll have company any second now!”

“Do we need a distraction?” Renny asked.

“Yes!”

“Least air elemental!” Renny said, waving his hands. A tiny tornado spiraled out of them, catching up papers and underwear and coins and candles and all sorts of light junk from the shambles around them, and opening yellow glowing eyes as it glared around.

It might have been a bit more impressive if it was larger than a housecat. But Chase tore her gaze away, and stepped into the next room, wary and watchful.

Once Renny was in she shut the door, inspected the heavy brackets on it, and cast about until she found the locking bar. “Come on, help me put this in place!”

It was a struggle. Chase felt stamina literally pouring out of her as she sweated and struggled, until...

You are now a level 4 Oracle!

CHA+3

LUCK+3

WIS+3

You are now a level 2 Archer!

DEX+3

PER+3

STR+3

With that, Chase gave a surge, and slammed the bar home, then collapsed on the ground, panting. Renny sat down next to her.

“Two levels... at once...” Chase said, regaining her breath bit by bit.

“That was a really dangerous situation.” The fox looked about. “This just looks like a guardpost, but there's a corridor that goes further back. And a few of those speaking tube things.”

“Open?” Chase said, hearing her voice crack, knowing it was nerves.

“Shut,” Renny said, and Chase closed her eyes in relief.

But only for a moment. Over the alarm, she could hear angry voices, and they were quite near. Now there was pounding from the other room. Someone was trying to get in through the door she'd unlocked, the one that was now blocked with piles of random stuff. No time to rest, barely any time to think. Still... they had a little time, she thought.

“The alarm's not coming from here. We didn't set it off. Something else did,” Chase reasoned. “I'm luckier now, way luckier, so I've got about ten percent of a plan that might work. Keep quiet and follow my lead.”

“It's been working so far,” Renny said. “Well, kind of.”

“Hey, we've survived,” Chase replied, getting to her feet. There was a paper-wrapped loaf of bread on a nearby desk and she snagged it, tore into it with her teeth as she moved to the speaking tubes. Then, chewing as quietly as she could, she flipped up the ends one by one and pressed her ear close.

She half didn't expect it to work. Knew this was pushing it, knew that she was gambling, and wasting precious seconds...

And she believed that up until the fifth tube.

“...can't win this,” a woman's voice spoke, cold and clipped.”You're going to cause a lot of pain and suffering for no reason. Not that you care, I suppose. Your kind never do.”

A different voice replied. This one was female as well, but it made the other sound plain and cruel by comparison. It was throaty, full and warm. It was a voice that made Chase want to hear more... and that made her distrust it, just on principle.

“If you think I'm going to give up my only shot in a decade, you're the mad one,” the stranger said to the harsh woman. “I have a mountain full of guards.”

“You have a handful of guards that you've enslaved, Speranza. You haven't had nearly the time to charm them all. Or else you would have met us with a force that my guards couldn't handle.”

Speranza! Chase recognized the name. The warm voice must be the siren, the other prisoner that remained. It was dangerous to listen to her. Chase raised a hand to cap the tube... then paused. Who was the other woman?

“Or perhaps I'm merely waiting for the right moment?” Speranza continued. “Come closer, Zenobia. Find out for yourself. I promised that I'd strangle you with my own hands.”

Dry laughter then, and something pulled at Chase's mind. That was a familiar laugh, but she couldn't place where she'd heard it before. She filed it away for later reference, as she put her ear closer, trying to hear despite the alarms.

“My air elemental is fighting something!” Renny tugged at her skirt. Chase lifted a finger, waggling it as the harsh woman— Zenobia— continued.

“We both know you're still behind twenty tons of stone, dear. There are no masons among the guards here, I made sure of that personally. You're sealed away and there you'll stay. I'll kill your slaves and let this prison be your tomb until you die of starvation.”

“Please,” Speranza said, her tone pure scorn. “You know what will happen if you kill me.”

“Then why are you still alive?” Zenobia laughed again, and again it itched at Chase's mind. “No. This will be the end of you, I'm certain. Or else you'd have killed yourself by now.”

And then, Speranza sang.

Three notes. Three notes, that seemed to stroke through Chase's head like gentle fingers, three notes that hinted at the most beautiful song that the halven had ever heard...

WILL+1

...and Chase sobbed as she pulled her ear back, and slammed the speaking tube shut. The bread she'd been holding fell limp from her hands, as she put her palms up to her eyes.

“My elemental's dead!” Renny told her.

“It was almost worth it,” Chase whispered.

“What?”

“To keep listening. It was almost worth it. I almost did,” she said, “even knowing what would happen, what she was trying to do.”

Pounding on the door behind them, and both the halven and the golem turned to look at it, then glanced to each other.

“Run now?” Renny asked.

“Run now!” Chase confirmed, picking up her skirts. For a second she wondered why they were wet. Then she realized just how much blood she'd lost, but she put it from her mind and ran. Healing replenished blood, everybody knew that. Then her traitor mind tried to veer into memories of how she'd lost that blood in the first place, but Chase pushed it back into the dark halls of her memory, along with all the other trauma that she'd hit today. I'm going to have nightmares for a few weeks after this is done, she knew. Hopefully just a few weeks. Please only be a few weeks.

The halls stretched back, back into the mountain, lit by lanterns, but they were few and far apart now. Several times they split, and without a map or frame of reference they had to trust to luck. Twice Chase slammed into unexpected corners, gasping when she did so. After the second one Renny took the lead, glancing back at her as he went, green eyes catching the lantern light...

...up until light glinted off metal blades, and the patrol of guards in the corridor ahead skidded to a stop, staring in surprise at the oncoming figures.

“Through them!” Chase shouted, then added “Foresight!”

Your Foresight skill is now level 14!

Without breaking momentum, Chase and Renny charged through the loose, surprised group. Chase lost some skin on her knees as she dropped and slid under a slicing saber, but it was better than what had happened in her vision.

Your Dodge skill is now level 10!

“Phantasm behind us!” Chase yelled to Renny, and he obliged. She didn't see what he did, but there was quite a lot of yelling and nobody shot at her as she scrambled back to her feet and ran faster.

“That door has a bar!” Renny said, pointing left, and the two of them fled into the room beyond, lifting the bar with a strength born of desperation and sliding it into place. Muscles screamed and a pain erupted in Chase's belly, but she grunted “Lesser Healing” and the hernia sorted itself out.

Your Lesser Healing skill is now level 8!

The bar in place, she turned...

...and her heart sank, as she saw rows of bunkbeds, a few footlockers, a table, and absolutely no other exits out of the place.

“Oh. Oh no,” Chase gasped. She sat down on a bed with a soft 'thump', and let the adrenaline rush from her. There was angry pounding on the door, and shouting beyond, but she ignored it. Tried to, anyway. Some of the threats were too horrible to ignore.

One thing could go, at least. She jerked the guard's uniform off, tossed its blood-soaked jacket to the bed. The disguise had only helped her once. That jerk Dijornos had been mostly right, as galling as it was to admit.

“What should we do?” Renny asked.

“I'm open to suggestions.” More pounding on the door, and she winced as she saw it shudder, and the bar rattle in its brackets. “Actually, help me push this bunk in front of the door and then I'll be open to suggestions.”

After it was done, and Chase had sweated more trails in her bloody dress, she sunk to the ground again and stared at her fingers. Great. Now I can die tired.

Renny hadn't given up, though. “Maybe there's a secret door. I'll check.” He took his own advice, and started hunting along the walls, sniffing and tapping. Chase watched the incongruity of something that didn't need to breath snuffling along, and almost giggled. Then she shook her head.

“I've got to get it together. I've got to think.”

The door shuddered again, harder this time. But the bunk was in front of it, and solid.

“We might be able to take them,” Renny said. “With fortifications, and your crossbow... oh.”

“Oh,” Chase said, patting the empty quiver at her side. “The last of them fell out back when I was skinning my knees on the floor. Which doesn't matter because I forgot the crossbow back in the confiscation room. Which I'm kind of okay with because I'm pretty sure some of those guards have them too, and I'm very sure that they're better shots than I am.”

Renny's tail drooped as he kept on searching, and Chase absurdly felt horrible about that.

“If it comes to a fight we're in trouble.” she said, trying to focus. “I knew that coming in here. And it came to a fight, and we got in trouble. So I was right. So we have to make it... not a fight.”

“How?”

“Keep searching. Maybe there's something, some way to flee. But even fleeing is putting it off. We don't know our way around here, and luck's not enough. Not enough to save your friends. Not enough to save my Dad. Not enough to save the village. We need more than twenty percent of a plan.”

“We need a good plan.”

“We need a plan, and that's that! Even eighty percent of a bad plan is better than twenty percent of a good plan!” She was shouting now, and she tried to lower her voice. But she did notice that the thumping on the door had ceased. “You're totally listening in, aren't you?”

Someone shuffled their feet in the hall outside, and coughed.

“Right.” Chase lowered her voice. “Renny, if you find anything come and get me. I need to think on how to do this.”

“All right. Um... would you like me to do something about the blood?”

“Please.”

One clean and press later, and for the moment, Chase was free of gore. She put her head between her hands and wracked her brain.

What do I know? What have we learned?

Speranza is sealed away behind stone. No masons among the guards. Nobody to remove it. She wants to be free.

Zenobia is in the prison with her guards, who are stronger than Speranza's charmed guards. She is hunting Speranza, or at least trying to kill all her minions.

Which is a problem because Speranza's got Renny's friends. Who are stronger than the prison guards were when they were uncharmed.

Are Renny's friends stronger than Zenobia's escort? I don't know.

And then we've got Dijornos who wants out, but doesn't care about keeping any bargains with me. And he would have casually killed Renny if I'd let him free.

Just like Vaffanculo wanted to kill me. They don't care. They don't care whether I live or die...

...but Thomasi did. Thomasi cared.

Did Thomasi care about Speranza?

“I found something. But... well,” Renny said, coming over and tugging on her skirt. She followed him wordlessly, and stared at the tiny hole in the wall, covered by a metal grille. “I think it's to let air in,” Renny said.

“It'll fit you. Good,” Chase said, her thoughts settling into patterns. If it comes to a fight then we lose, but there are so, so many things I can try before it comes to a fight. I just have to change what's happening here. “Can you do your magnifying glass trick? And then a few catalogues?” She pulled out the torn pages of Thomasi's journal. “I'm up to about forty percent of a plan, and I think we can get it to sixty if we're lucky.”

And to Chase's vast and mind-numbing relief, they were. And after that, and some quick discussion, they had ninety percent of a plan.

By this time the guards had resumed pounding the door. The alarm had stopped, thankfully. Chase took a second, scrawled on some of the empty pages with a pen she'd found sitting on one of the footlockers, and dumped the whole mess back inside her pack. “There. That's all the names. Are you ready?”

“No. Yes. I mean...” Renny shuffled his paws on the floor. “This is really risky for you.”

“Yes,” Chase said, simply. Then she took the circus wagons from her pack, and handed the much-abused leather accessory over to the fox. “Good luck.”

“To you as well,” he said, simply. Then he pulled the grille aside, and moved into the vent. Chase replaced it, twisting the metal tabs to fasten the metal back in place as best she could.

A final slam against the door, and wood splintered. Chase straightened up, and eyed the metal edge of an axe, as it wiggled and withdrew back through the hole in the door. It was replaced by a suspicious looking eye, set in a withered face.

“I surrender,” Chase said, putting down the circus wagons and raising her hands high into the air.

CHASE'S CHARACTER SHEET

Spoiler: Spoiler

Name: Chase Berrymore

Age: 15 Years

Jobs:

Halven level 8, Cook level 4, Archer level 2, Grifter level 2, Oracle level 4

Attributes / Pools / Defenses

Strength: 47 Constitution: 28 / Hit Points: 75 / Armor: 0

Intelligence: 48 Wisdom: 68 / Sanity: 116 / Mental Fortitude: 25

Dexterity: 72 Agility: 53 / Stamina: 125 / Endurance: 0

Charisma: 89 Willpower: 38 / Moxie: 127 / Cool: 25

Perception: 50 Luck: 90 / Fortune: 140 / Fate: 20

Generic Skills

Archery – Level 1

Brawling – Level 7

Climb – Level 15

Dagger – Level 2

Dodge – Level 10

Fishing – Level 14

Ride – Level 10

Stealth – Level 14

Swim – Level 7

Throwing – Level 19

Halven Skills

Fate's Friend – Level N/A

Small in a Good Way – Level N/A

Cook Skills

Cooking - Level 14

Freshen - Level 10

Archer Skills

Aim – Level 1

Missile Mastery – Level N/A

Quickdraw – Level N/A

Rapid Fire – Level N/A

Ricochet Shot – Level 1

Grifter Skills

Fools Gold – Level 1

Master of Disguise – Level 3

Silent Activation – Level 3

Silver Tongue – Level 3

Size Up – Level 1

Oracle Skills

Absorb Condition – Level N/A

Diagnose – Level N/A

Divine Pawn – Level N/A

Foresight – Level 14

Lesser Healing – Level 8

Unlocked Jobs

Farmer, Herbalist, Teacher