January 17, 2019, 11:29am. A calm moment in the sun as we contemplate the challenges that lie before us. Like a giant army of Fallen.

“I thought we weren’t going to encounter that many Fallen until we made our way into the inner city,” I whisper quietly as I gaze at the Fallen army gathered far below us. Luckily, they've made no sign they’ve noticed us, so I'm not too worried. We are looking down on them from over a hundred metres up, so I guess that rule, 'remember to look up' applies to monsters too.

Creeping slightly closer to the edge that just…. ends, I inspect the army below. They’re standing neatly in squads, groups or whatever... of two deep by five wide.

A quick count reveals there’s at least a thousand there. None of the squads are moving, they're just standing there, stiff.

It almost seems like they’re in a stupor of some sort, like when you go shopping at Wal-Mart for a bottle of milk but end up filling an entire cart with cat pictures, discount movies and toilet paper.

Not that I’ve done that. Well….. I didn’t make it to the till, so it didn’t count.

As I’m mentally tallying up the numbers of the Fallen below, I notice there's some movement in a small camp at the base of the round silver building on the far side of the hole.

“This is fascinating,” Tipan whispers, surveying the assembled Fallen beside me, “I’ve heard of this but never seen it before.”

“What are we looking at here?” Beth asks, clearly troubled.

“I can’t be entirely sure, but I believe those three are awakened Fallen. Training may be more dangerous than we’d been hoping for,” Tipan replies as Rufka moves up next to me pointing down.

Following her finger, it dawns on me that one of the three is her friend Dhanni, her dark chocolate fur not particularly common among the Fallen below. She’s moving around near what appears to be a fire with a cook-pot above it. Do the Fallen still eat?

“These ones appear docile. Are we sure they’re a threat?” Roberts asks, staring down with discomfort written across his face.

As he’s speaking, I hear Rufka whisper, “no debt unpaid,” as she raises her bow, sighting down it. I place my hand on her arm before she can draw as Tipan speaks.

“Only if they notice us. I suggest we withdraw,” Tipan suggests, creeping away from the ledge while Rufka glances at me before lowering her bow.

“Agreed. There’s over a thousand of them down there,” Beth replies as she motions us back down. I prepare to follow but notice Rufka isn’t moving. She looks at me then gazes back at her friend.

Letting out a deep breath, Rufka moves to retreat. Of course, that’s when something explodes in our midst, sending me flying.

I’m unable to see what happened but I can feel Rufka is close but the others are getting further away.

As I process this, I find myself spinning, looking down at a very steep drop, then at the sky above. Huh, there aren’t many clouds in the sky. Then I’m facing downwards again, flipping too quickly to focus. I’m halfway to the ground before it finally occurs to me to pause time.

I’m left facing the crumbling interior of the building we were just crawling over. It’s full of rubble on the inside. I wonder if it was an office building. There aren’t any signs of furniture. Neither beds nor desks to be found anywhere.

Right. Not important.

Quickly reviewing the party’s status, I see that Rufka and I are the only ones who lost health. Rufka seems to have taken the brunt of the damage. I’m only down by nineteen points but she’s lost over a hundred. Even as I’m checking our status, I feel a strange sensation pressing against my side.

I’m hoping it’s Rufka as I can tell she’s close, but I'm worried it might not be.

It takes a long moment before I’m able to confirm that it’s her arm sliding around to scoop me up. As she pulls me away from my close up of the ruined building, I see the ground a mere twenty metres away. I'm sure I would have done something about that, but she seems like she’s got things under control.

Then we’re moving as fast as Rufka can scramble, the pause ending as she redirects me away from the ground.

While Rufka is heroically saving me from the ground, I notice several nearby squads turning in our direction as one of the three in the camp calls out, rising into the air.

Rufka doesn’t move back up the building towards the others. Instead, she’s running parallel using some type of earth skates to hold us to the frame of the building.

“Uhm, not to complain but we’re getting closer to the Fallen,” I observe, watching the squads turn towards us while the 'Awakened' Fallen from the camp floats nearby.

I’m not sure how she’s flying, there’s no noticeable effect granting her flight, she’s simply hanging in the air as if the ground is beneath her. Figuratively as well as literally. Her fur is white, like Tipan’s, though it’s stained in a few spots. Even though it's stained, it’s the least matted fur I’ve seen on a Fallen.

“That’s okay. This is where the fun is,” Rufka grins as we skate even lower as she swings me around into a princess carry.

She pulls a one-eighty as we hit the ground which means we’re finally moving away from their camp. However, the only open path is deeper into the city. Not ideal.

Casting my Umbrella spell, I barely block an incoming ice arrow from a nearby squad before pausing time, taking in our situation.

There are several squads already throwing spells at us, which I move to block while also firing back. Even with Rufka’s speed and my spells, they’re catching up, the white one directing them.

I give serious consideration to trying to haste Rufka. But she doesn’t have the protection from temporal tides I do. Plus, I haven’t even hasted myself yet. I add it to the to-do list.

Rufka does, however, have lightning resistance and excellent balance. When time unpauses, I call out, “I’m going to unleash the Thunder. There’s going to be knockback.”

Rufka nods, dropping my head by half a metre as she swerves to dodge a boulder I hadn’t noticed.

Pausing time again as Rufka draws me up, I fire several throw-us-away lightning torrents out behind Rufka. Since the goal is to escape, I focus on targeting them for thrust rather than sowing carnage. I do manage to hit several Fallen with the discharge regardless.

Directing several more squads in our direction while I've been busy, the white Fallen turns her single red eye upon us. Her other three eyes are empty, only filled with the cloudy white of blindness. Matching her gaze over Rufka’s shoulder, I analyze her.

“Creature analyzed: Fallen K'tharn. Mana seed 7.

"Name: Bel'dast of clan Lithania.

Attributes: Physical; Medium, Mobility; High, Magic; High, Awareness; Medium.

Attacks: This Fallen is an expert with both bows and aeromancy.

Defences: This Fallen has medium physical resistance, high magic resistance, high wind resistance."

"She's near the upper end of iron rank. That there are two Fallen this strong is unusual. That they have so many System spawned Fallen serving them is even more so.”

Even as I read Wyonna’s words, I notice another Fallen emerging from their camp as the pause ends.

Unlike whitey, she’s not content to direct the mooks. She visibly crackles with lightning as she reaches her dark, nearly black, furred arms to the sky sending lightning arcing upwards. She’s clearly missing several chunks out of those arms, the flesh is simply gone, the gaps showing exposed bone.

All four of her red eyes cast their ominous gaze upon us as I react easily, reentering paused time.

I do notice that each time I pause, my duration seems to be getting shorter. That could be a problem.

Instead of worrying about the diminishing returns on my superpower, I start bringing forth a shield of stone from the street beneath us. I’m going to use it to block the lightning strike which is still high in the sky and has only started coming down towards us, but it will take time to get into place.

While I’m waiting for the stone to move, I analyze the still channelling Fallen.

“Creature analyzed: Fallen K'tharn. Mana seed 8.

"Name: Seldast of clan Lithania.

Attributes: Physical; Medium, Mobility; High, Magic; High, Awareness; High.

Attacks: This Fallen is a master of lightning.

Defences: This Fallen has medium physical resistance, high magic resistance, high lightning resistance."

“She’s upper iron rank too. There's definitely something wrong here. You need to get out of there."

As I’m looking her over, I notice clumps of earth moving to float around her. Rufka’s former friend, Dhanni, is moving to join the other two, floating on a solid piece of earth. She almost seems to meld with the earth she floats upon, her dark brown fur matches so closely.

With all three together, I decide to fire off a few lightning torrents, just in case. As I’m watching the torrents fly towards them, the knockback from my other spells accelerates us, pushing us nearly a hundred metres away. Rufka lands in the empty street, only stumbling slightly before racing further away.

While watching over Rufka’s shoulder, I see Dhanni is able to deflect the torrent I sent at her with a barrier of earth.

Seldast, the Lightning Fallen, redirects both my other torrents into the ground nearby as my pause ends again. Good to know, I can redirect spells thrown at me. I’m going to need to practice that.

“Awesome,” Rufka grins as I block several incoming spells with a large block of stone. It stops most of the attacks in their tracks, but there’s a shard of metal the size of my head poking through.

At first, I think Rufka is commenting on my efforts. But then I realize she couldn't see any of it. Turning forwards, curious what has Rufka excited, I notice that the street ends just two metres ahead. The buildings ahead are all significantly lower than the ones beside us indicating a precipitous drop.

Yet Rufka doesn’t slow, grabbing the edge then changing our course while skimming sideways with her skates, a spike of ice crashing against the shield I left behind us.

I didn’t notice earlier, but she has a skate on each of her upper paws, which allows for better control.

Having four arms would be so useful. I’m not just saying that because she can hold me up while also keeping a paw to the wall, but it’s a contributing factor. Speaking of carrying others, I quickly check to ensure Smoulder’s still secure only to discover she’s napping.

Figures, I stand up from the table too suddenly, it wakes her up. But, I get tossed a hundred metres over the side of a building before getting caught in midair? Nothing but zees.

As we descend, still skimming the wall I watch the Fallen scramble along the top of the ledge.

I take potshots whenever one comes out, which seems to discourage them as they start to fall behind, apparently not willing to make the jump down to the inner city. While I’ve blasted several of the lesser Fallen, of the Fallen Triplets as I’ve designated them, there is no sign.

There’s also been no further screams from any of the Fallen thankfully. And that's despite the fact I've destroyed over thirty Fallen since we fell.

“So, I don’t know what’s going on, but I think we lost them,” I inform Rufka, who’s still skating along, carrying me as if I weigh no more than a fluffy pillow.

Slowing slightly, Rufka turns to glance behind us before resuming her smooth stride.

“Hmm. I would not be so sure. Unless I’m mistaken, they have proper flight abilities, not simply manipulation skills. Mum says flight requires the highest of iron rank ability tiers. We need a place we can defend or a route to the outer ring,” Rufka decides, continuing to run.

I hadn’t thought about that. We’re going to need to get back up the wall to get back to Raz’s. Every street we’ve passed leads further into the city. The side at my feet is nothing but jagged earth.

"If we can get far enough ahead, I can probably create a way up," I suggest, gesturing at the cliff beside us.

"Could you not simply do that thing where you cast a rapid series of spells?" Rufka asks as she keeps running.

"Uhm. Yes? Probably," I reply, checking the wall.

"Good. Time to start," Rufka states as she leaps into the air next to the wall without further warning.

As she reaches the apex of her jump, only a couple meters but higher than I could achieve, I start forming a platform beneath her feet. It's slower than I'd like, but once there's a quarter metre of platform protruding from the wall, Rufka pushes off, taking us higher. Unfortunately, creating platforms at the rate Rufka requires means I’m creating them from nothing instead of rearranging materials, so I’m going through mana fast.

We continue the process, gaining height quickly. I'm able to start forming the footholds without pausing by the time we're halfway up, saving me a great deal of tedium. The first half of the climb felt as though it took fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, for Rufka it has only been a few seconds.

It's about this time that Smoulder wakes from her nap, complaining about me jostling her. Sending a sense of not-now her way, I continue concentrating on Rufka's footholds. In less than half a minute, we make it to the top. As we reach the lip, Rufka is suddenly knocked to the side, out over the open air.

Not wanting to waste mana repeating our efforts I use a lightning torrent to blast her back into place while seeking the source of our problem.

Floating above a distant building is the white-furred Aeromancer Bel'dast, the first of the Fallen Triplets I saw earlier.

I don't have much time to glare at her before she's obscured behind a wave of Fallen cresting the edge of the building, all of whom start throwing different elemental spells at us.

Entering another pause I blast several of them, unleashing multiple torrents while creating new shields. Without Roberts, I don't have the defences to withstand their assault for long. Clearly thinking along similar lines, Rufka takes us back over the cliff, once more using her earth skates to control our descent.

The Fallen stop chasing us once they reach the edge, looking over while casting their spells, but not following us.

Once we're further along, out of sight of the Fallen, Rufka finally stops, setting me down gently across the street, away from the cliff face. She does keep it in sight though.

"What's up," I wonder as I regain my feet. Whoa, little dizzy there.

"It is strange. The Fallen have made camp further out, yet do not follow us here," Rufka observes, looking up across the street to a gap on the far side. It's similar to the one we just tried to climb, though there are no Fallen at the edge, raining death down on our heads. Yet.

"Do you think we're safe here for a minute? Or do you think we should move inside? I want to let the others know we're alright," I ask, gesturing to the buildings along the side of the street.

"It would be easier to run if anything approaches out here. I could carry you for hours without complaint." Checking her stamina, I realize she's not even boasting. She's still at a robust 526/546 stamina. The others' statuses are all greyed out, but with IFF active I know their rough direction. I'm also able to determine that they're all moving.

"Okay," I reply, sitting on what resembles what may have once been the base of a light pole or something similar if we were back on earth. Realizing we're not moving, Smoulder squirms her way out of my jacket, climbing to my shoulder then rubbing up against my chin. Pulling out some more fruit jerky, I give her head scritches. Then while she roasts her food, I contact the rest of the party.

Now that I have IFF, I don't need to wait for a pulse, connecting to Josh instantly. I'm still feeling uncomfortable talking to Beth. Which is painful to admit. I genuinely admired her. I thought she was 'Just so awesome.'

I still kind of look up to her. Because she is awesome. Which is why it hurts that she wouldn't just listen when I tried to explain.

"Hey Josh," I greet through the link.

"Alexis? Oh, thank Jeebus," Josh responds, his words broken by the sounds of thudding footsteps.

"Beth, Alexis is alright!" I hear Josh yell before I can continue.

"Rufka is too. I think she saved me," I add as I hear Beth ask Josh for our location.

Answering before he can relay the message, I tell him, "I think we're in the inner city. It's like a hundred meters lower than the rest of the city. We tried climbing out, but a huge wave of fallen attacked us, forcing us to retreat. They're not chasing us, which is worrying."

"Yeah, we're at the edge of the city. They're still chasing us which has Tipan pulling her hair out. Uhh. Fur. Apparently, they never come out this far, ya know?" Josh replies as I watch Rufka take a drink from her pack, once more setting a cup out for each of us. This time it's not tea.

"So, it's completely backwards, they're unable to enter the inner city, but they're able to get to the outer edge," I note as Rufka carefully measures out two shots of moonshine. That ten health-edge does seem like a good idea right now.

"Yeah, Beth and Roberts are debating whether to join you or head back to Raz's. Tipan isn't really dealing with any of it well," Josh states as Rufka offers me my cup. But I hold off on drinking. There's no way I'll be able to drink it without gagging. And I'd rather not subject Josh to that.

"Well, we're safe at the moment. You should probably focus on yourself," I offer, prepared to end the link.

"Thanks, Lex. Oh, Tipan says she and Rufka can use party chat to talk.”

“Oh. And now Beth is wondering why Tipan didn't mention-" Josh starts when Beth yells out, "Incoming!" interrupting him.

"Uh, we'll get back to you guys, got to go," Josh practically yells, at which point I let the link end.

"Well, sounds like they're in a pickle," I tell Rufka as I eye my cup warily.

"They're what?" Rufka asks, setting her empty cup down beside me.

"You know, in trouble?" I reply, then I realize I used the English word. K'tharn don't preserve vegetables.

"Ah. Well, I think we are in our own 'pickle'.” Rufka replies, getting most of the pronunciation correct. She manages to fit a rolling “r” in making it sound like prickle, but it’s otherwise a solid nine out of ten. While I’m rating her speech, she continues, “I suspect there's a reason the Fallen avoid this area.”

“What? Like a big bad monster?” I ask, looking around.

“Yes. But a specific big bad monster. Something along the lines of a system boss,” Rufka answers, her gaze drifting towards the centre of the city.

“System boss?” I ask while bringing my moonshine to my lips.

“Yeah,” she nods.

“Sigh. What’s a system boss?” I clarify while trying to slam the whole drink in one go. It does not work.

“Whoa. Easy there Lexi,” Rufka warns a moment too late, supporting me with two arms as I hack and cough. I can’t help but notice how soft her fur is as I fight to recover my breath.

“I-I’m alright,” I finally choke out once I can breathe again, “note to self, do not try to drink it in a single go.”

“Truly, a courageous attempt,” Rufka says with mock seriousness while she refills my cup to make up for all the liquor that’s dribbling down my new jacket.

Damnit.

“Thanks. I was going for Epic, couldn’t you tell?” I joke as I take the new cup of moonshine. It’s a shame the bonus is so big because I really don’t want to drink it.

Welp, too bad.

Several sips later and I’m finally feeling like a proper rapscallion. Checking my status, it’s nice to see the extra health edge.

“What do you think we should do now?” I ask Rufka, looking back to the streets above. “As long as we don’t try to take the entire army on, we can probably make it through to the others.”

“Hmm. That sounds like my kind of plan,” Rufka replies as she drapes her arm over my shoulder.

“This might be the moonshine talking, but I think we’re going to be alright," I foolishly proclaim.

We both look up at the cliff in front of us, just taking a moment.

Then Rufka speaks.

“It’s definitely the moonshine.”