The tangible sensation of progress made Hirrus redouble his efforts. He heard himself growling like an animal as he went, pushing himself even harder. After just a few more breaths, he hit the stone and a piece of it fell outward instead of inward.

Hirrus tossed his greataxe aside and grasped at the stone with his clawed hands, letting out a rumbling crow of triumph as he pulled at the cracked rock wall, turning the small gap into an opening. The crater he’d created bit through nearly seven feet of stone before reaching this point, and he was impossibly grateful that his transformation had seen him through the whole way.

The next problem presented itself as soon as the opening was wide enough for him to see through.

Without any doors or windows, there was no way to have any expectations of what awaited them outside the stone box. Just the same, some expectations had formed in his mind anyway. He expected to burst out into a true dungeon, perhaps at the center of a labyrinth or in the heart of a monster-infested castle. The last thing he expected was what he saw.

The sight of a blue sky gave him hope that there might be a true way out without needing to work his way through more defenses and barriers.

As he cleared away more of the stone - enough for them to fit through - he saw that the new challenge would be much more severe.

The stone box that imprisoned them was inexplicably suspended in the air hundreds of feet above the city of Inoha. It looked like the box had been formed directly above where he’d been taken, with the center of town - and the river running through it - straight down from the box’s location.

Sticking his head out of the box revealed another oddity. It was invisible from the outside, but for the opening that he’d created. All around him was clear blue sky and the chill of early autumn air, amplified by altitude.

He was far too high up to dream of jumping. Even if he could miraculously land in the river instead of on the street, he would just slam into the river’s bed with fatal force.

“We have a problem,” he growled, pulling his head back from the opening and gesturing for Alric to look.

“Oh wow,” Alric said as he approached. “That’s-”

Hirrus snarled as the merciless transformation ended, and he shrank back to his normal human form. Without the adrenaline of death and destruction running through his mind, this part hurt far worse than the last time.

Just the same, he was perfectly capable of tensing his jaw and riding it out.

“Are you alright?” Alric asked when it was over. He looked at Hirrus with some weird almost reverence.

“I’m fine,” Hirrus growled between gritted teeth. “We just need to find a way down.”

Alric returned his attention to the opening in the wall. It was wide enough for them to climb through - to whatever end that would be for them - but just barely. It would be two hours before he could widen it, so they’d need to just make it work.

“Okay, no problem,” Alric said. “Do you have any Arcana for this?”

“I have a High Jump Arcana,” Hirrus said, focusing on his breathing, “but I am unsure if I trust it. It has no duration and the fall damage mitigation is unclear on if it could apply to additional height beyond that gained by the Arcana itself.” He gestured at the opening. “Besides, I would need to make a leap that is largely vertical and get through an opening that is almost entirely horizontal.”

“Okay, don’t worry about it,” Alric said with a grin, “I have something for this.” He gestured through the opening. “You go first. Just hang from the opening by your hands so that I can come through ahead of you.”

“What’s your plan?” Hirrus asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Alric said, his grin only growing wider. “I’ve got it under control.”

Hirrus stared at the man for as long as it took him to remember how few options he actually had. At the very least, if things went wrong, he’d no longer have to worry about the futility of his revenge.

After a long moment, Hirrus did as Alric bade. He put his feet through the opening and lowered himself until he was hanging by his fingers.

Hirrus couldn’t get over the incredible sense of vertigo he felt from this position. Not only was the stone box invisible from the outside, but it was intangible as well. He wasn’t leaning against an invisible wall. He was dangling like a flag in poor wind, clinging by just a few inches of fingers to an inexplicable hole in the empty sky.

After a breath, Alric appeared, carefully pushing his own legs out of the opening. Twice, the adventurer’s feet and then knees crushed the fingers of one hand and then the other, but in the absence of any other option, he bared his teeth and accepted it.

“Okay,” Alric yelled over the wind. “Grab one of my legs!”

“You’re not going to be able to hold both our weights,” Hirrus yelled back.

“Just do it!”

Hirrus grabbed Alric’s leg with one arm, feeling his other hand’s grip immediately failing to hold his entire weight by itself. As soon as he let go of the opening with that hand, they both immediately fell, his weight pulling Alric the rest of the way through the opening, and sending the two of them plummeting towards the ground.

For a single long moment, they were in freefall. The wind whipped past them as the city started its ascent towards Hirrus' feet. Above them, the impossible hole in the sky stayed in place, shrinking to near-invisibility against the blue sky in seconds.

As the ground came rushing up and Alric took no action regarding it, Hirrus became more and more sure that the adventurer didn’t have a real solution.

He had an option, however. It was possible that High Jump would let him leap off of Alric’s body, if he could wrestle the adventurer into position beneath his feet. It was still-

Alric used an Arcana, and a white glow suddenly surrounded the man’s body, spreading over himself. It suffused the leg beneath Hirrus' grip, but didn’t extend down over Hirrus himself.

The effect was immediate and noticeable.

Their momentum towards the ground slowed. It didn’t become the pace of a feather, but it slowed from a terminal plummet to the pace of an out-of-control downhill slide. Hirrus just had to cling onto Alric’s leg and ride his way down.

“Hey Hirrus,” Alric called down over the wind still whipping around them. “Can you do me a favor?”

“What?” Hirrus asked, confused.

“Just say something for me!” Alric yelled. “You don’t even have to wait until we’re low enough for people to hear. Just say ‘I’m Mary Poppins y’all!’”

“Who’s Mary Poppins?” Hirrus asked, not any less confused.

“Don’t worry about it,” Alric yelled, “he’s cool!”

Hirrus frowned. “What does that even mean?”

“Just say it!” Alric yelled, still with a huge grin spread across his face.

“Fine,” Hirrus yelled up at him. “You’re Mary Poppins!”

“That’s not-” Alric sputtered, his grin falling. “Fine, nevermind! Forget it! Teach me to ask you for anything!”

Despite the ridiculousness of the interaction, it did make Hirrus feel slightly guilty. The man had just saved his life with this slow-falling Arcana. And that was after rallying him from the brink of surrender. Alric deserved a bit better than that.

The moment may have passed this time, but he resolved to do better by him next time, even if it was something so apparently silly to Hirrus' eyes.

Within moments the ground rushed up at them, but at a survivable speed. The winds were carrying them eastward, so that they weren’t dropping down right onto the river, but were instead going to land nearer to the eastern gate of the inner city wall.

Hirrus' feet hit the ground first, and he staggered upon impact, but was unharmed. He loosened his grip on Alric’s leg, but used the hold to guide the other man down to make sure he didn’t stumble and fall on his face at the sudden stop.

“I admit that I doubted for a second,” Hirrus said, clapping the man on the shoulder as soon as they were both on solid ground again. “But that was excellent work. Thank you.”

Alric puffed up with pride at that. “Bet you never thought you’d live to see the day that I was useful, huh?”

“Where did you learn that Arcana?” Hirrus asked, using his hand on Alric’s shoulder to guide him down the street to make their way back towards the Violet Plate.

“I went waaay out of my way last week,” Alric explained as he started to walk with Hirrus. “As soon as I respawned I booked it on out of town, because - like I said back when we met - people kept murdering me for no reason.”

Hirrus let the man tell the story of how he earned his slow-falling Arcana, glad for the opportunity to raise the adventurer’s spirits. It involved some monster, and inexplicably, some woman who Alric was insinuating was a working lass. He did his best to listen in spite of the ridiculousness and nod at the appropriate moments, but the back of his mind was already working towards his next step.

His revenge was incomplete, and the clock was ticking. There was no way of knowing how long he would have before GM Dave appeared to capture him again, and the remaining leadership of Last of the Strong still went unpunished.

But with Orlina dead and Barin supposedly working to secure his passage into the guild’s stronghold, it was only a matter of time.

He would keep moving forward. Soon it would all be over.

One way or the other.