Hirrus hated to admit that he was nearly unable to keep up with Nidra’s pace. She moved through the forest like she’d lived here all her life. Hirrus would have been hard-pressed to set a similar pace in Yenon itself. She moved at just shy of a flat-out run, but she never paused or slowed for even a second.

Her discipline was nearly inhuman.

Judging from this, along with her apparent power, he guessed she had been a military scout before the transformation.

What impressed Hirrus more, though, was Alric. When Hirrus struggled to keep up with Nidra, he had expected to turn around and find the other man missing entirely. But somehow, against all odds, he was still behind them. Alric would fall behind eventually, but for now, he was staying in view - no small feat as the forest grew denser.

As they ran, Hirrus found himself with time to mentally examine the Arcana he’d earned in the fight against Fire and their underlings.

Fire had used a magic damage Arcana to blast the cart open, and while it had a powerful multiplier, this attack had a critical weakness of being touch range. Reisenfuer and Z-Cutter didn’t suffer the same weakness. He didn’t anticipate using it much unless he, too, needed to blast his way out of somewhere without wasting a more potent cooldown.

What interested him more were the Arcana employed by the ill-fated attempt to buy time for Fire’s escape. Three masked figures had used Arcana to improve their physical prowess, and Hirrus anticipated the combination of them in his arsenal to be quite impactful.

Terminus Grip

+5 BUR, +120 Crit Damage Rating

Utility

Cast time: 0.25 seconds

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Effect: Increase BUR by 15%, increase Critical Hit Rating and Critical Damage Rating by 75% for 45 seconds.

Fleetness of Tonner

+5 SUP, +120 Cleave rating

Utility

Cast time: Instant

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Added effect: Increase BUR, SUP, and movement speed by 10%for 10 seconds. Dealing physical damage resets this duration. This ability stacks with itself up to 3 times.

The Ravening Burn

+5 BUR, +120 Crit Rating

Utility

Cast time: 0.25 seconds

Cooldown: 120 seconds

Added effect: Increases SUP by 20% for 60 seconds. During this time, weapon attacks apply burn (debuff 1620) decreasing ATT by 5% for 30 seconds and deal 10% additional damage over the duration.

Combined with Going Ape and his other various physical-boosting Arcana, Hirrus anticipated being quite fearsome in combat. Fleetness of Tonner in particular spoke to him. He was getting to the point when juggling the duration and cooldown of such buffs was going to become tiresome, and having one which would continue indefinitely so long as he still had a foe to fight. The group of abilities almost made him eager for the next battle.

The final pair of Arcana were the ones Fire had used in their last stand. Despite the obvious potency of their stealth ability, Hirrus had no interest in it. The Arcana specifically said that it would fail when there were “too many observers” within range. The only reason Hirrus would use it would be to sneak into Rumi’s camp, and that clause rendered it useless for that purpose. The other ability, though, seemed dramatically more useful.

Rapid Rip

+10 SUP, +60 Attack Speed Rating

Damage: 1xBUR + 4xSUP

Cast time: 0.25 seconds

Cooldown: 21 seconds

Added effect: Dash 30 feet, dealing damage along the line of travel. Enemies damaged by Rapid Rip reduce its cooldown by 3 seconds.

It was a significant amount of damage - though being heavily geared towards SUP meant that the actual damage numbers would be more unreliable.

What interested him the most was the built-in cooldown reduction. It could decimate a large enemy force in just a few seconds.

Against Rumi’s supposed army, it might be the only Arcana giving him a fighting chance if he was so badly outnumbered.

In the time it took him to look over his new additions, Alric had started to truly complain about the pace. Their speed had eaten the miles impressively, but the man was definitely falling behind now. Hirrus had instinctively started to slow down for him, but Nidra made no such concessions. And Hirrus wasn’t sure what would happen if he lost track of her. He roughly knew where he was, and his time as a mercenary wasn’t so long ago that he couldn’t find his way through a forest, but he was concerned that she might lash out in her impatience.

He couldn’t fault her, though. Every moment wasted was another moment Rumi had to grow his army.

“You know,” Alric gasped, his chest heaving, “maybe I’ll just let you guys go ahead. You don’t need me, right?”

Despite himself, Hirrus had to disagree. “Alric, you’re the only way I have to reach GM Dave. I’d be a fool to cast you aside.”

“I just can’t, though,” Alric said. Speaking was slowing him down, and he was so far behind already that Hirrus could barely hear him.

Hirrus looked ahead to where Nidra was just barely visible, a flicker of red hood in the trees, and then looked back right as Alric tripped over a root and nearly face planted into a tree. His better judgment warned him that he needed to keep up with Nidra.

A small voice whispered in his ear, urging him to leave the adventurer behind. Alric’s usefulness had run its course. He’d already saved Dahlia’s life, and in so doing, had probably run out the last of GM Dave’s good will. Why would Hirrus still need him now?

The answer came quickly: because it wasn’t right to abandon him here.

Despite everything, Hirrus’s conscience wouldn’t let him leave him to suffer whatever fate the forest had for him. Night was falling soon. Considering his physical condition, he wouldn’t last until morning on his own.

As if to punctuate that point, there was a distant sound of beasts far behind them. Something had caught their scent. When an answering call came from their left, much closer, Hirrus knew he had no choice.

He stopped moving forward, and headed back towards Alric.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nidra’s voice came from literally right over Hirrus’s shoulder.

“What I have to,” Hirrus snapped, managing to not jump at her sudden appearance. “Alric has been by my side for longer than you’ve been free of your decision tree. I wouldn’t abandon him now any more than you would abandon your quest to avenge your friends.”

She grunted in annoyance, but didn’t protest further.

“I’m slowing you down,” Alric said as he finally caught up, “more than that, I can’t keep going for much longer. I need to stop. Even just for two hours.”

“I thought you were able to keep going for days,” Hirrus said, suddenly agitated. “You said you had enough sleep.”

“I mean, if it was just fatigue, yeah,” Alric whined. “But think about what we’ve just been through! I’ve never been so stressed in my life. Fire could have one-shot me, and if they had, I’d have fucking shit my pants. I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean literally. Poop everywhere.”

“That does tend to happen when you’re killed,” Nidra cut in with a smirk. “No matter how stressed you are.”

“I mean, yeah, whatever my corpse does is my corpse’s business,” Alric snapped, “but I mean in fucking meatspace. Like, I have to physically clean it up. With my hands, not just by pressing X. So I need to go, uh, go, and then get fresh water? Maybe a soda? And I think I’ve got a box of six-month-old granola bars in the cabinet because just peanut butter isn’t cutting it.” He paused for a moment before adding. “It’s just, on this side, it’s gonna look like I’m asleep. I’m not, but it’s gonna look like it.”

“I can carry you,” Hirrus interrupted before Nidra could snap out another remark. “You can rest and we don’t have to stop.”

“That will slow you down even more than I am now,” Alric said. Nidra narrowed her eyes at him, clearly not expecting him to be the one to say it.

“It’s better than stopping,” Hirrus said. “We just need to keep moving, right?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Nidra said. “Even while we’ve been standing here, Rumi’s ranks swell.”

“Complaining that our time is short isn’t going to make it any longer,” Hirrus snapped. “It will take as long to get there as it takes to get there. Whatever forces are present then are just what we have to deal with.”

“I hope my faith in your abilities is well-founded,” Nidra said as she turned away. “Because you are stacking the deck against yourself.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Alric said. Hirrus knelt down to let the man clamber up to ride piggyback. “Whatever’s waiting at the end of the line, you’re gonna crush it.”

“Why are you so confident?” Hirrus asked. He straightened up and started to follow behind Nidra, setting as fast a pace as he could.

“Easy,” Alric said. Even as he was speaking, the man’s body started to go slack and heavy as if he were about to just pass into sleep despite the bumpy ride. “Because Rumi was in Last of the Strong. Unless I miss my guess, Rumi was there when Yenon was hit.”

Hirrus’s vision suddenly went red. He felt rage roar in his chest. Alric’s limp body became tangibly lighter as anger gave him strength, and he started to move faster through the woods. Rumi had been a part of what had happened to Yenon. It seemed like something he’d known the whole time, but hadn’t actively acknowledged.

Rumi would die. If Hirrus had to carry a hundred adventurers on his back through a forest of rampaging monsters, Rumi would die. Hirrus would see to that as surely as the sun would rise in the morning.

As if on cue, the sound of the call-and-answer of a tracking pack of beasts came from behind them and to the left, closer than before. If they kept up the hunt, they would feel what Hirrus had planned for Rumi.