"It's annoying how quickly you dragonkin can heal wounds," Duke Catston said as he nocked another arrow then promptly fired it, sending the deadly metal-tipped shaft of wood whizzing past Duke Grindol's head towards Gilbert's heart.

Gilbert crushed the arrow using some freeform gravity magic with ease. An interesting thing about magic was that with enough practice, you could use it in its raw state though the cost was wholly dependant on the caster's skill, talent and magical affinity.

This was faster than chanting skills though it was far less powerful. It was similar to how you could throw a punch or you could both throw a punch and apply a skill to your fist.

This was Duke Malik's primary way to attack currently due to his oral situation and honestly, he was Gilbert's biggest nuisance besides the 2 dwarves he was protecting.

Freeform magic was weak but hard to predict during a 4v1, after all.

Duke Grindol slashed downwards with his longsword and successfully cut his way fairly deeply into Gilbert's arm. The duke was quickly blasted away not a moment later but the damage had already been done.

'Damn it. I'm losing my limited SP at a rapid rate and my MP isn't faring very well either... Do I really have to use the Djinn's power?' Gilbert thought as he tried to apply some nature magic to heal his arm only to be interrupted by Duke Leston.

The man punched Gilbert right in the jaw. Blood and spit flew out from his mouth as he grunted in pain. "Thorny Vines!"

Appearing from Gilbert's sleeve, 4 tendrils of vegetation sprouted and then immediately stabbed into Duke Leston's side. "Major Poison Enchantment!"

Suddenly, the vines turned purple and started pumping like veins. Duke Leston's face paled as he felt... something entering his body. "You know enchanting magic?!" he yelled as he quickly punched the vines, destroying them completely.

Gilbert laughed as he deflected another arrow with freeform gravity magic and then moved himself, Grimsley and Shana out of the way of Duke Malik's sneak lightning attack.

"3% affinity for enchanting magic, wouldn't ya know it?" he joked. "Took me 43-years to learn that skill and another 52 to evolve it twice. Makes for a good way to knock one particularly annoying close-range duke out of the fight though, now doesn't it?"

"You...!" the muscular duke struggled to voice his anger. Even standing up straight was a challenge currently.

Gilbert felt a massive sense of relief when he saw how wobbly Duke Leston's steps had gotten. '1 down, 3 to go...'

"Now there's only one close-ranged idiot to deal with, now isn't t-"

A sharp feeling overcame Gilbert's body. He couldn't voice his words anymore and he could only both smell and taste iron, oddly enough. Slowly looking down he saw a blood-covered blade sticking out of his chest.

Leaning over Gilbert's shoulder as he twisted his sword a bit, Duke Grindol smiled. "Finally. You're very good at running and dodging for a mage, now aren't you, Guildmaster Elksworth?"

"Shite..." Grimsley muttered.

Duke Catston closed one eye and grinned as he nocked two arrows on his bow simultaneously. "Now to deal with the baggage..."

Panic entered Gilbert's eyes. A bolt of lightning struck him right in the face and he suddenly couldn't see out of his right eye anymore but that didn't matter right now.

He was in far too much pain to use freeform magic so he needed to do something or both Grimsley and Shana would die in less than a second. "Front... right... pocket..."

Grimsley was a stubborn dwarf, he was a loyal dwarf, and, right now, he was a scared dwarf but most importantly, he was a smart dwarf.

He applied his Strength to his legs and jumped straight toward Duke Grindol. He didn't know how he could jump off the air but he assumed it had something to do with the skill Gilbert was using to keep them suspended up where they were.

The stocky man slammed right into the duke's back, surprising the life out of him. "W-What do you think you're doing, dwarf?!"

Grimsley didn't answer. He peered around Gilbert's flank and he saw how the bow-wielding duke was pulling his shoulder back as far as he could as he aimed his bow. There was no time to lose.

He ignored Duke Grindol and wrapped his arms around both the noble and the guildmaster. He snaked his hand into the pocket Gilbert had mentioned and felt something cold and round enter his grasp.

"Split Shot," Duke Catston chanted, activated a skill. Surrounded by a green glow, the two arrows he had drawn flew from the bow and were heading straight for Grimsley and Shana's heads.

"Djinn or whatev'r the fook ya 're! Get us the fook oota 'ere!" Grimsley yelled at the top of his lungs.

The orb in his hand shattered and a grey smoke rolled out of it, covering everything. The cloud expanded and slowly took the shape of a man.

His top half was bare and muscular despite him being made out of nothing bar fog. He had no head, only a set of misty eyes and everything below his torso was just an oddly shaped amalgamation of grey smoke.

"Your wish is my command," the Djinn known as Harsios proclaimed.

It raised a hand to snap its fingers then the next second, it, Gilbert, Grimsley, Shana and Duke Grindol as well, all vanished.

Duke Catston ran the hand he usually used to hold his arrows through his hair. "Fuck. I did not expect him to have a Djinn's wish... I didn't even know Djinns were real... Well, at least I managed to use Arrow Redirection before it fulfilled the wish... There's no way that foolish traitor will survive with a sword through his chest, a half-burnt face, a cut arm, a sword-shaped hole in his chest accompanied by my two arrows. Guy's as good as dead."

He looked up to his floating mute fellow noble. Duke Malik looked less than happy, that was for sure. "Let's go back to the castle. We should wait for His Royal Majesty to return. We need to... shit. Duke Leston's dead."

Duke Catston sighed deeply. "This could have gone sooo much better..."

Grimsley flailed about like a madman as he, Shana, Duke Grindol and the heavily-injured Gilbert fell from the sky. "Cuntin' Djinn! Where the fook did it toss us?!"

He looked around frantically as the 4 of them were plummeted downwards only to discover that the sun was high in the sky and beneath them lay a massive body of water.

'Fae this 'eight, ah can survive ah fall into wat'r an' the goat prob'ly can anaw solely due tae 'is rank but wee Shana... 'er 'ole body'll shatter like hittin' cobblestone fae the top ah ah roof!' Grimsley thought as the sound of his niece's frantic screams entered his ear.

Luckily, he still had his pickaxe strapped to his back. With a bit of finagling, he unstrapped the tool and then started swinging it with applied Strength to gain some momentum.

Using that in conjunction with some good mid-air manoeuvring, he reached his niece as they were roughly 250-metres from the surface of the ocean.

He grabbed the girl and held her close to his chest. "Calm down, Lassie. Ah'll break the fall fae ya. Stop screamin', aye? Dinnae wan' ya bitin' yer tongue off on impact."

Shana was shaking in fear and panic but she managed to nod her head and close her mouth without too much difficulty.

At this point, Duke Grindol had let go of the sword impaling Gilbert and he was even more terrified than Shana was, as evidenced by his mad thrashing about and yelling.

"Oi! Get a grip! Ye've got bett'r physical stats than Gilbert, aye? Dae tae 'im what ah'm daein' fae Shana!" Grimsley ordered as the ocean got ever closer.

Duke Grindol was hyperventilating and his face couldn't get any paler if he wanted it to. "I can't swim!"

"Ah couldn't gae ah fook less!" Grimsley snapped. "You hug 'at man an' make sure 'e survives the fall an' ah promise ah'll carry all 4 ah us tae land! Ah can apply ma Strength an' ah've got SP fae days, so get ah fookin' grip!"

Nodding quickly in a clearly unstable state, the duke used a skill to attack the air, giving him enough propulsion to return to Gilbert. He held onto the dragonkin as best as he could without further agitating the man's horrendous wounds.

If he was to survive this, it was by doing as the angry dwarf had commanded, pride be damned.

Grimsley could hear the sound of waves getting louder and louder as he held his niece. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth as he thought, 'This is gonna fookin' 'urt.'

An incredible amount of pressure made itself known across his back as he felt his entire body get covered in water.

He sank about ten metres before he was able to even try to swim to the surface. His entire body ached but he was alive and so was Shana judging by her squirming.

Grimsley breached the water's surface a few seconds later and he then let go of Shana only to hold her cheeks. "Can ya swim, Lassie?"

"Y-Yeah," she answered with a shiver.

"Good. Ah've two idiots tae dive back doon fae," Grimsley replied before he kissed Shana's forehead then plunged back under.

He thanked the Primals that wherever they were it was daytime and that the seas were clear. Of course, the ocean was still incredibly dark underwater but his Stone Dwarf heritage offered him slightly better eyesight in poor conditions than was normally offered to most species. Likely on account of the generations after generations of living underground.

About 20-metres away he could see Duke Grindol frantically trying to ascend the water in any way he could to no success as he tightly held onto the unconscious Gilbert.

Grimsley was no master athlete or professional swimmer but with his applied Strength, reaching and pulling the two men back to the surface was simple enough, if not mentally draining.

The very second they surfaced Grimsley yelled, "Ma word is law, ya 'ere me, nobleman?! If ya wanna live, hold ontae me an' do every fookin' thing ah say!"

"Y-Yes, of course," Duke Grindol answered as he tightened his grip around Grimsley's waist.

"Good. Fae now, if any sea monsters come lookin' fae a fight, fookin' deal with 'em. Ah can see an island about 7-miles 'at way if ma guess is right. It'll be close but ah can make it," Grimsley said.

Shana swam over to them and took hold of Grimsley's arm. "S-Sorry for being useless, Uncle Grim..."

"Dinnae worry aboot it. Ya can apologise when we're safe..." Grimsley looked up into the sky and narrowed his eyes. 'This wasn't 'ow ah saw this day goin' but we're alive... Ah hope Lone an' the wee lassies can say the same...'