Allen looked down at the man he had shot. The man was cloaked in grimy leather armor and equipped with little more than a dull knife. At first glance, he seemed just like any other nobody from the slums underneath the Imperial City of New Justice; however, the cloudiness of his eyes had given him away.

“So it’s true then, they’re mind-snatching the peasants,” Allen thought to himself, repressing the urges to scream in anguish or puke his guts out. “Whoever they are, they must be stopped.”

He reached out to remove his arrow, grimacing as the dying man continued to twitch and foam at the mouth while the poison ran its course. A hard yank got it free, causing man to gurgle and shake as blood and pus gushed from the open wound in his neck. He shook one final time before his milky eyes rolled back in their sockets and he went still.

Just a little over a year ago, such a sight would have driven Allen to some terrible combination of despair and horror, but instead he just felt the cold pit of hopelessness at the back of his mind grow just a little more. Even if he wasn’t just a normal high schooler anymore, Allen knew he would never be able to kill someone and feel nothing, even someone without a soul left in them.

A whistle from behind him shook Allen from his thoughts. He turned around with his bow raised, only to lower it a moment later. “Leader,” he said, standing at attention.

A woman approached from the darkness of the underground tunnels beneath the city with two more hooded figures following behind her. Dust and smog twirled after her passing, yet her footsteps made no sound at all.

Name: Corrin

Human – Ranger – Level 435

The woman’s emerald-green eyes swept over Allen before settling on the body behind him. She was also wearing a dark hood, just like Allen’s, and carrying a heavy crossbow over her shoulder. She stopped in front of Allen, took a deep breath, and cleared her throat.

“Who was that?” she asked with a curt nod.

Allen took a moment to gather his thoughts. “A peasant I believe, ma’am. My guess is he was meant as a lookout or a currier. His mind was… already taken.”

Corrin hummed affirmatively, sparing a passing glance at the body. The man’s mind had been destroyed even before Allen had killed him, meaning his chances of respawning were basically none. There wasn’t anything they could do.

“I see. We’re probably getting close then.” Corrin said, motioning to the two members of the Shadow Guard waiting behind her, both Rogues above level two hundred, roughly Allen’s level. “You, send the signal, we’re regrouping here. Let Darron and the inquisitors know we’ve found a sign of the enemy stronghold. We’ll be moving in at a moderate pace to clear a path. They should take over the font line once we’re engaged.”

“Understood,” was the reply. The Watch Rogue turned around and summoned communication totem from his inventory to send the message.

“Are you sure these thralls can’t alert the enemy?” Allen asked, glancing around the dark cavernous space around them like it was daytime. The mountain underneath New Justice was a former dwarven outpost, thus it was more metal than stone by the time they had sold the territory to the empire. Humans, on the other hand, preferred to be above ground. That is, if they can afford to.

Allen’s eyes fell on the dead peasant again and he sighed.

“We can’t be certain, but this isn’t the first one we’ve killed in the last few hours, and many of them don’t even react,” Corrin replied. “They would have retaliated by now if that were the case.”

“What if it’s a trap?” Allen countered with the obvious question. His nerves had started to fray after killing nearly half a dozen mindless decrepit drones. It wasn’t the same as hunting monsters as an adventurer, but with the Watch, the monsters they hunted could do a lot more damage, so to speak.

“It probably is a trap,” Corrin said, not reacting to the unease in Allen’s voice. “That’s why we’re moving in ahead of the inquisitors. This isn’t a surprise attack, it’s a raid disguised as a surprise attack. We fall back and regroup as soon as something or someone shows up that we can’t handle, let the inquisitors do their jobs, understood?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Corrin nodded and turned around to meet more scouts from the Shadow Watch who appeared from various tunnels and offshoots in the caverns and ruins. In total there were twenty-eight of them including Corrin and Allen with levels ranging from two to three hundred, with Corrin as the exception. They shared intelligence from their scouting while the inquisitors got into position, then silently continued downward into the belly of the mountain.

Once in business, none of the scouts spoke. They only kept their eyes out for more thralls, which were all swiftly dealt with from a distance, usually before they even had a chance to react. Allen noticed the number of thralls slowly increase as the tunnels became deeper, darker, and less maintained, eventually turning to complete ruin, like an unfinished mine or a natural cave.

Before long, Corrin held up the hand signal for enemy contact and pointed down a larger corridor heading deeper into the stale cave. The squad followed without question, encountering an outcropping that overlooked a wide grotto the size of an amphitheater. The walls and the ceiling were both obscured by shadows, but the dozens of thralls standing in the cavern at the far end were easily identifiable by the torchlight. Behind the group of starved-looking mindless vagrants was a steel door.

“Metal transmutation,” Allen thought absently, noting how the door frame seemed to be fused to the stone around hit.

With another signal from Corrin, Allen and the others quietly readied their bows. He only got three shots off, all of them ending their target, before the room fell silent. Allen fed the ring on his right middle finger with magic and his three arrows reappeared in his hand. He flicked them clean before returning them to his quiver and joining the group of scouts as they approached the door.

It took about a minute for Corrin to get it open, allowing the scouts to funnel into a dingy cellar filled with heavy machinery, steam powered equipment and the occasional thrall wandering around. The compound was much larger than it seemed, but the scouts made sure to check every room and clear it of thralls.

“This is the boiler room I guess,” Allen thought to himself. “That must have been the back entrance.”

About half an hour was spent clearing the area, during which they found a larger central corridor leading to a staircase. The staircase only led downward, as Allen had expected. For some reason these sorts of underground bases always had an inverted architecture.

After a single flight down, they emerged into a dimly lit hall with detail in the walls and stonework that suggested a more lived-in space. They rounded a corner and encountered two figures leveled in the high one-hundreds, dressed in matching black and red robes. They had a hollow look in their eyes, but they were most definitely sentient humans.

“Some cult, because of course it is,” Allen figured. This wasn’t the first cult his squad had dealt with, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Both figures were shot through the skull and killed instantly.

Allen and the others continued through the compound at a quick pace. Every so often a dozen arrows would fly into a group of robed cultists, killing them before they could even react.

Over the course of about fifteen minutes, the squad worked their way deeper into the base, knowing that a large number of inquisitors would back them up. They soon came across a grand chamber with stone walls and ornate carvings depicting insidious scenes that Allen didn’t have time to wrap his mind around.

The dull, flickering light was enough to illuminate a circle of more red and black robed cultists surrounding a plinth. On the plinth was some horrid amalgam of flesh, beating in rhythm like a heart. Magic hummed through the room as the cultists chanted, making Allen’s hair stand on end.

They were promptly interrupted by a storm of magically enhanced arrows flying into them. The magic of the ritual quickly went chaotic as the thing in center withered and turned to steaming black sludge.

“Leave no survivors,” Allen thought coldly, loosing arrow after arrow into the cultists.

Screams of pain and death filled the chamber, followed by shouts of anger and confusion as more robed figures flooded into the room. Some of the scouts drew blades while Corrin tore her way through the enemy cultists, completely unstoppable.

The tide didn’t last long though, cultist mages began pouring into the room, most of them above level three-hundred. They threw blood magic around without a care for their allies, soon forcing the Shadow Watch squad back towards the corridors.

“This is bad.” Allen loosed two arrows, both sinking deep into cultist skulls. “We need to regroup with the inquisitors, before we’re overwhelmed.”

Corrin gave the signal to retreat when it became obvious their small force couldn’t deal with so many counter attackers.

The cultists didn’t let up, but at the same time, they couldn’t quite keep up with the scouts’ retreat. Spells flew through the halls while Allen and the others loosed arrows and spells of their own over their shoulders as they ran though the compound.

Allen’s heart skipped a beat when he realized they were clearly being lead through the compound by the swarm of cultists. The few minutes of rushed retreated ended when the Shadow Watch squad found themselves in a large stone antechamber, lined by columns.

Sure enough, they were surrounded on all exits.

Still, none of the scouts stopped shooting arrows out into the enemies moving in on them from the edges of the room. Allen was bunched up, shoulder to shoulder with his squad mates, defensive spells keeping the enemy attacks at bay for the time being. However, that would only last so long. There were just too many robed figures, and thralls, all practically throwing themselves at the scouts while the cultist Mages used them as meat shields.

Allen’s heart was pounding in his chest as sweat dripped off his brow. “Not good,” he told himself, lacking the time to think of anything else.

Just as Allen was about to give up on escaping, the roof above them blew apart in an explosion of scarlet red lightning. Warriors and Mages equipped in black and grey armor dropped amongst the rubble from above, already releasing spells and skills into the waves of cultists.

A heavily armored man crackling with red electricity dropped down after. The air around him vibrated with power as he raised a vicious bardiche in his hands and charged the densest and most powerful ranks of enemy Mages.

Name: Darron

Human – Warrior – Level 834

“They’re here,” Allen thought, relieved. He sent many more arrows into enemy thralls, desperately trying to stay out of the way as the inquisitors began their slaughter. Most of them were above level four hundred, utterly butchering their way through the cultists.

“Support from the rear!” Corrin shouted. “With Darron!”

Red lightning surged through the room, turning dozens of men into smoldering black husks. They were about to push their way out of the room and deeper into the heart of the compound when Allen’s danger senses suddenly went haywire. Darron had a similar effect, but it was different for allies. This feeling wasn’t from any ally.

To his left, the wall exploded in a bout of violet miasma, sending cultists, inquisitors, and scouts flying through the room. Allen ducked behind a column as debris struck the walls behind him. He felt dizzy, only daring to look out from cover once the dust settled and he could try to control his shaking limbs.

Allen raised his bow as a dark-haired man wreathed in sickly Scourge aura stepped through the hole in the wall. His body was thin and lithe, and he didn’t appear to be breathing. He was also unarmed, although that meant little.

“R-Reaper!” someone shouted, right before his voice was cut of by the sound of rupturing flesh and screams.

Allen’s heart sunk as he identified the pale-skinned creature.

Name: [unknown]

Dark Blooded Vampire – Mage – Level [hidden] Reaper

“Oh my,” the vampire started, looking around with a devilish grin splitting his features and revealing four jagged fangs. “I break for lunch and everything goes straight to hell.” He chuckled a bit before letting out a mirthful sigh. “Well, I suppose I have to clean up then.”

The monster barely had time to finish his sentence before Darron lunged at him from across room, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. Red lightning shot out of his weapon as the inquisitor let out a shout.

The vampire’s eyes flashed with power and Darron was instantly engulfed in dark violet flames. The inquisitor’s body was already torn apart and rotted to the bone before it even hit the floor behind the still-grinning creature.

There was a beat of tense silence before the room went mad with screams of terror and desperate battle. Most members of the Shadow Watch were attempting to flee, but the cultists just continued to flood in, throwing themselves at the inquisitors and scouts, pushing back on their ranks with pure overwhelming numbers. It was like a wave of blood. The cultists had absolutely no care for their lives at all. The sight sent chills down Allen’s spine as it burned its way into his memory.

Allen dropped his bow as he fumbled through his inventory for his suicide totem. There was no way he would be getting out with his soul any other way. Yet, it took him far too long to get the thing into his trembling hands as the cultists swarmed around him.

Somehow, he managed to hear the vampire sigh again as a dark power coalesced around him. “May it be known to all, mortals,” the creature began dispassionately, “the power of Terminus shall not be trifled with.”

“T-Terminus?...” Tears welled in the back of Allen’s eyes as inquisitors and scouts were forced back into the room by the tide of cultists. Allen wondered how things could have gotten so bad so quickly, yet he couldn’t think. The last thing he saw was a dark wave of magic surge off from the vampire, turning everyone, it touched into a limp ragdoll.

Allen’s mind ran blank as the magic rushed over him before he could react. His vision went black in an instant.

“I had the totem in my hands,” he thought dimly. “I was that close.”

With a supreme effort of will, Allen forced his eyes open, taking in a view of grey clouds. A soft breeze blew over him, and he could hear the steady breathing of a handful of people around him. He was drenched in sweat and shaking under a cover, yet he couldn’t move a muscle.

Allen panicked, his heart rate increased as his breathing became erratic. He screamed into his mind, unable to open his mouth. “Sky? Where am I? Where am I!? Where are the chains? Where am—"

“Allen.” A voice accompanied a hand resting on his forehead.

Allen’s heart nearly skipped a beat, but he let out a gasping breath when Shoam’s face came into view. The elf’s normally sharp eyes were filled with concern, though the rest of his face was unreadable under his mask.

“You’re in the Wandering Gate, Allen, it’s okay.”

Allen took a long look at the elf and remembered. He swallowed hard and sat up as soon as he could move again. He wiped his face and took a moment before grunting his thanks. When he finally looked up, he found that only Amelia and Christopher were also awake, both watching him with a mixture of concern and confusion.

Allen groaned and looked away. “God damnit.”