When Andius woke up, the reality of what he had just been through hit him a lot harder than it had in the dream world. Whatever that thing was, it was like his worst nightmare. Perhaps that’s literally what it was, and his dreamer skill was giving him a greater perception of it? Regardless, Andius was now putting some serious consideration into what he could do to avoid seeing that thing again, would he be able to sleep safely from now on, or would he be attacked by it every time he slept? What would happen if it caught him?

While he was busy hyper-fixating on his dread, a knock sounded at his door, immediately putting him on edge. “Yo, Andius. You in there man?” It was Raizus apparently, no one else he’d met talked with such an obviously Californian accent. He got up and unlocked the door, sure enough it was his armored friend standing there, fully decked out in his gear which was also shown on all of the wanted posters. “There you are man, been waiting for you all day! You a heavy sleeper or something?”

Andius immediately frowned, had he been out longer than he thought? He turned and looked out the window, it looked like it was around noon now which meant that they were way behind schedule. “Shit, sorry I got stuck in a dream.” Raizus looked at him like he was crazy, but Andius didn’t give him a chance to say anything else, “Lets get going then, no more time to waste!” He paused a moment and looked at Raizus, “Why are you wearing all of that gear, wont someone recognize you?”

Raizus chuckled and patted Andius on the back, “You’ll see man.”

Andius shrugged and went out of the room downstairs. The woman he had met his first time here was standing at the bar chatting with Charla, the two looking like old friends laughing about one thing or another. He walked over to the bar and set down the key, turning to Charla, “First time I’ve seen you outside your shop, grow tired of being a recluse?” Andius joked, getting a very satisfying glare from Charla.

“Don’t start with your jabs boy,” Charla said with her trademark irritation, “I’ll have you know that Herald and I are the only reason you didn’t get stabbed in your sleep!” This was news to Andius, did the Bloody Blades come by in the night hoping to get revenge? “A couple of adventurers recognized you and Raizus last night. The owner here informed us that people were poking around your rooms, so we took care of them. You two need to be more cautious about where you go in public with a bounty on your head!”

Andius winced and looked around, she was talking so loudly that people were bound to hear her. Andius blinked a few times, “Wait, where is everyone? This place is usually packed.” There wasn’t a single person in the tavern save for them, which felt completely weird to him since there was always at least a few people nursing hangovers around this time.

Charla stepped forward and motioned to the barmaid, “Let me introduce Thena. Her family owns this place and she’s the one who warned us about the attack.” She explains, causing Thena to walk out from behind the bar and give a small bow to Andius.

He realized that this was the first time he had taken a good look at her. She was fairly short, standing just over five feet tall, but she had extremely blonde hair that was braided all the way down to her waist. Her eyes were large and kind looking, the kind of green that would remind you of the forest in spring. What was most surprising were her legs which one could see only a little of due to her dress; they were extremely toned, more so than some adventurers he had seen through here. “We’ve met a few times, Andius the Shadow-Caller, but we’ve never been formally introduced.” Her voice was soft and kind as it always was, but it had a sort of formal feel to it. “My name is Thena Avengard: Former Paladin in the Way of The Light.” Her words immediately made Andius recoil, something instinctual in him telling him he needed to run away from this place as fast as possible. Thena and Charla both laughed, “I did say former, did I not?”

Andius kept himself from running, clearing his throat and examining her again. She definitely looked a lot stronger than a regular barmaid if you looked hard enough. “R-right, so you retired from fighting evil to run a bar?” Andius asked, not understanding why someone as young as her would retire so early.

“Not quite.” Thena said, “But that’s a story for another time. You asked why this place was empty, it was so you two could have a fairly safe way out. I closed the bar down and told people it was to clean the mess caused by the bandits, so no one wants to come anywhere near here.” She sounded a bit distraught, probably about how this would effect business. “We have an escape hatch behind the bar” She motioned towards it with a smile, and Andius and Raizus started for it, but she grabbed the former’s arm and said, “You serve the darkness whether you know it or not. But I can tell you have a good heart after you donated all of that gear. I will warn you as thanks; stay far, far away from any holy men and women. They will be able to see your darkness as clear as day, and they will not hesitate to bring an end to you, soul and all.”

With that, she let Andius go with chills running down his spine. This was just a game even if he couldn’t log out, but what would attacks that destroy the soul do to him? Would he be forced to make a new character, or would he be kicked back to real life? He didn’t have the time to think about all of that right now, for now he had to get out there and clear out the problem at hand. “Thank you for the warning.” Andius said, before turning to Charla, “If all goes well, we will be heading for Arcanis soon. Thank you again for everything you’ve done, hopefully we’ll be able to stop the Gnolls, whatever they’re planning.” Charla smiled and waved him off, leaving the two to enter the trap door behind the bar.

The journey through the escape route was a fairly short one, it was only a small tunnel carved under the town that let out a few feet from the other side of the wall, a large rock covering the hole which Raizus easily moved out of the way. The pair started to head towards where they heard the Player camp was, Andius putting on his cloak once they were far away enough from the road that travelers wouldn’t see. “So, do we have a plan?” Raizus asked.

“Yeah, we’ll wait until nightfall and I’ll scout their base, see if I can’t find any good ways in. But I wanted to ask you something, do we want to go about this stealth, or just all out attack?” Andius asked, getting a curious look from Raizus. “Way I see it, we could probably take down a lot of them before the alarm got raised, but it would give me less of a chance to get a bunch of summons out. On the other side of things, we could just attack them directly with as many of my summons as I can handle and possibly take them with our numbers, assuming they don’t have a practical army in there.”

Raizus thought about it for a while as they walked, thinking clearly wasn’t his strong suit, but he was giving it his all. After a few moments of long silence, “I think we’d be best off just attacking them directly honestly. I’m no good at stealth and if you get caught in there, you’d be on your own to escape, no way I’d be able to just barge in and help you, ya know?” Raizus said, getting an appreciative smile from Andius.

Raizus was more brawn than brain, but his reasoning was on point. “Good idea, so when we get close enough to see their camp, lets find a place to lie low and I’ll summon my scout. If all goes well, we will be able to pinpoint where their leader is and take him captive, everyone else can just be killed.” Andius explained, getting a nod from Raizus in return.

The rest of the journey was almost entirely uneventful save for one instance where a pair of children were running around the forest and playing together. They spotted Raizus and Andius and immediately ran away in fear. Not that Andius could really blame them, you see a cloaked figure and a big man with red eyes wearing heavy armor, you run away, it’s just common sense. An hour or two later, Andius noticed some tracks on the ground, gaining him a new level in his tracking skill.

Raizus didn’t even need to be told and walked over to where some bushes were bunched close together and sat down, “Well, do your thing Mr. Summoner.” He said with a grin, slapping Andius on the back with his metal clad hand.

Andius winced at the slap and nodded, sitting down beside Raizus and holding out his hand, willing his mana to form into the shadow scout. The shadows around him pulled inwards towards him and crept up his arms into his hand where it formed a ball. A few seconds later wings sprouted from the orb and it opened it’s one huge eye which let off a purple smoke that was the same color as the iris. The entire thing was just an eye with wings, which made Raizus shudder.

“Guh, dude your summons are super creepy, you know that?” Raizus said, getting a chuckle from Andius.

The scout rolled over in Andius’ hand, completely mindless and unable to do something as simple as staying upright. “Alright, I need to possess this summon, so do your best to guard me while I’m away?” Andius asked, getting a nod form his friend. He took a deep breath and tried to think how he was going to do this, but he somehow just knew how to put his consciousness inside of this little ball.

There was a small tug at his mind and then everything went black. When he could see again, he was looking back at himself from his hand. Everything looked a bit odd, the world was in shades of gray and blue, and he could see mites of energy floating around here and there. What was very strange was the fact this is own eyes were pure white, not just rolled back in his head, it looked like he has simply lost his pupils and irises.

He took stock of his situation, he had one big eye, couldn’t hear at all, and had two little wings that felt genuinely powerful. Raizus was blinking at him, but it looked like he was moving slowly, this creature must experience time much more slowly than humans in order to compensate for it’s speed.

Seeing no better time to test it than now, Andius beat his wings as hard as he could and was launched up into the air, much to the surprise of Raizus who’s hair got blown back from the motion. This would definitely be fun. He started flying off in the direction where he had seen the tracks leading, the feeling of the sun on his back very uncomfortable and tiring.

Soon enough he came across the encampment in question which made the goblin fort look like a joke. There was a log wall surrounding the structure which looked nearly finished, leaving an entrance at the front and one to the westernmost side. Inside the camp itself were ten tents, some training dummies and what looked to be an eating area, and this was before accounting for all of the players running about.

It wasn’t easy to count all of their numbers, but there had to be at least twenty of them, maybe more. That would make sense if they were staying two to a tent, but just to be safe Andius mentally noted thirty combatants. Two of the tents stood out from the rest; the first was far larger than all the others in spades and had some red embroidery on it. The other was a square tent that had metal bars at it’s entrance instead of a cloth door. He decided to creep down a little bit and look inside the bars, avoiding a couple of players who were walking by.

Inside of the room there were herbs and powders and liquids of all different kinds, and standing at one of the desks was one of the most beautiful women Andius had ever seen. She had shoulder length jet black hair and incredibly pale skin, wearing a fairly plain set of leather clothes that neither accentuated her or took away from her looks. Her eyes were unnaturally blue, like a neon light had been put behind them and set to maximum power. What caught him off guard was the fact that her face was locked into a vicious scowl and her hands looked rough and callused, muttering something about players asking for stupid things.

This was another player! By the looks of things she was an herbalist who was being held captive by the bloody blades, but whatever they’re having her make, he had no clue. He decided he was absolutely going to come back for her if the attack was successful, and to his surprise a little eye icon appeared over the tent.

Andius mentally grinned at seeing that and flew over to the larger tent. It had slits near the top to allow air and light to filter inside, so the little scout flitted to the edge of one and looked inside. There were three men present, a bald man that looked really familiar to him, and two others who he didn’t recognize. All three of them wore expensive looking metal armor that rivaled Raizus’, but the bald one had armor that far outclassed the other two. His armor had unique engravings on them that seemed to thrum with a type of brown energy. He wondered if it was how enchantment worked in this game, and judging by the fact he hadn’t seen anyone else wearing enchanted gear, it must be rare and powerful.

The longer Andius looked at this man, the more he realized that he knew him; this was the guy he had fought in Charla’s shop! He noticed their mouths were moving, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. With a bit of focus his eye that hadn’t closed once shut, and sound suddenly bloomed to life in his ears.

“-re finished, enough to blow down the walls for sure.” One of the men said, sounding excited about something.

“Good, but we still don’t know the whereabouts of that assassin or the fire mage. They might be the only other players in the area, but they’re definitely strong.” A deeper voice said, practically oozing confidence and authority, “And since someone failed to recruit them, we’re going to have to deal with the fact that they might defend the town.” Wait, they were planning on attacking Woodsdale?

A third voice cut in, this one a lot higher pitched and incredibly snobby sounding. “Nah, they’re wanted in that town, calling one of them a demon even!” This got two of them laughing, but the leader just stayed silent. “Besides, there are only two of them. Even if they are good enough to take you down, there’s no way they could take us all on!”

The deepest of the three voice all but growled at them in irritation, “Did you forget that those two took down five of us, even an officer, by themselves?” This guy was definitely angry, which Andius wondered if him stabbing them might have something to do with it. “And it wouldn’t just be them, the guards and probably some of the civilians would come to defend the town too, and we have no idea what level the guards are.” He let out a short sigh and paused for a moment, “Regardless, we’ll want to attack by the end of the week before any more players make their way here. Make sure the alchemist makes more healing potions.” One of the other two snickered and sounded like they all walked away. Alchemist? Weren’t those a lot rarer than Herbalists? Andius was about to open his eye again when he heard the man muttering, his summons hearing far better than the average humans. “I swear, why are we even doing this? The boss said we wouldn’t be PKing in this game, yet here we are, just killing everyone… Maybe I should just quit.”

This was great intel, maybe Andius could use it to his advantage in the attack. He opened his eye again and flew back out of the camp towards his body after marking that tent as well. Raizus was still standing guard and his body was exactly where he had left it. He landed and returned to his original body, causing his summon to turn back into nothing but shadows.

It took a while to come back o his senses, the mind transfer caused everything to be overwhelming for a short time, and he couldn’t even more for a whole thirty seconds. When he finally stirred, a grin immediately grew on his face. “Oh Raizus, you’re gonna love this!” Andius took the time to explain everything to Raizus in as much detail as he could, explaining their numbers, the captive, and the fact that their leader was thinking about leaving their guild. All in all this took a few hours since he wanted to be sure Raizus knew exactly what they were up against.

“Mmm… Twenty to Thirty players is… a lot man.” Raizus said, getting a nod from Andius, “But they’re also probably all martial classes without any magic. It’s possible that we might be able to overwhelm them depending on how many summons you can churn out.”

Andius went silent for a moment as he did some mental math. His mana pool had more than doubled with his last level up since he dumped almost all of his attribute points into intelligence. As it stood right now he could summon six individual wolves which would be more powerful than the group summons, but he needed number right now more than anything to ensure that they won the fight. With the packs, he would be able to get fifteen wolves out at a time, which was a lot better for sure, but they would be a lot weaker. The best course of action would be to summon four packs of wolves and one individual wolf which he could possess to minimize risk to himself. “If I summon a stronger wolf for me to possess and the rest of the summons are packs, I can get out thirteen wolves in total, which will probably be enough to get through their ranks, especially when you think about the fact that they’re resistant to physical damage.” Andius explained, feel a lot more confident about this fight.

Raizus nodded, but there was a frown on his face, “Wait, you’re not going to be fighting in there with me?” He sounded almost offended, which did make Andius feel a bit bad.

“I would, but if I get knocked down all of the summons will vanish, and you know damn well I’m not built for a fair fight.” Andius said, but Raizus didn’t seem satisfied with the answer, so he sighed and relented, “Alright alright, I’ll go in myself and work to assassinate the back line, maybe I can talk to their leader and get him to stand down before he joins the fight too.”

Raizus bloomed a brilliant smile and clapped Andius on the shoulder again, actually knocking off a few hit points with the force of his blow. “There we go! Just cause you’re a summoner doesn’t mean you get to slack man. ‘Sides, that means our numbers go up from fourteen to fifteen, and that's a nice even number!”

“…Raizus, Fifteen isn't-...” Andius let off a soft sigh and reached forward to pat his friend on the shoulder, "Yeah buddy. Nice and even."