Kaledd, Generalmart second floor, Seven hours earlier.

Karnage was currently doing her best not to fall asleep, she glanced around the large table at the other guild leaders. She sat on one side with Zaahr, Birse and his officers then Zeeke, Nakano and their’s. On the other side sat the Kaledd guildmasters and their higher ranking members, she counted seven guilds in total.

LukeSkyDiver [Forged Engineer] (Crafty) (BW Master) Level 63

HiHelloGoodbye [Sorcerer] (Blast-em) (LOLz GODDESS) Level 66

Djinn [Duellist] (2hands) (GO Sheriff) Level 52

Dherik Firehide [Forged Warrior] (Frontliner) (LOST Emperor) Level 91

Regina [Technomancer] (Ace) (PRED Queen) Level 87

SORK [Elementalist] (FAKE Captain) Level 45

Deathstrike [Summoner] (Picky) (SHADY Prime) Level 58

Most of them were in a sorry state, when they had arrived all they could see was adventurers standing around the town or messing around and filling up the taverns. Their guild leaders weren’t all that better off, their levels alone spoke volumes of how bad a shape they were in.

Only two guilds out of the seven were half decent in what they were doing. One being LOST lead by Dherik, a PVP focused guild which immediately set off on grinding their levels in the nearby swamp. The second was PRED lead by Regina, a PVX guild and the smallest community among Kaledd’s guilds. They had spread out into parties and fought in the nearby swamps or hunted around the Dwarven mountains, they simply couldn’t stand the sad state of the town.

These two guilds where the first they had encountered, seeing a large squad of adventurers moving through The Patch got one of LOST’s parties to approach them. One thing took to another and the leaders of the two guilds came directly to Karnage and Zeeke to explain their situation. When Birse arrived they had explained it to him as well and from there he called for a meeting with each and every guild leader.

Thanks to Dherik and Regina they had gathered them all but how the meeting was currently going was less than promising.

“And you expect us to just fall in line?” exclaimed HiHello leader of LOLz, a scalarian female with mage robes and two wands at her side.

Birse was standing up as he spoke, a large difference from the Kaledd guild leaders who lay sprawl about on their chairs. “Would you rather stand around and wait for the Devils to come by and MAKE you fall in line? Because they will and they are coming.” Birse was slowly losing his patience over these lost hopes, if it wasn’t a distraction he’d simply do what LOST and PRED had done and abandon them.

Djinn a human male with a blue afro for hair began to laugh “Oh sure, just how we’ve been sitting around for three days. They haven’t come yet and they aren’t coming later, what’s the point of even trying to resist if they do? What chance do we stand?”

Dherik a heavily armoured Dwarf male with a Dwarven spear and shield similar to Soren’s suddenly stood up “Why are we even wasting our time with these sad excuses for shit? They don’t even got the balls to fight a fucking troll much less a demon!”

Regina a human female wearing grey leather armour and a brown cloak raised her hand “I agree, we should just leave them to their taverns and take the spoils ourselves.”

This had been going on for three hours, Birse explaining their circumstances to the best of his ability without giving out certain information. He had explained how the churches are tricking the people and them to take over the ruling of Barik, how the royal military will not stand and do nothing. Birse then told them how he guessed the royal military would turn the citadel into a battlefield to take back their Empress’s honour and how the churches would fight back.

Over all none of them had denied these ideas but none of them seemed to care, too busy with their own problems to do so. But Birse didn’t care either, this was all a ploy to keep them gathered in Kaledd after all. He hadn’t expected it to be this bad but it only made it easier on Serenity’s part to fool them all. Getting on Dherik and Regina’s good sides was just as easy as giving them advice on levelling, skills and classes while showing off their own.

Obtaining the trust of those who had already given up?

Birse had been buying time while waiting for the news to reach Kaledd, he expected it to take an hour or more for it to do so but just as one of the guild leaders stood up to leave.

“Fuck this, I didn’t come here to be judged by these maniacs!” HiHello stood up to leave but before she could do so a guard came rushing up the stairs of the generalmart and dashed towards them.

“Adventurers!” The guard shouted to gain their attention as he came to an abrupt stop by the table, breathing heavily the poor guy looked like he had just ran a marathon. “The citadel! Sk-Sky Top! Chaos!” he managed to say in between shaky breathing.

“Calm down man, take a breather and explain. Slowly!” Luke a human male, the nearest guild leader to the guard stood up and tried to calm the messenger down.

The guard took a brief couple moments to calm his breathing then glanced around the table “Mixed reports came in from Eslet, Sky Top Haven is falling!”

Birse couldn’t fake a better expression of utter bafflement than the real one he currently wore “The fuck did you just say?” he had left the others to their own workings as he dealt with things here.

As planned three cloaked figures walked up the stairs and began approaching the table as fear and panic began to spread among them.

Dherik one of the only four leaders not panicking which included Birse, Karnage and Zeeke, stood up to face them “Oi! The second floor is off limits until we are done! The hell are your guards doing down there Regina?!” he glanced at the woman in question who was still picturing the golden city falling.

Caitlyn removed her hood as she approached the table “Please excuse my rude entry adventurers but this requires urgency.” She quickly explained gaining the attention of most people there, Birse faked to pay attention as he had written her script himself while nobody had noticed Deathstrike the cloaked male human had fallen asleep a while ago with his hood down covering his closed eyes.

Caitlyn continued to speak as Draxxer and Darkness revealed their faces as well “I am Empress Caitlyn Esfelt of the Esfeltian Dominion here on Barik. These two are the previous heroes of the blessed blade and dark night, we’re here to beg for your assistance with the defence of Eslet the capital city.”

“How are we supposed to stop a city from falling onto another!?” exclaimed Regina still trying to comprehend this outcome.

Having received word from Death about how things were going on Elset, Darkness knew it was just an illusion “Sky Top Haven is not falling, this is an illusion produced by Devil magiks. The Dezol legions are here and have somehow infiltrated Eslet, with the fall of the royal family and the confusion within the military they have taken their chances and begun their attack.” She explained with as harsh a tone she could muster.

“So the city is not falling?...” Birse asked with relief.

Caitlyn nodded “This outcome was expected, demons are known for their underhanded tactics and this is just like them. Please adventurers, I beg you to save my people from their swords!” she was acting her part perfectly, being born to royalty and made Empress at a young age forced her to learn to act properly.

The Kaledd guild leaders anxiously looked at each other not knowing what to do, they were far from prepared for this. Zeeke, Nakano, Karnage and Zaahr on the other hand had been preparing for this since the start, their members had been training and grinding the whole time while officers stood at the ready to call them all in within a matter of minutes.

Birse turned to Caitlyn “We must contact our members at Frosthold, it will take time to make them march to Kaledd.”

“I can help with that” Draxxer stated speaking for the first time, he had been glaring at the Kaledd leaders in disgust “I can open a portal for your people to come through, the mage guilds have been researching them for a while.”

This was however not entirely true; Cornelius had made a second waystone as he now called them and a VCD for it but Birse wanted to use that to open a portal to Carn. Instead he asked if it was possible to move the portal at New Ruk, which Cornelius obliged to by sending over a VCD connected to the waystone in Frosthold that opened the portal in the first place. This would destroy New Ruk’s portal and reconnecting the entrance from Frosthold to a new exit in Kaledd.

“That would be of great help” Birse turned to Zeek and Karnage who sat by him “Let’s contact the others and tell them to gather, we cannot allow the Devils to take Eslet.”. He then glanced around at the Kaledd leaders “Whichever of you wish to survive this storm with us you are welcome to join, we’ll share information and assist each other where ever possible. The rest? Feel free to stand about and do nothing.”

Birse stepped away from the table followed by the other Frosthold leaders “Empress Caitlyn, we shall save your people.”

Dherik, Regina and Luke also stood up to follow.

“We’ll help too” Regina announced with a bored expression.

“Count us in.” Luke stated as he bumped his mechanical gauntlets together.

“LOST is behind you too.” Said Dherik with a grin.

Birse couldn’t help himself but grin back “Gather your members then. Karnage and Zeeke with me, we’ll gather our own.”

---

High above Dread Swamp, three hours later.

Birse gazed out of the large carriage at the dozens of others that flew alongside his. The large creatures were twice the size of your average wyvern with three times the wing span, two of them were connected to each carriage the size of a town building. Each griffin had two thick metal rods to each side of them protruding from the carriage’s front, metal chains that were connected to the rods were then connected to the griffin’s saddles.

The carriages where triangular in shape with large metal wheels on each of the three corners, the back was a corner while the front where one griffin pulled wasn’t. They were mostly made of oak wood with forged metal keeping it all together, the inside’s pavement was wooden planks while the seats where a single long plank protruding out of each wall.

The outside walls of each carriage were slanted to decrease air resistance while the inside were actually vertically flat. The second griffin that pulled the carriage was connected to two metal rods that protruded from the roof, using it’s immense strength and wingspan to carry the carriage while it’s partner steered.

Each carriage could hold up to forty people each, normally enough for the every day travellers. With the threat of a Dezol invasion on the capital and Draxxer’s persuasive growling they had been able to gain their use but couldn’t transport everyone. With only twelve carriages at Kaledd’s disposal the six guilds could only take 480 people, a small amount compared to the joined number of 3,700 they held together.

Birse had made the call to only take their highest levels while leaving the rest to continue training and guarding Frosthold in case the Devil’s main force pushed through Helix again. In truth he simply didn’t wish all his forces to move out of Frosthold and would have done this call whether they had transportation or not, he even went so far as to get Draxxer to talk down Karnage’s idea of opening a portal at Eslet due to ‘how long’ that would take.

He currently sat inside the carriage alongside the other guild leaders and many of their members. Having spread out Seren, Cherry and Soren into other carriages holding their lower ranked members the other guilds had done the same. They had discussed of landing inside the city straight up but Birse made it clear that joining up with the royal military was the best course of action. So it was decided they would land outside the military district as to not be shot down by them then request entry from their gate.

It had taken them three hours to gather their forces and fill up the carriages, 220 people going through a single portal took a while but it was mostly because of them having to pick out the higher levels and send back the lower ones.

He glanced around at the others, three days of fighting monsters and bandits had forced them all to bottle up their fears and will through. Those who couldn’t were left to rot in the streets, unable or simply unwilling to fight. Birse wondered if one would respawn from dying of hunger, would natural deaths be allowed a second chance? Then what about death by aging? He found himself considering a lot of things since finding out that everyone excluding monsters could respawn.

“An hour and a half till arrival!” announced the griffin master from the front of the carriage where he overlooked the entire inside and it’s inhabitants.

---

Esfeltian Dominion Capital Eslet, Military district outskirts, two hours and a half later.

Luke stared down at the large lake that lay by the military district’s outskirts, large Dwarven contraptions where built right outside the gates where ships for the military were constructed before being moved into the sea.

He was sitting down staring at the lake alongside his party of five others, being the weakest of the six guilds he was only allowed to bring a single party of his best fighters which weren’t many. With tanned-white skin, shaved brown hair, brown eyes and beard the Berserker’s Wrench guild master sighed deeply as he waited for the military to let their small army inside.

His guild in the first place was mostly a crafting community, very little of their members were fighters and level-wise were almost as bad as the zerg guilds in Kaledd. He glanced back at his party members, a healer, two fighters including himself, two gunners and a mage.

Surrounding them were larger groups of adventurers laying about the grassy outskirts of Eslet, the guilds trying to stay in their tight social groups.

He then spied Birse walking out of the door within the large gates made of pure metal followed by the guard that had let him in in the first place and a third solider he did not recognise. Unlike the guard this one looked of higher rank with several badges decorating his shoulder armour.

The man quickly looked around at the adventurers with a surprised expression as he inspected their levels, averaging around 80 they seemed of higher quality than his own men. He turned to Birse and nodded before speaking, Luke and his party were too far to hear him.

Birse turned to face everyone and spoke with mana infusing his voice “We’ve been allowed inside, all guilds gather in platoons of 40 each. Spread your classes among them as we discussed on the way, the military shall assign you escorts through the city.” He then walked off to his own gathered members.

“You heard him” Luke told his party while standing up “Let’s go ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a city to defend” he announced with his usual jolly tone. After gathering his small party Luke walked up to Birse’s group.

“Yo mind if you assign us to a platoon? We didn’t bring the numbers.” He asked the burly wolfkin guild leader.

Birse turned from talking to Cherry and quickly glanced over Luke’s party “Yeah go with Shepperd, he’s the elf dragging a giant flail behind him” he pointed the person in question out and turned back to assigning the others.

Luke nodded as he caressed his long beard and gestured for his party to follow, finding the man in question was easy. “You Shepperd?” Luke asked as he inspected the elf.

Sh3pp [Gladiator] (Brawn) (SER minion level 2) Level 87

The heavily plate armoured elf nodded “Yeah, you with us?”

“BW guild, we’re assigned to you.” Luke stated as he gestured at his party.

Shepperd seemed to grimace after inspecting their levels “Warriors on the front, mages and healers middle then rangers at the back. Leave your party and join our raid party.” He told them sternly.

LukeSkyDiver [Forged Engineer] (Crafty) (BW Master) Level 63

Zaya [Enchantress] (BW Enchanter) Level 65

Kain [Technomancer] (BW Tinkerer) Level 72

SorryNotSorry [Geomancer] (OCD) (BW Builder) Level 64

Painmeister [Forged Gunner] (Creative) (BW Blacksmith) Level 71

TrippinMeBallz [Blade dancer] (Un-orthodox) (BW MadScientist) Level 68

Luke glanced back at his guild members “Do as he said” he told them knowing they wouldn’t take orders from others. He himself disbanded the party with a thought “Invite?” he asked the elf.

Guild [Serenity] has invited you into their public raid. Do you wish to join?

“Done, hurry up and take your place.” Shepperd gestured at the platoon of adventurers behind him, they stood almost at attention waiting for the order to move. Their eyes were distant as they gazed at the tall stone walls ahead of them as if dreading what was to come, very little of them talked with each other.

Luke joined the raid party and noticed several small icons appear above everyone’s head indicating their name and distance, ignoring them momentarily made them disappear. “See you bastards later, don’t die on me aight?” Luke told his members before dragging away Trip with him.

As they both walked over to the front of the platoon an explosion sounded off in the distance, several murmurs and whispers followed.

“What the hell is going on in there..” Asked Trip as the leather armoured fighter fidgeted with his sword hilts.

“Better not be another one of those gigantic demons..” A male lionkin wearing plate armour replied.

Luke and Trip turned to stare at him “Gigantic demons?” Luke asked with disbelief.

The lion beast-man shuddered at the memory “Damn thing was larger than a skyscraper, fucking crushed the enormous trees up north like they were trash in it’s path. Took every single mage we had to bring it down to it’s knees, then it just blew up like a fucking bomb and blasted most of us away.” He explained with an anxious expression.

Trip audibly gulped “Demons explode?...”

“Hell if I know or want to know what the others do! All I know is what followed was a thousand times worse…” His expression seemed to pale as he remembered.

“What? What followed?” Luke asked drowning with curiosity, they had heard of the attack on Helix but none of the details.

The lionkin glanced at them before reluctantly continuing “Something…appeared out of the explosion. A Devil…straight up a fucking Devil. Called himself Lucifer, fucking king of hell himself!” he exclaimed while giving a weak chuckle “Most of us couldn’t move an inch, it was like an aura was pressing down on our throats…He threw around our stronger members like ragdolls, if it wasn’t for the mage guilds blasting him away while we kept him busy…” he trailed off not knowing how to continue.

Trip turned to stare at Luke “Yo boss…” he whispered with a pale expression.

“I know…we can’t back off now though.” Luke replied dreading over doing ‘the right thing’.

Most that overheard the story inwardly cursed at being reminded of those events, nobody wanted to face that thing again. Yet here they were ready to defend a city from that and worse, they didn’t have much of a choice but doing so.

Birse had very clearly told them what would happen if they didn’t fight, how the demons would destroy all spawn points except for one and keep them locked up like sex slaves. He had painted a very vivid image for all of them, something everybody hated him for doing.

“Hey we’re starting to enter” someone pointed out from behind Luke, looking towards the gate he indeed saw a whole platoon of forty walking after a soldier and into the military district.

“When will it be our turn?” asked Trip as he glanced around at the other gathering platoons.

“Probably sooner than you expect, we’re the third closest platoon to the gate so…” Luke trailed off enjoying his friend’s expression of panic.

What he didn’t expect was for the platoons to enter so quickly, soon a soldier walked up to their platoon leader. “How are things inside?” Shepperd asked the soldier.

“Not well, we are unable to locate the invaders.” Replied the soldier with a gruff voice “The civilians are still being escorted to the ships as per procedure but it will take a couple more hours, the nobles on the other hand have already left through their own means and the churches of night and day were the first to abandon the city taking with them their forces.” He reported in full.

“What do you mean you cannot locate the invaders? How do you miss a Devil or demon amidst the streets of a city?” Shepperd asked in disbelief.

The soldier grimaced as shame was apparent on his expression “Our scouts are scouring the streets while griffin riders took to the sky. We cannot find them anywhere yet destruction is evident at multiple residential areas owned by key figures in Esfelt.”

Shepperd sighed “Where will we be going then?”

“We’re sending you adventurers around the middle streets being the slums, markets and housing districts. Our men are scouring the noble district while the elite squads have been sent to the royal district.” The soldier explained before gestured for them to follow, he turned around and began walking towards the gate.

Shepperd turned to the platoon “March forth!”

Luke watched as the melee combatants around him unsheathed or unstrapped their weapons, he himself went through a series of movements with his fingers as the mechanical gauntlets glowed a dim green.

The platoon began to move forward, five lines of eight people walking after each other. The soldier had waited for Shepperd to catch up with him at the gate then guided them inside. The military district held many buildings at the gate, barracks, workshops, stables and a large six storey command centre. All those buildings took over only one third of the terrain, the rest was riddled with training grounds of all sizes surrounding the small town of military buildings.

The platoon was guided through the buildings and then through the fenced-out training grounds, multiple dirt roads moved through each but a single main road took straight from one gate to the other.

Luke glanced around anxiously waiting for monsters to jump out at them out of nowhere, he noticed his mistake of standing up front all too late.

It took them about fifteen minutes to arrive at the gate on the opposite side, unlike the first which was closed shut forcing them to enter through the small door one by one this gate was open wide. The platoon followed Shepperd and their guide through the open gate, it was wide enough for two more platoons to walk by them.

Luke glanced from left to right down the long curved road in between the outer walls, he fully expected some minotaur-like demon to charge at them from either side.

“Eyes open and weapons at the ready! Mages hold fire until I command otherwise! Rangers release on sight!” Shepperd barked orders as they approached the third gate which also lay wide open.

Luke suddenly heard the sound of clattering by his side making him immediately look around, the lionkin was trembling as his expression went white pale. Luke gulped down his continuously increasing saliva and continued forward like everyone else.

They entered through the gate and swerved to the right towards the slums district, run down two storey houses of wood lined the rather thin roads ahead. He saw adventurers running about checking each house with weapons in hand, some even came out helping citizens or carrying the sick.

Luke was disgusted by what he saw, not just elderly and sick were left behind but children too. He wondered just what happened here, there were signs of destruction on the buildings but no blood could be seen.

His platoon moved through as other adventurers walked around them. As they moved he noticed soldiers stationed at a specific interval, marking where their platoon was searching. Checking his map Luke noticed they had walked through one third of the slums before their guide stopped them.

“You can start searching the nearby houses and moved further in as you go, I’ll be here if you need anything.” The guard told Shepperd before moving to the side of the road and standing at attention.

---

Author: Listening to this made describing a lot easier…

Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0XNmOalxTA

---

The sound of heavy footsteps quietly echoed through the slums only heard by those with the best of ears.

Shepperd turned to the others not noticing the sound “Alright people, we’ll spread out into groups of two and search the buildings. Once you’ve searched a whole building mark the doorway with a pile of dirt, shouldn’t be too hard to find dirt right?”

As Shepperd explained the eyes of the adventurers began to slowly widen in surprised before fear filled their expressions. A couple dozen meters away from their position the road broke off into a crossroads not counting the many alleyways, from the road to the left which took further into the city it came.

It stood about fifteen feet high with it’s three spiked spider like legs and burly torso, the legs and torso being pitch black with some red being visible under the torso’s carapace. For arms it had two thick long red tentacles covered with black carapace at certain intervals while ending in a single long black claw. It had no neck and instead it’s head directly stuck to the cylindrical torso, a bulge of carapace at the top that similarly to the torso curved forwards letting the mouth at the top line up towards them.

It’s mouth was a circular vacuum of teeth, not so different from a cannon albeit the details. It started where the carapace ended, teeth like formations ending the carapace while upside-down teeth like indentions showed the red beneath. It barred its long black fangs and blueish interior, red drool escaped it’s open maw further adding to it’s terrifying form. Out of the mouth came a dozen more tentacles which similarly to the arms ended in a single black fang, these were blue and glowed brightly.

Panic quickly spread through the platoon as the very visage of this monstrosity made them quiver. Luke couldn’t get his eyes off of the monster, with his eyes wide open he stood frozen at it’s sight.

“Ready yourselves!” shouted the soldier who accompanied them “It’s an Abyssal Demon! Mages start showering it with attacks!” he exclaimed with urgency.

Shepperd immediately turned to the platoon “Mages fire!” he shouted, his voice came out agitated.

The mages began to chant their magic causing the demon to rush at them, it’s long spider legs just as quick as they looked powerful cracked the cobblestone road they stepped on.

Fire, water, rocks, blades of wind and lightening were haphazardly thrown at the monster’s path. The demon pulled back it’s blue tentacles and whipped it’s hands ahead at the building to it’s right, the thick tentacles gripped to the building’s roof like hooks. It quickly steering off the road and up the building’s exterior walls using it’s tentacles to pull itself up like a really fucking up spider.

The magic spells useless shot down the road as the demon athletically leaped over them using it’s momentum, within moments it released the buildings from it’s arms and whipped one at each building to the left and right of the road. The demon catapulted itself downwards and towards their formation, the adventurers had no time to react as the monstrosity fell upon the middle of them with it’s maw wide open.

A cloud of dust and dirt rose when the demon landed blinding the survivors, before it could settle several blue tentacles lashed about sending adventurers flying or disappearing into the smokescreen. When it did settle half the platoon had already been wiped out, Trip and Shepperd being among the dead. A couple dozen corpses lay squashed to the ground by the demon’s weight, armour dented, blood splattered and bones cracked and visible.

Luke had thrown himself to the ground when the demon jumped into the air, he stared up at the being frozen with terror. Five of the demon’s blue tentacles held the Esfeltian soldier as he tried to slash at them only for more to form out of it’s maw, slowly it pulled him inside as if enjoying the struggle.

The adventurers stared in utter shock as the man shouted curses and struggled before starting to beg for his life, it ended with a long guttural scream followed by the tearing of flesh, crunching of bones and mushy noises.

Their stomachs churned with disgust as some actually bent over and emptied it, many also straight up turned and began to run screaming for their lives only to be grabbed by the tentacles and either thrown about or continuously smashed into the ground and buildings to death.

Luke glanced around at the remaining dozen or so adventurers, none of them were mages and the rangers that still lived either couldn’t pierce the carapace or did and the demon showed no sign of being affected. He instinctively stood up and turned to run, his breathing was erratic and eyes unfocused as he ran for his life.

More screaming and squishing of bodies sounded off from behind him but he didn’t care, his sole thought was to run as far away as fucking possible. That of course was until a red tentacle entangled itself around his waist and pulled him back.

“NO! NO! PLEASE NO! HELL NO! FUCK NO!” He shouted and cursed until his mouth began to dry, the moment he started to struggle the tentacle smashed him down to the ground. Luke watched as three more adventurers where pulled in screaming and struggling into the demon’s circular maw, the sounds that followed blurred out entirely by his own screaming.

As if the demon had had enough of him the tentacle lurched back and threw up with enough strength to send him flying dozens of meters into the air. Luke thought he’d pass out from the sudden movement but held on, he flew further into the city and way over the walls giving him a perfect view of it all. All the while he screamed like there was no tomorrow, his vocal cords began to hurt at how loudly he screamed.

Luke glanced around the city hoping he’d either land unhurt or land dead before he could feel the pain. Suddenly off in the distance where he guessed the royal district was a large explosion half blinded him, the rainbow coloured smoke that escaped it’s area of effect rose up high.

Luke watched as several griffins scouring the sky flew in it’s direction, the smoke attracting the military’s attention due to it’s location and…colour.

He continued to fall for what felt like several minutes before the pool of a mansion quickly leaned closer, relief shortly went through his mind as he neared the water’s surface. He died the moment he broke into the water, his bones shattered at several locations, eyes burst inwards and chest squashed inwards while his ribcage fell apart piercing his organs.

His body floated up to the surface with the limbs curving in unnatural ways.

You have experienced death by fall damage.

Warning: Water is not suitable for a heavy landing!