Kyle watched as Lilior stood concentrating for a few minutes, a green-blue crystal forming in her open palms. The core grew with each minute that passed until ten minutes later a one meter by one meter crystal dungeon core lay hovering in front of them.

“Isn’t that a bit too small?” asked Birse as he entered the room followed by Cherry and Skill.

Kyle shrugged “Is it?”

Lilior crossed her arms as she turned around and grew to full size “I’d like to see you condense mana better!”

Birse raised his arms up in surrender “Aight aight, so what’s going on here anyway?”

“Lilior retained her dungeon race as Living Dungeon, it allows her to create dungeon cores that aren’t sentient and take commands directly from her else they won’t do anything. We’re about to figure out if we can use them as respawn points for the guild.” Kyle explained.

“Now if you don’t mind.“ said Lilior before turning back to the core and placing her palms over it’s crystal surface, she closed her eyes in concentration for a few minutes “Hmm…” before stepping away and opening her eyes.

“Is it done?” asked Cherry.

“No…I don’t know how to explain it to the thing…” responded Lilior.

“What do you mean?” asked Kyle.

She glanced at him “It is very dumb.”

“Can I try?” offered Birse.

Lilior turned to the guild leader “Uhm…The core has the mind meld skill? I can try and make it activate that?”

“Yeah let’s try that, explain what you want it to do for me.” agreed Birse, Lilior went into a long explanation of how she wanted the core to expand it’s detection range to maximum and focus on the guild connection between their souls to locate them easier. She then continued into explaining how the core then had to pull in the soul if they became free of their physical bodies and after that let them go while supplying them with mana from itself.

“Alright, so what do I do?” asked Birse as he stepped to stand by the core opposite of her.

“Put your hands on it like this.” She told him as she re-placed her palms over it’s surface, Birse did the same. “Mind Meld.” She called out and Birse’s body froze in place, his eyes half open. A few seconds passed by before Birse came out of his frozen state “Done, what’s next?”.

“That was quick?” stated Kyle.

“Meh, I deal with dumb everyday.” Said Birse with a grin as he slapped towards Skill’s shoulder.

Skill dodged away from him “Go fuck yourself.”

“Annyywayy...” announced Kyle to regain their attention “What’s next Lilior?”

Lilior seemed to think it over for a brief moment while holding her index finger to her chin “Uhh, for someone to die?” she offered.

Everyone turned to look at Skill, “No.” he stated with a fearful expression.

A few minutes of struggling, cursing, biting and inventory rummaging went by. Kyle and Birse held Skill down to the ground as he struggled and shouted gibberish while gagged, Cherry stood over him holding his massive war hammer.

“Don’t worry bro you won’t feel a thing!” said Birse with an amused grin.

“I don’t know boss, my arms are kind of tired. I might slip.” joked Cherry with a knowing smirk.

“MMMFFHHHMMMHHHFGGFF!” Skill’s struggling intensified to no avail as shadows and solidified slime held his body down.

“It’s for the good of the guild Skill, you’ll respawn either way!” Kyle assured him with an awkward smile.

Cherry heaved up his hammer “Well, can’t say where you’ll respawn…” he added before slamming down his hammer over Skill’s head, it burst like cherry being squashed along with the sound of fracturing bone and squishing flesh while blood and brain matter splattered all over the place.

Lilior stood with her hands on the core the entire time inspecting what it did “It detected him, I think it’s wor-”

“I’ll get you for this.” Said Skill as he respawned in a flash of light “I will fucking get you all for this!”.

Cherry laughed whole heartedly as he grabbed Skill in a choke “Yo I told you, you didn’t feel a thing didn’t you? Well not that biting me is gonna get you far anyway!” he continued to laugh while pulling the now literally choking Skill around.

“Well that’s one problem solved.” said Birse with a relieved sigh.

“Anything on the other?” asked Kyle.

Birse shook his head “Nope, they haven’t moved since. They’re all too confused to try anything, I think they’re waiting on that one that got away.”

“Maybe it’s the leader?” asked the other Kyle.

“Maybe.” replied Birse before glancing between the two Kyles in confusion.

Kyle glanced to his side and stared at the other Kyle “Uhhh….”

The other Kyle flashed a green light before turning into Lilior “What?...Why you all staring at me?”

“How’d you…?” Birse wasn’t sure as to what she had just did.

“Was that [Shapeshift]?” Kyle asked.

She shook her head “It was [Copy]”

“How long can you hold that up?” asked Birse.

Lilior thought it over for a few moments before poking Cherry in the arm, her form turned transparent and green like slime for a few seconds before changing. “Five minutes?” said the other Cherry before flashing a green light and turning back into Lilior.

“Was the mana usage the same?” asked Birse “Between Kyll and Cherr that is.”

Lilior nodded “Yeah size don’t matter if that’s what you mean.”

“Do you change immediately after touching the person?” he then asked.

“I have to make a mental note of changing after touching, I don’t know for how long I can hold it though. It’s like the information of what I just touched is stored in my head until I use it or it disappears.” Lilior explained.

Birse’s eyes narrowed as a wicked smile grew on his face “I might just have an idea…”

Carn

A few hours later

Kyle waited at the edge of the forest where he could observe the group of Drakes still waiting around the spawn point, several hundred soldiers both Esfeltian and Dezol sat or lay around anxiously in the middle. He noticed the Drakes roar out so loud that he figured the noise carried all the way to Il’e, as it had been going for the past few hours a quieter roar came answering back from the distance.

“They’re communicating already…you sure this will work?” Kyle asked from his perch high up on a tree’s branch, down below him Birse and Cherry were keeping watch

“It has to, just act cool and collected as usual.” replied Birse.

“You mean act anxious and confused.” corrected Kyle “Else they won’t buy it.”

Suddenly Skill appeared in a flash of movement next to Kyle, he forwarded his hand with a black crystal inside just as Lilior in her smallest size flew up to her perch in between Kyle’s ears.

“That Steph’s crystal?” Kyle asked as he took it in hand.

“Yeah that’s it, she said it will be more effective since she levelled it.” replied Skill.

Kyle stared down at the crystal, it was an illusionary crystal that Steph had used to copy his own illusionary slime and perfected it. “You ready Lilior? Or do you need to go touch that Drake again?” before coming to Carn they had passed by Frosthold where Lilior snuck up on the Drakes and touched a specific one.

“No…No I think I’m good…” she replied anxiously.

“Don’t worry, everything will be fine. We’ve got this.” Kyle reassured her “Let’s move back a few so they see us coming before we change.” He said before turning around and surging away at full speed.

Coming to an abrupt stop he checked his surroundings “This should do.” It was an opening in the trees large enough for what they were about to do. “You change first, I’ll activate this thing as soon as you do.”

Lilior nodded and fluttered off and up high into the air, she closed her eyes to focus for a minute before her form turned to slime. She expanded several thousand times and change to a blob then to a Drake as the colouring set in, the slime then changed and solidified becoming the material it was supposed to be.

“That is seriously terrifying, can you breath fire?” Kyle asked on a whim.

Lilior in her Draconic form shook her head “No I only have some of it’s passive abilities that don’t have to do with a class, can we go? We’re running out of time.”

Kyle nodded and activated the crystal with a pulse of mana, he then stashed it in his pocket as his form changed. A foot and a half taller with Elven features, long brown hair and green eyes. He was also female. “Uhh…I wasn’t made aware of this…” he said pointing at his larger than average breasts.

“The dumb one picked.” Lilior said before scooping him/her up onto her snout.

“Ah…makes sense…” said Kyle as he gripped the scales and awkwardly made his way to the saddle, he saddled up as best as he thought he could as quickly as he could “Alright let’s go.”

Lilior opened her wings knocking aside a tree “Oops..” she flapped them once and ascended up into the sky several hundred meters “This is fun!” she exclaimed while soaring towards their destination.

“I am trying very hard to ignore my illusionary gender right now…” said Kyle.

“At least you’re not physically that, I’m pretty sure this Drake is female though.” Commented Lilior as within a few seconds they made it over the open field, down below them were five Drakes and a large army of mixed soldiers counting their prayers.

“Down we go.” said Lilior quietly as she descended, she circled around the town once before coming to a running stop by the other Drakes.

Kyle studied the expressions of the other riders closely with his [Draconic Perception] and their moods with [Spirit Detection], most were anxious or annoyed but all of them were confused.

“Jaina, I thought we decided to wait for the Colonel to return or send word?” said one of the male riders.

Kyle was thankful that they began speech first making it less difficult, he also thanked the illusion’s capability to change sound along with sight as he spoke making it less awkward “Change of plans, we’ve come by important information.”

“Must be something strange if Shezz cannot relay it over Dragon speech.” Said another rider while gesturing at Lilior.

Kyle nodded “It’s about the creature that…killed us.” He purposely paused for effect.

“Do you know what it was?” asked one of the Drakes.

“No but I know what happened to it, well some of it.” Replied Kyle keeping his sentences short and making sure to only answer questions.

“Well? Report soldier.” Barked out one of the riders that hadn’t spoken yet.

“The creature…after killing…us, it is theorized that it use up much of it’s power. It was seen shrinking in size then knocked around by a few summoned, those summoned then eliminated the creature with the aid of a few Devils.” This was the story Birse had come up with and Kyle was relaying it as well as he could.

“How did you come by this?” asked the seemingly highest ranked rider again.

Kyle turned to face him “We interrogated some summoned that…came back to life a few minutes earlier. They watched the entire thing and were caught in the creature’s crossfire. They tried to run and forced me to chase after them, I still need to report to the other group.”

The officer seemed to consider this for a few moments “This indeed changes things…”

“Do we remain camped Sir? The Colonel might not even know we’re alive.” Asked another female rider.

The officer sighed “We’ll fall back and regroup with Jayce, tell the others I gave the command as second to move out.” He told his Drake as it roared a brief moment later.

Kyle began to panic, he was going to tell them that he’d head back to the other group and report hoping the highest in command was there. He had to improvise now “Sir permission to return to the other group first?”

The officer glanced back at Kyle as his Drake turned readying to fly away “Why?”

“Uh-Um…The adventurers only talked when I took an item from them, it seems very important to one of them so I thought I’d go return it?” Kyle said before clenching his fists on the saddle, he had messed up and said adventurers instead of summoned.

The officer rolled his eyes “Fine but we’re not waiting on you, don’t take long.” He whistled and the group of Drakes stepped away from the soldiers as they all began to stand up in confusion. The Drakes flapped their wings and with incredible power ascended into the sky.

“Let’s go, run towards Frosthold.” said Kyle as Lilior turned and began to awkwardly run towards the forest, the trees being taller than her Drake-form covered her from the sky as the other group of Drakes followed after the rest. Albeit some trees being awkwardly bent by her massive form.

“If you say I’m fat I’m throwing you off.” said Lilior as she fully uprooted one tree.

“I mean, I’m not saying you’re fat but that doesn’t mean you aren’t fat because I didn’t say you are fat so that mak-” Kyle flinched as Lilior suddenly abandoned her form causing him to crash down into the cold snow. He pulled himself out of the white “That, was uncalled for.” he said with snow covering most of his face.

“Not my fault you're too fat to fly master!” Lilior gave him the tongue as she fluttered backwards in her small form.

Frosthold, Town Hall.

Jacky stood to the side with his back to the wall, a great spot for overlooking the entire table where a large meeting was taking place. With the recent events putting the entire population at stake the guild leaders were all called for a meeting with the military’s General Fey Talran, representatives of the churches and the Royal Advisor.

Jacky eyed the representatives at one end of the table, Talia, Shark and a few other adventurers were joined with a single representative from each church. On the other side of the table were General Fey, her officers and Rin Darkness the Royal Advisor to the throne. Along the rest of the table were the guild leaders and their strongest member.

As for Jacky’s current guild, Zaahr and Karnage sat beside each other with the other guild leaders but after much arguing with the other members it was decided they would go with Jacky as the highest level in the group. For dick measuring purposes, of course.

He watched as each side forwarded ideas on how to deal with the empire’s situation, not only the Drakes that kept their soldiers surrounded along with the enemy’s but what might come after.

“The Empire will send an ambassador to speak with us soon, I expect the Riders to remain until then…” said Rin as she stared down at the empty table, a long wooden table made of common oak.

“Then I suggest we let them, let the Empire have these Dezol scum. We can only hope they let us off the hook once we do.” Suggested High priestess Lumin from the church of light and day.

“Times are dire, the enemy is right outside our doorstep and has been blessed with the same as us. The Empire will want to destroy the artefacts that allows this along with the end of the Grand Quest, I agree with Lumin.” Said the representative of the church of fire, an old buff man wearing crimson mage clothing.

With the VCD hidden inside his cloak Jacky watched while the others listened through. The reason for this meeting was to wait, to simply wait and see what the Dragon Riders do. They had already sent messengers to the riders but were completely ignored and shooed away.

“So we side with the Empire and hope for the best? What about us? You believe the Elves will ignore us adventurers?” asked Zeeke with a pale expression, it was all out of his hands now and he did not like that.

Rin looked up and studied the adventurer “I do not know, whether they will ignore you as inhabitants of Barik or not I have no idea. What I do know is that this country…The freedom we have here, it is all fleeting away.”

General Fey suddenly slammed her fist on the table “So this is where it all ends, the Empire just comes in and takes it all away…”

“What would you suggest us to do otherwise?” asked the representative of the church of water, a young woman wearing a light blue cloaked garb “If we side with the Dezol, which would mean ignoring years of war and assault on our allies, we’d simply doom ourselves alongside with them!”

“So we just doom all Elves on this continent along with the summoned?” asked the Guard Captain, Jonathan Rainer “We’re all thinking it, we all know what the Empire will do. The adventurers will be caged up, the Elven ‘Traitors’ hanged or worse. The alliance cannot let this happen, they won’t will they?” he asked while glancing at Rin.

She sighed “It is not my place to say, a meeting between the alliance’s leaders will occur sometime tomorrow then we shall see.”

“So we are just to wait until then?” asked Zaahr with a grimace.

“Yeah let the important people make the important decisions, we’ll definitely come up at the top of their worries.” Added Dherik bitterly.

“If you have something to say then say it, it’s not like we got anything else to do but wait and talk.” said Talia with a chuckle. Dherik snorted but didn’t speak further.

“I dislike this arrangement as well.” said Nakano “Will the alliance even consider us as citizens to be protected? Will the rest of the alliance even aid Esfelt in this?”

“Why not? We’ve helped enough as it is, we even fought those monsters for them.” replied Jax with a shrug “As far as I’m concerned the Dezol can go to hell, I also honestly don’t see the problem with siding with a super power like the Elven Empire.”

Fey sighed “You’re a fool then, unless you are of Elven blood the Empire will barely take note of you.”

“Back to the point though.” began Regina ” Why should you take note of us outsiders? What leaves us protected other than some debt? Would the alliance shelter us from the coming storm if it meant going against the Empire?”

The representative of the church of stone a burly male human with dark skin wearing a black shirt and priest lower clothing, opened his arms wide as he spoke “Oh stop your worrying, we only have to hand over the Demons to the Empire and the rest is history. Why should the Empire care about you summoned? All they have to care about is the artefacts and the quest, if Liliana is defeated then the quest ends and after that we’ll simply give them room to remove the relics that revive us.”

The room went loud as several began to argue with each other whether any of them were safe, whether the Empire would ignore or slaughter them.

Jacky inwardly chuckled at the scene (“They only care about their own hides…Freedom my ass, this country is done for and there is nothing the alliance can do about it. They would never side against the Empire, too puny a force to do so alone and many have their own reservations against the Empire as well. This is just hilarious to watch.”)

The door then suddenly went ajar as a soldier stepped in “General! The Riders are beginning to move Ma’am!”

Fey grimaced and immediately stood up from the table “Why?”

The soldier saluted “We aren’t sure, I came to inform you the moment they took fli-”

Another soldier came to a stop by his associate “The Riders have left the country Ma’am!” he quickly reported.

“Send out the troops! Surround the Dezol forces immediately!” Fey ordered as she marched out of the room, her soldiers dashed away to relay her orders. She remained at the door as she sent several of her officers away with orders.

“Well that’s that it seems, now we have many of the enemy’s forces as prisoners and all we have to do is wait for the Empire’s ambassadors to arrive then offer them to the Empire.” Said Lumin.

Karnage suddenly stood up, her hands clenched she studied the room around her “Why should we?” she asked causing many curious gazes to befall her.

“What do you mean dear? The Demons are the cause of all of this after all.” added the representative of the church of water.

“They are the cause of us being here yes, but why fault them for it? What do we know of their circumstances to do so? What have you told us about them other than racial slurs and one sided history?” Karnage spoke with a loud voice and harsh tone.

None spoke to answer her so she continued to speak herself “My guild’s backing to the military ends here. If you cannot promise us aid against the Empire then why should we offer you protection?”

Fey turned away from ordering her people around and stared at Karnage causing the adventurer to become anxious “Your people are yours to command, the military makes no comment.”

Karnage relieved, nodded in thanks before overlooking the room again “During our assault on the barrier my second in command met face to face with some of these ‘Demons’, not the monsters you all make them out to be but instead a people fighting for their own. They weren’t alone either, the rogue guild that defeated that creature afterwards was with them.”

Karnage smirked “Guild leaders, take your heads out of your asses and start thinking for yourselves. This ‘Rogue’ guild already figured it all out it seems, while we sit here and do nothing. Well I’m done doing nothing, I won’t just stand around while the Empire comes to possibly imprison us all.” She glanced at Zaahr and Jacky then stormed out of the room.

Dherik suddenly stood up “LOST is out as well, if you won’t help us shovel our shit then why should we shovel yours?”

“His statement aside…” spoke Regina “And how those bastards tricked us aside, I agree. PRED is out too until further compromise.”

Both guild leaders and their members strode out of the room. A yelp resounded throughout the room as Nakano elbowed Zeeke in the shoulder “Ah…Um…Eternium remains with the alliance…” it was followed by a glare from Nakano.

Zeeke sighed and spoke again “Can we…end this meeting now? I’m sure we all have a lot to discuss with our respective groups.”

---

Karnage stormed out of the town hall followed by Jacky and Zaahr then towards the rest of her officers that had been waiting outside “Silent gather everyone, we need a guild wide vote.”

“What are you planning to do?” asked Zaahr with a worried expression.

Karnage eyed Dherik and Regina as they approached them “Tell you later.” she told her as they all turned towards the other two guild leaders and their officers.

“So what’s the plan?” asked Regina.

“Hm? What plan?” asked Karnage with a raised brow.

Dherik rolled his eyes in annoyance “Whatever, we’re in. I’m done risking my hide for these spineless idiots and my people are with me.”

Karnage glanced between them “Then ask your people to consider this.” She stepped close and whispered something into their ears, too quiet for Jacky to hear.

Regina’s eyes went wide but Dherik smirked wickedly and said “Yeah…we’ll consider.”

“I-Ah…I’ll have to…speak with the others first…Personally? I’m in though.” replied Regina.

“I’ll ask my members the same, we’ll gather with who remains later then?” Karnage asked them.

“Where to and what time?” asked Dherik still grinning.

“Send a messenger with your remaining numbers to the tavern we’re taking up, I’ll send them back with where and when.” responded Karnage as she turned and walked away with her guild following behind her.

(“Looks like things are beginning to get interesting…”) Jacky mused as he glanced back at the others.