Skill: [Scan]

Designation: Telepsychic Type

It is perhaps one of the most versatile surveillance skills because it detects each and every entity in its radius, alive, dead, undead or inanimate. It is exceedingly rare but speculations suggest that it is a high tier skill on account of its taxing requirements. Most individuals who are documented to have had the skill can only use it for short periods of time, unfortunate perhaps which compromises its skill. Prolonged use can cause a phenomenon known as brain bleed. However, it does have lower tier and less demanding alternatives like [Sense Life] which does not tax the user’s psyche as much. -World Compendium of Skills , The Order of Vesper, Church of Thea.

The two of them stumbled into the stripped down lab to find Elena and a flustered Nevine frantically moving the rest of the things into the Stormbreaker. There was a ramp extending from the stern of the craft to the lab’s floor, supported all around by scaffolding.

“Wow!” Arcis squealed, seeing the almost complete craft for the first time. She skipped towards the vessel in excitement, “Is that really the Stormbreaker?!” the lab shook again. The Stormbreaker’s berth groaned, ceiling plaster fell into the floor. Nevine yelped.

“Help me!” Elena called out, lugging the chest of books. Nevine barely spared a glance to the entrants, instead he seemed to be watching his shadows as if something would come out and drag him into them. The synth and dhampir ran to her.

“ Whatcha need?” Arcis chimed. The sylvani flinched away from the girl before she looked towards her companion struggling under the weight of the chest. “There are some chests in the lift, we have to get them into the aership.”

“But how are we supposed to leave?” Nevine asked incredulously, surely we’re not thinking of flying out through the shaft are we? The aership can barely fit in there.” His tone was one of equal parts doubt and wonder.

“Leave that to me,” Arcis said confidently. “ Auntie Nora, port them inside, I’ll take care of our luggage and exit,” Nora gave the girl a one arched brow but she did not question her. There was already too much at stake to hesitate; for one, the underground lab was coming apart around them.

Nora ported Elena and then Nevine to both onto the ship’s main deck. Then she came back for Arcis. The synth girl looked around at the things inside the main deck. It was full of the possessions they’d brought from the house—things that they could bring with them without having to skimp on spacing.

And still there was stuff that needed to be brought in from outside, she felt for the connection between the tellusphere and the golems and reanimated them. The golems outside the aership jerked with a start and immediately went to do her bidding. Autonomously, they carried the things in the lift even as it groaned under their weight, threatening to go careening down the shaft.

That being taken care of, she spared a thought for the view of the main deck that housed the main living compartments. There was a circular recess into the floor before seats arrayed around it. There were no cushions yet. On the same deck level was another table with several bolted down seats.

That was the living area. Sleeping quarters were underneath the forward section where a closed door recessed into the wall. The starboard side had several doors too, one was a half waist counter door that offered a peek into the ship’s galley. She could see the closed cabinets, and loose items strapped down on the counter.

She could see the cooling unit, closed off by a ceramic white marble oak door like a cabinet against the wall as well as the omni cooker spread out and attached to the countertop. She saw one door labeled Ready Room and smiled to herself.

On the aft side was another door she itched to explore. She’d seen the aership's blueprints and covertly made a few alterations through the golems according to her memories, but seeing it with her own eyes was a different thing altogether. The ship rocked ominously rousing her from her musings.

“I think we need to leave!” Elena said. “This place might just collapse on top of us.”

“Is the Q-Engine onboard?” Arcis said meeting sylvani woman’s eyes.

“The tellusphere. Yes…why?”

“We’re going under. Get ready to start the ship.”

“Wha—,” Elena mouthed in a fluster. “I haven’t learnt to helm this aership. I’ve only tested the engines.”

“ We’re gonna die,” Nevine mumbled to himself as he went white as a wraith.

“Aargh,” Arcis mussed her hair in frustration. “Papa was supposed to be here for this but he’s out there fighting. Do you at least know how to start it?”

“Uhm—”

“Girls, we need to hurry,” said Nora, porting in with the last of their things. A slight jostle indicated that the golems had come up with the rest of the cargo. “The storm might ground us here.”

“Right; Elena—”

“Let’s go—” Elena replied. The quartet went to the bridge deck, through ladder stairs and a hatch. They emerged into the traveling compartment which had seats arrayed against the bulkheads with a wide aisle between them.

Passenger seats were folded flush with the deck’s walls. It opened up more space for cargo to be tied down using ropes to retractable hooks on the deck. The seats were unfortunately bare except for harnesses and some couch cushions. Overall, the bridge deck was made up of the cockpit at the fore and passenger compartment in the aft.

Arcis did not spare a glance for them as she ran to the door opening to the outside where the two golems stood with luggage at their feet. She prompted them to push the tarp covered crates towards the double sliding doors whereupon Elena and Nevine worked to tie them down. Both of them stared waringly at the golems which were missing a part of their chests, unbelieving that someone controlled them so blatantly.

“I thought we’d have glass windows all over…happened?” Arcis remarked on seeing the barricaded window screens. The ship trembled again, sending the youngster floundering against the bulkheads.

“Diamond glass was too hard to find. It hasn’t reached this far out yet.” Nora supplied walking past to look at the view outside. The Lux crystals were flickering.

“Oh…” Arcis replied, sparing a moment to send the golems off the aership. They had one more task to do. The party moved into the cockpit side after ascertaining that everything was secured. There, Elena got into the pilot’s seat.

“Well?” Arcis said over her shoulder.

“Give me a moment,” the sylvani replied, looking at the instrument panel in trepidation. She released a breath, then tucked a stray braid behind her ear as she looked at the rest as if asking for their approval . Nevine was there too, wringing his hands nervously. Nora noticed this and called out to the boy,

“ Nevine, relax. You have my word that Umbra won’t suddenly carry you off into the shadows, “.

“ Yo—you…I saw you using the same skill. Who, what are you people?” the boy said weakly, as if fearing the revelation. “ Is Elena one of you too?”

“ Listen to her Nevine, where not Black Mimic spiders who’ll eat you up,” Elena chuckled mirthlessly. Arcis could see that the woman too, was trying to get rid of her hesitation; and amusement seemed to be just what she needed because she resolved herself. A determined look crossed her face.

Elena retrieved the miniature dagger-key from her neck and slotted it in. Then she infused it with her mana. Various runes on the instrument panel lit up akin to dash lights; the thaumometer needle swiveled from zero to a couple hundred thaums of mana before settling back in the middle.

As expected, the Stormbreaker’s Mark Three engine whirred, vibrations rumbling through the airframe momentarily before the isolators dampened them. Arcis could barely contain her elation as her fingers dug into the headrest. Meanwhile Elena's lower lip was quivering with anticipation; she tried to bite back the anxiety of having to move the craft.

Laying her hands on the yoke steering wheel, she exhaled to calm her nerves as she released the tension from her shoulders. The rumbling of the Stormbreaker was like a massage chair beneath her palms.

Just as they were enjoying their elation, Umbra who’d been calm all the while bristled and yowled in alarm as she materialized in the cockpit. Nevine also shrieked from the sudden entrance and scuttled as far as he could from the grimalkin. But the occupants of the Stormbreaker did not find that comical as the lab heaved even more.

A berthing strut snapped beneath the ship and it started listing to the side; a rock fell from the lab’s ceiling thunking on the hull outside before it rolled off and crashed onto the floor below.

Dust shook from the lab ceiling while the lighting fizzled out and plunged the ship into darkness. Elena panicked; she depressed the pedals, opening the ventral thruster nozzles and slammed the throttle.

The gauge needle went from rest to the right instantaneously followed by a sudden expulsion of thrust. Nora, Arcis and Nevine stumbled and caught themselves from the inertial change as the Stormbreaker left the berthing struts and corrected itself by hovering.

“We need to get out, now!” Nora declared wide-eyed as ambient lighting of the Lux crystals inside the cockpit lit up.

“My turn then,” Arcis’ countenance changed. Vein-like circuit traces lit up from beneath her skin, bathing the cockpit in reddish copper, the color of dusk. She felt for the tether connecting her to the tellusphere, feeling the conduits beneath her feet and those that ran throughout the body of the aership to the foremost part of the Stormbreaker.

Her vocal inflection echoed as she intonated the skill, “[Gestalt]” flaring her veins as well as her eyes brighter. In the engine deck below, the tellusphere lit up in response and levitated above its containment case.

“On my mark Elena, we’re going down the lift shaft. The river should be below us,” she said in her ethereal voice. Elena nodded, grasping the yoke steering hard enough her knuckles were pale. She touched the rune that flicked on the lights on the bow dispelling the darkness which revealed fallen debris beyond the hull.

“[Matter Transmutation]” Arcis chanted. The floor beneath the berthing struts started sloughing as it turned into mud. Elena pushed the aership, disbelievingly even as a glow lit up the bow of the ship. Slowly, the aership inched towards the lift doors. They were wide open, but the opening could barely accommodate its girth.

However, even as they watched, the same thing happening to the floor beneath the Stormbreaker happened to the aperture that was way too small to serve as an exit. Before they even reached it, the floor seemed to sink in on itself, and fell in a giant sinkhole to reveal a yawning breach. Elena barely hesitated as she easing the throttle forward before her nervous excitement could run out. The Stormbreaker started descending into the inky blackness.

Outside the lone windscreen, the party watched with fascination as they descended into a subterranean world lit by nothing but neon green moss and purple spotted mushrooms. There were also bracketed ferns and animated cave anemones waving their appendages to trap unsuspecting insects before suddenly drawing in on themselves like mimosa plants. Rock turned putty dripped down, parting to the sides as well as under the hull as if the ship was effectively bending reality.

Then they saw the cause of all the humidity in the lift shaft, as the ship continued its descent; an underground waterfall splashed onto the bow, misting onto the windscreen in a spray of water. The two beams of Lux illumination made wobbly halos through the spray , as faint rainbows were thrown against algae colonized shaft walls. Above, the rocks turned back to what they were—cold hard and impenetrable earth.

Casions turned to par’quarts as they followed the waterfall into the deep. Anxiety was high as they waited with bated breaths for the shaft to come to an end. And it did.

The Stormbreaker did finally come out into the cavern of a large subterranean river. The sounds of water sloshing and gurgling were heard above the din of the Mark Three’s whirs; musty scent of mildew pervaded the cockpit as everyone finally released exhalations of relief.

“ We’re here,” Arcis said with finality as she let the skill drop. Her eyes returned to their cerulean blues as the trace veins disappeared from her arms. Heat wafted off her skin from drawing on the tellusphere for so long. She looked as if she’d gotten a bad case of the tan.

“Phew!” she slumped onto the floor, smiling and uncaring for the other people’s expressions of pure, unadulterated shock. Arcis almost thought she heard Nevine murmur the word monster.

“We’re free, let’s go pick up Pa.” she chirped.

“Oh…oh yea,” Elena muttered hands still on the steering as her eyes flitted from the windscreen to the instrument panel

“You don’t know how to fly this thing do you?” Nora asked.

“I told you! I only tested it.”

Arcis huffed and bit her lip. ‘Mmh, If you can build it, you can fly it’

“Let me,” Arcis said, picking herself up from the floor.

“What?!” both Elena and Nevine shrieked.

“Trust me; I think I know how Pa would’ve flown it.”

“Eh…right.” Elena said skeptically as she ceded the seat to Arcis.

Arcis sat herself down in the pilot’s seat—the same seat that Arthur found himself on when he awoke on Eryth. She grasped at the leather padded steering, grumbled that she had to stretch her toes to reach the pedals and eyed the mist outside the aership; there was another more tunnel and river in that direction—they just had to follow where the river flowed, opposite to the ship's bow.

She swiveled the steering to the right as if she’d done it before. The right ailerons raised while the left lowered, banking the Stormbreaker to the right as she attempted to make a turn. If Arcis could sweat, she’d be sweating now.

The lights on the bow went from illuminating the faraway gloom to glaring at a wall as the vessel turned. The other standing occupants held onto the sides of the seat as they watched on anxiously. Finally, the Stormbreaker had come about.

“Let’s go get pa,” Arcis chuckled nervously as she gingerly pushed the throttle. The thaumometer swiveled further to the right. She eased the pedal on the ventral nozzles, and all power suddenly went to the main nozzle—the Stormbreaker lurched forward, slamming her into the seat as the other occupants behind her and the grimalkin cried out in surprise. The aership barreled into the darkness.

There was no calm before the storm. It was as if the heavens had broken. Deluge came down heavy, battering the defenders on the walls. Many shrugged it off, some with the magical aptitudes put up shields. But the fight never stopped. Nonetheless, it was to their advantage that the terrain slowed the monsters more than most.

As Arthur was watching beneath a shield spell of his own, a [Relay Mage], presumably incharge of communications shouted “ Contact!” whilst pointing to the eastward skies. It was hard to miss, even with the curtain of rain against a gray backdrop.

There were small silhouettes, with tenebrous clouds behind them. Lightning flashed a spectrum of colors that shouldn't have been possible, there was purple and green alongside the normal amber, blue and white.

Orhill let it be known with a grave tone in his voice that the main storm, the mana storm was within eyeshot.

“ Archers! Mages! Follow the guild master’s command,” the guard sergeant bellowed above the din of pattering rain. A look was shared between Grizzlythorn and Orhill.

Orhill could be the de facto commander of the long-range contingent. Rain-soaked archers in hoods and mages turned about, resolved to face another onslaught. Even though no one claimed the freshness of daisies, you could see it in their eyes.

“ Frontliners—” The sergeant turned around to face the remainder of the fighters. These ones, excepting javelin throwers, had barely seen combat. Save for cutting down any dusk hund that was lucky enough to shadow step onto the crenellations, they’d almost done nothing. And they were raring to go.

“ Rally to me! We send the stragglers to the Pits!” The ring of metal followed his declaration as he drew a maul that was most definitely not a reworked ship anchor.The thing was seemingly drawn out of thin air, but on closer examination with his magical perception, Arthur felt the flavor of locus mana surrounding the weapon. A pulse of [Appraisal] tagged the maul as G’zeintenbrecher, while his dwarven still needed some brushing up, he could infer its meaning well enough. The space seemed to warp around the maul head as if it could break reality itself .

Melee combatants shouted a raucous warcry of their own as the sergeant captain cut an imposing finger of a norse war god against flashing lightning even as he stood, one foot against the embrasure. He hoisted the maul on his shoulder—and jumped. Like lemmings, the rest of the melee fighters were right behind him disregarding the drop to the ground.

Even the guards, it seemed, had experience fighting monsters. They had to, they did live with a dungeon next door. Arthur almost moved to see what had become of the man and those following after him but the shout of [Feather Fall] from mages told him what he needed to know.

“ Ah, guild master, aren’t we being a bit overeager, we still have an unknown monster you know?” Arthur inquired as he refreshed his [Wind Shield. He blinked away the rain that had been blown into his face.

“ We can only worry about what’s in front of us lad,” Orhill said as he looked on. There was a pause as the mass of fighters with Grizzlythorn at the head charged towards monsters who looked harried and wounded.

The smaller monsters had taken the brunt of spells and the walls' defensive wards and were barely worth considering as they were mowed into and laid about, brutally.

“ I think it's time for you to go,” Orhill turned to Arthur again. The tone of his voice was faraway, as if speaking to someone else. It was devoid of emotion; suddenly it wasn't a familiar dragonkin but a weary old man who had seen too much.

“How did you—” Arthur started, feeling as if he'd already been seen through.

“Haha,” Orhill snorted. “I was a young lad who ran from the Drkahryggur Imperium once; I can see the determination burn behind your eyes. The rebellious spirit to stand against those who purport to be above you,” he sighed tiredly. Arthur was still stuck on the word Drkahryggur that sounded too guttural to pronounce.

He’d always assumed that Orhill came from around , having been a native of Aldmoor but now that he thought about it, he’d never seen another dragonkin; he’d never thought to ask. And it dawned on him that there were far more new places than Arthur could know. Unaware of the youth’s mullings, Orhill continued,

“ You don't like being chained, and most of all, not by a town like Aldmoor. That man Phylandir will cause more trouble for you if you don't. He has a say with the Guard and the Guild cannot move for your sake, unless you claim your identity as Red the adventurer.”

Arthur almost feared that they'd be heard, but he suddenly realized that the sounds around them had been muted. Almost as if—

‘We're in a privacy ward…’

“I figured now would've been the most opportune time to leave if, you wanted to...so g—”

The rest of the words were drowned out by a wave of primal fury which washed over the people on the battlements. The lower rankers toppled to the ground while Steel ranks and above gritted their teeth as they faced the direction of the dungeon.

The earth quaked, vibrations rocking the battlements so hard the town walls groaned. Far off into the tree line where the tracks disappeared into the forest towards Aldmoor’s dungeon, the second horde of monsters ran out of the forest.

The monsters were frenzied, some were slobbering at the mouth in fear as if they’d gone rabid. The fighters on the ground came up short. Grizzlythorn issued a command of quick retreat , breaking the transfixed fighters out of their stupor. People were actually stunned to immobility down there, like a game's area of effect attack.

“It’s here,” Arthur muttered to himself, as he grit his teeth , just managing to shrug off the feeling of lucid paralysis. Instincts were screaming at him to book it out of there; far away from the town as fast as he could but he was waiting on a response from Arcis. Maybe something had gone wrong on the other side; he shuddered to think things had gone sideways.

“Frenzy!” the guild master bellowed. “Don’t let them get around the town!” All long range defenders picked themselves up and got ready to engage the incoming horde. Another quake shook the walls and made more people stumble. Faraway, the onlookers saw trees go flying up the sky, followed by rocks and masonry.

“Is that the dungeon?!” someone shouted.

“Vesper’s Pits!”

“Aeris Breath.”

“By the depths!”

“Thea preserve us!”

People cursed.

Then a monstrosity the likes of which Arthur had never seen erupted from the tree canopy. It wriggled towards the sky, screeching an ear-grating challenge against the cloudcast heavens; It sounded like nails on chalkboard.

A massive displacement of air followed the inhuman sound assailing the walls. Arthur felt like his eardrums were about to burst and then like cathartic release, the sound cut out. Arthur stumbled, vision swimming as vertigo affected all and sundry.

Another tremor announced the monster's thunderous fall onto the ground. Arthur drew himself up and stumbled towards the merlons. The frontliners who’d gone off to fight the monsters away from below the walls were drunkenly dragging themselves towards the refuge of the town.

That the second wave of monsters running out of the forest before the gargantuan thing might have saved them for they suddenly seemed to go berserk and start attacking one another.

But, Arthur didn't have eyes for that. The thing that took up all his attention was all he needed to see. Tall as a single storied building; it was hard to believe that such a creature existed.

Yet, there it was, wriggling motion conveying it across the ground. Trees parted to either side of it as it carved a scar on the landscape. Spiracles opened and closed spewing black spray into the air like a burst crude oil pipe. Its entire body was a mass of rippling chitin-like scales that were so black they shone. Jagged spikes surrounded its circular lamprey-like maw —which had turned towards the town.

Even eyeless, it managed to strike fear into the hearts of many; some guards and adventurers faltered in the gaze of such a thing. Some let their weapons clatter against the ground in despair, who could blame them? It looked like something that had escaped from the Pits.

“ Deep Wurm!” someone screamed and the hell broke loose.

‘Well…Feck!’ Arthur cursed.

Down the battlements, people run out of their houses with no regard that there were monsters heading towards the town. A fear far superseding that of being picked at by storm wyverns who had made their approach overtook the towners as alarm bells from the Church building and the town gate rang.

The defenders of the eastern wall were luckily far enough that they’d managed to cull some of the weyr. Still, the carnage that would be wrought on the people would be something that would dye the streets crimson.

It seemed that a confluence of unfortunate events was going to take place on such a stormy day. Arthur thought it couldn’t get worse but oh, it did. Once more, the gargantuan creature of the deep spewed a spray of black into the air, almost as if deflating, then its maw opened wide.

Arthur was almost prepared for another stunning sound attack but what came out instead, was projectiles regurgitated at the instant it took to blink. Missiles as big as a brick shithouse rained from the skies with the fury of a cretaceous extraterrestrial bombardment.

Earthen spikes came sailing over the crenels and Arthur didn't need to be told twice to hit the battlements. Some clipped the wall, cratering upon the battlements like crater rounds; others took apart the unwarded tower taking with them the archers who had failed to get out in time. Even as dust temporarily pervaded the air before the rain washed it down, the smell of iron and pained cries was not hard to miss.

In the onslaught, time lost all meaning as Arthur gazed around, detached but no less shaken. His hands were still trembling as his heart hammered in his chest for a near-death encounter. [Eye of the Storm] seemed to have reached the limits of whatever mental augmentation it provided. Arthur swallowed thickly as he got up from the brickwork floor, he felt at his side where bruising from starting to form before [Regeneration] worked to dull the smarting to a distant throb.

He observed with no less horror that the bulk would have gone strafing over the town on hapless evacuees if Orhill hadn't put up the biggest barrier he’d ever seen. A shimmering teal construct of mandalas spun in the air, twisting and turning as they locked into corporeality. [Extended Aegis of the Slyph Queen]!” Orhill grunted, hands raised skyward as if holding the weight of firmament itself. Arthur reviewed his own assessment of situational awareness, were it not for his skill, he would have been a stain on the town walls by then.

What would have been a meteoroid shower was promptly redirected onto the monsters below the walls, narrowly missing the cohort that had gone with Grizzlythorn, but they were well beyond its range. Some of them had already been done in by the initial barrage however.

Arthur cast his eyes towards the deep wurm. There was a slight bitterness tingling in his throat, not nausea but a manifestation of indignance that shook his core and threatened to rip out of him. There he stood as his own pride, the pride hardwired into his draconic bloodline traits shored up upright and stamped down his fear. As he watched, the deep wurm was gearing for another attack. Time was running out and the Psiphone had yet to chime.

‘They’re went too deep underground,’ Arthur cursed, remembering the limitations of telepsychic communication spells. A telephysic link can do jack even against rock so it seemed, after all, it worked on the same principles as scrying and other eavesdropping magics. He was truly at wits end.

‘Should I take out my hoverboard and make a break for it?’ He thought as he met Orhill’s eyes. It seemed even for the dragonkin, the barrier spell had taken a toll on him. Suddenly Orhill’s eyes moved to the space behind his shoulder. Arthur’s eyes went wide.

“ Move boy!” Orhill bellowed as Danger Sense screamed. Arthur did a dive roll, instinctively, the reflex coming to him as honed from his training. Metal bit into the space he’d been a breath before with a jarring ring throwing detritus and sparks against his back, but thanks to his resilient cloak he wasn't injured.

Arthur came to a stop, hastily clambering to a crouch dagger drawn to face his attacker and realized to his shock it was the guard sergeant. From the corner of his eye, Arthur caught the last of midnight -blue wisps as the maul disintegrated only to reappear on the burly man’s hands. His eyes were bloodshot with smoldering fury; at what Arthur didnt know.

“ You!” He growled. “ I knew there was something more to you. All those strange happenings around you,” he said, jumping down from the merlon with a thump. He began advancing on the youth, as he drew himself up, shoring up his intimidation skill. Arthur flinched, but his aura protected him from it.

“ You are more powerful than you seem boy,” a bloodthirsty grin split his mud and ichor marred face.

“ Grizzlythorn! Leave the boy alone!,” the guild master yelled indignantly. However the guildmaster still could not intervene unless he dispelled the barrier spell which had already cost him much to put up. Not with another barrage of meteoroids on the way.

Some of the adventurers and guards who had remained on the battlement were suddenly at a loss as they wavered with their weapons.

“ You stay out of this Orhill; he did this to my town. I’d rather test his mettle and see if he’s even worthy of disposal by Larissa.” so saying, the man charged him, maul trailing sparks on the battlements.

He picked up speed looking to punt the younger man off the wall. The screeches of wyverns and cries of the townspeople were an overture to the altercation. Arthur automatically entered a state of battle readiness, [Eye of the Storm] was already there. He had no hesitation responding to an unprovoked attack.

“[Air Cannon]!” the spell matrix snapped into place, releasing in the same instant like an air rifle. He aimed to take out the man’s leg. But the man was experienced and seemed to anticipate it, he jumped, throwing his maul mid-lunge.

Arthur saw the maul spinning center mass as it came for his head. He didn't even want to chance a deflection, instead he propelled himself with a burst of the earlier spell, whose recoil promptly put him out of harm’s way.

“ Grizzlythorn!” Orhill shouted. “ Listen to me! The boy had a good reason…”

“ What reason could he possibly have for putting my fair town in danger?!” the man rebutted. Maul materialized in his hands ready for another throw.

The gouge and cracks left on the battlements were enough warning to tell Arthur what would happen if Grizzlythorn landed his mark. “ What do you have to say for yourself huh?!”

Arthur was already analyzing his avenues of escape. The Psiphone was still dead, not even the thrum of mana indicating an incoming hail on a spotty connection.

“ This is all a big misunderstanding,” Arthur calmly said as he drew himself up to his full height. “ Don't make me use lethal spells guard sergeant.” he grunted with exertion as sparks danced around his off hand. He had a [Thunder Bolt] spell matrix ready to but the rawness of his mana veins from earlier engagement almost made him wince. Arthur still felt sore in his calves from standing and his biceps too burned from repeatedly aiming at the monster hordes down below. He however bit his lips and drew up whatever dregs of endurance he had left as he met the guard sergeant’s eyes squarely.

“ Huh! Misunderstanding he says,” Grizzlthorn guffawed mirthlessly. “ Look at him, a [Mage] with a wicked dagger. Are you sure you're not an [Sabotage Assassin]?” Another barrage flew over the walls. The man was unperturbed even as the sounds of rocks meeting barrier rang out like the booming of thunder. The defenders on the walls shifted uneasily.

When his manic laughter died out, his bushy eyebrows narrowed, “ I’ll show you a misunderstanding,” he said hefting his maul again

‘I tried,’ Arthur sighed. The youth didn't even find it weird that the entirety of his mind was devoted to combat. It was crisp and clear , reading his attackers’ movements and tells. The subtle shifts of his shoulders ,the rippling of his triceps on his throwing arm and the gaze of his eyes.

The guard sergeant yelled as he went for another attack, Arthur pushed off the battlement’s floor. First rule of countering foes with throwing weapons was to get within their guard.

They closed the distance—suddenly, someone or something broke through Orhill’s barrier spell and crashed into their midst. The impact made both men lose their footing as they jumped back but Arthur arrested his fall with a crouch.

“ Well, well well.” the thing,—no, the person who’d fallen from the gods knew where spoke. His accent, already thick, seemed to come from his barrel of a chest as a full-toned bass.

He stood up from his super-hero-esque pose to his full height; he barely came up to 5 foot 4. He almost seemed as wide as he was tall. He would have been such a spectacle were Arthur not cognizant of what he was—a dwarf.

Bushy eyebrows hid his eyes from them, but their crinkle showed that he was questioning the encounter. His beard, and mustache were black with streaks of silver quivered as he spoke again, in a quasi cockney-german accent.

“ I got a [Message] from one o' ye about wyvern intervention 'n wha' do I meet? A bunch o' sods fightin' even as the wrath o' the deep be visited on thar town. I prefer if we get paid afore ye go at each other's throats,”

“Dasnoir the Blackbeard,” Orhill grunted. Sharing a look with Arthur; the message there was unspoken. If he did not get out of that now, the situation would only go downhill from there.

“ Aye ye ole dragonborn, that’s me,” Dasnoir stroked his beard. “ Ne'er thought I’d becomin' t' see a deep wurm here off all places. Salvage rights 'n we waive the fee,”

“ There won't be a fee if there’s no town left to save,” Grizzlythorn scoffed.

“ Aye, calm ye bellows,” the dwarf grunted. Putting his hands behind his back. He seemed to almost squint at Arthur’s dagger, no doubt using[ Appraisal] on it before he did the same with Grizzlythorn’s maul.

“ Ah, maybe I'll take yer artifacts from yer cold corpses then,” the dwarf turned around indifferently, his hands behind his back. Arthur saw that he was wearing form fitting scalemail armor. A tool belt was tied at his waist while his left had a leather glove, the other had a gauntlet.

His boots had steel toe caps and studded steel soles which rang against the wet battlements as he walked to the crenels. On his bald head, devoid of hair, was a pair of aviator goggles eerily similar to the ones Arthur used; only they looked like a more advanced iteration.

“ Watch your mouth dwarf!,” Grizzlythorn grunted as he shifted his stance to observe the new entrant. In between, his gaze seemed to bear down on Arthur. Arthur did not come out of battle readiness.

“ Mmh, ten casions…”he seemed to murmur to himself as he looked from the walls. Rain seemed to sizzle and steam wafted off his scalemail armor . Arthur caught sight of a bracer with a lava lamp glow on his left hand. It was a horologyre.

‘ So that’s what Volemhir said about new horologyres’

“ Aye, best be getting me boys here then,” he grinned. He tapped his temple twice.

“ [Message]! We got a deep whelps!—bounty’s all or naught,”