“You’re sure it was the Stygian Order that gave them info?” the Marshall asked as he walked along beside me.

The remaining dwarves had fled after their King had fallen. I was hobbling along through the outer portion of Houston, healing any injured I came across, and there were many. The dwarves had been indiscriminate in their slaughter. I watched dead bodies being carried to trailers to be hauled off for burial.

I felt bad that the scene didn’t affect me all that much. It wasn’t even in the top five most fucked up things I had experienced since the system came about.

“Unless you told someone, only Martin, Fiona, and Ska knew what happened to that dwarven stronghold.”

The Marshall stopped me with a firm hand on my arm. “That isn’t good, it sounds like they have it out for you and maybe even your friends. And what if the dwarves come back?”

“They won’t,” I replied tiredly.

“And how can you be sure of that?”

“Because… I’m going to hunt them down.”

“…Paul, the Mayor is going to have to be told why they attacked.”

I shrugged, “so tell him, not like it's going to change anything.”

“He is going to recommend you be arrested, or worse…”

I knew exactly what the Marshall left unsaid. I pulled out the badge the Marshall had given me so many months ago and set it in his hand.

“Do me a favor and give me a few days?”

“I will do my best… what about the others?” the Marshall inquired.

“Leave them out of this. The information we recovered only mentioned me.”

The man nodded, taking his hand off my arm. “You have only been good for the community, I will buy you the time you need to leave.”

“Oh one last thing, see that nobody hassles my employees because of this. I expect that pecker from the gated community will use this as an excuse to try and claim the other barge when it returns.”

“It might be best if you keep them from returning here at all. I know they have been pushing the Mayor hard and they still have powerful connections within the city.”

“Fine… I will try to intercept their route before they return. Thanks again, Marshall.”

The man gave one final nod before walking off. I turned and made my way back out of the city. I didn’t have a ton of time to prepare and get moving. First I had to see if I could get the fortress flying. It was still on its side in the crater.

***

Gaben Hewitt barged into the office of Edward Rosewill. “Are you mad! You said the only people that would be affected were that upstart by the dock and his friends.”

“Calm down, Gaben, have a seat.”

Gaben always did have a short temper but he took the seat as offered. The attack wasn’t a complete success but Edward had a fallback plan. Some people spouted nonsense about planning for failure but it was just a prudent choice.

“How could I have expected the dwarves to go this far for revenge?” Edward asked.

“What if someone finds out what we did?”

“I don’t see how that could happen. The only people that know about our involvement are you, me, and that dwarf I gave the information to. I doubt he is going to spill his guts to the city, so unless you are, I think we will be fine. Besides, the Mayor will learn about all of this soon enough and our problems will take care of themselves.”

The dwarf in question had already been dealt with.

“How can you be so certain?”

Edward smiled before an axe appeared in his hand an instant before he plunged it into Gaben’s skull. The surprised man jerked spasmodically before slumping over dead. Edward stood and trashed the room, screaming as he threw two dwarven bodies from his ring.

“That’s how,” he replied coldly, “Guards!”

He had stationed the guards farther down the hall, giving him time. Before the guards entered, he carved a few cuts in his skin and clothing. He heard the rush of footsteps moments before his men burst into the room. It looked like a tornado of violence had occurred and three bodies lay sprawled across the room with Edward heaving for breath.

“They were invisible, one of you stay here, the others get the rest of the guards and scan the property.”

Both nodded and rushed to do his bidding. Edward had already placed incriminating evidence into one of the dwarven corpse's pockets. He didn’t know or care if these dwarves were from the same clan as the ones who attacked. Nobody would look closely at a few more corpses. What they would look closely at is him if he were the only person in the gated community that was attacked.

Thankfully, Gaben had more money than sense. Edward had used the remaining money the man had given him to hire a few contractors to make it look like the dwarves had attacked here as well. Nobody within the gated community was over level ten, besides a few of the guards. So they would never catch the killers before they snuck in, killed their targets, and snuck back out.

An hour later Edward heard the pounding of footsteps approach again.

“We were unable to locate any more attackers, but we have more reports that other homes were attacked. We need to get you to safety, sir.”

Edward nodded, “Secure the bodies and contact the Marshall.”

Edward followed as he was led to his panic room. It had been upgraded since the system and now sported enchantments. The guard that he left behind was chosen for a specific reason. He had a wife and young child in Houston. When he found the evidence, he was more likely to head straight for his family to see if they were ok. If the information spreads, so much the better.

Edward let a small smile cross his face. He hadn’t gotten to be a billionaire without being ruthless. Gaben should have stayed at home to die quietly but it worked out better this way. He wouldn’t stop until that fucking cat lost everything that mattered to him, just like he had taken everything that mattered from him.

***

I stared at the open crater and wondered how the fuck I was going to get inside the fortress. The door was facing down and was buried in the rubble. It was probably what stopped it from rolling on top of me. I was thankful that I hadn’t activated the defenses. It would be impossible to shut them off without access to the door. Something I would have to adjust in the future.

I winced as a phantom pain ran through my regrowing leg. I knew this was going to take some time. Before I jumped into the hole I used Reaper to scan for the dwarves. My near-eidetic memory allowed me to recall all of the faces I had seen in the pit. What I couldn’t recall was who had died and who was still alive, so it took a few tries before my title pinged a response. I turned my head toward the Northeast.

They were on the move but it appeared slow going for the dwarves that had attacked. I could sense that they were still underground and not too far outside of town. I continued pinging and learned that all of the survivors from my attack were within a hundred yards of each other. I wouldn’t go after them just yet. With my healing leg, I was more likely to die if I confronted the group.

I jumped into the pit and spread my wings, gliding over to the fortress. I landed near it and stumbled in the loose debris. I walked around inspecting the thing for damage, avoiding the dark stain that had been my long-time mount, Bella. It still made me boil with anger as I saw the stain again. I took a deep breath and got back to work.

The fortress had weathered the fall pretty well. Other than a few scraps from sliding on the debris it was intact. That was good, if it had been too badly damaged I would have to leave it. Repairing it would take too long. The only major damage was one of the landing struts. It had snapped off in the fall. I could fix that later.

I walked to the top of the fortress. The runes on top were for structural support and I could afford to mess those up without damaging the fortress's ability to fly. I started molding the compressed stone away from a section until it was large enough for me to crawl through. It seems the new opening led to Ska’s room. Everything was thrown about but I was thankful that Ska didn’t have much. He had a sleeping mat, some souvenirs of his hunts and that was about it.

The door was on the ceiling and I had to leap up and hang from one of the walls opening as I wrenched the door open. I was glad I designed them to open inward. I swung myself out through the doorway and onto the hallway wall. The hallway was less cluttered but the lights had all detached in the fall and lay broken on the floor. Moving through the mess with one good leg was not easy and I fell more than once, slicing myself on some sharp glass.

It took another twenty minutes for me to get to the command room. I had to climb the hallway as the space was too small to deploy my wings. I made a note to add rungs to the wall in case something like this happened in the future.

Getting to the command chair wasn’t really an option. The chair had been torn free by the impact and lay crushed against the wall of the room. I cursed my luck as I jumped for the command console. The console was made from high-quality magical alloy and had held up to the fall and the abuse of me latching onto it with my metal hand.

It was awkward, straddling the pedestal as I began the power-up sequence. Error lights flashed, showing the fortress was sitting at too steep of an angle. But everything else was either green or yellow. I could work with that.

The power finished coming online and I worked at adjusting the settings to only have the downward facing runes activate. The fortress shook as it lurched upward and I was thrown off the pedestal to slam against the wall a few feet away. I slid back down the floor as the angle started to decrease. I grabbed the console as I slid past, managing to stand behind it and activate the main lifting rune.

The fortress slid sideways as the bulk was lifted out of the debris. I was almost thrown free of the console again but I managed to hold on. The random motion and bobbing eventually stopped and I saw through the viewer that it was floating clear from the debris. Two of the runes had gone offline and were now showing red. I would need to repair those before I left.

I didn’t want to leave Fiona, Martin, and Ska behind but I didn’t think I had time to find them. I also hoped by leaving them here would make them less of a target for the Stygian Order. What they had against me, I didn’t know but it was time to find out.

I left the fortress on hover as I repaired the hole in the roof and checked the door for any damage. There were scratches but the door had survived the fall intact. I also took the opportunity to repair the broken landing leg and give Bella a burial.

She had been a faithful companion almost as long as Fiona. I didn’t cry, not because I didn’t want to but because I couldn’t afford the distraction. My emotions were locked back behind a barrier and I would only let them out when I dealt with the immediate threat.

I was just about to head back inside when I heard angry shouts. I looked toward the crater wall and spotted a large group of angry citizens.

“There he is!” one of them shouted.

That seemed to be the catalyst that set the mob off. Anyone with ranged abilities or weapons fired them down into the pit. I jumped through the doorway as spells, arrows, and bullets splashed down around me. A few managed to hit my armor’s shield but the attacks were weak. I slammed the door shut, letting the attacks continue. It appeared that news had already spread.

I breathed in a calming breath and told myself, these people were angry and needed an outlet.

If it wasn’t for the emotional barrier I had thrown up, I would have gone back out there and slaughtered the lot of them. Those people didn’t know how close they had come to dying yet again today.

The Marshall was a good man so I doubted he was the one that spread the news. And even if he did, he would have gone straight to the Mayor. No this seemed like a deliberate attempt to turn the town against me. I just couldn’t figure out who or why. It didn’t fit with the Stygian Order's way of doing things. If that was their goal they would have done that instead of having dwarves attack me. No this was something else. But with the angry mob outside, I couldn’t stick around to find out. I sent off a quick message plate to Martin and Ska. Hopefully, they could figure out what was going on and remain safe.

***

Marshall Sumner and his men had a hell of a time dispersing the angry mob that had come boiling out of the city and towards where Paul had parked his ship. It didn’t take him long to learn why they were so angry. Somehow there was another set of documents detailing what Paul had done to the dwarves. It wasn’t much of a stretch for people to put two and two together. Now he had a large group of armed and angry people to try and pacify.

He let out a shrill whistle, using a skill he had called Focus Attention, to cut through the noise. When everyone quieted down and looked his way, he began to speak.

“I understand you are all angry, and you have a right to be but we have laws for a reason. Mob justice is not law and I will arrest anyone I feel is harming the safety of our fair city!”

“What about the killer!” someone yelled.

The Marshall held his features still but winced internally. “Those claims haven’t been verified yet. If they are true, steps will be taken to bring justice.”

“How can you say that!” another person yelled, “it was pretty clear in the document I saw.”

“Oh… and where did this document come from? I haven’t seen it yet, and all I have to go on is word of mouth. Now everyone, go home!”

It took a bit longer and some more angry yelling but seeing as Paul had already fled the area, the angry crowd dispersed and the Marshall quickly made his way to City Hall to speak with the Mayor. Someone was trying to stir up shit in his city and he was having none of it.