I forgot how beautiful she was, Ethan’s thoughts were almost involuntary before he forced himself to squash them down. No, she’s nothing. Don’t forget how bad it hurt when she left.

Alera’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink as her eyes fell on Ethan, “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Alera,” Ethan nodded, forcing coldness into his voice. His heart was still pounding and his brain was fighting the urge to run to her. To hold her, feel her close, smell the familiar lavender soap he knew she used.

“Well this isn’t awkward,” Miguel groaned as he stood up. “Did you find anything?”

“Yeah, I did,” Alera tore her gaze away from him, quickly hiding a hurt expression as she turned back to her assembled guildmates.

“You’ve all seen the soldiers all over town, I’m assuming?” She didn’t wait for confirmation before pulling a scroll from her belt. Ethan could see a broken red wax seal at one of the edges.

“The Blood Dragons are definitely building an army,” Alera continued. “But even the mercs aren’t exactly sure why. For now they’re just being paid to occupy the town and man the fort.”

“There’s no way this is because of us,” David said, walking over to Alera and taking the scroll. “Just their guild has enough members to take out the five of us.”

“Right,” Alera nodded her agreement. “I’m thinking they’re preparing for an assault by either the PvP Guild or the Raid Clan. Or possibly to assault them.”

“That doesn’t make any sense though,” David shook his head. “They have the support of the House of Whispers. Kalinda obviously has Calder by the short hairs, the PvP Guild wouldn’t come for them.”

“What about the Raid Clan?” Miguel asked. “I mean, Arianna knows they have Tae-Won and that Ethan is MIA, it wouldn’t take much for her to convince people she trusted to storm the fort to get them back.”

“Wait, Arianna thinks I’m missing?” Ethan had been silent while David and Alera talked, taking in as much of the information as he could while wrestling with a resurgence of feelings for Alera. “You didn’t tell her where I was?”

“I was the only one who knew where you were,” David admitted. “And since I didn’t think we could get to you, I didn’t tell her.”

“What did you say to her?” Ethan began tapping rapidly on his invisible keyboard as he messaged his sister.

To Arianna:

“Hey sis, I’m safe. Doing better. I’m not in Startesgarde right now, but I’ll come see you as soon as I get back. I’m with David and everyone else. I’m safe, I promise. Love you.”

“Just that you were having a rough patch and had gone away,” Leah’s voice sounded guilty. “She was worried at first, but she eventually calmed down.”

“Okay, so we know Paul has an army outside of the fort, what about the inside?” David looked at Alera as he tried to get the conversation back on track. “Is it just the guild?”

“God, I wish,” Alera shook her head. “So there’s nine different mercenary companies here, so far. All their leadership is stationed in the fort, with all of the Blood Dragon guild members.”

“How many people are we talking? Twenty?” David chewed on his bottom lip as he thought.

“No, at least a hundred,” Alera answered sadly. “Plus the three hundred soldiers in the town.

“They have an army of four hundred NPCs?!” Miguel’s shocked expression was mimicked by everyone present.

“Not all of them are NPCs,” Alera shook her head sadly. “Some are players, I don’t know what Paul promised them in exchange for their help.”

“What about the fort itself? I know you’ve gotten in to see Tae-Won, will we be able to get in easily?” David rubbed his forehead as he looked for any sort of good news.

“There’s a small sewer entrance that I snuck in during low tide,” Alera produced another scroll from one of her belt pouches and handed it to David. “I scouted as much as I could, but the map is incomplete.”

“Incomplete my ass,” his look of disappointment instantly changed to one of amazement when he scanned the hand drawn map. “This is incredible!”

“Thanks,” Alera smiled grimly, her eyes flicking in Ethan’s direction briefly. “I don’t have anything of the upper levels, which is where I’m assuming the Blood Dragon Leadership is.”

Ethan tuned them out as Leah and Miguel joined David in pouring over Alera’s map, asking her further questions.

I liked the white armor better, he thought to himself as he watched Alera out of the corner of his eyes. She’d changed from the shining white leather she’d worn on the day he’d met her in Startesgarde to a muted grey. I guess this doesn’t stick out as much when she’s sneaking around.

If she wasn’t going to stay gone, why didn’t she leave at least some message for me? A letter, anything. He could feel his anger rising, but unlike before, it was directed inwardly. Get over her Ethan. She left. Whatever her reasons were, it doesn’t matter. She obviously didn’t care enough to tell you, quit wasting time obsessing over her. I should have gone back to Skaro, maybe I’d have been able to maintain my connection to the Vættir. Not to mention the literal army that would have stopped David from coming.

“Holy fuck!” Ethan shouted, his eyes wide.

“What? Are you okay?” Leah looked at him in concern. “We were just talking about going in through the sewer tonight.”

“No, fuck that, it won’t work,” Ethan shook his head dismissively. He hadn’t had to pay attention to the entire conversation to know that the five of them trying to rescue Tae-Won themselves was hopeless.

“Wow, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine,” Leah crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “I know you just got back from dealing with your own shit, but my husband has literally been tortured for months.”

“No, I know, I’m sorry,” Ethan backtracked as he tried to get the right words to explain what he was thinking. “But we’d need an actual army to rescue him.”

“Well, I’m sorry that I don’t have one in my back pocket,” Leah pursed her lips and continued glaring at him. “Do you?”

“I think I might,” Ethan looked around the room and grinned as his idea solidified.

“You want to elaborate?” David rested his hands on the table and leaned against it. “Because you’ve been sulking for a month, and I doubt you recruited an army in that time.”

“The Skarobjorn,” Ethan said triumphantly, ignoring David’s jab.

“Who?” Miguel looked confused, an expression shared by everyone else. “You can’t just make up words, you know.”

“The people of Skaro,” Ethan shook his head as he smiled. “When I finished my class quest, their war leader pronounced me one of them. They’re basically Vikings.”

“And you think they would help? Skaro is like a week away, maybe more,” David looked skeptical as he stared at Ethan.

“Maybe, I was trained by their War Leader and their spiritual leader, they pronounced me one of them when I left. Plus her second declared me a battle brother,” Ethan glanced at his friends, inspiration striking again. “And you’re all members of different orders too!”

“You’re speaking gibberish again,” Miguel sighed.

“Okay, hear me out,” Ethan held up his hands as he talked. “Miguel, you’re a member of the clergy, David joined the Order of Sanctuary. Leah is a member of, whatever the Druids call themselves. Why can’t we try to use those connections to help us?”

“I’m also a member of the House of Whispers,” Alera scowled at Ethan. “They’re much more mercenary, but I could use that to bring them in.”

“I didn’t count you because Kalinda is on the council,” Ethan answered her coldly. “She’ll get word back to Paul.”

“She’s just one Council member,” Alera’s response was quieter, as if Ethan’s tone had physically hurt her. His heart both lept and sank at the thought that his statement stung. “There are four others, well three, not counting Calder.”

“Enough,” David cut their bickering off and looked at Ethan warningly. “How do we make this work?”

“I mean, we’d have to go back to where we did our class quests and talk to the NPCs,” Ethan shrugged. “That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far. I know what I’d say in Skaro, but I don’t know your relationships with your trainers.”

“I’m pretty sure I could convince the Archdruids to help,” Leah said as she played with her braid. “But we’re looking at some serious time for travel. Does Tae-Won have that kind of time?” She addressed her question to Alera.

“He’s holding strong,” She nodded and rubbed Leah’s arm. “And they won’t kill him, that would just release him to run away.”

“The Paladins and Clerics should help, especially when they hear that there’s an innocent man being held captive,” Miguel looked to David for confirmation.

“Yeah, justice is right up their alley,” David nodded.

“Do we need to wait, or go ahead and leave?” Alera asked.

“We need to go out in teams, it’ll be too dangerous to go out individually,” Ethan said, pretending to ignore Alera’s question as he looked around and tried to remember where each person needed to go. “David and Miguel are obviously together. Alera, you should go with them to Sitifus, and then to Anvasa. Leah and I will do Skaro and Eldergrove.”

“No,” David shook his head. “Alera should go with you and Leah.”

“What?” Ethan glared at his friend in shock. He’d told David exactly how he felt about the Rogue, how he wanted nothing to do with her.

“You can make a faster loop doing Skaro, Eldergrove, Anvasa before coming back here,” David explained. “It’ll add significant travel time for us to backtrack to Anvasa from Sitifus.”

“Fine,” Ethan sighed. He wanted to believe that David was right and not that he was trying to force Ethan to reconcile with the woman who’d broken his heart. It doesn’t matter, as soon as this is over, I’m done with her. He promised himself, making eye contact with Alera. God her eyes are beautiful. No! No! Bad Ethan!

“So we leave tonight?” Leah asked. Her tone was hopeful, like for the first time she could truly see a path to rescuing her husband.

“Tomorrow,” Ethan shook his head. “I need a night of rest before we head out.” And a beer. Or several.

“Agreed,” David nodded. “And it may look suspicious to the mercs if we leave so quickly.”

“You going to do it now then?” Miguel looked at David with a wide grin. “The suspense is killing me.”

“What are you talking about?” Ethan glanced between the two of them in confusion as David smiled and swiped his hands though the air.

David has invited you to join the guild Disorder.

Accept:

Yes/No

He let the translucent blue window hover in his view for a moment as he looked around the room. Everyone, Alera included, was smiling at him as they waited for his acceptance.

“Guys,” he began, feeling his throat tighten in emotion. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left. With everything that happened,” his eyes flickered towards Alera, “I thought I was protecting you all. If I had stayed, you would have had to deal with my shit, but maybe we would have been here sooner.”

“Ethan,” Leah walked over and held his hand. “We’re a family here, you’re the one who keeps saying that. You’re the one who built that. Just don’t, don’t forget that again.”

“We love you, man,” Miguel smiled and clapped David on the back, who nodded in agreement. Even Alera smiled weakly at him.

With a casual tap of his right hand, he hit accept.

You have joined the guild Disorder.

“This just feel right,” Miguel beamed after the notification that Ethan had rejoined the guild appeared in all of their visions. “Like we’ve got the band back together!”

Miguel winced as he noticed Leah’s hurt expression.

“I mean, most of the band,” He apologized. “Once we rescue Tae-Won, and Sam rejoins, and well, we figure out where the hell Daniel is. Still though,” Miguel’s brown eyes flicked around the room, “let’s celebrate our one little win. First round is on me?”

“I’ll take it, see you all downstairs” David crossed his arms over his chest and walked out of the room.

Wordlessly, Alera followed him. She stared straight ahead, not looking at Ethan as she left.

Just like before, Ethan thought, his jaw clenched in annoyance. Can’t even bother to say goodbye.

“Ethan, can I talk to you a second?” Leah asked when it was just the three of them left.

“Yeah, sure,” He nodded, trying to shake his frustration with Alera.

“I’ll, just, uh, see you guys down there,” Miguel stuttered our as he hurriedly left Ethan’s and Leah alone.

“Okay, so,” Leah began as soon as the door clicked shut. “I need to talk about something with you.”

“Leah, look,” Ethan sighed and chewed on his bottom lip. “I’m not,” he paused. “I’m not mad at you over this. I understand why you went behind everyone’s back, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

That was the truth. Before Alera had stepped up and crushed him, Ethan had been planning on sacrificing himself to Paul in exchange for Tae-Won’s safe return. The night before they’d met at the Tower, Ethan, David and Miguel had discussed their own covert plan. The difference was, Miguel and David would have told everyone immediately what had happened.

“That wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about,” Leah sat down on the hard mattress and looked up at him. “I mean, it is, but it’s also more than that.”

“Go on,” He said, sitting in one of the vacant chairs by the table full of Alera’s pilfered intel.

“Look, I’m standing by what I did,” She held up a hand to stop Ethan from interrupting her. “I love you, and everyone else in the guild. But I love Tae-Won more. And I swore once to you I’d do everything I had to to rescue him.”

“And you made the right call.”

“But I also took something from you,” Leah frowned and looked at the floor. “And I’m sorry for that. What you and Alera had…”

“It was nothing,” Ethan interrupted her, his voice cold and angry.”

“No, it was-“

“It was nothing,” Ethan emphasized his words with more force than he’d meant to. “Because if it had been something, she would have found a way to tell me. She would have shown me that in some way, she actually cared. That she actually loved me,” he sighed. “I thought I loved her. But she didn’t. And I was wrong.”

“But she did,” Leah whispered. “Maybe still does.”

His chest tightened at Leah’s words. No, push it down.

“That doesn’t matter,” He shook his head and gave a small sarcastic laugh, trying to hide how he actually felt. “Because I don’t love her. And when this is over, I don’t care if I ever see her again.”

“So, that’s it?” Leah looked aghast at his statement. “She helps us rescue Tae-Won and then, nothing? You kick her to the curb and cut her out?”

“Yes,” Ethan nodded curtly, got to his feet, and walked out of the room.