“Ouch,” Derek moaned from where he was laying on the ground. By now there were no longer any enemies in combat with them. The surviving rangers had joined the mage and fled into the city. Eventually coming to grips with the pain of his burns, he accepted the hand offered by his grandfather.

“Good job, boy.” The old man yanked him up from the ground and patted him on the back before leaning heavily on his warhammer to catch his breath. Around them they could hear the moans of the dying and injured assailants. Derek leaned heavily against his grandfather for a moment before recovering his mana enough to cast a healing spell on the two of them.

He had been lucky their attacker was only capable of peak seventh level spells because if that attack had been any more powerful it is likely he would have suffered catastrophic injuries. For that matter, if the man had been able to cast a follow up spell Derek would have been a goner. He had come very close to dying just then. As it was, his own middle seventh level aegis had been able to soak most of the damage before collapsing.

Derek felt the burns sooth as he periodically cast low level healing spells on himself and his grandfather. The old man’s body was quickly healed and it only took a few more spells to heal himself. As the last of the injuries mended themselves guardsmen came rushing into the avenue from either end. On one side were guards from the town council while the other side were guards dispatched from House Windreach’s garrison next to the gates to the inner city.

Seeing the two not making any attempt to move and that the combat was over the two groups dispatched a few healers to tend the wounded people on the ground and others to search for other injured combatants in the area. A few others were sent to block off access to the scene and the majority of both groups moved to surround the boy and his grandfather. The leader from the council’s guards nodded to the Guard Captain from the Windreach side and let him take control of the situation.

The Guard Captain looked around for a while longer to assess the rest of the situation. His critical eye scanned the entire battlefield before stepping forward to speak to them while gesturing the council guard leader to join them. “You seem to have been in quite the fight. Tell me exactly what happened.”

Derek had been quite apprehensive until the man spoke up. The Guard Captain’s voice was authoritative, commanding their full cooperation, but it lacked any hint of accusation. Derek turned to his grandfather who wearily signaled to him to speak for them.

Derek nodded before responding to the guards, “Captain, I am Derek Thorne, son of Eona Windreach, Disciple of the Forge God and student of the Academy. This is my grandfather, Disciple Ander Kennick, Grandmaster Rune Smith and guest of House Windreach at my mother’s home. We were returning from an appointment in the market district when we were attacked in this avenue. The opposition had one tier five magic warrior of some type and four tier four warrior types. There were three mages of tier two and six other tier zero ranged attackers. They were supported by around twenty tier zero armsmen. One mage and two of the rangers managed to escape towards the docks, and aside from the wounded here, there is a ranger trying to hide about a block away.”

Seeing that the Captain didn’t quite seem satisfied with that answer, he spent a moment to describe the fight in detail. The Captain sent runners to check the nearby streets and they caught the ranger that had been too injured in his fall to get away. Wrapping up his story, Derek spoke to the Captain, “I have a sprite tailing the remaining mage and the two scouts now. If you wish to catch them, we need to get moving quickly as they will soon be leaving the radius of my abilities.”

The Captain nodded before turning to the council’s man, “Watch Leader Kirin, can you take over this site? I will leave some men to assist you. I would very much like to know who would be so bold as to attack members of my House in this city.”

The other man waved him off, “Of course, Captain Drake, go ahead. I have no interest in assaulting a nest of assassins. That tends to reduce life expectancy. Your specialists are far better at it than my guardsmen.“

Drake’s head snapped around as he looked at the bodies around him. Even a few of the wounded had become corpses at this point, some successfully committing suicide under his people’s watch while the guards wrestled poison pills from the rest, “Oh, assassins? That settles it. We need to move fast to keep them from escaping.”

The man barked out orders to his people and a dozen men joined them before he signalled Derek to lead the way. Derek nodded, taking a mana potion from his grandfather and drinking it before leading off at a brisk jog to allow the tier zero guards to keep up. In all there were ten tier zero guardsmen, two tier two individuals that appeared to be scouts of some kind due to their movement ability and lighter armor, and the Captain who was a tier five magic warrior.

As they left the avenue, the Guard Captain cast an Aura onto them that mixed wind with water mana to increase their movement speed and reduce fatigue. Derek led the way, following the direction his Dark sprite, Wisp, was leading them. The route led them into the docks district and they turned onto a road with warehouses on either side shortly after their targets had slipped into one of the large wooden buildings.

Derek sent Gnome to search for secret tunnels and had Aurora and Sylph move to the opposite side of the building to make sure no one tried to escape from that side. Meanwhile Wisp had already infiltrated the building. As they arrived into the area the guards proceeded to rush to cordon off the area with other guard units that had joined them as they crossed half of the city.

As the Guard Captain was coordinating with the guards from at least three of the power blocks in the city, Gnome returned to Derek with news of an escape tunnel while Wisp was indicating that the assassins were starting to head towards its entrance in the warehouse.

Derek spoke up quickly, “Guard Captain, there is an escape tunnel that leads directly in front of us, may I open it from here?”

The man turned from him to glance at the leader of the Harbormaster’s guards. The man thought for a second then nodded, “As long as it gets repaired. I don’t much fancy chasing them through their trap filled warrens.”

Derek nodded before starting to shape earth mana to break open the street directly in front of them. It started off slowly as the cobblestone was shifted to either side by his spell. The other mages around him quickly moved to assist, and between the four of them an opening had been created just as Wisp was informing him that their targets had gotten to the door to the tunnel.

The opening wasn’t large, appearing like a small crater with the material easily deposited to either side. Below was a neatly formed stone tunnel. Previously clean, there was now a layer of broken stone on the floor. The tunnel appeared as if it had been made to accommodate smuggling efforts so it was wide enough for a cart if not terribly deep.

Derek and his grandfather dropped down after a few of the elite guards and they were followed by several of their tier zero rank and file. The men immediately got into formation across the width of the tunnel. Meanwhile the Guard Captain proceeded to lead his men in tackling the Assassin’s hideout itself, his scouts leading the way.

Down in the tunnel Derek and the others didn’t have to wait long before they encountered the fleeing assassins. The scuffle started as soon as the assassins had opened the door into the tunnel. They had not expected to be met by the halberds and crossbows of the guards and before they could react the crossbowmen had already fired. To further deny them any advantage in the dark environment, Derek cast a light magic spell called flare amongst them, secure in the fact that having just come down from the day lit street the men with him would be much less impaired by it. The light blinded them as the melee guards rushed to engage them.

The fight wasn’t entirely one sided as Derek noticed that one of the assassins wielding two daggers was another tier four. From her movement she appeared to be a scout type of some sorts. Even blinded, her frenzied attacking style was enough to drive off the men that tried to overpower her. She had even managed to severely injure one of the guards.

Derek was loath to engage her in melee as too many men were already pressed in tightly at the entrance of the tunnel and he was concerned he would be more hindrance than help at the front line, so he instead opted to grab the injured man and dragged him back to a safe space to heal him.

His grandfather had no such compunctions though, barrelling through the fight and straight into the woman. Her daggers had proved useless against him as his body glowed a bright yellow from some Earth element spell shielding him. Blood spewed from her mouth and a sickening crunch was heard as they made contact with the wall. The wall itself proved not to be magically enhanced as it gave way and the old man pushed the now lifeless body into the basement of the warehouse she had just come from.

Derek quickly ignored the fight that was now going firmly in favor of his side and instead Delved the man he had dragged back to safety. Sensing the extent of the wound and the poison the woman had used, Derek first cast a Purify spell at fourth level. The Holy spell proved sufficient to burn the poison out of the man’s body, though he writhed in pain from the heat of the purification searing him from within.

Attempting to comfort the man, he whispered, “Be at ease, this is almost done.”

Once the poison was burnt out of the man, Derek cast a Holy Light on the man, level five being sufficient to counter the damage from the attack, poison and purification. Next he channeled a flow of water mana into the man that worked as a sedative to calm his nerves and emotions and the man finally relaxed. Patting the man’s shoulder, Derek spoke to him before getting up, “Ok, rest here for a moment, the fight is done.”

For the next few moments Derek went back and forth through the guards healing any further injuries he found. It didn’t take much as the fight had been particularly one sided. The most dangerous foe had been taken out by his grandfather. Derek looked down at the woman’s crushed body before looking up at his grandfather.

“I didn’t know you were part buffalo.”

The old man laughed, “It’s an old trick I learned during the war. You’ll never guess how many castle gates have been foiled by a very motivated high tier warrior using an Earth’s Might spell. Nor how many enemy formations have been destroyed that way for that matter.”

Derek looked at him and shook his head, “I imagine the number of high tier warriors breaking their own bodies on walls harder than they had assumed wasn’t particularly low either though.”

The old man got a far away look before laughing again, “You got that right. You should have seen the smeer that pompous ass Sir Tynik turned into at the Battle of Danvin Falls. Though he was a great fighter, he was a total prick. Noone regretted his passing, except maybe the whorehouses of the region. I am sure they lost quite a bit of business with his passing.”

Derek knew better than to go down this route with his grandfather, first it started with gallows humor, then the old man would decide to go wash away his memories with drink. He hadn’t had an episode of the kind since Redwyrm, though Derek guessed he now knew why his grandmother would take the old man’s drinking so personally and get so angry at him for it. Derek decided to steer the conversation in another direction, “Grandfather, What do you think we should do now?”

The old man shook his head a little bit, clearing his thoughts before looking around, “Nothing much boy. I suppose we let the guards do their job here for now and maybe join them when they decide to explore this smuggler’s tunnel. Rest for now, we don’t know what’s on the other side.”

Hearing that, Derek sat next to his grandfather and watched the guards start searching the place. A pair of scouts led the way further into the warehouse, disabling traps along the way. Knowing there were no enemies about to ambush them, they were able to take their time and within half an hour the elites from the various guard units that had assaulted the warehouse had joined Derek and his grandfather in the basement. Their next task was to explore the tunnel.

Ander Kennick-

Previous Classes-

Burgher, Fighter, Fighter, Rune Smith, Rune Smith, Rune Smith, Rune Smith

Permanent Enhancements-

Fighter, Tier One: +1 Strength, +2 Body, +1 Agility

Fighter, Tier Two: +1 Strength, +2 Body, +1 Agility

Rune Smith, Tier Three: +2 Strength, +2 Body, +2 Agility, +2 Mind

Rune Smith, Tier Four: +2 Strength, +2 Body, +2 Agility, +2 Mind

Rune Smith, Tier Five: +3 Strength, +3 Body, +2 Agility, +2 Mind

Rune Smith, Tier Six: +3 Strength, +3 Body, +2 Agility, +2 Mind

Rune Smith, Tier Seven: +3 Strength, +3 Body, +3 Agility, +3 Mind

Grand Disciple of the God of the Forge: +6 Strength, +6 Body, +15 Fire, +15 Earth

Dragon’s Blood Elixer: +6 Strength, +6 Body, +4 Agility, +4 Mind

Equipment-

Siege Breaker (Minor Artifact): basic offensive peak t10, maximum offensive spell level 10, spell absorption, spell reflecting.

Talisman of the Forge: eight elder sprites +10 to all elemental attributes, other assorted benefits