'Okay, so behind this door, there will be a cave,' said the troll. It was huge and very muscular, dressed in leather armour, carrying a two-handed weapon that was half hammer, half axe. Its skin was greenish. 'The cave is full of undead goblins. We can't kill them until the crystal works, so I will take care of the hordes and you will shoot down the crystal. Three arrows are usually enough but it moves under the ceiling fast.'

'I still think I should have gone with the wizard,' said the archer. It was human-like but very pale and thin with pointy ears. 'Also, I really don't like the idea of undead hordes.'

'Nobody does, dude, nobody does. Now buckle up, I'm opening the door.'

The troll stepped forward, lifted his mighty looking weapon and hit the tall, two-winged door with it. The wings burst open and small, grey things crawled-jumped out by the dozen, all waving with long knives or little crossbows.

The troll was unstoppable, every time it struck, goblins fell down. It went into the big, dark cave and the archer followed. The goblins died easily but never stayed down for long, and the red bar above the troll's head slowly shortened by every hit it took.

'How are you doing?' the troll asked.

'I can't take an aim, the goblins are killing me,' the archer answered. It used a long, somewhat bendy, burning sabre now, its bow was on its back.

'Use the Circle of Fire skill, it will give you time to shoot,' advised the troll, while beheading two goblins at one go.

The archer did as he was told. Around him, a flame wall emerged, killing everything inside but him. He finally managed to switch his sword to his bow and took the first shot. The shining red crystal above cracked. The second shot missed, but the third hit again and made the cracks more prominent.

'Bollocks,' said the archer then. 'I'm out of arrows.'

'What?' asked the troll. 'How?'

'Well, when we started I had twenty, right? Apparently, I used all of them,' he said, drawing the burning sword again, as the Circle of Fire died out around him.

'So loot some!' said the troll. The red bar above its head was dangerously short now. It took out a little bottle, filled some liquid that had the same colour as the bar.

'I do what now?' asked the archer.

'Loot. Walk up to a dead goblin and take its stuff. They will have arrows.' explained the troll. The red bar slowly became longer again, and tiny lights sparked around it.

'The goblins only have knives and crossbows, why would they have arrows for my longbow?' asked the archer confused.

'It's just how it works,' said the troll. 'But be careful, they only stay dead for fifteen seconds.'

The archer went around, crunching down at fallen enemies.

'Mana-potion, leather boots, small shield, ice-stone… What's an ice-stone?'

'It can freeze a pond so you can walk over it, take it, we are gonna need it later.' the troll retracted step by step. 'And hurry up, I just drank my last health potion.'

The archer finally found some arrows. He ran away from the attacking goblins, turned and shot. It could have been an epic moment if only he managed to hit the crystal, which he didn't. A goblin caught up with him and he let an arrow fly by sheer reflex. It found the goblin between its eyes and the word "headshot" sparked up above it for a second.

'Nice one, now take out the damn crystal!' the troll said, fighting off ten goblins at once. Its red health bar wasn't so much a bar anymore, more like a standing line.

The archer did it. The crystal shattered and exploded into a firework. All the goblins fell on the floor at once.

'Oh, look, I have levelled up,' said the archer proudly. 'I'm level 3 now. What skill should I choose, Stoneskin or Friendly Touch? They haven't thought that last one through…'

'Stoneskin reduces the damage you take for 30 seconds while Friendly touch allows you to heal your teammate,' explained the troll. 'I'd go with that one. You could Touch me already, I'm almost dead.'

'I'm sorry, I have a girlfriend… ' said the archer.

Claire laughed and pushed the "pause" button. The archer and the troll freeze on the screen of the TV. She got up from the couch and went to the fridge.

'Dude, your couch is a nightmare, you really need to get a new one,' she said.

'So I've been told,' nodded Robert.

'You don't have any energy drink?' Claire asked Robert, rummaging the fridge.

'Those are terribly unhealthy, you shouldn't drink anything like that. You are an athlete after all.'

'Yeah, sure, grandpa… Whiskey, wine, Baileys… Boy, you sure like to drink.'

'The Baileys is for Jenna,' said Robert quickly. 'I drink whiskey like a real man.'

'Okay…' said Claire slowly, and grabbed two bottles of coke. 'So this was the RPG, role-playing game. What do you think?'

She went back to the couch and gave one of the bottles to Robert.

'It is interesting, but next time I'd like to be a wizard.'

'You never choose the wizard in an RPG,' shook her head Claire. 'They are always the weakest.'

'That's insulting,' frowned Robert. 'What else have you got?'

'Well, there are platformer games… They are kinda like the old Super Mario, only they are modern. You know Mario, right?'

'Claire, I'm 32, not 80,' pointed out Robert.

'Yet, you had no idea about Assassin's Creed.'

'And I still think it's weird that none of them was a sorcerer,' nodded Robert. 'So, Super Mario then?'

But before Claire could have got up to hook up a different kind of console with the television, the front door opened and Jenna stormed in with Remy in her heels. She just waved to Robert and Claire, went to the fridge and grabbed the whiskey bottle. She chugged on it as if it was only water.

'Long day in the office?' asked Robert.

'I wish,' said Remy, collapsing onto the armrest of the couch, next to Claire. 'I think we have bad news.'

Robert sighed.

'I do remember times when there was good news, however hazily… Maybe I am old indeed. What happened now?'

'Claire, I'm not sure you wanna hear that,' said Jenna, leaning to the wall, still holding the bottle. 'Apparently, it's dangerous to even know about this.'

'Cool, count me in,' said the other girl enthusiastically.

'You gotta love her spirit,' grinned Jenna.

'Claire, listen, it's…' started Remy, but Claire cut him off with a sharp look.

'So, it's about the Goddess,' said Jenna. 'I got a text from Luther today, and we went to the Shield…'

It took a surprisingly short time to tell such terrible news.

'That is quite unfortunate,' said Robert. He stood up and started to pace up and down in the room. 'So looks like now we have to find the Goddess before she teaches too much Old Talk to her followers. Except we don't know where she is, what she looks like, or who her followers are. Brilliant. Just… Brilliant.'

'We know that they are in London,' pointed out Jenna. 'That's a start.'

'Almost 9 million people live here,' said Remy. 'That's not a start, that's a pin in the haystack. I don't want to sound too dramatic, but we are all going to die.'

Claire pushed him and he had to grab her shoulder to avoid falling onto the floor.

'What?' he continued. 'We have no clues, no leads to start on and we don't even know how much time we have got. Not to mention, if I understand correctly, even if we could find the ancient chick somehow, we have no idea what to do with her, because, once again, we have to deal with a freaking immortal… Why are there so many immortals in this goddamn city?'

'On the other hand,' said Claire, giving another sharp look to Remy 'Jenna already took out one of those. I mean, how hard can it be?'

The woman shook her head and took another sip of whiskey.

'I've got lucky and I wasn't alone. Plus the Goddess supposed to be way stronger than The Priest,' she said.

'See? We are all dead,' repeated Remy.

'Not necessarily. The Professor over there thinking very hard,' Jenna gestured towards Robert with her bottle. The man wasn't paying attention to them at all. 'And believe you me, he is freakishly smart. Like, the very sexy way.'

'Keep it in your pants, Jenna,' murmured Remy.

Robert looked up and seemed slightly surprised that he wasn't alone in the room.

'We need to talk to Marcus,' he announced.

'Eventually, yeah, but don't you think he has enough on his plate right now?' asked Jenna.

'He won't have a "plate", nobody will, if the fae comes back. That is not the fight we can ever win. In fact, if they are coming back, they will for the reason that we started to become too strong and they want to put an end on it before we could become a real threat,' he was using his teacher-voice now, calm and professional.

'I kinda used to phase out on history class,' said Claire. 'What's their deal again?'

Robert sighed.

'Their "deal" is quite simple,' explained Robert. 'They are the ones who invented the Old Talk and its written version, the Runes, at least the first ones. They lived with us, humans, from the beginning. Legends say they are from another world or plane, and that just makes sense, given that we knew for a fact that they were here once, and they are not here now, and they aren't dead either.'

'How do we know that exactly?' asked Remy now. 'I mean, that Luther looks like a regular dude, he doesn't have pointy ears or something…'

'Luther is a high-fae, or an elf if you will,' answered Robert. 'They were the most human-like of all. But the fae isn't really a species, more like the umbrella-terminology for a bunch of different kinds of magical creatures. Once there were giants, kobolds, elves, dwarf, all the fairy tales roaming the face of Earth. In fact, in a strictly magi-biological point of view, those annoying little pixies you have to get rid of sometimes also count as fae, although the real ones never considered them good enough. Probably that's why they left them behind.'

'That is nice, telling bedtime stories to the kids, but can we cut to the chase?' asked Jenna sarcastically.

'Right, yes. So, Claire, just to answer your original question, once, long time ago the fae decided that the human sorcerers are using their gift, the magic the fae gave them wrongly, so they took it back. By killing everyone on sight who was able to cast a spell, for centuries. That's why we don't know how to do magic by talking: they purged the knowledge out of mankind. And if the Goddess continues what she started, sooner or later they will do it again.'

'One last question?' looked Claire at Jenna, who shrugged. 'Why is this Old Talk such a big deal? I mean, I know magic, like, the real, everyday magic kinda well, and I never felt it wasn't enough…'

Robert hesitated.

'Hard to explain. Do you eat burgers?'

'What?' laughed Claire. 'I mean, yeah, occasionally… I shouldn't, and my father would kill me if he knew, but yeah. Sometimes.'

'Right,' nodded Robert. 'Now imagine that for an entire year you can only eat the cheeseburger from McDonald's, the one that cost one pound. It's fine, it gets the job done, right? But then, after a long, long year, you are finally allowed in a real restaurant, and you can order a real hamburger. It's huge, it's perfectly made, the meat is thick and delicious, it's full of everything you love… You get where I am going with this?'

'Yeah, I get it,' she nodded. 'Runes are the cheap cheeseburger. Gotcha.'

'Great,' pitched in Jenna. 'Now I'm hungry. So why do you wanna talk with Marcus? Let's get over with this so we can order burgers…'

'I stand corrected, actually,' told her Robert. 'We don't need Marcus per se. We just need an agent of the MAGE. Any agent would do.'

'Yeah, but for what?' asked Jenna impatiently.

'Isn't it obvious?' asked back Robert but he only saw blank faces. 'Apparently, not. Okay, so Luther thinks the Goddess started to teach what she knew to regular losers so she can have a… Cult? Army? Her intentions aren't clear just yet. Which is clear, however, is that since the only thing makes her stronger and better than her followers is the very thing she decided to share, she is going to need another way to stay ahead of them. Jenna, do you remember when we talked about this? Right at the beginning when we had nothing but theories about the statue.'

The girl frowned but then her eyes lit up.

'You were wondering if she is going to be the same, like, magically because the knowledge is just like half of the actual power. So she needs… She needs a stronger body, right? Not any sorcerer, but someone like me or you, who can handle the amount of energy others can't.'

'So humble...' said Remy and Claire pushed him again.

'Exactly,' nodded Robert to Jenna. 'Little known fact: the MAGE has a list about the strongest sorcerers who mean the biggest threat to the world in one way or another. I used to be on it, and I don't doubt that Jenna is still somewhere around the top. Which means, we need to get access to that list, see who changed their usual ways or disappeared and we will have a very good guess about what the Goddess looks like.'

'And how is that gonna help? Are we gonna knock on every door in London until she opens one of them?' asked Remy.

'Almost. Except Ayana, more specifically, her demons will be the ones knocking: they can sneak into thousands of houses in one night to look around, unnoticed.'

'That sounds highly illegal, man,' pointed out Remy.

'Not if a MAGE agent is doing it,' said Claire. 'They can do almost everything as long as it's in order to keep the peace or something, right?'

'See?' clapped Jenna happily. 'Told you, he is a genius,' she gave a proud look to Robert. 'Let's find Ayana… After we ate a bunch of burgers, mind you…'