“Everyone come inside,” Lunette wrangles everyone together excitedly. She pulls out four plain looking rings. They seem to be regular steel bands, but underneath each lies a tiny microchip that powers each of them.

Lunette tempers her excitement to carefully hand the rings out, making sure each of them goes to the right person.

“Go ahead, put them on!” She encourages them, wanting to see the finished product of her work. Kayde is the first to slip on his ring. Fore barks in alarm at the brown haired, plain looking man who has suddenly appeared in place of his friend.

Kayde leans down and pets him, “It’s still me buddy, you can tell because I’m the only one you can understand”.

Fore calms down underneath Kayde’s hand, “Oh, good. I thought you were gone”.

“Holy shit, it really worked, he looks just like that guy we dragged back!” Kali stares in awe at Kayde. He looks down at himself and starts moving around, testing out how it looks in different positions.

“Yeah, this thing is really good… one last thing to test out though,” Kayde notes, disappearing in front of all of them.

This shocks Lunette, never having seen Kayde go invisible before starts to panic, “Hold on… Did I just make him fade from existence? But how could my device do that? The rest of you, don’t put them on!” She warns them, afraid they might suffer the same fate.

Lunette feels a pat on her head, causing her to flinch.

“Don’t worry about it. I can just turn invisible, I didn’t fade from existence,” he whispers into her ear, while still invisible.

He reappears as he takes off the ring; “I just wanted to make sure I could still do that with this on. Now that I know that I can, I’m good”. Drakthar and Kali put on their rings next; it is the same as with Kayde and they appear to be those who they took from the village.

Gwendolyn looks down at the device in her palm, wondering why it had to be a ring. She stares at the one already around her finger before trying the new one on. She doesn’t outwardly react to the change of appearance, but on the inside, she is raring to get back to that city and look for Xander.

Now that they are prepared to enter the city Kayde starts to outline the plan, “Okay, I’ve only been thinking about this for almost four months now, so let me get to it. There are sewers underneath the city leading to all kinds of important buildings. Our first goal should be to cause some chaos. Make whoever is in charge of all of this start to sweat. So tonight, we will get into the city and assassinate the archbishop… again, well at least for Drakthar and I. Anyway, yeah, that’s the plan”.

Kayde turns towards Gwendolyn, “And maybe while The Purity is trying to deal with all of the panic, we can leverage it to try and find Xander”. Gwendolyn doesn’t verbally respond, but after seeing the look in her eyes Kayde knows he got through to her.

“Sounds good to me,” Drakthar agrees, practically growling in anticipation to shed some blood after being stuck cutting trees for so long. Kayde lays out a map of the city with scribbles all over it, making it quite hard to read.

He points to one, “Here, this one leads to the outside of the city. So if we come out of the manhole here, we can sneak along this alleyway. Then back down in this part of the sewers, which leads directly under the archbishop’s mansion”.

They watch as he traces his hand all around the map in front of him, barely able to understand how the path he is putting together makes sense.

“So… hold on, we come out here?” Kali asks, actually trying to decode this mess.

“No, it’s over here,” Kayde points at a larger scribbly blob.

After a couple of minutes watching Kali try to understand Kayde’s plan, Drakthar steps in, “Look, I trust Kayde. I’m sure he knows what he is doing. We should just follow his lead”.

“Yeah, okay,” Kali agrees, realizing she is wasting time trying to understand.

“So what are you guys going to do if you run into guards?” Lunette interrupts them, she has something in mind.

“I don’t know? Knock em out,” Kayde shrugs, not seeing that as an important part.

“I only ask because I developed a really potent knockout agent a few years back,” they all stare at Lunette as to why she would need such a thing as she continues, “I was going to use it if they ever found me out here,” she notes, offering her help once again.

“Wait, if who found you?” Kayde asks, wondering if she is running from someone.

“The people in charge. I mean… I don’t know if they don’t want me out here, but… I was just a little paranoid,” Lunette explains, her uncertainty coming off as hesitancy.

“Why are you out here? You know, instead of in the city?” Kali gets around to asking. Lunette dazes off again, contemplating the earlier idea of anyone looking for her.

“Hey… Lunette? Lunette? Great she is doing the thing again,” Kali complains, seeing her in a daze.

“Oh, sorry, what was the question?” Lunette asks, having ignored it earlier.

“Why are you out here in a hut?” Kali repeats herself, in a considerably harsher tone this time.

“Oh, that’s because I wanted to be. I had this deal with the dead king where I could live out here if I made things for him every once in a while... but he is dead now… and I guess whoever took over never knew about me... or didn’t care... because requests stopped coming right around when the king was supposedly ill. I mean he still is supposedly ill, but it’s kind of obvious that it’s just a lie,” Lunette elaborates on her previous workings with the dead king.

“So… you work for the king?” Kali is shock to learn.

“Yeah, but the dead one, not a fan of whoever is pulling the strings now. The guy before was nice actually,” Lunette confirms it for her.

“This is great and all, but what about that knock out agent?” Kayde gets back to what she mentioned earlier.

“Oh yeah!” Lunette excitedly goes over to a jar full of green liquid on a shelf at the edge of the room. She takes a needle from her pocket and dips it into the liquid, just a little sitting on the tip.

Suddenly Lunette swiftly rushes towards Gwendolyn, poking her in the arm with the needle. Gwendolyn starts falling towards the floor, her leg no longer functioning with the loss of consciousness. Drakthar is barely able to grab her before she would have made a hard impact against the wood planks below them.

“Yeah, I’d say it works,” Kayde comments, seeing Gwendolyn, who is by no means small at one hundred and eighty-three centimeters and nearly seventy-five kilograms, immediately knocked out by such a small amount of whatever substance Lunette gave her.

“What the fuck! Why would you knock her out?” Kali reacts to seeing her friend assaulted.

Lunette responds bluntly, “She was the closest”.

“I wonder if it would work on Drakthar?” Kayde wonders out loud.

Drakthar puts Gwendolyn down, quickly moving away from Lunette, “Keep that stuff away from me”.

“It would be a good test... but fine,” Lunette screws the lid back on the jar.

Kayde takes the jar from Lunette and stuffs it into his bag of holding.

“Looks like we are good to go… Well as soon as Gwendolyn wakes up anyway,” Kayde states, looking down at the passed out woman on the floor.

A few hours later, the four of them depart towards the city, leaving Lunette behind with Fore at the hovel. They approach a pipe at the edge of the city, the surrounding area filled with a putrid stench.

“Come on guys get in,” Kayde urges them forward, intending to have them enter through the sewers.

“Look, I don’t know about you, but I have this really handy ring that Lunette made, I am going to make use of that and walk straight in the front gate,” Kali starts to head there, followed by Drakthar and Gwendolyn.

“Fine, hold up,” Kayde jogs to catch up with them.

“I guess going through the front works for now... but when we leave, we do it via the sewers,” Kayde insists, not wanting to be seen in a group skulking around at night. They reach the tall imposing gates at the Southern end of the city, ten guards lining each side and monitoring everyone who comes through.

The guards watch as the seemingly normal group of four confidently stride into the city, not even thinking twice about whether to question if they really belong there or not.

“So what do we do now?” Kali asks, once they are a ways into the city.

“You guys sit around or something, I’m going to scout out the sewer entrance that leads to the archbishop’s mansion. We are going to do this in the darkest hour of the night, so we have some time to waste,” Kayde explains, keeping his voice down so any passersby don’t overhear their plans.

They watch as Kayde disappears into an alleyway.

“Come on, we should scope out the city more ourselves. We’ve all looked at the map, but seeing it ourselves is important,” Drakthar suggests to the two women.

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea,” Kali concurs immediately. Gwendolyn just trails behind them, not caring to contribute to their conversation. They peruse the capital, making sure to cover as much ground as possible before the sun begins to fall, giving rise to a full moon.

While exiting an alleyway, Gwendolyn spots a man wearing a blue robe out of the corner of her eye. On reflex alone, she draws an arrow and is prepared to fire, but doesn’t at the last second.

Drakthar is now standing in front of her, his arms spread wide, “Don’t. Not now”.

Gwendolyn doesn’t listen, as soon Drakthar’s body is no longer blocking the man she lets her arrow fly, directly on a collision course towards the back of his head. The arrow doesn’t get to hit its mark as Drakthar catches it out of the air, his blood dripping over the shaft where the arrowhead cut into his hand.

He notices Gwendolyn start to load another arrow, determination and anger mixed in her expression. Before she can fire again, Drakthar knocks the bow out of her arms and twists both of them behind her back in order to prevent her from causing any trouble.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Drakthar growls at Gwendolyn. She locks eyes with him, he watches as rage continues to build up inside her with every passing second.

“I understand that you are mad, but by not communicating and doing impulsive things like this, you are only hurting our chances of getting him back! You understand that don’t you!” He raises his voice at her, trying to leave no room for interpretation.

Drakthar feels Gwendolyn’s rigid body, currently being restrained by him relax slightly, prompting him to ask, “Okay, now if I let you go, will you go after that man?” Gwendolyn nods, knowing that she would not be able to stop herself.

“Then I can’t let you go,” Drakthar informs her, starting to guide the group back towards where Kayde first left them. When they get to the meeting spot it takes them a moment to realize that Kayde is already there waiting for them.

“God, it took me a second to realize it was you,” Kali admits to him, not used to how he looks with the ring on.

“So why is Drakthar holding her like that?” Kayde completely ignores Kali, focusing on the restrained Gwendolyn.

“She didn’t listen, so now it has to be like this,” Drakthar answers without giving the slightest context.

Kayde isn’t fazed by it, not one to give a lot of context himself, “Alright, I hope it doesn’t get in the way of our mission. Speaking of, follow me”. They follow Kayde through a series of alleyways until they reach a manhole, it’s scent as pungent as the one outside the city.

Kali holds her nose while asking, “Do we really have to do this?”

“Nope. You can stay behind, but I’m going,” Kayde responds, while starting to descend into the darkness of the sewers. Gwendolyn follows behind him, finally free of Drakthar’s grasp.

“Alright, fine…” Kali lets out a heavy sigh, beginning to hold her breath as best she can on the way down.

Once his feet hit the bottom, Kayde lights a torch, illuminating the passageway riddled with fecal matter.

“This way,” he starts to lead them through the dark damp labyrinth beneath the city.

They freeze after rounding a corner, seeing an odd sight amongst the filth that surrounds them. A large golden door, covered in rot and sewage, but golden nonetheless.

“Okay, I take it that is our exit?” Kali comments, seeing as Kayde is walking towards it without hesitation.

“Yup,” he begins to push against it, his hand slipping for a second due to the grime on the door. On the other side is a barren room, empty except for the stairs in the corner.

“Alright guys, from this point on we need to be careful,” Kayde warns them as they ascend the steps. Upon reaching the top they notice a pair of metal doors leading upwards.

“Above this is the archbishop’s complex, we should surface in the greenhouse. From there we sneak into the mansion. Once inside we look for the room with guards outside of it, that will most likely be the one the archbishop is sleeping in. When we find the room I’ll knock them out with Lunette’s handy liquid she gave us. Finally we go in there and kill them,” Kayde lays out the rest of the plan.

He pushes against the doors, but they don’t budge. Drakthar pushes Kayde aside and takes over. He pushes upwards with everything he has, the doors move a little, but don’t open. Kali comes up to help him and finally they are able to push the doors open, they second they do dirt begins to rain down onto them, pouring through the opening that has just been created beneath it.

“Oh, no the flowers,” Kayde reacts to seeing the flowers that were planted in that particular patch now ruined.

“We have bigger things to worry about,” Drakthar tries to get him back on track while hoisting him up out of the hole.

The greenhouse is dimly lit, only by moonlight that shines down on them. The group stays low, swiftly moving through the doorway that leads into the main house. Kayde takes the lead, making sure to peer around corners while invisible to scout out ahead.

They go from floor to floor, finding kitchens, lounges, and an endless amount of studies with not a single guard in sight.

“This place seems deserted,” Kali points out the obvious.

“They couldn’t know we were coming, could they?” Drakthar starts to think something is funny here.

“Let’s not panic until we are caught,” Kayde gets them to settle down. They reach the top floor, a hallway with paintings and lavish jewelry lead to a large set of double doors.

There are still no guards, but Kayde still goes on ahead first, pushing the doors open slightly, ready to knock anyone out with the laced needle if he needs to. But inside he finds no one, the room is completely devoid of people, only luxurious furniture is within it.

He signals for the rest of them to come forward.

“So what do we do now?” Kali asks, seeing as the entire place is empty.

“I’d say we wait here until he shows up, everyone, get in the closet,” Kayde orders.

They all file into the closet while Kayde remains outside, invisible, sitting in one of the chairs at a table near the center of the room. As the hours pass by, a seed of doubt starts to grow in Kayde’s mind; what if the archbishop is the type of guy that works through the night and doesn’t come home to his lavish abode? Just as he contemplates giving up, he hears faint voices from outside the door.

He watches as the door opens.

“Have a nice night sir,” One of the guards tells him as the archbishop and the two guards enter the room. Kayde waits, biding his time until the archbishop falls asleep and the guards leave the room to wait outside. Before he gets into bed, he lays a few papers onto his desk.

After thirty minutes, the sound of the archbishop’s snoring signals that he has drifted off into sleep. Kayde stays invisible, making sure to kill the man cautiously this time. He pokes the man in the neck with the knock out laced needle, just so he won’t make any noise when he slits his throat. Kayde then pulls out his knife made of the sand dragon’s claw, slowly dragging it across the archbishop’s neck, blood seeping onto his pillow and staining his perfectly white, silk sheets.

Kayde signals towards the closet, conveying that he will handle those at the door. He pushes it open silently, so much so that the guards do not even notice. He slips through and pricks the first guard with a needle. He immediately turns to the other and injects it into him before the first’s body hits the floor.

He then drags both of them inside before finally becoming visible.

“Okay, looks like we're done with that, now let’s get out of here,” Kayde comments, glad that it was able to go this smoothly.

On their way out Gwendolyn passes by the desk and something on the papers catches her eye. She swipes them off the desk, pushing them into her bag. They exit the same way they came in without any trouble; the guards were only stationed out front, not expecting an attack from within.

They follow Kayde through the sewers, eventually making their way outside the city via the pipe he had wanted them to enter through initially. Surprisingly, Fore and Lunette are waiting for them on the other side. A cacophony of joyful barks greeting them.

“So is it done?” Lunette asks, seeing her four filthy friends exit the pipes. Kayde responds with a wide smile accompanied by a big thumbs up.