Will tried to sit up, but she gently urged him back down. “Drink this first.” She handed him a health potion. He drank it, clearing the last of the fog clouding his thoughts and feeling returning to his limbs. She explained as he drank, “I wanted to make a truce before the orcs invade and didn’t want to wait for you to spawn.”

He grunted as he sat up slowly, “The orcs won’t invade for another two weeks.”

“Really?” The relief was obvious in her voice, “How do you know that? I thought the wall was about to collapse.”

“Shiro told me.” He said as he glanced around. The soldiers had formed a circle around him, keeping the enemy from reaching him, while he had a chance to recover. Will spotted a few young women among them dressed more like Emily. Apparently, she’d brought her friends along. Even with the reinforcements, the soldiers were struggling. There were just too many enemies. “We need to get out of here.”

“Yeah,” She said, “I think your friends aren’t doing so hot.”

“What gave you that impression?” Will asked. He felt unsteady, his knees threatening to buckle at every step, and drank a health potion from his belt before feeling confident enough to move.

She must’ve missed the sarcasm in his voice because she answered, “There’s too many for them to handle.”

Will opened his mouth to give a retort, but it turned into a gasp as an arrow slammed into an invisible barrier surrounding the two of them, sending a bluish white light rippling across it. “Is that a shield?”

“Yep, pretty cool, huh?” She smirked. “That’s what my faction’s all about, magic thieves.” She looked up at the roof, spotted the archer and cast a spell. A half dozen ice shards flew from her hand to crash into the roof, causing large chunks of clay and tile to explode. A cloud of dust hung in the air, the particles lighting up the shield in a shimmering display of lights. “My mana’s almost out. Time to get going.”

Will equipped his bow and started looking for a way out as he started firing arrows. The courtyard was covered in rubble, with large sections of the wall half destroyed. He spotted an area where the debris made a series of steps they could use to get over a section of the wall. He ran to it, calling out as he did so for the others to follow, and started climbing.

He stopped halfway up to provide covering fire as the rest of his team disengaged from the guards and ran towards him. Once everyone had cleared the courtyard, Will climbed to the top of the debris and leapt over the wall. His foot caught the lip of the wall, knocking his center of balance off and he landed hard.

Voodoo hauled him up by the back of the collar, and said with a wry grin, “No time for a nap, man. We gotta get outta here.”

“Cute.” Will said dryly as he switched to his sword.

“Aww, thanks,” Voodoo laughed, “But you’re not my type.”

Will ignored him, as he surveyed the area. They were in a short, wide alley with between the wall and another warehouse. A pair of soldiers stood at the entrance, one keeping watch while the other waved the rest of the party to past. Pooh whispered loud enough for everyone to hear, “Split up and meet at the safe house.”

“Stick with me.” Voodoo said to Will and Emily as they ran into the small side street. Will quickly became disoriented as he led them through the warren of streets and alleys until they came out in an empty market, with rickety wooden stalls surrounding a wide fountain. Voodoo grabbed Will and pushed him behind a stall just before a pair of guards raced past.

Once through the market, they worked their way down an alley to a dead end. Will and Voodoo hoisted Emily over, then Voodoo who twisted around at the top and offered his hand down to Will. Will took a few steps back to give himself a running start and jumped up, just catching Voodoo’s hand. He grabbed the lip of the wall with Voodoo’s help and pulled himself over. They landed in a small garden behind an inn.

“We should be safe here for a bit.” Voodoo said as he sagged against the wall, “At least until our stamina recharges.”

“This is so much fun.” Emily giggled. “Is it always like this with you guys?”

Will looked at her askance. This girl was either completely mental, or had her priorities messed up. Was he seriously thinking about having a truce with someone so obviously deranged?

Then again, he could let her group do any of the really crazy stuff while he focused on building a resistance. He’d never tell her that was one of the reasons he was considering a truce between them. She might not care about it, considering she thought this was fun, but she could also say he was being mean or cruel. He didn’t have a good enough read on her just yet to figure out which way she’d think. So far, she’d acted more scatterbrained than anything. “So, about this truce you were talking about. What did you have in mind?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” She admitted, “I was thinking we could, like, team up or something and help each other out.”

“You mean sharing resources? Or helping each other out on missions?” He asked.

“Both? Or just help each other if you’re not cool with sharing resources.” She said.

On the one hand, sharing resources might be an issue if her group couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain, but if they could on the other hand, it would mean he could concentrate on the orcs. “I’m not against either.”

“Sweet!” She said loudly. Voodoo hushed her. She gave him an embarrassed look and whispered, “Sorry.”

Will asked, “Do we need to shake on it or something to make it official?”

“I don’t know,” She said, “This is my first time running a faction. But don’t think that means I don’t know what I’m doing, because I totally do. I mean, I know the basics and stuff. It’s the weird things that I don’t know how to do, like making a truce between factions. But don’t worry, I’ll figure it all out.” She took a deep breath after finishing and watched Will apprehensively. Will sat back as he studied her for a second. Obviously worried that he might be rethinking the truce, she blurted, “And if you already know something I don’t, or have done this before, I promise I’ll listen to your advice. I mean, I won’t promise to do everything you say since it’s my group and all, but I definitely want to know what you think.”

Will chuckled softly, “Relax, Emily. I’m still open to a truce between us. I’m just trying to think what the best way to do it is.”

“Oh, right.” She sighed in relief. “That makes sense.”

“You know what,” Will said, “Let’s agree that we work together to free the city from the orcs, when it finally happens. After that, we can go from there.”

She smiled as she nodded vigorously, “Okay, yeah. That sounds like a good idea.”

He held out his hand, and she shook it. A notification popped up.

A Truce with the Bone Crew

You’ve agreed to a truce between The Order and The Bone Crew.

Terms: Truce

Goal: Defeat the Orcs

“Wow.” She said, “So it’s official and all. I’ll be honest, I was really scared the wall would collapse before we could talk, even knowing that it won’t for a while now.”

Will asked, “You never did explain why you think the wall is about to collapse?”

“I went up there before looking for you tonight when I found you on the roof, remember? Anyway, this really big rock slammed into it while I was there and made a giant crack along it. It went all the way through the wall, so I figured it wouldn’t last much longer. Guess I was right.” She said with a satisfied grin. “But it doesn’t matter if the orcs won’t take over for a while.”

Will looked at Voodoo, who stared back at him in wide-eyed shock. He knew his face probably looked the same. Will said, “I need to see this.”

Voodoo nodded vigorously back before hauling himself to his feet. They moved to the inn and climbed a trellis to the roof. There, Will turned in a circle as he studied the wall. It only took him a few seconds to spot what she was talking about, except that it was no longer a large crack in the wall. It had expanded to a large rent. A second later, that section of the wall shook as another boulder slammed into it and a section of the wall collapse, exposing the night sky beyond. The ground shook as the wall collapsed, throwing Will off balance and sliding down the roof. He caught himself on a chimney and climbed to his feet. He looked back at the wall.

He couldn’t make out much detail from that distance, but the guards on either side of the section were engaged in fighting and smoke was coming from buildings nearby. Will licked his lips, “I think Shiro was wrong about the time.”

It made sense. Shiro had said the whole thing was scripted but wasn’t supposed to happen until much later. He’d been stupid to think the hacker wouldn’t adjust timeline before the city fell. If anything, Will was a little surprised it had taken this long before it happened. He cursed a few times under his breath as the smoke turned orange and specks of burning embers floated up into the night sky.

“We need to get to the safehouse now.” Voodoo said. “Before we’re caught up in the fighting.”

Will glanced at his minimap and cursed again when he realized the safehouse was somewhere near the missing wall.

They dropped off the roof at the entrance to the inn as players barged out. The street filled up until Will couldn’t move more than a few feet without jostling another player. He grabbed Emily’s hand to keep from getting separated and tried to lead her towards the faction headquarters.

At first, the sky dimmed as they moved, but the spreading fire spread faster than they did. Will glanced down a side street as they ran, seeing three different buildings burning. They turned down another street a few minutes later and ran straight into an inferno.

A wall of billowing smoke hit them in the face, bringing tears to Will’s eyes. He tried to find a street that hadn’t caught on fire yet, but it was no use. Everywhere he turned, the entire street was already ablaze.

He collided with a group of six orcs as he turned a corner. He had just enough time to notice they looked as scared of the fire as he did, before their shock turned to growls of anger. Voodoo darted past him and stabbed one of the orcs, killing it, and Emily cast a spell sending a shockwave of air at them. It caught three of them, hurling them off their feet and into a burning building. Will drew his sword and attacked another.

The fight only lasted a few seconds after that, but the sudden exertion left him rasping for air in the smoky haze. He tasted the soot, felt it grinding against his teeth. He tried to spit it out, but his mouth was too dry.

Will led them through the fire as buildings started to collapse around him. He spotted a few other figures in the smoke, making a point to keep clear just in case they were more orcs. As the raging inferno got worse, he abandoned trying to reach his headquarters and started looking for anywhere that might be safe, desperately hoping he could find anything at all.

Eventually, Emily tugged his hand to get his attention. She gasped out, “I don’t think we can reach your safehouse.” Will sighed and nodded. She continued, “We might be able to get to mine.”

He looked at Voodoo, who shrugged, before saying, “Then we’re following you.”

She led them back the way they’d just traveled, detouring around fallen buildings. The fire grew hotter around them, and Will had to smack the burning embers landing on his clothes before they could catch fire. He was getting close to telling her it was no use when they suddenly emerged from the inferno next to a large fountain.

She barked a relieved laugh as she ran towards it. Will didn’t hesitate to follow and dunked his head in the second he reached the edge. The water felt freezing cold compared to the hot air around him, despite being at least lukewarm to the touch.

The soot on his face and in hair left the water murky. He didn’t care, he cupped his hands together and took sip after sip, feeling relief as it passed his parched throat.

“Over here,” Emily called to them. Will glanced up at where she was standing. The fountain had been built out of a large boulder, probably a natural spring, that was at least twenty feet tall and a dozen feet around. A relief had been carved into it depicting various animals, with the water flowing out of the mouth of a lion.

Emily grinned as she placed a hand on a fox and pushed. It gave with a soft click, and a hidden door opened a few inches above the water line. “Welcome to my hideout.”