It was a group of houses set along the river. They were large, but looked like they’d seen better days; two of them looked like they’d been abandoned for a while, while the other four seemed to be in better shape. From what Serenity had seen, they were all completely filled with Sterath, possibly as many as the gym, but the houses didn’t have the large rooms of the gym.

Two of them seemed to have been cut up into multiple smaller apartments at some point, while the others seemed to simply have been built with smaller rooms. None of them had any rooms larger than twenty-by-forty. Serenity didn’t want to fight all of the Sterath that could fit into that size room at once, but it was still not as bad as fighting them in the gym, which was more than twice as large in both dimensions.

Serenity didn’t have the full floor plans, but he did have what he’d written in his notebook the previous day, and that gave them enough to make a plan. There was no way they wouldn’t be seen coming, but if they could look like something other than a war party and be seen from only one or at most two of the houses, they’d have a good chance to clear them out separately.

Which was why Serenity was in his human form, carrying Rissa’s spear in his Quick Belt. He didn’t prefer fighting as a human, but it was far easier to make the deception work. Katya could carry her own weapons; she didn’t usually wear them, but she did have a back-sheath for her sword and concealed sheathes for her smaller knives. Raz was willing to go without weapons; he was primarily a mage, after all.

All four of them were carrying bottles of Coke and trying to act like they were drunk. Serenity wasn’t certain how well he was doing, and Raz was terrible at it, but Katya was excellent. Serenity had no idea how someone could stagger sideways so frequently, weaving back and forth, and still stay on her feet.

“Have you done this before?” They were still far enough away that Serenity wasn’t concerned about the actual content of what they said; their erratic movement was good enough.

“Once or twice. Now get in character!” Katya pushed on Serenity’s chest and projected. “Ahn yah’d sure like to wouldn ya?” She staggered forward, past Serenity. “Ya see ‘at house?”

“YEAH!” Rissa was even louder than Katya. “You SAID there was an ABANDONED house here! That’s it?” She stalked towards the house, staring fixedly ahead. She looked far less drunk then Katya, but there was still something about her that said she wasn’t sober as she stopped and took a drink of her completely nonalcoholic Coke. She turned and made a huge gesture, calling the others forward. “C’MON GUYS!”

Serenity looked at Raz and shrugged before turning to follow. This was the plan, more or less; they were supposed to look like drunk humans heading up to an abandoned house. That way, the Sterath wouldn’t think they were actually there to fight and wouldn’t call for assistance until it was too late.

That was the plan. It wasn’t quite going as Serenity had expected, since Katya and Rissa both seemed to be enjoying overacting to the hilt, but perhaps that was what they needed. It wasn’t likely that the Sterath could even understand English, after all.

The house was in terrible condition, worse than it looked from a distance. Once upon a time, it was probably a nice two-story house with an attached garage, but it was a run-down wreck; Serenity was sure it would be better to rip it out and replace than to try to repair it. The first floor wasn’t too bad, but the roof had large holes and he suspected it was possible to see the sky from the second story.

Serenity had seen Sterath throughout the building, but as far as he could tell they were all low-ranking. It should be easy to deal with, and if they did it right, they might not even alert the next house. That was the goal, after all; they didn’t want to take on all of the Sterath at once.

The door was unlocked. Katya reached it first and didn’t even try to knock. She pulled it open, then yelled at the top of her lungs for the others to hurry up.

They did.

Serenity made sure he was the last one through the door. As he pulled it closed behind him, he heard Katya mutter a quick spell. She’d clearly had good training. When he turned back around, Serenity recognized the spell; it was a relatively cheap variation of a light spell that only gave off a line of light, very much like an old flashlight.

You had to direct where the line went, so most people either had it come out of their eyes or their hand. Katya clearly preferred the left hand; Serenity could understand that. While it meant that she’d have very limited light while fighting with a weapon in that hand, she wouldn’t reveal where she was looking.

It wasn’t dark out yet, but it wasn’t bright either, and that meant the room was only dimly lit; the only windows into the entrance room were at the front, where the roof over the front porch created shadows. For seeing the room, it was annoying, but for their purposes it was perfect.

She shined it around the room. It was empty and covered in dust, but there were clear trails where the dust was disturbed. She didn’t comment on those. There were no Sterath in the room, which meant they had to be farther on. “Looks abandoned for sure. I think this is the place.”

Serenity noticed the slurring was gone from her words. Well, hopefully the Sterath wouldn’t realize what that meant. “Let’s look around, then. Got your camera ready?” What he said didn’t really matter as long as he said it in a relaxed manner.

The rooms were connected directly to each other instead of having hallways; from his earlier reconnaissance, Serenity knew that there were two larger gathering rooms on the first floor, surrounded by three bedrooms and the kitchen; the garage could only be reached through the kitchen. The stairs were in the second larger room; since it was next to the kitchen, Serenity suspected it was the dining room. The upstairs was smaller, with only four rooms, one of which was the house’s only bathroom.

There were two exits from the entrance room; one led into the dining room, while the other led into one of the bedrooms. Katya led the way into the dining room. The others deliberately lagged behind her, hoping the Sterath would be “smart” and attempt to surround them, cutting them off from the exit.Serenity quietly pulled Rissa’s spear from his Quick Belt and handed it to her; she’d need it soon.

The Sterath were smart. The first sign of their attack was when Serenity saw three Sterath filter into the room, scurrying on all four limbs to block the front door. Katya’s scream of “KANGAROO!” from the dining room said it had started there, too.

Serenity drew his ax, but didn’t charge. Instead, he called on his Death Affinity. He was trying to use other things, but that didn’t mean he had to give up everything he’d worked so hard to learn, and using it for a Path Skill wasn’t that much of a problem. Surely it wouldn’t make him slip back into old habits.

Serenity pushed it into an Infused Strike on the ax, then turned that into a Far Strike. He didn’t expect the Sterath to go down in one strike; it was only a Tier One Path Skill, after all. It shouldn’t be able to kill a Tier One enemy in a single hit.

Yet it did.

It also took far less stamina than the Plasma-based Far Strikes Serenity had been using. He could only assume that was because he’d had a much, much higher Affinity and Concept for Death before they’d become an Incarnate, though he wasn’t directly calling on his Incarnate now. It was too noticeable.

Two more Far Strikes quickly followed, silently eliminating the threat behind them while Katya, Raz, and Rissa fought the ones in the other room. Serenity silently spoke to Rissa; she’d be staying with the others to relay his messages. :This room’s clear. Keep them occupied, I’m going to see how many I can deal with in the bedrooms.:

:Got it. So far, everything’s on the plan here too.: Rissa’s mind-voice sounded cheerful. Serenity had never expected her to come to like fighting, but it seemed like she had. More than that, she was starting to actually develop some real skill, though he expected she’d always be more of a mage.

Two more Sterath entered the room while Serenity was talking to Rissa. In many ways it was fortunate; it was clear they hadn’t yet realized anything was wrong, and Serenity was able to wait until they were well away from the entrance before he took them down. The darkness in the house was definitely their friend right now; that wouldn’t last on the second floor, but then again, the Sterath wouldn’t have a way out then.

Serenity wasn’t particularly sneaky, but he was able to simply walk through the open doorway into the next room without being noticed; the Sterath hadn’t closed the door behind them when they came in.

Being able to see in the dark was immensely useful. Past that, any noises he made were overshadowed by the noise Katya was making in the dining room. She was shouting, screaming, and yelling for all she was worth, along with the normal combat noises; that was part of the plan, to cover any noise Serenity made, and Katya didn’t seem to have any compunctions about making a fool of herself to follow the plan. Both Raz and Rissa were trying, but they weren’t as loud together as Katya was on her own.

All of the Sterath in the first bedroom were standing, watching the other direction. It seemed like the ones that had been told to secure the front door already had, and the others were all waiting for their chance to get where the action was.

Serenity gave them as much action as they were ever going to see with a Death-laced Infused Strike of the ax; there was no point in using Far Strike when he could simply walk up to them and save the stamina. He slipped quietly through the next door and cleaned out the second room as well.

In the third bedroom, Serenity found a Sterath who wasn’t as oblivious as the others. It didn’t save him, but it did mean that Serenity actually had to fight his way through the last bedroom on the first floor.

There weren’t many Sterath left by then; they’d been slowly filtering forward into the meat-grinder that was Katya. When the four left in the bedroom charged Serenity, he threw a Far Strike at the one in the lead. He fell, tripping one of the others and delaying the other two enough that Serenity was able to Far Strike a second before any of them reached him.

The one Sterath that did reach him was painfully slow and telegraphed his attack. Serenity felt like he had all the time in the world to avoid it; a simple slice with his once again Death-infused ax was enough to drop the Sterath. Serenity turned the Infused Strike into another Far Strike and downed the Sterath who’d finally recovered his feet before he could hop forward.

He stepped into the dining room as Rissa finished off the last opponent with a clever strike with her spear. “Oh, wow. I didn’t expect that to work.”