Coming up on Mebin, I'm a little surprised to see it doesn't have a city wall. Well, I guess it's not that weird, it's nowhere near the size of Lenarlil and Pollton. While they're built up cities, this is more of a small rural town.

The buildings are still a similar style, mostly light wooden constructions a few floors tall. They're more spread out, with grass lawns and wide cobbled roads winding between. When we arrive at the edge of town though, it's immediately apparent that something is wrong.

Where is everyone? No one asks the question aloud; no one needs to. We enter the streets, cobbles crackling lightly underfoot as we draw our weapons again.

You have discovered a new city: Mebin You have leveled up.

We don't even get a message about this being a safe zone. At least the discovery got me the last EXP I needed to level. I put that from my mind for the moment though, staying in formation with the party as we proceed down the streets.

“Looks like an attack,” Hask notes as we pass by a small storefront with the door torn off and thrown into the road. There aren't many other signs of damage around though, so it doesn't look particularly bad. Probably just a small-scale invasion.

So where the hell is everyone? With my ears peeled and twitching back and forth, I swear I hear snips of sound in our surroundings, but nothing loud enough to pinpoint. It's making me anxious and jumpy.

“There's our place,” Koru speaks up quietly, pointing out a restaurant on the roadside. We all head for the door, slipping quietly inside. Mary takes up position to guard the door while everyone else spreads out.

“Empty,” Mark murmurs, just loud enough for us to hear as he peaks over the bar counter. While the others spread through the store, I take a moment to scan through my stats now that I've leveled up. Despite all the new Skills I know I need, there's one thing I absolutely want before we get involved in anything else weird.

I have 5 CP, 5 AP, and 2 SP to spend. After some quick math, I put a point into Aura and 6 AP into Skillful. That gets me up to the 5 SP I need to take Cleansing Magic.

I'm left with 4 CP, 3 AP, and 0 SP, but I finally have a better way to use cleansing magic when I need it. After setting the spell up, I decide to leave my Cleansing Ray spell for now despite its cost. I want a ranged option if I really need it.

As soon as I'm finished, I wave away my menu and join my party searching the restaurant. We all move in near silence, but after searching the front and back thoroughly, we come up empty handed. Everything is still in place, no signs of struggle or anything, nothing broken. There's still food sitting cold on the bar counter. Everyone is just gone.

A shiver runs up my back. It's like we just stepped into a horror movie - like a haunted town where everyone just vanished.

“Come on, let's keep going,” Hask waves us back out, and we advance through the small town once more. It begins to grow dark with the fall of the sun. Whatever we do, whether it's finding out what happened or getting the hell out of here, we need to do it soon.

My eyes keep flicking back to Koru and Azra. They haven't said anything, but they can't hide the fear and pain in their expressions. This was supposed to be their new home, and this is what we found. Not only are their parents gone, now their aunt and uncle are missing too.

It's not long before we make it to the central plaza of the small town. What we see there...

“Oh, shit.” The Oblivion are waiting for us, gathered protectively around the town's core crystal. The corrupted core crystal, completely full and oozing with inky darkness.

Then I hear another sound, my ears twitching back before I look behind us, and find the missing townspeople. My heart sinks through the ground when I see them, bathed in an aura of darkness, standing shoulder to shoulder as they block much of the road that would be our escape route.

Of course it was a trap.

But, since when are the Oblivion smart enough to lay traps?

There's no time to question that. In fact, there's no time for anything. Without any warning, the core crystal pulses, a swell of darkness crashing over us. It feels like a whole kick in my chest, and I stagger a number of steps when the blast of crystal blows away behind me. Holy shit that's strong!

I recover my footing just in time to see the others. The same dark aura around all of them.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

Brain screaming at the sight of my entire party corrupted, I lurch into motion before I can even fully process it. I grab whoever is closest and cast Cleansing Touch to blow away the corruption on them. This is why this magic is so important! The others start to turn on me, and I crash straight into the whole group, casting my cleansing spell as fast as it will form.

I manage to tag Hask before Lara tears me open with her sword. I fall back, going down as Hask throws out a wide area cleansing spell to take care of everyone else. Gritting my teeth, I look all around. We're blocked off on both sides, corrupted Nirvallans and Oblivion monsters closing in. And then there's the core crystal. I can already feel the hum in the air as it charges up for another burst.

Lara grabs me, healing the sword wound in my chest while simultaneously pulling me to my feet. “Forward!” I shout, pointing at the crystal. I have to do something about that, or everyone will just keep getting corrupted.

We all dash, ranged attacks raining down on the mob of incoming monsters blocking our path. Then we meet and clash, our vanguard pushing into the large creatures.

But it only lasts a moment. When the rounded, man size beetle things push back, our whole front line almost buckles.

“Oh fuck they're invasion mobs!” Nolen shouts. I glance to the incoming Nirvallans when Hask drops back to deal with them, shouting for everyone else to go on ahead. Lara buffs us all, burning down her mana greatly and chugging a potion before she calls out a bunch of abilities and dives into the line of monsters.

They monsters don't look like they should be that strong, they're just these round things with big armored backs, all clustered together in front of us like a wall. Like giant bugs. Honestly, these look like a swarm of small fries. That's why the towers are so important for invasions, even things like these are a challenge for higher level Guardians without them.

When I cast a Dark Curse on one, it doesn't go down in a single hit. Even Flare, with his overwhelming attack power, has to rain continuous bursts of fire on them to take down each individual enemy.

That's it! “Flare, shoot the marked targets!” I take aim and shout, “Dark Contagion!” When the burst of darkness goes off, Flare nails it with a flame bolt, and it dies. That chains the spell into the next two nearby, and I see a mad grin spread over the fire mage's face.

“Now! That's! More! Like it!” he shouts, each word punctuated with a swing of his hands, rapid bursts of fire spraying out to hit each new target as the spell chains through them. My magic isn't enough for an instant kill, but it still does a ton of damage. That's enough to weaken them to the point that Flare can bowl over the whole crowd with his absurd casting speed. Mark joins in, raining a hail of arrows over them and blowing out the crowd even faster.

Sparing another glance behind, Hask is still holding his own. The corrupted Nirvallans probably aren't that high level, and he's bathing them in burst after burst of cleansing magic. It's taking a lot longer than it did for us though. How much corruption do they have on them? How long were they in here after the core crystal got corrupted? It must have happened during their last invasion, right?

When Winter finishes his chant and drops his huge AOE over the crowd, it wipes out a massive chunk of the enemy force in our way. Unfortunately, that includes most of the ones my curse had spread through, and the others finish off the stragglers nearby before the rest of the army fills in and gives it more targets to jump to. I'm forced to cast Dark Contagion again, taking another big bite out of my mana.

After that, I have to stick to largely ineffective normal shots. I don't have the mana or stamina to keep up special attacks in a battle like this. I have to save my strength in case that core crystal hits us again. At least my bow is easier to draw now. I only got a glance earlier, but my Power stat went up a lot when I leveled. The draw weight isn't too heavy for me anymore. And my quiver, worse for wear after taking a hit from my crystals, is still in one piece.

I glance back again to see that Hask has finished up with most of the Nirvallans, who are either fleeing or helping pin down the last of the corrupted for him to cleanse.

On the frontline, we're doing much better advancing, quickly boring a hole through the surrounding army to approach the core. The beetle swarm starts hitting us from the sides though, and we're at risk of getting separated from Hask. When I call back to him, he finishes up and comes our way, now with a retainer of the bravest Nirvallans, intent on helping us save their town.

That's when another dark explosion rips through me from behind, and I watch the spray of crystal across the cobbles as my reeling mind fights to pull itself back together. I throw a hand up, practically on reflex. “Cleansing Ray!” It hits hit Hask in the chest, my conscious mind only then recognizing the aura of corruption that was on him as it blows away.

I spin back, recasting to hit Lara, before an arrow catches me in the shoulder. I shift aside, Mark's next shot skimming by, then throw my hands up protectively when Flare's fire magic crashes over me. I'm surprised when it doesn't even hurt that much, despite his massive firepowor and the difference in our levels.

Managing to shrug it off, I duck an attack from a beetle that got around us now that we're fighting each other again, going low as I grab Mark and cleanse him too.

I also get a hand on Taryn, barely cleansing him before he can nail me in the face with his freshly reloaded crossbow. But then Flare hits our entire group with a pillar of fire. I shrug off the attack again, but the other two archers hardly look to be in fighting shape, and are forced to go for their healing potions.

“Need heals!” I call loudly, eyes landing on Lara as she finishes cleansing Mary and Nolen. I fire another cleansing ray at Flare, but he ducks it. Three of those so close together have almost emptied my mana pool. Doing my best to dodge or block the fire that he keeps on me, I spin away to grab at Koru and Azra. At least they don't have much to attack with when corrupted.

When I finish with them, Lara jumps Flare from behind and cleanses him too. We get to Winter last, but not before he slings a huge lance of ice he's been charging up my way. I barely dive under it, before remembering about his weird spell echoing thing, and look up... but there's nothing there.

I don't get it, but it doesn't matter, because Lara gets to Winter, cleansing him from behind, while Azra slides into my side, one arm around my back to help me up while healing my burns. “Thanks!” I pant, almost off-handed while my eyes and thoughts return to our surroundings.

All I see are monsters. They have us fully surrounded, and I can't even see Hask anymore.

I don't feel any more energy building from the core crystal, so it must have used everything it had on those first two attacks. That hardly helps at this point. Mark is literally spinning in circles as he rapid fires arrows into everything around us, and Flare has reverted to bursts of uncontained fire magic, washing over the whole crowd.

Beating on the endless swarm coming from all sides, it's clearly still not enough. Pincers and teeth rake in from all directions, cutting into Taryn and Winter. Taryn's health is getting dangerously low despite his potion use, and his slow firing crossbow is of almost no use in this melee. He ends up forced to block and defend himself with his weapon, unable to even reload and fire.

Mary and Nolen are doing better, but there's a limit to the amount of damage they can wade through. Mary's shield and armor are starting to fall apart under the abuse. Lara starts throwing heals to patch people up and Azra lends a hand, but there's no way they can keep up. Emma's summons can't even offer us a respite because they are getting torn apart as fast as she can summon them.

Then the bigger monsters finally show up. Towering over the beetles, they have three big eyes and no mouths or noses on their smooth skinned faces. All with giant clubs. I can't even count them amid the chaos.

“Guys.” Flare calls out. He sounds... happy? When I look, he's out of mana. “Thanks for the fire gem. GG.” And he shows us a big grin. With my breath caught in my throat, some part of me expects him to die right then and there.

But he doesn't. He says, “Burn Out.”

With his mana completely empty, Flare turns on the spot, and unleashes a blazing inferno, utterly annihilating the small mobs around us. With a crazy grin and his health suddenly plummeting, he waves his hands all around like a mad orchestra conductor, massive explosions tearing down the larger monsters moving in around us too.

The effect hardly lasts more than a few seconds before his health is going to run out. But just in time, Lara thrusts her hand toward the sky and shouts out. “Gather Power! Rising!” I recognize the spell immediately when beams of light all burst out around her, though without the chant, it's not as strong as before. It still heals most of our wounds anyway. Flare's sliver of health is nearly maxed out again in an instant, while all the light from Lara's magic leaps back off of us, onto her in a swarm of new multicolor buffs.

Lara's last second save costs her every last bit of her mana, and I can see her strain to keep standing when the stamina cost hits her too. Chugging a potion, she flings the empty vial away and grabs her sword.

At the same time, Flare throws his hands forward, an endless rolling wave of destruction blowing a hole straight through the crowd, all the way to the core crystal. “Go!” he shouts, and I notice that his full health is still rapidly declining. That's when I get it.

That ability he used, it only ends when he dies, doesn't it?

I do as Flare says and run, pulling the kids along with me. With everything we've done, there's still a sea of darkness around us. And some voice screaming in the back of my head that if we can just take down the crystal, we can turn this around somehow.

So I run. With the others at my side, we charge through the closing gap. “Boost!” I shout, trying to help get the three of us low levels through with the higher level, faster Guardians in front of us.

But for some reason, I don't feel the ability buff activate. New lights appear around everyone else, and they all speed up instead.

I have no time to question it. All I can do is keep running. Ignoring the bite of pain from a beetle clawing at my back, then duck the swing from one of the three eyed things, and pull the kids along with me. Then fling a spell to kill the strange, tentacle covered thing that breaks from the crowd and into my path.

I feel the towering explosion behind us as much as I hear it, and can sense that Flare is gone.

Then we make it clear. The monsters all swarm in around us. Winter finishes another long chant, with a sweep of deadly frost wiping another whole section near the core crystal, only for it to fill in with even bigger, nastier monsters than before, crashing into another line of defensive summons as Emma raises them.

We really were just fighting the small fries, weren't we? Turning back to the endless sea of Oblivion, I can't even guess where Hask is now. At least I can tell he's still alive. With everyone fighting desperately, Koru takes up support now that Lara is out of mana, and Azra starts healing the best she can.

I turn back to the core crystal. With a hard swallow, I drop my gear, and reach for it. “Everyone, get ready to duck,” I warn them, knowing how dangerous my strange rose crystals can be.

Then I set my shoulders, and touch the core crystal.

The hit is like nothing I've felt before.

With time crawling to a standstill around me, I can feel the whole town. I'm drowning in such an ocean of darkness, it's a strain to even surface above it all. But I can do it. Because it doesn't matter how much it is, or how hard it is, I know I'm strong enough.

Are you now?