Rory was momentary blinded by the brilliant flash and deafened by the tremendous crack. The lightning blast that struck the front of the palace made its entire face explode outwards, sending chunks of debris the size of cars flying everywhere.

They all screamed and fell back. Or tried to. Just as it had with Rory, the tremendous blue bolt had shocked everyone into a momentary stupor.

Despite the surprise, most people managed to use their Sigils in time to protect themselves. Most were successful, but Rory stared aghast as a few were crushed by the debris outright. He saw the wheelchair-bound old man disappear behind a crush of falling rubble, belatedly realizing he had never known the fellow’s name. Another chunk of masonry slammed into the wolfhound, Leanne screaming out as her big dog was lost from view.

Rory shook where he stood. His eyes were drawn back to the massive hole in the front of the palace. No. This couldn’t be happening now. They’d worked too hard to make this place their home, toiled away to find themselves a functioning shelter. They couldn’t lose it all now.

The chaos was making his thoughts sluggish. People were screaming and crying out over each other. As though their master’s assault had energized them, the Thundershells attacked with renewed vigour, jumping everywhere and shooting their lightning at anything that even twitched.

Dez countered with blasts of dark fire, Viv swinging in with her Omnipresent Sabre carving through their ranks. The others weren’t far behind. Trish was throwing javelins from a distance while Allen was trying to trap them with his summoned plants, though neither had much effect thanks to the monsters’ greater size. Ned’s water was also ineffectual, the sheer power of the lightning vaporizing the liquid away.

April had slightly greater luck with her distant detonation going off her gun. The Thundershells suffering her barrage of exploding bullets were being forced back. Rory was thankful he had given her a Sigil of Wielding before leaving. Same for Sue and her moving barriers. She was doing well to keep the Thundershells from those who weren’t having as much luck protecting themselves.

Point was, they were holding, despite the pandemonium. Things weren’t lost. Rory needed to buckle up and do his part.

But just as he was about to start figuring out a way to get into the palace, lightning flashed overhead in a furious storm again. He looked up to see several bolts drawing close to the Thunderclaw Knight, wrapping him in a gargantuan ball of sparking energy.

“Another bolt is coming!” Rory shouted, his voice so loud that it cracked. “Take cover!”

That was easier said than done. With the Thundershells everywhere, and everyone outside instead of safely ensconced inside the palace, there was no easy way for them to take shelter. Sue was able to grant them a lot of protection, though. Her barricade was up in a second, bigger than ever before, ready to block whatever the floating monster threw at them.

The lightning blasts that arced off the Knight landed all around them. Several hammered down in the forest around the palace, setting more of the trees on fire, which sizzled in the downpour. The rest crashed within the palace grounds. Some struck the roof, and a heavy fire indicated the area where April’s gardens had been set alight. The van exploded into incendiary shrapnel when a bolt landed on it. Even several Thundershells were mowed down by their master’s attack.

A blinding blue bolt destroyed one of their lookout spots, and a terrified scream made Rory’s heart stop beating for a moment. The next second, he was sure he saw Mikey’s body flying through the air to land with a sickening thud somewhere behind the left wing.

Rory’s heart twisted itself into painful knots. There was no time to feel any remorse or sadness. The Thundershells wouldn’t let him. Several were coming in his direction, and he was forced to us his blizzard to stop them again.

Of course, no one came to his assistance. Chaos reigned over the day. Despite Sue’s best efforts, the bolts had dealt untold damage among their ranks. Rory caught a glimpse of one of the doctors sobbing as she held Jesse’s lifeless form to her chest. A little distant, Rory looked up just in time to see Alyssa push away April before she was struck by a stray arc of lightning. The sparking energy crackled down and burned Alyssa right where she stood.

Rory’s ears were deafened, first by the impact of the thunderous bolt, then by the subsequent screams from April and Malcolm. At the same time, he was blinded too. Bad enough the lightning flashes must have damaged his old eyes. Now, there was dust everywhere making him squint and cough as well.

Everything was falling apart.

“Rory!”

The shout pierced through the gloom. Viv. He’d recognize that voice anywhere.

“Rory,” she called again. “Can you hear me?”

Rory dragged his voice out from wherever it had gone into hiding. “I’m fine.” Even in this chaos, Viv was holding it together. Somehow, someway, she was worried about him, trying to find him and make sure he was all right. He had to pull himself together. He had to do what he could to save them all. “Protect the others. I’ll be okay.”

It seemed Viv didn’t believe him. There was an angry red flare, the energy reminiscent of her sabre. Several Thundershells screamed as they were struck down. A second later, an arc of red energy slashed past Rory, depositing Viv near his feet.

“Are you alright?” Viv asked. She looked older than ever with her clothes torn and damaged, the lines on her face more prominent than ever.

“I’m fine,” Rory said. “We need to make sure the others are safe.”

“Do you have a plan? Because things here are crumbling too quickly.” She looked up, her face tightening to the point that the skin around her mouth looked like paper. “That monster is even stronger now, somehow.”

“I can get the Safe Zone going.”

She snapped her gaze back to him, wonder in her eyes. “Wait, really?”

A Thundershell attacked someone nearby. Rory didn’t recognize the resulting scream, but a burst of fiery Flarespikes suggested it might have been Bo. There was no more time. The monsters were overwhelming them.

“No time to explain,” Rory said. “I just need to get to the column and hope it’s still standing.”

“I can get you there.”

“But what about the others?”

“They’ll need to protect themselves for a little while. We don’t have the luxury to think about our choices, Rory. Let’s go.”

She was right. As much as Rory hated it, they couldn’t individually help everyone in a situation like this. They were doing what was best for everyone.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.”

As Viv got up close and put one arm around his shoulder, Rory looked around and tried to pierce the gloom with his eyes. It wasn’t difficult to see more Thundershells roaming through and attacking the others. Everyone was staging their own kind of fight against the monsters’ overbearing assault.

Rory grimaced. It was the surprise. They’d been caught and sent into disarray, all their carefully oiled practice sessions ineffectual in this kind of pandemonium.

What they needed was some kind of reset.

“Dez,” Rory yelled at the top of his lungs. Viv paused for a second in surprise, then resumed stabbing her red energy into the ground around them. “Dez, you need to rally everyone and pull them together. Stand your ground, remember your teamwork. All of you. You’re not alone.”

Rory didn’t know if they heard him. He didn’t know anything at all because Viv finished her preparations, and with a sudden slash of her red sabre, they disappeared.

Credit to Viv, when they reappeared next, he was standing at the entrance to the main hall. Then he pushed himself away from her.

“Go, help them,” Rory said.

“First, we have to—”

He turned. “No, I’ve got this. Protecting them is more important than helping me. The main hall is empty. The monsters are all in the courtyard. I’ll be fine.” Rory looked up, frowning at the Thunderclaw Knight gathering more lightning for another blistering salvo to shoot down at them. “No time. Go.”

“Stay safe, Rory,” she said, then quickly left.

Rory turned his back on her and the rest. He had to focus on his task. Worrying wouldn’t help.

The column, thankfully, was still intact. Rory pulled out the Sigil of Energy as he reached it, slammed the Sigil against the smooth stone, then used his Warding to make it sink into the same spot that he had Warded the Sigil of Settlement.

Another salvo of lightning from the Thunderclaw Knight made the whole palace shake. More screams, both human and monstrous, erupted from outside. There was nothing Rory could do for them.

The achievements took away any further thought in that direction.

New Achievement!

Architect! With blood, sweat, and tears, you’ve filled the slots of the Sigil of Settlement. Never forget this great achievement.

Rewards

A Safe Zone has been created over your Settlement’s Area of Influence.

New Achievement!

Settler’s Resolve! You’ve managed to survive long enough to create your own Safe Zone, and with such few people too. The sheer strength of your resolve now dismays enemies within your bounds.

Rewards

Enemies suffer a 25% damage and morale penalty within your Area of Influence

Rory had no idea how effective any of that was going to be. But he had done it. The Sigil of Settlement had all its slots filled up, and a Safe Zone was in place. He pulled himself free from the column and was about to check out if it had helped the others in the defence of the palace, but more words floated before his face.

[Warning! Unauthorized Safe Zone detected. Invigilator dispatched to determine extent of the anomaly. Affiliates are requested to cooperate on pain of immediate eradication.]

Rory dragged in a sharp breath. This had to be what he had been warned about. The system itself refused to recognize the validity of the Safe Zone and was now sending someone to investigate. An Invigilator, like the same one he had nearly run over with his truck oh so long—all right, only a week—ago.

No time. He would worry about that when everyone at the palace wasn’t in immediate danger of death any time soon.

There had definitely been a change of some kind. The noises outside was different from before now, and it took Rory a second to understand what wasn’t the same anymore. There was still the screaming from both humans and Thundershells, still the crackle of thunder near at hand, and the various Sigils shooting their powers.

But what wasn’t there was the storm hammering them from overhead. The irrepressible thunder and lightning from the Thunderclaw Knight had finally stopped.

Rory grinned. Their biggest cause of concern had finally been negated.

But before he rushed back outside, Rory focused on the [Settlement Status] again. He focused on the Defensive Measures section, deciding to select the Instant ability he had left for later.

Rejuvenation.

As soon as Rory had picked it and activated it, green light bloomed everywhere. He was surrounded by a flickering green halo, but stronger auras of similar colours filled the courtyard. Rory’s heart felt a fraction lighter. He might have been too late to stave off all deaths, but this would undoubtedly help their cause.

Staff in hand in case he needed it, Rory rushed to the entrance again. There wasn’t any. The others had successfully rallied against the Thundershells hemming them in.

Dez and Viv had successfully gathered everyone into one large group. Well, maybe everyone was being optimistic. There had to be others who hadn’t managed it, who had fallen to the Thundershells or the Thunderclaw’s lightning. But the important thing was the group with Dez and Viv was large, big enough to hold the attention of every monster in the vicinity.

Sue and Miles had worked together to erect barriers of Electrium and plain earth on either side of the group. They kept it high enough to prevent the Thundershells from leaping over them, and thick enough to stop them from barrelling through.

That forced the monsters to reroute their charge in through narrow corridors on either end of the group, one overseen by Viv and the other by Dez. Of course, facing those two head-on meant the creatures had no chance of success. Not after they’d grown so powerful.

Viv’s rad sabre flashed at a furious pace. Red slashes carved into all the monsters, periodic beams of crimson slicing through the Thundershells in a straight line. At the other end, Dez had launched another tidal wave of burning darkness. With that done, he was also focusing his Abyssal Inferno in little pyres that dealt even more damage.

It got worse for the monsters when everyone else jumped in to assist. Trish and Allen had close-quarters defence well-handled between the two of them with their Sigils of Steel and the Gargoyle, respectively. Miles’s Stormfire provided a nice counter to the Thundershells’ lightning. There were more powers Rory didn’t recognize. Green flames, a Thundershell attacking its own, a miniature tornado and a few more.

Rory didn’t pay attention to them. They had things well in hand. Miraculously, they had recovered and were back on the winning path.

Instead, he looked up. The Thunderclaw Knight was still floating several hundred feet above them. It stared down at them, no longer bristling with lightning as it had been a little while ago. There was no point. An enormous flickering hemisphere of translucent golden energy surrounded the entire palace, its bounds far into the forest around them.

That had to be the protection afforded to them by the Safe Zone. It was incredible to see the result of all their hard work manifest like that.

“You see!” Rory raised his staff and swung it a little to get the Knight’s attention. “You can’t beat us. We’re going to stop you no matter what you try. You’re going down.”

The Thunderclaw didn’t answer. Instead, it blasted down a storm of blistering lightning, focusing all the bolts onto a single point on the ground. The combined lighting barrage was as bright as a star, hammering down at a point on the driveway where the Safe Zone’s golden boundary ended.

When Rory could see again, there was a giant hole in the barrier. Even as he watched, the golden energy started reforming to seal up the entrance carved by the Knight, but it wasn’t fast enough.

Another army of Thundershells was scuttling into the area, ready to reinforce. With them, their master entered the bounds of the place ground as well.

Rory cursed. All that effort behind setting up their Safe Zone and the Knight had still managed to infiltrate them. Maybe it couldn’t call down its furious lightning from the sky anymore thanks to the golden barrier, but that was cold comfort against the fact that it was inside with another army of monsters too boot.

He was beginning to think he’d have to come up with a new strategy, possibly draw everyone back into the shelter of the palace, damaged though it was.

That was when they received reinforcements.

A skittering, slithering behind Rory made him turn a little too quickly, his body protesting the motion with minute stings of agony across his back. The Neophytes were charging into the fray, fangs bared and pupils thinned with the promise of violence. They weren’t the only ones. The mass of onrushing Thundershells had paused their charge, even after their master had moved on, turning to face a different threat from behind.

The Wraith Lord had sent his compliments with a bunch of Wraiths and Ghouls.

Rory smiled. As bad as things had looked moments ago, it wasn’t over yet. They weren’t done until they surrendered, not while they still had some fight left in them.

Drawing on his newfound resolve, Rory stepped forward to meet the Thunderclaw Knight.