Em (Just Em) had no idea how long she’d been held captive.

Hours?

Days?

She sat alone on the floor of a stone cell, back pressed to the frigid walls, her hands shackled in front of her, attached by a chain to an iron ring in the center of the cramped space. The shackles were enchanted for a sorcerer of her level, glowing crimson runes engraved into the metal, erasing any chance for escape. Her entire Inventory was empty, and she had no access to magic, or allies. Or anything outside this reeking cell.

Something must have died in here, she thought.

Or maybe it was sewage. There were tiny grates in the floor where she would have done her business if she’d needed to do so in-game.

Maybe it was rats.

Or maybe it was just her.

Maybe it had been longer than she thought. She kept waiting for some sort of notification that would allow her to serve whatever time she was supposed to serve, so she could move on with things. But the notification never came. In fact, no notifications had come since she’d been captured.

It was the damn cuffs, she was pretty sure. It wasn’t just her Earth magic, or her chimera abilities that had gone AWOL. She was completely cut off from her HUD—no DMs, no maps, no Scan, and no option to leave the game.

What the hell sort of gaming experience was this to force someone to serve jail time in-game?

There was some cruel irony there for most of the early players of Pantheon Online.

But for her—an upstanding citizen, and a free woman—it was downright infuriating.

Em ran the sequence of events through her mind over and over and over again, trying to figure out where she’d gone wrong. The raid on the fort had gone off without a hitch, and Lord Hightower had been a sniveling coward just like they’d anticipated.

So what had happened? Why hadn’t that bastard, Niall, come back for her? Were they all locked up in nearby cells, or was she the only Nighthawk down here?

Gunnar’s crew, the Beta Squad, had been the ones to locate Hightower, hiding down in a pantry, while Red Cloaks bled and died to defend him. With all that was going on in Mavenport, the fort was lightly held, most of the Red Cloaks likely tending to things at the palace, or the pirates down at the waterfront.

With Hightower taken out, Em had gone ahead to check one last room, before they made a break for it in a pair of stolen Imperial carriages.

That last room had been filled with half a dozen Red Cloaks, and she only managed to take out two before they got the magic-negating cuffs on her.

Em’s stomach was growling. Some bread came through a slot in the door a couple times, but it was not enough to eradicate a pretty serious Hunger Debuff that had knocked her Stamina to 30%. That sure didn’t bode well for an escape of pure will.

At long last, the door to her cell creaked open, and her vision blurred at the sudden light. The first person she saw since the botched assassination was a tall officer in a fine uniform, flanked by a pair of Red Cloaks. Em could tell in an instant that the man was Imperial.

“So you’re the mighty assassin, are you?” the officer said scathingly. “Or I should say, the lowly assassin. Seeing as you’re the only one who was caught.”

“You’re not clever enough to hurt my ego,” Em said.

“And I suppose you think you were terribly clever with your little schemes three nights ago,” the Imperial officer said.

Three nights, Em thought. Could be worse.

“I already know you let us kill the governor,” Em said.

“The Imperial family let you kill him,” the officer clarified. “Every assassination you pulled off was allowed, in fact.”

“And everyone who escaped?” Em asked. She was fishing for answers, but the man either didn’t realize it or didn’t care.

“We may have lost Black Heart, but with the number of pirates we seized, it won’t be long before that threat is neutralized. And as for your Nighthawks, well, that’s where you come in.”

“And if I don’t wanna play?” Em asked.

“They always say that,” said the officer. “And yet, they always play in the end. But who knows. You were the only Nighthawk to be caught. Perhaps you’re special.”

The officer withdrew, and the Red Cloaks stepped forward and seized Em by the arms.

One was male, the other female. It was not until they pulled her from the darkness of her cell, that Em caught a glimpse of the woman’s face. Creamy skin and white-blonde hair. She looked different than the dawn elf, and different than she did IRL. But there was no doubt in her mind.

Alex Keynes met her gaze, eased her grip on Em’s arm, and offered a sly smile.

Oh, I’ll play, Officer, Em thought eagerly. I’ll play.

End of Arc Two

Gunnar, Alex, and Em will return in Guild War…