Crossbow bolts slammed into the shield in a sequential pattern after the first volley. Deacon thought they were staggering their shots to cover for those reloading. Both Deacon and Ralph were huddled behind Tantus as he held up his shield. The heat from the magma pits behind them was starting to grow stifling. Periodically there was a rotten egg smell that wafted through the cave system. Less than twenty seconds into the attack, white cracks began to appear scattered over the blue energy projection. If that wasn’t bad enough, the two large doors began to open allowing more cultists to join the crossbowmen.

“We can stay here. We’re completely exposed. Time to do something stupid,” said Deacon as he peered around the shield.

“Agreed. It would be nice if we had some more cover,” commented Ralph.

“Guys, the shield charge is running out. Whatever you’re going to do, make it quick,” added Tantus.

Deacon sat on the ground in a cross-legged position. Suddenly different sized stones popped into existence in a semicircle between Tantus’s shield and the staircase leading up to the landing where the bolts were raining down. The stones began stacking themselves in a single line. Mortar began mixing with water and evenly spreading itself over the stones. A second row of stones appeared between the first and the magic shield. It was taking too long. Deacon solidified the work in his mind and let his Haunted Craftsman title take over.

“Ok, I’ll distract them on the left side. That should give Ralph an opportunity to fire off his holy blade,” informed Deacon.

“Gotcha. Oh, and before you go here,” said Ralph as he gestured to both Deacon and Tantus.

You are under the influence of Commanders Orders: All damage done increased by 5% for this engagement.

“Yeah, that’s nice,” said Deacon before sprinting around the left side.

Deacon hurled an Ice Sickle at the furthest bowman. It lodged itself in the crossbow forcing the combatant to toss it down and draw a ruby edged long sword. The cultist stepped forward to guard any approach of the stairs from that side while the others continued to concentrate fire on the magic shield. The stone wall was three layers tall now. Just enough to crouch behind. That was when the bolts fired upon the now exposed Deacon.

The problem with Haunted Craftsman was that Deacon needed to keep what it was working on within his aura range. Right now, that range was doubled thanks to his Mala beads. The limitation gave him fewer options than he he’d like. The good news was the bolts passed right through Deacon to clatter against the smooth stone floor behind him. All of a sudden there was a shinning light to his right as a crescent arc of Ralph’s sword slash was launched toward the door’s defenders. They were caught off guard after watching all the bolts pass through Deacon with no effect. Five of them took a vicious slash of holy energy. That made the group fall into disarray.

Once the bolts stopped slamming into the shield, Tantus prepared a spell. Three cyclones spun up at the bottom of the stairs and grew in intensity as they spun. Tantus dropped the shield and dove behind the still under construction wall. The cyclones burst in size. Almost quadrupling in the blink of an eye. Several cultists were flung from the landing hitting hard on the floor all around. One landed right next to Ralph who took the opportunity to skewer him. That cultist immediately stopped moving. There was pandemonium in front of the doors now. No one was focused on firing anymore.

Deacon decided to get a little more creative. As the cyclones blew out, he summoned a goblin and had him charge the stairs. The little goblin got halfway up before the sword wielding cultist with the broken crossbow launched himself at the goblin. He nearly cut it in half with one swing.

“That one is mine. You clear a path for us Deacon. Tantus, you take up the rear. Nice work with the cyclones,” stated Ralph.

“That wasn’t me. I was trying to cast a wind gust. Once the cyclones showed up, I didn’t see the point,” replied Tantus.

“It was me. You all always act like I’m not here,” said Ignis floating above Tantus.

“You’ll be a Regulator yet. Now let’s take these assholes down,” added Deacon.

Deacon activated Spectral Jump clearing the small wall and making it past the swordsman. Deacon decided to change his source of power switching over to the Suppression Plane. His pupils split int light and dark grey accents and he inverted gravity within his aura. The light grey color in his eyes switched with the dark. For the cost of twenty five soul energy thanks to the cost reduction from his new class, he exuded fourteen newtons of force against the seven or so bodies trapped in his range. That was over three hundred and fourteen pounds of pressure. Several items the cultists were carrying were crushed. One cultist had a black fluid pouring up his neck and over his face as it raced toward the ceiling. It was increasingly difficult for the cultists to breathe with that much force pressing against their bodies. Behind him Deacon could hear the clanging of swords as Ralph engaged the swordsman.

Having been delayed long enough, Deacon began slamming the bodies above him into the door. He just hopped back a few steps and ran at the door. That dragged the floating bodies above him back with him before being smashed into the large double doors. With the combination of no oxygen and blunt force trauma, most of the cultist stopped moving all together. Then Deacon flipped the gravity back to normal. He walked forward through a hail of dead or unconscious bodies.

Ralph was evenly matched with the swordsman. The ringing of steel echoed thorough out the landing platform. At one point the cultist lunged at Tantus who was making his way around the fight behind Ralph. That gave Ralph a choice. Block the attack aimed at Tantus or seize the opportunity at a killing blow. Ralph dropped low and spun. He brought his blade up under the lunge taking the sword off target from Tantus. As the cultists attempted to right his stance and bring his sword down to block Ralph’s follow up, he realized he was too late. Ralph’s twisted at the waist driving his glowing blade into the cultists midsection thanks to the downward force provided by the block. Ralph pulled the blade free as the cultist dropped his weapon. Blood rain down the front of his robes as he used two hands to hold his guts in. Not one to watch people suffer, Ralph spun taking his head off to end the fight.

“That was pretty brutal,” commented Ignis.

“Then you weren’t watching Deacon. He’s getting scary strong. The way he just lifted those people up and smashed them to death into the doors they were protecting, scary,” added Tantus.

“Enough chit chat. This isn’t over yet,” said Ralph whipping the blood off his blade and jogging up the steps.

Deacon stood in the now open doorway. The doors themselves were at least twenty feet tall. It took significant effort to wedge them open with the skull of a defeated foe. He had managed to consume all their souls before the others caught up to him. Through the doors was a series of hallways and a familiar smell. Deacon knew he was close to the cell they kept him in for all those hours of torment. It was eerily quiet in here considering they must know about all the fighting. They called for reinforcements not too long ago. The room through the first hallway opened into a large meeting room with three exits. The one they came in from and two doors opposite a raised pulpit. Deacon decided to take the door on the left.

This door led to a hallway with a sharp left turn. All the stone beyond the large doors looked to have been smoothed out by hand. There was hardly any loose stone or dirt on the ground meaning they had regular cleaning done. They came to a T intersection where there were several bodies strewn about.

“Amanda,” said Ralph, before listening in each direction.

“I think we should go left again. I think that would take us back under the council chambers above. I want to recover Hani’s body,” said Deacon, his voice smoldering with anger.

“What if Amanda needs are help? We should probably find her first. No?” asked Tantus.

“We’ll have to split up. I’m not leaving this place without Efimeo’s head in my inventory,” said Deacon.

“That’s a bad idea. We don’t know how many more of them are down here and they definitely have enchanted weapons. We’ll come with you until we find a better trail leading us to Amanda. Then we split. Sound good?” commented Ralph.

“But—” Deacon started to say before Ralph cut him off.

“Good, lets go,” said Ralph patting Deacon on the shoulder.

It wasn’t long after that they stumbled across holding cells. Several different cells mostly empty. One of them had a jester’s hat hanging on the wall. The hat floated off its peg over to Deacon before disappearing into his Soul Cache. That must have been when the dam broke for the others. Tantus choked back some tears as Ralph slammed that cell door shut in anger. Twenty yards further down this hall was an archway covered in magic sigils. Deacon stopped short when he saw familiar drops of dried green blood.

“This is it. If you don’t want to look that’s fine. We’ll burry him in one of Alfred’s gardens later but I’m not going to leave him here to… Hani?” Deacon asked out loud.

Deacon ran to the doorway before dropping to his knees doubled over in pain. His soul energy bar was greyed out again. Ralph and Tantus needed drag him out of the cell back into the hallway.

“Bad warding on that room. I’m not going in there,” said Ignis, clutching to Tantus’s hair.

“They built an entire suppression chamber just for you. Diabolical. I don’t think you can cross that threshold without a backlash of some kind. I’ve never seen some of these symbols before,” said Tantus as he inspected sigils.

“I can hear him. I can hear Hani. He’s still in there,” explained Deacon between sobs.

“Can you reach him with your aura?” asked Ralph.

“My aura disappears as soon as it reaches the archway. Like it’s just being chopped off,” answered Deacon collecting himself.

“You need to extinguish the primary rune scripting. That’ll turn the effect off,” commented Ignis.

“Can you tell which one it is? If you can point it out to me maybe I can shut it down,” said Tantus.

“Screw this,” said Ralph as he stepped into the room.

He came out with a nude body and Hani’s head. He placed them in the hallway with a scowl on his face Deacon had never seen before. Tantus took a step back from the body before turning away. The head and the body quickly vanished now that they were in the range of Deacon’s ability.

“You said that winged fuck did this. You better pray you find him before I do,” Ralph said before stomping his way down the corridor back the way they came.

“He was different though. He didn’t have wings but had a thin black tail. He was shorter too. I still don’t know what the deal is but my gut tells me if we kill him we kill them all,” replied Deacon getting back to his feet.

Warning: you are about to lose Bael’s Blessing. You have twenty minutes to stop the transfer.

“What the fuck!” screamed Deacon.