“-done playing games with you! You won’t stand in the way of progress! My progress!”

  Van Sztramm welcomed the chance to properly speak, any longer and more coherent attempt at words having previously been rudely interrupted at almost every turn during this assault on his person. The frustration inside him had to go somewhere, after all, because the more direct route of breaking the bodies of the little silvers was not going as well as he’d assumed. He hadn’t even been able to thoroughly crush their auras, managing to suppress one of them at a time at most before the concerted effort of the others shoved his spirit back, stinging attacks breaking his focus.

  And that the spear had chosen to unveil itself now of all times just became an insult to injury. It was like a beacon to his mind as he got a proper sense of its aura, that which had earlier been glimpsed now connected like a previously glimpsed spiritual tapestry now revealed in full; alien, pure and very much alive.

  Not that he had been doubting that after his earlier experiments though. Especially the application of the Anima Awl had proven it without a doubt. But the clarity of it all had Van Sztramm craving to know more, to pick it apart and understand it. How it came to be. And how he could control it. Perhaps even make more, changing how the world understood and made artifacts.

  But first, Van Sztramm needed to once more relieve the pesky little boy of the treasure, the task now gaining proper priority. It had been simple the last time, and should be again as long as he really put his mind to it, the others be damned.

  So Van Sztramm charged, barreling through the blasts from two of those damned traps which the cowards had prepared around his property to go straight for the now glowing spear. The world blurred around him and his hand, shining with the light of Lambent Battle Fist, broke through the pair of barriers which appeared to shield the little silver. And this time, Van Sztramm made no effort to avoid the boy’s head either. He had chosen his fate when going up against his betters.

  “That is not yours, thief. I- argh!”

  The little rogue had somehow gotten his staff up in time, making a whirling strike which impacted Van Sztramm’s reaching wrist, knocking it slightly to the side as the light of the special attacks disappeared in a now all too familiar sensation of draining mana and sting of transcendent damage. Combined with those odd spectral arms reaching in to further push his hand to the side while the silver had already begun his sidestep - seemingly before Van Sztramm had initiated his charge - it caused his reaching fingers to miss the haft of the glowing weapon by a handspan.

  Meaning to bring Gilded Superiority, his conjured mace, to bear in a follow-up attack, he shifted his footing slightly to compensate and was just about to swing at the thief’s lower body when one of his planted feet was suddenly yanked out from beneath him by another of those accursed cloth strips, ruining the strike. Van Sztramm managed to free his leg with a contemptuous shake, turning to face the incoming brute that was Ryker Lansar and temporarily forced to let the boy carrying the spear retreat a few steps.

  “You pest-”

  Van Sztramm meant to turn the now botched swing into a strike against the gruff adventurer instead, but the man suddenly shifted and teleported through one of the lengths of fabric to instead emerge from below and behind in an upwards flurry of strikes which rent Van Sztramm’s back into bloody strips.

  “Stay still-”

  His field of vision turned bright green for a moment along with a good dose of pain as a launched crystal impacted the side of his face along with several arrows shooting in from afar. Those he at least managed to deflect with a swing and use of Force Shockwave, a special attack awakened from Van Sztramm’s magic essence.

  In the end, he was forced to disengage slightly by throwing out a few more Radiant Lances towards the more aggressive adventurers, inwardly cursing. That monstrous thing had not reappeared yet, even though Van Sztramm could feel that it was nearby. Lurking.

  “A temporary setback,” he thought to himself, a thought oft repeated during these past intense few minutes of his life. “After I have crushed you, the adventure society will suffer for this. My allies won’t stand for this treatment.”

  But among those thoughts, resolutely keeping to his pride and the knowledge that he was superior, a more traitorous part of his mind had been clamoring for a while now, growing stronger with each stinging attack and indignity which Van Sztramm was forced to endure; the realization that he might lose.

  “Kite!”

  “On it, Sir!”

  “Good shot. Christine?”

  “Grasp of the stone fundament!”

  “Radiant La- Oh curse you, beast!”

  “Good timing, Linger. And Mtanga. Keep it up!”

  The respite after the gold-ranker’s first charge and attempted grab of Laevyeth had been but a brief one, but it had been enough for Kite and the team to wordlessly add another nuance to their dynamics. Kite had something their foe wanted, so they could somewhat count on Van Sztramm trying to close the distance to him and take it.

  Knowing of a gold-ranker’s movements and stopping them could be quite different prospects, however, but so far the team had done an admirable job. Bounding leaps had been intercepted, attempted feints foiled and when Van Sztramm attempted to back off and skirmish with the adventurers from afar, they could compensate for their lack of individual power with coordination.

  As things were, the gold-ranker was starting to look ragged in attire and body alike, and that was saying little about the shattered remnants of the garden and parts of the villa when Van Sztramm had gradually been forced to take less and less care with his surroundings. And thanks to Laevyeth’s blooming vines and the extended replenishment they had provided before fading, the adventurers didn’t mirror his state.

  “Mtanga, wide volley!” Ryker called to the still distant archer while making a curt hand gesture which only a silver and above would be able to make out at that distance. It was followed by two more even as he gave out a few more orders to coordinate the rest. The expected volley followed a few seconds later but was overtaken by another more powerful arrow streaking in low, courtesy of the predetermined gesture.

  “Oh what I would not give to be able to communicate without my foes being able to hear it,” Kite though as he sprinted in towards the gold-ranker along Ryker and Christine, conjuring barriers above them all to deflect the unenhanced arrows raining down from above as they ran in close formation.

  Signaling via hand and aura was a decent solution, but left less room for improvisation and adaptation mid battle. But he was at least most sure of their next plan of action, as the signal to close in for their planned finisher was one none would forget or mistake.

  And while he didn’t seem to know exactly what was up, Van Sztramm too noticed the shift in the adventurers’ approach.

  “Do you really think that any plan with you charging in could hope to work? That I haven’t just been waiting for such an opportunity?” he called as they drew closer while sending out more Radiant Lances to harry the incoming warriors. None of the adventurers acknowledged the threat as they defended themselves from the weaker spells while sending out what counterattacks they could towards the man. Behind Van Sztramm, off in the distance, some tiles on the roof of the now quite weathered-looking villa cracked.

  “Well then, imbeciles. It’s time to end this farce. The cost of rebuilding will be worth it,” the gold-ranker finished, thrusting his hands out to the sides with palms facing outward. “Expand, corona of luminous destruction!”

  In the space of a breath, several glowing circles appeared around the area. The first and most prominent one was a horizontal band around Van Sztramm, like a great chakram of bright light which seemed to constantly increase in intensity. And the rest appeared around the nearby adventurers, one each. They were similar to the ring around Van Sztramm at a glance, but where the one around the gold-ranker felt most destructive in how the air seemed to hiss and shudder around its luminous surface, the smaller ones were instead restrictive; their mere presence seeming to press inward on the adventure and hinder their movements.

  This spell, Destructive Corona, was another of Van Sztramm’s essence powers that were known both in the sense that the man possessed it and that it was common enough around the world to be a known quantity. After a few moments of charging, the ring around Van Sztramm would rapidly expand outwards, a growing circle of most potent destruction. At gold rank, it would not only have a terrifyingly huge radius, but also came with the added bonus that the spell would restrain nearby foes for a few moments in an attempt to compensate for the otherwise most dodgeable attack as long as one could make a powerful enough jump.

  That was why Kite, Christine and Ryker found themselves held in place before the increasingly glowing circle, feeling the increasing fluctuations in the ambient mana which radiated outwards as if the world itself was bracing for the incoming destruction. Thanks to Implacable Motion, Kite could somewhat move even against the restraints, even though he felt most sluggish. But it was enough to start forming his spells in time. Because in the next few moments, a lot of things happened almost simultaneously.

  “Dissolve the Patterns of Power! Wall! Ward! Void!”

  The flickering passing of Ripple of Cancellation had reached around halfway towards Van Sztramm when the gold-ranker sent the gathering corona erupting outwards with a sweep of his hands. For a moment it looked like a shining bright horizon sweeping towards Kite before the layered walls of Leyline Warding and the discs of Heaven-and-Void Warding turned it into a more indistinct blur as the barriers sprung up before the three restrained adventurers, who had chosen their close formation for that very purpose. Faintly off in the distance, the snapping of more roof tiles might have been picked up by those perceptive enough, but then any trace of sound from beyond and the sight of the incoming glowing line disappeared as Gate of Nihility appeared between the walls and the discs, a hungering aperture to nothing. This was an especially ravenous casting too, as Kite’s latest charge of Potential of Stolen Power had gone into its casting. A wall of crystal-laden earth joined the efforts all while tendrils of enchanted cloths snaked out to wrap the bodies of all three of them.

  In another moment, Kite felt the snapping feedback of his layers of walls breaking down, causing the chitinous shield which had appeared on his left arm to start unleashing a cascade of seeking projectiles which curved around the dark gate and back toward the gold-ranker. But this process was soon forgotten as the corona struck Gate of Nihility, and Kite started pouring every mote of mana he could through his racial gift to keep the dark aperture steady for a few moments longer.

  His efforts received at least some acknowledgment right away as parts of the golden ring passed the three adventurers on either side of the gate as the unhindered parts of the spell continued onwards. And two heartbeats later the circle of nothingness was severed as well, bisected horizontally as the blazing corona broke through. But where there had once been a crisp line there now instead remained a roiling wave; wider, but much more dispersed and unstable.

  It still pushed through the remaining barriers though, sundering earth, cloth and ward before washing over the adventurers. Kite could feel his skin blister as he closed his eyes against the pain while ducking down beneath his shield. And then it was over, in more ways than one.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  *Click*

  Lowering his shield, Kite had already started to take in the devastation around them as everything in a wide, wide radius now shared a distinct maximum height; everything above that burned through. Far behind the adventurers, the trees of the nearby forest were still toppling and Kite could see the form of Mtanga leap down from one of the falling trunks. And ahead of them, the villa was in a similar state of collapse as Glint hovered above the rapidly forming wreckage upon a sphere of water carrying a restrained and collared bronze-ranker.

  But most important were the two forms in the center of the devastation; Van Sztramm, standing disbelieving with arms still outstretched, and the hulking form of Linger behind him who had, moments before, shut the gold-ranked suppression collar around the noble’s neck. In the collapsing roof behind them, Kite could still see the two distinct depressions in the tiles where the lurker must have landed and sprung off, leaping in towards the very much distracted and stationary gold-ranker to enact their previously agreed-upon plan. A plan that had worked.

  “Wha- You-”

  Van Sztramm had just about begun to utter words of protest before Linger’s other hand struck and plowed the gold-ranker into the ground. Ryker and Christine moved as well, and Kite snapped out of his reverie a moment later to join them. Collaring a gold put them at a grave disadvantage, and Van Sztramm had already been sorely pressed given his limited combat powers and lack of experience. But their attributes were still most impressive, so the adventurers already knew that far more violence would need to be meted out before mercy might even be a true option.

  “Stop! You cannot- Filthy-!”

  Tendrils of cloth, magically sharpened and heavily enchanted for cutting tore into a leg like a saw, three other silvers beating down other thrashing limbs until it finally came free in a cascade of blood.

  “You will die for this! You will-”

  Next came the left arm, stone clamps holding it to the ground as repeated downward blows trailing sundering spatial tears severed it just beneath the shoulder.

  “No- stop! I-”

  The other leg parted surprisingly easy as a crystal geode was driven deep into it by the enhanced strength of a lurker before detonating, making a mess of everything beneath the knee.

  “Please- no- gods-”

  Ignoring the last struggles - now without much leverage at all - as well as any pleas, Ryker plunged a spike of tightly twined cloth into the last remaining appendage, creating a deep hole into the upper arm through which Kite could stab the lower end of his staff. More spatial tears unfurled, more blood painted the rocks and debris beneath… And it was done.

  Basilev Van Sztramm lay helpless and collared on the ravaged ground of his villa, splattered with his own blood and missing all four limbs. His coat and clothes were in tatters, their self-repair enchantments having failed minutes - and a whole lot of punishment - ago. Kite found it distinctly odd to look at the gold-ranker without feeling that vast aura, core-laden or not. And he found the whole situation and the brutality of it unsettling. Necessary, but unsettling.

  “You- you can’t do this,” the man croaked. “You don’t know what you’ve ruined. The things I could have discovered.” It spoke to the tenacity of a gold-ranker that even in his disheveled state, Van Sztramm was gradually working himself up to something resembling outrage again, the only feeble shield left to him to fend off the world. “And you don’t even have the shadow of an idea as to what my family will do to you when they hear of how you’ve treated me, not to speak of the other houses or the duke. Filthy brutes! I-”

  There was another crunch as Ryker stomped down, putting an armored boot straight into Van Sztramm’s mouth through the crunching of teeth. Some part of his ramblings still came through as even core-users started producing sound more and more through other innately magical means rather than a simple voicebox, but the planted foot was enough for Ryker’s words to easily be heard.

  “You know that we could just kill you, right?” the team leader asked, his face a stern mask. “Because you’ve made such a fine little hidden nook for yourself here, outside any public record. Who would know before it was too late to track us?”

  His words did cause the noble to fall silent, gaze flickering between defiance and a - given the situation - healthy amount of fear at the prospect of Ryker following through with the threat. Any potential vengeance was of little gain for a dead man, after all.

  “You robbed one of ours in broad daylight like a common bully, believing your power and status a perfect shield that you didn’t even attempt a sliver of plausible deniability,” Ryker continued. “And then it turned out that it wasn’t even a robbery at all, but a kidnapping of a lower-ranker for magical experimentation under duress. Again, done by a gold-ranker against a silver. So what would you actually complain about, oh mighty Lord? That the silvers you chose to bully turned out to actually have some power of their own and chose to use it? The way of this world, and all that, as you so eloquently told Kite over here.”

  Van Sztramm’s gaze did flicker to Kite at the mention of his name, but mostly to the spear at his back. Seeing their prisoner distracted, Ryker bent down low, making sure to put all his weight on the foot planted in the gold-ranker’s mouth to reclaim his attention.

  “But you know what the best thing is, Van Sztramm?” he said, voice remaining gruffly even in the way that - of all the people he knew - only Ryker Lansar seemed to have mastered. “We don’t even have to kill you. Because you’ve already done it yourself. See, I’ve been part of task group Gauntlet ever since I made silver. Nineteen years, give or take, and now I’m at the cusp of gold rank. Not the quickest, I’ll admit, but I’ve spent a lot of time training others to do important things. And during my years in Gauntlet, I’ve seen quite a few nasty things which people have cobbled together. Things that would turn most stomachs a few times over. So, Lord Basilev Van Sztramm, I will inform you that I would recognize an Anima Awl anywhere. And I have both witnessed you possessing it. As well as using it.”

  In the silence that followed, Kite got to witness one of the most distinct examples of dawning horror which he would ever see in his life.

  “I must say, Ryker… This is not what I expected to arrive to,” Sir Ilmaril Thenston remarked as he stood beside the team, eyes like solid azure orbs gazing out over the wreckage of the villa where Christine was busy helping other adventures with appropriate powers excavate the workshop beneath where the team had blown in the door the day before.

  As agreed upon during his talks with Christine, the gold-ranker had waited until the following day before tracking the team down when they hadn’t reported in. In this case it had been a deliberate act on their part as they hadn’t wanted to risk a single member making the trip back to the city on their own due to the relatively high mana density of the area and the monsters it could produce. But neither had they wanted to part with more than one member in case allies or others supporting Van Sztramm would have arrived ahead of schedule.

  “No, Sir? With all due respect, any undertaking of ours rarely ends without at least one building collapsing,” Ryker replied with a straight face.

  “True, true,” Sir Ilmaril agreed. “But essence-users fighting out some vendettas or other such quarrels isn’t uncommon. And while I generally disapprove, I trusted you to keep it contained and within reason. You wouldn’t have agreed to anything else. But I did not expect said quarrel to have an outworlder thrown into the mix, least of all one so exotic,” the elf finished, turning to face the others as he directed his gaze towards the spear which still hung at Kite’s back, as she had done without pause since she had been freed from the truesilver clamps.

  “Neither did we, Sir, as we weren’t told until after the actual kidnapping,” Ryker replied, giving Kite a pointed look.

  “From what these initial verbal reports have told me, your powers of concealment are most impressive, Laevyeth,” Sir Ilmaril noted. “Of the ones I have met of your kind, yours are probably the most distinct and skewed though.”

  A few seconds of silence followed, but to Kite’s surprise - and pleasure - Laevyeth eventually answered.

  “I would not know, Sire. But if thou hast met others like me, wouldst thou be willing to tell me? Of them?”

  While Kite had become most used to it, it was still a bit pleasing to sense the slight disbelief in the auras of his much more worldly and experienced colleagues at hearing the spear speak. Even Ryker, after already having had a few exchanges with her, seemed to still be adjusting.

  “I would,” Sir Ilmaril confirmed with a nod. “It would be the least I can do. While I won’t claim any responsibility for the actions of Van Sztramm, it still feels important to show you some of the courtesies of this world. Not everyone in power is as ruthless or free of scruples. But given your unique nature, I can understand the mystery you might pose to some of them. Should you ever change your mind, know that the adventure society will welcome you and listen most attentively to what you would choose to share of yourself and your powers.”

  It didn’t take a genius in aura reading to sense the effect Sir Ilimaril’s words had on the spear, and the elf quickly raised his hands in a placating gesture to forestall Laevyeth retreating from the conversation, continuing. “As I said, an offer and nothing more. And my own offer of information stands nonetheless. During my career, I have encountered three outworlders before you. Last I heard, two of them still live, with the third lost before he could find safety. As you yourself have experienced, most outworlders come to be through rather spectacular - and therefore often hazardous - circumstances.”

  “And what became of the two that lived?” Laevyeth asked, hesitant yet curious.

  “I believe that one of them - Enkrath the Clay-Singer - still resides in Rimaros somewhere. Their species is one not found here in our world, looking more like a construct of porcelain than a biological being. But their mastery as a sculptor and stone-shaper proved extraordinary, so they quickly managed to make quite the comfortable life for themselves. The waiting list for their commissioned work was well over a decade, last I heard of it.”

  “So not an essence-using species then, I take it?” Kite asked, also intrigued.

  “Indeed not. Like most outworlders, they weren’t very forthcoming about their circumstances before their unexpected arrival. But from what little they did tell, it sounded like this kind of individual freedom was quite the change from their previous circumstances. A most odd being, but their outlook was somehow refreshingly utilitarian,” Sir Ilmaril said with a smile, and was about to continue when some exclamations and flared auras back at the ruins of the villa interrupted him.

  “Oh, so she did live,” Kite noted, seeing a much bedraggled Lady Ljublia being pulled from beneath the masses in the distance, hands and feet already in manacles as she was excavated.

  “Riiiiight. I knew I forgot something,” Linger said, suddenly appearing next to Kite and Ryker. Sir Ilmaril was the only one who didn’t flinch even slightly at the lurker’s appearance, only turning and raising a blonde eyebrow in silent question.

  “Well, I did bundle her up as was planned,” the celestine continued as he let the transfiguration fall off him. “Collar, manacles, the works. But things got a bit hectic during our exit so I just threw her into a corner so I could help harry the gold-ranker as he seemed to be too distracted by the fight to actually pin me down with his spiritual perception. I guess she was still there when he razed the house. Whoops,” he finished, sounding not the least apologetic.

  Off in the distance, Christine approached atop a small mound of moving earth, coming to a sliding stop in front of her uncle a moment later.

  “We found it, uncle,” she stated, holding out a handle of bone whose magical sigils still glowed faintly. At the sight, Laevyeth gave off a low whining sound, aura shuddering. “And I do believe that we don’t need more confirmation than that. This was what Van Sztramm used. Sorry, Laevyeth.”

  “An Anima Awl indeed,” Sir Ilmaril said grimly, accepting the object. It floated up above his palm before a clear crystal suddenly materialized around it, encasing it completely. “Keep searching the rubble. Where there is one such object, there might be more. Van Sztramm’s type are often collectors.”

  “And fortunately, it in and of itself is enough to doom Van Sztramm and make any questions of what we were doing here go away nicely,” Ryker said, nodding. “All of his allies will be too busy distancing themselves.”

  “The official reports will indeed need some creative wording, but it should be manageable,” Sir Ilmaril agreed before turning back to Kite and Laevyeth. “Once more, I am deeply sorry for what you’ve had to endure here, Laevyeth. That in and of itself might be reason enough to follow in the footsteps of Enkrath the Clay-Singer and find yourself a peaceful life. I can’t promise that there aren’t more people like Van Sztramm out there, but I will assure you that they are few and far between.”

  “Thou hast my gratitude, Sire,” Laevyeth replied, her aura pulsing in agreement as she tried to mimic the spiritual nuances she had started picking up from the adventurers in the day since she was freed. “But before we turn to the future, might I impose upon thee and hear the tale of the last outworlder?”

  “Ah, yes. Another oddity, in her own right, but more in mannerisms than species as she was something close to a human,” Sir Ilmaril said, an amused smile on his face. “Even as a normal-ranker, she felt slippery and carefree in words and spirit both, and nothing seemed to faze her even in her new surroundings. Didn’t even give me a name, as she said she would choose a new one to better fit wherever she went. She just asked us for transportation to one of the mainland hubs north of port Singhni, some funds to get started, and off she went. I could probably see if I can find her current whereabouts in our records back at one of Gauntlet’s campuses.”

  “There is no need, but I still thank thee, Sire,” Laevyeth replied. “It is nice to hear that one may indeed find freedom and purpose here.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, Sir, was the final outworlder one of the essence-using races then?” Kite asked, curious.

  “Indeed she was. She had only one essence when we parted ways which some innate looting power of hers seemed to have scrounged up. I actually offered to trade her for something better in order to get her started, but she seemed quite taken with it,” the gold-ranked elf said, looking as if the memory brought him quite a bit of amusement. “But I suppose that there are many fine adventurers out there with the rat essence.”