Nar walked into the sacrificial chamber, descending the stairs with steps just as measured as the heavy guy a few feet from him had been.

  The sound of rushing water pressed against his ears, murmuring in his brain. Nar pushed out his senses, imparting into his [Awareness] the need to find whatever may be hiding under that whispering.

  The floor was an ankle-deep pool of deep green, fed by the water running down the columns surrounding him. Archers eyed him from behind the columns and from two balconies perched atop them on either side of the room. Their bows trailed his every movement.

  Just as he had sensed something different in that heavy warrior, which even now, calmly watched Nar, so must have the rest of the monsters sensed that there was something different with Nar, and that this was not prey that calmly walked into their sanctum with a glowing sword.

  Nar caught sight of three robed Atlatl with large golden discs stuck to their earlobes. Casters or healers, he didn’t know, but one to the left, one to the right, and one on the top right balcony, he reported their locations to the others, who waited for his signal to rush into battle.

  The water reflection shimmered across the dark ceiling above him, and the opposite wall was dominated by the glowing golden trunk of the Monarch Tree.

  As predicted, a great spout of green and gold was nailed to the wood. It poured a thick, shimmering-green syrup into a large barrel. What Nar hadn’t expected to find, however, was the beam suspended above the barrel from which a whimpering, disfigured and naked delver dangled upside down, his blood running down his head to mix in with the Jungle Blood in the barrel.

  To the side, there was a naked woman tied to a stone table, and her state made Nar clench his sword with such force that the cracking of his fingers echoed across the chamber. Besides the woman, there were bars built into the floor and a hand reached weakly out to the light, begging for mercy and screaming for help.

  His aura simmered to a boil within him, ready to reap carnage, and he inhaled slowly, holding it back. Not yet.

  “My name is Nar, from Kur’s party,” Nar announced. “We have a healer and we are going to save you. Get ready.”

  “Y-Yes! Thank the Crystal!” a voice said from within that pit of nightmare. “Please. Save my people. Just my people is enough…”

  “Everyone will be leaving here alive,” Nar said. “Get ready.”

  “Do you guys have all that?” Nar asked.

  “We’ll fill the chamber with my virus, and avoid the prisoners,” Pir said.

  “Yes,” Len said, his voice wavering. “We’ll focus on the balconies first, especially on the robed guy. And I’ll be on the lookout for rogues. I mean, I-I will try.”

  “You can do it, Len. I know you can,” Nar said, sensing a gentle breeze blowing in and flooding the room with the deadly hemorrhagic virus. “Just trust the air and sense for what’s hiding there. And make sure you keep anything from leaving this room.”

  “All that?” he asked, with a nervous chuckle.

  “All that, Len. I know you can do it,” Nar said.

  But now the time for conversation was over.

  There was a fourth priest in the room, and he held a golden dagger to the dangling delver, and gave him a poke. The delver cried out in weak surprise and fear. The gesture was clear, but Nar grinned as coughing began to echo in between the running water.

  “Once, I was forced to run from someone like you. He had purple eyes,” Nar whispered, staring straight at the priest’s flat, green face. “I was weak then. Not anymore.”

  The priest coughed and looked at his bloody hand in confusion.

  Nar blurred, his pathways blazing to power his [Aura Quickening]. The breacher was heavy, but damn he was fast! His club was already swinging for Nar’s chest rather than his much smaller head. This guy knew what he was doing, but Nar was faster.

  He dodged under the club, and kicked the pool in an explosion of water that shattered the stone under his feet and flew forward. His crimson blade, enveloped by his gray [Aura Edge] sung through the viral coated air and after a split-second of resistance, sliced straight through gold, skin, flesh, and bone.

  The priest’s head went flying, splashing into the water, and his body crumbled besides the green filled barrel.

  As though a collective [Daze] had been broken, one of the robed Atlatl screamed and the archers fired upon Nar. His blade drew continuous lines of light in the air, blocking every single projectile with an ease that had been forged upon Guardian bolts in the darkness of the B-Nex.

  Back then he had been blind, having to rely solely on his [Hearing] and [Instinct], but now, he saw every single arrow and deflected each and every one of them, keeping the injured delvers behind him safe.

  “Don’t worry. We’re here for you,” he told them.

  The man wept bloody tears and the woman whispered her thank yous again and again through her shaking breaths.

  Another round of arrows flew his away, but it was not as organized, and given the panicked shouting and pale golden light in the hands of the three robed Atlatl, which were all touching their own bodies, Nar surmised that there were healers.

  “Looks like the robed ones are healers. Just exhaust them,” Nar said, and mid speaking he deflected a single dart hiding amidst a volley of arrows. “And there’s at least one rogue here. The dart came from somewhere on the top left side, Len.”

  Len didn’t reply, and instead he stuck his head into the room to look up at the bleeding archers and healers. With a grim, determined look, he pushed his hands up, and all sound from the top left side was gobbled up as Len created a [Sphere of Asphyxiation].

  The Atlatl up there clasped their throats or beat at their chests, their eyes threatening to pop from their sockets.

  Nar didn’t wait to see their end. The giant golden club came crushing down upon him, and he deflected it nimbly to the side. As long as he kept the giant warrior between him and the injured delvers, the archers shouldn’t be firing at them again. However, they seemed far too preoccupied with bleeding out at the moment. A brawl had even erupted on the lower left side, the archers clearly demanding the healer to help them.

  “Pir, I’m just checking, but the big guy’s immune to your skills, isn’t he?”

  “Pretty much. I’m sorry,” Pir mumbled. “I’ll keep the virus on him though. It might help, even if it’s just a trickle of damage.”

  “It definitely will,” Nar said, weaving in between the warrior’s heavy strikes and responding with nimble slashes of his own to keep him busy. “Len, did you find that rogue?”

  “Uhm… No. But everything up there is dying! Between the bleeding and the lack of air, I don’t think the rogue’s going to be a problem,” the air auramancer said.

  “Nice! Just keep an eye out then, in case there’s more,” Nar said. “Jasphaer, once the archers are close to dead, come over and start helping these people.”

  The big warrior missed him, and his club smashed into the floor of the temple, spreading a spiderweb of nasty looking cracks. Nar grimaced. He couldn’t use his full power here, and neither could the warrior apparently, not without risking bringing the whole temple crashing on their heads and making a nuisance of their sap collection afterwards.

  “Kur?” he called.

  There was a few seconds of delay, in which Nar maneuvered the warrior away from the prisoners, seeing as the archers were mostly dead by now.

  “Yes? Do you have them?” the party leader asked.

  “We do. But we’ve run into a rare problem,” Nar said. “It’s a big guy, and if we let loose, we’ll break the whole building. We need him out of here, but I can’t leave Jasphaer and the others alone. There was a rogue here, and there could be more.”

  “That’s actually great to hear! The other platoon is already here, and we’re breaking through. Meanwhile, I’ve sent some help your way,” Kur said. “They should be there soon and they’ll contact you!”

  How long is soon? Nar wondered, as the big Atlatl blew a column to pieces. With his companions dying around him, Nar doubted the warrior was going to keep playing nice for much longer, and temple and sap be damned.

  “Yoh, Nar!”

  “Leon?” Nar asked, chuckling to himself. “Of course it had to be you guys.”

  “Of course! Who else is gonna come save your sorry ass?” Eum said.

  “Where do you need us? I’m guessing you don’t want us up there in a room filled with deadly aura,” Calli asked.

  “If I open one of the sides of the building, can you taunt it?” Nar asked.

  “As long as I see him, he’s mine,” Leon promised. “Just don’t drop the whole building. We need that sap.”

  I know! I know! Nar grunted to himself, leaping towards the exit.

  “I’m coming through with him,” Nar shouted to Jasphaer, Pir and Len. “The archers and healers are practically dead, so get in there and keep an eye out for any rogues. And Len, don’t let anything into the room!”

  “Yes, boss!” Pir shouted.

  They ran into the chamber once Nar was through with the rare warrior, and Nar pulled the big monster back towards the stairs.

  “Fourth floor, on the left side of the building,” Nar told the others.

  “Re-routing. Almost there!” Calli said.

  Nar unleashed a weaker version of his [Aura Blade] at the wall beside the stairs, fingers crossed in his mind that he wouldn’t cause a full collapse. His aura burst through the wood and stone and Nar stepped onto a narrow ledge outside, rain pelting him.

  The golden and green clad warrior hesitated.

  “Come on!” Nar shouted, blasting him with an even weaker [Aura Blade]. “What are you scared of?”

  The hulking Atlatl shrugged off the attack and stomped forward. Nar maneuvered the two of them with a quick exchange of slashes and dodges until the great warrior had his back to the drop, with Nar now once again sheltered by the ruined wall. The Atlatl glanced once at the drop, then snorted from within his golden, dinosaur mask.

  Yes, yes. I know that won’t hurt you, Nar thought. But we’re not here for that.

  “We’re here!” Leon shouted. “Is it safe?”

  “Do it!”

  A touch of golden light hit the back of the warrior’s head. He turned around to scan the settlement floor below and snarled when he found Leon and his party. With a grunt, he jumped down and landed with a heavy thud.

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  “Got him!” Leon said.

  “Will you be alright?” Nar asked. He had no idea of the actual capabilities of the warrior as it pulled its punches significantly.

  “I’m offended you think this is worthy of concern!” Leon said.

  “We’ll be fine!” Calli replied, much more usefully. “Go back to the prisoners! It’s still a chaos out here, so maybe stay inside for now.”

  “Got it!”

  Nar ran back to the chamber.

  “Mul! Viy! You okay?”

  “We’re fine,” Mul said, his tone heavy with rage. “Nothing’s getting into the temple, and the others are already past the wall. You just look after the prisoners.”

  With the rare warrior out of the picture and things soon to be resolved outside, Nar finally heaved a breath of relief.

  Now, I just have to hope that there are no rogues around, he muttered.

  “Boss! How did it go?” Len asked.

  “Leon’s party took the warrior. Mul and Viy are keeping the temple safe and the others are already inside,” Nar said, squeezing his shoulder. “It will be over soon. Good job.”

  “Heh,” Len said, shrugging. “Didn’t really do anything.”

  Nar chuckled. “You did plenty, Len. Now keep an eye on the corridor, okay? I want to check on the others.”

  “Got it,” Len said, and his expression twisted into a grimace. “I only caught a look, but it doesn’t look good.”

  Nar composed his face into a neutral expression and splashed across the shallow pool towards the others.

  “... were you? Answer me dammit!” a woman was shouting, a human with startling white hair. “We’ve been here for two days! Three of us are dead! And Het and Nol were tortured all night long!”

  Pir had risked herself by wading into the dead and dying foes to loot the robes from the two healers so that Het, the guy that had been bleeding over the sap barrel, and Nol, the woman who had been tied to the stone table, could have some cover.

  The viral auramancer was stammering half-formed sentences in the face of the party leader’s wrath, and Nar stepped over.

  “Please, speak to me,” Nar said, drawing those blazing eyes to himself. Tear trails were stained into her cheeks, and Nar didn’t want to imagine the horror they had endured, helpless, as the Atlatl did as they pleased with their party members.

  “Where were you?” she shrieked, hands reaching to take hold of his collar. “Do you have any idea what they did to them? And the other three were eaten! Eaten!”

  Nar took a gentle hold of her hands, lowering them.

  “I am so, so sorry for what happened,” he whispered. “But we didn’t know you were taken.”

  “What?”

  “We received no kidnapping alerts,” Nar continued. “We attacked this place about an hour ago and we only realized you were here maybe thirty minutes or so ago. We came immediately once we found out. I swear.”

  “But… But… But…”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Nar gestured for Pir.

  “Come on, it’s over now, okay? Let’s go take a seat,” Pir said, passing a careful arm over the party leader’s shoulders.

  Two days? Nar wondered, eying Jasphaer as he healed the abused apprentice who had been hung to bleed.

  How in the Pile had this happened? They had known from the start that the Atlatl would be kidnapping people for their ritual boosting sacrifices, and Kur, Dak and Juf had made sure to create kidnap alert lines and response procedures for rescue… So how had these people been left to rot for two whole days?

  “Kur?”

  “Nar! We’re almost done! Just mopping up the rest of them,” Kur said. “How are things up there? I can hear a crazy fight somewhere outside the fort, so I’m guessing Leon’s party took the warrior?”

  “They did, and everyone’s freed and being treated,” Nar told him. “But Kur, we have another problem. Their party leader says they’ve been stuck here for two days.”

  There was a moment of stunned shock.

  “No… But that—That can’t be!” Kur shouted. “Why didn’t we know about it? Why didn’t they call for help! The Atlatl can’t stop our mental communications!”

  “I don’t know,” Nar said. “But it looks like three people were eaten, and two others were strapped, naked, and tortured while the rest were forced to watch.”

  “This is a disaster… How the fuck did this happen?”

  “Come over as soon as you can,” Nar said, watching the white-haired woman sobbing into Pir’s shoulder. “Their party leader is not well, so I’ll let you handle it. I just wanted to give you a heads up. Something bad happened here. Like trapped in a cannibal camp bad.”

  “God’s damn it all,” Kur muttered. “Alright. I’m heading over.”

  “Mul, Viy. These people have been here for two whole days,” Nar informed them. “Stay out of sight, okay? Let’s give them space.”

  “Two—What?” Viy shouted. “How?”

  “Kur’s coming over to find that out.”

  With a sigh, Nar headed over to check on the injured.

  Most of them seemed alright, if not in mind and spirit, at least physically, and they were gathered around Nol and Jasphaer, who was focusing the most on the delver that had dangled, Het.

  “How is he?” Nar asked, gently pushing through the circle of delvers.

  “He’s been up there for a while,” Jasphaer said, his eyes flickering to a bulky morsvar, who nodded with a clenched jaw. “They bled him for most of a full day. And they did… worse things too. Her as well.”

  “Damn it,” Nar muttered.

  “They will need more expert help than I can provide,” Jasphaer said. “But they will live. I promise.”

  “That’s good at least,” Nar said.

  He considered the gathering around him, taking in the bloodshot eyes, the thorn clothes and bruises, and the despair laden faces.

  “Kur is on his way, and he will sort all of this,” he said, knowing that they had heard him talking to their party leader. “Who is the second party leader?”

  He already had a bad feeling, given that the second party leader of their domain party had not stepped forward, and it was confirmed when the same morsvar shook his head, his eyes closed and his chin trembling.

  Gods damn it all.

  “Alright. Please rest easy. Sit down. We are watching over,” Nar said. “There will be food soon as well.”

  And we will get to the bottom of this, Nar vowed to himself.

  **********

  Kur swept into the chamber like a storm, a gathering of party leaders trailing him and drowning out the chiming sound of rain drops.

  He checked the room, splashing into the shallow pool without hesitation, and headed straight for the white-haired party leader.

  “Qar…” he called; his tone gentle. “I heard from Nar, but… What happened?”

  The woman fixed her blazing, dark ashen ex-Climber eyes on Kur.

  “What happened is that we’ve been here for two days,” she said, pushing the words through her teeth. “Two days! Waiting for you!”

  “What? But… How?” Kur asked, pleading almost. “We didn’t even know you were here!”

  “I reported it as soon as we were taken,” the woman said, her fists balled and her whole body shaking. “They told us that we were too far out, and that they were going to call you or Dak’s people. Then they cut us off from the channels and that was it.”

  “Cut you off? But—What? That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “I figured they were transferring us over to your command or Dak’s for the rescue, but nothing. Silence!” she hissed. “And this filth did whatever they wanted with us!”

  Kur shook his head, dazed as though he had been punched.

  “I-I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened,” Kur said. “I swear to all the Gods, my name, my party, my path and everything that we weren’t told. Otherwise, we would’ve gotten here two days ago!”

  Qar swayed in place, and Kur reached a steadying hand to her.

  “Did you really not know?” she whispered, tears streaking down her eyes.

  “I didn’t. But I will check with Dak and Juf, and I swear we’ll get to the bottom of this!”

  The woman burst out in hysterical laughter.

  “I bet I know exactly what happened,” she breathed, hatred in every word. “Juf is falling apart. She can’t handle it, and the cracks are showing!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t try to play nice to that idiot and her herd of fawning uselessness,” Qar said. “Our side of things has been a mess from the beginning! It’s obvious what happened here. They forgot us! We were supposed to be transferred over to either you or Dak, but they forgot to actually tell you, and we were forgotten here! Abandoned and left to rot!”

  “Crystal…” Ger whispered, one of the party leaders now silently standing behind Kur. “But something like that is—”

  “I’ll get to the bottom of this, I swear,” Kur said. “And if this really did happen…”

  He shook his head, leaving the threat open-ended. Then he glanced in Nar’s direction.

  “Stay here while we finish cleaning up the fort. Once that is done, we’ll arrange for you to be transported back to Dak’s camp, likely with a shipment of sap,” Kur said.

  “I don’t want to be shipped off to camp! I want to fight! I want to kill these things!” Qar shouted.

  Kur nodded. “I understand. But think of your people. And Rah’s, who have lost their party leader. You need rest now. You need to be somewhere safe so that they can recover. Please, I beg you, go back to camp and gather your strength for the siege on the Gate. This war is far from over.”

  Qar’s nostrils flared, her chest inflating and gathering words to fight back, but Kur motioned to her people, and she deflated.

  “When the time comes, can we join you?” she whispered. “Will you call us?”

  “I will,” Kur vowed. “Now, let me get this sorted. I’ll leave Nar and his people here to watch over you guys. Don’t worry, nothing will get through them.”

  **********

  They busied themselves looting the Atlatl and gathering whatever was useful on a little pile by the door. The local delvers, who were just waiting for Kur’s all clear to enter the fort and ransack it would do a much more thorough job, but people needed something to keep their hands busy. They also found the prisoners’ stolen weapons, and there was a moment of raw, pulsing pain when the apprentices decided on who to carry the weapons of the deceased.

  The leftovers of their party members had been taken elsewhere, and there was really no way of knowing where. It was better to carry their weapons out of the dungeon with them and let the reset erase all signs left of their bodies.

  Mul and Viy arrived sometime later, and stood guard by the door with Len. Pir rotated between the delvers they had rescued, offering help where she could while Jasphaer continued to work with the aid from a couple other healers from Kur’s platoon. As for Nar, he stayed in the middle of the chamber, visible, and hoping that his presence provided some sense of security and relief to the battered apprentices.

  Voices echoed in the corridor a few minutes after Kur called the local delvers into the fort, and a stream of people garbed in mismatched gear of many colors swept in. Food was placed into trembling hands, and the delvers were gently ushered out of the torture chamber as the locals got down to business harvesting the sap.

  Kur came up to personally check on the operation with the leader of the locals.

  “Minimal damage to the structure, and we found a lift to bring down the barrels. Great job! You kids did great!”

  This was an old woman with a third eye who was speaking to Kur. Ravnare was her name, and she was one of the main voices of leadership amidst the locals. She had insisted on following Kur’s platoon around, the two of them developing a quick and relaxed relationship. She easily agreed to Kur’s others as long as they weren’t daft as she had put it, and they in turn had benefited much from her counsel.

  “Thank Nar, he was the one who held back,” Kur said, smiling at the swordsman.

  “Ah! I figured he did,” Ravnare said, grinning. But then her expression soured. “I heard what happened to the kids you saved. Is it true? Were they really forgotten?”

  Kur’s eyes hardened.

  “Looks like it,” he muttered. “Juf is in a panic trying to find out who severed these parties from her chats, but no one is stepping forward.”

  “Ah! No one will, Kur,” Ravnare said, shaking her head. “It probably happened between a bunch of confused people, and no one is going to step forward to take the fall. What matters is that this can’t happen again.”

  Her three eyes pierced into his, and Kur nodded, pursing his lips.

  “Just know that you have us on your side,” she said, patting his back. “Alright! Let’s get started moving those barrels. Larsinus! Thuvaris! Let’s grab those ones and…”

  Kur came to sit beside Nar, by the steps leading up to the door. The party leader dropped his shoulders and a shaky sigh escaped him.

  “Are you alright?” Nar asked, through the private chat that Kur had set up just between the two of them.

  The altei shook his head and sunk his face into his hands.

  “It’s a fucking mess… It’s all falling apart,” he said. “People have been reaching directly to me to report missing shipments of sap, with reports of Atlatl breaching Juf’s line to attack the camp and to escape to the Gate. She kept it all under wraps, and while the two guilds did their damned jobs and kept the ritual and camp safe, they only reported it to the nobles, who didn’t bother telling us about it.”

  “Pile… What are you going to do now?”

  Kur snorted, and threw him a frown.

  “You mean whether I’m going to take over or not?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I have to,” Kur grunted. “The cracks were showing, but this is three people eaten and two of them tortured! There’s no going back after this. Parties are already splintering from Juf’s faction and reaching out to me and Dak.”

  “And what’s he going to do?”

  Kur chuckled without a shred of humor.

  “He’s been sending them my way. And he has this not so-crazy, but still crazy idea in his head. So he wants to come under me as well,” Kur said, sighing.

  “And? Do you want to do it?”

  Kur eyed the barrel loading operations for a few moments, the grunts and shouts from the locals filling the chamber that just an hour earlier had been the site of unspeakable horror.

  “You were right… Back by the lake shore,” Kur whispered. “I felt powerless. The stats don’t lie, and I was scared to lose you all. But if I need to go down, I want to go fighting, and knowing that I did everything in my power to steer our futures in the right direction.”

  He hung his head.

  “Juf built her faction around appearances and sweet smiles, promises of grandeur and great futures, and even though I knew that her and her inner circle were full of it, I didn’t act. I let her entrench herself. I turned a blind eye,” he said. “The fate of our party, and Row’s and of the other three, was already heavy enough. Imagine having to be responsible for so many more? To be responsible for all their lives… and know that I would have to issue commands knowing fully well that I would be sending people to their deaths at times. And that I had no choice in the matter but to do so. In the end, maybe the statistics were just an excuse… What I ran from was the weight of all these lives.”

  Nar scratched the back of his neck.

  “Well… That’s just leadership, isn’t it?” Nar asked him. “Even back home, my dad had to choose who needed more food and who could go hungry for longer. It’s just the way it is, and that is why people look to leaders. Someone must be willing and capable of making the decisions that no one else can or wants to.”

  He rested a hand over Kur’s back.

  “This has always been the path you wanted,” Nar said. “And your affinity, what defines your soul, is to make a difference through influence. So influence, Kur, and make a difference not just on our party’s future, but on all of these people with us on the Scimitar. They are all just as lost as we are in this endless Creation we find ourselves in. And know that for life or death, you will always be my party leader. Always.”

  Kur covered his eyes. “Gods dammit, Nar… why would you even say that?”

  Nar rubbed his back.

  “You earned it, Kur. Since the moment you took me into your party, back in that cubeplant, you’ve been nothing but a great leader.”

  “I very much doubt and disagree with that,” Kur snorted, but he raised his head, whipping at his eyes. “Right, leave it to me. I’ll handle this damned non-sense. But… we’ve only just begun, and I will need to ask the impossible from you again. And again.”

  “I expect nothing less,” Nar said, smiling. “These monsters won’t know what hit them.”