The Elite Guard Fight

Sadly, Wheedle did not challenge me. Too bad; I wanted to hurt him. He tackled Ionna and they started wrestling, they appeared equal in strength.

The three guards split up and took on the rest of us. The guard I was now fighting was a large guy with an even larger spiked mace. My 'fighting' mostly consisted of dodging him and trying to wear him out; I didn't have time to prepare a spell.

He eventually cornered me to the wall. I didn't give up hope, however, because a plan was forming in my mind.
He swung and missed me, hitting the wall. It took him around a second to pull the spiked mace out of the wall, and that's when I got my idea. I backed up against the wall again and waited for him. He swung and I dropped. His mace hit the wall again and I was sitting in front of him; a perfect target. It was do or die now, quite literally. I readied a shock spell but was disoriented by the sounds of battle around me and the tension, so it was too weak to kill him. I had one shot and I needed to disable him.

I felt sorry for men everywhere when the spell hit it's mark. Oh, it disabled him all right. Or should I say her. He fell to the ground in pain, completely out of the equation.

I stood up and looked around. Cassandra was still battling and Zaron had beaten his foe and was helping Ionna with Wheedle. I considered helping Cassandra when I saw the old man obviously in charge here. He hadn't left the room; he was standing in the far back, observing silently. What an idiot. I concentrated more than last time and produced a damage health spell, aimed, and fired at the old man. The man's head snapped to the spell travelling at him, and his mouth formed a perfect 'O'. He did not do anything else; he had no time left. Literally.

As soon as the old man crumpled, Wheedle tore away from Ionna and Zaron and Cassandra's foe did the same.

"No! Do you realize what you've just done?" Wheedle shouted and knelt down to the old man, now dead.

"Both of you. Drop your weapons and face me." Ionna commanded. Wheedle and his guard compatriot did what she asked.

"What have you done?" Wheedle asked angrily. "That man was the leader here. I was tasked to protect him!" She shouted, almost frenzied.

"It looks like you won't be getting guard duty anymore." Cassandra observed.

"That's not how it works in the Alleria." Wheedle said. "They'll make me pay all right. With my life. They'll kill me!"

"Wow. That really isn't good for you. Start running and maybe they won't find you." Cassandra continued.

"They'll find me. You killed me when you killed him. Killed us!" Wheedle gestured to his friend. It was then I had one of my more 'unique' ideas.

"Maybe not." I said thoughtfully. Wheedle looked at me confused.

"We're on a quest of great importance and we're leaving this place far behind." I said with as much bravado as I could muster. "Join us, both of you, and the Alleria won't find you."