25th Day of Goodmonth, 565 CY

Far side of the Aerie Lake, The Pomarj

The soldiers fired.

Amateurs, Elrohir thought.

The ranger's body was in motion even as the assessment flashed through Elrohir's mind. As the team leader hit the ground in a forward roll he could hear the bolts pass harmlessly overhead. All seven men had fired at him; the lead figure and closest target, ignoring the unarmored mages behind him. Further, they had all fired at once, rather than staggering their fire, and had all released their bolts at the same height.

Elrohir wasn't planning on giving them time to reload, but that was the arcanists' job.

He had a date with an elf to attend to.

The shoreline curved in towards the dock however, and the crossbowmen were still in a line leading from the shore inward. That meant that the soldier closest to the water was directly in Elrohir's path.

That warrior was still reloading his crossbow when he looked up and saw the Furyondan who had been forty feet away just a few seconds earlier charging directly at him.

There was no time to draw his sword. All the soldier could do was plant his feet and stand his ground.

He wasn't going to let this man just-

Elrohir grunted as he pushed off the fallen warrior's face with his leather boot. Not giving the man he'd overrun a second thought; the ranger altered his trajectory slightly to the left and ran onto the dock.

He was gladdened when he saw the svartalf leap off the railing of the Water Dragon. Edralve's feet made only intermittent contact with the ship's rope ladder and she landed gracefully on her feet, a rapier already drawn, her red eyes upon him and her still-bloodstained lips curved in a sly smile.

The drow was wearing what looked like elven chain, except it was black in color. It contoured to her body in a way Elrohir had rarely seen. The chain featured a red spider design on the abdomen, with the top two legs curving up over the elf's breasts. It covered less of her legs than high elf armor normally did; barely past the thigh.

The overall effect was enticing, arousing, and yet horrifying as well.

It was a perversion of all the elven concepts of beauty he had been raised with as a child.

Yet it was still somehow beautiful.

And her eyes.

Even as Elrohir approached them, his body filled with hatred and his mind fighting to hold onto that same anger, they sought him out.

They were filled with knowledge.

"My Hidden lover comes at last," Edralve called out in elven, her rapier making small circles in the air as the weapon faced him.

"I've been waiting for you, dearest!"

The emphasis she put on the last word punched through Elrohir's stomach like the dagger still in its sheath at Edralve's waist.

She knew what he had lost.

Even as the sprinting Argo Bigfellow Junior approached the hole in the soldiers' line made by his group leader, the big ranger could hear the profanity from onboard the ship.

Cursing a blue streak, Scurvy John was fumbling with his heavy crossbow, the weapon apparently having jammed. The pirate tossed out his bolt, rammed a new one in, aimed at his approaching foe and fired.

Right into the fog cloud.

Argo hadn't known exactly when Unru was going to use that spell, but he knew the illusionist had it memorized. Even if he hadn't told Elrohir about it, Bigfellow had heard Unru talking about it during their wizard conference in the abandoned warehouse, all those long days ago.

The shouts and cries of the soldiers filled his hearing.

Appearing right between the line of crossbowmen and the startled Theg Narlot, the patch of fog had spread with breathtaking speed until it covered all the warriors and their leader. Argo plunged right into the cloud without hesitating, hoping it didn't cover more than the twenty foot radius he was guessing at.

It didn't, although the ranger felt his feet almost slip off the edge of the shore as he ran through the fog. He compensated by using the still-prone soldier as a temporary carpet.

Argo emerged from the fog cloud onto the deck. Unru had placed his spell just right, covering an area from dock to forest but not encompassing either.

Bigfellow saw Elrohir racing towards Edralve, but his mind was on his own quarry.

Scurvy John wasn't going to get away this time.

Argo pulled up short at the rope line that attached the galley's stern to the dock. He was already starting to climb up it when he heard the sound of a crossbow being reloaded.

There was too much happening all at once.

Aslan's eyes had barely registered the horror of what had happened to Tojo when cries from the front made the paladin glance that way.

Unru had moved laterally to the right, towards the forest, before he had cast his spell, so as not to get in the way of his companions, but now the paladin could see the man in scarlet robes emerge from the forest, where he had evidently skirted the fog cloud.

The monk, if he was one, was moving towards the illusionist. Fast. Insanely fast.

Unru was starting to back up, but he didn't have half this man's speed.

Aslan didn't even remember bolting, but he did lock eyes with Nesco as he passed, so he must have. The paladin ran as he had never run before, blowing past Unru and coming to a halt right before the man in scarlet, who likewise stopped.

"You might as well flee, paladin," he announced, a snarl on his lips. "It's the only thing you seem to be good at."

Aslan ignored the jibe as he readied his sword into position. "If petty insults are your only weapon, you're sadly outmatched."

"I need no weapon to defeat you," came the swift reply. "Prepare to fall at the hands of Brother Kerin of the Scarlet Brotherhood. Your blood shall avenge that of my master."

The paladin had no interest in either this man's name or where he had come from.

"What makes you think any of that matters to me?"

The monk seemed to relax as, paradoxically; his body settled into a fighting stance.

"I always make it a point to let my victims know the name of their killer."

Aslan snorted. "Another case of ego over brains."

"Perhaps." Brother Kerin was no longer smiling. "But I cannot be rendered helpless and useless as easily as you have been."

The paladin's mind was just registering the meaning of that last statement when Kerin's fist bypassed his defenses and struck him in the face.

Aslan's world seemed to explode.

"Dammit, Unru!" yelled Cygnus. "I was just about to target the orc! Let me know before you pull stunts like that!"

"I'm a man of the moment," the illusionist replied without taking his eyes off the scene in front of him. "Whatever you're planning, make it quick. There's a breeze blowing; that cloud won't last long."

"Look out, skinny," Zantac ordered as he cut past Cygnus, sidestepping right as Unru had done, although not as far. "Let the Sandman through." The Willip wizard looked over at Sitdale and Thorimund. "I'll start from the forest edge. You two work your way inwards. Overlapping fields."

"Got it," Sitdale acknowledged.

From within the fog cloud, the cries of the soldiers began to lessen as some of them began to fall asleep to the new sound of soft thuds as they tumbled to the grass.

Cygnus frowned as the last of his arcanist peers finished casting their sleep spells.

"They're tougher than we hoped," he said. "We got maybe half, if that."

And here comes Narlot," added Zantac pointing at the figure slowly emerging from the center of the fog.

"I'll handle him," Sir Menn announced, and began heading forward to intercept him.

Cygnus turned his attention back towards the Water Dragon.

Lamonsten's gaze was locked squarely on him.

What now? Cygnus wondered. My options are limited. Hold to counterspell when he makes his move, or try to immobilize him now with the telekinesis? And what's the range on that, anyway? Can I hit him from here or not?

Slowly, against his better judgment, Cygnus began to move forward. He was perhaps seventy feet as the crow flies from the Slave Lord wizard when Lamonsten spoke.

"So, the mighty Cygnus wishes to engage in a wizard's duel, does he?"

"Not really," the Aardian mage responded honestly. "I'd much prefer it if your heart happened to give out about now."

"There's a spell that can do just that," said Lamonsten. "Pity you don't know it."

Cygnus paused.

"And do you?" He asked, hoping he was keeping the trembling out of his voice.

Lamonsten smiled. "For one who can pierce the boundaries between reality and illusion, all things are possible."

He glared hard at Cygnus; the smile gone.

"Frump was merely the apprentice. Prepare to meet the master."

He began casting.

Cygnus was too far away to identify the spell, but something suddenly flashed through his mind. The name Frump had conjured an image.

A spell the old man, for whatever reason, hadn't cast against them.

But it was in his spellbook.

And suddenly Cygnus was incanting as well, hurling his dispel against the unknown and unseen power that was coming his way; trying to counterspell it.

Trying as if his life depended on it.

"What's that?" Sitdale asked, pointing.

Zantac and Thorimund followed the half-elf's outstretched finger. In front of Cygnus, a vague, smoky shape was coalescing. It had almost no visible form at all; like the haunt from the slavers' stockade, but even more insubstantial than that.

But whatever it was, it was moving directly towards Cygnus.

It was the party's illusionist who first cried out.

"By the gods, it's a phantasmal killer! Run, Cygnus, RUN!"

But Cygnus did not hear any of them.

He could only stare at the approaching figure, which, only to him, was slowly but surely growing more distinctive. He could do nothing but despair in the knowledge that his counterspell had failed.

And he could feel nothing but the terror that was growing inside him every second, rooting him to the spot.

And Cygnus could hear nothing but the sound of his own heart, beating louder and louder and faster and faster.

As if any moment, it might burst.

For months now, Nesco Cynewine knew that this moment would come.

But she had never imagined that when it did, she would not even glance at the body of a man whom in such a short time she had come to love as one of her dearest friends.

She was a ranger. A fighter, a warrior of the Azure Order. And there were enemies to be dealt with.

And that meant killing, or being killed.

Stay inside his reach!

That one thought screamed all throughout Nesco's brain as she launched herself at Blackthorn.

The ogre mage had apparently anticipated that however, for the giant spear was already in motion to intercept the movement

But not Nesco's movement.

It wasn't until she heard Arwald cry out that the ranger realized that the fighter had also moved in to attack Blackthorn, although he had been taking a more roundabout route towards the ogre mage's rear, apparently attempting to flank the monster with Lady Cynewine.

It wasn't a mortal wound; Arwald had partially dodged at the last moment, but blood still flowed freely from his left shoulder, and the agony he was in was all too obvious. His sword's swing, off-angle, merely bounced off the beast's thick, warty hide.

But Nesco's didn't.

Blackthorn roared in pain as the ranger's blade cut into his right thigh. The ogre mage moved left, away from his attackers so as to bring his weapon into play again, but they both swung at him as he retreated. Arwald missed again, but Nesco did not.

Even as the wound to his leg began to heal, the creature which Tojo had called an oni stared in apparent wonderment at the new slash that had been opened down the length of his right arm.

Then he looked down at Nesco and smiled.

"Hard to believe you would throw away the gift of resurrection so quickly, Lady Cynewine," he rumbled. "Rest assured, this time I will make sure that you stay dead."

"Is that all you ogres know how to say?" shot back Nesco as she prepared to move in again.

But suddenly the tip of Blackthorn's spear penetrated into her right side. It was immediately pulled back again, and the pain was so overwhelming that Nesco didn't even register the small, backwards-facing barbs that adorned the spear's point.

And then, before she could recover or react, Blackthorn's weapon slammed into and through Nesco's leather breastplate.

Exactly where it had before.

Twin roars filled Nesco's ears.

Blackthorn's roar of triumph and the roar of her own blood.