Reckless Flight
A fragile shard of sunlight reached over the canyon's brim, casting a clean shadow over the rust red rock and marking the eighth hour of the day. Stretching out his arms and leaning back, a tall, strapping young knight blocked the entrance to a now silent mine with his broad shoulders and a massive axe. Languishing in the shade after standing guard all night long, he surveyed his surroundings wearily as he awaited his relief and a few hours rest, too tired to even consider how long he'd been standing there or if there had always been a conspicuously man-sized bush just a few feet from him. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he trudged over to investigate the mysterious shrubbery when a bright flash appeared just beside him. Aisha rushed forward and clenched her fist tightly, the air around her bristling with energy as she thrust her hand toward the knight's chest. Her palm erupted in a huge blast of dark energy, hurling the knight against the canyon wall and knocking him out immediately as Aisha slid backward on her heels and then dove out of sight.
"Hey, you okay out there?" A haggard old soldier called out from just inside the underground, his heavy armor clattering as he hurried outside. As soon as he emerged into the chill morning air, Rena leapt down from her perch over the mine's entrance and planted her heel onto the old knight's head, jumping backward as he faltered and fell to the ground. With both guards getting a good, quality rest, Aisha and Rena relaxed and walked over to inspect their uniforms. Within seconds, they realized that they had just found two members of Wally's royal guard. Next to them, Elsword stumbled to his feet and frantically tore the dozens of tiny branches and twigs he had tied to himself in an awkward attempt to disguise himself as an inconspicuous hedge. Taking his sword in hand, he glowered as he joined Aisha and Rena in front of the gaping maw of the earth.
"What were you trying to do there?" Aisha glared at him harshly and pulled a few twigs from the back of his head. Elsword raised a hand to brush her away and scowled.
"I was about to take that guy down when you jumped in front of me."
"And then when you throw a fireball you'll burn to a crisp too." Aisha crossed her arms as they exchanged a sidelong glances.
"Alright, come on..." Rena giggled lightly and grinned as she took her bow in hand. "You can worry over each other when we're finished here."
Renewing their focus on the task at hand, Elsword and Aisha set their eyes forward, into the dense darkness of the underground where Wally had fled and, perhaps, where he was holding Ruben's El. Breathing deeply, Rena let the gravity of their task wash away her smile and replace it with severity. Unsure of what they would encounter and whether or not they would make it out alive, she held her bow in a white-knuckled grip and reigned in her racing heart.
"Ready?"
Elsword nodded. Aisha nodded. With the chill winter wind at their backs, they stepped into the boundless shadow of the silent mine.
"Ahhglglghhh..." A coarse scream faded into a mangled groan as blood gurgled and bubbled up from a fallen soldier's throat, her uniform so thoroughly stained with blood and soot that the crest of Velder was just barely discernable. As she lay gasping for her final breath, a flurry of boots pounded into the ground around her, weaving between piles of snow and the lifeless bodies her comrades. A squad of Crow mercenaries rushed along the streets of Velder's capital, shooting and stabbing every soldier they saw until they finally reached the central square. Corpses littered the cobbled pathways leading to the grand statue of the current king, a monument that now bore as many scars as the knights who died defending it. At the statue's base, Raven stood silently and awaited the arrival of his men.
"Boss! West end is clear, but they've called for reinforcements. East end is still locked down, we've pulled back to the lower end a few blocks to the north for now. Your orders?"
Raven scowled. "Who issued the order to pull back?" His gaze cut into the trembling faces of his subordinates and the whispering wind was his only answer. He scoffed. "It doesn't matter. Three of you, come with me. The rest of you, route everyone else through the east side marketplace to flank them while we charge in the front."
"Yes, sir!"
As his soldiers marched off into the city, a loud ringing filled Raven's ears and then, suddenly, a crippling shock radiated out from his left arm.
We must go.
"Hold that order!" Raven panted as he called out across the square.
"Boss, what's wrong? You okay?"
Steadying himself, Raven's eyes flashed quickly and his claw shut into a tight fist. "We're leaving. Get everyone to the ship in ten minutes or we leave them behind."
"Y-Yes, sir!" Stunned, his soldiers scrambled to send word throughout the city, leaving Raven to march through the bloodstained streets, past the broken bodies of Velder's knights and the locked doors of homes full of frightened citizens. Staring into the northern sky, Raven faltered as another surge of electricity shot through his body and nearly sent him to his knees.
We must go. The El is moving.
Flames filled the air and breathed light into the dim tunnels as Elsword rushed toward a pair of mining nasod, slamming them into the wall with the edge of his blade and blasting them with a stream of fire until their motors seized up and thick smoke poured from their eyes. Behind him, a stout nasod with a huge drilling arm sped toward him, sparks whirling from its wrist as it thrust forward. A bright whistle cut through the dark and the nasod staggered, its arms and head dropping as a pair of arrows pierced its chest and stuck into the ground behind. With the last of the nasod in the area laying in shambles, Elsword grabbed a skin of water from his belt and drained it as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"It's quiet here... the nasod are just sitting around waiting for us. They can't possibly have been just sitting around doing nothing this whole time." Aisha stepped over a pile of scrap and gears to join Rena and Elsword who were standing at the mouth of a tunnel at the rear of the chamber. Scowling, Elsword held out his hand and a small flame flickered to life in his palm.
"Come on, we gotta hurry." He marched onward and Rena and Aisha followed alongside. Every inch of the mine was slick and dripping with water from a thin pipe that pumped a fine mist into the air and every passage bore the scars of aggressive excavation. Though they had been searching the mine's twisting tunnels and fighting nasod for nearly an hour, they found no sign of of Lord Wally or his soldiers, no sign of the missing miners, and no sign of the El. With each new passage filled with nasod, the fatigue of battle was slowly seeping into Elsword's legs and arms, his shoulders already sore from hitting heaps of solid metal. Just as they reached the end of another dead end tributary, a faint plea drifted through the darkness.
"...Help... anyone there... help us..."
Immediately, Rena turned and dashed back to the nearest fork in the tunnel.
"This way, come on!" She motioned to Elsword and Aisha and they hurried after her, darting past overturned mine carts and discarded pickaxes as they raced down toward the clamor of desperate cries. Just as the quiet calls rose to a clamor they were drowned out by a violent rumbling as a half-dozen nasod roared to life and charged forward. Sliding forward, Elsword dodged a sharp mining pick and closed his fist around a whirling mass of fire, punching a nasod in the chest and leaping back as the air exploded in flame and smoke. Rushing alongside him, Aisha waved her hand out and three orbs of swirling dark energy pulsed and crackled in the air before her, shocking the approaching nasod and slowly pulling them apart. As the smoke cleared and the dust settled, Rena stepped over the twitching remains of the broken nasod with an arrow drawn and aimed at the shadows ahead. Slowly, she edged forward.
"People!" Rena hopped back as an ashen man hobbled into the light, his face filthy and unshaven and his arms thin and frail. "Oh God, people..." He began sobbing and fell to his knees and as he did, dozens of others joined him from the shadows, gathering together as Rena stood staring in disbelief. Just behind her, Aisha and Elsword echoed her surprise and gazed out over the crowd of ragged prisoners.
"Please, help us, you have to help us get out of here!" A weary, raspy voice pleaded from the huddled mass as a dozen voices joined in, weeping and shouting in fear and jubilation. Lowering her bow, Rena stepped forward and addressed the crowd.
"Are you all the miners who disappeared three weeks ago?"
"Yes, they kept us here with those things watching over us!"
"The knights and those machines! They threw us down here and took over the mine."
"C-calm down..." Aisha waved her hands in front of her, trying to calm the frantic mob. "Do you know what they wanted with the mine?"
A withered old woman stepped forward and spoke up. "The ore and the El in the iron veins. They've been digging it out for weeks now and hauling it to the deep end where the tunnels open up."
Elsword's brow furrowed and his mouth twisted up in confusion. "What're they gonna do with it in the bottom of a mine? There's nowhere to go from there..."
Sighing, Rena smiled softly and her shoulders dropped. "Well, at least everyone's still okay."
A sudden silence swept over the crowd. "Not... everyone." The air grew dense and heavy as an oppressive gravity fell over everyone in the tunnel. "There were a few that tried to fight at the beginning, and a few that tried later on... They're not..." A series of short sobs accompanied a wave of cold shudders as several miners glanced back to a row of ragged blankets that covered misshapen heaps at the end of the chamber.
"Damn it!" Elsword drove his fist into the wall and blood seeped from his knuckles. Beside him, Aisha's eyes filled with fire and she clenched her wand tightly.
"...We've cleared the way out so it should be safe for you to get out of here." Rena pulled a pack from her belt and handing to the miners. "It's not much, but there should be enough food there to get you back to town."
"No!" A shrill cry came from the back of the room, its owner hunched over one of the bloodstained blankets. Sobbing deeply, he buried his face in the funeral shroud and wrapped his arms around the corpse beneath.
The withered old woman looked up to Rena in an attempt to assuage her apparent distress. "Don't worry about him... a few of us won't be strong enough to make it back. We'll wait here together until we can bring help..."
Steadying herself, Rena nodded. Soon, a stampede of frailty rushed past her, muttering their appreciation and panting as they scampered toward the surface. By the time they had fled, Elsword was already marching off into the depths of the mine. Aisha opened her mouth to call after him, to tell him to wait, but she stopped and held her tongue. This was a moment in which she could not bring herself to call for cautious procedure. Gritting her teeth together, she was just as ready to slam Wally into the ground as Elsword was. With Rena sprinting to catch up, the three of them headed through the darkness, down the winding corridors of stone and soot toward the bottom of the mine. After only a few minutes, the air began to hum and loose rocks rattled underfoot. Urged on by the rumbling earth, Elsword, Aisha, and Rena dashed down the tunnels and over debris, leaping over fallen timber and tools.
As the air filled with the deafening roar of engines and fire, they emerged into a huge open cavern, a coliseum of stone and earth that reached far into the sky and opened its ceiling wide, letting sunlight flood the air and glimmer against the battalion of nasod standing below. Suspended in the center of the room, beyond the clusters of nasod and the frantic shouts of Wally's royal guard, a massive ship bellowed and screeched as its propellers sputtered and whirled. Just barely visible beyond the mass of steel and steam, Lord Wally stood shouting inaudible orders at his knights. As soon as they noticed intruders in the area, Wally's royal guard commanded the nasod to attack while their master retreated to the confines of his craft.
Standing firm, Elsword clenched his fist and fixed his eyes on Wally's ship. Beside him, Aisha pointed her wand at the ground and was chanting furiously while Rena picked off as many nasod as she could.
"Rena, get ready!" Aisha thrust her wand into the air and a cloud of thick, putrid smoke billowed out around them. Rena immediately drew back and released her bowstring, sending the toxic gas throughout the cave with a strong burst of wind. As the corrosive cloud passed over the nasod, their joints stiffened and their legs creaked, leaving the majority of Wally's army completely immobile. Seizing the opportunity, Elsword charged ahead and cut through the remaining nasod, easily torching and smashing the smaller mining drones as he barreled toward the ship. As he approached, the last of Wally's knights quit the fight and withdrew to the bellowing vessel, leaving a thick crowd of nasod behind to secure his escape.
"Out of my way!" Elsword drove his sword into the ground and a line of shimmering circles lit up the ground, each one bursting as a shining blade shot up into the air and through the sea of iron and steel. Only yards away from the catwalk that led to Wally's ship, the crescendo of engines was abruptly overshadowed by a loud crash as a gargantuan nasod fell from the sky and landed in front of Elsword. He recognized it immediately, as did Rena and Aisha. Though its body was dull and coarse rather than slick and silvery, there could be no mistake that this was nearly identical to the nasod they had faced in the courtyard of Elder castle. Staring down the machine that nearly killed them a month earlier, Aisha and Elsword looked to one another, their eyes intense and sharp. Then, they grinned.
"Ready?" Aisha glanced to Elsword as she held her hand up beside her and a huge, howling flame sprung from her palm. He nodded, tapping his knuckles against hers and spreading the fire to his own hand and, from there, to his sword. Creaking and rumbling, the massive nasod hurtled toward them and they held their ground. As it swung its heavy arms down at them, they slid around to its side and pressed their hands into its legs, melting their gears and joints together. With its legs paralyzed, the metal beast roared and spun its arms around, flailing and punching frantically. A swift jab shot through the air at Aisha and she raised her hands, blasting the attack away with a burst of dark magic. A wide right hook hurtled through the air at Elsword and he rolled beneath it, slashing quickly as he rose and cutting through the nasod's arm with ease. Spinning and buzzing violently, the nasod began to gather electricity and its eye glowed brightly.
"No thank you. I didn't think it was that fun the first two times." Rena stood in the distance with her bow drawn, a whirlwind of energy circling her arrow as she focused on her target. When she fired, her arrow split into three brightly glowing spearheads that sped through the air and pierced the nasod's head all around, silencing its frenzy and shorting out its power supply. Before they could enjoy vengeance or victory, Wally's ship began to move, slowly rising into the air as it bent the walkway that attached it to the cavern below. Without a moment's rest, Aisha and Elsword ran with all the strength they had as Rena hurried to join them. The pathway creaked beneath their feet as it twisted and buckled, threatening to collapse and leave them stranded. Twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten. Two. As the walkway finally groaned and snapped in two, the three of them leap through the air and rolled onto the deck of the Wally's airship just as it picked up speed and rose through the opening in the cave ceiling and into the clouds.
Standing along the aft of the flying ship as it soared over Bethma gorge, leaving the land behind as it sailed through the sky and over the ocean. As Elsword, Aisha, and Rena fought the tempestuous gusts on the deck, more than a dozen nasod emerged from the hold and moved to surround them. Drawing their weapons once again, they dug their feet in and raised their guard.
"Tch." Elsword scoffed and rolled his head across his shoulders. "This looks like it's gonna get rough."