Raith cast his rope dart toward the man and watched it fly taut…then sag, encountering nothing but empty air. In the same instant, a blade pierced through his leather cuirass, scraping against bone as it glanced off his rib cage. A wave of agony tore through him.
His face burned as the steel point of a dagger tore through his cheek and he jerked his head back from the pain. The blurring created by [Gloaming Mirage] was probably to only thing that saved his life. He instinctively triggered [Acrobatic Evasion], flipping away from the source of the attack. So far, in fact, that when he landed, only Tolliver remained within his sphere created by [Staccato].
Raith looked at his unmoving companions, suspended in their poses beyond the stilled perimeter. He was panting heavily from the pain of his wounds. They were somehow going to need to fight this battle in the area the size of a living room, all while he was careful not to remove his friends from the action at inopportune moments.
This is going to be a complicated way to fight.
Tolliver quickly handed him a healing potion as Raith clutched his bleeding side with a grimace.
“Why is he going after me?” Raith asked through gritted teeth.
“It doesn’t take a genius to see you’re at the center of this sphere,” Tolliver replied. “And it’s no longer a secret that you’re godlaced. The assailant clearly knows something about us, and about what we possess.”
Raith spat blood onto the grass.
“Alright. Can you see the guy?”
Tolliver nodded his head.
“My assumption proved correct, I can perceive him as a bat.”
Raith nodded.
“Ok. Set up a whisper network. I’d still like to keep him alive if we can, but he may be too dangerous for that to be possible. Try to coordinate a knockout combo with Thea, and make sure the others know what you’re doing. He’s either got a speed [Skill] or can teleport, but either way, we’ll need to work together to take him down.”
Tolliver gave a quick nod and transformed into a bat.
“Ready”, came the whispered voice from the [Mage]’s spell.
Raith lunged forward and Tolliver began circling rapidly overhead.
Raith cast his dart again. Zinny immediately fired another arrow.
“Use your best arrow!” Raith called.
“I am! The last ones didn’t work!” she shouted back irritably.
Nyhm surged forward in a blur of motion, claws and kicks slashing through the air, but again, they struck only emptiness.
Tolliver darted toward the edge of the staccato field, sending another message through the whisper network.
“He’s teleporting. No one moves that fast, not even with [Divine Speed].”
Thea cried out as a gash opened along her arm. She jerked her shield up in time to deflect two rapid strikes, thudding into the polished wood, but when she countered with a gauntleted swing, her attacker was already gone.
Several times during the fight, either through Raith's antics or their own party members found themselves just outside the sphere of his [Skill], frozen until he could move away his back to getting them into the fight again. At one point, Tolliver excitement flew too high and Raith had to leap in order to get him back in motion.
Raith landed and felt another stab, this time into his shoulder, the blade lodging cruelly in the bone. He threw himself forward, narrowly ducking a follow-up strike that whistled past his ear, then hurled a bag of pepper powder behind him. A whoomp of the bag bursting and a loud, furious curse followed as the powder exploded over their invisible assailant.
Tolliver darted frantically inside the sphere, while Phineas zipped after the unseen foe, his great butterfly wings beating wildly to keep up.
“He’s rubbing at his face!” Zinny shouted, excitement and frustration mingling in her voice just before a blade pierced deeply into Phineaus’s flank and the faerie dragon tumbled from the air.
“NOOO!” cried Zinny, flitting down to follow her fallen mount.
Raith gritted his teeth.
“Tolliver, Thea, I need you guys to one-two this guy, now!”
Tolliver, still in bat form, zeroed in on the enemy and abruptly transformed mid-air, releasing a concussive blast. A solid ‘oof’ sounded as the air rippled.
Thea was already moving. She blurred forward in a sprint and smashed into the spot with her shield, connecting with a satisfying, meaty thump and another grunt of pain. Tolliver followed instantly with a second concussive blast, which struck true, but this time there was no accompanying groan.
Raith opened his mouth to ask if everyone was ok, when Zinny suddenly gave a piercing, trilling shriek and darted over to the fallen enemy.
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“I’LL KILL YOU!” Zinny screamed. She loosed a flurry of arrows into the man. Three, four, five, each one hitting with a heavy thunk into his chest. She threw her bow down and drew her sword. Raith grabbed her just as she was about to plunge the blade into the man’s throat and got stabbed through the hand for his trouble.
“Dammit, Zinny,” Raith cried, letting her go.
“Don’t you dare stop me. He killed Phineas, his life is mine!!”
She turned to lunge back towards the fallen man when Nyhm’s voice rang out.
“He’s not dead!”
The pixie stopped and turned towards Nyhm. He was putting an empty bottle back into his pouch as the dragon stirred to his feet with eyes blinking in confusion with a wide yawn. Zinny sheathed her blade a rushed towards Phineas, throwing her arms around his neck. She looked back towards Nyhm with tear filled eyes.
“Thank you for saving him.”
Raith grabbed Thea’s pouch from the fallen man while Zinny cuddled the faerie dragon for a few moments. After a final shuddering sob, the pixie fluttered backwards with a sniff and wiped the wetness from her face. Her face firmed into a mask of resolve as she drew her sword again.
“I’m still going to kill him.”
Raith held up a hand.
“Hold on. We need to find out who he’s working for and if they’ve sent anyone else.”
As he spoke, Raith knelt next to the man and examined his equipment for enchantments. The man’s belt, pouch, armor, weapons and ring were all seeped in runework. Especially the ring. He set about removing the items, and the instant the ring came off the invisibility spell broke. Tolliver let out a low whistle.
“That ring is powerfully enchanted to keep him invisible for so long. Most only last a few minutes, perhaps half an hour at most. He must have been traveling with us for hours.”
A shudder ran down Raith’s spine at the thought of him creeping along with them, and from the looks on everyone’s faces they were thinking the same thing. After removing the leather chestpiece and securing it in his satchel, he saw the man was also wearing a pendant beneath his shirt. He frowned as he removed it and held it up for the others to see. Thea recognized it immediately.
“Weaver’s tits, he’s a Templar.”
Raith nodded grimly.
“Which means he was after the key, and we just witnessed [Divine Skill: Teleport]. No wonder he could use it so quickly and often. Why didn’t he just hop back to their fortress?”
Zinny hadn’t put away her sword yet, but stayed back from the man for the moment. She didn’t take her eyes off of him while she spoke.
“He likely tried and failed. Such magics cannot take one between the realms unless specifically crafted to that purpose.”
As if on cue, the man shot into a sitting position with a fit of coughing at the lingering pepper powder. His eyes were red and watering from the same, but he didn’t look scared at his predicament. He looked furious.
Right up until Zinny let out a battle cry and charged him, point of her little sword leading the way. The Templar’s eyes grew wide and cast around desperately before he vanished, causing Zinny to zip right through the spot he had been sitting and continue right on out the side of the sphere, freezing in mid-air with her face a mask of fury.
“Where did he go?” Thea asked.
Tolliver transformed and zipped in a circle before turning back.
“He’s doesn’t seem to have another method of becoming invisible.”
Raith looked around, Phineas’s spell still active along with his [Hawksight].
“I don’t see him, either.”
Tolliver tapped his chin and looked thoughtfully down his nose.
“While perhaps he can’t teleport between realms, it would appear he can go within line of sight.”
Raith extended the visual bounds of his search, peering into the horizon in each direction. Nothing but rolling fields. His gaze pierced every nook and cranny he could find, but came up with nothing. Nyhm’s voice cut through his mounting frustration.
“Is that him?”
Following the direction his brother was pointing, they all craned their necks straight upwards. To the others, it must have appeared barely more than a speck in the sky, but Raith saw him clearly. The Templar hovered so far above he was beyond the reach of even the most [Skill] enhanced arrow. The man glared fiercely ahead, and Raith imagined he was targeting his next teleport to reach the furthest limits of that gaze.
“How the threaded fuck are we supposed to get him up there?” Thea asked.
Raith shook his head sadly.
“We’re not.”
Raith stepped forward to bring Zinny back into the fold. She whirled her little sword, the blade making an audible swish through the air as she cast about in fury.
“Where is he? Let me at him. Phineas shall not go unavenged!” she snapped.
“He’s gone,” Raith said. “Teleported away. You’ll have to get your revenge some other time.”
She looked at him suspiciously, as though he were somehow responsible for the Templar’s disappearance. Raith pointed up at the sky. Zinny followed his finger and saw the Templar floating far above. She considered it a long moment, then finally determined there was no way she or he could reach the object of her righteous anger. She sheathed her sword and fluttered back over to Phineas.
“Fine,” she muttered. “But the next time we see him, I’m slicing his throat.”
“Fair enough,” Raith said.
Raith handed Thea her pouch, which she accepted almost reluctantly and reattached it to her belt. She looked to Zinny, brows furrowed.
“So is he going to be able to get back to the mortal realm?”
The pixie shrugged as she lowered herself onto her mount’s back.
“Not without help. His Weaver’s gifts won’t activate a gleaming, and ignorance of the dangers here are often fatal. I hope he doesn’t get eaten by a redcap before I can slit his throat.”
Raith secretly hoped redcaps did eat the man. Or at least that they never cross paths again. It was extremely lucky they’d had this battle here, because back in the mortal realm that Templar would be long gone and their treasures along with him.
After an inventory check and attending to their wounds, the Myth Seekers continued their journey to the end of the gossamer path. When they stepped through the gleaming, they found themselves in a wooded glade, passing between two massive, rough-hewn stones that supported a third stone across the top, forming a crude doorway.
Were it not for the dampening of colors and the hardening of edges, Raith might have mistaken the glade for a place still deep in the fea realm. They were far to the east of Beckhaven, but fall had moved in faster and the air was much cooler than it had been at home. The leaves had turned gorgeous hues of oranges and reds that were overtaking the lingering green. Thea looked around in amazement.
“This is one of the old groves,” she said. “Stones have not been used like this for hundreds of years.”
“Thousands,” Zinny corrected with a smile, flitting around the glade with all evidence of her previous rage seemingly forgotten.
Raith began to clamber up the highest tree on the edge of the clearing to get his bearings. From that vantage he went into his [Mnemonic Library] and consulted the map of the area, then returned to check the position of the sun. There was no obvious trail leading toward the road, which meant most of the day’s travel would be through rough wilderness rumored to be thick with dire wolves, gale elk, and hobs.
He nimbly hopped back down, using [Featherfall] to slow his last dozen-foot drop and land lightly in the clearing before his friends. Tolliver returned from his circling at the same time.
“Anything?” Raith asked.
“Not nearby,” Tolliver said, shaking his head. “But I didn’t go very far.”
“I didn’t see any threats, either,” Raith said, pointing toward the southwest behind them. “But we need to head that way. If we hurry we should be able to make the road before nightfall. Let’s get moving.”
