Things went smoothly as the trio returned to their original plan of avoiding conflicts. They were all well equipped to move quietly, and between proficiency at stealth and the Earl’s geas it was easy to keep out of the way of the patrols that were growing increasingly more common the closer the team got to the city center.

  Penetrating the darkness of windows and doorways with [Subervise Reader] and [Hawksight], Raith saw that the traps in this dungeon seemed to be confined to the inside of buildings, at least for the time being. He assumed this was to punish those who sought the city’s treasures, and he began to wonder if there was a relationship between the concentration of traps and value of plunder to be found inside.

  A glance at a group of wights passing silently through the dark interior, looking even more twisted than before in this latest evolution, chased the notion of finding out from his head. They’d be almost impossible to avoid fighting if they went inside to explore. Any fight they found themselves in would be made twice as hard by having to contend with traps. It just wasn’t worth it.

  Hopefully, there would be plenty of treasure with the artifact, since they had to go in there anyway. Raith gave a shudder as they passed an open window with a faceless wight standing motionless, seeming to stare right into his soul.

  “Those things creep me out,” Thea whispered from beside him.

  “Me too. I’m not looking forward to when we finally need to face them. I almost wish we’d had a chance to fight them when they were weaker so we’d have at least some idea of what to expect.”

  Another wight came up beside the first, faceless head turned directly towards them. He gave another involuntary shudder.

  “Almost,” Thea added, as if reading his mind.

  Hours passed in careful progress. The team drank water and nibbled rations on the move. When they began to tire, everyone quaffed a stamina potion so they could maintain their pace and ensure they reached the artifact before the giant-kin realized they were in the wrong spot.

  As he thought that, an explosion rocked the cavern from somewhere in the distance. Towers shook while dust and rocks cascaded down from the ceiling high above. The sound of structures collapsing into rubble continued for many long seconds following the blast.

  The Myth Seekers crouched beside a building, eyes wide at the unimaginable power that must have been behind an explosion like that.

  “The formor, you think?” Nyhm asked.

  Raith nodded.

  “I don’t know what else it could be. Maybe we got lucky and they’re all dead.”

  Thea offered a wry grin.

  “The Weaver’s have never smiled on us that brightly. Still, that was huge. I can’t imagine they made it through that unscathed, godlaced or not.”

  After waiting another minute to ensure the cavern had resettled, they continued on their path, the arrow in Raith’s mind leading them towards their goal. The bone horrors had now grown to the size of elephants, which made them considerably more terrifying but easier to avoid. The shrike serpents had also gotten bigger, but not nearly as large as their shock troops.

  What disturbed Raith the most about the serpents was their eyes. Some unmistakable glint of intelligence as they peered around the streets on patrol, occasionally flicking out a tongue to test the air.

  They had become used to seeing the evolutions that came with predictable regularity. The creature’s size, along with armor and weapon quality, seemed to be the primary changes each time.

  Until now, anyway.

  Raith was just returning from scouting the block ahead when he spotted a patrol of ten bone horrors plodding along in the other direction.

  “The bone horrors don’t seem to have changed much. Maybe a little more armor. But the weird thing is there was no sign of the…”

  He broke off as Nyhm’s eyes widened, pointing into the air behind Raith’s head.

  “Shrike serpents.”

  Whirling around, Raith cursed as he followed his brother’s finger to four shrike serpents about forty feet in the air and diving straight towards them.

  “Wings?! They got thrice damned wings? This is absolute bullshit.”

  One of the creatures let out a shriek of command, and the not-too-distant clatter of bones on stone could be heard heading in their direction as well.

  “Run!”

  The trio took off, Raith leading them quickly down a narrow alleyway with high walls that should slow down the bone horrors considerably and keep the shrikes from attacking all at once. He had been hoping to escape the creature’s field of view long enough for the geas to kick in, but they were too high up for the buildings to obstruct their vision at this angle.

  The desperate chase went on for what felt like an eternity. It was easy to stay ahead of the bone horrors, but they were impossible to lose with the serpents above keeping an eye out and directing them. One of the damn snakes would occasionally dive in with a mouthful of fangs dripping with venom. Each time Raith’s heart caught in his throat. If one of them went down paralyzed, they were all likely to be overrun trying to help. Somehow, they managed to avoid each one with a [Skill]ed evasion or perfectly timed shield block.

  It was quickly becoming obvious that they couldn’t keep this up for much longer. Raith shouted without slowing to look at his companions.

  “Should we take the haste potions?”

  “Not yet!” Thea called back. “The formor are far more dangerous than this lot.”

  ‘This lot’ is still more than dangerous enough to kill us all.

  But there was no good to be had in voicing that thought out loud. Just as Raith was about to give up and bring the team into one of the buildings, he finally spotted the type of structure he’d been praying to find. A wooden covered bridge spanned a long, dried canal just ahead. The roof of the thirty foot long structure would break the line of sight long enough for the serpents to forget about them and fly off, but not be the type of place to be overrun with wights. With a shout of triumph, he led his team beneath their timbered salvation.

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  The three couldn’t help but look over their shoulders as they sprinted onto the bridge, pausing just as they got out of sight to ensure the ploy had worked. Raith opened his mouth to congratulate them, when the groan of wood shifting beneath a heavy weight caught their attention from the other end of the bridge.

  “Well…shit,” Nyhm said blandly.

  Three bone horrors blocked the exit, and there were at least twice as many more piled up behind them that couldn’t fit. After spotting the team, the creatures took a few eager, skittering steps forward and stopped as though waiting for instructions.

  “We’ve been herded,” Thea cursed, and Raith saw the truth in her words the moment she spoke them.

  The sound of the patrol that had been following them could be heard continuing their approach, but there was no sign of the serpents that had been harrying them along this whole time. One of the bone horrors at the back of the pack blocking their escape spotted the team and started trying to push its way forward through the others. A chorus of hisses and shrieks soon followed, which Raith interpreted as scolding from the officer to the effect of: ‘What the threaded fuck do you think you’re doing?’

  One of the shrikes landed near the aggressive skeleton, presumably to punish it in some fashion, and did a double take as it glimpsed the Myth Seekers cowering towards the other end of the bridge. It looked up and let out a shriek, which was picked up and repeated several times by creatures that were out of sight.

  On the side closest to them, one of the serpents that had been following alighted on the ground and looked at them with surprise. It opened its mouth, but the shriek was cut off by a vicious claw across the throat from Fangreach. The creature would not have succumbed to the wound, but the attack was almost immediately followed by a [Shield Throw] to the head and [Piercing Shot] to the chest. It collapsed to the ground, gurgling blood, while the trio made a run for the opening.

  Behind them, the waiting patrol of bone horrors burst into motion at the command of their leader. Just as the Seekers poured from beneath the covered bridge, the first patrol of bone horrors rounded the corner to their right. Hisses from above told Raith they’d been rediscovered, and he cursed.

  “We need to get into a building!”

  The closest structure looked like some sort of administrative building that took up an entire block. Whatever was inside of it was apparently of some value, because Raith could see wights swarming across the opened doorway and staring greedily down from windows above. He sprinted in the opposite direction of the thundering bone horror patrol for the next closest building.

  A shout from Nyhm was all the warning he got. His brother’s magical ring allowed him to see the shrike serpents diving in from above, and the team dove and rolled in different directions mid-sprint, narrowly avoiding the venomous fangs. The monstrous officer’s strategy seemed to be to paralyze the team so the bone horrors could come in and finish them off. Raith had to admit that would be pretty effective.

  Another attack from the serpents left Thea isolated as they scattered. Two more came in right behind as the ambushing patrol’s leaders joined the fray. This time a fang sank seep into her shoulder, and she screamed in pain. The satyr managed a few more stumbling steps before falling to her knees. With heroic effort, she used the edge of her shield to push herself back up to her feet but only made it another step and fell completely flat on her face.

  As the two brothers rushed to help their fallen comrade, Nyhm lunged to shield Raith with his body from a swooping strike and took a bite himself. Raith cried out, but the powerful elfling shook off the venom.

  “I’m fine, grab one of her arms.”

  With a heave, they each draped one of her arms over a shoulder and closed the distance to the next doorway. Just before they arrived, three of the shrikes landed in their path, and Raith’s heart sank. Even if the two of them managed to handle three of these things, it would leave Thea defenseless and give the bone horrors time to catch up.

  A shadow darted out from behind Raith, clambering up one of the shrikes and covering its face in blackness. The serpent reared back in alarm and shook its head back and forth to dislodge the source of its blindness with no success.

  “Veil!”

  “Look out!” Nyhm shouted again, dropping Thea unceremoniously and firing off [Imperceptible Dodge].

  Raith likewise activated [Acrobatic Evasion] and flipped right above the diving serpent, causing it to fly headlong into one of the other three blocking their path to the door. The two tumbled in a mess of scales and hissing shrieks, and Raith was elated to see that now only one was left blocking their path.

  Nyhm leapt forward to engage the creature. Glowing claws flashed, rending scales and flesh while Raith ran to pick up Thea and drag her through the doorway. He deposited her on the floor of what appeared to be an apartment building and spun back to help his brother just in time to see a second serpent dive back into the melee. The elfling barely dodged another bite, but the move took him further from the doorway.

  A third shrike landed. Raith’s heart dropped as he saw the bone horrors quickly closing in. He cast his dart into one of the new arrivals while Nyhm tried to quickly finish off his first opponent. The third took the opportunity of his distraction to land a vicious bite to the back of the elfling’s leg. It didn’t penetrate far through his steelskin, but caused him to fumble the finishing blow. Raith didn’t miss the flash of fear in his brother’s eyes as the shrikes positioned themselves more thoroughly between him and the door.

  [Life in Staccato]

  Raith just needed to get his brother through that doorway before the bone horrors got there. That’s it. They didn’t need to win, and he certainly didn’t give a shit about the weft right now. He just wanted his brother to be ok.

  The shrike he’d injured hadn’t noticeably slowed, and he was pretty sure a [Piercing Shot] wouldn’t kill it from behind. There was no possible way Nyhm could take out two of those things on his own in time. Getting an antidote into Thea wouldn’t get her moving in time to help.

  Raith went through idea after idea, discarding each plan with increasing desperation. Maybe he could knock one aside with a meteor hammer blow, then entangle another and give Nyhm room to slip through.

  That could work, but he’d need to be outside to have the room to spin his rope enough. Risky, but there didn’t seem to be any better options.

  Setting the world back in motion, Raith dove through the door and leapt to his feet, spinning his entire body to provide momentum for the heavy meteor hammer. With a resounding crack, it blew into the side of the closest snake, driving the wind from its lungs and sending it sideways.

  Elated at his success, he reversed his momentum to pummel the next one while his brother finally finished off the first he had engaged. With another mighty swing, Raith knocked the other serpent to the side. Before Nyhm could take advantage of the gap, the one Raith had just struck was replaced by yet another shrike with several more in the air not far behind. There were just too many of them.

  He met his brother’s eyes, who gave a sad smile of resignation. He looked at Thea lying paralyzed on the floor inside and wondered how long the venom would last. Wondered what chance she might have to live if they both perished out here.

  “No!”

  The shout came from above, and Raith looked at his brother in confusion. With a rush of wind, the shrike between them flew sideways as if punched by a giant. Together, they looked up towards the source, but saw only shrikes. There was no time to resolve this mystery before the incoming shrikes landed.

  “Go now!” Raith shouted, and they both dove through the doorway into safety.

  Rolling to their feet, they flinched as a tiny brown creature flew in behind them and then shimmered into a familiar shape.

  “Tolliver?”

  The [Mage] stood there uncertainly, more unsure of himself than Raith had ever seen the man. The noble opened his mouth and closed it several times before finally speaking.

  “I’m sorry…”

  Raith cut him off and threw his arms around his teammate.

  “Me too, Tolliver. Me too.”

  The pale noble stiffened for a moment, then relaxed, returning his friend’s embrace. Raith hadn’t realized how much of a hole had been left without the [Mage]. As he tried to find the words to express what he was feeling, he looked over Tolliver’s shoulder and cursed.

  Far down the hall, a pair of spectral wights drifted slowly towards them. Raith puffed up his cheeks and let out a long exhale.

  Weaver’s tits, can’t we just get five minutes?