Chapter 1

"Stay sharp." He barks. He knows I'm getting distracted without having to turn around.

My focus snaps back to stepping over heavy piles of bloodied armor, keeping pace with Anten so as to not fall behind to stall Resperia and Lote tailing me. I'm the win condition here, but I need them to get me to the throne room, and I won't make their job any harder than it already is.

I go over the formation in my head again to steel my nerves. Anten takes the lead and guards me, Lote supports from back line with a bow and has his own short blade sword if anything gets passed Anten, and Resperia holds the far rear with range and fast healing. I'm clutching the knife the arch bishop gave me with a white knuckle grip, careful to not press the teal gemstone crudely lodged into its hilt. This knife is the only thing that can kill her, and everyone here is protecting me because I have the best chance of sticking her with it. Everyone has their job, and everyone has to do it perfectly.

A sharp tick from the hallway to the left sets Anten off. He preemptively swings his broadsword at chest level towards the hallway's entrance, shearing through two more guards as his blade tears through their armor. His sword isn't even made of an armor piercing material. I've come to learn he just swings it that hard. The loud shammer of the occupied armor rattling to the stone floor echoes further ahead to a choke point. There are at least six more guards waiting on either side of the wall past the doorway. Anten looks to Resperia, who scowls at the silent order. She reluctantly raises her staff and fires off a spiraling shot of blue flames, once past the doorway it splits into two smaller shots before curving away from each other, turning back to explode against the walls on either side of the door. The fires shift to a bright orange as they fry the ambush set for us. I used to think Resperia's reluctance to casting offensive spells spawned form some personal belief in valuing life, but in reality she despises depleting her mana by any amount, and offensive spells are the most costly. I'd heard she agreed to join our party to reduce a prison sentence, but I've no idea what her crime was. I make a mental note to ask once this is all said and done.

I go over the plan again and again, like a prayer to keep my nerves from cracking as we meander towards the compound's war room. At the final flight of stairs, I have to mind a gap left by one of Resperia's opening acts, the stones still warm with residual heat. It's contrasted by the sharp wind swirling through the hole, the same ominous clouds swirling since we snuck in. I take in that final taste of outside air before we press closer. She's close. Everyone can feel it.

We reach the last door.

Still gripping the knife, I can't stop my hands from shaking. Everyone can hear the hilt rattling the blade inside of it. Lote places a hand over mine, stilling the noise. He looks over the door and checks a few spots we don't have information for. What little we had, numerous spies gave their lives for. It's taken nine whole months for us to reach this door, and behind it is where I have to perform.

Anten grabs my shoulder and moves me aside between two cabinets facing away from the stairwell.

"Take a peak inside, see what she has waiting for us."

Resperia places herself to my left side and readies a defensive barrier, while Lote seats himself to the other side of the room with his bow drawn. Anten stands in front of me, putting on an assuring face. Rough around the edges as he is, he knows me well enough to not push too hard. we're all scared in our own ways.

One last time.

I sit to the floor between the cabinets, the knife still in my hands, and close my eyes, squeezing them shut tightly. That familiar tingling from the back of my head floods my senses and I can start to make out the room around me. I sift through the blue haze past Anten towards the door. Lote looks in my general direction, and glances upwards before returning his sights to the stairwell. I take his que and float to the top of the door before phasing my head through to see the other side.

I feel a shiver in my body below me. She's there. She's looking right at me. I quickly pull my head back through the door and open my eyes, Anten studying my reaction. I regain the courage to speak up.

"It's just her."

Anten straightens himself and nods to Lote.

"Let's not keep her waiting."

Anten takes the lead with one hand on the door and glances behind as I'm followed by Lote and Resperia. Once she's within grappling range of Anten, he'll close the gap and try to stick as much damage as he can to slow her down. As big as Anten is, he's deceptively fast if he's moving in a straight line. Lote will keep his bow drawn to form a pincer in case she tries to get around Anten, while Resperia dumps healing spells into the three of us as necessary. The very instance Anten creates an opening, I take the knife, touch the teal gem in the hilt once, and strike her with it. That's all I have to do. That's the entire reason I'm here.

Anten glances down making eye contact with me.
"Time to be brave."

I manage a nod.

He repeats the phrase once more to himself before pushing the door open.
"Time to be brave."







We walk into the room with weapons drawn. We continue as a group towards her at the far end. She stays seated. I haven't heard Lote shift his bow away from her, so there isn't an ambush in hiding for us. It really is just her. As we draw closer, her eyes are glued to me. Her pail face and hands contrasting with her flowing black robe. Even from this far back there isn't a single wrinkle or line on her face, it's uncanny. Her expression is one of curiosity. She glances to the knife in my hands and back to my face, her expression unchanging, only looking away when Anten stops within his ideal range and speaks.

"Laurenella! The High Court has found you guilty of conspiracy against the crown and regicide against the Lord Uth-"

"Why have you come?"

The question catches Anten off guard, but only briefly.
"We have come to destroy you."

"Oh. There must be some mistake. There's only four of you. You're not enough."

The hair on my neck and arms raises, flashes of red, blue and green light like that of a church's stained glass send a wave of dread over me. In an instant something strikes my entire back, and I'm on the ground. When I see Resperia rushing towards me with a look of panic I've never seen from her before, I realize the pain in my back is from the wall behind us. My head is spinning. She reaches me and begins forcing pulses of mana with a soft emerald glow, desperate to keep me conscious. I look ahead in amazement as Anten moves his entire weight into swings of his sword, deflected with slaps from Laurenella's hands, sparks flying from the metal striking her nails. I can barely make out Lote dashing about between them with his short sword aiming for her legs. She seems to dance as she swings her arms lower to parry his fast but weaker slashes. Resperia's healing magic realigns my spine enough for me to realize how bad this is getting. Anten is keeping her between himself and Lote to try and pincer her, but it's no use. She's toying with them. Resperia stands and turns to support Lote. Laurenella turns her focus to her. In an instant, Resperia is gone. A warm mist touches my cheek. Lauranella turns to her left, once more staring me down. Her robes once again glow with distinct colors, like I'm looking into the sun. I hear Lote yell as he lunges, only to be caught by her left hand. Without looking away from me she throws him through the window behind me, his voice quickly fading.

This isn't happening.

Anten finally reaches her, the force of his blade changing the air pressure around us sends my head spinning. She holds the blade in her hands. She's still looking at me. Anten glances to me.

Not yet

I force myself to my feet, Resperia's spell finally catching up to my stamina.

Lauranella's eyes widen. She shifts her body to strike Anten at the center of his chestplate, sending him flying to the other side of the room. He struggles to stand and charge.

Lauranella leans forward towards me, takes the knife from my hands with an iron-like grip. She brushes her thumb over the teal gemstone. The knife glows a brilliant sky blue in her hands. She swiftly pins the weapon into my right shoulder, the force of her palm behind it forces me to the ground. The blue light that shown from the dagger is extinguished. Laurenella looks confused for a moment and takes a step closer. I try to reach for the dagger with my left hand, but before it touches the blue light returns. It seeps out from the wound and begins to envelop the rest of my arm and chest. A warm sensation spreads, my arms and legs begin to feel further away from me. Seeing this Laurenella smiles, as if she's guessed the answer to a riddle. The light continues across the rest of my body and she begins to walk towards Anten. She begins slapping his sword away as he swings it with animosity and desparation. The blue light creeps past my neck and to my face. It reaches my eyes, and the last thing I hear is Anten's voice.
















The air hurts. It hurts to breath. I force myself awake and off of my stomach. My vision returns as my surroundings, previously lit with a blue glow, become dark. The beginnings of a sunrise allow me to make out where I am. I move to my feet to see I've awoken in a shallow valley between two roads running parallel to each other. The patch of grass where I lay is tall from rain water being pooled by the slope of the ditch. I look around, but it's difficult to see further, the air hurts my eyes. I'm still wearing the same tanned hide armor, now a noticeable hole around the right shoulder, but no wound, and no dagger. As the Sun starts to rise a bit higher, I can make out a strange cubic brick structure adorned with spires, surrounded by walls. An academy?

Where am I?

Thank you so much!  I had a blast workshopping this one, and "The fight where everything goes wrong" is probably one of my favorite openings to write so far. Re-reading it has me giddy with what I have planned  if youd like to send a pm with the some basic info I'd be happy to provide some input!

Much Love!

Chapter 3 

She stares at me for a bit, gears turning in her head, her eyes not leaving me for a while until she squints and glances towards the window I entered from, then back to me. She points at me.

"Stay right there."

She walks over to the window and stares out to the grass and other buildings. I can here voices outside. With her at the window, I consider making a run for the door, but the pain in my back tells me that kind of fast shifting would be a very bad idea. I glance around the room, at least what I can see of it from beneath the desk, and as light brown board with various papers mounted to it catches my eye, I notice the language on them is a readable Basic, but in a dialect completely foreign to me. The sentence structure and syntax grammatically make sense, but the positioning isn't anything I'd ever think of myself.

Before I can think on it any further, she returns from the window and crouches a few feet from the desk, studying me for a beat. Her hair isn't straight and black, but a wavy dark brown. Her shirt fits loosely and clashes with her pants. She wobbles a bit as she rests on the balls of her feet, creasing the slippers. I can spot a freckle on her left hand, the kind of imperfection impossible to the Laurenella I know.

She seems to study my armor, doing double takes to the details and staying on the royal insignia tanned into the pauldron. She straightens herself and sits on the carpet.

"Tell me the truth. You got the alter to move, didn't you?"

I nod.

She smiles.

"Alright, I'll make you deal. You do everything I say, and mean EVERYTHING, I'll make sure you don't get caught. How does that sound?"

Why wouldn't she want to turn me over to their guards? How does she know the alter can move if the guards didn't? I can still hear voices outside, they're definitely still looking for me. The longer I stay here the closer they get to checking this room more thoroughly, and if I don't comply right now, I'm definitely caught, and I'm in no condition to fight.

I nod.

Her smile widens.

"Good choice. Follow me."

She stands and walks behind the desk. I curl myself out from beneath the desk, careful to not strain myself or move too quickly. As I turn to see the rest of the room, Laurenella finishes putting various strange items from atop a table into a large bag with a single clasp on it's front. She grabs a coat from the back of the chair at the table and walks over to me before draping the coat over my shoulders, pulling the hood over my head and ushering me towards the door. While noticing this version of her, while shorter than before, is still taller than me, the smell of her jackets finally registers. A fresh woodsy smell with a bright tang.

She cracks the door ajar and peers out to a carpeted hallway, to the right a building administration desk near a set of glass doors with metal framing, two men in blue uniform stand outside facing a solid stone path leading to the other buildings. She quickly rushes out to the left towards a tiled staircase, pulling me along by the sleeve of her jacket, up the stairs to the next floor. After rounding the corner to another hallway of rooms, she comes to a stop and produces a sleek thin tablet from her pocket that glows at the press of a button. It displays text and numbers, and she swiftly types into it, tapping her thumbs across the letters and turning the machine's screen black again. After a brief moment the door opens. We're greeted by an unhappy woman with glasses and a similar choice of clothing.

"Lauren, it's 5:00, I don-"

I'm pushed past the door into a small office with a bed in the corner.

"I'm cashing in that favor. This is your new patient."

She puts the large bag down, takes her jacket off of my shoulders, putting it onto herself and turning to leave. The grumpy woman stops her.

"Wait, hang on! Who is this?! How did you get a man on campus?"

"I'm going to get some clothes. Start with full bands, headgear and a tongue crib. Leave room for extras. Don't worry about costs, I'll pay whatever you want, just do it now. And don't let him get caught."

She points to me.

"And you, do everything she tells you til I get back."

After the door clothes, I can hear footsteps as she sprints down the hall back towards the direction of the stairs. The grumpy woman looks me over, clearly confused at my armor. After a pause she steps over to a closet where she unfolds a padded table, gesturing towards it.

"Alright, hop on I guess."



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Pretty much the entire walk from the cathedral to the convoy was this crazed march, citizens of the capital on all sides roaring, calling out with outstretched hands. I had no hope of mimicking Anten's soldier-like performance. He stood tall and proudly marched, eyes kept level and forward towards the edge of the city. The stone bricks I'm walking over have small gaps of dirt between them, any chance of green stamped out daily from the constant flow of foot traffic. I could tell he was moving slower to keep too much space from forming between us. I felt like I couldn't get the right pace to walk between him and Lote behind me. The rows of soldiers on either side of us had no issue. All the noise makes it hard to see what's in front of me. I can't tell the encouragement from the anger and fear. Calls to forgo mercy.

I feel Lote place his hand to my right shoulder, with a smile he raises his other hand to wave, gently pushing me along to quicken my pace. Nice to know I'm not the only one ready for this to be over. After meandering through the normally quiet academic districts we arrive to the West gate to meet the rest of the convoy that had been waiting for us, a force of 10,000 strong. Soldiers, cooks, medics, all varying degrees of armor quality, all suspiciously well armed for their given professions.
"Mercenaries.", Lote mutters to himself. An uneasy air hangs as the noise from inside the city begins to die down. As we're ushered into a carriage midway through the convoy's formation, the mercenaries seems especially weary of both Anten and Resperia. Anten motions for the rest of us to board first. I carefully climb aboard, firmly grasping the cobbled together dagger, the hastened result of a 3 month long conclave within the capital. It rattles as my hands shake.

As Anten boards last, the carriage slightly sags beneath his weight. He opens a window to keep watch of the convoy as it finalizes preparations to depart. Through the opening I can spot a pair of uneasy capital guards outside the West gate, looking away when I make eye contact with one of them. After a few minutes, the carriage lurches forward, Resperia grips her staff with white knuckles. Anten looks to Lote, who opens his eyes to check a time piece before returning to Anten with a nod. The carriage creeks as Anten sits back to relax, his weight seemingly steadying what would normally be a bumpy ride.

Chapter 4

   At the grumpy woman's command, I sit atop a strange cot she produced from a thin closet near the room's corner, it's material a kind of odd bright leather. Katie, as she introduces herself, presses my shoulders to lay me across the cot. As I lay back, the pain in my back subsides. Katie seems to notice this, staring for a bit before walking over to a set of white drawers made of a strange synthetic material. She begins pulling numerous rings of metal and other strange jewelry from them, placing them onto a short table with wheels. She then returns to the closet and pulls a large piece of equipment, the same color as the strange cot I'm lied on, from its depths. She struggles a bit to pull it to the back side of the cot above my head. By now I'm beginning to tense up, causing the pain in my back to flare up again. I can't help but grunt.

"Hey, hey it's okay. This isn't gonna hurt, I promise. Is your back hurt or something?"

There isn't a trace of hostility in her tone. She doesn't seem to be lying.

I nod.

"Okay... I think I have something for that. For now, just relax, okay? This won't take long."

I try to heed her instructions, trying to relax enough for the wave of pain to subside.

She seems to pay particular attention to my armor as she finishes her preparation. She shakes away the quizzical look from her face as she produces an odd blue object, and instructs me to open my mouth.
Confused, I allow her to fit the strange apparatus, one that holds my lips and cheeks away fro my teeth, forcing my tongue to the back of my mouth. With this done she begins cleaning my teeth with various tools, tastes of a strange mint linger in the air as she skillfully goes about cleaning my mouth with an attention to detail reserved for bishops. Her expression seems to be an empty focus, only faltering when she glances at my armor, as if double checking what she sees when she looks at it.

After a brief beat, she begins bringing the strange metal rings into my mouth, forcing them over my teeth before removing them, trying different ones for each tooth before applying a strange paste to each and bringing them into my mouth where she leaves them. Halfway through, she pauses to place her hand to my shoulder, instructing me to relax. I hadn't realized my shoulder were brought tense up to my neck. After relaxing as best I could with the strange sensations in my mouth, she continues bringing more strange metallic object into my mouth, all the while my tongue is held back, prevent me from feeling any of these strange objects.

She brings a half-halo over my mouth, the ends of it hooked, it's interior a smaller arch with two of those rings attached. As she attaches this, I notice it awkwardly sits outside my mouth between my lips, now sat in the bottom of my vision.

This gives me an idea.

I close my eyes and allow myself to phase out from my body, as I look down from above the two of us I can make out numerous bits of garish metal attached to my teeth and into my mouth, I see my face flinch at the sight with eyes closed. I regain myself and float to the door of the room, poking my head out to see the still dark hallway, slashes of the ornate carpet lit at the end of the hallways by a window with low morning light. I move forward towards the wall and phase outside. I don't see any guards standing outside this building anymore. Looking around I can see them gathered around a small opening in a fence, pushed open from the inside, a metal net somehow clipped open with a set of muddied footprints leading out of it. The grass next to the fence's hole now a sloshy mess with boots in the wet grass rendering it a clustered sludge, leading to a single set of footprints on the other side of the hole. The guards stand around it looking and pointing, a relaxed air about them. They think I've left?

I sift back into the dormitory building and move along the hallways, and see Laurenella walking back up the stairs, carrying a pair of muddied boots and a strange pincer tool towards what I can guess is her room. I decide to sift back out of the building towards the main assembly building's alter room. Following the same path I initially entered from, I float through the classroom's window, into the hallway, past the statues and portraits, all of them well lit with the hum of light from sections of ceiling. As I reach the alter room, a group of guards still stand outside of it, worriedly conversing. The suited women with short hair stands next to the alter, now closed back over the staircase as she calmly speaks with 2 older men in similar clothing.

As I sift towards the alter again, I feel a slight cold air behind my eyes. The short haired woman stops, glances behind her, seeing right through me.

I freeze.

She glances around briefly before continuing speaking with the older men.

I'm pulled back with a hand nudging my shoulder.

I open my eyes to see Katie looking over me with something like pride and pity, Laurenella behind her with a wide grin, holding a set of clothes.