Tenebres sat cross-legged on the leaf strewn ground, his mind pushed out through all of his fiends, leaving him feeling like the conductor of a malevolent orchestra.

[Trance] - Active, Concentration - By meditating, take direct control of invoked fiends. Will and charm are required to control fiends of lesser rank and higher. Fiends of major rank and higher may break control. Duration lasts while meditating.

His senses were pushed out through the many-eyed watcher demon that he had invoked, a lesser fiend that split the difference between the flying eye he had used rarely at Novice level and his more traditional imps. The winged fiend flew over the embattled town, taking in the chaos.

Gnolls and goblins alike raced through the roads of Keystone, claws, fangs, and weapons dripping with blood. They stopped only to kill those who had the ability to fight back, regardless of their allegiance. Apothic mages and militia hunters alike died, swarmed by minor monsters, ambushed by clever gnolls, or set alight by the scarce few gnoll witches directing the violence. The townsfolk of Keystone had thankfully been spared so far, their sedation apparently keeping the outsiders from rushing through them as well–if not for that, the town would've been turned into an abattoir already.

There seemed to be only two islands of peace in all of the town. One was the area surrounding the hospital, defended as it was by the Mendicant. The boundary of the sage's power was marked clearly by the corpses of dead outsiders, and no small number of hunters and mages had taken sanctuary there, the celestial healer apparently happy to offer even the traitorous militia safety.

The other was the grove of vitalwoods that surrounded the Lifetree. Tenebres ignored that place too, as he knew both Olivia and Allana were rushing there. Instead, he turned his attention to the town itself.

A meager handful of gnoll witches seemed to comprise the entire leadership of the raiding force, but they were split up, each directing a force of combined gnolls and goblins. Tenebres concentrated on eliminating them first, directing his three imps as a concentrated strike force.

The spark and battle imp dropped from above into the midst of one witch and her guards. Both were black and large, nearly as tall as Tenebres, with the wings and barbed tail of a blue imp, though where the spark imp combined those features with pinpoint blasts of fire, the battle imp was built more heavily, with the massive claws of a green imp. The gnolls thought themselves the most frightening force in the village, but Tenebres quickly disabused them of that notion, showing them the true power of void magic.

By the time the gnolls had recovered from the initial attack, the witch turning her attention on the two lesser demons, the third showed up. The cinder imp lacked the wings and speed of the other two, but combining the abilities of a red and green imp produced a squat, efficient living weapon.

"One witch down," Tenebres muttered to himself, his eyes still closed. Through his watcher, he hunted down the next knot of order and sent his imps after that one too, ignoring the increasing tax on his will and charm to keep the fiends under his control.

#

The chaos around Olivia died down as she reached the grove surrounding the Lifetree. Still, she kept her sword at the ready and her Mantle of Wind dancing around her. Already, the tight cloak of swirling air had spoiled multiple gnoll ambushes, sending the arrows wide and letting Olivia close the distance with the ranged attackers.

Even if her steps stayed pointed towards the Lifetree, she wasn't just going to ignore the battles around her, and it never took Olivia longer than a pair of moments to cut down a gnoll or goblin that crossed her path.

As she approached the center of the grove, Olivia had felt the fluctuating, foreboding magic that had flooded Keystone strengthen, forcing her to brace herself more and more with each step. Her mind and soul alike felt like they'd buckle under the besieging influence of that insidious magic–but as she finally made it to the Lifetree, that force actually dwindled, receding as rapidly as a tide rolling out.

Olivia wasn't sure if the change was a matter of location or if something had disrupted the corruptive magic itself, but in the moment, she didn't care. All that mattered was that she was ready to fight–and as she approached the Lifetree, she found an opponent.

Garol stood in front of the small shrine that had fused to the trunk of the Lifetree, pulling at the knotted wooden door of the diminutive structure. Although it seemed to be resisting him, the wood that held the door in place slowly splintered as the sheriff pulled at it, and it opened a crack before Olivia confronted the man.

"Garol!" she cried out, her voice startling even herself with its clarity and strength.

If she had been surprised, Garol himself looked stunned, his face pale as he spun around. One hand reached up to his shoulder and the long hunter's spear that was slung across his back. "You!" The sheriff's voice was disbelieving.

Olivia's smile was grimly satisfied. "If you're going to send someone into an ambush, Garol, you should make sure that it actually kills them."

"A-ambush?" The brutish sheriff might've been a skilled hunter, but he wasn't much of a liar. "I don't know what you're talking about! You saw in town, the outsiders are killing my people too!"

"Yet here you are, running in the opposite direction."

"It's the hag!" Garol insisted. "She's lairing under the Lifetree!"

"Is that so?" Olivia turned her eyes to the overgrown shrine. It made a certain amount of sense. With the shrine supposedly impossible to open, the hag could guarantee that she wouldn't be found underneath it, while her rot magic likely made it simple for her to come and go.

"Yes! Come on, Argent, between the two of us, we can kill her! That'll put an end to all of this!"

Olivia shook her head. "Garol. You can't actually think it's that easy. You tried to have me killed, and you did kill dozens, maybe hundreds, of villagers, many of whom were supposed to be under your protection. I can't trust you next to me in a fight, not anymore"

The man blanched, his normally swarthy, scarred face turning as white as milk. He pulled his spear from his back, holding it loosely. "I–I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Garol." Olivia's voice was a whip crack, an echo of Elway as much as Adeline. "Drop the weapon, and let me bind you. Once all this is done, if you help us understand what's going on, you might have a chance at surviving a trial."

Olivia's only warning was Garol's face suddenly hardening, his fear morphing into outrage. And then he moved in a blur that, to Olivia, did plenty to indicate his Adept level.

Unfortunately for Garol, Olivia had far, far too much experience fighting those who were faster than her. It was a lesson she had learned in her first real fight, against a spoiled young noble in another life. The sheriff may have closed the distance far more quickly than she could, but he had to move twenty feet to reach her. She just had to lift her arm six inches.

[Gust Blast] - Active, Attack - Manifest a gust of wind in a variety of shapes. Inflicts little direct damage, but can disorient or physically move enemies. Lesser to major quintessence cost, depending on size of attack.

The attack that hit Garol was a concentrated sphere of swirling air about the size of his torso, and it more than countered his forward momentum, sending him sliding several feet backwards.

Olivia lunged forward, sword ready, but Garol was good enough that she was unable to finish him off before he could recover, his lance brushing one thrust aside and menacing Olivia enough to keep her back.

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At which point she began to thoroughly teach the man the difference between an experienced, skilled hunter of monsters and a noble who had trained since she could hold a sword, who had learned from a prodigy with the blade, and who had fought more monsters, outsiders, and gifted in a year than Garol had in a decade.

That spear might've been great for killing monsters, but it was a poor weapon to fight an opponent with both shield and sword, and over and over, Olivia showed Garol its flaws, his Adept level attributes the only thing keeping the squire's superior skill from ending the fight. Even then, Olivia couldn't help but note that the sheriff's abilities didn't quite line up with his level.

When they parted after another flurry of blows, both combatants, panting for air, Olivia took a guess at why. "You gave up a real third gift, didn't you?" she asked. "You got a favor from the hag, one that helped you pull off this whole plan of yours, but it doesn't help you much in battle, right?"

Garol responded with a simple shout of anger and charged at Olivia again, power gathered into the tip of his spear as he leveled some kind of special attack at her. Olivia returned the favor, running to meet his charge, runeblade ready, Critical Strike filling the blade with potency.

She dipped at the last moment, using her shield to lift the spear thrust over her body, and even if the special attack carved a furrow through the metal, it missed her arm itself. Her sword didn't miss, striking at just the right angle to cut the hunter's spear in half.

The two battle-gifted leapt away from each other, landing ready to face-off again, but now Garol was all but disarmed, while Olivia was as ready as ever.

The man's face twisted with ever more rage, and he threw the two halves of his spear aside with a curse. "Fine, you little noble shit," the man snarled. As he spoke, he began to pull off his heavy leather gloves. "You're right, you know. I did take a favor from Ellevesa–the gift of the plague."

"Of course," Olivia all but spat back at him. "Let me guess. It made you a carrier for this disease of hers, didn't it?"

"Got it in one," the man said with a grim laugh. He lifted his hands to his face, settling into a bare-fisted fighting stance, and Olivia took note of the ugly purple blemishes on his skin. "But it's Adept level now–and even if it's not the strongest gift to fight with, it has its upsides."

Olivia paled as she realized what Garol was implying. The traitorous man sneered at her, his expression one of malicious glee. "That's right, noble shit. If I even touch you with one of my bare hands, you're going to get just as infected as those wastes of space those healers are wasting their time with. I can even speed it along with another ability, make it ravage you nice and quick. Let's see how high and mighty you'll be then!"

The man lunged forward, hands spread, and now Oli found herself on the defensive, her mangled shield presenting little obstacle to the man when he merely needed to get a single hand on her. Garol knew it too, moving with fast, clever grappling moves, his fighting style allowing him to better leverage his attributes while keeping too close for Olivia to bring her long blade into play.

Desperate, the squire released a Gust Blast into the man's face, buying herself some space as she figured out what to do.

Garol was unwilling to give her that and immediately moved forward, pressing for the kill, willingly taking a cut on one arm for the chance to grab at Olivia with the other.

And then Allana was there.

#

Garol cried out in pain, cursing and stumbling backwards as his hand wrapped around not Olivia's vulnerable wrist, but Adeline's dagger blade, the girl Trick Stepping between the two with a split second to spare.

Allana didn't banter or taunt the sheriff. She had heard the traitor's description of his abilities, and she knew that even the smallest touch could be lethal. Unfortunately for Garol, most of Allana's fights throughout her life had been against enemies who could kill her with a touch. Be it as a small girl trying to dodge larger, grasping men or as a battle-gifted fighting enemies with strength attributes, or even as an adventurer dueling on a rooftop with a mercenary, Allana had plenty of experience avoiding being touched by her enemies, and she leveraged every bit of that experience against Garol. The same close distance that had rendered Olivia's sword useless was the exact range for Allana's daggers to be at their most effective, and as her blades dripped with poison, the sheriff was forced to be evasive as well.

His mistake, of course, was trying to defeat Allana in the sort of fight she was best at. Poison gas, patterns of brilliant and distracting lights, rapid disorienting teleports, flashing daggers, Allana leveraged all her tricks against the Adept, and he found himself unable to keep up, flailing off-balance against the girl–until she was suddenly three feet away.

Allana didn't even bother to settle into a fighting pose, one hand resting on her cocked hip as she stared him down. She offered the traitorous sheriff a final wink, provoking him further, but he hesitated a moment too long after Allana's disorienting barrage. Before he could move, Olivia stepped up behind him and swept her sword down, splitting through his shoulder and deep into his chest.

[Gift of the Trickster] experience gained

Experience: 78%

Allana frowned at the corpse as it fell, vaguely disappointed. "I kind of expected him to put up a little more of a fight," she observed.

Olivia blew out a long breath. "If it helps, we still have the hag to go through. I'm sure she'll be more of a challenge."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," a voice said, from inside the Lifetree shrine.

#

"The lesson is one of subtlety."

Adeline blinked blearily. Was she still alive? Yes, yes she had to be. She was sure being dead couldn't hurt this badly.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

That snarling voice, that was Brisann. The chimera. But who were they talking to?

"You and the coven are both flailing around with your powers, throwing superior magic around with all the subtlety of a draft goat in rut. Meanwhile, you were countered by an archon you never even laid eyes on."

The voice sounded familiar, but why couldn't she place it?

"I'm not countered yet, adventurer. I can still kill you, and the one behind you."

"Perhaps," the voice replied in a bored monotone. "I wouldn't bet on it, though. You burned through so much to kill a simple Adept without even a trace of her own power to counter yours. I'm sure you're feeling the effects of that by now."

"You know nothing!"

"I know more about your powers than you do, Chimera. You're fumbling around with a gift you scarcely comprehend, while I've been taught by an archon who has stood at that rank longer than you've been alive."

Archon? Was Storyteller here? No, not him… someone who learned from him. His student.

The Silver Mage. Tobias.

That thought finally gave Adeline the strength to open her eyes, fighting against the dried blood that had gummed them shut.

There he was. The slender, unassuming mage, with his simple staff, stood facing the bestial Chimera, and no fear showed in his pose.

"Leave here, Chimera. I've been asked not to kill you–apparently this is too early for that to happen. But trust me that if you force my hand, that request won't stop me."

The Chimera roared, the sound one of mingled rage and confusion, and Adeline flinched at it. Even that movement was too much, and everything went away for a few minutes.

When Adeline came back to herself, she could feel Tobias crouched next to her, a pulse of healing magic coursing through her mangled frame. "It's going to be okay, Adeline," he reassured her.

Adeline replied with a whimper–that was all she could manage. She had been defeated, demolished. Like she hadn't been since the first time she faced down a cyclops.

"I know," Tobias said, his voice tinged with uncharacteristic sympathy. "You did well. You held them off for long enough. They're gone now."

Adeline swallowed, and even that sent pain racing through her body. "O-Oli. Friends."

"They're okay," Tobias reassured her. "That little celestial, they managed to signal Storyteller. Once he realized that superior power was in play, he was free to take a hand."

"Al…alive?"

"All of them," Tobias confirmed. "The worst is over. I can't quite put you back together, but the Mendicant can."

"K–Keystone. Plague."

"All that'll be done soon. Your little squire and her friends are at work, and Storyteller is running interference. Just relax. I can keep you alive until help gets here."

It was all Adeline could do to nod. It really was so much easier to just–

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