Michael walked a short distance behind Lys. Devahn was shooting the shit with Marcus and Ollie, and the other mercs were all scattered around with the scouts moving ahead to make sure the way was clear. It was a hot day, and Michael had defaulted to a kind of steady mindless march that he'd mastered back in Stent. They'd gotten work closing another two rifts. From what he understood, this was much faster than the breaks between rifts had been in the past. That further strengthened his theory that the erosion between worlds was speeding and the gods needed help to stop it.

Lys was in charge for this mission and had brought with her a solid mix of scouts, support, and front-liners. Just like the last mission Michael had with Trina, this one was also meant to determine more about how diviners working together could affect the rifts. Tai seemed to, in spite of his laid back demeanor, believe firmly in experimenting to figure out the best way to make things work. After this mission Devahn and Lys would be leaving again to do some recruiting. They'd managed to pick up a few new recruits from Southwind as well as some of the other villages they'd been visiting when closing rifts, but it had been decided that they needed to maintain a higher number of Mercs to stay effective in general, and they needed to find more experienced recruits in general.

Michael was daydreaming when Lys interrupted him.

"You're aware that you're a freak of nature, right?" she asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Your healing abilities, the number of blessings, titles, and deeds you have. Divining you gives me the same readings as lifelong veterans or minor nobility and you've been here for what, a year?"

"A bit more now, I think. It's been hard to keep up with exactly how long it's been."

She shook her head. "Your friends aren't far behind either. Ollie's probably going to start performing some feats of magic that are going to trivialize the rest of us soon, and Marcus's awareness and reaction are getting to be ridiculous, particularly considering how well balanced he is in every other area."

"Why are you bringing this up?"

Lys shrugged. "Just making conversation. I think it's important that people know what they're worth."

"If you want to make conversation, I actually have a few questions?"

"Oh?" She asked with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

"Does anyone ever take a boat out on the lake?"

Her expression shifted to one of mild disappointment, but she answered anyway. "There are a few small fishing villages up and down the coast. Some nobles pay for expensive trophies taken from monsters, some alchemists like to experiment with some of the ingredients that can only be found in the lake and some people really enjoy the taste of the fish from it as well. All of it can be sold at a premium so there are more than a few professionals that make a business of it. I don't know many that actually take their boats far into the lake though."

Michael nodded. It sounded like he'd need to find the right person in the right village and he should be able to manage to reach whatever it was his Godseeker title was drawing him toward.

"Thank you," said Michael.

"Why'd you ask. Are you planning on making some stupid decisions?"

"Pretty much at any given moment."

"Why? Is it about the gods again?"

"Yep. They want me to see something on the lake."

She sighed. "You know, managing to recruit you was a real feather in my cap, I'd hate to have it fall out because you chose a dumb way to die."

He shrugged. "You hire people for a mercenary company. Seems like that's always a possibility."

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"This is true… most of them aren't eye candy like you though."

Michael raised his eyebrow at her, but she wasn't looking at him, keeping her focus on the road ahead. He realized that she'd been flirting.

"Eye candy is good, but I personally appreciate a full meal."

She laughed a bit. "That was terrible. I like it."

They traded a few more flirtatious lines with one another, interspersed with a few actual discussions about the surrounding area, and eventually Michael began to feel the dread that came from a rift starting to enclose his heart.

He looked at her. "You feel that?"

She nodded.

"Tito, Wareez, the rift is nearby. I'd say, roughly a few miles that way," she pointed in the same direction Michael would've chosen. "Go and see what you can find. Be careful though. We never know what to expect with these."

The two of them nodded while the others all began to ready their weapons and armor for when they got back. A half an hour passed without them returning. Then a full hour.

Lys exchanged a glance with Devahn. "They should've been back by now. Alright everyone, we're going to go in blind. I want everyone focused and aware of their surroundings. Anyone who needs to do something special to get their deeds running or their titles enhanced, do it now."

Michael gave himself a nick on his arm to activate Wound Man, and started to heal it very gradually to activate his Fort Healer. He saw another man pour what looked to be a vial of water on his head, an elf start to chew a handful of leaves, and Devahn vomited. He thought the last one was due to nerves. The man was normally easygoing, but he had an incredibly nervous stomach and seemed to approach every battle this way.

They started a careful and deliberate march in the direction that they sensed the rift. Michael was with Lys, Ollie, Marcus, and another mage named Tynjal. The dread was building steadily, and when they all heard a cry that sounded like Wareez, Lys ordered them to keep steady on their approach, and be wary of traps.

As they reached a break in the woods, Michael started to see the edge of the rift. It was another of the angry red ones he'd begun to associate with the horned men. As he started to ready himself for spears, he was surprised when he was pushed out of the way as a massive stone slammed into the ground where he'd just been standing.

Marcus whipped around from pushing him and fired his rifle, dropping a medium-sized form that had been hidden in a nearby tree.

While Michael had been lucky, a number of the others were dropped as the heavy stones slammed into their shoulders, or in many unfortunate cases, directly onto their heads. Michael wasn't able to attack any of their ranged foes, but he moved to grab two of the others that had gotten hit and drag them away so that he could heal them and get them back on their feet.

The creatures above them were humanoid, but had the appearance of lizards with bright shining scales of myriad hues that were hidden by dark cloaks. They weren't throwing the rocks, but instead seemed to be dropping rocks that had been held suspended in the air by magic.

Ollie started yelling a flurry of vile curses as he blasted them out of the trees with bolts of lightning while he put up a one way shield above everyone that allowed Marcus to fire through and the other mage to send what seemed to be bolts of pure magic at the lizardmen above them.

Just as Michael managed to get another man up on his feet, Lys yelled.

"Front-liners, get to position!"

Michael ran toward her so that he could be well positioned as a number of horned men began charging toward them with their spears and cleavers in hand. One of them had a bloody mess of an arm in his hand that he tossed to the side as he charged toward them. He recognized the skin-tone as belonging to Wareez.

Michael roared as he drew his mace and channeled golden flame onto it.

"I devote this battle to Bruntus! Your defeat will be swift, and thorough."

At the sight of his flaming mace the horned men's charge faltered.

The Mercenaries took advantage of the monster's hesitation. Devahn moved forward first to slam his thin warhammer into one of their skulls. Another man drove a spear into the guts of a different one, and Michael deflected a cleaver strike by one that had slipped through the front lines before smashing his face in with a powerful blow from his mace that also lit him aflame.

The ambush started to turn swiftly in their favor, in spite of their losses. They pushed toward the rift, and Michael reached his shield arm toward it as he broke through the treeline, starting to wrap his will around it so that he could begin the process of drawing it closed.

He felt resistance, but not the usual push-back he was used to. Rather it was as if he was trying to clench his hand around a stone. The rift wasn't pliable in the way the others had been.

He moved to block another spear-strike, but before he could, Lys ran the horned-man's head through with her rapier.

"Do you feel that resistance?" she asked even as she narrowly managed to dodge a kick.

"Yes," he focused on the blockage, the voices of the divine breaking through the sound of the battle around him.

~within~enemies~holding~breach~break~

"It's something inside the rift."

Lys gritted her teeth. "Ollie, clear the path ahead."

The mage obliged, throwing a massive ball of flame over their heads that slammed into a mix of horned and lizard men in front of them, immolating some and knocking others to the side.

"Now PUSH you bastards!" yelled Lys moving toward the rift.

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