"Let me strike first," Jasper pushed his way to the front of their group as they snuck down the tunnel leading to the main room of the salt mine.

"Shouldn't we all attack at the same time?" The commander they'd rescued promptly questioned him.

"Most of my spells aren't single target," he replied begrudgingly. "Most of the time, that's not a problem, but in cramped conditions like this, I have to be careful I don't end up hurting my friends more than enemies. So let me hit them with a couple of big spells first, and then you can charge in."

"Why not just save your essence?" Tōrîl shrugged. "Can't see what a mage is going to do against bloody stoneflesh."

Jasper choked back his irritation. You're not even part of our party, dude. "They're resistant, not immune. So just hold back." He stopped talking as he reached the end of the tunnel and, taking cover behind the crumbling wall, peered into the adjoining chamber.

Tsia hadn't exaggerated when she'd said she'd taken out half the bandits. A row of bodies had been laid out on one side of the room, with their hands crossed over their chest like a knock-off Egyptian mummy, and broken loaves of bread stuffed in their mouths. Some sort of burial rite?

The beds built into the walls on the other side of the room had been all but destroyed during the battle, and the remaining bandits were bundled up in piles of blankets around a smoldering fire. Most of them were asleep, if the light sounds of snoring echoing through the chamber were any indication, but a pair sat beside the fire with their chairs facing the tunnel to the prison.

Crap. Jasper yanked his head back immediately, praying they hadn't seen him, but luck was not on their side tonight.

"Get up! Get up!"

He bolted around the corner as the guards began to scream and fired off the two spells he'd already prepared. Two dozen small, bluish orbs streamed from his hands like a swarm of angry bees, and he'd nearly readied another as they collided with their target. Light filled the dim mine as the orbs exploded, thoroughly wrecking whatever remained of the old bunk beds as they ripped through the ranks of the bandits.

A handful were torn apart immediately - Corsyths, Jasper guessed - but the rest were merely tossed backwards, beating at their burning clothes as he charged forward. Punishing Hand.

The spell didn't work as well as it should, but Jasper had counted on that. Only a few of the remaining bandits froze as the pale hand danced across the blood-stained floor, but even the ones who weren't frozen were affected. Their movements slowed as they fought off the enthralling grip that sought to bind them, and in that moment, Jasper crossed the distance between them.

It was tough to aim his glaive as he swung at the nearest bandit with one hand, but he wasn't trying to hit anything meaningful. As the glaive sliced across the man's forearm, the thin red streak that followed was all he needed. Scourge of Despair.

He danced backwards as the spectral whip lashed forward, keenly aware that the bandits were already beginning to break free of the corpse hand's spell, and grinned as the wails of his specters clustered around him.

From there, the situation devolved into madness. Two of the bandits fell to the ghosts' hungry maws before his friends reached them, but the bandits weren't out of the fight yet. Glass shattered against the ground as three of them downed more of those damnable potions, and Jasper immediately diverted his attention to the nearest of them. Seraph's Burst.

He barreled into the nearest one from behind, his glaive piercing deep into the chest of the monstrosity as the spell pushed them to the far side of the chamber. The possessed man didn't even seem to notice the glaive stuck through his heart or the grievous wounds from the metal wings across his back as he grabbed Jasper around the throat and flung him to the ground.

He instinctively rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a second blow, and cast another spell. Flame Charge. He threw himself forward as the monstrosity swung at him, dodging beneath its arm, and tackled the man around the waist. The tackle wasn't enough to even budge the bandit, and Jasper felt his ribs crack as the possessed man wrapped him in a crushing bear hug, only to release him a moment later as the white flames began to spread across its entire torso.

The abomination fell to the ground, thrashing as it tried to put the fire out, and Jasper watched in disbelief as the white flames slowly guttered out, leaving the man's skin merely burnt rather than scorched. I can't let him recover. Ignoring the wheezing in his lungs, he snatched his glaive up and chopped at the man's throat with quick, frantic slashes until the head finally rolled free.

Then it was on to the next one.

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There had been a point earlier in the night when Alīkah had thought the cursed rain might finally cease. Then the message from Uznûlī had arrived, and she'd quickly gathered a few followers and set out from the camp. No sooner had they left the protective shelter of the cliffs than the rain picked up with a vengeance, as if the gods themselves were trying to spite her.

Truly, Uznâ cursed this land. She gritted her teeth together as her horse picked its way through the muddy stream that was a road earlier that day and rubbed her hands together, trying to regain any warmth she could. It seemed a losing effort, though, and she sighed as she remembered the warm, sunny beaches she'd been stationed on just a few months earlier. How did it go so wrong?

It was a rhetorical question, of course. Alikah knew damned well what had gone wrong. The Corsyths' push to regain their own capital, coupled with the defection of the former general of Agamin, had unsettled many of the feuding lords among her people. Not all of them were willing to set aside their petty squabbles and help defend the capital, but her commander, unfortunately, had. Which led to her getting 'volunteered' to leave her pleasant post just a few hours south of her home, Sicya, and be sent north to aid the commander of the capital.

The general had assured her that capturing this fort was of great strategic importance, that seizing it would put a chokehold on the city of Abāya and force the Emperor to divert some of its troops to liberate it, and Alīkah was sure he was right. She just didn't care. As far as she was concerned, the bloody Corsyths could keep this wasteland of rain-soaked hills and flooded hollows and choke on it, just as long as she wasn't forced to spend one more day here.

Unfortunately, she also knew that the Lord of Sicya wouldn't overlook her dereliction of duty, so if she had any hope of returning home, she needed to take the fort and hold it until the Emperor was forced to liberate it. At least we're headed in the right direction, she thought as she remembered the message Uznali had sent her. He'd captured the party Lord Bahrê had sent to aid the castle. A few more hours and maybe I'll have some answers.

They were forced to abandon their mounts when they reached the base of the small mountain that Uznûlī's camp was on. Thanks to the rain, the narrow trail leading up the slope had disappeared beneath a waterfall, so their movement was slow and labored as they clung to the thickly wooded edges of the path. It was impossible to escape the cold, the temperature having dipped even further as howling winds descended from the snow-capped mountains to shake the trees, and she was forced to down a potion when she realized she'd lost all feeling in her extremities.

With warmth temporarily restored, she slogged the rest of the way up the hill and breathed a sigh of relief when she spied the lantern on Uznûlī's cottage shining up ahead. Thank Uznâ; he better have a fire waiting for me.

Relief turned to concern, though, as she stepped into the small clearing surrounding the old mine and saw that the lantern wasn't the only thing burning.

Strange white flames smoldered in the ruins of Uznûl's cottage, stubbornly clinging to the burnt-out roof and walls despite the bitter downpour. Barely half of the cabin remained intact and Alīkah stiffened as she spied two bodies draped across its broken wreckage. Their massive bulk and grotesque musculature left little doubt that they had been killed while under Inūs̆ar's blessing, and a terrible apprehension fell over her.

"Hurry up." Alīkah bolted toward the mine entrance, but the black of night hid the low lump in front of her until she stumbled over it. She landed face-first in the muck, spitting out a cold mouthful, as she rolled to her knees and craned her head behind her to see what had tripped over.

Uznûl's eyes stared back at her, unseeing, his skin streaked with cascading striations she recognized as the work of lightning magic, and the horrible realization hit her. Uznûl was the one who had sent her the message, so if he was dead…the prisoners had escaped. Are they all dead?

With a choked curse, Alījah picked herself back up and ran toward the mine. She was forced to slow as she scampered down the steep incline, but only made it halfway down before she found another body. Kas̆pu lay facedown, his body shredded and mangled by dozens of wounds whose origin she couldn't identify. It's like someone pierced him with a dozen daggers at once - either a very odd spell, or maybe some type of studded shield?

His wolf was curled up beside him, with its fur singed and scorched and an arrow buried in its eye. She noticed the detail almost mechanically, adding it to her insufficient catalog of the party's abilities. A lightning mage, a fire mage, and an archer. Perhaps another warrior or mage to account for those strange wounds.

It was tough to control her trembling as she continued down the tunnel. She knew now what was waiting for her, but she had to see, had to pay witness to their deaths. It was her duty as an Ammatu.

The scene at the bottom was everything she'd feared. The once white floor of the old salt mine was stained a rusty red, with smears streaked across its walls. There were a dozen bodies scattered across the room, maybe more - it was hard to count in the crumbled heap - and most concerning of all was the presence of three more of those blessed by Inūs̆ar. How did they kill them?

When her contact in the fort had warned her of the unexpected party that had arrived a few days earlier, Alīkah hadn't been too worried. If anything, the news that the Empire had sent a party of mages to hunt them down was almost reassuring. No one would be stupid enough to send a group of valuable mages to hunt a group of stoneflesh down, so she had felt certain that the Empire had failed to realize their presence in the region. But as she gazed at the pile of charred corpses, Alīkah felt a tickle of fear.

Only the best of imperial mages were strong enough to override her people's inborn resistance, let alone kill several of Inūs̆ar's blessed. And yet a whole group of such mages had been sent to deal with a simple bandit problem. They must know we're here.

It was a disquieting thought, but at least she knew what she was dealing with now. No matter how strong the mages were, she had the forces to overpower them if she could pin them down. Time to see what my contact knows.

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