I'm not certain what I expected to find when I ascended toward the palace grounds, but nothing could have prepared me for the reality of it. The perimiter wall that runs a rectangle around the ornate buildings and municipal complexes still stands strong, the only break the being the neat cutout of where the once strong gates used to stand. People huddle there now, the colorful confusion of their overlain soul presences telling them out as magicians, the cots and dirty blankets full of moaning and shifting bodies giving away their purpose. There are so many people, too many to be housed on an material resembling comfort. Between the prone bodies, men and women move back and forth, their eyes rimmed with exhaustion, the glow of magic emanating from their hands dim.

It is not just the injured that linger in the makeshift hospital set up in the destroyed gate. Women and children sit in clusters, holding together despite the heat for comfort. There must be hundreds of peope here, and hardly enough fighters todeal with the enemies assaulting the barriers, and there are no shortage of those. Monsters, bizarre miscreations pulled from hell, push toward a layedwall of overlapping blue and silver light. It is not the level of the monsters that make them dangerous; I estimate most to be rank ones, but it is the sheer number. Looking past the field hospital, it isn't difficult to understand why.

Bodies. The bodies of more slain than I've ever seen at one time linger on the ground just inside the gate, as if someone dug up a graveyard and left the dead scattered. Only once before have I seen anything near to the destruction, when the parade grounds had been attacked by the stampede of dire bears at the outset of the trial, but this is worse. The decorative colors that hang from the torn and ripped banners throughout the tilled gardens tell exactly of who had been here. The dress of the people is a chaotic assortment: servants, noblemen and women, house guards, their families, and the odd man or woman still wearing items that gleam with magical light. None of the deaths are pleasent, but then when is it ever?

More of the demons still wander through the fields, picking at the slain here and there before becoming distracted by the noise of fighting. The foothold at the gate is not the only spot of resistance still showing. Lights and shouts show a dozen or more spots throughout the expanse of destruction where people still resist the horde. Here people huddle in a circle, defending the perimeter of a huge fountain, the house guards holding small, darting monsters at bay with spears and polearms, rotating with those resting in the shallow pool of the fountain. There, men and women, few fighters among them, crowd an oval platform made of wood, stacking the sides high with random pieces of furniture, the handful of guards and magicians among them fighting frantically to keep the creatures at bay.

Through it all, I feel a sense of forboding, not merely the anxiety or my emotions being affected by witnessing all the death throughout the grounds, but a literal and palpable sense trying to press down upon me. The sensation is familiar. It woke me from my sleep, a wisp of madness that helped push me over the edge into accepting death in order to survive. It is here, somewhere, that monster from the tower. I should find it, put it down like the last two, if I can. My head swims at the thought of another confrontation. A phantom ache shakes through my legs, exhaustion that my body knows it should be feeling but which remains so far away due to the flood of vitalizing magic.

First thing is first; as I approach the palace grounds, pushing my aura out to encompas the area in front of the ruined palace, I press down upon all of the monsters simultaneously. The effect is minimal, my aura increasing the weight of the demons by a small amount given their distance, but it is the least I can do to help as I speed toward the layers of barriers keeping the hospital safe. There is shouting as I come to hover in front of the magical shield, reaching out to touch its suface with my fingers, feeling the electricity of repulsive magic buzzing against my skin.

One magician, a man I don't recognize, starts waving his hands in my direction, yelling something at me, though no sound passes through the magic between us. A few others look up for a moment, spotting me, before going back to their duties. A few seconds pass before a woman joins the first man, approaching me from inside the barrier as I land on the ground in front of them. The woman stands at the edge of the barrier, her eyes meeting mine.

A stinging ring scratches the surface of my brain. I recoil from the barrier, sudden anger flaring along with the magical fire I call to my hands. The buzz in my head clears a second later, and I look up to see her holding her head on the inside of the barrier, a blood vessel having burst in her right eye. She waves a hand at the man next to her, and after a bit of back and forth argueing, he makes a motion with his hands and a hole in the barrier opens.

"Inside," he waves to me, frantic, motioning me forward. "Inside, hurry."

I waste no time getting inside, hearing the shield close behind me. "Where is Iona?"

"Here." The healers familiar voice calms my racing heart somewhat. She finds me, pulling off a bloody pair of gloves as she navigates through the injured and immobile laying in neat rows on the ground. The elven woman stops in front of me, her eyes darting across my face for a few seconds before she speaks again. "I examined your corpse," she says. "You are supposed to be dead."

"So I've been told."

The woman nods, taking the matter in stride. "Are you injured? Do you have any information for us? I have comand of the army just now."

"I'm not injured," I say, ignoring her other question. With a gesture, I summon the vault door inside the shield dome, rushing inside as soon as it is open. "Bring a healer with mana left. Hurry!"

Iona, the apparant commander of the 4th, sends two people after me as I rush inside. I direct them to Jess, watching, clenching and unclenching my fists as they begin to pour sooting light into her. I don't think I move for more than ten minutes, hardly even breathe. My lungs ache when I gasp from relief, seeing Jess shift slightly and moan on the now bloody bed in the middle of my vault. That is when my legs finally decide that they have had enough. I fall into a chair, really seing my sorry state for the first time as my head falls back against the plush cushion.

I probably shouldn't have gotten rid of my old adventuring equipment when I bought the new items, but they seemed so uneeded at the time. Oddly, there is no pain as I open a window, the one showing a strange outline of my body with all of my adventuring equipment displayed upon it like a manniquin. Pinching one of the pieces with my fingers, I pull my coat out of thin air. Unfortunatly, putting it on would require me to get out of my chair, and makng myself presentable just now isn't nearly as important as resting a bit. So, I sit, watching two magicians working on my friend, my stylish coat covering my legs like a blanket.

Stolen story; please report.

Iona approaches me some time later, glancing around the vault as she makes her way over.

"This is an impressive enchantment," she comments. "I can't fathom the cost."

"Is there something I can help you with, commander?" I ask, thinking for a moment that getting to my feet might be the appropriate response, but feeling too utterly drained to bother.

"You can tell me how I examined your corpse almost a month ago now, and yet you stand, or sit rather, in front of me now," she says. "I thought the only alpha magician we had in our army was that friend of yours, the duke's son."

"I'm not an alpha magician," I say, waving off the comment before pausing.

When I think about it, the qualification of alpha magician simply means that one is resillient enough to be almost unkillable under normal circumstances. Both Jor'Mari and Halford qualify since they each possess abilities that heal them completely while being incredibly dificult to seriously injure in the first place. I have survived being cut to pieces now, though mostly that came from the flood of healing magic that mysterious man calling himself "Captain" had pushed into me, but it had been my body that actually healed the damage. Could someone become an alpha magician simply by having an insanely high recovery attribute? It seems preposterous, since everyone would do that if they could. But, then again, I've never met another recovery specialist. Maybe I am geting close to qualifying as an alpha magician. It's something to think about later.

"I can't explain the body you saw," I tell her. "I have spent the last month traped in a prison of spikes beneath the city. Three monsters ambushed me in the tunnels beneath Danfalla before leaving me for dead down there. One of them was disguised as Yor, the duke's daughter."

She nods. "I was briefed on their ability to disguise themselves as others. Whatever these monsters really are, they are tricky."

"Is that why you haven't let go of your dagger since I came inside the dome?" I ask.

The hand she keeps resting on the hilt of the blade attatched to her belt flexes as my noticing, the fingers she kepts purposefully loose flexing and tightening for a moment.

"Would you believe it was general axniety?" she asks.

"I might. I'm certainly feeling anxious myself."

"Come," the says, nodding to the stairs that lead up and out of the vault. "Illigar will want to hear what you have to say."

"I thought you said that you were in command," I say.

"While he is inccapacitated, I am. But this entire crazy action is his brain child. He is the one with the foresight to know they would attack, and he will likely be the one that decides the next course of action." When I continue to linger, my eyes moving and falling upon Jess, she adds, "We will make her whole. We might not have a lot of magic left to spare, but we take care of our own."

"If only I could give you some of mine," I mutter, pulling myself from the chair and slinging my coat around my shoulders. Reluctantly, I leave the vault with Iona, heading toward a tent errected next to the wall of the courtyard, the only real structure in the makeshift hospital.

"Charlene?" The voice stops me dead in my tracks just before I can enter the tent.

Turning, I find Dovik there, lying on a dirty blanket with a bloody bandage wrapped around his thigh. The man winces as he drags himself from the ground, favoring his injured leg as he walks to me.

"You were dead. We were sure of it. I saw you."

A stupid quip appears in my mind, but I discard it, stepping forward and wrapping the man in a hug. He clings to me, his fingers bunching the material of my coat. There is a tremor in his shoulders, but when I pull away from him, I only see a confident smile on his face.

"I found Jess," I tell him. The smile drops for a moment, just a bare instant, before he puts it back on. There is a strain in his face, like he is trying to force the facade for my sake. "She was hurt badly when I found her. There are healers seeing to her now, inside my vault." I gesture with a glance toward the golden door at the edge of the camp. "She isn't awake right now, but she is in there."

Dovik releases a long and shaking breath, the strength in his shoulders sagging. "Thank al the gods for that. When she took off with that monster, I didn't think I would ever see her again. Did you find it?"

"I killed it," I tell him.

"Good." He nods. "Good. What happened to you? We found your body."

"I was locked up beneath the city. I only managed to escape tonight. Do you know what is going on here? Where is Jor'Mari?"

The muscle in his jaw works for a moment, his eyes darting between memories. "I don't have a good idea of what is happening. For a moment, I was hoping that you might know something."

I shake my head. "I am mostly in the dark. When I escaped, I headed to the adventurer's hall. There was a device there, some kind of way to speak with people far away. I spoke to a man who said he was in Ramacalla, and I asked him to send help, though, I have no idea how anyone could get here to help us. Athemia and I managed to stop one of the monsters from taking down the barrier around the city and letting all of the monsters in. After that, I found another one of the monsters, the one that traped me under the city, and killed it. I brought Jess here after that."

Dovik nods, reciting a short explanation of what had happened in my absence. Most of what he says I have already heard from Athemia. "Did you feel it," he asks. "That power, the same one that we felt in the trial."

I nod, looking out toward the palace, toward the massive roots of the tree that fall out of the stone of the old structure. "It is there, somewhere. Where is Jor'Mari?"

"You can't go out there, Charlene. You remember how powerful that thing was." His hand reaches up, touching the scars running down his face.

"Where is Jor'Mari?" I ask again.

He shakes his head, nodding out toward the battlefield outside the shield walls. "He wil be out there somewhere. He left the 4th and joined his brother. They were having a trial in the palace when all of this insanity began."

"Then, that is where I need to go," I say, stepping away from him. "I can't leave him alone out there."

"Hey," Iona shouts, moving into my path. "You need to speak with Illigar before you go anywhere."

I stare at her for a moment before rising into the air. The woman merely mathes my rise. Damned third rank. "Move," I say.

Her eyes harden as she stares at me. But to my surprise, she stops, falling back to the ground and sighing, looking as tired as I feel. "Go then," she says. "I won't stop you."

Before leaving, I turn back to Dovik. It is written on his face how much he wants to tell me to stop, but we both know that I can't. "I am going to find him," I tell Dovik. "Then, I am going to kill them all. Every, single, last one."

It only takes a moment to get beyond the shield, the man standing at the edge allowing me through without any issue. Monsters yowl and yip as I move past the magic of the shield, hissing and scampering out of my way as dragonfire erupts around me. The near half-hour of recovery has helped me nearly regenerate my full stores of energy. As I take to the air, staring down at the hissing hordes of low-level demons crowding around the barrier, I leave all of the black sand I have conjured behind inside my vault. For such pathetic creatures, dragonfire will be plenty. Their howling turns to screeching as explosions of fire tear into them, the horde of landlocked monsters turning into a dying mess beneath the heat of my flames.

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