Will

The three Laborers fanned out into a roughly 90-degree distribution in front and on the left—two covering Handsome, the third moving into his blind spot. Wynn slipped away behind him, and the other Explorer crossed the thoroughfare to Dash first onto a light post, then the roof of a two-story building on the other side of the street to take up a sniper position.

Will would have had a bastard of a time keeping track of them if not for Detect. It quickly became obvious that Detect [Life] was not viable here—it gave too many false positives of random folk sleeping in their beds or peeking through their windows to see what the fuss was about. He let the cast fizzle out and switched to Detect [Metal] instead, which allowed him to track all but the advisor by dint of the commandos' armor of layered metal plates sewn onto their thick gambesons.

Even with this small mercy, it was nearly impossible to hold all their relative positions in his head. He thanked any god that might be listening for his foresight of putting extra points into Processing at Level 16.

They came at him fast and hard, not giving him a moment to breathe or think. The Laborers carried blades—shortswords in the lead hand, parrying daggers in the other. They attacked with precision, the two in front making a show of advancing to occupy his attention while the third swooped in on his left.

Will slipped under the first swing, parried the next, tried to make a bit of space for himself with a riposte but fell victim to a second cast of Peace that sent him stumbling, unable to carry his swing out fully, and it was only just that he managed to hurl himself into a sideways Dash that saw a blade passing along the contour of his cheek, tickling the skin.

The moment the Laborers decided to hang back, Will realized that the Explorer across the way had got his rifle up. He Dashed erratically to counter, avoiding the thunderous gunshot that followed, and managed to leverage his momentum into a passive sort of swing that could not be interrupted by Handsome's Peace. The Laborer crossing his path managed to parry, but lost his sword in the process as Anathema sheared it clean in half.

Will Repelled into a high hop over a sword swing, and turned Anathema downward like a striking fang on the plunge. The point would have struck home, except the Laborer used Defend to mitigate the blow, and the saber's curved point glanced off his shoulder instead, only managing to chip away a few sparking bits of his pauldron.

Will figured the only way he could stay alive was to keep moving. Once they got some momentum on him, he would be done for. He launched another swing that, predictably, got Peaced short of completion, but he used the momentary downtime while Handsome's ability was still on skill lag to fish a throwing knife out of the back of his belt and send it whizzing with Repel at the distant rooftop. The scream that followed confirmed that the little blade had found its mark. An eye shot, if he wasn't mistaken. Not enough force behind it to kill, even with the Repel—certainly not at this distance—but it would probably keep the guy distracted for a while. In the frenzy, Will wasn't sure if it had been one of the curare-laced knives or a plain one. He'd find out eventually.

This is manageable, he told himself. I can do this. Of course, the only alternative was dying, which did not seem like a particularly attractive option.

There were six of them, sure, and he was already running low on AP after all the surveillance casts earlier in the night and his little scuffle with Mr. Saint Capitaine. But he had the speed advantage, and his melee reach was far superior to the Laborers. Handsome wouldn't be able to keep throwing AP away on Peace either—sooner or later he would run out. Will just had to conserve his energy enough to outlast them.

He ducked, weaved, Dashed into a swing that knocked both blades out of someone's hands as the man crossed them to block, and went for a throwing knife that Handsome was forced to Peace him out of, leaving Will with the opportunity to follow up with a slash that took three of someone's fingers off, had the tough Laborer squealing on his knees like a child while clutching his bloody ruin of a hand.

The saber's hilt buzzed against his palm. His whole arm shook with the power of it; struggling to retain mastery of the weapon.

"Cancel," Handsome said, holding out two fingers.

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Like a snuffed candle, Will's extrasensory perception vanished. He was so unmanned by it that he completely faltered for a moment, losing all notion of what he was doing, feeling all turned around like he had just been flipped on his head. Just for a moment—maybe half a second—but that was all it took.

He never saw the fist coming. It buried itself in his left side with all the force of a battering ram, accompanied by the snarled words: "Amp (Five): Strike."

Next was flying. Tumbling. Falling. Everything all over the place. He came to rest somewhere, world going in and out on him. Heartbeat thumping in his ears. He couldn't make sense of anything. Couldn't breathe; the air had been driven clean out of him. He lay there on his side, gasping uselessly.

It was the sword that brought him back. The pain of it. The needle-sharp splinters going deeper and deeper into his hand.

A shadow fell on him. Someone was coming.

There was no time to think, or to catch his breath. Bereft of any semblance of reason, Will acted out his first instinct. Too dazed to mindcast, he hissed: "Dash."

The world lurched once more. He went straight up, ascending uncontrollably, limbs flailing. His head hit off the lip of a roof, sent him into a spin. Came back down and landed hard on top of it, tiles clattering underneath. He slid, scrabbled with his one free hand. Fell over the edge, down into the street on his side. Something clicked badly. Collarbone? Left arm, though. Not a disaster. But the pain…

Will worked his way up with the sword as a support, blade point producing a banshee screech as it scraped on the cobbles. He would definitely have let go of the thing by now, if not for the fact that his fingers were practically glued to the handle.

He was in a side street. Dark. Footsteps behind him. He went stumbling forward, deeper in, one numb foot before the other, left arm hanging limp, sucking desperately for air that came only in tiny sips.

Got to run, he thought. Only option. Got to…

The very same moment he got another cast of Detect [Metal] online and something blazed to life beside him, Will had a chilling thought.

Where had Wynn gone?

She came out of an intersecting alley. Too fast. Will tried to deflect the blade that darted at him with his own, but he moved too slowly, only diverted it partially. It bit deep into his flesh, high up on the right side of his abdomen, buried to the hilt with Wynn's Dash-powered momentum. They went into a wall, and Will gasped breathlessly as his injured shoulder was badly jolted once more.

"Real sorry about this," Wynn said in a pleasant sing-song, her face right up against his, "but orders are orders. It's an honor to be killing you, sir."

"Repel," Will replied.

He was sent tumbling through a window behind him while Wynn was tossed across the alley. Will rolled across someone's living room, glass shards cutting his back and sticking in his clothes. Got up, sword still in him. Better like that. Less bleeding. Kept moving. There was a woman screaming in the room. No time to see where.

Got to run. Got to… run. Can't die.

Will limped across the room; checked his arm for AP. Three. Fantastic. The skill fatigue was creeping up on him too, his extremities going tingly and numb. Or maybe that was the shock. Or the blood loss. Or that knock to the head. It didn't matter.

He cut the back door clean in half with a labored swing of his sword rather than attempting to work the handle and staggered out into the next street. He turned on his heel, swaying, trying to figure out which way was which. It took a second before his Orienteering sense kicked in to give him the cardinal directions. West. Had to go west. He was in no shape to run anywhere, but if he could jump into the river, let it wash him away… Maybe it would be enough to lose them. Probably not. And he couldn't really swim in this condition. But there wasn't much else to do either.

He tried to take a step, but his knee went out from under him. By the time he was back on wobbly feet, there was a silhouette on his left, standing at the mouth of the side street. Didn't show up with Detect [Metal], meaning Handsome.

Smears of light were ascending the rooftops surrounding him. Only a few. Two, three. The rest were keeping their distance. Smart. They knew they had him cornered.

The commandos came into plain view, looking down on him like vultures waiting for a feast. Except they weren't content to wait. Had rifles trained on him.

"Fine," Will croaked, and clumsily side-rolled away from the first shot, putting himself against a house wall to cut off the angle of the shooter on top, if not the one across.

Only one choice left. Maybe he should have done it earlier. Had hoped to avoid the collateral damage. He spat the medicine satchel out of his Inventory and set it down beside him. Then, with a hiss of pain, Will thrust his sword into the ground, burying it in a foot of stone.

"Semblance Art: Forget Me Not."

At the end of the road, Handsome smiled a glittering smile in the dark, put two fingers to his forehead, and said:

"Semblance Art: Royal Authority."

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