Chapter 48.1: Circling the Wagons
Chapter 47.2: Something Like a Plan
Through the tinted glass of the cylinder, Penny watched Minkus go. The leather-cased device on his back piped a thin stream of exhaust into the air as he beelined toward the Vigilman rising from the ground. Of course, that was also a beeline toward the golem that stood between them.
Chapter 46.4: Ventyr’s War
After a few turns, Ventyr was all but lost; the way out was longer than he recalled and far more twisted than he’d recognized under the blindfold his captors had used. With each corner Minkus bounded around, Ventyr could all but feel the promise of an imminent exit, but each one was a lie. The halls and doorways continued, one after the next after the next, and though his elemental training insisted that Ventyr temper his deepening impatience, he didn’t. The whirlwind of fire and air storming through him felt too good, too rare. Most importantly it felt too powerful. Alongside Minkus’ rejuvenating magic, that swelling storm inside was the only thing keeping Ventyr’s battered body moving.
Chapter 46.3: Moving Target
Still backing away, Ventyr kept his attention on the golem, staff raised in ready defense. Fjornsson needed time to recover himself, but Ventyr had to reach the jade—he had to. He shot glances toward the landing at the north end of the room, the handful of fighters actively engaged behind him, Crusader Yult, and then back to the golem just on the other side of the wide doorway. Earlier, it had been unable to pass through it, being too tall. Ventyr would have to take advantage of that, even if those projectile arms complicated the matter.
Chapter 46.2: The Search
Ventyr leapt aside as the golem took another sluggish swing at him. Fat, stone fingers gripped shut around empty air, scooping up nothing several feet shy of the sylvari’s wind-aided movement. He spun, looking back at the mechanical monster. It had no eyes, per se, but the glowing slits that represented them seemed to meet his knowingly.
Chapter 46.1: The Value of Field Testing
Chapter 45.4: Inevitable Confrontation
Jindel was the first to find her words. “Sergeant, we— appear to be clear, at least for now.”
Everyone took in their surroundings, processing what had just happened. Penny noticed Minkus in particular, though. He frowned curiously at the ceiling. “Does anyone else hear that, or rather not hear that?”
Chapter 45.3: Bombs Away
Shaking her head clear, Penny tried to process their next steps. If they were all going to get out alive, they needed to get Ventyr’s staff into his hands. Penny had never understood why the thing made him stronger, but the carrot swore by —
Chapter 45.2: Entering the Labs
Well inside the eastern building now, Penny, Jindel, Jinkke, and Yult held as tightly as they could to Minkus, who swept through the halls as if trying to escape them. He was, of course, only interested in reaching Ventyr and Yissa as quickly as he could, a fact he apologized for over the sound of the still-blaring alarm every few steps.
Chapter 45.1: Comakk Reacts
The courtyard was in unadulterated chaos. The alarm had been confounding enough, bringing all efforts to a halt and throwing Kikka into a rage at everyone in sight. But now the introduction of human attackers had turned all Kikka’s innumerable death threats into a sudden and disjointed reality. Any krewe members who weren’t running found themselves at the wrong end of various human-made weapons as the bandits cut their way through the hectic crowd.
Chapter 44.2: The Courtyard
“I say we go.” Fjornsson all but growled the words, looking down his thick nose at the two humans and asura. “If any of those big-eared dwarves want to stop us, we just cut through them.”
Chapter 44.1: Adapting the Plan
“But why did you open them all to begin with?” Ventyr asked, scanning the room. “Simply opening my chamber and Scholar Yissa’s would have been enough.”
Chapter 43.3: The Human
Christoff ran across the courtyard as quickly as he could with that sandbag of an asura slung over his shoulder. Vadd wasn’t big per se, but his uneven, flopping weight had been threatening to pull the man over from the very moment he’d left the testing chamber.
Chapter 43.2: Alarming Mistakes
Before long Jinkke and Penny reconvened with the two soldiers, who appeared to have been long since roused by the screaming alarm and were fully prepared for the next step, geared and ready to move. Fjornsson spotted them first, calling their incoming position to Jindel as he hoisted his big broadsword into the scabbard over his shoulder. At his hip was the asuran warhammer they’d gotten from the Vigil captain, a tool that looked a great deal smaller when hanging from a norn’s belt.
Chapter 43.1: Penny Turns
The air had stilled and the trees quieted. Despite the shade, a stagnant warmth settled between the mimosas and other broad-leafed trees that composed the thicket, only adding to the claustrophobia that brewed in Penny’s gut. It was a different feeling than the serpentine knot that sat anxiously alongside it—gods, the two had become fast, stomach-turning friends.
Chapter 42.5: Whose Mercy
Falling to a knee and sucking air back into his lungs, Minkus suddenly heard and understood what the man had said. He spun to face the room, rubbing at his scorched chest. Whatever that prod had been designed to subdue, it wasn’t an asura. The shock from it had burned a ragged hole straight through the stolen uniform. If it hadn’t been for Minkus’ magic, first absorbing part of the blast and now streaming into him to heal the burn, he knew he wouldn’t be on his feet, if even conscious.
Chapter 42.4: Converging Schemes
While Wepp made his way down the steps and along the northern wall of the room, Minkus leapt to the main floor and took off at a jog through the center of the chamber, glancing only long enough at each green tube to determine whether Ventyr or Yissa were inside it. At least, he tried to only glance at them.
Chapter 42.3: Containment
Kikka and her companion continued toward them, and there was literally nowhere to go but past them. Even if there had been another side room to drop into, Minkus wasn’t certain Wepp could manage lateral movement; it was taking everything in him just to put one foot in front of the other. Wepp was doing a good job of keeping his eyes off Kikka, though, letting them wander from point to point on the ceiling or along the glossy floor-stones. Minkus too avoided too much eye contact with the pair. Jinkke, or even Penny would have chided him for shying away from eye contact with someone who didn’t even know him, but Minkus could feel Wepp’s anxiety creeping in beneath his own skin.