Sierra, Adrian, Simon, and Rin are all within a hundred feet of each other. They’re at the edge of the range of Locate Person, barely within range of my skill, but they’re up there somewhere. The “levels” underneath me have been ill-defined, thanks mostly due to the disrepair.
Interestingly enough, less than a quarter of the rusted towers have fallen. Evidently, very few of them are actually built on the ground. The city’s wide enough that I can’t see the walls of the crater that we’re in, but I assume that most of the towers are supported by either a connection to a wall or connections to other towers.
Anyway, the levels. I’m on level 62, but the only way I can tell that is because of occasional markings here and there, painted onto the sides of buildings and engraved into bridges. Some of the ones lower down aren’t marked properly. I’ve crossed a level marked as level 42 at least three times, which is a bit unfortunate.
That’s a lot of words to basically say that I’m not exactly sure how many levels are between me and my quarry. On average, each level seems to be between ten and twenty feet, but I’m not exactly sure if that rule holds higher up. I remember on level 411, a single level down was a pretty significant drop.
No use in memorizing a specific location, then. I’ll just have to deal with the fact that I’ll be losing magic power constantly by keeping a Locate Person active. I center it on Sierra, because I figure that if they’re being held captive, she’s the best person to free first. I’d rather not face the same people who ambushed me without any help.
Once again, I don’t actually know how powerful Simon and Rin are. They could be Category 0 like me, just much higher leveled. They could be a higher Category. They could even be on par with my power. Our fight (if you could even call it that) was so horrendously tilted in their favor from the start that there’s no real conclusions I can draw from it.
Well, the point is moot if Sapphire gets here before I can get to them. I need to find a way up.
A brief few minutes of exploring around the sixty-second floor reveals that yes, there were actually laboratories here. They’re less neatly put together than the lab I was raised in, but I recognize a few pieces of equipment. I can’t tell what they actually do, but I recognize them. Nothing too important, I imagine. My amalgam would probably trigger a memory otherwise.
I do spot a few hand-held firearms. Nothing like the rifles I looted from other UCC members, but there are pistols here. I pocket one, holding another in a Phantom Shaped hand. There’s no time to train up a Firearms skill again right now, but it’ll be nice to have the opportunity later.
My quick sweep of the area reveals nothing else interesting. Simon and Rin were fairly thorough in wiping this place clean of any actual anomalies, it appears. I can’t find a single item that I can actually use past the low-level pistols, and even then, those are vastly outclassed by my Soulshard Rifle.
Once I’ve determined I’m not getting anything useful out of this place, I decide to go up.
The layered steel above the sixty-second floor is significantly better-maintained than the barrier below us. In order to get to this floor, I was able to slip through a crack. To leave, though, I need to break a hole.
When I use a charge from my rifle, the muted yellow laser collides with the metal and glances off. Blue sparks glint off from the steel, and I catch a barely-perceptible forcefield protecting the steel.
That surprises me. Was there actually something dangerous let loose here that required it to be shut down?
I shrug. Oh well. I can ask those questions when I’m out of here.
I crouch down low to the ground, aim the Soulshard Rifle carefully, and dial the number of charges I’m using up to 25. It’ll leave me with two charges in the bank.
An angry scarlet beam wider than the rifle is long explodes forward. A shower of blue sparks rains down from the ceiling, but the shielding effect can’t outpower twenty-five charges worth of souls pumped into a single shot. It smashes through steel like a hammer through an overripe watermelon.
When the light clears, there’s a smoking hole wide enough to fit a horse through comfortably. The edges glow red with heat, and the forcefield fizzles out around it, the pale blue fading away into nothing.
Hidden Objective: Collateral Damage [COMPLETE]
You have killed someone before you gained knowledge of their existence.
500 XP rewarded!
Hm. I know for a fact that I didn’t kill any of the people I’m looking for. The wording confirms that too. Awkward.
Well, I’ll take the XP.
A simple Bloodpath takes me through the hole I’ve made. I don’t want to Radiant Aura and fly through it just to accidentally burn a limb off, so the redshift it is. The now-unsealed steel is thicker than I thought it was—ten, twenty feet, maybe?
I come out on the other end to find myself next to half a steaming corpse.
Oops.
I take his soul for my rifle.
A brief look around the dingy little tower I’ve busted my way into reveals that the parts of the buildings in this region of the city are significantly better maintained than they were underneath the sixty-second floor. There’s signs of human inhabitation here, and rather than the dark expanse lit only by incidental fires, there are real electrical lights burning on windowsills, illuminating the labyrinth of towers and bridges.
This room I’m in has a single dirty porthole of a window on its door, looking out onto the area around us. Even through it, I can see that there’s people around. Not many of them are on the bridges, but there’s a few of them wandering about, skulking around like they’re using Stealth skills.
I’m not going to bother killing them. I’m running short on time. Sapphire is growing closer with every second, and I don’t have a quest that can help me here.
Instead, I slip out with Disguise Self on, drawing on my own Stealth and Acting to avoid standing out too far.
The path up is a touch annoying to find. There’re ladders, stairs, and elevators in increasing levels of rarity. I wonder how many people have died falling off the unprotected region.
Climbing is still fairly easy. If it comes down to it, I’m fully capable of just using Phantom Shape to grant myself some extra arms to clamber up the side of a tower with. I don’t want to draw undue attention before I get to my destination, though.
As I ascend the levels, I see more and more signs of human life, granting me a more complete picture of the city as I do.
Novarath is just like any city, complete with a seedy underbelly to balance out the nicer facade up top. The division is pretty clear here, contrasting the weird distribution that other cities in the Crowned Islands had. The lower you go, the worse it is. The person I accidentally killed lived in total squalor—his domicile had practically nothing for me to loot.
As it turns out, there’s crime here just like in any other city. Halfway between what I think are the 71st and 72nd floors, I watch a man push a woman straight off the side of a bridge, sending her tumbling to her death below.
Nobody is around to witness the event, so I take the opportunity to practice using Devour as an offensive skill. He’s not very strong, so he’s not able to resist after I take him down with a Paralyzing Bite.
As it turns out, using purely Devour is a much slower method to kill an enemy, but it gives me significantly more XP. By the time I’m done with him, not even bones are left.
Unfortunately, I also discover that I can’t take souls from something I fully Devour. When I Devoured monsters after killing them, enough of their soul was left to pull together a single charge from a few corpses, but this guy has nothing left.
Devour advanced to level 2!
Oh, finally. It really takes a while to level up Diamond-tier skills, doesn’t it?
On the 74th level, I find what looks to be a functioning elevator, and I’m about to step into it when I hear movement from the three bridges leading to the tower the elevator is on.
I don’t need to see them to know they’re trouble.
Level 21, level 19, and level 20, each of them wielding a nasty-looking knife. Even the low-level thugs here are higher level than the majority of people in the Crowned Islands. It’s really something to see.
“Well, if it isn’t a pretty little bitch,” the level 21 says. I don’t bother remembering his name.
“I think—“ the level 19 woman begins.
“Just get to the point,” I say. I shoot the level 19 straight through the heart with a single charge, watching as the life fades away from her eyes immediately.
Two charges left. I let the rifle begin charging from her body before she even finishes falling. In the meantime, I reach out with my Soulrend. Pieces of their souls flow from them to me, slowing them as they reach for their skills.
I revel in the increased power, and I activate my Blood Echo. The crimson Evelyn sprints towards the level 21, his reactions dulled by my soul-damaging attack.
“If you survive,” I say, still standing still as my copy slides a blade straight through the level 21’s gut, “You’re not going to have a good time.”
The level 21 explodes with power, throwing off the effects of my skill and dismantling my echo—and then I apply my Smite to him, annihilating his midsection in a flash of divine light.
My gun finishes recharging just in time for me to shoot the level 20 through the brain.
New skill unlocked: Firearms
Oh, so I can still get new skills. That’s good to know.
I absorb both of their souls into the rifle. Devour grants me a scant few XP after, and then I move on.
So much for going unnoticed.
This place is apparently frequented by more violent activity than I thought, because nobody pursues me after.
I wonder why.
It takes me just over ten minutes to finish making my way up to the building that Locate Person tells me Sierra is in. Unlike the other towers, this one’s bottom doesn’t seem to be anchored to another building. Instead, I see the words SPECIAL CONTAINMENT FACILITY emblazoned on the bottom of a capsule that connects itself to other towers with poles, not bridges. There’s no clear way in our out, and there’s almost an entire fifty feet between the nearest tower under it and the underside.
I don’t even bother looking around to see if anyone notices me before I activate Radiant Aura. Although it’s pricier than Bloodpath in terms of magic cost, I want to have access to my Soulshard Rifle if things go poorly.
I wonder what I look like. I haven’t entirely cleaned all the blood from my body, mostly because I can use it as a weapon and partially because I haven’t felt the need to. From an outsider’s perspective, my glowing wings must make me look like the bloodiest angel they’ve ever seen.
That’s not what real angels look like.
Ignoring the unbidden thought, I rise.
Similar to the quarantine-steel blocking the sixty-second floor in, I can see a faint blue forcefield shimmering around the edges of the isolated capsule.
This time, I have a plan for it. I only have three charges, but I think I only need one. I can see imperfections in the steel. There have to be slight openings where fasteners are bolted into the steel, and Bloodpath allows me to ignore all size constraints.
I fire a single shot from the Soulshard Rifle, watching as the laser-thin yellow beam screeches out from my weapon. Beneath me, I hear a couple of people screaming.
Sure enough, the field sparks. For just an instant, a tiny gap opens in the field, a section of it shimmering brighter and fizzling out as the load of my Category 1 weapon overloads it.
I take full advantage of the momentary breakage, firing off my Bloodpath. It takes me the entirety of a third of a second to blitz my way through it. The steel is tighter welded than I thought—at some point, this place must have been airtight. Time and the elements has worn it down, though, and I find a point where enough rust has gathered on a screw for me to smash my bloody form into it and create an opening less than a millimeter wide.
When I’m this small, the world looks different. For a few moments, all I can see is red-tinted darkness. I slither through hard, layered metal, looking for a proper opening to fill.
Eventually, I manage to reform, my feet touching down on cold steel. Locate Person tells me that—shit.
My mind kicks into overdrive as I take in my surroundings. By my guess, I have under three seconds before the residents of this room find me.
Either the facility is smaller than I would have thought from the outside, or this is just one part of it.
I find myself in the center of a well-lit room, surrounded on all sides by transparent cages. There are monsters and anomalies locked in each of them. I recognize the Soundspawn from earlier, along with some other beasts I killed. There’s a praying mantis-like creature that I don’t recognize, along with a few other insectile anomalies, but that’s not what I need to care about.
In the bright, transparent cage directly in front of me, Sierra writhes on the ground. Black veins spread across her body, angrily pulsing with each screaming breath she takes. I think the glass or transparisteel is supposed to be sound-cancelling, but I can still faintly hear her.
The bracers that Marie gave her are pulsing bright.
Simon, Rin, and Adrian sit in the cold room around me. The backstabbers are both wielding their weapons. Adrian is not.
Objective: Marie’s monster
Kill your creators.
Targets killed: [0/32]
Reward: ???
The objective flashes in my mind. Were these two involved in my creation?
No. I don’t remember their faces from the book in the lab.
Blind rage annihilates the logical thought that was about to form. Sierra is dying right in front of us, and the people who almost killed me stand with their weapons drawn at the only person who could help her.
Paralyzing Bite (Bronze) was replaced by Abyssal Echo (Gold)!
Force a shadow of the abyss upon your foes. Releases a shockwave that heavily disorients enemies and damages them with demonic energy.
As soon as the skill swap takes effect, I use it.
Dark energy explodes out from me, striking out at Simon and Rin. I nearly hit Adrian with it too before remembering what I’m here for.
Two charges left in my gun. I fire once at Simon, then once at Rin.
I sense the twist of magic in the air that indicates an oncoming skill, and I realize what’s going to happen.
When I fought them without my skills functioning properly, Rin kept teleporting around.
I Siphon the skill away before she can teleport.
The look of utter shock on her face is almost worth the suffering I’ve been through.
It inflates my magic power, and I make use of it all with a pair of Smites.
Divine radiance explodes through the room, cracking the transparent material around us.
As it fades, I gaze onto the prone forms of the two that ambushed me. They’re both alive, proving their strength, but their armor is in smoking ruins. Neither of them are moving.
Belatedly, Adrian finally acts, drawing his sword and smashing it into Sierra’s cage once, twice, three times. Either the material is weaker than it looks or Adrian’s stronger than I thought, because it shatters to pieces with his last strike.
“Hi, Sierra,” I say. “Adrian.”
Sierra screams again. Adrian’s look of shock matches Rin’s.
I turn my attention back to the two quickly-recovering… adventurers? Sapphire-subordinates?
Enemies. Enemies works.
I have a score to settle.
Sierra, Adrian, Simon, and Rin are all within a hundred feet of each other. They’re at the edge of the range of Locate Person, barely within range of my skill, but they’re up there somewhere. The “levels” underneath me have been ill-defined, thanks mostly due to the disrepair.
Interestingly enough, less than a quarter of the rusted towers have fallen. Evidently, very few of them are actually built on the ground. The city’s wide enough that I can’t see the walls of the crater that we’re in, but I assume that most of the towers are supported by either a connection to a wall or connections to other towers.
Anyway, the levels. I’m on level 62, but the only way I can tell that is because of occasional markings here and there, painted onto the sides of buildings and engraved into bridges. Some of the ones lower down aren’t marked properly. I’ve crossed a level marked as level 42 at least three times, which is a bit unfortunate.
That’s a lot of words to basically say that I’m not exactly sure how many levels are between me and my quarry. On average, each level seems to be between ten and twenty feet, but I’m not exactly sure if that rule holds higher up. I remember on level 411, a single level down was a pretty significant drop.
No use in memorizing a specific location, then. I’ll just have to deal with the fact that I’ll be losing magic power constantly by keeping a Locate Person active. I center it on Sierra, because I figure that if they’re being held captive, she’s the best person to free first. I’d rather not face the same people who ambushed me without any help.
Once again, I don’t actually know how powerful Simon and Rin are. They could be Category 0 like me, just much higher leveled. They could be a higher Category. They could even be on par with my power. Our fight (if you could even call it that) was so horrendously tilted in their favor from the start that there’s no real conclusions I can draw from it.
Well, the point is moot if Sapphire gets here before I can get to them. I need to find a way up.
A brief few minutes of exploring around the sixty-second floor reveals that yes, there were actually laboratories here. They’re less neatly put together than the lab I was raised in, but I recognize a few pieces of equipment. I can’t tell what they actually do, but I recognize them. Nothing too important, I imagine. My amalgam would probably trigger a memory otherwise.
I do spot a few hand-held firearms. Nothing like the rifles I looted from other UCC members, but there are pistols here. I pocket one, holding another in a Phantom Shaped hand. There’s no time to train up a Firearms skill again right now, but it’ll be nice to have the opportunity later.
My quick sweep of the area reveals nothing else interesting. Simon and Rin were fairly thorough in wiping this place clean of any actual anomalies, it appears. I can’t find a single item that I can actually use past the low-level pistols, and even then, those are vastly outclassed by my Soulshard Rifle.
Once I’ve determined I’m not getting anything useful out of this place, I decide to go up.
The layered steel above the sixty-second floor is significantly better-maintained than the barrier below us. In order to get to this floor, I was able to slip through a crack. To leave, though, I need to break a hole.
When I use a charge from my rifle, the muted yellow laser collides with the metal and glances off. Blue sparks glint off from the steel, and I catch a barely-perceptible forcefield protecting the steel.
That surprises me. Was there actually something dangerous let loose here that required it to be shut down?
I shrug. Oh well. I can ask those questions when I’m out of here.
I crouch down low to the ground, aim the Soulshard Rifle carefully, and dial the number of charges I’m using up to 25. It’ll leave me with two charges in the bank.
An angry scarlet beam wider than the rifle is long explodes forward. A shower of blue sparks rains down from the ceiling, but the shielding effect can’t outpower twenty-five charges worth of souls pumped into a single shot. It smashes through steel like a hammer through an overripe watermelon.
When the light clears, there’s a smoking hole wide enough to fit a horse through comfortably. The edges glow red with heat, and the forcefield fizzles out around it, the pale blue fading away into nothing.
Hidden Objective: Collateral Damage [COMPLETE]
You have killed someone before you gained knowledge of their existence.
500 XP rewarded!
Hm. I know for a fact that I didn’t kill any of the people I’m looking for. The wording confirms that too. Awkward.
Well, I’ll take the XP.
A simple Bloodpath takes me through the hole I’ve made. I don’t want to Radiant Aura and fly through it just to accidentally burn a limb off, so the redshift it is. The now-unsealed steel is thicker than I thought it was—ten, twenty feet, maybe?
I come out on the other end to find myself next to half a steaming corpse.
Oops.
I take his soul for my rifle.
A brief look around the dingy little tower I’ve busted my way into reveals that the parts of the buildings in this region of the city are significantly better maintained than they were underneath the sixty-second floor. There’s signs of human inhabitation here, and rather than the dark expanse lit only by incidental fires, there are real electrical lights burning on windowsills, illuminating the labyrinth of towers and bridges.
This room I’m in has a single dirty porthole of a window on its door, looking out onto the area around us. Even through it, I can see that there’s people around. Not many of them are on the bridges, but there’s a few of them wandering about, skulking around like they’re using Stealth skills.
I’m not going to bother killing them. I’m running short on time. Sapphire is growing closer with every second, and I don’t have a quest that can help me here.
Instead, I slip out with Disguise Self on, drawing on my own Stealth and Acting to avoid standing out too far.
The path up is a touch annoying to find. There’re ladders, stairs, and elevators in increasing levels of rarity. I wonder how many people have died falling off the unprotected region.
Climbing is still fairly easy. If it comes down to it, I’m fully capable of just using Phantom Shape to grant myself some extra arms to clamber up the side of a tower with. I don’t want to draw undue attention before I get to my destination, though.
As I ascend the levels, I see more and more signs of human life, granting me a more complete picture of the city as I do.
Novarath is just like any city, complete with a seedy underbelly to balance out the nicer facade up top. The division is pretty clear here, contrasting the weird distribution that other cities in the Crowned Islands had. The lower you go, the worse it is. The person I accidentally killed lived in total squalor—his domicile had practically nothing for me to loot.
As it turns out, there’s crime here just like in any other city. Halfway between what I think are the 71st and 72nd floors, I watch a man push a woman straight off the side of a bridge, sending her tumbling to her death below.
Nobody is around to witness the event, so I take the opportunity to practice using Devour as an offensive skill. He’s not very strong, so he’s not able to resist after I take him down with a Paralyzing Bite.
As it turns out, using purely Devour is a much slower method to kill an enemy, but it gives me significantly more XP. By the time I’m done with him, not even bones are left.
Unfortunately, I also discover that I can’t take souls from something I fully Devour. When I Devoured monsters after killing them, enough of their soul was left to pull together a single charge from a few corpses, but this guy has nothing left.
Devour advanced to level 2!
Oh, finally. It really takes a while to level up Diamond-tier skills, doesn’t it?
On the 74th level, I find what looks to be a functioning elevator, and I’m about to step into it when I hear movement from the three bridges leading to the tower the elevator is on.
I don’t need to see them to know they’re trouble.
Level 21, level 19, and level 20, each of them wielding a nasty-looking knife. Even the low-level thugs here are higher level than the majority of people in the Crowned Islands. It’s really something to see.
“Well, if it isn’t a pretty little bitch,” the level 21 says. I don’t bother remembering his name.
“I think—“ the level 19 woman begins.
“Just get to the point,” I say. I shoot the level 19 straight through the heart with a single charge, watching as the life fades away from her eyes immediately.
Two charges left. I let the rifle begin charging from her body before she even finishes falling. In the meantime, I reach out with my Soulrend. Pieces of their souls flow from them to me, slowing them as they reach for their skills.
I revel in the increased power, and I activate my Blood Echo. The crimson Evelyn sprints towards the level 21, his reactions dulled by my soul-damaging attack.
“If you survive,” I say, still standing still as my copy slides a blade straight through the level 21’s gut, “You’re not going to have a good time.”
The level 21 explodes with power, throwing off the effects of my skill and dismantling my echo—and then I apply my Smite to him, annihilating his midsection in a flash of divine light.
My gun finishes recharging just in time for me to shoot the level 20 through the brain.
New skill unlocked: Firearms
Oh, so I can still get new skills. That’s good to know.
I absorb both of their souls into the rifle. Devour grants me a scant few XP after, and then I move on.
So much for going unnoticed.
This place is apparently frequented by more violent activity than I thought, because nobody pursues me after.
I wonder why.
It takes me just over ten minutes to finish making my way up to the building that Locate Person tells me Sierra is in. Unlike the other towers, this one’s bottom doesn’t seem to be anchored to another building. Instead, I see the words SPECIAL CONTAINMENT FACILITY emblazoned on the bottom of a capsule that connects itself to other towers with poles, not bridges. There’s no clear way in our out, and there’s almost an entire fifty feet between the nearest tower under it and the underside.
I don’t even bother looking around to see if anyone notices me before I activate Radiant Aura. Although it’s pricier than Bloodpath in terms of magic cost, I want to have access to my Soulshard Rifle if things go poorly.
I wonder what I look like. I haven’t entirely cleaned all the blood from my body, mostly because I can use it as a weapon and partially because I haven’t felt the need to. From an outsider’s perspective, my glowing wings must make me look like the bloodiest angel they’ve ever seen.
That’s not what real angels look like.
Ignoring the unbidden thought, I rise.
Similar to the quarantine-steel blocking the sixty-second floor in, I can see a faint blue forcefield shimmering around the edges of the isolated capsule.
This time, I have a plan for it. I only have three charges, but I think I only need one. I can see imperfections in the steel. There have to be slight openings where fasteners are bolted into the steel, and Bloodpath allows me to ignore all size constraints.
I fire a single shot from the Soulshard Rifle, watching as the laser-thin yellow beam screeches out from my weapon. Beneath me, I hear a couple of people screaming.
Sure enough, the field sparks. For just an instant, a tiny gap opens in the field, a section of it shimmering brighter and fizzling out as the load of my Category 1 weapon overloads it.
I take full advantage of the momentary breakage, firing off my Bloodpath. It takes me the entirety of a third of a second to blitz my way through it. The steel is tighter welded than I thought—at some point, this place must have been airtight. Time and the elements has worn it down, though, and I find a point where enough rust has gathered on a screw for me to smash my bloody form into it and create an opening less than a millimeter wide.
When I’m this small, the world looks different. For a few moments, all I can see is red-tinted darkness. I slither through hard, layered metal, looking for a proper opening to fill.
Eventually, I manage to reform, my feet touching down on cold steel. Locate Person tells me that—shit.
My mind kicks into overdrive as I take in my surroundings. By my guess, I have under three seconds before the residents of this room find me.
Either the facility is smaller than I would have thought from the outside, or this is just one part of it.
I find myself in the center of a well-lit room, surrounded on all sides by transparent cages. There are monsters and anomalies locked in each of them. I recognize the Soundspawn from earlier, along with some other beasts I killed. There’s a praying mantis-like creature that I don’t recognize, along with a few other insectile anomalies, but that’s not what I need to care about.
In the bright, transparent cage directly in front of me, Sierra writhes on the ground. Black veins spread across her body, angrily pulsing with each screaming breath she takes. I think the glass or transparisteel is supposed to be sound-cancelling, but I can still faintly hear her.
The bracers that Marie gave her are pulsing bright.
Simon, Rin, and Adrian sit in the cold room around me. The backstabbers are both wielding their weapons. Adrian is not.
Objective: Marie’s monster
Kill your creators.
Targets killed: [0/32]
Reward: ???
The objective flashes in my mind. Were these two involved in my creation?
No. I don’t remember their faces from the book in the lab.
Blind rage annihilates the logical thought that was about to form. Sierra is dying right in front of us, and the people who almost killed me stand with their weapons drawn at the only person who could help her.
Paralyzing Bite (Bronze) was replaced by Abyssal Echo (Gold)!
Force a shadow of the abyss upon your foes. Releases a shockwave that heavily disorients enemies and damages them with demonic energy.
As soon as the skill swap takes effect, I use it.
Dark energy explodes out from me, striking out at Simon and Rin. I nearly hit Adrian with it too before remembering what I’m here for.
Two charges left in my gun. I fire once at Simon, then once at Rin.
I sense the twist of magic in the air that indicates an oncoming skill, and I realize what’s going to happen.
When I fought them without my skills functioning properly, Rin kept teleporting around.
I Siphon the skill away before she can teleport.
The look of utter shock on her face is almost worth the suffering I’ve been through.
It inflates my magic power, and I make use of it all with a pair of Smites.
Divine radiance explodes through the room, cracking the transparent material around us.
As it fades, I gaze onto the prone forms of the two that ambushed me. They’re both alive, proving their strength, but their armor is in smoking ruins. Neither of them are moving.
Belatedly, Adrian finally acts, drawing his sword and smashing it into Sierra’s cage once, twice, three times. Either the material is weaker than it looks or Adrian’s stronger than I thought, because it shatters to pieces with his last strike.
“Hi, Sierra,” I say. “Adrian.”
Sierra screams again. Adrian’s look of shock matches Rin’s.
I turn my attention back to the two quickly-recovering… adventurers? Sapphire-subordinates?
Enemies. Enemies works.
I have a score to settle.
