Walls that must be scaled are always daunting at first glance, but once you climb enough of them, they become as simple as walking over a stone. And for the two presently trying to save an entire town, and perhaps all their lands with this one act of bravery, this was very obviously a first.

  Yet they both had lived lives far outside the bounds of the heroic one they donned now, both thieves and liars in their own rights, and they stood together in this mission. Their guild may have broken up, and the two may be physically on either side of this new battlefield, but they still stood together.

  Despite this, now that the two were far out of one another's line of sight, and Armony found himself beside the gates, wedged between a rock and the wall of the fortress, he felt as alone as could be. It had begun to rain a bit after Harize and Armony separated, which gave him plenty of cover to move through the boulder field to the northern gates.

  Now that he was where he needed to be, though, his next actions weren’t quite laid out for him as well as he had hoped. The gate was destroyed, with parts of the wall caving in on it, and worst of all, the monster's cries were reduced to but a whimper. Armony’s jaw clenched, with balled fists. He didn’t know what to do.

  No... he knew what to do.

  How would he do it? That was where he lacked answers.

  Taking a deep inhale, Armony looked down at his hands, his left moving to uncover his right forearm. He was still young and didn’t really work his body, so his frail form didn’t quite inspire him to get through this wall. But the more he unveiled his arm, the more Sabsesc was allowed to flow. While he may not be particularly big, his vascular system was healthy beyond the norm, thus the blood required to vaporize and manifest the Sabsesc was more than abundant.

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  Lifting his right hand, which he began to consciously push his Sabsesc toward, he thrust it out toward the wall he was taking cover by. His fingertips entered the stone for but a moment before being rejected. Armony waved his hand to his side in pain, as he scanned and reassessed how he was going to get in and take down those ranged light beams. If Harize was to fly, he’d have to take care of those.

  “What’s reward without risk, hm?” he mused to himself in a sarcastic tone, before focusing the Sabsesc in his palm to his index finger.

  Extending it once more, slower this time, Armony began to trace a circle, with waves below, and an arrow pointing up and over a line. The symbol did nothing but sit as a hazy, glowing cloud, until he removed his finger from it. Like applying ink to skin, the sketch imprinted itself into the wall.

  Spell-shapes.

  Fairly simple in practice and used by many, spell-shapes are one of the most mainstream forms of Sabsesc use! Armony, however, wasn’t super great with them, as became apparent when the power of the spell had drastically too much to find within.

  Like a mortar, the boy shot into the air, his body flailing wildly as the wall blurred past him, and he was sent skyward. His eyes, wide with fear, turned to the smokestack, and on cue, two stars of light would appear, marking Armony within seconds. He braced for impact, reaching his hands out before him with closed eyes. Yet what he felt wasn’t immense pain as light shot through his body, but instead...

  The soft feathers of a bird!

  Harize.