Zap watched the house from his rooftop perch and waited.

  He’d been expecting their target to be one of the many buildings owned by Count Drascol, or even his palatial estate. However, their path had led them to a small house in the Mid District.

  They had set up on the rooftop of the three-story house across the street from their target, and a simple enchantment now hid them from view.

  The Sense Party Overlay on his party stone was active, and he could easily see Dirk’s glowing green icon within the house.

  The icon went below ground level, into what must be a basement, and Zap tapped his foot impatiently.

  He had wanted to kick down the door and rush in, but his team had talked him out of it.

  They were right, of course. It was entirely possible that the kidnappers would kill the girl, rather than allow her to provide them with information about her captors.

  The party stone displayed two quick combat logs, and he quickly viewed them.

  System Message: Target Has Been Rendered Unconscious!

  System Message: Target Has Been Rendered Unconscious!

  He turned to Jewel, who he knew to be watching via her Mana Sight.

  “Are the defenses still up?”

  Without turning to him, she responded.

  “Yes. I still can’t see anything below the first floor of the house. Whoever set up their defenses knew what they were doing. Dirk’s mana signature disappeared as soon as he left the first floor.”

  Zap grunted his acknowledgement and continued to watch.

  A few moments later, he saw Dirk’s icon move up into the main house.

  The door opened, and the rogue faded into existence and waved them over.

  “It looks like he’s not worried about stealth anymore,” Jewel said.

  Not bothering to answer, Zap leaped down from the roof of the house and landed in the street, then made his way to where Dirk stood in the doorway.

  “Where’s the girl?” he growled.

  Dirk opened the door wide for him, and he ducked his head to enter.

  Jewel followed behind him and closed the door behind her as she looked around the nicely furnished room.

  “So, good news and bad news,” Dirk began.

  Zap continued to tap his foot as he waited for the rogue to get to the point.

  “I found the girl, but she’s in some sort of stasis spell,” Dirk said.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem for me,” Jewel said, but stopped when she saw the rogue shake his head.

  “A divine stasis spell,” he continued.

  Zap wanted to smash something, his thoughts going murderous, but he slowly counted to ten and unclenched his fists.

  Jewel and Dirk watched him intently as he worked to get his rage under control.

  “Where was this Zap when we met with the Andorian Kingdon?” Jewel asked, grinning up at him.

  Taking a deep breath, he looked down at his old teammate and gave her a knowing look.

  “You try being a young troll berserker and see how well you handle it,” he said.

  Jewel turned to Dirk.

  “Since we’re standing in the living room, I assume the girl isn’t in immediate danger. Do you know which god it is?”

  Dirk shook his head and sat down in a plush chair.

  “I couldn’t be sure what would happen if I got too close. So, I took out the two guards and came up to get you.”

  Zap gritted his teeth.

  “Anything on the guards to indicate their patron?”

  “Nothing overt, but I didn’t stick around to go through their pockets,” Dirk said.

  “We need to get a cleric we trust. They’d be able to see the Path,” Jewel said.

  “See it but not affect it. A cleric’s powers won’t work in the presence of another god’s shrine,” Dirk countered.

  Zap muttered a curse under his breath and summoned a communication crystal.

  ***

  “Did you get enough food?” Falcon asked, eyebrow raised at Forge’s multiple plates of food.

  Lioness laughed and smacked the ranger on the back.

  “He’s eating for two. Don’t shame him!”

  Forge glared at his teammates as he set down the four plates piled high with different meats.

  “Though he’d probably benefit from adding a salad…” Lioness added, trailing off.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Forge took a large bite and chewed slowly, grinning at his teammates.

  Swallowing, he looked towards the entrance of the Guild cafeteria, then turned back to his group.

  “Where’s Gideon? Wasn’t it his idea for us to meet for lunch?”

  Lioness shrugged.

  “No idea. I guess something important came up.”

  “Speaking of important,” Falcon said, eyes fixed on two Guildies making their way to them.

  Sapphire Phoenix and Poncho stopped at their table.

  “I need you to come with me,” Sapphire said, looking at Forge.

  “Is that all of us, or just him?” Falcon asked.

  “Just him,” Sapphire said.

  Forge frowned at the elf.

  “I don’t like to keep secrets from my team, and they do the same for me.”

  Poncho, seeing his moment, interjected.

  “Your team member, Gideon, left you a message.”

  A pad appeared in his hand, and he stood at attention as he read from it.

  “Got called away on a secret thing. Very hush-hush. See you at dinner.”

  Lioness stood and tried to get a look at the pad, but Poncho held it protectively against his chest.

  Sapphire glared at the rogue enchanter.

  “Gods, I hate you,” she muttered.

  The elf turned back to Forge.

  “This is important and the fewer people that know about it, the better. You can tell them about it afterwards.”

  Looking at his multiple plates of uneaten food, Forge sighed and stored them in his ring.

  “Sorry…We’ll talk later,”

  He stood and followed Sapphire out of the room.

  This was going to be a bad day, he could tell.

  ***

  Forge had expected Sapphire to take him up to the guildmaster’s office, but was instead loaded into a carriage and driven into the city.

  With his armor stored in his ring, he felt underdressed for whatever was going on.

  Sapphire was wearing an armored battle robe and had the look of someone about to go into combat, and even the driver of the carriage was wearing full a plate set of armor, complete with a helmet that hid his face.

  “Should I be dressed for combat?” he asked.

  The elf turned from impatiently looking out the window to focus on him.

  “Yes,” she said simply.

  The carriage interior was roomy, but not quite big enough for him to comfortably don his armor.

  “Want to close your eyes while I get dressed?”

  She raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Equip it from your ring,” she said.

  Forge waited for her to expand on the statement, but she just looked at him expectantly.

  “Was this supposed to come with an instruction manual? Because if so, I didn’t get it,” he said, holding up his ring hand to her.

  She scowled, then sighed.

  She held her own hand out to show her realm ring.

  “When you store your armor while wearing it, the dimensional container maps your body, and you can summon it back to where you stored it from.”

  She stood in front of him, and a moment later, her armor disappeared, leaving her dressed in her small-clothes.

  He quickly averted his eyes and stared at his feet.

  “Oh, get over it. I swear…” Sapphire said, her words cutting off as the carriage slammed to a halt.

  Losing her balance, she stumbled into him.

  Surprise took Forge as they fell over onto the bench seat and they each tried to extract themselves from the other.

  The door of the carriage opened, and Jewel looked in.

  “Really, Sapphire? The guy’s a paladin,” she said with a laugh.

  Sapphire’s angry face looked up at the door, then froze when she saw who it was.

  “Aunt Jewel! I didn’t know you were here.”

  Realizing her position, she put a hand on Forge’s face and pushed herself to her feet.

  Summoning her armor, she stepped out of the carriage.

  Forge rubbed at his face and stared out after the elf.

  Irritated, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then stood and focused on summoning his armor to his body.

  The armor appeared, and he closed a gauntleted fist as he checked himself over.

  Next, he summoned his cloak, and finally his mask, which appeared in his hand.

  Donning the mask, he finally felt ready for whatever was going on.

  He summoned his mace to his hand and then exited the carriage.

  Sapphire turned her angry gaze on him.

  “Forge, tell her it was an accident. That I was showing you how to summon your armor when the carriage stopped and I fell into you,” she demanded.

  Ignoring her, he stepped up to the caster Sapphire had called Aunt Jewel.

  “Hello, I’m Forge. How can I help?”

  Her smile dropped, and she took him by the shoulder.

  “Please come with me. Zap can give you a full explanation.”

  Sapphire fell into step beside him.

  “Tell her it was an accident,” she growled.

  “Then don’t use my face as a fulcrum,” he growled back.

  She glared at him, and with his mirrored mask, he knew she was seeing herself reflected back.

  “Two things. One. It’s really hard to argue with you when you’re wearing that mask. And Two. I’m going to look up what fulcrum means when this is done,” she said before hurrying ahead and entering a small house.

  Stepping through the door, he stopped and looked around.

  The room looked utterly ordinary, but for whatever reason, the mace was telling him the entire place was a lie.

  After a moment, he realized this wasn’t a home. No one actually lived here. It was just set dressing like a play might have.

  The strangeness didn’t end there, as he felt something else.

  It wasn’t coming from his mace this time, but from somewhere deep inside him.

  The unfamiliar feeling was unpleasant, and he could feel anger rising in him unbidden.

  He looked down.

  It was underneath the house. Something so foul, it angered him in his very soul.

  Everything else in the room seemed unimportant, and his grip tightened on his mace.

  Someone was saying something, but he ignored it. His attention fully focused on what was below.

  He moved forward on instinct and saw the open trapdoor.

  Without thinking, he dropped into the hole, landing in a small stone room.

  Unlike the room above, someone had lived here. Half eaten food lay on a table, and two bedrolls lay near a wall.

  Not seeing anything of importance, he moved down the hall of the room, towards where he felt the dark power emanating.

  A small altar with a sinuous curved dagger carved into the silver plate seemed to radiate dark energy.

  A voice, neither his nor Cinder’s, entered his mind.

  “Purify the darkness.”

  Contrary by nature, he balked at the order, but even without the words, he knew this for what it was. Evil made manifest.

  The dark energy flowed over him as he charged towards the altar, his mace held high.

  He swung the mace with all his strength; the flanged edges encompassed in golden light and struck the sigil of the dark god.

  A sound like a gong went off, and the silver plate with the dark sigil dropped to the ground, shattered into pieces.

  And then he pushed at the darkness.

  With the altar broken, no more dark energy entered the room, but its presence remained.

  It pushed up against him, trying to gain purchase, but fell away against his iron will.

  Like using a muscle he didn’t know he had, he pushed at the dark energy, and could see it changing, from the purple-black miasma to a soft golden light.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, but the energy finally dissipated, and his body relaxed.

  The voice came to him again.

  “Justice has been done.”

  He dismissed the blinking notifications in the corner of his vision and turned to the cell nearby.

  A small body lay on a cot, and he rushed over.

  He cast his Lay on Hands spell and felt the power rush into the tiny form.

  An oily black substance poured out from the girl’s pores as the spell finished, leaving her covered in filth.

  The spell felt different, and he opened his System screen to check.

  Paladin of Honos Tier 2

  Passive Ability: Divine Strength 2

  Spell: Lay on Hands 2

  Spell: Refresh

  Refresh! He thought excitedly.

  Dismissing the System screen, he touched the girl, and the oily substance disappeared like it had never been there.

  The girl’s eyes fluttered open, and upon seeing him, she lurched forward and hugged him tightly.

  “It’s okay, Angela. Everything is going to be okay,” he said.

  As soon as he saw the small body, he had known it was her.

  This was the price of power. A price he had known he would have to one day pay.

  He wasn’t just an adventurer or a paladin. He was a focal point.

  Knowing he wouldn’t be able to save everyone, he had still chosen this path. He needed to avoid personal entanglements and remain pure in thought. But this is exactly what he had feared.

  An innocent had been hurt because of him.

  Shaking away the thoughts, he smiled as the small girl held on to him and cried.

  The future was unwritten, and today, he had been there.

  “We did it, Cinder,” he sent to the sleeping dragon.

  He felt his soul space warm slightly in response and grinned beneath his mask.

  Maybe today would be a good day, after all.