“A while back, when you talked about my Worldview, what did you mean? The coin wasn’t shiny and glistening like real gold,” Cenvin inquires.

  The three adventurers rush swiftly to catch up to Durand and the remaining Orions. Assert fidgets with something in her pocket and slightly slows her pace to explain.

  “Previously, you saw all money as desirable objects, being the kleptomaniac you are. Now that your Worldview has been modified by your actions, money suddenly isn’t as important to you as… determination for revenge. Just listing an example,” she quickly adds as he glances at her suspiciously.

  Lenny interrupts, “I do not mean to interrupt your pleasant conversation, but we are near them.”

  The party abruptly goes quiet and transitions into a silent, stealthy approach. The Orions follow Durand wordlessly, walking blindly through the jungle. At last, Pix holds out his fist and halts the procession.

  “I hear others.”

  “Monsters? There usually are an abundance of them around these parts,” Durand bluffs.

  “No, humans… Are they your accomplices?”

  “What are you saying, my good knight?”

  “It’s been increasingly suspicious of you leading us back into the swamp without giving us a proper destination despite our consistent inquiries. So, give up the game now, or face summary execution!”

  Durand sighs. The plan has been foiled. He’s going to die. Might as well go down with a fight!

  He solidifies the block of air in front of him the moment Pix points his finger. The air is instantaneously cleaved in half. Freezing three more in quick succession, Durand draws his shortswords and charges, but Pix has already easily cut through all. Durand stops. The tip of Pix’s finger is directly aimed at Durand’s heart.

  An icicle bursts out of the ground to take the hit for him. Pix, flustered, whips around to see that Lenny and Cenvin have engaged his Orions, and Assert is heading straight toward him.

  “IT’S YOU!” He cries gleefully. “Assert, old friend!”

  “Nice going, Pix, I’ve noticed that you’ve been demoted to swamp duty,” she replies dryly. “We have a bit of history to catch up on, hm?”

  “That's… completely precise!” He declares.

  Racing his hands like a conductor, he thoroughly eviscerates everything around Assert, who blocks his cuts with continuous walls of fiery ice. However, Pix’s movements are too fast for Assert to keep up, and she’s forced to Misty Step away, leaving behind a cloud of unpenetrable fog.

  Nearby, the party has regrouped, rejoiced, and now faces four Orions.

  Lenny begins by drawing Rikki and rushes headfirst into the enemy combatants. He dives at the closest one, who, with a wave of his hand, throws Lenny into a tree. He coughs out a clot of blood and lays prone, winded.

  A pair of Orions connect their hands, and one buffs the other. Using his strengthened ability, the Orion concentrates on the sun and manages to temporarily snuff out its light, plunging the party into complete darkness.

  Cenvin and Durand lean on each others’ backs, blades ready for anything to rush at them from the shadow.

  “They’re using their abilities this time,” Cenvin mutters. “Got any ideas?”

  “Lenny got tossed somehow. The Orion’s ability could be Momentum Manipulation, but it’s a broad guess. The other two are Ability Buffing and an ability that snuffs out any source of light on the battlefield.”

  “He snuffed out the sun?”

  “He snuffed out the sun.”

  “Any idea what the last Orion could be?”

  “We can only wait.”

  “We’re sitting d-”

  A dreadful howl breaks into their ears. Something they haven’t heard before– not a spectral, and certainly not a kind of wraith they’re familiar with. They share a look, and Durand tosses a torch onto the ground, giving them some visibility of their surroundings.

  “We have to do something,” Durand whispers.

  “Let’s move. We see any Orions, it’s on sight. There’s no telling if they can also see.”

  “What if they’re controlling some kind of Otherworld monstrosity?”

  “So be it, then. Let’s go!”

  Plunging into the darkness, they begin blindly stabbing in hopes of striking someone. One of Durand’s shortswords flies out of his hand after scraping against a piece of Starmetal plate armor.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Found you!”

  Cenvin instantly pokes in the direction of the sound with the Shimmerim. A cry of pain returns, and the adventurers begin whaling every attack they have onto the poor Orion. He buckles backward. Sunlight is unveiled, visibility is restored, and three longswords surround the party. The Orions attack simultaneously, landing many cuts on Cenvin and Durand. A bit further away, Lenny is still recovering from the blow he sustained slamming into the tree.

  Two Orions leap back, leaving one facing the party. Donned with darker garments than the others, he points down to the ground calmly. Two larger-than-life wraiths rise. Their empty eyeholes glint with a familiar light: the light of an ability.

  “Behold, Necrowraiths!” The Orion triumphantly proclaims. “Just like Gifteds, they wield special abilities.”

  “And they’re still weak nevertheless!” Cenvin shouts, standing up resolutely.

  The two sides charge at once, and the result ends up incredibly one-sided.

  Pix, a conductor of a symphony, gracefully weaves his hands across space. Assert spawns a hailstorm of icicles and sends all of it toward him, but his rhythmic motions slash every single one in half. Her hand twitches furiously and throws a grenade-like ball of ice into the air. Using Conjure Barrage, the ball splits into hundreds of clones of itself. Pix is composed as he raises his hands once again.

  The outer wall of the ball splits into two halves to reveal another layer. Behind that layer is another one, and after the matryoshka-esque shell is cleaved apart, a green, enchanted dagger remains to penetrate his armor.

  “Clever,” he comments as a hundred of these rain down at him. All he does is stretch and poise as a conductor. “How do you come up with this?”

  With a heavy stroke down the sky, the balls, including the daggers inside, are all slit in half. They fall to the ground harmlessly and with a puff of smoke, the clones dissipate. Pix turns back to Assert, who has disappeared. He slowly turns a full circle, looking around, cautiously.

  “I know how far your ability extends,” he sneers. “As long as I stay in this clearing— you can’t reach me without getting carved in half first.”

  “Checkmate, or a stalemate. Depends on whether you want to run away from this fight, really,” his movements freeze temporarily as he pieces the puzzle. “Why did you even attack us in the first place? What are you doing in this swamp, Assert? You even tried to deceive me with your buddies… what are you trying to hide?”

  A massive flaming dome materializes around the clearing, containing enormous ice blocks serving as obstacles for Assert to sneak around behind. Pix, however, is not visibly fazed by the massive constructs.

  “Fire and ice? Assert, I thought you remembered you can’t burn me. Starmetal is heat resistant. And your ice powers, well, hyperthermia isn’t immediately damaging, eh? Time for another verse!”

  Sweeping over the constructs with a series of rapid cleaves, he spots a glisten of Assert’s armor and instantly cuts down all the obstructions around her, leaving her nowhere to hide. She kneels just in time to miss Pix’s pointing finger over her head narrowly, and the dome is enveloped in a magical Darkness.

  “I applaud your ingenuity! Your wits haven’t dulled!”

  “Die.”

  “Who do you think I am, Assert? You know better than to finish me preemptively. My time hasn’t come yet.”

  His hand trails softly in the darkness, feeling it, the texture and the essence of the veil. Gaining a perception of the magic, he nonchalantly carves the shadows apart, breaking the spell. Smugly, he once again begins looking for Assert, but he finds tiny icicles aimed at him, from all sides, all angles, and all directions. He tenses as he realizes what is about to happen.

  With a roar, Assert launches the burning volley towards him. Most are cut into pieces and bounce off Pix’s armor, but few find their target and penetrate his flesh. He collapses, groaning in pain as he feels his wounds burning and freezing concomitantly.

  The dome collapses around the two. Three Orions burst in and Assert is thrown away by one of them, manipulating her momentum. Behind the Orions, the party has been subdued and defeated.

  Pix stands up with the help of his soldiers.

  “No need to give chase, we can’t beat her anyway,” he gasps, “we shall get out of this swamp immediately.”

  His demeanor, once animated by his clash with Assert, now settles into a formal and serious tone. The Orions around him nod in agreement and escort him away from the battlefield. The last Orion catches up with his captain, but not before giving Cenvin a solid kick to the stomach.

  “D-damn you,” Cenvin whispers between grunts of aching. “I’ll find you, and I’ll ****ing kill you…”

  “I’d like to see you try,” the Orion replies before turning back to join his comrades. “Name’s Optim. I’ll see you at Starmetal Valley if you ever were to come.”

  After Assert recovers an unconscious Cenvin(he tried to go after the Orions), they retreat to the caravan. To Lenny and Durand, the plan accomplished what they intended– to drive away Starmetal– but as for Cenvin, his ego forced him to announce defeat. Or is it his Worldview?

  “I would like to know how you buffoons discover the Starmetal squad, and why you decided it’s a good idea to conceal this from me,” Assert sighs.

  The party erupts into a confetti of explanations.

  “I used divination magic-”

  “It’s all Cenvin.”

  “Don’t listen to him! We figured that, uh, we didn’t want you in danger.”

  “The divination told me-”

  “It’s all Cenvin!”

  One at a time, children. You’re making Assert’s head blow up.

  “No, it’s fine,” she dismisses. “I know who’s at fault. CENVIN!”

  “Why me??”

  “Who else would persuade their party to not tell the person in charge of such crucial information? The Lumi, Nyri, told you of Starmetal, didn’t she? Tell me, Cenvin, what was going on in that almond mind of yours?”

  She leaves for the front of the caravan, “Amazing!”

  The party sits silently for a moment, and Cenvin rises furiously.

  “I’ll kill her! I’ll murder her on the eve of dawn! None of you shall interfere! Damn, I’ll make sure I will!”

  Durand pleads, “Please calm down-”

  “How can I calm down when that insensible goober is disrespecting me like that? She’s just an NPC! She’s not that important, so let me murder in peace!”

  He storms off, leaving them dumbfounded.

  “Nyri warned me of this,” Lenny says. “Time to prepare for Assert’s death.”