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His stomach lurched up into his throat even as he hit the ground in a roll and thrust himself up to his feet.

Claire rose beside him. They stood in a small room, across from two stunned men decked out in silvered armor. Behind them was a passageway with sunlight spilling in — they weren\'t far from the surface.

Neither of them wore bands to conceal their identities. Golden letters had already spawned in the air above them to identify their names and classes.

Shale - Weaponmeister (Initiate 4)

Winky - Shadowblade (Initiate 4)

Oh, come on. I think the System felt like I was challenging it a bit too much by actively looking for more difficult fights. Two Initiate 4 Otherworlders. This isn\'t the same thing as fighting a monster of the same stage. These guys are going to be a problem when we only have a few damn moments to fight before the rest of the Outworlders show up at our asses.

Then again, I suppose I should be a bit relieved. As far as Otherworlders go, Initiate 4 doesn\'t seem too bad. We have a good chance. We\'d have a great one if we weren\'t about to get run down by a horde of pissed off pay-to-win assholes, but I\'ll take what I get.

Behind the men was Orchid. Absolution had actually managed to pull it off. He\'d gotten them a way out from under all the Outworlders noses — literally. They just had to find a way to snatch Orchid and run off with her before their pursuers caught up with them in a few seconds.

Unfortunately, Orchid wasn\'t in good shape. Bruises covered her arms and she hung suspended from the ceiling like a furious pinata. Someone had gagged her with a dirty cloth.

A thick chain wrapped around her bruised wrists and connected to a stone in the ceiling. The chain continued along the rest of her body, binding her entire form like a constricting snake. Shimmers of faint blue energy twisted through the links of the chain.

Orchid swung and struggled fruitlessly, trying to reach the wooden staff that leaned against the wall a few feet to her side. Her injuries clearly hadn\'t made it to her spirit, but the motions weren\'t doing much more than providing the armored men guarding her with amusement and the slightest of distractions — at least, right up until Alex and Claire arrived.

Then that distraction bought the two of them the half-second they needed to finish rising to their feet. It gave Alex the moment he needed to call out to his monsters.

Shale, a wiry man with several swords strapped to his sides and a tuft of hair at the very top of an otherwise bald head, was still midway through cursing in surprise when the sound of shattering glass filled the air.

Glint flashed forward in a blur, cloak already transforming into a segmented whip. It carved through the air for Shale\'s neck. There was a flash of gray and a loud, ringing clang echoed through the air.

Torchlight reflected off Glint\'s gaunt body as his whip retracted and returned to the form of a cloak at his side.

Several swords had slid free of the sheathes at Shale\'s sides and floated around the man as if held by invisible warriors. The brief moment of surprise had worn off quickly and both of the guards were clearly professionals.

Winky, the larger of the two guards, drew a longsword that he had strapped to his back. "Who are you?"

"Forget speaking, just kill them," Shale snapped. "They\'re intruders."

The swords around him flitted forward. They moved in a formation to strike from four different angles at once, blurring until they were nothing but gray streaks slicing through the air. It was an attack that almost certainly would have drawn blood on Alex if the two men hadn\'t paused to speak.

But they had paused to speak — and that had given the rest of his summons a moment to finish pulling themselves free from his Soul Mirrors.

A black puddle welled up on the ground before Alex before exploding outward in a spray of sludge. Princess erupted from the ground and expanded her body, the squirming arms extending from her back wrapping around Alex and Claire.

The swords slammed into her body, burying themselves deep into her with loud squelching thuds. One of them jerked to a halt just an inch away from Alex\'s face, but none grew close enough to cut them.

Winky\'s sword shimmered. Then it vanished. He dashed around Princess, ducking under one of her large arms as she swept her hand at him, and lunged for Alex.

Spark erupted into existence with a crackle and a flash. The Echo Wraith drove into the man\'s side and they both tumbled across the ground with a slew of curses and crackling arcs of electric energy.

Winky grabbed Spark and hurled the monster across the room with a roar. Spark sailed through the air and slammed into the stone wall with a loud crunch. The floating armor plates around his blue core shuddered.

The Echo Wraith floated down to the ground, shaking himself off and refocusing on Winky as the man rose.

"Fucking summoners," Shale snarled, flicking a hand back like a conductor. The swords ripped out of Princess\' body. "I\'ve killed one of the adds. Finish that one off, then—"

Princess lunged toward Shale. The thin man\'s eyes went wide and he hurled himself out of the way, hitting the ground in a roll and springing to safety just an instant before Princess\' hand slammed down on the ground where he\'d been standing.

"Go!" Alex hissed to Claire. "I\'ll distract them! We need to get Orchid and find a portal to the Mirrorlands!"

"What the fuck? The blob is still alive?" Shale thrust a finger toward Alex. The floating swords shot toward him again, spinning together like a drill.

Princess lunged in front of the attack and Alex drew on his own magic, casting Funhouse in the air between himself and his Dredge. Reality cracked and white cracks raced out as fragments of the world crumbled in on themselves.

Shale\'s swords pierced clean through Princess\' body and continued on into the path of the spell. They warped and twisted before being spat out straight into the ground, where they drove home with four loud thunks.

"The girl is going for the prisoner!" Winky yelled, twisting away from Alex and rearing back. He made a motion as if he was hurling something — and Alex was pretty damn sure it was the invisible sword that was still in the man\'s hand.

"Duck!" Alex yelled.

Claire threw herself into a roll.

There was a thud in the stone behind her. She shot back to her feet and arrived at Orchid\'s side, black veins streaking down her arm even as she grabbed the chains holding the other woman.

She let out a roar and gave them a sharp yank. The chains strained, but they didn\'t break. Glint arrived beside her and reared back, his deadly claws glistening in the firelight.

"I don\'t think so!" Shale\'s swords yanked themselves free of the ground. They shimmered, and shadows of the weapons appeared beside them, turning four to eight. Then they all shot forward.

Spark thrust himself forward into the path of the blades. They drove into him, reaving through his armored body but failing to penetrate out the back.

He exploded with a flash, transforming into energy.

Glint\'s hand carved down.

Orchid dropped. Claire caught her and spun, sprinting for the exit of the cave.

"Stop!" Shale yelled as his swords shot back to fly at his sides and he made to give chase.

"Fuck you!" Alex yelled back, falling in alongside Claire and running for the exit. A portal still crackled in the air where they\'d arrived — it didn\'t look like Absolution had managed to close it, and there was something trying to come through. "Glint, Princess, distract them as long as you can!"

His monsters exploded into motion. Alex didn\'t wait to see how the fight would go — he knew they\'d lose, but if they could buy him a few minutes, he could rip a portal to the Mirrorlands and get all of them out of here. His feet pounded against the ground as he and Claire ran, bursting free of the cave and out into a sea of rolling hills.

Valley Ford and the mountains surrounding it rose in the distance. They were somewhere an hour or two of travel away from the city.

Alex activated Riftsense as they ran, sending his senses sprawling out. A pathway illuminated itself on the ground as a line of misty energy appeared to point him toward the nearest connection to the Mirrorlands.

"This way!" Alex yelled, racing up a hill in pursuit of the line with Claire at his side.

"Bleed me, you\'re heavy," Claire hissed to Orchid as they kept running. "Lose some weight. How does a twig like you weigh so much?"

Orchid let out a response that was both muffled by the gag in her mouth and assaulted by being bounced on Claire\'s shoulder like a sack of discount potatoes.

They crested the hill — and Alex ground to a stop, heart pounding in his chest, mouth falling askew in disbelief.

Oh, you have to be kidding me.

Standing in the very center of the line they were heading down was a large man covered with dry blood and sprouting half a dozen weapons from his body.

"Alex!" Derek exclaimed. "Is now a good time?"

Alex paused to try and take a breath to find the right words to answer that question.

A rush of energy drove into him.

Glint had died.

"No!" Alex snapped, bursting back into motion. He didn\'t have time to wonder how the hell Derek had managed to show up here so quickly. The easygoing man wasn\'t the type to attack him without provocation. Probably. "Now is a horrible time. Someone else is trying to kill us."

"Oh. Do I wait my turn, or…"

Alex and Claire had already run past him. Derek turned, then sprinted after them.

"Hey!" Derek yelled as he ran, keeping pace with them effortlessly. "I don\'t want to be rude! I haven\'t been in this situation before! What\'s the proper etiquette?"

"Hold this," Claire snapped, thrusting Orchid into Derek\'s arms.

He grabbed the bound mage effortlessly and hoisted her above his head, holding the poor woman straight above him as he ran — somehow still moving just as fast as Alex and Claire were.

Claire accelerated, moving faster now that she no longer had a payload. Derek matched her, and Alex poured all the strength he had into keeping up. They weren\'t far from the portal now. He could see the end of the line near the base of a hill before them.

"Have you been dying recently?" Alex asked as they ran. He didn\'t have the mental capacity to worry about what was going on anymore. His only goal was getting them to the Mirrorlands before —

Another rush of energy drove into him. He nearly missed a step but managed to right himself at the last moment.

Princess was dead.

"Yes," Derek replied. "I was choking on an orange for a few lives. I wanted to see if I could eat it whole. So, about the etiquette —"

"You carry the princess and make sure she doesn\'t get hurt," Alex snapped. They skidded to a stop before the portal.

"This is a princess?" Derek stared up at Orchid with widening eyes. "I knew she was beautiful, but I\'ve seen a lot of beautiful people. You never know which ones are lurking royalty. They could be anywhere. I guess this takes priority over killing someone, though."

Alex tuned Derek out. He drove his hands into the weakened space in reality, gritting his teeth as he pulled at it with all his might. Purple rift magic cracked and hissed as a portal stretched open.

"Faster, if you can," Claire said tersely. "The clowns are on our ass, Alex — and they\'ve got a small horde with them. Ten Outworlders. Most of them cloaked."

"This isn\'t helping," Alex replied through gritted teeth, but he doubled down on his power. They couldn\'t win a fight against every single Outworlder family.

His arms trembled. The portal bent and groaned. It desperately resisted him, clinging to every second that it could. Alex continued to push. Nothing else mattered. He couldn\'t afford to let himself get distracted. An instant of hesitation would cost double its time in lost ground.

Then, with a roar, he thrust his palms out.

The portal snapped open.

A sword screamed through the air toward Alex.

Claire thrust him out of the way and it slammed into her arm. Blood splattered across the grass and she spun, staggering from the force of the blow. She cried out in pain.

"Don\'t move a damned inch!" Shale roared, sprinting down the hill behind them with Winky hot on his feet.

"Go!" Claire screamed, planting a foot on Derek\'s backside and kicking him into the portal. She grabbed onto the shaft of the axe protruding from his back with one hand before he could completely vanish into its depths.

Alex grabbed onto her other hand a moment before she was yanked into the churning purple energy. He was lifted off his feet and yanked into the portal to the Mirrorlands — but not before he felt a hand clamp down on his ankle.

Someone else had tagged along for the ride.