While they were waiting for further news on Vormud, they decided to sit back and relax at a local restaurant. They ordered food for their “lunch meeting” and discussed Magnolia recent obsession in Yaoi. The boys did not see as interested, but would offer insight every now and again. 

“Uke and Seme are the best types. you can’t not like them!” Magnolia exclaimed to the other girl. Alex choked on his food at her sudden exclamation. Cassidy merely waved her spoon to defend her piece. 

“I hate to disappoint you, but Riba couples are the best. They can do all that stuff and  more. They don’t need to be pinned down by tops or bottoms.”

“I feel like I’ve learn a brand new side of you both. Like the veil is being pulled from my eyes.” Alex gasped out in shock and surprise.

Eugene hid his laughter eating parts of his steak bread bowl. As he finished his bite, he replied. “You should have seen our DM’s afterward. Yaoi completely changed our relationship. Totally made it better.” 

Magnolia lifted a wooden spoon up and pointed to him darkly. “What I said in DM is completely and irrevocably not allowed to be discussed at this lunch table.”

Cassidy looked between Eugene and Alex. “Let’s shelf this topic for another day. Seeing as we’re getting to know each other. Why don’t we tell us one thing we don’t already know. Mags doesn’t have to answer since she revealed her yaoi collection.”

Alex responded, as he was finished with his meal. “Since we’re waiting for a notification, I don’t mind. Umm, I guess it would be I have a girlfriend outside our friend circle. Her name is Laura. We’ve been dating for about five months now?” The ranger smiled, thinking of his girlfriend back home. “You don’t think this test is gonna take all day? I promised to go on a date with her Sunday.” 

Eugene leaned back into his chair. “Wow, best mates and I didn’t even know. Harsh world.” 

Alex replied quickly, “Sorry, it happened so fast and time just went by. I didn’t mean to keep it secret.” 

“So Alex has a girlfriend, Eugene? Any hidden girls back home?” Cassidy teased back. 

“Nope, but” Eugene shrugged to think back. “I applied to become a business student. My application is in the works. I think I want to open a place to house our game events. It’s just something I’ve wanted to do for a while now.” 

Magnolia smiled, beaming at the thought. “Wow! Eugene is working to open his own business, that’s awesome!” 

He waved her enthusiasm away. “It’ll take years, not to mention money. You know all the money I get I give to charities. I don’t keep any of it.” 

Cassidy nodded. “I think that’s why I joined the group. You all inspired me to help the community, so I always wanted to develop games that would bring happiness. As you know, I created ReSolve, but I’m actually in the works for another game to be released. I don’t have a title yet, but it’s coming along nicely.” 

The group conversed happily between bites of food. They were enjoying each other’s time, so much so that the notification on their wrist consoles were ignored. 

It wasn’t until they were all done with their food, content and full, did Alex question: “How long do you think it will take to finish the ring?”

Eugene looked at his wrist console and then back at the door. “We could just walk over there. It’s not like it’s too far.” 

He stood up from the table, as if to signal an end to their conversation, and headed toward the door. Everyone gathered their belongings following suit. When he pushed open the doors, did a large gust of purple mist rush in and swirl around like a fog. 

Eugene covered his face, not liking the scent, taste, or color. Even as he took a step outside, he could feel the gusts pick up and heavily soar through the main village plaza. 

Cassidy choked on the air. Alex felt his eyes begin to water. 

When the winds died down Eugene glimpsed a lone male figure standing center. He wore a chiseled brown mask. The dark auburn curls, unkempt and wild, swirled like the fog. His wardrobe matched his mask, wearing nothing but oaken browns and red. His hands adorned a multitude of rings, mostly silver. And there on the ground laid plain for everyone to see was the lifeless form of Vormud. 

Eugene’s negative feeling intensified. “Get your weapons ready.” He rushed forward into the fog, hoping that they weren’t too late. 

Alex followed his mad dash while Cassidy clutched a near pillar for support. She brought from her wand and winced at the dense, thick fog before them. Magnolia ran toward the middle of the group to help support with healing or enchantments. If anything, as a druid she could help by using nature to disperse the fog. 

Eugene drew his cutlass and stood in his battle stance. “Who are you, and why is Vormud unconscious.” Eugene couldn’t tell if the accessory maker was alive or dead due to the fact he wasn’t moving. 

The male in question merely knelt down to grab hold of the aforementioned body. He rifled through his pockets to pluck out a silver enchanted ring. , Once secured, the man tossed Vormud into a nearby building. The group watched in horrific detail as a sickening crack from Vormud collided into several wooden boxes. He slumped from the impact, unmoving. 

Magnolia was the first to respond. She rushed over to the NPC and tried a healing spell. “Cure!”

The man with the silver rings chuckled darkly. “I’d hardly waste mana on a dead man.” 

She didn’t want to believe it was true, but she felt her magic wash away from the body. It had no effect. She turned a horrified glance back to the masked man standing in the plaza. “You killed him, but why?! He did what you asked!” She immediately recognized the voice of the assailant when she first stumbled upon the transaction. 

“You must have been that eavesdropper that day, I see.” He merely replied and showed the ring Vormud had made. “I have to thank you. If it weren’t for you and your friends, I would be without the Ring of Allocated Time.”

Eugene clenched his cutlass tighter. “Sorry, but that ring doesn’t belong to you. It belonged to Vormud, but since you killed him I suppose it goes to us. Hand it over, douchebag.” The dragonborn rogue did not take well to antagonist’s who murdered for no reason. 

Cassidy already started to chant. “Go ahead and attack, talking won’t settle anything.” 

Alex also brought forth his bow and readied one of his arrows. “I didn’t know Vormud, but he seemed like a semi-decent guy. You’ll pay for taking his life.” 

Their enemy just laughed.

Magnolia casted Scan onto him to help start to come up with a strategy… and a shiver ran down her spine. She’d seen these types of stats before but for it to occur now in this location… it was bad news. The aura around the ring he took from Vormud popped up with a health bar. The scary thing was not that, but the fact that his HP/MP bars were all question marks. His level was obscured by question marks. 

The other scary thing? He looked directly at her while she was looking into his details. He was staring right through her pop up window to look into her eyes. He knew. He knew what she was doing. 

“Guys; GUYS, He doesn’t have—!” She yelled, but before she could say anything more he moved like lightning. She watched in a mixture of horror and fascination both as he appeared within her range of attack and laughed. He laughed in her face. It was then she felt the sharp pain in her face, and then her whole body. It was like she could pull herself away from what was actually happening to watch as a black whip emerged and cracked against her cheek. The force? It was enough to send her flying away, and hurtling past her party members. 

Cassidy dropped her spell’s incantation as she watched Magnolia fly away. The loud crash behind her told her where Magnolia has landed, and terrified, she looked back. There she was unconscious in the dirt, her HP bar barely took the hit to survive the hit. She was straddling the zero with barely two HP left.

“The name is Emrys.” He murmured and cracked his whip again. “Not like it’ll matter. Since, you know, you’ll be dead.” The sky erupted into dark clouds and purple mist began to billow down from the area. From within the clouds, a large bird emerged. It’s shape was not solid, but rather a gaseous state. Purple clouds continued to pour out with each wing stroke it created. 

The down stroke of the wings caused whirlwinds of the same purple smoke to flow into town. 

“And this ring is one of the many offerings I offer to the Goddess Lumina. Your God of Time Chronos will never succeed. Now, do me one last favor and die!” The self-proclaimed Emrys called out to a large bird of smoke that screeched boisterously. 

Slowly Magnolia rose off the ground, as she swiftcast a cure wounds spell for her grievous wounds. All it took was one hit to knock her back, and drop her health down to single digits. Cassidy heaved a sigh of relief before bringing her attention back on target. She didn’t know if it was the swift pivot of her turn, or if she was disturbed by the current events, but she felt terrible. 

Her legs buckled underneath her, and she started to violently hack. Soon the others were doing the same, collapsing to their knees and barely struggling to stay up. 

“Ah, I see the poison is finally setting in. This whole town is as good as dead.” 

Eugene coughed up blood, pulling himself back up to stand, he had not realized the fog was poison based. What do we have against poison? Anything?

“Esuna!” A large gust of pure clean air gushed through the purple mist, dissipating it and stopping to swirl around his body. Magnolia yelled over to the group. “Poison is my department. I’ll handle the debuffs, but we need to be careful! He has question marks all over his details!” 

“Aye aye ma’am. Alex, bring that eagle down. Cas, you keep an eye on everyone’s MP.” Eugene lunged forward, trying his best not to get buried deep in the pockets of poison mist. “And Emrys,” he glowered. “Let’s tango.”