In the banquet hall, the chase continued.

Amelia ran as fast as she could after Castien, her Boost Module aching at the sheer exertion, while Korath kept up relatively close behind.

“We’ve almost got him,” she said. This banquet hall was at the far south end of the city, right up against the city wall. There was no back entrance to the building, so just by entering it, Castien marked his doom.

He had sprung a major trap for him back in the Night Markets, in the shack. But what he did not expect was for them to come out on top and pursue him all the way to the end of the city.

“We’ll kill him slowly,” Korath said. “After he gives us a soul cache.”

“Yeah.” And after he helped her figure out what Ed was really up to.

They kept chasing until they entered the main banquet hall, a vast, unlit room that could seat a thousand, with a small stage in the center for speakers or singers or spouses to show themselves off.

Only the lights out the window gave any illumination to the room. Everything else was black.

Castien stood in the middle of the hall on that stage, surrounded by tables on all sides that already had plates and cloths and utensils laid out for some big reception. Only one entrance in and out of the room, aside from the window—with a drop several stories to the ground.

He had nowhere left to go, panting too hard to run away. Likely too mana deficient to teleport again. But still smiling.

Amelia activated [Harmonic Ring] and charged herself up all the way to the top. It pained her body to keep it in, but as long as she could get close enough to strike, he would not be able to block it.

She and Korath stopped running as they approached their cornered core elf prey. They took slow, cautious steps forward, closing the distance without scaring him into immediately lashing out.

“I’d like to revise my deal,” Korath said to the man. “Tell us where to find your soul caches, and I’ll kill you today. Don’t tell us, and I’ll kill you over the course of a month.”

Amelia bit her lip, trying not to mention her very important ulterior motive in capturing Castien. Soul caches were very important, but certainly not her main goal here. But she would deal with that once he was captured.

“Once again,” Castien said, regaining his composure as his breathing slowed back down. “You can’t make these kinds of statements when you’re in such a weak position.”

Korath scoffed, but something stirred in Amelia’s soul. Like she knew something was coming without even seeing it.

“I’m not going to let you escape,” Castien said. “It would be in your best interest to kill yourselves now before Dimples reaches you.”

“What are you planning to do?” Korath asked snidely. “Use my vortex amulet again and sap your life away in the process? You clearly can’t handle another attack.”

“A bold claim, necromancer.”

“I’ll be taking back what’s mine in just a few moments.”

“I’d have to agree,” Amelia said to her HUD. She turned to Korath. “He wants us right here. Let’s stop for a second.”

“Don’t get so scared so quickly,” Korath said. “There’s nothing he can do that we can’t take on together. I mean, look around. Do you see anything?”

She looked, and she did not. The banquet hall was empty besides the three people here. Even still...

Castien pulled out a soul gem from his cloak, shining bright with energy. “Anyhow, I have things to get to. I’d like to stay and watch again, but last time I did that, we ended up in our little chase.” He closed his palm and crushed the gem. A blinding light burst out from his hand, but a moment later he absorbed all of it into himself.

Now that was something Amelia had never seen a glossal do before. And finally she understood what was going on here.

Without any further hesitation, she charged forward and launched her [Harmonic Ring] blast—a snapping sound that reverberated across the banquet hall—and when the shockwave left her body, there was no elf around to take the blow.

Korath jumped over the blast and dodged as a dozen carefully laid-out tables and chairs toppled over and burst apart around the room. Just as soon as he landed, though, another wave came—this time, completely invisible.

Amelia realized what it was as her soul suddenly grew three sizes too heavy for her body. As if all the pain in her systems that Ed had fixed were now back in full force.

A mana dampener, hidden somewhere in this room, had just activated. An extremely powerful one.

She had absolutely no idea what her HUD was trying to tell her.

But she realized that if she did not turn off her modules right now, she would probably be decimated by the mana drain alone. She needed to find that mana dampener and destroy it immediately.

With Castien having teleported away again, they likely only had seconds to leave this place before he was out of their grasp for good. Only seconds before...

Loud, marching footsteps approached. A wave of iron golems, perhaps? Iron golems whose souls were shielded from the dampening process and could overwhelm them in number? Or maybe it was Dimples and some hapless lackeys?

Amelia and Korath both took a few steps back from the stage, closer to the entrance-less wall, and readied themselves for whatever was about to come.

“Find the mana dampener,” Amelia said. “I’ll defend us.”

“I was about to say the same thing, but in reverse,” Korath said. “How are you still moving with so much interference?”

“I’m just that powerful.”

He blinked. “Very well, then. I’ll find the mana dampener.”

Then, through the entrance, Dimples emerged. Two oversized knives. His cloak covered in blood. Mask and hair still hiding his face. He plodded with heavy, slow steps, approaching with the knowledge that the two could hardly fight without their magic. He, on the other hand, very clearly could.

Behind him were sleek-white, orc-sized constructs marching in step. Four of them. Holstered to their hips were blades that stretched on for at least five feet. Where their eyes would have been, they had visor-shaped sections cut out that exposed a sky blue glow. Golems of extreme stature and combat quality.

Amelia did not recognize them at first, but then it hit her all at once. The Grand Champion had faced off against a series of prototype Rev-8 combat golems some months back and destroyed them handily. All those old magazines she had read during her time recovering from the first dungeon dive flashed in her mind at the most inopportune time, because she gained nothing from this knowledge but the golems’ model name.

These Rev-8s were clearly not prototypes. And they were closing the gap very quickly. In unison, they drew their long swords, which flared up blue with mana energy. Suddenly, the room grew a fair bit brighter.

“Then again,” Korath said, “perhaps we should both look for the mana dampener.”

“Yeah.”

With seconds to go before Dimples and the golems came to the center of the banquet hall, the two of them split up and searched frantically for any sign of the tiny mana-nullifying golem that was causing so much trouble. Around the walls, the still-far-too-dark walls. Underneath tables, hidden behind potted plants. Amelia’s eyes could find nothing, and her Scan Module hardly operated to tell her anything about what she could do. Surely she could find this mana dampener. Surely she could save her own life.

No luck. And now, over in the corner of the room far away from Korath, she was trapped by two Rev-8s and their mana swords that pointed at her chest just a foot or two away.

With no Boost Module to heighten her reaction time, She highly doubted her ability to spar with both of these golems at once. And they were too tall to jump under. The gap between them was wide enough to squeeze through if she could manage it, but either side of them was blocked by banquet tables. If she rolled underneath, would those swords just slice through them like melting cream? Yes, most likely.

Dammit.

But that was what she tried anyway. A roll, and several quick jerks to avoid the blazing hot sabers that smashed against the ground next to her. They chopped rhythmically, each sword coming down one second after the next.

The tables collapsed on top of her, but she kept on crawling, kept on rolling to move with all her might.

“Come on, Scan Module. Do something.”

Amelia did not have the mental capacity to attempt to parse these messages while simultaneously dodging the hyper-fast strikes of the Rev-8s slicing down over her.

This was the absolute worst-case scenario, because Castien Brielwa had well and truly captured her and Korath in the ultimate trap.

Speaking of her alleged sun elf ally, he was still searching for the mana dampener, but with two Rev-8s in his direction as well—and Dimples himself.

The giant cloaked killer hacked a table to pieces, silently but furiously, right in front of Korath. An intimidation tactic, surely, more than an actual attack. But Korath almost completely ignored it. He moved just nimbly enough to avoid letting the war golems catch up to him, and their hulking bodies got in the way of Dimples just enough to prevent him from closing in.

But then one of the Rev-8s raised its hand and shot a short, directed beam of energy that slammed into Korath before he could get a shield up—he tumbled backwards and landed on his ass. An attack that looked almost exactly like [Overload], a skill Amelia had lost function for several months ago. It was nowhere near as deadly as [Mana Burst], but its precision made it terrifying.

Amelia rolled out from under a cracked-in-half table and raced over to Korath to help him out. The golems behind her advanced steadily, lowering their swords until they, too, were shooting [Overload] beams at her. She dodged one, but another singed her on the shoulder and cut straight through her clothes.

She activated [Slice]—but her arm would not transform fast enough to be usable. Instead, it rendered her whole right arm a useless mess halfway between limb and blade. It was not enough to block an [Overload] blast for more than a few seconds. The heat turned up, and she pushed to dedirect the beam back at the golem, but to no avail. Instead, a chunk of rock burned off her body and crumbled onto the floor.

Korath got up, jumped around to avoid attacks. A heave of two swords that cut just over his fast-ducking head. He pushed a powerful kinetic blast out from his hands, but it merely fizzled out like a gentle breeze.

Amelia got behind him. Slammed her back against his.

Arm finally transformed with [Slice], minus the part that got burned off. She cut through one golem’s armor plating, revealing even thicker armor underneath. Too much for her body to handle.

Amelia glanced back at Korath, and he exchanged the look.

“Any sign of the dampener?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I think we’re about dead here,” she replied.

“Neither one of us will die. We haven’t completed our life’s work.”

“That’s why I said ‘about.’”

Dimples finally barged past the blockade of Rev 8s and grabbed Amelia by the left arm. Threw her across the room until she smashed into tables and chairs and wood went everywhere.

Before she even got back up, she heard Korath scream more loudly than she had ever heard him.

As she ran back over to the middle of the room, she expected to see his eyes being gouged out, but instead—he was being held up, levitated in the air, crushed from the inside out by Dimples’s force magic. It was weak, almost barely worth considering in a normal instance, but here he unleashed his full torturous power on the necromancer, who was slowly dying with each passing second. The golems stood still, watching and keeping guard.

Amelia, still getting up from the rubble, stopped to wonder if there was really anything she could do, if Korath was practically doomed by this... And then, finally, she saw it.

A tiny device attached to the wall in a precarious spot. Pulsing with faint blue every few seconds, just enough to catch her eye.

The mana dampener!

She jumped into action and ran right through the Rev-8s, right past Dimples, until she reached the wall with her [Slice]-activated arm swinging right at it.

The moment she met it, she had already destroyed it.

The weight off her body suddenly lifted completely.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

She deactivated [Slice] and activated her Boost Module to jump right back into the fight with her fist flying.

“Korath! Now!” she screamed.

Before Dimples had the realization of what was happening, Korath had already managed to push himself away from his grip, had created a large shield around himself that he projected into the cloaked man’s body. It pushed him over and he fell on the ground. The Rev-8s braced for it and stayed steady, but Amelia’s rage-induced attacks kept them unable to concentrate on either one of them.

Finally, Korath had enough footing to unleash a flurry of elemental strikes. Any good necromancer was versed in all the fundamentals of magedom, and Korath was far more than just a good necromancer.

His ice spears stabbed the golems and paused their movement. His fireballs singed their armor plating and activated their automated coolant systems. And his lightning bolts disrupted them completely. They were far too stunned to keep up, even if they were strong enough to resist damage.

Dimples got up, took a step back to distance himself from Korath’s attack, right up against the window.

Amelia stared at his cracked, smiling mask. Right behind him, in the cityscape, the moons shone bright in the sky, including good old Celstus. The man and the moon bore more than a little resemblance, but only one created the kind of dread that Amelia was concerned about.

She jumped up—

Kicked—

And Dimples went flying out the window, falling several stories to the street below. Completely silent besides a single surprised grunt when her foot hit his chest. Now he was gone.

She did not have the time nor desire to check if he survived the fall. If he did, then she would be seeing him again. If he did not, then she would hear about it on the radio in the morning.

Korath looked at the window, then at Amelia. A broad smile stretched out across his face, even as he continued to pelt a storm of attacks on the four Rev-8s that surrounded him.

“Let’s get out of here,” Amelia shouted.

“Just a second.” Korath sent out a massive kinetic wave that stun-locked the Rev-8s, paralyzing them for a good ten seconds. He escaped from the circle they had created around them and joined Amelia’s side.

They left the banquet hall as quickly as they could, exhausted, wounded, and only successful in survivng to another day.

Castien had led them from one trap to another, and they nearly perished in the process.

The chase was over. It had failed.

Or so Amelia had thought.