“We’ve got a hit, people!” shouted Abhi, rousing the other researchers and accompanying soldiers out of their unsteady slumber. “Traces of rune magic in the outskirts of Lingenwalden!”

  “The enemy capital?” asked Arla, rubbing at her eyes while trying to suppress a yawn. “Isn’t that where they were summoned in the first place?”

  “Which enemy?” shot back another researcher who didn’t even bother to cover her mouth as she let out her own massive yawn. “Last I checked, everyone in this World is TOAL’s enemy.”

  Arla returned a quick glare before replying. “The enemy of king Reginald, the ones who summoned your children in the first place? I figured you’d be able to piece that together from the context I gave.”

  “Gimme a break, I still haven’t drunk my coffee yet,” replied the researcher as she dragged herself out of the padded chair and towards a table in the corner of the room.

  “Give it a rest, Helen,” shouted Abhi. “We’ve got more important things to do than pick a fight with someone who’s here to help us.”

  The cranky woman, Helen, replied with a grumble as she poured herself a cup of the brown, lukewarm drink from the far-off table. A quick fire spell later and it was back to moderately warm. Good enough, in other words.

  “So, Abhi,” began the ex-court mage with clasped hands and a beguiling smile. “What will we do now? Perhaps something with rune magic to teleport the kids out of there, now that you know where they are? I’m sure someone as smart as you can come up with a clever plan to save the day!”

  “Hm?” said Abhi, letting what he interpreted as Arla’s enthusiasm feed into his own. “Nope! We’re going to hit them really hard!”

  “Hit them? …like with a sword?” asked the robed woman, caught off guard by the unexpected response.

  “Of course!” exclaimed the young researcher with a bright smile. “And with something a little more than just a sword.”

---

  It was about 4 in the morning local time. A combination of caffeine and circadian rhythm-shifting magic kept the camouflaged men and women approaching the old stone fort wide awake, the silent figures all hypervigilant and ready to intercept any threats that stood in the path to their destination.

  “This is Squad Charlie checking in,” replied a young man into the small microphone built into his helmet. “We have visuals on the target structure. Will commence our attack as soon as we reach the back walls. Over.”

  “Bzzt,” crackled the radio, the listener on the other side of the connection getting ready to reply. “Squad Charlie, this is base camp. Basic divinations show that the biggest concentration of bodies is at the center. Take it slow and stealthy until you get there, over.”

  “Roger that basecamp. Let’s save some lives, over.” The camouflaged man disconnected the call and turned to look at the figures following along beside him.

  “So what’s the plan, Scout? Shoot to kill everything that moves?” asked a woman, her voice clear through the speakers in each of their helmets. She removed the rifle strapped to her back and held it tightly in her arms, her right index finger placed on top of the trigger guard. Beneath the soldier’s opaque head covering was a wide grin that promised violence.

  “That joke got old years ago,” scoffed the leader, before turning back to the rest of his team. “We’re going to climb over the outer walls, and silently take out anyone we meet until we make it to the central chamber.”

  “And then we start shooting indiscriminately?” chuckled another member of Squad Charlie, a somewhat older man with a gruff voice.

  “We start shooting the enemy indiscriminately. Not the kids. Should be easy to remember. And I swear to god, I will have whoever makes a school shooting joke court martialed. Any questions?”

  The others remained silent.

  “Good, time to get going, then. And let’s show them the meaning of our callsign.”

  “Pop pop and stainless steel,” whispered the others in unison.

  The lone sound of dried grass crunching beneath boots was all that could be heard as Squad Charlie approached the eroding stone structure. The only ears that could hear them belonged to the nocturnal animals in their way, who quickly fled in fear of the strange newcomers. The cloudy moonlit night did not betray Squad Charlie’s position, as they set themselves up by the outer walls.

  The soldier at the front took out a pair of white, circular pads and fastened them to his knees, followed by another pair secured to his palms, both sets facing outwards. Once the others had done the same, Scout placed his right hand on the stone edifice and pulled at the structure to test the strength of his grip on the eroding material. It was good and solid.

  With a leap, the rest of the soldier’s white pads attached themselves to the outer wall alongside their commander. Now that everyone was ready, Scout began to climb the crumbling facade, the rest of his team following right behind him. Once at the top, the camouflaged man carefully regarded the empty yard before him through his visor, lightly tapping it twice to cycle through its settings, and jumped down onto its overgrown grass once he was satisfied.

  “Way’s clear, everyone,” he whispered into his mic. “Detect Life shows no sign of enemies, and Detect Magic shows no traps or autonomous guards.”

  The others jumped down one at a time upon receiving their leader’s confirmation. As they all grouped back together, each member pulled out either a rifle, pistol, or metal cylinder from their holsters, wielding and pointing them ahead to the detriment of who or whatever was unlucky enough to make their acquaintance that night.

  “So why do you think they’re here of all places?” asked one of the soldiers, the same lady who jokingly advocated for indiscriminate shooting. Her jocular demeanor was now replaced by a laser focused sincerity. “I thought the kids were deployed before they escaped? It doesn’t make sense that they ended up back so close to where they were summoned.”

  “Maybe they weren’t deployed that far away? Or they came back here looking for a way home?” posited another soldier. “Or maybe blackops just shat the bed with the intel they gathered?”

  “No way, blackops wouldn’t fuck up like that,” replied Scout while shaking his head. “More likely that whoever the enemy king put in charge of grabbing our kids just lied on their reports. I mean, you’ve seen the kind of ship these people run, I wouldn’t put it past ‘em.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them to have already let our kids get away again!” replied the woman with a snicker.

  The others broke out into muffled laughs, Scout being the first to recover. “Come on, don’t say things like that. I just want to get them out of here as soon as possible. And we’re approaching the main building, so radio silence, people.”

  The others nodded and pushed back the rest of their laughter with a series of deep breaths and depressing thoughts. With the chuckles now exorcised from their systems, Squad Charlie made their way to a closed wooden door held in place by a pair of rusted hinges. The team leader cycled through his visors once more and held up two fingers, before pointing his other hand at two spots along the wall on opposite sides of the door.

  Understanding the expression, the others nodded and a pair of pistol wielders began fastening a pair of metal cylinders onto the barrels of each of their weapons. A third soldier, one holding the metal canister, swapped it out for a vial filled with a sickly, green liquid. After uncapping the bottle, they carefully poured the fluid over each of the hinges, causing the metal to emit a soft fizzing sound as potent acid ate through the already weakened material.

  Scout nodded at the others as they got into position. He held up his hand again, this time with three fingers. Two fingers. One…

  With a swift and steel-toed kick, the door fell to the ground in a loud, yet flat thud. In rushed the pistol wielders, one turning right and the other left, weapons aimed down either side of the long hallway they found themselves in. At the end of their sights were a pair of guards, dressed in steel chest plates painted with the insignia of the local king, a green dragon wearing a turtle shell.

  “Whump, whump, whump,” silently went the first pistol. “Whump, whump,” went the second. Before either medieval warrior could process what was going on, they were left with several gaping holes in their chests, and for the one on the right, one in his head. They collapsed to the ground in similar fashion to the door, with nothing more than a soft whimper and empty thud.

  Scout made his way in soon after, holding out a thumbs up to signal the all-clear. With the rest of the soldiers now together, they made their way into the fortress proper with rifles raised, ready to rescue their children.

  The way to the inner sanctum was relatively clear, with no more than a few additional guards posted just for show. After all, nobody was supposed to know of what was happening there, so what was the need for much security? A few more silenced pistol shots were all it took to dispose of them.

  Eventually, the group arrived at the central room, standing before a pair of thick iron doors whose hinges were nailed into the stone on the other side. Each member took a slow breath as they readied themselves for the final push, the last attack before their mission would be complete and they could all go home safely.

  Scout cycled through his visors and counted the bodies inside. 5 fingers, 4 fingers. 9 bodies. He held his hand horizontally and raised it above his head. Tall, all adults. The others looked on warily, knowing height wouldn’t be enough to tell them apart and that they’d have to take the time to exercise caution when they chose who to shoot. The leader made a fist and expanded his fingers, wiggling them around as he did.

  The squadmate with the bottle nodded and produced a sheet of paper inscribed with brightly colored glyphs, along with a brick of gray, putty-like substance. He slid the parchment under the door and began rolling the clay-like material into long logs, pushing it into the gap between the walls and doors just opposite of the hinges on the other side.

  With a final thumbs up, everyone was ready and took several steps away from the sealed entryway. The pistol wielders switched to assault rifles as Scout began to count down. 5 fingers, 4, 3, 2, 1…

  The plastic explosives placed on the gaps detonated, blasting the stone bricks holding the hinges into rubble. A massive blast of light and sound came from the glyph-covered paper, blinding and deafening everyone within the room.

  Wordlessly, the members of Squad Charlie flooded into the chamber as the metal doors fell, rifles raised and ready to drop bodies. Inside was a group of white-robed men and women gathered around a large circle carved into the ground, surrounded by several guards. They were in various states of stupefaction, and were entirely unable to react to the apparent attack.

  “By Allivaine!” shouted several of the robed figures, clutching at their eyes and ears. “What sort of sorcery is this?!”

   That was all Squad Charlie needed to hear. Gunshots went off as bullets flew across the room, penetrating everyone inside indiscriminately.

  As the smoke settled from the explosives, the assault team regarded the damage. 9 dead bodies, none of them the kids from Earth.

  “Happy now?” asked one of the soldiers to the wisecracking woman. “Looks like the kids already got away after all.”

  “…No,” she replied with a pout. “But maybe we don’t even have to bother chasing them if they can take care of themselves.”

  Nobody laughed at the joke. Rather, it was met with frustrated sighs and tired looks.

  “Hold on, what’s with the circle?” asked Scout, walking over to the carving the robed figures were standing over. ”It’s covered in runes! Were they trying to summon more kids? I thought we destroyed their old ones!”

  “Wait, this doesn’t look like a summoning ritual,” replied one of the other soldiers, pulling out a flip phone. “I’m going to send a picture of this thing to Abhi, he should be able to figure it out.” He snapped a few photos and with a few more button presses, sent them out.

  “Let’s hope he can figure out what’s going soon,” grimaced Scout. “There’s only so much more we can all take, the kids included.”

  The rest of Squad Charlie nodded. Despite their leader’s well wishes, they had a feeling that they’d be here for much longer.

---

  Far away from the crumbling fortress in the concrete-reinforced camp, Abhi paced around the research team’s tent, eyes focused on the image being displayed on the wall. Between footsteps, he let out various grumbles and sighs. The other researchers were off to bed, confident that their jobs were done and they could rest easy. With the news received from the deployed assault team, the lone man they’d left on night-shift duty had to disagree with his peers’ sentiments.

  “So no kids, then?” asked Arla, snapping the young man out of his stupor.

  “Nope, but we’ve got something worse,” he replied grimly.

  “Worse than the kids? I thought we were trying to rescue them?”

  “Wha- no, not like that,” he shook his head. “I mean, what we have here is worse than nothing.”

  “I know, I was just making a joke,” carefully replied Arla, holding a cautious smile on her lips. “But why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

  The Indian man slowly exhaled, letting the worst of his frustrations flow out with his breath. “We found a runic circle there.”

  “As in rune magic? Is it another portal?”

  Abhi nodded. “Rune magic? Yes. But thankfully no, it’s not another portal. The tier of runes in it are all tier 7, just below the ones they were using before. The design for their old portal won’t work with weaker runes, so there’s nothing to worry about there.”

  “I see. How are runes weaker? Couldn’t they just stash away a copy of their old notes and use those?”

  “Rune magic doesn’t work that way,” the young man shook his head. “Every time you copy it down, it loses some of its potency. So what we took away from them was the master copy, and any reproductions would be weaker variants that won’t work for portals.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “That there’s a rudimentary tracking spell, to find the kids.”

  “And? Your soldiers killed them all, so it’s not like they can use it anymore.”

  “That’s the thing, they shouldn’t have had that ritual in the first place!” exclaimed Abhi, turning to face the robed sorceress with bulging eyes. “For a kingdom that’s only known rune magic for less than a month, how did they figure out how to set up something as complicated as this? Do you think Reggie’s doing the same thing back in Valenloft?”

  Arla looked down towards the floor, her cheeks beginning to flush in indignation. If she hadn’t quit her old job to work with TOAL, she would’ve been put in charge of that. Yet, the inner workings and theory behind the image projected above her utterly eluded her grasp. Maybe it was a good thing she quit?

  “We’ve never had competition like this before,” sighed Abhi, finding himself a spot to ease himself down onto, placing a hand on his head in resignation. “But we might have an answer.”

  The robed woman looked up at the young man, snapped out of her own depressive stupor by a sudden feeling of curiosity.

  He began to mumble to himself, pouring his mind over the situation and forcing his brain to come up with an answer, any answer. “I could… no. How about? Blackops team… nah. The tier 5 runes?”

  At first he had her curiosity, now he had Arla’s full and undivided attention.

  “Have to get them to bring it here and install it in the scanner,” he continued, heedless of those around him as his brain latched onto their one hope and ran through it. “Gotta sign a release form, but that’ll be easy. Better have it by the morning.” The young man quickly turned over to his guest and gave her a quick smile and a nod. “I’m going to have to make some calls, you can head to bed in your tent if you’d like, or help yourself to more coffee.”

  “Thank you, Abhi,” she nodded back with a spokeswoman-quality smile. “I’m fine staying here for now.”

  Abhi registered her response and wordlessly exited the command room, flip phone in hand.

  Once he was gone, the sorceress looked back at the image still hovering on the wall with a hungry smile. Worthy of her old position or not, she’d catch up to her rivals. She had everything she needed right here, all being delivered to her on a silver platter.