Raz chipped away at the stone floor under the ritual circle’s outer ward. When he used the Skill properly, it was more like stone slowly melted into the configuration he wanted, but he wasn’t able to use it that smoothly right now. He was far too worried about the fighting outside and couldn’t maintain his attention span.

For these purposes, this was good enough. Raz maintained that to himself even though he knew Aki would be nagging at him to do better; it was good practice, she’d say. Or perhaps she’d say that smooth was fast; it did feel like there was a delay every time he activated the Skill. Whatever she said, Raz was sure she’d be right. He just couldn’t. Not when -

A knife whipped through the doorway, impacted on the thin air over the edge of the ward to Raz’s right, and fell to the floor with a pair of loud clangs. Raz winced as the Skill dropped again; this time he hadn’t even managed to remove a chunk of stone. He’d separated it a little, but it was still attached on the sides. That was the worst one yet; most of the time, they hit outside the doorway, on the doorframe or even the walls of the corridor.

Hurrying up only made Raz slower, but he still tried to hurry. No one else here had a Skill for stonework, apparently.

The next interruption wasn’t a knife; it was something far worse. A groan came from the corner of the room and Legion sank to the ground, clutching his chest. Raz knew he hadn’t been hit by anything; that was entirely the wrong place. Everything was hitting the other side of the room; that was why Legion was in the corner he was in. “Legion? What’s wrong?”

“I will not,” Legion stated without looking up at Raz. “Never again. I am no one’s tool and you will not make me one. I am myself. I AM LEGION!” He was shouting by the end, but still didn’t seem to notice Raz.

Raz stopped what he was doing, squeezed by the tight spot where the ward came close to the wall, and went to Legion’s safe spot. He knelt next to the man. “What happened? Can I help?”

This time, Legion looked up. His eyes were always a little greenish, but they were more than that now. They glowed a deep green, but it wasn’t the green glass color his eyes normally showed. It was more blue than that and it seemed to waver and swirl through the parts of his eyes that should have been a white only lightly tinted with green. He took a breath that sounded almost painful. “No. I, we need to leave. You need to finish as fast as you can. Dig more out, finish the tile. Once one’s loose, we can remove it and run.”

Legion closed his eyes. Raz wasn’t sure if he should be glad about having the weird color hidden or not, but he scooted back around to the tile he’d been working on. He was most of the way done. He’d probably already be done if he could just smack the tile to break the last bits off, but that ran into the ward and stopped it, even if he smacked the bottom of the tile. He’d tried.

Raz had barely gotten back to work when the token he wore on a cord around his neck buzzed. He grabbed it so that Ita could talk to him instead of just telling him she wanted to talk. “Ita? What’s wrong now?”

“Legion,” Ita stated succinctly. “What’s your status?”

Raz glanced over at Legion. “Legion’s on the floor. He told me to keep going, but he shouted at something. Something about not being a tool?”

Ita’s sigh carried clearly over the communication spell. “Yes. What else?”

“I’m close,” Raz said. “Another few minutes. They’re still fighting in the hallway. The Viper keeps throwing his daggers at Zanzital, I don’t know where he gets so many, but none have hit me yet. I haven’t dared check the hallway in a while, they’re too close, but I’m sure Daryl and Gabriel are still out there too.”

“No change other than Legion, got it.” Ita paused. Raz thought she was done, but before he dropped his hand she said one more thing. “Remember what Serenity said about a way to defeat the Hollow One ritual. We’re gathering some animal hearts, but if you happen to have any dead bodies available…”

Raz froze. Hollow Ones sounded more like a bard’s story than a real spell, but he couldn’t say the story hadn’t haunted him for a few nights after Serenity’s description. “Legion’s eyes are glowing. They’re sort of a blue-green.”

Ita didn’t reply immediately. When she did answer, she sounded slightly distracted. “Can’t pull you out without leaving Legion behind if you’re separated. Probably can’t get the Silver Blades out either. Put the portal token somewhere safe and away from you; I’ll send the hearts through as soon as I can. It probably won’t help Legion, but give - was yours a male? Him one anyway. I’ll try to hold the portal long enough for you to escape.”

Somehow, that wasn’t reassuring. Raz tossed the token down between himself and Legion anyway; a portal out and maybe something to protect himself seemed worth trying for. It was the only safe place for it; the other direction was still collecting daggers and he didn’t want one to fly through an open portal and hit Ita.

Raz returned to removing stone from under the metal tile he wanted to knock out of place. He didn’t even realize he was done until he heard a soft chink noise from in front of him. Raz’s first reaction was to look for the dagger that must have bounced across the room; it was only when he didn’t find a dagger that he realized the tile he’d been undermining had fallen.

Raz cautiously tossed a Magebolt into the warded area. He didn’t aim it well, since he expected it to be stopped; it was really aimed more at the wall that had been there than at anything in specific. It flew across the room and smacked surprisingly gently into the far wall.

He was glad he hadn’t put much mana into it. More mana wouldn’t have changed anything other than make a slightly bigger tiny divot in the far wall.

He was supposed to remove the tile next, so Raz pulled out the silk cloth Rissa had provided. It wasn’t as good as proper gloves, but they didn’t have any silk gloves that would fit Raz’s hands. She’d only brought a few pairs, and they were in her size and Serenity’s; Raz was pretty sure that only those two and one of the Legions had hands that really fit the gloves. Everyone else had cloth to use instead. It probably wasn’t necessary, but Raz wasn’t about to argue against taking simple precautions. Aki was always firm about that.

The tile was heavy, but lighter than Raz expected. That was probably because of the holes cut out of the metal. He’d also done a better job of removing stone from the underside than he thought he would.

Raz looked over at Legion. “It’s clear, seems to be broken-”

A tear in space appeared in front of Raz, where he’d left the token. That had to be the hearts; it looked just like one of Ita’s portals.

Serenity stepped through the portal carrying a collection of small bags, each with their own animal heart inside. The delay to collect the hearts was long enough that Serenity decided to join the Silver Blades in their fight and try to get the others out; there was enough time for Ita to set up two portals, after all, and they were done at their location.

Neither Rissa nor Blaze had argued. Ita had, but not for long.

Serenity’s surroundings were a small square room with an odd circle, once again made of metra, in the middle. Serenity didn’t have time to do more than confirm there was no mana running through it and capture a picture; he needed to get Raz and Legion out of here.

“Raz, I see you broke it. Good. Take it through with you, that way it can’t be reestablished. Legion-” Serenity stopped when he saw the man. He was curled up on the floor, clearly suffering. “Legion, can you walk or do you need help?”

“I can walk.” Legion sounded just as bad as he looked, but he slowly got to his feet.

Serenity pulled a pair of bags out of the group he carried and tucked the rest over his belt. That would have to do until he could deliver them properly. “Here, each of you take one, then get through the portal. Ita will close it; she’ll open another for the rest of us.”

Serenity stepped over the edge of the circle to deliver a heart to the slowly-moving Legion, then returned the same way to hand one to Raz. The circle was broken and there was no mana flowing through it, so it was nothing more than a fancy design on the floor now.

A dagger whistled through the air and bounced off the wall beyond the ward. Serenity watched the trajectory then watched the dagger itself. It was clearly the physical component of a Skill; mana clung to it for a bit after it landed. It wasn’t innately magical or created the way Serenity’s duplicating daggers were; instead, it seemed to be a mundane object used as a carrier for a Skill.

Serenity couldn’t tell what the Skill was from the residue on the dagger; there were people who could, but he wasn’t one of them. Instead, he had to guess. His guess was a poison or venom of some sort; after all, the man was called the Viper.

Raz helped Legion through the portal, then it closed.

Serenity took that time to shift his armor to show his own scales. While it might be handy to confuse the Viper for a moment, it was more important to not confuse his own side. Additionally, dragonscale was a far better material for defense than runeclam shell.

There was no way to see into the corridor. Serenity grumbled to himself, “I have got to invest in some tools when I get home.” There had to be options he could use; even something as simple as a camera on a cord would help!

The hallway wasn’t straight; nothing in the base was straight other than the more or less squared-up rooms. With that said, almost directly across from this small room was a larger room that wasn’t warded; Serenity’s last check showed that it was empty. If the daggers were flying into the warded room, the other room ought to be a slightly safer place to plan an attack from; just as importantly, getting there would give him a quick look at what was going on in the hall.

He moved quickly past the opening and ran for the doorway on the opposite side of the hall. He took in the situation without stopping; he didn’t even try to open the door. Instead, he crashed through it. It was made of local wood, hollow, and just as flimsy as he’d hoped; it didn’t even slow him down much as he went through it.

The situation in the hall was odd. He only saw Zanzital, but Zanzital seemed to be attacking an open spot in the air. There wasn’t even an illusion there hiding solidity. Despite that, a dagger materialized from the air as Serenity went by and whipped past both him and Zanzital; it didn’t seem particularly well aimed.

At the far end of the corridor, Serenity could see Daryl; he seemed to be shooting the same patch of open air. Serenity saw an arrow pass right through it, in a spot where the Viper should have been if he’d actually thrown the dagger. Gabriel was barely visible, tucked around a curve in the hallway.

Serenity already knew Legion’s last body inside the complex was quite a bit farther down that hallway in the mystery warded room that Serenity now suspected was the actual Hollow One ritual. Where was the Viper?

Lillene

I had several different ways this could work out, but this way seems the most natural; Raz and Legion don't belong in a fight between Tier Eight to Ten people.

Yet. Give them ten years and that might be different.