“They say the Banshee Sect of Yseros is no more, perished long ago for defying the DMA,” Gideon said.

At that, anger rippled across Ilyawraith’s face. She could no longer hide her irritation. It was too raw for her. “Leave that name out of your mouth.”

Gideon chuckled. “Please, you think I care about the DMA? I like to know the names of those I send to the grave. Wouldn’t it be ironic to reanimate you as of one my banshees?”

“It would be delicious,” Bianca said.

Ilyawraith scrutinized him. “Why do you want this Delicacy so bad?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Gideon said.

“You’ve come a long way for just a Delicacy. You sure there’s not some other reason you’re up here?”

Gideon and Bianca exchanged a look. Some information passed between them.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Ilyawraith said. “I think you have people to meet in the Black Ice Wastes. I think you’re in service to beings from the Nether Realms.”

Gideon grunted with amusement. Then he held out his arms wide, his bone scythe still in one hand. “To be forthright, I was becoming a little bored. I find this to be a welcome development!”

He looked over at Bianca again. “So it appears we will have some opposition. How do you feel about that?”

“I find it acceptable,” Bianca said.

“Acceptable,” Gideon said, musing on that word. “It’s not merely just acceptable. I embrace it. With open arms. I welcome a challenge!”

Ilyawraith noticed that Bianca was looking past her.

“They killed your Decay Golems,” Bianca said. “So, that’s something.”

Gideon followed her gaze and saw the remains of his Decay Golems. He started clapping. “Well done! Those aren’t my strongest minions, but it is an accomplishment to defeat one. And they’ve managed to kill two of them! It should be commended.”

Quincy and Fluxwell were helping Tuk-Tuk strike down the banshees. The sonic screams were resounding around the chamber, shattering the ice debris from Ilyawraith’s abilities. It was a sharp and grating cacophony for everyone Bronze-ranked and below.

#

Nay slowly crept past Bianca. The enemy healer didn’t seem to be aware of her presence, even though when Nay used Detect Aura on her she discovered she was Bronze rank. So, it was good that Bianca was unaware of her presence but a bad thing she was a Bronze.

---

[Quest Detected]

[Acquire the Trinket of Ryrbraxus from Gideon the Audacious]

[Reward: Trinket!]

[Reward: Vigor Points]

[Accept Quest Y/N?]

---

She accepted the quest and hoped that Gideon didn’t detect her. She had a better look at his armor and clothing. The armor was straight-up grotesque, like something out of a nightmare. And the fabric of the tunic, robe and pants he wore must have required some prominent wealth. He was the equivalent of one of those people from back in her world that liked to show off their class status by wearing ridiculously expensive name brand clothes and accessories.

As for as Nay was concerned, Gideon could be gently fucked with a chainsaw. She spotted the golden chain on the skin of his neck. It fell behind his tunic. She couldn’t see the trinket itself but knew it was dangling on the end of the chain.

Her mentor was keeping him engaged in conversation to distract him. She was glad she had put on Fluxwell’s armor for this, just in case he sensed her and sent something deadly her way.

She was now so close to him she could smell him. To her surprise, he didn’t smell of decay and rot. Instead there was a rich fragrance to him. He smelled of a dark red wine and the bitter scent of flower petals just on the cusp of withering. Still, he didn’t sense her, even when she stood next to him, holding in her breath as she raised Thorn to slide underneath the gold chain at his neck.

Then he sniffed and his eyes were no longer looking at Ilyawraith. They darted around. Shit. He was looking for the source of this new scent he detected.

So Nay stopped thinking and just acted.

She slid Thorn between the ivory skin of Gideon’s neck and the gold chain connected to the trinket. She used a single motion so he wouldn’t have time to react. She yanked Thornforward and was relieved to discover the edge of the blade cut through the chain.

But the attack caused her to de-Stealth.

And that’s when everything went to hell. She grabbed the necklace and pulled the trinket from out of Gideon’s breastplate, but one of the skeletal arms connected to the back of his armor grabbed her by the nape of the neck and lifted her into the air.

Gideon, not used to being surprised, flinched and looked at Nay, who was in the maugrim armor, next to him. Before he could grab the trinket out of her hands and reclaim it, Ilyawraith attacked.

She rose into the air, spinning Hoarfrost, and a glacial portal materialized in the air above Gideon. A mini-blizzard blasted out of the portal and there was a thunderous clap as the necromancer was suddenly encased in a capsule of ice.

Nay could feel the sharp cold next to her. Her feet were dangling in the air, and everything below the wrist of the skeletal arm holding her was trapped in ice. She had somehow avoided being frozen.

There was a cracking and crinkling below her. Nay looked down to see frost and ice radiate out from the capsule. It reached Bianca and the healer let out a gasp as frost covered her feet and shot up to her knees, slowing her.

The skeletal arm holding Nay snapped and she fell to the ground. She scrambled away from the ice capsule containing Gideon, right into Bianca.

The strange healer snarled and grasped her umbrella and jabbed down at Nay.

The cook had a slow-mo moment where she could see the tip of umbrella was a sharpened point and it was on a course to skewer her breastplate. Without thinking, her two blades crossed in an X above her head and she caught the umbrella, blocking it.

Bianca didn’t hide her anger that an Iron rank dare defy her. But then a wicked smile formed on her face and the umbrella coursed with a purple and black energy. It accumulated into the tip and an inky purple ball of poisonous energy blasted out of the tip of the umbrella and exploded in her face, slipping through the eyeslits in her helm, getting into her suit.

Nay’s vision went white and pain flared up on her face, chest and shoulders as if she had been dashed in acid. It burned something horrendous and it took her a moment to realize the screams she was hearing were her own.

Then she felt Lain’s healing beam focused on her, cleansing her of the toxic purple energy. Her vision returned and sure enough Lain’s hoop was above her, healing her.

Bianca was lying on the floor and blood was trickling from her forehead. Ice crystals speckled her face. Nay realized Ilyawraith had struck the girl across the face with Hoarstrike.

That’s when the ice capsule turned black and started to vibrate. Cracks started to form along its surface. A shadow appeared in the ice, accumulating mass and growing in form. There was another dark presence in there with Gideon.

Ilyawraith went to strike the ice capsule and Gideon within it. The final blow. But the ice capsule exploded and Hoarfrost never struck the necromancer. The shadow presence had absorbed the bo’s tip. It had grown into the form of a humungous spiked shadow ball. Flickering red eyes of flame formed in its center.

Ilyawraith retracted her staff and spiked inky tendrils extended out. One pierced Ilyawraith’s neck and the other found Nay, piercing her chest.

For Nay, everything suddenly felt cold. As if a dark presence was sitting on her chest. Some sleep paralysis demon immobilizing her. Then she felt a diminishing of her spirit. It was a violation of not just her body, but her very soul.

She used True Eye to see that the vigor in her spirit veins were flowing from her body and into the spiked tendril in her chest. The vigor left her body and traveled along the shadow appendages into the shadowy presence. It was feeding on her.

Below it, she saw color return to Gideon’s face and he rose from the ground, brushing the pieces of ice off himself. There was a tendril spike inside his chest. He was absorbing Nay and Ilyawraith’s vigor, healing and reviving himself.

He petted the red-eyed ball of shadow. “Good boy.” He said something else to it and another spike extended into a tendril and pierced Bianca’s neck. It began feeding her the stolen vigor. She opened her eyes, conscious again.

As Nay was frozen in paralysis, watching helplessly as her life force was transferred to someone else, Bianca rose to her feet and held her umbrella in the air. Titian motes of healing rained out of it, falling over her and Gideon, restoring them even more.

“I am absolutely delighted,” Gideon said. “That’s the first time the Vampiric Fiend summon triggered since I was in true danger. That was the closest I’ve come to death in a long time. I mean that in almost dying myself. If you can’t tell, death with a capital D is somewhat a specialty of mine.”

Then he looked down at his chest. His free hand went to check for the necklace and he discovered it was gone. He looked at Nay, who was still clutching the necklace and trinket in her fist in her paralysis as the Vampiric Fiend fed on her.

“Very clever!” Gideon said. “And you’re only an Iron too? Oh, how I’d kill to have an Iron pupil with such potential!”

He walked to her and reached out for the necklace. He tugged on it, but Nay held onto it tight. So he went to bend her fingers back when there was a violent shift in the atmosphere.

Two things had happened.

The first thing was Nom had drilled into the Vampiric Fiend. The necromantic shadow minion expanded in size and its spiked tendrils retracted from both Nay and Ilyawraith, freeing them.

It wrapped itself around Nom and the thing shot into the air and across the chamber, the two creatures of shadow and void battling each other.

The second thing that happened was a crossbow bolt collided off some kind of vigor shield surrounding Bianca. It had saved the healer. Then Quincy had landed next to her and backhanded her in the face with Samuel, his crossbow.

He drew his axe but Gideon’s bone scythe met it before he could hurt the healer. A huge skeletal fist exploded out of the ground at Quincy’s side and punched him away from the necromancer.

Then Gideon rose into the air and all the loose bones in the vicinity levitated with them. They started to assemble. A dome of bones formed over their heads. Decreasing the size of the battlefield.

“Welcome to the Bone Dome, peasants.” Bianca said.

“Oh yeah?!” Nom said, his head sticking out of the side of the Vampiric Fiend, the two creatures flying by. “I lost my virginity in a Bone Dome! This does nothing but excite me!”

Bianca stared at the tentacle as he disappeared in the tussle with the fiend. Her expression said she wasn’t used to such a casual level of defiance.

Ilyawraith flew into the air and met Gideon. The two exchanges blows in a dance of bo and scythe. Bo shattered bone and bruised skin. Scythe drew blood.

But Lain and Bianca, the two healers, focused on sustaining Ilyawraith and Gideon as they fought. Whoever could support their target better would help decide the outcome of the evenly matched duel of Silvers.

Bianca healed Gideon, the whole time staring down Lain. She had a little naughty smirk on her face, as if she was trying to establish dominance over the Gloom Ranger healer. The umbrella spun in her hands, shooting out a kaleidoscope of glowing titian light. She was generating an absurd amount of healing. It kept Gideon intact and fighting.

Nay went into stealth and felt a rush of air. She looked and saw Fluxwell arriving, except there was a huge humanoid form behind him.

A huge tree trunk replaced the maugrim, slamming into the ground. Bone and dust filled the air.

They all looked up to see the new arrival. It was the ogre who had been fighting skeletons in front of the tree.

The Njorbane.