They didn’t find a shortcut cut, and Jace’s group had to reclimb the long flight of stairs up to the Eye.  The room at the top was dim, lit only by the glow of the magical gems in the center.  Elroy, the wizard, waited for them.  “It is good that you return,” he greeted them.  “Our master engages in battle as we speak and requires a fresh dose of power.  Were you successful?”

Jace and his group had resumed their disguises, and the half-orc fighter stepped forward.  “We were.”

“Excellent,” Elroy said.  “Ready the stones,” he ordered and fled toward the room's center, where the Eye pulsed with power.  Jace watched him lift the silver ring that held five stones.  They had looked colorful before, but now that Jace had seen the intense vibrance of the gems his group had collected, he understood the current power supply was running low. Not wanting anything to go to waste, Elroy held the ring just above the Eye and chanted a few words.

Previously, the powerful artifact had been sucking at the stone’s energy imperceptibly.  Now, it drained them quickly, and Jace saw trails of color fleeing the gems as the storm within the Eye tripled in size and intensity.  Soon, all five crystals were empty, and Elroy left the central station and returned to the adventurers.  As he walked, he popped the clear gems out and tossed them into the bin at the side of the room.

“Give me the power you collected,” he insisted, walking right up to the tall half-orc.

Jace hadn’t retrieved the stones from his inventory yet.  “But how does it work?” he asked.  “I mean, how does the power make Captain Cloudspark more powerful?  Isn’t he already a high-level mage.”

Elroy looked annoyed.  “Yes.  He is more capable than any other captain of navigating the seas, combatting enemy ships, and, most of all, controlling the weather.  However, lending him additional storm magic allows him to save his mana for other things.  Now, give me the gems.”

“So the Eye only helps him while he summons storms?” Jace asked.

“No!” Elroy said.  “It gives him strength at all times.  Increasing his spell difficulty, raising his defense against magic, and ensuring high saving throws.  Now give me the stones!”

“Oh, right,” Jace said.  “I forgot.”  He entered his inventory and took his time retrieving the gems.  When he opened his eyes again, he held three stones filled with cold, water, and electricity.  Elroy snapped them out of his massive palm one by one, securing them into the ring and casting crafting magic.  “But you just overloaded the Eye with what was left of those other gems,” Jace said.

Elroy miscast his spell on the last gem and failed to correctly secure it in the ring.  He cursed.  “Captain Cloudspark is about to summon a massive storm,” the mage said, taking a few breaths to collect himself.  “Once he does, he will drain the eye of all its current power and will need fresh magic.  We must get this ring in place at once.”  He successfully cast the spell the second time and turned back to Jace for the rest of the stones.  He didn’t have them.  “Where are . . .”

“What if he only had access to the Eye without the magic we are infusing into it?” Jace interrupted.  “Isn’t it a powerful artifact on its own?”

“With the Eye in his possession, Captain Cloudspark could wield it and destroy any foe, but like all artifacts, the power it can produce each day.  By leaving it here, it has unlimited power as long as we keep it fed.  Now, I need the other . . .”

“But how does the power transfer to him?” Jace asked.  When they had first met, the mage had said he would answer any of their questions.  The shaman was testing to see how strongly that statement was scripted.  So far, he was pleased with the result.

“It is sent through the weather,” Elroy replied, annoyance clearly visible on his face.  “That is why we are so high up.  No matter where our captain is on the seas, we can send power to him through the wind and clouds.  But only if we have a sufficient power source.”  He took a breath.  “Now, no more questions!  Give me the other two stones.”

“Ah, right,” Jace said.  “My bad.”  He turned to his other two companions.  Thursa gave Jace an odd look as he handed over the heat-filled gem.  Wallace stifled a laugh and held out her wind crystal.  Jace took both and returned to the mage.

Elroy looked relieved but neglected the stones momentarily to count the characters before him.  “Did you not have three companions when you entered?  What happened to the woman in black?”

Jace shrugged.  “Do I need to answer your questions?”

The mage shook his head.  “No.  I just thought it was curious.  Did she fall in battle with the elements?”

Jace held out his hand.  “Here are the other two gems.”

Elroy shrugged, took them, and began to load them into the ring.

“What would the impact be if Cloudspark suddenly lost connection with the Eye?” Jace asked, disrupting the mage again.  “How strongly does he rely on it for power?”

Elroy fumbled with the last stone and cursed.  He regained composure and looked up at the half-orc.  “He leans on it heavily while in battle.  Removing would be like stealing a horse from beneath a knight in mid-charge.”

“So, he would definitely fail his next saving throw?” Jace said, adding just enough inflection at the end of the statement to turn it into a question.

“He would,” Elroy agreed, finally snapping the last crystal in place.  “But now he won’t.”  The mage turned quickly from the inquisitive player and strode toward the room’s center.  After taking five steps, he stopped cold.  The Eye was gone.

“What in the realms . . .” he started and then cried out in a celestial language.  Light flooded the room instantly, and all eyes turned to a lithe form standing by a stained-glass window, wrestling with the latch.

“Esther!” Jace cried.  “You should have been gone by now.”

“I don’t do locks!” she shouted back.  Seeing that she was exposed to the room, stealth was no longer an option.  She punched through the window, destroying the beautiful glass, and was about to climb out when two massive swords crossed before her.  She leaped back and swore as she saw two of the mammoth armored knights come to life and bar her exit.

“Fools!” Elroy cried.  “You can’t hope to escape.”  A massive portcullis slammed down over the one legitimate exit to the room.  “You will not stand a chance against my . . .”

“Thursa,” Jace said, and the druid was already taking action, transforming into a grizzly bear and tackling the talkative mage to the ground before he could get off a spell.

Jace dropped his half-orc persona and drew Diamond Etcher.  Wallace didn’t need a round to prepare and was already engaging the knights around them.  Three chased Esther, and a pair withdrew to deal with the paladin.  Jace had another few seconds to drop an Armor and Damage Sink totem in the room and joined the fun.

Wallace couldn’t fight two of the foes at once.  Her shield and armor were sufficient against one, but a raised shield was directional, and with the other knight flanking her, it hit her for massive damage two rounds in a row.  “Jace, I need help!”

Jace answered and assaulted one of her enemies with his sword.  Wallace also had difficulty dealing damage as her powerful weapon bounced harmlessly off the enchanted armor.  Diamond Etcher had no problem with it and sliced open his target like he was shredding a tin can.  Unfortunately, the visible destruction didn’t result in damage, as the knight’s health didn’t drop.  Once he peeled away a significant section of the breastplate, he could see why.

“They’re empty,” he cried.  “They're just metal suits with no health to destroy.”

“Not possible,” Wallace said, finding an opening against her enemy and getting a breather after shield bashing it against the wall.  She turned to look at Jace’s opponent.  “At least I don’t think it is possible.”  She couldn’t deny the suit looked empty.  “Let’s trade.”

The paladin’s combatant was picking itself up from the wall, and Jace stepped in front of his friend to block his charge, successfully parrying the massive blows and then returning a strike that began dismantling its armor.  Wallace maneuvered past the giant orc, raised her shield to block the knight's strike, and thrust her weapon deep into its exposed chest.  Its health plummeted.

“They’re spirits!” Wallace cried in glee.  “They are undead spirits inside.”

“Great,” Jace said, cutting into his new enemy and watching his enchanted blade pass right through its torso.  “We have to fight the Nazgul.”  He parried a few more strikes and then smashed his opponent back with his crosspiece.  “Elroy!” Jace called.  “How do we kill them?”  He turned to look at the mage, hoping his necessity of answering questions extended to battle strategy.

Thursa was finishing his kill, shredding the Helpless mage binned beneath the giant bear.  He wouldn’t be answering any more questions.

“No,” Wallace said.  “This is good.  I can kill them.”

Jace looked up from the dead mage to see Wallace had taken her enemy to half health.  “How are you hitting them?”

“You have your skills; I have mine,” she replied.  She blocked another strike and dealt a critical blow to her wounded foe.  It fell to the ground in a crumpled pile of metal.  “You slice them up, and I’ll . . .”

A scream from the far side of the room cut her off.  “Help!” Esther cried.

Thursa looked up with rage in his eyes and reacted before Jace could.  His bear form leaped as if launched from a trebuchet, launching across the room and tackling one of the massive knights assaulting the rogue.  Esther hadn’t taken too much damage yet, but the undead constructs had pinned her against the wall and closed any avenue to Dodge.

The flying grizzly smashed one knight into the metal bars of a window to its left, crumpling its shoulder so severely that it could no longer wield a two-handed weapon.  Jace followed right after, slicing up the knight on Esther’s other side.  The suit of armor Jace had been craving up thought it had an opportunity to strike the mighty orc from behind, but Wallace stepped in to intercept and buried her vorpal blade into its exposed side.

The fight didn’t last much longer than that.  The enraged bear took more damage than the rest of the group combined, but that was his fighting style.  The druid could also heal himself without potions, so a round after the last knight fell, they were ready for more action.

“How do we get out of here?” Wallace asked.  They had been hoping the portcullis guarding the exit would retract once the knights were killed, but it didn’t.  Also, they could hear quite the racket coming from the stairway.  “It sounds like an army is approaching.”

“We go through the window,” Esther said.  Several of the stained-glass portals had been shattered during the fight, and the rogue used one of her rapiers to knock out the last few jagged shards of the one that overlooked the harbor most directly.

“I can’t climb down that wall,” Wallace said.  “Not with a million potions.”

“I can’t either,” Jace said.  “Besides, it would take too long, and those enemies charging up at us could pick us off with arrows.  No, we jump.”

“Are you crazy!  I can’t do that either.”

“It’s only fifty feet to the water,” Esther said, leaning out the window and admiring the nighttime view with the numerous tiny lights below.  “If you get enough forward momentum, you will carry to the wat easily.  There are two empty spots by the dock right now.  You can’t miss.”

“Yes, I can,” Wallace insisted.  “I’m sorry I have pedestrian stats compared to you, but not everyone has infinite Athletic ability.  I can barely climb a tree in this armor.”

“Then take it off,” Esther said.

“That takes four rounds,” the paladin said.  Noise from stairs drew her attention.  “We don’t have the time.”

“I can throw you,” Thursa said.  He was still a grizzly, and his red eyes showed his Rage ability was still active.

Wallace looked between her companion, Jace, and the window Esther had just cleared.  “I don’t like it,” she said.

“It’s our only choice,” Jace said.  As if to punctuate his comment, an arrow thudded into his chest.  They turned to see two archers lining up shots on the players.  Firing through the closed portcullis in the dark stole some of their accuracy, but nobody wanted to wait to see if they could activate Death Shot.

Esther ran first, stepping up to the window ledge and leaping far out into the night sky.  She did a double forward summersault to show off and hit the water far over the dock, knifing into the harbor headfirst in a dive.  Jace was next and took two more arrows as he lumbered toward the window and leaped through.  His massive orc body cleared the docks by only fifteen feet, and he did a cannonball that drenched characters three ship slots over.

Wallace had a tower shield out and raised against the oncoming arrows.  She peaked at the growing force on the other side of the portcullis and saw a fire mage preparing to attack.  She also saw someone with a key pushing to get access to the locked door.  “It has to be now,” Thursa said.  Without waiting for approval, he picked up his leader, carried her over to the window, and hurled her out just as a fireball exploded behind her.

The paladin awkwardly tumbled through the air, only able to spot her potential landing spot once every couple of seconds as she flipped and turned.  It looked like she would make it when a ship suddenly filled her landing zone.  A player captain must have chosen the option to skip the transit back to port, and Wallace had no chance of clearing it.  Instead, she hit the mainsail, her armor and shield catching and ripping on the fabric.  It slowed her descent somewhat but also added to her cartwheeling flight.  She bounced off two cross beams and had just enough coordination to get her tower shield under her as she hit the deck hard, crashing straight through the wood and into the lower crew quarters.

The beds were mostly vacant, and the game was generous with the damage she took as she landed on an empty mattress, destroying a triple-layered bunk.  Wallace sprang from the ground, happy her pain settings were low, and quickly climbed through the hole in the deck to see Thursa splash down successfully next to the boat.

Wallace was met by a very startled crew, including two level 13 players who wondered if they should be attacking the knight.  Wallace didn’t give them time to consider it further and stormed off the boat, managing the short jump to the dock.  Arrows flew down around her, and she fled to the stone wall where stairs led back to the ground level.  By flattening herself against the wall, the archers from the tower no longer had an angle to hit her.  They must have opened the portcullis and stormed the room.  Instead of more arrows, they shouted down with orders to catch her.

As Wallace wondered where she could run, she looked up from the wall to see the crew of the ship she had just wrecked zeroing in on her.  Archers drew their weapons, and casters readied spells.  She raised her shield again and cast a spell to boost her Magic Defense.  Lightning and fire stormed around her as arrows thudded against her shield.  Her health dropped again, but her Paladin defenses held for a round.

She realized if this ship was docking here, it must work for Cloudspark, and they would obey any orders shouted from the tower.  When the second volley attacked her and was significantly reduced, she lowered her shield for a moment and saw that Thursa had climbed out of the water and was wreaking havoc on the ship.  He set fires, overturned barrels, and threw a few people overboard.

Wallace trusted the NPC to handle himself and raced up the stairs.  When she reached the cobbled street, she was back in range of the archers above, but they had pulled back from the window when they had lost their shot, and she guessed the army was now running back down the stairs to cut off her exit.

The player only knew how to leave the way Jace had led her in, through the narrow entrance to this courtyard, and she ran in that direction.  More shouts followed her, and she saw activity in the bottom level of the Silver Dragon as characters took up the chase.  An arrow hit her in the back, but she couldn’t take the time to raise her shield in that direction.  She couldn’t run and raise a tower shield simultaneously and was more concerned with attacks coming from the front.

The two guards that had let them in now opposed her fifty feet ahead.  They raised their crossbows, and the weapons glowed with magical energy as sparks energized the taut mechanism.  Holding the tower shield even without raising it still gave her a bonus against ranged attacks, and she didn’t think she could afford to take the time to slow to a walk.  If she did, the guards would have time to fire a second time, and she would have to stay moving slowly, allowing her pursuers to attack.  Instead, she gritted her teeth and waited for the lighting attacks.

They never came.

The guard on the left buckled suddenly and cried out as his health dropped to zero.  He fell to the ground as Esther emerged from the shadows behind him, one of her rapiers impaled in his back.  The other guard turned to unload on the now Flat-Footed opponent at point-blank range, but Diamond Etcher swept in at the last second, hitting him with a triple critical and taking his head.

Wallace hated them for their improvised escape plan but couldn’t help but love them for saving her skin now.  She kept charging, wondering why she wasn’t taking more damage from behind.  As she neared the exit, she heard a roar behind her and saw a massive grizzly bear bounding through the night, his hide a collection of arrows and lightning-scorched fur.  They passed through the exit from Cloudspark’s stronghold, and the pursuit stopped.

The commercial area of Thunder Island was a Hostile Non-PVP zone.  NPCs could attack, but most of the pursuit had been orchestrated by players, and they were now powerless to affect Jace’s crew.  Plus, the city guards were in charge outside the stronghold and would need evidence before they allowed hostile actions against the characters.

Wallace held her curses in check as they rushed through the crowded bazaar.  Jace resumed his half-orc illusion and stored his recognizable blade in his inventory.  Esther was a sexy librarian again and offered her last healing potion to the paladin as a peace offering.  Enacting their disguises hid that they were both soaking wet and must have swum outside Cloudspark’s territory before exiting the water.

Thursa resumed human form, and almost a dozen arrows fell to the street.  He used the last of his mana to heal his wounds.  Within two rounds, the group moved through the crowded streets as if nothing had happened.