Melody watched from the shadows of the broken temple as the ash grey Prime Dragon left the temple complex. She had felt Myne’s sensing magic flow over her twice while she had been there, but it had been unable to sense her and her dragon, as she had used her own magic to cloak herself, the music of the magic making them seem like they were just a feature of the structure. It was one of the reasons Zorthac used her to observe others, but she could only use it on herself (and hence by extension her dragon), and she could only use it when she was stationary, so it was no good for trailing targets.

While their presence here had been for an entirely different purpose, part of Zorthac’s plan, she had figured that the Prime Rider and Myne would come here, hence why she had convinced Sorene to lay the trap. As a side effect it also meant that the beaten Rider had been given a second chance at life, though if they had been too much longer in arriving she may have died from her wounds anyway. The demon was one of the simpler ones, an adaptable hoarder, and she would have been sorely disappointed if they had fallen to it. They had done well, and though she hadn’t been able to watch the fight, that they came out fairly unscathed meant that they were able to defeat it without too much issue. While she had already witnessed it plenty , Myne’s destructive power was still terrifying. She had coaxed out the Night Beast with her magic on a whim, and had been quite startled at the fate it had been dealt. She got the sense that it may have been an accident, but there was no denying the strength hiding within. That Sorene had managed to lose her would work in her favour.

With the prime dragon now well out of sight, Melody stepped out of the shadow into the light. She had a slender and attractive figure, her skin the pale white that was common for those whose body had been corrupted by Zorthac. Her hair was wispy black, tied up in a ponytail that reached all the way down her back. She currently wore the typical Skeon garments of the riders, hers coloured a navy blue, along with a comfortable pair of heeled leather boots, a light cloak, azure in colour, and a short black mesh dress that revealed as much as it covered, not that that mattered as she had the Skeon layer on. Her bone armour, when out, only covered her vital areas, including her not quite modest chest, but she hardly ever summoned it as she was not a fighter and had no desire to be, even though in theory all Riders were meant to be. She was a musician first and foremost, her skill with instruments practically unmatched. Oh, and a spy too. Her gem was an Amethyst, her magic and music melding together naturally, and with it, thanks to the buffs provided by her body, she was able to do a lot more than she should have been able to do, especially without rituals. And most people failed to notice the magic as well, the music providing a cloak for it.

Melody contemplated her next move. She wasn’t ready to head back to the tomb just yet. Myne would have come here to warn the Clan about the Mask of Air’s actions, but of course had been unable to do so, so after they had hopefully healed the beaten rider and talked to her, they would likely try again. She doubted they would try the capital yet, given its density and Sorene’s position on the Clan's council, so they’d try one of the other temples first. The Western Sky temple was the closest, and hence the most likely destination. That Prime Dragon flew fast, but it’d be making detours, not to mention the delay of waiting for the beaten Rider to heal, so Melody was sure that she’d be able to get there before Myne did. Sorene had enough to keep her occupied for a while, and Zorthac’s current plans lay elsewhere, so she doubted that any other Masks would be present there.

Which was good, as she had her own agenda.

---

 

Alice and Kyla sat in the back of the wagon as it bumpily made its way along the main road between the major settlements south of the capital. They had been travelling for the better part of the day since Izen and Myne had left, and while it had a nostalgic feel to it, this form of travel now felt out of place since they had started riding on dragonback, Kyla reflecting Alice’s thoughts.

“It’s sooo slow and uncomfortable,” she moaned. “I miss Velvet and Light already.”

“I doubt they’ll be too long,” Alice said, hoping that they hadn’t run into anything nasty.

“How did you ever manage to do anything while travelling?” asked Kyla. Alice had tried giving Kyla some more training on the basics of magic, but being constantly jostled around had made it short lived.

“I don’t remember this road being quite this bad,” Alice answered, “but with a lot of concentration most of the time. I wonder what’s caused it to rapidly degrade.”

“Aargh,” Kyla grizzled as the wagon went through another series of potholes in the road. “Hurry back Velvet.” She rolled over, daydreaming of being a Rider herself, her tail swishing happily as she imagined herself flying high on her own dragon. Kyla was rudely interrupted by Laphir leaning into the back of the wagon, relaying a message to Alice.

“Checkpoint up ahead. Well, looks more like a blockade actually, and it’s recent,” Laphir said.

“Tourin?” Alice queried.

“I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t, given that Velvet upset his apple cart.” Laphir grinned to himself at his terrible joke.

Alice got up and moved to the front of the wagon.

“Stay out of sight for the moment,” she requested of Kyla. “If it is Tourin, he’s going to be wanting revenge.”

Kyla nodded, squirrelling herself in between the crates in the wagon. That man gave her the creeps.

Alice emerged from the wagon to see a series of tents set up alongside the road at an intersection where the road on which they travelled split to go either north east to the capital, north west to go along the edge of the Sentorine Forest, or east into the rolling hills. Across the intersection, in all directions were a series of makeshift barricades. They wouldn’t stop anyone determined to get through, but they’d be a pain. There were a dozen horses grazing behind the tents, and the Fall Haven flag was flying above the tents. Definitely Tourin, Alice thought to herself.

“No point in trying to avoid it. They’ve seen us by now,” Alice replied to Laphir’s questioning glance. He nodded in response. He would have done so anyway, Alice knew.

The wagon rumbled up to the barricade, two armed men that they didn’t recognize standing behind it. Tourin appeared from the central tent as they stopped, slithering his way up to the barrier.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Laphir and his crew,” he said, his face lighting up.

“Hello Tourin,” Laphir growled.

“I had thought you’d be further up the road by now?” Tourin said as he tilted his head to one side, smirking.

“We got delayed,” Laphir answered bluntly.

“Would you mind letting us through?” asked Alice. “We have a contract to complete.”

“No can do,” Tourin stated, shaking his head. “Your contract is null and void. It appears your client was not of good character, so we won’t be honouring it.”

“Really?” Laphir raised an eyebrow, the word soaked with sarcasm.

“And we believe an associate of his is looking for you. We intend to apprehend them. You will assist.”

“Really?” Laphir raised the eyebrow again, unable to soak the word with any more with sarcasm than before.

“He’s just pissed off that a Rider showed him up,” Shino whispered not so quietly to Laphir, a grin on his face.

“But how do they expect to try and take her down?” queried Alice quietly. “That band of rabble wouldn’t stand a chance, and he’s not that stupid.”

“Well then,” started Laphir, standing up and hopping off the wagon, “we resign from the Guild, effective say, from when we were given the contract days ago. We will have no part in your schemes.”

Tourin shrugged. “Then we’ll apprehend you as well. The Guild is bigger than a few petty people.”

“Good luck with that,” Laphir plainly said, as Alice disappeared back into the wagon.

It turned out that Tourin had twenty men with him at the blockade. A dozen and two were soldiers, probably a mercenary group from within the Guild, led by a bruiser. Of the remaining, four were Ferals, of which Laphir only recognized two, a pair of Rat Feral brothers with questionable practices who Laphir had made a point of avoiding whenever they had been in Bluemoon, the other two being another Wolf Feral and a Snake Feral. The remaining two were Casters, and Laphir was suspicious of their presence – while they were dressed in leather armour, Gem class Casters had limited use in combat as most magic of potent enough power that they could muster required a lot of preparation and time to cast. Rituals had always been that way. That is why combat was left to Ferals and Riders, who could reinforce their themselves and their abilities with magic, and strong and competent normal people, as of course the former ones were quite limited in number. Hence displays of magic in combat was actually quite rare, unless a Lattice Soul was involved, as their magic wasn’t limited in the same way (but each one was also quite unique, and even some of them didn’t even have combat orientated magic either). Laphir sighed, and grabbing his hammer and shield from his seat on the wagon, he moved off the road to it’s side, signalling for the others to do the same. It was likely that they had set some traps on the road.

Alice had exactly the same thought as soon as she had noticed the Casters emerge from the tents. It would be a pain if their wagon got damaged by a magical trap, but it also meant that it wouldn’t be safe for Kyla to remain in the wagon. So after giving her a small dagger and a cloak to wear, as it would be best if Tourin didn’t work out too quickly that she was here, as she was one of the people he was after, she grabbed her shield and they dismounted, joining Laphir and Shino. Unfortunately they wouldn’t be able to use the wagon as a shield, as they’d still be in the range of the potential traps.

“Do we stand or retreat?” Shino queried as Alice and Kyla joined them. “The odds aren’t in our favour on this terrain.”

“At the very least we’ll make it difficult for them,” Laphir replied. “And we can’t let Tourin lay a hand on Kyla. But we can play their game. They’ll send men to check out the wagon as a precaution since we have vacated it, which means that they won’t have to waste their traps and will improve the odds for us. Is the wagon all set?”

“As always,” Alice replied, smiling. She could also sense that Velvet and Myne were on their way, getting closer, but as she hadn’t told the others about the Witch’s gift yet she couldn’t think of a good excuse to use when passing the information on, so she kept it to herself.

Obviously Tourin’s men also believed that they had the advantage, and as Laphir had deduced a number of men peeled off towards the wagon as the bulk of the soldiers and the Ferals filed out from behind the barricade and moved to surround the group.

“Has the Guild devolved to petty banditry now as well?” Laphir taunted. “I wouldn’t meddle with the wagon,” he added as a warning.

The bruiser looked questioningly at the rat brothers, the elder of the two shrugging in response.

“They do a lot of mining?” was about as much as he could recall.

“Well then, let’s see what you have in there then,” the bruiser said, pulling aside the wagons curtain.

Which was a mistake. There was a flash of red energy and a loud bang, and the bruiser was thrown backwards from the wagon, his clothes smouldering. Not wasting the opportunity, Laphir laid into the closest adversaries, his war hammer sending two spinning while another was knocked unconscious by his shield. Shino followed his lead, his surprise attack taking out another two, while Kyla and Alice moved to stay behind them.

“What?” Alice said, shrugging as the Snake Feral gave her a curious glance. “I’m not a fighter.”

The soldiers and Ferals cautiously surrounded the party, another bang sounding as a second solider ran afoul of the wagon’s wards, those in front of Laphir jumping as he feinted another attack.

“Well, that evens the odds,” Laphir stated, smiling. With the remaining soldiers from the wagon now joining the circle around them it was ten against two. Plus the surprises that Alice could pull. The normals were significantly easier to deal with than the Night Beast Spiders that they had last faced, but the Ferals would be much more of an issue.

“What are you doing? Capture them!” yelled Tourin from the background, as his men kept them surrounded, but had been reluctant to engage, each waiting for another to act first. Be it bravery or foolishness, another of the soldiers charged in towards Alice, swinging a hand axe at her. Smiling, Alice stepped forward and dodged under the swing, tripping him up in the process before bringing the shield, which for the current model was easily half her height, down on him. She then ducked down behind it as the one of the Rat Ferals lunged at her, an explosion of flame from the shield throwing him clear of the circle in a howl of pain, the force also pushing Alice back.

“Not a fighter my ass,” commented the Snake Feral. “You’re more dangerous than the others.”

“I’m really not!” She was moving better than she ever had before though, and her new enchantments that she had been working on at the ruins had turned out better than she had expected. They’d think twice about attacking her now. Apart from the singed rat, who was now furious.

The Wolf Feral took his cue, closing in and attacking Laphir, his weapon of choice a greatsword, their weapons and shield clashing as each easily defended against the others attack. The unsinged Rat Feral, daggers bared, closed in on Shino. Shino shook his head as he reinforced himself with his magic, his arms, hands, tail and ears bursting into flame. He couldn’t dodge the attacks as he normally would, given Alice and Kyla behind him, so he would have to defend instead, which unfortunately was a bit more painful. But he was a dog, and dogs ate rats.

The singed rat charged past the Snake Feral, who was now just resting on his halberd, amused by the scene unfolding in front of him, barrelling straight up to Alice, attempting to leap over her shield and land behind her. Alice reacted quickly, closing the distance between them so that instead he collided directly with the shield again, the all too familiar blast returning him to where he started.

The fighting was interrupted by a thunderous crash as a massive silver dragon deliberately landed in the middle of the blockade, another Rider landing on top of the singed rat with a solid thud as he attempted to get up. Myne saw no need to use her flames here, the casters and Tourin were scrambling for cover as Ashling roared and then quite happily took his time flattening all of the tents.

“If you value your lives, I suggest you take this opportunity to surrender or leave,” Myne declared as behind her Light settled down gently. “This fight is now over.”

The Wolf Feral stood down, resting his greatsword on the ground. The remaining Rat Feral also stepped back, his armour smoking, as Shino let his flames die down. He’d held his ground, and given the rat something to think about, but the bruises were going to take a while to heal. The remaining soldiers also stepped back in fear, lowering their weapons. This was more than they had bargained for.

The Snake Feral bowed to Myne, an amused grin on his face.

“Quite happily, young lady. I know when I’m outmatched, and that was from the very beginning. If you’re the ones Tourin was after, he was delusional.” He waved to the Wolf Feral. “Almos, let’s leave. There’s no job here,” the pair then walking off to collect some horses that were currently cowering in terror in Ashling’s shadow.

“Schred and Almos,” Laphir said, mostly to himself. “I knew they were familiar.”

The remaining guild combatants took the hint, dropping their weapons and moving clear of the area, Tourin throwing curses at them as he too scampered a retreat up the road.

They didn’t hang around long, the decision quickly reached that it would be just as easy for the wagon to be carried by Ashling this time around. Alice had already secured the cargo, anticipating that this would likely happen, so all that was required was for her to deactivate the remaining wards on it that hadn’t been set off. After all, the wagon would have limited use once they were back at the Academia de Magica, and with Cammine still being in a critical state time was off the essence. Izen had infused her with some of her magic a couple more times during the flight, which had helped keep her stable, but without the right training it didn’t seem to be quite enough. Her wounds were deep and not all physical, and they were guessing that something may have been done to her gem or soul as well.

Ashling of course grumbled about being used as a pack horse, but was still as gentle as he could manage when picking up the wagon in one of his claws. With the party split between the two dragons, Izen still cradling Cammine, they took flight, leaving Tourin's broken blockade behind. He’d probably make a huge fuss about it to the Guild when he eventually got back. Schred had taken it upon himself to take all of the remaining horses with him when he’d left, so Tourin and his remaining men faced a long walk, unless they happened upon some travellers on the way back. Served him right.