“You have two minutes before we head out! Don’t leave anything behind!” Hemsworth barked out as he stormed through their encampment.

All around him, squires were assisting their knights in equipping their armor. There were a few reasons why adventurers didn’t use platemail. One was the price. A complete set of fitted, unenchanted full plates costs more than a house in some places. Two—and what was readily apparent here—You needed help, and it took time to don the armor.

To many, an equipped knight seemed covered in a single, heavily defensive layer of protection. But, in reality, several smaller pieces interlocked with one another to give the image of a seamlessly flowing carapace of defense—sabatons, greaves, gauntlets, vambraces, pauldrons, cuirass, faulds, and so on. With a squire, it took nearly fifteen minutes to equip a knight fully. They trained day in and day out on their speed, but fifteen minutes was still too slow for their needs.

Hemsworth crossed his arms and tapped an impatient foot as he gazed upon the towering creature making its way through his lady's territory. Her subjects being tormented and slaughtered on their very own land. A disgrace to their image.

“Thirty seconds!” He ordered without turning around.

Heavy footfalls fell by his side, but still, he didn’t turn his head away from their quarry. “Report.”

“Sir, Lady Briarbreak was on her daily assurance when the attacks commenced. There has been no contact with her retinue.”

He stilled and slowly turned to face the knight in question with a gaze that would cow any mortal man. “Today was her rest day. What do you mean she was on her daily assurance?”

“She was adamant about showcasing herself to her subjects and she has not activated her emergency charm. She might be held up in a defensive position with her knights until this all ends.” The knight stared past Hemsworth, not daring to meet his gaze.

It was a fine assumption, but these were not the times when one made hopeful assumptions. Hemsworth did not get to where he was by hoping for the best. He got here by always expecting the worst; most of the time, the worst was what had happened.

“Bettle and Jost! Scour the village for our Lady. Everyone else, times up! To me!”

As one, the Knights of Thorn marched through their encampment and toward the ever-looming threat stomping its way through the village.

—------------------------------------------------------------------

“AHHHHHHHHHHH”

Thump

“There we go. Nice and quiet.” Em smiled and turned to walk away toward the Basilisk to complete their might quest, but Annalise grabbed one of her back legs, rooting her in place.

“You did not seriously just do that…” Annalise ground out, the first hint of anger Em had seen from her so far.

He flicked her leg, causing Annalise to let go. “Did you want a screaming child to alert everything nearby? Stash her with some of the cowering families in the nearby buildings and let us be off!” She smiled and waved a hand at the Basilisk.

Annalise rubbed her face with both her hands in frustration, causing Em to grow a little concerned. “What? She is fine. Just unconscious. I barely tapped her.”

The cleric shifted his eyes from the young girl to Em before taking a deep breath. “Em, that is Lady Briarbreak. The lady of this land.”

Em nodded, encouraging him to continue on.

“Rogger, she doesn’t understand what she did.” The ranger Clarence said with Lady Briarbreak still held in her arms.

Em twisted to look at the young girl once again. She was dressed nicely. Her robe was of similar quality to Lee’s, and his robe was what one might call a masterpiece. It had numerous enchantments, given by the long spiel of undecipherable language at the end of its Identify.

“Okay? So we just saved a damsel in distress. I do not see the issue here.” Em said, a mounting pit of worry forming in her stomach.

“Em, we should stay and protect her until this is all over. She is important. Like Lee.” Annalise said.

Em shook her head and backed up a few steps. Her pit of worry was morphing into anger and frustration. “No. fuck that. We are here to slay this creature.” She pointed to the basilisk, which was growing closer as time passed. They could be there in less than a minute if they sprinted—a glorious battle on the cusp.

“Plans change—”

“NO! Fuck that! You protect her then, I’ll go on ahead. I am not having my adventure canceled. The last one sucked.” Em hissed.

Home’s Hommage glanced at one another, and Annalise seemed to come to a decision. “Em. You will die if you go alone. There was a high chance of at least one of us dying when we were going to go together. Let the other adventurers and the lady's knights deal with the basilisk. We can protect the damsel in distress. This is equally as important.”

Em narrowed her eyes and took a few more steps back. “The other children I healed were stashed away; why must we protect this one? Lee says that everyone is just a person at the end of the day. She is no different. Do you think those other children didn’t deserve protection?”

“That’s not what were—”

“No, I get it. I understand. Take her back, and I’ll be on my way. It was fun traveling with you for these last ten minutes.” Em scuttled off toward the basilisk, but Annalise grabbed her leg once more.

“Let go of me if you wish to keep your hands. I’m quite proficient in their removal.” Em hissed.

Annalise let go, but she spoke before Em could scurry off again. “Do you think Lee would want you to go alone versus that basilisk? I do not think he would.” Annalise said.

Em gave her one final glare but continued on her way, speaking as she left. “I am my own person. I make my own choices.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lee grimaced as Regina dispatched another statue which got caught peeking through some wooden shudders. While he knew that Regina was strong, he didn’t really know how strong. Neia was at a higher level, and they both worked with magic and melee, but Regina was more brutal than he had anticipated.

When Neia fought, she flowed gracefully and struck with unerring precision. Her twin Khopeshes flickered and diced as she danced around her opponents. Cold ice and trailing mist were what was left in her wake.

Regina was straightforward, no-nonsense, unbridled aggression. For an assassin, he had expected some precision and lethality, but for now, she bulldozed everything that was in their path as he regenerated some mana. He assumed that it was because these foes were beneath her and didn’t require her more advanced ‘technique.’ But, he was beginning to worry about if there were any techniques to begin with.

The ground began to shake as they grew near the path of the basilisk. Its weighty stomps made its presence known to all around. Those who didn’t evacuate released squeaks of terror from their houses or nearby shops as it grew ever closer to their location. Some brazen or smart civilians packed up and fled as they passed. Apparently having changed their mind about staying safe and sound.

Regina, Lee, and Jeremy stood side by side at an intersection, holding numerous parties preparing for their incoming defense. Parties fled from up along the street, exhausted and injured from their attempts to stall for time.

Without saying anything, each of them spread out to help those nearby. Jeremy went towards the hastily built defenses, Regina walked toward the front of the lines, and Lee approached the injured, activating Medical Attention and Healer’s Beacon as he wove his way through the crowd.

Surprisingly, there weren’t many dead, and the injuries were pretty light. Medical Attention scanned each of his new patients, informing him of their injuries, which mainly consisted of friendly fire or a broken bone. The worst injury was a man slightly older than himself. He had burns across one side of his body, which were already blistering as he arrived. They were quickly healed before he even reached the man; his Healer’s Beacon took care of the job.

Friendly fire was an unfortunate byproduct of so many adventurers fighting with other parties. The area of effect of spells splashing against those too nearby or unseen. A melee combatant was unable to evade because someone else stood in his escape. A host of issues arose, and he wasn’t in a position to solve those issues. All he could do was heal those affected.

For now.

While being led to more of the injured, Lee overheard plenty about the ongoing situation by eavesdropping on everyone around. Apparently, the basilisk had some sort of magical resistance. This wasn’t surprising to him, as he had seen the onslaught of spells splashing against its green scaly hide, dealing next to nothing.

It also appeared to have a minor form of regeneration, similar to, but lesser than, trolls. The spells that did manage to deal a slight amount of damage were healed within a dozen seconds. As there was a bombardment of arrows and spells pelting the beast nonstop, the damage did accumulate, but it was much too slow to stop it before it ruined the entirety of Lopus.

After Lee finished with his quick sweep of healing with Healer’s Beacon, he found Regina talking with a few parties near the ‘front.’ It wasn’t really a decisive line like Lee had seen back in Neldam during the monster surge; it was more of an ‘I assume it is going to cross somewhere around here.’ type of line---Shoddy by any military standards but sufficient for their needs.

Regina gave him a slight nod as he joined the discussion.

“---know about weaknesses. It seems to be generalized. It resisted every debuff as well.” One leader said.

“There must be something! It can’t be all-encompassing. Even if it is, we must aggressively push to overwhelm it before it can regenerate. If everyone uses their debuffs at once, some of them are bound to get through.” A woman in robes said, her party standing behind her. All of them looked to be mages of some sort by their attire.

Lee wasn’t really in the position to offer any advice, as this was obviously out of his expertise. The only debuff he knew was Blind, and he doubted a simple basic tier debuff was going to work.

A different man spoke up, one wielding a warhammer. “Melee is nearly impossible. We can attack its feet when it stomps, but its only for a few seconds before it takes another step. Ideally, we’d climb and mount it, but with so many spells and arrows pelting it everywhere, we’d be asking to get killed. Most of the damage we’ve taken has been from other adventurers. Only a few have been unlucky enough to get stomped.”

Regina spoke next. Her voice was the same as always—monotone—but, everyone else quieted when she spoke. “Has it even attacked yet?”

Everyone nearby shared looks with one another before a woman with a bow took the lead. “It stomps on those nearby.”

Regina shook her head. “It’s just walking. Has it attacked? Has it gone out of it’s way to attack someone or cast any spells?”

“It doesn’t seem capable of any magic, and it’s too large to attack concisely with its large stature.” Someone said from the back, a party member of the mages group.

Lee frowned at their comment. Maybe he was wrong, but perhaps he realized something nobody else had yet. “It didn’t blow open that enormous hole in the ground by physical force alone. It sent its statues out along the village in a falling bombardment of debris along with numerous boulders and other hefty projectiles. I doubt it was enough dexterity or intelligence to origanise its ‘minions’ to gather up for a throw through solid earth. It must have been a skill, spell, or ability.”

Murmurs erupted at his statement, and eventually, someone agreed. “He has a point. Earth magic alone wouldn’t account for that eruption. It would have to be an ability of skill. I’m leaning toward an active skill. If it has one, it has others.”

Regina turned her head to glance at the approaching basilisk. “Well, for now, we should fight a battle of attrition until the Knight of Thorn arrive. Together, we may have a chance to overwhelm it. Let us prepare, it will be here within a minute.”

The group broke up and went to their separate tasks. Regina led Lee toward the side. “Stay back and heal for now. Your time to shine will be toward the end.”