It was the longest trip with a transport cannon that Noah had ever experienced. Purple stretched and swirled around him. Energy prickled furiously all along his skin and, somehow, inside of him as well. His stomach clenched and flopped back and forth — and still the sensation continued.

He could have sworn that they spent nearly ten minutes hurtling through the ether before the ground finally and rudely made itself known once more. Noah hit it feet first with a grunt and stumbled, only getting lucky enough to catch himself on a wall. They’d arrived somewhere pitch black.

Other mages popped into existence all around him and a wave of disorientation passed its way through all of them. It was a few seconds before Noah could think properly again. The others came too around the same time, and someone sent an orb of light into the air to illuminate their surroundings. He quickly spotted Lee and Moxie beside him before letting his attention drift farther outward.

They’d arrived in a large cavern. Four large tunnels led out from it and stalactites hung from the ceiling. Heavy notes of mildew and moss hung in the air around them and he could just barely make out the distant vibrations of dripping water somewhere below them.

Nobody made a noise. The Enforcers quietly gathered themselves into ranks and stood still as Godrick made his way to the front. Several mages closed their eyes, likely scanning the surroundings to see if anyone had noticed their arrival.

Noah did the same. He focused on his body imbuements and dialed up their sensitivity, searching for vibrations in the stone that would indicate the presence of one of Wizen’s men. Aside from the dripping water beneath them, he found nothing.

That said, that didn’t mean nobody was there. The information he could pick up on was hindered by the presence of everyone in the room around him and the natural vibrations of the earth itself. Someone could have easily been near the edges of where he could sense. Noah waited to see if anyone else would detect something, but it seemed that nobody did.

“Right,” Godrick said, his gruff voice muted as it broke the silence. “It doesn’t seem like any of Wizen’s men are in this area. That probably means we’ve made it in undetected, but we have no way to know for sure.”

“Where exactly are we,” an Enforcer beside Noah asked. “How far is Wizen from us?”

“We’re quite close. We should be below his sanctum,” Julius said, emerging from the crowd to stand beside Godrick. He leaned against his staff, the six bands on his jacket glistening in the light of the orb above him. “We can’t dismiss the possibility that Wizen knew we would arrive here, but the lack of a trap in the area makes it likely that he either doesn’t know we’re present or doesn’t care.”

“He’s not stupid enough to ignore an entire group of Rank 5 and 6 mages,” Silvertide said. “Wizen is arrogant, but he didn’t come off as an idiot when I spoke with him. If he didn’t have something here, it’s likely we actually managed to get in undetected.”

“The plan is the same either way,” Godrick said. He nodded to the pathways behind him. “We have to get the key — but to do that, we need to take fights on our terms. My team will actively seek out Wizen and bide our time for as long as possible while doing our best to avoid being spotted. Everyone else — kill as many of his men as you can on the way up. If he gets enough reinforcements, we could get overwhelmed. Our numbers are an advantage we can’t afford to lose. If Wizen starts using the key, my team will delay until everyone can make it.”

Everyone nodded. There wasn’t much more to say, and Godrick’s plan sounded solid in theory. If they picked Wizen’s people off on the way up, they’d have the advantage of surprise and would hopefully be able to swarm him when the time for the final fight came.

“We’ll have to be fast,” Julius warned. “Surprise is on our side, but I doubt Wizen will be caught off guard for long. Move quickly and do not linger. Remain in groups whenever possible but remember that our ultimate goal is getting or destroying the key no matter the cost. Now break off!”

The Enforcers burst into hushed motion. They split into teams of four and shot disappeared down the tunnels. Silvertide stayed behind as the other thinned. Soon, he, Brayden, and Noah’s group were the only ones left in the cave.

“I’ll follow you all at a delay,” Brayden said. “I fight best on my own. My magic doesn’t take well to other people being too close, so it’ll be best if I can protect our flank until we run into something where I’m needed to back you up.”

“A sound plan. Shall we?” Silvertide asked, nodding to the leftmost tunnel. “I doubt we’ll be finding anyone particularly interesting early on. Wizen is going to have his strongest members closer to the core of his sanctum."

“That makes it sound like you’re actively seeking out the strong ones,” Noah said as they all set off into the tunnel. Silvertide ran his hand along a thin bracelet that had been hidden by his jacket sleeve. It lit with light, illuminating the tunnel around them.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Of course I am,” Silvertide said. “There aren’t all that many things I get to do in my old age. A good fight is one of them — especially against someone that deserves a whooping. I didn’t become a soldier for no reason, Vermil.”

“Fair enough,” Noah said. He glanced around the cave. It really didn’t look like anything special. It was just a cave. That was probably the point. There was no reason to have a secret base if it had a glowing neon sign that gave it away. “Be careful, Brayden.”

“You too.” Brayden nodded to them as they headed out.

They walked at a brisk pace for several minutes, continuing down the tunnel as it sloped upward.

“Smell anything interesting, Lee?” Noah whispered as they walked. If anyone had senses they could rely on down here, it was her.

“Lots of stuff,” Lee replied, a pensive look on her face. “It’s weird. I can’t place any of the smells. There’s something masking them. I can tell they’re there, but…”

She trailed off and shook her head, unable to find words to properly describe her thoughts. Silvertide tilted his head slightly to the side but mentioned nothing else. They continued on, their steps marked by the faint tap of his cane on the stone.

Several more minutes passed. The tunnel stretched on and they came to a branch. Silvertide set off along the leftmost path without hesitation and they followed after him. Noah didn’t know if the old soldier actually had a plan or if he was just confident about everything he did.

Noah couldn’t think of a better strategy, so he followed along and kept his runes at the ready. The tunnel branched out several more times before it ended its upward slope and flattened out, continuing straight for another minute. Lee stiffened and put a hand to Noah’s arm, looking ahead. Silvertide seemed to notice something at roughly the same time.

They all slowed, focusing on silencing their steps even further. Silvertide suddenly seemed to stop needing his staff to walk and he held it at his side as they approached whatever he and Lee had picked up. Noah’s vibration sense caught movement just a short while later in a small chamber a short distance ahead of them.

Silvertide snuffed the light from his bracelet as they drew up to torchlight flickering from around a bend before them. They turned the bend and found themselves standing at the end of a much nicer hallway.

Tiles lined the ground and there were several openings along the walls that led into what Noah presumed to be other rooms. His tremorsense told him that there was a single person in the room just in front of them and to their right. The person was hunched over something and didn’t appear to be aware of their presence.

Silvertide didn’t even break his stride. He walked straight up to the room, forcing the others to hurry to keep up with him. Noah stepped into the doorway just moments after Silvertide had, readying Natural Disaster.

A dark-robed man was already midway through turning toward him when Silvertide ran a finger along the edge of his staff. Noah caught a glimpse of pale lips parting beneath the man’s hood in surprise an instant before a thin ribbon of blood bloomed at his neck.

The man’s body pitched forward and his head rolled back. Silvertide stuck his staff out, catching the body and grabbing the man’s head by the hair before it could hit the ground. The scraps of his hood fluttered down and landed silently on the floor as blood started to pour from the corpse.

Holy shit. What the hell is Silvertide? I didn’t even see him move or notice him casting any magic.

Silvertide lowered the body to the ground and jerked his chin back toward the hall. “Come. We can’t be wasting our time. It seems none of the others happened to go in this direction.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re terrifying?” Noah muttered as they stepped back into the hall. “You didn’t even stop to check who you killed.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are quite the conundrum, Vermil?”

Noah tilted his head to the side. “How so?”

“You carry yourself like a soldier. Your attitude and fighting style reflect that to the point where I sometimes start to think that you’ve walked the line between life and death more than I have. Then you go and say something like that.”

“Like what?”

“Being concerned about the enemy,” Silvertide replied. “We are at war, Vermil. The individual life does not matter. Wizen is not just a single mage. You’ve seen what he’s capable of at a massive range when he isn’t even interested in fighting. He’s now got a deadly artifact and is in the seat of his power. We can’t afford to think about who we’re killing. You have an odd mixture of willingness to kill and do whatever you need to in order to accomplish your goals as well as a reluctance to actually put those ideals to the test.”

Noah’s brow furrowed as he thought over Silvertide’s words. “It’s not that I’m reluctant to kill. I just don’t want to kill anyone innocent.”

“Neither do I,” Silvertide said. “If someone lays their weapons down the instant we arrive, then perhaps they can be spared. But we cannot take risks. We only live a single time, and a blade to the back will kill me as surely as anyone else. You are going to have to choose which of your ideals you will stick to if you want to avoid losing either your life or those of your allies. You cannot have both, and you’ll learn that the easy way or the hard way.”

With that, Silvertide fell silent and they continued down the hall once more. His words echoed through Noah’s mind as they headed deeper into Wizen’s sanctum. By the time they’d reached the end of the next bend, Noah’s jaw had set.

Silvertide had probably meant for his words to be pondered over, but he’d been right about one thing in particular. Noah was a whole lot older than he was — and he knew himself more than well enough to know which sins he could bear.

Losing Lee or Moxie wasn’t an option. If that landed innocent blood on his hands, then so be it. There was no room for mercy or caution when the danger was this high. Any threats would either be killed or get him first — and then he’d come back and kill them anyway.