Chapter 53.2: Farewells
More than coming, Captain Gelwin was nearly upon them when Penny returned her attention to the world beyond her and the two asura. As usual, his sylvari shadow trailed along behind him, doing nothing to mask the scorn in her gaze. Liæthsidhe stared thorns at all three of them, but Penny felt a special stab of contempt aimed her way.
Chapter 52.3: Mounting Exhaustion
Hours passed, and the sun finally peeked its lazy head up over the plateaus that carved out the deep hollow where the Ulta Metamagicals krewe did their work. Penny had inched farther away from the encroaching light as it came up over that too tall horizon, sticking instead to the shadows as long as she had them. After waiting all that time for the night to end, she now realized how much better the darkness had been.
Chapter 52.2: Vigil Order
Hours passed, and the sun finally peeked its lazy head up over the plateaus that carved out the deep hollow where the Ulta Metamagicals krewe did their work. Penny had inched farther away from the encroaching light as it came up over that too tall horizon, sticking instead to the shadows as long as she had them. After waiting all that time for the night to end, she now realized how much better the darkness had been.
Chapter 51.6: Out of Her Hands
The fight in front of her went on as Penny continued finding what gaps she could, though those gaps grew smaller with every moment as more combatants joined the central fray.
Chapter 51.3: Eye of the Storm
Chapter 50.2: The Truth Always Finds You
“Human.”
Penny vaguely heard the rough demand. She had the feeling it was directed at her, but nothing at all was clear.
Chapter 47.2: Something Like a Plan
Through the tinted glass of the cylinder, Penny watched Minkus go. The leather-cased device on his back piped a thin stream of exhaust into the air as he beelined toward the Vigilman rising from the ground. Of course, that was also a beeline toward the golem that stood between them.
Chapter 46.4: Ventyr’s War
After a few turns, Ventyr was all but lost; the way out was longer than he recalled and far more twisted than he’d recognized under the blindfold his captors had used. With each corner Minkus bounded around, Ventyr could all but feel the promise of an imminent exit, but each one was a lie. The halls and doorways continued, one after the next after the next, and though his elemental training insisted that Ventyr temper his deepening impatience, he didn’t. The whirlwind of fire and air storming through him felt too good, too rare. Most importantly it felt too powerful. Alongside Minkus’ rejuvenating magic, that swelling storm inside was the only thing keeping Ventyr’s battered body moving.
Chapter 46.3: Moving Target
Still backing away, Ventyr kept his attention on the golem, staff raised in ready defense. Fjornsson needed time to recover himself, but Ventyr had to reach the jade—he had to. He shot glances toward the landing at the north end of the room, the handful of fighters actively engaged behind him, Crusader Yult, and then back to the golem just on the other side of the wide doorway. Earlier, it had been unable to pass through it, being too tall. Ventyr would have to take advantage of that, even if those projectile arms complicated the matter.
Chapter 46.2: The Search
Ventyr leapt aside as the golem took another sluggish swing at him. Fat, stone fingers gripped shut around empty air, scooping up nothing several feet shy of the sylvari’s wind-aided movement. He spun, looking back at the mechanical monster. It had no eyes, per se, but the glowing slits that represented them seemed to meet his knowingly.
Chapter 46.1: The Value of Field Testing
Chapter 45.4: Inevitable Confrontation
Jindel was the first to find her words. “Sergeant, we— appear to be clear, at least for now.”
Everyone took in their surroundings, processing what had just happened. Penny noticed Minkus in particular, though. He frowned curiously at the ceiling. “Does anyone else hear that, or rather not hear that?”
Chapter 45.3: Bombs Away
Shaking her head clear, Penny tried to process their next steps. If they were all going to get out alive, they needed to get Ventyr’s staff into his hands. Penny had never understood why the thing made him stronger, but the carrot swore by —
Chapter 45.2: Entering the Labs
Well inside the eastern building now, Penny, Jindel, Jinkke, and Yult held as tightly as they could to Minkus, who swept through the halls as if trying to escape them. He was, of course, only interested in reaching Ventyr and Yissa as quickly as he could, a fact he apologized for over the sound of the still-blaring alarm every few steps.
Chapter 45.1: Comakk Reacts
The courtyard was in unadulterated chaos. The alarm had been confounding enough, bringing all efforts to a halt and throwing Kikka into a rage at everyone in sight. But now the introduction of human attackers had turned all Kikka’s innumerable death threats into a sudden and disjointed reality. Any krewe members who weren’t running found themselves at the wrong end of various human-made weapons as the bandits cut their way through the hectic crowd.
Chapter 44.2: The Courtyard
“I say we go.” Fjornsson all but growled the words, looking down his thick nose at the two humans and asura. “If any of those big-eared dwarves want to stop us, we just cut through them.”
Chapter 44.1: Adapting the Plan
“But why did you open them all to begin with?” Ventyr asked, scanning the room. “Simply opening my chamber and Scholar Yissa’s would have been enough.”
Chapter 43.3: The Human
Christoff ran across the courtyard as quickly as he could with that sandbag of an asura slung over his shoulder. Vadd wasn’t big per se, but his uneven, flopping weight had been threatening to pull the man over from the very moment he’d left the testing chamber.