Dungeon Noble - Squire

The masked classer turned their head slightly as Jake raced in, Karl mere steps behind him. One dagger flicked up to bat Alan’s arrow aside, whilst the other gleamed with Wyrd as they parried the guard’s wild swing.

The guard’s sword swung wide, leaving him exposed, but Jake was there before the attacker could capitalise on it, thrusting and slashing with tight swings.

The masked fighter parried, dodged, and avoided every strike and attack coming their way from the five of them for a period that Jake found terrifying.

Eventually, though, one of Rhew’s blasts of ice caught their arm, slowing their parry slightly and letting Karl get a solid hit in with his hammer.

Karl hadn’t been expecting to actually hit them, so his hammer wasn’t infused, but it was still enough to knock the classer off-balance and let Jake’s blade come within inches of their mask.

Reversing his swing, Jake pushed to land a hit on his opponent, knowing that weakening them further was critical. As it was, it was taking all five of them to simply keep up with them.

Wyrd flared around one of the attacker’s spare daggers, and it shot up in a blur to block Jake’s attack, knocking his sword aside. Surprised, Jake wasn’t able to react fast enough to ignore the dagger that plunged into his gut like a spike of burning hot pain.

“Jake!” Karl was there a moment later, catching a second attack on his shield before lashing out at the attacker as Jake fell to one knee and put pressure on the bleeding wound in his stomach.

Dropping his shield and fumbling a potion free, Jake poured some into the wound and swallowed the rest, the pain fading to a more manageable level as the potion got to work and numbed the wound.

Staggering back to his feet, Jake was just in time to watch the masked classer fake towards Rhew, drawing Karl that way, before moving with Wyrd-enhanced speed to overwhelm the last guard.

“Hit them with everything you’ve got!” Jake called out as he moved forward, his initial awkward gait clearing up as the potion kept working.

Karl interposed himself between the masked classer and the other two, doing his best to keep them at bay while Alan and Rhew kept up a steady stream of attacks.

Rejoining the fight, Jake did his best to cover Karl’s flank, but he was keenly aware that the only thing keeping them alive was that there were four of them.

Even so, the loss of the guard was enough that they were struggling to keep up, but at the same time, the masked classer didn’t have the chance to stop and take a healing potion.

Not that Karl’s blow seemed to have done any major damage to the masked classer, but they were favouring that side ever so slightly.

Another dagger flicked from the attacker’s belt to intercept an arrow, as the attacker infused their dagger with Wyrd and cut through Karl’s shield, hacking off a large portion.

Karl stumbled back with wide eyes, but Rhew used her wand and her Skill simultaneously to drive the masked classer back with a flurry of magic, giving Karl the space to recover.

Jake did his best to press the masked fighter and keep the pressure up, but he just wasn’t quick enough to keep up.

“Fate isn’t with you today; give up, and I will make it painless,” the masked classer said, their voice harsh but distorted by the mask as they effortlessly slid past Jake’s sword and slashed down his arm while using him as a shield from Alan and Rhew.

“Fuck you!” Jake snarled before hissing in pain as a gesture sent a dagger flying from the masked classer’s belt to just narrowly miss Jake’s eye and instead slice across his cheek.

Karl rushed in to attack, and the classer slid away, managing to cut Karl in the process.

This wasn’t working. The enemy was adapting to them, finding their rhythm.

Charging forward, Jake swung wildly in with his sword and stretched out with his other hand. A dagger flicked up from the classer’s belt to deflect Jake’s sword, but Jake’s opponent was focused on the attacks from Alan and Rhew, leaving the dagger to fend off Jake.

Grinning savagely, Jake twisted with the forceful hit and activated his Boon. In an instant, the Hidden Fang formed in his outstretched hand as he plunged it into the classer’s side, burying it to the hilt.

Jake barely had time to enjoy his success before he was launched backwards as the classer spun and planted a dagger in his chest.

Lying on the floor and gasping as he tried to get his breath back, Jake fumbled his last potion out and uncorked it with shaking hands, pouring it into the wound as he withdrew the dagger.

Jake’s breathing cleared up quickly, and he watched with gleaming eyes as the poison running through the masked fighter’s body weakened them enough that they could no longer dodge all three of his friends.

An arrow to the knee was the first strike to land true, and it signalled the swift end for their enemy. Daggers coated in Wyrd went shooting out at them, but their aim was off, and they lacked the force of the earlier attacks.

Their other weapons spent, the masked classer pulled Jake’s dagger from their side and leapt at Karl, trying to get one last strike in. Jake’s smile grew as he dismissed the Boon, leaving the unarmed classer to catch an infused strike from Karl’s hammer to the side of the head.

The crack of the classer’s neck snapping rang loud in Jake’s ears as the mask shattered and the classer hit the floor limply.

“Is everyone okay?” Jake called out before coughing some blood up onto the floor next to him.

“Mostly, damn daggers were coming from everywhere it felt like,” Alan said, touching a cut on his face with a wince before frowning. “Weird, I thought that the Wyrd bubble holding the sound in would dissipate once they died.”

“Maybe it will happen slowly?” Rhew looked tired but was making sure that Karl had a potion and was healing from the countless small cuts he had before taking one herself.

Looking down at himself, Jake noted that there were far more cuts than he remembered taking. It had all happened so fast it was hard to keep track, and he knew they’d been damn lucky.

If the classer had been able to react in time to block Jake’s dagger, things would have been dire for them.

That fight had almost been as bad as sparring with Felix, and though Jake hadn’t had the chance to judge the strength of their soul, he wouldn’t be surprised if the masked fighter had been higher than tier two.

“What the fuck…” Alan was crouched over the dead classer and had rolled them onto their back, revealing their face.

Jake moved closer and saw the source of Alan’s surprise. The man’s eyes had a black iris and a silver pupil, giving them an eerie and otherworldly look. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes like those before.”

“Me neither, and look here,” Alan said, pointing out a small tattoo of a set of scales beneath the right eye in what looked like silver ink.

The only other person that Jake had seen with a tattoo next to their eye like that was Nepthys, and that marked her as an Inquisitor. “Just who is this guy?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we should linger,” Alan said, quickly checking how many arrows he had left before drawing a fresh one. “Let’s go get Nepthys and get out of here.”

“Agreed,” Jake said as he got back to his feet. “Does anyone have any potions left?”

“I have both of mine still,” Alan said, starting to reach for his belt before freezing as the door to the room swung open violently.

“….under attack!” A Triarchy guard shouted as he raced into the room, his eyes going wide as he took in the blood-soaked floor and the bodies everywhere.

Alan’s arrow caught the guard in the throat before anyone else could react, the guard gurgling and falling to the floor as he clutched at the arrow, eyes wide in shock and terror.

Jake relaxed slightly before noticing a slight tremble in Alan’s hands as the Scholar lowered his bow. Moving closer, Jake pitched his voice low to keep his words between the two of them. “He would have killed us in a heartbeat. You did the right thing.”

Alan took a shaky breath and nodded. “Yeah, I know. It’s just the first time where we’ve not been in a fight, and I fired before even really seeing him. What if that had been one of you?”

“But it wasn’t, and you did the right thing,” Jake said, reaching up to grab Alan’s shoulder and give him a reassuring squeeze. “I trust you, Alan. Now, you just need to trust yourself.”

“Fuck me, it’s absolute chaos out there,” Karl said, stepping back from the door the guard had come through. “There’s a few more of those masked fucks, and they’re fighting all the guards. I think I saw Ari fighting one just past the gate as well.”

“Damn it,” Jake muttered, giving Alan’s shoulder a last squeeze before letting go. “More of them might come in here looking for reinforcements. We better hurry.”

“You go get her. We should stay here in case more come; we don’t want to get trapped down there,” Rhew said as she helped Karl move the guard’s body off to one side and took a healing potion from his belt. “Here, take this, just in case she needs it.”

“Got it, thanks, Rhew,” Jake said, tucking the potion away before heading out the only other door in the room.

Thankfully, the bloodbath seemed to have been contained to that initial guard room, so while Jake was tracking bloody footprints in with him, the rest was in quite good shape.

At least, that was until Jake made his way through to where the door down to the holding cells was set. Two more Triarchy guards had been on duty here, and both had been butchered in a similar manner to those in the first room.

Some distant part of Jake’s mind remarked that the cuts weren’t as clean as the others he’d seen, but it was quickly overwhelmed by adrenaline as he realised what this meant.

The reason why the Wyrd bubble of silence hadn’t fallen was because it had been made by a different person, who was still alive and seemed to be heading down into the holding cells as well.

Cursing himself for not moving quicker, Jake pushed through the partially open door to the stairs and hurried down them, praying that he wasn’t too late.