Amelia rocked back and forth with her head in her hands in the Puzzle room, “I AM SO DUMB.” That bit of negativity shouted out of her system, she resumed staring at the puzzle, unwilling to concede a rare quality puzzle.

*************

“Elisha, where are we going next?”

“Raven, head with dad to the north point of the Palace District. Take the uh, the uhhm, the cats? Take the cats with you?”

“Elisha, they want me to tell you that their name is the Atomic Greaser Cats and they would prefer it if you just called them A.G. Cats.”

“Okay Raven, let them know I’ll try… to do that,” Elisha let out a breathless laugh despite herself. From the tone of Raven over the friend channel, Elisha had no doubt that Raven was actively in the process of renaming the Atomic Greaser Cats to something even more ridiculous. Ridiculous, but memorable.

“Okay, Elisha’s papi, myself, and the A.G. Meows will be heading to the point. Are we outnumbered? I hope we are outnumbered! What? Shuddup, you’re the Meows now…”

Elisha stifled a smirk and then moved a few things on the map in front of her. She had several tokens to indicate which guilds were where. So far, the coalition of guilds that she was in contact with was pretty small in quantity. There were a lot of Imperial forces still scattered throughout the city fighting in what Elisha was calling ‘dead zones’ since they wouldn’t resurect nearby. They were either unwilling to listen to her or didn’t care, just wanting to fight. On top of that headache, there was a huge number of Transients who weren’t part of any guild at all! She didn’t even know how to contact them, so she had just told everyone to try and friend people they saw who were clanless. It was just the tiniest bit infuriating that some of the best fighters in Shadow Fall were roaming around friending people instead of fighting!

The good news, there were several powerhouse guilds who had quietly figured out the same thing Elisha had, but a little later. They were filtering into the middle districts and made no effort to organize with Elisha, even if she was the vice captain of Shadow Fall. Instead, they made their intent known by carving out corners to defend. War, surprisingly, was one such guild.

Elisha had contacted War and tried to convince her to get her guild mobilized so she could run around and put out fires, helping out where needed.

“War, you sure you don’t want to be like a cavalry force? Riding into the thickest parts of battle, being heroes?”

“We have elected to hold the southern part of the dragon statue courtyard,” simple, cool, without any sort of hesitation. “It seems we are all a little rusty,” she clicked her tongue at the end, making Elisha blink a few times. Larkin and Fate were probably getting an earful from War on the side. Elisha giggled despite herself, imagining the usually mute War glaring down at two groveling people.

“What if Raven needs help?” Elisha had to try.

“Then I will rush to her defense,” War said instantly.

“By yourself?”

“What? No. With the full force of WAR and everything else I can gather. These people aren’t worth half as much as Raven,” War had stopped talking after that, but not before Elisha actually heard people start to loudly complain in the background.

Elisha was a little surprised, looking over with a triumphant little smirk at Khiafin before she remembered that she was mad at him. She scowled until he averted his gaze. She was definitely going to kill Khiafin before this was over, but it would have to be good. He would have to have a surprised look on his face. It would be even better if he was screaming ‘et tu’ as he died. She would think on it. He was screwed.

“What do you know of Mordred?” Elisha suddenly asked, returning her gaze to Khiafin after allocating more people to different places on the map. Pretty soon she would have to see where the fighting was heaviest and venture out there. It was all good and well directing people, but Elisha really probably was one of the better equipped and experienced healers available.

“Nothing,” Khiafin held up his hands, almost as if he were already anticipating her scowl. “Really! He came out of nowhere! There are a few people around him, Fanciful, this guy who has a name that is super generic that alludes me right this second, Viellain, and Brooks. Viellain is an Order of the Black mage, Brooks is some sort of geeky nerd who decided to make a tank, and the generic guy does magic too! That’s all I know! They just asked if I wanted to maybe be a Rebel, and I said heck yes, and then--” Khiafin stopped when he noticed that Elisha was glaring hostilely now, and lamely finished, “...and made a horrible mistake. Which I regret. Deeply.”

“You will,” Elisha said ominously, staring him right in the eye. “What class is Mordred? How many people does he control?”

“I don’t know? I also don’t know how many people. I rather gathered he’s not the head of anything, not really. He’s just someone who went around and convinced a lot of people that he could start this quest.”

“How did he start this quest?” Elisha asked him, suddenly intrigued.

“He found a book in the Royal Library,” Khiafin deadpanned, making Elisha immediately suspicious. He held up his hands again and swore it was true.

“How can there be a book in the Royal Library that Amelia hasn’t read?” Elisha just couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

“I’m not sure myself,” Khiafin said. “Although, it’s not like Amelia could read every book in the library. No one does that.”

Elisha frowned, silently contemplating.

It made Khiafin stammer a quick, “could she?”

“What’s the book called?”

“The Great Quest, by Pressia Emmael,” Khiafin said after a moment of thought.

“You remembered the author’s name?” Elisha was a little bit impressed.

“It was a weird name,” Khiafin admitted. “Almost angelic, you know, like in the old shows where we started naming supporting cast angels whatever because we ran out of the normal recognizable ones?”

“Oh yeah, like one of them straight up got named Naomi once?” Elisha laughed despite herself.

“I wasn’t thinking of that one specifically,’ Khiafin admitted. Then he looked at the map. “So what is your plan? Turtle until Amelia arrives?”

“Sure, if that is what you want to tell Mordred over buddy chat, that’s fine with me,” Elisha smiled sweetly.

“He has been whispering me, true, but I promised I’d stay out of this to make it up to you,” Khiafin wilted a bit, practically starting to pout in her direction. Then he brightened up, immediately offering, “I could lie to him! I could mislead and distract him for you! Or kill him. I would have to be away though…”

“Why? He doesn’t lead anyone, from what you told me. He’s probably giving everyone pointers because he has the book and knows the rules better than us. Which is probably why they took so many districts so fast. They focused on one after another while everybody on our side was spread out learning the rules. Besides, you’re not exactly inconspicuous. You’ve been following me around like you’re in shackles for two days now.”

“I could get some shackles and put them on,” Khiafin allowed slowly. “Appropriate.”

“As long as you’re quiet, I don’t care!” Elisha turned back to the map.

Before Khiafin could reply, Schulia burst through the tent flaps, breathless. As the tent opened up into the night they could both hear the rising cacophony of noise.

She said one harsh word, “assassins!”

*****************

The area Elisha had chosen to stage her operations center was the small courtyard between the Palace and the Palace Gates. Aside from the mass of people that were just Imperials hanging around waiting for action, there were a few hundred members of Ominous and Shadow Fall that were milling about at any one time on the green, waiting for orders, to rush off and foil an attack on one of the districts, or simply preparing for the Transient fights by maintaining or enhancing their gear.

Now it was chaos as lightning, fireballs, arrows, and all manner of other incendiaries flew all over. A casual look was all it took to reveal that a large sea of red names were currently fighting a pitched battle. For the most part, their numbers seemed to be comprised of stealth classes like rogues, thieves, archers, rangers, druids, and some of the rarer job versions.

Elisha stood for a moment, trying to decide which direction to head first when Khiafin interposed himself in front of her and roughly hip-checked a rebel that had appeared from thin air. The rebel started to snarl at him when he seemed to realize who Khiafin was.

“What are you doing? Look at her name!” He pointed with a dagger at Elisha.

“Go look somewhere else,” Khiafin drawled slowly.

“I don’t exactly need you to help me,” Elisha muttered coldly, surprising both men. Then she turned to the other Rebel and smiled, “I’m perfectly capable of melting an assassin all by myself like a big girl. [What’s your name]?”

“Danvers,” he said, seemingly confused as he answered. He eyed Khiafin who seemed like he was actually backing off and the healer in front of him. “You seem like an alright sort, but you’re worth a lot of points. No offense, but it might actually be easier for you if you let me ice you once.”

“I’m worth a lot of points? How can you tell?” Elisha tilted her head quizzically, brushing a piece of her hair out of her face.

“Your name is especially bright and vibrates a little bit. It means you’re especially high up the command board for contribution,” Danvers smiled at her, twirling his knife slightly as he looked off to the side to check and make sure the pitched battle was still going on behind him and no one was sneaking up. He seemed relieved to find that it was just Schulia standing awkwardly with her wood carving knife and the red named Khiafin standing awkwardly off to the side.

“Is that true?” Elisha turned to look at Khiafin. After a moment he nodded. “Did you know that’s what it meant?” She lifted an eyebrow.

“Sort of, but not really. Gilduirn and Rat and most of the people around you vibrate like that so I just thought it was normal,” Khiafin pointed a fingertip at Schulia. “She’s just bright red but no vibration.”

“Ah,” Elisha nodded and turned back to Danvers, “do you know Mordred?”

“No,” Danvers frowned and then hesitated before saying, “I don’t have any more time to entertain you.”

“Okay.” Elisha turned and started walking further out into the camp. As everyone watched in fascination she called out to Khiafin over her shoulder. “I already immobilized him, so kill that guy and hurry up?”

“What happened to you doing it yourself?” Khiafin asked, though there wasn’t any particular surprise in his voice.

“What good are you, then?” Came back to the taunting reply. Elisha was already casting barriers and healing spells further in, completely ignoring the situation behind her now.

“Well, there we are then,” Khiafin spread his arms apart and summoned his shortsword and hammerpick. He turned his gaze to Danvers, who by now had discovered that his boots were wrapped entirely with dense black ivy. The ivy was creeping up with incredible alacrity and was already trying to stubbornly coil itself around his waist. He stopped trying to free his feet and looked up at Khiafin with dread.

“Can you even kill me since we’re in the same faction?” Danvers asked tentatively.

Khiafin smiled. “My friend, I think you’re confusing accidental friendly fire and willful murderous intent…”

“Ah,” Danvers sagged slightly and a surprisingly amicable expression crossed his face. “Hug it out?”

Khiafin just laughed. “Sure.”

**************************

Gained:

[Story Fragment: Perfidelia, Order of the Black Research]

Amelia finally stepped through into the third stage. She covered her face with both hands and gave a long and exasperated moan that was more shrill scream than anything near the end.

“Halt Knave! You have one minute to prepare yourself!”

“I am so dumb. I can’t believe it was such an easy answer! Ugh! I can’t even look at you B-3!”

“Your query is unrecognized. Thirty seconds!”

“I’ll query your unrecognized…”

“Remember, if at any time you wish to leave, simply say the words ‘I surrender to the Quester Race’ to be extricated from your predicament!”

“I’ll just bet it’s been one whole day since a workplace accident,” Amelia hissed back.

“It has been 15 hours since an accidental death at the testing facility! Time is up! Prepare yourself Knave!”