◈ Chapter 79:

Opal heard the crash of falling stone and the cry of anger below and smiled. Yes, everything was going exactly as planned, she could even hear Red scrambling up the stairs two floors below.

Now came her part in the plan, she hauled on the rope by her side and the counterweight she had roped to the shutters fell free, the rock dropping, well, like a rock, the rope it was attached to hauling the shutters wide with a bang and then snapping taut on the super-sized crossbow ballista that Opal was currently straddling. She nearly fell over as the whole thing lurched forward, the arms of the bow slamming up against the window frame, the back tipping up as more counterweights fell in sequence.

Opal found herself staring down into the street below, or more specifically, the street spanning pit, a huge square hole where the cobble road had fallen into the basement below. It had been a frantic piece of work to get everything prepared, Rain had needed to apply all his great strength to rip out basically everything that wasn’t earth from the basement.

Removing everything hadn't been part of the plan originally, but they had quickly found that any remaining wooden beams or chunks of stone Lyra’s Skill instantly latched onto and tried to use to replace the ceiling Rain had ripped out, structural supports literally growing tree-like from beam to beam. Which was a problem as her, in her opinion, genius plan called for the ceiling to collapse as soon as Lyra’s ability was turned off.

She grinned fiercely as she looked down at her prey, the big nasty leveler who had hurt her Rain. He was climbing to his feet along with his weird red dog, their clothes dirtied with the soaking mud, the dog circling, agitated and looking for enemies.

She hauled on a rope to her side and the ballista shifted perfectly into position, the black metal bolt aimed straight at the Ranker’s chest.

Then she slammed her fist down on the trigger with a cry of exhilaration.

The metal arms of the bow snapped forward so violently that the stone window frame shattered beneath them, blowing out in a stream of stone. But that was as nothing compared to the force of the ballista bolt itself that ripped the air asunder as it exploded forward directly on target with the Ranker.

The bolt screamed through the air like a bolt of straightened lightening, down into the pit, and straight into the Ranker’s ches-

Bane’s hand snapped up and his fingers locked around the shaft instantly stopping it in place, the black metal tip an inch from his chest. He swayed backwards as he absorbed the enormous force behind the bolt, but he took it, his feet sliding slightly in the mud.

The bolt was stopped, the Ranker somehow unharmed, the plan was ruin-

Opal slammed the shutters closed and scrambled back into the building.

The Ranker blinked up at the sudden motion, then his eyes were drawn down to the rag tied around the base of the bolt, the rag that was currently igniting, blooming to life with fire.

--

Rain stood from his chair, yes, this was perfect. Their mad scramble to throw all of their plans together was paying off, the trap had snapped shut over Bane and he hadn't been able to stop it.

The ballista bolt hadn’t pierced the Ranker’s body, but that wasn’t a concern, it had never been the main point of the plan. Opal had asked for FIRE, and Rain had instantly agreed to it. He had very vivid horrible memories of the sheer blinding agony that fire could cause, very few things come close to that feeling of having your flesh burned away. Because of that it was perfect for the Ranker, it was the least of what that evil creature deserved.

The problem had been, where were they to get said fire? In the end he had found the solution to both Opal’s town cave problem and the fire problem in the same place, a place he had been aware of in his past life, a huge distillery in the center of town. The distillery was a complex made up of several buildings, including basements that connected the buildings beneath the street.

They’d ransacked the distillery and emptied every single barrel of liquid they could find into the basement, completely flooding the place. This was after testing the stuff was flammable of course. It had been very flammable to Opal’s delight, more than perfect for what they had in mind.

Now the Ranker was trapped in a pit that was about to be filled with a raging firestorm, burning him and his shitty dog alive.

Rain’s claws twitched with anticipation, waiting to hear the screams, hungry to see terrible pain on the Ranker’s face, to see him suffer.

Then his nose caught a scent. A very concentrated scent that almost made him feel woozy, a smell that smelled exactly like a ten thousand times stronger version of the liquid they had earlier poured from the barrels.

His eyes widened in shock, but it was already far far too late to do anything.

Unknowingly, Lyra’s ability had gasified, trapped, and concentrated much of the liquid they had poured out in its attempt to hide it.

They had accidentally created a large bomb.

BOOOM!!

The street exploded, the surrounding buildings instantly disintegrating into the air as the cobble ripped up in a wave that roared toward Rain, sending the road skyward in a fraction of a moment.

All Rain had time for was to throw his arms up protectively before the world became a howling maelstrom of earth and stone, cobble pelting his body with a fury as he was fully lifted into the air and thrown bodily down the street, the chair he had been sat on instantly shredded to kindling as it was blown away.

He came down hard, digging a furrow in the cobble before coming to a painful halt curled up in a ball. He was then instantly buried under feet of stone and earth falling from the sky, cutting off his air, suffocating him. He choked and struggled, trying to draw in breath but only getting a mouthful of dirt. Flailing, he dug at the earth, whipping it aside with his arms, struggling to sit up as debris fell from him. At last, he broke free, drawing in great lungfuls of air and spitting grit.

He looked around in dismay. Half the buildings in the street had been destroyed and the spot where the basement pit had been was now a gently sloping crater. The street was devastated.

He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his thoughts, the high pitched ringing in his ears slowly fading.

Opal… Opal had been in that building, that building that was now… gone.

Panicking he struggled free, climbing atop the rubble and earth as specks of dirt and dust continued to fall from the sky. He took a step, wobbled, found his balance, then headed toward the building Opal had been in.

There wasn't much left of it, just broke tooth sections of wall sticking up amongst the earth and stone, rubble washed up against masonry, the building’s debris spilling out into the street over.

He fell to his knees, he didn't even know where to begin, this was- this wasn't supposed to happen!

They had all been in the building, small and vulnerable, and now- now he was alone… Opal… He couldn't-

“Let me out dammit! I can't breathe with your fluff in my face!”

Rain’s head snapped up, his ears twitching, his eyes latching onto the source. There was a leather bag lying in the street over. As he watched a small green arm poked out the opening and grabbed at the drawstring, pulling it wide. A moment later a head poked free, a small goblin girl shaking her long black hair and coughing. With a scowl she plucked some white woolly fluff from her tongue and flicked it aside.

“Y-you’re still half naked! Get your bum away from meee!” came a cry of distress from within the bag.

Opal struggled free, lifting herself out of the bag before flopping down on the ground.

“That… that was a little more fire than I expected…”

She looked up as Rain loomed over her.

“Uh, sorry wolfy but I think there's not going to be a lot left of that leveler for you to take your anger out on. He’s probably lots of little bits of dust in the air currently.”

Rain didn't answer, he was still dealing with the falling and spiking emotion of almost losing her. He dropped a paw on her stomach to reassure himself she was really there and not just some hallucination from being driven mad. Opal gave him a funny look and squirmed underneath his paw which covered most of her abdomen.

Behind Opal Lyra crawled out of the bag, her face bright red with embarrassment. The colour quickly drained from her cheeks however as she looked around and found the street just gone.

“Oh… Oh shit. W-was this something I did?”

Then behind her a red scaled snout poked from the bag. The snout took one look around and came to the swift conclusion the outside world was indeed a bad place. The snout disappeared back inside the bag and buried itself deep in a pile of gold.

“Yes! This is all your fault! My plan was perfect! This was totally your leveler-ness screwing things up!”

“Wha- No it wasn't! I did nothing wrong, I was just doing what you told me to do!”

“I didn't tell you to blow up the street!”

“This was your idea! You should have known!”

“I can't predict levelers doing dumb stuff can I!”

“I didn't do anything!”

“Yes you di-

Their argument was suddenly interrupted by the sound of stone and earth rolling and shifting.

Rain froze up at the sound, then his head slowly turned toward it. No, it couldn't be, it couldn't, it just couldn't.

A mound of earth was rising in the shallow crater that had been the pit, green fire flickering across its surface and pouring from crevices between stones, a green Fel Fire, twisting and curling into the air as more and more earth sloughed from the shape rising from within.

Earth fell away and his head became visible, black smoke curling from his hair and beard as he freed himself, his one eye glowing with a sickly green light, a look of barely withheld fury on his face.

He snarled like a dog and shook his shoulders, the last of the earth falling away revealing his upper body, the torn remains of his shirt hanging from his hips, ripped asunder by the explosion and revealing dozens of occult runes that had been carved deep into his muscular body, all of them glowing a foreboding orange red.

“That... is the first time someone has opened an attack on me by trying to fucking bomb me.” He brushed dust from his shoulder as green fire wisped over his body burning away any remaining dirt. “Too bad it was never going to work.”

He snapped his fingers and the Hellhound simply appeared beside him, stepping out of thin air, blinking into existence, its body completely untouched by the explosion.

“I was thinking of making a ruby out of you, but now, now I think I just want to kill you,” said the Ranker, stepping forward.