Dane gasped for breath as he awoke, eyes snapping open to reveal the hard packed dirt of the town square. His arms jerked as he fought for air, but his lungs remained empty. His armor! Metal clanged as he patted down his breastplate, feeling the way that the steel was bent and caved in over his ribs. Fingers twitching, he fumbled at the clasps, rising onto his knees as his lungs continued to burn. Finally, he managed to separate the plates with a satisfying click, the front half of the interlocking steel bouncing off his knees as it fell free. Air filled his lungs with a gasp, and slumped down as he regained his breath.

Where was his sword? Leaving the ruined steel plate where it had fallen, he scrambled across the square to where his weapon shone nearby. The crowd of adventurers stood gathered around him, but none made any moves to approach. Raising his sword upright, Dane opened his mouth to begin a prayer. Before he could utter the first verse of guidance, however, he was interrupted by the pulse of mana being drained from the single gem that remained intact on the pommel of his sword. There was a dull crack and three figures appeared around him, weapons drawn and shields raised.

“Fath-…” Dane looked around at the knights, taking in their distinctive silver armor, white tabards marked with a red cross. Their leader wore a dull suit of black plate with a crusader style bucket helm instead of the usual visored helmet, and a double-headed hammer was held in his arms instead of a straight sword and shield.

“Execution Gideon,” Dane said. “To have moved the Templars for this…”

“Father Molt allowed us to be sent in the place of the Paladins,” Gideon replied, clipping his hammer onto his back and turning towards the adventurer. “The Greatsword will be deployed on this occasion. At any rate, it was on our watch that he escaped.”

The other two Templars flinched as they searched the crowd. Sheathing their swords, they turning back towards Dane and Gideon. Dane lowered his head, reversing his sword to place the tip on the ground.

“Brother Dane reporting, sir,” he said. “This is the lumber town of Forestry, on the edge of the Paw. I was meeting with the Gold-ranked party Shield of Sacrilege when the target was teleported to my location, presumably by the will of sister Sierra. The target was confirmed, and… an execution was attempted.”

Gideon ignored Dane’s report, wandering over to where the younger man had abandoned his breastplate. Stooping down, he picked the bent piece of armor off of the ground, turning it around in his hands before dropping it back onto the dirt. Unlatching the hammer from his back, he knelt down on to the dirt and raised the weapon over the steel plate, the solid heads of the hammer decorated with intricate engravings.

Dane’s eyes widened as he watched Gideon move. “The Great-”

“Continue your report, brother,” Gideon said. Holding the hammer in one hand, he began to beat the dents out of Dane’s breastplate with steady blows, the other two Templars wincing visibly with each strike.

“The target regenerated even a strike to the heart, on two separate occasions.” Dane raised his voice over the clanging as Gideon continued to beat his armor back into shape. “He also blocked an attack with his right hand, the sword cutting through the flesh but stopped by the bones. I attempted to strike with a charged blade, but he was able to somehow transmute a blade from his right hand, piercing my sword’s gem and draining the mana before the blow landed.”

Gideon stopped working on Dane’s armor, standing and passing the plate back to him. “Put your armor on,” he said. “This damage was caused by his blade?”

Dane nodded and stood, retrieving his armor and snapping the clasps together. “His speed and strength were comparable to that of the stronger beast-clans. If he had been trained in the use of his sword he could have easily slain me with that blow.”

“Very well,” Gideon said, hanging the hammer over his back once again. “Where is he now?”

Dane shook his head. “I lost consciousness after being struck,” he said. “I assume that he fled the area.”

“You’d be correct,” a voice rang out from the crowd. The adventurers parted as Ruth stepped out, Coin and Lilly following close behind.

“Our mage struck him a solid blow with a rock missile, but even that was not enough,” Ruth said. “It blew him right through a cabin, too.”

The three adventurers approached the members of the church, the gap in the crowd closing behind them. Ruth stopped and turned towards the black-armored Templar, a serious look settling over his face. “Was he ever truly a human at all?”

Gideon turned away from the trio, reaching into a pouch on the back of his belt and handing a small scroll to Dane, who unfurled it immediately.

“Use this to contact the others,” Gideon said. “The pathway should still be open enough to transmit your voice, at least. Tell Henry to meet with you here and return to Starthall together. Tell Cliff and Sierra to open a channel at the entrance to the Arm. We’re coming to them.”

…

Christoph stumbled as he ran, one hand clutched over his torso, the other swinging wildly to keep up with the jerking movements of his legs. He had sheathed his sword long ago, the extra mana flowing through him as he did so. To have used the unicorn horn to absorb mana from a gemstone! Had the unicorn also been able to do that? The adventurers had merely watched him go by as he ran from the town, sprinting out into the lumber yards beyond. Did they not see him as an enemy? Despite that, even Regal had attacked him. Was there something he was missing?

He forced himself into the present as the forest came into view. Because of the town’s proximity to the Paw, the lumberjacks had felled a line of giant trees as a kind of improvised fence. The wooden barricade stood around twenty meters tall, and there were pieces missing from some of the trees where they used them as a source of timber as well. Christoph approached one side of the giant ‘fence’, clambering up the unstable-looking scaffold that had been set up and reaching the top of the fallen tree trunk.

On the other side of the fence was yet another line of giant trees, even larger than the one he stood upon. Christoph descended the trunk, feeling an ache in his stomach as he raced across the gap between the fences and over the next line of trees. The ribs that had shattered under Regal’s rock missile had long since healed, and the damage he had taken from the impact with the cabin was not far behind. The familiar sensation that had settled into Christoph’s torso was not that of pain, but hunger.

Ignoring the cries of his body, Christoph forced his way deeper into the Paw. He ran through the trees until the forest floor fell away beneath the giant roots and the pathway became a winding mess of wooden branches. Pushing further, he searched for the flickers of mana that shone even through the trunks of nearby trees, pricks of light leading him to the places where he would find a meal. The tree roots ended abruptly as a stream cut through the forest, and he changed his course. Finding food could wait until he was sure that God’s Compass wasn’t still lurking in the area. He continued up the river until he began to recognize the trees, circling around through the forest to approach the camp unseen.

The fireplace was gone, the tents missing and the supplies had likewise vanished. Christoph searched the area, but there was no sign of any of the adventurers, nor any traces of Emilia. He turned his head to look upwards as thoughts of the cat-girl entered his mind. After a moment’s searching, he was able to locate the tree where they had fought.

“Ah,” he said aloud. “That’s why.”

Although the branch they had fought on was still there, it only extended a couple of meters from the enormous tree trunk this time, not the dozens of meters it had stretched out beforehand. Everything past that point was simply missing. Was that a side effect of the teleportation? A chunk of wood had followed Christoph to Forestry, but it had been no larger than a small table. Is that why Emilia had gone from trying to save him to effectively throwing him from the tree branch herself?

A spark of light caught Christoph’s eye, and he turned from the campsite towards the trees, looking further into the forest. The spark had not been faint – if it was food, it was close by. Turning away from the damaged tree, he focused in the direction that the spark had appeared in. Again, a bright light flashed through the trees, the distance much greater than Christoph had expected. Not even the Guardian would have gleamed so bright from so far away. Somewhere deeper in the forest, someone was fighting.

…

Henry drew his sword as Emilia approached, her innocent expression somewhat undermined by the twin knives she carried in her hands. Nearby, Cliff and Sierra ran over the twisting roots, soon disappearing behind the giant trees. From where Henry stood, continuing in that direction couldn’t be called travelling deeper into the forest any longer. They had passed the center of the Paw already, and were now making their way to the ‘arm’ on the other side.

“Oh?” Emilia said, ears flicking towards the footsteps. “Are your friends not joining us?”

“They have something else to take care of,” Henry said. “Besides, if they’d stayed behind then we wouldn’t be able to have a fair fight.”

Emilia laughed loudly, hair swaying as her ears bobbed with each note. Smiling over at him, she shifted into an imposing stance again, one finger pointing at the half-elf over the handle of her knife. “I, Emilia of the Greater Paw, challenge you to a duel. If I win, you will leave that man to me.”

“The church is involved now,” Henry said. “His identity was confirmed, and an Executioner has been sent, wielding a great relic of our people. You will not claim that man as your own. If you still wish to fight needlessly, I will stop you here.”

Emilia narrowed here eyes at him, her grin shifting into a cold scowl. “Watch your tone, trash,” she said. “I had thought you better than the rest of the human scum, if only by a little. But if you get in my way then I will kill you.”

Henry drew his dagger with his left hand to join the sword he held in his right, the two thin blades dancing gently as he took a stance. “Fighting to protect my friends and stop a monster from enslaving a human being.” He smiled over at her. “It’s almost heroic.”

“I’ll kill you for that,” she hissed, readying her own blades. “Maybe I’ll sell you off to the dwarves up on the mountain. I’m sure they’d have a use for a young elf half-breed like yourself!”

Emilia lunged as she spoke, batting Henry’s sword out of the way and rushing past the weapon’s effective range. Recovering from her parry, Henry thrust out at her legs with his dagger, pulling his sword back to deflect her barrage of frenzied slashes.

The fight continued on as it had the last time they crossed blades, Emilia steadily increasing the strength of her attacks and closing the distance again whenever Henry managed to push her back. Henry was losing ground with every moment, the beast-girl following him relentlessly in an endless succession of attacks, blocks, and parries.

Emilia grunted as Henry’s booted foot swung up to connect with her side, the tip of her dagger narrowly missing the flesh of his calf before she was slammed away. Leaping back past the tip of his sword, she realized her mistake a fraction of a second too late. Henry’s dagger slid into her thigh without much resistance, Emilia’s own slash parried easily as she was pushed back.

“You bastard,” she grunted as the distance between them grew.

“Oh?” Henry said. “Is changing hands against the rules?” He grinned over at the cat-girl, drops of crimson blood dripping from the dagger he now held loosely in his right hand.