-- Aster --

We ran into the hall just in case the guard raised the alarm. We learned this was not even remotely necessary as the guard didn't even notice us run it. I felt if the door had been open we could have simply walked out and no one would have even noticed us leaving. In fact, if I could have opened the door I would have. The guard was so engrossed in his book that it wasn't until I jumped over the desk and plopped down on my butt that he even noticed us. I sat right in front of the two buttons and pushed the green one. A loud buzzing noise could be heard as the door opened.

I could see the panic in the guard's eyes as he drifted down to my waist, looking for a weapon. I snapped my fingers in front of him and started to feel bad for him. His eyes snapped back to me seeing no weapon in hand his eyes darted back down to the button. I couldn't have that so I spoke, "hHoWw doo yYou wANt to Do thHiss?"

His eyes darted between me the button and then he finally noticed the freed captives. people I freed.

"Uhhh" The man looked completely lost.

"fFighTt, ruNn or KNnockked unNCONsciouSs." I gave the man his options.

The man narrowed his eyes, "Why unconscious?"

"pPlaUusibLlee denIAabillitYy." He might even get to keep his job.

The man gave one last look at the button then me and did the smart thing he walked around the desk and ran out the door.

"Wait?" The warrior woman I came to believe was their leader grabbed the man.

"Hey, I thought you were going to let me go?" The man said indignantly.

She rolled her eyes, "I am just where is our stuff?"

The man realizing they were let out a breath and pointed out to the house, "Living room, in the chest."

"Thank you." She smiled, dropping the man who as soon as his feet hit the ground he fled.

"Let's go before he raises the alarm." The woman said.

Her team looked at her and the rogue asked, "Will he?"

The leader smiled, "Most likely, but we'll be gone by then."

The group grabbed their things, as I walked out with them, I was about to run out when the woman stopped me. I really should learn their names, "Thanks for the save. I think we might still be able to finish our mission."

I smiled knowing they wouldn't see it and said two words, "gGood LuckK." I pushed power into falling away and my possibilities exploded into the distance, in a split second I saw something with and picked it disappearing from the spot. To them, I must have just disappeared to the others. I had to admit, I was enjoying playing the Mysterious hero.

I appeared on a roof two blocks away and looked down to see my team running through the streets covered in blood. The rot happened to them? I stopped falling away and removed my mask jumping down to catch up to them. I heard snippets of conversation as I caught up.

"Come on guys we need to get out of here now?" I heard James yell to the team. Why would he yell if they were trying to escape?

"We know James shut up and run!" Violet yelled annoyed.

At this point, I had gotten close enough to ask, "Why are you all covered in blood?"

James jumped at my voice speeding up, before looking back. "Aster when the rot did you get here?"

"Just now."

James looked like he was going to ask another question before shaking his head, "Doesn't matter we need to leave."

"Kill your captors?" I asked, before looking them all up and down,, " But that's a lot of blood how many were there?"

"A lot." Violet said shortly before narrowing her eyes, "How'd you know we were taken?"

"You left me alone in the room with no sign of you. Storytelling logic says..." I trailed off at the end since they've been going on about story logic for a while now, and I was starting to believe it.

"Yeah, yeah we get it." Bay said out of breath, "Fights over we need to leave the city before they catch us."

I didn't know quite who that would be but, I was expecting it to end up being the city itself.

We all went quiet as we reached the hotel within minutes surprised at the speed of our run. We quickly ran to our room to grab our stuff and tried to run by the front desk only for James to stop to check us out.

"James we don't have time for this," I said as everyone else ran to the car.

"There is always time for proper procedure."

"Rot James." Why do you always have to do this?

We spent a full ten minutes checking out. By the time he was done everyone was waiting right outside with the car honking. The staff was giving us dirty looks the entire time. The second James was done I grabbed him and dragged him out to the car, where we floored it. The entire drive out of the city I was expecting cops, or someone to catch up to us, or some kind of chase, but we just drove out like nothing was wrong.

Driving on the road out of the city we were finally out and looking back at the rapidly fading city when Violet broke the silence, "That was too easy."

"Yeah." Bay agreed

"Easy?" James said incredulous, "We had to kill like twenty people to escape."

"Yeah, but once we got out no one even tried to stop us," Violet explained.

"And you were all covered in blood." I chimed.

"Yeah. Why didn't anyone stop us?" Rowan asked confused.

"Who knows, but if I knew I had time I would have washed the blood off me," Violet said looking down to now congealed blood covering her and the others.

I tossed towels to everyone, I may or may not have taken from the inn's room. I got a grateful look from everyone when Bay asked, "James is there a lake or something on the way?" The towel wouldn't do much without water.

"I think I saw one on the map, but it could have been a swamp."

I turned to Bay, "Bay can you make it rain?"

"Enough for us to rinse. Jame finds us a place."

We drove for another hour before we found some trees we could pull over in and rinse off. Bay conjured a little cloud and everyone except me got drenched. I sat in the car waiting for them to finish when I saw what looked like heavily armored vehicles pulling up fast.

"And there is the pursuit." I yelled to everyone, "Everyone! No Time to change get in!"

"But." Jame began.

"They're coming fast!" I interrupted.

They looked and saw the cars, and soaked jumped into the car, and we sped off.

-- Blackthorn --

Basil practically ran into my office, "Miss Blackthorn they escaped."

It took me a few moments to register what he even meant. When I did my eyes widened, "Already? How? I thought you said we had a few hours?:

"All our projections said we would." He said tiredly.

"How did they get through the guards?" I stopped thinking the only way I could think of, "Did they get rescued?"

Basil shook his head saying almost like he, himself didn't believe it, "No, they killed them all."

I stared in disbelief, "How they shouldn't be more than level fifteen."

"We don't know. By all accounts, they should have been stopped, but they got out."

"So we don't even have our 'Ally' with them," I asked hoping he somehow joined them.

"No, he didn't get the chance." I guess it had only been an hour or two.

"Ok..." I thought and began changing plans, "Let's go the legal route, villain then. We'll condemn them for killing everyone with excessive violence. Oh and we could say something about not paying their hotel bill by not checking out. Then we can get legal authorities on our side"

"Actually"

I didn't like that tone, "What?"

"They paid fully, and checked out." He said

"Really?" How could they stop an escape to check out of a hotel?

"Yeah."

"OOOOkkkk" I had no words and had to physically shake myself to get my train of thought back on the rails, "Alright let's send the teams after them. Their goal is to stop them however they need to."

Basil raised an eyebrow, "Killing them?"

"If they can," I said not liking the hunter team's chances. As I started to think aloud, "They are close enough that I can still play the villain if they die, they will respawn here. But let's assume they will escape."

"Mam?" Basil asked confused.

"I think they've proven themselves. I'll still play the villain show the footage and we can get a campaign going against the other questers. Since they set prescient." I smiled thinking of all the ways I could now justify stopping them, "Besides this is a marathon Basil. Not a race."

"Understood. I'll get the hunter teams sent immediately."