She held open the drapes over the doorway for me and I slipped out, positioning myself behind a tall stack of empty wicker baskets. From there, I watched until the guard at the far end was scanning the secondary hallway before I slipped across the hallway into a larger room.

It used to be a grocery store, back when this was a secret army base. The delves appeared to be using it for short term storage. More baskets were everywhere in stacks, as were spare bolts of silk cloth and several of the orbs they hung for lighting.

Jada slipped in behind me, sticking the cover instead of relying on the shadows. I figured the same way she must have, that the delves could likely see in the dark well enough to spot us anyway. Staying physically out of sight was our only option.

Slipping down the length of the storage room was simple, but what faced us next would not be. The guard outside the nearby stairs was merely feet away from the far exit, and he was facing our direction.

I produced the other guard’s clothing, which was thankfully clean of blood. Jada had crushed him but had been careful not to cut him anywhere. I appreciated that attention to detail as I slipped into the clothing, removing my helmet, and swapping it for a light silk hood.

Jada blinked at the doorway, her ears flicking back and forth at every sound.

I left my helmet, highwater blaster, and plasma falchion with Jada and stepped out into the hallway, moving with purpose toward the guard.

He saw me coming almost immediately, and I averted my face from his penetrating gaze as I hurriedly approached. I raised a hand, with one finger up, as if trying to get his attention, and saw the confusion flicker across his features for an instant.

It was enough. I lunged, using my leg’s growing strength to hurl myself the remainder of the distance. He reacted, raising a silvery long blade and driving its edge into my leg as I slammed into him. The delve’s head bounced against the wall behind him, and the static from his shield flickered as it partially protected him from the blow.

I snarled and grabbed him under both arms, before squeezing as hard as I could, trying to bring both palms together. His torso crushed and he wheezed in sudden pain. There was no scream as he died, and I immediately began descending the stairs.

Jada followed, watching over her shoulder. She offered my gear back to me when she got close enough.

“The far guards noticed something. They’re coming,” she grunted.

I dropped the guard’s body. “Doesn’t matter. Our only goal is getting to Axle before they realize we’re coming for him.” We began descending the stairs and were greeted by Taytrinn’s door guard. One of them had come closer to inspect the thud of my impact with the upstairs guard, and his red eyes gleamed at me in the dark.

Instead of moving toward me, the guard scrambled backwards, shouting at the top of his lungs.

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s about right.” I slid my helmet in place as I moved to one side.

Jada rushed past me, leaping from the bottom of the staircase to land on the guard as he fled. These ones wore armor over their silk clothing and carried lances that erupted into tips of burning red plasma when activated.

The second door guard rushed forward with his lance, tip pointed at Jada. She tore into the first guard, savaging his throat and chest with her teeth and claws.

I charged, drawing Falcor again. The guard saw me coming and turned his charge to meet me. A quick side-step of my clumsy swing, and he had me, shoving his plasma lance through my midsection in a swift, efficient thrust.

I stopped and gagged as the flames from the lace immolated part of my intestines. The suit activated, and I watched my opponent's eyes widen behind his armor as he saw the tendrils deploy.

With fresh painkiller rushing through my system, I braced my legs and yanked the lance further through myself, staggering the dark elf a step closer. He realized he was in range an instant before I grabbed him by the collar and hurled him into the concrete wall behind us. The elf died instantly, leaving a giant white blood stain behind on the wall.

I reached around behind myself and hauled his lance the rest of the way out, dropping it to the floor as my suit started working to carve great chunks out of my torso and replace them.

Jada stepped away as my turbine spun up, ejecting a spurt of charred gore. I staggered back and leaned against the wall as the suit worked and watched my cartoon starfish.

“This is a lot of damage user, find something to break!” It exclaimed.

I snarled, nodded at Jada, and turned to Taytrinn’s door. This level was just above experimentation and the Sleem pit, and the delves had done some work securing it.

Taytrinn’s door was huge and looked like silvered steel from the outside. It matched a hatch covering the stairwell down, with huge electronic panels set in the center for accessing the locking mechanism.

I didn’t bother turning on the panel. Looking at my hands, I nearly activated both breaker gauntlets, but stopped when I noticed the ring Mr. Sada had willed to me. A vision of what would happen to it if I summoned my gauntlets made me pause and take it off first, slipping the item into a pocket.

Then I brought the gauntlets out, to Jada’s surprise. The thin metal bands across the back of my arms, hands, and fingers all sprang out, and armor sections slid from the glowing portals to cover my arms to the elbow.

With a thought, I activated my breaker and slammed a fist into the door. I held back my power blow ability, as there was no way to know where Axle was, and I didn’t want to crush him by sending a giant chunk of metal flying into the room. The door crumpled in the center, bent inward from its hinges, and shattered into metal dust at the impact crater.

My cartoon starfish danced in glee as my suit’s charge refilled.

Jada’s eyes remained wide as I pushed the remnants of the door aside, but she rushed in as soon as I was out of the way.

I stepped in behind her and stopped in my tracks, atomic breaker gauntlets still humming. Lady Taytrinn Shireen stood beside Axle, who was strapped into a metal frame hung from the wall.

His shirt was off, and his gear was piled beside him. Fresh cuts were visible across his ribs, even through the thick fur, and he was covered in dried blood.

Jada and I both glared directly at Taytrinn. She held a long bladed knife to the side of Axle’s throat, gleaming tip tucked partially under his slumped chin. The Knowle was unconscious and based on how much blood was on the floor at his feet, it wasn’t hard to guess why.

She’d been torturing him.

The dark elf mistress glanced between me and the snarling Knowle at my side. “Don’t take a step closer!” The hand she held at Axle’s throat shook.

I took a single step toward her.

Her ivory eyebrows rose in fury, but she froze when I raised a hand.

“Don’t do anything, Taytrinn. So far, nothing you’ve done is permanent,” I said, just loud enough for the helmet to broadcast. “Nothing you’ve done can’t be undone.”

She blinked several times, looking between me and Jada.

Jada snarled but didn’t say anything. She just clutched at her mace.

“The instant you do something permanent, it can’t be undone,” I said, taking another step closer. “And then we won’t be talking anymore. Right now we’re just talking.”

The dark elf across from me suddenly grimaced. I recognized the expression as a precursor to violence. Her face was twisting up in preparation for a sudden and violent act.

I launched myself, pushing off the concrete floor behind me hard.

The knife clattered to the floor as I slammed into Taytrinn, and we both bounced off the wall behind her. I clutched at her throat with one hand as we fell and rammed the tip of Falcor into her slender midsection.

The delves leader exhaled in a gentle moan and stared down at her stomach with wide, shocked eyes. My ‘magic’ sword had gone through her like she was made of paper, and her personal shield was throwing a fit around the edges of the blade. Tiny sparks and arcs of lighting streaked from it to the sharp edge of the blade, which blurred with the activity.

Taytrinn took a breath, then grimaced in pain and coughed out thick, white blood. I left the sword where it was, pinning her to the concrete, and turned back to Jada and Axle.

She had dropped her mace and rushed to him, trying to wake him while she struggled to untie him from the metal rack on the wall.

Movement in the doorway caught my attention, and I moved to block Jada and Axle with my own body.

The other guards had caught up to us and formed a firing squad in the doorway. White hot slag filled the air between us as they opened fire, and I raised both breaker gauntlets to protect my chest and stomach.

I stood, legs braced, as six dark elf guards in the doorway unloaded their rifles into me. Jada threw herself over Axle, to cover him from the onslaught, but I took the brunt of it.

Dozens of slag rounds filled the air, sunk into my stomach, arms, legs, and shoulders. A high pitched squeal of pain from behind me indicated at least one got past, and I turned my head to see Jada’s shield active and protecting them from most of what got through. It was Axle who had screamed in pain, when molten slag from a round had splashed against his exposed bicep.

I roared in anger and pain, whipped my plasma falchion out of its scabbard, and activated the blade. Red plasma rushed into the containment line along the edge and lit up the room as my suit deployed dozens of tendrils to repair the damage to my body.

The room glittered and swayed under the effect of the painkiller, but instinct had taken over anyway. My higher reasoning center was just along for the ride, as I allowed my violent instincts to direct my actions.

Most of the limb damage was superficial, and my suit was in the process of repairing it. The suit seemed to prioritize the return of function, when making choices how to repair me, and closing the distance was easy.

Tendrils swayed and swirled around my form as I stepped into the middle of a group of dark elf warriors. In a row, each of them ignited plasma weapons of their own. Most were lances, but I saw one that curved around the edge of the weapon in a short arc, giving it the appearance of a great, glowing, red ax head.

I lashed out at the nearest elf, on my right. They dodged my swing easily and thrust with their plasma lance, as the other five all lunged in to do the same. My suit saved me again. Any plasma weapon edge that interacted with a tendril spat an explosion of sparks and bounced off.

The elf I had missed with my swing suddenly found himself inside my grabbing range, and his eyes went wide as he realized his mistake. My left arm reached across and lifted him bodily off his feet. I dragged him through my plasma falchion’s blade, shorting out his shield and cutting him in half before I tossed what was left of him at the delves to my left.

I lunged at the next one in their formation on the right, missing as he dodged my grasp. They were fast, and I kept opening myself to counter attack. The suit deployed more tendrils as a lance thrust into my hip and melted the bones supporting my left leg together.

Even through the glowing fog of painkillers, that hurt, and my leg locked in place, sending me crashing to the ground. More tendrils deployed, as more weapons sunk into me. I watched, half aware, as the glowing ax head sought entry through the cloud of starfish suit limbs inadvertently defending my form.

The starfish gyrated behind them, seeking my attention. “Charge dropping fast user! Break something, break something!”

That sounded like a great idea.

Dark elf legs surrounded me, all in a close circle as they shouted and jabbed and swung at me. Almost lazily, I reached out for the nearest limb, grabbed hold of it at the ankle, and squeezed.

The elf screamed in a voice so high pitched that my helmet cut part of it out to protect my higher ranges of hearing. I chuckled at the notification it gave me and grabbed another leg. This time I had them near the knee, and when I squeezed, the limb offered slight resistance before the bone crushed to shards.

Another voice joined the screaming, and the flurried rain of blows stopped. The other elves danced back a step, as I regained my newly repaired legs and lifted my falchion. Two of the remaining three delves exchanged glances and then moved as one to attack.

I watched with mild interest as the plasma lance tip thrust past my tendrils and through my belly. I stepped forward, into the thrust, welcoming the elf into range. The sensation was dulled to the point of an echo, by the heavy flood of painkillers, but the fire caught and burned away the last of my stolen silks. Yet more suit tendrils erupted and went to work repairing the damage and putting out the flames.

The dark elf screamed as he was encased by my tendril cloud. The thin whip arms left him alone, but he knew what it meant to be that close. I wrapped both arms around him and squeezed him into me in a bear hug, crushing his spine and ribs before dropping him to the floor.

I turned to face the ax-wielder, pointing with a metal encased finger. He scrambled back and used the haft of his weapon to shove the other remaining defender in my path.

He stumbled close and I slashed at him with my falchion. The flames guttered on his shield as my charge depleted, so I dropped the weapon and leapt forward onto him instead.

With a scream of panic, the dark elf produced a dagger and shoved it into my throat. I gurgled and choked, but clenched my arms in any way, crushing him against my body.

A tendril grabbed the hilt of the knife and ripped it out, before another began cauterizing the damage with a laser, and yet another began spraying flesh foam in to repair the gaping hole. I turned to the next elf, who screamed and dropped his lance, backing away.

The dark elf with the ax sneered and sprinted off into the darkness.

I gasped and bent to lean on the nearby wall as the suit worked. Great gouts of bloody gore were ejected from the turbine, and what felt like hundreds of tendrils swarmed my body affecting repairs.

The starfish danced and cheered me. “Great work keeping up the charge during heavy periods of repair, user. Now just top off the batteries, and the work will be complete.”

I turned back to the last two living elves, both with broken limbs. The elf with the shattered ankle was up and trying to hobble away, using the wall as support. The other was simply lying on the floor, staring at me with wide, red eyes.

Without hesitation, I stomped on his chest and stepped over him as he died. In a few steps, I caught up to the other elf, and pressed them into the wall with a hard shove. Both died nearly instantly, and the little cartoon starfish who told me what to do assured me that I had done a good job. I didn’t bother thinking about it too much and turned back to help Jada with Axle.

When I entered the room again, I took a quick look at the former owner. She was dead, both hands still clutching the hilt of Falcor, red eyes glazed over. Dro’erja’s words from earlier rang in my ears again, as the painkiller began to work its way out of me.

“Thus falls the House of Shireen.”