(Nazanin.)

I parried Alister's next blow, but my flesh was torn open across my shoulder nonetheless.

The pain bit into my muscles, but thankfully my tendon was saved by a quarter inch; an instinctive flex of my injured arm, following the moment I was freed of the touch of the mercenary's blade, proved that I could still move it.

I didn't waste the half-breath that it took my enemy to recover from his forceful swing.

As I brought my glaive across the only opening in the captain's guard that remained within my reach, my gaping wound touched its meaty ends together and stung like loosed wildfire.

We both jumped back then, at the same time we each instinctively realized that to go for another strike would expose the other to another attack.

Unfortunately, Alister had weapons that I did not.

I had meant to free Castien from his collar before confronting the captain, but I had been unable to find us a clear path to the merchant through the sandstorm.

Alister, meanwhile, still had his own mageborn.

He raised his ring into the air and it flared.

I wasted no time. Whatever he was doing would not be good for me.

My thin, but agile and toned, arms spun in a half-defensive and half-offensive arc towards his outstretched hand.

From where I knew the girl had stood, I heard the inane mutterings of inborn sorcery as I leapt towards my foremost target.

Alister, for his part, seemed prepared for this and merely jumped back, while also unsheathing a dagger from a chest-strapped bandolier. The balanced knife flew in a lethal arc that forced me to dig my foot into the sand and spin from its path.

[Nazanin, Level 9 Wardancer]

[HP: 60/74]

My eyes shot to my HP. I was still doing alright, but so too was Alister.

[Captain Alister, Level 8 Fighter, Level 2 Rogue]

[HP: 70/75]

I cursed myself for ignoring his levels in rogue. That knife would've been a critical hit if I'd not managed to move against it in time.

In the half-instant of me spinning my boot into the ground, I repositioned myself and heard the ignition of flame.

I was loathe to take my eyes off my enemy.

Nonetheless I had little choice, if the girl was sending a spell my way then I'd have to try to see it coming.

"Focus on him!" a voice I hadn't expected to interject anything screamed at me. "I'll stop the girl!"

My eyes shifted to Castien, who was now running towards the child he'd spoken of.

The gem on his collar was still glowing, but he now appeared completely unaffected by its magics. Was this a product of his abilities? How odd.

"You'll die first!" I heard Alister declare from my side.

Instantly the man seemed to take his attention off of me.

A mistake.

I spun into action.

"You bitch!" Alister screamed as he just barely brought his sword up in time to once again fight off my glaive.

His eyes tried to shoot back to see what Castien was doing, but I merely took the chance to bring the haft of my weapon up in a cross strike which hit him hard across the jaw.

The man stumbled.

I used the momentum of my falling glaive to drop my right shoulder towards the ground and to bring my left foot up to drive into the fighter's mid-chest.

[You've dealt 2 blunt damage to Captain Alister.]

[You've dealt 5 unarmed damage to Captain Alister.]

The mercenary stumbled back, but my body was in its element now. My kick transitioned into me dropping my leg into the footing of a lethal glaive swing.

I was upon him as quickly as I had knocked him back.

Another strike cut into him.

[You've dealt 7 slashing damage to Captain Alister.]

If he continued to split his attention, then he would die.

Every attack I managed to land without taking damage myself would provide a small, but cumulative, bonus to my Agility and Perception for the duration of the battle. It was the cornerstone feature of the wardancer class.

The bonus would only stack up to the maximum count of the chain of attacks I'd managed to land in a battle. The bonus wouldn't, however, be taken away when and if I was hit, it would merely reset the count for the next highest bonus to be achieved.

My next blow came even quicker than the last and at an even odder angle.

The man was quick enough himself, likely an effect of his levels in rogue, but my eyes were already growing sharper than his double dip into an Agility class could hope to combat.

I could tell, however, that if I continued on with the current path of my strike that he would manage to halt it.

I activated [False Angle] to combat this.

I felt my body lose a single strike's worth of it's bonuses to Agility and Perception as the ability activated.

My weapon and arms, however, seemed to flicker from reality as I bypassed the angle of Alister's block.

My glaive swept around the captain's raised sword and was a heartbeat from his throat. I could taste the damaging hit to come; if I managed this then the bleed effect of such a strike alone would sway this battle to my favor and make up for the cost of [False Angle].

Unfortunately, Alister could feel the incoming danger just as well as I could.

The captain's eyes grew wide and I watched as the toecap of his own leather boot dug into the ground and he seemed to moved backwards with an almost preternatural reaction speed.

The man's hand reached into a pouch of his bandolier and I quickly dodged backwards myself out of an instinctive reaction to the unknown.

Alister brought a small, black pebble into his fingers from out of the pouch and threw it to the ground. I covered my eyes as a small spark of combustion and flash powder filled the air.

Where the man had been was now an empty space.

Was that a rogue ability, perhaps?

I cursed myself again.

My eyes shot to where Castien was now coming close to the mageborn girl.

I also watched as she unleashed a blast of flame in my general direction.

My body lunged as quickly as it could to evade the spell.

(Castien.)

[Hellish Illusion] filled the girl's vision with what was becoming my trademark illusionary, black smokescreen.

Though, since my illusions also obscured my own vision, I left a clear path through the smoke for me to approach.

The girl's flame shrouded eyes remained uncaring. The fire on her hand swirled into a magic circle and, as the last utterance of her incantation was spent, the glowing symbols violently met into a spitting, magical blaze.

I dove into the girl at the last possible moment. I was too slow; her spell shot into the open air.

The smoke had been meant to obscure her vision so she couldn't target Nazanin, but I wasn't sure I'd been fast enough. She might've still been able to hit the general area of my ally and, depending on the power of her spell, that might've been enough.

Our bodies collided and we tumbled to the ground.

I caught the flash of carmine in her eyes and my mind almost instantly made the final connection between it and the burning, crimson gem on her more ornate slave collar.

If my own collar had controlled me through pain, then perhaps this more sophisticated looking device could channel a wearer's powers towards another's whims.

I was very much glad [Lingering Rot] had worn off, making me theoretically immune to such things from now on.

The absence of the debuff would also be useful in solving the problem of the girl's magic as well, if my now raised Intelligence had made the right guess.

Without any hesitation, I shot my open palm towards the girl's neck.

My fingers wrapped around the gem of her collar, cutting off the stone's physical connection with her skin.

From experience, I knew that the crystal of my own collar had seemed to be the source of its powers.

Likewise, I figured this one too would be similar, despite appearing more ornate and expensive in design.

[You have resisted the Mage-Shackle Collar's effects.]

Sure enough, the World Spirit confirmed my suspicions. By putting my hand between the girl's neck and the gem, I'd instead transferred its effect to me--and, unlike her, I was immune to it now.

The redhead beneath me blinked and then looked up to me in horror.

I shifted off of her. "I can't take my hand off of the gem or it'll control you again. I won't hurt you."

The girl closed her eyes violently and, to my surprise, shoved me.

"No!" she screamed.

I tumbled back, just as an unexpected man burst from what remained of my illusionary smokescreen.

Had Nazanin been defeated?

Alister's sword narrowly missed my neck, as I fell backwards off of the girl.

I looked up to see the man had raised his blade once more. So fast.

I rolled away from where I'd landed.

I had thirty seconds of [Hellish Illusion] remaining before it drained me down to 6 HP.

I would use it until the last moment. As I rolled away, an illusionary clone of the redheaded girl was left in my afterimage.

Alister's eyes grew wide and he hesitated to impale the illusion.

I used the moment to put distance in-between myself and the swordsman and to cancel what remained of the smokescreen.

The actual redheaded child, however, slammed into the captain's leg in a fear-filled cling.

The man glanced down at the actually solid, scared child and then up to me; the sharp, warrior's mind behind that gaze seemed to put together just what was happening.

I dispelled the false image of the redheaded child.

Thinking quickly, I raised my hand up then and muttered the exact same words I had heard the sorcerer girl say before, when she'd cast the firebolt.

Of course, I was completely incapable of replicating the actual spell, but my enhanced memory allowed me to copy its look and sounds perfectly with my own powers.

There was the chance the mercenary would guess correctly that my spells were mostly limited to illusions and charge me; however, I had a feeling that most mages weren't as pigeonholed as I currently was and, judging by how he'd looked at the girl who clung to him, I doubted he'd take the chance of a dangerous spell hitting either of them.

I launched my false attack, with it looking exactly as the girl's had.

Sure enough, Alister scooped up his charge and lunged away.

"Nazanin!" I shouted towards the warrior who was already coming towards us as the fake spell left my hand; I would've used [Hellish Illusion] to silently communicate with her, but I currently only had the HP left for the safe casting of the illusion that was already active, and said illusion already included my enemies--meaning they would've heard any message I'd sent to her anyway. "Separate them! I can stop the girl's magics without hurting her!"