Jen put her finger to her lips and used her onboard to message Sam, “Something’s happening downstairs. Place the silencing rods around the door, and keep all the lights off. I’m going to find out exactly what’s up.”

Sam placed the silencing rods around the door before removing the bar and unlocking it. When he finished, Jen charged-up her forgetme charm and left the room without making a sound or disturbance of any kind. Tamako and Sam waited impatiently for Jen to update them, after less than a minute, Jen messaged them both, “It's not good, we need to act fast. Sam, get to the edge of the balcony with your silencing rods and use your special bullet on the lady holding the little girl. Tamako, get as close to the Inn’s front door as possible, and when Sam takes out the lady, I want you to drop down from the balcony and bar the door closed. While you’re baring the door, I’m going to retrieve the little girl. Once I have the girl away safely, we clean house.”

Sam didn’t like Jen’s plan. She wanted him to use the bullet he hadn’t had a chance to test. It was a 7.62 mm hollow point, and he’d placed several enchantments onto the bullet. Sam had learned that the lead in bullets was not very good for holding the mana necessary to empower enchantments. The test bullet he created was enchanted to increase its speed by 10%, increase strength and armor piercing by 15%, and he enchanted a very small storage space on the inside of the hollow point. The problem was, he needed to charge the bullet with mana, load it, fire it, and hit his target within 10 seconds or the mana would cause the bullet and its enchantments to disintegrate, or maybe even explode if the gunpowder in the shell were ignited by the mana in the failing enchantment.

As he activated his own forgetme charm, Sam crawled forward behind Tamako. When they reached the edge of the balcony, where Sam finally got a glimpse of the woman down on the first floor holding a knife to the little girl’s neck, he placed around him, his silencing rods, his rifle, his special bullet, and his wooden storage rifle for backup. As Tamako continued to crawl down the balcony to get as close to the front door, Sam didn’t have time to focus on the threats and arguing between the bar owner and the gang of people with the woman. He relied on Jen to message him if the plan needed to change. Sam understood why he needed to use the bullet instead of one of his enchanted bolts from his wooden storage rife. The bolts were fast, but those with a fast perception had a good chance to dodge them. However, a 7.62 millimeter bullet, even without any enhanced speed, travelled at nearly 3000 ft a second. There was no way anyone on the Second Deck would be quick enough to dodge a bullet fired at this range.

After charging the bullet, he messaged Jen and Tamako with a countdown, 5….4…(round is loaded), 3 aim… 2 (exhale and pause)…1 fire!

Sam didn’t wait to see the result after pulling the trigger. He grabbed his wooden storage rifle and rolling about 3 feet to his right, before taking aim on the gang. He wasn't going to get ridiculed for not dodging again.

The situation was tense and Jen was worried chaos was going to breakout between the bartender, Lucky-Heart, and the gang of 7 people. She didn’t really understand why they were not already attacking Lucky-Heart with their greater numbers, but they were trying to get him to submit to being bound by threatening to kill the little girl. Jen could hear the woman humming something to the girl, and it worried her how the girl was standing freakishly still without making a sound. Lucky-Heart was making his own threats swinging a double-bladed axe defensively, clearly stalling hoping his situation would change. Jen guessed he new that if he submitted, he would be killed and the little girl would be fortunate if all they did was kill her. Jen felt like breathing a sigh of relief when Sam’s countdown appeared in her onboard. She thought it was strange to watch the ”1” disappear and almost simultaneously, without a sound from Sam’s direction, the head of the woman holding the little girl simply exploded before a split-second later imploding back into a piece of the bullet shrapnel Sam enchanted.

As Jen dropped down from the rafters, she was glad the woman’s brains didn’t splatter all over the little girl. When Jen landed, she grabbed the girl from the lifeless arms of the woman that was slumping to the ground. Jen empowered her legs, and leaped up and over the balcony on the second floor. Jen said to the girl, “I’ve got you safe,” as they landed and rolled on the ground.

The little girl started crying, and asked, “What’s going on? Where’s my Grand-Dey?”

Jen said quickly, “I’ll get him, but you must be still,” as she pulled a shield from her storage ring to lay it on top of the girl. Jen then moved down the balcony towards where Tamako had leaped down to bar the front door and keep anyone else from coming inside.

Lucky-Heart was angry, embarrassed, and scared for his little granddaughter’s safety. His daughter and son-in-law left her with him before going on a mission for the Highland Games Guild. They were to track and kill a sphinx that was attacking caravans on the trade route their guild was hired to keep safe. His son-in-law was the best tracker in the City, except for the elves, and Lucky’s daughter took after her Dad, wielding an axe.

Lucky was woken up when he heard the door from his granddaughter’s room open up, but then, when the door that connected to the main room of the Inn opened, he jumped out of bed and rushed through his bedroom door to see what was going on. His granddaughter would never unlock and leave their apartment in the middle of the night. As he reached the apartment door, he could hear the song of the Siren as it drew his granddaughter directly to her. The woman had a knife to her throat before he could do anything. He reached up grabbing his double-bladed axe from above the inside of his apartment door and walked towards the woman intending on getting his granddaughter.

“Let her go or die!” bellowed Lucky.

The siren continued to hum her song, but the man she rented the room with replied, “Not before we cut her throat open. Take one step forward and she’s dead,” then the man pointed to the front door of the Inn, and demanded, “Unlock and unbar the door so we can leave. If your daughter deals the deck like she’s told, her little girl will be returned to her.”

Lucky thought about just killing the man, but knew siren’s had little control without their handlers, and would only be all too happy to cut his granddaughter’s throat and drink her blood, so he moved towards the door unlocking it, but stepped back and said, “remove the bar yourself!”

He didn’t think the man would take the bait, but he was really just hoping to distract the two while he came up with a plan.

The man replied, “Fuck you! Quit playing games, we both know the bar is too heavy for me to lift.”

Lucky couldn’t think of anything that he could do in the current standoff. If they hurt his granddaughter, they knew he would kill them both. However, if he tried to free her, there was no way he could get her safe before they could cut her throat.

Lucky’s face hardened and his heart ached as he told the two, “you have one option, when I unbar the door, you let her go as you leave, or I will chase you down and kill you in the streets. We both know my granddaughter is good as dead if you leave with her.”

The siren looked at the man and said, “Let’s not die over this. We were supposed to get out of here without waking anyone!”

“Fine!” replied the man.

Lucky removed the massive bar from the door, but instead of the man and the siren moving towards the door, five men and women barged through the room spreading out between Lucky and the couple holding the girl.

Lucky’s jaw drooped and he wanted to scream in frustration. He didn’t think the two had more accomplices outside.

The siren laughed as she saw the expression on Lucky’s face, and said, “You fucking fool. You thought you were going to save the girl!” As his granddaughter started to squirm, the siren started humming again to keep her in the trance.

Lucky moved towards the front door. The closest men moved away from him, but kept themselves ready, waiting for directions from the man. Lucky kicked the door shut. He couldn’t turn and lock it, but he hoped he was making his intention clear – No one was leaving with his granddaughter, without going through him first.

The man laughed at Lucky and said, “We’re not leaving with just her. Lower your weapon, you’re coming with us too.”

One of the gang members removed some shackles from a bag. She looked at Lucky with a sinister smile and said, “be a good little boy and I won’t make them too tight.”

A few more threats and demands were made back and forth, and just as Lucky decided to rush the siren in the hopes of saving his granddaughter. The siren’s head just exploded…sort of. A person then dropped from the rafters, grabbed his granddaughter from the dead body of the siren, and made a massive leap back up over the balcony railing on the second floor.

Lucky’s mind lost track of where the woman jumped too, but he knew this gang no longer had his granddaughter. Then another person dropped down near him and started lifting the bar to block the door. Something was strange as he tried to focus on her, but he just let it go and roared in anger.

Lucky took a short step forward getting him into range with the first gang member and took the man’s head off with his axe. The axe passed through the man’s neck like butter and Lucky continued with its momentum allowing the axe to rise back up before redirecting its power back down as he jumped across the room slamming the axe through the woman’s body holding the shackles. The rest of the group were shocked by the siren’s head exploding and then with the impossibly fast killing of two others of their gang.

Tamako was intrigued as she saw the big bartender slaughter everyone in the gang in less than 15 seconds. She used her overclock ability to keep track of Lucky’s moves, but the gang members were barely able to move before they were chopped through. Lucky kept the lead man alive with the intention of interrogating him.

Lucky turned towards the door and Tamako, and said, “I can feel your glamor, but you better tell me where my granddaughter is now!”

Tamako ordered, “Stop him!” pointing at the gang leader that Lucky had pinned to the ground with his foot. The man popped a pill in his mouth, and a moment later he was throwing up blood as he died.

“DAMMIT!” roared Lucky-Heart, but before he was able to ask Tamako another question, Jen dropped down from the balcony with his granddaughter.

When Jen set the girl down, she ran and jumped into her grandfather’s arms crying, “Grand-Dey, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to leave the apartment!”

Lucky felt the power of the glamor on the two women go out as he could finally focus on them, confirming his assumption they were the other group staying at the Inn. He then watched as their companion came down the stairs to join the two women. He knew they weren’t a threat, since they had just saved his granddaughter, but after consoling his granddaughter a few more seconds, he said to them, “Give me a moment to put her to bed, and I’ll be right out. I have a few questions I’d like to ask you if you don’t mind?”

Jen replied, “Sure, take your time with her. We can wait.”

Lucky nodded at Jen in appreciation, but then when he looked at Sam, as he started for his apartment door, he chuckled slightly, saying, “When I get back. I’ve also got to know why he has dicks and ball-sacks drawn all over his face!”

Sam pulled a small mirror out of his storage ring looking at his face, as Jen hollered to Lucky, “It’s something women draw when they are gossiping all night!”