The pronouncement sent everyone abuzz. They all looked at each other, wondering what this meant for them. Michael was approaching the Wraith slowly with his eyes wide enough to pop out of his skull. For his part, Rory could hardly believe the words he’d heard.

“What do you mean the Revenants are invading the Homeworlders?” he asked. “They can’t have all come out yet. We’d have seen or heard something.”

“The Revenants have not launched their assault yet,” the Wraith said. “However, they intend to do so soon. The Imps and the Djinn are preparing even now to set off against the Homeworlders alongside the Revenants.”

Dez cursed. “The Imps and Djinn too? They can’t handle all of them together at the same time. But I don’t get why they’re attacking.” He stared at Rory. “Don’t the Imps need the letter of recognition from the Homeworlders too? To set up their business?”

Rory shook his head. He couldn’t begin to fathom what had been going on in the Imps’ mind. He turned to Arelland. “They need the letter of recognition too, right?”

The eld nodded. His mask now hid most of his expression, and thus his thoughts as well, behind a veil of neutrality. “They ought to, yes. However… they aren’t in the same danger of removal that you are.”

“Right.” Viv sighed. “They’re monsters. They don’t need Safe Zones or anything like that.”

Michael finally reached the Wraith. He wrung his hands before the monster before finally pushing out his words. “Can you tell me what you meant by these Revenant things invading us? When are they attacking? What are they like?” He looked like he was struggling not to grab the Wraith by its cloak and give it a good shake. “I need to know everything! We’re in no shape to handle any all-out attacks.”

Rory could imagine that all too well. After that vicious battle against the Otherworlders, they’d be in a terrible condition. “Of course. That’s why they’re attacking. To take advantage of that fact that the Homeworlders can’t fight back.”

“That’s right!” Michael had gotten back all his fury when he heard Rory speaking. “Not that any of you care. But I need to protect my home.” He turned back to the Wraith, this time holding his hands out in a pleading gesture. “Please, tell me all that you know about them. How exactly are they going to be attacking.”

The Wraith pulled his gaze away from the Homeworlder and stared at Rory, almost as if he was asking for help. Rory sighed and stepped forward.

“The Revenants are powerful monsters,” he said, quickly explaining his encounter with the creatures in the sewers that had been turned into a dungeon. Michael faced him once more, but despite the anger shading his expression, he didn’t interrupt Rory. “They’re bad news. You’d have had a hard time dealing with them in normal conditions. Right now, they’ll tear through you, especially if the Imps and the Djinn are joining them.”

Michael swallowed, eyes moving everywhere as he stared at the ground. “But I don’t understand. The Djinn had been… they weren’t supposed to attack. Or the Imps. They came to us too, telling us that we’d have to ally with them to prevent anything bad happening. Is this some kind of sick vengeance just because we said we needed some time to think it over?”

“From what I know of them, it goes beyond something as simple as vengeance,” Arelland said. “If my assumptions are correct, I believe the Imps only seek to hammer you to the point that you have to beg for assistance from the Imps themselves. Thus, the deal they need will be secured.”

“That’s coercion!”

“They do not care.”

Michael looked like he was ready to curse up a storm, but Rory interrupted him. They needed to be productive. They needed to act. Fast.

“What’s the timeline looking like?” he asked the Wraith. “Where are the Revenants gathering, and how soon will they launch their assault?”

The Wraith considered for a second. “They are amassing at all the sewer dungeon entrances. Their numbers are meagre, but at the rate they are joining, it will not be long before they deem themselves strong enough to attack. I suspect by the end of today at the latest. The Imps and the Djinn are much faster to ready themselves. The Revenants would have joined them already, had it not been for your attempts to block them.”

“They’ll be as fast as they can to take advantage of the current situation,” Dez said.

“Then we’ve got no time to lose,” Rory said. “We’re going to get out and stop them as quickly as we can.”

The announcement had another stirring effect in the gathering, creating almost as much consternation as the Wraith’s news.

Michael turned to Rory. He looked like he was on the verge of starting to pull his hair out of his head. His eyes were wild and crazy. “What do you mean you’re going to stop them? Aren’t you going to help them kill us?”

“Someone put a sock in his mouth already,” Trish muttered.

“We’re going to help,” Rory said firmly. He faced away from Michael, meeting the others’ eyes. No one argued, of course, and what reluctance some of them were clearly feeling were kept down and out of sight. “We’ll need to move fast.”

Of course, his group didn’t include Arelland. The elf came forward on the rollers beneath his mech suit’s metal feet. “Reconsider, Rory. This is a dangerous step you are taking.”

“I know. But it’s no less dangerous than everything else we’ve doing so far.”

He turned away from Arelland before it became an argument. The rudeness sparked on his skin like little jolts of electricity, and he could feel the elf’s wary glare settling on him like an impossible burden. But his decision was firm. Rory believed in what he was doing, as did his companions in the palace. Nobody was truly hesitating as they got ready to head out.

“We’re breaking up into groups,” Dez reported. “I’m thinking we want to see what the condition at the nearest sewer entrance is like, and then plan accordingly.”

Rory nodded. “I’m not sure how they got past the Frozen Lighting, but maybe I can make more, and with the Sigil of Permanence this time.”

“Sounds good. But the Revenants aren’t our only issue. We’ve got the Djinn and the Imps to deal with too, don’t we?”

“Maybe. But it’s also likely they won’t go through with it until they have the Revenants’ numbers behind them.”

“Do we want to get on it though?” Viv asked.

Rory looked back at Michael, who was trying to extricate more details out of the Wraith. He was remonstrating madly with the monster, his wild gestures trying to impress just how urgent the situation was. “The Homeworlders can handle some of the monsters. We don’t have to deal with everything. All we need to do is make sure the situation isn’t hopeless for them.”

“Hmm, that sounds fair enough. The only thing we need to take care of, then, are the Revenants. Their numbers are what’ll make the real difference.”

“Exactly.”

Ned and Allen had brought around the jeep and pickup truck respectively. They loaded themselves into the vehicles. A lot of them volunteered to go, but there was only so much space. Besides, they couldn’t leave the palace virtually defenceless, so there was a significant force that remained behind.

“Good luck and farewell, Rory,” Arelland said, waving an arm as the vehicles’ engines started up.

The business aspects had turned into a distant concern in the face of the current situation, but it was a concern Rory couldn’t forget. “Sorry we have to leave like this. Please let me know what the other representatives say.”

Arelland nodded. “I will take your offerings to the other representatives and inform you of their decision soon. Pray that you live to hear good news on your business front.”

“Thank you for everything. We’ll be back before you know it.”

They headed off. The vehicles trundled down the hill and through the roads as fast as their drivers could take them.

Unlike before, there wasn’t a lack of monsters this time. As the Safe Zone’s shimmering boundary started growing smaller at their backs, Dreadraptors and Hooktongue started flying at them. The streets had more monsters too, several Emberteeth and Rockbacks trying to bar the way forward. Their Sigils made short work of all the monsters. They had all grown strong.

“Where are all these critters coming from?” Trish asked.

She was sitting right up against Rory at the front of the pickup. Allen was driving stressfully on his other side.

“I have no idea,” Dez said. “Just make sure to kill them all before they get too close to the pickup.”

They executed their defence well. The pickup wasn’t ever impeded and the jeep behind them wasn’t having any difficulties keeping up. Blasts of blue fire and red lightning proved just how efficiently Miles and Viv were keeping the monsters at bay.

It wasn’t troublesome to fight the monsters themselves. They’d grown strong enough that they posed no danger to Rory’s group. The real trouble was all the ruckus they were causing. It essentially negated any possibility of getting to the nearest sewer entrance stealthily. The Revenants there would know about their approach as soon as they were close enough.

A part of Rory wondered if the Revenants had done this on purpose. It was fully possible that these monsters had been strung along any paths that led to the sewer dungeon entrance to alert the Revenants that they were about to entertain company.

“Maybe we can use a distraction,” Dez said.

“How?” Rory asked.

“Some of us can keep on going. Pushing through the monster horde, making as much noise as possible. The rest of us go ahead on foot, and at a different angle.”

“I like that. Using their own guarding system against them.”

“Exactly.”

They decided to implement Dez’s plan. Viv, Ned, Trish, and Rory formed the group. Viv’s teleportation would come in handy in a pinch, while Rory would be handy in case he needed to use his Frozen Lightning. They brought Trish in to supplement their blocking efforts with her Sigil of Concrete. Ned would act as their guide with his Navigation.

They slipped away from all the fighting as fast and as sneakily as they could. Once the others started making noise in earnest, Viv summoned her crimson lighting to teleport them to a nearby rooftop.

“Where to now?” Viv asked.

Ned looked around. He pointed to their left after a while. “That way, I’m pretty sure.”

It was too hard for Rory to tell. They had only risen about thirty feet into the air, so it wasn’t the best of vantage points. But he trusted Ned’s judgement.

Viv continued teleporting them from rooftop to rooftop. They were spotted by some of the flying monsters on occasion. Even a few Dreadraptors veered away from their main group to swoop at them, while a Hooktongue charged away from its assault on the others with the vehicles.

They were more than prepared for any monstrous attention, though. Trish and Rory took most of them out. The steel javelins and blasts of ice were more silent than Viv’s lightning.

Eventually, they reached the end of the neighbourhood, beyond which lay a wooded area. Just within the locale, Rory heard the babbling of the small canal that had a sewer entrance on its side they had used a while back to get into the area.

“Farther inside, right?” Trish asked.

Rory nodded. “Not far now, though. I remember the area.”

“So do I,” Viv said.

They climbed down slowly this time. Ned’s Perception was acting up, informing him that there were a lot of monsters in the area. They hadn’t seen anything through the thicket of trees, but they’d have to be careful once they reached the ground. At least the building itself proved to be empty and devoid of any hostile creatures.

“Stay alert,” Rory said. “We need to find a spot where we can observe what’s going on first, not end up right in the monsters’ midst.”

To that end, they veered away from the direction that would have taken them to the sewer entrance. The wooded thicket proved harder to navigate in the sense of maintaining their stealth. Its undergrowth was littered with fallen leaves, twigs, and branches, all of which crunched under their feet. The spruce trunks around them blocked their line of sight, reducing their visibility.

That proved troubling when they nearly walked into their first group of Revenants. Viv froze to a sudden halt, and the rest of them jerked themselves to a stop as well. It was good they hadn’t crashed into the Revenants.

Nevertheless, they’d gotten close enough to be spotted.

“Intruders!” The nearest Revenant rose to his full, seven-foot height. He was about to shout, but Viv charged in first.

The Revenant backed up far too quickly for a skeleton covered in armour from head to toe. Its aura burst outwards in a rippling bubble. Rory shouted a warning, but Viv was already too close. The Revenant’s strange, time-slowing aura overtook Viv and her charging motion slowed down to a crawl. Even her eyes were widening at a snail’s pace.

Baring his skeletal teeth in murderous grin, the Revenant raised his sword high to strike Viv down. Rory activated his Weaving, but he needn’t have.

Viv had summoned her Thunderclaw arm before the aura had overtaken her. Her scales flashed red, then lightning burst out. Rory blinked at the brilliant flash. When he was able to see properly again, he found the Revenant had fallen several yards backwards.

Of course. However much the monster could slow down time, it would never be as effective on lightning as it was against any other kinds of bodies.

Unfortunately, the monster had still been able to defend himself to an extent. His round shield was smoking, parts of it melting right off. He had managed to ward off the worst of Viv’s attack by pulling up his shield in time.

No matter. The time-slowing aura was gone. As long as they stayed free from that, they’d be fine.

“Well, what’s this?” said a vaguely familiar voice.

Rory turned his head around, bringing up his staff as bad memories ignited. He was vindicated when he recognized the lion-headed Djinn floating towards them.

The Revenant had been standing in a little clearing that allowed them a view of the sewer entrance not far from their position. They had reached the perfect position from which to carry out their observation. Sadly, their view was blocked by the monster coming at them, both of its fists burning with pure black fire.

It seemed the Djinn had been waiting to take them out all this time.