‘We deal with this and you come with us,’ Arzak told the fire sorcerer as the agents of the Managlass Academy grew closer. It wasn’t just Corminar who could hear them now, we all could.

  ‘You deal with them and you pay me,’ came the reply.

  ‘They already find you. You not get out without—’

  But Val cut the orc off. ‘How much do you want?’

  ‘Fifty gold coins,’ Zoi responded.

  ‘Done.’ My wife stood up, pushing her hand across the table to shake the tiefling’s. Usually she was a good haggler. I suspected that this time, she was keen to deal a little pain to the staff of her old school. Besides, we probably wouldn’t live to survive all this anyway, so what did fifty gold matter?

  ‘Hm.’ Arzak frowned disapprovingly at Val, who shrugged. That shrug seemed to communicate much the same thing as I’d just thought: what did it even matter?

  I strode towards the door to put the argument to bed before it really began. I swung the front door open, casting the cottage’s interior with the yellow light of dusk. In the short time that we’d been inside, the snow had begun to fall once more. And standing outside, in a semi-circle around the door, were a half-dozen sorcerers clutching ornate wooden staffs, a small coat of white forming on their colourful robes.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, waving once before stepping outside and gesturing for the rest of the team to do the same. We fanned out in front of the door, and only Lore followed my suit in waving to the potential enemies.

  I looked at each of the sorcerers in term, meeting their gaze, acting as though I was treating them all equally, when in fact it was clear who their leader was. ‘Do you know who we are?’ I asked them.

  One of the academics—the one I’d figured was in charge—looked at me over half-moon spectacles. He’d grown out a long, straggly grey beard as though it made him look wiser, but I could see straight through that one; the wisest thing to do would be to trim that bread. ‘I am afraid not. Should we?’

  ‘Hm,’ Arzak said, still apparently a little miffed over Val agreeing to Zoi’s terms so easily. ‘Not pay attention to geopolitical affairs. Too busy spend time studying magicks? Is typical.’

  The sorcerer with the half-moon spectacles blinked, looking taken aback. ‘Well, yes, that is what we do at the Academy. It is our life’s pursuit, in fact, to push the boundaries of current magickal interpretation, to further our knowledge in—’

  ‘We’re the Slayers,’ I cut in. These academic types couldn’t half ramble on when they wanted to.

  ‘And Zoi under our protection,’ Arzak added.

  ‘I am afraid that—’ the sorcerer started.

  Val threw her head back and sighed. ‘Ugh. They don’t know us. Can we just jump to the fighting already? I’d really love to fight these guys.’

  ‘The exasperated witch is correct.’ The elderly sorcerer glared meaningfully at Val. ‘We know of you, Equivalence Vignor. In fact, our very last report from Arnold Orellan seemed to mention your name. It was he who revealed your true nature to the faculty, I seem to remember?’

  Val opened her mouth to retort to the sorcerer, then looked over at me instead. ‘As I say: really wanna fight these guys.’

  ‘You will stand aside, Vignor. You and your friends. We will deal justice to the fire sorcerer as we see fit; stand aside, or we will reopen the investigation into your own crimes.’

  ‘Fight, fight, fight…’ Val started chanting, pumping her hands in the air half-heartedly.

  The elderly sorcerer raised his staff, the gem at its head beginning to glow. ‘If we must.’

  * * *

  ‘The Slayers,’ I repeated, as I held the old sorcerer by the nostrils, my blade on his neck. ‘Do you remember who we are yet?’

  The sorcerer replied in a muffled tone, probably because he had one of my fingers up each of his nostrils. In hindsight, this was pretty gross, but they’d found their way there in the scuffle, and I wasn’t about to give up a perfectly good advantage. ‘My memory has not been—’

  I sighed, then whacked the man over the back of the head with the pommel of my dagger. It didn’t knock him out in one hit, but I didn’t care that much. The sorcerer was lucky that we were just rendering him and his fellow academic unconscious; a few bruises on the back of his head was far less than he deserved.

  Head of Elemental Studies defeated!

  Knifework — +1,950xp

  Knifework increased to level 62!

  Base Points Gained — +1 DEX, +1 STR, +2 Free Points (VIT/DEX/STR)

  Worldbending — +1,650xp

  I turned away from the now unconscious leader of the enemy team to cast my eyes over the rest of the battlefield. Three of the academics were still conscious. Val and Arzak were busy dealing with one, Corminar with another, and Lore was split halfway between fighting the last and stopping Zoi from burning them. The barbarian held one hand over the allied sorcerer’s eyes to blind her, while blocking spells from the enemy with the flat of his sword.

  ‘Zoi!’ I shouted. ‘No killing! They’re not the real enemy, they’re just misguided!’

  ‘Very misguided!’ Val shouted across the battlefield.

  ‘I am not killing!’ the tiefling protested, pulling in vain against Lore’s huge hand. ‘They will just need a lot of healing afterwards.’

  I opened a portal and appeared at Lore and Zoi’s side, sliding my own hand over the tiefling’s eyes just as Lore let go. ‘Thank you,’ he said kindly, then turned around and roared as he hit the enemy sorcerer with all he had.

  ‘Let me go!’ the tiefling cried out, placing her hands on my arm. She burned to the touch, and I recoiled from her instantly. ‘Aha!’ she announced, then launched a fireball at the academic that Lore was fighting.

  I snapped open a portal to catch the fireball, redirecting in harmlessly into the snow-covered ground.

  ‘Oh, really?’ the tiefling said to me, hands on hips. ‘If you’d know what they did to me, you would permit me a little revenge.’

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  ‘No. Killing,’ I said again. ‘Add it to the terms of our business arrangement.’

  I could practically see the tiefling resist the urge to roll her eyes, but ultimately she nodded. She took a seat on the ground, folding her legs nimbly beneath her. ‘Well, if I am not permitted any revenge, then I shall simply sit here and observe.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ I grumbled. I was about to charge away to help Corminar, who was struggling the most with his enemy, when one of the tiefling’s hands snapped out to grab my ankle.

  ‘Make it painful, though, will you?’ she asked.

  I shrugged. ‘Yeah, sure. No skin off my back.’ I stepped through another portal to appear behind one of the academics, narrowly avoiding a wayward arrow from Corminar in the process.

  He grimaced. ‘My apologies.’ Then he immediately dove to the ground to avoid a slashing line of ice that the enemy sent his way.

  ‘That’s quite alright,’ I replied. My speech alerted the enemy to my presence just before the butt of my knife collided with her temple, which meant that my Stealth Attack damage bonus was eliminated. And that meant that I had to quickly activate Knifestorm to lash out multiple times with the pommel of my blade in order to actually render the enemy unconscious. It looked like it hurt.

  Zoi clapped politely from the metaphorical stands. ‘Beautiful work, whatever your name is.’

  Student of the Divine Ice defeated!

  Knifework — +1,650xp

  Worldbending — +1,300xp

  Worldbending increased to level 80!

  Base Points gained — +2 INT, +2 Free Points (INT/WIS/CHA)

  Ability selection unlocked

  Select an ability from the list below…

  …

  ‘It’s Styk!’ I cried back to Zoi, then pointed to my elven friend. ‘That’s Corminar; he’ll hit on you when we’re done.’

  ‘I look forward to it.’

  Corminar and I looked over at Val and Arzak, then over to Lore, who was struggling against the magick user. We nodded to one another, and then I ran towards Lore while Corminar helped the others.

  ‘The big guy is Lore,’ I said before leaping into the air and through a portal I summoned before me. I appeared high above the sorcerer and began to fall.

  ‘Hello!’ Lore said cheerily, taking a moment to wave at Zoi. This moment of distraction allowed the sorcerer to land a hit on him—a huge crystal shooting forth from the ground and piercing the man’s foot.

  ‘Concentrate on the fight, perhaps?’ Zoi suggested.

  ‘Yes, good idea,’ Lore said.

  I landed on the sorcerer at that moment, hitting them again with the wrong end of my dagger—I really needed a better way of knocking people out; maybe this ability selection would give me one. At the same moment, Lore knocked another crystal attack away and then he too hit the woman with the end of his weapon. This hit alone was enough to knock her out.

  ‘And then there’s the other two,’ I called over to Zoi. I would have jumped in to help the other three, but now the last enemy was severely outnumbered; my friends really didn’t need any assistance. ‘Val is the…’ I almost said witch, but managed to pivot at the last moment. ‘She’s the sorcerer. She also got kicked out of Managlass.’

  Zoi recoiled at this. ‘Excuse me. I did not get expelled. I left of my own accord after a rather severe disagreement.’

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘I assume she was expelled because she is clearly a witch?’ Zoi asked.

  ‘Huh,’ Val said, taking a moment to pause mid-fight. ‘You worked that out far quicker than he did.’

  ‘I worked it out quickly, I just didn’t make a whole deal out of it. Besides, you had an obscurem back then; the green glow is a bit of a giveaway.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’ Val replied in a sing-song voice, then more crackling green life-drain magicks shot forth from her hands and into the enemy—not enough to kill them, but it went a long way towards weakening them.

  ‘And then there’s Arzak,’ I finished. ‘She’s the most mature out of us.’

  Corminar raised an eyebrow at this, apparently thinking he was the most mature. That absolutely wasn’t true, though.

  ‘Is most interesting thing about me?’ Arzak asked, almost seeming dejected at my description of her. Before I could reply, she landed the final hit, and the fight was over.

  ‘Well,’ Zoi said, brushing the dirt from her backside as she stood once more. ‘It is a pleasure to meet anyone who would deal with my pursuers. Shall we go burn some malae now?’