Izick stared at the blank page of his Long Book, waiting for further instructions.

  Black letters finally flowed onto the page, but it wasn't the response he wanted.

  { Alister doesn't want to fight in enclosed spaces. Cause a distraction near the loot and hostages and draw the bandits out. We strike in thirty minutes. Start diversion now - Klint }

  { Understood }

  He sighed deeply as he finished replying and closed the book. It bothered him that he had to deliberately expose himself, even though he had worked so hard to avoid it, but the main objective of confirming the treasure cache was met.

  The exact location of the hostages wasn't completely confirmed since he would have to expose himself to get closer. Still, he might as well try to find it since hiding wasn't a problem anymore.

  Izick listened for any footsteps in the hall on the other side of the closet door. Perfectly silent.

  He opened the door to the torch closet and ran down the hall before turning the corner.

  The two guards in heavy golden armor flinched as a hooded figure came running toward them. Izick pulled out two orange cubes and threw them.

  "Intruder!"

  They raised their shields as the two orange cubes exploded, knocking them back and filling the hall with black smoke.

  The guards coughed as they kept their shields up and backed up toward the tall door to the treasure cache.

  Visibility returned when a burst of wind blasted the black smoke away. The guards looked down to see a rapidly spinning white cube clearing the smoke, but their attention quickly turned to the hooded figure running down the hall on their left.

  They threw their spears at Izick, who dodged the first spear before turning around and unsheathing his knife to deflect the last spear away from him.

  The guards decided to stand their ground to protect the treasure cache rather than chase the speedy intruder, who ignored them and kept running. One of the guards lifted a small horn and spoke into it.

  "Intruder near the southside entrance. Armed with knives and various traps. Must be eliminated immediately," the guard said with an amplified voice.

  Izick looked over his shoulder.

  "Behind you," Izick said in his deep and distorted voice. The guardsmen looked behind them only to see four glowing orange cubes near their feet.

  Izick turned another corner in the hall as explosions rang out behind him.

  Toward the end of the hall, two more guards with lighter armor turned in the direction of the explosions and saw Izick charging toward them. They raised their shields and readied their spears.

  A guard lunged forward and thrust his spear at Izick's head.

  Izick sidestepped the spear and tossed a blue cube at the stone walls of the hall. The blue cube ricocheted off the wall and fell toward one of the guards, who quickly raised his shield to block the foreign object.

  The blue cube clamped onto the shield, then released high voltage, sending the guard into convulsions.

  The next guard ran around his comrade, who collapsed into a heap, and drove his spear forward with a flurry of stabs before Izick could pull out another trap.

  Izick blocked the first three strikes with his knife before dodging the rest and jumping back to throw two objects at the guard's face.

  The guard leaned his head away from the objects to avoid repeating his comrade's mistake, but he was confused to see two small rocks clanking on the stone floor behind him.

  Izick stopped moving and simply pointed toward the guard's feet, causing him to look down and see a blue cube clamped to his left foot.

  Izick walked past the guard as he fell to the floor with electricity coursing through his body.

  The door in front of Izick was nearly identical to the one for the treasure cache, except it had a sliding viewport.

  Izick pulled out the red cube he used earlier and brought the red map. The dots lined up and pointed to the door, signaling the presence of wards.

  He raised the small horn to the door to deactivate the wards before sliding the viewport open.

  Dozens of people sat on the floor, huddled together in a large but dark room. They all turned to the viewport as the light coming from it caught their attention.

  "I'll be back. I promise," Izick said as he slowly closed the viewport and took off running again. The hostages would get caught up in the crossfire if he released them now. Remember, mind over emotions.

  He'll save them, just not yet. Knowing their exact location was more than enough, but now he had to raise hell.

  ***

  Dawn began to break as a bandit ran up the stairs on the side of the walls while shaking his fist.

  "You idiots! How could you not notice an intruder!"

  He looked around and found silence.

  "W-what's going on here?"

  "Hey there, pal. You doing OK up there?"

  The bandit quickly looked over the wall and saw a smiling black-haired man wearing all black with a white shotgun slung over his shoulder.

  "T-the Staff Hero!"

  "In the flesh. You know, I'm a pretty good magician. Wanna see a little trick of mine?" Alister aimed his weapon at the stronghold's walls, causing the bandit to run away toward the stairs.

  Alister held down the trigger, causing a ball of yellow light to form at the end of the shotgun.

  He released the trigger, shooting a massive beam of light that instantly obliterated the wall and tore apart every oblivious bandit behind it, instantly killing each one.

  Screams and shouts of confusion rang out as the surviving bandits found themselves in rubble with two massive holes in their walls after Alister's attack pierced through two walls.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Alister lowered his shotgun and dropped his smile to a serious expression while turning to his party, who jogged up behind him.

  "Kill them all!"

  They all charged past Alister, screaming war cries with their drawn weapons as they ran through the smoldering hole Alister had bored into the wall.

  The disoriented bandits who survived stumbled over the scattered wreckage as they ran from the dozens of Warriors running toward them.

  The bandits could barely get their footing before they were stabbed or chopped down.

  Mill slowly walked through the smoldering hole and past Alister, who watched his party do battle. One of Alister's axemen mistimed an axe swing, which left his stomach open to a spear strike that bore deep into his guts, spraying blood everywhere.

  Mill raised her white staff into the air as a radiant green light blazed from the white crystal at the top of her staff and pointed it at the axeman, who collapsed to the ground.

  A series of green circles and dots formed on the ground below the axeman. The profusely bleeding wound began to rapidly heal and close up as the axeman started to stand back on his feet, as his strength returned to him.

  "You weren't lying. You're a pretty good Healer," Alister said to Mill, who raised her staff once more, causing a semi-transparent rectangle to appear in front of the injured axeman, blocking the bandit spearman's attack as he tried to stab him again.

  "I'm busy doing my job. I ask that you refrain from talking to me," Mill said as the axeman roared back to life after Mill completed the healing.

  Alister smiled at Mill as he raised his hand to make a gun sign at the bandit spearman. A tiny yellow ball formed at the end of his pointer finger and shot off like a bullet, causing a red dot to appear on the spearman's forehead and making him collapse into a heap.

  "You were getting on my nerves back at the inn, but I'm not one to hold grudges. Next time will be ugly, so keep your head down and remember your place here in my party."

  Mill stifled her growing annoyance and anger as she raised another green rectangular shield to protect an unsuspecting group of party members from attacking spearmen.

  "That was always the plan, Staff Hero. My place is with my hurting party members. To keep them healthy, both physically and mentally. I've never forgotten my purpose here."

  Alister prepared another retort but was interrupted when the doors to the main building burst open, letting out a flood of roaring bandits.

  The Warriors caught the Hero's party by surprise and cut down the unprepared as the bowmen in the back prepped a volley.

  Klint cleaved clean through his opponent with his axe and turned around just in time to see Alister raise the Honor and take aim at the growing horde of bandits.

  "Honor Rod shots incoming!" Klint said as he ducked, followed by many other party members who dove to the ground as if this were practiced.

  The confused bandits either froze from their enemies' strange behavior or tried to attack them while they were on the ground.

  A ball of light formed at the end of Alister's shotgun, the Honor Rod, while pointing at the group of bandits furthest to the left.

  A torrent of light bullets erupted from the Honor Rod, mowing down anyone in the way and riddling them with holes. The bandits quickly took cover or ran back into the buildings to avoid getting killed by Alister's attack.

  Stray bullets clipped a few of Alister's party members, causing Mill to rush forward and raise her white staff. A green, winding light, like a tornado, formed above the white crystal in her staff.

  "Healing wind!"

  Green blasts of wind crashed into the party members, knocking them back slightly but rapidly closing the wounds caused by the bandits and Alister's attack.

  Mill dove behind a fallen statue to take cover from a volley of arrows and a few strays from Alister. She exhaled in annoyance and began to mumble in another language.

  She suddenly tensed up when someone walked up and sat by her, but she relaxed when she recognized this individual as the old dwarf she had talked to last night. He gave her a strained smile as he tapped the silver axe in his lap.

  "Quite the show the Staff Hero is putting on, eh?"

  "A show of pure violence! I can't believe he's mowing everything down, friend and foe! Isn't that heartless?"

  "Yes, I agree. I don't like the Staff Hero much either. I don't really think anyone does, but he pays the best out of all the Summoned Heroes, and we all understand what we signed up for. His speech about not getting in his way was not in jest, but just the reality of being in the Staff Hero's party."

  The old dwarf stood back on his feet when some bandits found them.

  The bandits went on a reckless dash after noticing it was just an old dwarf and a Healer, but the old dwarf flexed his muscles to burst through his shirt, transforming his frail and hunched-over body into a muscular frame fitting for the heavy axe in his hand.

  He pulled back the axe and flung it at the charging bandits in a spinning arc. The flying axe ripped through the bandits before they realized what had happened, then boomeranged back to his outstretched hand.

  "Don't push yourself too hard, young lady," The old dwarf said before charging toward more bandits with a war cry.

  Mill clicked her teeth as she looked toward the laughing Alister, who continued to mow down bandits while party members tried their best not to catch a stray.

  "You signed up for this?" Mill said to herself as she raised her staff once more to heal party members caught in the crossfire.

  Alister and the rest of the party marched forward toward the main building. They cut down every disoriented bandit with more passion as they got closer to their goal.

  A single party member slipped past other members and bandits with a wide grin as the gate to the main building came into view. Klint grunted as he noticed the party member rush past him with a mad dash.

  "Stop, you fool, it's warded!"

  "First spoils go to me!"

  The party member reached out his hand to the gate, causing a floating red exclamation mark to appear in front of the gate door. Red bands traveled up his arm before enveloping his entire body.

  His body flashed red before he started to scream as crimson flames engulfed him. The fire dissipated, leaving embers and scorched earth with no sign of the party member.

  Klint roared as he ran up to Alister and chopped down a nearby bandit with his axe.

  "Al, those wards incinerated poor Hapnick because he didn't have a horn."

  "He did ignore you and charged in like an idiot," Alister said as he let off another round of light bullets toward a group of bandits coming behind him.

  Klint knelt down and snatched the small horn from the bandit he had just killed.

  "We can deactivate wards by using these horns around the bandits' necks, according to Izick. I should've drilled Izick's warning into their heads more."

  Alister grunted at the mention of his Scout and took a few steps forward while shooting down a few straggling bandits with his finger gun.

  "Klint, you know I don't care about wards, right? Spare me the details and just get those treasure vaults open."

  Klint furrowed his brow as he shook a finger at Alister.

  "This is important. Did you see what just happened to Hapnick? These wards are nothing to laugh at."

  "Incoming! More bandits!"

  Alister and Klint looked past the shouting party member who sounded off the warning to see a new wave of bandits storming from the main building.

  "That's probably the last of them. Time for one last shot," Alister said as he pointed the Honor Rod into the sky.

  "Al, wait a moment, you might damage the goods or accidentally kill the hostages—"

  Twelve missiles of yellow light blasted out of the Honor Rod. The missiles snaked in the air before suddenly scattering and raining down upon the incoming bandits, erasing them from existence.

  The violent rain of Mana continued to blast the hopeless bandits until a few stray shots barreled into the wall of the main building.

  The missiles pelted the powerful wards, causing the semi-transparent red shield to reveal itself as explosions erupted on its surface, like rain pelting a lake, before shattering like glass with the sound of crashing pottery.

  The remaining missiles ripped through the building like paper, leaving only smoke and rubble on the heavily warded wall, but somehow left the building still standing.

  "Those wards and that building have probably been around for at least a hundred years, and you blew them away...I hope the loot and hostages are intact," Klint said with an almost guilty gaze toward the newly wrecked building.

  “Alright, maybe my aim was a little bit off, but the loot should be fine. You were trying to tell me how strong these wards were a second ago," Alister said, slinging the Honor Rod over his shoulder and watching his party members cut down the remaining bandits.

  "Well, what's done is done. No point crying over some building. Oh, wait, your family comes from a construction background. Is that why you're upset?"

  "No, forget about it. Let's finish these bandits and get this job behind us."

  Klint charged forward, giving the party the signal to march, taking advantage of the opening created by Alister's attack.

  A dozen desperate bandits charged out of the smoking building, but they were quickly mowed down by Alister, followed by his party, who cleaned up after him.