The faceless tightened its fists and bent its knees a bit. Suddenly it was launched into the air, giving off a bust of neutral energy that knocked Thalys back against the opposite wall and nearly fall down the steps. The faceless landed on Kara’s shield, literally sapping energy from the spot with its feet, leaving a small spot of non-glow. The faceless crawled up the shield on all fours, somehow sticking to its surface. It reached the lip of the top of the shield and jumped down onto Kara’s arm. Beams of pure light began to shoot out of Kara’s armor in random places, trying to hit the faceless, but it moved around them too fast to take any damage. As it reached her shoulder, Kara jabbed her sword right above her shoulder to block, if not hit, the faceless. The creature would hardly be deterred so easily, and leaped right over the glowing blade to reach a strand of her hair, which it used like a rope to swing up above her head. A rune circle appeared on the faceless’s opened right palm. The rune quickly grew in size as it slammed its hand onto the peak of Kara’s head. Some of Kara’s hair turned into beams of energy that jabbed and slashed at the faceless, which took every hit without a thought. Its eyes flared with white energy as all the designs on its clothing began to glow the same color.
Kara cocked her head back and let out an unearthly wail of pain that sounded traumatized yet peaceful at the same time. Finally, Kara’s shield merely faded into particles of light energy and she reached up to grab the faceless. She pulled it off her head and threw it into the pit surrounding Tier Bastion so fast it had a stream of light energy following it. With the threat gone but much of Kara’s energy drained, she began to shrink back to her normal size, her armor and weapons turning back to normal.
Faux, who had been watching the entire event, threw Ezekiel’s scythe on the ground and rushed to catch his falling friend. He managed to catch her, but crumbled to the ground under the weight of her armor and the speed of her decent. The rogue lifted his friend over his right shoulder as he moved to pick up Ezekiel’s scythe. He moved as fast as his now limited movement would allow across the bridge into Tier Bastion.
Thalys got up and felt the entire tower shift under his movement. He heard cracking and crumbling and knew exactly what was happening. The tower was falling. Moving with a heightened haste, he found his weapons and sheathed them, then turned to move down the steps. Part of the floor above him collapsed and covered the stairway down.
“Not good…not good!” Thalys said to himself, looking around for another escape. He spotted the other stairway, which led upward. A desperate plan filled the nobleman’s mind as he rushed up the stairs, jumping over any fallen parts with ease. By the time he reached the top of the tower it was already leaning. He looked out towards the main tower and the high roofed building beside it. Thalys ran to the exact opposite side of the tower and rushed towards the edge. He planted one foot on the lip of the tower top and jumped outward, nowhere near to clearing the distance. He pedaled his feet in the air to try and get more distance, but it wasn’t helping much. Desperately, he put both hands together and turned them downward, giving off a large burst of wind to accelerate him further. He spun through the air helplessly before slamming into the slopped roof of the building and rolling downward. He caught himself and stopped just before sliding off the edge of the roof. The nobleman looked up to see the main tower reaching upward before him. He got to his feet and slowly made his way up the slanted roof to reach the tower wall. Once there, he began to climb the tower wall, looking for any rough notches for him to use as foot and hand holds. It would be a long way to the first window of the tower, but it was better than falling to his doom. A loud crash in the background noted Thalys that the tower had fallen. He let out a sigh of relief, glad that he wasn’t with it when it fell.
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Voyse hurried up a spiral stairwell that led to the top of the main tower. Suddenly he began to hear an echo in his footsteps. He quickly stopped, and the echo stopped just a second after him. A grin began to form across the assassin’s lips. He spun around quickly, but no one behind him. Next he looked up to see Draven far up the stairwell staring down at him with a smug smile.
“Oh no…you caught me!” Draven said, faking fear and then started laughing.
“You’re about to wish I hadn’t…” Voyse said quietly as he started to move up the stairwell quickly. Draven stretched his legs and started moving at an equal pace with Voyse, keeping the distance between the solid.
“Come now, Voyse…I admire your fervor to find me, but can’t you see it is all in vain?” Draven teased.
“If you’re so confident in yourself, why are you running?” Voyse snapped.
“Hah, I’m not retreating…ever heard of baiting? Have you ever heard of an epic battle being on a stairwell? That’s no fun. I have a nice room perfect for our battle, and I’d like to show you the way,” Draven explained with another laugh.
“I’m not here for a show…I’m here for business,” Voyse said matter-of-factly.
“Then come get me…” Draven said suddenly stern and serious. The gravity on his face quickly left, though, and he began to laugh once more.
Voyse tried to speed up, but Draven kept pace. Voyse gritted his teeth at the constant taunting laughter coming from above. Finally he shouted, “I’ll kill you!” Draven’s laughter merely increased after Voyse’s outburst.
“There he is…hurry up the stairs!” a voice suddenly declared from below Voyse. He looked down and had to double take to fully believe what he saw. Asher and Omurai were charging up the steps near the bottom. They had a long way to go…but the mere fact that they already caught up with him was a little more than surprising.
“What’s this…? Friends of yours?” Draven said curiously, looking down at the two newcomers. “The more the merrier I always say!”
Voyse grumbled at the situation, which wasn’t in his favor. His rival ahead of him, and his two bounty hunters below him. The only direction for him to go was up. A plan began to formulate in his head. First he’d attack Draven and get the Adept’s Stone, which he’d use to kill them all. Simply said, but not so simply done. He nodded his head as several thoughts popped in his head in case improvising was necessary. With a grin, he looked down at his two bounty hunters. “Come then, you two…join the race!”
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