The Enclave soldier in front of Emray scanned around the area nervously, his mechanical harness whirring and clicking with every movement of his traitorous body. His helmeted head whipped back and forth, trying to find the source of Emray’s tortured scream.

“Where are you at?!” the soldier called out, his voice the same reedy tone as the man she'd spied on. “Come out with your hands in the air, let’s see if we can’t talk this out!”

Slowly Emray stood up, taking care not to make any extraneous sound. The grey outline that was Antareon hadn’t moved an inch since the soldier had revealed himself, but he slowly lifted his arm towards Emray. He quickly swished his fingers around before his voice echoed into Emray’s mind.

“Emray, don’t move a muscle and don’t make a sound,” Antareon ordered. “Don’t engage him, let me go talk to him.”

Emray wanted to protest, wanted to say anything to convince Antareon to let her light the traitor in front of her ablaze, but she held her tongue if only to protect herself. Marigold might be in the wreckage of the Faculty Hall, and the only way she was going to find out was to get past the soldier.

Taking great care to make as little sound as possible, Antareon slowly walked his way over to an out of the way spot between the ruins of the Faculty Hall and the main road leading into town. A few more explosions coming from town helped mask his movements, as well as rattling Emray’s bones while she tried to stay stock still.

Antareon ducked behind a downed bit of the masonry and brickwork before dropping his glamour and running his way out from his hiding spot.

“Sir, help! Please help!” Antareon pleaded, running with a fake limp and clutching his bouzouki to his chest. “Please, you must help me!”

The soldier whipped around, drawing up his pistol and holding it level with Antareon’s face.

“Who’re you, elf? What’re you doing here?” the soldier demanded.

“I’m just an entertainer, sir! Please, I was hired to perform at the festival tonight when everything started exploding around me! I don’t know what’s happening, and when I tried to find shelter this whole building came down!”

Antareon sank to his knees, clasping his hands together and letting tears flow fast and free down his face. The soldier lowered the pistol to match up with Antareon again, but Emray could see his aim waver slightly.

“P-please sir, just tell me what to do,” Antareon continued, voice thick with perfectly feigned terror. “I just want to go back home, I don’t want to die here.”

The soldier slowly lowered his gun as he took in Antareon’s absolutely pathetic display. He firmly holstered it into the belt strapped around his chest, still holding his sword loosely at his side.

“Listen to me, Mister ‘Entertainer’, and you listen well,” the soldier growled. “All of what’s going on here doesn’t concern no dark elf minstrel who’s never done a hard day’s work in his life, so I’m gonna give you one chance to get out of here before I have to do something we’re both going to regret. You feel me?”

With a firm grasp with his gnarled fist the soldier dragged Antareon to his feet, leaving the bard slightly off kilter. Antareon took a few cautious steps back, unslinging his bouzouki as he did.

“I understand, sir,” Antareon answered, “but I am a carrier of stories and notable people’s names. I’ll get myself off of Ostella as soon as I can, but could I at least learn your name so that I might tell people of the man who spared my life on this horrible night?”

Emray silently screamed at Antareon to just run, watching with a hawk’s eye as the soldier looked Antareon up and down. She couldn’t tell because of his concealing helmet, but Emray swore she saw something like disbelief in his movements.

The soldier walked towards Antareon slowly, then leaned into his ear to whisper something. Antareon nodded in agreement just as the soldier’s fist slammed into Antareon’s gut, lifting him a full two feet off of the ground and sending a spray of blood and bile spewing out of his mouth.

“Antareon!” Emray screamed out just as she noticed her own invisibility glamour fail. The soldier whipped around to face her, the teal lights on his harness glowing brighter as Antareon crumpled into a heap at his feet.

“So the dark one’s got a light friend, isn’t this just perfect!” The soldier declared.

Emray roared with fury at the man, this beast in front of her. She drew her hands in, feeling the magic course through the air around her as a ball of pure arcane force built in-between them.

Just as Emray let the first bolt of her spell loose, the soldier’s rig glowed bright. In a flash of blue he leaped a full ten feet from a standing start away from her attack and landed perfectly on the slick ground.

“Aw, that’s cute, she’s got some magic,” the soldier commented with a sickening tone. “Tell you what, I’ll give you the same deal I gave him; leave now and I’ll forget this ever happened.”

Emray screamed again, letting two more bolts of energy out of the ball and expending its charge. The soldier expertly dodged the first bolt, but caught a glancing blow to the side off of the second that burned through part of his cloth undersuit. He let out a yelp of pain as he staggered to a stop.

“Alright, now I’m pissed,” the soldier growled, pulling the pistol off of his belt and aiming at Emray. He squeezed the trigger, sending a flash of almost-white teal energy exploding out of the barrel along with a bullet that ripped into Emray’s shoulder.

Emray staggered back, her shoulder burning with white-hot pain and the spell she’d been attempting to conjure fizzling out in her hands. Her flat-bottomed shoes slipped against the slick stone of the courtyard, and she fell backward with a resounding crack to the head.

Slowly the soldier stalked toward her, an animalistic rhythm to his gait. He holstered his pistol while flipping up the visor of his helmet to look her square in the face.

He was an entirely unassuming man, with a weak chin and a nose far too small for his blocky head. He had scraggly curls of brown hair slicked to his forehead with sweat, and his skin tone belied a lot of experience tending to fields.

His eyes, however, stuck out almost as much as Elifas’ did in her face. They were an iridescent blue color, more blue than the bluest eyes Emray had ever seen, and she swore that the muscles of the iris shifted and warped as he stared down at her.

“You got a good shot in, I’ll give you credit for that,” the soldier stated as he leaned a gloved fist against Emray’s bullet wound. She cried out in pain, which caused the soldier to flash a wicked grin.

“But I’d say I got a better one in,” he continued. “Mine’s not gonna bleed out, you see. Thanks for sealing it up with that magic of yours, you really did me a favor.”

Emray felt her head thump in beat to her heart, same as her shoulder, as the soldier lifted back his fist in preparation to punch.

“Goodnight, princess.”

And then, in a flash of lights and pain, Emray’s world went black.