“You’ll have to forgive me for using old human technology like this, but it was the best way to deliver my message to the entire city,” said the specter of her father.

“He means it, too,” said Mort, as he looked out the window. “Those things are all over.”

Forcing herself to move, Sherry took a peek as well, and indeed, she could see at least two more of the small drones high in the air, projecting their light downwards right in the heart of the city. She had to imagine these were in all the surrounding areas as well, but they seemed to be the only ones to get a private one inside their place.

“I know you’re all going about your business, doing the best you can on your day-to-day,” continued the eerie voice. “You came here from all over the world to begin a new life in the sun, surrounded by members of all races, thinking things would be different.”

For a moment, Sherry doubted herself. He might look a lot like him, but…that couldn’t be her father. She remembered him as a warm man, full of life, always smiling. The person talking now was nothing like that; his eyes seemed bigger and dead, his skin bone white and his face radiated quiet hate, even if his voice was calm. It was more like seeing someone's grotesque idea of her father.

“But deep down, you all know the painful truth by now…” Deadbone leaned in, the dark emeralds in his face seemingly fixed on a single point no one could see, and the intensity in them unnerved her. “…that this city is a lie.”

Sherry felt a shudder, she looked back at Mort and Var, the latter of whom didn’t look surprised, but like he wanted to cry.

“An empty promise made to you by the highborn who run it and maintained by their faithful guard dogs, the Royal Knights. And speaking of them, since I know they’re listening, let me save you the suspense. I am the one who killed the head of House Thril last night.”

That snapped her back into place, there would be time to process this later, but right now she needed to be the knight, not the daughter. Whatever this person was, he had just confessed to a crime, the one she was assigned to solve. 

“And to be clear,” continued that chilling voice on the projector, “I’m not hiding from them. In fact, I visited our good knights just last night to collect something I'll bring out in a moment. I simply let myself in as most were out and about during the last hour of the graveyard shift.”

Sherry tried looking for any signs of where he might be, but there was nothing to see but the simple desk and the brick red wall behind him. He could be recording from anywhere. Mort seemed equally nonplussed, shaking his head when she looked at him.

“Hmm, you know why they call it that? It’s a laugh, see,” he continued to rant, and now he smiled, only it was horrible like a madman appreciating a joke only he understood. “Back in the eighteen hundreds, many humans were accidentally buried alive. They would only discover it after the fact, seeing the desperate claw marks of the victim in the wood. So, they started attaching a cord that would allow anyone falsely buried to ring a bell, and they designated a man to keep watch over the graveyard during the last hours of the day, in case anyone rang for help.”

The man pulled a gun from under the desk, the same kind the dwarves were moving, notably different only by a silencer attached to it. He placed to his temple, still smiling in that horrible way, and his gaze intensified.

“That’s how easy it is to ignore people, that you can’t even bother to check if they’re still alive. Well, sometimes we just have to get loud and ring that bell until they hear us. So tell me…is this loud enough?”

Sherry shuddered as the gun fired, and she could hear the screams from outside as everyone watching recoiled at the horror of what they had seen. Deadbone’s head fell limp on the desk, and he moved no more. This was so much more than she could process, the image of Mort getting shot flashed before her eyes, and she could stop her hand from shaking at the painful memory.

“Sherry,” called Mort softly behind her, noticing and knowing what she must be thinking.

“I’m ok,” Sherry reassured him, taking a deep breath. She let her mind focus, thinking on the facts, and she realized what she just saw didn’t make any sense. All that just to kill himself? This person wanted to send a message, which he certainly had, but Sherry felt he wasn't the type to not want to see it delivered.

“I know what you’re thinking,” and Sherry’s blood froze as Deadbone's head rose again, no sign of blood, and the bullet he had fired fell in front of him, crushed. 

“Holy @&$%…was that magic?” asked Mort, and she could hear the same fear in his voice. He might survive a bullet, but not without damage like damage.

“I do not believe so,” said Sherry slowly.

“These human weapons, they don’t feel like us, do they? They’re ugly and lack elegance, but it’s all we had left to turn to regain some measure of the power we lost. This…reminder of the species that almost destroyed us once.”

Deadbone paused, eyeing the gun in his hand with a curious expression before turning to look back at the camera. “…but they do serve a purpose, especially tonight.”

A new sound erupted in the background, seemingly far away, but Sherry could recognize it even at a distance. Gunshots. Several of them, and mixed in with a chorus of rising voices. 

“To the highborn listening, know this,” continued Deadbone. “You robbed us of our magic, our immortality, and refused to share with others when we asked…well, we’re done asking.  Like the great dragons who hoard their treasure, you will find out what happens when the ones you cast out into the world come to collect what they’re owed.”

The sound grew larger, it was not on their street, but being surrounded by mountains made the city into a sort of bowl where loud sounds tended to echo and carry throughout it.

“I’ve arranged for quite a few of the disgruntled people you neglected to be armed tonight. They are marching down Skye Street now, to let you know how they feel, and I encourage anyone who feels as they do to go out and join them.”

“Mort, we have to go,” said Sherry, forcing herself to look away from the projection, the weight of the situation snapping her out of the trance of listening to her dead father.

“Ring the bell, Taniwha. Let them know we’re still buried here,” said Deadbone, and he didn’t smile this time, it was a terrible grimace of hate and anger before the projector shut off, and the drone left through the broken window.

As if on cue, an immense wall of fire erupted in the distance, illuminating the sky. Only a dragon would have managed such a feat, but there was no way any had joined this attack. It did make things more urgent that they reached Skye Street and stopped the violence. 

“You should release me,” said Var suddenly. Sherry had almost forgotten he was there. “Keeping Mort around is already a big enough drain on you, and you’re gonna need all your energy for this.”

Sherry started at him with disgust, it was because of him and his policies that so many were forced to do what they were doing now. But it was true, he had nothing more to contribute, and keeping two souls anchored to the mortal plane would drain her quickly in battle.

“I release you, Var’Arian’Thril…may you find peace,” she said more out of courtesy than any real sincerity. 

“For what it’s worth, I do hope he is not who appears to be,” said Var with his final breath, and then she felt the drain of magic lessen as his body felt limp back on the sofa, lifeless.

“We need to get to headquarters,” said Mort, already ready to go. “The Chief will already have all the knights available in place. It’s gonna be a blood bath.”

“Not if we stop it,” said Sherry, putting on her helmet. She opened the window and looked out to where the fire was burning. It was quite a few blocks away and would take too long by car. 

“We’re gonna have to jump our way there,” she said, and Mort nodded gravely. Elves were strong and limber enough to be able to jump high and far enough that they could move through the rooftops of the city. At least, any elf with the training and experience, which only the Royal Knights had. 

They wasted no time and leaped into the lampposts outside their window, and from there to the one across the street, then into the midsection of the opposite brownstone, and from there leaped just as quickly to the roof. Then it was a quick run across the concrete floor to the end of the building before leaping into the night together.

They repeated this sequence over and over, using anything they could for a jumping point between the large spaces. Thankfully, there were plenty of trees on all the roads, which made for a perfect midpoint between buildings. As much as she liked driving her car, Sherry had to admit she much preferred moving around the city directly like this; leaping over the rooftops and staying close to the action. Those seconds in the air, being able to see the city below always gave her a sense of perspective.

The sound of shooting and yelling kept getting louder as they neared Skye Street. When they finally made it, they froze at the sight. Half the street was on fire, many of the shops and businesses wrecked, their windows cracked and some cars overturned on the street. They followed the trail of destruction to see a large gathering of people marching towards the council building; at least a hundred of them, probably more. Half of them wore the signature red robes of the street gang they had been arresting of late.

A blockade of royal knights had been set to stop them, forming a barrier they were about to reach. At least two dozen of them, all in their golden armor and holding their long golden spears ready. The Chief was nowhere in sight, probably still back at headquarters organizing everything.

“Why are they not stopping?” asked Mort, looking with concern at the angry mob as they kept adding towards the waiting knight. 

“I do not know, but even with their numbers it is suicide to attack so many knights directly, said Sherry. “We must stop this now.”

They leaped towards the blockage and landed next to the closest knight. They recoiled in surprise, almost attacking them before they recognized them.

“Rull! Where the hell did you come from?” shouted the knight in charge as he approached them, a man Sherry recognized as Karn’Ferio’Azur. A veteran with many decades of service, and like all knights, he looked askance at Mort immediately, much to her annoyance.

“Sir, we need to talk to them,” said Sherry urgently.

“Talk to them?! Are you blind? They’ve already wrecked half the street, and more people have joined them since they began. We need to stop this now. The council has given us free use of magic to stop however we see fit.” 

Sherry knew this meant deadly force, and despite being outnumbered, the damage they could do with a few spells was incalculable. Sherry had seen it during the war, a few knights could wipe out a whole battalion of humans with little effort, but to see it used on their people was unthinkable.

“Let me speak to them!” Sherry said more strongly.

“We already tried that….they sent us the messenger's head in response,” said Karn, grimly.

“Oi! You don’t have to wait until we get there. We’ll just fire from here,” said a rough and loud voice from within the crowd, followed by the sound of at least fifty guns going off in their direction.

“Protection spells!” shouted Karn! All the forward knights immediately put up their hands, materializing a giant golden wall of energy in front of them. This spell had stopped many bullets in their track during the war, never failing them. So Sherry could hardly believe it when she saw the wall crack as the bullets went straight through them like glass.

Normally the bullets would rebound off a knight's armor, making a loud clang, but here they all went through the golden metal just as easily as if it wasn’t there. Sherry felt some bullets connect with hers as well, though her armor alone held on and repelled them, but just barely. She saw three knights fall dead, two more were wounded, and the rest fell into disarray at the sight. It was madness.

Sir, they’re everywhere!” shouted one of the knights desperately as he clutched his wounded arm. “They’re coming out of every corner, and it’s not just guns! They also seem to be carrying—”

They were all blown away by a sudden eruption on the floor next to them, and the last of the formation fell to pieces with it. Sherry had been removed enough that she could stagger with no worse damage than a ringing in her ears. She saw one of the cloaked elves carrying what she recognized as a rocket launcher. They had taken advantage of the opening and struck, and now half the knights gathered lay dead on the floor, including Karn.

That same strong voice from before laughed now, “Yeah, we did get some bigger guns than usual. But to be fair, the elves didn’t force the great serpents from their treasure with just tiny arrows…so we got bigger arrows.”

Sherry ignored it and tried to reach Mort, who was trying to help the remaining wounded knights to their feet, their revulsion of him seemingly gone for the time being. But before she could take two steps, a wall of fire shot out past her like a bullet, blocking her way toward the other side of the street. 

Her first instinct was to jump over it, but somehow the fire seemed to read her thoughts and grew over teen feet high to prevent her from trying as if controlled by magic. Sherry knew that was impossible, however. None of these houseless elves should have access to this kind of magic.

“Hey, chica!” bellowed a deep voice, and Sherry turned to see a mountain of a woman slowly walk towards her. “You got some good metal on you. All the others got their armor cracked, but yours held on. Someone put a lot of care and artistry there, lucky you. Let’s see if I can break it.”