Robert comes over to see that Margarete is well again and goes over quickly to her side. He examines the site of where the wound once was to see that it is gone. His face full of relief and surprise, he turns to Nova, but is speechless. Nova gets up from the ground and looks around. The cellar was dusty and almost completely made of cobblestone. Other than the wooden shelves and cardboard boxes lining the walls, she couldn’t see any visible escape routes. At the far end she could see some of the children hiding behind some boxes and shelves. “Are there any other ways out of town?” Nova asks, but neither Robert nor Margarete answered. “All that fire,” Margarete spoke, “I don’t know if you could get out even if you wanted, but where is all that fire coming from?”

Silence, only the sound of the children from the other end of the room could be heard. They could feel the grim tension in the room, so Nova tried to change the subject. “These children, are they yours?”

Margarete looked at her in confusion at first, but then realized she had been asked a question, “All of them? Oh dear, no, I simply watch after them. They are orphans, Robert and I run the orphanage in town. Many of their parents either gave them up or perished, unfortunately. Poor things, having to go through all this so young.”

“Right, I can relate,” Nova says to herself almost mumbling. They sat there further in silence, all afraid to even talk about what’s to come amidst all this chaos. From the time that goes by it seemed like minutes, what felt like hours, have gone by and Nova again tries to change the subject, “So I take that Robert and you are together then?”

There was a pause and both Margarete and Robert had blank stares. They looked at each other and then quickly away. Nova could see that their faces slowly turned red. “Robert and I? Oh no, we… we just are…”

“Associates,” Robert quickly adds, “We are co-workers at the orphanage.”

Nova raises an eyebrow, then she eases into the real matter at hand, “So the other people… why would…” Margarete raises her hand to stop her, “I do not know, no one does. Right now all I would fear is getting the children out safely, but… that fire… I don’t even know what to think at the moment, only that we must leave town.”

Nova nods and rises. They notice that it is somewhat quieter after they took shelter. Nova heads towards the cellar door, “I’m going to see what’s going on.” Robert stands, “Wait,” he says closing in behind her, “I know that if I were to follow you then I’d just get in your way, but take this.” He hands her a small white ear piece. “So we can stay in contact. Since you’re going out I want to know when it’s safe to leave, but with all this talk of fire… I think there might be a way to put it out.” He leads her to a wall with what seems to be a map of town. “I used to help with city engineering a while back, and if the piping is anything as it was before, then you should be able to overload the pressure in the weak spots. Here at the south west region.” He points to what looks to be a series of interconnecting pipes, somewhat smaller than the other pipes on the map. “All I know is that near the end of piping construction, when I worked for the town, expenses were short so compromise was made to use smaller, weaker pipes at the non-essential area of town.”

Nova examined the map further in detail, “How do you know they didn’t change the piping?”

“That region there hasn’t even been finished with construction, so most likely it’s still the same.”

Nova thought for a moment. Top priority went to putting out the fire to ensure an exit and second was to get out with Robert and Margarete. Time was wasting and so Nova quickly set for the exit. Before she could leave, however, Margarete stopped her, “Wait! Your name, please after saving my life… our lives, we must know your name.”

Nova hesitated for an awkward moment, but then turn towards her and spoke, “My name is Nova.”

Margarete processed it in her mind for a second and then smiled weakly, “Be careful out there Nova.”

Finally she set out through the doors. Slowly she peaked out to see if there were any soldiers and saw none. Nova then carefully exited and closed the cellar door hearing it being locked from the other side. Her ear piece buzzed to life, “Nova, Nova can you hear me?”

“I hear you Robert.”

“Good, listen, to get to the pipes you’re going to have to look for the pump controls at the center of the construction area there. There should be a sewer lid in the center of the construction site and the pipes shouldn’t be too far to your left. You can’t miss it.”

“Got it, I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

She quickly runs towards the construction zone as quietly as she can.

On her way towards the pipeline she encounter few resistance, but took them out quickly so not to raise attention. Not too long until Nova discovers the construction site, but patrolling the area are soldiers. The area is large and littered with partially built houses, all standing on their wooden skeletons. But other than the pre-built cobble road, the area was nothing but dirt, cement, and trenches in the ground. Taking a closer look at the trenches, Nova could see what seems to be some exposed pipes, however with all the soldiers patrolling, there was no way to the sewer lid without being shot. Nova stayed in the shadows planning her move, but could think of none. She was going to need a distraction of some sort.

Suddenly a loud explosion was heard in the distance shaking the ground and the buildings. The sky seemed to have a dark orange glow to it suddenly. The soldiers in the area responded swiftly as they all sprinted towards the cause of the commotion. As soon as the area was cleared out, Nova moved towards the center of the construction zone and looked towards the direction the soldiers have gone. She saw that over the buildings there was smoke and large amounts of fire at what seemed to be the town square. Shortly after she heard gunshots in the direction of the fire and after, columns of rising flames could be seen, burning brightly in their hot glow. The fire was so great that Nova thought that you could almost feel it from where she stood. She shook her head to snap out of her trance in the fires beautiful, yet violent, glow and pressed onward towards the sewer lid. Before she lifts the lid, Robert called to her on the ear piece, “Nova did you hear that, was that an explosion I heard? Because it felt really close!”

Nova responds, “That was definitely an explosion, but what caused it, I don’t know. It seemed to be coming from town square, but the strange thing is there’s more fire coming from there too. I don’t know what to think of it right now, but I’m at the sewer entrance, I’ll contact you when I find the pipe controls.”

She lifted the lid and saw leading down a few meters was the sewer floor. Climbing down she slowly loses sight of the chaos ensuing outside. The sewer is dimly lit with service lights every few meters. Water flowed through the center and the air is damp, however, it seemed surprisingly tidy in the sewers. Nova expecting to see rats and rubbish all around was surprised by this as well. She scanned the area and saw pipes leading down to the left side of the sewer corridor and remembered that Robert has told her that the controls should be immediately to the left. She follows the pipes and sees a panel of lights and valves as she turns the corner. She presses a button on her earpiece, “Robert I found the control panel. How do I work this thing?”

She waits a few moments for a reply, but no response. “Robert can you hear me? I made it to the pipe controls, I need instructions.” Still no response, “Robert!” She tries again and again, but still nothing. She sighs, it’s probably because of the concrete interfering. Thinking about how to work the pressure in the pipes she sees that there are pressure meters for four pipelines labeled P-1, P-2, P-3, and P-4. Looking at the meters she can only guess she needs to change the pressure in the pipes using the valves, but the question was which one? To the side she notices a map similar to the one in the cellar, and sees that the four pipes are labeled P-1, P-2, P-3, and P-4. On the map P-4 seemed to be the outer most pipe and if she could mentally compare the piping map with a map of the town then P-4 should be the exposed pipe that she saw earlier from above ground. Going off of this guess, Nova redirected the pressure of the other pipes to P-4. She first turned the valves counter clockwise and saw how the meters for P-1 through P-3 were reduced to a low reading near zero. She turned the pressure on P-4 way up and saw as the meter gradually rose, nearing the red zone. As it approached the red zone the valve became considerably harder to turn, soon after a red light appeared over the meter of P-4 followed by a high pitch Beep noise from the console. Nova ignored this and struggled to push the valve with all of her might. A few minutes must have passed until finally she heard a loud metallic noise from somewhere. She watched as the pressure meter quickly dropped out of the red zone as it very sluggishly lowered.

Nova ran to the exit and climbed the ladder back up. The soldiers were still gone, but the fires in the town square have died down. Looking behind her she saw that the water pipe has ruptured and is spewing water at the wall of fire, punching a hole in the blazes. Nova presses on the earpiece again, “Robert I did it, there’s an exit here in the construction area! Hurry before soldiers come back!” She gets a reply back but it sounds strange, “Nova!”

“I hear you Robert, I’m here.”

“Nova!” This time it sounds close and then she realizes that Robert is already there nearing behind her. She turns towards him and nearly gasps out loud. Robert seemed to have been badly beaten and injured. He was bleeding a little from his head and arms, bruises could be seen in some places as well. “Robert?! What happened to you, where is Margarete and the children?”

Struggling to speak Robert answers, “They took them, all of them! To town square, they found us hiding and I tried to fight back but… they took them and I couldn’t do anything! I should’ve fought harder, I- I…”

“Hey, enough. There was nothing you could have done.”

“Exactly, I SHOULD’VE BEEN ABLE TO, I--.”

“ROBERT!” Robert snaps back to his senses and remained silent, “Getting mad won’t help, I’ll go get them. While I do that, get out of here and wait for us by the forest. Go!”

Robert slightly nods then gets moving before quietly saying to her, “Give them hell…” Nova begins running towards town square, hands ready to draw her blades.

As she makes her way closer and closer towards the center of town she hears the crying of the children. Nova runs faster, nearly at full sprint before having to take cover behind a corner. She peaks over and sees the children and Margarete against a wall with rifles pointed straight at them. They are terrified, and before Nova could even comprehend the situation, a familiar voice was heard on a loud speaker, “Come out Pyrium! Your sense of honor must be lacking if you must hide yourself!” Nova could feel the air suddenly get hot. “We have hostages, reveal yourself now and they will not be harmed. I will not give you any further warnings.”

Another voice can be heard, echoing from the buildings and ringing in the air, “You dare speak to me about honor! You dare speak to me after killing hundreds of YOUR OWN PEOPLE! DAMNATION BE UPON YOU, YOU WHO WOULD SEEK TO SEIZE THE HEAVENS WHILE POISONING YOUR OWN LANDS!”

There was a brief pause and then the loud speaker came on again, “I’ve run out of patience, kill them now.”

Nova didn’t know what to do. She saw the rifles steady ready to fire. On impulse she jumped out of her corner and screamed out. She swung her blade wildly slaying the soldiers before her, however, she wasn’t fast enough and the soldiers already fired off many rounds at the children and Margarete.

The air became scorching hot, blowing around Nova in a heated blaze. The light orange and warm as fire surrounded the family. In the midst of it all a woman is seen with long flowing hair, black as charcoal. She wore ornamental armor and robes, upon her were beautiful jewelry and accessories. She held a sword in her hand in the form of a gladius and her arms were stretched apart to shield the children and Margarete. Nova stood in awe staring at her presence. Pyrium looked back at her and then quickly the air, her face scrunched up in anger. In less than a second the Goddess was clothed in fire and her hair seemed to rage in flames as well, red and orange singeing in heat. She leaped in the air and swung her blade, destroying a tank shell that was flying forwards them. She landed and looked back at them, she spoke in a voice nearly made in flames as if she was speaking from the heavens and not directly in front of them, “Go now!”

Nova quickly grabbed Margarete and lead them away from the fighting. They ran a good portion of the way until Nova slowed, “Go towards the unfinished construction zone. There should be a clearing in the fire. Go towards the forest and hide, Robert should be waiting for you there.”

“But what of you? Where are you going?”

Nova shakes her head in regret, “I’m going to help the Goddess… Now go!”