Tycon's stealthy navigation through the fortress was far easier than the Tavor manor. His Enhanced Shadow Body allowed him to use his belly scales to grip onto the ceiling with a diagonal sidewinding undulation.

It felt ridiculous, stealthily sidewinding.

He had succeeded in setting fire to the armory, a.s.sa.s.sinated the highest rank in the fortress, and even found the kidnapped Tamaki alive in his cell. He had even found an escape route that their small group could use to sneak into the fortress.

All he had to do was slither down the side of the fortress and meet up with Guild Invictus.

Shadows were moving up the steep hill up to the fortress.

Tycon shook his head, denying it, "Nooo... It couldn't be them."

He squinted his snakey eyes to better see. A big shadow. A tall, thin shadow. A particularly small shadow? A shadow wearing far too much gear. Tycon's fears were confirmed. Guild Invictus was rus.h.i.+ng towards the front of the fortress.

No cover. No stealth. No plan.

Tycon heard lots of yelling from inside the fortress-- And soon arrows began flying towards his friends.

...

"Swords!" Pale yelled.

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Barza knew better than to argue. He flipped his own blades, presenting the hilts towards Pale. Pale tossed his spear up and took Barza's swords as Barza caught Pale's spear.

Pale rushed forward, rapid blades slas.h.i.+ng apart oncoming arrows while Barza and Wroe rushed behind him.

"Dragan!! Get behind Pale!!" Barza yelled as an arrow whizzed past his face and slashed his cheek open.

"All risk!!" Dragan broke into a sprint with a hair-raising scream, "NO REWARD!!"

Wroe tapped Barza on the shoulder, "He'll be fine... Probably."

...

It took Dragan over five minutes of full-speed sprinting to climb the hill.

Tycon's legs felt sore just watching him. He could do... maybe... 1 minute?

30 seconds, for sure.

Dragan performed a beautiful leap forward, lifting his greataxe behind his back. He nailed his axe into the ma.s.sive double doors.

The axe stuck, of course. Unsticking the axe from the wood, the giant man continued to hammer and chop away at the ma.s.sive doors. Archers behind the door's murder-holes continued to fire arrows that would stick in his armor or be deflected by his axe blade.

Tycon put away the cast-iron bomb he was prepared to throw. He was quite tempted to kill his ineffective idiot-friend but his usefulness outweighed his stupidity, more often than it didn't.

"Hey! Who the h.e.l.l are you?!"

Tycon turned to see that a couple of archers had finally climbed the stairs onto the front wall. Tycon began walking towards them, his palms open in a show of harmlessness, "Gentlemen, I appear to be lost."

[Vexing Gaze conditions met. Activate? Y/N?]

« Activate. »

...

Pale demonstrated his extraordinary and boundless stamina, running up the steep hill while deflecting all the arrows he could. As it neared its end, the three of them reached the fortress. Pale took cover, to catch his breath and ma.s.sage his eyes. Seeing and reacting to so many arrows in the evening, with only the brazier fires to rely on, taxed his concentration to its limits.

None of the three took any direct arrow hits. Pale was a genius combatant. And now it was Barza's and Wroe's turn.

Barza took the magical red spear and thrust it through a murder-hole, stabbing a man in the throat. Power surged through him, surprising him and sharpening his senses-- the crimson spear's magical effect. Using only his peripheral vision, Barza caught an arrow that had been fired at him. He turned to see his surprised attacker and rushed forward and stabbed the man in his screaming teeth. The same sense-sharpening power surged through him, once again.

...Barza felt really envious of Pale and his magic weapon.

...

Wroe poured water from his canteen onto his hands, which misted outward in a rainbow of water vapor. In the same motion, he reached his sword hand forward, he grasped, and he pulled. A wide-bladed white, almost ethereal, sword formed out of mana in the mist. The sword's design was unapologetically Fae in nature, confusing, aesthetically pleasing; it looked elegant and fragile, but somehow deadly, all at once.

Tycon thought it looked stupid.

With each slash of his sword, Wroe launched an eldritch crescent of magic power forward. With unerring accuracy, each eldritch blast took an archer's life through the fortress' small openings.

Tycon glared down from the top of the fortress wall, adjusting his seating upon the small pile of corpses he had arranged. Wroe looked upwards towards him-- the only Invictus member that had noticed him so far, and gave a foolish smile.

Tycon fired a crossbow bolt at him, which he dodged.

Tycon read Wroe's lips as he yelled back, 'I'm so very foolish, you're very handsome, Sir Lord Tycon.'

Wroe resumed the killing.

...

Tycon dropped down the front of the fortress wall, landing besides Dragan.

Dragan didn't rely on magical attacks, like Wroe. He did not have a spear like Pale. He didn't have javelins, like Barza.

Tycon crossed his arms, watching Dragan... who had reached through the murder-hole opening, grabbed an archer by the neck, and was repeatedly pulling-- slamming the man's face against the fortress stones.

"Mister Dragan."

"One second, Boss." Dragan continued to pull the poor fool against the stones, sound like a sack of meat striking a chopping block.

..."Dragan."

"If you're here to yell at me, Boss, the plan was a stunning success!"

Tycon frowned, "Mister Dragan, I'd like to ask you how many archers you've incapacitated like that."

Dragan reached forward deeply and with a final pull, a loud crunching sound emanated from beyond the wall. He turned with a grin and a show of b.l.o.o.d.y fingers, "Three!"

"And you couldn't have..."

There were many things Tycon could have advised... Utilizing stealth. Climbing the walls. Looking for a back door... Waiting for him to return.

Seven h.e.l.ls, they had Wroe, they could even have used trickery and deceit.

They could have pretended to be merchants.

Tycon waved his thoughts away as he walked off, "Nevermind."

As Tycon surveyed the outside of the fortress, no further attacks came. He a.s.sumed enough guards had died in its defense-- the remainder of them would be bunkered down. It would be a simple task to sweep the rest of the fortress, loot it for anything decent, and save Young Master Tamaki.

Guild Invictus gathered around him. Tycon casually inspected each of them and was glad to see no one was injured, though Pale looked very fatigued and Barza had gained a very nasty cut on his cheek-- it would scar later and make him look more of a grizzled veteran than he actually was.

Dragan jogged up with enthusiasm, "Oh, yeah, Boss! The door's pretty thick. I think we still gotta climb in."

Tycon grabbed the st.u.r.dy chain that served as a door handle. With a steady pull, the door slowly lurched open.

"I disabled the locking mechanism a quarter-bell ago," Tycon exhaled a deep sigh.

The group entered the fortress, each of Invictus smiling apologetically, save Dragan. The red-headed giant laughed shamelessly, the whole way.