Fire and Stone

The sun hadn’t fully crested the canopy when we reached the ruins.

Half-buried in the hill like a decaying tooth, the place was watched over by a small band of scavengers—four of them, by the looks of it—talking loudly, kicking rocks around, and generally just being in the way. I’d seen this scene a quite a few times. Literally. The ruins near the crash site were staple XP in the early game.

And I wasn’t about to leave that XP on the table.

"See the one elevated on the first floor?" I murmured, motioning to Shadowheart. "You flank right, use the stairs. Quietly. When you’re in range, mace to the back of the head, then push him over the edge"

She didn’t even blink, just nodded and slinked off into the brush. Good girl.

"Lae’zel," I said next."The other side. Wait for my signal. The one without armor, spellcaster. Clean strike."

"Understood," she said, already stalking into position, a predator in her element.

Above the third and fourth bandits was a rope-slung rock, swaying just slightly, suspended in a loop like a clumsy trap waiting for the right fool to walk beneath. I raised both hands, focused, and let loose. Twin bolts of crackling energy surged from my palms, flying through the air and slicing clean through the rope in one smooth stroke.

The rock didn’t fall. It slammed. The impact crushed them instantly, At that exact moment, the other two dropped cleanly under synchronized strikes. No shouting. No warning. Just four dead bandits who never even knew they were being hunted.

[Experience Gained]

Lae’zel wiped her blade without ceremony. "Efficient."

Shadowheart didn’t say anything, but her eyes lingered on me a little longer than usual. Maybe it was respect. Or suspicion. I’d take either.

We moved deeper into the ruins, slipping through the crumbling doorway and down a flight of moss-choked stairs. Inside, we found the next batch. One man—alone, bent over a chest. Easy pickings. Before he even had a chance to register what happened, Lae’zel was on him, her blade flashing in a blur, cleaving the man in half in one clean motion. He died without a sound.

In the adjacent room, we hit the rest of the gang. Four bandits—two laughing near a barrel of flammable oil, the other two distracted with rubble deeper inside. I motioned for silence and pointed at the barrel, already knowing how this would play out. Twin Compelling Blasts crackled from my palms, reeling the back pair toward the barrel like they were being yanked by invisible strings. Shadowheart, ever the professional, didn’t hesitate, her firebolt flew, striking the barrel dead center. The explosion was instant. Fire rolled out in a searing wave, swallowing all four. One tried to scream but never got the chance. Lae’zel stormed through the flames, blade already in motion, driving her blade straight into the throat of the last survivor, silencing him before his weapon could even hit the floor.

[Experience Gained]

"You're getting good at this," I said casually as we regrouped.

"It is battle," Lae’zel said. "Gith are born for it."

"Still," I added with a grin. "The coordination was tight. Clean. They never knew what was coming."

Shadowheart adjusted her armor with a grunt. "You’ve planned that before."

"I’ve had practice," I said. Not a lie.

We descended further into the ruins, stepping through a cracked arch into a vast chamber. The walls rose like cathedral pillars, carved with worn reliefs and faint sunlight reaching down through a small opening in the middle of the room. At the far end stood an ancient altar, a place of worship to some old forgotten god, long erased from prayer but not from power.

Around it, unmoving but ominously arranged, were several skeletal figures. Armor still clung to some, brittle with rust. Weapons rested beside the dead. But none of them had dust.

I didn’t mention it, but I knew exactly what lay ahead.

Withers.