Benjamin had to give it to the mayor; he had set the trap well. He had prepared counters to everything that lay in store, but not even he could have guessed the mayor had an elven arch mage trapped under the city, or that the insane elf was growing a veritable alchemy armory's worth of toxins under the city.

  If he could have, he would have grabbed Olivia and run away, but he can already feel the burning as the poison works its way through his system. If he runs now, the mage will laugh as he cuts them down with lightning.

  He wipes his face, trying to remove the sweat, storm water, or sewer water, not sure which he prefers. When he sees the red of his own blood on his hand, he knows he would have preferred any of those options after all. He can feel the anti-poison vial he took when he was bitten by the snake fading, but he hopes it will fight off the mushroom spores in the air a little longer.

  He takes in the room; Olivia is on the ground. She let out blasts of fire, but the plume barely reaches more than a few feet before petering out. Kurt shields her as any good knight protector should. To his left is the wilder in a giant bubble of water. He wants to curse the man for being so useless, but at least he is splitting the mage’s focus and making him waste mana, not that he could tell a difference. The wilder gave them an opening, and a few heals, but all it took was one spell to knock him out of the fight. Even with all the power the elf has on display, the dozens of spells he cast, he shows no sign of flagging.

  Olivia is their greatest weapon against him, and the mage knows it. That is why he’s focusing his full attention on her. Taking advantage of this, Benjamin dashes forward through the blinding flurry of whipping wind, detritus, and water. He strikes the mage, slicing a line on his arm.

  Only a hundred more, and he might be able to slow the mage down. As if to spite him, the wound begins to glow as the flesh of his arm knits. Envy and outrage war in him. If he has that kind of power, they will never- he ruthlessly cuts off the thought; he needs to concentrate, not think of how hopeless their fight is. He follows up the attack with three more stabs. The natural dexterity that all high-level elves possess allows the mage to easily dodge his strikes, but then the mage flinches.

  It's a minuscule action that he would have missed on a human, but for an elf, it was a clear blunder. They both pause, wondering what happened, as a thick line of blood drips down the mage’s nostrils. Benjamin is a bit confused but waves it off as the mushrooms that are clearly afflicting the elf, despite whatever immunity he had tried to build from the time living in the sewer.

  The distance to strike the mage is too great, so he throws his sword at the mage right as a squall lifts him off his feet and sends him backwards. Benjamin doesn’t see his sword land but smiles as he hears the mage cry out in pain. Benjamin flips through the air, watching the room swirl until he roughly impacts the ground. He groans, aching, but the cries of the elf, that he might be wounded, motivate him to move with alacrity.

  “Stop, stop!” The mage yells in a panicked tone. Benjamin feels excitement at his adversary’s panicked tone. After fighting the mage for at least ten minutes nonstop, they must finally be wearing him down. The ten minutes may have seemed like a short time, but considering many battles involving mages are resolved in a few minutes, this is an eternity.

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  The battle in the town by the coast is another exception. Despite lasting much longer in that battle, each enemy that reached Olivia died within a second to her blast of fire. Benjamin rushes forward only to be flung back again by a squall. He lands with a hard thump that knocks the wind out of him. He groans as he pushes against the ground to get up again. As he is getting to his feet, he sees a brief flash of fire from across the room cut through the storm.

  “It’s-… deep-…” The words are lost in the wind, but the cries of anguish from the elf fuel Benjamin’s movements. Without his sword, he moves forward again while drawing his dagger. The storm has become more intense as the mage tries to shield himself from their assault. He sees the lightning bounce within the wind funnel multiple times before striking out and missing. Bejamen smiles at the poorly aimed attack and the quick, successive flashes of flame just out of his line of sight.

  As he pushes against the wind, he sees Olivia on the ground, heaving breaths, gasping. She’s no longer attacking. She lay curled into a ball as Kurt hunched over her to shield her with his body. Concern and dread for his charge and half-sister on the ground war within him, but as bad as she looks, the elven mage was in a much worse state.

  He’s hunched over, wailing in pain as he holds his head. Benjamin sees the constant blue glow of healing magic, but the blood pouring from his nose and eyes keeps coming. He’s unintelligible in his wailing. The mage looks up at him, and Benjamin sees the mage wipe away tears of blood as he frantically looks around the room. The mage’s crazed eyes lock on his target, and he points out as he yells. “You cannot have them, they are mine! Give them back!”

  Benjamin only has a moment to think, the mushrooms finally infect the man’s brain, before a thick bolt of lightning punches him in the chest, knocking him back a foot. He only feels the pain for a moment before he blacks out.

  He comes to, feeling pain and little else. The edges of his vision are black, but at its center is the elven mage on his knees, weak and feeble. All he needs is a well-placed strike, and he can save everyone. He can prove he’s worthy. He claws at the ground to pull himself closer. He feels his armor snag on something under him. He grits his teeth, willing his body to move him forward.

  He strains against bones that snag his armor until the strain is too much for his battered body, and darkness fills his vision again.

  When his vision returns, it hurts to breathe. All he can do is open his eyes to see the wilder floating in front of the mage. The mage pitifully claws at the air in front of the wilder. The wilder doesn’t rage or strike out; he looks down imperiously, almost pitying the mage. Benjamin strains to hear what the mage is saying.

  He can hear the mage’s words through the weeping, “I don’t care about the pain they brought me, give them back to me! They’re all that I have left. Give me back my memories-”

  Lightning begins to gather in the lightning mage’s hand, and Benjamin wants to cry out to the wilder. To warn him or snap him out of whatever trance has him peering down instead of finishing the elf. The raging balls of lightning gathering and barely contained in the elf’s hands don’t touch the wilder as he floats.

  Jason looks down at the lightning, smiling and scoffing at the storm about to fry the man. Benjamin’s mouth hangs open as his mind tries to fill in the gaps. Is the wilder bluffing, or is he just that arrogant that he thinks lightning won’t affect him? For a moment, he considers that maybe this is what the wilder is hiding; he’s a tri-mage with lightning affinity.

  It’s hard to see much as the lightning reaches a crescendo. In the next moment, Benjamin would have jumped if his body wasn’t already spent. A blood red hand emerges from the chest of the mage, starkly outlined against the light of the lightning. The lightning cuts off, fading away.

  The sudden darkness after so much light makes it hard to see, but Benjamin sees the wilder wearing a vicious smile in triumph. The scene looks so discordant with what he knows that he thinks he must be hallucinating. Benjamin fights to stay awake, but even the adrenaline and fear of the fight aren’t enough for his battered body. Darkness overtakes him.