Boots thudded on cobbled streets, lost amidst the screams and yells from up ahead.

  The four adventurers rounded the corner to see a member of the watch go flying into the wall of a house.

  She hit with a dull crack and didn't move.

  Pulling the chain from her side, Marie felt her [Dangersense] explode, focusing her attention on everything that was going on as she lashed out with a [Whipbind Pull] at the roaring, bestial allagi that was smashing another member of the Watch to the ground.

  She willed her [Adrenaline Rush] to activate and the scene before her seemed to play out in slow motion.

  The allagi in front of them, snout elongated and snarling, serrated tail whirling, spun in their direction - the only people that stood between it and the rest of Wayfarrow in this moment.

  Three more members of the watch were grappling with another hulking form twenty yards down the street as the Silver-rankers Ennie and Dorn and a retired adventurer around their level began to rush in from the opposite direction.

  Lammaran was shouting his [Winnowing Blast] skill, the dust whipped up temporarily blinding the allagi even if the gust of wind did nothing to throw it back. Fila drew breath to sing one of her spells, though Marie had nothing to devote to tracking what one, as Sharra darted off to the left, seeking to flank the towering figure.

  Her own improvised whip was lashing out to bind the allagi, and even Napoleon was moving, diving for the legs.

  The chain-whip hit the allagi as it shook the dust from its eyes, and as she went to throw it off-balance, she realised how outclassed she was in raw strength.

  Oh, merde.

  Nothing more had time to go through her head before the allagi grabbed the chain and twisted, yanking, sending her hurling through the air past Lammaran and Sharra as Fila blinked in surprise.

  But this wasn't the first time something like this had happened to her, and rather than panicking and activating her [Bonebreaker Charge] as she had done against Guildmaster Thror, she instead drew the pan at her hip, midair, and swung out with a [Swift Blow] that slammed into its face and sent her careening off to the side with the impact.

  She looked at the bent and dented pan as the snarling allagi reeled, and flung it at its knee. It hit with a metallic thud but barely discomforted the creature as it swung out at her.

  Throwing herself into an [Evasive Roll] as Lammaran charged in on the other side, she got out of the way enough that the [Thrasher] drew its attention, and as Sharra and Napoleon dove in to cut at its legs, trying to hamstring the thing before it could run roughshod over them she pulled back on the now-loose chain and started cracking it towards the allagi’s head, distracting it from fully unleashing on her low-levelled teammates.

  Opposite her now, Fila was singing out and Marie got to see her spells in action as one of the allagi’s claws headed for Lammaran’s head, only to strike a pink-purple warding symbol that appeared in midair, and rebound less than a foot away from decapitating the young man.

  I understand now.

  There were yells and a wrenching sound behind her as the allagi finally overpowered the Watch that had been holding it down, but Marie had no time to spare checking what was happening beyond her [Dangersense] telling her that it wasn't coming for her yet, as the allagi she was fighting grew angry at her harassment and whirled to swipe at her.

  [Lucky Dodge (Once per Day)]

  She felt the Skill activate as she momentarily unbalanced and razor-sharp claws passed less than an inch in front of her nose.

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  Three eighths of an inch, to be precise.

  Before she could think better of it, she stepped in close and unleashed a [Snap Kick] at the same knee the frying pan had hit. This time the allagi staggered, giving an opening for the rest of her team to pile in, and Lammaran, Napoleon and Sharra all darted back with the allagi’s blood on them. Caught out under the raging beast and with few Skills left to call on, she aimed at the creature's leg and activated her [Bonebreaker Charge].

  Still off-balance, the allagi tumbled to the ground this time as its leg buckled and left contact with the floor, but as it fell it lashed out and all the breath in Marie's body exploded out of her in a rush as she felt her chest compress and one of her ribs crack.

  The allagi flailed around, but as another of its claws sped towards her unprotected head, Lammaran, moving faster than humanly possible under the effects of one of Fila’s spells, was suddenly bracing himself over her and took the blow on his shield, grunting and collapsing to the street under the weight of it.

  The next thing she knew, Napoleon had latched onto the creature’s arm, and Sharra’s broadsword drew a line of red down its side.

  The allagi faltered and Marie, struggling to draw breath, sensed an opening and flicked out the chain to wrap round its torso again. It struggled for a moment, but Lammaran shouted another Skill - [Plough Through] - and took its legs out from under it again.

  This time, it hit the cobblestone ground with a crack and as Marie and Lammaran and Napoleon piled on top of it, Sharra darted in and used a set of manacles to shackle its legs, and then another to bind one arm to its legs whilst the rest of the group, even Fila, wrestled the other to the floor.

  Breathing heavily and in pain, the four of them weighed it down as the other adventurers dealt with the second allagi and then rushed over to knock out and cuff the one the Bronze-rankers had dealt with.

  They rolled off the bound prisoner, a flaring in the manacles speaking to their magical nature that made the metal strong enough to withstand the power of the enhanced allagi. Still, it struggled, and no one made a move to approach it once they were clear.

  The squad from the Watch gathered in as the seven adventurers stood round, breathing hard. Marie wasn’t the only one clutching her ribs. One of the Watch clearly had a concussion too, and the retired adventurer was clutching at a dislocated jaw whilst another of the Watch was having a deep gash in her leg inspected.

  Sharra, massaging her side, took a step closer to the woman and sniffed.

  “I do not think it is infected. It smells of stone. Probably tore on the cobbles.”

  Despite a nod of thanks, the leader of the Watch’s group still checked it over for another minute as it was bound.

  As heartrates and breathing began to approach normal levels, the air over Wayfarrow was quiet, devoid of any call to arms or hint of danger for the moment.

  The allagi she’d helped bind had stopped struggling. It looked half-unconscious. Perhaps healing. The other, further down the street was still as well, and with the state the Watch were in, Marie gave the other adventurers a meaningful nod.

  They are in no condition to get these to the cells.

  Ennie and Dorn might have been known malcontents, but they’d returned to the guild and they knew the duty they had to perform. Taking poles with loops of steel wire on the end from the Watch, they looped them around the half-conscious allagi and, with the retired adventurer prodding it with a sword, began the process of corralling it in the direction of the town gaol.

  That left the second allagi - the one the others had taken down - for Marie’s group.

  It didn’t move when they approached - even when Sharra and Lammaran tried to catch its head in the wires.

  As Marie stepped forwards and looked, it was plain to see why.

  The allagi was dead.

  It hadn’t been obvious from the direction they’d approached, but as she circled round to the north, she saw the mess where its skull had met the cobbled street, and the pool of blood and bone fragments and brain matter splattered around it.

  The whole right side of its body was crushed - arm and leg both with compound fractures - and half the fingers on its hand mangled beyond recognition.

  Whatever the adventurers had hit it with to put it down had done the job too well, and Marie felt her stomach turn as she moved past the initial shock and began to process the horrific tableau in front of her.

  She ran to the side of the street and vomited, painting the corner of a building with the contents of her stomach, barely registering her other three companions as they had similar reactions, though Sharra managed to contain herself.

  Marie wasn’t sure how long they stood there, cognizant of the Watch hobbling on when they realised there was no current threat, but as the sky overhead began to grow brighter, and the pale orb of the moon fell past the horizon, the body on the ground began to shift and shrink.

  It was only then that the suspicion Marie had was confirmed, as the battered, swollen and twisted features of the allagi morphed into one she half-recognised.

  A young member of Algar’s Hunters, who had once picked flowers for her to ward off an evil curse.

  If only he’d been able to ward off the one on himself.

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