Solveig was back before Logan had even decided how long to wait.
"Lord. I found it."
"That fast?"
"He didn’t fly far. Scared, mostly, and careless with it. I stayed high the whole way and he never once looked up."
"Good work." Logan grinned. "We’ll raid him later. For now, let’s explore this hole."
The passage past the vines narrowed fast, barely wide enough for Juggernaut to fit through sideways. It opened up again after a few dozen meters into a round chamber, roots hanging from the ceiling like something had grown the space around itself instead of the other way around.
A dagger stood in the center of it, driven hilt-deep into the trunk of a dead tree that had no business growing inside a hollow like this.
The blade looked wrong in a way Logan couldn’t quite name. Old, but not rusted. Dark, but not stained. The air around it felt colder than the rest of the passage, and the hair on his arms stood up the closer he got.
Nobody else moved toward it. Logan didn’t know why he did.
He wrapped his good hand around the hilt and pulled.
```
[ You have acquired an Event Item. Zalkur’s Dagger. ]
This item will point toward three other daggers. When all four are gathered, it will manifest a Champion Field Boss that drops a guaranteed random skill upon defeat.
```
Logan turned it over once, feeling the cold radiate up through his fingers.
’Three more of these somewhere out there. And whatever shows up once I’ve got all four.’
He didn’t know if that was a good deal or a terrible one. Either way, it wasn’t going anywhere, and neither were the other three.
They backtracked out through the vines and into daylight. Logan pulled up Solveig’s directions and got his bearings, then looked over the group. Everyone was still standing, still fresh enough for one more fight today.
"Alright, boys." He rolled his shoulders. "We’re going to raid a base."
They found it an hour later, tucked into a shallow valley between two low ridges.
Solveig hadn’t undersold it. Walls ringed the whole territory, stacked stone reinforced with something that shimmered faint blue when the light caught it right, Rare-rank work if Logan had ever seen it. Four towers rose at even points along the wall, each one mounted with a heavy crossbow-like weapon that dwarfed anything Logan had ever built himself.
"Rare-rank everything," Logan muttered, crouched behind a ridge with the others. "Kid’s not as behind as he looked running from us."
"Want me to just knock first?" Vex grinned, already fading half into shadow.
"Knock hard." Logan raised a hand first. ’Encouragement.’
```
[ Encouragement used on Solveig, Juggernaut, Stitchgrin, Vex, and Stonewing ]
-250 MP
Attack +10% | Defense +10% for 60 seconds
```
Juggernaut didn’t wait for a better opening.
Siege Cannon Barrage!
Twelve shells screamed out in a spread and tore into the nearest stretch of wall. Rare-rank stone or not, it came apart in a spray of rubble and blue light, a gap wide enough to drive a house through.
The gap didn’t stay quiet. Shapes came pouring through it almost before the dust had settled, more boiling up from somewhere deeper inside.
Five lean fighters led the charge first, wind wrapped tight around blades that hadn’t been sharp to begin with.
```
[ Gust Skirmisher (Tier-1/Uncommon) ]
```
Wind Slash!
They crossed the open ground faster than anything that size should move, five blades trailing five thin ribbons of compressed air, and cut straight for the nearest target they could reach.
"Stitchgrin, even the numbers." Logan didn’t look away from the gap in the wall.
Ten Voltfin Ambushers dropped into the field at once, fins already crackling, and met the charge head on.
The Skirmishers’ wind-wrapped blades landed first. Three Ambushers caught the edge of it and staggered, thin lines opening across their stone-plated hides. It wasn’t enough. Stored current answered a half second later, arcing claw to claw and closing whatever distance the wind had bought.
The Skirmishers didn’t get a second swing.
Behind them came something with more range. Six archers took position along the broken wall, bows already drawn, arrows wrapped in the same compressed wind.
```
[ Cloudback Archer (Tier-1/Uncommon) ]
```
Squall Volley!
Eighteen arrows loosed together, riding gusts that curved their flight path around anything trying to block a straight line.
Solveig’s greatsword swept up, Aegis of Light flaring wide enough to catch the whole group at once. Most of the arrows shattered against it. A few curved around the edge anyway, thin cuts opening across Vex’s shoulder and along one of Stonewing’s wings.
Nothing serious. Not yet.
Then the towers opened up for real.
Four Rare-rank ballistae fired together, bolts as long as a man’s arm crossing the field faster than the arrows had.
’Safe Haven.’
```
[ Safe Haven activated ]
-1000 MP
Barrier Durability: 2000
```
Logan snapped the barrier up around the core of the group a half second before the bolts arrived. Three of them shattered against it in a shower of sparks. The barrier held, cracked along one edge, and kept holding anyway.
The rest of the base’s forces weren’t far behind, a ragged line of spear-carrying grunts and a few loping beast-summons, none of it Uncommon or better. They didn’t last long enough to be worth naming.
Two shapes stayed back from the charge, taller than anything else on the field, wind curling visibly around both like they carried their own weather.
```
[ Frostwing Roc (Tier-1/Epic) ]
[ Stormlance Cavalier (Tier-1/Epic) ]
```
The Frostwing Roc took to the air first, the player still clinging to its back, and opened its beak wide.
Ice Shard Barrage!
A spray of jagged ice tore out of its throat, each shard the size of a fist, raking a line across the ground toward Vex.
Vex didn’t try to outrun it. Shadow Stroll carried him straight through the barrage instead, the ice passing through empty air where he’d been standing a heartbeat earlier. He came out the other side already behind the Roc’s wing.
Black Flame Claws!
Three long gouges opened down the wing in one pass, black fire eating into feather and frost alike. The Roc shrieked and banked hard to retaliate, swinging its beak around for a second try.
Two Cinder Shadow Clones were already there to meet it.
The Roc pulled off wounded, one wing dragging, the player fighting to keep it in the air at all.
The Stormlance Cavalier charged in the same moment, lance leveled, a spinning column of wind gathering along its edge.
Tempest Lance!
The charge tore a furrow through the mud, wind screaming loud enough to drown out everything else on the field, aimed dead center at Juggernaut.
Juggernaut didn’t move.
Crush Charge!
He met the charge at a dead run instead, and for one long second the two forces held even, iron against wind, momentum against momentum. Then the wind lost. The collision folded the Cavalier’s lance in on itself and carried straight through the rider behind it, and the fight ended before either side had time to register who’d won.
Vex rolled one shoulder, the claw marks from the Roc’s first pass still bleeding faintly down his arm.
’Restore.’
```
[ Restore used on Vex ]
-100 MP
```
The bleeding stopped, and he flexed the arm once, satisfied.
Logan spotted the player himself near the base’s center, wounded Roc still limping under him, wind gathering thick around both of them.
"Not this time." He looked to Stonewing. "Ground him."
Stonewing was airborne before Logan finished the sentence, closing the gap fast. The Roc was already flying ragged, one wing still torn open from Vex’s earlier hit, and it had nothing left to outrun anyone with. The Cloud Warden saw Stonewing coming and panicked, Windfury flaring around him in a burst that might have carried him clear on a healthy mount.
It wasn’t a healthy mount anymore. Stonewing’s fist found the same torn wing, and the Roc dropped out of the sky, its rider going down with it hard enough to knock the wind out of him.
He looked up and found Vex already standing over him, claws still smoking.
The same word screamed through his mind that Logan had heard about once before, secondhand.
’SURRENDER.’
The base went quiet within minutes after that, walls broken open, the last of the fighting sputtering out across the mud.
```
[ Base raid complete. +5200 Tower Points for elimination of the summons. ]
[ You have defeated a player. Player L now has 2 eliminations. +6800 Tower Points. ]
```
```
[ Player Elimination Leaderboard ]
> Rank 1 | Marcus | Eliminations: 2
> Rank 1 | L | Eliminations: 2
> Rank 1 | Uorop | Eliminations: 2
> Rank 2 | Alice | Elimination: 1
> Rank 2 | Junai | Elimination: 1
> Rank 2 | Livena | Elimination: 1
```
Tied for first with two others, and the other three players tied for rank 2.
Logan looked out at the wrecked base, walls broken open and smoke curling up from somewhere inside, and grinned.
[Your territory is under attack by another player.]
’Shit!’
Logan’s eyes widened. "Everyone! We have to head back, fast! Solveig, you take me first at full speed."
’I hope my summons can hold until I return.’ Logan’s fists were clenched. He just hoped no one died. At least, not the Rares and Epics, which were most of his units there.