Ansel jumped, then relaxed when he saw who it was. "Finn."
"Move!" Finn ran over in a few quick strides and lifted Bratt from the other side.
"Wait…" Bratt raised a hand to stop them, took a deep breath, and forcibly triggered Second Wind.
A series of sickening cracks sounded from his chest as bones shifted back into place. His ribcage slowly flattened out, his breathing smoothed, but sweat poured from his forehead, veins bulged at his temples, and his jaw muscles trembled from the pain.
Ansel knew he was using Second Wind to reset his bones. A healing potion wasn't the same as a healing spell—if you didn't straighten bones or stitch wounds first, they could heal wrong.
"Have one." Ansel pulled out three Goodberries and handed one to each of them.
Second Wind burned through stamina and physical reserves. A Goodberry could provide a full day's nutrition—sometimes more useful than a healing potion.
"Go."
They hurried out of the building and onto the bridge. Rand's group was already falling back toward them, only twenty or thirty meters away.
The rooftops were out—they'd just be targets up there. The bridge, with Rand and the others screening them, was safer.
Seeing they were still alive, Rand's expression eased a little. He waved them on, signaling them to keep retreating, while he led others in ripping apart houses to build barricades.
The withdrawal sped up dramatically.
Healing potions really were the miracle drug of low-level adventurers. Their effectiveness was startling.
After they'd supported Bratt for a hundred, maybe two hundred meters, his breathing had steadied and strength returned to his limbs—he could jog on his own.
By then, they'd more or less shaken off the pursuit. The duergar slaves were jammed up on the narrow bridge, blocked in front by obstacles and too scared to push through, with more bodies piling up behind them. The duergar cursed furiously, but there was nothing they could do.
As they neared Wyrmrock, Ansel looked up at the towering Flaming Fist fortress. It really was impressive—each tier of its walls mounted with ballistae, and several catapults set on top.
There were plenty of Flaming Fist soldiers visible on the walls, but despite the long, grinding fight at the chokepoint, not a single one had come out to help. The gate hadn't been raised once, leaving the church's convoy and countless refugees locked outside.
"Cowards," Bratt growled under his breath, all his usual composure gone.
Having danced so close to death, he could no longer stomach the Flaming Fist's inaction.
A few minutes later, they finally reached the fortress. The gate began to creak open, and the refugees surged in like a flood, Ansel and the others at the very back.
The gate stopped halfway up. Once everyone was inside, it slammed back down at once, their fear of death reaching almost comical extremes.
Inside the passage it was pitch-dark. The sconces on the walls were unlit; the only light came from the far end of the tunnel.
Ansel cast Light on his staff. It turned into a glowing wand of ambiance, bright white radiance driving back the darkness and revealing… a floor covered with refugees and wounded.
Those who couldn't run and those too hurt to move filled the passage. Even Rand and Zahir were covered in injuries.
Borg began directing the priests to take out their supplies and treat the wounded. They stitched people up on the spot—crude but practiced work. Clearly, Tyr's followers knew more than just how to fight.
Ansel and the others slumped against the wall, watching the chaos with their own thoughts churning. No one spoke for a while.
"How do you feel?" Ansel turned to Bratt, a hint of emotion in his eyes.
He'd saved Bratt earlier, and Bratt had just saved him in return. That javelin had hit hard—if it had been aimed at Ansel, even Shield might not have been enough.
"Heh…" Bratt tilted his head and stared at the faint gleam of scales on Ansel's face, saying nothing, just chuckling dumbly.
Finn, sitting on Ansel's other side, watched him, eyes glinting. "Worth it?"
"You think I'm being a bleeding heart?" Ansel met his gaze. "We were saving ourselves."
"We could've just run," Finn said, baffled.
"Run where?" Ansel rolled his eyes, revising his opinion of the ranger's brains. "If Rand's group didn't make it back, you really think we would've been allowed through that gate?"
The Flaming Fist might slam the door on refugees and random adventurers—but even they weren't stupid enough to leave Rand and Zahir outside to die.
"…They wouldn't go that far, right?" Bratt sounded unsure.
"Heh. Who knows?" Ansel said. He strongly suspected that if they hadn't shaken the pursuit, the Flaming Fist would have left them outside and watched everyone die.
Finn and Bratt both looked conflicted—but mostly convinced.
The Flaming Fist had a long history. They'd had their share of… incidents, but for the most part they took orders from Grand Duke Ravengard. They weren't exactly paragons of justice, but they worked as a competent police force.
Especially after the scheming Vanthampur family had been purged and the Four Dukes council turned into Three Dukes, things had actually stabilized more. The Grand Dukes who followed weren't amazing, but they weren't disasters either—and no one had tried anything too outrageous.
That stability let the Flaming Fist avoid the worst kinds of turmoil. Their mandate hadn't gone too far astray, and their reputation wasn't bad.
But you couldn't judge how a person or organization would behave in a disaster based on how they acted in peacetime.
Just looking at how the Flaming Fist had turtled up these last two days, Ansel was sure they couldn't be trusted. It made him think further than he normally would.
After a long silence, Finn spoke with a troubled look. "Things are… complicated. Maybe we should… stick together?"
Ansel glanced at Bratt, who shrugged. "You decide."
"Sure. I'm the leader," Ansel said without missing a beat.
"Fine…" they both agreed without argument.
After all this time together—fighting side by side and talking in between—Ansel's information panel on them had updated.
[Bratt, Neutral Good, Human, Level 2 Fighter, HP: 18, STR 15, DEX 13, WIS 14]
[Finn, Lawful Neutral, Half-elf, Level 3 Ranger (Beast Master), HP: 25, STR 12, DEX 16, CHA 8]
The stats weren't complete yet, but they were already very useful—especially alignment, which at least let him spot people with obvious bad intentions.
The nine alignments weren't arbitrary labels invented by people—they were part of the fundamental laws of the multiverse, reflected in divine domains, magical effects, and the Outer Planes (like the Lawful Good Mount Celestia or the Chaotic Evil Abyss).
It was basic knowledge for adventurers, especially for paladins, druids, clerics, and the like—because it could literally affect their lives and futures.
But alignment was only a surface reading. It was defined entirely by a person's choices and actions, constantly shifting—a dynamic moral mindset.
Gods, demon lords, and the like could sense a mortal's true alignment directly. Some spells could detect good or evil or moral leanings. Most ordinary people, though, only had a vague sense of where they stood.
Alignment didn't dictate party composition, but it definitely affected trust and teamwork.
Bratt was Neutral Good. People of that alignment did their best to help others and operated within the bounds of rules—but weren't chained by them.
He fit that perfectly—easygoing most of the time, but when it mattered, he stepped up.
Finn was Lawful Neutral. People of that alignment followed a code—legal, traditional, or personal. They wouldn't be swayed by desperate pleas or tempted by evil offers.
Finn was obviously solitary and self-contained. A bit self-centered, too. He only really opened up when talking to Ansel—probably a bit of a looks-based bias.
Which made sense. Ansel was, objectively, a walking charm stat—attractive across the board.
Chatting naturally led them back to the disaster itself.
"So why do you think those things from below came up here? Skulking around, hating the sun but still climbing up. It's almost funny," Bratt muttered.
"Maybe the collapse just happened to hit a duergar settlement," Ansel said offhandedly. "The Underdark is resource-poor. They might be here just to raid. Or maybe they want to settle. With the Weave in chaos and their psionics unaffected, things are stacked in their favor.
"But one thing you've got wrong—lots of Underdark creatures are sensitive to sunlight and dislike it, but that doesn't mean they're afraid of it."
"You… know all that?" Finn asked, curious.
"Books," Ansel said casually. "Underdark this, Underdark that. You pick up a bit." In truth, the original owner had never read that sort of thing.
But Ansel himself knew D&D inside and out—practically a half-expert. Bratt and the other locals, on the other hand, had limited operating ranges and narrow experience. Outside the human world, they knew very little.
As they talked, a clatter of hurried footsteps echoed down the passage.
A dozen warriors in matching studded leather armor strode into the tunnel, swords and shields in hand. As soon as they arrived, they started shoving people around.
"Up, up, move it—"
"From now on, the fortress is sealed. No one is allowed to linger—"
"Hurry up and move. Don't make me use force—"
"…"