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                                                            Chapter Two: Rings of Saturn

Norman sat in the darkness of the room. He sat on a slab of concrete that could’ve easily been a fallen part of the roof or a blown up part of a wall. Before the fight had begun, he’d isolated this entire part of the building with [Secrecy] to prevent troubles. The skill had a single design, it isolated him and a chosen target from the rest of the world. It eliminated sound and other sensory effects.

He let out a sigh as he looked down at the quest line.

[Quest Failed]

[You have failed to defeat the Final Boss. The Final Boss has escaped]

[Would you like to read more?]

[Yes/No]

He didn’t need to read the details of the failure.

No.

He had held up his part of the quest and that was that. Defeating the Oath of war had been difficult. If the Oath of madness had been present, he doubted there was any member of the team that could’ve helped him defeat the both of them. His real issue, however, was with his intel. They’d taken an entire day to set this whole thing up. Through it all, there had been people on recon duty, people who had made it their duty to predict the location of every Oath in town with the capability of stopping them from killing the mayor.

There was no way any of them was going to say they didn’t know the Oath of war had kids. Which meant they had kept that little tidbit from him.

And he knew exactly how he felt about it. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.

Ella, do you copy? He thought. Hopefully the telepath of the team still had a telepathic link open.

Norman waited for a time that seemed to stretch on forever and got no answer. While he waited, he checked himself, took stock of his injuries. He had only one rib that wasn’t broken. He was missing a few teeth—nothing a healer couldn’t fix—and had more torn muscles than anybody was supposed to be able to survive.

The Oath of war had done a number on him, and the only reason he was still kicking was because he had technically cheated. During the fight he had taken a degenerative pill designed to temporarily suppress his pain senses. It was the only reason he had been able to keep going. The doctor said it was a bad idea to rely on pills like that, but he’d had no choice. He’d almost lost even when using it and unhindered by pain, so imagine if he hadn’t.

He stared at the open hole in the side of the room. It placed the streets outside into view. It was peaceful, quiet. The streets were illuminated by the moonlight glow of street lights placed equidistant from each other. It was a sharp contrast to the dark chaos of the room he was in.

Norm, do you copy?

The words twitched in his mind like a phantom limb. He winced at their presence. He always hated telepathy. It felt invasive. Wrong. Using it was like doing drugs but without the ecstatic effect.

Copy. I got the quest update, he thought back. What happened?

Wally failed to eliminate the mayor.

Norman frowned. Weren’t there like eight of you?

Six, Ella replied. Connor and Liz had to be dispatched to take out Dark-Mist.

Wasn’t Dark-Mist all the way on the other side, in town B? How did he know we were here? And how did he get here so fast? Who was in charge of recon? Never mind. Where are you guys? I’ll come to you.

Negative, Ella replied, voice ever calm. We’re already on our way to you.

Norman stood up and winced at a sharp pain in his side. The Oath of war had given him quite the beating. Looking down at her body lying on the floor, he couldn’t help but respect her. He was a level 146 Delver hopped up on pain depressants and she’d still given him a run for his money. And even now she wasn’t dead. After taking his strongest skill eight times throughout the entire fight, she was still alive.

He could probably count on his fingers the number of people alive that could take a direct hit from the skill three time and still be standing.

“I guess she’s not a mini Boss for nothing,” he muttered to himself.

The right thing to do now was to kill her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was a soldier, not a monster. Instead, he moved over to a particularly large chunk of the wall that had been blown out in their battle and dragged it over. Before he’d unlocked his first skill, it would’ve been impossible to do what he was doing. The wall was twice the size of a normal person and weighed so much that a crane would be needed to move it. But here he was, dragging it over with one hand.

Perks of being a hunter, he thought.

What’s that, Norm? Ella asked.

Not for you, he told her. Isolate contact. Limit telepathic link to only intentional thoughts. I’ve told you this before, El. I don’t like it when you hear what you shouldn’t.

Then control your thoughts, she returned. We’re on our way to you, just sit tight. ETA is three minutes.

Norman felt her touch slip from his mind. It left him with the familiar sense of loneliness it always did.

Three minutes, he thought to himself. More than enough time.

He dragged the boulder over the Oath of war and let it down gently. He had exchanged enough blows with her to know how sturdy she was. A boulder of this much weight would not crush her.

He heard a gasp in the corner and paused. Thoughts flickered through his mind. What should he do? What could he do? He had perhaps two minutes left.

There was nothing he could do in two minutes.

“Stay still, and stay quiet,” he said loud enough to be heard. “You do not want to be noticed when they get here. If they find you, I can’t help you.”

Another pain shot up his side and gripped his heart. He winced again, every part of him begging him to just lie down. He could feel every crack in his broken ribs, every cut and tear, every torn muscle. He could feel his mana fatigue.

He needed a seat. But not yet.

He looked at the boulder he had placed over the Oath of war and knew luck had played a part in his victory. He had used every potion he had in this fight. Stamina. Health. Mana. And he had used multiple, to the point that his inventory was empty.

But unlike most Oaths, the Oath of war had used none. Norman had come into this fight knowing it was a suicide mission but had come out alive.

He should kill her. It was what any soldier would do, what any hunter would do. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not in her children’s room. Not in front of her children.

He staggered back, fought his growing pain as the effects of his pain depressants lost their hold on him. He leaned against what was left of the door frame, kept himself from falling.

There he waited for the others.

When they came, it was through one of the holes in the wall. They strolled into the building, and he counted only three of them.

“God, Norm, you’re a mess,” Ella said. She was a small woman with her hair held up in a bun. At least that was how she kept it whenever they went on missions. However, it was a mess right now. Worn down poorly and stained in blood.

Norman’s only response was a nod.

The other two with Ella were the team’s medic, Kwaku, and the team leader, Omar. Kwaku was skinny and tall. Lanky. He fought for shit and relied on one of his passive skills that gave him high vitality and health regen boost. It didn’t make him a tank, but it did make him extremely difficult to kill. They said he’d been a doctor before he’d gained his powers and had somehow developed only healing skills over time as he leveled up.

His kind was rare.

It was almost impossible to find a hunter with only healing skills. Most hunters had at least one skill designed for killing. Kwaku had none. He was, technically, a pacifist. He only used violence when it was unavoidable. Even then, his skills in violence were only what the military had taught him. And he had learned those skills poorly.

It’s a good thing he’s here, Norman thought. If anyone found out about the kids in the closet, he could count on Kwaku to take his side in leaving them be.

He wasn’t saying the others were monsters, but they were soldiers first, then hunters, before they were human. If they felt in any way that the continued existence of the children was somehow a present, potential, or future threat, he wouldn’t put it beyond them to take lethal action.

Omar was a soldier all the way. He was almost mechanical about it. Orders were the principles by which he lived. Any orders given to him were carried out to the letter. The soldier was more inclined to die first than not carry out his entire mission. He was a bald man with piercing grey eyes that always seemed to look into a person’s soul and see nothing. And Ella followed him everywhere.

He was more beat up than Ella in torn clothes, and spotted multiple injuries, one of which was still bleeding. They looked almost as terrible as Norman’s.

Norman looked between Omar and Kwaku, wondering why their medic hadn’t cast any healing spells on him.

“Out of mana?” he asked.

Kwaku looked away in embarrassment. It was confirmation enough.

“It was a tough fight,” Ella explained. “We lost Todd. No amount of healing could help him. Kwaku practically ran through all his skills trying to keep him al—”

Her head snapped to the side.

“What the hell was that?” she asked.

A touch of worry ran down Norman’s spine. “What the hell was what?”

“That,” she scowled. “I can sense an active mind. “Are you sure the fight is over?”

“That’s a bold question.” Norman stood straighter, fought the pained grimace that threatened to usurp his expression. “I won. It’s definitely over.”

Omar was looking around now, alert. Norman didn’t like it. He needed their attention on him.

“Were you notified of your victory?” Omar asked him.

The answer to that was simple: No.

“Yes,” Norman lied. “Enemy has fallen. You have defeated the Oath of War.”

Omar nodded slowly. When his attention returned to Norman and stayed, it was all Norman could do not to let out a sigh of relief.

His father had always told him that he wasn’t cut out for the military. The life of a soldier was a tough life, and sometimes, for the greater good, they had to do some bad. His father always said that was the hard part for Norman; the bad.

Norman liked to think of himself as a hero for justice and that was likely to get him killed.

But today’s not that day.

Ella was still suspicious, skeptical. She was still looking, searching. Her eyes settled on something and Norman fought himself not to look.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asked.

“What’s that?” Kwaku asked. Of all of them, he was the only one who didn’t move like he’d gone through a grinder. His clothes were a mess but he stood and moved fine.

Ella’s eyes squinted. “It looks like a child’s drawing book.”

“Oh,” Kwaku said, voice sad. He looked at Norman. “W—were there…”

The medic’s voice trailed off, unable to complete the question. It was one of the reasons Norman liked him. If not for the world they were in, Kwaku would’ve been a good guy, through and true.

Ella, however, didn’t have Kwaku’s mentality.

“Were there children here?” she asked.

“Negative,” Norman answered. “However, the Oath of war did fight like she was in a hurry. Perhaps her children are on their way.”

“Shit,” Ella swore.

It surprised Norman. She was usually cold and detached about details of a mission. His surprise must have shown on his face because she turned on him with a scowl.

“What?” she asked, with a touch of bitterness.

Norman looked away. “Nothing.”

“I’m not a monster.” She ran a frustrated hand through her hair, grimacing from the action. “I can understand being attacked by an enemy and not wanting my kids to be there. I can picture Jane coming home to find me dead while some portal fucker stands over my body. I wouldn’t wish that on any mother.”

Omar made a thoughtful sound, and it drew their attention.

“There’s no place in our report that shows Oaths can have children,” he said.

“What can we say we truly know about this world apart from what the quests tell us,” Kwaku said with a touch of guilt. “For all we know we could just be invaders to them, coming into their world and taking from them.”

“Save it for therapy, Kwaku.” Ella patted him on the shoulder, then she turned to Norman. “Where’s the body?”

Norman thought fast. Enemies always left behind bodies, it was how they confirmed their kills. Despite how the quests and skills often made it look, this wasn’t some game where they were spared the gores of battle and the defeated evaporated into smoke or some other variable of disappearance.

Body, he panicked. What do I say? How do I…

Omar frowned. “Do Oaths disappear when they die?” he asked.

“Not that I know of?” Kwaku said. “Dark-Mist didn’t disappear when Seven killed him.”

“Maybe it’s different for each Oath. We’ve only killed one before,” Ella said.

“With the Oath of war and darkness, that makes it three,” Omar pointed out.

“Yea. And I remember the Oath of light exploded when we killed her,” Ella added.

Allowing this line of reasoning go on was good for his short-term goals. Norman didn’t want to kill the children and didn’t want them to watch their mother die. But this would be bad in the long-term, it would leave the team with wrong theories, theories that would guide their actions and decisions, and could prove fatal in the long run.

Norman shook his head. “I think what happened with the Oath of light was an isolated incident. I think she might’ve used a skill to blow herself up, take us with her.”

“Then how do you explain the absence of a body?” Ella asked. “Did you kill her somewhere else?”

“No.”

“Then?”

“I hit her with [Rings of Saturn].”

Kwaku winced.

Norman could remember the first time the medic had seen him use the skill. [Rings of Saturn] was designed to annihilate a target. It flashed with a light bright enough to create enough heat to melt bones. When it exploded in the direction of his choice, it could decimate an entire building.

Kwaku had thrown up his lunch the first time he had seen its effect.

Omar nodded, pleased with Norman’s answer. But Ella wasn’t buying it.

“She was an Oath,” she said. “It would take more than that to do the kind of damage that leaves no body.”

“I’d argue that the Oath of shields is the only one that can withstand eight blasts from [Rings of Saturn],” Norman said easily. Ella opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off with more words. “I’m bleeding HP just standing here, and I have no plans to die after accomplishing my end of the mission. I’m out of mana, and the only thing keeping me on my feet is sheer will.” He turned to Omar. “Is the portal still open?”

He could see the red caution sign blinking at the top left of his vision.

HP: 00008/78,000.

MP: 00006/98,000.

Omar nodded.

“For now,” he answered. “I’ve gotten confirmation from Terry that it’s still up, but it won’t be open for much longer. The timer has already begun.”

A notification popped up at the top right corner of his periphery, and Norman checked it. True to Omar’s words, the timer had already started.

Portal Deactivation [00:12:58].

No one wanted to be left stranded inside a portal. There were instances were portals closed behind hunters once they entered. Those were called special portals. In cases like those, the quests were usually extremely complicated, and the portal only opened when the quest was finished.

There was only one way to close a portal, and that was by finishing the quest, either by passing it or failing it. For whatever reason, the portal considered success or failure a status of completion. On some occasions, death was the only failure. Luckily for them, this was not such an occasion.

They’re luck on this quest had been its simplicity. They were to kill the Mayor of New-Vein, the city they were in. The only registered threats to the mission had been the Oath of war and the Oath of inevitability. The Oath of darkness also stayed in New-Vein, but recon had claimed he was out of town at the moment.

Only for him to show up, Norman thought bitterly. At least he’s dead.

“Let’s go,” Omar said finally. “We’re killing time. Time we do not have. That portal isn’t going to stay open forever.”

They left the house in quiet strides. When they were out in the open, there was already a growing chaos, even if it was a silent one. Norman looked around as they walked, illuminated under the light of the moon in the sky and the street lamps on the road.

He found people staring from the windows of their homes, eyes filled with fear.

“You didn’t use [Secrecy]?” Ella asked, unconcerned by the watchful eyes.

“I’m not the reason for all the attention,” he replied. “I’d bet it was your fight with the mayor. Anyway,” he added, turning to Kwaku. “What will you do when we get back home?”

“You can crash at my place,” Ella offered the medic. “Jane will be happy to spend some time with you. She’s always happy to spend time around a doctor.”

Kwaku smiled fondly but shook his head. “Hard pass,” he said. “Jane has too many questions, and I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind to answer so many.”

“Oh.”

“I’m just going to fly back home. We’d just sent a few Delvers into a portal before this one opened. I’m kinda worried.”

“I know what you mean,” Omar said. “I remember when I flew out to China to help with their portal while Norman tackled the poison swamp portal. I was out of my mind with worry.”

They were out of the residential area, free from watchful eyes and strolling up to what was left of their team now. They hadn’t been worried of being attacked. Any real threat to them was already isolated, defeated or too beaten to come after them. The normal people they found within portals never went near them, never attacked. They were also only rarely seen.

Norman had gone through more than his fair share of portals since becoming a Delver, and this was only one of two times he’d ever gone into a portal chuck full of civilization of this level.

“What exactly happened with the mayor that made you guys fail the quest?” he asked.

“Coward sealed himself inside an impenetrable bunker,” Ella spat.

“You can’t really call him a coward,” Kwaku countered. “What was he going to do against four Delvers of over level 100. That he even lasted against us for as long as he did was commendable enough.”

Ella looked at him as if she was looking at a sweet and naïve child and shook her head. She gave him a soft pat on the back.

“Ghana’s really lucky to have a sweet heart like you, you know that,” she said.

“I think being a Ghanaian makes me the lucky one,” he said. With nostalgia in his eyes, he added: “I can’t wait to get back home.”

“Me, too,” Norman said. “Me, too.”

Everyone gathered themselves up before stepping through the portal. Entering was easy but returning was often known to be disorienting. It wasn’t life threatening, but Delvers didn’t like the idea of embarrassing themselves on their return. Besides, everyone was thinking the same thing.

While Kwaku was heading back to his country, Britain had to prepare for the consequences of failing the quest. They had to prepare for a Chaos Run. If they prepared properly, then there would be no civilian casualty. And that was only if they prepared well enough.

As Norman stepped into the disorienting blue void of the portal back home, he knew the next six hours were going to be a long one. As a participant of the quest, he had the option of opting out of a Chaos Run, but he knew he wouldn’t. Not if he was in good shape when the time came.

The portal swallowed him whole and sent him back home where he would prepare for a new battle.