A quaint inn with minimal services provided the only place to sleep in Vault. Lodging was cheap, for the only two rooms were empty. The innkeeper lived on-premises and mostly ran an inn for the company.

  The crew retired for the night to study and digest the information they’d discovered in a hidden scroll. Zilara got a room of her own while Jelena and Calaf shared the second room.

  That left Enkidu, standing guard by the stairs through the night. He seldom required a room, nor did he sleep in his tents in the wild. Keeping watch for long hours was a better use of his unique metabolism.

  The wild man did not join the others in studying these scrolls. He did not need these tales, though he could sense from eavesdropping on Zilara or Jelena’s muttered words that these testaments were truer than the church hymns.

  Still, Enkidu stood at the stairs, one hand on his sword and one hand on the austere banister, through the night. His eyes remained closed. On occasion, he even had a thought or two. For the most part, Enkidu waited and observed.

  He sensed subtle changes outside: Plants shifting to better catch the first rays of dawn, birds awakening some two leagues away. By the time the first rays of light crept through the inn windows, Enkidu was well aware it was morning.

  The wild man’s ears twitched imperceptibly. Enkidu opened his eyes and walked back to the far door.

  “Jelena,” Enkidu began. “Two groups are approaching from the east and south.”

  He did not knock. His voice boomed through the inn well enough.

  “A little busy.” Jelena’s labored breath wafted from under the door.

  “Have you and Calaf completed a study of the hidden gospel?”

  “We’ve been, ah, distracted. Calaf is… deeply preoccupied.”

  “Our exfiltration route back to Granite Pass is blocked.” Enkidu focused his hearing, ignoring the din from the door. “Two companies. Footfalls denote heavy armor. Vanguards are moving faster. Fight will be upon us within a quarter-hour.”

  “Calaf is inside me right now!” Jelena said with no small amount of trepidation. “Little privacy, please!”

  Enkidu turned towards the stairs, sword brandished. He exhaled sharply.

  “Just buy us some time to finish up,” Jelena said. Then, at a whisper. “There, right there. Don't worry about anything outside this room. Just a bit more, baby. Yeah~”

  Sometimes an inhuman sense of hearing was a curse.

  The first Vanguard jumped clear through a ground-floor window and into the Inn’s main hall.

  Destroying their lodging facilities would not win them any goodwill from the locals. Enkidu picked up the fledgling scout and tossed him back out the window at full force. There was a crash as the attacker hit the wall of the pit that Vault was built into. No one else dared jump through that window again.

  “By tarnation, what is happening in here?” A sleepy innkeep came in from the ground floor patron’s quarters.

  Two more Scouts kicked the inn door down. The innkeeper dived behind a bar.

  These scouts and vanguards were Branded. The background processes of the Interface were imperceptible even to Enkidu’s overtuned senses. But the foes moved faster than an augmented human possibly could, courtesy of a Scout-class’s Agility focus.

  Enkidu picked a simple tavern bench up with his free hand and smashed the nearest Scout into the floor. Furniture could be repaired, and the flooring was hardy. But the Scout bounced into the air.

  The third member of this vanguard yelled out some Interface-based attack name. Why did they say it out loud? Unnecessary. But the room filled with an acrid smoke.

  Knives of serviceable make sliced at Enkidu’s vitals. He paused only once, to better judge the positioning of his foe. Then, the wild man held a hand out and the fleet-footed thief-class ran into it. The assassin fell, momentum sending him sprawling into the wall.

  The fog faded. Belatedly, Enkidu realized it was meant to be a poison smog. It filled the annex and stopped immediately at the stairs. No matter to Enkidu. The innkeeper was beginning to hack up a lung.

  “Do you have antidotes? Healing salves?” Enkidu stood at the innkeeper’s bar and leered over the edge.

  The innkeep was on the floor, gagging.

  “Potions. No antidote.” They hacked again. “Never need…”

  “Use your potions. I’ll be back.”

  Enkidu trudged up the stairs.

  “Jelena. We are leaving,” he said.

  “We’re done and getting dressed.” Jelena’s desert drawl was muffled by the door.

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  “The route up and out of this pit will be blocked soon.”

  “We know. Go clear a path.”

  As Enkidu stomped back down the hall, the second door flew open.

  “Someone tried climbin' through my window!” Zilara said. “Hit him with a fireball, he’s groaning down on the street now. If he tries it again he’s dire-worm food.”

  “One of them tried our window too,” Jelena said, still behind the door. “Calaf shield bashed him. Heh, good job with the quick-swap, Hot Shot.”

  Enkidu turned to Zilara. He towered over the twinbrand-marked child.

  “Do you have an antidote?”

  “Sure thing, Big Guy.”

  “I do not like that nickname.” Enkidu looked back towards the stairs. “Hand one over. Then return to your room and wait for Jelena and Calaf to get you.”

  After more fumbling for Interface-to-non-Interface trade, Enkidu returned to the innkeeper and dropped the potion off. With the poison dissipated a single item should be all that was needed.

  “I have no Interface. You look like you will live. Stay low.”

  The terrified innkeeper crawled on their hands and knees back into the owner’s quarters.

  Enkidu stepped out into the shadow of a Vault midmorning. The town rose around this lowest level with five additional layers carved onto and around dried-up ore veins. The sun would not reach the bottom of the pit until noon.

  Visibility was limited. But the sound of approaching columns wafted down into the pit. Obvious. Any ordinary human could notice.

  Guard our way out. That was the objective given. The dire-horses were grazing out in an adjacent field, unobtainable. Enkidu stomped through town, where not even a single dirt farmer dared cross his path.

  There was one main ‘road’ out of Vault proper. More of a ramp leading up and out of the pit.

  The easternmost band would have been sent forth from Riverglen. The group advancing from the south’s origin was yet unknown. Both moved faster than one would expect a military outfit in full armor to travel. That could only mean one thing.

  “I hate bards,” Enkidu grumbled.

  Music came from both east and south. To the south there was a team of mid-tier Troubadour types. But to the east…

  A blur rushed along the road faster than any eye could process. Rusty steel met an overlong, brittle blade. A man in an overlarge plains duster and of Enkidu’s was there. He wore a plains duster overlarge even for these alien proportions.

  “An Arbiter,” Enkidu surmised.

  Those on the Menu referred to this class as a Hunter. Its requirements were so arcane as to render the class impossible for any lay churchfolk. Hunters were a fusion of Battlemage and Thief. This Arbiter, Walter’s, agility was already prodigious beyond the strength of mortal men just from class stat distribution. But when Walter flicked his wrist, the lightning-fast speed of a single unblockable strike turned into five cuts against Enkidu’s body.

  The stalemate broke. Enkidu and Walter jumped back.

  “We know what you are, brother,” came a sing-song voice that grated Enkidu’s ears.

  A bard. The only bard in the eastern column. The pair stood there.

  “I have no Interface,” Enkidu said, adopting an unpracticed defensive stance. “He’s Walter. You’re going to have to say your name.”

  The bard opened with a strum of a mithril ruan. “I go by Klavier now. I believe you’ve crossed blades with Walter more than once.”

  “And that one with the barriers.”

  “Baldr, yes.” Klavier strummed some more. “If the timing had been but a bit more fortuitous you would have had the honor of perishing against the combined might of all four Arbiters of the church.”

  “Might have to try that sometime.” Enkidu gave some rough approximation of a smirk.

  “It would surely be your doom,” Klavier said.

  For his part, Walter said little. Strong and silent type. A bit like Enkidu.

  The eastern contingent approached, marching fast due to Klavier’s bard magic. Arbitral auxiliaries, faithful deputized into a force multiplier. No major threat. That column from the south was moving slightly slower. But if there was another Arbiter among them…

  Better end this quickly.

  Enkidu took a step forward, baiting Walter into an attack. The Hunter sliced at Enkidu with a sword moving far faster than what should have been possible for its length. Still, Enkidu did not bleed. He stumbled to the side, pretending to be off-balance.

  All the while, that accursed Bard strummed out a song that tripled Walter’s speed. At least that was Enkidu’s guess; with no Menu he couldn’t see what the effects were. Should have dragged Calaf out here half-naked to serve as a spotter. No matter.

  Even at superhuman speeds, Walter had to stop with both feet on the ground to finish a leap or change directions. Enkidu took advantage of the lull to make a lunge for Klavier. Bards could increase any party’s fighting abilities by an order of magnitude, but they were squishy. Vulnerable.

  The wild man’s cracked and ancient blade thrust forth, aiming right for the ruan. Walter was out of range even with the speed buffs. But out of the hunters’ duster came an oblong tube. There was a bright flash, and a scattershot of shrapnel sent Enkidu off-balance.

  “That guy really didn’t expect to be shield bashed’ by someone wearing only a kite shield.” Jelena giggled as they laced up the last strings of her bodice.

  Calaf stifled a chuckle of his own, ever wary for threats.

  “We’re ready. Let’s go.”

  “Sure thing,” Jelena said, then knocked on the door. “Zilara, out the window. We’ll meet you on the ground.”

  The sounds of battle came from above the sinkhole that made up the town. Calaf and Jelena wasted no time in leaping together to the dusty back alley that made up the space between the inn and the old mayoral house. Zilara leaped from her own window and landed barely twelve paces away.

  “Okay, up the pit,” Jelena said. “Find Enkidu, then we’ll get out of here.”

  The Arbitral Auxiliary Corps. They had clearly followed the posse’s trail from Riverglen. The party had caused a stink at the cathedral and technically filched a document from the archives. Could the church be aware of the relic hunt Jelena and company were now engaged in? If so, did they want to keep it quiet?

  This thought weighed on Calaf’s mind as the trio rushed to the entrance of Vault. Had they brought doom to the tiny hamlet? Calaf grimaced. They should have camped out on the road overnight.

  Before they could reach the top of the pit, a hulking mass fell over the edge and impacted the flat roof of a residence. Dust wafted out of the front door, followed by a battle-scarred Enkidu mere seconds later.

  “Walter has a gun,” Enkidu said matter-of-factly. “Scattershot.”

  “Hunters are part Battlemage, right?” Jelena asked, to a nod from Zilara. “Our guns are probably sourced from the same place. Bullets are running a little low. Don’t expect me to get in a shootout with the guy.”

  Calaf looked around. They were surrounded. The town was besieged. But one whiff of heresy was enough to cause the Arbiters to put Fort Duran – a place of extreme religious significance – to the sword last year. What would they do to a dirt farm in an extended siege?

  “We can’t stay here,” the Squire said. “There’s got to be a way out.”

  There was no sign of Walter yet, but if he wanted to engage he could be upon them in seconds. Calaf put himself between the Vault town gates and Zilara and Jelena.

  “Mithril veins,” Jelena said. “Bet there’s an empty mineshaft or something.”

  “They’ll be back down at the bottom. Likely being repurposed as basements,” Enkidu said all matter of factly.

  “Right. Just watch our backs, big guy,” Jelena said.

  Though his clothes were ragged, and he’d clearly been on the business end of dozens of sword swings and a shotgun blast from Walter, Enkidu stood tall. No blood came from the wounds. And he moved at full speed to block a sonic crack of a sword swing and a horizontal decapitation strike from Walter. Metal struck metal.