Unsurprisingly, the gathering stirred at an orichalcum-rank pointing his bow at a thirteen-year-old girl.

Saffra, for her part, merely considered the situation. Jasper might have a flippant attitude, but she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. He was strange, but she’d tentatively categorized him as an okay person.

“I don’t know what she put on me,” Saffra said eventually. “But knowing her, they have to be pretty strong.”

Jasper loosened his draw and pointed his bow down. “Think it could hold against that?” he asked, gesturing with his chin toward the Ghul-Feather.

“Now, wait here, son,” the mithril-rank dwarf said. “I don’t know what you two are talking about, but you best not be sending her to get the cores.”

Saffra bristled. She faced the dwarf and crossed her arms. “Why not, if I’m the best option?”

He didn’t hesitate to answer. “Because you’re a child, child.”

Saffra’s hackles rose, and she bit out, “I’m thirteen, thank you. And so what? How does that change anything?”

The dwarf opened his mouth to respond, a look of forced patience on his face, but Jasper interrupted, “For the record, I agree. If we had any other choice, a duty like this shouldn’t fall to a kid.”

She gave him a betrayed look, and Jasper shrugged.

“That said, we don’t even know if this is viable yet.” Turning to his audience, he explained, “Her master put defensive spells on her before she left. Powerful ones. The question is whether they can hold up against a Titled-rank monster and anything it might throw at her. I won’t send her unless we can be certain she’s safe.”

“We won’t be sending her regardless,” the dwarf said flatly, eyes flinty.

Jasper paused. Irritation showed through a tightening of his mouth. “I understand the sentiment, old man, but sometimes there are no good options. Would you kill everyone else here for that shining ideal, including all the other children aboard?”

He had no good answer to that, though seemed far from convinced.

Despite trying to keep a casual air, Saffra could see Jasper’s posture tensing. She suspected he had been involved in a number of these ‘no good options’ scenarios, based on how quickly he had come to his decision, and how little he was wavering.

“It’s up to me, anyway,” Saffra said, glaring at the dwarf. “You don’t get to decide what I do. And neither does he.” She gave an annoyed look to Jasper as well.

The dwarf clearly wasn’t happy, but he sensed the crowd wasn’t with him—though almost all of the adults looked somewhat shame-faced. That irritated her even more.

“You said the Ghul-Feather is level twelve hundred,” the silver-rank old woman said. “Which means you’re the only one who can even come close to testing her defenses.”

“Sort of. Strength-wise, yes. But I want to verify that her shields trigger against every attack type, even if we can’t stress-test. And that it can stand against me. If the barrier eats a level nine hundred’s best attack without flinching, I’d say we have good odds. I’m open to other suggestions though.”

After a moment of silence, the woman grunted. “I see no better option, unpleasant as this is.”

Jasper nodded. He brought his arrow back to full draw and pointed it at Saffra. “Hold a hand out. I’ll aim for your palm, and start light.”

Having an orichalcum facing an attack at her made her skin crawl, but she trusted Jasper as much as she could a relative stranger, and moreover, she had enough of Vivi’s potion left to bring her back from the brink of death. Losing a hand to an experiment wouldn’t be pleasant, but she’d been an adventurer for eight months, so risk of bodily harm hardly scared her. Not when so much was at stake, at least.

“Everyone stand back,” Jasper said, putting distance between himself and Saffra. “I’m not liable for any accidents,” he cheerfully added, which, despite being a joke, wasn’t inspiring confidence in his audience.

Saffra herself felt no concern. An orichalcum-rank [Ranger] could pin a gnat into a board at a hundred paces. His arrow wouldn’t go astray.

She flinched when he finally loosed it, even if she managed to keep her hand locked in place.

Something sparked against her magical senses, and a prismatic ripple passed over her hand. But she didn’t feel a thing. Not a sense of pressure—not even like her palm had been flicked. Nothing at all.

“Promising. Bit stronger, this next one.”

He nocked another arrow. His green eyes locked on his target, and a tingle of danger-sense shivered down her spine. The first attack had been with his passive skills suppressed. This was going to be a ‘real’ attack by an orichalcum, if just a basic one.

Her stomach clenched, but Jasper loosed the second arrow and—

It shattered against the barrier harmlessly.

“Didn’t feel a thing,” Saffra said, impressed despite herself. With everything she knew of Vivi, she couldn’t say she was surprised, but it was incredible to see an orichalcum-rank attack ignored with such ease.

“One more, then,” Jasper said. “The best I have.”

He took a dozen paces backward, then nocked his third and final arrow. He struggled as he hauled back the string, the draw suddenly much heavier. His arms trembled as he held the position, eyes coming to a razor focus on her palm.

For the audience’s benefit, he spoke the barrage of skills aloud.

“[Charge Shot]. [Focus]. [Armor Breaker].” His voice grew strained as he activated ability after ability—even using two skills back to back could be a struggle. “[Antimagic Infusion]. [Rend].” His face turned slightly red. “[Marked For Death],” he growled out between clenched teeth.

Six skills, and orichalcum-rank ones. Saffra found herself sweating, but she held her hand steady. The audience seemed uneasy, and the dwarf almost seemed like he would jump forward to stop Jasper, but he thought better of the idea.

Jasper loosed his arrow.

She was too low level, her perception too slow, to understand what happened. There was a flicker of the arrow leaving his bow, or maybe she imagined it. Then earth fountained all around her, and her vision was obscured by plumes of dirt, and the chaotic noises of pattering rocks and clumps of soil and grass filled her ears. Several seconds later, voices were shouting, but she couldn’t make sense of anything since her vision was blocked. She ran her hands around her body, but found herself in perfect condition.

When the chaos settled, she stood in a circle of untouched ground. Unlike the previous attacks, the prismatic shield had manifested physically, probably because the arrow had become an area-of-attack spell. She had been guarded on all sides. In a two-foot radius she saw only undisturbed grass, and past that, the ground was pulverized. Presumably from the kinetic force of the shattered arrow. Not even from some inherently explosive aspect.

What a monstrous strength, for an arrow to turn into a miniature fireball from sheer firing force.

Jasper was laughing when the shouting calmed. “I think she’ll be fine,” he said mirthfully. “Let’s make sure it works against magic too though, and anything else we can think of. What’s everyone got?”

***

They were on a time limit, so they could hardly take all day exhaustively testing every theory and manifestation of skill and spell. Ten minutes later, the group came to the conclusion that Saffra was, at least to everyone present—including three mithrils and an orichalcum—functionally invulnerable.

None of the mages present, including Saffra herself, had sensed a slight fluctuation or strain in the barriers. If Vivi’s magical defenses were a polished tower shield, it had come away without a dent, scratch, or scuff on the metal. Not the slightest indicator it had been touched much less damaged.

It was weird, knowing she was all but immortal until Vivi’s spells ran out. Possibly even to Titled-rank threats.

Monsters were gathering in earnest, with a few lower-level ones having charged in which Jasper put down without effort. Higher-level ones lurked in the distance, some orichalcum, and would no doubt work up their own nerve soon despite the large group of adventurers.

They had no more time to form plans. Everyone split into teams, taking staggered positions along the upright portion of the Convoy.

“The emergency power core slots are in the Lounge,” Jasper told her. “Not sure exactly where, I think the floor. Ask the engineers. Only take two of the eight, and put them in your inventory if you can fit them. Not sure you’ll be able to. Either way, the Ghul-Feather should stay interested in the engine car if you only have two, and that’ll be enough to power the aether cannons.” He grimaced. “I think. I might’ve overstated how much I know about how the Convoy works,” he admitted, “but this is our best shot. If we’re lucky, your master will show up before things get dicey.” His eyes flicked to a random spot in the distance, honing in on something Saffra couldn’t see. He frowned. “I need to start culling the herd. Good luck, try to hurry, and don’t die. Your master will definitely eat me alive if you do.”

“She’s not a dragon.”

“Whatever you say, kid.” He paused, then added, “Oh, and don’t die for your own sake. That would be bad.”

She gave him an amused look, and he winked at her and clapped her on the back. There was a trace of concern behind the lackadaisical attitude though, which made Saffra nervous. Well, more nervous than she already was.

“Good luck,” he said one more time.

And then he was jogging away and drawing an arrow from his quiver, and it was time for her to face down a level 1200 monster. A Titled-rank beast. A creature that would make the entire city of Prismarche blanch if they heard it was approaching.

She had no time to waste. Monsters across the Emberblade Fields were alerting to their huge clump of stranded humans. She needed to collect the power cores and install them as soon as possible. Before the gathering army charged.

The Ghul-Feather was half a mile away, so, taking a breath, she picked up into a jog. It was a struggle to work through the waist-high field of yellow, orange, and red grass. No monsters contested her passage, because even the dumbest were staying as far away from the Ghul-Feather as possible. No living creature with an intelligence greater than an insect’s would approach a monster that strong.

Except for Saffra.

Getting closer, she got a better look at the beast.

The Ghul-Feather was a horror of decaying avian majesty, easily the size of a three-story manor, perched heavily on the somehow-intact engine. Its twin heads, crowned with ragged crests of black feathers, swiveled independently on necks that seemed too thin to support their bulk. Patches of leathery, desiccated skin peeked beneath their plumage.

The monster’s agitated movements signaled frustration, occasionally pecking at the metal with enough force Saffra could feel the ground shake even at this distance. The blows might not seem powerful with how easily the enchantments rebuffed them, but they could probably punch through city walls.

Being a silver-rank meant she was so inconsequential that the gigantic two-headed undead avian didn’t notice her until she was a mere hundred paces away.

It froze, spun around, and cawed. The noise alone should have pierced her skull and killed her, but Vivi’s defenses guarded against sound attack. They’d tested it.

The Ghul-Feather attacked.

With a flap of wings, concussive air impacted Saffra and erased a chunk of terrain around her, carving a hole all the way to stone in an arc twenty meters around. The prismatic barrier—the defense that activated most commonly—flared bright for the first time ever, reds and blues and greens sparkling in brilliant hues as it absorbed the level twelve hundred attack.

She was still alive. Her legs were wobbly, but she was alive.

The Ghul-Feather took to the air. These creatures were cowardly; it had been a cornerstone of their plan. It wouldn’t try to block her path forward, merely try its hardest to murder her from afar. If it did block her—well, there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She could hardly shove it out of the way. Vivi’s spells hadn’t made her stronger; she was just as well-defended as the High King’s vault.

Picking up into a sprint, she scrambled through the tall grass as fast as she could. The Ghul-Feather screeched, and a second later, arcing rainbows filled her vision. When the barrier cleared, she looked back and saw gigantic spear-length feathers embedded into the ground. That…had probably been a nasty attack. But Vivi’s shield continued to hold.

Halfway there, the long sunshine-shaded grass of the Emberblade Fields withered, turned white, then gray, and finally black before disintegrating into ash. All around her, necromantic energy filled the air so thickly that nothing below level one thousand would’ve survived. Saffra wasn’t sure what spell protected her this time, but no rainbow sparks flew. Some other defense. She continued unimpeded.

Growing desperate, the Ghul-Feather took a risk they hadn’t expected it to—it swooped down after her. Probably because it didn’t sense any danger, regardless of the fact its attacks hadn’t done anything. Saffra felt a moment of pure terror as two gigantic outstretched talons reached for her—

And grasped and slipped with total futility across a prismatic barrier.

Saffra raised a trembling wand, and the Ghul-Feather was sufficiently cowed by the bluff. It screeched and flew away, almost falling over itself in its haste.

Shakily laughing to herself, she jumped onto the front of the engine car. She slammed her fist repeatedly on the heavy steel door.

“Hello? Please open! I—I need to get in!”

This was another point of failure in their tenuous plan for salvation. The only people with access to the engine car were the engineers, who were hopefully—for both their sake and everyone else’s—still alive inside the heavily defended metal carriage. The few Convoy staff members they’d consulted seemed to think they would be, but they only had a weak understanding of the engine car’s defenses. And none had a spare key, so it came down to luck.

“Who is that?” a shocked male voice called from inside, filling Saffra with relief.

“Saffra! Adventurer! Please let me in, it’s safe for now, the Ghul-Feather is in the air!”

“What the hell is a Ghul-Feather?”

“Please!”

A frantic conversation took place between two male voices. Maybe her age—that the voice begging for help was a teenage girl’s—benefited her for once, because they didn’t debate for long.

“We’re opening. Get in, quick!”

Something heavy clunked inside the door, and it opened a crack. Saffra slid in, and they slammed and barred the door shut as fast as they could, catching her on the shoulder as she stumbled in. She didn’t blame them.

Safe inside, Saffra clutched a hand to her chest, feeling her heart try to gallop out of her rib cage.

Huh.

Step one had actually worked.