Zariel watched as a rippling sea of fire engulfed the blue sky. In mere moments, the floating city of Revenshein was hidden behind the dancing flames. Lightning crackled across the sky. Down below, concerned townsfolk were flooding the streets of Orel. The eight adventurers at the top of the hill could only watch as the last trace of blue vanished behind the crimson sea. Suddenly, a long, solemn chord ran out from the mansion as Arctic started to play a dirge. Screams from the citizens below.

  ForNot drew her axes. She was ready to charge headlong into whatever danger she thought awaited her. And she would have, had Leaih not grabbed her.

  “Wait, look there,” she said.

  A flame, one of many, began to descend over Orel. It morphed, spreading like a thread being pulled and spun.

  Thunder boomed. Something was taking shape.

  An enormous winged figure, an avatar of fire and lightning hovered over the housing realm of Orel.

  “People of Atrea, the Citadel has been conquered, and your champions have claimed victory,” an omnipresent voice said.

  Her voice was like the flames, crackling and powerful as it rang in Zariel’s ears. But there was something more—a festering, searing rage under the surface of every word that was thinly veiled and barely restrained.

  “Enjoy your final days. Soon, the storm will cleanse Atrea and leave nothing but piles of ash. My King shall smile so brightly upon seeing the gray flakes that were once your bodies.”

  A sinister laughter seemed to echo within Zariel’s very body. It shook his bones and stirred his blood.

  “Lay your bodies at the gate of Stormfire Temple and be the first to burn.”

  The avatar extended her hand towards the hill, beckoning the eight specifically.

  With a flash of fire and sparks, she appeared above the hill—even closer.

  “You started this, allow me to end your pathetic lives in return,” the lightning-fire said. “You will find that I am no demon. I am she who walks the path of the storm. The consort of fl—”

  The avatar dissipated. In the sky where the figure had once been, there was now a cloud of black powder rapidly dispersing across the sky.

  “Blah!”

  Evo shivered, lowering her rifle.

  “Her voice made me feel—"

  “Wrong…” Leaih said, finishing Evo’s thought.

  “I will remember this.”

  The avatar appeared before them. A woman, though her features were distorted by the flames dancing across her figure. She had two orbs of lightning for eyes, and they were looking at Evo.

  “And when the Stormfire cleanses Atrea, I will ensure that no one remembers you.”

  She faded.

  As quickly as the sky had been consumed, it returned to normal.

  The blue sky rolled back as the flames swiftly retreated.

  Down below, a crowd stood on the other side of the meager fence. They were all admiring the eight adventurers on the hill.

  Leaih turned to Zariel.

  “Would you still deny us? Even after knowing the danger looming over Atrea?”

  A dark orb flew past Zariel’s face and hovered in front of the cleric.

  “It gets worse, I’m afraid,” Leaih’s praran said, taking out an envelope and dropping it into the cleric’s expecting hand.

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  “From the Academy,” Sanita added as it was being opened.

  All seven of them crowded around the cleric. Meanwhile, Arctic emerged from the mansion, now playing a more joyful tune.

  “We’re alive!” she exclaimed. “For now, anyway—”

  “Silence,” Marcatan said. “Allow the wealthy cleric to read it aloud.”

  Leaih chose not to comment and unfolded the letter.

  “The Academy has received notice from adventurers in Ashwood. A pass has opened between the mountains, revealing the other half of the region. The monsters there are level 61 and 62, and the entrance to what appears to be a new raid has been spotted.”

  “Forget Zantori Citadel,” S blurted. “A new area means new ways to make some coin—"

  “Shhh!” Sanita hushed the rogue. “She’s not finished!”

  The cleric’s eyes darted across the bottom of the letter.

  Another pass.

  Her hands began to shake more and more with each pass.

  “Allow me,” Eclipse said, gently taking the letter from the cleric’s hands.

  They didn’t move. It was as if she was frozen like a statue.

  “Ahem,” Eclipse began, tilting his head to read the parchment still in the cleric’s possession. “Pardon, this last part seems hastily transcribed.”

  He stretched his neck forward. His eyes widened.

  “Get it over with!” ForNot said, striking the warlock’s back with an open palm.

  Eclipse took a deep breath, trying to regain whatever the warrior had knocked out of him.

  Zariel snatched the letter out of the warlock’s hands swiftly and unceremoniously.

  “Adventurers beware: The flames of Stormfire Temple are oppressive. Every death within the raid will result in XP lost.”

  The paladin flipped the letter over, but there was no further information.

  He was stunned. A new raid so soon? The skies turning red? XP loss on death? All of this was new, and not in a good way.

  It was ForNot who spoke first.

  “XP loss, huh?” she said. “It’s going to be hard to find a raid team willing to brave a raid like that.”

  She eyed the other seven, perhaps hoping that they’d prove her wrong.

  “Come back here!”

  The warrior grabbed the rogue by his cloak, stopping him from making his getaway down the hill. He sighed, letting himself get dragged across the pristine lawn.

  “T-this confirms it.”

  Leaih was still in shock, but she gathered the strength to speak.

  “We started this,” she said. “I don’t know how, but we did. That boss said as much.”

  Her face tightened.

  “Stormfire Temple holds the answers,” Leaih said. “I’m sure of it.”

  A sharp note stabbed the air, courtesy of Arctic’s harplin.

  “I may have the best harplin in Atrea, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Level 60 cost me blood, sweat, and more than a handful of sad songs. I’m not doing a raid where I’m going to lose XP!”

  “Chicken…” Evo said under her breath, more than loud enough for Arctic to hear.

  “If I’m a chicken, then I’ll be crowing in Revenshein while you seven go back to Level 59,” she snapped.

  “Let us not be hasty,” the warlock said. “The Academy has been wrong before. I say we take a more measured approach.”

  “What do you suggest, knowledgeable warlock?” Marcatan asked.

  Eclipse held his orb out. In the green, glossy glass surface were the reflections of all eight adventurers.

  “We go questing in the new region of Ashwood and reconvene once we are all Level 62. If we work together, it shouldn’t take that long. Especially considering we are all the paragons of our classes.”

  “He’s right about that,” ForNot interrupted, eager to confirm her superiority.

  “And then?” Zariel asked. “Barge into Stormfire Temple, die, and lose levels? We’d no longer be the best if we regressed.”

  “True, but that is not the goal,” Eclipse replied. “The eight of us, and our teams, were among the first to clear the Citadel. We are at the cutting edge. We have time.”

  Evo shifted her weight nervously to her other leg. “Time for…?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “At Level 62, Zantori will be easier. We can search every chamber and rampart for signs of that foe we faced. If not, then we set our sights of Stormfire Temple. Like Leaih said, I am inclined to believe it holds the answers.”

  The warlock gave a faint smirk. “If anything, going through the Citadel again will test our mettle as a raid team.”

  Zariel stepped forward.

  “We are not a raid team—”

  “I doubt your group will be eager to leap into Stormfire Temple knowing that they can lose levels, paladin,” ForNot said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if most groups don’t even enter and wait like cowards for someone stronger to tell them how to clear it.”

  For once at the summit, the warrior was right. Never before had adventurers been faced with such a heavy cost of failure. Many would not even try.

  Now more than ever, Zariel wanted answers. Zantori Citadel might have them. Stormfire Temple certainly did.

  Still, Zariel was not content with discarding his raid team and Casttee so easily.

  “Stormfire… sounds familiar,” S remarked. “Sounds valuable too.”

  “Mount Hessia. Level 41 quest,” Eclipse said. “There was a Stormfire cult in the caves on the north side of the mountain. The Pyrian Order asked us to purge them.”

  Zariel nodded in agreement. “They were too far gone.”

  The gleam in the rogue’s eyes was swiftly crushed.

  “Five days,” Leaih said. “We’ll meet at the gates of Zantori Citadel in five days. Be level 62.”

  She turned to Zariel, the only one who had refused to join.

  “I know you can’t be bought with gold, but there is evil in Stormfire Temple. You heard her yourself.”

  “I did.”

  “Will you—”

  Zariel sighed.

  “Let me speak with my guild first,” he said. “See where they stand.”

  Leaih’s eyes lit up.

  “Thank you, Zariel!” she said, waving her silk-white robes around with delight. “With you on our side, I know we’ll clear Stormfire—”

  “You’ll have my answer when we meet at the gates of the Citadel,” he said, already descending the hill.

  The crowd in the street erupted in cheers when they saw him coming. The paladin’s presence vanquished the fears that had gripped them ever since the sky fire. He had no answers for their barrage of questions, and so he set his eyes on Revenshein above.

  His guild was waiting.