I carefully peeked around the side of the building, watching Ace. He was still in the same place, bound to an uncomfortable looking stone chair. He was bruised, bloody, and obviously hurting. But, he was alive.

It would have been easy to simply walk out there and get Ace, but I held back from doing so. That would have been too easy, hence the temptation to simply walk into a trap. I’d overheard Mad Mike and Jace talking about how they were going to use Ace as bait to lure me and my friends out, and that was exactly the situation we were in at the moment.

No one else seemed to be paying close attention to my friend at the moment, but they were around. The rogue players were in the area and kept showing up, so it would have been far too easiy for one of them to stumble across me while I helped Ace. And while I could take care of myself, I wasn’t so stupid as to think that I could take on that whole damn group. Not by myself.

“Wait for the right opportunity,” I reminded myself.

Patience had never been my strong suite, but it was something that I’d been forced to learn long ago. Impatience could get people killed just as easily as refusing to act at all.

While I waited, I watched and paid attention. The rogue players were…sloppy. Sure, a couple of them were pretty strong, as far as players went, but they didn’t seem to have any discipline or training. They relied entirely on their system given strengths and abilities, which was normal for players, but they were clearly not professionals.

I looked around, taking note of all the mistakes they were making, ones that would benefit me and my friends. For one, they were completely ignoring the height advantage that these buildings would have given them. That bell tower would have been perfect for a lookout spot or snipers nest. And then there was their shaper, Godiva. With her abilities, they could have arranged the area to their advantage, creating cover and even sealing up unwanted routes. Again, they ignored those potential advantages.

“Amateurs,” I muttered with a snort. “Fortunately for me.”

Then I finally saw Raze. Until this point, Raze had been remaining inside of a building, but he finally emerged. The large man looked like some kind of one-eyed barbarian warrior, which was clearly the image he wanted to present.

I felt a surge of rage at the sight of the man, and I clenched my hammer tightly enough for my knuckles to go white. But in spite of that, I remained where I was, out of sight and waiting.

It was right at that moment that I was distracted by the feeling of something tugging on my pocket. I looked down, just in time to see the mirror ball fly out of the pocket and into the air. It hovered there for several seconds before flattening down and turning back into the shard of mirror that it had originally been. Then, it suddenly flew off.

“Crap,” I growled in realization.

The Guide had led me to Raze, just like it had promised. But now that I’d found my enemy, I no longer had the ability to keep tracking him. That meant, if he escaped me here, I would have to go back to following him the old-fashioned way.

“And if he goes back into the maze,” I muttered as my eyes narrowed.

Well, I’ d already lost my ‘Detect Traps’ a short time ago. Its twenty-four-hour timer had run out, and then it had vanished from my status screen. If I want back into the maze, I’d be back to where I started from, having to find traps the hard way.

“Then I’d better not let him escape,” I mused.

The other rogues all emerged from where they’d been and converged on Raze. All five of the rogues… Or was that four rogues plus Wolf? I still wasn’t sure where he stood in all this.

Wolf scowled, looking unhappy but stoic. I noticed that he kept looking towards a large pouch that hung on Mad Mike’s belt, though I wasn’t sure why.

Jace was excited and kept swinging her massive hammer, as though demonstrating what she was going to do with it. I couldn’t make out what she said from this distance, but I could guess.

Mad Mike drew one of the scepters that hung from his belt and examined it, looking more resigned than anything else. While beside him, the shaper, Godiva, just looked annoyed.

As I watched them, the group all moved towards one of the entrances back into the main maze, then they took up positions to wait. Godiva even crafted a couple of stone seats for them to wait on.

“Making chairs,” I mused. “But no cover.”

I snorted in contempt since this just confirmed my impression of their incompetence. None of them had any tactical sense at all. They were just thugs that relied on brute force. At least, that seemed to fit Raze, and since he was the one in charge of the group…

“They’ve set up their ambush spot,” I thought aloud. “And now they’re just waiting for my team.”

This left me with a couple options. The first was that I could remain where I was, watching them and continuing to learn whatever I could about our enemies. Then, when my friends eventually showed up, I could attack the rogues from behind. I liked that idea.

However, I also had option B, which was to take advantage of the rogues all being in one place, to go help Ace. That was what I decided to go with.

I slipped around behind the buildings and quickly made my way to where they’d left Ace. None of the rogues could see Ace from where they were at, which was another mark of their incompetence. If they really wanted to use him as a hostage, they should have had him close to them, where they could show him off and visibly threaten him.

When I reached Ace, I paused to look him over. He seemed to be unconscious, only occasionally moving around. He was covered with blood, and what I could see of his skin was heavily bruised.

“Ace,” I whispered, putting my hand on his shoulder.

Ace took a few seconds to respond, then he slowly looked up. He stared at me blankly for a few more seconds before quietly asking, “Maggie?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I responded, giving him what I hoped as a reassuring smile. “I thought you were dead.”

“Nearly was,” Ace said with a cough. “Nearly AM…” Then he took a deep breath, which seemed to be painful for him. “Almost got hit by a wall…”

“Let’s get you out of this,” I told him, gesturing to the stone that bound his hands to the chair.

I looked down at his stone bindings, then at my hammer. I was confident that I could break him free the same way that we’d broken Olivia free from her previous stone bindings, but the sound of steel hitting stone would make more noise than I wanted to risk. I considered this for a moment, then draped a piece of cloth over the stone to help muffle the sound of impact.

“This should work,” I told Ace as I took my first swing.

I hit the stone a few times and it cracked loose, enough for me to use the beak of my hammer to finish breaking it apart. I quickly did the same to Ace’s other hand and his feet, freeing him completely.

“Can you walk?” I asked him.

Ace hesitated a moment before saying, “I’ll try…”

“Crap,” I grumbled.

It turned out that Ace could walk, but not fast or on his own. He leaned on me as we made our way back to the buildings. I just hoped that we’d be able to find a good hiding spot before the rogues discovered he was gone.

----------

I looked out the second-story window of the building I was hiding in, getting a good look at Raze and the other rogue players. So far, they hadn’t discovered Ace’s escape, but it was only a matter of time. I had to be ready to act when that happened.

“They really roughed you up,” I said as I looked Ace over.

He was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, looking extremely pained. He was in bad shape, and I suspected that a couple of his ribs had been broken. At first, I’d thought that at least some of his injuries had been from the wall falling on him, but it turns out that nearly all of them had come from the rogue players.

“Jace really did a number on me,” Ace admitted. “She was the one who did this. Seemed to get a kick out of it.”

“I see,” I commented, keeping my voice calm and even.

I thought back to my own encounter with Jace, the one back in Gideon Heights when I’d had to take her down. At the time, her rampage had been limited enough that she hadn’t earned a death sentence yet. But now, now I regretted not slitting her throat when I’d had the chance.

“Did any of the others touch you?” I asked Ace.

“Not much,” Ace admitted with a look of shame. “They didn’t need to. Not with Godiva…” He winced at that. “I’ve never met anyone with such high presence.”

“I have,” I said, thinking aloud. “A petty con artist who came back as a player. Pumped up his presence as much as he could, then just convinced everyone around him to do what he wanted.”

“What happened to him?” Ace asked.

I just smiled, though it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “The Wardens had to deal with him from a distance.”

Then I shook my head, remembering the mission. The player had crossed a few lines he shouldn’t have and we’d been forced to deal with him permanently. That had been a damn good shot too.

“Not an option here,” Ace said, apparently guessing what I was thinking.

“Nope,” I replied, glancing at the window. “It isn’t.”

I shook my head and then reached for my canteen to take a drink. It was then that something dawned on me. I stared at the canteen, trying to remember when I’d filled it.

“Try some of this,” I said, handing the container to Ace. “Have a drink.”

Ace took a long drink, then paused with a look of surprise. “I feel…better. Not a lot but… But enough to tell the difference.”

“Water from that fountain we passed,” I explained. “The one in that safe zone that healed all our injuries.”

The artificer stared at me for a moment, then at the canteen in his hands. Without a word, he took another drink, closing his eyes and sighing in relief as he did so.

“I don’t think it’s as strong as it was,” Ace finally said. “But it still works.”

“Good,” I told him with a nod. “We need to get you back in shape as soon as we can. It won’t be long before they realize you’re gone and come looking.”

“Not like I’ll be much help,” Ace admitted with a grimace. “I’m unarmed.” He scowled at that. “I lost one scepter to the wall, and those assholes took my other one.”

“As long as you heal up enough to move,” I told him. “That’s what we’re after for now.”

It was only a few minutes later that I heard the rogues yelling from outside. “THAT LOSER IS GONE,” Jace shouted at the others. “HE’S ESCAPED.”

“About time,” I muttered, surprised that we’d had this long before the discovery.

“Shit,” Ace grumbled.

“Expected,” I told him with a shrug. “It was only a matter of time.” Then I chuckled and added, “Now, the game is afoot.”

“A foot?” Ace asked with a confused expression. “What do feet have to do with it?”

“Never mind,” I responded with a sigh. “Needless to say, they’re going to come looking for us. We need to stay out of sight and avoid them.”

Ace rolled his eyes. “Good idea. Not like I’m in any shape to fight them right now.”

I nodded agreement, just being thankful that none of the rogue players had invested much in perception. If someone had, they probably would have noticed my sneaking around a bit sooner.

When I glanced out the window again, I saw Wolf down below. He paused, tilted his head, and then began sniffing the air. I muttered a silent curse, realizing that if anyone down there had invested in perception, it would have been the guy named Wolf. The other invoker looked in the direction of the building that Ace and I were hiding in, then quickly looked away. I noticed that he smirked faintly but didn’t say a word to his supposed teammates.

“Good man,” I muttered, remembering how he’d saved us during that last fight. I still wasn’t sure where he stood in all this, but it clearly wasn’t on their side.

“Do you have any more of this water?” Ace asked. He held out my canteen, upside down to demonstrate that it was empty.

“Afraid not,” I told him. “That was the last of it.”

“Damn,” he muttered.

I nodded sympathetically, then asked, “Do you feel like you’re up for moving around yet?”

Ace snorted at that. “Do I have much choice?”

“You’ll probably have a few minutes at least,” I assured him. “But yeah… We’re probably going to have to move before too long.”

“Well,” Ace responded as he slowly got back to his feet. “I’ll do what I can. I mean, there is no fucking way that I’m just going to sit here and wait for those assholes to get their hands on me again.”

“Good,” I told him as I handed him my dagger. It wasn’t much, but it was better than being unarmed. “You never want to make things easier on your enemies.” Then I gave Ace an evil grin and added, “Now, let’s go cause those bastards as much trouble as we can.”

“You’ve convinced me,” Ace responded with a forced chuckle. “I’m in.”