I looked in the direction where I knew Raze was approaching from and scowled. We didn’t have much time until he arrived.

Then I looked to the local Wardens, Diego Jimenez and Luis. My eyes went to the small cart beside the younger Warden, or specifically, to the double crossbow that was mounted to it. I found myself nodding approvingly at the way they’d found to bring extra firepower into a situation.

“Do you have any plans for dealing with the rogue players?” I asked Jimenez.

Jimenez hesitated, glancing to Maya, who merely nodded. Then he answered, “We were going to try luring them far enough away from the Labyrinth entrance so that we could get them with a sniper.”

“Sneaky,” Ace commented with a nod of his own.

“It is an old Warden tactic,” Jimenez responded with a faint smile. “A way to deal with rogue players inside the Labyrinth zones.”

“I’m familiar with it,” I said with a faint smile of my own. Of course, the first time I’d done that very thing, it hadn’t been an old Warden trick at all. “Do you have any shooters in place?”

“No,” Jimenez responded, his expression hardening. “Maria… Our shooter was killed while trying to head out.” Then he spat to the side and muttered some profanities in Spanish.

“They’ve killed a lot of good people,” Maya stated grimly. “That’s why we came to stop them.”

“We need to find Mad Mike,” I said. “Before he can get in position and begin sniping at us again.” I nodded to Ace. “Good job with him the first time.”

“I’m just sorry he got away,” Ace grumbled. “My little trick won’t surprise him a second time.” Then he paused before chuckling. “Good thing I always keep an extra ace up my sleeve.”

“Keep a lookout for Mike,” I told Bunny. “You’ve got the best perception out of all of us, and swarming him with your rabbits seems like the best way of taking him down, or at least, flush him out of hiding.”

Bunny nodded agreement, but added, “Unless he pulls that same trick he did the last time.”

“Olivia,” I said to the arcanist. “We’ll probably need you to lock down their shaper, like you did before.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Olivia replied thoughtfully. “Not as long as I can stay out of her range.”

“I’ll roam,” Maya offered. “I can jump in and help wherever I’m needed, and they probably won’t see me coming.”

Turtle shifted his shield and asked, “What about me?”

“I’ll need your help with Raze,” I answered with a grimace. “And in case Jace shows up.”

“No problem,” Turtle assured me.

Raze picked that moment to make his appearance, simply walking down the center of the street as though he owned it. He looked almost the same as before, with an arrogant swagger and a large double-bladed axe in his hand.

There were no signs of the injuries that I’d given him, other than the blood stains on his clothes, but that wasn’t much of a surprise since Mike hadn’t been injured either. I didn’t bother wondering how they’d been healed. The Labyrinth was full of ways to heal injuries, and for all I knew, they’d simply stumbled across another safe area with a healing fountain.

I could only see one immediate difference between now and the last time I’d seen Raze, besides the lack of injuries. He was wearing some kind of golden colored helmet with an open face. He was still far enough away that I couldn’t make out a lot of details, but the helmet appeared be in the general shape of an animal head. Maybe a lizard.

Jimenez and Luis both muttered a few more profanities while turning to open fire on Raze. However, the berserker didn’t just stand there and take it. Instead, he opened his mouth and suddenly unleased a blast of flames. The flames incinerated the crossbow bolts in mid-air.

“Oh shit,” Ace exclaimed. “That’s new…”

“This is gonna be fun,” Raze announced as he continued coming towards us, now raising his axe as well. His single eye glowed red from within the helmet. “For ME.”

The berserker abruptly charged forward, swinging his axe. Turtle threw himself in the way, using his shield to block the attack. Turtled went flying back from the impact, hitting the ground and sliding. I noticed that his shield, which was now several feet away from him, had a nasty dent in the middle. It wasn’t as bad as the damage his previous shield had taken from a similar hit though.

While Raze was swinging his axe, he also turned his head and breathed out a blast of flames. As they came towards me, I dove to the side, avoiding them entirely, though I could still feel the scorching heat in passing. It wasn’t until I hit the ground that I realized something important.

When Raze had rushed us, he’d moved a LOT slower than I’d seen him move before. In fact, I didn’t think that he was actually trying to hit me with those flames either. It was almost like he’d been playing with us, like a cat who’d cornered a mouse.

“Aw, crap,” I snarled, turning my attention to where the flames had actually been aimed.

Luis was gone, reduced to a charred skeleton. His wagon and the double crossbow that had been mounted to it were gone as well, reduced to ash and a puddle of molten slag.

“His helmet,” I exclaimed as I scrambled back to my feet. “It has to be some kind of artifact. Berserkers don’t normally breath fire.”

Maya leapt out of the shadows at Raze’s back, ready to drive her spear right between his shoulder blades. He snapped around and swung his axe at her, though she vanished in a swirl of shadow right before impact. She reappeared a short distance away, only to have Raze immediately spit a blast of fire right at her, though she was fast enough to avoid being hit. Barely.

A crossbow bolt slammed into Raze’s chest. I looked for the source and immediately spotted Jimenez, running for cover with his crossbow in hand. He dove down behind one of the stone shelters that Godiva had previously made, vanishing from sight.

“I don’t think so,” Raze snarled as he tore out the crossbow bolt and tossed it aside.

Raze glared at where Jimenez had gone but made no move to breath fire in that direction. A range limit perhaps? I definitely took note of that possibility.

A flash of green light suddenly shot through the air and hit Turtle, just as he was getting back to his feet. He was staggered from the hit but didn’t go down again, though he did double over and gasp in pain as a glowing green aura covered his body for several seconds. As the aura faded, he started to shake off whatever was affecting him.

“What the…?” I started, only to spot the source. Mad Mike.

The rogue artificer was behind another one of those stone shelters that Godiva had made, using it as cover while he returned to shooting at us. He had a different scepter in hand, having changed weapons yet again.

“Hard to predict what you’re going to do if you keep changing it up,” I said in acknowledgement of the tactic.

Mad Mike fired a green burst of energy out of his new scepter, though it didn’t seem to be aimed at anyone. The blast corkscrewed through the air, changing directions at random before abruptly changing direction one more time and going straight for Bunny. Olivia threw up a force wall and blocked the attack, though a green glow covered the force wall for several seconds afterwards.

“GET EM,” Bunny ordered and her remaining rabbits all charged the artificer. She still hadn’t replaced the ones that she’d lost during her previous attack on him.

Ace turned his full attention to Mike, holding both of his scepters out and being ready to fire as soon as he had a clear shot. Seconds later, Mike provided that shot when he ran out from behind his shelter in order to try escaping Sir Fluff. Two scepter blasts hit him, causing him to drop his own scepter and then fall face first into the ground. Sir Fluff was immediately on him, impaling him several times in rapid succession with his rapier.

“Looks like we’re right back here again,” Ace announced as he approached Mike.

Mad Mike glared at Ace and scowled, though his expression turned to a smug grin. “Tell you what, kid. Help me out, and I’ll teach you everything I know about artifacts. I’ll show you how to make your own.”

“A tempting offer,” Ace responded, though he didn’t sound tempted.

Raze took advantage of the distraction suddenly charged at Maya, swinging his axe. She dove to the side, just barely avoiding his attack. A new crossbow bolt appeared in his shoulder.

“BURN!” Raze howled as he snapped around and fired a blast of intense flames right towards the short wall that Jimenez was hiding behind. As powerful as those flames were, they seemed to peter out well before reaching the local Warden. “I’m gonna kill you all...” He turned and glared at me with his one eye. “Especially YOU.”

“You’re welcome to try,” I responded, shifting position and readying my hammer. “Again.”

An arcane blast hit Raze in the chest and sent him flying back. His chest was burned from the hit, but I knew that wasn’t enough to do more than piss him off. But before he could react, Maya was there, ramming her spear into his side.

Raze tore the spear from his side and then tossed it off into the distance. He snarled in rage while a red aura spread over his body. He raised his axe, only to pause as Mike let out a scream.

“Come on,” Mike said, now on his feet, though with one arm hanging limp and bleeding at his side. I had no idea what had just happened and what I’d missed, but nearly everyone was staring at him. “It looks like I’ll just have to find the Guide and ask him some more questions…”

Ace was on the ground in front of Mike, blood splattered all over his front side. There was no sign of Sir Fluff, which meant that Mike must have pulled out another last moment surprise. He seemed to be good at that.

Mike held up a familiar amulet, the one that I’d last seen around Margaret’s neck. He was waving it in front of Ace while taunting him.

“With this, I can find the Guide anytime I want,” Mike bragged. “I can get ANYTHING I want… Think about that while you lay there dying.”

“Not dead yet,” Ace responded as he sat up, obviously in pain but not down for good. He glared at Mike, then at the amulet in Mike’s hand, a cocky smirk appearing on his face before he simply said, “Shatter.”

The amulet, including the red gem that comprised its main body, suddenly crumbled to pieces. Mike stared at his now empty hand with a look of stunned disbelief.

Ace laughed as he got back to his feet. “I rather would have picked something to repair artifacts for my third ability, but I knew that I’d run into you guys again and would need another ace up my sleeve. Honestly, I thought I’d use it on the big guy’s axe, or maybe even one of your scepters, but the look on your face made this worth it…”

“The amulet,” Mike gasped. “The Guide…”

Then I noticed something strange, a shard of broken mirror rising up from the ruins of the destroyed artifact. It looked just like the shard that had turned into my mirror ball, the one that had led me through the Labyrinth in search of Raze. And there it was, another one.

Everyone watched this, including Raze, who stood there with his glowing red Axe about to strike. Even he stood transfixed by the strange sight.

A glowing figure appeared off to the side, a humanoid shape that seemed to be made or light and energy. Shards of broken mirror were scattered about the figure’s body, like a handful of scales that covered about fifteen percent of it. The newly revealed shard floated over to the figure and then joined the other shards, settling into place on its chest.

“The Guide,” I said in surprise and confusion.

This was the Guide…but it wasn’t. It felt like the Guide, yet much weaker. Much fainter. And the bits of mirror that covered its body… This version of the Guide had less mirror covering its body than the previous Guide had, a LOT less.

“That’s it,” I gasped in sudden realization.

I could feel the primal’s presence, the same presence that I’d felt before…in the Guide’s prison. The Guide looked straight at me, seeming to ignore everyone else present. Then it nodded its head slightly before vanishing.

“So, that’s what it wanted,” I whispered.

When the Guide offered to help us find what we were looking for, it hadn’t asked for anything in return. From what I knew of primals, that was strange. But now, now I knew why. It hadn’t asked for anything, because we were already giving it exactly what it wanted. It was using us…every player it helped…to break out of its prison. We’d all been smuggling it out of its prison…one shard at a time.

There was a brief pause in the fighting while all this happened, but then Ace broke the spell by suddenly lunging forward and punching Mike in the face. That punch seemed to be the signal for everyone to explode into motion again.

Raze was about to continue his attack on Maya, only to find that the Warden had taken advantage of the distraction to slip away. He looked around in frustration, then his eye locked on me again and he smirked. It looked like he’d found his new target.

I charged up an ‘Invocation of Spite’ and fired it at Raze, he moved in a flash and easily avoided the blast. Then, while still watching me, he took a deep breath. I responded with an ‘Invocation of the Wisp’, but he completely ignored the illusion and continued focusing on the spot where he knew I’d been standing.

“LOOK OUT!” Turtle yelled, leaping at me and using his body as a shield.

I heard Maya scream out, “MAGGIE!” right before the flames enveloped us.