"Even with both of us working together, I'm not sure we could defeat him." Shiv dropped the bomb in a casual tone, and Briggs accepted it in the same casual manner.
"Then we either need to convince him to join our cause or distract him."
"You have an idea?"
Briggs didn't respond for a moment, then slowly nodded. "The beginnings of one. First, I want you to talk to him. See how willing he is to help us in our unthinkable goal. He is insane, after all. If that goes south, bring him to the barracks toward the center of the complex and make sure he goes inside."
Shiv nodded and pushed off the wall. He walked down the stairs and headed back to the main gate, nodding to Revengers he met along the way. They were busy moving through the complex, mapping it out and preparing it for the coming operation.
He was surprised to meet Duncan at the halfway point between the two gates. It looked like Duncan was looking for him as well. "Hey, I've got a question for you and your short friend."
"What's up?" Shiv came to a stop and tried not to stare at the pair of ugly commanders behind his conversant.
Duncan looked upward suspiciously, then shook his head and spoke with a friendly smile, "Why'd you and your friend even take over these farms, anyway?"
"We plan to use them for our plan to destroy the city." Shiv said with extreme bluntness.
"Huh. Why do you want to destroy the city?" Duncan was unphased, though his commanders both had incredulous expressions.
"Well, I don't really want to, but to answer your question- I've been given a goal by a divine being, and that goal is to destroy the world." Shiv piled more bluntness on top of the previous bit.
"Ohhh that's why you can use multiple elements!" Duncan face palmed himself as if the answer were so obvious that he should have figured it out already. "Which god was it?"
Shiv opened his mouth, then shut it. The stupid tea-drinking moron had never told him his name. "Uh, he wears a suit, and is always drinking tea. And he's an idiot."
Duncan's smile became almost… forced. "He's got his hair slicked back?" Shiv nodded. "Did he… did he mention anything about dying a lot?"
Shiv began to shake his head, but then remembered that the suited deity actually had mentioned something about that. "Yeah, he did. He didn't seem too happy when he did so, either."
Duncan stared at him with a pale face for several long minutes without blinking. By the time he finally spoke, Shiv was thoroughly disturbed. "That goal… you're absolutely certain that he told you to destroy the world?"
Shiv was too bothered to speak, so he just nodded.
Duncan grunted and looked down, then up, then in just about every other direction in an agitated way before speaking again. "Can I help you? With your goal." He was looking off to his right with a scowl when he spoke.
"I'd appreciate it. There will be lots of death and you'll see plenty of things you'll never forget, though." Shiv didn't know why he was warning the young man, but felt that it was right.
"Hah! I doubt there will be much remembering of anything when you're dead."
Shiv opened his mouth, then closed it and simply nodded again.
***
"That's an interesting plan, but I have a suggestion to make it much better." Duncan, Shiv, and Briggs were in the center of the farm complex. Shiv had just finished informing Duncan of their next course of action, and after some thought, the young noble had offered an addition to the plan.
"Is that even possible?" Shiv laughed until he realized Duncan was completely serious.
"I've done it before." Was all Duncan would say in reply.
Briggs studied both of them before shaking his head. "Shiv, can you take care of that? I just got a report that a group of nobles have a large force and are planning to attack in the morning. I need to focus on defending."
Shiv said, "Yeah, I can do it. Don't expect me to be quick, though."
The men went their separate ways, intent on the tasks set before them. Shiv was less than pleased with what he had to do, but was sure that it would prove to be that much more destructive.
Time dragged by for the defenders on the walls… until morning came. Morning revealed an army at the gates that promptly began an assault. After a long and bloody battle in which even Duncan was beginning to slow down, they were relieved by the arrival of Shiv, who climbed the wall and threw himself into the mass of troops on the other side. His collision with the ground brought about an explosion of fire, earth, and body parts. He moved through the battle formation like an immortal monster sent solely to sew destruction. His goal was to reach Duncan, who was surviving a fight against three of the enemy generals by the skin of his teeth.
Duncan and his opponents were on the roof of one of the sole buildings close to the walls that had yet to be destroyed. He was like a whirlwind, dodging a warhammer of water with a well-timed duck, blowing a lightning arrow off course so it didn't hit his arm, and simultaneously sending an abundance of invisible knives at his last opponent who blocked them with a wall of ice.
That all changed when Shiv shot himself into the air by forcing the earth under his feet to rise at an incredible speed. He landed on the roof with the four battling men, sending cracks throughout the already unstable building, and swung his flaming sword into the side of the general with the bow, who was turning to face his new opponent.
His sword cleaved through the man, folding him in half and pushing through, completely severing the man's torso in two.
Duncan took advantage of the distraction this caused to stab a long spear of air into the neck of the ice-wielding general. The last of their opponents, unaware that he was now alone, threw himself at Shiv with a roar and morphed his hammer into a spear of his own that he stabbed toward Shiv with all of his body weight put behind it.
Shiv stomped down with all of his strength, causing the entire roof to collapse. Duncan sent a burst of wind into the ground a fraction of a second before it shattered, and jumped backward onto the wall.
Shiv got quickly to his feet and threw a piece of debris at the water mage, who had created a sphere of water around himself that protected him completely.
Not expecting an attack of such force so soon, the general was sent staggering backward when the piece of roof exploded on his shoulder.
Shiv gave him no time to reorient himself, and froze the man with his only ice ability and swung his sword in a great overhead strike that crushed his opponent's skull.
Suddenly alone, Shiv fell to his knees with a crushing pain in his heart. "What?" He threw up the food he had forced down before coming to aid his comrades. Faces were flashing through his mind, and he couldn't stop them. "What?" He repeated when he finally finished puking. Lucille, Wells, Marsha; theirs and so many more faces flashed through his mind.
"Hey, are you feeling alright?" Duncan asked from above, and instantly, Shiv's mind calmed down.
"I… yeah. Yeah, I'm OK. Let's go help Briggs." Shiv stood up and rubbed his face tiredly, and put the occurrence out of his mind.
***
They left the building and subdued the rest of the soldiers still continuing their hopeless assault on the hastily-repaired gate, and then ran to help Briggs.
It turned out that Briggs did not need help. In fact, he had been moving toward them in order to lend them a hand in the case that they needed it.
"That went well, aside from your puking!" Duncan said cheerfully and patted Shiv on the back.
Briggs ignored them and shook his head. "That was the prelude to the real challenge. We need the city gates to be closed. Then we need to execute the plan. Did you finish your task?" He directed the question at Shiv, who nodded with a sour expression. "Great. How many city gates are there?"
Duncan shrugged, then laughed when Briggs glared at him. "There are four. One of them is in that direction," he pointed behind him, "in the XP farms that now belong to us. The rest are on the other three walls of the city."
"So we have to get three gates. I guess it's a good thing there are three of us." Shiv said.
"Are there any men of high levels defending the gates?" Briggs asked.
"Only one, down at the southern gate. He's a nasty sucker." Duncan shivered, as if remembering something terrible. "Never, and I mean NEVER try to sneak out through the southern gate."
Shiv and Briggs stared at him for several uncomfortable seconds before shaking their heads. "I'll close the southern gate." Shiv declared.
"It was nice knowing you." Duncan laughed.