“I’d hate to think you can backstab players but not NPCs, as if players matter less than strings of code,” Nick said as he walked over to the hole, “but whatever. I’m not the one in charge here—clearly—so let’s just get whatever you want to do done.”

“That’s the spirit,” Lucas said, patting him on the back as the two jumped down after the Dwarves.

By the time they landed, Jason and Gunter had already recovered and were bearing their weapons toward them. Jason was holding his mace and shield up, and Gunter had pulled out a large quarterstaff and was holding it in front of himself for defense as well.

“I’m not going to go down that easily, Imperium scum,” Jason said, his face looking grim after having lost his eyebrows and part of his hair to the fire he had been thrown upon.

“Easy there, Jason. You started this by running your mouth, but it doesn’t have to go down this way. We can all just go about our business as we first intended to do,” Gunter said, backing up a little.

“No,” Lucas said, channeling an Earth Spike from the ground and into Gunter. Gunter tried to dodge it, jumping to the side, but the net result was that, instead of impaling Gunter up the middle, the spike caught him in the left leg.

“I’ll get the other leg,” Nick offered as he began channeling too.

“No! You won’t!” Jason yelled, charging toward Nick full force.

Jason didn’t make it even three feet toward Nick before Bonnie descended like a beautiful angel from above, landing square on his head with both feet. For a moment, Lucas thought that she had actually planned the attack as she crushed him like a fat plumber landing on an unfortunate turtle. With Jason’s interference no longer en route, Nick was able to land a much more accurately-aimed spike into Gunter’s right leg and leave the Dwarf crippled and snared, howling out in pain.

“Bonnie, don’t kill Jason just yet,” Lucas said to the fox girl as he saw her pull out her dagger and prepare to slit the Dwarf’s throat. She was holding him down by pressing her knee against his neck, a position that she had naturally fallen into after not-so-gracefully landing right on top of him.

“Need him bound up? Don’t worry about it, boss.” Bonnie was almost losing her hold on Jason as she started to reach one of her hands toward the bag on her back. “Crap. Hey, I’ll give you permission for the items, so just reach into my backpack and grab them. I should have some ropes near the top or makeshift handcuffs if you get far enough down.”