“Linnaeus!” Lucas’s mind raced with the possibility that he wouldn’t show up in time and that the nobles he intended to save would already be dead. Those NPCs are definitely missing because they’re part of a rebellion, one that will land another pair dead for that bastard’s ambitions. I can’t allow this, Lucas thought as he tried to find his invisible flying monkey man. “Linnaeus! Could you please come down here? I need a favor!” he yelled again, making sure to use the proper magic words his mother had taught him. The ape was sensitive about people looking down on him.

“And a favor you shall have,” Linnaeus said, landing next to him before Lucas even knew that he was there at all.

Scary upgrades, Lucas thought, looking up at the creature. “Linnaeus, can you fly me somewhere? Lives are at stake, and if we don’t make it in a timely fashion, their death is assured,” Lucas said.

“Fly you somewhere? That’s easy!” Linnaeus puffed out his chest and picked up Lucas, shifted him into the should-have-been-embarrassing princess carry, and then took to the sky again without so much as asking Lucas where they were supposed to go.

“Wrong way,” Lucas said, pointing Linnaeus in the right direction. “We’re heading to Fulda. It’s a town to the southeast of us. It shouldn’t be a very long flight with your speed, so thanks again.”

“Think nothing of it. We’ll be there shortly. Trust in me!”

Sure enough, the primate was right. What normally would have been an hour-long walk took less than two minutes with Linnaeus’s help. He was faster than any motorcycle Lucas had ever ridden, but while Linnaeus did get him from point A to point B rather quickly, the flight also left Lucas’s face feeling numb because the wind wrecked every bit of exposed skin on his body.

Before they ever landed, Lucas knew that his fears were realized. The manor, which was more of a keep than even Lucas’s own home base, had a group of at least 200 peasants streaming toward it. The mob was comprised of Were-Beasts, Mere, mountain folk and Alfars, and the army of peasants was clearly meant to look like an anti-Imperium rebellion. If not for the letter that he had discovered on Ash’s corpse, Lucas would have believed that to be the case. Lucas was also easily able to spot the ringleader of the attack: a large spiral-horned minotaur wearing a chainmail shirt and carrying a battle axe. He stood ten feet in front of the rest of the villagers, marching them toward the manor.