[i]"The golems are ready, sir," Defender of the House Damion Dire spoke. 

Magus Willow looked down at the kneeling man, her face stern and hard. "There is no need for such formalities anymore, Damion. This fight has brought us all to equals." 

Damion stood. "To be honest, sir, I don't know how much longer I can do this. The other animators are doing their best, but it's taking a toll on them too." 

It was true. Damion alone had animated at least a dozen golems in the past week, and the toll was showing. He looked weak, frail. Still, when one has magic, frailty of the body does not always mean weakness. 

Magus Willow turned to the window, gazing outward towards the horizon, where at any moment the enemy might appear. "You may slow your pace, but we cannot stop. The golems are invaluable to the war effort." She sighed, her features losing their sharpness for a second. "This war is taking its toll on us all. On us is the burden of command. We take to the field with our mages, we risk our lives. You know what that's like." She looked back to Damion. "Where is Quinn in all of this?" 

"Working under Magus Gaven, sir, in the medical wing," Damion responded. Quinn was his partner in metaphorical crime, at least since they solved the case of the Cult. Those days were so far away now, those days of dubiously legal service. Now everything was by the book, carefully recorded in the book, too. He was no longer a freelancer; he was a Defender. And he had never considered that one day he would have to defend the House on such a scale.

"I see," Magus Willow said. "Well, I'm sure he's doing well. Now, about the reemergence of the Cult." 

The Cult had indeed resurfaced. The prison the surviving members had been kept in had been breached sometime near the beginning of the invasion. The members that did survive were the most powerful of the Cult; Craven, Dregg, and White. They had been troubling the Magus House by aiding the invaders, even though whether they were actually on the same side was a mystery.  

"Well, I've put them away once before, sir, I can do it again. I'll just need Quinn."

Willow stood in silence for a second. "Perhaps I can arrange you two to go out and solve them. For good, this time. We have nowhere to hold them."

That's when everything went bad.

Willow turned to look out the window again and began to speak. Before she could form a single word, a small dot, tiny but noticeable, began growing larger on the horizon. Willow closed her mouth, the words fading out of her mouth. The ball grew larger. By the time it was roughly the size of a basketball, Willow was turning to Damion. "Go! We're under attack!" 

Damion turned and broke into a sprint without a word. He broke into the courtyard of the House - Why had they built it outside the city again? - and rang the alarm. Immediately the other mages began readying themselves, all of which became useless when the ball, the fireball, collided explosively with the side of the House. The part of the House which happened to contain the medical wing. 

"NO!" Damion screamed. He immediately burst into a sprint for the now large hole in the House. Quinn couldn't possibly be dead. Not after all this. Not after all they had been through together. 

By the time he reached there, a blue bubble had emerged from the rubble. Magus Gaven rose from the dust with a half dozen people inside his shield. As the shield collapsed, Magus Gaven fell to his knees and Damion ran up to him. A quick scan of the survivors revealed no Quinn. 

"Where is Quinn?!" Damion nearly screamed at the Magus. "Why isn't he with you?" 

"He was on the other side of the wing," Gaven panted. "I could only shield those near me." Gaven turned to outside the House. "This wasn't any ordinary magic. If I had to guess, this is White's doing, with the Outsider's help." 

Damion wasn't listening. His mind was going completely blank. Quinn. Quinn. Quinn. Damion's eyes scanned the rubble, seeing only burnt corpses or people on their way to being burnt corpses. No Quinn in sight. "No..." Damion whispered. 

But there was no time to mourn. On the horizon, a figure crested the hill. It was White, the cultist, but something about him was... different. He seemed to glow with an otherworldly energy, crackling with power and death. Even from a distance Damion heard his mad hyena cackle, tinged with a hint of madness. Even the Magi would have trouble forming such a formidable attack, and how he got past the shield dome would require even more power. 

Damion couldn't grieve just yet. No, he had one thing on his mind. Kill White. 

And so he marched forward, his anger so incandescent that his whole body seemed to burst into flames. As White too drew closer, Damion broke into a run, and the two mages met in the middle. And so it began. [/i]

--~--

Damion woke with a start, not even realizing he was awake until his head hit the ground hard. He let out a small sound of pain, clutching at his head. That's when the memories came back. 

[i] Magus Gaven. Dead. Magus Foyette. Dead. Magus Primwhile. Dead. Magus Venner. Dead. And Quinn. Dead. [/i] 

And that was just the beginning. 

At first he didn't bother getting up. Why bother? Everyone he cared about - everyone he knew, really - was dead. His world presumably under the reign of a tyrant. His home, destroyed. 

Eventually, he got to his feet. Not because he got over everything; because he knew he had to win the war. That's what his mind was set on before his capture, so he reverted back to his previous mindset. [i] Don't think about the dead. Think about the mission. [/i] Someone had set him free. Someone was first, powerful or stealthy enough to get in here, second, had chosen him to be set free, and third, was presumably not fond of the invaders. Which meant an ally. 

He exited his cell and stumbled down the corridor. Quickly he ran into the other escaped prisoners. 

"Hey," Damion said hoarsely. It seemed his voice hadn't quite recovered from his imprisonment. "Forgot me, huh. Mind if I tag along?"