The Party Misfits Part 3

“Left flank!” Lira shouted.
“Right flank!” Dorran bellowed at the exact same time.
They glared at each other, then both charged their own way.

Keiji moved to follow Lira, but Dorran yanked him back behind the shield. “Stay center!”

“I can’t fight if you’re dragging me like a child!” Keiji snapped, wrenching free.

Lira’s bow flared, its rune glowing dark grey. She spun and fired two arrows mid-spin. They split, curved then split again, striking from four angles.

All four fizzled to ash before reaching their target.

The Guardian roared, the sound rattling our bones. Fire danced between its teeth. It wasn’t just a beast—it was a furnace given form. It seemed pointless trying to fight this thing but Dorran still hadn’t given up.

He planted his feet, the earth rune was glowing brighter now.

“Earth form…Bulwark of Stone!”

The ground rose at his command, sliding upward to catch the fire spewed by the Guardian. The flames smashed against it, splintering into showers of molten shards.

Maybe his resilience had inspired us or it was the fear of death creeping in, but Verra rushed forward.

“Hold it steady!” she said, her voice rising to a chant.

Two more runes tore free from her robes shimmering around her like orbiting stars.

“Fusion. Dark coil....flares of dawn....wrap around my enemy and cause it to fall!”

Black-flaming chains burst from the ground like serpents, searing into the Guardian’s limbs, slowing it for a moment. Then its body ignited —the scales splitting to reveal cracks of molten fire—and the chains snapped, whipping back in a shower of sparks. The backlash drove Verra to one knee, her robes dimming as the runes went dark.

“Verra!” Keiji caught her again, but she shoved him away, blood pouring from her lips.

“Don’t waste time on me,” she rasped, her voice rough. “The seal—find the core…” Her words dissolved into another cough, staining her sleeve.

Lira was already moving, letting loose four more arrows in quick succession. They curved unnaturally, bending midair, seeking the gaps between the scales. Three sparked harmlessly but the fourth found flesh.

“Got it!” she shouted.

The Guardian bellowed. The sound wasn’t a roar but the dungeon itself breaking apart.

Its breath was like the sun itself.

A tidal wave of white-orange that turned rock to liquid. The wall Dorran had erected melted on impact. Still, he stepped back, keeping his feet planted. When the fire finally passed, his shield clattered to the stone floor, so hot the stone hissed beneath it. Lira kept shooting until she was left with only one arrow in her hand.

“We need to fall back!” she shouted.

No one moved.

Keiji stood as if frozen, sword slack in his grip. His eyes locked on the Guardian as though staring at a ghost from his nightmares. The Guardian’s flames swirled in its throat again, brighter, hotter, crawling toward him.

“Move!” Dorran bellowed, forcing himself forward spreading his arms wide.

His shield caught most of the blast but the torrent of fire was too much—even for him. The impact hurled him backwards, smashing against the stone wall with a sickening crack. His shield clattered to the floor, hairline fractures spiderwebbing across its surface, its rune dying with a final hiss.

“Dorran!” Keiji finally shouted out of a daze but he wasn’t moving.

Besides him, Verra dropped to one knee, her healing spell failing mid-chant, the glowing runes around her returning to her robe.

With our best fighters down for the count, the Guardian loomed before us, an inferno with teeth and claws. For the first time, I thought—maybe this was where it ended. I even started questioning why I was here among these great rune-weavers.

I still had enough strength to run away, maybe even carry one person—Verra maybe. But I couldn’t leave the others, could I? The thought made me sick, but it might be the play. Funny thing is, no one would care if we died here. We were nothing but a pack of misfits in a world that didn’t need us. Even Keiji was, for the most part, replaceable.

“You bastard!” Lira stood up, holding up her last arrow.

Her eyes burned—not with logic, not with cold calculation, but with raw defiance. For a heartbeat, I almost admired her. Lira was the one who always kept herself at a distance, the one who never wasted effort unless the odds tilted in her favour. If anyone was going to cut losses and survive, I would have bet on her.

But there she stood. Alone, trembling, ready to take a final stand, she couldn’t possibly win. The smallest tremor in her arms let me know her state of mind. She was as terrified as any of us. And somehow…that was worse than the Guardian itself.

I couldn’t let this be the end.

I bent, grabbing the flask that had fallen from my bag and the bone fragments, tools of my trade. Keiji was still frozen staring at Dorran’s unconscious body, his sword placed on the ground. Verra could barely stand; her lips were cracked and bloody.

Only Lira and I had the slightest chance of getting everyone alive.

Ever since CIX had possessed me, I’d been terrified of using my resonance ability. The voices, the power, it all came with too many unknowns. What if I lose control? Make things worse. Power wasn’t what we needed. I mean, sure it would have been easier for someone like CIX being here instead of me. What we needed was precision, timing and trust.

And maybe…a little recklessness.

“Hey, Lira!”

Her eyes snapped to me so sharply I could hear the vein in her neck pop. “What do you want, scrap picker?”

“I want to help. But for that…I need you to trust me… for just one second. Can you do that?”

Her jaw tightened. I could almost see her calculating in her mind.

“I can’t. But….” Her eyes flicked from me to the Guardian, then back. “…I’ll hear what you have in mind.”

“That’s all I ask.”

The Guardian’s talons scraped the stones as it shifted its weight but it didn’t advance. I had noticed that before…even now it stood there while Lira and I deliberated. Either it was the most patient and considerate beast or it was protecting something from us.

Our plan was simple—barely a plan at all—but it was the only card we had left. It just happened that I was paired with the one person capable of pulling it off. We consulted with Verra, and she explained that a Nexus core was located somewhere on the Guardian’s body. Destroy it and the Guardian would fall. But the Nexus wasn’t just its core —it was the anchor of the merging itself. Two birds, one stone.

Lira was the centerpiece. She alone had the reach and precision to find the core. You see, Lira had a unique ability; she could anchor runes in both her weapon and body, bending the very air to her will.

No wonder she never missed.

I opened the flask and flung a fistful of black sand into the Guardian’s mane. At first glance, it looked useless—but this wasn’t ordinary sand. This was volcanic sand, composed of hard, abrasive material, which could travel long distances and was mildly corrosive to fire.

Runesmiths use a variation of it to etch runes into weapons but today it would serve as a mere distraction.

The grains clung where they landed, dimming the fire into dull embers, refusing to burn away. The Guardian snarled, shaking its head violently, sparks cascading from its mane like meteors.

I didn’t stop. Spitting into the remaining sand, I worked it into a paste in my palm, then hurled it, sling-shot style, at its eye. The clump hit just beneath the socket, sticking fast. The Guardian reeled, clawing at its own face.

“Now!” I shouted.

Lira’s eyes widened—then narrowed with something like respect. “I’m impressed, scrap-picker. Leave it to me.”

She whistled, a sharp continuous note that cut through the chamber. At once, the rune at her throat lit up—pale grey, spiraling like a coiled serpent. The air around her bent with her every movement.

The arrow in her hand rose, vibrating in the air as if tethered to the whistle’s tone. It blurred into streaks of grey light, splitting mid-flight into three, then six, then nine. Each was a reflection of the others moving in a perfect spiral that narrowed toward the Guardian’s chest.

“Find the core,” she whispered, though I wasn’t sure if it was to me, to the arrow, or to the runes themselves.

Lira was trying her best but the Guardian was not budging. Her arrows flew in every area from its face to chest, but the Guardian had taken things up a notch. The heat had become unbearable, the air itself boiling.

The plan did not work. We just had to cut our losses and make a run for it.

“Keiji!” 

He blinked, tears flowing from his eyes, but his thoughts weren’t even here, not really. His hands hung at his sides, trembling, the sword just out of reach on the ground.

“Keiji!” I screamed again. Nothing.

Sorry to say, but he was useless to me right now.

It was up to me to get everyone out safely. To do that, I needed power.

I dipped inside the Mourner’s bag and tugged…....