Sworded Affair

Do you answer?]

The sudden notification came at an unfortunate time, the momentary distraction nearly costing Astrid an injury. She recovered, just barely, throwing herself to the side to avoid the incoming prongs of a taser. Ramming the butt of her staff into the man\'s knee, followed by a mean left hook to lay the man out flat, bought her a few seconds to back off and reassess the situation. In short, it wasn\'t looking good.

She\'d already fought off several waves of kidnappers over the past week, and while the first attempts were led by the weak and incompetent, the skill of her pursuers had steadily increased with every team she slaughtered. Now, seven days in, her assailants were numerous, disciplined and well equipped. Even a quick look around saw over two dozen men swarming the house she\'d taken shelter in for the night, each wielding some variant of non-lethal weaponry, from the aforementioned tasers, to stun batons, water cannons and even pepper spray.

Ironically, this actually made escape harder for her, as the lack of killing intent preempted the activation of the several lifesaving treasures on her person, which could have teleported her far away, even back to Sweden in one particular instance. But even though that wasn\'t an option, the thought of teleportation brought her eyes back to the notification that stayed insistently at the corner of her vision, refusing to be dismissed like most others would be.

Do you answer?]

After a brief period of consideration, during which she was able to hear yet more masked goons jogging up the stairs below, Astrid decided that whatever was waiting on the other end could hardly be any worse than getting black bagged. At the very least, she\'d have some backup while dealing with it; so with that in mind, she answered yes to the summoning.

[Initiating transfer.]

Immediately, she felt a pull on her soul, similar but distinct to the long distance array that had brought her to England. It was slow enough that she could put on a mocking smile, for the benefit of the next two kidnappers to make it into the attic she was hiding in, as she vanished before their eyes.

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—

Do you answer?]

Mr. Fox sat up at the notification, polishing off his dinner of wild rabbit and redcurrant with one final bite. He wasn\'t sure what most of it meant, but Emma was familiar to him, in the way only a being born of the System could understand. Whilst he\'d since subordinated himself to Anna\'s pack, the bond between him and the one he was originally summoned for had never entirely faded. Now, that link guided him, telling him what to do.

Climbing out of the pile of hay he\'d bedded down in, he crawled back out into the main corridor of the barn their party had found for the night. Stepping carefully around the sleeping wolves, he made it to Anna\'s bedside, and pressed his nose to her face. Then, he accepted the summon.

[Initiating transfer.]

"Wha?" Anna managed, waking up to the unpleasant sensation of a wet nose prodding her.

Freshly roused from sleep as she was, Anna didn\'t have the time to parse her many notifications, not before the transfer ran its course, and Mr. Fox vanished from the old barn.

—

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 50 minutes.

Mana: 0/100 (Locked)]

Finally, her last point of mana drained away, leaving Emma feeling curiously empty. Eternal Wind shone all the brighter for her efforts, smoke turning to billowing stardust that resolved into two distinct portals. Astrid stepped calmly out of the first, still wearing the guise of Princess Astaroth. Her eyes locked immediately upon the Time Eater, a pulse of dark green light firing from the tip of her staff, only to be absorbed harmlessly, like everything else that had been tried up till now.

"Wait until everyone is here," Saint grumbled, from where she\'d curled up at the foot of the staircase, content to nap until she was called to action.

Astrid forced herself to pause, fighting down the adrenaline still running through her to assess the situation more carefully. She took note of the Time Eater\'s lack of response, before turning to regard Saint herself, and finally Emma, who was busy welcoming the third and final summoning to Blenheim Palace, a large orange fox who was doing its best to bowl her over with a hug.

[Good, everyone is here now.]

No longer bothering to maintain the illusion of privacy at this critical juncture, Edith spoke to them all simultaneously through the System.

[Emma, you\'ll need to keep the homunculus outside, holding Eternal Wind. That body is the anchor for the summoning, as soon as that\'s cut off, everyone else will be returned to their original position.]

Heeding Edith\'s warning, Emma sat herself down on the staircase, positioned carefully out of view of the boss chamber. Saint contributed to the cause, summoning a handful of roots to hold her in place, taking care to wrap a number of them around her hands, tying Eternal Wind in place.

"That should do it," Emma grunted, emerging into her armoured form, the homunculus falling slack behind her.

"Is that your normal appearance?" Astrid asked, still staring at the homunculus. "You never took on that form back in the tower."

"It\'s complicated," Emma sighed. "I can tell you all about it later, assuming we survive this boss. He\'s eaten everything I could throw at him so far, so I hope you\'ve got a few trump cards to play, or this reunion will be a short one."

[Alright. That\'s all the help available on short notice. I\'ve done what I can to make this fight possible, now, the rest is all up to you. Good luck.]