For most of his life, George had thought he knew what spiritual strain was. Plenty of times in the magehunters, and later on missions for the Hunter's guild or defending from beast waves, George had pushed farther than he should have. One more shot, one more drop of power to make sure the bullet landed where it would do the most damage. The aching in his meridians was extremely unpleasant, but nothing unbearable, and it always went away after a few days of relaxing.

He was coming to realize that he was a bit of an idiot. That wasn't spiritual strain. If anything, it was more akin to how his muscles felt after a long workout. Aching, but on their way to being stronger, as long as he was careful.

What he felt after attacking the Nodston Core put every past experience to shame. It hurt worse than burning the meridians in the first time. At least that ended. It had been a week of feeling like he was being turned to ash from the inside out, and it was only just now fading. By which he meant he could circulate his own mana without passing out. Instead it just felt like cool water on a burn. Ultimately helpful, but keeping him aware of the injury the entire time.

Despite all that, when discussing their next steps, George had been adamant they not turn back. If they were already here, they needed to do as much damage as possible. The group had achieved their goal, but with another several weeks before their scheduled pickup, George had convinced them all of another target.

They wouldn't get another chance. If they were lucky, all of the saboteurs would do enough damage to slow the advance of Laskar City to a Capital. Laurel would win her esoteric race, and they would all live happily ever after. In reality, the hostilities would escalate from here, and the more damage they could do, the better.

Not another Core. He was acutely aware of the injuries to his spirit. It would shatter if he tried to repeat the feat so soon, and none of the others would be able to do so without crippling themselves. And despite how often he rationalized it, he felt terrible about leaving a town vulnerable to wandering-spirit-beast attacks. But it turned out a decade working for a secret magic police was useful in all kinds of ways.

After he had recovered enough from the pain, George realized they were close enough to get to the largest northern supply depot for the magehunters. It operated as a switchpoint for the specialized locomotive used by the magehunters, and was where they stashed both prisoners and magical resources they found before shipping everything down to Laskar City. He was sure they would have kept it when the Order of Decorra took over. It was simply too difficult to manage an Empire without convenient resupply opportunities.

An explanation he had eventually convinced the others of, leading them all to a bluff several kilometers away, looking down at a nondescript building. At least, the boxy structure was plain to look at, but it was absolutely bursting at the seams with mana.

"Okay people, what do we think?" Reina said.

"They're still people even if they use magic. They must be getting deliveries. Food and whatever else. We can use that as a way in." Reynard said.

"Any idea on how we would find them?"

"The town isn't that far," George said. "I could slip in, ask what the building is."

Without any better options he did just that. Slinking into the – thankfully large – town and hanging around at a bar until someone started mentioning having to get up early to make a delivery. Buying the guy a drink got him an entire life story, and more information than he needed about the supply depot. Several more rounds left him with a companion slurring his words, and staggering home. In no state to wake up early to make a delivery.

He left feeling accomplished and terrified. If that was all that was needed for a spy to be successful, it was no longer surprising that Merista had been attacked in the same way. In fact it was more surprising that only one Core had been so totally destroyed. He supposed with their smaller guild, and Devon's magical communication devices they had fewer places to defend, but he was planning a long talk about counterespionage with the sect leaders when he got home. Or maybe they did have systems in place, and something still got through. He shuddered as he propped the stranger up. He was too sloshed to notice.

There wasn't much time for the plan to come together. Trekking here had already eaten into a week of their schedule, and they still had to get away and get back to their rendezvous point. George poured the man into bed, and for good measure, stole his boots, just to make sure if he did wake up, he would spend time searching and miss the pickup anyway.

The next morning, he and Reynard were hitching up a stolen donkey to a cart of supplies, signed out by a woman too busy forcing herself awake to realize they were both strangers. Another thing to add to the conversation, vetting the sect suppliers. Esther was not a cultivator and shouldn't be in charge of fighting off anyone who tried to get in that way. Not that he would count her out entirely, but it was the principal of the thing.

Halfway between the town and the depot, they stopped just long enough to hide the rest of their allies under empty produce sacks. Today was about speed rather than subtlety.

Arriving at the compound, George was almost bowled over by the amount of magic. It wasn't as strong as the sect house, but it was much more obvious. Where his new home was so well-entwined with the local magic you could let your sense of it fade to the background, this building shouted its presence into the ether.

He breathed a sigh of relief when whatever magic was built in failed to stop them from entering the yard, or from being directed to the back by a bored teenager who barely made eye contact, and didn't bother scanning them with spiritual senses.

Reaching the back door, they launched into action. A thump to the head and quickly tying up the person who answered the door got them inside. It also set the timer. Even stashing the cook in a nearby closet, they would only have minutes before their intrusion was discovered.

The plan was simple. Free the prisoners. Steal anything they could. Set some explosives. Run like the wind.

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It was off to a suspiciously smooth start. Years had passed since George had thought about this place, let alone visited. Nothing about the layout had changed. A side staircase was left unlocked, to make it easier for the underpaid people who managed the facility to feed the prisoners. He swept down, trading stealth for speed, and emerged into the basement at a sprint.

Two guards looked up but surprise was a weapon of its own. He and Reynard had killed them before they could do more than stand. Guilt boiled up like always, but he was well practiced at shoving it into its own box, to be dealt with later.

Their gunshots had certainly alerted anyone else at the facility, no time to waste on self-recrimination. Prisoners were shouting and screaming in the cells on either side. Begging for help, or justice, or just raging at the thought of being killed off in a cage. He and Reynard grabbed the keys and started on the doors.

Most of these people were untrained, and a plain iron door was enough to hold them. Brought in for refusing to join the magehunters, or doing something to piss one of them off, they bolted for one of the staircases as soon as they could.

George wished them luck and whispered at them to run and keep running every time he opened a door. He had to hope they would listen.

When the cells were emptied, he and Reynard sprinted back up the stairs. The main floor had exploded into chaos. The building was, first and foremost, a warehouse. So it was to a wide open space, full of frantic screams and flying magic that they exited. Along with plenty of Laskarians looking for blood.

He watched as one of the prisoners who he had just released fell to the ground, bleeding from a neck wound as the light faded from her confused brown eyes.

Since the rest of his team were sowing some chaos of their own, he couldn't say for sure who was responsible.

Fireballs and spikes of rock and ice flew through the air. Shadows played tricks on his eyes as he and Reynard forced their way towards the door. Forget stealing. It was time to go.

Outside was just as frantic. A braying sound snagged George's attention long enough for him to see their purloined donkey, still hitched to the cart, make a run for its stable. Good for it.

He turned back and skidded to a halt, Reynard following his lead. Blocking the gate was a vision straight out of George's nightmares.

Wearing the magehunter uniform like she had been born to it, was Lady Sarah Maltov. The noblewoman had weasled her way into keeping her name and title when she joined the organization, and had made tormenting the new recruits her personal goal ever since. At least, that was the story George had been told, and it was one he believed. A faded scar on his lower back throbbed with remembered pain.

To him she was a monster, to her he was probably nothing at all.

His first thought on seeing his former teacher was that she looked old. The years since he had been home had not been kind to her, a realization that sent a mean sort of satisfaction coursing through him. The second thought was more of an instinct. He opened fire.

Four bullets fired. Four shots with as much mana as his strained channels could take, bending their arcs towards her torso. None hit.

A cruel smile stretched across her face, now half the distance away. The wicked looking sickle in her hand hadn't been there a moment before, and George had just enough time to dodge before she appeared right in front of him, swinging it down.

Fire coursed through his arm from where a new gash was gushing blood. From experience, he knew the poison was painful but not fatal. And that was all that mattered right now. Another shot and another miss.

The noblewoman had been cultivating for longer than George had been alive and it showed. Every part of her cultivation was poured into moving faster. His eye could barely track as she moved. She was renowned for enjoying killing up close, where she could see life fade from someone's eyes.

Reynard tackled the woman, getting in a few blows and knocking her away before being flung back himself, only to twist in the air and land on his feet. The soldier had pushed his cultivation to be internal to his own body. The results were starting to be impressive.

Not that he had done much good. Maltov was laughing now. George recognized the swelling of mana that he knew would bring her towards him in a blink. This time, he didn't aim forward. Three shots, left, right, and forward at a steep angle.

When she slid to a stop to his left, he saw the hand holding the sickle hanging limply at her side, covered in blood flowing from her shoulder. An arm for an arm.

His satisfaction didn't stop the punch from snapping one of his ribs.

George stumbled, watching as the sickle changed hands. Then watching further, as Reina knelt to get a better angle. Another blink, and this time, there was no dodging. Crimson blossomed across her chest as she took a step, then another.

He saw it coming but had no angle for a shot as the sickle raised one more time, and came down. The corpse following behind it.

"We have to move." Reina scooped him up under the shoulder and urged him to run, while he awkwardly staunched the bleeding at the same time.

"What about Charles?" he grunted. Sascha was just behind Reynard, but there was no sign of their last companion.

"Dead," Reina said. "Don't slow down."

Something inside him shriveled at the passionless way Reina had said it. She would be beating herself up over it. This was one of her first missions in command, and a fatality was always crushing. But George was very clear on where the responsibility lay. It was his idea. His plan. And so it was on him to carry the man's memory forward, and make sure it was worth it.

They had made it a kilometer away when the ground shook beneath their feet. All four of them came to a halt, unable to resist seeing the results. At first the building was fine. Death and chaos leading to nothing more than a bump in the early morning.

A brick fell. Then another. It was over then. The building cascaded down in a cloud of dust and rubble.

"Have to let the Captain know her explosives seminars are coming in handy," Reynard said. The joke fell flat but it got everyone moving again. One step in front of the other. They had done all they could, now it was time to go home.

**********

Still battered but no longer bloody, George waited with the others at the base of a hill. After their frantic supply depot mission, they had turned North and started moving at the highest speed their bodies could handle. In a feat of navigation, Reina had gotten them to their extraction point with a whole day to spare. Or close enough to it.

A clever set of paired mana stones were their actual way home. Like the waystone around his own neck, the two would always point to the same place. Only these ones would lead to each other, rather than some fixed location like the sect house. Useful when you had to find someone in the wilderness of an unfamiliar country.

So they waited.

Reina walked over and sat down next to him. An invitation, if a polite one. He wasn't quite sure if he wanted to take it for himself, but he suspected the soldier needed something more than he did.

"We made a difference," he said, still staring out over the moorland.

"Yeah. Charles made a difference."

"He did." She sniffed.

"Fuck. I keep trying to think about writing it down, you know? My report for Captain Varska. And I can't do it. How do you write down something like 'he got hit with a bullet and we couldn't even grab his body."

George didn't have anything to say, so he listened. Reina kept going for a few minutes. Ranting one moment and crying the next. After she petered out, they sat in silence.

"Thanks, I needed that."

"You've been under the most pressure of all of us. And you got the rest of us through it, Reina, don't lose sight of that."

A half hour after that, the stone around Reina's neck started glowing brighter, until she had to take it off and set it on the top of the hill they were camped against.

All of them began scanning the skies, until Sascha pointed off to the northeast. "There."

George turned to watch an Imperial transport airship nearing their hill, far faster than should be possible. He let out a low whistle as it continued its descent, ending in a smooth glide to alight on top of the hill. After Reina snatched the stone back up and deactivated it.

Behind the glass at the front was Trip, beaming ear to ear and waving at the group. George did his best to muster a smile for the man in return, when all he really wanted to do was get on board and collapse.

"Everyone strapped in? We have two more stops to make."

The inside of the airship was mostly empty. A walled off room containing the engine, some feat of Naxian engineering that combined steam and magic in a way that was faster than either, dominated the space. The rest was few wooden benches built into the walls, windows, and enough guns and ordinance to give them a fighting chance if things went sour.

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