Asher stared at the burly man standing before him as he waited for an answer. For some reason, Crush was giving him a strange look, almost like he wasn't sure if he should help him or attack him. While Asher waited for the big man to come to a decision, he noted how the brute's skin seemed to have a dull shine to it, almost as if it were made out of metal.

After a few strange seconds of silence, Crush finally seemed to get over whatever thought was plaguing him.

"We don't know," he grunted, shaking his head and glancing over at the grizzly scene of Francis kneeling down by the corpse of a ragged-looking man. The druid appeared to have forgotten about everything else around him and was currently whispering something to the tiny sapling growing out of the man's chest as he gently stroked its blood-soaked leaves. "But if you're looking for her, I'd recommend following the quakes. Find the source of them and you'll find her."

"Wow, wish I'd thought of that," Asher said, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, where's Draken? I thought he was going to be leading the attack?"

"The boss was… delayed," Crush said, sounding strangely nervous for some reason. "You're not a member of our gang, so I can't say more than that. Unfortunately, he's probably not going to get here before Loratta escapes at the rate this place is coming down."

"What? That means Loratta is going to get away! Unless you have some other method of stopping her?"

"We don't," Crush said, grimacing. "If she escapes, we'll have to be satisfied with destroying her gang in its entirety."

"Well I won't be satisfied with that," Asher frowned, remembering the way Loratta had tortured Rosh right in front of him, not to mention the state he'd found the poor instructor in. He didn't exactly have any ideas as foolproof as Draken blasting her with his death aura, but he still had a handful of unique daggers he'd yet to try stabbing her with. Surely one of them had to be effective. And even if that wasn't the case, all he needed to do was buy time for Draken to actually show up. At the very least, Eternal Regeneration and Complete Resilience made him quite confident in his ability to play for time, even if he couldn't actually hurt the gang leader. "Anyway, while I hunt for Loratta and try to slow her down, I need you to make sure Rosh gets out of here safely. It took a lot of effort to get to him and kill the Blood guy holding him hostage, so I'd really appreciate the help."

"Knick's dead?" Crush asked, his eyebrows shooting up. "How did you manage that? From what I've heard he's supposed to be near impossible to kill."

"It turns out using your abilities is a tad difficult when your head is no longer attached to your shoulders," Asher said, leaving Crush to stare at him in shock as he ran back over to Rosh. Along the way, he picked up all the floating orbs of shards from the dozens of gang members he'd killed just a few minutes ago. None of them really had many shards on them, but every little bit counted.

"The path is clear," Asher told him, doing a quick sweep of his friend and making sure he hadn't taken any new injuries while he was gone. "Are you okay if I leave you at this point?"

"I'm fine, but what's your plan, Asher? You know you can't hurt her," Rosh said, giving him a concerned look. "If you go after her now you'll either end up crushed under a few metric tons of dirt when this entire compound finally collapses, or you'll suffocate with a lungful of slime. You'd just be throwing your life away!"

"I don't need to be the one to kill her, I just need to buy Draken some more time. Though that doesn't mean I'm not going to try," he admitted, frowning at the fresh clods of dirt that fell on their heads from a distant rumble. Already entire chunks of the ceiling were starting to fall, and the shaking of the ground was only growing more violent. "We don't know for certain that I can't hurt her, and I can't just let her get away. Not after all the terrible things she's done. I at least have to try."

"Asher-"

"Come on, we're getting you out of here," Crush grunted, grabbing Rosh and picking up the man like he weighed no more than a doll. Giving Asher an encouraging nod, Crush ignored Rosh's shout of protest as he lumbered back over to the ladder. "New orders! The compound is coming down faster than we thought! Unless you can survive being buried alive, pull back and help us guard the exits!"

Asher wasn't surprised when every single member that had fought tooth and nail to get down here turned and high-tailed it back to the ladder, most of them cursing all the while.

"Good luck in there!" Francis called out, giving him a thumbs up before retreating up the ladder with the bloody sapling in hand.

Happy to see that the druid had survived the battle, Asher grinned before running over to the ladder himself. He wasn't about to follow the rest of the fleeing coalition just yet, but he had one last task he needed to take care of before dashing into the collapsing compound in search of Loratta.

Focusing on his newest skill for the first time since he'd unlocked it, Asher tried to activate Recall by using the skill on the space at the foot of the ladder to set a waypoint for himself. He'd been holding off on trying this until he could test the skill at Samantha's cabin in the event that these marks were permanent, and he wasn't happy about potentially wasting one end of his new skill in such a manner. But if the compound did collapse while he was inside it, at the very least, he wanted a way to make a quick escape. He didn't like it, but leaving one end of his skill here made the most sense. Except…

His skill refused to activate.

"Now is not the time," he hissed, gritting his teeth as he desperately tried to focus on making his Recall skill work on the ladder. Yet try as he might, the skill refused to do anything. It felt like he was trying to push his way through a brick wall. No matter how hard he tried, nothing happened.

Another rumble shook the compound, and Asher gave up on his new skill, panting at the minor exertion. With the compound literally collapsing around him, he just didn't have the time to troubleshoot his new skill right now. Throwing a glance at the bits of dirt flaking off the ceiling, Asher cursed as he abandoned his escape plan and took off down the shaking corridor instead.

If he couldn't plan on making a hasty escape, he'd just have to make sure he stopped Loratta before the entire compound came down on top of him.

As he sprinted down the shaking corridors, Asher quickly pulled up his interface, taking stock of all the shards he'd collected from his recent fights. None of the regular members he'd killed had many shards on them, but taking out nearly two dozen of them meant the amount wasn't anything to sneeze at. And more importantly, Knick clearly didn't believe in using any of the banks Rosh had told him about, because the Blood user had been carrying quite a sizable number on him.

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Asher grinned as he realized he had more than enough shards on him to unlock one of his two final skills. Seeing as he needed to actually find Loratta before the entire compound collapsed, he decided to go with Knowledge before Eternity in the hopes of getting some sort of tracking skill. Mentally consuming 40,000 shards, he looked over what the System gave him.

Shards: 28,453

Judgement (passive) - Lvl 1 - View the weight of a soul.

Damn it, Asher cursed, pausing at a split in the corridor as he lamented his final skill for the Knowledge element. While his new skill sounded ridiculously cool, and he had no doubt the odd-sounding skill would prove itself quite useful later on, it wasn't remotely close to what he needed at that moment.

He tried to observe the shaking of the tunnels, praying Secret Seeker would inform him of which one he should go down. Unfortunately, it seemed the rumbling was spread rather evenly throughout the compound, and even his skill couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from. Realizing he was wasting time, he chose one at random and started running.

Even if he couldn't tell where to go, at least with Distortion he could cover a lot of ground very quickly.

Asher spent the next few minutes flying up and down random corridors, stumbling every so often as particularly large quakes shook the entire compound. By now, chunks of dirt nearly as large as his fist fell from the ceiling with every quake, and Asher realized he was rapidly running out of time. Just as he was beginning to panic, a familiar voice called out to him.

"Looking a little lost there, runt!"

Asher's heart sank as he turned to find Moxy standing in the tunnel behind him, her wild grin not impacted in the slightest by the falling dirt all around them. Despite her lack of furs, the warrior looked just as dangerous as ever.

Even more strange was the fact that he could see some sort of dark, dangerous cloud surrounding her like an ominous aura. Despite the fact that he didn't quite understand what he was looking at, Asher immediately recognized the aura as a result of his new Judgement skill. He could tell just from a quick glance that Moxy had killed countless people throughout the span of her life, though she didn't regret a single one of them. And despite the immense amount of death she'd been responsible for, he somehow understood she'd only taken the lives of fellow warriors. While her aura was a deep, deadly black, it felt almost pure and rigid, as if Moxy lived by an unwavering code that she refused to budge on.

Asher couldn't help but feel a bit proud of his fighting mentor, despite the fact that she was the last person he wanted to see at this moment.

"Moxy, as much as I'd love to go another round right now, we've got bigger things to worry about. This entire compound is coming down, and I need to find Loratta before it does!" Even as he made his case, Asher made sure he had his daggers in hand and was prepared for anything. The last thing he wanted was to set himself up for a windblast from behind.

To his surprise, Moxy nodded.

"Sure looks that way," she agreed, peering up at the shaking ceiling. "I guess Loratta's time is finally up, huh? Damn, I had a real nice thing going here."

"You're not going to fight?" Asher asked, unable to hide his confusion. From what he'd gathered over the last few days, fighting was just about the only thing Moxy actually cared about. "Why listen to me now instead of an hour ago?!"

"I don't know about you, but I can't survive being buried alive under a hundred tons of dirt," Moxy chuckled. "I don't care about dying from battle, but I can't exactly win a fight with the ground itself."

"Why are you still here then?" Asher countered, preparing himself for some sort of surprise attack. That wasn't usually how Moxy operated, but maybe she'd try something desperate with the compound literally collapsing all around them.

"Well for one, you have some things that belong to me," she called out, holding out her hand expectantly. "How about you give me back my furs and I'll tell you where you can find Loratta?"

"You know where she is?" Asher blinked.

"I know where she planned to fight other Earth element holders if they ever attacked. My furs?"

Asher only hesitated a second before pulling the furs from his Personal Rift and tossing them down the corridor. A quick flex of Distortion meant they soared far further than they should have, landing in Moxy's open hand. Worst case scenario, if this truly was an uncharacteristic bluff, Rosh was finally safe, which meant he could just slip into the astral and run away.

"I'm gonna miss seeing those weird skills of yours in action," Moxy admitted, quickly securing her furs back on her person. As soon as she was suited up once more, she sighed, as if they weren't all about to die and everything was right with the world. "There's a secret arena Loratta constructed that's more heavily fortified than the rest of the compound. Loratta didn't want to end up collapsing her entire base if she ever had to go toe to toe with a fellow Earth element holder down here. But seeing as she's most likely fighting two at once, I don't think the compound is going to hold for much longer."

Asher listened closely as Moxy gave him directions, nodding his thanks as soon as she was done. But before he could take off, she stopped him with a raised voice.

"Hold on a moment there, runt, we haven't dealt with the matter of you actually managing to beat me in a one-on-one fight."

Gripping his daggers tighter, Asher turned back to the warrior, ready to do his best to hamstring her somehow and get away while she was busy healing. But to his surprise, rather than finding Moxy waiting for him in her usual combat stance, she was just standing there, once more holding out her hand.

Only this time, she held a small blue orb.

"Catch," she said, tossing the orb at him. Even from this distance Asher could make out the orb with Identify, and he blinked as he caught the element.

Element: Water – The Water element provides its users with abilities that assist with movement and healing. Control the waves of the oceans and become one with the flowing river.

The orb was cool and almost wet to the touch, and Asher quickly stored it in his Personal Rift before something happened to it. Glancing up at his former mentor, he gave her a confused nod.

"Thank you… But why give me this?"

"Consider it a thanks for letting me live. God knows I wouldn't have done the same for you," Moxy admitted, shooting him a wicked grin. "I don't think you even noticed, but you ended up leaving me tied up in the storeroom where that element was kept. Took me all of five seconds to grab it on my way out!"

Shaking his head at her laughter, Asher gave her one final look. "Thanks for everything, Moxy. Despite how things turned out, I enjoyed our time training together."

"Hey now, don't make it sound like we won't be seeing each other again! If Loratta doesn't kill you, come find me once you've gotten out of the Stage of Discovery and we'll have a rematch," Moxy said, tilting her head to the side as if second guessing herself. "Actually, maybe wait until you've completed the honing stage. I'd rather have a real fight after all."

"Sounds like a plan!"

Bidding his former mentor farewell, Asher finally took off down the corridor in the directions she'd given him, wincing at the powerful shakes and the fact that the walls were now beginning to crumble as well.

If he didn't find Loratta soon, he'd never get the chance to worry about any future battles anyway.

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