Asher blinked, staring up at the large man as his words finally registered. "Wait, you are the reason he's wasted? What the hell did you give him?"

"A liquor he normally saves for very special occasions," Crush admitted, grabbing his chair and spinning it around to face him rather than sit behind Draken's desk. "Brewed by a famous woman from the capital with the Alcohol element. Yeah, it's a thing."

"No kidding," Asher muttered, thinking about how drunk Draken had gotten just from drinking two small glasses worth of the rich liquid. "Better question, I suppose... Why did you get your boss drunk as a skunk? Isn't that dangerous with his Death element?"

"Draken's lived with his Death element his entire adult life," Crush said, shaking his head. "Not to mention it's his only element. He probably has more control over it than you do of your own hands. As to the why, I told you. I needed to have a private chat with you without Draken being present."

"Okay," Asher said, giving him a curious look. "Well, you got it. What's up?"

"I want to help you try to take down the Guild," Crush admitted, his face a mask of resolve. "I know Draken well enough by now that he never would have let me do something like this. He… lost a lot of very important people to him because of the Guild years ago. Now that he knows I'm being targeted, there's no chance he'd let me walk out of here and go somewhere he couldn't protect me."

"Won't he be pissed beyond belief once he sobers up and realizes what you've done?" Asher asked, raising an eyebrow. "The two of you seem pretty close. No offense, but if Draken is that against you helping me, I'm not sure I want to go against his wishes. I want to take down Eight and the Guild, but I don't exactly want to make an enemy out of Draken in the process."

"I'll take full responsibility for everything," Crush said gruffly. "I got him drunk, and I proposed this plan. He'll be mad at me, not you."

"And you're okay with that?" Asher asked, wanting to make sure Crush was fully on board. The two of them might very well be fighting a deadly assassin together in just a few hours, after all. He didn't want his partner to be distracted.

"The Guild needs to go," Crush grunted, gripping the armrests of his chair hard enough to make the wood creak. "After what they did to Draken and what they are planning to do to me… I can't just sit by and do nothing while others fight. It's not who I am."

"I get it," Asher said, pleased to see that his gut feeling about Crush was pretty much on point. "Screw it, I'm in. So long as you promise to explain to Draken this was all your idea."

"I will," Crush laughed, his large frame making his laughter sound like low, rumbling thunder. "Do you need to get anything, or are you ready for a fight?"

"I tend to keep my daggers on me," Asher grinned, patting at his bandolier. "Did you have a plan in mind?"

"Yeah, but it's not very elaborate," Crush admitted. "I figured if I just went home like normal, whoever the Guild sent would just come into my house and attack. I could have you hide in a closet and then jump out to attack them in turn?"

"Simple isn't necessarily bad," Asher said, scratching his head as he thought. "But are you confident in your ability to survive that first attack? The last thing I need is to have to tell Draken your plan failed and the Guild got you. I think I might have to flee the city if that were to happen."

"I'm pretty durable," Crush grunted, his entire body taking on a gleaming, iron-like sheen for a moment. "My elements are Iron and Strength. I'm not fast, but I can take a hit."

"I guess we just have to hope the Guild doesn't send someone after you capable of bypassing your defenses," Asher muttered, wondering just who they were going to be up against. While his heart began excitedly racing at the thought of another fight, he tried to keep himself in check this time around. If he slipped up and let Crush die, he was in for a world of hurt with Draken. Despite the man's usual calm and collected demeanor, he was probably the last person Asher wanted to make an enemy of.

"Hold on, I have an idea," Asher said, laying a hand on his bracelet and focusing on one of his lesser-used skills.

During some of his downtime in between hunting Loratta's elites, Rosh had helped him run some tests on his Permanence skill. Other than the fact that it was clear he could only use it on one status effect at a time, they'd discovered the skill had two rather large restrictions.

The first one was simple. Despite his best efforts, at the time of testing, Asher could only lock a single effect into place at a time. If he tried to do a second, the first one vanished immediately.

The second was that while Asher could use it on another person, doing so drained his own personal energy, at a rate that seemed relative to the intensity of the effect he was locking into place. Out of curiosity, Asher had asked Rosh to burn a hundred shards to give himself a burst of strength before he tried locking it in place with Permanence, and had then nearly passed out as his skill burned through most of his energy within seconds. Their dreams of permanently giving Rosh incredible super strength thoroughly dashed, Asher had decided to simply keep the Concealing Shroud skill locked on himself instead.

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Granted, those tests had been back when the skill was still entirely brand new, so there was no telling what he'd be able to do now that he'd leveled it up a bit.

Banking on the fact that hitting level 10 had to have strengthened the skill, Asher took a deep breath and tried to lock in the Awareness skill from his bracelet. His very soul seemed to shudder and stretch, but after a moment, he felt the skill lock into place. Letting out a sigh of relief, he took off his bracelet, confirming that the skill was still in effect on himself. The total number of magical effects he could make Permanent on himself had finally increased to two.

"Here, wear this," he said, passing the bracelet over to Crush. "It should give you an early warning when the assassin looks directly at you."

Nodding, Crush put the bracelet on, blinking at the sudden sixth sense he now had. "That's a weird feeling," he grunted, glancing at Asher's grin. "Thank you."

Their admittedly limited preparations complete, the two of them were ready to go. Not wasting any more time, Crush turned and led Asher down to the foyer and went to leave the manor entirely.

Only to be stopped by a curious-looking Thunder, her mace already crackling with electricity as she bounced it over her shoulder.

"And where do you think the two of you are going?" she asked, a heavyset frown on her face as her eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them. "Draken gave you strict instructions to stay here until things cooled down, Crush."

Asher briefly noticed how the small handful of people going about their business within the manor quickly made themselves scarce, and he did his best to stifle a manic smile as he realized they might have to fight their way through Thunder to get out of here. He'd never fought someone with what clearly looked like the Lightning element before, and he was pretty excited to try.

Unfortunately, Crush proved to be a bit more gentle than he was.

"Rachel, I'm going to help The Reaper take down the Guild," he said slowly, gesturing toward Asher. "I've seen him in action. He's got what it takes. Even Draken thinks he's capable of it."

"Funny, I don't remember saying anything about him," Thunder said, her eyes narrowing. "You're the one Draken instructed to stay here. How could you go against a direct order from the boss?"

"He's letting his past cloud his judgement," Crush said, a hint of sadness audible in his deep voice. "He'll never admit it, but he's scared, Thunder. Scared of losing more people he cares about to the Guild. His emotions are getting the better of him. I'm the perfect bait, we can't pass up this opportunity."

"And I can't let you pass this foyer," she said, not moved in the slightest by Crush's speech. "Sorry Crush, I can't go against an order from the boss. He warned me you might try and do something like this while he was distracted."

"Damn it," Crush muttered under his breath, the large man's eyes flicking around the room as if looking for some sort of solution. Realizing he was at a loss, Asher took a step forward, going to pull out his daggers when Crush threw a hand in front of him to stop him.

"You can't take Thunder down, especially not right now while Draken's like he is," Crush muttered. "She's the head of his personal security. He'd be too vulnerable."

"Well do you have a better idea?" Asher frowned, looking eagerly at the dancing arcs of electricity jumping between the points on her mace as she watched them.

"Just one," Crush sighed. Bringing himself to his full height, he turned back toward Thunder and nodded. "Rachel… If you let me do this… I'll agree to finally take in a third element."

Asher and Thunder both stared at the large man, with remarkably different expressions on their faces. Where Asher was confused, Thunder looked utterly shocked, and more than a little bit annoyed.

"Are you serious?" she asked, suddenly sounding angry for some reason. "After all this time… This is where you play that card?!"

"What's going on?" Asher asked while Thunder stomped her foot and began muttering to herself, as if weighing the pros and cons of something. "Why is you taking on a third element such a big deal?"

"Draken and Rachel have been trying to get me to take on a third element for years," Crush grunted, carefully watching the other elite as she angrily deliberated with herself. "They want me to start the elemental advancement process, but I had my heart set on a hard to get element. Draken has a lot of sway within Whikoga, but his influence is much weaker outside the city."

"What element did you want badly enough to refuse Draken's wishes for years?"

"…The Griffin element," Crush admitted after a few seconds of silence, his face turning the slightest bit red. "I wanted to be able to turn into an unstoppable flying monster. One capable of taking Draken wherever he needed to go without risk of being shot down."

"And for the hundredth time, it's a stupid dream," Thunder growled, causing them both to jump as they realized she was suddenly standing before them. Asher blinked as he glanced back to the other side of the room where she'd been moments before. She clearly had some sort of teleportation-based skill, and a far subtler one than what Jennifer had used against him. "There's a single breeding farm of Griffins over in the capital used to provide mounts for truthseekers, and the man that runs it is the only known person in the entire kingdom to have the Griffin element."

"It's my dream," Crush shrugged, as if that was all he needed to say. "…but I'm willing to finally throw it away if you let me do this."

"Damn you and your stupid dream," Thunder frowned, glancing between the two of them as she thought, continuing to bounce her crackling mace on her shoulder all the while. It was pretty clear she was deciding between smashing them in the face with her mace and letting them walk out, and Asher held his breath as he waited to see which side she would fall.

To his surprise, she picked a third option.

"Fine. I'll let the two of you do this," she finally said, causing Crush to visibly relax before she continued.

"…but I'm coming too!"

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