"Yeah," Athios confirmed. "That's me."
"I read your message in the Community thingy, that's how me and gran found you. I don't know what we would have done if I didn't find you. Thank you," the little girl said, tears in her eyes. "Gran isn't doing so good. She has syasmica."
"Sciatica?"
"That's the one. She doesn't walk so good."
"I bet," the Dimensionalist said, nodding in understanding. Then she remembered something. "Aren't you the little girl that opened the door for us with that fireball?"
"Blast!"
"Pardon?"
"It isn't called fireball. It's just Blast!"
"So it was you," said Athios. "Well, I was a little nervous about how we were going to get into the building when we got here, so thank YOU too, Daisy."
The little girl smiled and blushed, twiddling her thumbs nervously as she stood, knees together, on the marbled floor beside Athios.
"Listen, my job right now is to make sure the rest of the building is secure so we don't get attacked from behind. Do you want to go with me?"
"Really?! Yeah! Let me go tell gran!" Daisy exclaimed. She disappeared into the group behind Athios. Moments later, the excited little girl returned and flashed Athios a thumbs up. "Ready!"
Together, the Dimensionalist and the little Elementalist strolled through the main hall to the other side of the building. Though the structure was large, the vast majority of the first floor was just open space, so it didn't take the two of them long to locate the entrance on the opposite side. Unlike the double doors they had entered the building through, this door was a sturdy darkwood that was locked in place by a thick deadbolt.
"Looks pretty safe to me," Athios told the girl. "Let's check the windows in the side rooms while we're here."
"Okee," said Daisy.
"Give me just a sec to send a message to G."
"Is that the scary guy with the weird eyes?"
Athios laughed. "Yeah, that's him alright."
Private message from Athios to Garath - 00/00/01 @ 01:31:
Back door is deadbolted and made of solid fucking oak. Going to check the side rooms for any other way in.
As Athios awaited Garath's response, Daisy curiously twisted the dented, gold door knob on the door closest to the back entrance. The Dimensionalist watched her carefully, but didn't interfere - turns out it was just a maintenance closet anyways. The little girl shut the door and moved on to the next one, turning the handle and entering the room.
Private message from Garath to Athios - 00/00/01 @ 01:34:
Copy that. Thanks for checking.
Before she could remind him that was the reason for his little break, the shattering of glass and a blood curdling scream emitted from the room Daisy had just walked into. Athios bolted to the child's aid but managed one word over the Raid sub-channel.
"Help!"
Athios burst in behind the little girl, eyes darting around the mostly empty classroom. A skeleton gripping a cutlass was climbing into the room through a broken window, behind it another, and another. Athios sent a white disk from her right hand to land below Daisy and the little Elementalist's scream stopped abruptly as she was sucked into it. Athios turned and sent a second white disk with her left hand back into the main hall and the frightened girl emerged from it - eyes wide, searching, confused.
Daisy saw the scary guy with the weird eyes she knew as the leader of the group running in her direction with a skinny guy just behind him. She silently pointed to the room Athios was in, still unsure of how and why she was now standing back in the main hall.
Garath nodded his acknowledgement to the girl and barrelled into the classroom to fuck shit up with Warrion on his heels. Or that's what he figured would happen when he shouldered the door open - what actually happened was that Athios nearly sent him skydiving when he barged in unannounced. She had already dispatched the skeletons that had climbed through the window and was pushing a desk across the marble flooring. Another two of the undead monsters began climbing into the building, and were dispatched shortly with a second set of space-time bending disks.
"Little help?" said Athios with one brow raised questioningly as two skeletons fell from the sky outside the window.
Garath and Warrion lifted the standard school desk into place, covering the broken window then propped it into place with two more.
Breathing heavily, Athios accessed her Items panel and summoned her Endless Potion of Mana Restoration then downed the sweet, blue liquid in one go before heading back through the main hall to resume her post behind the non-combatants. Her Mana bar refilled by a small amount and continued to climb as she caught her breath.
Garath and Warrion closed and locked every door branching off the main hall on the first floor, then made their way back to the front line to combat the bottlenecked horde of undead.
The remainder of the first wave of The Culling continued without major incident, the fighting force of the Raid switched in and out in shifts as needed to recuperate Health and Mana. By 02:25AM (GST - Global Standard Time), the only Reanimated Bones they had to deal with were respawns as they popped out of vibrating black orbs on the basketball court - and the ones jumping down from the roof every ten minutes or so. At one point Warrion and Fergus even talked Garath into competing to see who could land the most killing blows.
Global Standard Time aside, for everyone in Garath’s Raid it was effectively 05:30 AM and some of the non-combatants were even falling asleep. At exactly 02:30 of the annoying new time system, a
