RESTART AGAIN
VOLUME 3
Written By: Adam Ladner
Artwork By: Alice Catrinel
Table of Contents
1. BROKEN SIGIL
2. DECLARATIONS
3. A JOURNEY TAKEN TWICE
4. THE MOUNTAIN GATE
5. A LOT TO LEARN
6. OLD FRIENDS
7. HOMESTEAD
8. OURS
9. CURRICULUM
10. ADVANCEMENTS
11. LAST SUPPER
12. FRIENDS
13. ADVENTURE
14. PLANS
15. PEACE, AT LAST
16. NO MORE LIES
17. THE END OF THINGS
18. MADE WHOLE
19. RETURN
20. PERSPECTIVE
21. THE DARK BELOW
22. RETRIBUTION
1. BROKEN SIGIL
“Kill them.”
Even as Val took a reluctant step towards us, followed closely by the remaining men of her Trinity Guard, I wanted to believe I had misheard the perfectly clear order. After everything we went through together, everything we did for you...even knowing we’re innocent. I felt a great sadness building in my gut, and I focused my energies down to replace it with another emotion: rage. You said you cared about us, and you followed his orders anyways.
“I will take care of the girl,” Val ordered quietly over her shoulder. “Be cautious engaging that man; he is much more dangerous than he appears.”
What she thought was a hushed order rang clearly in my ears. You’re right, Val. I am dangerous. But so is she. I leaned down to whisper in Lia’s ear. “Don’t hold anything back, Lia. She may have been our friend before, but—”
“I know,” she growled under her breath. I could feel her energy burning like a bonfire as her enhancements activated and grew in strength, and her feelings of betrayal and anger crashed over me in increasingly powerful waves. “She’s going to regret this.” I reached out to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she sprinted forward before I made contact. She cut a wide path around the two Trinity Guardsmen who had advanced towards our position, focusing her assault directly against Val, who had fallen behind to ensure she was still interposed between us and Virram.
Her lightning dash to the front of the room didn’t seem to register with my two advancing targets, who increased their pace to take advantage of their new two-on-one advantage. “If you throw down your sword now, I’ll make sure both you and the girl are given a painless death,” the man in plate armor shouted through the small slit in his greathelm. “No need to drag out what is an inevitable conclusion, don’t you think?” His voice was remarkably higher and gentler than I had expected given his imposing stature, and it sounded as though he was almost empathetic to my situation.
“Throw down your weapons, and I’ll consider letting you live,” I answered coolly as my mind sharpened into an adrenaline-fueled focus. “My fight isn’t with you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the knight replied. “The King’s Sword is sworn to fight the King’s enemies, and the King’s Strength enforces his justice. If you’ve threatened him, you’ve threatened us as well.”
The runes along my sword flashed in unison, and the pent-up mana in my core crashed throughout my body as the enhancements took effect. “Oh, that’s my mistake, then,” I said, shrugging. “I guess my fight is with you after all.” Without warning, I launched forward and leveled a cut at the Sword’s helmeted head.
Lifetimes of fighting against every type of weapon imaginable gave me a distinct advantage in most fights, and I leveraged that knowledge with my opening gambit. My experience with greatsword fighters told me two things about my current situation: he would have a hard time blocking attacks that required a large range of movement from his weapon, and he would burn through energy exponentially faster than I would swinging the massive blade around. In contrast to that knowledge, my recent sparring match with Val had taught me that the weaponry these men wielded was extremely powerful and would most likely hold a few unseen surprises. I knew that my success would come from how well I adapted to the unique styles I was about to encounter, so I increased the energy flow to my Combat Acceleration and focused my Detection on the knight’s sword.
Like the first time I clashed with Val, something unexpected happened. Instead of wrenching the sword upwards to deflect the blow, the knight rushed his hand across the face of the blade next to the crossguard. The mana reserves within the sword flashed, and his hand pulled away with a dagger that hadn’t existed before. It was made of the same black metal of the greatsword, complete with a matching gold guard and grip, but it left no trace of where it had been pulled from the main weapon; the greatsword shimmered like stone under the summer sun, then reshaped itself into a seamless blade that was slightly smaller than it had been before.
He can change the form of his weapon almost instantly. I’m not fighting a greatsword user, I’m fighting an armory. It was a fascinating discovery, full of potential and unanswered questions, but my immediate curiosity had been sated. His newly created dagger flicked up and redirected my opening strike harmlessly over the top of his greathelm, and I followed the momentum of the attack into a tight spin towards the King’s Strength. Now, what do you have to offer me?
My maneuvering brought me into striking range of the pugilist, and I lashed out with a quick stab aimed at his unarmored chest. He dodged the attack effortlessly, ducking to let the blade fly over his shoulder while he slipped towards me with a right hook. I dashed to the side to let the blow go wide, then brought my sword up to deflect his follow-up punch. When the heavy gauntlet connected with the flat of my sword, the force of the attack threw me backwards as if I had been struck by a warhammer. My boots skidded across the polished stone floor until I crashed into one of the pillars lining the hall, and the breath was knocked from my lungs.
I realized that I had been watching for some sort of magical change so closely that I missed
