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Unlike Wiseman’s dumb motherfucker of a writer, the hero himself knew what Backup was getting at by calling him “Frankincense.” One more people deluded into thinking he was a mage, apparently.

[color=a90000]”They would not go to this much trouble if there was no ulterior motive here. I was trapped in the room with the doctor, they knew to isolate me. But their plan was flawed.”[/color] Of course he knew the point wasn’t to take them out. After all, this attack would escalate if someone died.

They were being harassed just enough to stay engaged without retreating or winning easily. [color=a90000]”This is a distraction.”[/color] He wheeled around and blasted the flying drone out of the sky, sending it down into the street below in a frosty ball of vapor. He kept an eye out for anything sneaking up on them.

[color=a90000]”Our options are to regroup with the others, or press the advantage we have to look for their reinforcements. It is most likely Gholem, but we don’t know yet.”[/color] Wiseman had a feeling he knew which one Backup preferred, but he thought he’d outline it regardless.

[color=a90000]”What do you think?”[/color]

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The whole god damn building was starting to cave into the fire. By now, there was no hope of saving it. But maybe something would be rebuilt here, out of the ashes. Humans were tenacious animals, they lived long enough as a whole to know when someone should be cut away as rot from a tree. Mire caught a ride along the gigantic flesh dragon that Freakshow had become, and elected to retreat that way.

[color=88ff00]"They will die and return to the earth. Nothing in that pit of stone should be mourned"[/color] the fungal abomination said. [color=88ff00]"One day, you humans will return here and build something over the bones of these creatures, and they'll feed what grows in place of this "plant." Nothing was lost today, only changed."[/color]

They were a cryptic, unknowable creature, but Mire had lived for centuries. They knew the cycle of life on the same foundational level that humans understood breathing and hunger. Perhaps the fire would spread, or pollute the air with what was used to build the plant. Perhaps someone would come looking and fall into the pit, never to be seen again. But death was just a turning of the page in the grand scheme of the earth. Millions of years ago, mountains were killed and rotted away into what humans called soil, and yet flowers bloomed all the same.

[color=88ff00]"Now let's leave this place, I've killed enough of them for one day."[/color]