Part four, yes indeedley. Here I’ll you’ll see another spiffy fight scene (needless to say), and I’ll be developing the actual storyline a bit. >>;; If you’re still with me here, you’ll start to see where I’m going with all this.

—
His back pressed against Cross and Riella, whom were doing likewise, BlastMage glanced quickly over his circling opponents. A bandit, in green and carrying a short blade, decidedly pointy. Two assassins, no doubt twins judging by their faces, and both in black despite the beating sun. A bowman, and not a particularly strong one, if that bow ranked him truly, he’d gotten Blast into this mess –stupid kumbis. And finally, two mages, one of which was a healer like himself, and she would thus probably cause the most problems for him.

He turned to Cross, looking over one shoulder.
“Cross, what have you got loaded into that claw?” he asked, frowning.
“Subis and wolbis, man.” the thief responded.
“That won’t do,” Blast said, shaking his head. “take these.” Blast passed him the very kumbis that had gotten him into this mess. “And call me Blast. The chick is Riella. You might as well know who you’re fighting a life threatening battle alongside.” Riella snorted at the casual mention of her name, but raised her traus nonetheless. Blast checked his magic guard and, eyed the circling crowd again. “Well, lets get this over with then!” he said, raising his wand.
“You’ll pay for taking out my eye CrossSlash!” Achoss said, lunging forward and letting lose steelies in their general direction. “I bled all the way back to our clerics I did!”
“Yeah, and you pushed ME out of a WINDOW!” concurred Cerusk, as he threw additional pointed objects at the trio.
“Yeah, and what about my kumb-” the archer spoke up, knocking an arrow, but was interrupted;
“Shut up Devin.” the mages said in unison, jumping in to attack with magic claws and thunder bolts.
“Hey, we’re a popular bunch, aren’t we!” Riella said, blocking a knife slash with the flat of her blade.
“Yeah.” Blast answered, ducking several throwing knives, and deflecting magic with his wand.
“Seems like it.” Cross agreed, jumping back and throwing kumbis. Riella rushed forward and knocked the bowman flat before he could fire, then turning to the mages, made to slash at Imlye but was blocked casually by a swing of Eric’s staff.

Meanwhile, Cross threw and deflected stars, while Blast and Imlye healed either side for the hits they did take –a star in the arm here, a slash or a scrape there, lightning bolt singing everywhere.
“Eeek”, Blast stumbled back out of the way of another such lightning bolt and glared furiously at his attacker. “CrossSlash! Springboard!” The glanced over at him, and disengaging from a dagger tangled in his claw spikes, turned to run at Blast. Riella turned to block the bandit’s blade as he came up behind her. The cleric cupped his hands and caught a foot when the rouge collided. Pushing off, Cross flew high into the air, drifting temporarily above the lightning wizard, then coming down with a rain of stars and a stab of his claw, nailing Erik to the ground.
“I see dead people.” he gloated at Erik’s groan, then kicked the wizard across his head as he stood up, leaving the man out cold. “Ack!” Cross jumped back to avoid being run through by Imlye’s fairy wand.
“Get away from him!” she shouted, and the thief dove back into the fray laughing.

Blast panted heavily, Riella was taking heavy damage and Cross was having trouble dodging two sets of stars. He stuffed another handful of blue pills in his mouth and kept heal on full blast. Riella was tangling blades with Shard, and Cross was practicing all forms of annoyance on the two assassins. Suddenly, he heard a shriek and looked over to see Riella on her back and the bandit over her with his dagger. Blast knocked the man back with another claw, and paused to kick the archer who had come to his senses and was trying to stand up. The lad groaned and fell unconscious again. Imlye, having tended her sweetie’s wounds, stood up again and stepped over his unconscious form, furious.
“Lets see how you like some of this!” she said, raising her wand to materialize a holy bow. She fired off several bolts, knocking over the furiously dodging Cross –already busy with two opponents, and striking Riella in the back as she was getting up off the ground. She groaned and struggled to her feet as the arrow dissipated from a bloody gash in her back, but Cross was in more trouble, and clutching a bleeding side, he squeezed his eyes shut and disappeared as more throwing knives struck the ground where he’d been.

Healing them hurriedly, Blast jumped forward and raised his wand to block a thrust from Shard’s blade, and magic clawed the man at close range, sending him sprawling. He knew he needed to do something fast, the odds weren’t in their favor. Diving backwards to dodge more stars, and a slash from the ever persistent bandit, Blast hit Imlye in the chest, she’d been sneaking up behind him. They both crashed to the ground.
“Of course,” Blast realized, “they would have gone down ages ago, but their healer is stronger than I am. Lets see how she handles this!” Grabbing the startled magician by the collar, he teleported to the top of the staircase and dangled her over the edge.
“Think fast gentlemen, your cleric is airborne!” he shouted, and jumping forward, threw her out over the marketplace. Shard was there in a flash, hasting and appearing out of the shadows to land among the days shoppers with a crash and her in his arms.

Blast teleported back to Riella, and they rushed Achoss as Cross appeared behind Cerusk to stab him in the back. Achoss blocked Riella with a upraised claw, but Blast skipped over the incantations entirely, and jabbed the man in the gut with his wand, winding him. Achoss went down with a punch to the face –Riella’s department, not Blast, and Cross struck Cerusk across the back of the head, knocking him out as well. Running back in from the marketplace, Shard and Imlye looked at each other once and nodded.
“This isn’t done, BlastMage! We have plans for this world yet!” Shard growled, and threw a powder at the ground that left everyone blinded and coughing, Blast stumbled back and fell across the archer, Devin was still on the ground. He groaned, and shifted under the cleric’s weight. By the time everyone could see again, all the DarkStriders had disappeared, the charred remains of teleport scrolls scattered here and there.

“Damn! We had them too!” Cross said, punching a fist into his hand. BlastMage went over to one of the scrolls to pick up the crumbling parchment.
“I’ve never seen runes in this dialect before. I don’t know where it led, but those weren’t normal return scrolls.” Blast said, frowning at the incinerated sheet. He gathered them into his pack regardless, he could have someone look at them later. Then the archer coughed, and everyone turned to look at him.
“Of course, I fell back and sat on him when the flash powder was thrown! He couldn’t get out!” Blast said. As the archer came to, and tried to get up, Riella strode over to him, drawing her whip out of her knapsack again. BlastMage frowned to see the weapon again. Devin sat up, but didn’t even get the chance to stand before the red cord was tangled around his neck and the warrior pulled him to his feet. Startled, he coughed again and gasped for air, clawing at the whip cutting his breathing short.
“First of all, don’t panic. You’ll just choke faster.” Riella commanded of the squirming archer. “You tell me what I want, and perhaps I’ll let you live.” The archer nodded, but didn’t squirm any less than he had a moment before. “Good.” She loosed the whip a bit. “First and foremost, what did your friend mean by ‘plans’.”
“I don’t know anything abou-” the whip tightened momentarily, and Devin went red and choked. Riella gave him a grin nothing short of evil, and let his feet back down on the ground.
“Now let’s try that again. What are these plans?” She said to the now very panicky archer.
“I don’t hear much, really. It was something about disrupting the time fields. That’s all I know! Honest! They don’t tell me anything, I just overheard things!” he did look honest, trying his best not to die it seemed. Riella turned to Blast.
“Blast you magic monkey! What do you know about time fields?” She asked. Blast, clearly shocked by the archer’s revelation, stammered;
“I know enough to show you someone who can tell you better. If what he says is true, we could be in a world of trouble. We’ve got to talk to Grendel as soon as possible.” That was good enough for Riella, apparently, because she casually untangled the whip from Devin’s neck, and dragged him away from their former battleground.

—
Below, in Perion’s central square, at the bottom of the mountain that is, a beginner ran by in starter clothes, with a U.S. flag, shouting something about
“Fear me I am mule!” and people busied themselves with their morning routines as usual. Nobody cared much when an archer unexpectedly fell screaming from the skies to land next to the storage cases where Mr. Wang did his business. The man glanced at this newcomer, and grumbled to himself.
“Flying noobs was not in the job description…”

—
Meanwhile, back in the guild’s headquarters, the battered and bruised party appeared in their hideout with a flash of light. From the shadows came a voice, their leader. The XDarkStriders’ master. He was clearly furious, and his voice, amplified a thousand fold by the hideout’s com system made his tirade all the worse.
“YOU LOST IN A SIX ON THREE, BABBLED ABOUT MY PLANS, AND DIDN’T EVEN RETURN WITH EVERYONE!? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS!” It shouted, as the battered thieves and magicians struggled to their feet in the empty grand entrance hall. “With all due respects sir, their leader beat us to it in playing dirty, and Erik didn’t do much to help really, nor did Devin.” Shard said, and Erik growled impassively.
“We will speak of your individual failures another time. ERIK, SHARD! If you wish to remain Jr. Masters, you must not continue this type of blasphemous failure. And, because you left Devin behind, I’m sure those three know something of our plans by now. We must up plan efficiency 100%, and I want you all to gather forces. Now!”

—
Tripping over one another as they all tried to cram through the high oak doors at once, Blast, Cross, and Riella arrived at Grendel’s home in Ellinia. All three tried to babble the situation at once –Blast had informed them on the way just how serious it was, but Grendel silenced their chatter, descending to the ground as the glow around him faded.
“Hush children, now just one of you, BlastMage. Tell me what is the matter.” he said.
“The DarkStriders are planning to disrupt the time fields!” Blast burst out.
“Oh, no.. this is very serious indeed.” he said, tipping back his huge white hat to look at them under the brim. “With the time fields off kilter, boss monsters can escape once again into the world. They are what maintain the looping flow of time inside party quest areas. Without these fields, these barriers… the world will be thrown into chaos.”
“But what does this guild mean to gain by freeing boss creatures?” BlastMage said.
“Who knows, the beasts are typically far too savage to reason with, but if they came into control over them, I would think they aim for no less than world domination.” Cross stepped forward, and frowned.
“Well, how do you recommend we stop them!?” he exclaimed.
“The only way would be to get in there at the same time, and reverse their disruptions. Here, I think I have just the thing.” Grendel went across the room to a chest, and waving a hand over it, it cracked open and he drew out a small pouch before closing it again. “These medallions have the power to create dimensional barriers like the ones used to keep boss monsters contained, back in the days of great turmoil, warriors who defeated the monsters King Slime, Alishar, and Zakum were wearing these, and the time fields were created. You’ll have to wait for the DarkStriders to disrupt the fields, and then defeat the monsters who escape.” he finished, handing them each a medallion in the shape of a glowing blue disk, on silk cords.
“How are we supposed to beat Zakum!?” Blast burst out. “They might free him any moment!”
“Oh, don’t worry, out of all the boss creatures, Zakum is the most stubborn and least negotiable. It may take them ages to convince him to join them, and I doubt they’ll set him loose on the world before he joins their cause. For now, worry about King Slime and Alishar.”
“Well guys,” Blast said, “I think we should get to it. King Slime and Alishar are leagues apart, so we’re going to have to split up. You should probably go rally the forces against King Slime, me and Riella are better suited by far to take down Alishar.”
“Ugh, fine” Cross grumbled, “I’ll keep in touch.” Grendel chuckled softly as the three ran out into the town, more young heroes out to save the world. So like him in his younger years.