Chaos erupted like a shaken bottle of cheap booze.
Patrons scrambled for the exits, knocking over chairs and tables in their haste to be anywhere but in the blast radius of what was clearly about to cost some people their lives, if it hadn't already.
Melisa kept her eyes fixed on Koros, but her peripheral vision caught Vira ducking behind the bar counter. Not running, just... hiding. Watching.
[What the hell is she doing? Can you just-]
"Get her!" Koros bellowed, his face contorting with rage.
[Shit.]
Three more goons rushed her from different angles. Melisa turned to draw a spellsign, but that distraction meant one of them got to her. A meaty fist swung toward her shoulder.
But, of course, what these people didn't know was that Melisa wasn't just a mage. For all the time she'd spent memorizing incantations and practicing spellsigns in the last year, she'd also spent nearly as many hours in combat training at the Academy.
