Chapter 447: Even more scary

Mason charged towards Nassau’s wall, glad nearly all his people stayed up in the (hopefully out of reach) tree-city levels and the Nexus above. He didn’t know exactly what was happening, but his paranoia was bleeping like a fire alarm.

A specific ‘event’ from the new phase? Planar teleportation magic? He assumed it meant invasion.

A few seconds of sprinting, and a superhuman jump, and Mason was crouched on top of the wall. His hot breath misted in the chilling air, his muscles screaming for violence. Sometimes he wished his paranoia was wrong. But it definitely wasn’t this time.

The ‘event’ wasn’t remotely subtle.

He stared out at a swirling red…cloud, now covering a thinner patch of the forest canopy. The shade of it swallowed at least a fifty foot diameter, and he could see the plants beneath were already dying. Even the trees were losing their leaves and going gray, like winter was fast approaching.

But there was nothing natural about this ‘winter’. From shadows even darker than the absence of light, Mason could see

things

moving on the forest floor.

An animal noise nearly made him spasm in panic before he recognized the sound was in his mind. The Stag was damn near breying in his ear, and after a moment of hesitation he Called Beast to summon it on the stone wall next to him.

He was still sorting out a joke about mountain goats and balancing on the wall when the Stag looked out at the planar ‘rift’ and…growled?

Demons

, it said low with anger in his mind.

We should destroy them quickly, before they get worse.

“Happy to,” Mason said, inspecting the creature. “Wouldn’t have guessed fey-dwelling, albino stags were obvious demon hunters.”

The creature gave him a ‘what would you know’ kind of glare.

“OK. Well. Let’s go get them.”

“Get who?” said a conspicuous nothing that smelled like Carl. “And why is there a giant white goat on our wall?”

“Carl, meet Stag. Stag, Carl.”

“Oh. Nice to uh…” Carl materialized and stuck out a hand before putting it to his head, clearing his throat and looking out at the demons. “I see dead trees. And a weird looking shadow.”

Mason frowned. “You don’t see a giant red cloud?”

“Negative. Well, wait.” Carl’s eyes glazed. “Nope. I sense some kind of magic if I look for it. But I still don’t see any red clouds.”

Interesting

, Mason thought. He imagined it had something to do with his bond, or possibly affinity type. But as long as the others could see any creatures that came out, he supposed that was good enough. Though he realized he wasn’t sure how to actually…

“How do we close these ‘rifts’?”

“How the hell should I know?” Carl said.

“I was asking the goat.”

Carl’s mouth opened and closed. “That’s…mildly insulting.”

They can be closed with magic

, said the Stag in Mason’s mind.

Or they can be closed with demonic blood. Spill enough and it will shrink and fade to nothing. But they must be destroyed in the circle. Killing them outside is all but useless.

“Right.” Mason glanced back to see the rest of his players running for his position on the wall. At about the same moment he started wondering if there’d be more ‘rifts’, he saw another red cloud forming about a hundred feet away.

Great. Just great. He raised his voice so everyone could hear.

“We have demons coming out of portals. If you see dead trees or shadows or red clouds, that’s where you want to kill them. We have to go out there, or we can’t close the portals. Any questions?”

“Uh, yeah.” Seamus floated up panting. “They immune to fire, like? Bein’ demons and all.”

Mason glanced at Stag, who looked back at the portal.

Demons are as varied as nightmares, ranger. There is nothing that is not possible.

“Some maybe,” Mason translated. “There’s more than one portal so I want all the established ‘explorer’ groups together, the ones before we held back Carl and Becky. Stick with your teams. Protect each other. I’m taking this first portal alone. Carl and company take the other. Phuong…wait, where’s…”

“Here, Patron.” The swordsman jumped the stairs and climbed up beside him. “I apologize for being late.”

“You call the next group up if I’m busy. And shout for help if you need it. Anyone but me see the red clouds?”

Everyone shook their heads and Mason cursed inwardly. He pointed at the second portal.

“It’s there. Head over. When the demons stop coming, get back to the wall. Any other questions?”

The last few players had trickled in now, and Becky gave Mason a wink. He couldn’t help but smile at the increasingly fearless cowgirl, his normal anxiety for her shrinking as she grew in power.

“OK. This isn’t a fake tournament. Don’t do anything stupid.” He opened his mouth to say ‘be ready for anything’ before catching himself, and also a lot of grins. “Fuck off. I’m going.”

He jumped off the wall, not sure if he’d have to help Stag down or not. The ‘animal’ easily dropped the good thirty feet and bounded off in graceful leaps ahead of him.

“Bit of a flex, but, fine,” Mason muttered, summoning his elven bow as he raced behind it.

**

Demons, as it turned out, were not immune to arrows. Mason wasn’t sure exactly what was demon and what was shadow, but since he had infinite arrows he ultimately just started circling the portal and shooting at everything inside.

Turned out

all

the ‘shadows’ were demons. They were just demons in various states of summoning, and the arrows would either vanish into the liquidy darkness without much effect, or they’d strike something more fleshy and usually produce an angry growl.

A growl sound that quickly became very satisfying.

But monstrous beasts in various shapes and sizes were soon stepping out from their patches of darkness. A seven foot, horned creature that looked a bit like a minotaur, broke off one of Mason’s arrows lodged in its chest, and charged straight for him.

He loosed a Power Shot, but the son of a bitch actually dodged it, or possibly tripped, lowering just enough the missile passed over and exploded a dying tree. Mason was about to summon a Claw when Stag flashed by him with a blast of air.

The two horned creatures struck with a crack so loud it rang in the trees, and the minotaur blasted back a good five feet before sprawling drunkenly on the forest floor.

Stag snorted and pawed the dirt in obvious triumph.

They must die in the portal, ranger

, it said in his mind.

I suggest you move in.

“Why does this game hate bows,” Mason muttered, running forward as he switched weapons. He grabbed the dazed demon by the horn en route, dragging it back under the cloud before slicing its throat.

I will keep them inside with you

, said the Stag.

Run if you are overwhelmed.

“Run if I’m overwhelmed,” Mason muttered, twirling his Claws as he stepped to what looked like…a giant banana pudding with arms. “Did you hear what the goat said?” he told it. The thing slid towards him and moaned, and he hacked off what he decided was its head. “The balls on this thing.”

Banana-pudding-demon did not, apparently, need its head. It reached for him with its spindly arms, which he promptly sliced off before turning on an ugly man-boar demon.

Man-boar-demon at least

did

need its head, and soon dropped lifeless to the ground. It proceeded to melt into the dirt, the stink alone enough to ruin Mason’s day.

“OK,” he said. “Maybe the smell of Arcane isn’t so bad.”

The shadows were forming into flesh now with increasing speed. He ran between them slicing down a true diversity of awful, happy not to show any favoritism. Two smaller creatures immediately fled as they spawned, and both got rammed into oblivion.

Before long—besides the stink—Mason was actually starting to enjoy himself. He criss-crossed the red circle hacking demons apart, watching messages flare about his ‘planar aura’ getting stronger.

He wondered without much hope if it might offset his player killer aura a little. Maybe if he slaughtered enough man-eating monsters people might start to think of him as a little less scary.

Or else they’ll think I’m even more scary

, he realized,

and that I kill monsters

and

people with equal joy.

He sighed as he cut another man-boar in half, wincing as a splash of apparently acidic blood started steaming down his shin and foot. The pain shivered up his body, and he watched Transformation eagerly tick away.

“Just don’t give me hooves, please,” he muttered. “The goat will think I admire him or something.” He tried to imagine his feet growing something like rubber boots instead, then turned back to his grisly task, listening for the others in case they called for help.

After a particularly juicy kill of a demon that looked like a water balloon, the portal hissed all around him and started shrinking with a series of screams. The shadows pulled towards the center, writhing and grasping with clawed hands at the forest floor with no effect.

The red ‘cloud’ sucked up into the same small circle, and in a few moments the whole thing had entirely vanished.

“Easy.” Mason grinned, turning to give Stag a wink. Then he realized at least four more portals were open around Nassau, with one having appeared directly over the settlement. He grit his teeth, and raced for the wall.