Grand Game 465: Facing off with the Devil (Patreon)

Riders and Blades. One group was coming through the shaft, the other up the stairs. 

And Ghost and I were caught between.

I dared not trust the Blades, and the Riders could follow my every move. “What’s the plan?” Ghost asked, echoing my own thoughts.

I hesitated a moment longer, then said, “Unmanifest.”

“You sure?” she asked, her mindvoice thick with surprise.

“Yes,” I said more decisively.

“But I thought the plan was to—” 

“The plan has to change,” I interjected. The shaft was compromised unfortunately. With an unknowable number of Blades hiding somewhere beyond, I couldn’t simply use it to escape the Riders.

But that was not to say I couldn’t use the shaft, at all.

A more… creative solution was called for than the one I’d originally planned. “For now,” I told Ghost as her spirit began to unravel, “we simply watch and wait.”

✵ ✵ ✵

Ghost has unmanifested.

You are hell-tracked. Remaining duration: 25 minutes.

You have recast vanish.

It didn’t take long for things on the third floor to get busy.

First came the Blades, black-clad figures swarming out of the shaft by the dozens. Then, my sharp ears picked up on the tramp of hundreds of feet marching in lockstep. The Riders.

Sitting in a pen occupied by only a dead hellbat, I went still and tense. I was not sure what surprised me the most. The fact that the Riders’ approach was as measured as it was—or the Blades’ numbers.

No way, that many of them have been hiding in the fort all along, I thought. Peering through the openings in the fence, I began counting.

But had to give up at two hundred.

The Blades did not stand conveniently still. Moving quickly, they spread themselves about the stable until I lost track of most of them. And still more kept emerging from the shaft.

A hostile entity has failed to detect you. 

Swiveling my head upward, I studied the player that had perched herself on the top of the pen. The Blades, unlike the Riders, were not privy to my location. And from the earlier overheard conversation, it was clear that they, too, suffered from the effects of the psi dampening field.

“This hellbat is dead,” the Blade—a woman named Chia—hissed.

“A lot of them are,” someone out of my line of sight called softly. 

As yet, it appeared the Blades had not heard what I had—the slow tread of armored men and women making their way up their stairwell. What would they do when they finally recognized the threat? I wondered.

“Wow,” Chia exclaimed as she scanned the main aisle. “That Power really did a number on the Riders. Look at all those corpses!”

“He didn’t go down easily, that’s for sure,” a second Blade said, whistling in soft appreciation. 

“How did he do it?” a third player asked.

“Traps,” Chia pronounced decisively. “I’ve spotted at least three that are still active.” 

“Stupid dumb Riders,” a Blade chuckled.

“Serves them right,” someone else muttered darkly.

“Cut that chatter!” another Blade ordered, “Focus on your tasks. Once we get started the Riders are sure to interrupt. Chia find another pen. The rest of you, get into position—and mind the damn traps!”

My eyes narrowed as I recognized the Blade leader’s voice. Yara. Like me and Tyelin she had been part of the raiding party, and I could say with almost certainty, she’d not been in the fort when its defenses went up. 

The conclusion was inescapable. The Blades had a way in—and out.

More worrying, though, was that if Yara was here, then so was the rest of the raiding party. Tyelin is in the fort. He had to be. By and large, most of the Blade players did not concern me. Blythe’s envoy, on the other hand, would not be as easy to deal with.

And I was becoming increasingly convinced that I would have to deal with him. The Blades’ presence here, the obviously planned manner of their maneuvers, and their secret means of entering the fort, all betokened one thing: I’d been betrayed.

It was obvious now that Tyelin had not needed me to deliver his poison. He could have done so himself—easily. 

So, for what reason had the envoy sent me?

“The wards,” I murmured in belated realization. “Tyelin needed me to trip the wards.” 

“I don’t understand,” Ghost complained. “Couldn’t the Blades have done that themselves?”

“They could’ve,” I agreed. “But that would have spoiled their attack.” 

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The wards made a surprise assault… problematic. Not only would it have alerted the Riders, but many of the Blades depended on psi as much as I did. In fact, the psi dampening field had probably been designed to combat the Blades—not me.

Then, too, if I had entered via the ground floor entrance as Tyelin had originally intended, it would have drawn the Riders’ focus there, leaving the blades free to slaughter the hellbats on the third floor, which I was sure now was Yara’s intent.

I was mere distraction. A feint. 

I swallowed angrily. I had been so caught up by the notion of the cynacilin poison, I’d not realized it. In fact, it would not surprise me if the entire story with Jone was utter fabrication. Tyelin had used it to distract me as much as he was using me to distract the Riders.

But not everything is going Tyelin’s way, I thought, recalling Hycrail’s previous words. The Blades had been forced to move ‘early.’ My entry through the fort’s roof had thrown the Blades’ carefully laid plans into disarray. 

My face hardened. And I had every intention of spoiling them further.

“Yar!” a Blade hissed from the direction of the barn doors.

Unbending, I peeked over the top of the pen.

The Blade in question—a thief named Smythe—was signaling frantically to Tyelin’s lieutenant.

“What?” Yara hissed back.

“Riders are coming!”

Swiveling about, the orcish woman broke off from the orders she was issuing to give Smythe her full attention. “Already?”

The thief nodded vigorously. “They’re assembling near the stairwell.”

“How many?” Yara demanded.

“Can’t say,” Smythe rasped. “A hundred? Two hundred? More are still spilling out of the entrance, and by the look of it, they know we’re here. The mages’ shields are up, and the warriors are practically glowing with all the buffs they’ve activated.”

A variety of emotions—consternation, surprise, fear—flickered across Yara’s face, but they didn’t stop her from acting. “Begin!” she ordered.

“But we’re not ready yet!” someone else protested.

“It doesn’t matter,” Yara ground out harshly. “We’re out of time. Those of you still out of position, gather at the stable doors. We’ll hold the Riders there!”

No one else argued, and almost as one, those Riders perched on the fences dropped down into their assigned pens while those still in the aisle hurried toward the main doors. 

I shook my head grimly. Yara’s orders were a death sentence. The Blades could not go toe to toe with the Riders and expect to survive. And from the look on the orc’s face as she planted herself at the barn doors, she knew it too.

“Which side do we join?” Ghost asked.

It was a good question and one which I was not ready to answer. While the Blades might be unaware of my presence in their midst, the Riders were most assuredly not and would not let me stay out of the fray. I would have to act. 

But how?

Turning my head from left to right, I scanned the room. All about me, the hellbats were dying—a fact not lost on the Riders assembling in the room beyond. Spurred into action, they surged towards the stable, setting the floor trembling with the fury of their charge.

I didn’t have much time. I had to act.

But did I help the Blades who had betrayed me—or the Riders who could track me? My gaze fell on the shaft at the rear. Or did I flee?

“Prime?” the pyre wolf interrupted. “What are we doing?”

Rising all the way, I jumped lithely onto a fence post. 

Multiple hostile entities have failed to detect you! You are hidden. 

“As always, Ghost, we’re on our own side,” I said.

I tasted her eagerness at my pronouncement. “We kill everyone then?”

My lips twitched upward. “That will not be possible this time, I’m afraid,” I replied as I scanned the adjacent pens. Finding what I was looking for, I hurried over.

✵ ✵ ✵

The pen was occupied—not just by a hellbat but also by a Blade who was hacking away furiously at the creature. Remaining crouched in my chosen corner, I waited patiently for the player to finish.

It took longer than it should have, but finally, the hellbat gasped its last breath, and I rose to my feet. “Took you long enough,” I whispered.

The Blade whipped around, his eyes wide and startled, but before he could release the warning bubbling in his throat, I slid ebonheart up and into his torso.

You have killed Mazeen with a fatal blow.

You have cast mimic, transforming your visage into that of Mazeen, a level 170 human scoundrel and concealing your Powerful Initiate Mark. Duration: 10 hours.

Easing the corpse to the ground, I quickly stripped it of the loose-fitting black outer garments that all the Blades had draped over their armor. Removing the Cloak of the Reach, I redressed just as fast, then shoved Mazeen’s body under the wings of the dead hellbat.

The corpse wouldn’t stay unfound, but it should go undiscovered long enough for the Blades to remain ignorant about what I’d done.

“Is this really necessary?” Ghost asked while I still held her cloak in my hands.

“Unfortunately, I don’t see another way,” I replied as I rolled up the Cloak. “But don’t worry, I’ll let you out soon.”

Sighing heavily, Ghost didn’t respond.

Taking her silence as agreement—if reluctantly given—I packed away the precious spirit vessel into my bag of holding. Exiting the pen, my gaze naturally locked on the barn doors. 

Just as I’d expected, the Blade force gathered there was in tatters. Yara was already dead as were half of the players that had accompanied her. And at the forefront of the Riders cleaving through the Blades’ ranks was a familiar figure in red.

Malikor. 

Mammon’s envoy was as heavily armored as the first time I’d seen him. Now, though, he also had his defenses up. Enveloped in a red dome and wielding a broadsword that glowed just as crimson, the paladin struck down another Blade. Wrenching free his sword, the envoy raised his head and stared directly at me.

Or rather, the spot I occupied. 

Despite my new guise, I’d chosen to keep vanish active. Ignoring the nearby Blades surrounding him, the envoy leveled his sword in my direction. “You are a dead man!” he roared.

“Hells,” someone to my right moaned. “It’s Malikor.”

“The Devil himself,” someone else muttered.

Wrenching my gaze away from the envoy, I turned about to take in the room. Most of the Blades were done with their grim work, yet none of them seemed in any hurry to aid those being slaughtered at the entrance.

“We can’t stand against them,” another Blade said, echoing my own thoughts on the matter.

“Where’s Yara?”

“Dead.”

“Damn. So, what do we do?”

“Flee,” I shouted, grasping the opportunity to shepherd them toward the right choice.

“Who said that?” a Blade demanded.

“Does it matter?” another interjected. “He’s right! I’m going too.”

“No, wait you—”

“Zul ain’t wrong, Dox. Let’s get out of here.”

Slowly, then in ever-increasing numbers, the Blades raced toward the shaft at the rear of the stable. Heaving a deep breath, I dropped my invisibility and turned back to the envoy.

Malikor was still glaring at me. Only now, he was muttering under his breath too.

Bowing mockingly in the envoy’s direction, I spun around and joined the Blades in their flight.