Chapter 151 - Wrongness (Patreon)

Carlos sat beside Tucker, the hulking alchemist, trying to ignore his constant stream of questions. He wasn’t fooled by the man’s affable tone; he knew an interrogation when he heard one, even if Tucker’s method included a host of inane, seemingly innocuous comments.

“You’ve really got that boy band, Tiger Beat thing going here, don’t you?” the man said, gesturing in Carlos’s vague direction. “Good for you. Bet you’ve got to beat the girls away with a stick. Me, I always had to work a little more for it. I remember when I first met my wife, she took one look at me, then promptly went the other way. It wasn’t until we had a class together the following semester that she gave me the time of day.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carlos lied.

“Yes, you do,” Tucker said. “I know a native when I see one, and you’re not it.” He gestured toward the statue-still Talia, who clung to the obsidian walls like a pale shadow, and said, “That over there – that’s a native. Beacon born and bred. But you? You’re from Earth. I can see it in the way you walk and talk, not to mention your powers.”

Carlos said, “You don’t know me.”

Tucker raised a thick eyebrow before saying, “I know more than you think. Remember – I’m not like these others here, who are just getting started. They’ve been in the Radiant Isles for a few years. But me? I’ve got decades. I’ve been around. I’ve lived in Jariq, and I still have friends there.”

“Good for you,” Carlos said, wishing the conversation would end. He made to stand, but was stopped by a meaty hand. Glaring at its owner, Carlos took on a quiet, menacing tone as he said, “You really want to go there? Right now. Right here? It won’t end well for you.”

Since meeting Zeke and his friends, Carlos hadn’t truly let loose with his powers. Even if he needed their help, he didn’t trust any of them. So, he’d been underplaying his skills the whole time. Even against the miners, he hadn’t used their full might; if they were overrun, he was confident in his ability to escape.

Tucker held up a marble. “Do you know what this is?” he asked. Carlos didn’t answer, so the big man went on, “I hesitate to call it a grenade, even if it’s mostly accurate. It’s so small, you see. Most of my life in the Radiant Isles, I’ve been alone. I’ve never had to worry about collateral damage. You can’t hurt your teammates if you don’t have any to hurt. So, when it came to munitions, I always thought that bigger was better.”

“And now you don’t. Friendship is magic, I guess,” Carlos spat, working himself up to doing something he really didn’t want to do. He could recognize the beginnings of a threat when he saw it.

Tucker laughed, but there was no mirth to it. “Something like that,” he said. “But this miniature grenade, it doesn’t really do what you think it does.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

Tucker put his arm around Carlos’s shoulders, and with a chuckle, said, “You really are wound pretty tight, aren’t you? That’s expected for someone who flits about in the shadows like an emo Batman with superpowers. What is it you call yourself? Asasino? I know about that little skill that came with your spider tattoo, just like I know who you really are.”

“What are you going to do?” Carlos asked, holding his various skills on the brink of activation.

Tucker didn’t answer Carlos’s question. Instead, he held up the marble. Inside was a swirling vortex of pure light. “This thing really is a masterpiece,” he said. “I made it right after we found you.”

“What does it do?” Carlos asked, increasingly frustrated.

“It banishes shadows,” Tucker stated. “Lasts about an hour. Not sure of the radius, honestly. Might be a hundred yards. Might be a half mile. But I can guarantee that it’ll outrange your little shadow teleport. I wonder – what would happen if you were mid-transit, and suddenly, there was no shadow for you to pop out of? I can’t imagine it would be good.”

Carlos swallowed hard. If Tucker was telling the truth, and he had no reason to suspect that the tiny grenade wouldn’t do precisely what he said it would do, it was the perfect counter to Carlos’s skills. And given that the alchemist had made the marble appear out of nowhere, it stood to reason he could summon it at any time. If it came to that, and Carlos was suddenly without his powers, the rest of the group would make quick work of him. He was stronger than most people expected, given his focus on ranged combat, but he knew he couldn’t hold up against Zeke, Pudge, or Talia. Even Abby could hold her own in a melee, especially if she had her skills available. Carlos had seen as much during the fight against the possessed miners when Abby had been forced into defending herself hand-to-hand. She’d used a combination of her [Earthen Bonds] skill and a sword with arcing lightning dancing along its blade to great effect. And that was if she didn’t just call lightning down on him.

No – the threat was real, and it was valid.

“What do you want?” Carlos asked.

“For you to play nice,” Tucker said. “That’s it. I’m just looking out for my friends’ best interests.”

“They don’t even like you,” Carlos said, having picked up on the tension from the very beginning.

Tucker shrugged. “They just haven’t come around yet,” he said. “But I’m a lovable guy. They’ll figure that out sooner or later.”

The looming alchemist certainly didn’t seem very lovable to Carlos. In fact, he seemed like the most dangerous person in the room. He was certainly the most experienced and the highest level. Sure – he had taken a craftsman’s path to power, but he could obviously hold his own in a fight. And even though size didn’t necessarily translate to physical power, there was something to be said about the intimidation factor of being literally half the man’s size.

“Be glad it was me having this conversation with you and not Pudge,” Tucker said, joviality returning to his voice. “There would have been a lot more face eating if he’d had his way.”

As if on cue, the dire bear, who had been sitting in a corner and chewing on what looked like a giant insect leg, glanced in their direction and chuffed. The giant creature was even bigger than Tucker, and he had the physical stats to back it up. During the melee, Carlos had seen the bear rip one of the insanely durable miners’ legs clean off.

“Point taken,” Carlos said, pointedly keeping a quiver from his voice. He wasn’t ashamed of his fear; such emotions had their place. Rather, he knew that showing it to someone like Tucker was a bad idea. So, he shoved it deep down and left the big alchemist behind.

They still hadn’t moved on from the chamber containing the ritual plans, mostly because Zeke wanted to study them. Abby was trying to help, but it was clear that she didn’t have the knowledge base to do more than get in the way. That was true of all of them, save for Zeke himself, who seemed to know far more than any brutish warrior should. Seeing him evolve a skill – and forcefully, according to what Carlos had overheard – in the middle of a battle was unheard of. Never mind that he’d deactivated the suppression collar Carlos had been wearing when they met, and with no more effort than if it had been made of papier-mâché. Or the tower that had been summoned from nowhere. Or a hundred other little things that, all combined, terrified Carlos. The man wasn’t normal, that much was certain.

Again, he pushed the anxiety down and approached Zeke, who was bent over the desk and studying the ritual plans. Without looking up, Zeke said, “Don’t let Tucker get in your head.”

“What?” asked Carlos, surprised by the statement.

“He seems intimidating, but he’s trying to do the right thing,” Zeke said. Then, he looked up, adding, “Of course, his version of the right thing sometimes includes genocide, so…take that for what it’s worth. Not that I have any room to talk. About genocide, I mean. But in my defense, these trolls were –”

“Zeke,” Abby, who was standing nearby, interrupted. As she did so, she put her hand on his forearm. “Not the time.”

Zeke blinked. “Oh, right,” he said. “More important things. I think I’ve figured this thing out.”

“Oh?” asked Carlos. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he glanced behind him to see that Talia was staring in his directions. Even as her eyes bored into him, a shiver ran up his spine. She hadn’t moved from her position near the wall, but he had seen just how quickly she could cover that ground. If she chose to kill him, there really wasn’t much he could do to stop her from reducing him to a rotting pile of flesh.

“Stop staring, Talia!” came Tucker’s voice, coming from the corner where the alchemist was scratching Pudge behind the ears. The undead girl blinked, the movement looking forced, then looked away. Strangely, that was even more discomforting.

When Carlos turned his attention back to Zeke and Abby, she said, “Anyway…back to what we were talking about before…that?”

“Right,” Zeke said. “You really need to talk to her, by the way. Like, when we get out of here, I mean.”

“I will,” Abby said. “So, you figured it out?”

“Some of it,” he said. “I couldn’t reenact the ritual or anything, but breaking it is a lot easier than building one. I think I can see how to undermine the integrity of the ritual, and hopefully, it’ll collapse in on itself. The gate they’re trying to build will close, and the threat will end.”

“Look at you, sounding all smart,” Abby said, gripping his arm.

“You got all of that from a couple of hours studying those plans?” asked Carlos.

“Well, not really,” Zeke admitted. “But sort of. If you look at this ritual, it’s kind of like a giant rune. Or at least it hits some of the same marks.”

“And that makes it easier?” Carlos asked.

“For him, it does,” said Abby.

“I have an artisan path for runecrafting,” Zeke stated. “It’s not perfect, but there are enough similarities between this ritual and a real rune that I can make some pretty good guesses as to how to break this thing. And I’ve been studying a book on rituals, so that helps, too.”

“Honestly, I’m just surprised your first instinct wasn’t to start smashing things with your club,” Abby said with a grin.

“Uh…yeah,” Zeke said.

Abby’s smile faded. “You’re going to smash things with your club, aren’t you?” she said, a distinct tone of resignation evident in her voice. She sighed. “I guess I should’ve seen that coming.”

“So?” said an approaching Tucker. “What’s the plan, then?”

Abby didn’t miss a beat before saying, “Zeke’s going to smash the ritual with his mace.”

“I never said that I was going to –”

“Oh, cool. So, a normal day for him?” Tucker asked.

“I feel like everyone’s ganging up on me,” Zeke muttered. “I do more than hit things hard.”

“Right – you also hit things really hard,” Tucker stated. “And really, really hard.”

“He jumps, too,” Abby said. “Like, right at the monsters. Usually, when he does that, he gets swatted out of the air.”

“That’s happened like three times,” Zeke argued.

“Three times is a lot, though,” Abby said good-naturedly. “More than a normal person, at least.”

“Uh…can we talk about the plan?” Carlos asked, interrupting the banter. Not only did it make him feel like an outsider, but it felt inappropriate, given how many people’s lives had ended beneath the keep.

“Right,” Zeke said. He pointed to a spot on the plans, saying, “Every ritual has weak points. I’m not certain what they’re using as a medium for the energy, but these points represent confluences. My plan is to attack the structure at these points, and that should ruin the ritual.”

“That’s a little simple for my tastes,” Tucker said.

“It’s an incredibly complicated ritual that’s only barely stable,” Zeke said. “It doesn’t take much to screw it up.”

“I like it,” Abby said. “Complicated plans never work.”

“You clearly never watched the A-Team,” Tucker said.

“That’s an accurate statement,” Abby agreed.

Tucker rolled his eyes to the ceiling as he bemoaned the lack of culture afflicting what he called “today’s youth.”

“What about the lesser demons?” asked Carlos. “They’re leaking through this portal to the demon realm, right? That’s what you said. What’s to prevent them from attacking us?”

“Yeah – I was going to address that next,” Zeke said. “Tucker, you’re the only one who knows anything about these things. What can you tell us?”

Tucker answered, “You should be fine. I will be, too. Maybe Abby. Talia and Pudge are going to be vulnerable, though. Not sure about the new guy, either. What’s your wisdom?”

“I’m not telling you that,” Carlos said.

“More or less than a hundred?” asked Tucker.

“More. A lot more.”

“Okay, you should be good, then,” Tucker said. “When they try to take over, it’s like a mental attack. It won’t be pleasant, but if you have sufficient wisdom, you should be fine.”

“Sufficient meaning over a hundred,” Abby guessed. Tucker nodded, and Abby continued, “So, what about Talia and Pudge.”

“I’ve got a potion for that,” Tucker stated. “It drains mana to artificially increase mental resistances. I suggest we all use it, honestly. Just to be safe. I’ve got plenty to go around, so long as we don’t spend days down there.”

“You just had that laying around, huh?” said Abby.

Tucker shrugged. “It’s good to be prepared,” he said.

“Anyway, we go in, smash the ritual to pieces, kill whatever’s down there, and then we’re out,” he said. “No reason that should take more than a few hours, at most.”

“Famous last words,” Carlos muttered.

“What was that?” asked Zeke, fixing him with an unreadable expression.

“Nothing. Just used to everything going wrong, I guess,” he said.

Abby interjected, “It’s going to be fine. We’ve faced tougher situations.”

“Like the zombie horde,” Tucker said.

“Or the goats,” Zeke added.

“The goats weren’t that strong,” Abby said. “You just didn’t like them because the bounced you around like a beach ball.”

Pudge let out a huff, and Zeke let out a sigh. “The drachnids don’t even make the top ten anymore, buddy,” he said. Pudge chuffed again, and Zeke said, “Okay, maybe the queen. But the rest of them were just a speed bump.”

“Does he understand the bear?” Carlos asked, taking a vial from Tucker.

“He says he does,” Tucker answered. “But he’s kind of crazy, sometimes, so…eh.”

As Tucker handed out vials containing the potion, Zeke argued with the bear, whose only responses were various barks, chuffs, and huffs. It seemed like a one-sided conversation, but after everything Carlos had seen from the group, he didn’t rule out the possibility that Zeke really did understand the beast.

Once everyone had their potions, they abandoned the side chamber and continued their trek deeper into the cave system. As they did so, Carlos couldn’t help but marvel at how calm everyone seemed. They were careful enough, and certainly, they were all alert. However, each of them – save, perhaps, for Talia, who always seemed on the verge of a detached murder spree – were incredibly relaxed, almost as if they were going for a nature walk. For his part, despite being in his shadowy element, Carlos wasn’t so calm. In fact, his confidence, which had been the pillar upon which his public persona had been built, had been irrevocably shaken by his defeat and subsequent capture. He wasn’t as invulnerable as he’d once supposed, and that had shaken him to his very core.

But he’d also grown up idolizing superheroes, so he pushed his unease aside and focused on the things he could control. Holding his skills on the edge of activation, he stalked from one shadow to the next as he followed the group ever deeper. As they went, they encountered a few scattered possessed miners, but so long as there weren’t more than a handful of the poor people-turned-demon-vehicles, they posed little threat.

After about an hour, Carlos wiped the sweat pouring down his forehead. It had grown progressively hotter the deeper they went, and the rotten egg smell of sulfur hung thick in the air. They were drawing closer and closer to the portal with every step. The only question was what would happen when they did.

Carlos wanted to trust Zeke’s plan, simple as it was. But he had been in enough desperate situations that he knew things rarely went the way they were supposed to go. He excelled in adjusting to the shifting landscape of a battle, leaning on his high mobility and overwhelming offensive power to see him through. But here? In these caves? He felt as if he was walking to his death.

The deeper into the caves they traveled, the less the group bantered back and forth. With every slain miner, their joviality was further replaced by grim determination, and by the time the tunnel ended, whatever humor had so far survived fell away the instant they saw what awaited them in a massive cave.

The cave looked like a small city, with a diameter of at least a mile.  Bisecting it was a broad river of lava, flowing like water and giving off enough heat that, even half a mile away, it was uncomfortable. It cast the cavern in an orange glow that reflected off the obsidian, giving the entire place the appearance of a hellish landscape. That impression was supported by the ragged, burned, and barely ambulatory people shuffling back and forth, carrying blood mithril as they wove their way between the jagged, dagger-like stalagmites. No one had to look closer to know that they had been possessed. One after another, in a seemingly endless procession, the possessed men and women deposited the ore into a giant cauldron that rested in the lava river’s shallows before turning and retracing their steps to repeat the process.

Actual demons, recognizable from their red forms, sweeping horns, and cloven hooves, stood knee deep in the magmatic river, heedless of the heat as they tended to the melting ore. Carlos watched as another pair of demons dragged a second cauldron through the lava and replaced the first, taking it back the way they had come.

“I think we figured out what they were using to create the permanent portal,” Tucker said. “If they complete it, it’s going to be really difficult to destroy. Blood mithril is –”

Zeke interrupted, saying, “I know. Our timetable just got moved up. Everyone down your potions. We’re going in.”

“You don’t think we should scout it out?” asked Carlos. “I don’t think –”

Zeke pointed toward the stalactite riddled ceiling, and Carlos’s eyes followed the gesture to see a pair of winged shapes flapping in their direction. “They already know we’re here,” he said. “We don’t have a choice, now. As soon as they realize they can’t take us over, this whole place is going to come alive. We have to go now, or else we’ll never make it to the portal.”

Just then, a gleaming, silver arrow hit one of the creatures, and a bolt of lightning soon followed, illuminating it. Even as it fell to the ground, Carlos saw that its true form wasn’t solid as he’d expected. Instead, it was made of shadows, with deep red tendrils arcing out from its torso. Otherwise, the monster looked like a nightmarish bat, but with a strikingly human-like face. He identified it:

Lesser Demon – Level 21

As the lightning had hit the creature, one of its wings had disintegrated into scattered motes, and it had plummeted to the ground, crashing with a puff of black smoke. However, it wasn’t dead, because a moment later, Carlos saw it dragging its way toward them, its human-like face distorted into a silent scream.

Carlos swallowed hard, then tipped the potion into his mouth. It tasted like a weak tea, and immediately, he felt a slight drain on his mana. However, he also felt an uptick in his regeneration. The result wasn’t a net positive in how quickly he could regenerate his mana, but that wasn’t the point of the potion. Instead, it was intended to bolster his wisdom and enhance his mental defenses, a task at which it succeeded.

Even as Carlos downed his potion, everyone else did the same. Zeke even forced the liquid down Pudge’s throat, despite the bear’s protests. With that done, Zeke said, “Kill those first, then we move. Don’t stop until we get to the portal.”

“Where is it?” asked Carlos.

Zeke pointed into the distance, and Carlos could barely detect a slight shimmer in the air. It was like a beacon of wrongness, thrust toward the cavern’s ceiling.

“There,” Zeke said. He narrowed his eyes at Carlos and said, “You can’t afford to hold back anymore.”

“I wasn’t –”

“Yes, you were,” Zeke stated. “I don’t care why you were, but from here on out, we’re going to be walking a knife’s edge between life and something worse than death. This isn’t the time to hold your cards close to your chest.”

Carlos fully intended to argue the point; he didn’t like people knowing what he could do. It was why he’d created his alter ego in the first place. But right then, the lesser demon that had remained aloft reached them, and Pudge leapt into the air, ripping it to pieces. It wasn’t terribly durable for its level, but by the time the bear landed, he sported a few new wounds.

Carlos took a deep breath and said, “Okay. No holding back.”

And then everyone started running toward that pillar of alien energy.