The fifteen of us were now standing back outside the temple in the open space between the market stalls. Despite the apprehension, nothing bad had happened to us in there. Not that I was disappointed—but maybe underwhelmed. Leyla’s group had picked out a few items from the side room, the dwarf in her Party who was more beard than person now had a tall hat upon his head. It would have looked ridiculous, had I not burned the part of my brain that dealt with that sort of thing to ashes.
“Hey, trickster?”
I turned my attention to Ren. “Yes, dear?”
“I shot the temple up there, did I not?”
My brows knitting together, I looked up at the front of the building where she had indeed fired a bullet into it not that long ago. Any evidence of this act was no longer present. As if it had never happened.
“Just like the claw marks,” Quinn murmured, the rest of my Party paying attention to our conversation. They knew to stay alert - especially if I was out of sorts.
The first conclusion I jumped to froze the blood in my veins. The System was resetting this area back to a default state. If that was so, were the Eternal Wardens just vanished as they weren’t part of this original setting? Such a conclusion made me feel ill, as that could mean we could be wiped from existence at any moment. Just for standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I edged my mental state away from this cliff’s edge. That explanation—while completely valid and possible—didn’t sit quite right with me. The building had regenerated, but we had been here longer than that time. We were fine, so it was unlikely to be the reason. It also didn’t explain the claw marks.
There had been no spell books or other mysterious tomes in the library, but plenty of empty shelf space. I wondered if… no, I shouldn’t speculate.
“Alright, Detective Demon-ass, what are you thinking?” The elf scowled at me, but there was no true ire in her question.
“Well…” I rolled my eyes. Despite playing off that I could see through any trick, I didn’t feel qualified for this situation. “If I were to make a very large assumption, I would say that the Eternal Wardens caused this themselves.”
“No shit,” Fiona interjected from the side, her group now listening in. “They got too big for their boots and fucked themselves into oblivion.”
“Sounds like my teen years,” someone murmured at the back, to a chorus of light chuckles.
“Rather, I mean intentionally,” I clarified. Shit, I really hated hecklers. My right hand twitched, before I calmed myself. Smile never wavered. “Accidentally summoning something they couldn’t handle was step one. Step two was something cast a spell that saved the area, somewhat literally.”
Ren nodded along, every my supportive equal. “Rather than set their hubris-made-real on the world, they set up something that reset the town to a prior state. Probably only works on the structures?”
So the System-created had just vanished, maybe dead or cleaned up by the refresh. The Players, equally as dead, and any evidence of the bloodbath had been erased.
Wolf looked up at me, not looking too enamored with standing around doing nothing. “Are you able to sense and destroy the spell, brother?”
“Hmm. I can make an attempt? I’ll probably need to hold Ren’s hand to do it, however.”
The elf rolled her eyes, but complied. She was fully aware I did not need to do such a thing, but played along because a little romance greased the squeaky wheels of our turmoil-laden existence in this world.
I calmed my breathing and closed my eyes. It had felt so simple in hell, but up here was so… noisy?
Rather than the gray notepad filled with white outlines detailing the dummies following me along—the elf having pointed ears and a little more shading drawn in—with a couple of lines of magical power, it was instead a mess. Spaghetti gone wild. Everyone was wearing magical items or had a buff or aura around them, complicating my detection.
It was like trying to pick out a thread of white yarn in a blizzard. Couldn’t see the overarching energy of the town with all the busyness clouding my immediate vision.
“Sorry,” I eventually said, deflating and shaking my head. “It turns out three groups of Players is rather radioactive. I’ll need more space to see with clarity.” Either that, or someone was intentionally obscuring my view.
A quick glance at those gathered didn’t pick out any obvious suspect. I trusted most of them, anyway. We had saved Leyla’s companions, so I didn’t think they’d betray us. Fiona and her group were fine, other than the paladin and spellcaster who were partial unknowns. Even the lion-man, Magnus, had held a softer expression toward us since meeting back up.
They had grown to accept us, seeing the necessity of us being rather cutthroat.
“Perhaps we can just move on?” Tanya suggested, still staring at the spot Ren had shot. “If this area is inert, we have nothing to gain here.”
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She had a point, but I wavered in agreeing with her outright. I still felt like there was something threatening here. There had been a constant hum in my arm that signaled the proximity of Guardian powers. Some hint as to what the Eternal Wardens had done would have been nice. What if they had been successful, and this was the result of their new strength? No, that didn’t make sense.
So what if it was the Guardian here, maintaining control of the town after having slaughtered everything in it?
I ran my tongue across my lips. That tasted more like reality. Something similar to a Domain. The question wasn’t whether we should leave this place, but were we allowed to?
While my eyes switched between all the vacant buildings in the area, I started to feel like a fly trapped in a spider's web. Just because I was a fly armed with a flamethrower and a handful of grenades, it didn’t mean I was in any less danger.
“No,” I eventually said.
“May… I ask why?” Tanya asked.
“Yes.”
She exchanged a glance with the elf, and Ren gave my hand a squeeze. “Focus, trickster. Use your social skills.”
“Get into formation,” I murmured. “We’ve just about worn out our welcome.”
She nodded, her expression immediately becoming stern. After letting go of my hand, she joined Tanya in getting everyone arranged and prepared. For what? I wasn’t entirely sure just yet.
Wolf remained by me, his eyes narrowing at the market stalls. “Are you sure, brother? I cannot sense anything.”
“Have you ever heard of the expression, ‘can’t see the forest for all the trees’?” I was fully aware that he was a bear and probably hadn’t, but the System often worked miracles with translations.
“I’ve seen a lot of both in my time,” he grumbled.
“Same, brother.” I flexed out the fingers on my hands.
If anything, my failed magic sense had been a clue in the making—if not the breadcrumbs to lead me to this conclusion. We couldn’t see the monster because it was exuding normality. The town was proof of this. It had the power to return things to how they should be. In some ways, it was the town, but unlike the mimic buildings in hell, it was both more subtle and more overt at the same time.
My demonic ace hovered beside me and I loaded it with three spells scrolls.
“Remember,” I told the bear. “Keeping everyone safe is priority. Let me be me, and focus on that.”
He grunted but gave me a nod. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to keep people safe, he just liked to be at the forefront of any fight. I was being strict. I wanted a perfect show. Flawless, with no injuries. A high bar that would break me when I inevitably failed, but I had a lot of pressure to perform.
Something that a nod from the elf helped release, the steam powering me forward to the steps of the temple. I stopped only four up—just enough to be set apart and higher than all my peers. Such a comfortable position for me.
“Oh great Chameleon,” I called out, my stage-voice taking the words through the open space with clarity. “Won’t you grace us with your presence?”
My open armed invitation was met with silence for several seconds. Just before any of my cohorts could murmur a question as to my intention, a loose spray of dust came off the edge of the temple.
All eyes rose up as the air above us flickered, the shape of something emerging perched on the building above us.
The books had at least given me the names of the Guardians. They didn’t mean much in a vacuum, but now, with the context clues, I was partially certain this was the Chameleon. Mine had been the Siren.
Rather than some manner of giant reptilian creature, the body shimmering back into visibility was something slightly. The shape of the body and the way it gripped at the edges of the temple certainly had familiar tones of such a lizard, but it had dense coarse fur of muddied brown rather than scales. Their head was something more like that of a lion, although slightly flatter in appearance. Bulbous eyes of swirling green light looked over our groups, moving independently. The wide jaw full of foot-long fangs opened and closed slightly as it breathed.
“More morsels come to destroy and ruin?” the Chameleon asked, long fingers cracking at the stone as its grip tightened.
“Would you rather we left you in peace?” I responded.
Both eyes swiveled down to stare at me. “Were you not Guardian killers, I may have shown you leniency. Some of you, anyway. So destructive, so destructive.”
It was clearly agitated, seemingly a being that craved order. I wouldn’t be surprised if the place it had been summoned from was ordered and the current chaos here was maddening for it. So they had decided to maintain the town to a certain state. Then we had come along and put our dirty mitts on everything. Moved books. Brought chaos.
The problem now was… I wanted one of my Party members to have Guardian powers. Wolf would be preferable, but I’d accept it being either of the other two. Strength meant survivability. A few steps closer to our overall success.
While the creature looming above us was looking at us like we were a freshly prepared hot meal, I was glaring at them with the exact same desire. I could even feel Ren eager to put a few new breathing holes through the monster, even as she was standing a good two dozen feet away from me.
“I offer you a compromise, then. A deal we can make - to leave this place in order.” I could feel my eyes glowing brighter, my true nature so eager to burst out from this false act of pleasantry.
The Chameleon looked repulsed at the notion, literally recoiling away from me as if I was a bad smell. “What could you even offer me that I couldn’t take for myself?”
“Lay down your life and give over you power, and we’ll make it quick and painless.” A burning sensation ran through my right arm. It wasn’t as visceral a reaction as against a Player who had Guardian powers, but it was close—if only because it was now fueled by cold hatred.
The Chameleon paused, just staring at me blankly. I wondered if he could sense it. No—he certainly could. While he had made mincemeat of more Players than this before, it was different now. The king and queen of hell, empowered by Guardians ourselves. He was outnumbered, and the System was whispering in his ear.
“You must have caught me on a good day, mortal,” the creature spat, before running his long tongue across his sharp teeth. “I will allow you to leave if you never return here.”
The relief spreading through the others was almost tangible.
[Max: Take the others and run. Wolf, protect their escape.]
[Tanya: Understood.]
[Wolf: ppps]
I flexed my hands out and grinned up at the chameleon. “Sorry, pal. I will have to decline.”
“Foolish! Your hubris will crush you before I tear you to shreds.” He snarled.
I clicked my fingers, and the others turned to run. Ren remained in place, and the bear physically stood between the row of our companions and the threat of the Guardian.
“You are under the mistaken belief that we are in your lair,” I said, my expression cooling off. As horns started to sprout from my head, my hat fell off, bouncing down the stairs behind me.
“Unfortunately…” I continued, as my wings snapped out. “You’re in mine.”