It was, he considered, a fortuitous development that the Guild Master had tasked him with this of all possible quests. After all, it had been in the back of his mind for a long while, and the sooner it was resolved, the less he had to worry about.

Jakob, Heskel, and Stelji walked behind their four temporary group members. The Silver-ranked Paladin and Flame Sorcerer, whose names he had immediately forgotten, as well as the Bronze-ranked Huntsman and Earth Sorceress. Of the four, only the Huntsman and Paladin seemed even remotely worthy of being remade, as the two magic-wielders were the bottom-of-the-barrel as far as talent went, and their ranks reflected their experience more than their acumen and skill, with the Flame-wielder being into his late fifties and thus having literally nothing but experience to rely on. It seemed all those ranked Gold and above had either perished in Market West already or were travelling beyond the lands of Helmsgarten to chase fame and fortune.

“What help shall they be, if they alone provided nothing to the subjugation of Mercilla already?”

“Fodder.”

“Little wonder the Guild Master was so desperate. He saw talent in us, and either feared it and thus sent us to our doom or prayed we could restore dignity to his institution…”

Bone plates shifted below her flesh-stitched cloak as Stelji moved in front of Jakob and Heskel, instinctively knowing they were about to reach the Market West cordon and its many Royal Guardsmen on watch.

“Is she capable of detecting the electricity within people?” he wondered out loud.

“Your strongest one yet,” Heskel replied.

“For you to say so makes me proud.”

After being let through the checkpoint guarded by two dozen guardsmen and crossing the only bridge leading in-and-out of the infested district, their party adopted a cautious formation, with Heskel, Stelji, and the Paladin in front, the two Sorcerers in the centre, and Jakob and the Huntsman in the rear.

“Look at this place,” the Huntsman mused in morbid fascination as he took-in the transformed district, where streets of stone and mud had become gelatinous flesh-like structures providing winding passages through warped and stretched buildings full of maws and writhing hands that grasped for them when they got close.

“Keep it down, Kabel,” the Paladin ordered, assuming the control of their group, as though it was natural that he would be leader. Of them all, he wore the most expensive-and-protective gear, being covered head-to-toe in full-plate and wielding a shield with some fancy coat-of-arms on its face, as well as a hand-and-a-half longsword with golden embellish along its central fuller and a flawless edge with not a single chip, scrape, nor dent.

“Fucking nobles,” the Hunter muttered under his breath.

They walked in cautious silence for a while, the gelatinous ground at times shifting to tough bone or flexible criss-crossed walkways of something akin to tendons or muscle-fibres.

“Do you think there will be minor demons too?” the Sorceress asked, clearly out of her depth.

Instead of silencing her, the Paladin replied boldly, “If so, I will protect you.”

“Demons of Gluttony are solitary,” Jakob enlightened them. “They eat everything in their surroundings, even servants and—”

“Don’t speak unless spoken to, Novitiate!” the Paladin admonished him. “Know your pla—”

With a powerful woosh, Heskel’s fist shattered the Braggart’s jaw and caved-in the side of his helmet. Despite his fanciful armour, the Silver-ranker fell to the ground like a sack of flour, its protection clearly less important than its ostentation.

The Earth Sorceress shrieked, and the Flame Sorcerer shouted, “Traitors! How dare you!”

“Silence!” Jakob ordered, his tone immediately halting whatever incantation the Flame-weaver was prepared to utter. “You are worthless. You were sent to die here! Do you not see it? Follow my lead or perish where you stand!”

The Huntsman stood frozen, then said, “He really killed him with one punch…”

Jakob was about to correct him, when he looked down and noticed that, yes, the Paladin was in-fact dead.

“Heskel. You used too much force.”

“Glass bones,” the Wight argued back in Novarocian.

A dark laugh emerged from the Hunter at the reply. Clearly he was not as naïve as the two other party members. “I’m in,” he then answered.

“Hmph, as if I’ll listen to some boy,” the Flame Sorcerer said.

Heskel was moments from bashing-in his head too, when the Hunter said, “Ichien. If you don’t come along, I’ll kill you myself.”

“Guys, stop!” the Sorceress pleaded. “We can still be a team, okay? Let’s do as he says.”

With a reluctant sigh, Ichien nodded. “Alright, lead the way.”

“We’re facing a Gluttony Demon within its territory.”

“And?” the old man asked.

“That means we wait for it to come to us, and prepare the field to our advantage.”

“Huh, so it’s not at all like hunting beasts,” Kabel mused. “I was lied to.”

“Demons consider themselves predators not prey.”

“MASTER…” The sound of shifting bone-plates accompanied her unsettling voice. Seeing Stelji go to the fore of their group, they all started backing away slightly.

“Seems time is not on our side. However, we do have one advantage.”

“And what’s that?” the Hunter asked.

“Gluttony Demons are very single-minded,” he replied with a puff of vented steam.

Without needing to be told, Heskel rushed to where the Paladin had fallen, and, despite the man’s heavy armour, picked him up with a single hand and tossed him overhead. The body flew through the air for several metres, as they all backed further away, its reflective plate-armour glinting with the rays of the setting sun. Before it could land atop a demonic three-mawed pale-skinned-and-veiny house, a massive shadow fell upon it, devouring the body in a single gulp.

The Flesh-Hulk had changed quite significantly after Mercilla had defied his binding contract, as normally such a contract would restrain the enslaved spirit and its destructive aura. Given that Demons were not of the Mundane Plane, their very presence seemed to unbalance the fabric of reality around them, akin to pressure seeking the path-of-least-resistance to equalise itself. The most obvious transformation happened to the vessel of a Demon, which altered itself to more closely resemble the true form of the possessing spirit. Given that Mercilla was a Viscountess of Voracity, her immense spirit could not be contained within an unsealed vessel, even one as fine as the Flesh-Hulk Jakob had constructed. Thus, as her essence leaked from her vessel, it caused the alterations that had mutated the very reality of Market West after her taking up residence within.

Where once it had been a spotless hunk of flesh, muscle, and skin, the Hulk now seemed more akin to a reanimated tumour that had been left to fester uncontrollably. The outmost layer of skin was purple, grey, and black, and where it had torn from its mass expanding from within, nightmarish maws had appeared, resulting in something that looked like a putrid hill of decay, with many different snapping maws full of teeth that came in all sizes and forms.

He found it quite uncomfortable to witness his splendid creation tarnished in such a manner. That alone was reason enough to destroy her, not to mention the affront of disobeying his contract when he had summoned her in the first place and given her such a fine vessel. But he also knew that eventually the Viscountess’ spirit would rupture its mortal cage completely and return her to the Demonic Realm, the fallout of such an event levelling most of Helmsgarten down to the deepest layers of its sewers. If he were to continue with his experiments, it would be a disruption he could not afford.

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“By the Eight Saint…” Ichien muttered in fear.

“Stelji! Fry it!”

“MASTER…” the Monstrosity uttered, shedding her hooded cloak to reveal her magnificent visage, the masterpiece of human anatomy and melded bone plates that he and Heskel had wrought within the bowels of the city.

Before the gigantic Mercilla, no one seemed to really notice Stelji’s inhuman figure, until the air began to vibrate and crimson lightning raced across the meaty ground to collide with the Mound of Demonic Flesh in a deafening crash of light. Seen from afar, it would look as if lightning had risen from the district to strike the skies above, where clouds began to let loose minor sympathetic thunderstrikes of their own.

“What is she?” the Hunter asked, dumbstruck.

“Perfection incarnate,” he replied.

The air began to vibrate again as a second lightning bolt raced over the ground and struck with another colossal crash. Stelji’s head looked to the skies and not the Demon Viscountess, the overlapping bone plates of her eyeless skull making her look more like an insect than a human. She raised her over-long arms toward the clouds, seeking to refill the elongated bulbous tanks that had replaced her lower arms and hands, wherein blood and lightning mixed through an intricate ritual diagram his Lifeward had invented. Heskel had yet again created the central feature of Jakob’s creation, showing that his genius had been untapped by Grandfather’s archaic mindset of how best to make use of his minions.

“She’s not human,” Ichien commented in awe, as lightning fell from above and struck the fingerless arms of Stelji, returning to her the lightning she had cast away, and mixing it with the blood that granted her flawless control over it. As she launched another crimson bolt of electricity, halting the Mound as it began to roll towards them, Jakob mused that his own contribution to her design was quite ground-breaking as well.

Within the severely-diminished chest cavity of the Lighting Tamer, a heart of paper-thin-and-flexible bone held the small ember of a Birthed Sentience, who ensured air and blood was constantly keeping Stelji’s brain alive, as well as handling the precise mixture of her blood entering the tanks, so that she could manipulate the rest of the blood within as her own. In essence, Stelji was a simple Wrought Servant, but given the assistance of a secondary intelligence with the ability to grow with experience, she could surpass the limits such a servant normally faced. Her impulses were translated into action by her Thinking Heart and, with every passing moment, that Heart grew more precise and deadly.

She was perfect. But still, there was room for improvement, and now, rather than wondering if he would ever be able to make a creation to surpass Heskel, it seemed more a matter of when.

“Return, Stelji!”

“MASTER…” she replied, running back towards him on her spike legs.

Since he had found her with barely half a body, he had taken liberties with everything below her ribcage, turning it into a sleek-and-lightweight hollow frame of a slender waist and needle-like footless legs. She was made for decimation, not fighting, and after seeing that her apocalyptic lightning strikes failed to destroy Mercilla, he thought it prudent to send her behind their group, so that her Thinking Heart could witness from afar and potentially spot a weakness in the Flesh-Hulk’s corpus.

“TINY THING,” the Viscountess of Voracity roared from the hundreds of maws that covered its enormous fleshy mound of a body. “HAVE YOU RETURNED TO FEED ME?”

An arrow bounced off her thick veiny skin, then another thundered into one of her mouths.

“What?” Kabel asked, when the old Sorcerer glared daggers at him. “Aren’t we going to attack it?”

“Do you really think we can beat that?”

“You won’t know until you try,” he replied nonchalantly. Jakob found it curious that he remained unphased by what he was seeing, but perhaps he was a kindred spirit, because neither did Jakob feel much aside from annoyance that the Demonette still lived.

Not waiting for their quarrelling to stop, Heskel moved forward with thundering stomps and gouged a hole in the bottom of the eight-metre-tall mound with a punch imbued with every drop of his strength. With a wail that hurt Jakob’s ears, the Viscountess’ enormous body quivered and thousands of hands emerged from all over its body and it started rolling towards the Wight, who wisely decided to get out of the way. The landscape was transformed by the steamrolling Demonette, the living houses flattening and the very ground altering with her passage. Mouths and arms emerged everywhere she touched.

Before she could even show off any of her magic, the Earth Sorceress was caught by three quadruple-jointed arms and dragged screaming-and-sobbing into a bottomless hole with teeth. Her piercing voice was swallowed as the hole chomped closed.

Yelling in outrage, the Flame-wielder launched a series of fireballs from his palms, charring the ground where the Sorceress had vanished, but managing little else.

“Lend me a light,” Kabel said, reaching towards the old man with a strange-looking arrow that had a cylinder at the end in place of an arrowhead.

Ichien did not listen though, and instead sent fireballs after the rolling mound, quickly leaving them behind to give chase.

“Well, shit… the old man has gone crazy.”

“Why do you need fire?” Jakob asked unperturbed by the scene before them: an enormous mound of putrid flesh rolling after a giant man, with an old magician hurling fireballs and yelling incoherently.

Kabel handed Jakob the strange arrow, before searching his pockets for a flint Firestarter. He looked at the arrow in his hands, trying to discern its function and purpose, but came up short.

I should study Engineering, it may be a worthwhile endeavour, he thought to himself.

Kabel found his Firestarter and handed it to Jakob, then took back the arrow and nocked it to his bowstring. Realising that the short string at the end of the arrow was like a candlewick, Jakob sparked the flint and set it alight.

With minimal effort, the Huntsman took aim and sent the arrow flying in a steep arc overhead, its candlewick beginning to fizzle and let off sparks.

“Watch this.”

Jakob held his breath as he followed the trajectory of the sparking arrow, and, then, with a loud snap, it broke mid-air just above where the rolling mound passed under, showering a huge curtain of flames all down its huge body.

“Fascinating,” Jakob remarked. He had never seen something like it before.

“Ha ha ha,” Kabel mock-laughed in proud glee. Then his expression soured.

A loud wail made the ground tremble, and the many arms of the rolling Demon halted its momentum and turned it towards their position.

“Oh shit…”

The Hunter took off running, the abomination now fixated on him. Jakob stayed put though, watching as it veered away from a collision-course with him. A sickening crunch came when it rolled over the mad Sorcerer and absorbed him into its mass, visibly growing as a result.

Moments later, Heskel found him.

“Any ideas on how to defeat it?”

The Wight nodded. “Stone Plague.”

“That seems unwise.”

“Yes.”

Jakob considered it seriously for a moment despite his warranted apprehension. “Can we contain it if we sever the bridge?”

Heskel grunted affirmative.

“Run to the bridge and destroy it. I will begin the Hymn. When you see it spread towards you, prepare to counteract the spell.”

His Lifeward put a heavy hand on Jakob’s shoulder, then locked eyes with him.

“I’ll be fine,” he told him, though he was not entirely sure it was the truth. Only time would tell. Part of him was secretly thrilled to attempt the spell however.

As Heskel ran off, he summoned Stelji to his side. She had not recovered her flesh-stitched cloak, as it had been swallowed by the Flesh-Hulk’s passing, but it hardly seemed to matter right then. He would craft another for her later.

“Find the Hunter and bring him outside the district. Once you are across the river, make your way to the Guild District. Make sure nothing happens to his head. I need that part of him intact.” He wanted to harness Kabel’s unique ability to quickly calculate trajectories, not to mention tap his mind for more information about the fire arrow he had used.

“MASTER…” she obeyed and sped off, her agility surpassing even that of Heskel. She would find the Hunter in no time and he knew Mercilla would not leave the district, given her obvious attachment to it and his knowledge of Gluttony Demons’ general behavioural traits.

“Now then…” he said to himself, walking towards the centre of the district, making sure to avoid the areas where flailing arms and chomping maws marked the ground, as well as giving the living houses a wide berth.

“Take from the living their lifeblood and form,” Jakob began to chant.

He was still chanting when he reached the approximate centre of Market West. Already halfway through the Stone Plague Hymn, the skies above had begun to swirl, the previous thunderstorms washed away by the attention given to the realm by a Great One Above.

“Septen, formless and forlorn, gift this land with thy blessed touch.”

“What once was living will be made eternal. What once was fleeting will be set in stone.”

“Heed me, Septen! Through me unleash thy gift!”

“Petrify the wheel of time and lock this moment in eternity!”

Jakob’s body froze in place, his feet nailed to the ground upon which he stood. He craned his head back and threw wide his mouth, so that the twisting tendril of unholy energy might use him as its beacon to spread its gift. Just before he lost consciousness to Septen’s overwhelming presence, he distinctly heard the roaring wail of Mercilla as she rolled towards him.

----------------------------------------

“That was close,” Kabel commented, after Stelji had grabbed him with a strange three-clawed hand of blood and tossed him across the river that separated Market West from the Residential District.

He looked back at the district across the water, seeing the enormous fleshy monstrosity roll back towards where the rest of his team were. Then he noticed the clouds above, as they darkened and swirled like a whirlpool, before a giant finger-like spear of grey smoke descended into the district’s centre.

When it impacted the ground, nothing happened, but he still stared at it for a few moments longer, strangely mesmerised by the sight. Today had been quite a strange day, and he had only been in Helmsgarten for under a week! He found it hard to imagine that any of the following days could even come close to matching the sheer excitement, mystery, and existential dread of teaming up with the famous Summoner, ‘Jakob’, or, as the Guilders called him, ‘Skin Robe’.

All the hairs on his body suddenly rose, and he instinctively looked towards his erstwhile saviour. Though her bone-white face had no eyes, he could feel her staring directly at him.

“How do you even see?”

“MASTER…” she replied unhelpfully, then, from her bizarre over-long-and-bulbous arms crawled tendrils of blood that coalesced into a whip-like tentacle.

“Erm, what are those for?”

When the bloody appendage grabbed him around the neck and started dragging him across the street, he realised that perhaps there was such a thing as too much excitement and thrill.