There was a small portion of me that was afraid that some of those with me were going to be some kind of illusion like the rooms. A small fear crept in that the solution to merge the halls was a trick to send those close to me still stuck in rooms into nothingness. I am truly glad my allies weren’t an illusion. The condition of the room we are in now, however, was an illusion–and it was strong. It had to be to cover this up. Something else is here–some kind of literal monster.

The corpses that span the floor are in various stages of decomposition, but some look like they are half eaten. My senses are telling me that there’s some kind of infernal being here. We can see each railing lined floor above. The strong aura of demonic energy lurks in an upper floor of one of the many levels visible in this open square. A scream comes from above us, and my head snaps upward. Someone vaults over the edge of the third floor to fall to the first floor, but the aberration I could sense, grabs them.

There are two things that confuse me about this. One is that the figure that jumped has a rune burned into their forehead. And it's the willing mark, not the dominating mark. Second, the thing that grabs them looks like a large hand with boneless fingers. The ‘fingers’ wrap around them, cocooning the runed wizard and muffling their cries. Then the fingers constrict, meeting no resistance. Blood and bits of gore shower down to the floor in front of us. I have never seen something quite so gruesome. I feel like I should react, but it doesn't seem real. It's too much.

“What the hell is that?” The question spills from my lips before my mind has a chance to reconcile what I’m looking at. My demon asks the same in our headspace.

“That,” Eph says, then glances back at me. “That means that it's time for you to go, boy.”

“No way, man. I can't leave you all to deal with that. Let me help quick.”

“No, Mike. You have to…” Eph's response trails off when the thing looks down from the third floor. Well, looks isn’t really the right term–I have no idea how its perception works. It has what look like eyes, but they are randomly placed across the entirety of its pock-marked, ovular body. Its skin is a mottled tan-ish color with lighter tones mixed in. It looks like a . . . well, an overgrown rotting potato. It’s like a spud with stalks coming off in different directions across its body. The stalks have appendages on the ends that work like hands. I don't see a mouth on it, but there are visible openings on the 'hands' that are slurping up the remains of the wizard it crushed. The openings sound like a vacuum sucking up the gore, and the lump that was once a human makes its way through the stalk down to the main body. The stalks stretch down to the railing of the second floor, then the first as it descends toward us.

“Ah, damn. It’s coming for us!” I yell, and attempt another void cage like the one I put on Brimstone. The void bursts out of me even without my urging. It feels stronger after my ability consumed the hallways and the wards outside. The potato monster's body touches down on our floor. It lurches quickly toward us on its spindly stalks. My cage closes around it with thick bars like a jail cell. The cage remains stationary where it was summoned, so the creature pinballs around inside the bars, unable to slow its momentum before I trapped it. “I’m going to hold it in place, you guys attack it,” I say to Mom, Vithar and Eph. “You two, watch our backs,” I say to the wizards.

I study it briefly and see that it’s not really as smooth as it looked. There are faces twisted across its body and the energy within the creature swirls. Here and there I can pick out different auras to each specific energy. This thing isn’t one abomination, it’s a twisted amalgam of low level demons that have been warped and merged together. Through the many auras within, I can tell that it has no real consciousness. It is a summoned being just like Brimstone, but the torturous process that must’ve taken place to create it has left it a being of pure rage, pain, and hunger. I have to end the suffering in this aberration. Closing in the top and bottom of the void cage, I put pressure on the rotten potato and yell out, “Now!”

I glance at my team when they move. Vithar’s movements are stiff as sends wind blades whistling through the air that cut through the stalks, removing them close to the body. He is precise and calculated as practiced so many times. Mom and Eph’s movements are as different from Vithar’s as they are from each other, but they all send various forms of elemental attacks at it. Mom moves deftly, sprinting around the creature hitting points around its body. Eph moves like an interpretive dancer. His movements aren’t precise like he has shown his student, but confident and rhythmic. Either way, the results are devastating to their target. The sucking and wheezing sound it makes increases until it falters in a shuddered gurgling exhale. A wet ‘pop’ sounds when the top and bottom of the void cage meet and black and red goo splatters across the already gruesome scene. The smell that follows provokes an involuntary dry heave. I cover my mouth and nose with my shirt, trying to escape it.

“Mr. Balthazar,” a voice calls out in eastern european accented english. It is frail, but sounds like it's being amplified magically. “Congratulations are in order.” A slow clap echoes throughout the hall as a figure in very ornately trimmed robes leans over the third floor railing to look down at us. “This is all your fault, you know. We had to move our plans up and take significant losses in this premature coup,” he says. As his features come into view, I see that he has a rune just barely visible under his cardinal-like headdress. His leathery pale skin is sunken in, and his bloodshot eyes are focused glaringly on me. This man looks like the walking dead. “We were warned about you, but I suppose we didn’t prepare well enough. A mistake I will rectify.”

“Mike, go on. We've got this,” Eph says.

“Who is that?” I ask.

Eph bares his teeth. “That's another Archwizard, probably the one runnin' this branch.”

“I'll stay to–”

“No! It's clear he only has eyes for you. If you don't show up, Rhal will hunt down everyone you've ever met, right?”

I huff out a frustrated sigh, “Yes.”

“Then you go, now. If you fall here, that's exactly what he'll do–and you know it. Now, git.” Eph opens a rift, and my ears ring as the Archwizard points at Eph’s portal. Potent magic gathers at his fingertip. Something big is coming.

“Oh no, no, no. You can't jus–” The archwizard starts to protest, but he is instead forced to shield himself. Magical attacks rain down on him from Vithar, Mom, and the two other wizards. Eph pushes me through the rift and speaks as it closes. I lock eyes with my mom as the rip shrinks further. She turns and moves toward the robed figure before I can no longer see them. I hear her primal scream of rage as she presses the attack and hear his words in the slow fashion of their passage through the dimensional magic of the portal as I fall backward onto the ground.

“We've got this,” he says again. “Go get 'em, son.”

And the portal closes.

I blink in the bright light of the area he portaled me to. Once my eyes adjust, I look around to try to figure out where that may be. I stand and brush my hands together to get the dirt off of them. I'm in a field. It's much like the one that I fought Brimstone in, but I can tell by what I see in the distance where I really am. The scenery is familiar, because this is close to the abandoned building that I have more memories of than I should. It's the place I used to frequent and burn at with my delinquent friends as a kid. The place where I tried to summon my father and ended up summoning my new Hound. The place where I lured Rhal and Bezhir together to fight. The last place I want to be again. I'm here, and it'll either be the place of my greatest victory, or the place of my death.

(Master? Mike here?) I can feel the Hound's excitement as they rush toward me.

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Yes, I'm here, buddy. I greet them back.

Brimstone blazes across the field and bounds up to me in their dog form. They jump and slam into me, knocking me back over. They rub their face against mine, and their tail is wagging so hard it's kicking up a dust cloud behind them.

“Okay, okay. I see you. I'm here,” I laugh.

(Brimstone listened. Stayed quiet. Hid.)

“Yes, you did. That's a good Hound,” I say, scratching their thick neck. “Can I get up now?”

(Apologies, Mike,) they say, backing up and off of me.

“It's okay. You did so well, you can call me what you want. Mike, Master, whatever. As long as you follow the other rules.”

They excitedly hop around.

(Mike will let Brimstone call him Master?!)

“That was, like, a full sentence. Well done. If that's what you really want. You can go for it.” I pet them again but get two quick warning blips of magic being used, and I scan the area. My senses don't pick up any demonic energy near me, but it's not a guarantee.

“What was he doing when you came for me?” I ask.

(Strong one sits on rock. Waits.)

“Hm, well. At least he's not hurting anything while he waits. Let's go.”

Brimstone leads as we make our way toward Rhal. I keep an eye out for what I felt a second ago, but still don't see anything. I'm wondering if it was maybe some residual energy from Eph's portal. Or maybe there was some kind of big magic employed at the guildhouse. I get a stomachache thinking about that. I am hoping everything is going well.

“I still need you to stay back. I plan to talk to him first and I don't want him to know you're here. It probably won't work, but I should try, I guess.

(Yes, Mi–Master.) This poor Hound just can't win.

Brimstone stops a short distance later and looks up at me.

“Are we close?” Their tongue lolls out to the side in, what I know now as, their affirmative response. “Stay here, stay in this form until I call for you and you attack. Understood?” Tongue lolling nod. “Good.”

I pat them on the head and continue forward through the next leg alone with my thoughts. I try to keep said thoughts from wandering, but have no such luck. It goes from what I'm about to do, to what my friends and family are doing, to what Anna is doing and back again. There's really no stopping it, so I let it go until I see him in the distance lying on a large pile of gravel stones. He's got his arms behind his head and his feet crossed at the ankles, looking up at the sky like he doesn't have a care in the world. Maybe he really thinks he doesn't. It looks like someone is about to develop something on this land. There are some raw materials lying around, waiting to be used.

“Bait? You actually came,” Rhal says as I approach. He eyes me

“It wasn't really a choice.”

He chuckles. “Still, you got some brass buttons, kid.” He rolls his head around like he's limbering up his neck, but he doesn't have one–the thick muscles of his shoulders don't stop. The first time I saw Rhal, he was disguised as an older homeless person. He'd taken on the form of something he thought would be easy to ignore and, unfortunately, he was probably right. This time he didn't bother with it. He is the same as he was last time, looking similar to those street shark cartoon characters from the 90s. He bears them an odd resemblance too, just with a smaller mouth. His dark gray mottled skin looks dull in the overcast light, but his black eyes gleam with a predatory glee. This is the form he uses for combat. I get an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

“Can we talk first?” I ask.

His jovial expression drops. “You're not going to make an appeal to my good nature, are you?” he asks with a smirk. “I think we both know that I don't have that in me.”

“No, nothing so ridiculous.”

He nods. “Then what?”

“That would be pointless, but what I can appeal to is your desire to get back into the good graces of a Lord of the Pit, right?”

He watches my face. His jaw flexes a few times, and his eyes squint briefly. “How would someone like you be able to manage that?” he asks. It seems like he’s attempting a look of nonchalance, but his eyes tell a different story. They were full black, but now some of the whites can be seen. The prospect of being welcome back into the Pit has visibly piqued his interest. To be honest, this was a hail mary. I hadn’t really expected him to talk, but perhaps Alastor would want to scoop him up if there will be a war soon.

“I can talk to Alastor. I already mentioned you to him, and he knows who you are. He told me about your strength and your resilience.”

He takes a deep breath and looks at the ground, pacing in front of the pile of stones. His eyes are moving rapidly as he mutters to himself. He stops and faces me and meets my eyes.

“That was probably the best offer you could have given me, but I have to decline,” he says. “Had we not already met, I may have taken you up on that. But no matter how high I would get in the hierarchy, I would always be the one that was tricked and maimed by a half-breed.” He spits on the ground. “It's embarrassing even to think about it. No.” He shakes his head. “I have to kill you. And I'm probably going to eat you just to be sure that there's no question who won this.”

I let out a deep sigh.

“Well, I tried,” I say.

Are you ready?

I let my demon take over. The burn takes my apprehension away. The flipping feeling in my gut is replaced by resolve. This is it. A win or lose fight for my life. For our life. And we have got to make it last if we hope to get some backup. Our combined form blazes and Rhal puts a hand up to shield his eyes. We roll our neck too, and our breath comes out as puffs of smoke in the cold winter air.

“Ah, so that's it? You look just like your daddy, Bait. Maybe I’ll gift him your half-breed head.”

We growl, bouncing from foot to foot and limbering up our body. “So we've been told.”

“We? Is there a real demon in there somewhere? Sure sucks for them,” he taunts, smiling wide. We don't respond.

(Now?) Brimstone asks.

No, not yet, I say. I want him to be more focused on me.

“Ah, well. Let's get this started,” he says, walking toward us at a leisurely pace. “I'm not gonna just kill ya right away. I want you to show me what you can do as a demon first.”

His pace speeds up, and he swings wide on us. This has to be a trick, I’ve seen him move before and it was hard to keep up. We dodge him with a sidestep and move away.

“Don't make me chase you!” he says. “Er wait, maybe do. I usually have to chase my prey. This duel at high noon thing is throwing me off my game.”

He closes the distance between us quickly this time.As he reaches out, we knock his arm up and claw at his side, scraping a few tears into the skin covering his ribs. Then we dance out of his reach again, trying to keep a distance.

What is this? I ask my demon.

Jesus.

Well, play his game as long as he'll let you. The longer he thinks he's toying with us, the better the chance we'll get some backup.

Rhal glances down and touches a few fingers to the wound we just opened on his side. He pulls the hand up to his nose holes, inhaling the scent of his own blood deeply. What a freak.

“Looks like you've drawn first blood,” he says, smiling wide. “Good. I'll put it on your tombstone.” He rolls his shoulders and leans down into the stance, the same one I saw him in when he fought Bezhir. He looks ready to really fight now.

One word rings clearly within our neutral headspace.