I had used pain to ground myself before, a sobering feeling that reminded me what was real, and what was at stake. I’m not sure if that translated well when inflicting it on others, but sometimes you needed that jolt of reality draw you from the fog of agony.
My demonic ammunition blew through his foot and the man growled out in pain, managing to hold his scream in so that he didn’t alert the pigmen to our location.
“Why? What the fuck are you-"
I kneeled down to him and pressed the gun underneath his chin, the warm barrel slightly burning at his skin. “Tell me the whole truth now, or you lose the leg.” I removed the revolver and pressed it to his knee.
There would be no chances taken today on whether this was an Org trap - or something more sinister. The magician get-up was already suspicious, and I had no time to spend errantly on Hunters that would lose their returning artefacts so easily.
“We were attempting to assassinate the Warlord,” the man began, pain and sweat covering his face. “Then the other demons came and got the town on high alert - we were spotted.”
“Then you tried to fight your way out, dropped all your important items on the floor, and your buddy got killed?”
“He wasn’t my buddy-“ the magician winced as I applied pressure to his knee. “But yes, short story, you got it there…”
“Eric Redd.” I narrowed my eyes and allowed my obsidian mask to fade away.
“Pleasure. Assuming you put no more holes in me. Max Russet.”
“Jury is still out on that, Max.” I peered out from the window. Carnage was still ensuing - with the pigmen reinforcements and my absence, it looked as though things had gotten back to being a stalemate. “Any good for fighting?”
“Not currently. Near disemboweled me - even without the foot injury I can barely move.”
I noted he didn’t seem inclined to blame me for the very-clearly-my-fault hole through his foot. Good. Something about being around other Hunters turned me into a bit of a bully - and while there was time to reprimand myself over my behavior later in the day, right now it was important to make the pecking order clear.
“Got your pact weapon still? I’ll need to leave you to find your artefact - if it’s not broken?”
“It’s out on the battlefield.” He grimaced, almost apologetic with how ridiculous that might make finding it. “And yeah, I have my weapon.” From within his jacket pocket, with bloodied hands, he withdrew a pack of cards. The patterned purple cover seemed to glow slightly, and didn't mar from his dirtied fingers.
“Do you know how to play poker?”
“Ah, yes…?”
Fuck. We had to save him now. At all costs. “Max, right? I’ll get you home safe, bud. Sorry about the foot. The longer you spend down here… Hell will fuck you.”
“I understand it, as much as I resent you for it.” He managed a smile. “My artefact is a… fake dove.”
I nodded, not wanting to ruin the mood by telling him how cliche that was. He probably knew - and I’d enlighten him on using the vessel as a return artefact just as soon as we had more time on our side.
//Five hostiles approaching the building.
“Gotta dash, Max. Will be back as soon as possible - you have my word.” I tipped my hat to him.
[Want to look really cool, Eric?]
He didn’t even need to tell me his suggestion. ‘Already on it, partner.’
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I took two steps back and then ran and launched myself through the open window, thankful that the pigmen hadn’t invented glass yet. Wight extended tendrils of his power to help cushion my landing as I rolled forward to absorb any of the shock. Straight back up to my feet I hit
‘Do you think he saw?’
[No, but the Org would have.]
Good enough for me. I wasn’t the type to flaunt so overtly on the regular, but I had both my crocodile gang and the magician to impress. Wow, that was a sentence. I pushed my glasses up to
“Remind me to clue the Org in about the vessel being a return artefact. Maybe they can train all the newbies and things like this won’t be a problem.”
[Will do, Eric.]
I waded back into the fray. They hadn’t seen me reappear from the building at first, and so my luminous red attack was the first instance that drew eyes back to me. As soon as I started blasting, keeping myself at a distance, the more attention I gathered from the pigmen.
Max had said they were supposed to assassinate the Warlord, so that direction seemed to be the smartest way to check for his dove. Naturally, that was through an army of grotesque demons - and most likely would end with me doing their Quest for them - but if there was one thing Eric Redd did well, it was killing all demons. Usually getting pretty maimed in the process, too, but I felt confident enough to tempt fate with how far below me pigmen were.
With their star player back on the field, Redd Death began gaining ground. The left flank of the pigmen forces had started to collapse, as I carved a bloody trail towards my target. The damage was… dull, in a way. It wasn’t so long ago that this many demons, and this amount of time in the Lowers, would have driven me half mad. I wasn’t even a tenth mad, currently. Although I hadn’t been convinced of Wight’s choice for the Defensive Keystone, it seemed to be something that had grown in efficiency the more I had used it.
I was numb to the smells and sight of the pig demons. Blood, bone, cartilage, vomit, guts, spittle, sweat, and shit. Simple creatures, really. Horror had become less about the assault on my senses, but instead of the threat to the new life that I had been carefully crafting like a tower of cards. Oh - I should ask Max if he can do that as well.
The Warlord looked to be in the same position as last I had seen him. Between the gaps in the tide of onslaught, I caught the blue light of the odd orb hovering over him, the two thinner pigmen still by his side. I hadn’t known these demons to be much for magic casting - or even performing rituals, unless it involve fornicating with a corpse or rolling around in a pit of their own filth.
Still too far away for me to do anything. I blew the side of a pigman’s face off, and was surprised when he kept on coming for me. Sidestep to avoid the weapon as it slammed into the floor. Pooled my demon energy into my foot to stand atop the hammer to hold it down. Shot to the middle of his head, this time turning the lights out.
“How we doing on energy reserves?”
[Another minute or two and we’ll be fully recovered.]
By far the best thing about making myself a battery for all manner of powers was being able to use the more effective skills more often. It was only weeks ago that the True forms of my two abilities were one-time and then Wight and I were both spent. Now I could do them every handful or two of minutes to no real ill effect. As much as I was an ant on the grand scale of things, in the ass-end of the Lowers, I was a god.
I spun on my knees, emptying the cylinder into the nearest kneecaps around me. Most I left to flounder with their injuries - but the ones in the way of my destination either received the sharp end of my knife or the existence-scouring ammunition of my reloaded revolver as I passed through.
My ego licked its lips. The roar of the croc-demons filled my soul. Monochrome painted my vision as I sought the artefact once more. At first - nothing but muted grays swirling around me. But then, the faintest handful of rest another forty feet away. Pretty close to the Warlord. I would have to ask Wight how Detect worked exactly, as it appeared to give me exactly what I wanted arbitrarily. Too good to be true? Story of my life.
All I would need to do was walk up to the Warlord and put a-
The blue orb dropped into the large pigman as the thinner acolytes sunk to the floor and began turning into ash. With a deep roar, the Warlord twisted as if in agony, his whole body glowing the bright azure light as if he was an illuminated ghost.
A pulse of energy washed over the area - a shockwave that made me stumble back a couple of steps, before I immediately vomited.
“What was that?” I wiped my mouth off.
I turned around to see a blue glow lingering across all the pigmen corpses. Gradually, each shifted, and the bodies clambered awkwardly back to their feet.
Hundreds of eyes that were now vacant vacuums on impassive faces turned to glare at me.