Fortune favors the bold. Well, perhaps I should change my name so that I could get a little taste of things going right for a few moments in sequence. My ability to survive the unthinkable had become a character trait, but I would have preferred it be something more private and not something tested by every demon and human with an axe to grind.

Once again, the Rat God allowed me to absorb and briefly control the powerful demonic power leveled at me from the pigman attack - although this time not fully. A portion of it swirled within me, dangerous and looking for somewhere to be spent like a crisp note of the biggest denomination. But the rest was shattered,

Almost bouncing from me like a split water balloon, the main beam split into shards of wiggling light. Worms coursing through the sky and seeking purchase in wet soil behind me. The sounds of collapsing wood and sizzling stone filled my ears. Something I would have turned to observe were I not about to combust from within. The revolver spun out of the holster and into my grip.

The radiant orb illuminated the area as it flew two dozen feet into the nearest pigman. Where I had half expected it to lodge in the zombie and stun it for a short period - a pretty worthless act in the grand scheme of the entire battle - it instead did something a little different.

It collided and embedded, the pigman became lax - but then the blue hue that had been glowing within him dropped - and almost like a pulse, an area of demons a dozen feet in diameter met the same fate. Their glow vanished, and they all dropped to the floor to become corpses again.

Briefly, very interesting, as strange as it was. My arm burned slightly from the skill, but it was already aching with pain, anyway.

//Target compromised.

I spun on my feet. The errant beams had collapsed most of the ramshackle houses on that side of the cave, acting like dominos once one or two had succumbed to the impact. Max had been ejected and was now surrounded by the handful of blue pigmen that had still been behind me.

“Max!” I yelled, my voice coarse, pain causing me to stumble as I moved toward him with my revolver raised.

“Goodbye, Eric. Give my regards to the Org.” The magician had a dry smile across his face.

A white rabbit hopped out beside the man as the pigmen loomed over him. With a crackled flash of purple energy, light washed over the area and a tear in reality opened up. I shielded my eyes to look on in shock at the swirling vortex - similar to our portals, but different. Max dove through - and just as quickly, the tear closed in on itself, leaving a brief pop of demonic energy to wave in the air.

“Shit me. What? We can go now?” I looked between the confused pigmen and the ones filtering towards me around the hole I had popped into their apparent possession with my radiant shot.

//Hold…

“Hold?” I ground my teeth, not wanting to snap at the Blank. I wasn’t exactly having much of a picnic here. It wouldn’t do me well to twiddle my thumbs before he-

//Org are asking for confirmation that the Warlord is dead.

My right eye twitched. Perhaps it would have been more pragmatic of me to have done the deed in the process of picking up the dove… the inert item that I now dropped to the floor. Of course, everything seemed simple in hindsight. My plan was just to extract the Hunter as soon as possible given the nigh indestructible pigmen army constantly up my ass.

I struggled to think of something else I could wrangle my way into sorting this easily. What would the Org do if I just went home? Probably blacklist me from Quests until I came crawling back to them in apology. Although we could hold our own, the additional powers I could get from Promotion were needed so I could advance to the Mids and get closer to sorting out each of our goals.

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“Suggestions that aren’t ‘don’t die?’”

[Unfortunately, I have nothing new to grant you. We have to play this by the book.]

Books were terrible things. Full of words and phrases that could make you think or do things you hadn’t imagined before. Powerful things that could bring to life things in your imagination, or in your heart. Not too unlike what was happening right now.

Killing the Warlord seemed like the simplest way of ending the connection between the pigmen. An impossible task, considering getting through about a third of the pack had almost rendered my limbs unusable. If only I had…

“Wight, you absorbed some of the Watcher, right? Did you happen to steal his sniping power?”

[You wish for me to step out from behind the Warlord and allow you one final shot that somehow exceeds your current range and finishes the pigman from where you stand?]

“When you put it like that…”

[I already said I had nothing new to grant you. I apologize.]

Perhaps he would just need to consume the whole demons to steal their abilities. I would need to put that on our wish-list to tick off at some point. Eat patrons to gain their power.

I stepped out from the portal into the basement.

“Eric?” Rodney looked up at me, surprised.

“What?” I shrugged my aching shoulders. “Underwhelmed that I didn’t get myself beaten to death in the process of searching for more bullshit powers?”

“No - that’s not… that’s not it.” He deflated into the chair, his eyes scouring his device for the messages bound to be pouring in.

[Eric did the correct thing.]

“I did not.” With a sigh, I looked around the room for something comforting. “I used two skills that I did not want the Org to see.” If I had just returned home immediately after the magician had vanished, then I wouldn’t have needed to throw my cards atop the table. Now I’d never learn to play poker.

“Not… necessarily.” Rodney frowned as his eyes darted back and forth on his screen. “Org messages are a little confusing - they may have dropped sight either after the Hunter vanished, or when you got beamed.”

I raised an eyebrow at Wight, who had been reforming into his bipedal bird shape. Entropy had fuzzed over Rodney’s viewer previously - it was possible that All Things Balanced might have knocked out the eyes peering over me.

[What are they saying?]

And also, why was the recliner not down here? That seemed like a more important question. It felt bad to take a loss, but what did the Org really want me to do? No use beating myself bloody against an immovable object. The pragmatic thing to do would just wait out the effects of the weird ritual and jump back in to kill everyone when they were less invincible. Plus, Pearl would kill me if I died from something so fruitless.

Time to play a little smarter, seeing as I intended to become part detective in this mess.

“Mostly asking if Eric is still alive, and if the warlord is dead.”

“Just reply ‘no’ and see how they react.” I grinned. Maybe this was one of their tests - after I couldn’t save the Hunter, would I be too stubborn to leave the immediate danger or would I follow their orders until I died?

The simple answer was being alive allowed me to kill more demons, anything that prevented that would be avoided when possible. I hadn’t used the ability to remove myself from a situation as well as I could have been. Three seconds was a long time in the thick of it, but the guaranteed get-out-of-a-shallow-grave card was more valuable that I previously thought.

“They weren’t too keen on my vagueness.” Rodney grimaced. “Partridge must be dictating their responses. I’ve told them you returned to avoid the beam and awaiting further orders.”

I sighed again and rubbed my eyes. Mandated holiday time would be nice - or perhaps an easy win. Only just back in the field and already complaining about hardship. Maybe I had grown soft. Or perhaps I just had more things to live for now.

“You ever seen something like that, Wight?” Demonic regeneration was slowly putting my limbs back together. It hurt, but I could do without the Org meds for now.

[No. I am curious as to the type of power they had used and the limitations.]

“That was my thought.” I rubbed my chin. “Might just run out of juice in the next ten minutes - or it could be a permanent alteration that slowly infects all pigmen.”

[Probably closer to the former, Eric.]

We could certainly hope. If all the pigmen in the Lowers received the zombie-ascension and I had to spend the rest of my progress before the mids just fighting against stronger pig demons, I would be livid. If variety was the spice of life, then pigmen were manure.

“They are saying…” Rodney tapped on the screen, his face illuminated by blue. “Quest is canceled? Well, they used the word ‘void’, but I know you’re not a fan of that.”

I grimaced and recoiled away.

“Killing the Warlord was just the best-case scenario since the Hunters could not be saved, but since you’re home now, they’ll remove that burden.” He shot me a grin.

“Thank the Org for me.” I rolled my eyes.

“Not so fast on that shooter, Tex.”

“Is that something Partridge said, or are you saying that?”

He looked up from the screen with a sheepish grin. “Ah, that was me. The Org have assigned you a new Quest…”

There was a pause, and he tried to read the important information. “It’s, uh - also top priority. Seems to be in a familiar location, too…”

He didn’t need to say it. Consequences and actions had finally paired off and the reap-what-you-sow arc was in full effect. I gave a glum smile to my patron, some understanding in his large crimson eyes.

[The nightclub.]