Chapter 41: Displacement, Danger, and Distrust

Sixthday

Sakura

Portal travel wasn’t unfamiliar to me, I had walked through portals on several occasions during my time since leaving Earth. Under normal circumstances it was nearly instantaneous. You were one place, then the world shifted almost as if you had stood up too fast, and then suddenly you were somewhere else.

Under ideal circumstances it was like walking into a room you had never been in before, or walking into a heat wave from a frigid meat locker. Shocking, but not really overwhelming. And quickly adjusted too.

This?

This was like what I imagine being run through a washing machine must have felt like, after an Indian color festival.

The world exploded in colors, most of which felt unnatural and out of place. Dark reds, riotous pinks, sickly purples, and greens of various shades that made my stomach roil. For what felt like minutes I was tossed around, jostled, and what felt like stretched out, as whatever magic had come from Regi’s hand screwed with Edna’s portal magic.

Just as I was about to scream, I was tossed out into the real world. Hot and muggy air hit me in the face, as I fell backwards into cold mud. My fingers gripped my daggers tightly, I refused to lose them. But that made my flailing in the mud all the more difficult, as I worked to right myself.

Tedgi appeared a heartbeat later face planting in the mud next to me, and Medgi fell out of another portal disk high above me, getting stuck in a tree.

It took me almost a minute before I was able to free myself, and by that time Medgi had gotten himself down and was helping his sister to dry solid ground.

“What was that?” Medgi asked, as he called his staff from a hidden spacial pocket he kept it and his other supplies in. He started casting a few spells designed to detect magic and threats around us.

“I don’t know but Regi’s not here.” Tedgi said as she cleaned the mud off her combat robes.

“I don’t see Victor, or the knights either. Whatever that magic Regi used was, they must have gotten through before it activated.”

The siblings both stopped what they were doing and looked square at me.

“What did you see?” Medgi’s voice was solemn and serious. Far more serious than I had ever seen him before. Tedgi looked uncomfortable, as if she were a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar before dinner.

“He reached his hand out, and sent some of his black mana into the portal. Something else went with it I think. Something sickly.”

“I told you,” Tegi glared at her brother.

“He is not a risk.”

“Yes he is! I’ve told you for weeks now, ever since he got that lantern. Something is off with it, and with him. He’s . . . different.”

“We all change as we walk our path of the Dao. Regi is no different.”

“Change is all well and good,” Tegi stood and pulled a small amulet from her pack. “But he has changed more than is normal. More than I can account for. Hes . . . he’s grown distant and don’t think I’m the only one who's noticed.” She pointed an angry finger at her brother, and Medgi sighed.

“Yes. He has. And, yes. It is concerning.”

“I've noticed it too,” my words hit the two like a hammer blow. “When I first met you three, he was gregarious. Helpful, and willing to take a chance on someone he’d never met before. Now? He’s bossy, demanding, and recently he’s grown uncompromising. He snaps at others like they’re his servants who have disappointed him. But he is still loyal. He hasn’t shown any sign that he is yet worthy of distrust.”

I winced internally at my own words. I was growing to distrust the man. But his siblings didn’t need to know that. Right now, they needed their confidence back.

“Exactly. For all we know, he saw an instability in the portal and was attempting to prevent disaster.” Medgi’s expression was filled with doubt. Yet he said the words.

And Tedgi’s concern ebbed, and her focus shifted to our circumstances. “Fine. We’ll deal with our brother's mood swings later. Right now, we need to figure out where we are.”

“And where the knights went.” I put my daggers away, and they disappeared into my gauntlet with a small flash of light. In their place was my bow.

“I have our location,” Medgi cast an illusion on the ground in front of us. The illusion quickly became a map of what we could see, and it was clear that Medgi was focusing on increasing the map's reach. On the very far northern edge of the map was the edge of the jungle we were in. “The edge of the jungle is at least a mile away from here.”

“We were supposed to be stationed a few miles north of the northern edge of the jungle, in the foothills.” I pointed past the edge of the illusionary map. “If Edna’s spell worked for the knights, they’re going to be too far away to help us. I think—”

A ragged rift in reality, like someone trying to cut through cloth with a sword, appeared off to our left. I pulled my bow and began casting. Medgi and Tedgi followed suit.

A moment later I pushed the mana from my spell into the earth at my feet avoiding feedback, and the spell activating, as Knight Captain Walden’s head appeared through the lightning like crack in reality. A moment later the crack widened, and he was the first through. Followed by Victor, and the rest of his knights.

Most bore minor injuries already. “Captain Walden?”

“At your service ma’am,” he said as he pulled the last of his men through the admittedly tiny lighting like portal.

“Isn't it your duty to protect the tertiary routes for the civilians?” I asked, confused why he would come, even accounting for the portal mishap. He grinned.

“That was your mission, ma’am. My mission was to keep you and your companions safe. Its a tertiary route, it almost certainly wont be used. Even if it is, one of the eastern cultivators will likely scour it clear before we could do anything about any threat, anyway.”

“Training Mission" Medgi sighed. “I thought as much.”

“Yeah, same.” Victor was examining the slowly closing lighting like rend in the fabric of reality that the knights had pulled themselves through. “It wouldn’t be logical for us to do something truly important when most of us are unblooded.”

Most of us?

He smells of blood, Sky said in my mind. There was a mental flick of his tongue out at the young man as if my companion wanted to taste his scent.

We know what he is. It makes sense he is blooded. King's comment refocused me.

“Didn’t want to offend ma’am. But . . . yes. Us knights, and your seasoned cultivators are more than a match for anything we’re likely to have the displeasure of meeting out here. And that includes your savage elf friends.”

“Still find the concept baffling,” one of the knights, one with an aura similar to a low Gold state cultivator said. “I mean, our neighbors are pacifists. They might not like us much, captain. But most wouldn’t hurt a fly if it poked them in the eye.”

“Stoval, take two men and set a perimeter while we figure out what to do.” The knight who had spoken sighed, collected two of his subordinates and began issuing orders. “Now, let's see that map of yours young man. Right, I think if we move parallel to the path of travel your peoples caravan will be taking, we can link up with some scouts about-”

Something shreaked in the jungle, and it sent shivers down my back and set my nerves on end. “Cores, Leto.” Waldon motioned for the two men to flank us, and as they did they activated something within their armor. What had felt like two low gold ranked warriors, jumped all the way to Knights.

Their aura had felt like an oppressive heat, ever present but not really all that heavy. Now, it felt like someone had placed an anvil's weight in the air. Thankfully, it was not directed at me. But whatever had made that terrifying noise.

“Hopefully that will scare off whatever beasty thought we’d be an easy-” Again the captain was cut off as the shrek intensified. Before it had sounded pained, almost plaintive. Now, it sounded hungry and determined. Whatever it was, was now on the hunt. “Shit. Best get ready to fight young ones. Just encase whatever it is has friends.”

Megi cast half a dozen spells in under a minute, spells of defense, obscuring spells, and even illusionary doubles of the captain and himself.

Tedgi powered several arrows, then stored them in her bow. They’d be ready now at a moments call of her will.

King, Sky, care to join us?

My two companions materialized out of light. King's shell was already smoldering, and the feedback from his instincts told me that whatever it was that was out there, was a predator. And he would be its end.

Sky on the other hand, chose to take his average sized form. He slithered around my shoulders, and I hardly felt him as he cloaked me in his defense around my arms and shoulders. He’d been steadily improving his natural camouflage, and now most people couldn’t tell he was clinging to me at a simple glance. When he struck, it would be sudden, vicious, and from seemingly nowhere.

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I poured mana into my knocked arrow, imbuing the shaft with the fire vines spell I had been crafting.

Then we waited.

Shrieking again filled the jungle, knocking leaves off trees, and sending shivers through all of us.

“Stoval, take up position behind us!” Captain Walden ordered as the patrol returned. The knights did as they were told, activating their own suit enchantments and increasing their power almost an entire realm. Most were Knights, but Stoval was bordering on Baron.

I reached for the bandana on my arm, and tried to activate the emergency charm inside. It glowed a soft white glow, telling me it was activated. It didn’t help much, Edna was almost certainly already aware of our circumstances.

“Captain Walden, can your teleportation ability get us back to Edna?”

“Wish that were the case, my lady. I can only do that once a day. The enchantment is powerful, and my sword can’t take the strain. If I tried, and it broke when someone was halfway through it could bisect them.”

“Understood.”

The trees began to shake more violently as the shrieking did little to further freeze my blood. Then, what had been making the racket pulled itself from the tree line and into the muddy clearing we were standing in, and my breath caught.

Its teeth were the size of swords, and its body looked like the cross between a frog and a giant. It had two arms, and two legs, but the proportions were wrong. Its shoulders were as thick as gnarled tree roots, its skin as palad gray as dead flesh, and the six sickly yellow eyes that writhed in its skull finally fixated on a single object as it ripped two trees up by their roots and entered the clearing without a second glance at its newly acquired clubs.

They locked me.

For a moment, my breath wouldn’t come. My skin shivered uncontrollably, and I felt for a moment as if I had been hit by an electric shock. Something primal came over me, and I couldn’t so much as force my fingers to grip the bow string, let alone draw it.

“Courage friends! Courage!” Captain Walden shouted, and filled his voice with some kind of magic. Suddenly the primal instinctual terror receded, and I could breathe again.

You have been affected by Primordial Terror. Effect: Fear paralysis, 1 minute.

You have been affected by the Courage Aura. Effect: Primordial Terror’s effect is reduced to a single target, the direct recipient of the user's gaze.

I found I was not the unlucky object of the monster's attention, and quickly pulled my bowstring. The spell had weakened, without my attention on the spell half the mana that would fuel it had leaked out. But I had to do something.

The arrow flew through the air, as King let out a challenging bellow and charged the beast. Spewing burning ash plumes as he roared his rage. The arrow hit, and the spell activated only a moment later.

Not quick enough.

As the enemic vines wrapped themselves around the gray creature's legs and torso, it threw one of the trees it held directly at the first of us to defy it.

Captain Walden had to throw himself out of the way of the attack, but one of his knights wasn’t fast enough. The man went flying, clipped by the improvised spear, but thankfully not impaled by it.

The creature shreaked its wrath directly at King, and pulled its burning flesh away from my spell. Its feat made quick work of the quickly withering vines, but it bore the burns of the encounter.

Hopefully it's enough to slow it down.

King met the beast, and the world seemed to shiver from the impact. My ears popped from the pressure as burning hardened shell met sword length sharpened claws, and crocodile-like jaws. Their clash was terrible, and I winced as I felt the echo of Kings pain through our link.

But it bought us time.

Two knights charged in, leaping and clearing the distance between them and the clashing creatures in a heartbeat. One brought his halberd down in a powerful two handed strike at the beasts neck. While the other used his two handed long sword in a wide arch, cutting the beast's leg with a long bloody gash.

The two men dodged away before the creature had a chance to retaliate, allowing two more of their companions to repeat the maneuver.

I knocked another arrow, and began fueling another spell, as I looked over at my companions. Victor was using his particular and somewhat unique abilities to heal the injured knight, as Tedgi silently screamed into her knees curled up in a ball on the ground. Medgi was trying to soothe her, but to little success.

She must have been the target. This thing is going to die. I forced the mana to flow faster through me, and into the arrow. Finally the spell was ready. I waited for the second set of knights to get clear before I losed the arrow.

The iron arrow head bit deep into the creature's shoulder, and a sickly green aura erupted from the wound. Blood poured out, and turned to blacked icor, as my Poison ability activated.

This thing had hurt those under my protection. It would die screaming if I had anything to say about it.

Before it could take root, a bright green woody glow engulfed the monster. My arrow was forced out, and the blood that had been black and sickly had turned crimson red and healthy again before the wound had closed.

“ENOUGH!”

Winds as sharp as blades ripped through the clearing and sent the two knights reeling back towards the rest of us. I had to drop my bow back into my bracer, so I could focus on keeping the wind from tearing at my eyes. Sky’s protection helped shield me from the worst of it, but I felt cuts erupt across my arms and legs. All shallow, but all painful and distracting.

King roared again, his rage had built up at this creature and he was not having it. He bit its leg and pulled backwards towards the mud at the center of the clearing. Despite the wind biting at the top of his shell. For a moment he released his fire, and healed himself with wood mana.

Life erupted all around him, vines grew from the mud and entangled the gray monstrocity, eating into the creature as King dragged it through the mud. Thick thorns the length of daggers racked its body.

“Sister, help!” Whatever had yelled previously did so again, and this time instead of wind, the plant growth that King had been summoning and controlling all around him rebelled. More then half the vines and plants gave way to another will, and wrapped themselves around his legs and shell, pulling him down on top of the same thrones he had used so effectively against the monster.

“I can’t keep the monster's will at bay for long sister. Save your pet now!” A second voice said over the wind. Both were distinctly feminine. And though I looked for whoever was speaking, I found nothing.

Sky, can you help? I can’t see them. Are they hidden, or is it magic? Sky’s tongue licked the air and was unaffected by even the worst of the gale force winds that were still attacking us.

I smell her. Close. Magic hides her.

Good to know, thank you. “Captain!” My voice barely carried over the powerful wind in my ears. “Captain, they’re using illusion magic to hide!”

“Ha! I knew it was some kind of trickery!” The man's words easily cut through the magical air, as if it were a perfectly clear and calm summer's day. “Unveil theyselves, scoundrels!”

A pulse of pure mana ripped through the air, and over the field, and slammed into magical defense after magical defense. Sending everything into disarray. Spell after spell, enchantment after enchantment, and the elves sigals all flickered, and then failed. Leaving behind a still wind, and three elves standing behind the massive gray beast.

I couldn’t so much as express my magic through my pores, the static was so intense. Wish we had Regi here, reinforcement magic and chie aren’t affected by this at all.

Tedgi screamed. At first it was terror, but quickly it turned into rage as she sprang to her feet and launched an arrow filled with so much chie it made my teeth ache to look at it, directly at the head of the monster.

A shooting star ripped through the creature's teeth, shattering dozens of them into little more than jagged stumps. The subsequent explosion forced me to look away, and through my connection with King I could tell even he felt its heat as he staggered back from the beast.

Tedgi kept screaming her defiance and every muscle in her body tensed. Then as suddenly as she sprang to her feet, she collapsed. Medgi swooped in to stop her fall. “She’s used practically everything with that one shot. I’ll take care of her, i’m practically useless right now anyway,” he shook his head and began dragging her unconscious form behind the protective line of knights.

The smoke cleared, the monster's body staggered as if it were going to fall. Then light shot out of the third elf and directly into the beast's back. “You’re welcome, Selena.” It was a masculine voice this time. The beast's head was a molten mess. Bone shards mixed with brain matter. If it was not already dead, it soon would be.

But the druid's spell began its work, and quickly things moved and snapped and broke and shattered, forcing organic matter back into its proper shape and fusing bone and brain back into some semblance of life.

“Thank you master,” the taller of the two women, who were surprisingly not elves but humans, said. She bowed to the elf quickly before returning her attention to her companion.

“You are welcome Selena. Now, deal with these pests, so we can get back on task. The ambush will not set itself, and there are many more slaves to take.” He glared at both of the women in turn. “If I do not have my share of new flesh, I will be forced to take it from yours. Understood?”

“Yes master,” Both women said in unison, before turning their sadistic eyes back towards us.

“Mauler, kill the turtle.” Selena, the beast tamer woman raised a hand to the air and six disks appeared behind her creature. Bears, bores, and other forest and jungle animals that were horrendously large or magically augmented with metal tusks, or bone armor along their ribes and spine, emerged from the disks.

I had no idea how she was casting anything. The static was dissipating but it still left me numb to my mana.

The other woman, the weather witch I began to think of her as, raised her hands to either side of her and lightning danced between them in an arch. “You westerners and your metal can suits. Very helpful to someone like me. Thank you!”

I knocked an arrow, fully prepared to die putting it through the weather witches eyes.

Before I could, a disk of pure black magic appeared behind her and a hand wreathed in dark magic gripped her slave colored throat. The lighting arched into the sky uselessly, as that all too familiar hand pulled the helpless woman into the darkness with it.

“What? Master! My sister!” Selena shouted and her elf master sighed.

“Overzealous welp. Shadow stepping already, are we? Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” The elf’s tone was that of a disappointed uncle chiding an over eager nephew, not an aggrieved slave owner whose property had just been destroyed.

“Fine, Mauler! After her!” The gray beast turned faster than it had any right to move, and charged directly into the portal of darkness. It disappeared into its depths, and a moment later Selena screamed in rage and pain. “Nooo! Master, no! Please help!”

“There is nothing to fear Selena.” the elf sighed, and battered aside the arrow I loosed. It had no mana, just the raw strength of the bow. Which was considerable. But if I read his advancement correctly, he was well into the Baron stage. Perhaps further.

She wiped at her tears and started to get up from her knees, when the portal disappeared. Suddenly, as if he were walking out of a doorway onto the street, Regi appeared behind the crying woman. He gripped her by the neck, lifted her off her feet and ran his long blade through her heart.

Her summoned beasts went wild, tying up the knights, King, and for a few moments even I lost track of what was happening.

I heard Regi clash several times with the Elf druid, and even saw a few of the exchanges between killing a giant boar and a spider that shot out thread that flesh like it was a razorblade. By the time I turned my attention back to their fight, Regi was standing alone. The elf was nowhere to be found.

The others quickly finished off their opponents, and soon we all stood facing Regi. His back was too us, and he radiated violence, Umber mana, and the blood on his clothes gave off a terrifying air.

“Brother, are you hurt?” Tedgi asked. The static in the air had cleared for the most part. But there was still some lingering interference I was sure was mucking about with their innate connection.

Careful! He smells of death, Sky said into my mind, and he hissed instinctively in warning as his scales changed color in a threat display along my shoulders. A deep rock red, the color he would shift his scales too when facing another predator that he was unsure he could defeat.

“Regi? Are you injured? Brother please. Let us help you.” Medgi moved towards him, but before he could get there, he turned and his siblings gasped.

From head to toe he was covered in blood. In his hand, was her beating heart, and the pulsing mana pool and chie core he had harvested.

“The only way,” he said quietly to himself. But loud enough that it echoed over the now silent battlefield. “The only way.”

He swallowed the pulsing red core, and inhaled the mana from the ethereal blue pool, and in the same moment bit deep into the still beating heart.

A red flair erupted over our heads.