6.
Hana came back into the bar an hour after the sunset, quietly saying that Daniel had taken off to start his scouting. Everyone settled down, Hana, Chloe, and Penelope all flopped on the queen sized mattress while the boys grabbed floor around them. Santi just wandered off to stare out the broken windows of the bar and into the night.
A full moon was rising through the sky, illuminating the world in pale light. Santi couldn’t take his eyes off the crossroads. A connection point between places under the light of a new moon. He hadn’t been a ritualist or delved much into the deeper lore of magic. It just wasn’t something that had interested him much. His class had reflected that.
He did know the basics. Intent, symbolism, and deep seated belief could affect how magic worked. Mythology could come to life. Something like the crossroads would be powerful. There were millions of crossroads of course but a few more qualifications amplified this bar.
There was obviously something that had happened here. The bloodstains and general neglect showed that. Negative emotions and actions could lead to curses and there was some type of negative energy here.
The power that Santi could sense but couldn’t touch was another warning. Power was buried here, mana swirling just beyond reach. It was enough to form all of the things he had been worried about. A nexus point that could become a monster nest with just the smallest of pushes. One that would be coming with the rising new moon.
Santi could feel it at a guttural level. The nest that had gotten Cameron killed would be formed tonight. He was sure of it. He just had to wait.
Santi felt himself sink into a state of alert relaxation. His muscles were loose and mind alert. He could take action in less than a second if something happened. When something happened.
The minutes passed in comfortable silence as the moon continued to climb. More and more of the pale light filled the world until the crossroads were bathed in it. Santi felt his heart begin to beat faster. An extra few beats a minute, blood surging through his veins as a trickle of adrenaline leaked through his rigid control. It was coming. He could feel it.
A black splotch formed in the middle of the crossroads, staining the world as it spread out. Santi rose and walked out of the bar. Cold air brushed across his face as he stretched his legs to meet what was going to be emerging from that inky puddle. His morph weapon transformed into a long curved blade, heavier and thicker than his normal saber.
The puddle stopped expanding at six feet in circumference. It wasn’t shadow or ink, but rather an absence of light. A vacuum. Santi stared down at it and felt a deep discomfort looking at it. It was unnatural and foreign.
Curved horns rose. Black tar dripped off them to fall like rain. Each drop hit the portal and made it ripple like water. The creature’s skull was bone white and lacked any features. A smooth oval of bleached bone that the black tar couldn’t hold to. Wide shoulder covered in a white suit open to its sternum. Violet fur, bordering on black, was visible from the gaps in the unstained clothes.
Long slender fingers were capped with polished black claws. Its feet were bare and cloven, shining with gloss as it stood perched on the portal like it was solid ground. Black flame started to burn at eye level, the white skull degrading away until eye sockets were formed. Cracking open a line emerged along where a mouth belonged and teeth formed in jagged triangles.
Infernal ???
Santi dismissed his weapon instantly. It wormed its way back up his arm, its thin thoughts reduced to an inarticulate scream of primordial fear. Santi could empathize with that fear. His lungs couldn’t draw in air, his spine locked in ice, while his insides became a watery mess. He wouldn’t have fought something like this even when he had been at the height of his power.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
“Hello,” the Infernal rasped. It was as if stone grated on glass. Santi had to control his reaction to prevent himself from flinching back. Something like this shouldn't be on the planet yet, or ever.
“Greetings, elder,” Santi tipped his head in the most minute expression of bowing his head while not letting his eyes leave the creatures. He had only heard rumors of Infernal’s before, but this thing frightened him at an intrinsic level. Basic courtesy wouldn’t be amiss.
“Have you come to bargain?”
“No, I’m simply passing through and felt your presence and wished to pay my respects.”
“You lie, but not insultingly. You should learn to control your pheromones, they give you away. An increase in cortisol levels is a strong indicator of lying.”
“Thank you for your advice. I will work to control my pheromones.”
“It would be crass to say I was summoned, so much as that I felt a need. A desire to make a trade. A bargain. If not you, then who?”
“I know not.”
“How unfortunate. No matter, there are other deals to be made in this world. Are you sure you don’t wish to bargain? You should know what I can offer, regressor.”
That more than anything scared him. Akthyr had said the planet sat outside of time and space and that was how regression could be possible. If it knew he was a regressor it had peered through the isolation pocket. It was from outside of the initialization.
Santi stared down at the portal of otherness it stood on. That it hadn’t tried to step away from. Synapses fired and he understood. Santi bowed to the Infernal and backed away. The creature’s false mouth widened into a simulacrum of a smile.
“Ahhh, here it comes.”
Santi straightened and watched as something shuffled out of the darkness. Wide and slope shouldered it lumbered with stubby legs. Snuffling it swung its broad head back and forth as it grew closer. The light of the moon was not enough to show it in its entirety but he could discern pieces of it.
Black fur, long arms, and white teeth. Seven feet of ropy asymmetrical muscle that moved with a pace eating stride. Santi let his blade form again as it crossed the distance, knowing that this was the monster that would form the nest that had killed Cam in the past.
Primas Alpha lvl. ?
An Acolyte monster. He had killed several of them now but neither of them had this level of strength. He could feel some type of magic pushing against him, some type of earth magic.
“No violence in my presence,” the Infernal decreed and every plan went out of Santi’s mind. It stated its decree like it was a universal law and Santi was forced to obey.
“Great lord,” the alpha rumbled. Its voice was deep and sonorous, rattling the bones in Santi’s chest as it towered over him to look the infernal in the eye. The Infernal had stretched itself in the space between heartbeats so that the alpha couldn’t look down on it.
“Beast. Have you come to bargain?”
“Yes, I seek safety for my people.”
“What do you have to offer?”
The beast lifted up a wide hand and opened its palm. Power radiated out from what it had clenched in its long fingers.
“Power taken from the heart of the world. Given freely,” the beast proclaimed. Santi felt greed swell through him, he wanted it. He wanted it more than anything he had ever felt so far in this life.
“A trinket. But I will take it. A bargain is struck.” Power swelled around the Infernal’s feet. The portal shrank till only the Infernal’s feet were covered in the void. The alpha stood erect and opened its wide mouth open in a scream of agony. The void spread out from under the alpha’s feet and it sank through it to disappear.
“That is a gift from me to you. I would evolve as soon as possible if I were you. It will not wait for you to grow strong to challenge you. Only one alpha could stand supreme afterall.”
The Infernal sank through the void at its feet without another word. The light strengthened, Santi not noticing that the world had darkened with its presence. He breathed out a sigh of relief. In the original timeline when he and the others hadn’t been here he had no doubt that the creature had made a similar bargain and rested inside of the bar. Only for Cameron and the others to run into it.
The alpha would have killed him and the others. There was no doubt about that. Its physical strength as a beast would have overcome him and the earth magic it had would have countered his wind magic.
He did owe the Infernal for transporting the alpha away. A debt that if he survived through the initialization he was sure that it would claim. Just one more thing to worry about.