The village had been laid out without regard to order and efficiency.
Paths between cabins and tents twisted and turned without rhyme or reason.
A small yurt loomed in the middle of a path like a roundabout.
“Ambush in that yurt!”
Before anyone could react the thick canvas wall of the yurt fell apart as if sliced in a large X-shape.
Galen and Dre didn’t notice the faint red color hinting at the shape of a pair of long blades.
The mountain people blinked in surprise for a split-second, which was an eternity in battle.
They charged or raised guns, but it was too late.
Galen had already pushed his cold mist out ahead of him like a boat pushes a wave.
Sudden frost formed on their bodies, filled the barrels of their guns or encrusting the strings of their bows and crossbows.
Dre dashed in, slipping in and out of his mist form, letting the mountain people’s weapons pass harmlessly through him.
Mist blades cut and stabbed past armor and clothing into flesh and organs.
Dre’s Skills weren’t invincible or inevitable.
Other Skills could counter them or a difference in level could render their effects weaker or nonexistent.
A small woman, lean and gnarled like an old one-eyed weasel that had seen many seasons of hunting and fighting in the woods, no-sold a cut across her face.
She punched with a crude, spiked glove.
Dre cried out and fell back, clutching his face.
He was one that favored an open-faced helmet for better vision and easier breathing, relying more on his mist form to avoid damage.
Ray’s wrist flicked.
A thunk echoed.
The woman snarled at the small, throwing axe embedded in her upraised arm.
Her features twisted. Hers and one of the spirits riding her body.
Before she could pull it out, Galen mist teleported behind her and thrust his sword through the back of her neck and out her mouth.
Ray had lent them his Skill.
Silver coated their weapons.
The woman’s cry undulated with over a dozen separate voices as her physical form melted into smoke and bloody goo.
Alin saw it all, felt it all.
“Faster!”
He pulled at the life force of the mountain people running to their target.
Slowed them down just enough for his team to cut them off.
He felt their confusion at the lack of spirit aid.
It was the mist shrouding their village that they prayed to first.
The spirits in it had always whispered soothing words in their ears had lent them strength without question whenever a roaming monster had attacked their village in the past.
Thus, there was nothing worse to them than the silence they received.
Short-controlled bursts from Benny and Lewis started the fight.
They switched to melee as Ray, Galen and Dre, face and mask bloody, attacked.
The latter two drifted in and out of visibility through the thick gray that only the mountain people could see.
Blades drew red arcs.
They found hearts without having to get past steel and padded cloth.
Ray’s axe and bullets destroyed the spirits before they could even think of flying to their doom in the silver choked air.
Alin trailed with Brooke and Steph.
He felt his friend’s eagerness mingling with worry.
Steph itched to fight, but he had to play bodyguard, which concerned him because worrying about another person was a lot harder than just worrying about himself.
Gladiatorial combat wasn’t real world combat.
There were no rules in the latter.
“Something’s coming up on our six.”
“Where?” Brooke whirled around, brandishing her handheld mortar.
Steph had already beaten her to it.
He readied his net and trident, while standing well clear of her death-spewing tube.
“May I?” Alin gestured at her mortar.
A fully-linked HUD would’ve been really useful.
Instead he had to settle for manually adjusting Brooke’s aim.
“Wait for it…”
A warbling roar shook their insides.
The base-like thrum would’ve sent a person 10 levels lower into the fetal position.
As it was, Steph and Brooke merely felt the sudden urge to go to the bathroom.
Nothing a mild clenching couldn’t handle.
As for Alin?
He shrugged it off like a light winter dusting on his shoulders.
“Fire!”
Brooke pressed the button on instinct.
The dark tube belched smoke and fury.
Fire and silver shrapnel landed just outside the burning walls.
“Did she splash the bogey?” Steph said.
“Wrong terminology, dude,” Alin grinned. “And, yeah, she did! Nice shot!”
“What was it?” Brooke frowned, peering into the distance as if she could see anything through the mist and smoke.
“Hard to say. It was big and made up of a lot of different things. Animals, plants, rocks.”
“Oh. One of those.” Brooke paled. “They can transform, split apart, meld back together.”
“So, are you saying that being blown up is just a minor setback?” Steph said.
“No, no. It should be down. At least most of it. All the silver dust helps a ton.”
Just to be on a safe side Alin probed at the remains, finding that Brooke was correct.
“It’s not coming back from that.”
They followed the others up the narrow, twisting path.
Rough stones had been laid down in the center to help footing in the otherwise muddy ground.
Gestalt 3 wasn’t the name given to the horrific thing wrapped up in chains hanging over a small pit filled with liquid beyond foulness by the mountain people.
They referred to it simply, as ‘The Child’.
It was the newest, smallest and weakest of the three abominations.
“Is this the kind of messed up shit you guys deal with all the time?” Steph hissed.
Gestalt 3 pulsed with wrongness, slowly creating more malevolent spirits and occasionally birthing out a corporeal abomination with a random mix of attributes from those stewed in the pit below it to merge.
The most recognizable part sticking out of the slick clump of indeterminate biological matter was a single human arm.
Sure, the arm had other things sticking out of it, like a tail from some kind of reptile and a damp bird wing, but he could see human fingers.
“Do they stick their own people in there?”
“No. At least, we don’t think so,” Brooke said. “The last time someone disappeared from town was over 6 months ago. So, we’re thinking they’re getting people from somewhere else. Adventurers coming from the other side of the mountains maybe?”
“Firing silver missiles!” Benny practically giggled with excitement.
So unlike a man of his age should sound, but he didn’t get to use the shoulder-mounted micromissile launcher attachment often.
The town only had 5 of them and only used them in emergencies.
The volley trailed twisting smoke trails through the mist and gray.
Gestalt 3’s defenders raised barriers out of magic and the ground itself.
Alin felt the magic and pulled the metaphorical rug out from under their feet.
The way cleared suddenly for Benny’s missiles.
They struck home with loud booms and bright flashes.
The Child wailed.
“Awww… it’s still alive,” Benny said.
“We need to break the chains. They’re holding it together, keeping the spirits in,” Ray said.
The Child’s defenders attacked with a collective roar that reverberated with the voices of the spirits within.
He pulled at their life forces.
Human and spirit.
Weakening them enough to turn a difficult fight into an easy one.
Silver sang while distorted flesh cried.
Some help in putting an abomination to rest? There are people still in there. I think at least some of you care.
He felt a grandmother’s disapproving stare lasering holes into the back of his neck. Such things were universal.
The gore-encrusted chains holding the mass suspended began to rattle and squeal.
Faint colored lights danced across the links like bladed instruments.
Hints of hands grasped and twisted, pulling with superhuman strength.
Chains snapped.
The abomination flew like a heavy bag kicked off its hook, bowling over the defenders’ back line like ten pins.
The fight ended just like that.
Men and women dead around something they worshiped like a god. Its juices mingling with theirs. A foul river that dirtied the mud.
Lewis gagged. “I can smell it through the mask. So much bad magic coming from that thing. And that.” He pointed his blade at the stew pit.
“Salt it. Silver it. Pour in our special herb and spice blend,” Benny said. “Hope it works.”
Whether it would and to what degree, they’d have to wait to find out.
Gestalt 1 was next. Then they needed to backtrack to take care of Gestalt 2.
The Father was the first and most powerful of the mountain village’s abominations.
Naturally, it was the best defended.
They were willing to sacrifice the other two, but not this one.
Alin shrouded his team in the gray.
They needed time to plan.
“They can’t see us, right?” Benny said. “So, why plan? Just attack!”
“Moron!” Lewis grinned. “They can’t see us if we’re just chilling here. They can see us fine when we’re in stabbing range.”
“I say we shoot them until we’re out. Then deal with what’s left,” Brooke said.
“It won’t be that easy. Gestalt 1 isn’t going to roll over and die like Gestalt 3,” Ray said.
An understatement.
The likeliest outcome was for the Father to sprout arms and legs to go on a rampage if it deemed itself under the threat of destruction.
Fortunately, Alin was an unfair presence.
Everything touched by the malevolent spirits were tainted.
The energy he gained from draining them was foul and set his gut roiling, but he was willing to stomach it if it meant a good outcome for Ray’s town and those poor kids cowering in the walled up cave a stone’s throw behind the Father.
The only thing he worried about was taking in too much and being permanently tainted.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
His dad had said that wasn’t likely.
Which wasn’t the same thing as impossible.
He felt Ray’s and Galen’s eyes on him despite keeping his fixed on the Father.
“I’ll handle the thing. You guys keep the rest of them occupied.” He stuck a hand in one of his pouches of holding. He had dedicated its entire storage to bags of Ray’s special anti-spirit blend. A mixture of silver dust, rock salt and more than 11 herbs and spices.
As ridiculous as it seemed it had proved its effectiveness thousands of times over the years.
He drew the gray over him like a blanket.
It wasn’t at all like playing ghosts with his parents when he was a child.
Violence swirled around him.
Its fingers grasped and clawed like a blind man sifting through sand for gold.
The gray made it so the man remained destitute.
Gestalt 1 loomed behind a line of magic users and ranged fighters.
Glowing shields left little in the way of gaps to exploit.
He hit the muddy ground as projectiles and spells whistled overhead.
A mortar thumped, cracking some of the shielding.
He kept a partial ear on the comms chatter to avoid getting in anyone’s line of fire.
Things sounded like they was going well.
He had tipped the balance toward his team.
They fought in a light mist, while the mountain people could barely see more than an arm’s length away.
The men and women casting the shields felt stressed.
Yes, the spirits inside them gave strength, but also influenced their thoughts.
And the spirits were beyond agitated.
The silver dust in the air combined with the sudden and violent destruction of the Child, along with so many spirits wasn’t good for what passed for morale.
Even malevolent spirits feared for their existences.
He focused.
We can end this quickly. Destroy the abominations and we get those kids away from this terrible place.
He held his breath, waiting and hoping.
The answer came in the form of a faint sliver of red light emerging from behind the mages maintaining the shields.
Gray wisps trailed the thin light as it swept horizontally across the mage line.
Shields winked out.
He drew an AK.
Spraying and praying wasn’t recommended for a reason, but such reasons tended to fall away the closer one got to their target.
Silver bullets sent the mountain people and spirits howling.
He leapt forward, leaving the empty gun on the ground in favor of a longsword from his bag of holding.
Plain steel.
The better for Ray’s Skill.
He cut spirits and mountain people with silvered blade.
It wasn’t fair.
They couldn’t see him through the gray.
He almost felt bad as they slashed and shot with blinded eyes, hitting each other, adding to their own terrified chaos.
The spirits only whipped up the frenzy since they weren’t rational thinkers in the best of conditions.
The thin sliver of red light stabbed and cut with precision through the mountain people back lines.
He passed through them to reach Gestalt 1.
The mass loomed over him.
Pulsing and writhing as if seeing his presence for the first time.
He felt its fear.
The chains groaned.
The stew pit bubbled below going from a simmer to a boil in the seconds he observed it..
He could almost see hands and faces trying to reach out to the dripping mass.
Some resembled humans.
The chains kept it contained, but also kept it protected.
Break the chains, but don’t let it land in the stew pit unless the pit was destroyed first.
He upended the bag of holding dedicated to Ray’s special anti-spirit blend.
It reacted like hot oil did that one time he screwed up deep-fried pork belly.
No one had told him about drying it out first.
A sudden flash of ivory light saved him from a drenching.
Gray wisps outlined the smooth edge of a round shield momentarily as the disgusting stew sizzled and smeared down the translucent surface before the shield vanished.
Thanks.
The reddish stew mixture had showered the immediate area everywhere except where he stood.
It had been the final bell toll for the remaining mountain people back line.
They fled screaming as the spirits in then finally shoved them into full madness.
Gestalt 1’s pulsing grew enraged.
He felt the effects immediately from everywhere in the gray.
From his surroundings all the way out to a thousand meters.
The echoes of his relatives continued to battle the spirits in the surrounding forests, but more spirits were abandoning those fights in favor of flying back to the village to answer the Father’s calls.
“More spirits incoming. 2 minutes at the earliest,” he said into the comms.
“Copy. Hurry up and kill it,” Ray replied.
Gestalt 1 was held up by 4 thick iron rods like the vertical edges of a pyramid.
He grabbed one and lifted.
His low level superhuman strength barely budged it from the earth.
“Damn it.”
No choice. Unless someone wants to help?
Eerie silence was the answer.
He pulled through the gray.
Life from the mountain people and the spirits.
That energy converted into physical strength.
He tore the rod from the earth.
It had a wide base plate anchoring it in place, but that gave way with a screech of torn iron.
The entire stand tipped over.
He hurried to the pulsing abomination.
Glistening hands reached out blindly as he gave them a wide berth.
He drew a heavy axe from his bag of holding.
Silver and strength rose and fell.
Chain links snapped.
Eyes weeping foulness opened all over Gestalt 1.
The hands suddenly found their target.
They reached for him only to be sliced by a sliver of faint red light in the gray.
He dumped a bag of special anti-spirit blend over the abomination and stabbed the silvered longsword deep into where he judged the center was located.
The Father resisted even as the flesh mix burned and withered, so he pulled from it with the gray.
The taste of it was the worst thing he had ever experienced and he had resolved as a culinary matter to never reject any type of food at least once.
Regardless, his comfort was secondary.
The abomination had to be destroyed.
“Oh shit! They’re going crazy!” Steph said. “Watch out, dude! They’re heading your way!”
The mountain people and the spirits rushed to the dying Father’s side.
Alin slipped out of their way and let the echo wielding the sliver of red dispatch them with quick, economical strikes and thrusts.
The rest of the team arrived just in time to watch the Father shrivel into nothing more than a dark smudge on rough stone.
“Two minutes until we get more spirits?” Ray said.
He nodded.
Words didn’t seem to want to come out of his mouth.
In truth, he struggled to keep the bile from escaping his upper throat.
It felt as though just opening his mouth would be akin to opening floodgates.
Absorbing some of the abomination’s life force had been terrible.
Who could’ve foreseen that outcome?
“Benny, Lewis, you’re with me. We’ll head back to Gestalt 2 to put it into the ground. The rest of you head to the cave,” Ray said.
“Hey!” Brooke scowled.
“You need to set up some defenses for those spirits and any remaining mountain people patrols out there.”
There were a handful.
Most of their number had been in the village and most of those were now dead or dying or running madly into the forest.
“Most of the main Quest is done,” Galen said.
Alin hadn’t noticed in his struggle to keep the contents of his gut inside his body.
“It should be okay to call the Raynabinger in to help deal with the remainder and to start taking the kids,” Galen continued.
“That way you say it makes it sound so bad. Like, we just killed their parents and are now going to kidnap them,” Steph said. “Not that I’m saying it’s better for them to grow up as evil, spirit-ridden abominations. Cause… no one thinks that’s good, right?”
“Let us take Gestalt 2 out before you call them,” Ray said.
“Yeah, no problem,” Galen said.
The team split.
“Looking a little green there, Alin,” Steph said.
He swallowed.
“I ate something bad.”
Steph regarded him through narrowed eyes.
“Not literal, I hope? There were a lot of moist red chunks all over the place.”
“Nope. More spiritual.”
“Oh… cause that’s much better…”
----------------------------------------
Washington, D.C., Fall 2055
Yellow, orange and red.
The decaying remnants of green life.
They fell like empires.
Ground beneath the soles of the inexorable march of entropy.
Or some such nonsense.
Certainly, a bit too advanced a concept to teach young children.
Never mind that they were learning magic and not philosophy.
Although, one could argue that grasping the latter could only be beneficial to the former.
The teacher of small mage children swept the carpet of fallen leaves aside with a gesture of wind, drawing oohs and aahs from an easily impressed audience.
They were at that age where spellcasting without words was the coolest thing ever.
A sudden, pudgy-fingered hand struck for the sky.
“Mr. Finley!”
“Yes, Avery?”
“That bird’s being weird!”
He followed the finger point to a sparrow alight on one of the tree’s gnarled branches.
“Ah, yes. It is being weird. Birds don’t tend to sit very still. They’re always moving, looking for prey and watching out for predators, after all.”
As if it could understand him, the sparrow suddenly began to act more sparrow-like.
“Okay class, let’s ignore the bird and the cold. You need focus if you want to be able to cast your spells better than simply shouting the magic words because anyone can do that. A true master can do it without speaking, either out loud or in your heads. A true master can shape every aspect of the spell rather than relying on the box the spires gives them. Now, close your eyes and begin your meditation.”
That should keep them busy for the next 5 minutes.
He eyed the sparrow.
It flapped down to land on his shoulder and promptly spat a microSD into his palm.
Nothing has changed, he thought. I can’t find them. I can try harder, but that means doing things and going places that would be suspicious for a simple magic teacher.
No. Maintain. Your work is important.
And my revenge? I can reach them. Now.
And you would be killed immediately after. How many people will die that you could’ve saved? How many classes of smol, cute mage kids?
Emotional blackmail…
… is effective, no?
Obviously. He focused very hard on the mental image of a double middle finger salute.
You’re doing good. Keep it up. you’ll have your chance. Just stay patient. Don’t drop the ball at the 5-yard line. I’ll keep updating you.
The sparrow flew away, perhaps confused at being at an entirely different tree than its normal territory.
He regarded the children.
Pudgy faces, eyes screwed shut.
Concentration or constipation.
A fine line.
It was a good thing he was doing even if it was a cover.
Elsewhere in the city, an old man stared at his laptop screen.
He groaned and wiped his eyes.
He had zoned out again.
What had he been doing?
Oh, right.
Searching through the database of supply movements from the warehouses under his management.
It must’ve been why he had been so tired over the last few months.
Extra work off the clock, even beyond the few hours overtime he was already doing.
Rightful Destiny had been gearing up again after several years of being put on the back burner.
At least that was the word going through the rumor mill.
He had a nephew that was a colonel in the Combined Armed Forces that had hinted that he should make himself real valuable to the logistics side unless he wanted to be called up for a more direct contribution to the war effort.
Always was a good kid, his sister’s son, never failed to look out for family.
What was he looking for again?
Oh, right.
Inventory missing or being sent out to places they shouldn’t have been or seemed out of the ordinary.
He sighed and rubbed his head.
Less and less hair everyday.
“So many damn spreadsheets.”
So many files in so many folders.
Well… it was worth the extra hours.
He was doing it for the nation, after all.
“Hey, Ted! You still here?”
Robert, one of his new warehouse workers, knocked on his office door.
Young people these days. No appreciation for tradition.
Why, he remembered it was always ‘mister’ or ‘sir’ back when he had been a young man.
Would’ve been nice to get the same respect.
“What can I do for you, Robert?”
“Nothing! Just saw your light was still on and wanted to say goodnight. Do you want some help? I can stick around for an hour or so.”
“Thank you, son, but you’ve put in enough overtime already.”
“Alright! I’ll see you Monday!”
“Have a good weekend, Robert.”
“You too!”
Most places in the city were the same.
Shutting down for the weekend.
Well… partially.
Some places never closed.
While some worked half days on the weekend.
Actually… it was the rare place of work that closed completely for a day, let alone two in a row.
Such things weren’t heard of in America.
After all, how could one take days off when the fate of the entire nation was on the line.
Rightful Destiny demanded the blood, sweat and tears of every man, woman and child.
It was the great work of their society, nay the era!
President T.K. George eyed his personal assistant.
He didn’t have a set one, but drew from a pool.
Today, he had been saddled with his least favorite.
“Ms. Foster, please get my dinner. I’ve decided to have it in my office tonight. Oh and make sure to tell the chef I want to try a well-done steak tonight. With his compound butter, of course.”
An abomination to mankind and he’d have to apologize to the chef later, but the extra time it would take was worth it.
He needed a reprieve from Ms. Foster’s staring presence.
An attractive woman, but as cold as a dead fish.
A frozen one.
He couldn’t even appreciate her body, which he could only assume was fit and shapely, because her business attire was a different sort of professional compared to the tight skirts and blouses and jackets of his typical assistants.
Those eyes of hers. Like a shark staring at a juicy seal.
He eyed the report on his desk.
An unhappy one.
An intrusive thought.
What if an alliance with the demigod had been a mistake?
Unleashing the rabbit people on American citizens had been one thing and now unilateral actions in the Philippines.
What did Suiteonemiades want with a third world country?
He tried not to think about the angry video message he had received from that impressive looking man.
White hair suggested age, but thick neck and obvious muscles beneath the suit suggested otherwise.
Why didn’t they have more information on him?
He hadn’t even claimed a title.
Just demanded the return of a ‘Madalena’.
Like he had any idea who that was.
Naturally, polite inquiries to Suiteonemiades had been answered with less than satisfactory illumination.
The demigod had politely refused to meet ever since then.
The Eidolon of Sunor hadn’t changed from what he could tell, but she demurred every time he had brought up the issue.
Captain Patriot.
He thought of her.
A lifeline in the turbulent seas he had suddenly found himself in.
He needed a word—
Was it bad that he, the president, was worried about calling for her?