Now, Las Vegas

The Dread Paladin didn’t expect to find glowing crystal formations providing enough light for the other people to see without needing to use their own light sources.

He heard them argue in hushed tones about whether to do just that.

Their dread buoyed him through his uncertainty.

Was he being reckless in trusting his strength?

He hadn’t faced anything yet that had seriously threatened his life. Not since he had made the Vow. At times it was hard to remember what that boy had been like before those monsters in human form had taken everything away.

He thought briefly of the bat people.

What were they like?

He dismissed it quickly.

They were the enemy.

They were invaders from another place.

Earth belonged to humans. It was only natural that he’d defend that.

Two birds, one stone.

Killing bat people was the right thing to do.

He would gain from it just as humanity would.

The first attack came after 30 minute mark.

He had sensed the fear and uncertainty of the bat people hiding in a small alcove in the ceiling of the dimly-lit tunnel, but pretended to be unaware to bait them out.

“Xitlal… flee… warn—”

He caught the bat person by the throat and let it flail clawed-fingers against his armor.

A second bat person dropped out of the alcove and scurried down the darkened tunnel.

He let it go.

Good. Spread the word of my coming, he thought.

“Holy shit! It can talk?” Tyson said. “You guys heard it right?”

“I heard clicks and screeching, but also English words.”

“You think it’s hearing us talking in clicks and screeches? That makes sense right?”

He tossed the struggling creature at Tyson’s feet. “I don’t care,” he rasped.

The bat creature surged up with a gust of wind that threw dust in a cloud. It swiped clawed hands at Tyson’s throat.

“Power Strike!” Tyson cleaved his axe blade into the creatures forehead. “Some warning would be—” he suddenly remembered who he was addressing.

“No levels for you if I kill them all.”

They continued down the tunnels and encountered several more small groups of bat people. He didn’t bring forth any of his weapons. He let the Golden Eagles do the fighting and killing. He only intervened to make sure that at least one bat person was able to flee from every engagement.

“Hey… uh… is that a good idea?” Tyson ventured hesitantly. “Won’t they let the rest know we’re here.”

The Dread Paladin didn’t dignify the man with a response. He kept walking.

A larger cavern heralded the first seemingly organized response.

A shower of rocks crashed down upon his helm in what appeared to be a hastily-constructed trap.

The bat people swooped down from the ceiling.

Their screeches sounded fierce, but he heard the fear in them.

“Burn them!” Tyson roared.

Mages raised their hands and filled the air with sprays of flame.

The bat people plummeted to the rocky floor.

Acrid smoke from burning fur and flesh quickly filled the tunnel.

The Golden Eagles fell on them with blade, clubs and spells.

“Dude, I think they’re, like, primitive or something.”

“All their weapons are made of stone.”

“Those aren’t weapons. They look more like tools. From the tunnels we’ve gone through, I’d say they’re expanding. You can tell how for the first twenty minutes or so the tunnels looked different. Right from the entrance it was all polished stone.”

“The fuck you talking about, Sam,” Tyson said.

“I’m saying that the parts with polished stone… from the entrance until the tunnels started getting rough, was done by the spires when they made this place. While the rest was probably already here. You know, naturally formed cave tunnels and shit.”

“Does this matter? I’m just fucking worried that we aren’t going to get enough points and levels from this. It’s supposed to be harder than this right? Killing unarmed savages that look scarier than they are isn’t going to make up for what we’re missing out on.”

“Bro, I’m just glad we haven’t run into monster worms and other shit.”

“Giant meat-eating moles was what I was pissing myself about.”

“Bat people might’ve taken care of those. I mean, they’ve got to eat, right?”

“Could you imagine running into a deep dragon?”

“Or a balrog?”

“One does not simply go into—”

“Shut up, nerds! This is serious.”

“You think he can handle a balrog?”

Eyes darted to the Dread Paladin.

“If one of those shows up we run back the way we came.”

The Dread Paladin barely listened to the others bicker. He didn’t care what they thought. He hadn’t bothered to get to know their names. He followed his sense and kicked an overturned cart to reveal a small, skinny bat person cowering.

“I know you can understand me,” he rasped.

The bat person shut its eyes tight and practically vibrated.

He nudged it with an armored boot.

“You may live if you run and tell the rest that I’m coming. Tell them the Dread Paladin is almost at their doorstep.”

It took a moment for the message to sink in.

The bat person suddenly sprang up and down one of the dark tunnels.

He tracked its terror like a scent in the wind. It would linger. He could follow it all the way to their city.

“Look guys,” Tyson began, “I know we’re killing miners and diggers, but that’s how this works. You’ve got to work your way up or down to the harder stuff. I’m sure we’ll eventually run into warriors and mages, if they can even do magic. Just be patient and stay on your toes. Do not get cocky. Just cause it’s been a cakewalk doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way.”

He started down another tunnel.

“Um… it’s running down that one,” Tyson pointed at the one the small bat person had scampered into.

He ignored the man.

He had sensed more bat people in the other direction. Now that he better knew the shape of their fear he could track them. He wanted as much fear and terror running down the many tunnels leading to the bat people’s city.

“Shit,” Tyson muttered. “Let’s go.”

“Maybe we should head back,” Sam said.

“We haven’t gotten enough yet,” Tyson said.

“If there’s actually a city filled with these things…” she hissed.

“I know. We can’t fight that. That’s why we keep him,” Tyson gestured down the tunnel the Dread Paladin had disappeared into, “in front of us. Worst comes to worst, they fall on him and we retreat back.”

“We’re getting far from the entrance. I’ve lost count of how many tunnel forks we’ve gone through. What if we get lost?” she continued.

“Joe’s got it,” Tyson pointed to a small man in the middle of the group.

“Mental Map Skill,” Joe tapped his temple. “I know the way back.”

“He’s the only one,” she sighed.

“Which is why he’s protected… speaking of which… Joe, what’d I tell you about the helmet?” Tyson sighed.

“It got hot, putting it back on now,” Joe rolled his eyes.

“C’mon. I don’t want to get too far behind the bastard,” Tyson said.

They wound they’re way through the snaking tunnels. Killing in spurts as they went.

Until, finally, the Dread Paladin deemed it sufficient.

Of course he told the others nothing. He hadn’t bothered to say anything to them for the last few hours, merely continued to walk.

He led them down a narrow tunnel that gradually widened until all twenty of the Golden Eagles could walk comfortably next to each other in the space had they so chosen.

“Watch the ceiling,” Tyson said.

“They ain’t even trying to fight no more.”

“That’s cause they’re just workers doing their jobs. We still haven’t run into real fighters.”

“I think that luck is about to run out.”

They didn’t fail to notice that the Dread Paladin was now armed with sword and shield.

They followed him into an enormous cavern. The size of which defied description.

Dim light from countless crystalline formations gave them just enough to see giant pillars the size of buildings jutted out from the ground and from the ceiling.

“Alright, this is enough. We’re not going to fight an entire city,” Sam hissed.

“Too late,” the Dread Paladin rasped. Almost lazily, he pointed his blade to the ceiling.

The Golden Eagles gazed upward.

“Movement…” Tyson uttered in hushed horror.

The bat people had dark skin, dark fur. Perfect camouflage to blend into the rocky surface. There were so many nooks and crannies they could cling to.

Clicks and screeches descended upon them with wings and claw.

“Kill… invaders!”

“Shoot them!” Tyson roared.

The time for silence was gone.

They fired with guns and spells.

The chaos of battle.

The fear and terror of it fueled the Dread Paladin.

He cleaved through two bat people descending on him from above.

A third sneaked behind him and stabbed a stone-tipped spear into the back of his knee where there was no plate. Shadow-wrought clothing stopped it with ease.

He spun and separated the bat person’s head from its shoulders.

The Golden Eagles had formed into a tight circle. Melee fighters around the Mages and other ranged fighters. The latter managed to keep the bat people from landing in their midst by turning the space overhead into a zone of fiery death with bullets and spells.

In response the bat people were forced to take to the ground and throw themselves on the ring of steel.

The bat people were smaller than a human on average, but they seemed to be equal in strength. And they didn’t fight fair. They ganged up.

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Three swarmed a big man. He fought to keep a hold of his shield as one leapt on it and tried to use its entire body to pull it to the ground. He stabbed his blade into an other’s gut, but realized his mistake when the dying bat person wrapped its long, wiry arms around his arm and pulled the blade deeper into its stomach. Which allowed the third to slash its claws across his eyes, blinding him.

The drawback of an open-faced helmet. Less protection in exchange for a better field of view and easier breathing.

“My eyes!” the man cries were silenced a moment later as the bat person sliced his throat open.

It screeched in triumph only to have it’s face smashed in by a hammer.

The break in the formation, as slight as it was allowed a handful of bat people to reach the Mages.

Screeches and screams filled the air.

“Lights! I want lights!” Tyson hacked at a bat person’s neck and sent a spray of blood shooting across his face.

Sam sent a light orb up to the ceiling, as did a few others.

The cavernous tunnel lit up with an artificial dawn.

The bat people screeched in surprise and pain covering their sensitive eyes in vain.

Sam grabbed a cowering bat person around the neck. “Shocking Grasp!” she screamed in its ugly face. Its body seized, stiff as a board, then began to convulse as the stench of burned meat filled her nose.

A heavy weight fell on her back and knocked her to the ground.

Screeches filled her ears.

Claws and teeth struck at chain mail protecting her.

“Don’t move, Sam!” Tyson abandoned his spot in the ring of steel to rush to her side. “Cleave!” he swept his axe across the bat people swarming on Sam’s back in a horizontal arc. He cut them all, even the ones that his axe didn’t touch.

Freed from the weight, Sam rolled to her back and thrust her hand out. “Fire Spray!”

The stench stung her nose while the smoke watered her eyes.

“We have to get out of here!” Sam said with wild eyes as Tyson pulled her to her feet. “Shooters are running out of ammo!”

“Retreat!” Tyson called out.

The Dread Paladin watched them try to flee down the tunnel.

They weren’t going to make it. There seemed to be hundreds of swarming bat people. The momentary distraction with the lights had given the Golden Eagles a sliver of space, but the bat people had recovered quickly and swarmed them. Some took great leaps, assisted by their wings, and cut them off.

“Fireball!” Sam cried out.

She blasted a knot of bat people, but more filled in the space an instant later.

“Charge!” a big Fighter roared as he barreled forward behind his shield.

“Follow him!” Tyson called out.

Bat people went flying like bowling pins, but the man’s charge petered out after a dozen feet.

He found himself surrounded and cut off.

“Get their attention!” Tyson called for taunts as he plowed over a bat person with his shield and ran through the others while hacking with his axe. Up and down, like chopping firewood.

Taunts went up and drew the majority of the bat people’s aggression.

Wave of fire and force washed over the bat people narrowly missing Tyson and the other fighter.

The other melee fighters screamed their Skills as they slammed into the bat people.

The numbers were against the Golden Eagles.

The tide had already been turning against them when they ran out of ammunition. Now, the Mages were tiring and all of them were burning through their Skills.

“Don’t stop! We need to push through! If we can get back to the narrower part we can funnel them!” Tyson kicked a bat person free from his axe.

They tried.

The Golden Eagles began to fall. A trickle at first. Then a flood.

An armored Hammer Fighter went down underneath the combined weight of half a dozen bat people. Their claws couldn’t get through the thick steel, so they took rocks and began battering the big woman’s helmet-covered head.

A Mage cast Barkskin on himself as two bat people worked together to drag him up to the dark ceiling with powerful with powerful flaps of their wings.

Sam sent Magic Missiles arcing after them to no avail.

“Don’t move, Sam! Curving Shot!”

An arrow zipped around her and pierced through the throat of a bat person poised to sink it’s sharp teeth into the back of her neck.

The Archer nocked another arrow and drew back for a second shot.

“Watch out!” Sam cried.

The Archer spun and loosed blindly. The arrow took the bat person in the eye. Unfortunately, there were more than one. The others fell upon the man and tore him to pieces.

Sam looked around in despair. Her gaze fell on Joe being protected by two others as they were pressed up against the side of the cavern by the bat people.

The scene was repeated across the dimly-lit tunnel. In twos and threes, the Golden Eagles fought back to back, surrounded on all sides and attacked from above.

They weren’t going to make it any farther down the tunnel.

The Dread Paladin watched.

The bat people had steered clear of him in favor of an enemy they could actually hurt and kill.

He listened to the screeches, the desperate cries.

He didn’t need them anymore. They had done their job. The Vow would provide what he needed now.

He watched them die one by one.

Then again…

They had provided him with so much fear and terror that he was filled beyond overflowing. There was so much in the air that most of it would go to waste.

Cooper made a decision.

“Summon: Dreadlings,” the Dread Paladin rasped.

His shadow began to writhe. It moved even though he stood still. Fingers stretched out caressing the other shadows before grasping them greedily.

The shadows moved toward the fighting Golden Eagles and bat people. They began to roil as they drew closer.

Small, thin, black-skinned arms with wiry, corded muscle emerged out of the shadows. They pulled and pushed themselves up out of the shadows on the ground, the walls and the ceilings. Dozens of them. Dreadlings. Misshapen faces, eyeless, noseless, more sharp-toothed mouth than anything else. Fat, bulbous bellies jiggled as they hopped the rest of the way free on two, long, spider-like legs that ended in a pointed spike rather than toed feet.

“Kill them.”

Cooper fought against the natural inclination in him and exerted his will over the dreadlings.

They hated it, but they had no choice.

They fell on the bat people, ripping and tearing.

The Golden Eagles… they left alone.

Cooper tore his attention away from the melee and turned toward the bat people’s city within the gigantic cavern.

He called forth more dreadlings.

The fear, terror and dread from both the Golden Eagles and the bat people had swelled allowing him to call forth hundreds of the tiny monsters.

He sent them swarming into the city with a wave of his black sword.

He began to walk.

Then run.

He called forth his steed.

She climbed out of the shadow beneath him breaking into a gallop as he leapt astride her broad back.

A gigantic knife-like rock formation stabbing from the ceiling loomed above him.

He could see small, dark shapes swarming the surface. Most frantically entered the openings set at regular intervals like doors or windows.

Others swooped down and bombarded him with sharp rocks released from the clawed feet.

The rocks struck both himself and his steed, nearly knocking him off.

“Summon: Black Fog.”

The shadows around him erupted into thick, billowing fog. Unnaturally black, it choked the dozen feet around him in impenetrable darkness.

Clicks and screeches assaulted him from above and around.

The rocks found him through the fog and clanged off his dark gray plate.

He traded the sword for a crossbow.

He shot a barbed black bolt out of the darkness and pierced through two bat people that had been fortunately lined up just right.

Horse and rider ran in the middle of thick, black fog that moved with them.

The barrage of rocks continued even as every few seconds a black bolt shot out and felled a bat person.

The ground was rocky and irregular. A normal horse would’ve broken a leg long ago, but the monstrous horse was strong and impossibly sure-footed wherever a shadow fell.

The Dread Paladin could see and feel every single one of his dreadlings as they finally made their way into the closest giant pillar stabbing several hundred feet out of the ground.

The bat people fought them back in a desperate struggle to protect their young. They fought tooth and claw with their own. They used stone tools and anything else they could grab inside their homes.

Fear.

Terror.

The Dread Paladin sucked in the collective dread from hundreds of bat people dying in their homes.

More dreadlings climbed out of his shadows.

The black fog expanded.

The steed grew stronger.

He grew stronger.

He skirted around the first giant pillar.

Glowing crystals cast a dim light. Enough to see the great field to his right. Mushrooms of all sizes grew wildly. Impossibly, some were as large as trees.

He passed enormous pools of dark water to his left.

The bat people continued to swoop above him, dropping rocks that bounced of his armor.

He pressed his heels into his steeds flanks urging her to thunder forward.

So much dread in the air.

He spied more of those gigantic rock formations that served as the bat people’s homes.

More places to spread and reap his dread.

A screech unlike any other washed over him.

Pain for the first time in this battle.

He felt something in his ears pop. The world spun and he lost all sense of balance. He grabbed the reins, but fell off his steed’s back. A trail of wetness flowed out of each ear.

He climbed to his feet and realized that the black fog had been blown away.

An enormous bat person with dark fur and skin alighted several dozen yards in front of him, flanked by a handful of nearly as large bat people.

“Murderer… rampage… ends now,” the bat person said in that strange language of clicks and screeches.

His ruptured ear drums healed quickly as the dread continuously flowed into him even as he used it to fuel his abilities.

“It ends when I decide,” he rasped.

As one the bat people’s torsos swelled as they sucked in air.

He turned his heater shield into a much larger pavise with a spike on the bottom that he jammed into the dirt and ducked behind just as the bat people let loose with a thunderous screech.

Sonic waves distorted the air as they struck his shield and washed over him.

The shield began to crack as the attack continued for several seconds.

The pain of it had him grit his teeth behind his helm.

The attack stopped suddenly.

He burst from behind the shield in a display of impossible speed for one so heavily armored.

A great cloud of dust erupted behind him as he covered the twenty yards in a single stride.

The enormous bat person flew back with a might flap of its wings.

The others leapt at him.

“Power Strike.” His black blade bisected the first to reach him. “Shadow Blast.” He punched a hole through the chest of the second one with dark energy from his free hand. “Shadow Grasp.” He used shadowy hands to fix the ones slow to react to the ground. He cut them to pieces a moment later.

“Retreat…” the enormous bat person ordered as it flapped out of reach.

It screeched at him, but one wasn’t as powerful as many.

The waves of sound were unpleasant, but not deadly.

The enormous bat person continued to buffet him with sonic waves as it circled him from above.

He lost the sword in favor of the crossbow.

A black bolt pierced through one of the bat person’s wings.

The bat person plummeted to the ground and threw up a cloud of dust.

He rushed it while he loaded a new bolt.

“Globe of Pure Dark…”

Words in clicks and screeches.

The Dread Paladin suddenly found himself engulfed in black nothingness.

It wasn’t just a lack of light.

It was the lack of any sort of sensory input.

Even his ability to sense the dread in others vanished.

He dashed forward and ran into something that knocked him back.

He had felt that one.

It seemed that the bat people were capable of magic. There was no other explanation for the situation he was in.

He climbed to his feet. At least that’s what he intended. There was no way to tell if his body was moving as he thought.

A sudden explosion of pain against the back of his head.

He fell to the ground. Or so he thought.

“Summon: Dreadlings.” He couldn’t feel them climb out of his shadow, but trusted they were there anyways. “Surround me,” he said as he began walking.

He felt nothing.

The journey seemed endless. Until, he suddenly found himself standing on the rocky ground. Fields of strange mushrooms in the distance. A huge pool of water nearby. A great rock formation that connected ground to ceiling, as large as any skyscraper.

Of the dark globe that had entrapped him, there was no sign.

The bat people, however, had multiplied.

Hundreds surround him.

They were mostly armed with crude stone weapons, though he spotted some had ones of iron and maybe steel. They were unarmored for the most part, though some had leather helmets and vests with bones sewn into them.

A tiny bat person borne aloft on a litter of skins and bone screeched something at him.

He regarded the wizened figure. Gray skin and fur suggested great age.

Was this the one responsible for the darkness?

Was this some kind of leader?

“You… kill… you… die,” the gray-furred bat person clicked and screeched.

“Yes to the first. The second isn’t likely from where I’m standing,” he rasped.

“Sense magic… will not last… not forever… the People flee… hide… many tunnels… tiny demons… can’t chase… you lose… source… lose power.”

“That’s fine with me,” he set a cold gaze upon the multitude gathered around him, “I see plenty to take from,” he laughed coldly. “I feel your fear. You can’t hide it. It is mine.”

“Lost home… new home… won’t lose… fear no problem… only problem if no act… we act,” the gray-furred bat person pronounced with finality.

He laughed at the bravado, then he noticed that there were other tiny bat people carried aloft in their litters scattered throughout the mass.

As one the bat people sucked in air and let loose with a collective screech that shattered the very air around him.

The force was a physical thing that drove him to his knees. Weight pressed on him from all around. He had the strength to toss cars, but he couldn’t fight this.

Newly-healed ears burst again and made the world spin.

He called the dreadlings to him, but there wasn’t enough to breach the ring of hundreds of bat people encircling him.

They mastered their fear.

Bravery.

Courage.

Acting despite the fear within you.

They drew enough to fight his aura.

They drew from the sight of him on his knees.

It couldn’t end this way.

He still hadn’t avenged his family, his friends.

Their murderers were still out there.

He called for his steed through grit teeth.

The monstrous horse thundered through the thick press of bat people ignoring their claws and weapons as they tried in vain to stop it from reaching his side.

It reached his side.

His hands desperately grasped for the reins even as the waves of sound battered the two of them. He barely managed to drag himself onto his steed’s back with his superhuman strength.

“Go. Take us out of here,” he rasped.

His steed obeyed, scattering bat people as it trampled through their thickly-packed ranks.

“Pursue,” the enormous black bat person screeched.

“No…” the gray-furred one said. “Kill small black demons… protect the People.”

“Other invaders?”

“Leave survivors… protect home… prepare for more attacks.”