The only part of the templar visible beneath his robes and armor was a pair of eyes that glowed.
Drake battled a violent gag from just one brief glance.
Howard slashed at the chain holding the smoke-spewing censer, taking a punch to the face for his trouble.
The eyes flashed, taking on a dark pink glow.
“Shit,” Drake grunted as he helped Howard up. “For some reason— I’m thinking it’s his aura— we’ve lost the battlefield link,” he whispered. “And… uh… did you just suddenly get a boner?”
For some reason, probably magic, he had switched from fighting against the urge to puke to fighting the pleasantly unpleasant stirring in his junk area.
The seamless nature of the switch was impressive.
“Ignore it!” Howard snapped, lunging back into knife range.
He cursed, lashing his cutting knife at the thin golden chain once again.
The templar moved with the quickness of a man wearing light clothing rather than heavy armor and stepped back.
“He’s using boner magic!” Drake called out unhelpfully.
“Half wood ain’t going to stop me from doing what I do best,” Howard growled.
A laugh emerged from the templar’s full-faced helm.
“Then you’d like being part of us. No shortage of boner having and, more importantly, using.”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
Howard stabbed with his stabbing knife.
The templar slipped his head to the right.
“Thought you assholes are supposed to be celibate?” Drake lunged, thrusting his actual spear over Howard’s shoulder.
The templar parried it aside with his gauntlet.
Drake’s other spear had thrown his balance off.
“I’m not a priest and that rule’s outdated. The world requires re-population. God’s command was to ‘be fruitful and multiply’.”
“Ya might want to re-think your beliefs,” Howard came in low, but recoiled with a hiss as the templar brought his swinging censer forward.
The bulk of the demonic incense continued to flow over the heads of the demon-corrupted warriors and priests pinned in place by the need to block the blasts and spells that managed to get through the smoke, but there was enough to catch Howard’s knife.
The blade corroded instantly, rotting into pieces.
Howard threw what was left, clanging the handle off the templar’s helm.
“From the looks of things, you people are taking more pieces off the board than adding them.”
“Heretics and sinners unwilling to listen to God’s words given flesh. Don’t you understand? We hear his holy words. Actually hear them in our ears. I offer your salvation. Renounce your evil ways. Repent and be granted the opportunity to return to God’s embrace. Endure a few days of contrition and you will once again walk in his holy light. You seem tough enough to survive that,” the templar regarded Howard. “You… not so much,” he eyed Drake, “but at least your eternal soul will be saved from damnation.”
“Never got how you morons figured torturing someone to death was the same as salvation,” Howard’s hand darted out like a striking snake, but the Templar was quick to yank his chain out of reach. “I always figured torture was torture. People tell themselves they’re doing it to stop terrorism. Your kind tells yourself that you’re saving souls. Get the fuck out of here with that. Torture is just torture. Just for sick fucks to get themselves off. I’ve seen enough to know that the only thing you get out of it is that sick boner in your pants.”
“Sounds personal,” the templar mused. “Been tortured before? Or… hmm… no, that’s not it,” glowing eyes bored into Howard.
Drake used the distracting conversation to flick a pair of mini-spears into the ground, one behind the templar and one in front of the man’s steel-clad boots.
“You’re a soldier,” the templar concluded. “That’s where you became intimately acquainted with it. My sense of you was right. You would fit in well with us. Come, join and stand at the forefront of the last crusade to bring God’s holy light to the darkness corners of this heathen world. Then, beyond, into the spires.”
“I got one question, man,” Drake chimed in. “How do you do it?”
The templar’s gaze turned to him.
“How do you fight with a raging hard-on? I mean, my underwear’s tight, supportive, got an armored cup thing, see,” he knocked on his Threnium-protected crotch. “It’s kept nice and tight, but, man, is it uncomfortable, all bent and shit right now… but you got a robe thing going on and I’m not seeing you standing at attention like me and Howard.”
“Half,” Howard grunted as he slid back a few steps, low to the ground like a leopard.
“Still? Damn good will power, bud,” Drake feigned bemusement. “Oh, I get it,” he snapped his fingers, “you don’t have the equipment we do.”
“You are annoying.”
Drake heard the sneer in the man’s voice.
“Your attempt to buy time is a failure. My incense will keep the rest of your team from coming to your aid as I bludgeon you into submission,” he pulled the mace from his belt. “You will join the rest of the sinners. He will have the opportunity to repent,” he pointed the flanged head at Howard before bringing it toward Drake, “and you… I will conduct your last confession myself.”
“Yeah, how about no,” Drake cast spells through the mini-spears.
A trick he had picked up from his wife.
The mini-spear sent out a small pillar of stone and earth at an angle, striking the templar in the back of the head, thrusting him forward. At the same time the mini-spear at the templar’s feet shot an ankle-high wall of the same magical material across.
The templar tripped forward.
Howard pounced, pushing the templar’s head toward the ground before grappling the man around the waist. Strength on the right side of the superhuman divide, picked up the heavily armored templar and power bombed the man into the tunnel floor.
Howard stomped on the templar’s hand, loosening the grip on the censer’s chain.
Brief contact with the demonic incense had caused pieces of the Threnosh-made armor to disintegrate, revealing light brown skin covered with black hair.
He kicked the censer away, causing the smoke to begin receding.
The templar kicked.
Howard hopped.
Boot clipped boot, sending Howard face first into a gauntleted fist.
Demon-enhanced strength, cracked his faceplate and rang his bell.
Drake leapt in, thrusting down.
Steel-tipped spear dented, but failed to penetrate the steel collar around the templar’s neck.
He danced back from a kick that was more desperation than measured.
The brief moment of space he had opened allowed the templar to kip up back to his feet.
“In God’s name I strike you down,” the templar pointed his mace.
Wasteful words gave Drake time to spin his spear.
“Holy Smite!”
Sickening yellow light struck from above against the magic shield.
The ethereal blue disk shattered.
“Gah!”
Drake’s vision went white with the spike of pain in his head.
The feedback was bad enough to deal with. That had also been the last of his mana.
Now, he wasn’t a full mage-type, so going zero mana wasn’t half as bad had he been one.
The onset of fatigue wasn’t sudden and it wasn’t all-encompassing.
His limbs only felt heavier, they didn’t feel like they were encased in concrete.
More importantly, he wasn’t close to falling into brain fog or passing out.
“In his name do I call you to penance. Holy Weapon: Bane of the Sinner!” the templar’s mace glowed brightly with that same sickening yellow light. Just like the falchion he drew in his off-hand.
Howard moved low to the ground, palming the huge, custom revolver from the holster at his back.
He feinted a tackle, letting the templar raise the glowing mace before suddenly stopping and drawing his gun.
His helmet had been cracked.
The shots sounded like thunder. Painful with his superior sense of hearing.
War crimes rounds burned into the templar’s chest plate.
“God heals all wounds for the true and faithful! Lay on Hands!”
When the light faded over the templar’s chest pristine skin was visible through the holes in armor and cloth.
Howard hadn’t wasted time standing around and listening.
He had closed the distance.
Cat quick, he stabbed his other stabbing knife at the thin eye slit on the templar’s helm.
“Holy Barrier!”
Yellow light blocked the blow.
The templar’s magic was powerful.
Howard’s strength left no marks.
On the plus side, Drake was happy to realize that the templar had dropped the boner magic. The wood had receded and all the remained was an unpleasant tightness that he’d have to take care of after.
“Hey?” Drake figured he try something. “You guys do know that you’re not worshiping God, right? It’s actually a demon. It says so right in your classes. Those guys are demon-corrupted warriors and priests. You’re First Templar of… I’m not going to say its name cause apparently trying it literally hurts your throat. Seriously, just look.”
“You lie as well as you fight,” the templar said without hesitation.
Drake knew that the delusion ran deep, but he figured it was worth a try. At the least it bought him few seconds to—
Twenty-foot Thrust brought him from standing at ease into perfect thrusting form within optimum range.
Quadruple Thrust sent his spear point into the unholy barrier. Four separate thrusts in the span of one. Speed that he wasn’t physically capable of without the Skill.
The tiny cracks spread from the point of impact like a spiderweb.
He cursed.
The level difference and the class quality difference told.
The barrier winked out.
The glowing mace descended.
Drake was caught flat-footed, the greatest sin in a fight.
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A hand yanked him by the back of his neck.
Howard caught the mace’s shaft.
The grimace visible through his cracked faceplate told of pain, which had to be considerable since the wild man had a near-legendary tolerance for it.
The falchion chopped.
The only thing Howard could do was shift his head to the side.
The thick blade dug into his shoulder.
Steel chipped.
Threnium dented.
The crack and pop echoed through the tunnel like a gun shot.
Collarbone broken and shoulder dislocated, Howard was forced to relinquish his grip on the mace.
The mace rose and fell.
Drake broke his spear with a desperate deflection.
It was enough to turn a direct blow into a glancing one.
Still, Howard’s helmet-protected head rocked to one side, sending him into a drunken dance on wobbly legs.
The templar advanced with both weapons hungry for more.
“Help!” Drake yelled into the comms.
God, he hoped that their emergency option had already made the move over to his or Howard’s shadow.
Time was of the essence.
Torches on the cavern walls sent garish shadows dancing everywhere.
Drake didn’t need to move to get his to connect to one that in turn connected to the shadows cast by the templar as he struck at Howard, who could only raise one arm to cover his head against the powerful, demon-empowered strikes.
He’d have been long dead if not for the Threnosh-made armor and his own robustness.
“Any second now…”
“Dancessassin has the go ahead,” Blackstar’s voice came in clear over the comms. “Demonic smoke is dissipating. Just stay alive a little longer.”
Easier commanded than obeyed.
The last member of their team sprang out of the templar’s shadow like a black leopard out of a bush.
Dancessassin spun, a whirlwind of blades.
A hood and cloak of inky blackness obscured her small, lithe body.
The templar turned and smashed his mace into her masked face only to clang against a jutting rock.
Drake blinked.
He too had thought the hit was good.
Instead, the real Dancessassin crouched three feet to the left of the dispelled illusion.
The black squid-like tentacles emerging from the base of her hood buzzed, spade-like ends spread wide open like those carnivorous plants that Drake still couldn’t accept were natural things, not monsters.
Another Dancessassin appeared to the right.
The templar thought he was smart as he went for the new one, only to whiff on an illusion.
“Clever girl,” Drake mused.
She sprang forward in a graceful arc over the templar. An impossible twist sideways sent her spinning. The hem of her cloak opened. What was solid turned into a dozen thin ribbon-like strips with a monster’s razor-sharp claw sewn in each tip. She spun like a buzzsaw. Sparks flew from from the templar’s helmed head all the way down his back as claws cut through steel to draw blood.
“Devils! You consort with devils!” the templar roared, one eye a bloody ruin. He turned, chasing the cloaked girl with a wild swing.
She ducked under, stepped in close like a dance partner and used the much bigger man’s knee as a springboard to bring her level with his neck.
She twirled like a ballerina.
Spinning claws cut through the templar’s steel collar.
“Holy Smite!” the templar gurgled.
Sickening yellow light beamed down.
This time he struck true.
Her inky cloak smoked, writhing as though the monster it had once belonged to was still alive.
The two tentacles buzzed, opening and closing frantically.
An illusion of her appeared three feet to her left, but the templar wasn’t fooled by the distorted version as it wavered and failed to solidify.
He struck with ferocious hunger.
The girl’s footwork was perfect as far as Drake could tell as she spun in and out of his range, attacking, parrying and confusing him with clawed ribbons that moved with what seemed like a life of their own.
She ducked underneath a wild slash, stepping into the templar’s blind spot, carving into the back of his knees, where his only protection was toughened clothing.
The templar crumbled to his knees.
She pounced for the finish.
He raised his mace and muttered a desperate prayer.
Yellow light burst forth from the flanged head.
Dancessassin recoiled, hissing like a frightened cat, her cloak wrapping around her armored form protectively.
Drake hit the tunnel wall before he had realized he was flying.
The armor kept him from being pulverized, but he finally lost the fight and puked his guts out.
It was lucky that he was only a split-second late in retracting his faceplate.
The light faded quickly from the momentary burst of unholy faith.
Howard, one arm hanging limp, tackled the templar with an animal roar.
The templar caught Howard’s wrist with inches to spare as he stared at tip of the triangular knife blade.
Howard pushed, his face frozen in a rictus of pure animal rage.
The knife inched forward.
The templar struck, but he had been weakened and being on his knees removed his leverage.
Howard checked the blow with a raised leg.
The templar pulled back for another.
Dancessassin wrapped her cloak around his arm and held it in place.
“Help me, damn you!” the templar cried.
One of the demon-corrupted priests turned.
A momentary lapse of concentration.
The two priests’ barrier had been keeping Rynnen at bay.
Powerful fists cracked the yellow light, while the three demon-corrupted warriors waited.
One punch shattered it.
The priests cried out.
One collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
The other, the one that had made the mistake, abandoned the warriors to help the honored templar, who stood closer to God than the rest of them.
A black star crushed the back of the priest’s head.
His helmet did nothing.
The three warriors had no choice but to face off against Rynnen.
One taunted.
The man had a thick shield and Skills at Level 40 to absorb, deflect, disperse or otherwise mitigate the force. All of it further strengthened by the demonic corruption he had chosen to embrace.
In a way it wasn’t fair because it was all for nothing.
Rynnen’s fist broke the solid iron shield, the arm and the chest before sending the warrior into the tunnel wall. The crumpled man stayed wedged in the crater, never to move again.
The other two struck as one, maces burning with unholy light.
Rynnen moved with quickness belied by his size.
It was a common mistake to equate big with slower.
Speed and quickness was a function of one’s muscles.
This was true for normal humans and superhumans, exponentially in the case of the latter.
Skill-enhanced and demon-empowered wasn’t nearly enough.
Both warriors hit air.
Rynnen’s hands reached out quicker than a striking snake.
He squeezed.
The warriors didn’t even have time to cry out.
Their last sight was the shadow of Rynnen’s closing fists, the last sound was the crunch of steel and their skulls.
Drake had seen the big man rip a light pole out of the ground to club one of those goo tyrannosaurs to death.
Rynnen had taken it easy on the demon-corrupted.
The big man hurried forward to push the templar’s face into Howard’s stabby knife.
Then he plucked the templar’s head from his shoulders like one does to a grape off the vine.
Drake would concede that it was gruesome, but necessary. High leveled people tended to die long. There were last stand Skills and deadman’s spells to take your killer with you into the great unknown, which was why Rynnen pulled Howard and Dancessassin behind him while keeping a wary eye on the templar’s corpse.
“Check the bodies for potential demonic-corruption vectors,” Blackstar said as she fired a blast into the last unconscious demon-corrupted priest’s head.
Drake took a swig of water to clear most of the filth from his mouth. From experience he knew that he’d need to brush his teeth and rinse with mouthwash to get the vomit taste out.
“Anyone got gum or mint?”
A Tic Tac arced for his face, so perfectly thrown that he just had to keep his mouth open to catch it.
“Thanks,” he regarded Dancessassin.
He felt sorry for the girl.
Tabitha had been enslaved with all that entailed. The collar had overwritten her true personality, so the girl he knew from their stolen mansion base wasn’t the real one before him. He hadn’t known where she had ended up before joining Cal’s rotating teams. It was only recently that he had learned she had been adopted by the magus and her group. As it turned out Tabitha’s parents had been enslaved with her. Her father had been murdered by one of the werewolves in their depraved hunts. Her mother had died during the chaos on the night of freedom. The woman had plunged a steak knife into the throat of the slavemaster scum even as he shot her in the heart.
That’s where she had gotten her creepy cloak and class. The magus herself had turned the panther-like monster into something Tabitha could use to vent her considerable and justified anger at the injustices in the world.
He couldn’t see her face underneath the shadow of the hood, which was the monster’s head, upper teeth and all. Even the eyes remained life-like. He could’ve sworn that they moved, looking around for more threats.
“Everything okay?” he said.
“Nah, my shoulder’s dislocated and my collarbone’s busted,” Howard grunted.
“I was asking her. Besides, you’re already healing.”
Howard shook his head.
“No shit? For real?”
“Magic,” Howard shrugged, then grimaced. “Some help here?”
“On three,” Rynnen grabbed Howard’s arm, “one, two—” he popped it into place with a flick of the wrist.
“Wasn’t ready!” Howard cursed.
“It’s the best way to do it,” Rynnen grinned. “Now you’re more pissed at me than thinking of the pain.”
“Not now that you’ve reminded me. Asshole,” Howard chuckled.
“Everything okay,” Drake repeated.
Tabitha nodded or rather then panther-like head that was her hood did.
There was something off that he couldn’t quite articulate about the monster head.
It was like… did panther’s get the uncanny valley feeling when they saw things that looked like them, but weren’t, except the line was hard to see, but you knew it was definitely there?
“You were in the shadow realm for a long time,” he continued.
“It was fine.”
“Nothing weird? I heard there might be other things in there. That’s why people shadow travel and not shadow chill and hang.”
“They whisper and touch, but they can’t hold because of this,” she touched the inky blackness of her coat.
The ribbons had vanished. The hem was in one solid piece again without the sharp claws.
“That’s good,” he nodded. “Thanks, by the way, you totally saved us.”
“Yup,” Howard agreed. “I’m the best at what I do and I’m thinking you’re the best at coming out of shadows to carve up some chuckle fucks. I owe you a beer and a cigar.”
“Just doing what I can,” Tabitha shrugged.
“They’re clear,” Emma said, her voice was hoarse, but Drake couldn’t see any flecks of blood on her lips, so that was good. “No signs of delayed spells or Skill effects. There are… threads—”
“Feels more like tendons, but whatever,” Rand shrugged like he didn’t care, though his face was a shade of green.
“Doesn’t matter what we interpret them as. They’re essentially connections to the demon, we think, are mostly sure. Like Cal said. But more importantly, they’ve been severed. I think it happened sometime during the fight,” Emma said.
“Probably when I saw those flashes of flesh curtains, and not the good kind, hanging all over the place,” Howard said.
“Well shit, you saw them too?” Drake snorted. “You know it’s bad when the non-magically abled catch glimpses beyond the veil,” he wiggled his fingers in what he thought was a spooky way.
“We haven’t seen them since, right?” Blackstar said.
Nods all around.
“Then we continue. This templar,” she spat on the headless corpse, “was the strongest one down here with the rest pulled away by the distraction, the remaining scum will be on their level,” she gestured toward the corpses stuck in the tunnel wall. “Rynnen, feel free to cut loose, don’t wait for us. Neutralize remaining threats while we focus on securing the prisoners.”
“You got it. Although, feel free to help, especially if I scream,” Rynnen grinned before taking off down the tunnel.
Tabitha poked Drake in the ribs.
“How come he doesn’t have a stupid name?”
“He’s more like a visiting free agent or perhaps a ringer of sorts. Therefore my wife didn’t get to name him, like us two.”
“Then how come he also didn’t get one?” she pointed at Howard.
The short, hairy man laughed mirthlessly before heading down the tunnel.
“She said his real name was ‘stupid enough already’ and that’s a direct quote.”
“Sticksies, you’re behind Howard,” Blackstar said.
“One second,” Drake pulled the mana potion from his pouch of holding and downed it one. “Yum, strawberry flavor and yet it’s purple.”
He felt his mana reserves fill like a shot of pure adrenaline to the heart.
It didn’t quite get to half, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Sure he could drink his other potion, but that had potentially fatal consequences.
From what Rand and Emma’s teacher had said a potion that could fill him from zero to a hundred safely was still beyond the capability of the best Earth human alchemists, mages, enchanters and such.
The rest of the fight through the necropolis was like a walk through the park, if one ignored the horrors in every chamber they went through.
The sights, sounds and smells would haunt Drake or rather they were added to his rotation of nightmares.
Old walkways for tourists were covered with streaks of old and new blood.
Points of interest once protected in the name of historical conservation had been filled with implements that belonged in darker ages past or turned into cells for their victims.
Drake had experienced many terrible things.
This… being done in what was supposed to be a holy place… by those that should’ve known better, been better… topped his list.
He was jarred from his rumination by a sudden earthquake.
The tunnels shook violently.
Dust clouds bloomed.
He cycled desperately through his helmet’s visual modes looking for the impending attack.
“Hold!” Blackstar barked. “I need eyes, Potter!”
“There’s nothing, sir! Our back’s clear and I can’t keep up with Rynnen, but he’s… uh… taking care of it,” Rand said.