Chapter 3

First contact

We walked for several hours into the forest, well into the start and passing of the storm. Damp and tired, we finally found the camp Roland had set up for us nestled between a large group of conifer trees.

"Perfect defensive position with good cover." I thought. There was a threesome of tents. Attached to the zipper of the middle tent was a sealed scroll. I walked over and reached for the scroll. There was a palpable energy coming off the scroll. I paused, focused some energy into my hands to protect them, and I resumed retrieving the scroll just as Roland taught us. My hand passes through the energy with ease. I unfurled the scroll and read it aloud.

"My friends, the mission I have for you is not easy. There is a paranormal event happening in the area you are in. I do not know the exact location, but it is near your camp. Investigate the area and record any anomalies. Please be careful I have received reports of monsters long thought myth in that area. Be back in 3 days no matter what you find."

After reading the scroll I looked up at my brothers. "Monsters?" I said questioningly.

"He could have been a little more descriptive huh?" Baker said offhand.

"Yeah it’s a bit cryptic." Shyft added.

"Well let’s set up camp before we lose all the light." I said looking at the darkening sky. My brothers agreed and we set to work. It took us no time at all to get everything set up. I grab my kukris, bow and small survival pack,

"I’m going to get us some food guys." I said as I was headed off towards a stream I had seen on the way in.

I walked through the forest looking for signs of animals. Here and there I found rabbit trails and I could hear squirrels chattering, but I was looking for bigger game. I came to a clearing and found a small waterfall that lead into that stream. Large rocks dotted the middle of the stream, acting as safe havens for some lazy turtles. Fish darted back and forth in the bubbles where the waterfall emptied into the stream. 'I think we will be having seafood tonight.' I laughed to myself knowing my brothers never really liked fish. 'I’ll try to get them something else on the way back.' I pulled out my little collapsible fishing pole from the survival sling bag and attached the reel. I walked over to a rock and moved it aside. The musty smell of damp earth invaded my nose.

The sound of the waterfall gave a pleasant serenity to the area. I used a stick I found lying near the rock and dug a few inches into the ground and caught a few earth worms as bait. I baited my hook, sat down on a rock and dipped my bait into the stream. An hour or so went by with no bites. I started to drift off into my own mind wondering about our parents and how they were part of this whole magick thing. I must have dozed off in my thoughts sometime later

Darkness. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. A woman screamed in the distance. Then figures appeared out of the darkness, a woman of maybe 25 with horns and scaly skin was crouched defensively around a squirming bundle. She looked up at the other figure and yelled "This is my child you can’t have him!" The second figure laughed and said in a deep guttural voice "He isn't your child, you were supposed to test on him and the others. You weren't supposed to get attached. He isn't a demon, not entirely anyway. " The woman was sobbing and lifted the child into an embrace "I'm sorry little Morko." She whispered to the child. She handed the child over to the male figure. "What is the purpose of this anyway?" She asked still with tears in her eyes. "They are" ………

A jerk of the fishing pole brought me out of my dream before it could finish. I started to reel in the fish I had on the hook when a twig snapped off to my left. I planted the base of the fishing rod into a break in the rock I was sitting on. I swiftly pulled up my bow and drew an arrow. I slowly tracked back and forth where I heard the noise looking for the source. My training took over, I closed my eyes and slowed my heart rate. I listened for any sound to give me an idea of what was there.

Baker’s thought came to me through our link. I opened my eyes and eased the string back down. Baker walked closer and looked worried. "You’ve been gone a while dude. We were worried." he said working his way around a fallen tree.

I looked down at my pole "Sorry, Baker, I fell asleep while thinking of mom and dad." He stepped closer and sat on the rock across from me.

"Did you have that nightmare again?" He asked obviously worried.

"Yeah but it went farther than ever before." I said then I recounted what my dream entailed.

"Who is the woman and who is the kid? Morko? Is that supposed to be you?" He asked confused.

"I don’t know brother. It’s just a dream, though right?" I said not truly believing it. I went back to fishing for another hour this time making sure I got food. I caught 6 good sized bass

Baker and I walked back to camp in silence. As we entered the group of trees, Shyft landed in front of us from out of one of the trees. He no doubt was setting up his watch perch

"Damn man took you guys long enough, I’m starving. What’s on the menu?" I held up the fish and he gave me a look of disgust. I laughed a little letting the questions made by my dream fade into the back of my mind. We ate our dinner and then sat back to watch the stars come out.

"So, what do you think Roland meant for us to investigate." I asked my brothers.

"We'll find out in the morning when we start searching the area." Baker answered. We sat there in silence each contemplating what the future held.

Sometime before midnight there was a large pressure explosion in the distance. All three of us immediately exited our tents with our weapons in hand.

"What the hell was that?" Shyft asked looking toward the direction of the sensation of pressure.

"This may be what Roland was talking about." I answered.

"Let’s go check it out." Baker said. We set off toward the incident. The woods were lit by a beautiful full moon. As we ran through the trees I started to notice that I felt a tingle all over my body. It was almost like when Roland gave us the condensed energy but way more intense.

I looked over at my brothers and I noticed a definite aura surrounding both. Baker's was a see through silver second skin while Shyft's was see through blue and licking off him like fire. I glimpsed at my hands and I too had an aura of see through dark green that shifted to black and back like camoflauge. I knew from our training this was not something everyone would see but others sensitive to magick would feel it.

Baker asked through the link.

Shyft answered also through the link.

"What is that?" I thought as I motioned my brothers down. Across from us entering the field were 3 monsters, for lack of a better word. The first 2 were slightly above average in height and weight, scaly, horned, and aggressive looking. The last one was slightly taller and seemed to be in charge. The leader also had a faint red black aura that was close to its body but moved erratically. I looked at my brothers and could tell they were thinking what I was thinking that these must be the demons that we had been studying and that Roland had warned us about. After the shock of the appearance of these demons I started to calm down. I nocked an arrow and took aim at the leader.

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I knew it was farther than my normal accurate range but I think the adrenaline made want to try something, anything. I stood up and took my shot. The arrow flew silently across the field. I noticed several thin slivers of the leader’s energy snaking across the field, like it was searching for something. Before I could say anything, it brushed by Baker's leg and withdrew with haste. This all happened by the time my arrow had reached around halfway across the field. The leader looked right at us, deep red eyes penetrating and full of malice. In a split second, he pointed toward us and fired a ball of energy from his hand and ordered the other 2 demons to attack. As he let his hand down and went to take a step forward my arrow went straight through his shoulder knocking him against a tree and pinning him into place. Baker noticed the incoming energy blast was headed for Shyft. He grabbed a piece of tree bark off the ground, charged it with energy, and threw it like a Frisbee catching the energy blast and redirected it into a tree at the head of the clearing. The tree blew apart in a shower of wood shards. Shyft and Baker took off running across the field with weapons in hand.

Baker’s aura seemed to shrink and condense around him. His skin took on a metallic sheen. He and one of the demons met in the middle of the clearing. Baker took a few hits. He staggered back slightly stunned, but shook it off quickly. He opened his shield and swung. The shield moved so fast it sang through the air. The edge of the shield connected with the demon’s neck. There was a definite snap that echoed through the clearing and the demon went down like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The other demon stopped mid stride, looked over, and let out a scream and howl mixed together. It looked at the trapped leader and turned to run back to the woods. Shyft whom had disappeared up a tree came swinging down and kicked the demon to the ground. Shyft landed lithely like a trained acrobat. The demon took no time to get back up. It swung sharp claws at Shyft to no avail. Shyft seemed to blur as he dodged making it hard to tell where he was and where he had been. I did how ever notice the glint of metal unfurl from Shyft's blurred hand.

'No doubt his warriors chain Roland gave him.' I thought to myself. The demon was obviously getting pissed and its haste made it lose his balance in the middle of one of its swings.

Shyft saw the opening and wrapped the warriors chain around its throat, jumped clear over the demon and putting his back against the back of the demon using himself as a fulcrum to pull the chain tight. Then twisted his body to the side snapping its neck. We came up to where the leader was pinned to the tree. Purple blood was soaking the ground underneath its feet. It was obviously hurting and dazed by blood loss. I raised my hand and collected my ice energy. I focused it around the leader’s hands and froze the energy. Now with his hands completely encased in ice, I pulled the arrow from its shoulder and it fell to the ground. It looked up weakly and started laughing.

Then in a very deep harsh tone he said. "So, this world still has users. Who knew I’d find changed ones so soon." He said something else in a language I didn’t recognize, but somehow knew it was bad.

It was a spell. My brothers must have come to the same conclusion. Baker throw up a wall made of his energy in front of the three of us, Shift made a wall of fire come out of the ground, and I covered us with in a bubble of healing water, just before the leader exploded in a flash of red and black flames. After the flames died down there was nothing left but a scorched hole where the leader had been laying the damage curved around our position for several yards.

"What the hell was that?" I asked

"How did you know to throw up a defensive barrier?" Shyft asked Baker.

"It was a spell. I don’t know how I knew, but I recognized it as one." he answered. "I just followed my instinct to guard us. Seems we all had the same thought" he continued.

"I made a wall of my fire to weaken the blast." Shift said

"I made sure any damage that got through would be offset." I remarked.

We stood in place winded but completely unscathed. The amount of energy we used for the protections was more than half of our current stores. Luckily it recharges fairly quickly in different ways for each of us. Baker had the smallest energy pool but because he is defensive in Magick nature he gains most of the left over energy from his spells. Shift being fire and movement oriented gains his back by moving around and working up a sweat, While I gain the most back from cold, wet, and dark places.

I used a "spell" that Rolands books had described meant to create a sensory bubble, similar to radar, and I felt the source of the energy coming from 100 or so yards past the clearing.

I linked to both of them.

We slowly made our way through the woods to find a door sized blood red portal. This was definitely what Roland was looking for.

After a brief inspection we headed back to out camp. On the way back each of us were replaying the first encounter with monsters in our heads.

"I think we need to get back to the camp and report this to Roland immediately." Shyft advised. Baker and I agreed. When we got back to our campsite and got our gear and headed back with haste. The trek back only took us an hour at our full speed. We were a mile or so from the camp when we heard the screams.

We speed up our pace at the nightmarish sound. We crested the hill and weren't ready for what we saw. It was straight from a horror movie. A black mass of shadow was swirling around where the camp should have been. The shadow seemed like it was alive with something moving inside of it. That’s when I realized that faces seemed to be pushing out of the black mass. The screams were coming from the faces that were twisted in agony and horror. We slowed our pace but continued to the bottom of the hill. The cloud started to shrink as it sucked into the middle of the camp. I pinged my energy, the camp was devoid of life until we saw "Him". A young kid of maybe 15 walked out of the camp towards us. He had an average look about him but his shadow was moving and swirling like it was alive. Then he looked at us. A chill ran down my spine. I heard my brothers both gasp. The boy’s eyes were pitch black pools of complete evil. He smiled and the smile was the most terrifying thing ever. The smile stretched from ear to ear and he had row after row of sharp serrated teeth like a shark. We three readied our energy and weapons. The "boy" said "Interesting, but another time." His voice was a cacaphony of multiple whispers. It was bone chilling to say the last. Then his shadow rose off the ground, surrounded him cutting him from view, and he was just gone like a mirage.

"What the fuck was that?" Baker whispered. Neither Shyft nor myself could even manage an answer.

I shook my head clear and started walking cautiously into camp. As we neared the totem pole I noticed Mr Stonman leaning near its base. He was not moving and looked to be covered in mud and pebbles. I leaned down to check his vitals when his eyes opened.

"Boys.... Roland.....save him." he said slowly and with great effort.

"What happened to you and whats going on here? Shyft asked hurridly.

"The war...is upon us." he paused "I am a golem .....a construct of Rolands. I am at my end. Go." he mumbled out before going still like a statue then crumbling to dust.

I ran straight for Roland's cabin. I could feel my brothers running right behind me. The camp was eerily empty of life no animals, bugs, or people, but the buildings were untouched. We got to Roland's cabin. The door was locked and the handle had a definite aura around it. I looked at Baker and he nodded. He walked up and surrounded his hand with energy. He grabbed the door handle. There was a crackling sound like discharging electricity but Baker got the door opened unharmed. We worked our way through the cabin to Roland's secret library. We found Roland laying on the floor, cut and bleeding, obviously in pain.

He was lying in a casters circle that was written in his own blood. He looked up at us and smiled "I'm glad you three are safe." He coughed and continued "What did you find at the spot that I sent you too."

I was the first to find my voice. "We found three demons and killed them and found a portal. We then headed back here to report and saw what had happened here."

Roland coughed and grimaced in pain. "Was it easy for you to fight them?"

"Yes, but they are definitely strong." Baker answered. I knelt next to Roland and went to reach over to him and my hand hit a barrier. It hurt like a thousand bees stinging me all over. I pulled my hand back quickly.

Roland looked at me with sadness in his eyes "I'm sorry my friends but I'm too far gone to help. This circle was the only thing I could do but this type of blood magic has a cost. My wounds plus the cost of the magic will kill me. I just wanted time to see if you boys would come back. Now that you are here I can pass peacefully into the afterlife. Take my teachings and my books and fight this war. You are this world’s first line of defense." He closed his eyes and went still. The three of us just sat there in silent reverie for a long while letting Roland's last words settle in. We then silently went to work collecting anything from Roland's library that would help us and loaded it into a jeep he kept covered behind his cabin. We searched the camp for gear. Before leaving the camp, we spent the rest of the afternoon collecting wood to build a funeral pyre for our former master. We recited the Viking funeral chant

“Lo there, do I see my Father.

“Lo there, do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.

“Lo there, do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning.

“Lo, they do call to me.

“They bid take my place among them.

“In the halls of Valhalla where the brave may live forever.”

Shyft walked up to our master’s pyre, lit his hands with his blue fire and set the pyre ablaze. After a silent reflection while watching our master’s body burn, in a warrior’s send off, we left the camp and never looked back.