Interference with the static burst sent a warpath down his spine and limbs. Tim charted all available strength into his pre-formed spell. Battleground bought him the split second to send Magic Hunt and Draw into the void eye spewing ancient power in unstoppable gas-spewing swells of chaotic fury.
Tim's highest leveled and powered abilities sprang to mind like a bunch of bronze instruments spilling out of a closet. In their clamor, the whiplike speed of demons in purple gas infused aura armor forced him to choose the loudest.
Whatever he picked must resolve where these things came from and how they arrived before he’d have a chance at how to stop them. Magic Hunt and Draw tugged on aura threads tied to their Spirit Memories.
Gantus Rem, the bastard with a claw who'd made Tim's face his bitch, had sniffed out their entry to E'Tic's grove using the DNA he left in Tim’s wound. Blocked by Tim's Protection spell at the doorway, Gantus led his legion underneath to the tunnels and range for his Haunted spell.
GOOD TO KNOW. ALSO, THAT SUCKS.
Don’t blame me, I’m just sharing what I’m learning.
Gantus’s spell cut open this seam into Tim's Spirit Memory, manipulating his power to reverse and expand it into a mixture of Peel and Enclave to launch him and some friends into this memory to attack.
Tim wondered if he won the tug of war, could he seal the void eye and trap them here, or simply eradicate if capture and interrogation was impossible?
In this interference, Tim bared pain for progress, his Magic Hunt and taste for the Void thread he'd learned from the prison, spearing into the meat of their unholy Venom.
Swells of the fetid aura spilled out as a forcefield pushing Tim back. Shadows swept this way and that, testing angles and mental stamina.
Gantus shot out of the first, with three demons on his wake. A swordspell demon, Gantus launched with blades ready to cut a b.
Tim's shield would have been a nice to have. Or Murphy with a high kick.
Instead, passive Evasion and Chris's placement when the Void opened were his only barriers against the burn of demonic metal.
Gantus scored a deep piercing blow into Tim's neck. Lucky as Tim was for that one—WP minus one, JK—the tearing pain of ripping it out his upper shoulder felt a little less lucky. More like divine wrath.
Tornados and fireworks of long repressed, raging aura wrapped Tim’s face and pulled away from the gash in his neck. Muscle ripped and shivering pain cascaded off of a million angry nerves. He spun, fearing the wind might yank his head off before execution and cast Light Burn at the Void seam. The spell soared wide and overcorrected low as he slashed back over the center.
It sliced the darkness like a tablecloth under fire, but his miss cost him the win. The center pumped a full load of you motherf- into the new continent of hell expanding into Tim’s flesh. The Void’s power tugged without interference, pulling Tim’s arm as he tried activating Dose into Farji.
Draw sent Void aura Tim stole from his one-sided attack into his sword’s gem to store up for Dose.
Chris’s vines barely slowed the demon swords lashing and striking through fauna turned to fallen stalks and springs of life juice. These blows drew winces from Chris, but he kept sending the deflections to buy Tim time to hide within this strange jungle.
Kari flicked a glowing gem and shot it between Gantus and a demon straight out of Hulk's gnomish cousin Volume 88: The Grunge Years. He or she, don't want to judge by the hairy pits and gnarly nostrils, nor the sulfuric body stench. The gem erupted in light. Flared tentacles seized the two demons in a Welcome to Death Row supercharged party favor. Yeehaw.
Tim’s Dose collected enough to activate. His Healing reconnected vital tendons in his arm, thank you Lord; you know I was only kidding. His prayer seemed to thread the vital core to whatever held those tendons together. Their snarling retort only made drawing Farji more glorious, he tried convincing himself. Tim cycled a deep breath while charging Light Burn—sizzling pain lanced across every inch of Tim’s demon scars, halting his swing and drawing him unrelenting to a ground dumping.
Gantus’s spell sent so much heat, his spells burned out and his familiars left the enclave. Left the memory.
I’m… kind of… here.
Dryfu shook in his fetal position side escape on the dirt ground. Tim carefully picked him up by squeezing the core armor, and put him back in his vest pocket, trapped in observation mode.
A spark of violet shot out of Grunge demon and chipped a corner off Kari’s gem.
Another spark hit Tim’s arm. Frickin’ punk rock! The bite’s resulting spasm loosed his sword grip and his forearm down to his hand disappeared in fade's curse.
He sprinted for a new hiding place while a hiss of energy hunted him from behind.
Grunge demon’s spell burned the ozone off his Protection and draped an unseen weight over his frame, slowing his steps while he sensed its mouth lowering for the kill. What the hell is—
Violet and red demon sparks lit the alcove in a rampage, destroying the gem in their outburst. They were gonna break this party off right and kill everything up front. Good plan.
A slope and fallen tree opened space ahead for Tim to dive between surrounding branches. Tim’s breath filled and held their as distance and assumption eyed hard edges and abrupt greeting.
Bolts pinged Tim in gunshots of pain before his landing. His body spasmed and tucked inward. Ringing in his ears and strip-mines of acid carved under the demon metal scars laying claim to his flesh. His collision with the tree smashed through soggy wood—thank the Lord—and ripped a wide tangle of weed vine from the tree above, where Tim’s leg entwined, caught his weight and smacked him against a trunk wide enough to not bother waking to shoo him. It was nighttime, after all.
The vine snapped, and his tree ride slide connected to a slick ravine where about twenty feet, or three future hemorrhoids later, he blindly struck that as forementioned hard edge.
His rebound resembled throwing a bowling ball against a brick wall. Crack. Thud. Tim’s face splat in something thick and gravely. All the edges came to that face party. They came to stick… around.
The Chemical Brother's "Galvanize" dropped the intro triple beat to taunt him from a one-sided mono speaker, like he’d had when delivering pizzas in his Buick Sky Hawk. Fuzzy beats and monumental debt oh how I miss thee, Tim thought. Could I get some of that good juju dear Sovereign? You are the eternal one who’s always been there.
Caught with a log on his back and mud or entrails clogging his inhales, he wasn’t sure which, and prayers to convince him it was tapioca pudding weren’t landing on his plate. Tim put some of that prayer warrior mettle into rolling the die on blowing into his necklace Wraith Whistle, aka, Chestnut Charley, on account of how it looked like the head of a wicked cool chipmunk with legendary fangs.
You’ve never called it that and you know it.
He licked it into place and blew into the mouthpiece, three beats to repeat the Galvanize intro. Mud and spit shot out before a sharp cry broke through, calling his wraith army in a righteous gust of Light Burn. His range with the whistle spread ten acres; beyond that, he hoped against hope.
Gantus shrieked and recoiled his grip on Tim’s soul. Vines looped under Tim’s arms and yanked him skyward, stitching wounds enough to keep him together until he reached the top.
Chris helped him to his feet. The demons cringed and kicked as their forms collided and melded under a small storm cloud of Venom versus Crystal. Holy versus Hollyfield. Tyson versus… oh, oops. Tim took a long inhale of c-mana, Galvanizing to charge Light Burn the bedonkadonk outta these demons, and blew into Charley Chapman. Light Burn on the Hello Frequency struck the demon cloud in a tizzy of chirping highspeed boot in the tumble-drier resistance.
While his cool down ran its course, Chris’s vines and a barrage of spells kept the demons close to the Void Eye.
An appendage expelled from the storm cloud with length and lethal speed, slashing a claw that started as a prick of light on an arch he knew was headed at him. Tim stuck his dagger into miraculous Greensight, locking into the blur’s path. His gotr blade sliced an armored finger into the air, free from its station, and likely for good. Murphy, don’t eat that. Oh wait, you’re not here.
Hot blood squirted from the knuckle. Tim cackled in shock. Claws spread, passed through his arm, fading under pressure and as good as an open border to the terror that lashed into his chest. Its two remaining fingers raked through his armor just fine, scooping their spoonful of flesh, muscle and hair, sending spasms deep enough to make him cry out.
Patches of numbness stole the rods from Tim's legs and spine. He rocked back, fighting to stay upright. His heart beat in heavy, unwelcome rhythms. Too fast, then oddly slow. He was too close to give up, yet unable to find strength in reserves.
Tim inhaled, forcing air and c-mana on a cat’s back into his fading arm. He flexed aura to fill the fade with Light Burn, then looped Gantus in and branded him into an unholy Mr. T Bicep Crunch. Oh yeahhhh. Tim's demon scars raged with Venom burn as his Crystal Fire shot into the screaming demon’s face. Holy Versus Tina Turner got a bit close and personal.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Bitter fumes exhumed from the burning taint demon flesh. That’s gross.
A tail wrapped his arm, burning his sleeve as it tightened his arm to his side. Tim crawled through the slick grass to reach his sword. He switched gears on Light Burn, channeling it out like he did with Danger Sense to permeate instead of bursting in one shot. His Light suffocated Gantus while the demon scorched his arm into a trembling, worthless appendage, immobilized to his ribs. Tim reached his sword and stabbed a full-length delivery into the demon’s gut.
The demon’s fight ebbed enough for Tim to raise the gem of his sword to the center of its power, the windpipe. Blood dribbled then poured as he flexed his grip around this bulbous meatbag. Aura swelled and gave way to new girth, making it akin to wrestling a jelly donut from hell. Tim hit his head on the ground, pummeled by a sudden shift and thrust of the unholy energy.
Tim rolled back over Gantus, smearing his gem over Gantus's blood, drawing his aura. Gantus fought back with blade and vigor, but as his aura left, so too fled his strength. A snap of spasm tripped the spirit mid-retreat. Too late. The red fire burning in the demon’s eyes, the epitome of its rebellion, faded along with its fight. Tim pounced and slayed the spirit through the back. Aura tightened in a quick concrete at the center of the being’s spirit.
Combustion powerful enough to throw him into the sky forced Tim into a shaking grip to keep the sword steady. Who says priests don’t get a bit dirty in hard labor? Tim drew the last of his aura in a fresh inhale, cycling more energy into purifying the aura he drew into his gem. An accessway into its spell Dose opened as soon as the purified aura met initial standard to be considered Crystal.
Gantus’s aura flamed. “No!” Gantus cried.
The combustion pressure threw Tim sidelong. Unwilling to let go, he hit the ground and smacked his head.
The demon erupted in a splash of firelight and black streamers as its tentacles evaporated in the aura heat.
Tim’s draw had sucked forty percent of potential.
Good work, Dryfu pathed.
Grunge Demon fell out of the storm cloud. The other two sucked into the Void Eye. Chris yanked on his vine and clocked the Grunge in the head with a staff spell born of green light.
Tim lunged and stabbed the demon in the back before it could recover. The blade entered as easily as spearing a jelly donut, enhanced by the aura he'd absorbed in his first kill. He shifted the blade to his fading hand and gathered his breath.
Afterward, Kari and Lank gifted him a dozen bottles to collect the demon aura. He sealed the cork with a plan to purify them later.
“Now, we…” Tim collapsed, drained and unable to hold back.
Light and relief welcomed him into E’Tic’s den and Kari’s arms. Lank’s meal cooked more bird in the oven, surprising Tim with the seasoned spices roasted with the bird to perfection and how hungry he could be. He felt like he’d been gone a week without food.
Tonda and Murphy tackled and snuggled him like two kids glad to see Dad. Murphy’s aura baked cookies met his tastebuds with gratitude and surprising strength. Nowhere near what he needed to punch out of a wet paper bag, but at least it wasn’t draining anymore.
He slowly chewed, rediscovering the ability through lazy jaws and cotton mouth. Restore trickled in as he reached for the water from Chris.
"So that went as planned," Kari said.
Tim’s pain gripped him from eyebrows to the tortured hook of back flesh lost to the demon's tail. It radiated heat and throbbed with unseen warfare brimming to the surface of his wounds.
After another two doobies, it was hard to form coherent thoughts through the pain management efforts. “Can we go back and try again?” Tim asked. Dryfu shook his head from his new favorite perch, her shoulder. "The scar tissue-like spellburn distorts Kari's memory to the point you could get trapped if the spell collapse.”
"Good to know.” Tim said. “Is there another memory of his..."
Kari shook away the thought. "We didn’t get another chance. Her smile spoke of hope beyond the long stitches of fresh scars marring her flesh. Chris sewed her arm and stomach vines. Still, she hurt. Yet held a secret her lips parted gladly to share. "Maybe someday you can learn how from the source. For now, we have other options. All of which allow you to rest. The demon sting will be worst for you."
“Here, Tim.” Chris handed him a lit doobie. The skunkish odor wafted from the pale-yellow smoke thick with sorcery and healing.
Tim’s heart was still working overtime from the fight, but he earned the sedation. His demon scars tormented him with their fire. The billowing of his exhaled smoke freed him from their sting momentarily. “What would you have done if you hadn’t found me?”
“We’d still be after my ledger,” Lank said and toked his spliff’s bright embers.
Tim puffed. “I meant to stop the demons. What would be our backup plan if we can’t retrace a memory to Sa’s trapping technique?”
“If you weren’t around,” Kari started, wrapping a twine of fruit strand around her finger. “I suppose send Lank and Ling Win after a Sails’ trek through the mid-levels.”
“What’s that?” Tim asked, stroking a fire in his optimism to match the buzz from the weed.
“The intestines are the maze of tunnels. The Sails packed ‘em with enough traps to bury a dwarf,” Lank said.
“There might be a chance we skirt through them without the warding traps we’d–
“We’d have a safer time digging our way out the other way,” Lank interrupted, gathering her glare with accustomed timing. “And regrouping. Except we don’t have time for that. I don’t think we’re going anywhere tonight.”
“Tomorrow we could though?” Tim asked. “Is this the way we need to take if I can’t make the traps?”
Kari sighed. “The mids would take a construction to reach that would draw too many predators, we’d never make it.”
“How would the demons have prevented us from meeting Sa?” Tim asked.
“What do you mean?” Kari asked, releasing a coil of strand around her bruised knuckle.
“Our wounds happened in your head… in my Spirit Memory spell,” Tim added, “now that we’re out, we still bear the marks.”
“Okay?” Kari wasn’t getting it.
“What if part of their assault was taking Sa out before he reached us?” Tim clicked his teeth and pointed at the jars they filled with demon blood. “And if I can go back to that memory, maybe we save him and ask him to show me how to make the trap?”
“What exactly do you mean?” Dryfu mimicked Tim’s cowboy-esque air gun shot and clicked his mouth. “How exactly do you go from enough demon blood to end an empire to psh, no problem. Let’s look for your friend?”
“Can’t I purify it?” Tim asked.
“How much time do you think you have? At your skill level, it’s like rubbing mushrooms to make fire. You might get lucky.”
“You can try,” Dryfu said. “I don’t think you have the time.”
While Dryfu spoke, the cord Kari fiddled with entered her knuckle. Strands tightened around her wrist like barbwire, rupturing skin and oozing blood.
“Kari… Chris, what’s going on?”
Kari glanced up as though he were overreacting. Meanwhile, the strands sewed a striking resemblance of Gantus’s face onto Kari’s forearm. “Oh look,” she said, delighted. “I think he agrees with your plan.”
Kari snatched Tim’s wrist and pulled his hand into Gantus’s gaping maw. Black thunder skies roiled inside, expanding like an eye with miles to spare and a whole world to explore.
Tim grabbed a jar of demon blood. A suction as encompassing as an ocean wave pulled him inside.
He landed on his back in the woods with Chris watching their surroundings while Murphy pawed at his eye. Chris helped him up and Tim leaned in to see by the dusk light. Murphy’s eyes had a friction-producing distortion, like a spell or glitch in reality. He waved his hand back and forth only for Murphy to turn the other way, unaware.
“It's a demon spell,” Dryfu said, popping up from Tim’s vest pocket. “I haven’t paid attention to his wounds. Could be an infection.”
Tim felt Murphy’s head, confirming infection by the heat in his skin. “What’s wrong, bud?”
The donkey squirted out a nasty soup that forced them to move closer to the river. Tim recognized the cliff overlook where they’d ended their last vision without finding Sa. A few hundred yards out and half that high, his vantage in the valley produced a vibrant vision of summer green vegetation and invisible life abuzz.
“I think this is the demon’s Spirit Memory,” Tim said, partly to himself. He couldn’t figure out how Gantus could do this if he was really dead.
“What’s it want us here for?” Chris asked.
This evening had a different scent on the breeze, more pollen and humidity. Static on the low end of every breath signaled a powerful spell had been used somewhere close, and soon.
Shapes shifted in the forest nearby, concealed, and then too late to stop. They had the rat-like features of trolls with arcane abilities enhancing their navigation with near-perfect camouflage. Maybe they meant to be seen for fear in their watchers kept Tim still until they were upon him. Only his read on their essence as inquisitive more than aggressive stayed his hand from his sword.
They approached Chris and ended their phase in and out spell to stand around him and his brother with hunting axes still in their belts. One had a curl of green hair, and a slimy snake propped at the end, its tongue slithering out to extend his perception.
“What are you doing here?” The troll clasped a hand on Chris’s arm. Another caught Tim before he could resist. A spell phasing in and out like scenes from a photo bank transported them to a dark place high enough to catch a cool breeze. The lash burn of a struck match ignited a spark in the dark.
The chieftain’s wife guided the flame to a vase where light warmed the room in its translucent girth. Expanding illumination revealed a tree house overlooking a village set in the woods around Tia’s Pointe.
Seven trolls in light camo armor studied Tim and Chris with seething annoyance. Something of value held their weapons close. Was it Murphy?
“You reek of the future and holy aura,” the woman said. “I despise both and have questions about your void-spun donkey. What have you done?”
“I killed the demon Gantus and—”
“I doubt that,” she said, mocking him with a chuckle in contrast to the firmness in his statement. “No doubt Gantus is tracking your escape.”
“I don’t—” Tim started.
“What makes you think he’s dead?” she asked.
“I drew his soul aura into my gotr blade.” Tim produced his sword for her to see the gem where the demon’s aura was stored. An opaque cloud of white with flecks of dirt and oil shone through. Was that what she meant by he wasn’t dead? “Is he in there?”
“Now you’re getting it,” she said.
She ran a thumb along a finger, producing a whine eerily distant, then piercing in its intrusion into Tim’s hearing. The world shifted. Buzzed into his teeth like sugar in a cavity. Now they stood in the tree house, looking down over a herd of frung’suq by the thousand. Thankfully, the distance and snakelike ridges armed with pointed trees slanted in heavy shingles of fir leaves, suggested a day or two between them. The chieftain’s wife and her soldiers emitted an essence of danger under urgent control.
She turned the same hand that cast the spell to adorn their new room. Her gaze held on Tim as though waiting for his consent.
“You’ll have time here to safely try and purify that aura and rid us of Gastun’s wickedness,” she said.
“Our friends are missing,” Tim said. “We didn’t mean to be here.”
“Friends?” the wife asked. “When it’s safe, you can go.” She gracefully took on a high chair by an open window, its seat creaking with the minute stretch of fiber and knot. She smiled at the approaching herd in calculating patience. “The frung’suq are on their way to mate in this valley. Toiga and hellfren by the dozen are on their scent. Scouts report many are boosted by the means of the Hunt,” the chieftain's wife said. “We came to hunt.”
Tim had enough going on to be in a memory of a memory, and felt void-spun in it, though at least he could see.
Murphy nudged a wall beside a shelf decorated with cups and idols made from shells and natural furs to this habitat. He waited for it as though it were a door to open.
“That’s a wall, Murph,” Tim said and gently guided him to his side. Murphy leaned into his hand and licked his bracer in welcome recognition. “Our friends and I were on our way to observe Sa Reoleigh ward some critter’s spleen so I can learn to ward demon traps. On my first Spirit Memory attempt, the demons captured him first. I think, G?”
The wife nodded. “Sa is a worthy adversary. Maybe ally in the coming months or sooner. We can teach you how to ward better than any human. Our shaman is my aunt. I could teach you. For a favor. And that’s not including helping you get him before the demons.”
Tim’s prophecy to warn Chris set off a tickle of interest. Information and help at this point were critical. He checked with the slouched and demon scarred Chris, who looked too weak to argue. “We’re listening.”