The demon camp was dead silent as Ellie and Galler finally made it out of the trenches with their strange phenomenons. Most of the group, Ellie noticed, had indeed made it out of the unexpected ordeal, but all aside from Mr. Mavier had seemed to simply drop to the floor as soon as they reached the smoldering campfires. Not a single one reached to clean their weapon, nor did a questing hand search for food. Every demon that Ellie could see did naught but stare lifelessly into the embers, as if their thoughts lay trapped in some half-forgotten dream.

However, as Ellie was beginning to expect from him, Mr. Mavier did not sit idle during this time, choosing instead to pace back and forth in front of his drab brown tent with his eyebrows furrowed in thought. On his left shoulder, a rat that was quite a great deal longer than Ellie had ever seen before sat on his shoulder, head cocked upwards to the looming sky above. Its head tracked the same location in the sky as Mavier paced, but Ellie could see nothing there. Similarly, many rats congregated around the tall demon’s feet, rustling to and fro to follow Mr. Mavier in what Ellie realized looked strikingly similar to the movement of the water in the pond near her home.

It was completely clear even to her that Mr. Mavier was trying to think of something, anything to allow for his control over the situation to resume. Ellie empathized with him on that one. Even though she mainly followed her big bro around to places, she had still put some hard work into creating her own part in the battle. Yet, due to whatever that freaky mud stuff got up to, it had all gone up in smoke.

But… Ellie wondered to herself. If these strong demons are as tired as they look, wouldn’t the bad guys be the same? Or worse? Mr. Mavier was fighting those three in the sky, and I think I saw them run away when things started getting weird.

Maybe…

She nudged her big bro Galler with her free hand to get his attention (the other one still tightly clutching her prized weapon, of course). His head tilted towards hers with a questioning look on his rough scarred face.

Then, his lips split into a lopsided grin and he nodded to her.

“Not bad, not bad at all. I don’t think, looking back at it all, that those heroes have ever seen the two of us before. And since they ran from the mud, just the same as us and our demon friends, they might be a bit tired right about now.”

Galler patted Ellie roughly on the head and speedily walked off to consult with Mavier. At least, that is what Ellie assumed, while she did her best to straighten her matted hair out of the horrible shape her big bro had whacked it into with his darned massive mitten hands.

“We could……..… yeah maybe the.….… infiltrate, maybe. Poisons…” Ellie strained her ears, but could only catch snatches of their conversation.

Well, hopefully I can find a way to apply my bag to the bad guys. She thought as she eavesdropped a little bit more.

“… leave them if you… whiskers…… careful with the…could be better……. thralls.”

She shook her head. Her big bro really didn’t make sense sometimes.

Then, Galler finally finished his conversation with Mavier, they shook each other’s hands firmly, and he returned to Ellie’s side. Noticeably, without the odd and silent friends that always seemed to follow him around on their stomachs.

“Right Poncho, let’s be off. Keep your eyes peeled and take care to not blow our cover.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Elena, Jim, and Carlos sat down on their camp chairs with a ‘huff’ of exhaustion as soon as they arrived back at the tents.

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“So… what the fuck just happened.” Carlos started, leaning forwards to feed some kindling into the guttering fire. “First the fight goes off as planned, next thing we know is we start hearing things and then the guys on the ground are going bananas.” He shivered despite the growing heat from the fire. “I mean, shit man. I don’t know if you two saw since that demon guy was keeping you real busy, but I caught a few glimpses.”

He paused again, attempting to steady the trembling in his hands and failing utterly.

“The- they were fuckin’ nailing each other to the fucking wall. Why would they do that? Why? And, and they were laughing! I could hear them! It’s like they thought it was all one shitty joke! I- I saw a dwarf fucking carving pieces of his own flesh off with a fucking cleaver! I recognized him! I fucking joked with him yesterday about some stupid shi-“

A clatter of metal rang out as Elena slapped Carlos square in the face, stopping his almost frantic rant right in its tracks.

“Look, Carlos. I get it. That, that was wrong. What was happening there. But we don’t have time for this.”

Jim nodded in agreement, though his face was set in a conflicted frown. “Elena’s right. As much as I want to otherwise, we’ve gotta think about the real problem.”

Then, he sighed and looked square at Elena.

“Miss Elena, you’re the one here with the most experience, and you’ve seen stuff like… this before. What do you think we’re dealing with? Some sort of depraved magic from those so-called demons? Or something else entirely?”

“That’s…” Elena hummed in thought from her seat. “I can’t be sure of anything right now. I almost want to say it’s something those damned rats caused, but if it was, then Mavier would’ve pursued us. I… assume both of you experienced that brief loss of self, and heard those odd voices earlier as well?”

Jim and Carlos nodded, both looking disturbed.

“Yeah. That’s why I grabbed you two and booked it. Figured if it happened again we might not be able to recover our footing or Mavier might be able to whack us a good one.”

“Good call,” Elena acknowledged. “Snap decisions are rarely easy to make, and that one ended up working out for us.”

It was at that moment that a polite, yet weary cough interrupted the hero’s conversation.

“Ma’am, if you will, here’s the butcher’s bill, along with my own observations.” Bill Clarkson politely half-bowed, his hands unconsciously brushing against a swath of bandages at his side as he handed over a roll of paper.

Elena immediately took the report from his hands, and as Bill began to stiffly brew a pot of tea on the fire, she devoured the contents written on the paper.

Fifty-five soldiers reported to be confirmed dead, and another fifteen reported missing. Shit.

But still, the list read on.

Combat reported as starting normally, but minutes into the fight Bill began to notice oddities. People gradually forgetting things. First they would forget which foot to put forwards first, the right or the left, when walking. Then it might be what they were going to do, or what their name was, or who the person beside them was.

“Memory loss… on a large scale, too. Unnatural.” Elena muttered, half to herself and half for the benefit of her companions.

Then the freaky shit started happening. Bill reports spotting an elf and a demon locked in combat, forgetting who they were, why they were fighting, and that they were foes. The pair then sat down and had a ‘snack’. Consisting of chunks of the demon’s ears, which the demon willingly cut apart with his own belt knife.

A small amount of bile threatened to rise in her throat, but Elena tamped it down with sheer force of will in order to continue reading.

Another man went from marching towards a skirmish that Bill could hear in the distance, to standing still with a misty, unfocused look in his eyes. As Bill attempted to get his attention, even going as far to strike the man in the jaw, Bill noticed that the man’s eyes glazed over and he appeared to get… shorter.

And then Bill looked down.

The man was gradually sinking into the mud. Bit by bit, inch by inch. Without a single change of expression, no signs of fear, happiness, despair, joy, anything. It was like the man wasn’t even there anymore mentally.

The only movement Bill could see besides that of the man sinking deep into the mud, was the slow upwards swiveling of the man’s head to keep his eyes locked straight into Bill’s.

A shivering sensation creeped up Elena’s spine, far below her well-worn steel armor. It wasn’t the rats. No…

But…

“There’s… there’s more.” She gasped, the words falling haltingly from her lips while Jim, Carlos, and Bill stared at her with confusion written all over their faces.

Elena shook her head in denial of her own words as images of rats exploding out of the once-living bodies of men shot through her mind like a whirlwind of bad dreams.

“Fucking hell there’s more there’s more there’s more there's… the mud’s one of them.”

The teapot sitting over the fire clattered mid-removal as Bill's trembling hands failed him, his eyes widening as he finally grasped what she meant.