"Ah-la-la-bye-BYEEEEEE!" I sang while sending a flash flying towards the one eyed long bodied thing with too many legs and globs of snot-like excretions that was creeping over the edge of the hill. The purple flame crackled as it shot out in a shallow arc towards my target. As fast as I was riding towards the massive creepy crawly, the spell shot faster. The blast hit and engulfed the chitin-covered insect, it screeched out loudly and curled up into itself. Hundreds of legs scrunching up making me shiver, despite how many times I'd seen, and caused, it before.
Unfortunately, the bright purple flash the size of a moderate two story house wasn't as low profile as I had anticipated. Odd.
Everything glows red here, in this hell of mine, who knew the local denizens were so sensitive to the littlest tiniest hint of blue? An arrow shot past my cheek. It was the size of a small water buffalo(I get tired of saying small horse), but the giant was holding it like a bow so that probably makes it an arrow. A few jerks to the leash and maybe a kick or two finally got the lizard I had saddled, and spent lifetimes training, to swerve around the dead millipede monster instead of scurrying over it and leaving me somewhere in the middle of that.
"Go, go go, faster faster faster" I mumbled mostly to myself. just over the ridge, down the steep drop, across the wide open valley and through the opening gate to home. Oh and preferably destroy the gate after I went through it, wouldn't want any of these wonderful hosts of mine to follow me through it. How could a civilized people with running water and electricity compare to the savage cannibalistic, gross thi....
Something impacted nearby and the ground broke up sending pieces across my body giving me just enough time to close my eyes as the main shockwave of the projectile hit us and sent my loyal steed in several different directions simultaneously, all involuntarily, and more importantly sent me through the air in the wrong direction. It could be worse, sideways wasn't backwards after all. Sideways was, however, towards the cliffs I had been trying to avoid.
There was a small gap between the tall, tall cliffs on one side and the MASSIVE army waiting to invade the mortal world on the other side. I, in my infinite wisdom, thought I would sneak in, avoid the meandering patrols (they're just taking tea breaks by the mountains right?), cross over the river of souls, through the blood forest, walk through the gate tossing some sort of explosive behind me, foiling the invasion plans and, oh, I don't know, hug my mom or something for the first time in... a while. I don’t know, I was busy. Years. I knew eventually someone would do something stupid and try to open a gate to hell, again. I just had to be prepared to make my move and get through it when they did. I was not ready.
Well here it was and I only had the one chance, I wouldn't survive here for much longer. Every breath seemed to leech away your cheer and goodwill. So. Now or never. No time like the present. Be a man of action. Man, I missed cliches, cliches are great, cliches meant people. I hadn't heard any cliches since... well since the last time I talked to another human being which admittedly was a while ago, like, before I got trapped here. Kind of an embarrassingly long amount of time before I got trapped.
Wherever “here” was. I call it hell, and it is, but not necessarily Hell, with all the religious connotations, just my own personal hell. It was generally hot, smoggy, and full of things trying to eat me. Like whatever just killed my loyal lizard thing and sent me flying. Frankly I think you would call it hell too, therefore this is hell and these bastards are hell spawn or hellions or any other bad name I can think of in the moment.
The world did, however, stop spinning as I landed with a thud on the compact ground
“OOF”
The world started spinning again when I opened my eyes. A little mumbo jumbo fixed that right up. Thankfully I still had my staff in hand, this rubbish realm had long since taught me to never let go of my casting instruments. I lost anything in my saddle bags but that was a worry for another day.
"Okay breathe in, left foot on ground, right foot on ground, breathe out, push off of staff, stand up, quick breath in, look up" I muttered. I looked up to see what was chasing me.
"Close eyes, look down, and pray" I half-shout as I turned towards the cliffs with wide eyes. How could I possibly have set off that many alarms already. The entire army must have been charging me. They seemed to be only half armored but scavengers can't be choosers so maybe no pants, shirt, or anything but a helmet and what passes for a codpiece, was normal for these troops.
The creeps were the fastest. Something about so many legs I guess. Picture every gross insect, bug, critter, whatever spiders and scorpions are, you've ever seen and add more legs, teeth, fangs, poison and motherfucking magic. After that you got the more mammalian and reptilian creatures. Boring, the usually mythological nightmare fuel. The ones I didn't like were usually the last wave, armored troops. the smart ones, the organized force with leadership and rank and control and intelligence and strategy and magic armor and magic weapons and in command of the creeps and critters. I say usually because they were leading the charge and they were MAD.
...Welp...There was always next time right?
I turned tail and ran straight for the cliffs. I was never going to outrun monsters with more and bigger legs than me so I cheated. A flick of my wrist rotated the dial on my staff aligning the focus with the engraved symbols and the elemental crystal I wanted to use. As it clicked into place I PUSHED out the magical energy required, the symbols converting my “pure” magical energy into a form that can be "tinted" by the colored gemstones/crystal to it’s kind(i vaguely remembered some friends of mine back home saying something about schools?) of magic, this energy then fed to the Focus at the head of the staff which released the energy and actually cast the spell into the world. In this case the symbols and paths on my staff glowed From every pore, I began to sweat out a purple cloud that supplemented the oxygen in my cells, feeding their needs directly. Another flick of my wrist and I blurred the area around me, taking myself slightly out of sync with the world around me so I could go faster and further with every step. I threw my staff onto my back and began to MOVE. Don't mind me, just shaking physics upside down to empty its pockets and look for improper grammar. At some point that'll make sense. Probably. There was a gap in the cliff face ahead of me. The cliffs went up thousands of feet to my left, and fell off thousands of feet to my right. So I headed directly for the gap in the cliff face. It was big enough they'd be able to follow me but have to slow down to, if not single file, only a few abreast. Another massive arrow, fired at me, went askew and was barely in my peripheral vision. It, oddly, glowed red with the telltale sign of magic as it broke apart and dissolved before it got anywhere near anything, even the looming wall in front of it.
"Eyes on the prize" I said pumping my legs faster and faster. The further I got, the more I could feel the local dialect of physics pull on me and made every step more difficult. Not only a mental/magical tension against me, but physically pulling me back. As if I was trying to swim up a river while attached to a rubber band, drunk, and in one of those spinny things they train astronauts in that give you tunnel vision. Not a very fun experience but it was saving my life so I kept it up as long as I could. There were no other mana fields near me until I got to the opening in the cliff, then suddenly the rubber banding snapped me out of and the purple haze ignited with a loud fizz and a flare of light so bright the blind seers guarding the gate a mile away could see and raised the(already raised) alarm sending even more distractions in my way.
I felt multiple powerful fields ahead of me in the cave. Damn. Naturally I find something important the one time I don't want to.
The hairs on the back of my neck jumped to attention and I dove for the ground as a green mass swiftly replaced the spot where I just stood and kept going into the ground right in front of me. Looking up, the eviscerated and, well, smushed, remains of my mount had created a crater right in front of me. OOH my saddlebags survived! Excellent. I scrambled over and pulled them dripping with blue gross stuff and threw them over my shoulder, feeling them snap into place and balancing themselves on my back. I got back to my feet and ran the few remaining feet into the opening.
There were natural(the boring non-magical) crystals everywhere. The place was stunning. Oh right HORDE BEHIND ME KEEP RUNNING. Ooh that was a pretty green.. And running… running... Thankfully a warm light distracted me from another pretty rock just in time as I ran into a hexagonal chamber full of lots more glowing crystalline formations creating a rather romantic glow if I do say so myself. I almost puked when I saw a massive 8 legged spider-looking thing with it's armored pants on the ground behind it.... Lordee Haikon. The leader of the forces currently harrassing me. Lordee(I'm pretty sure he misspelled "Lord" at some point and no one ever tried to correct him, or at least survived the attempt) Haikon looked like a Black widow the size of a trailer home, usually wearing a set of finely crafted maroon armor made of some unholy merging of leather and metal and something that resisted all attempts at killing the royal arachnid. This living nightmare was also inherently telekinetic and kept tools and totems floating around his.. whatever his butt is called. Thorax? Dunno, don't care, dude's got a thing for me. I told him to eat me one time and apparently he took it literally and that thrice-damned armor of his was particularly tricky.
"YOU UNWASHED PIN-"
The part of me that hadn’t done much thinking, not since I left the attractive beings at malls and beaches behind, noticed three being in various states of undress and lewd behavior. One slimy snot covered tentacle thing that made me gag, another massive complementary spider currently in Haikons loving embrace, and a really gross looking slug thing... Oh shit Succubi. They are particularly good at getting a “rise” out of me, which also meant I had an early warning system whenever one was nearby. It conveniently made them very easy to avoid. Which I did. Apparently the crystalline room reflected their own auras enhancing the mood in the room and making it harder to detect outside.
Time to go…. Uhh.. right, can’t go outside.. Plan B.
Good thing I recovered my saddlebags. I reached back and my backpack handed me a leather pouch of my own creation, good old-fashioned black powder. I mentioned a local dialect of physics? Yeah magic Booms were a little disappointing, but science Booms? Hell no likey. Me very likey. I looked around for the best place to throw it(read: between him and his armor) and I slammed a palm down on the symbol burned into the front of the pouch and tossed it into the center of the room. Turning around I drew a wand from my belt and shot a dart of pure energy into the ground causing the red stuff to explode out. I made a quick swish and flick and all of it paused mid-air and started to coalesce back into a solid whole. I twisted the wand and compressed the ground matter to a much more solid brick than it was before and dove into the hole right as the slab slammed down above me, welding itself into place.
"-K SLIMY VERMIN! I am-" Haikon’s voice was muted through the makeshift concrete. The guttural rattle of spider vocal cords were quickly silenced by the roar of MacGyver laughing his ass off as the pressure wave bent even my makeshift bunker towards me.
A point of my wand and a push of more energy into the existing enchantment allayed almost none of my fears of it breaking, but it was better than nothing I guess. The roar lasted for several seconds. Which is way longer than a half kilo of homemade black powder would continue to release energy for back... home? Earth? The Mortal Realm? I didn't even know where I was, much less how to differentiate it.
The drain of energy it took to maintain my bunker dropping off was the first sign I had that the explosion had died down. Throwing off the slab of now hardened ground-matter(look that shit ain’t dirt), with magic because one doesn’t become a wizard to spend time at the gym, I took a look around and congratulated myself on a job well done. I could still feel multiple auras from the chamber though which could only mean one thing…
“LOOT DROP!” I sang out in a sing-song voice as I headed to one of the two places where the magic felt the strongest. Specifically, I went to the one that didn’t give me the heebie-jeebies. I found a tiny pink crystal embedded in a crack in the wall of the cave. Knowing I didn’t have time to do things properly, I reached behind me and had my bag hand me my staff. I mentally commanded my staff to open the protected chamber at the head and used to pull the into it. I would have to bond with it another time. Just like I’ll have to explain THAT, another time. Turning around I started to walk out and ignore the crystallized shard of magical energy(fine I’ll call it mana but only because you insist) that Haikon left behind.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
On second thought I don’t want to see another giant spider so I guess I’ll take it with me. Sighing, I turned to my left and this time opened the butt of my staff to store that one. Not because I needed to keep the small gems separate but because I hoped that Haikon(may he rot forever) could feel the disrespect I was throwing his way. Whistling a little australian ditty I tried to forget the fact I was in hell’s whore’s queen’s whorehouse for hell’s who’ whos and who know who did whom and when and oh my god that’s just thinking about it more.
Turning my meander up to a full sprint at the sound of movement coming from outside I suddenly remembered the wise age-old adage
“CRAP”
I ran down the, now charred, and slightly wider, tunnel, only slowing once I got near the exit and looked out to see what I was up against. The death of two powerful, what I like to call, demons at once, was quite the trauma for the denizens that were sensitive to such things. That was one trauma that I was rather proud of creating. Put that on my tombstone. “Pissed off all of hell by killing the only source of entertainment” Haikon was the commander in charge of the force here and his sheer presence supplied most of the oomph that his subordinates use to “convince” the non-sentient creepie crawlies, and other possibly sentient cannon fodder, to obey their handlers. With his sudden disappearance there was a regular riot rearing in the ranks retroactively regarded as resistant to my resulting run on their… What's an R' word for the big man spider in charge? And apparently their only way to relieve some boredom, but I’m trying my darndest not to think too hard about that part.
The explosion had a narrow but long pattern of damage thanks to the tunnel I was in acting like the barrel of a gun and directing the explosion, and apparently every rock and crystal in the tunnel, directly into the Horny buggers loyal troops. Luckily for me, it cleared away the initial ranks and a lot of ranks past them. The ensuing confusion might be the only chance I would have to make it home.
The question was should I try and stealth it? Or just run? I would have to cast a spell to blend with the “in” crowd and the flavor of my magic was always purple meaning anyone with an even crudely tuned magical radar(Madar?) could recognize me no matter how well camouflaged I thought I was. Something about a glowing purple humanoid silhouette running around inside of a spider or dragon or whatever I decided to dress up as. Really defeated the point of magical stealth when it fooled absolutely no one. Of course there’s a first time for everything and everyone was seemingly distracted.
Running would just make me a slow moving target. With neither option sounding particularly attractive. It’s time to cheat. My backpack ejected three of my four remaining explosives straight up and speed-drawing my wand like the fastest dueler this side of the river Hades, I propelled them up faster, flying out to important looking targets.
The gate for which I was marching through enemy lines was in the middle of what could be a board game map. Picture a hexagon, not because it resembled anything but a naturally roundish land shape but rather because Hexagons are the Bestagons. So picture a Hexagon with caustic body of fluids on two sides, on one side of that immediately rises into a plateau with vertical cliffs the had the internal strength of swiss cheese and the entire complex of tunnels full of native flying creatures like a particularly nagging species of bats with the tail of a cat, the wings of a nat, and wearing hat(they had a really odd watermelon shaped head that looked like a top hat when you saw they’re silhouette or shadow. The next two sides of our Hexagon is a gradual descent from the cliffs creating a ridge making an almost perfect bowl shape that eventually flattens for the final side which is flat. And boring. And full of strongholds and trenches and creepie-crawlies with the same bone dissolving solution once again beginning on the far side completing our wonderful Bestagon.
My targets in this :
1. The center of the defenses on the valley floor because duh.
2. The other side of the ridge I tried to sneak up, maybe trying to trick the army camped on the ridge and valley and cliff and etc, that there was an enemy force opening up a second avenue of attack
3. The biggest nest of bats I could see on the cliff.(Hopefully by now you’re realizing that these were NOT cute fluffy rabies-infected bats like they were back home) The trick was to send them fast enough they could add to the confusion before they got a handle on it,, but slow enough they didn’t draw undue attention and obviously look like I was shooting cannonballs at the same army that had me surrounded. That would just be a bad idea and I certainly didn’t have to learn that the hard way at a previous date.. Shut up. I can hear you laughing from here.
What is a slightly mad wizard to do? Easy, send up my Boompacks(DAMMIT WHY DIDN’T I PUT THEM IN BOXES), up and let them fall down on top of their targets like stars, falling from the heaven they so eagerly discard.
I’m a genius. Absolutely brilliant.
Aaaand a One… and a two…. and three… There, all sent sky bound. I started at a respectable speed down the ridge as I watched my brilliance peak and start falling . They get about half way before spells and projectiles start flying up to meet them. Having planned for this eventuality like any good strategist I preemptively told them to start jinking, preventing any anticipation of their future location by swerving in random directions at random times.
Man I was out of shape, I hate running. I was exhausted just watching the troops run away from the now glowing purple shooting stars coming directly at them.
The first one lands on the makeshift keep in the middle of the center defenses, a red bubble grows out of the stronghold, keeping Lord Haikons second-in-command safe, but still sends flying shards of compressed ground-matter(seriously it’s not dirt, it has the texture of ground beef, EW) flying into all the nearby troops aggravating the creeps even more as they fight to use their own natural instincts instead of the
The second might have been more of a bluff, implying an attacking force was opening a second front on the other ridgeline. It doesn’t do a lot of immediate damage but I see some of the more “in control” offices head over that direction with their units to reinforce their line.
Man, I'm telling you I really am a genius! Huh. The third one missed. Fell right past the target. Like standing on a roof and trying to drop a rock into a window right below you. I probably should’ve thought about that. Hindsight is 20/20 after all. The package continued its terminal descent another couple of stories and detonated on a shelf killing a few baddies but more importantly shook the whole damn thing like a hornets nest. While I'm all for pissing off my roommates on my way out the door, I was the closest to them,so it really was just going to annoy me if they noticed me first.
With a sigh, I manually took off my backpack and grabbed the cloak I had painstakingly hunted, skinned, and sewed together without any help from arcane mumbo jumbo. With a groan I reloaded my bag, and threw the ripe smelling garbage tarp over me and all of my gear and started the long trek down the ridge.
Left
Right
Left
Right
Fee
Fi
Fo
Fum
This
Is
So
Dumb
I could see shadows of top hats flying past me multiple times a second. Sometimes there are so many that the weird glow that came from the air(No sun or sun-like equivalent, just imagine a dark cloudy day during an eclipse and you'll get the idea)above me actually dimmed my vision.
Every second I held the hides of the vermin I had tracked down for food so long ago made my hands itch, made my blister open back up and irritated every nerve in my hands. Each and every time I had to use it, it got worse. Like holding onto low grit sandpaper held together by fiberglass insulation dripping wet with acetone on hands full of paper cuts.
Each breath smelled like burning hair while your own flesh was still attached. Walking through the remains of a town that had a flash flood but instead of water, it was sewer, and no escape but left their own corpses in the street.
Each step drained my motivation to leave, wanting nothing else but to dig a hole where I could at least keep the cloak above me where I didn’t have to touch it anymore. “Thud, thud, thud” I hate the sound of boots on well trodden ground. It sounds like stomping on a dirt road in the middle of a drought, except with a disconcerting squish you could only hear when you weren’t listening for it.
Each rustle of the fabric over my skin whispered to my anxieties, the ones that kept me alive but the same ones that kept me awake. That someone or something would hear me, would catch me. Telling me that it was all a waste, don’t fight it anymore. Give up. Lay down. I was trapped forever. I would never see the sun again, never feel the wind on..
The loud THRUM coming from the vocal cords of the blind seers standing by in a geometric star-like formation interrupted my um…meditations. I snapped the camouflage back to the awaiting grasp of my bag and grabbed my staff with both gloved hands and tightened my grip as I looked around. I had made it past the bottom of the ridge, past the first and second defensive lines. By now the defenses weren’t keeping opposing factions OUT but facing the portal to fight off any would be counter invaders from INSIDE.
Haikon wasn’t smart enough to think about a possible counter attack. I may have made a mistake in clearing the path for his second-in-command to take charge. Oh well, that’s a problem for future me. He may hate me but joke’s on him. I’m about to make sure he has a chance to exist.
The moment my cloak came down, my…aura or whatever, stood out like a sore thumb to the more disciplined and observant inner guard that were preparing to invade the portal as soon as it was open. Which was taking a lot longer than I was expecting. Now that I think about it, it would’ve been really nice to have the portal open and all the monsters rushing towards it. That kind of chaos makes it easy to avoid getting targeted like I was currently. Most importantly it meant I could go through it.
Of course I could see the issue from here. The first time I came through the portal I smashed the shiny rock on one of the sides of the summoning symbols. Apparently it never got replaced? So the other sides were all glowing and exuding mambo-jumbo but the one I smashed wasn’t. Huh, well I’ll be damned if I’m just damn good at my job. Literally.
I just kind of slowed my pace to a stop and stared at the dead spell in confusion as the defensive lines collapsed around me, weapons in hand all eager to get a bite of fresh meat. I spared a look up seeing the humanoid-jackal creatures that made up the shock troops, as well as the inner guard, and basically every other senior troop in this faction.
I was gonna need more time to think about what to do next. I’m good at breaking things. I’m good at making things. I’m not so good at fixing the things I broke myself. I tend to do a pretty good job.
I raised my staff hand up and grabbed the bottom of it with my other hand and swung it as fast as I could and let go with my left hand allowing it to spin in my palm. Forcing as much magic as I possibly could without shattering the worn and engraved bone I used as a medium. The overflowing purple spread to both ends of the staff, exuding from the spinning hollow diskettes and gently cascading around me each spin making it hotter and faster. Coaxing the flames into more than just life. Coaxing the heat into a force so intense that it could carbonize the beings that could walk through the center of the sun unscathed.
I’m sorry, could you repeat that? Am I going to cheat? Am I THE MOST POWERFUL WIZARD IN HELL, GOING TO CHEAT?? HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF yeah I was gonna cheat. No shit sherlock. I had a rep that my flames were so good that they could burn the hell-spawn. Apparently no one put together the fact that electricity also left burn marks and didn’t do it with an open flame. Avoiding the weird rock paper scissors of magical resistances. It also added some psych damage to the enemy that now knew me on sight.
That actually gave me an idea.
Letting the fiery parlor trick float around me I shifted the little magic stones around my stick and shot a spark over to the dark reddish-blue(no it wasn’t purple) rock and made it do the glowy thing. That was easy. The five stones lit up in a star formation. Go figure. And the obsidian sphere in the middle of it absorbed all the energy the shamans around it could give it. I’m aware I didn’t mention the shamans earlier. They were dancing and it was gross and it was implied. You can't have a magic circle without shamans after all. Duh. The dark sphere began to spin and lift up. A line that exuded every color you can imagine and then more connected the center stone to each point of the star and each uniquely shaped bowling ball size gem mounted therein. As the stone rose, it pulled up the tethered lines like raising a tent. The space between the tethers turned all sorts of colors that didn’t belong. Read: not red. A prismatic view of parks, lakes and oceans and mountains. Blues and greens and and whites. The only thing that kept me from staring into the beauty until the encroaching troops ate me alive was a spark coming from a jumpstarted blue pointy boi. Like a short circuit. Shit. Magic was easy enough to redirect, at least your own, so I grabbed everything I could and threw it behind me, including my staff, although that attached to my back automatically. Can’t lose that now.
And I ran.
Perhaps a bit dramatic. I was like fifteen feet away and I tripped over a stupid greenish-red rock and I rolled the rest of the way so it went quick. It wasn’t like the longest fifteen feet of my life or anything. I was too busy trying to avoid shouting:
“My head! My butt! My head!...”
Not my most elegant moment but dammit I was home.
As I crossed the boundary everything shattered into white light.