Into the Darkness: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Axe Druid Book 4)

by Christopher Johns

  A small dome of redirected light burst into existence.

  “I would hide in this little dome for eight hours and sleep and watch as my tormentors, and their pets couldn’t get to me.” Balmur frowned. “Ever since then, I’ve been more than fascinated, and I’ve sought more magic out. Now that I’m stronger and faster, I can focus a little more on magical learning.”

  A heaviness settled over my heart, and I frowned, nodding. “Hey, bud. No worries. We’ll help you out. Okay? Tell you what, I’ll talk to Maebe and see if she will teach you shadow magic with me.”

  Balmur’s haunted gaze lifted to my face. “I’d like that.”

  “Cool.” Yohsuke spat, and we looked over in surprise. “Remember those vials that Archemillian had before we fought Melvaren?”

  I blinked. “You knew about those?”

  “Yes, you stupid bitch, me and Bokaj were the only ones who did, though.” He growled at me then collected himself. “Those were vials of infected blood that Balmur had inside him from being in the Hells for so long. If we don’t do something for him, he breaks them.”

  “So what? That just means it’s wasted,” James snorted. “How is that a big deal?”

  “It means that when they break, that blood makes a demonic version of our friend, and that demon will seek him out to possess his true body,” Yohsuke sighed audibly. “With how strong he was in the negotiation circle, think about what a demonic, emotionless killer would do to get to Balmur? Then imagine the killing spree it would go on to ensure he was strong enough to take control of his body.”

  Fuuuuuuuck, I groaned to myself.

  “So, in having that asswipe help us get him back, he took some serious leverage to use against us,” Yoh grumbled. The Braves looked confused, so he looked at them. “I can explain this over dinner. No worries. What does he want us to do?”

  QUEST ALERT!

  Demon’s Day Out – The newly promoted arch-demon known to you as Archemillian, has tasked you with finding a demon who escaped his clutches into the Prime Realm. All he has to give you is the hint that a powerful human summoned it.

  Reward: Destruction of the three vials of deeply tainted blood.

  Failure: A demonic copy of a dear friend that will hunt him until one or the other is destroyed.

  Do you accept? Yes? / No?

  “Fucking asshole.” I spat and stood to pace. “We have no goddamn choice; we can’t let that thing run rampant up here. And we sure as SHIT can’t put people at risk because we failed to act, again. We have to go to the capital and get permission to go into the damned dungeon, tattle on Belltree, somehow manage to get into the Great Below, and visit the drow to investigate them and their motives. And now we have to worry about a goddamn demon Balmur? What the fuck do we do?”

  “Accept it,” Jaken ordered, and we all looked at him, me, especially, after my rant. “We go on our path as we have been, and we just keep a lookout for demonic activity.”

  He had that whole paladin look about him, and Dawn was right there next to him with a similarly righteous cast to her stance.

  “We will also keep an eye out,” she stated, but Manly stopped her with a hand on her stomach.

  “For a small fee, o’course.” She grinned around her pipe as her animals ate behind her near the cart.

  “With as much as she thinks with her purse, it’s a miracle she doesn’t charge a fee to talk to her.” James snorted.

  “I charge a consultation fee, James, don’t you fret now, hear?” The halfling smiled and chuckled as he let his head fall into his hand.

  “Fine, whatever.” Jaken tossed her a bag of coins and grunted, “Keep an eye out and kill it if you can. We’ll even share the quest with you.”

  “I accepted and shared it.” True to his word, another notification popped into view, and I accepted the quest.

  “Let’s eat and get going.” I sat down and began to get what I thought I might need ready. “Kayda’s getting hungry.”

  “Can’t have that,” Yohsuke mocked me, and I shot him a glare. “Shut up, you know I’m teasing.”

  “She will shit on you.” Muu shook his head. “Twenty-foot-tall bird has to have a big-ass turd.”

  “Let’s focus on food, aye?” Nick grunted as he lit his pipe.

  An hour later, and we were ready to move toward our target. Well, almost.

  Balmur grunted and growled in pain, gasping at having to sacrifice yet another eye to his magical one for the second time this week.

  “Normal eyes not cutting it as much?” I grasped his shoulder, and he grimaced at the contact.

  “The magic that it holds on to eats the normal eyes faster than if I use the magical one itself.” His explanation came just before he wiped his face off with a rag. “Let’s get going.”

  I took Balmur into the collar around my neck and left Bea with Manly and my friends to chill.

  “You ready, Nic?” I turned to the wizard, who looked himself over, patting his body as if checking to see if everything was there.

  “Yes, quite.” He shook out his shoulders and prepared himself. “Wait, what will I be exactly? And must we do this tonight?”

  “I was going to make you a hawk or something.” I shrugged, it would be the easiest, right? “And to be honest, they may expect something closer to their target. If we do it now, we cut down the risk of running into a patrol coming out to meet them and thwarting us. Or them being on guard.”

  “That is very astute reasoning, very well. Hmm, learning to fly could take too long.” His face contorted in thought. “Better go with a rat, something large enough that you won’t kill me in your claws but won’t accidentally drop me to my death.”

  I blinked, suddenly finding it hard to swallow. “How about a garden snake so I can carry you in both claws and you’ll be safe?”

  “Excellent suggestion, my boy.” He seemed happy, and I had him sit on a pack so he would be safe from the others’ feet.

  I focused on the animal I wanted him to become and cast Polymorph. A hundred mana drained from my reserves, and a puff of smoke briefly obscured the wizard and then blew away. In his place was a small, green snake about two feet long.

  “I’ll lift him up if you want to grab him on your way up,” Bokaj offered as he carefully lifted the snake.

  I nodded once, told Bea, Behave! And then shifted into my owl form. I snatched the snake up with both claws as I passed above them. The weight felt weird, but once he had the good sense to wrap himself around my leg, it was alright.

  I checked Kayda’s location in my mind, noting her position on my map, and began the trip to her. Luckily, we had been going in the same direction, so I only needed to cast the spell once more to see our journey to a close. I found Kayda sitting in the grass watching her prey about a hundred and fifty feet away; she was still small, so the grass mostly masked her presence.

  I landed and shifted, dismissing the spell on the wizard and summoning Balmur from my collar just after. Kayda rapped the gem with her beak and filtered in with a small flex of my will. Taking a look at the messengers, one sat up, awake, and the other was asleep on the opposite side of their dying fire. The warm air around us swirling and luckily slithering away due west so that we were downwind from them.

  “How you wanna play it, Balmur?” I whispered for Nic’s sake. “You’re the sneaky one here.”

  He rolled his eyes at me, “Really?” I shrugged, and he just shook his head. “You both stay here, and I’ll go see what I can see. If I can nab it, I will, and I’ll bring it back here to you guys.”

  “I’ll be ready to step in if it gets heavy.” I took a step back and took my saber-tooth cat form and crouched in the grass.

  “It is so unsettling that your eyes glimmer like that.” Nic shivered and took a knee beside me. I bumped his leg with my shoulder to let him know to be quiet. “Sorry.”

  I glanced over at him and sighed softly, then turned my sights back toward Balmur as he snuck forward cautiously. His knees were bent, and he step
ped slowly moving as if he were on one of those fast-moving floors in the airport. There was no sway to his step, no bob as he stealthily made his way forward.

  He was in his element. Then he sank into the ground and disappeared before his body came back into view out of the shadow of the one who was awake. Balmur’s shape blurred a little bit, and his hands flashed this way and that. After ten minutes of watching him work, he made his way toward us.

  Once he was close enough to whisper, so we both knew what was going on, he said, “Nothing on that one,” he shrugged his shoulders and sat down. “Guess we wait until they switch out.”

  “No.” I had shifted back from my animal form as soon as he was close. “That guy’s going to sleep here in a couple minutes. Follow me.”

  I shifted back into my saber-tooth form and padded softly toward the messenger who was still awake, far enough away that he wouldn’t hear me. Walking in a circle around him so that I could position myself directly behind him, where I shifted into my fox-man form and slowly drifted forward.

  Once I was in position, I let my body relax, standing almost directly behind and above him. I had trained in this technique while I was in the Marine Corps, a very simple technique called a blood choke. My right arm shot forward, under his chin around his throat, where my bicep and forearm pressed against the carotid arteries on each side of his neck. I locked the choke in by cradling my right hand in my left and gripping tightly.

  He flailed a little, but I pulled him back and held the choke until he stopped moving, and then a moment after that to ensure that he was out and would stay out.

  We won’t have too terribly long, I mentally told Balmur.

  Already on it, came his reply as I slowly laid the guy down on his bedroll, pillow under his head. Got it.

  I waved Nic over and he took the folded square of parchment with wax in the center. I was completely unsurprised to see that the governess had her seal as a rose. How bland.

  “You need to open it?” Balmur readied a blade. Through his earring, he added, I hope this thing at the capitol doesn’t take too long. Whatever it is behind all this is weird. Could it be a general?

  It’s possible, I confirmed, then aired my own thoughts, What if the asshole who sent us those dreams is behind this and is messing with a powerful enough figure to cause strife in the kingdom, so we get distracted?

  We didn’t have the time to continue the conversation, because Nic moved next to us after having had his eyes shut for a long moment.

  Nic shook his head, took the parchment in one hand and a green quill in the other. He opened his book and muttered quietly and motioned over the two of them. After a second, the quill dissolved into the parchment, and it glowed green, then dulled and looked as if it had never changed.

  “It is done.” Nic passed it back to Balmur, who then methodically put the message where it had been before.

  As soon as he was with us once more, we moved away to watch them. Twenty minutes later, the messenger that I had choked out started awake, holding his throat. Fuck, I knew I should have cast a heal on him! Too late, now. His gaze swung about before he stood, and moved around his friend and woke him up. They exchanged words quickly, and the one still laying down pulled the message out. They looked it over and decided that it was good, but they were both up, for now.

  “Mission accomplished,” I sent ahead to the party with my raven figure as we observed the two messengers. “We’ll be back soon.”

  They looked around the camp, and rather than waiting to see what they would do if they found our tracks, I touched both of the others and cast Teleport.

  We landed back at the camp with several weapons pointed our way.

  “Hey, chill the fuck out.” I growled, more than a little tired, then saw that the bird had just now made it to Jaken. “We did it, now leave us be so we can get some sleep.”

  The others grunted and just left us alone, I went to where I had laid out my bedroll, let Kayda out and collected a slumbering Bea from Manly.

  “She’s a handful,” the halfling griped half-heartedly as she handed the sleeping hatchling to me. “I don’t envy you.”

  I nodded to her and went back to my bedroll. I put Bea into the collar to be safe and laid down. I don’t know why I was suddenly just so irritated. Was it because I could have fucked that up? Tipped them off?

  Damn it. I just didn’t know. I needed to start thinking more.

  I closed my eyes and fell into a fitful slumber. My dreams evaded me, something nagging at the edge of my consciousness that kept me from resting completely.

  I woke up just before dawn, groggy, pissed off, and wanting to do some damage to something. So, I turned that thought inward and began meditating over a new spell.

  I took Purify and my Shadow Tinkering ability and swallowed the spell to weave it into the shadows. The radiant light of it seemed to dissolve the shadows as they touched it, so I stopped before wasting any more mana.

  300 MP just gone, like that. I stood and looked about, Kayda watched over me curiously.

  Mad? She tilted her head and hopped forward. I didn’t know how to respond, so she smacked me with her wing, Hunt.

  She sent imagery of her prowling the skies, the thermals lifting her higher and higher as she searched the skies for prey.

  Okay. I touched her cheek, then turned to my friends. James was awake, and Bokaj was strumming a song I recognized as a restful one to some of the others.

  “I’m going for a flight. Be back in a bit.” I hopped into the air and took off as an owl before they could respond, the wind beneath my wings helping minutely to clear my head.

  Kayda shrunk to her smaller size, and I caught up to her as soon as I could. She was much more adept at catching thermals than I was. We coasted for a while, the light peeking over the horizon line and shedding gold and orange over the land in waves.

  Pretty, Kayda thought at me. And I had to agree with her. Motion caught my eye below us, and my sight synced with Kayda’s as she thought Prey!

  As we dove together, I saw what it was that we were set upon. It was an adult eagle, and Kayda grew as she plummeted. Her full height and wingspan easily dwarfing his. She caught him easily, gripping his wings and upper body before diving toward the ground faster than I had ever seen her do so. As soon as she was in range, with me right behind her, she let go of the eagle, and it crashed into the earth.

  The snap of its wing audible from my position. She wheeled around quickly and set upon him, her talons penetrating the flesh, making the severely hurt creature cry out in pain.

  I shifted and stepped forward, ready to heal it and send her off, but she screeched at me No!

  “Kayda, we have plenty of food at the camp, baby. Let him go.” I tried to reason with her, but she gripped tighter.

  And for the first time in so long, she truly spoke through our connection in a way that she hadn’t before.

  We are kings of the sky, father. We rule. We hunt, and those who do not fly as high as we do are our prey. She sent me visions of her flying before I could when she was smaller and had to worry about these kinds of things. We hunt. We kill. We survive.

  I stepped closer, and she thrust her beak out at me to make me stop. You worry what prey thinks when you need to worry about what hunts above you. This is Nature’s way. And you are druid. Mother’s chosen. You are special but refuse to be the predator.

  It stung, coming from her more than anyone. But she wasn’t done.

  She stood to her full height in front of me, and her wings spread as far as they would reach, her head high. Take your place with me, father. Let us take our place together.

  Is this a dream? Kayda turned her head to the side and eyed me as if I were crazy. “How am I supposed to do this? Any of this? How am I supposed to know what isn’t being orchestrated by some unseen puppet master pulling strings?”

  By believing in yourself and in those around you. Kayda supplied with another spreading of her wings. We who hunt, we who are strong decide
what our reality is. The true question is if you are strong enough to decide if you are capable of this reality.

  Her argument was sound, and it was likely that, coupled with the fact that this was the most that I had ever heard her say at once, made me think that she right. She was absolutely right.

  If I was going to be a monster, I was going to be a good one.

  That eagle, this symbol of freedom and strength in my homeland, would become the symbol of my genesis. My new beginning.

  Our new beginning, I corrected myself and summoned Bea from the collar and sat her on the ground, nudging her awake.

  Blood? The thought and scent hit me, and I knew what needed to be done.

  I stepped forward again, and instead of Kayda stopping me, she lifted the still-living bird of prey closer to me, and I lashed out with my metallic right arm, ripping through the breast to find the heart, the last dregs of the bird’s health draining to nothingness.

  I pulled the now-still organ from the wound and took a bite, the blood dripping down my jaw. I tossed the rest to Bea, who munched on it happily. Kayda watched over her, and then eyed me.

  Proud, warmth filled our bond, my chest, and my heart. She pressed her head against mine and tousled my fur.

  “Since when have you been able to speak so well?” I took her head into my hands so I could look her in the eyes.

  A while, a mischievous glint filled her gaze.

  “Then why haven’t you?”

  Didn’t want to, she took her wings and buffeted me before turning to the carcass in her grasp, tearing bits of the meat off for Bea and me. I gathered mine and put them into my inventory. After she was finished, we flew back.

  Since I had technically fought the eagle by killing it, I had taken his form, and flying back was a trip. It was so much heavier than that of my owl’s. Powerful. Each movement of my wings carried me faster, and I wanted to push myself.

  So, I did. Kayda and I made it back to the camp in half the time it had taken us to reach our hunting grounds.

  I landed with her and shifted into my fox-man form, the others watching us carefully.