by Vic Connor
It’s enough—it’s all he needs, and he carries on, working his way through the dozen or so demons standing before him. As the first Time Warp ends and the second begins, Aremos steps through another portal to face the majority of the demons he has just wounded. He holds up a hand and crackling bolts of azure flicker outward, a Lightning Storm to finish them all off. It hangs in mid-air, frozen in time for the present moment, but when the usual passage of time resumes, he knows it will cut them all down.
Next, he turns to face Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 itself. Two demons stand on either side of it. They were aiding it as it worked its ritual, channeling for it, and they are slightly larger than the others. They are clothed in tattered, moldy black robes and each carries a sinister-looking scepter. They look less tough than the others but Aremos knows they are far more powerful, wizards rather than fighters. He doesn’t want to face them as well as Esae’sid_PlagueMod15, so he releases his final spell. It is a banishing curse, one he hasn’t used for a long time. It costs him a lot of power but works very well. He spreads his arms wide and a bright, multi-colored glow emits from his body, lashing out at every remaining demon. It hacks through several of the zombies, tearing them from this world back into their own. Then, it sets upon Esae’sid_PlagueMod15, opening a few wounds and bleeding it of a tiny amount of power. However, Aremos directs most of it toward the two wizards. The spell completely tears them apart, ruining their physical forms and casting them back to the demonic world with great violence.
Then, he bends over, exhausted by the effort of fighting so many demons at once, of casting such powerful spells. He takes a swig from a bottle of potion at his hip and his magic bar, which had been depleted by about fifty percent after all of that, begins to replenish. As it climbs back up to one hundred percent, he feels power surging through his veins, replacing his exhaustion with a giddy exultation.
The second Time Warp is about to end, and Aremos needs to regroup. He opens a third portal and disappears as real time returns to the battlefield. He exits a few feet back into the woods on the other side of the clearing and watches the pandemonium unfold.
The lightening he cast courses through half a dozen demons, finishing them off, just as the wizards vanish in a dramatic surge of white magic. When it sees half of its army defeated, cut down, and burned in a split second, Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 staggers back and roars in defiance. It turns on the spot, searching out the enemy wizard, and spies Aremos through the trees easily enough. To a demon like Esae’sid_PlagueMod15, Aremos is a beacon of blazing, magical energy—no amount of foliage will hide him.
“Come,” it rumbles, pulling at Aremos with all its willpower. “Come and face me.”
Aremos feels himself compelled, dwarfed by the ages-old power backing up the ancient entity’s thoughts. Before he even comprehends what he’s doing, he has already taken a couple of steps toward the burning clearing. No, no, he tells himself, but it’s hopeless. He’s losing the battle of wills, he must go onward, he must submit to the demon…
Alone, he’ll never be able to resist…
He digs deep within himself, searching out the spirit of the child Somera. Help me, spirit, he whispers silently. Guide me, I need you…
Damn straight, the child Somera replies, rallying within him. Hearing her words, feeling her bolstering his actions, Aremos finds himself better able to resist, to stand a little straighter, to stop moving toward the demon Esae’sid_PlagueMod15.
You’ve got a plan, and a bloody good one at that, the child snaps at him. Bloody stick to it, yeah?
Of course, Somera, Aremos replies in his head. As you command.
His actions become his own again and the demon bellows in frustration. It gestures with its scythe, slashing the air before it. Five splits open up in the world’s fabric before Aremos, casting a putrid green light into the darkness of the forest. Swarms of tiny, demonic creatures erupt through the tears, billowing out and coalescing around him. They are flies, larger than average and glowing with their own devilish energy, ready to infect Aremos with the sickness and disease of their own realm and tear him down.
The first few nip in, biting, cutting, and his defense plummets. His health bar loses a few points and he feels his strength giving out. But his magical power is still good, and he swings his staff in a wide arc, turning on the spot as it blazes. The first pass catches many of the flies, setting them alight and forcing the others to retreat. He finishes, standing still, and extends one hand. A wall of fire bursts up around him, immolating half of the remaining flies as the others zip away.
“But it’s no good,” he mutters. The flies disappear amongst the trees. The maggots are still underground, burrowing down, spreading their corrupting influence. He can’t fight the demons one by one, he must cleanse the whole area.
Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 laughs, reading the battle mage’s thoughts. “Yes, yes,” it says in its horrible voice, taunting him. “Kill us, destroy us, it will mean nothing. The taint runs deep, and it will always find you.”
“Not if I can help it,” Aremos whispers. He runs full tilt into the clearing, surprising Esae’sid_PlagueMod15. The great demon gathers its energies once more and flings a curse at Aremos. However, the battle mage disappears, cutting another portal for himself.
Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 and the few demons left standing look about, astonished, unable to locate the pesky wizard.
Aremos manifests high in the trees, balancing on a thick branch many feet above the clearing’s edge. He uses his Second Sight and zooms out, looking at the map as a whole. He can see the battle marked around him with a large, dark green area around it, spreading slowly outward across the map. This is the taint, the corruption, and if he doesn’t stop it now, the whole forest will soon become infected.
Aremos gathers just over a half of his remaining magical power and marks a boundary around the dark green area. This kind of magic is usually beyond him, but with his power caps removed he can manage it. He draws a circle on the map around the tainted area, about a half-mile across. Then he exits the Second Sight, holding the area in his head as he grasps his new staff and attempts something he knows he wouldn’t have had a chance at just a couple of weeks ago. But with his new XP, with his new levels, with this staff gifted to him, it happens.
He shouts the words of power as he extends his arms, and the White Fire billows from his body. Around the half-mile perimeter, a circular wall of white flame rises at the same time, cutting off any demon’s hope of escape. The wall moves inward as the explosion from his own body moves out, and the world disappears in a blinding, white-hot flash.
Aremos feels himself falling from the tree, slowly, so slowly, as his mind clouds over from the effort of casting. He crumples against the ground and knows that he has broken several bones. The last thing he sees before he blacks out entirely is his health bar, which had still somehow been reasonably high, cut into less than half from his fall. The world flashes and the whiteness singes his eyes as soon as he closes them, blind to everything.
The first thing Aremos notices is the stench. Of course! His wards disappeared when he got knocked out. The reek of his adversary’s putrid flesh comes spilling back over him when he wakes up and opens his eyes. Next comes the heat, furious, choking. The forest rages in flames, each root and branch burning. The very ground itself cracks around him.
Aremos struggles to his feet. His health and his magic bars are dangerously low—in double digits—and every joint and muscle aches. He reaches for his flasks and downs the last of his potions, replenishing his health and giving him enough power to put up a couple of wards, banishing the rot and the worst of the heat as he takes stock of the situation.
The whole area he had walled off is burning. Good, good, he thinks, nodding. It all burns with white flame—there’s no way any of the demon’s taint could have survived it. There’s no way the lesser demons could have survived, either.
But the smell is still here, Aremos observes, his sluggish mind catching up with him.
Just as he thinks it, a deafening roar bellows out from the other side of the clearing. Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 stands, wreathed in flames, still clutching its wicked-looking scythe. There is little flesh left on its body: It stands bare, a burning skeleton with its rows of antlers jutting out from a black, emaciated skull. Many of its eyes are gone, burned off, but enough remain for it to find its prey. As it unfurls, standing to its fullest height, it seems to brace itself against the burning world, casting wards much like Aremos’ own. The fire eating at its skeleton turns green and a shimmering, shadowy shield surrounds it, dimming the burning as the demon retakes control of its environment.
One last fight, then, Aremos thinks. We’re both greatly weakened, yet we’re both left standing.
He gathers some of his magical power and casts a Time Warp which has come off its cooldown timer a short while ago. The flames falter, frozen as the entire forest stands still. He draws his sword, and the runes along its blade burn brightly. One thrust into the beast’s heart should finish it off, he thinks.
However, as the Time Warp begins to take effect, Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 itself begins an incantation. As all else freezes, its body shudders, constrained by the slowing time. But then, it shudders some more, and Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 seems to rip itself out from the spell’s effects, moving into Aremos’ own time frame. As all else pauses, Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 stands before Aremos, unaffected by his Time Warp.
“Once bitten, wizard,” it growls in its guttural drawl.
“Well, then.” Aremos sighs. “A true fight it is.”
The clearing suddenly lights up as each caster summons their own powers, hurling spells at one another, erecting magical defenses, placing barriers between themselves which flicker and crackle as each absorbs the other’s fury.
Aremos feels a dense heat around his neck. His charms are struggling to cope with the damage being inflicted upon him, dissipating less and less with each landed blow, and his health bar begins to speed up in its depletion. He invests more and more of his willpower into his casting, drawing ever greater reserves from his magical supply and channeling it into a great, azure dome cast around himself. He weaves greater and greater enchantments into his shield, planting the Staff of Adamant before him to act as a locus for the wards he is casting.
Magical projectiles ping and blast against the shield, rippling their power outward as it is absorbed or reflected. The demon is fast, flinging a tremendous volume of power at him. The world might be frozen, but he is electric, blasting Aremos with his fury.
But Aremos is working, too. With one hand, he holds his staff in place, anchoring the shield and the various wards he has placed around himself. He holds the other hand aloft and chants continuously, producing great waves of magical power which wash over the demon’s own defenses, battering his magical barrier and gradually—very gradually—wearing down the last of his health. They’re both in states of disrepair, both with most of their characteristics significantly reduced, both with their health in the red at just one fifth of their fullest amounts.
Thinking fast, Aremos casts a teleport beneath himself and steps into it, vanishing. His shields disappear as a great onslaught of projectiles and curses land where he’d been standing just moments before, causing a roaring pyre of demonic energy to destroy everything within ten feet.
Aremos reappears in the forest, covered only by the flaming canopy and a couple of burning trunks. As he steps out of the portal, his Time Warp runs out and the world bursts back into life, a wild blaze against which he has to immediately cast another shield.
Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 roars with savage laughter—it seems the beast didn’t see Aremos teleport. As far as it’s aware, the last great wash of curses it launched at Aremos torched him to a cinder. When the world begins to burn around it once more, the great demon limps toward the spot Aremos had just occupied, apparently expecting to find his body dead and burning.
It’ll soon realize, Aremos thinks. He has a couple of seconds at the most, and he uses them wisely. There’s a wind vortex spell he hasn’t used in a long time, not since he was a novice. He equips it now, replacing his fireball spell. He quietly chants the words of power to summon it, gathering nearly the last reserves of his magical energy to aid him.
Esae’sid_PlagueMod15’s rumbling laughter dies down as it looks into the ruin it has wrought. Flickering, devilish flames dance around the charred and broken earth and greenish smoke billows in place, but there’s no body. Realizing it has been duped, the demon howls and whirls around, searching. When it locks eyes with Aremos once more, snarling, furious, Aremos releases the vortex.
The spell plays around his outstretched hand, drawing air from behind him and billowing it out in front. Before, he used it in quite a rudimentary fashion, throwing enemies away from him, blowing out flames, causing people to scatter. But now he has learned the ways of the world, he has become more creative and more skillful in his casting. As Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 advances on Aremos, raising its scythe high for one last spell to end its foe, the White Fire which still rages all around begins to gather.
Aremos extends the spell before him so that it stands a few feet away, between himself and Esae’sid_PlagueMod15. Then, he focuses his mind on controlling it, using it to draw the white flame into its heart. The vortex spins fast, churning, and begins to burn. Within seconds, it becomes a perfect hurricane of burning light and begins to unleash a steady torrent of fire, all aimed at the demon.
Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 throws up its shield once more, just deflecting the white rage in time. It’s enough, though—the whirlwind has distracted the demon; its own curses fizzle out as it puts all its energy into protecting itself. Aremos gathers the last drops of his power, feeding them into his vortex, and wills all the fire in the surrounding forest to stream into its depth. As it becomes a raging cyclone, Aremos pushes it forward, ever so slightly, a great flaming pillar of contained chaos attuned to his every thought.
The demon can’t run and there’s no way it can deflect all of that damage. The whirlwind courses over it, wrapping itself around its shield, breaking it down and pulling apart the last of the demon’s black magic. The fire singes Esae’sid_PlagueMod15 as it stands in place, anchoring itself to this world through sheer force of will. The last of its skin is pulled from its frame and its bones begin to burn in earnest. Then, with its damage bar almost exhausted, the demon gives in. The hurricane pulls those bones apart, dismantling the demon’s body in a drawn out, roaring blast. Each bone swirling in the burning vortex is consumed quickly enough, and soon there’s nothing left of Esae’sid_PlagueMod15. Its head splits away from its vertebrae, and its spine and rib cage fall apart. The flame consumes its legs while the skull twirls, still screeching with fury.
Then, all is dust. All has been destroyed.
With a flick of his wrist, Aremos dispels the vortex. The last of the White Fire falls to the ground, embers burning lightly in the clearing. It clings to whatever bones remain of the zombie demons, crackling merrily as it feeds.
All else is silent. The forest has burned out. The White Fire has left only dead trees in the surrounding woods, black and smoldering. Aremos drops to his knees, nearly dead himself, then falls down fully, lying alone in the woods. He needs a healer. And he needs to rest.
But he’s victorious. The Staff of Adamant and the White Fire are now his to keep forever—he can feel their power bonded to his own profile.
Aremos crawls toward a small log still burning with the last streaks of the White Fire, and pulls on the energy of this tiny flame to regenerate his pool of magical power somewhat. When it fills up enough, he casts one last portal, of a different kind than he usually uses. This spell begins within him, working its way outward. No doorway will spring up, no opening through worlds. Rather, his body simply disappears, vanishing entirely.
The map of Arkhart appears and he toggles over to a town in which one of the best healers on the continent runs his practice. He chooses it, finds the he
aler’s shop, and manifests himself once more on a cobbled street, groaning, burned, and bleeding.
“Aremos! My goodness,” the healer cries out, running over to him. He’s a grumpy old dwarven chemist AI, and he scowls down as he stands over Aremos’ fallen body. The shop looms dimly behind him, with its well-scrubbed wooden surfaces and sawdust on the floor, and walls lined with shelves and cases containing potions, medicines, and balms. The healer helps Aremos stand straight and guides him to a bed in the back room. He lays Aremos down and checks his vital signs.
“You have let every characteristic fall so low,” the healer snaps. “And your health bar! Look at it! One puff of wind will snuff you out, foolish man.”
“It was a demon.” Aremos smiles to himself. “Such a powerful demon, and I stopped it. And its whole army.”
“Yes, yes, very good, I’m sure,” the dwarf mutters. “But at what cost?”
“Can you heal me?” Aremos asks.
“Of course I can,” the dwarf says brusquely. “But it will cost you.”
“I have plenty of coin,” Aremos whispers, close to losing consciousness.
“Well, then.” The dwarf shuts his eyes. He summons a spell of healing and washes it over Aremos’ broken body, filling a little of his health bar back up and buffering his resistance. “Let us begin.”
While he works, and just before Aremos passes out cold, a bulky new gift of XP gathers, ready to be collected when he’s well again.
Chapter Five
Somera rests Aremos for a couple of days, leaving him in the healer’s care. Each time she checks in on him, his health and attributes have improved, bit by bit. No character can take such a beating without either losing a life or spending while in the care of a healer. So, unless Somera is willing to surrender one of Aremos’ lives and the XP she built up fighting the demon, she must let him recover the long way.