Truth

by Prax Venter

  “Five!” Sasha said, her blue eyes going wide.

  Mark spun to see five of the human-faced torsos known as Guts running at them. They all had different features and complexion- and all looked ravenously hungry.

  They could not take five of these without someone being eaten alive.

  “Fuck it, run!” he yelled, before dashing toward the distant ring of civilization. He made sure all three of his Enthralled were keeping pace before pushing them faster, and it looked like Abby was the slowest. He shot a glance over his shoulder and saw that the Guts weren’t going to catch them at this rate. However, the blistering red sun was still in the highest point in the sky, and Mark didn’t know how long they were going to be able to keep sprinting.

  His mind ran through their abilities, and a smile came to his lips.

  “Sasha! Your Bomb is delayed, right?”

  “On it!” was her answer as the succubus turned to judge the distance. Her leathery wings fluttered once, and she slowed down a few steps. Mark slowed with her and watched as she created a sparking ball of electricity in her hand.

  She held it for a second, expiring some of the countdown before twisting and hurling the object backward with a sidearm throw. The ball of lightning stuck to the blue dirt where it landed, and a moment later, the leading two Guts were engulfed in an explosive concussion of energy.

  The attack appeared to cripple one leg each as the spherical torsos of face, teeth and flesh rolled on the ground, struggling to resume the chase. The remaining three monsters were unharmed, however, and careened right past their wounded comrades.

  Three were much better odds than five, and they could keep dropping bombs over their shoulder, but the blasts would surely draw every enemy in the area to them.

  Mark called for a stop.

  “Hold on!” he yelled. “Abby, start casting now, target that one’s leg. Jez, bear-up and hold the middle one while Sasha and I take down the one on the far left.”

  The green supermodel in the yellow bikini began to weave her tentacles, and his armored satyr shifted into her Bear Form. Mark didn’t get to see her enough like this. The transformation took her existing leather armor and thickened it considerably. She became coated in one-inch plates of bonded leather once she was fully transformed. With a snarl, Jezebel launched forward faster than he expected her to move. Were bears normally this fast? He put the question out of his mind and summoned a two-handed sledgehammer, ready to cause some major damage.

  “Go for the legs!” Mark called out and charged in after Jezebel.

  At almost the same time, Abby sliced off a stubby leg, sending the one creature sprawling forward, and Jezebel rammed her horns into the nose of another. Its face crumpled from the impact, but Mark pulled his eyes away before he could confirm the kill and changed focus to his intended target.

  Its round body was wrinkled and covered with bristly gray hair, and its milky-blue eyes were wide with giddy anticipation for the morsels rushing to meet it. Sasha held out her palm and sent an Arc Bolt into its knee, knocking it off balance. Its whole unsettling body was glowing a faint red, and Mark interpreted that to mean that he could hit it anywhere. There was no universal weak point. Enough damage would do the trick.

  He dismissed his weapon, brought his arms back like he was golfing with an invisible club, and then summoned it just before the swing. Between the creature’s forward momentum and Mark’s magic weapon, many bones were shattered.

  “Finish it!” Mark yelled to Sasha as he dashed toward the snarling bear and bleeding Gut. It was coming in to bite her, but Jezebel stood and swiped its broken nose with her claw, spinning its face away and tearing off a hunk of flesh.

  Mark approached from behind and swung his hammer low, shattering its kneecap. The terrible monster went down, and the two of them caused enough damage to erase it from existence. Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention, and Mark turned to see the one that Abby had hobbled was crawling forward, its giant bulging eyes and chomping teeth much closer than he expected.

  The petite abyssal horror’s ability must have cooled down because before he could do anything, its face split open, and it too vanished from sight.

  He turned to check on Sasha who had been stomping hers with her hooves and saw her drop one of her Charge Bombs into its slowly chomping mouth.

  She walked away as the thunderous blast of energy erased the last one.

  And still not one drop of essence.

  “Let’s get out of here before-”

  “Mark!” Abby said pointing her tentacle outward.

  He spun to look, and his fear was realized. Sure enough, the explosions must have been heard across this demolished wasteland and what had to be over twenty of the giant-faced monsters were sprinting toward them.

  “Run!” Mark yelled.

  Jezebel was still in bear form, and she quickly pulled ahead from the group and had to slow her galloping to match their speed.

  “Abby, ride the bear!”

  Jezebel slowed long enough to allow the shorter monster-woman time to get up on her armored back. As soon as she was on, they all poured on the speed. The Guts were fast, and somehow their stubby legs allowed them to stay close behind. There was something he saw in their horrible, bulging eyes that told him these things would never stop chasing them, and Mark hoped they’d be able to reach the distant city before they were torn apart by their gruesome gnashing teeth.

  The slender abyssal horror on Jezebel’s back lifted her leg and turned to face backward. Mark watched as she held on with her feet and began casting into the crowd of Guts rampaging behind them.

  He shot a glance over his shoulder when she was done and saw one of the lead monsters stumble as its leg was severed from its body. It caused a big pile-up and maybe bought them a few more seconds, but when Mark noticed more of the monsters converging on their flank from between the rubble, he began to seriously worry.

  They sprinted for as long as they could and pushed even past that. The terrible sun beat down on them, and his legs started to grow numb, but they kept running, or they’d be overrun by what now had to be hundreds of the torso-mouth creatures.

  After what felt like an hour of sprinting, Mark’s lungs and body were on fire, but they finally came to the edge of the battlefield. A line of relatively intact brick buildings stood inside the ten-story stone barrier, and it appeared they were going to make it to whatever safety the crumbling structures might provide.

  “We’re going to make it!” Mark half panted, half yelled.

  Jezebel shifted back into her satyr form to fit through a blue brick doorway, causing Abby to stumble to the ground.

  “Not if we can’t find a way through the wall!” the strawberry-blonde satyr said as she pulled the green woman to her feet and dashed inside an open doorframe with Mark and Sasha close behind.

  The inside of the dusty building was much darker, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the streams of red light pouring in through the cracks. He searched the empty structure for a way through the wall, but they had only moments before the horde of monsters would be on them. Mark pulled a Thomellia Recall Charm from his pocket just in case.

  “Over here!” yelled Jezebel from the back of the house.

  A whole room was cut in half by the stone wall they saw before, with one small circular hole cut into it near the bottom. The wall itself was about three feet thick, and it looked like they had found their way through.

  “Abby, go now,” Mark said, pointing to the hole.

  The slender abyssal horror wiggled through the hole with ease.

  “All clear!” she yelled from the other side.

  Jezebel was next and had a harder time with her armor and her wide hips, but she was able to slip some of it off, and Sasha tossed it through the hole before bending down to crawl through herself.

  Panic began to rise in Mark’s chest as he heard the horde of Guts headed their way to gnaw on their bones, but there was no way the ravenous monste
rs could follow them past this barrier.

  “Mark!” Sasha cried out. “I can’t fit!”

  “What?” he said, rushing over and getting on his knees by her dangling metal legs. It was her wings. They were too bulky to pass through the small hole no matter how flat she made them, and unlike Jezebel’s pieces of armor, she couldn’t just slip out of them.

  His loyal succubus started struggling, sobbing with her hooves pushing trenches in the blue dirt. But she was stuck.

  It was over. They were going to be overrun in moments, but he would die before leaving Sasha behind.

  “Everyone, hold hands! I’m snapping a Charm.”

  “Ready!” Jezebel shouted from the other side.

  Mark placed one hand onto Sasha’s chrome calf and snapped their over-powered Recall Charm.

  But nothing happened.

  - 21 -

  “It didn’t work!” Mark yelled to his Enthralled on the other side of the wall. The first monster hit the side of the building, and bricks began to fall from the ancient walls around them. Time had run out. These Guts were going to eat him. He’d hoped a Recall Charm would work from this Wrongside but wasn’t really too surprised when it didn’t. Mark stood and summoned his ethereal hammer, ready to go down swinging.

  “Break them!” Sasha screamed. “Jez, yank me through.”

  He turned to look and wish he hadn’t. His succubus’ body jerked once, the thick base of her wings cutting horribly into the stone opening. Then with a growl from Jezebel in bear form and a sickening crunch, the bones sprouting from her back snapped, and her body was violently pulled through.

  Terrible pain assaulted him along their bond, and Mark heard his beloved succubus screaming. Blind rage filled his mind, and unconsciously caused his sledgehammer to swell into something much larger. Glowing blue plates of armor began to form on his chest and legs, and he was about to-

  “Mark!” Jezebel yelled from the other side. He flinched out of the trance and canceled his summoned energy.

  The brick wall in front of him collapsed as a bulbous nose pressed into the room. With the place coming down around him, Mark dove for the hole and wormed his way through. This time, he escaped the collapsing building before it crushed his leg.

  Now that the battle rage had subsided, his only thought was for his wounded succubus. She lay on her stomach, tears spilling down her beautiful face and a trickle of blood running down her back from her mangled and broken wings.

  “Sasha…” Mark whispered and fell to his knees by her side. Seeing her hurt like this snapped something in his mind, and he channeled all the rage he felt for this unthinkable crime.

  Golden spheres of light began to appear in mid-air around the room while the Gut monsters slammed and chomped their giant teeth to get at them, but he ignored it all. Jezebel and Abby glanced at each other as Mark’s formidable healing power pulled energy from outside himself and the fabric of the universe quivered in response. With a glare, he sent the luminous balls of energy surging forward and they pummeled Sasha’s back with healing bliss.

  He felt her terrible agony flip to tremendous pleasure. A few moments later, her majestic, restored wings snapped outward as she succumbed to a powerful orgasm.

  “Are you okay, my love?” he said, rubbing the pink skin on her lower back.

  She responded by pushing herself up and tackling him to the dirt floor. Her bright blue eyes were inches from his, still glassy from tears and pain. She gazed deeply into his soul before she covered his face with dozens of tiny kisses.

  “Guys, we really should be going,” Jezebel said as a few of the larger bricks broke loose from the ceiling and thudded to the soft blue dirt around them.

  His loyal succubus got up on her hooves and pulled Mark to his feet with her strong legs. They all followed Jezebel down a long hallway and up a set of narrow stairs. They came through the wall and into an unusually small, abandoned home. Blue dust covered every surface and based on the size of the few unbroken pieces of furniture. Whoever lived here was about half the size of a human- it reminded him of the type of building the Skeema Stones lived in.

  “Front door is barred from the other side,” Jezebel said, ducking as she tried the knob.

  “Hold on,” Mark said as he summoned his glowing sledgehammer. “I have the key right here.”

  The armored satyr backed up, her hooves clomping on the wooden floor. There wasn’t a lot of room to swing his weapon, but Mark was determined to get them out. Using it as a battering ram, Mark smashed the small wooden door open with only a few impacts.

  He stepped outside and stood on a clean, cobblestone street. There were a few market stalls spread out along the tall stone buildings. Black vines hung from balconies protruding outward with no rhyme or reason to their placement, and his eye followed them up to the tops of the towering skyscrapers to the searing red sun above.

  As his Enthralled joined him out on the street, Mark caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw a group of the city’s inhabitants walk toward them. Like the Guts, these small new creatures had no heads but were thin and long limbed. Like the Skeema, they also had four arms. Dressed in toga-like white fabric with intricate blue embellishments, they only came up to Mark’s waist, and the even smaller versions skipping and dancing as they moved appeared to be children.

  None of the people on this side seemed to be a threat, and he wondered how they saw where they were going with no eyes- also, he wondered how they were talking and laughing with no mouths.

  As they passed by Mark’s group, his questions were answered. Almost all the four-armed creatures held out their top-most, right palm toward him, and in the center of their hand was a single eyeball. When the children skipped by, one of them lifted their left palm to display a small tongue sticking out of a mouth. Its palm-mouth let out a high-pitched giggle before they ran to hide behind one of the adults.

  “Interesting,” Jezebel said, her green eyes dancing as she cataloged everything she saw.

  Mark shook his head as he watched the group carry on down the street followed by more casually strolling citizens. The contrast to the nightmare of the last few minutes was jarring.

  “There’s a horde of flesh-eating giant monsters right on the other side of this wall… And it’s just business as usual over here.”

  “Speaking of business,” Sasha said, taking a step into the middle of the blue stone street. “What do those look like to you?”

  Mark turned his gaze to the market stall she was indicating and saw a line of red crystal shards displayed on the counter. With a frown, Mark walked past his succubus, across the street, and up to the small merchant.

  “Hoy!” he said, lifting both his eye and mouth hands upward. “Outworlders, no-” He stopped passing his one brown eye over the monster-women now stepping up next to Mark. “You’re a Collector! Haven’t seen one of your adventuring kind in a few months. Today’s featured flavor is ganderberry, but other choices are available. What can old Mallen get for you and your fine ladies?”

  The street vendor spread his bottom two arms over the dozens of crystal shards arranged on blue table runner draped over the counter and waved his face hands around at the group.

  “Hi, Mallen. I’m Mark. This is Sasha, Jezebel, and Abby. What is it exactly that you’re selling here?”

  Just then a child-sized version ran up and slapped a handful of square coins on the counter.

  “A ganderberry please…” the little boy said proudly, holding his eye-hand stretched high over his head so he could see.

  “Ah!” the street vendor said, taking only a few of the coins. “This is too much.” He then used a white cloth hidden under the counter to pick up one of the red shards and hand it to the child.

  The kid barely got out, “thanks mister,” before stuffing the object into his mouth-hand as if he were stabbing his palm with a dagger.

  “Rothy! I said you need to wait your turn,” said someone that had to be their mother. The four-armed person rushed i
n to wrap her lower hands around the child. “I’m so sorry,” she said, turning her eye and smiling mouth up to Mark.

  “It’s really no problem,” he said, more dumbfounded than anything. She snagged the extra coins and hauled her child down the street.

  “So, do you want to buy a flavor crystal or not?” Mallen asked.

  Mark laughed. “I don’t suppose you know where the real Crystal Heart shards are, do you?”

  “Ha… right…that’s a good one,” he said with a forced smile.

  “No really,” Mark said. “Do you know something?”

  “I know they’re bad luck and turn everything that touches them into evil monsters. You are as bad as my nephew with this morbid stuff.”

  “Evil monsters?” Jezebel said, her hand on her armored hip. “Like the Guts?”

  Mallen lowered his eye-hand to the ground as the mouth on his other hand sighed.

  “You outsiders are all the same- backwards. Those respawning bastards might be aggressive, but they keep the Skeema from overrunning us. They’re the true monsters, looking for gore and glory and all the rest. If it weren’t… Bah, you got me ranting on about politics again.”

  “Relax,” Sasha said in a calming voice, her spade tail slowly weaving behind her. “We don’t know what the fuck’s going on and don’t care about your politics.”

  “I care a little,” Jezebel said quietly.

  “Tell you what,” Mallen began, “go see my nephew, Briward. He hangs out at a curio shop an eighth turn clockwise from here. Look for the big crystal ball. He’ll flap his mouth all day about this dark nonsense. Now, how about you buy one of these freshly grown flavor crystals?” The creature’s hand-mouth curved into a half smile.

  “How much?” Mark asked.

  “Five marns for two.”

  “Marns?” Mark repeated as he pulled out a silver coin. “Will this do?”

  “I don’t accept Outworld currency, sorry, buddy.”

  “What? Silver is worthless here?” Mark asked, a brow raised.