`Amazing! Who is this Danny Boy?'
`My best fucking friend. I'll tell you about him later. We gotta hurry now!'
`Your best fucking friend, huh? He must be one crazy guy...' she says, laughing.
`You have no idea...'
`Huh?'
`Let's just say, you'd better keep a distance from the guy. In your case, for more reason than one.'
`Why?'
`Well... Just because! Look, we gotta hurry!'
I turn towards the town and walk quickly towards it. Irea follows me. About forty feet from the edge of the town, I stop and address her.
`Irea... I need you to do something for me. Can you create... lava?'
`Lava?' she asks. `Of course I can create lava! But why would you need lava?'
`You'll soon see.' I tell her, then I turn to the ground beside us, and point towards it with my right hand.
I unleash my magical power, and through telekinesis magics, I carve a shallow pit into the earth, just big enough for an adult human to be laid in it.
`Fill this up with lava for me, I'll be back in a minute. I'll just go get some raw materials.' I tell her, and I take off my coat and drop it to the ground beside the pit. She looks confused, but I have no time to explain. I walk quickly towards the town.
*
Just a short way ahead, I see someone passing by. A man. Adult, seemingly in good health. He will do.
`Hey, you!' I shout at him. He stops, surprised.
`Who, me?' he asks, glancing around.
`Yeah, you!' I tell him, as I swiftly approach him. `This is your unlucky day!'
`Huh?'
`Well, actually, it's your lucky day, but you won't live long enough to understand that!' I tell him, and I grab him by the throat with my ghostly hand and start dragging him back to Irea. Behind me, I hear disapproving voices. Townsfolk who saw me grab this sucker are talking to each other, and some of them seem to be thinking about stopping me. As if I gave a fuck...
`Hey, what are you doing? Let me go! Help!' he screams, but I ignore him, and keep dragging him with me. Up ahead, I see that Irea has already filled the pit up with lava, as I asked. Good girl!
As I approach her, I can see that she looks confused. But I have no time to explain.
`Zack, who is this guy?'
`I have absolutely no idea.' I tell her, and I stand the guy right in front of the lava pit.
`Let me go! What do you want?' the guy screams, looking scared. As if I gave a fuck...
Irea stares into his eyes, like she was trying to see into the depths of his soul. After a short time, she turns to me.
`What do you want with this man?' she asks.
I glance towards the town. There are a few people heading this way, armed with various peasant weapons, like scythes or pitchforks. Only one of them comes with a sword.
`Do me a favor, Irea. See those guys over there? Make sure they don't interfere. I must not be interrupted. If I get interrupted before I finish the spell, things will turn very bad...'
`I can do that, but you didn't answer me. What are you...'
`Thanks.' I tell her, and I kick the guy's foot out from under him, and as he falls, I push him straight into the lava.
*
`I should have known...' she says to herself silently, but I can't reply to her now. Nothing she can do for the guy now anyway.
As he fell into the lava, he started to scream, but as I pushed him beneath the surface he went silent. Whether he's dead already, or still alive, is hard to say, but I don't care. By the time I get what I want from him, he will be dead.
Kneeling beside him, I hold him by the neck, beneath the lava. The flaming hot lava burns the skin of my left forearm, but my magic protects me and I ignore the pain. I must! I must complete the spell...
`I can't believe what you are doing...' says Irea, silently. But I still can't reply to her. I must focus.
From the corner of my eye I see that the approaching townsfolk have stopped and are looking at us in shock. A minute passes, and they begin to approach once more, raising their weapons high.
Irea walks towards them.
`Leave! Now! All of you!' she tells them.
`Who are you people?! How could you do this?! How?!' exclaims one of them in anger.
`Just walk away. Now.' she says strictly.
`No... We will not stand for this... He will pay! You will both pay!'
`I said, leave! I'm warning you.'
`Stand aside, woman! We will deal with you later! After we kill that murderer...'
`If you want to die so much, who am I to deny you?' she asks. One of the peasants starts to laugh crudely, while another one runs towards her.
`Why don't I just take you aside and give you a piece of what I have between my legs? I'm sure that's all you need right now...' he says, as he approaches her. Before he could do anything, she points towards his crotch and a moment later a small blade of fire flies out of her hand. The stupid peasant screams aloud as the fire dagger strikes him in the crotch.
She frowns at the dumbass peasant, and folds her arms on her chest. Her eyes flash in bright red, she opens her lips and...
She spits a breath of flame at the peasant, setting him on fire...
`One more stunt like that, and you're all going to burn!' she exclaims, as she stops to breathe fire at the newly castrated peasant. The townsfolk approach her slowly in anger. The one she set on fire is screaming and rolling on the ground, trying to put the flames out, but it's no use. Soon he'll be dead. The rest of them are trying to surround Irea. There's only five or six of them though.
I'm sure she can take them out. I can't help her now, anyway. I must focus on the spell...
She raises her arms and utters magical words. One of the peasants lunges towards her and tries to cut into her with a scythe, but before he could reach her, she is surrounded by a thick wall of fire, and the fool peasant is barely able to stop before running straight into the flames.
She waves her hands and continues chanting, and moments later fiery tentacles lash out from the wall of fire and reach towards the peasants. Two of them manage to jump out of the way, but the others get caught by the flaming tentacles. The tentacles wrap around their bodies and set them ablaze. They start screaming and drop to the ground, writhing in pain and trying to put out the flames.
I must say... I don't believe I have ever seen a more lethal beauty than her. She looks so fragile and harmless, yet she is so fierce and deadly. She has a beauty I've never seen in a woman before, and a skill over magic I've only seen in few. She's truly an exceptional girl...
`I told you, back off!' she tells the last two peasants. Seems to me like they're trembling... It looks like one of them even soiled himself, haha! She points towards them, but before she could cast a spell on them, they turn around and start running. Wise choice, you fucking idiots...
She lowers her hands and sighs. She turns towards me. She watches me as I still kneel beside the guy in the lava, grasping his neck, tapping my black magic energy into the lava and into his body. He is no longer moving. Another minute, and his bones will be ready.
The minute passes, and I feel that the spell is complete. I slowly stand up, and pull his skeleton out of the lava.
As I arise, Irea witnesses the fruits of my hard labor. Only a skeleton remains of the townsman, all the flesh from his body was burnt away by the empowered lava. Black magic that I pumped into the bones keeps the skeleton together. I raise it out of the lava completely, and pull it in front of me. I stare into the empty eye sockets, and then raise the skeleton such that its feet hover a few inches above the ground. I unleash the spell for which I prepared the skeleton, and a purplish glow encompasses the bones of the dead peasant. Moments later, the glow intensifies, and the skeleton begins to shrink.
Half a minute passes, and the bones of the skeleton almost entirely vanish, and the glow from it passes entirely over to my ghostly hand. A moment later, my hand flashes brightly, then the purple glow van
ishes. My ghostly hand is gone. In its place is the familiar skeletal hand I've had for so long.
The spell worked! I have my fucking hand back!
*
Irea looks at me silently, as I smile at her triumphantly. The fire around her has died out, and the townsfolk that attacked her earlier are laying on the ground as scorched masses of unrecognizable flesh.
`Thanks for the help.' I tell her, nodding towards the burnt corpses. `Had they interrupted me, things would have turned pretty fucking bad...'
`Why did you do this?' she asks finally, slowly.
`What? The guy in the lava?'
`Yes.'
`My hand was cut off in battle a while ago. It would have grown back in a couple of weeks, but I need it now. And I mean fucking right now... The skeleton of a recently deceased guy serves as a powerful catalyst that can accelerate the process. It works real nicely, as you can see!'
She looks at me like she was thinking that I am out of my mind. Well, madness is sure to follow, but it's not in my mind, but the world around us. Soon, she will understand.
`You don't see why I did it, do you?'
`No. I don't.' she says, slowly. She clearly disagrees with what I have done. No matter.
`Just watch. What I will do now, I could not have done without this skeletal hand!'
Alright... Let's do this... Now we'll see if I was right...
I reach out my left arm, and slowly I pull a diagonal line into the air with my skeletal hand, from the height of my head to the height of my ankle. Using my magic, I reach into the fabric of the Multiverse, attempting to pierce through the barriers between Arghard and a certain world... And...
It seems to work! Yes!
As I slowly pull my hand further and further, a thin grayish surface is left behind along the line I pulled into the air. The same familiar silvery watery surface that is so characteristic of Portals, only much thinner. As the line is complete, I grab the edge of the line and pull on it, trying to stretch it perpendicular to its length. The line slowly begins to extend, and soon it becomes a triangular-shaped Portal, one which is wide enough for us to step through.
Yes! Yes! I was right! I was fucking right!
I turn towards Irea. She stares at the Portal I created with amazement.
`What is that?' she asks.
`A Portal.' I tell her, and I pick my coat up from the ground.
`You said it didn't work last time you tried opening a Portal.'
`That's right, but this Portal leads to a very specific place. One I didn't bother to try earlier. The Afterlife!'
*
`What?' she asks, sounding like she does not believe what she heard. `How can that be? I always believed it was impossible to open a Portal to the world of the dead.'
`It's not impossible, it just takes a lot of effort. Normally, I'd need weeks of preparation, special catalysts, and a lot of magical energy to open the Portal. But something happened, and now, opening a Portal there has become... ridiculously easy. Provided one has the proper tool. Which I now do. My skeletal hand has power enough to breach through the barriers between Arghard and the Afterlife now.'
`How can that be?'
`Because these barriers have thinned! While the barriers between Arghard and all other worlds have thickened!'
`That's insane...'
`Yes, it is. But it's the only explanation for the fact that this Portal stands before us, while I cannot open a Portal to anywhere else, and you can't return home, either.'
She looks grimly into the Portal. She begins to understand...
`What can do this? What does it all mean?'
`What did this? I don't know. What does it mean? That's easy. But I have no time to explain. We must hurry through, and escape this deathtrap.'
`I'm not going anywhere until you give me an explanation!' she says, steadfast. I sigh.
`There is no time to waste, Irea! We have to go!'
`Not until you tell me!'
You stubborn little bitch...
`I already told you not to call me that!'
Oh brother...
`You're causing us a big fucking delay with this, fuck it!'
`So, talk fast!'
`Alright, fine. Actually it's simple. Do the math! What can it mean that the barriers to one world have thinned, and the barriers to all others have thickened? It means that the world to which the barriers have thinned is trying to swallow our world. Do you understand? Arghard is dying! The Afterlife has taken a hold on it, and will not let it go! The walls have thinned, and they are only getting thinner. Once they vanish, Arghard and the Afterlife will be one and the same. When a Spiritual World merges with a Material World, the Material World slowly dissolves, like salt dissolves in water. When the barriers disappear, Arghard is going to die, along with everything in it!'
She stares ahead blankly. Slowly, she shakes her head.
`It can't be...'
`It is. Think it through while we pass through here.'
`Pass through... Through the Afterlife...? Why? If what you say is true, what's the point of going to the Afterlife? Do you think you can break through from there to other worlds?'
`No, but I can open a Portal back to Arghard. A Portal in another part of this world. We enter here, we close the Portal behind us, and I open another one that leads to Coldrock. Call it makeshift teleportation, if you will. Tricky, isn't it?' I tell her, smiling.
`We are going to Coldrock? And when we get there? What then?'
`Our only hope is that Gateways still function. If they do, we will use the one in Coldrock to escape. If not, well, then we will die here. Even if the Gateway works, we must hurry. I have no idea how much time we have left. It could be weeks, it could be hours. Every second counts. We must hurry.'
`So, time is running out... That's why this man had to die. Because you couldn't wait until your hand grew back by itself.'
`Yes. We don't have weeks, we may not even have hours. I needed catalysts to accelerate the process. It had to be a living creature with bones, and this guy was closest, so I chose him. I will go to any length necessary to survive. Life is about survival of the fittest, and sometimes that means you must do nasty things. And I never hesitate!'
`Survival of the fittest is the proper way of life, but this man... You made a poor choice when you picked him, do you know that?'
`Huh? Poor choice? What's that supposed to mean? His bones were perfectly useful, he seemed like a good choice to me.'
`You don't get it! I looked into his mind. Trying to understand what kind of a man he was. He had good karma. He did not deserve to die like this.'
Oh brother... Not this motherfucking karma bullshit again...
`I don't give a fuck about that! He was the first guy I ran into, I chose him. Period.'
`You should have picked one of the others. The ones I slayed protecting you. I peeked into their minds, too. They had bad karma. Some of them had very bad karma. They deserved their fate. They would have deserved much worse, in fact. But no, you had to pick the one sole man among them that had good karma.'
`So what?' I ask. She gives me a disapproving look.
`The guy had good karma, you shouldn't have killed him the way you did.'
`What do you mean?'
`You pushed him in the lava alive... Why didn't you slit his throat first? He wouldn't have suffered so much.'
`Because that would have taken two seconds, and waiting for him to die would have taken at least ten more seconds. And I don't have a second to waste. I told you, I'm getting off this rock by any means necessary, and I'm not gonna waste time! I'll do whatever the fuck I have to to get out of this mess, and I won't hesitate!'
`Anything? Really?' she asks. `Would you kill anyone who stands in your way to save your skin? Even your friends?'
`Don't twist my words! Are you coming, or not? This is your only chance to escape this deathtrap of a world! We've wasted far too much time on this needless fucking conversation! Let's go!'
`
Answer my question! Would you kill your friends to save your own skin? Or better yet, how about me? If there was no-one else around but me, would you actually have killed me to save yourself?'
`I already told you... Don't twist my fucking words! If that's not answer enough for you, read it out of my fucking mind, you seem to be pretty good at that...'
`Reading the mind of a stubborn bastard like you is not so simple. It doesn't work all the time.'
`Whatever! We have to go! Now!'
I reach my hand towards her, waiting for her to grab it. She looks at me, and I can see it in her eyes that she is disappointed with me. But all this had to be done. We have already wasted too much time.
Finally, she nods, and grabs my hand.
`Fine. Let's go.' she says, and I can tell that she will want to speak more of this. Fine. But first, let's get the fuck out of here...
We step into the Portal.
Gratitude
Aldut, Draconia, present day (10 hours after Twilightfall)
Hail Lord Keehmor! Hail Lord Keehmor! This is what the villagers keep shouting. Daniel smiles. He takes pleasure in being cheered like that. They are slowly gathering around him. People are coming out of their houses, their hideouts. The warriors who have been trying to fend off the demons before we arrived are busy trying to douse the fire of the few houses that are burning, but most everyone else is gathering around Daniel, cheering him, chanting his name.
Finally, a man raises his hands and motions the others to quiet down. He is a bald human man with a beard. He is dressed in more formal clothes than the others. He must be in charge here.
`Lord Keehmor...' he tells Daniel, as the people finally quiet down. `We cannot thank you enough for the timely rescue! Those monsters would have destroyed Aldut if you hadn't arrived when you did. How can we ever thank you?'
Daniel smiles warmly.
`Oh, there is really no need to thank me.' he says.
`But surely we can thank you somehow!' shouts a brown haired woman towards him.
`Yes, there must be some way we can thank you!' says another woman, a red haired one.
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