“AH!” he accidentally shrieked. He paused for a moment before finally whispering fiercely toward us, “I’m a fucking Jed–”
No! No. Not me, copyright ninja. No. Move along.
We couldn’t hold our laughter at the fact that he had actually called himself that in all seriousness, so we all had a good, long belly laugh at his expense. He didn’t give a shit, though. He just took his time throwing it and calling it to him again. Each time it came back, he would gasp in delight and stomp his feet a bit.
“Yo, man.” Yohsuke patted my shoulder. “What did you do?”
“I gave it a bit more juice than I meant to,” I grumbled, “but I figured—if he can throw it and not have to worry about going to get it—he’d be safer. So, ta-da?”
“That’s fucking dope, man.” Yoh bumped my shoulder with his fist. “Might need to do that for all of us, haha.”
I grinned at him and said simply, “Maybe. If you keep cooking as good as you do—you’ll be the first one to get a lil something.”
Chapter Five
We walked for another mile or so after our rest, and all was relatively clear. There were game trails, and we even saw a mountain goat in the distance who watched us dispassionately as it grazed on what it could find.
As we headed northward, the cloudy skies shifting lazily to gray and overcast, our eyes fell on a cave in the mid-afternoon sunlight. It would have been just another place to avoid except that, well, to be honest, I didn’t want to. I could feel the dark entrance, only thirteen feet wide and twice as tall, calling to me.
“God, I need to be in you,” Muu muttered. I looked over to see him staring at the cave. The others were looking at us oddly, but I didn’t really care.
“You guys okay?” Yohsuke’s eyebrows were furrowed beneath his hood as he looked at the two of us. “You look… off.”
“I want to go into that cave,” Muu said, and I nodded.
“Why?” Jaken asked. James stood off to my right.
“There could be loot in there,” I whispered in a hushed tone. That thought grew more tangible when I swore I saw something shiny inside the entrance, just to the rear in the shadows. Though, to be honest, I couldn’t even begin to make out what was past the entrance.
“Dude, it’s just a cave,” Bokaj explained. “There’s not shit in there. Well, maybe a mountain lion or something.”
“Let’s just go in and check,” Muu tried to reason with the others. “If there’s nothing in there, then we know. We move on, but if there is, we kill it, and I get to level up, right?”
James cleared his throat and looked at the others. “Yeah, I wanna go in.”
The others seemed to mull it over for a moment, but I was already crouched, walking toward the cave mouth. I couldn’t wait for them to either decide or not. I had to know what was in there. I had to.
Now, my good sense leaves me often, but fuck, this cave was just hitting all the right buttons for me.
As I neared the cave entrance, the fur on the back of my neck and scalp rose, then fell back down as quickly as it had occurred. I looked around, and as I walked through the entrance, I was no longer entranced. That pissed me off because I just knew something had wanted us to come in here. I felt Kayda’s mourning reach its peak, and her sadness washed over me, almost forcing me to my knees. Tears formed in my eyes and fell softly into my fur. I cut off our tie for the time being so I could do some exploring.
What I found was enough to make my instincts worthwhile. Recalling boot camp-level instincts, ones that had been damned near beaten into us, I raised my left arm and waved to my friends to come join me, then patted the air by my hip to tell them to walk softly. Muu didn’t understand, but Yohsuke grabbed him and had him walk slowly. I looked to my left and realized the Bokaj was there with his bow at the ready.
Dude was taking on a seriously badass rob the rich and give to the poor kind of vibe for me with this dark and broody thing he had going for him.
That was fucking stupid, man, he used the earring to talk to me.
Well, there goes my previous thoughts.
As the others joined us, they saw what I had seen. Twelve sleeping creatures that looked like taller, stronger Goblins. They each had a crude weapon near their prone bodies.
Leave it to you to find a bunch of sleeping enemies. We’re too far out to see the levels. Anyone want to sneak closer for a look? Jaken grumbled into my mind.
Yohsuke whispered softly to Muu to pass on what we were saying. Getting him an earring was going to have to be a thing.
Yeah, I will. Bokaj began to move cautiously forward with Tmont on his heels, watching the sleeping forms. It was a thirty yard sneak before he sent back, level 12s, all of them.
What do you wanna bet these are the owners of the huts? Yohsuke put forth as he began to slowly move forward.
We’re gonna let Muu have the finishing touch on these guys, right? Should we AoE or go one at a time? I asked. I looked over the bodies, my sight uninhibited by the darkness, but the back of the cave was still cloaked in shadow.
Let me survey the area a bit more before we start raining death, Bokaj told us all as he moved through the sleeping figures toward the back. Looks like there’s a couple tunnels in here. I’m not seeing anything down them, though. It smells like shit and piss in here. Couldn’t they go outside at least?
Who cares? James groaned dramatically. This place could be a dungeon. Let’s kill them and check it out! Places to go, monsters to kill, levels to gain. Let’s get to getting.
You all ready? Yohsuke asked. He had shuffled as close as he dared. Let’s save the magic. Zeke, let Muu know that when one of us gets one of them low enough. He moves in for the kill.
I nodded, then moved cautiously over to Muu and whispered, “If it has low health, you stab it. Stay close to me, and head on a swivel. No risks.”
He gave me a thumb up and looked forward. We began to cross the distance slowly and carefully. I brought out Storm Caller and brought it above the creature’s head, then moved it to the body itself. I pointed at Muu, to my head, his spear then the creature’s head.
I gave a final glance to the party around me, standing over various sleeping forms ready to strike. All of them were within easy distance for Muu to get to quickly.
I repositioned myself, brought my weapon up, then down on the creature brutally. Even as it grunted, Muu stabbed his spear into the side of its head and finished it. Then he moved to the creatures before Jaken, Yohsuke, James, and the one that Bokaj had fired two arrows into lazily. Each one took one or two strikes from Muu to perish, then the others were alerted to our presence.
Muu stepped behind Jaken just as one stood. Muu flanked the Paladin, then came about on his shield side where he wouldn’t be in the way. I looked and saw that his level had risen by one.
Disappointing, but he was here with us, and the experience was going to be skewed because of it. I also had to wonder if there was some kind of penalty to his growth because we were basically doing the majority of the work?
Back to paying attention.
Jaken hacked the arm off the creature in front of him, the club falling with it. It stared in disbelief at the subtraction from its being, then died when Muu thrust his spear through the top of its head.
James couldn’t risk holding himself back as one of the green-skinned creatures tried to get to the green Dragon Beast-kin. He hit it hard enough that it crumpled to the ground dead.
As I looked at their taller frames, I had to admit I had heard of creatures like this back home in my reading. Hobgoblins? As the thought made itself known, the name bar above each creature shifted into Hobgoblin.
Gotta love this world.
After a moment of more careful fighting, all of the creatures we had attacked were dead. Though the final one had hardly put up a fight at all—it opted to just yell as loudly as it could in anger.
Muu was looting the corpses happily, so we left him to that and moved forward to look at the rear of the
cave.
There were three tunnels. One that smelled almost entirely of feces and urine, the middle, and right, which smelled like the hobgoblins. I was going to suggest that we check out the rest of the place when I felt a small rumble shake the ground.
I looked to the others, and they were backing away from the origin of the shaking—the right hallway. As we backed away, more hobgoblins began to flood into sight.
“Kill them while they’re funneling in!” Jaken shouted and rushed to stand between the tunnel mouth and us.
I saw Bokaj bring out an arrow, notch it, and loosed before shouting, “Fireball!” The concussion of the blast of flames rocked us, and it was a little harder to hear for a moment. Things sounded muffled. He sent another in. Notifications for experience flooded my field of vision, but there was still movement in the tunnel.
Yohsuke threw a bolt of astral and starlight into the hall, and a second later, another grenade-like blast erupted as his Star Burst detonated.
I let the others take care of the enemy in that tunnel and looked into the middle tunnel. I couldn’t see anything, and I hoped nothing would come. Another burst of light and heat from the right tunnel let me know that Bokaj had used another Fireball Arrow.
“They’re stopping!” James alerted us. “Jaken, get the hate, man! Get them to come to us.”
“I’ll try.” Jaken’s muffled voice reached my ears, and I saw him step into the tunnel. A burst of red aura covered his armor. “Come and get some, bitches!”
A cacophonous cry of outrage greeted him, and I saw another host of hobgoblins surge from the shadows in the back of the tunnel. They scrambled and clawed at each other to reach their prey first. An arrow hit one in the chest and the heavens opened a rent in the air above them and poured down raining stars. Star Fall Arrow was spent. Yohsuke threw another Star Burst. The damage of the combined spells shattered the enemies, and all was finally still.
“Oh thank the Gods that’s over.” I sighed in relief.
“I do not appreciate you slaughtering my army,” replied a cool, masculine voice.
I turned to find a mostly nude man, his skin milky in color from the waist up, then red from the waist down. His muscles were toned and appealing. His facial features were appeasing, and the horns protruding from his head curved up and back over his head almost like slicked-back hair. He wore nothing but a loincloth that covered him, and looking at him, even with my True Sight, was confusing, to say the least. His demonic features, appealing visage, and the confusion I was feeling could mean that he was probably an incubus.
Look, boys and squirrels—I like to read a lot, okay? And a lot of the better books introduce the idea of some kind of sexy, powerful demonic figure to entice the good guy or girl, and it’s not hard to see that this dude was clearly that.
Why are you looking at me that way? Don’t judge my reading choices.
It didn’t help that he had Muu by the throat.
The fuck is that thing, and where the fuck did it come from?! Jaken shouted into our minds.
Incubus, Yohsuke actually spat when he repeated my thought
My friend didn’t dare move for fear of making the creature holding him decide he was worth killing. He had leveled up to four in all the commotion.
“How were we to know that they were your army, Incubus?” I tried to reason. I could just make out his level.
Incubus level 26.
“You weren’t.” He waved the question away with his free hand. “They were merely my protection and a snack. The spell on the entrance was meant to entice anything mildly intelligent to come in. Though your Elven-blooded friends had no issues resisting my charm.”
The clawed finger to Muu’s throat slid along it teasingly. “This one is very curious about what goes on in these realms. He wasn’t hard to lure away either.”
“Look, let him go, and we will happily just leave you here, alone and in peace. I swear it,” Jaken swore. He stepped forward a little more to get in front of the rest of us, and the Incubus tightened his grip on Muu’s throat threateningly.
“Ah-ah.” He wagged his finger at the Paladin. “No. You will be my new slaves and meals until I am strong enough to move along unimpeded. If you move, I will kill him.”
Fuck him, Bokaj—you ready? I growled through our telepathic connection.
Bet your ass, came his cold reply.
I looked at Muu and saw him realize what would happen. There was fear in his body and then recognition. He began to struggle slightly.
“Look, your friend knows what will happen if you displease me,” the Incubus purred in delight. He leaned down a little and whispered into Muu’s ear. He went rigid, then threw his shielded hand up, and the Incubus gripped the arm and rested the shield against his chest.
“I love it when prey struggles.” The creature’s red eyes dilated, and he purred low in his throat.
“Good,” Muu grunted and squeezed his hand, pulling the lever in his grip.
The blade burst from the shield and into the Incubus’s throat, doing a measly five percent damage; it must have been a critical hit with how far apart in levels they were from each other. The creature squeezed and threw his assailant away from him. Jaken triggered Radiant Burst, saving Muu’s life in the nick of time.
The rest of us were on our foe in a heartbeat. Three arrows burst from the Incubus’s chest, and it dropped another twenty percent. It reached forward and blasted at Bokaj with fire that James took the brunt of the damage from, redirected the flow of the hit, and hammer fisted the creature in the side of the head. It knocked him into Yohsuke, who brought his Astral Blade into its back with a roar.
“Don’t you EVER threaten my family again!” The feral roar leapt from my throat as I brought Storm Caller on to his open shoulder. I activated Cleave and struck a second time, then pulled back, tossed my axe behind me, and grasped his head in my hands and squeezed.
“Aahhhh!” it cried. I didn’t care. The red ringing my vision began to throb wildly, and I cast Lightning Bolt into his head. A few more Ki-empowered strikes from James and some Astral Blade swipes from Yohsuke saw the fucker to ten percent.
We held him down, punching lightly to keep him distracted as Jaken brought over Muu. The newest member of our party stood there, still as stone, watching as the struggling form beneath us tried to get him to help.
“Please, I will not harm you, just—ah!—LET GO!” it shrieked.
“Muu, he’s yours man,” Bokaj prodded gently. “Stab him to your heart’s content.”
“Get some, man.” Jaken smacked the now-biting fanged mouth of the Incubus as he tried to encourage Muu, “You got this.”
Muu took a straddling position over the prone figure, stared into the creature’s eyes, and he lifted his weapon wordlessly.
“No! I’ll give you anything! Anything you want!” The Incubus pleaded wildly.
“Wait!” Bokaj barked, pulling us from our animosity slightly. “Tell us what’s going on in the Hells and how you got here.”
“I was approached by one of the newest members of a new order in the Hells, called War Path. They offered me power and all the souls I could corrupt on the Prime so long as I sowed as much discord and chaos as I could while I was here. It’s a prospect that seems to be catching on with the lesser demons. Some of the more powerful demons are thinking of joining them as well, but there are bureaucracies to observe.”
He eyed Yohsuke. “You understand that.”
“Take us to the Hells,” Bokaj ordered the Incubus.
“No.” Muu shrugged and raised his spear, and my grip tightened significantly. “I can’t! It was a one-way trip. The stronger demons, someone almost as powerful as a duke of Hell sends us to a random place. I’m not strong enough to return on my own, let alone someone else! Don’t stab me, please!”
“Tell us more about the guys at the top of this order,” I growled. “Have you heard any word about someone trying to take over?”
The Incubus balked at the question, so
James punched him in his pretty face, and he spat blood.
“No one knows much, but some of the other Lords and Ladies of Hell hate them for tampering with the power structure. There was a rumor that one of them was sending a mortal into negotiation circle—vicious and fiery little thing—and challenging others for their servants. I was a free party, so I was approached by a scout of some sort.”
“Where did they come from?” Jaken asked, and Bokaj shot him a look.
“No one knows. They just showed up, and people started following them with their sweet, sweet promise of defiling this plane.” It licked its lips. “I’ve given you much. Release me.”
I felt a tickle in the back of my mind that made my vision blur a little, but James smacked the Incubus again.
“What about the vicious little thing can you tell us? What negotiations are you talking about?” Bokaj was shaking now, his face a mask of anger and worry.
“I gave you the information! Release ME!” He struggled as best as he could but couldn’t free himself.
Muu looked him in the eyes with a cold smile and said, “I love it when my prey struggles.”
The creature stopped struggling long enough for a flash of sickening green attacks from Muu’s spear and shield blade. He furiously slashed and cut and stabbed as quickly as possible.
The attacks weren’t much, even paired with the venom of what I assumed was his racial ability, but the spots he was raining them down on eventually killed the Incubus with the critical damage and the rest of us beating the creature into submission.
Finally, the Incubus expired, and I watched as Muu’s level leaped to eight.
Bokaj sat back, numbly watching the proceedings. He was obviously not here, and I thought I knew why. Balmur could still be alive, but we were no closer to getting to him, and War’s general in the Hells was up to some serious shit.
“Nice, man!” I exclaimed, trying to lighten the mood a little. “We really need to work on those one-liners, though.”
Muu grinned at me, then fell to his ass with his head in his hands. I watched as his shoulders began to shake, heard him sniffle, and the quiet sobs began to rack his body as he wept.
Into the Dragon's Den (Axe Druid Book 2) Page 16