You may notice that peculiar cloying odor that permeates the place. That is the odor of flayed human skin. Aaron likes to torture humans and to flay them before they die. He is especially partial to torturing women, I don't know why, though it may be because they can hold out longer before dying, and they tend to scream louder than the men. Whatever the reason, I find the practice very tiresome!
"We can start the battle as soon as you are ready, my friends. As you must have discerned, I am anxious to get started. Just across the hall, over there, is a pack of the goat-men. If you like, we can take them on, first."
Emett agreed that seemed like the place to start, so they crossed the hall and entered the chamber that the goat-men use as a barracks. Alison asked her companions to let her take care of this group. They agreed, so she ignited her moving fire walls to sweep the chamber clean of anything combustible.
Chapter Nine
Alison's firewall worked very well against this particular bunch of goat-men. She must have really juiced up her abilities, because it only took two of the firewalls to eliminate every one of the goat-men in the chamber. That raised the question of whether or not her other spells were also that much stronger. Well, the only way to know for sure was to test them in combat.
They left the room and walked down the corridor away from Aaron, but where more of his minions could be found. They came to some of the poison spitting dogs, but these seemed to be so powerful that they should be rated as hell-hounds. The Undefeasible had no convenient defense against their spit, so he stood back as Emett attacked and Alison healed him whenever she saw that he needed it. Alison might well have wiped out these hell-hounds by herself, but Emett wanted to test himself against this more powerful version. They decided that The Undefeasible would go after the next batch of hell-hounds with Alison to back him up. The hell-hounds were the only creatures that The Undefeasible had encountered that really gave him a problem. Even Aaron was not able to overcome The Undefeasible without the help of the hell-hounds.
Their next encounter was with some rather odd looking individuals. They closely resembled wizards with their long white hair and their fancy robes, but they floated through the air, rather than walking on the ground. Their strength was in the fire or lightning balls they shot from their hands following an arcane gesture. These pseudo wizards were immune to Alison's firewall or exploding fireballs, but were affected by her ice balls. They were not killed, but they were slowed down by the cold, so that they were easily dispatched by Emett's sword. The Undefeasible had no trouble with these pseudo wizards, since the fire and lightning balls did not do a significant damage to his scales. His fighting technique was simplicity itself: he walked in among the creatures and snatched them out of the air with his tentacles. The next step was either to tighten the tentacle enough to crush the creature or to wrap another tentacle around the same creature and pull him into two pieces. Either strategy appeared to be effective, if a little bloody.
They walked around from chamber to chamber, killing monsters as soon as they could find them. The word must have finally gotten to Aaron, because the three friends heard a Thump-Thump-Thump sound of a very heavy creature walking toward them. The Undefeasible listened for a moment and confirmed that the noise was, indeed, the sound made as Aaron walked over the ground.
Before long, they caught sight of a truly ugly, but impressive, monster approaching them at a steady pace somewhat like a mighty juggernaut. Aaron was over 15 feet tall, mostly red in color, and covered with scales. He had a long tail with spikes on the end, each spike looked to be around two feet long. He had two giant wings, though it was not obvious what they might be good for, since, even with the aid of magic, it was difficult to believe that he could use them to fly. Maybe he could wrap them around his body as a shield of some sort.
His face was like that of a Dragon, but with a short jaw line. He had long fangs projecting from both the top and the lower jaw. Those fangs looked to be counterproductive, since it was hard to see how he could get his mouth open far enough to bite anything with them.
Aaron walked on two legs and had two arms which projected at least six feet from his body. It was hard to tell for sure under all those scales, but it looked like he had a wrist and an elbow similar to what humans had. His hands and feet ended with three-inch claws projecting from each finger and toe.
All of this was impressive, but, according to The Undefeasible, his main weapon was a breath that looked like fire, but actually functioned like lightning. Therefore, fire resistance did no good in protecting one from Aaron, what you needed was lightning resistance. That sent Alison into a quick huddle with Hat. Alison turned back to her friends a couple of minutes later with the statement, "I may have a great surprise for Aaron the first time he tries to attack us with his breath."
The first step in the confrontation with Aaron was kind of mild. Aaron asked, "Why have you two invaded my realm? You have no business here. Leave immediately!"
Alison answered, "Aaron, you are the one who is out of place! This is the world of physical creatures, not abominations like you. Why have you come to plague us?"
"I am here because I am strong enough to be here. I don't have to answer to any lesser force. My strength gives me the right to go anywhere I wish and do anything I wish. Only a stronger being can gainsay me, and there is no stronger being in all the multitude of universes."
"There may not be one being strong enough to thwart you, but a combination of beings can do it. And you are facing that combination right know. Leave this plane immediately, or you will regret your foolishness."
"I'LL SHOW YOU HOW FOOLISH I AM!" Aaron turned to face Alison directly and unleashed a blast directly at her which looked like a stream of intense fire, almost plasma. The blast hit some sort of invisible barrier and was directed down toward the ground, but it didn't stop there. It traveled along the ground until it reached Aaron and struck him between his legs, where his penis would be if he was a man.
He reacted like any man would when attacked in the balls. Aaron tried to escape. By doing this, his beam of energy was twisted away from Alison and flashed of harmlessly in the distance. This broke the chain of energy back to Aaron, and he was relieved of the discomfort. Aaron got a most peculiar look of discomfort and disbelief on his face, but this quickly turned to absolute rage as the three companions began to laugh at him.
He didn't breathe any more energy blasts at them, but he did resort to throwing exploding fire balls. Alison returned the favor, and there was quite a fireworks display being put on by the two combatants. While this was going on, Emett jumped to Aaron's rear and tried to stab him with his sword. This sword was supposed to pierce virtually anything, but it only slid along the surface of his scales.
Aaron felt the sword and tried to hit Emett with his spiked tail, but Emett easily avoided it. However, the spikes did come uncomfortably close, so Emett took a swing at the spikes, not really expecting much success. To his surprise, the sword cut right through one of the spikes and buried itself partway in another. Aaron let out a roar of pain and turned his back on Alison to concentrate on Emett.
This complete loss of concentration by Aaron was enough to draw The Undefeasible into the fight. Quite unexpectedly, he jumped at Aaron's head and crashed into him with all of his considerable weight. This knocked Aaron tail over tea kettle, and he rolled away from the fight. In the process, the sword was jerked out of Emett's hand so that he was momentarily left weaponless.
From the look on Alison's face, she took the opportunity to change to another spell which she cast at Aaron. Meanwhile, Emett drew from his magic weapon pouch an ax that was charmed never to get dull. He used this to attack Aaron's tail spikes. Meanwhile, The Undefeasible jumped on Aaron again, pinning him to the ground and wrapping him in a multitude of tentacles, which he proceeded to tighten.
Aaron tried to retaliate with his strange breathe beam, but gave it up with a loud roar of pain almost before he got it going. He whipped about and twisted back and
forth trying to escape The Undefeasible's clutches and the chopping of Emett's ax.
It took only a few powerful swings of Emett's ax to remove the last of the spikes from Aaron's tail and Aaron was obviously suffering from the pressure being exerted by those powerful tentacles. In only a few minutes, he was begging for mercy.
Not being spiteful characters, all three friends backed off and let Aaron get to his feet. "OK, you have won this battle. I will admit defeat and return to Hell. But, you, Alison Amabel, must remove the spell from me which keeps me from using my special weapon.
"No, not until we settle a few things. You must leave this plane of existence and swear never to return. I know that even you cannot break your sworn word. Furthermore, you must take all of your minions with you. No more walking skeletons or zombies or vampires. No more goat-men or hell-hounds or demons. When you have done that, I will remove the spell."
"Oh, very well, I swear to do as you say. I promise never to enter this plane of existence again. I promise to move all of my minions back to hell. I promise to return to Hell."
"When will you do this?"
"You saw my little escape hole, did you? Very well, I promise to do all of that immediately after you remove the spell."
Alison nodded and Aaron disappeared a moment later. Alison said, "Unless I have made a silly mistake, we have seen the last of Aaron around here."
The Undefeasible asked, "Wonderful Lady, what was that spell you used on Aaron that hurt him so much?"
Alison laughed and said, "That was a simple conductivity spell that made the air conduct electricity with zero resistance. I started off with the shield between us and ran a line of conductivity back to his crotch. I didn't know if he was as sensitive there as humans are, but I thought to find out. Then, when you fell on him, I enveloped his whole body with the spell and routed any energy he released back to the same place. It definitely seemed to work!"
"Yes it did! Please remind me never to make you mad at me!
"I must thank you two lovely people for all of your help in getting my home back to me. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your efforts. If there is ever any way I can help you, please feel free to call on me."
Emett said, "Thank you, Sir. It is good to know that we can call on someone of your abilities if we ever get into serious trouble. Rest assured that if we do call on you, it will not be for something trivial.
"I think that it is time now for us to return home, for we have an appointment to keep in another place with a very evil wizard. Good bye and good luck. Alison, please take us back to the inn."
Alison and Emett had felt so satisfied with their efforts in the cellars under the old church that they had played multiple rounds of "hide the weenie." They had realized that Alison's spell to restore stamina worked great on Emett's cock exhaustion, so they kept on well into the night. Furthermore, Alison's vagina never got sore because she could cure it of any abrasion wounds on the spot, as it were. Damn! Sorcery finally put to a good use!
Since the stamina restoration spell was never 100% effective, Emett eventually had to rest, so they slept late the next morning. They got up for lunch and ate a substantial meal in the dining room of the inn.
Since they were young and full of life, they could not face spending the rest of the day indoors, so they dressed for the occasion and went for a walk. They had been walking around for about half an hour when they both suddenly received a bulletin from Hat.
Lady Amabel, Lord Darius, please give me your complete attention. An emergency situation has developed in the capital city. Yesenia is in great danger! You both are needed there as soon as you can get there.
"Fine, with us, but how can Alison and I get there quickly? We will still have to walk or else take an ocean voyage that will require months. Also, you said that we would need a long training regimen to get our abilities strong enough to do any good."
Yes, Lord Darius, I did say that, but you two have advanced much faster than I had any reason to expect. Your adventure in fighting Aaron and his minions gave you the kind of training I had expected to take months. You are advanced enough to be able to give a good account of yourselves right now, though you will continue to get stronger in your fighting capabilities practically until the day you die, centuries from now.
As for your journey to Yesenia, Lady Amabel's transport spell will do the job. I will give her the necessary information to transport to a safe house on the outskirts of Yesenia. From there, you can resume normal travel by foot.
Please return to the inn and gather your belongings. You can settle your bill with the innkeeper and transport to Yesenia today, before it is too late.
Alison transported them to their room and they gathered their few remaining items and stored them in Emett's magic pouch. They went from there to pay their remaining bill. Once that was done, they went to the stable where they would be free from prying eyes, and Alison transported them to the safe house near Yesenia.
The safe house was nothing to brag about. It was less like a house and more like a hovel. No self respecting peasant would live there out of choice, though it was in much better condition on the inside than on the outside. Magic was used to keep the building clean and neat on the inside, though it looked like an abandoned wreck from the outside. Any unwanted person who approached the hut felt a compulsion to leave the vicinity without ever entering, so it was safe from casual visitors. Other visitors could be dealt with more strongly, but that had not yet been necessary.
It was getting dark when they arrived because of the time difference from their starting point. Emett and Alison did what was necessary to prepare to spend the night at the hut, then Emett asked, "Hat, what is the nature of the emergency that requires our presence here so quickly? We need to have some idea of what we are facing before we can do a decent job of fighting it."
Lord Taos has learned of your presence in Magicktopia. He has determined to kill you immediately to protect his position of power. He has no idea where you are, only that you are somewhere in the kingdom, so he has resolved to get rid of you by killing all people with magic powers. Our plane of existence cannot exist without its backbone of magic users. Magic here is as important as industrial manufacturing was in the plane where you had been living. Lord Taos is so afraid of you that he is willing to take that radical step. The campaign of slaughter has already started in Yesenia and you must act immediately.
So far, only Yesenia has been struck, but he will expand his campaign of terror as soon as Yesenia has been "cleansed." You will need to start tomorrow in your battle to stop the murder of so many innocents. I cannot tell you what to do, I can only answer questions.
Emett said, "Thank you, Hat. Alison, it seems to me that we need to plan a little before we go rushing around all over the place. We could wind up chasing our tails and not accomplish anything."
"You are absolutely right! Do you have any suggestions?"
"Well, I don't doubt that we are going to have to fight Lord Taos before this situation is resolved, but I think our first priority should be to rescue as many male and female mages, wizards, and sorcerers as we can before they are killed. I'll bet dollars to donuts that we'll have Lord Taos on our backs in nothing, flat, once we start doing that."
"That sounds reasonable to me. How do we do it?"
"I think that you need to put a barrier around the town that only a magic user can get through. Hopefully, some can escape from the army that way. Second, we need a place where the people we rescue can hide for a few days. What do you think of asking The Undefeasible to put them up in his place for a while until we can get this mess straightened out? If he agrees, you can transport people as we rescue them."
"OK, the first thing that I should do is jump us to The Undefeasible to ask for his help." Emett nodded, so Alison took his hand and jumped to The Undefeasible's chambers. He was not in his room, but they found him quickly. He agreed to house as many people as necessary for the duration of the conflict. They thanked him, and Aliso
n jumped them back to the hut.
For the rest of the evening, Alison consulted with Hat on the structure of the spell they wanted to surround the city of Yesenia. Meanwhile, Emett fixed them a supper from the rations stored in his magic pack.
Alison established the spell, and they ate supper. They went to bed with visions of a busy day ahead of them on the morrow.
Chapter Ten
There was considerable distress in Yesenia the next morning. By the time Alison and Emett had reached the business district, the merchants, particularly, were running around and lamenting that they could not leave town. There were shouts of how terrible this was for business and there would be financial ruin everywhere if the barrier was not soon lifted. Alison and Emett were slightly amused at the predictions of dire consequences, but they tried to ignore the turmoil.
The first thing they needed to do was to stop the murders, so Alison started a mental broadcast that could be heard only by magic users. "Escape outside of Yesenia as quickly as you can. Your life is in danger, but you will be safe outside of the city wall. The murderers will not be able to follow you, so go now, before it is too late!" Alison set the broadcast spell to repeat every five minutes for as long as there was a magic user still within the city. Alison, Emett, and Lord Taos were to be the only exceptions to this rule.
Alison cast another spell which was a locater beacon for those magic users who were not able to escape on their own, due to injury, illness, or any other problem. An amazing number of the locater beacons started flashing, too many for one person to handle. Alison set up a special spell that Emett could use to transport invalids, one at a time, to The Undefeasible's chambers. That way, the two could split up and cover twice as much area as they could by staying together. Emett immediately set out for the nearest beacon to test the spell; meanwhile, Alison transported to the far side of town to work on cases it would take Emett too long to walk (or run) to.
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