by Charles Dean
Due to having no soul charges remaining, you will awaken with Hunger active.
This effect may not occur more than once an hour.
Red flashed and pain surged throughout his body. He could feel the blade that had been stuck in his leg pushing itself out and his sides sealing themselves up. Every wound, even the shuriken-inflicted wounds he no longer noticed due to the searing pain of the stab wounds in his front, stung and hurt like he had pressed them against a hot stove as they healed. Worse than that though, worse than the burning stinging sensation that dug into each wound as it closed and made his mind wail in pain, was the pain in his head. He could feel the skin on two spots near his temples split open, tormenting him so much that he couldn’t help but let out a scream of agony.
When it finally ended, when the excruciating burning sensations were gone, he found himself standing upright, and he couldn’t help but laugh. It wasn’t that anything was funny--in fact the whole situation was on the opposite spectrum of funny--it was just the relief. The second he felt the absence of that fiery pain engulfing his body, the sensation of simply not being tormented by waves of agony felt like pure bliss. It felt so good, he couldn’t help but laugh.
“Wha . . . What are you?” one of the ninjas screamed, shaking him back to reality. The red didn’t fade. He was still being racked with the urge to feed even if the rest of the pain was gone. “What in the f--” She didn’t finish her sentence before Darwin had covered the distance between them and sliced her in half. She wasn’t alone, either: the two guys next to her fell in what felt like less than a second too.
They’re so slow, he thought. Their actions looked as if they were lagged and hampered, like their bodies were struggling to move underwater. They’re so slow. They’re so weak. He found himself annoyed with them. How did I die to them? How did they kill me with just this? he thought, cutting through the fourth one. It hadn’t even been ten seconds since his revival, and already their numbers had gone down from seven remaining to three.
The last two standing ninjas tried to split up, throwing shuriken one after the other at him while they ran backwards. When he closed in on one of them, the would-be escape artist tossed a smoke grenade onto the floor in front of him, likely expecting it to cover a retreat. Too slow, Darwin thought, cutting his legs out from under him and decapitating him before the body could touch the ground.
The final ninja, the one who had hit him with at least six ninja stars in the confrontation before his revival, started shaking before turning around and running at full speed. Darwin, still laughing from the lack of pain, threw one of his swords as hard as he could right into the back of her skull while she ran, leaving it sticking up and planted in her quickly fallen corpse like a flag.
He turned to the leader, pale and frozen on the ground, lying on her back where he had left her after their initial confrontation. “You . . . You almost killed me,” he said, still angry he had to go through all of it. She had bullied his friend, she had wanted to torture him and she had him thinking he was going to die. He couldn’t shake it, any of it. “You almost killed me,” he repeated, his laughter slowly coming back.
“Wh-what the he-- . . . What the f-- . . . What . . . you?” she couldn’t get a sentence out without stammering. Every attempt at speaking was cut short with a deep, ragged breath as she slowly started pushing herself backwards across the ground on her hands. “S-stop it! G-g-go away!”
“You said you wanted to cut off my fingers?” Darwin said, stepping on her hand as she kept trying to scoot away from him and then dragging the sword across the ground to slice her fingers off. “You said you wanted to then take off my hands after,” he said, finishing the job then cutting both the hands off at the wrist.
Darwin had difficulty hearing what he said next over her screams. “What was it you were going to do next? Drag the blade up and down my body?”
As Darwin did exactly as the cat ninja had threatened, a part of him knew it wasn’t right. This wasn’t how he normally behaved. Even in the arena, when he had dismembered her, he felt a little off. This was pushing that even further, but he couldn’t help himself. As much as it felt wrong, it also felt right. Like this was justice. Like she needed to understand the consequences of her actions, that the inability to die didn’t make her immune to due punishment. She needed to feel regret for even playing with the idea of crossing him.
“It . . . It wasn’t our idea!” the cat woman yelled as Darwin’s sword dug into her gut. “The King made us do it!” Darwin stopped, standing up.
“What?” he asked, pulling his sword out of her and taking a step back.
“It’s how we found you. We didn’t revive in time to follow you, but the King had a map. He said he knew we’d be after revenge and told us where to find you.” The Feline rushed every word as if she had to finish her sentence on a timer or she was going to die in real life. “He wanted us to make sure you killed the bandits and then kill you to get rid of the evidence. That’s why we poisoned the tunnel when we overheard you cooperating.”
“That . . . That freaking panda. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him for this,” Darwin muttered contemptuously under his breath. He knew the panda had been using him, and he had perfectly surmised that he was sent to put down rebels who opposed his rule and not simple bandits, but he hadn’t anticipated for a moment that the King would dispose of him. Did he want to kill us too and then claim that he saved the villages despite their rebellious nature? he wondered, looking around. No, it doesn’t make sense. He could use us again for other rebellions if we did a good job here, so why is he trying to get rid of us?
“Please . . .” the cat lady begged below him. “Please . . . I’ve told you everything. Just finish it.”
Darwin crouched down over her and leaned in till his mouth touched her ear, and he said, “I’m sorry. Rest easy now,” as he finished the job with a quick stab to the heart. She had just been a pawn the same as him. She may have almost killed him, but a tool was something to be pitied, not punished the way he had punished her.
Standing back up and looking around at the havoc he had caused, he couldn’t help but feel a little proud, but still confused. After a few seconds, the light feeling, like his body didn’t weigh more than a feather, and the slow, molasses-like movements of the world around him faded. Everything returned back to normal--or at least almost normal. He still felt a bit lighter than usual, and things still seemed to move more slowly, but the feeling wasn’t anywhere on the same level as before.
Now what do I do? he thought, wondering how long the nerve gas would leave Kitchens and the rest unconscious. Since he wasn’t sure how long the gas would last, he decided to just go meet the boss himself. He didn’t want to leave everyone lying around, however, so he picked up Kitchens on his way in and threw him over his shoulder. Then he threw Kass over the other shoulder and did his best to try and carry Minx too. It wasn’t so much the weight but the positioning that was rather awkward, and he found himself wishing he could just put the sleeping people into his seemingly magical inventory. Failing in his attempt to try and carry them all, he finally just stacked all the unconscious people up against the wall where they had first noticed the smell, bringing them one at a time since trying to carry his friends all at once proved too much of a trial. Seriously, why can’t I just put them in my inventory until they wake up? he grumbled again as he propped Minx up next to Kitchens against the wall.
Then he waited. It was only around five minutes before the first archer, Louie, started to move again. “Ah, my head. Light . . . Why is there light? Who turned on the noise?” the archer grumbled, rubbing his forehead and holding his free hand up to block the light from one of the nearby torches.
“Shhh, shhh, the noise. Stop the noise,” Reginald said as he woke up second.
So they’re waking up in the order they went down, ey? Darwin noted as one by one the archers came to, each with what looked like an incredibly massive hangover. As they all started complaining about the noi
se, Darwin had an evil desire to bang two giant symbols together, but decided that even if he actually had the symbols to bang, no matter how amusing it was, Kass would probably kill him for it later.
“Wow, that smarts,” Kass said, waking up next. “Did not see that coming. Did we get pois--”
“Shhhhh shushie shushie shushie shushie!” Minx said, holding a finger to her mouth with both her eyes firmly squinted shut.
“Oka--” Kass tried to agree, but Minx cut her off again.
“SHUSHIE!” Minx snapped.
“Mmm . . . We didn’t die,” Kitchens said, following suit with the rest of them and avoiding even the smallest amount of torch light.
Darwin was almost tempted to snuff out the torches in an act of kindness, but years of experience told him that they needed to get used to it sooner rather than later. So games can make the player feel like he’s hung over. That’s interesting, Darwin noted. It wasn’t far enough outside of his realm of belief enough to shock him. Whatever developer came up with this game had, for some reason, decided to add a level of realism that he simply hadn’t ever thought could or would exist within a virtual world. Sure, the game was monitored and all, at least Darwin assumed it was, but there were scenes of downright torture that existed in this fun little video game that didn’t seem a reasonable addition to an otherwise enjoyable and entertaining experience.
“Came pretty close,” Darwin admitted, remembering the dreadful moment where he thought he had passed away. “Came very close. The Panda King had sent a group to assassinate us after we finished our job, and they started early when they saw we weren’t complying.”
“Mmm. Then I guess I owe you my tha--” Kitchens stopped mid-sentence, or rather he stopped talking as soon as his eyes managed to open. Sitting there on the floor, back leaned against the wall, he was staring at Darwin with squinted focus in silence.
“Yeah, thanks a lot Da--” Kass for some reason also went quiet as her eyes opened up.
Even the guards started staring at him, one by one, as their eyes started to function enough to look around. Darwin, not sure what was going on, looked at his bathrobe first. Covered in blood, but that’s expected after a fight. He then started checking his body parts to make sure everything was in place. Head, shoulders, knees . . . all my fingers are here. Is there something on my face? No, cheeks are smooth, I haven’t eaten anything but cookies lately. Is there a bit of cookie in my tooth? He started growing more and more self conscious.
“Mister, mister, why are you so horny?” Minx said after staring at him for a moment too, finally breaking the silence. “Why did you get horny when we all passed out?”
Horny? I’m not horny! Wait, is this like eighth grade again? Darwin thought, looking down to confirm his fears weren’t true.
“Not down there, mister. Up here. Like this,” Minx said, placing her hands against her head and pointing two fingers up like mini horns. “Rawwwrr, I can be horny too, mister.”
“What are you talking about, Minx?” Darwin said, reaching up to touch the spot on his head that she was touching on hers. Sure enough, there were what felt like horns. They weren’t particularly big, no more than a few inches, but they were, undeniably, sharp, pointy, horns. “What in the--”
“What? Mister didn’t notice he has horns? How do you get horns and not notice? Wait. Is this the drugs? Am I on the drugs? Do you guys see too? You guys see too, right?” Minx said, looking at everyone else.
“Yes, Minx, he is a horny deviant,” Kitchens agreed.
“Mmhmm, a very horny deviant indeed,” Kass repeated.
“That’s right. You got bona fide horns. Kind of makes you look like a demon with the red eyes and all,” Reginald chimed in. “You’re not going to eat our children while we sleep? I’ve heard that’s a thing, you know, demons eating good folks children while they sleep.”
“No, I don’t think he’s that type of demon,” Louie said, patting his friend on the back. “I mean, I reckon if he were that kind, one of us would be missing organs or something, and he’d be covered in . . . Wait, mister, you are covered in blood. Did you eat someone’s kids?”
Darwin rolled his eyes. “Not that I can remember,” he said, still doing his best to feel the horns on his head. “Anyways, can someone give me a mirror? I kind of want to see what the heck these things are.”
“Hey, don’t look at us,” Louie said. “It’s not like a bunch of guards in a filthy mine like this carry around mirrors to see how dashing we all look.”
“Especially not with these outfits,” the still nameless archer said. “Downright dreadful. If it wasn’t for the extra protection, I wouldn’t even use these sleeves for toilet paper.”
“Right? You think the Captain could spend just a little bit of money and spring for some proper dyes. The coloration on these filthy things makes it look like me mum pulled this right out of the compost bin to put it straight into a heaping pile of fertilizer.”
“Ladies,” Kass said, “I think you were going to take us to your boss before we were interrupted.”
“Oh, right. That we were,” Reginald said, standing up and brushing off his pants. “Let’s go. Follow us . . . and no funny business!”
“Don’t you think we’re past that by now?” Darwin asked, pretty sure that saving their lives from would-be ninja assailants definitely earned him less skepticism.
“Maybe . . . or maybe this is all part of your evil demon plan. No way to know,” he said, picking up a torch from one of the walls as they made their way deeper into the dungeon.
Well, at least there weren’t any Turtle-Wolves this time.
Chapter 5: Fashionably Great
Alex:
Alex stood squarely in the center of the galleon’s top deck. He was leaning over a makeshift table he had pulled up from below decks and quickly assembled as soon as they docked. He was staring at a stack of inventory lists piled on top of another stack of maps. Some of the other faction members had questioned why he would choose that particular spot, in the middle of everyone, arguing that it would get in the way of people loading and unloading the cargo, but Alex knew better. He knew that if the boss could see the subordinate, the subordinate would work harder. If a soldier could reach his commanding officers without walls or other impediments in the way, he’d be more likely to do so, allowing the officer to be better informed of everything at all times. He knew this because he had been intimidated by walls before. He had slacked off in Valcrest because no one was ever watching--a mistake that he would strive to never repeat.
He was going over the monetary ledgers that Darwin, who had entrusted him with almost all day-to-day operations, had left for him to handle when he heard Justin approach from behind. He’s too obvious in his movements. It could cost him his life one day, he sighed. He needs to train more.
“General Alex, the soldiers have reported excellent progress on all assignments,” Justin said, saluting Alex as soon as he finished stepping onto the deck.
“At ease, Justin. When the Great Lord Darwin isn’t here, you can drop the formalities. They only hinder us by wasting time. Now, you said there was good news? There were no issues getting the supplies needed?” Alex asked, a little surprised that the sheer quantity of material they were buying hadn’t created an unmanageable spike in the price of the goods back at the market.
“None, sir. No issues at all,” Justin replied.
Did we buy them so quickly the merchants weren’t able to figure out what we were doing, or is it just that this town is so massive that the population of our entire Demon Race was nothing more than a drop in the bucket to them?
“The prices on the commodities we needed stayed fixed, and the amount we required didn’t seem to phase their merchants,” Justin continued, seeing the expression of curiosity on Alex’s face.
“That is great news.” This is crazy. Alex couldn’t help but be stunned by the news. We just bought enough supplies for every person that we have to account for. Three hundred and forty two fro
m Valcrest--including women and children, of course--three more that needed supplies from the White-Wings, as well as even more supplies for the lord and his two ladies. That’s a full soldier’s rations and supplies for three hundred and forty eight people, and Justin is saying he got it all with no haggling and at a fair price in less than two hours? I didn’t even give him a coin more than the old capital’s markets would have charged per unit. “That will definitely put us ahead of schedule. When should we expect to have it all loaded in the craftsmen's quarters?”
“It should arrive momentarily.”
“Did the merchants send anyone with you to carry the supplies here?”
“No. It was the three White-Wings that joined our ranks,” Justin explained. “Daniel specifically said he would load it up and bring it here for us.” Then, pausing a moment when he saw Alex’s mouth open slightly in surprise at the statement, added, “I didn’t think it would be an issue. If the Great Lord Darwin trusts him, can’t he handle this type of task?”
“It’s not a matter of trust. It’s a matter of capability. How long do you think it will take three people to carry that many supplies across a town so heavily populated? Even if they use wagons drawn by animals, we still have to account for the very real possibility that one of the street urchins will pick stuff off the back unless they are being guarded,” Alex lectured. He didn’t understand why Justin would have just left them to come back and report.
“Actually, the thing about that is . . .” Justin paused again, visibly working out how best to put his words together. “They are doing that weird thing Darwin does.”
More people with that weird ability, Alex thought. This is good. We’ll finally be able to test that secret magic’s limit. “Justin, have we finished offloading all the gear and equipment we plundered from the corpses on the beach?”