by James Hunter
The bolt landed with a crack of purple light, knocking one of the chimps from the tree and unleashing absolute havoc. In a heartbeat, the chimps poured from the trees—driven on by red-hot rage—swooping at me, claws flashing, blunt teeth snapping. I raised my hammer and charged, offering a war cry in retaliation …
The tussle took a solid hour.
An hour of Umbra Bogs and monkey bites, of Umbra flames and retaliatory scratches, of Savage Blows and hurled stones. It was a grueling, tedious fight, made worse by the fact that I needed a few of these things alive. That and the stupid Diseased debuff, reducing my Attack power and my Regen rates. Eventually, though, I bagged two Void Apes, both males—a level 12, which I named Kong, and a level 10, who earned the handle Mighty Joe. An excellent pair of minions, not nearly as large or feisty as Nikko, but angry, stubborn, and deadly in their own right. Both had demonstrated remarkable intelligence, and had fought like a pair of wild bobcats when I invoked the Contest of Wills.
Honestly, they were perfect.
By the time I made it back to the sacred clearing with my new knuckle-draggers in tow, our reinforcements had arrived: a regular caravan of miners—loaded down with pickaxes, shovels, and dynamite—scuttling in on the backs of bulbous bodied, hair-legged brown arachnids. Children of the Spider Queen, Lowyth the Immortal Orbweaver, a dungeon boss who also happened to be our closest ally, thanks to our Recruitment faction ability. Trailing behind them were Alchemists. The long, baggy-sleeved robes and bags packed with powders and glass beakers were a dead giveaway.
Alright. I rubbed my hands together in anticipation, my mind racing along at a million miles an hour. It was late, I felt more beat than a dead horse, but we had a lot of work to do—time to get crafty …
THIRTY-TWO:
Round Two
Thirty hours later—with a mere four hours to spare before my quest timer expired—I stood in front of the shimmering gateway to the Twilight Lands for a second time. It had been a long, tedious, punishing day filled with a few cold meals, a handful of occasional naps, and what felt like endless hours of backbreaking mine-work, hanging from the cavern ceiling, suspended by a thick strand of spider-webbing, chipping away at stone. True, plenty of actual miners had shown up—guys with serious skills and crazy perks—but we needed a lot of diamond, and even my low mining level helped.
A little.
By the end, I’d earned three levels in mining, which wasn’t too shabby.
And while we worked tirelessly above, Alchemists—all junior members of the Crafter’s Guild—slaved away below. Grinding powders, gathering spider silk, or brewing strange concoctions, all under Vlad’s careful, and often harsh, guidance. Apparently, work-Vlad was very different from the often-bumbling adventure-Vlad. Work-Vlad was stern-faced. Work-Vlad was far more prone to offer biting criticism than even moderate praise. And most of all, work-Vlad was a production-demon. Even with the task of teaching the junior Alchemists the formula and overseeing the work, somehow—almost impossibly—he turned out three times as much rope as anyone else.
He may not have been much use as a frontline brawler, but holy crap could the guy craft.
And with his supervision—and a dump truck worth of elbow grease—we’d somehow managed to turn my half-cocked vision into a reality. Three pieces, each the length of a football field from end to end, with a fist-sized, rune-etched hook, sharp enough to pierce even dragon scale, secured to either end. Essentially, we’d built three giant, improvised bolas. Unfortunately, the ropes were pretty much all I could carry—aside from my hammer, armor, and a handful of Regen potions—because the things weighed in at a whopping five hundred pounds.
Typically, five hundred pounds wouldn’t break the bank, but I’d been drop-kicked in the face by the second Death-Head debuff, Gut Punch, a few hours ago, which zapped all my primary stats by 10 points. And in the grand scheme of things, 10 missing points from every attribute hurt badly—reducing everything from Attack and Spell Strength to overall HP and carrying capacity. Instead of 655 pounds, I was down to 590, which gave me barely enough raw power to carry my gear and my new trio of items.
It would be fine, though, because it had to be—this was my last chance, and if this didn’t work … Well, the Death-Head debuff would finish me off and that would be all she wrote.
Besides, I wasn’t going to fight, I reminded myself. I was going in for the capture.
“Jack,” Abby said from behind me. My steps faltered, and I glanced back at her. The miners and the Alchemists were all gone now, returned to Yunnam for hot food and decent rest, but my friends remained, spread out behind me in a half-circle. “Are you sure you don’t want anyone else to come with you?” she asked for about the billionth time, a polite, but worried smile stretching across her face.
“She’s right, mate,” Cutter added, absently twirling one dagger like a street performer looking to earn a quick buck. “Someone could go with you on this suicide mission.”
“Thanks for offering—”
He cut me off with an upraised hand before I could say more. “Oh, I’m not offering, friend. No, no, no. There’s not enough gold in the world to make me tangle with that monster again.” He rubbed absently at his left leg, healed now, though stained with crusted brown blood. “I was merely sayin’ one of these other sods would probably go with you.” He jerked his head toward Forge, who’d respawned and hoofed it over as quickly as he could. “He seems fool enough to do it.”
I grinned and rolled my eyes. “Thanks, all the same,” I said, “but I need to do this on my own. Against something like Arzokh, you guys are more of a liability than a help. If everything goes according to plan, this will be an aerial battle, so there’s nothing any of you could do anyway. Even if I brought one of you up on Devil’s back, you’d only slow us down and I’ll need every advantage I can get. But don’t worry, I’ll have some help.” I shot them a wink, then strode into the portal before anyone else could object.
Frigid power washed over me like a breeze on a summer day followed immediately by pounding heat and a choking cloud of dust. I shielded my eyes against the harsh light, giving my body time to adjust from the port skip and to the radical climate change. A ferocious roar reverberated in the air an instant later as the Sky Maiden exploded from the jagged top of the volcano. Her response was much quicker this time around—she must’ve been ready and waiting for me.
That was okay, though, because I was ready for her, too.
With a minuscule effort of will and a blast of raw Umbra power, I called Devil from the Shadowverse. He appeared a few feet to my right, big, bad, and about a thousand times better looking than the last time I’d seen him—some extended time in the Shadowverse had that effect on Void Terrors. For them, a solid eight hours in the Shadowverse was like a week of R and R on a sunny, sandy Mexican beach. “Ready for round two?” I asked him, eyes locked on the approaching dragon in the distance.
He snarled, his violet eyes narrowing to angry slits, tendrils of smoke wafting up from his nostrils. This time we will crush her, he replied, his voice a guttural snarl. Crush her in blood, bone, and spirit—such is the way of Dragons.
“Good,” I said, swinging onto his back with practiced ease, my hands naturally falling on the reins as my feet slipped into the leather stirrups. “We’re going to take her down, alright,” I said, flicking my wrists and spurring the Drake into motion, “but we’re going to play things a little different this go-around. We’re not going to try to hurt her—you and I are going to be the bait. We need her to focus on us, to follow us, and we’re going to let our new teammates do the hard work.”
New teammates? he asked, his tone a combination of curious and contemptuous.
You’ll see, I replied with a smirk.
He grunted and dipped his head before launching himself from the ground, wings outstretched, catching a hot draft of air which carried us skyward. In seconds we gained altitude, rising one hundred feet, then two, until we soared well above the rocky walls of t
he canyon below, bringing us ever closer to the final boss.
“So, you’ve come back for more,” she bellowed, rocketing toward us like an intercontinental ballistic missile on a mission. “Excellent. Your friend was the first good meal I’ve had in five centuries. But I still have plenty of room, especially for Murk Elf meat.”
I ignored her jab—I couldn’t afford to be distracted and I certainly couldn’t get caught up in a villain monolog. Instead, I kept my mouth shut tight and conjured an Umbra Bolt in one hand, holding the icy power as we drew closer. Get ready to move fast, I sent. Vertical climb, inverted barrel roll, then fly like mad.
Done, Devil responded, his mind laser-focused on the task at hand.
At a hundred feet out, Arzokh opened her SUV-sized jaws, and a ball of light, as bright and brilliant as the sun, appeared in the back of her throat: the precursor to Dragon’s Fire. But still Devil and I flew straight on, challenging her to a deadly game of chicken that we could never win. At fifty feet out, a column of fire erupted like a geyser of pure death; I unleashed my Umbra Bolt at the same instant. Her fire was powerful beyond belief, but Umbra Bolt was fast—the little ball of shadow power zipped through the air and smacked into her snout, inflicting no damage, but her jaws snapped shut on impulse, cutting her attack short.
But we were still streaking toward a head-on collision with a creature that dwarfed us in size.
At ten feet out, when I could see the gleam of hatred in her yellow eyes and feel the heat radiating from her jaws, I jerked back on the reins, pulling us into a near vertical climb as the Sky Maiden careened through the airspace we’d occupied moments before, issuing a thunderous roar of frustration. We shot skyward and then, just as I’d told him, Devil executed the inverted barrel roll, flopping straight back—my stomach lurching into my throat as we lost altitude—before corkscrewing gracefully and leveling out.
Suddenly, we were cruising just above Arzokh.
Well done, I sent, patting Devil’s neck with one hand. Now let’s get her to play follow the leader. Fire bomb the crap out of her, then head for the clouds. But make sure to keep her close—we don’t want to lose her. I glanced up, searching the sky overhead. There was no moon, no stars, no sun, just endless dark the color of a bruised plum—but there was lots of cloud cover. A sea of swollen red fog, illuminated intermittently by brilliant flashes of lightning. That’s where we need to be.
Devil snorted in acknowledgment, and then he was moving, tucking his wings in as he dived toward Arzokh’s spike-covered back, his jaws flashing. He streaked over her like a supersonic jet, spewing purple fire across her neck and head with an inhuman screech, then dropped down further until he was soaring twenty feet in front of her crushing jaws. I stole a look and shot her a wave and a wink, as though to say, this is all just a game to us.
“You will suffer unending pain for your insolence, mortal,” she boomed in response, huge strings of flaming green spittle spraying out.
“Gotta catch us first,” I hollered before blasting her in the eyes with another Umbra Bolt—just insult to injury at this point. Then I shot her another wink for good measure, dropped flat against Devil, and dug my heels into his side, pulling us up. The Drake arched back as he pumped his wings, hot wind rushing around us as we streaked up. I stole another glance back—just a quick peek—and couldn’t help but grin: the great dragon was following, her neck craned upward as her immense wings beat furiously at the air, generating tremendous downdrafts.
She opened her jaws, unleashing another churning column of flame, but I simply spurred Devil on, willing him to go faster. And he did. We stayed maddeningly close—swooping, flipping, banking, rolling, lobbing potshots for the hell of it—yet always just outside her range. She snapped and cursed, occasionally howling in impotent rage as her wings kicked into overdrive. No matter how hard she worked, though, we were always one step ahead. Sure, in a straight-up fight, there was no way we could take her, but in a contest of speed?
Well, Devil would win that every time. Work smarter, not harder.
In next to no time, we broke into the dense, churning cloud banks, obscuring our position while also drastically reducing visibility, which meant we were likely to blunder directly into the Sky Maiden if we weren’t careful. There was no other way, though. No reward without risk, and no change without challenge. Devil angled higher, wheeling right in a lazy circle while a flickering shadow blurred through the clouds below us, her enormous body displacing a swirl of pink mist in passing.
Time for phase two.
THIRTY-THREE:
Crash Landing
“You cannot hide forever.” Arzokh’s voice rang out, distorted and dampened by the thick fog. “I don’t know what you hope to accomplish, but this fight can only end in your death. And what a painful death it will be, that much I can promise you.” The air swirled again, disturbed and displaced as the Sky Maiden sailed by, concealed in the cloud cover, but almost close enough to reach out and touch. My heart thumped like a jackhammer, and my lungs kicked into double time as nervous sweat broke out across my brow and rolled down my neck.
This was definitely a risk, no doubt about it.
Despite my fear, I remained silent, refusing to be baited into giving away our position, concentrating instead on my next task. With another effort of will and a burst of Spirit, I conjured up all three of my Shadow Watcher minions, one right after the other, draining almost all of my Spirit in the process. I was certainly feeling those Death-Head debuffs now. Nikko appeared first, followed in short order by Kong and Mighty Joe, all hovering in the air on outstretched wings like ghostly specters, partially obscured by the red mist. I reached out to Nikko with my mind; her essence took shape in my head, standing out like a flickering candle in a dark room.
I didn’t have a solid relationship with her—not like I did with Devil, not yet—but I could direct her easily enough. And I was hoping she, in turn, would be able to direct my other simian minions. Instead of trying to talk with her, or explain what I needed in words, I envisioned what I wanted, sending her a single image: each of them taking one of the ropes and wrapping it around Arzokh’s body, tying her up tight like the Lilliputians capturing Gulliver.
For a long beat, nothing happened, but then Nikko moved, darting forward with the twins trailing behind her, their arms outthrust, ready to receive their lines. With a sigh of relief, I unloaded the rope. Each chimp got a coil of enhanced spider silk, a hundred yards long, which they slung awkwardly around their necks and shoulders, their wings beating furiously to hold them aloft with the added weight. I nodded to each, then turned my attention back to Devil.
Okay, time to light up the sky.
Devil growled happily in reply, the noise emanating from deep in his chest, and he spewed purple Dragon Fire into the air, swinging his head back and forth like a backyard sprinkler dispensing sizzling flame instead of water. The attack wasn’t meant to hurt anything, but it sure was attention grabbing. Just to be safe, though, I thrust one hand high in the air and unleashed a volley of Umbra Bolts, the purple orbs zipping through the air like road flares, screaming here we are, here we are, here we are at the top of their lungs.
A thunderous roar shook the air as Arzokh burst through a nearby cloud spire, her eyes wide and crazed—determined to see us burn and die. But Devil was already diving down, dodging her snapping jaws by a matter of feet, then breaking left and wheeling right. The Sky Maiden followed, not able to match Devil’s agility, but making up for it with raw power and unwavering determination. We hooked left as a freight train of fire carved a wide channel through the dense mist; even though the attack didn’t land, just the proximity was enough to shave off a fraction of my HP.
I ignored all that, though, letting Devil handle the flying as I scanned the clouds above Arzokh, waiting for my monkeys to appear. To act. Everything seemed to crawl by in half speed, as though the world itself was holding its breath, and then it happened. The Sky Maiden let out a disgruntled grumble of pain and protes
t as the chimps poofed into the Material Plane and sank a trio of beefy meat hooks into her pebbly flesh: one hook went in near her sinuous neck, another in her left flank, a third into her right flank, just below the wing joint. Arzokh spun, lashing out at Nikko with wicked fangs.
Arzokh was too slow by half, though.
By the time her mouth snapped shut, Nikko was gone—disappeared—and the free end of her rope was already arching gracefully through the air, crisscrossing the Sky Maiden’s body. Kong and Mighty Joe followed suit, hurling their lines through the air then vanishing into the Shadowverse, defying space and time, only to appear a second later. The three apes each caught the flying hook at the free end, then swooped low beneath the dragon, looping the ropes around her belly and sweeping skyward once more.
Wrapping Arzokh tighter with each pass.
The effects were immediate—the Sky Maiden’s reptilian limbs tangled in the impossibly strong rope, her wings struggling fruitlessly to generate lift. For the first time since entering the Twilight Lands, I saw a flash of something new in Arzokh’s golden eyes: Uncertainty.
Maybe even fear.
Immediately, Arzokh shifted focus away from Devil and me, finally realizing my strategy and the very real danger it posed to her. She snapped with her ferocious jaws and lashed out with her tail, but each attack whiffed. The dense cloud cover made it nearly impossible to track the flying apes, and even when she managed a strike, they simply poofed into the Shadowverse, vanishing then reappearing elsewhere, implacably continuing their work. Meanwhile, Devil and I harassed Arzokh mercilessly, flitting around her face and head like an annoying fly, narrowly avoiding her every attempt to swat us down as we blasted her with gouts of shadow flame or irritating Umbra Bolts.