by D. Levesque
“Something is going to come through that Portal once it’s energized enough. And I have a feeling that compared to the other monster races, this is much worse. Not that the monster races you all seem to denigrate are bad, they’re just different,” I tell him with a shrug.
“What can be worse than those things,” he says with a snort.
“Demons,” I tell him.
I am not even sure he will even know what that is. Leeha had told us that the Elves had an oral history of the last battle, but that was it. She said the previous time in their recollected memory that there was an invasion of Demons from Hell was so long ago, it was even before Elemental Summoners were around. That’s a long fucking time, since if I remember correctly, God said the first Elemental Summoner was introduced to Boromour over 100,000 years ago. He never mentioned anything about the Demons though. Maybe because he didn’t want to give away his plans?
He did talk to me about giving me game mechanics so that he could one day bring game mechanics this or another world. But he told me his plan was primarily to introduce Blessing Tokens here on Boromour so that people would be able to see how many they need in order to get into Heaven and stay out of the overcrowded Hell worlds. He never once mentioned this Horde thing. Did he do it on purpose? He said he was going to deposit me away from the Cities so that I would not be overwhelmed when I first got here. But did he have another reason? Like not being influenced by other humans if I met them first and had them show me that as a human, I should have hate for all other monster races?
Maybe my meeting up with Leeha wasn’t accidental. I know I picked the direction I took, but perhaps he had plans in place if I had picked the opposite way? I shake my head and realize that Trag is still staring at me with a perplexed look on his face.
“Demons?” he finally says, and there is some scorn in his voice. “The things that parents use to scare their children into going to sleep?”
“Do you humans not have memories of the Demon Horde invasion?” Leeha asks incredulously.
“The what?” Trag asks her, sounding baffled.
“The Demon Horde invasion? It almost wiped out all the races in this world. Some of them were wiped out. There used to be over twenty of what we call the Primary races. Right now, there are only six.”
“You Elves still use that Primary race shit?” Trag says with a sneer. “There is only one race, and that is humans. The rest of you are all monsters.”
Trag screams in pain as another Fire Arrow slams into his leg, in the exact same spot as the one before. Just as quickly as it appeared, the arrow is gone and he is once again holding his leg in pain, tears streaming down his face.
“Insult her again,” I tell him with heat in my voice, “and the next one goes through that small dick of yours. Do I make myself clear?”
Trag looks up at me with pain in his face, and he nods quickly.
“Good. Now you said we are a hard day’s walk from the Lake of Ruins, and that there are three other groups out there. Are they heading this way?” I ask him.
“No,” he grunts. “We each took a cardinal point. I took the South.”
“What does security at the camp look like?” Leeha asks him.
He looks at her before answering, and I can tell he is thinking about answering her with lies, so I shoot a Fire Arrow at the ground right next to his crotch. He looks down at it as it continues to burn, crackling in the air. Then he looks up at me with panic and nods his head. I release the Fire Arrow.
“The camp has over 50 men. Brakan is there, surrounded by 20 other Mages. Plus he has a contingent of 30 or so soldiers from the City of Proper.”
“And the four groups out on patrol, minus Lar from yours,” I tell him.
“Yes,” he nods quickly.
“What about groups that are out getting the races who can do Magic?” Leeha asks him suddenly, peering at him hard.
“Yes,” he nods quickly again. “There is that group as well. Though we have not seen them. They were sent to get some elves from a nearby Elf Homestead, but we have not heard from them yet.”
“Yeah, and you won’t,” I tell him with a grin. “Let’s just say they are dead, and the Elves they took are on their way to another Homestead. Though, they did kill off the rest of the Elves from that Homestead. Maybe I should kill you, since you work for the man who sent them,” I say to him with anger in my voice.
“No, wait! I can tell you something else about the camp!” he shouts suddenly, both hands out towards me.
“What’s that? And it better be good, because otherwise the rest of these Fire Arrows are going to be going into something soft,” I tell him with a glare.
Truthfully, I doubt he can tell me much, but I am willing to listen. I would rather not kill every single person I meet as an enemy here. Honestly, the idea of killing on Earth would have disgusted me, but here I seem to be all right with it. Maybe when God created this body he tweaked something in my brain that makes it so it doesn’t bother me? Does that mean that me hating how the humans here on Boromour treat all the races was also added into me?
The more I think about it though, I doubt it. Even when I was on Earth, I hated seeing anything remotely like this, so I doubt that he did anything to me. But the killing part is different. Since I’ve been here, I’ve killed with no remorse. That’s not normal with the way I was raised. Is it?
“There is a way to get into their camp. Or at least into the back of it. They are using a cave to hold their supplies, to keep everything out of the weather. Outside of that is the camp, and then next to that is the Portal, fifty feet from the cave entrance on the beach,” he cries.
“And how does that help me?” I ask him with a frown.
“There is a hidden way to get inside that cave that Lar and I found,” he replies.
“Hmm,” I say, looking at him closely to gauge if he is lying. I glance at Leeha. “What do you think?”
“He could be lying,” she says with a shrug. “But we can always just tie him up and put him to sleep up in a tree, and then come back and kill him if he is lying,” she says with a grin, staring at Trag while she speaks.
“Honest! I’m not lying!” he screams.
“So, how do we get to this place?” I ask.
“Yeah, about that,” he says awkwardly. “I need to find it again.”
I make the Fire Arrows on either side of me move forward by a foot. On seeing that, Trag screams, “I have a rough idea! I just can’t remember it enough to tell you exactly where!”
“So you expect me to bring you with us? Keep you alive, but trust that you won’t yell out when we are there and have the whole camp jump on my ass?” I tell him with a laugh. “Not going to happen.”
“Collar?” Leeha asks me.
“Nope, I want to test something,” I tell her, crouching down until I am staring directly into Trag’s eyes.
“What are you going to do to me?” he asks me nervously.
“Nothing much. Nothing painful, or so I hope,” I tell him with a grin.
I dispel all the Fire Arrows that are left, and Trag looks over swiftly before looking back at me with panic in his eyes.
I know that I can’t make someone tell the truth using Mind. But I was able to make Leeha fall asleep using the spell Sleep. So I can do some Mind spells apparently. I decide to try something.
“Bridget?” I say out loud.
“Yes?” she says from behind me. Trag looks at her in shock, as she wasn’t standing there a second ago.
Mind, I think, and Bridget transforms. Trag’s eyes widen in astonishment, but then he looks away and swallows, making me laugh. Yeah, don’t stare at her when she is in that form buddy. In English, I think of a spell command. Make it so that if my target even thinks of betraying us, he will feel violently ill.
You have used a Spell command. You have used 1000 points of power.
Yes! It didn’t fail, so that means it took. Good to know.
“Thanks Bridget, you can revert back,” I
tell her, looking over my shoulder, and I just catch a glimpse of her in purple before I take in her Elven form with her reddish hair, and the curves in all the right places. Especially her bust. Honestly, I have yet to meet an Elf who isn’t busty. Are they all like that? Even the young one, Jila, wasn’t lacking in that department. I mean, they weren’t as large as Leeha’s or even Bridget’s, but definitely more than the humans I saw when I was in the City of Lomar.
“Done,” she says with a grin.
“What did you do?” Leeha asks me curiously.
“I made it so that each time he attempts to betrays me, he will get more violently ill until eventually, he will die,” I tell her with a smile. I will have to tell her later that he won’t die, but I am hoping he will be so violently ill that he will wish he had.
“Now, I will start simple,” I say, looking at Trag. “Will you betray us?”
“No,” he says, but then his face turns ashen and he turns to the side and throws up the last thing he ate. I get up and move back quickly.
“Let me ask again, Trag, will you betray me?” I ask him.
“No,” he says, shaking his head, and again, he turns over and throws up, but more strongly this time. He had turned onto his hands and knees this time.
“Once more, and I am sure you are feeling worse and worse every time,” I tell him with a grin. “Will you betray me?”
“No,” he says, not even looking up at me, and this time he doesn’t get sick. When he doesn’t puke, he flops over onto his back, away from the mess, and looks up at me with a beaten look on his face. “No, I will not betray you.”
“Good, because I am pretty sure if you had said no a third time and did not mean it, you would have had your insides on the ground instead of what you ate earlier today,” I tell him with a smile.
Chapter Three
“Are you going to try that again?” I ask a puking Trag.
“No,” he says in a miserable voice.
It seems that trying to run away is considered betraying me. I had not even thought of him trying to run. The first time he did it was when he wanted to go for a piss. He got all of twenty feet before he stopped and fell over puking bile, as he had nothing else left in his stomach at this point.
This was attempt number three of trying to run away, and it was the hardest I have ever seen someone throw up. He only made it a couple of feet this time. I’m not sure my jest of saying his insides would come out next time was actually a jest, at this point.
I did have a chance to tell Leeha what the spell truly did, and she just grinned at me and shook her head and told me I was devious.
She also wondered if she could use Spell Commands. I am teaching her English, so why not? I worry more about the power consumption when doing it. If she only can use so much power per day without exhausting herself, and those who have Magic have a certain finite amount, I don’t want her to use all her power. I mean, me using a spell command right now uses 1,000 points of power. When I told her it would be like casting 100 Water Arrows, she looked nervous.
I know from talking to Bridget, that a Mage’s Elemental converts the energy I once saw in the air into power. But draining herself of power isn’t something Leeha wants to do. I know she has been increasing her power so that she has the ability to use more than one spell at once, as in using Water Arrow twice, but we aren’t sure if it also increases the power pool she has to pull from.
We had gotten close to where Trag said the hidden entrance was, and so he had tried to leave. It seems that it’s taking him longer to recover after each one of his betrayals. I would heal him, but that would defeat the purpose of stopping him from doing shit like that. Even Leeha had asked if I should heal him. I shook my head and told her that he would just attempt it again. The fact that Leeha, an Elf, is worried about a human says much about her personality. She might hate humans, but she hates to see someone in pain even more.
Trag looks up from his last bout of puking and wipes his mouth. He looks pale. I’m not surprised, as I am sure if I were puking like he was, I would be exhausted. I remember getting the stomach flu once, and it was brutal. This looks worse.
“It’s just over that ridge,” he says, pointing out the direction we need to take. The ridge is more like a small hill covered in trees, with a small stream running next to it.
“Well, shall we?” I say, waving him forward.
He stands up straight and walks towards me, since he needs to pass me to get to the ridge. He stops beside me and looks at me. “How are you doing this?” he asks me accusingly. “You said you were not a God.”
“I’m not,” I tell him with a grin. “But the abilities I have were given to me by a God.”
He searches my face, as if to see if I am pulling his leg. When he sees I am not laughing, he nods and continues towards the ridge.
Leeha comes to me and whispers, “You know you might be strong enough to be considered a God.”
“Get enough Mages or soldiers against me,” I tell her, shaking my head, “and I can die. That is why we are sneaking in. I doubt I can take on that whole camp. I am sure some God would be able to fight off an entire City.”
“True. But Alex, do not think yourself weak,” she says with a smile.
“I don’t. Not with you and Bridget at my side.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Bridget says, coming up on my other side and hugging me quickly.
“I doubt the two of you will let me,” I say, kissing her. Leeha pokes me and I look over and see she is smiling at me. With a chuckle, I kiss her as well.
I turn back to head towards Trag, and he is turned around, looking at us in disgust. Right, humans hate that shit. I need to do it more. With my arms around both Leeha’s and Bridget’s waists, I walk towards him.
“You know that’s disgusting,” he begins to say, but I expected something from him, so I had thought Earth, Mud Ball and promptly threw it at him. It slams into his stomach, throwing him a good four feet with a loud humph sound, and he ends up on his ass.
I keep walking, so by the time I reach him, he is coughing and trying to get his breath back. I look down at him. “Say something like that again,” I reply in a deathly quiet voice, “and the next one will be an Arrow through your stomach, not a mud ball. Do I make myself clear?” I wait until he gets his breath back.
He nods and gets up slowly. I walk up to him until I am right in front of him, and since I am taller than he is, I look down and say in a very soft voice, “Don’t give me a reason to kill you, Trag. I have no love for the humans in this world, even though I am human myself. You all disgust me with your actions towards others, and I don’t mean other humans. I doubt you will be around long enough, but I am going to be changing this world. And if it means doing it one person at a time, so help me, there are going to be a lot of dead humans.”
Trag looks at me and seeing the seriousness in my face, he swallows and nods.
“Good. Now show me this entrance,” I tell him, pointing up the small ridge.
Trag simply turns around and heads up the ridge with me, Bridget, and Leeha following him.
“Keep an eye open, go invisible, in case I need you,” I tell Bridget.
“Will do,” she says and disappears.
“Expecting trouble?” Leeha whispers to me in Elvish, knowing that no human speaks it.
“Yes. While Trag might think they are the only ones who found this entrance, it doesn’t sound like this Brakan dude is stupid. Ruthless yes, stupid no. So I would rather not take a chance,” I reply back, speaking in Elvish as well.
Then, without warning, an arrow comes out of nowhere and gets stopped by a wall of Air.
“Archer in the trees, upper left, that large tree with the bark missing near the top,” Bridget cries.
Mind, Sleep, I cast, knowing the Archer would be looking directly at me. Suddenly I hear a crashing sound, and the body of someone falls out of the treetop, hitting branches on the way down before slamming into the ground.
&
nbsp; “Any more?” I ask Bridget quickly.
“Yes, there was one more, but I took care of him. I took his head off with a Wind Blade.”
“Good. Thanks, Bridget.”
Trag looks at the falling archer in surprise. Well, I guess he wasn’t aware he’d be there. Or is he surprised the archer fell out of the tree? Since he isn’t puking his guts out, it would be safe to hazard that he didn’t know the archer was there.
He turns to me almost in a panic. “I didn’t know!”
“I figured as much when you weren’t puking your guts. So it looks like you and Lar were not the only ones who know about this entrance. That looked like a trap to me. For who though, I have no clue.”
“Either a trap or they were guarding the entrance,” Leeha says.
“You’re right. It’s most likely the latter,” I say, thinking it through.
“Bridget, was the other person an archer as well?” I ask out loud.
She appears next to me. “No. She was an Earth Mage.”
“So one less Mage to worry about. That leaves what? 19 of them?” I say with a snarl.
“Bridget says those were the only two here. Shall we keep going? Cautiously.” I say.
Trag looks at me worriedly. I just say to him, “Point out the entrance, and leave the rest to us.”
He nods hesitantly but then continues up and over the ridge, staying low to the ground, almost crawling. I come up next to him.
“There,” Trag whispers, pointing.
I look at where he is pointing, and I see another stream. But this one is bigger, and it’s on the side of a much larger ridge. Actually, I think this would legitimately be called a large hill. He is pointing to a set of rocks that are on the side of the stream.
“That goes into a natural tunnel system, which will take you to the other side of these large hills. These are butting against the Lake of Ruins. You could just climb over them and get to the beach that way, but if you go this way, if there isn’t anyone else waiting for someone to come this way, you would be less exposed,” Trag says, reluctantly. Guess even thinking of lying is considered betraying.
