Delvers LLC- Surviving Ludus

by Blaise Corvin (ed)

  The true-demon didn’t go down from the two pellets, but Diore closed the distance again, her face wooden, and with a mighty swing of her oversized weapon, she finally put the unnatural thing down for good. Even after she’d cut it in half, she severed its head, and Nicole watched in disgust as the thing’s different parts writhed around on the cobblestones like a wounded worm.

  Another window broke down the street and as the group swiveled their heads, Nicole caught sight of another ripple in the air, maybe another cloaked demon. She felt very grateful that the little town of Action had sprung for a few dim streetlights.

  Beside her, Pasha grunted, “Fuck this,” as another shadow moved, and a window seemed to break by itself nearby. The smaller, fierce woman bared her teeth as she unleashed her lightning gun. The entire street lit up, and the powerful, magic-pumped energy weapon managed to gouge two furrows in the cobblestone street and blow out an entire wall in the split second it fired.

  Nicole hoped her friend had hit her target. In addition to the collateral damage it caused, the weapon used up a massive amount of energy. As she spied another moving shadow, Nicole snapped off a quick shot of her air pistol, rewarded with a hollow “thunk” sound as her pellet hit unnatural flesh. After wounding the true-demon, its cloaking ability was disrupted and they could all see it, creeping across the cobblestones like a hunting cat with too-long legs.

  “Tru, test your slingshot on it,” Diore ordered.

  “Got it,” responded Bentru. She flexed her muscular build, likely channeling earth magic for more power, and fired a massive, thumb-sized lead ball from the giant slingshot she kept behind her shield.

  The projectile hit the demon’s head, splitting it open like ripe fruit.

  “Good. I think we can all hit them from range,” said Diore. Nicole was barely hanging on to her sanity, but as usual, their leader was calm. The only thing that seemed to get Diore upset was arguments over religion.

  Without being told, the four of them grouped up, forming a semi-circle against one wall, as far from the alleys on either side as they could get. Diore had replaced her sword and unslung her deadly air rifle. “Pasha, don’t use your lightning gun again until I say so. This is a bad place for it.”

  “But—”

  “You are on flare duty. We don’t have many, so be careful how you use them. You’re also going to be calling out anything out there to shoot, and you’ll be using your swords if anything gets close.”

  Pasha’s voice was crisp and professional as she responded. “Got it.”

  Nicole rested her spear against the wall behind her and had an air pistol in both hands now. As she kept one up, she absently filled the other using the magic air pump she kept on her lower back. Loading her weapon was awkward like this, using her fingertips, but she was damned sure not going to lower her guard. Even as the thought crossed her mind, she thought she saw movement down the street and fired a shot.

  “I think you just attacked the darkness, Nicky,” said Pasha quietly.

  “Yeah, well, you did too and took out a wall and like half a magic stone,” muttered Nicole.

  “What was that?” Pasha’s voice lacked its usual bite as she kept it pitched so quiet, and her heart obviously wasn’t in it. All four of them were scanning the street in both directions.

  The dead true-demon a stone’s throw away kept drawing Nicole’s eyes. “Fuck I hate this world,” she said.

  “Are you ever going to get tired of saying that?” asked Bentru.

  Nicole made a face. “We are fighting demon shadows. Is this good? Is this a happy time?”

  Pasha shrugged and threw a flare. “I don’t know, this is a better time than the pretty boy in Mensk showed me. He—”

  “Yes, we know. He talked about himself, made you pay for dinner, and blah blah blah, bad sex, blah blah,” Nicole growled. As she spoke, she aimed with a pistol and sent a pellet into a shadow just in case it was moving. It wasn’t, but she managed to put a nasty hole in a garbage can. New noises echoed up and down the street as things moved in the darkness. She could also hear commotion in the distance, then the town’s alarm bell began to sound, drowning out all other sounds. Great timing, thought Nicole bitterly.

  Bentru laughed. “Good one, Nicky! That sounded like something I would say!”

  Diore cracked her neck as she hefted her rifle, not turning to look at Pasha as she said, “Pasha, your stories are boring and nobody cares about your conquests. Also, keep your fucking mouths shut. I count about three of them closing in on us. What about you, Bentru?”

  “Yeah, about three. I think two of them are off to the left.”

  “You’ve all been watching the walls?” asked Diore.

  “Yes,” replied Nicole. She had to raise her voice a bit over the town’s siren. If they really were under attack, whoever had planned the thing would know their surprise was done. That was not ideal, but Nicole was glad that the people of Action would be getting out of their beds. Maybe some of them could actually help if they weren’t having stupid pissing contests on the street and getting themselves killed. “I haven’t seen anything.”

  “Good,” grunted Diore. “We still don’t know if they can climb, so keep an eye out, but if they don’t have the hands or feet for it, I won’t complain. Let’s kill the things on the street with us, then try to make our way to wherever the hell this town’s defenders are gathering. Actually let’s just head that way. Since that girl ran off to get the alarm going, they’ll probably come to us.”

  Diore took aim and fired her powerful air rifle down the street. Nicole hadn’t seen anything there, but the shot hit something, and as another demon was uncloaked, she fired three times, emptying the magazine of her right-hand pistol. The creature went down, but Nicole tsked, reloading her pistol with another round magazine she kept in a belt pouch.

  “You know, Nicky doesn’t have unlimited pellets,” said Pasha conversationally. “Neither do you, Diore. I mean, I could help out with the lightning rifle…”

  “And how many rotting magic stones do you have? That thing guzzles energy like men waste time,” scoffed Bentru.

  “Shut up, Tru,” ordered Diore. “Also, after we kill these things on the street, if we don’t see any more, I want you to grab a dead one and drag it with us.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. No backtalk.”

  As Bentru glared at Diore, Nicole took careful aim and managed to hit another of the true-demons as it tried creeping toward them. Against a less experienced adventuring group, these things might have had a better chance. While their group had never fought real demons before, they had killed invisible things. There was a trick to spotting them, looking out the sides of your eyes, not directly at them.

  Nicole was avoiding thinking about the fact that she was fighting things that looked like they’d crawled out of literal nightmares, and were supposed to come from hell worlds. Their existence proved hell worlds existed, which she’d only been on the fence about before. Fuck this planet, she thought fiercely.

  “Good shot, Nicky,” said Diore. “Bentru, actually, you probably don’t need to get a complete dead one. Just the upper half of that one we killed first should be fine.”

  “Become an adventurer, they said. Make lots of money, they said. Be the best woman you can be,” grumbled Bentru. “I should have done something else instead, maybe cleaned toilets.”

  “But if you clean toilets for a living, you can’t blow stuff up, and probably die horribly,” said Pasha cheerily.

  This was an old joke in their little group, but it seemed it would never die. Despite the fear Nicole was suppressing, the way her spine crawled whenever her eyes landed on the dead true-demons, or thought about the ones that were still alive out there, staring without eyes, she couldn’t help but smile.

  Nicole had a terrible feeling that this night was just getting started with weirdness and danger. Wishing she wasn’t here on this world never seemed to work, so at least she had some good friends to wat
ch her back.

  However, the moment was broken as Pasha kept talking, something that was unfortunately not uncommon for her to do. She said, “Speaking of blowing stuff up, I have a perfectly functional lightning gun here. Don't demons like to eat shiners? Now that I think of it, aren't there some freaky true-demons still out there, probably sneaking toward us? They're really terrifying. I wouldn't want one anywhere near me, but they seem like they would just love to snack on pretty Nicky’s little fingers and toes, and…”

  “Shut up, Pasha,” said Diore.

  Missing in Action, Chapter Four

  “What are they doing out there?” asked Nicole.

  “Here.” Bentru handed over the team’s crude pair of binoculars.

  “Those things suck, and it’s night right now,” said Nicole. “In situations like this, don’t we usually just ask Diore to improve her sight with magic?”

  “Well, ask Diore then,” groused Bentru.

  “I’m right here,” Diore reminded them. “I am also looking at them right now, and I think humans, probably cultists, are herding the demons together, creating some sort of attack. It looks like we were right that the invisible ones were supposed to kill animals, awake guards, and anyone else who might raise an alarm before this force got here. They must have done their own thing.”

  “Maybe they were hungry,” said Pasha.

  Nicole made a face, part of her disgust because Pasha was probably right. She said, “It still seems weird that there were so few of them in town.”

  “There were like a dozen,” said Bentru flatly.

  “A dozen isn’t a lot compared to all that,” said Nicole and waved out at the darkness.

  Diore shrugged. “An advance force doesn’t have to be large, just effective. This one would have been if demons weren’t usually bloodthirsty and stupid.”

  “Since when were you an expert, oh fearless leader?” Pasha quirked a sarcastic eyebrow.

  “Well, a couple hours ago I wasn’t.” Diore scratched her neck as she spoke. “I figure if we all aren’t by now, we will be soon.”

  Now that’s sobering, thought Nicole. Her suffocating fear threatened to rise and take over her upper brain functions, but she pushed it down. None of her friends even looked fazed that they were standing around, observing a demon horde in the dark of night.

  “Give me those,” muttered Pasha. She snatched the binoculars and peered through them before spitting in disgust. “These things are awful.” She acted like she was about to throw them.

  “Don’t break gear,” said Diore. “Whether you like that one or not, it cost us money.”

  Pasha sniffed and carefully set down the binoculars like it’d been her idea.

  Bentru grinned for a second before her face smoothed and she said, “What I want to know is why they aren’t flanking. Like, they’re just out there in that one spot still, right? Why not just go around the town? There aren’t enough defenders to cover the entire perimeter.”

  Diore nodded slowly. “It might be more obvious if you could see what I’m seeing right now. The people I see in black robes out there are having a difficult time getting the demons to do what they want them to do. Even pointing them in the right direction is taking a while. They’re also gathering them from several different directions.”

  “That makes sense,” said Nicole. “It also explains why we saw burning farms in more than one direction.”

  “Seems likely,” said Diore. She gestured for a jug near Pasha. “Pasha, can you hand me that water? We may not get many more chances to drink before things get ugly.”

  “Sure.”

  Nicole thought that was a good idea and grabbed some water for herself too. As she drank, she glanced around, eyes lingering on a hastily made bonfire about a hundred yards behind her position. Some people from Action looked like they were sharing mugs of something, probably bootleg coffee if they were smart.

  Her attention turned to her friends. The four of them were standing on a roof at the edge of town. At first, they’d been at the crude wall outside of town, but Diore had convinced the town’s defenders to pull back to the first row of houses, below where the Chosen had set up. Pasha had her lightning gun at the top of the roof in a good firing position, a bag of magic stones next to her within easy reach.

  After a moment of silence, Bentru jerked her head towards the bag of expensive magic stones, a large portion of their loot from the dungeon they’d conquered. “I thought we were going to sell those things and get more gear, and maybe a better apartment to work out of. We’re really not going to save any of them, not even a few? Pasha can use them all?”

  Pasha began to angrily reply, but Diore held up a hand. “The zebras are dead, and I would bet my sword that all those demons out there are much, much faster than everyone can run. Even if we were willing to abandon these people, escape is not an option. We need to win here. If you have any ideas on how to deal with a large, murderous group of true-demons forming up to come kill us that are better than turning Pasha loose with that big rotting gun of hers, I’m all ears.”

  Tru couldn’t really say much to argue with that. If Nicole could see the logic of Diore’s decision, so could Tru. Nicole briefly wondered if the others had realized what she had, that Diore could easily escape by herself. Probably, she thought. Then again, that was why they followed the orb-Bonded woman. It was true she made fairly good decisions, but they also knew she wouldn’t abandon them.

  “Where did she even get that thing?” asked Bentru, pointing at Pasha’s rifle.

  “I don’t know. She had it when I met her, and she hasn’t ever told me,” said Diore.

  Nicole turned. “Really?” she asked. Pasha’s only response was a grin. Nicole blinked in surprise, and was about to try another question when their conversation was interrupted.

  “Madam! Any news?” The nervous voice came from the street behind them.

  Diore scooted to the edge of the room and looked down before replying. “I think so. You can come up here, there’s a ladder over there somewhere.”

  A few moments later, an older woman, a bit on the heavy side but with properly fitting armor, came up to the rooftop. She was a little out of breath, but moved with the grace and sureness of someone who had likely been an athlete or serious warrior in the past.

  “Gwendival, right?” asked Diore.

  “Yes, but you can call me Gwen.” In the dark it was hard to tell, but the volunteer guard’s expression seemed complicated.

  Nicole recognized her, too. This woman was the leader of the town’s guard force now—she had been second in command. It turns out the self-important woman who’d been killed had been the original leader.

  The Dolos’ Chosen had already killed most of the skulking true-demons on Main Street before the guards had shown up. They’d all seemed to start calling them skulker demons at the same time. When they’d met the guard force, the wisdom of dragging the true-demon corpse along had been obvious, but it had barely been necessary. The guards had killed two of the things, too. While the volunteers might be rural, they weren’t stupid. One of the town’s fire mages had even figured out that a blast of magic fire threw shadows in such a way that seeing the skulker demons was easier.

  About fifteen minutes later, the town had been purged of the nasty things. The all-clear had been given to the citizens of Action and they’d been told they had a choice between staying in their houses, or helping secure their town. Most of them had elected to help however they could.

  Of course, after that, while staring toward the burning farms in the distance, someone had spotted the growing army of true-demons.

  The town’s reaction had impressed Nicole. Nobody who had volunteered to help had changed their mind, but the atmosphere around Action had definitely grown more grim. So far, the death toll wasn’t very large, only ten people, including three children. The skulkers had begun their slaughter on Main Street. Most of Action’s zebras had been killed, though.

  It had been a long time
since Action had seen any major violence, but apparently, enough of the town’s leaders had long memories that the correct sort of preparations had quickly taken place. Yis, the town’s unofficial mayor, and the other town elders had taken part, organizing distribution of weapons, overseeing last-minute defenses, and even making sure all the volunteers got snacks or an encouraging word. Action had a lot of scared people right now, but luckily the elders understood how powerful and important it was for them to stay calm and be a good example for their people.

  Diore said, “Okay Gwen, here is what’s going on.” Then the orb-Bonded Dolos worshipper basically told Gwen the same thing she’d told the Chosen. It was going to cost a fortune in magic stones, but they were planning to turn Pasha loose.

  “What about our vision?” asked Gwen. “Should we put flares or torches out there?”

  “No, that’s not necessary. I have good vision, and once she starts up, Pasha will give us plenty of light. Actually, if you have any magic stones to spare, that’s what we need most.”

  Gwen nodded slowly. “We are not a rich town, and among our weapons, well, some of them need magic stones too. I’ll see what I can do, though.”

  “Good, you won’t regret it.” Diore nodded in a friendly, brisk way, obviously dismissing the new Action guard leader. Nicole always wondered how Diore did things like that so smoothly.

  Gwen paused. “How much time do we have?” Her voice trembled a bit, betraying the deep terror she was probably feeling at the moment.

  Nicole could relate to the woman’s fear. She’d just used the bathroom but still felt like she might wet herself. However, spending a few years on Ludus had taught her how useless hysterics were. Gwen obviously knew it too, because her voice firmed up almost immediately.

  “We are still making preparations. I’d like to be on the same page with you,” finished the guard leader.