by Eric Vall
“Fuck yeah!” I whooped as my vingehund tossed her head and tore into the strange monster’s neck.
With a sudden movement, the monster twisted its long neck and sank its fangs into one of my vingehund’s outstretched wings. My vingehund yelped in pain and let go of her prey, and she whined as she fell from its back and stumbled away.
A sudden sense of wrongness came over the bond between me and her, and I gasped as the terrible sensation deepened.
“Is it poison?” Erin asked in concern as she watched my vingehund stumble around.
“I don’t know,” I admitted with serious worry. “Something’s really wrong with her.”
Foam dripped from my vingehund’s mouth, and she shook her head as if she was trying to rid herself of something. She snarled and snapped at the air, but then her gaze latched onto me, and before I could do a thing, she threw herself toward me.
“Gryff!” Varleth shouted.
I fell onto my back as my vingehund’s tremendous weight hit me in the chest. Her claws sank into my shoulders as I barely held her snapping jaws back from my face. I gasped and scrambled against her before I came back to my senses and properly thought about the situation.
I recalled her back into her crystal, and her scrambling claws disappeared from my shoulders as she vanished from the space on top of me. All that remained was her blue, wing-shaped crystal, and I clutched it tightly in my hand as I sat up.
“Shit, are you okay?” Erin asked as she crouched near me.
“Perfectly fine,” I wheezed out.
“Well, that was fucking terrifying,” Varleth said with wide eyes. His sword was unsheathed and brandished toward me, and I realized he must have been seconds away from putting his blade through my vingehund.
“I think its bite can turn monsters rabid,” I gasped out as I stared at the alpaca monster.
Blood ran from its neck, but it was quickly clotting. The strange, curly-haired monster stared at my roosa with unblinking concentration, and now I knew exactly what it wanted. All it needed was to wait for the perfect opportunity, and then it could turn my roosa into a crazed animal with one bite. It reminded me of a rattlesnake lying hidden in the grass, just waiting as it watched a mouse draw near.
“Do you think that poison works on humans, too?” Erin asked as she chewed at her lip.
“It could,” I murmured consideringly, “though I’m not sure. We’d better stay away from it, just in case. I don’t want either of you going near it.”
“If I’m not fighting, should I go get the catalyst?” Varleth asked as his brow furrowed. “I don’t like this new creature. If push comes to shove, I want us out of the Shadowscape so you guys don’t have to fight it at all.”
“That’s probably a good backup plan,” I agreed as I scanned the banisher. “If we’re in a jam, you might be our only chance of rescue. Go and find it, but be very careful. I don’t like the idea of you alone out there.”
“I’ll be sneaky,” Varleth assured me. “Good luck, you guys.”
I gave him a short, serious nod, and the banisher left with a twirl of his cloak as he sprinted away. As he left, the strange monster’s sheeplike eyes followed him, but it didn’t move.
I thought perhaps we could just sit and wait the whole thing out, but of course that was too simple.
Eventually, the strange monster began to dart forward toward my roosa in short, little tests of reaction. Each time, my roosa backed up, and our attacker let it flee. It was clear this wasn’t going to last us forever, though. Sooner or later, the monster would truly come for us, and my roosa would almost certainly be poisoned.
“I could use my voluscura,” Erin suggested with a dawning realization. “I’ll need your help, though.”
“Anything you want,” I agreed with a relieved smile. “I’m running thin on ideas here.”
“Thanks,” the mimic replied with a bright grin. “Firstly, my voluscura has to have some way to launch up into the air for a good attack position. Secondly, we’ll want a distraction so the monster doesn’t just dodge away. We need to get things right the first time.”
I grinned as my plan formed and took hold of me.
“I think I have just the thing,” I said confidently as I ordered my roosa to back away slightly.
Erin followed my instructions, and she summoned her voluscura from its crystal before she directed it up my roosa’s leg and along the long, gentle curve of its venomous tail. Erin’s squirrel-like monster stopped at the top and clung carefully to the rounded end of my roosa’s tail while it avoided the deadly, barbed stinger.
With that done, I threw out a barrage of minor crystals in rapid fire. Imps and goblins burst from their crystals, and my new team of eight sprinted for the strange monster with their weapons brandished.
I panted with the strain of holding so many monsters at once, and even though they were low grade monsters, I knew I couldn’t hold them for long.
Luckily and unluckily, the alpaca beast made short work of them. Its claws slashed through torsos as it kicked and bucked at its attackers, and its fangs sank effortlessly into each of my flying imps whenever they drew near. The strange monster was quick, and it could leap much higher than I predicted it could. It quickly put five of my eight out of commission, but that was fine by me.
“Launch!” I shouted, and my roosa followed my command perfectly. It swung its long, powerful tail in a round arc, and the voluscura let go at the apex to soar straight for our enemy.
My distraction worked perfectly. As the strange monster kicked, bit, and spun to fight my minor monsters, the voluscura slammed into its neck like a speeding bullet. The little squirrel chittered and tore through the wound my vingehund had started, and the alpaca-like beast could no more bite the attacking voluscura than it could bite its own neck.
In this case, size was everything, and the smaller monster was the winner. Then our enemy dropped to the ground to roll and try to dislodge the voluscura, but the little beast hung on and buried its long fangs deeper.
Finally, the strange monster stood again and staggered forward. I only had one imp left, but the voluscura had done its job.
Our enemy collapsed with a soundless gurgle of blood, and within seconds, it was dead. Its clawed paws curled and twitched in its final moments, and then it was still.
Erin’s voluscura limped free from the corpse, and Erin ran over to her monster with obvious relief.
“You did such a good job!” she cooed to her voluscura as the little squirrel snuggled into her hands. “Now, rest, you deserve it.”
I smiled as I watched the mimic interact with her monster. She wasn’t a full-fledged summoner, but I was happy to see her bonds were just as strong.
“Should we go join up with Varleth?” I asked as she returned her monster to its crystal. “He must be getting close to the catalyst by now.”
“I think so,” Erin agreed as she climbed to her feet. “He went that way, so we should--”
Suddenly, the Shadowscape rippled and dissolved around us. The barren ground beneath my feet turned to lush, green grass, and the ruined wall turned into a stone cabin in the middle of a lumberjack’s camp. Trees surrounded Erin and me on all sides, and I turned slowly to get my bearings.
Varleth must have found the catalyst and destroyed it, I realized with a smile.
“He did it!” Erin said with a happy laugh as she ran over to me.
“We did it,” I corrected with a grin. “You were amazing! You and your monsters did such a great job.”
The mimic threw her arms around me, and I returned the hug as I spun her around with a chuckle.
“Do you think we should look for Varleth?” Erin asked as she drew away slowly from the embrace.
“We’d be equally likely to get lost,” I decided with a shrug as I scanned the dense woods. “I’m sure he’ll find his way back to town, and we should do the same. Luckily, that big granary will stand out.”
Well, what was left of it. After the ramblers and th
e satyrid, the entire town was mostly debris.
Erin and I had an uneventful trip back through the forest, and we arrived back to the edge of town. The village looked basically the same as when we had left it, but now, soldiers picked through the ruins of what was left. A large airship filled part of the field outside town, and the basic infantry symbol of the military, a rifle crossed over a white shield, was painted on it.
“We must not have been gone too long,” I said as I compared the position of the late afternoon sun with the scene in front of us.
“Just a few hours, maybe,” Erin agreed.
“Let’s go report back to Arwyn,” I suggested as I led us out of the forest and into the ruins.
As we walked, I scanned for survivors, but I didn’t see much evidence of any. Bodies were everywhere, and most of them seemed to have died from being crushed either by monsters or by falling debris. It was a grim scene, but I knew some must have survived. Even if this town was mostly decimated, we had closed the rift in time to keep the problem from spreading to other towns.
A pair of soldiers noticed us before too long, and they ran from the entrance of a crumbling house to greet us.
“We’re two of the mages who went into the rift,” I explained in a tired voice. “There should be a third still in the forest, so keep an eye out for him. Any idea where the healer, Arwyn Hamner, has set up her tent?”
“Near that little airship,” a short, freckled soldier indicated as he pointed toward Erin’s Diomesia.
“Thanks,” I said gratefully as Erin and I saluted the soldiers. “What about Nia Kenefick? Ashen blonde hair? Elementalist mage cloak?”
The shoulder nodded his head. “I believe I saw her with Ms. Hamner, but I do not know if she is still there.”
“Excellent,” I replied with a grin. “Come find us there if you spot any dangerous monsters.”
“Sure thing,” the freckled soldier agreed. “Honestly, though, there’s been practically nothing. Doesn’t look like many small guys came through this rift.”
“Huh,” I commented as my eyebrows raised, “that’s a relief. Good to focus on survivors.”
“It is,” the soldier agreed with a small smile. “The two of us have found about ten so far. They say some people with magic showed up and performed a miracle to take down some big monsters. You mages do good work, y’know?”
“You’re too kind,” I told him honestly with a shake of my head. “We wouldn’t be able to do anything without the military backing us up.”
“It’s true,” Erin said with a solemn nod. “We know we’re not in this alone.”
“Anyways, we’ve gotta go,” I told the soldier as we turned to leave. “Have a good one.”
“You too,” he replied with a pleased grin.
As we walked away, Erin had a noticeable skip in her step, and her eyes sparkled with happiness.
I hid my smile as I watched her, and my chest grew warm with the same joy. It felt good to be complimented, but it was absolutely spectacular to hear our efforts had made an impact on surviving citizens as well as soldiers.
Even when we weren’t struggling against Phi, our missions held deep meaning beyond simple duty. Closing rifts wasn’t just another task, it was something that saved lives.
As we approached Erin’s airship, I spotted a white tent set up a short distance away, in the shade of some trees. The patients were laid out in a sprawl of tarps, blankets, and bedrolls, and among them hurried a team of healers and military nurses.
Arwyn was in the thick of it, and she pressed her hands over a patient’s wounded stomach as her eyes scrunched shut in concentration.
“Let’s not interrupt her,” I suggested as I watched her magic begin to glow while it knitted together flesh.
Erin and I approached with quiet consideration, and we stopped a few steps away as we waited for her to finish.
Finally, the patient’s wound sealed over into a messy, pink scar, and Arwyn sighed as she sat back and opened her eyes.
“We’re back,” I announced amicably as I stepped closer to the red-haired healer.
“Gryff, Erin!” Arwyn greeted with a smile. “It’s so good to see you. I’m guessing Varleth is alright as well?”
“He should be,” I answered with a hesitant gesture. “We haven’t seen him since our group split off again, but he must have destroyed the catalyst.”
“Of course,” Arwyn agreed, “I’m sure he’s fine. Nia already came to see me, by the way. She told me her part of the story and went right away to help look for survivors under the rubble.”
“Sounds like her,” I said with a smile. “Nia only rests when everything is finished.”
“So,” Arwyn began, “I needed a break anyway. Why don’t you two tell me what else happened?”
I described the strange, alpaca-like monster Erin and I fought right before the rift closed.
Arwyn frowned in concern when she heard the description of the beast, but she nodded and smiled as we described how we killed it without taking any unnecessary risks.
“I’ll have to look that monster up later,” Arwyn mused. “I don’t know of anything like it, but monsters were never my research specialty.”
“It’s a weird one,” I agreed. “Pretty unassuming to look at, but more than a little dangerous. I’m just glad we got rid of it safely. Erin’s plan worked like a dream.”
“That was very mature of you to choose the safe, slow plan,” Arwyn complimented me with a discerning look. “You’re becoming quite the young leader, aren’t you?”
I flushed under the praise, and I made a noncommittal gesture to try and move the attention off me.
“He really is a great strategist,” Erin agreed with a pleased look. “It seems like he’s getting better at taking a step back and actually using his brains instead of rushing in right away. The old Gryff might have just sent his roosa to kill that odd monster we encountered.”
“Exactly,” Arwyn added with a triumphant look, “and he probably would have regretted it. It’s been gradual, but Gryff has grown a lot since I met him over a year ago.”
“I’m standing right here,” I said sheepishly as I shuffled from foot to foot.
“And we’re glad you are,” Arwyn teased with a wink before her gaze focused on something behind us. “Oh, that must be Varleth. Excellent!”
I turned and saw the banisher’s unmistakable dark figure approach, and his black cloak fluttered behind him in the breeze.
Erin and I jogged up to greet him while Arwyn returned to her work in the healing tent.
“Did everything go well?” I asked as I approached.
“Of course,” Varleth dismissed with an easy smile. “Totally uneventful, I just ran for a while and finally found the catalyst. Did you and Erin stall for the rest of the time?”
“Nah, we killed it,” I replied as I gave Varleth a friendly clap on the shoulder. “Voluscura to the neck. Pretty brutal.”
“Knowing you, it was far more convoluted than that,” Varleth said in a dry voice.
“He’s right,” Erin admitted. “It was kind of complicated. There were what, ten monsters on the battlefield?”
“Hey,” I complained, “you didn’t have to tell him that.”
We laughed for a bit, then the three of us made our way to the ruined town where we tracked down Nia.
“Hey guys,” Nia greeted with a smile as we arrived. “It’s good to see you all made it out without any injuries.”
The ashen-haired mage looked immaculate, as per usual, and the four of us chatted as we worked with the debris. Nia laughed when I asked if the simirunts gave her any more trouble.
“Of course not,” she scoffed. “What do you take me for, some kind of struggling first-year mage?”
“Technically, both of us have only completed our first year,” I pointed out with a grin. “We might as well be drop-outs.”
“Why, I never,” Nia denied with a secretive wink. “A Kenefick would never drop out of the Academy.”
It may have looked strange to outsiders if they saw us walking around the ruined village and cracking jokes even as we checked the pulses on bodies. However, mages and soldiers had a reputation for odd, black humor, and we had good reason to. We saw enough death and destruction in our missions that we’d all learned how to maintain a shell against most horror or grief. If we didn’t, we would simply stop being able to function.
So instead, we laughed, told stories, and joked as the afternoon wore into evening. When sunset began, we walked back to the healing tent and collected Arwyn before we all clambered back onto Erin’s ship.
Arwyn was exhausted, since she spent almost all her mana on healing patients.
“How are they doing?” I asked as I buckled myself into my chair.
Nia settled on my right, and Arwyn sat down beside her.
“They’re all in stable condition,” Arwyn reported proudly. “There’s not much more I can do even if I had the mana for it.”
“And you need to get back to research,” I added as I nodded in agreement. “Going back home is the right decision.”
Varleth buckled himself into his own seat next to Arwyn as the Diomesia whirred and shuddered to life. She lifted into the air, then her metal landing legs pulled into her with an audible thud. The wind buffeted the ship slightly as it rose, but we were soon at the proper altitude, and she leveled out with ease before she picked up speed.
We were all exhausted, particularly Varleth and Arwyn. The banisher always seemed drained and weak after taking out a catalyst, and I couldn’t imagine having to take care of such a difficult job over and over again throughout my life as a mage.
Soon after Varleth and Arwyn passed out, Nia and I began to yawn as well. I hoped Erin was getting some rest at the wheel of her ship. I knew autopilot was somewhat possible in the newer airships, though I didn’t know what conditions were required for it. With luck, she could sleep a little while the rest of us did, too.
“How are you doing?” Nia asked softly as her melodic voice interrupted my thoughts.
