Demonic Magician

One might assume that being surrounded by bloody corpses wouldn't set the right atmosphere for acts of passion. However, it turned out that everything became background noise under the right circumstance, and whatever feral mood had overtaken us both seemed to be just that. A surprise, especially during the daytime, but clearly something we both needed.

I crouched down beside the dead bodies to loot them, in my underwear, while the System repaired my suit. Convenient. In my peripheral, I caught the bemused look of the elf, watching me in my state of undress as she tied her hair back up.

"Even though it's becoming easy to see past the scars and grime, I would literally kill for a hot bath."

I nodded. It was a wonder I wasn't dehydrated with all the sweating I'd been doing today. It must be near lunch time now - we'd certainly earned it. I was sure we could press Quinn into having a detour to somewhere with a bath or shower.

My suit completed and popped back into existence. Comforting even if a little stifling in this time of the day. I stood and turned around as Ren had moved over to me.

A tight embrace. She pressed the side of her head against my shoulder as my arms also wrapped around her.

"You do weird things to me, Max."

I rested my head against hers and caught her falling hat as I jostled it away. "Ah, I don't know. That was pretty vanilla."

"Asshole." She sighed and gave me a squeeze. "You know I meant emotionally."

Of course I did, but some levity gave her an out in case this was heavier than she wanted. There was no need to clarify. We just held each other for a moment or two in silence. A brief respite from the hardships of the world, and a place of safety for our hearts.

"Let's get back to it, moonflower." I moved back away and gave her forehead a peck before replacing her hat. "They'll start suspecting something, if they don't already."

She gave me a coy smile as she turned to go loot the rest of the bodies.

Strange how life seemed to be taking me on a downward spiral, yet I felt far above it. On cloud nine. I stole a glance at her while pretending to look through the top half of the man I had bisected. There was no denying I was besotted with her. The pointy ears were cute, but I hardly registered that she was an elf. She was just Ren, unlike anyone I had ever met before. And we were changing into ever better versions of ourselves that I couldn't help but love.

Those words found purchase on my tongue as I watched her, apprehensive and ready to burst forth.

Before I willed up the strength to, a beep signaled a Chat message had just come through.

[Quinn: All okay up there?^]

[Quinn: Nothing much down here. Wolf just sleeping^]

[Max: Working our way, asap.]

[Max: Set a destination for somewhere we can eat and refresh?]

[Quinn: As you command^]

It wasn't really a command, so now I started to wonder if I was too controlling over the Party.

"Am I too bossy with everyone, Ren?"

She looked over and shook her head. "If anything, you need to ramp up that assertiveness. Maybe tussle with Wolf and put him in his place."

I stared at her blankly for a few moments, trying to see how much of that was just her egging me on. I knew she had a spark for Max the Leader, but she didn't really want me to wrestle the bear for dominance. Well, in saying that...

She sighed. "No, trickster, you're fine. You're our headliner and dictate the show - it's good to have one clear idea rather than everyone pulling in different directions."

I pouted, mostly because it was sweet when she used show terms with me. Unnecessary, but appreciated - she truly had been putting more effort into the performance side of things.

We finished up the looting with little fanfare. A couple things for Wolf potentially, but not much else. Down the stairs and we sifted through things double time so as not to keep the fencer waiting. Again, very few things useful to us other than some potential props for my ever-growing collection. There was, however, a diary. Or at least a collection of notes wedged together.

I read through them as we stepped out back down to the ground floor. Wolf was blocking the doorway, sleeping, while Quinn had his feet up on a crate while he leaned back in a chair.

"Anything good?" he asked, eyebrow raised at what I was reading.

"Potentially," I murmured. "Let's walk while I finish reading. I'd rather not have the guards respawn on us."

He nodded and stood up from his seated position. "There's a place that might accommodate us about twenty minutes southwest."

"Perfect, I appreciate it." I gave him a warm smile. Possibly odd after killing so many in cold blood.

At the doorway, he nudged the bear. "Move it, furball."

Wolf grunted and shifted himself out of the way, having a big stretch as soon as enough space had been made for us to filter out.

Ren rubbed at her eyes as the daylight scoured us once more. "So we know the location of the necromancer group, a group intending on meeting the paladin's party tomorrow, and the route the blood deliverers take."

“My brother was in the military,” Quinn began, “and he would often say going after supply lines was the way to win a protracted conflict.”

That sounded reasonable to me. As little experience as I had on the matter, I could see the benefit of delaying all blood to any Shadows in this area. Even more so than outright killing one of the other two groups, although the necromancer owed me his head for disrupting my sleep the other day.

“Disrupting their blood deliveries would weaken the whole lot of them,” I eventually agreed. “Might make fighting the groups easier on us. Send me through the route, Ren.”

She nodded and did so, and I lowered the pages held so that I could bring up my Map. No surprise they were avoiding the main road. Even as overconfident and foolhardy as they seemed to be, getting caught out on the singular wide road that bisected the area diagonally would be on a different level of nearsightedness.

It weaved back and forth, almost parallel to the road, and mostly on the northern side of it, aside from a couple of places.

“What do you think, Max?” Ren asked.

I could tell she was prompting me to lead again. At this stage, I was happy to play the role she wanted me to fit in - in fact; I was growing to enjoy it. As much as we were a team, I was the sparkling idiot that was pulling them forward to eventually get at the Lady. In saying that, however…

“We’ll rest up. Get some lunch and, hopefully, a bath. Maybe some downtime? Hit the dungeon in the evening and then make plans for intercepting the courier in the morning.” I tilted my head toward the fencer. “Quinn wanted to show us through the Quests today and the Dungeon - we can avail him of his duties tomorrow.”

He pulled a face, unsure how to react to that. Sure, he had lent his help in bringing down the fort to rescue those other Players, but I wanted him to know he still had the out before things got dire again. I wouldn’t even hold it against him.

There was an amount of… killing that the Party had grown into. Just straight up murder that made me realize we weren’t exactly the good guys. Quinn was just an asshole, like everyone else. A fool who acted on his heart’s whim. The rest of us were… just like the Crimson Shadow, but opposite.

I hadn’t even made note of how easily and without care Ren had killed the wizard, partly because I would have done the exact same thing. We were the enemy of the enemy, but it didn’t mean we were palatable for those on the sidelines. Leyla’s group hadn’t minded because we saved their lives. Fiona hadn’t trusted us, even after we proved dependable. We were just good at one thing… well; I glanced over at the elf, two things.

“Not going to finish your reading, trickster?” she asked, her face a scowl, but only put on for appearances. We didn’t want to become insufferable to the others as our mush gradually seeped out into the daylight.

“Just giving my eyes a rest,” I lied. “It’s been a long day and I’ve seen a lot of things that need processing.”

She rolled her eyes in response and looked ahead, walking a little faster to sidle alongside the bear.

Quinn fell into step beside me, some amount of anxiety or troubles written clearly on his face. With a hand up to stroke his beard, he turned his eye toward me.

“I have not yet decided when we will part ways, Max.”

With a smile, I nodded. “There’s no hurry. As long as it’s not mid battle, you are free to choose when to leave.”

He grunted and looked back out to the greenery now illuminated by the midday sunshine. “What would I even do? Ever since I was a boy, I had dreamed about exploring the wider world. When I first found myself here, I was elated.”

“You were?” My arrival was mostly confusion and head injury, shortly before being attacked by the Lady’s gang members.

“It was akin to arriving on unsullied shores. A brand new world unlike anything I’d known. My passion was overflowing.”

I tilted my head as we walked down the stone path. “But?”

Quinn smiled. “Always a but, isn’t there? I’m not a fan of numbers, and of feeling gated away by the leveling process. I prefer things to be free and open, like my relationships.” He chuckled to himself before sighing deeply, returning a tired look toward me. “I feel as though if the Crimson found their way to me before you did, I would have easily fallen under their sway.”

With a nod of my head, I gave him a pat on the back. “I’m glad we found you when we did, Quinn. The Lady is promising false hope to those desperate for some closure and asking for so much in return.”

“Burning the forest down to stay warm is no way to live,” he agreed.

He was definitely in my top three people that we had met, excluding the Party. Depending on how the Dungeon went, he might even hit the top spot. Dependable or accepting allies were few and far between, so I had to let a little water under the bridge to stay afloat. Attacking me in the duel was a dick move after I had saved his life, but a little conflict had drawn us together, and he had found a place in our group.

Still didn’t trust him completely, and his admission that he would have fallen to the Lady was cause for concern even with how understandable it was. I was no fool, and my guard would remain up around him. Then again… perhaps a fool would trust Ren, as well. I narrowed my eyes at the back of her as she talked quietly with Wolf. Just because we locked lips on occasion, didn’t mean that…

I stopped myself and shook away those thoughts. It was too easy to fall into the dark pit when we skirted the rim so closely. No point stressing about the near improbable when we had plenty of actual problems to deal with.

It didn’t take long before we could see the small group of houses ahead of us. The possibility of a bit of rest washed away any foul feelings that had been stinking up the corners of my mind. The only hope was that there was a place to scrub my physical form.

With the sun clearly overhead now, I removed my jacket and placed it in my Inventory, before rolling my shirt sleeves up. A little bit more of a casual appearance, but the top hat still did the heavy lifting for the theme.

“Dibs on the bath,” Ren said, turning her head back to us.

I smiled and shrugged toward Quinn.

“Ladies first, naturally,” he said.

I opened up my Chat.

[Max: Found the other group. Not corrupted.]

[Fiona: Thank fuck.]

[Fiona: How are things there?]

[Max: Five more CS dead. Have some good leads.]

[Max: There?]

[Fiona: It’s been a couple of hours, shit all has happened.]

With a smile, I closed it down. That’s what we wanted to hear - no news was good news. We had a slightly warped sense of time, given that our waking hours were stocked full of activities. Usually violence.

“Something doesn't feel right,” Ren said from the front, her bow drawn into her hand.

I sighed, my tired eyes roving over the nearby houses. Nothing immediately obvious. No dead bodies, or living ones aligned with the Crimson Shadow. The elf wasn’t wrong, however, as much as the small clump of houses seemed pleasant… there was almost an odd texture to reality in this area.

Into my hand, a card at the ready… just in case.

Despite the good weather, it seemed that when it rained; it poured.