Demonic Magician

I sat on my chair in the middle of the illuminated square, with a headache. Not uncommon at the end of a tense performance—especially one so late at night. It was more than that, though. I felt like I was coming down off of some drug, experiencing withdrawal stronger than just the adrenaline and dopamine leaving my system.

Overall, it made me a little grouchy.

To my side, Ren walked over. “Everything okay, trickster?”

I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t have the heart to snap at her. “Feeling pretty rough.”

“You… were something else tonight.”

My other eyebrow raised to join the first as I tried to take in her expression. Intrigue and awe? Perhaps that was my hopeful mind filling in what I wanted to believe. No, we could read each other like books. She currently wanted to tear the pages out and chew on all the sordid words that comprised my being.

I wasn’t even sure I understood the metaphor that I was trying to paint.

She averted her gaze toward the semi-destroyed building to see the pair of Quinn and Tanya exit. The woman was limping, propped up by the fixer. Both were covered in small cuts that had recently healed, their clothes shredded in places and charred. Ren furrowed her brow and sent out a heal towards our new manager. Manager? I’d probably lost the plot somewhere along the way.

Tanya righted herself, testing her footing while giving Quinn a nod—she was now able to walk relatively normally.

“Thank you,” she told the elf. “That’s certainly a nicer heal than my slow one.”

“More the fool us for thinking we were safe,” Quinn grumbled, rolling out his shoulders as he received a heal himself.

“Don’t sell yourself short.” Tanya shook her head. “It was coming directly for me. Without your intervention, I’d be dead.”

He gave her a low bow, grunting from the effort and murmuring about duty or something, blah blah. My focus had already shifted back to our captive. Wolf still sat atop him. He wasn’t keen to speak with me, partly due to the bear staring at him and slowly chewing the arm that had been ripped off.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do good cop, bad cop - or even speak with him. Any questions answered would be suspect, anyway. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t sure of much at present time, and the sooner I could get to a place I could sleep, the better.

Ren’s hand pressed down on my shoulder. “Feeling okay, Max? Your hands didn’t bleed.”

She was right, and I lifted them up for inspection, mostly for the show of it. Whether it was because I was no longer holding back on the fully realized me or not, didn’t really matter. With the buffs we had, there was no need for me to dip into Bloodletting.

I shrugged and stood up as her hand slunk away. It wasn’t usually like me to shirk a connection with her, but I felt like I was at the end of a very thin rope. I took a step toward the frogman and stopped, looking back at her. “You were fantastic too. We’ll talk more when we are safe.”

The elf nodded, content enough that things were okay, before she went over to see if the other pair needed tending to. Moving myself adjacent to the bear, he tilted his head to the side and regarded me. His waistcoat had been shredded and his bowler hat had managed to stick atop his head despite being indented.

“Doesn’t taste that good,” the bear complained.

I nodded and crouched down beside our captive. He didn’t look too happy, but then again, we had torn one of his arms off. It was a wonder he hadn’t died of blood loss, maybe. A wide, frog-like face, with bulbous yellow eyes. His skin was a pale green, but perhaps part of the paleness was due to the arm thing. Crimson hand-print on his head, which tallied up the with icon showing that he had taken the blood. A few others showing the current near-death state he was in.

“Constantly besieged by those that seek ruin upon this world,” I said as I tilted my head. “Yet the worst part is… you’re all so weak. Children thinking they can rule the roost, with no consideration for any consequences, or what it truly takes to survive.”

“Fuck you, foolish man. I’ll not talk to you or the traitor.”

I cast a quick glance back at Tanya, before shrugging at him. “Actually, I don’t care if you talk or not. Keeping you alive was a moment of weakness, and a mistake.” A wry smile cracked at the side of my mouth. “But since you’re here, I had something you might help with.”

Into my hand I drew Roger’s card.

“Normally this only works on corpses,” I began. “But I’m a huge fan of breaking the System, and you’re a big lad. Perhaps there’s room in there for both of you?”

Confusion had him silent, his tongue unsure how to address what I was actually saying.

Pressing the card against his metal armor gave him more of a clue, and he tried to writhe away—ineffective with the bear still upon him. There was an amount of force preventing my card from hitting its target, however. Like repelling magnets, the power was trying to push it away to deflect in a different direction. I clenched my jaw and sunk more mana into it. Gradually, it started to pierce through his plate… millimeters at a time.

I could override the System, bend reality to my will.

My brow furrowed and I let the card vanish away. I stood back up to my feet and glared off into the dark of the night. “All yours, Wolf.”

He wasted no time, going for the head first to silence the Shadow. The crunching noise almost prevented me from hearing the elf approach me from behind.

“Not to repeat myself again, but is everything okay?”

I turned to her, concern on both our faces, but for different reasons. “It was like I was suddenly presented with two different futures. Like posters advertising the show.” My eyes went back out to the pitch gloom. “In one, I was the all powerful. Someone without equal, who would do whatever it took to stay at the top of the hill, wearing the bloodied crown of a tyrant.”

A few moments of silence passed before she responded. “And the other?”

“Some amount of happiness.” I turned back to her with tired eyes. “A Max accepting of the lot given to him here and making the best of it, enjoying living and loving.”

“Second one sounds much nicer.” Her hand came out and wrapped around mine. Hard to disagree with that statement when she made such a compelling argument.

Which was more likely? I was capable of both, but… there was a line. Designing the show to what I wanted it to be—or shaping it in a manner to what the audience was eager for. If anything, the showman flavor thickening the evening air had left a bad taste in my mouth, as well as hungry for some normality.

“Agreed,” I eventually said. “You and the others ready to move out?”

“Loot first, trickster.”

My right eye twitched. Of course.

“I’m a little slower than normal, but I’m good to walk,” Tanya confirmed.

Quinn nodded. “Eager to get out of the darkness.”

Weren’t we all? Seemed to follow us around like an ugly duckling, however. I had arrived in this world, blood on my face and half dead, and fate had imprinted itself, repeating the same plot point over and over. That said, I hadn’t almost died again since leaving the first area. Debilitated and restrained… slightly crazy—sure—but not at risk of death. I should count my blessings. Quick glance towards the elf, and then I went off to loot the dregs of society.

[5638 Gold]

[Health Potion (6)]

[Power Token (2)]

[Bracers of the Trickster] [+3 Int, +2 Dex]

[Intelligence Ring] [+3 Int, +10% Mana]

[Fire Circle Wand]

[Savage Strike Wand]

A reasonable haul. I kept the unspent Power Tokens secret for now. Not to be deceitful, but we'd sit and deliberate somewhere safer - same with the wands. Ring and Bracers went straight on, however. Now that we knew Fifteen was the highest level we could achieve, it put a cap on the gear we’d be able to find. Nice of the Crimson Shadow to keep delivering us care packages of their acquired—or possibly also stolen—equipment.

“I see how you have achieved everything, now,” Tanya said, drawing my attention from the last of the bodies. “You’re remarkably proficient, despite appearances.”

With a grunt, I stood to my feet and stretched out. She looked just as exhausted as the rest of us, but there was the light of excitement in her eyes. “I hope you were taking notes,” I replied. “There are improvements we need to make.”

“Of course.” She huffed. “Now that I’ve seen you all in battle properly, I’m brimming with ideas. A conversation over breakfast tomorrow, however.”

“We’ll schedule in a team meeting once we’ve had some rest then.” There it was. I could almost audibly hear the click as she filtered into the position we needed for the group. Ren and I were no slouches when it came to winning a battle and having some manner of plan… but Tanya’s experience was more grounded in something other than our risk-laden mania.

I looked over at the elf currently helping the bear get his outfit back in good order, while Quinn was lost in his STAR planning our route. “You never mentioned your actual Class name.”

“Fateweaver,” she replied, following my gaze to the other members of the Party. “You were expecting ‘Battle Manager’ or something, right?”

“Correct.” I smiled. Casting buffs and debuffs was a way to change or weave fate, certainly. I’d allow that explanation. Made a lot more sense than Quinn actually being an Arcane Fixer. Then again, System might be translating that oddly.

Ren walked over to us, the bear in tow. “Best make a move. As much as I don’t want to be traveling in the dark, I’d hate to be interrupted by another ambush during our sleep.”

I nodded and gestured Quinn over. He dimmed his light and led from the front beside Tanya. Ren and I took up the middle, while Wolf watched our backs. It was mostly a path we had to follow, thankfully. No stumbling through the foliage to twist my ankle or crack my skull on something. We’d avoid all the Monster groups as well.

The elf sighed as she turned her blue eyes toward me. “Didn’t want to say this earlier,” she said in a low tone, “but, during the battle… I could hear music.”

“Same.” I smiled. “What did it go like?”

Softly she hummed the beats of the tune, to the best of her recollection. Interestingly enough, it was the same as the one I had heard. My nod caused her to wrinkle her face up.

“Now we have a shared delusion,” she eventually whispered, looking out into the impenetrable darkness of night.

The moon was obscured, so we weren’t even graced by a dim gray highlight on the trees and scenery surrounding us. Quinn and Tanya murmured the occasional thing to each other, but I couldn’t overhear. He seemed to cool on her after knowing she was taken. While he appeared to fall for anyone remotely affable, he could at least accept no for an answer. I was glad to see them getting along.

Ren held my hand, this time our fingers interlocking. In some ways it felt almost juvenile, considering the death we had just wrought with little remorse. Our relationship was still in the fledgling stages, however, and part of me craved this basic action. It would be safer to have our hands free and weapons out ready in case something untoward did happen upon us…

But the fear wasn’t allowed to control our lives - we had decided that before. No sense living in the shadows, when our flame could burn so brightly. It meant that others would want to extinguish us, but looking at the pair ahead… it also attracted moths. The show was on the road, moving from performance to performance.

I loved it. What more could a magician ask for?

Well, a demon to kill, for one. I had the feeling that Rolo’s twin, grouped up with the necromancer, was going to be a bit of a linchpin to our efforts in this second area. Not the closest group to the Lady, but trusted for keeping the starting third of the area under their thumb. Perhaps they were patting themselves on the back now that the camp was all but gone.

My eyes went up as my Chat received a message.

[Ruby: Hi Max, I know this is late.]

[Ruby: Just wanted you to know things are going swell.]

[Ruby: Found a new Player that fits our group.]

[Ruby: We’ll help them level, and then we’ll come back.]

[Max: Glad to hear it.]

[Ruby: Fiona didn’t want to tell you yet, but you know how she is.]

[Max: I do. Thanks for keeping me updated.]

[Ruby: Stay safe. And get some sleep - doctor’s orders! {O>Ó}]

It was nice to have a reminder every so often that what we were doing had a positive effect on the world. Killing with little remorse had me looking at the crimson crown like it was almost an inevitability… but I couldn’t go back and betray all those I had helped.

After all, it would be nice to have some fans once the dust settled. We could put on an actual show, rather than the violent combat version. In fact, the thought filled me with a hope and apprehension that tore down the grip of exhaustion like faded wallpaper.

“I hope the dungeon has a ‘little bears’ room,” Wolf grumbled from behind.

My smile only wavering slightly, we continued to stride through the darkness. Victors, and alive for at least one more day.