Demonic Magician

A roving horde of the undead might not mean anything. Even if it meant what I thought it did, it didn’t change our current predicament. As my jaw clenched, cards of bright purple bloomed in my hand, spiraling around, ready to be flung forth. Similar to the ones that assailed us at the camp, they looked like generic System-created.

No prizes for guessing who they had come from.

Something like this wasn’t natural… no chance the System would give this sort of power to a normal Player. I didn’t want to think it out loud, just in case it drove the final nail of truth down into the coffin of my disbelief… but I was pretty certain we had found out who killed the latest Guardian.

“Shit me.” Tanya took a step back, her eyes trying to count the number of potential assailants. “I have something for this, but I need to know now. All in or fall back?”

“Retreat would just be delaying the inevitable,” I said through clenched teeth. “I will not be bullied around.” We weren’t afraid to fight, and I had enough power to shred dozens of the shuffling corpses with ease.

“Fine. I’ll stand with you. Here… this is the best I can do.” In her hands, she created two idols. Both were made of silver with a thin band of opal around the circumference. “It will allow you to resist the diseases the zombies can spread, but there’s a limitation.”

Ren already had an arrow ready to fire. “Which is?”

“They are small area of effect auras, and I can only have two of them at once. I would suggest Ren and I stay as a pair, and Wolf and Quinn as another. Max, you’ll have to decide which group you want to fight with.”

I nodded. “Got it. If it’s just zombies, I will take the high ground and get a better view of the situation. If we aren’t alone, I will return to one of you.”

“You turn into a zombie, and we’re over,” the elf said, her eyes narrowed. Rain drops bounced from the rim of her top hat as she glared at me.

Well, that certainly worked as a better motivator than any other warning they could have leveled at me. Then again, I was assuming she meant us as a couple, rather than us as a greater Party. Same difference. It was hard to see how many undead there were, but I had no intention of getting close enough to be bitten. They weren’t even interested in most of my tricks. A waste of time, if they weren’t so eager to take a bite out of me.

I drew out a glass flask of water. “If you could do the honors.” Although not much of a movie buff, I had seen enough zombie flicks to know about the tropes and cliches. “I’ll need your eyes around us to ensure we aren’t surrounded… this may be a trap.” Or we could easily be overrun.

Ren whispered the elven word to imbue it with radiant energy, before giving me a nod of acknowledgement. “If there’s too many…”

“Plan B is a fighting retreat.” I cooled my temperature, knowing the stakes. “We have the advantage of speed as long as we have a route to escape. Kill as many as you can and we’ll keep falling back.”

Tanya nodded. “That’s more sensible than us making a last stand.”

“Good.” I grinned. “I’m glad you came up with it.”

Before they could respond, I was away. Back up to the house I had been using to kill all the… My heart immediately sank down to my stomach. Past the edge of the village where the zombies had started to crest into the open, they did not stop at the visible treeline, but continued on down through the woods. Hundreds upon hundreds, like a sickening wave of decay.

“Plan B,” I called back to the Party. “Fire at will.” I wondered if they could see the look on my face. No doubt Ren could read how dire the situation was… because suddenly I certainly felt like a fish out of water.

Beside me, I summoned the cannon. Loaded it with three things. Dropped my Fire Imp+ next and told him to light up what he could. Slightly to the left, the first cannon blast fired out a lit lantern, which struck and tree and spread the oil around the area. Second to the right, a similar payload and effect. Third to the middle, and it was the holy water Ren had prepared. Bursting against the thick bark of a tall tree just outside the village, it sprayed the contents down on a group of undead, melting away at their flesh. The flames struggled to catch as the downpour continued, only a few zombies laden with the thick liquid catching aflame.

Entangling arrow followed by Smite shot pinned and blew through zombies down below. Crossbow bolts and minor spells from the rest of them peppered amongst the unending horde. My Imp+ threw a fireball down, exploding with amber flame and scorching the cobblestones. I summoned Roger into one of the dead dissenters and commanded him to go wild. Cooldown was up and I used again to go back to the group.

“How many, Max?” Tanya’s eyes were wild, some panic within. Of course, if it wasn’t that many, I would have danced a little dance while throwing my cards out.

“Far too many. Looked like from the east only, but things could change.” I was at somewhat of a loss. Dozens we could work through, scores - sure. Hundreds was risky.

“Only zombies?” Ren asked, firing off another arrow. There was worry in her eyes too, as much as she was trying to hide it.

“From what I could see.” I shrugged. That didn’t make sense, though. How quickly we could go from feeling on top of the world to suffering on the back foot. Some manner of joke about how that was show-business fizzled before I could even grasp at it. Any lingering humor had been scrubbed away by how serious I found our situation. No easy out.

Even with the idols, it was too dangerous to jump into melee. Wolf could pulp them like soggy newspaper, but he would eventually tire from the sheer amount. We’d be putting his health in jeopardy and committing to being knee deep in an enemy that could easily swarm around him and cut the bear off from the rest of us.

Something like fear gripped at me. An odd sensation when I had been so filled with gusto during my time in this world. Even if some of it was false confidence, at present I was now full of dread. But why? The answer was as clear and immutable as the growing throng ahead of us.

I was about to lose them all; I knew it. A vision of my Party torn asunder by the countless living corpses. Me powerless to save them. Enveloping darkness that I couldn’t fight against. I had found my match and brought death to those I held closest. One by one, they would be taken from me.

Was this just paranoia? An effect of the Siren, or perhaps something our enemy was using to cause me this odd feeling? No, it was part of the script. A magician alone and angry, suffering because… he needed to be the star of the show. They would be gone, and I would wreak terrible vengeance until my body couldn’t withstand the power. Until I fell heavier than any final curtain.

“Max, you alright?” Ren shot me a concerned glance.

I looked into those blue eyes, and I couldn’t tell her a lie. Couldn’t pretend that we were fine, and that I hadn’t just envisioned her death if we stood around here. I shook my head. “Bad vibes.”

Not the most informative response, but she knew me well enough. “Should we fall back?”

“We… need to get very far away,” I said, a shakiness in my voice. “There are hundreds of them. Too many for us to put on a brave face and suffer through.”

She swore under her breath. The undead were halfway through the village now, slowly shambling toward us and taking out some of the respawning dissenters. Our attacks had made a dent… but it was paltry compared to how many that were left. We weren’t well equipped for doing large area damage.

Wolf looked ready to go if asked, but otherwise not keen to get stuck in. He knew as well as I did what could go wrong, even if he was used to powering through such problems. Beside him, Quinn looked even less enthused about fighting. He seemed tired already, as if just seeing the horde had exhausted his will to live.

Ren’s expression had hardened. Ready to do whatever I decided was best. A terrible burden to put on me when I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. My breathing felt stifled - was this a panic attack? Power was at 0%, as if I couldn’t feel any further away from being myself. I tried probing around for Other Max or my internal Demon, but there was nobody home. It didn’t work like that anymore.

This was me, but I’d never felt so unlike myself.

Tanya put her hand on my shoulder. “Max. I’ve been keeping something secret from you. I’ll apologize later, but I have a Teleportation scroll.”

“Oh? To where?” I felt clammy now, my heartbeat pounding through my ears, but none of the usual adrenaline to accompany it.

“I have it set for the cottage. I… was keeping it for an emergency, or to save my own skin if things between us didn’t work out.”

I shook my head. “Fine. Fuck if I care, just get it ready. We’ll go. This is an emergency.” I had to save them at any cost.

With a nod, she brought it up and stood closer to the rest of us. “Hands all on the scroll, three second cast, and then we’re gone. It’s not that far away, but gives us time.”

But how much time? My mind was reeling. I was closer to believing I was under some kind of spell, but my Status screen was giving me the all clear. Normally, I was more level-headed than this. Where was the bravado? The cunning? Any sliver of willpower that I could bullshit my way through this obstacle?

Absent, and sorely missed. I felt ever more like it had been stolen from me.

Still clutching at the idols, we each hurried around her, Wolf putting his paw on the unraveled scroll before the rest of us joined him. Had to make sure there was enough room for the five of us. The blue arcane runes on the page lit up as Tanya started to cast the spell. I took a deep breath, still trying to guess the next step we should take. This was only a brief delay to something bigger.

Three. My right eye twitched as a shrill sound rang out in my inner ear.

Two. A whisper growing louder, a language I didn’t understand but the voice so familiar.

One.

I removed my hand from the scroll and watched the Party vanish in a flash of blue light.