BT - Book 1 - Chapter 90

Micah closed his eyes.  The Luoca struggled against the burning strand of energy embedded in its chest, it’s mouth flapping wordlessly as it grunted and wailed.

The pale woman grunted, pulling back on the metal rod in her hand, dragging the daemon a step toward her.  It flapped its wings, its five insectoid legs skittering against the wooden floor as it fought against the wizard’s inhuman strength.

Beyond him, Micah heard Trevor shouting something.  He didn’t have time to pay attention, his eyes glued to his frantic and resisting summoned monster.

On instinct he reached a hand out, grasping at the Luoca both physically and through his senses.  A misty white energy flowed out of him, encompassing the daemon, and suddenly Micah could feel it.

The monster’s incomprehensible senses merged with his own.  Hunger, boredom, lust, and above all a sadistic desire to unmake slammed into him, threatening to overwhelm his perception, but deep down there was something else.  A prison of grey white energy wrapped around the core of the daemon’s being, constraining it while a tentacle of molten ruby power hammered at the shell.

He pushed.  Some sort of vital energy, not mana, but something else entirely, flowed out of him, deadening the daemon’s mad screams and urges.  Clouds of white sifted downward through the creature’s mind, soothing the raw red violence of the wizard’s lash.

The motes of light coalesced around the core, sheltering the daemon from the hammering blows of the wizard’s focus.  The Luoca shook its head, opening its eyes and staring at the Baron’s wizard.

Micah shuddered, he could feel his energy draining rapidly, but he was looking through the summoned monster’s eyes.  They blinked, and he could feel its thoughts, parallel to his own as it hissed and begged for him to release it.  To let it destroy itself and the human shaped mass of mana in front of it in an orgy of violence.

“What are you doing boy,” Micah was almost startled out of his quasi trance as the woman hissed at him.  “As powerful as your summon is, it’s mine until your sacrifice expires.  You’re defenseless before me boy, just give up before I have to make this painful.”

He just grunted, focusing his energy on the Luoca’s will and pushing.  Urging it to follow its instincts, to become the destroyer it wanted to be.

It lunged at the wizard, a triumphant snarl on its face as a wing blurred forward, slamming into her shield.  Micah staggered backward, shielding his eyes as the mana barrier flared with light.  A fraction of a second later, a pressure wave knocked him off balance and stole the breath from his lungs.

Shaking his head, Micah blinked.  The Luoca’s tail was lodged in the woman’s shoulder, a grimace of pain on her face.  Even as he watched, brain still fuzzy from the previous exchange, her hand closed around the scorpion-like limb and the woman snarled a word of power, binding it to her body in a rapidly growing sphere of ice.

“Grab Esther!”  He shouted to Trevor, not daring to take his eyes off of the fight as the daemon struggled to free its captured limb.  “You need to get her out of here, collateral damage from area attacks could kill either of you.”

“Where is she?” Trevor screamed back as a swarm of roots, as big around as Micah’s wrist, broke through the wooden floor and began to coil around the Luoca.  “I haven’t seen her anywhere!”

“Just look!” Micah replied before he began casting Binding Vines, struggling to focus on the high level spell’s precise words and movements as the Luoca’s wings scissored through a handful of the roots encompassing it

The remaining vegetation wrapped itself around one of the daemon’s sharp, chitinous legs and began to pull, drawing a scream of rage from the Luoca before it leaned forward, its human mouth snapping at the wizard’s face.

Micah’s spell coalesced, grabbing hold of his opponent's vines and releasing the Luoca only to turn them on the woman.   Two curled around her calves, literally rooting her in place while a third stabbed deep into her hamstring, drawing a grunt from the wizard.

He gasped for breath, vision swimming despite his mostly full mana pool.  With a blink, Micah released his mental hold on the daemon.  At some point in the initial attack, she’d dropped the focus, and he simply didn’t have the energy to continue forcing his will on the creature.

It followed its last orders, perhaps not even noticing that Micah was no longer urging it on.  The Luoca’s faced gnashed at her once more trying to remove her cheek and ear with its blunt but sturdy teeth as it tried once again to yank its tail from her shoulder.

“What in the hells was that!” She exclaimed, pain clouding her voice as she clenched her left hand into a fist.  A ring disintegrated before turning into a spear of ice that launched itself into the torso of the trapped daemon, splitting its chitinous armor like rotten wood and sinking an arm’s length into its body.

One of the Luoca’s wings slammed into her.  A pendant flashed with blue light and the wizard’s entire left side was covered in ice for a fraction of a second before it shattered under the force of the blow.

Their opponent tried to shuffle her feet to recover from the attack, but Micah’s Binding Vines still held.  Instead, she tumbled over backward, dragging the Luoca forward by its tail.

It screeched in delight, stabbing one leg through her hip and into the floor below.  A fraction of a second later, a second leg punched through her chest, a match for the ice spear in the daemon as it punctured a lung.

The woman thrashed for a second, screaming in agony.  The Luoca threw its head back, chortling inhumanly with delight at her distress.  Then she simply stopped.  Her body, even her breathing ceased to move as a deadly calm settled over the wizard.

She reached into a pouch, pulling out a sphere of white crystal.  It began glowing with an inner light as she concentrated on it, ignoring the blood flowing from multiple wounds all over her body.

The Luoca keened in triumph, leaning down and biting off an ear and a stip of flesh from her cheek.  She didn’t even move, instead gripping the crystal with both hands, letting the hazy white glow within it build.

Micah’s eyes widened as he realized the implication of her actions.

“Stop her!” He shouted at the daemon, punctuating his command with a pair of air knives aimed at her hands.  Both of them slammed into a white hazy shield as yet another defensive artifact activated.

The Luoca paused for a second, clearly hearing his command.  Then it let loose a blood curdling wail and stomped down again, this time skewering a bicep.

Micah’s heart jumped into his throat.  It was twisting his orders, obeying his directive to attack, but clearly too enamored with toying with its prey to finish the fight cleanly.

Frantically, hefted his spear, burning recklessly through his mana to activate both enchantments simultaneously.  For a fraction of a second, Micah saw a future where the wizard successfully teleported away, leaving him gaping like a fool, victorious but waiting forever for her revenge.

Then the spear sailed through the air, every point of his body powering the throw.  Sonic enchantment still humming, it slammed into the glowing orb of quartz just as the light inside it reached its apex,

The crystal shattered, leaving only a helix of glowing light spinning in the air in its wake.  The woman’s eyes widened.  The light flared, forcing Micah to look away as a wave of heat rolled over him.

“Foolish boy!” The woman shouted from inside angry flashing strobes of light.  “What have you done!”

The room exploded.  Micah was flung into one of the wooden walls hard enough to break it with an audible crack.  Or maybe that was his ribs.  It was hard to tell.

For a moment, mist filled the room, the subtle tang of unreality filling Micah’s lungs as Elsewhere lurched toward Karell.  Around him, the howling darkness of teleportation closed in, formless entities too terrible for his mind to fully comprehend flowing with a terrible smoothness toward him.

Then they were back in the wooden complex, wreckage everywhere.  The teleportation array was in ruins, shattered and burning.  The wizard was gone.  An arm lay next to him and across the room he could barely make out her head staring sightlessly at the ceiling, disconnected from her torso which had been utterly annihilated in the blast.

Fuzzily, Micah contemplated the flames as they licked up toward the ceiling.  They’d need to leave soon.  It was only a matter of time before the entire building burned to the ground.

He shook his head.  The Luoca was keening, the tip of its tail and both of the legs that had been lodged in the wizard simply… missing.  It hobbled through the twisted remnants of the room, moaning to itself as steaming ichor dripped to the ground, warping and melting the wood.

Micah pulled himself to his feet, wincing at the pain in his chest from slamming into the wall.  He paused for a moment to cast Augmented Mending to ease the pain in his chest and side.

With a sigh of relief, the spell set in, deadening the pain and letting him breathe in easily.  He turned to the Luoca as it stumbled aimlessly, inhuman moans and ichor spilling from its lips.

“Come on,” he grunted, the words painful as they worked their way up his burned through and across cracked lips.  “We need to make sure that Trevor and Esther are all right.”

It turned to him, cruel eyes staring at Micah with a disconcerting hunger but making no move to follow his orders.

He frowned as it cocked its head, a feral smile on the human face.

It took a faltering step toward him, wings cocked back and ready to strike and its tail held high, ichor dripping from the gaping wound as Regeneration sealed the injury, but did not regrow the stinger that usually served as its tip.

That wasn’t good.

Micah reached out with his mind, drawing on the last ergs of the strange energy he’d used earlier to overcome the dead wizard’s control.

Its core was exposed, only half bound in the silvery white light he’d come to associate with his will.  The remainder of the Luoca’s being raged angrily, hurt, hungry, and eager to destroy as much of Karell as possible before it was once again banished to Elsewhere.

“Fuck,” Micah whispered, his eyes widening.

It took another step toward him, its mouth opening wider than should be possible to reveal a fang filled leer as it basked in his discomfort.

“What in the hells happened Micah,” Trevor shouted from the side as his brother came down a stairwell, Esther in tow.  “I found Esther but then I leveled up.  Twice. What in the name of the Sixteen are you-”

His brother’s voice cut off in a strangled yelp as the Luoca whipped its head around to stare at him.  Esther slithered behind him, whimpering.

Micah reached out, stretching whatever sense he used to control the Luoca in the past to its limit as he slammed his will into it.  The daemon staggered slightly, the runic seals covering its core glowing brighter as it whirled back to face him, snarling.

It lunged forward, and Micah fell to his knees, every iota of energy in his body focused on one final mental thrust.  A storm of silver light, visible only to the daemon and him, flowed over it, slowing its movements and one by one reigniting the dormant runes binding its core.

For a moment, hope began to fill Micah.  With just a little bit more, he might be able to reassert control.  He slumped forward, hands slapping into the wood of the lodge’s floor as he redoubled his efforts.

It turned from him with a snarl, locust wings blurring into motion as it slammed its battered body through one of the building’s walls.  For a couple of seconds he heard the click buzz of its wings as it flew away, but then there was nothing but his breathing and the crackle of the flames.