Chapter 166 - Road Trip

ANNOUNCEMENT: Just in case anyone's missed it, I wanted to make sure that everyone's aware that the first 53 chapters are going to be coming down on the 13th.  I'm doing this in preparation for the first book's release on Nov. 29 (for both Audible and Kindle).  

“I hate this,” Abby complained, clutching her softly glowing green gem like her life depended on it. It did, so Talia could forgive her friend for the constant complaints. “It feels like it’s a bubble that could pop at any second.”

“Ramul said it would last for at least a few weeks,” Zeke explained as he trudged through the black sands beside her. Carlos and Tucker had positioned themselves a little behind the pair, with Talia herself bringing up the rear. Pudge was ranging about, and according to Zeke, the transformed bear was looking for something with which to play. Only a few hours past, Talia had seen the results of said playtime, and the memory still brought with it a shudder that went down her spine. She liked Pudge, in her muted, inhuman way, but the degree to which he had changed was troubling, even to her.

Of course, it wasn’t as if she had any real room to talk, either. She had undergone a similar transformation, even if it was in a different direction. Pudge deserved at least a little slack, if only because his personality seemed unaffected. He was still the lovable, yet vicious monster he’d always been.

Talia continued to consider the subject while they slowly traversed the black desert. It was a boring place that consisted almost entirely of black dunes, broken up by only the occasional rocky outcropping. However, every now and then, Talia would catch a glimmer of something else in the distance. When she asked Zeke about it, he explained that the entire desert was dotted by freestanding crystals.

“What are they for?” she asked, having caught up to Zeke and Abby.

He shrugged, saying, “I’m not sure, but…when you look into them, you can see some really disturbing things.”

She cocked her head to the side and asked, “Disturbing? How?”

“I’ve told you about what happened to me, right? When I was between this world and the Radiant Isles, I mean.”

Talia nodded.

“Well,” he went on. “When I’ve looked into the crystals I’ve come across, I’ve seen other people going through something similar. They’re all being tortured. I think it’s kind of…I don’t know…preparation for them becoming demons. The ones that break too easily, they become those flying creatures we saw back in the cavern. You know, unthinking and barely more than beasts. They might even be the beasts I’ve fought. I have no way of knowing for sure. But the ones who endure, they turn into…I don’t know – real demons, I guess. And from what I can tell, they progress just like we do.”

“A parallel realm,” Talia said.

Zeke nodded, but it was Abby who responded, “That’s what all of this is about, isn’t it? We’re here to prepare us to fight the demons. Not on this plane, but later on. Right, Zeke? That’s what Oberon said, isn’t it?”

As they continued to walk, Zeke said, “Yeah. I’m not sure when the two realms are going to converge, but I don’t think it matters much right now. Clearly, everything’s a little more intertwined than we thought, though. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Talia lagged behind as Abby and Zeke continued to discuss things. It was a pointless conversation, not only because they couldn’t affect things, but also because they didn’t have enough information to predict what would happen. Right now, they could only react as problems presented themselves. Perhaps that would change in the future, but as it stood, they could only ride the wave of events, hoping that they wouldn’t drown.

After a few minutes, she felt a subtle tremor beneath her feet. It wasn’t the first time; many of the denizens of Mal’Araxis were subterranean, only surfacing to attack, and while the gems they carried served to ward most of them off, that protection only existed in a small bubble that didn’t extend far underground. So, throughout their trek, she’d felt them digging through the earth, just out of the gem’s range. Like was the case with the tower’s aura, Talia suspected that the creatures could bypass the gems’ effects, but doing so would, at the very least, be painful for them.

The tremor passed, and a few seconds later, something burst forth from one the nearby dunes. At first, Talia couldn’t see through the resultant shower of black sand to identify the monster, but even after it settled, and she got a clear look, she wasn’t certain how to describe it. For one, it had the head of a man, but that’s where its humanoid appearance ended. Instead of normal human body, it possessed something akin to the body of one of the manta rays she’d read about in the course of her studies – if said manta ray had a ten-yard wingspan. On top of that, its wings were translucent, making its black veins and disturbingly human-like spine entirely visible. Finally, it had a tail that resembled a scorpion’s, though instead of a natural stinger, it ended in a jagged shard of white bone that resembled a natural spear. In short, it looked like an unholy combination of man, monster, and weapon, all tied together with the demon realm’s inherent corruption.

Talia tried to use her identification skill to determine its power, but like most of the demon realm’s denizens, it was a fruitless endeavor. All she got for her brief effort was a name, which labeled the thing a devil ray.

Almost as soon as the sand settled, Pudge pounced on the monster. The infernal bear was huge, even among his kind, but the devil ray still dwarfed Pudge, and not by a little. However, that didn’t seem to matter to him, because he immediately started ripping into the thing’s transparent flesh, sending black blood flying with every swipe of his claws. The devil ray let out a high-pitched screech before trying to stab Pudge with its spear-tail. The thing stabbed down – once, twice, then three times in quick succession – but they might as well have been pinpricks for all the good they did. Talia saw the bear’s blood coating his already-red-streaked hide, but Pudge didn’t let up. Instead, he’d activated the lesser version of Zeke’s [Leech Strike], which coated his claws in crimson mist, stealing the monster’s life energy.

The devil ray withstood the bear’s evisceration as well as it could, twisting and turning as it tried to throw Pudge off its back. In addition, it continued to stab at the bear, scoring what should have been serious wounds. A roaring Pudge ignored them as he continued digging his claws into the translucent flesh, and in only seconds, he reached the spine.

Pudge’s head darted down into the mass of eviscerated flesh, clamping his jaws around the exposed backbone. Then, with a mighty heave, he yanked it back, dislodging not just the backbone, but the skull as well. The moment it left the body, the devil ray flopped to the sand, twitching in death. Pudge stood on his hind legs, clutching a dangling spine which still had a very human-like skull attached, in his teeth. Dropping it, he let out a roar that Talia could feel vibrating the earth.  With that roar came a jet of black lightning-infused flames directed at the sky.

“Quit playing, Pudge,” Zeke called across desert. Pudge was about forty yards away, but the bear clearly heard him. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”

The bear practically deflated as he dropped back down to all fours, he snatched up the bloody spine, and, hanging his head, padded toward the group. Zeke said, “Stop pouting. You know what you did.”

Pudge pointedly looked away, not making eye contact with his companion. A few seconds later, Zeke let out a sigh, saying, “Fine. Thank you. You saved us all from imminent death. There is no way any of us could have dealt with it if you hadn’t pounced on it. You are a hero.”

That seemed to perk the bear up, and he wiggled with excitement as he approached Zeke, dropping the bloody spine at Zeke’s feet. “Thanks, buddy, but you keep it,” was his response. “You earned it.”

A moment later, Pudge had grabbed the spine and bounded off into the desert, presumably to continue hunting monsters.

“So creepy,” came a voice from Talia’s left. She turned, and if she still had to breathe, her breath would’ve caught in her throat. The man was just too handsome. No – he was almost pretty, but in a mostly masculine way. Carlos pushed his hair back, adding, “But I’m glad he took care of that thing, I guess.”

“Yes,” was all Talia could mutter. “Very creepy.”

“Uh…right,” Carlos said, clearly uncomfortable with the sound of her voice. After a second he asked, “Doesn’t this bother you?”

“I am comfortable with talking,” she said.

“What? No,” he said, realizing that they were operating on two different wavelengths. “Not talking to me. I’m referring to all of this,” he said, sweeping his arm around. “We’re in a completely new world, and it’s filled with abominations. The only reason we’re not dead is because Zeke found these handy crystals. I mean, what are the odds, right? Oh, and he’s fine without them? Like, the atmosphere doesn’t affect him at all? And that bear changed, too. I’m not…I just…doesn’t this all freak you out? Don’t you worry about why it’s all happening like this? Sure, I wanted to go save those people, but…but…”

He trailed off with a sigh.

Talia took that opportunity to say, “I trust Zeke.”

Carlos blinked his beautiful brown eyes, saying, “Just like that?  You trust him?”

“I do,” was her unwavering reply.

“What about the others?” Carlos asked. “What about Abby? The bear? The alchemist who keeps wandering off? The moment he got one of these crystals, he started going off looking for ingredients. By himself. In a hellscape populated by demons and abominations. Artisans aren’t supposed to do things like that. And apparently he has a habit of killing whole populations?”

“Abby is like my sister,” Talia stated. Even before they had disappeared, Talia had never really enjoyed much of a relationship with her siblings. That wasn’t surprising, considering they were all much older than her, with the eldest only being a few decades younger than her mother. However, what she’d lacked with her blood relatives had been found in abundance with Abby, and despite not feeling her emotions as deeply as other people, she loved the other woman like she was family. “Pudge is the most loyal friend I have ever seen. And Tucker is trying to be better.”

The last was the most surprising to her. She had tried not to blame Tucker for his involvement in her transformation – or the presumably hundreds of others who had died in his care. After all, he’d been a captive, and he hadn’t had much of a choice. However, some resentment had remained, regardless of her best efforts. However, she had seen how hard Tucker had been trying to help Zeke, and that was enough to let her push past the worst of it. If she’d still been human, with all the emotions that came with it, she might not have been capable of such forgiveness, though, and in this instance, she was grateful for the emotional numbness that came with being a revenant.

“You people are so…different,” Carlos said, shaking his head. “And being that we live in a world where people have literal superpowers, that’s saying something. I know you all helped me, but…I don’t know. I just feel like…like I’m caught in a tide, you know? I don’t feel like I have any agency here at all. I’m just following along, caught in some inescapable gravitational pull.”

“You are,” Talia said.  “Assuming you are speaking metaphorically, that is.”

“What?” he asked.

“Tucker has a grenade that mimics gravity,” she explained. “If you were referring to that, then I would say that you are imagining –”

“It was a metaphor,” Carlos said.

“Then as I said, you are caught in Zeke’s wake,” she said. “He is one of the chosen. One of the gods picked him as a representative, and he responded by meeting every challenge set before him. His fate is stronger than ours.”

“I am chosen, too,” Carlos said. When Talia didn’t respond, he went on, “Malias. She called herself the goddess of shadows. It’s one of the reasons I chose the skills I did. You know…other than the obvious…”

“Obvious?”

“You know, shadows, wearing all black, being a vigilante? I thought it was cool,” he said. “I even did the whole min-max thing. You know, focusing on certain stats, creating synergy with my skills – that sort of thing. If this was a game, I’d definitely be winning. Except…then the big guy comes along, and even I can tell that his stats are all over the place. He’s only got two attack skills, one of which only recently started doing real damage. It’s like he was entirely focused on helping everyone but himself, which is insane to me. Except he doesn’t even need skills to be more effective than me.”

Carlos shook his head again, continuing, “I don’t know. I know I could probably do more damage than him, but…well, if I would’ve been alone, there’s no way I could have survived. And I know Malias wouldn’t have come after me, regardless of whether or not I’m one of her chosen. I’m not even sure she could have.”

Talia had no idea what to say. Clearly, Carlos was in a moment of crisis. Perhaps she should ask Abby to intervene. After all, the older woman had helped Talia to work through some of her issues.

With a sigh, Carlos asked, “Do you think they’d let me stick around?”

“Yes.”

“Just like that?” was his next question.

She said, “I would make them.”

He flashed a smile in her direction, and it was almost enough to make her heart start beating again. “Is that so? You like having me around?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And you think you could make them do what you want, huh?” the incredibly handsome young man asked, still smirking. Were his eyes literally twinkling? No. That was just her imagination, right? Or was it? Talia had no idea.

“I do.”

He let out a nervous, little chuckle before saying, “I’m not sure if that should make you the scariest one in the group.”

“I am,” she said. “I am a monster, after all.”

His expression went serious and he said, “Don’t ever say that about yourself. You’re not a monster. I’ve seen plenty of monsters, and you’re definitely not one of them.”

“If…if you say so,” she said.

After that, the conversation petered out, and the pair continued to follow Abby and Zeke through the desert. Eventually, night fell, and Zeke summoned the tower. Talia retreated to her quarters, trying to make sense of the emotions roiling beneath the placid surface of her mind. She made little headway, and before she knew it, a new day dawned; there was no sun, but rather, just a ubiquitous illumination – another curiosity of the demon realm.

One day led to another, and soon, the days turned into more than a week as they trekked through the black desert. As they made their way, they were attacked by progressively more powerful creatures. None could stand up to Zeke or Pudge, much less when they fought together, but still, the abominations attacked. Monsters that looked like misshapen cockroaches, giant worms with skin like a caterpillar and human hands where their legs should be, more devil rays, and even a flying monster that looked like an unholy blend of human, bat, and jellyfish attacked once. They all fell, and their route was unaffected.

Finally, after two-and-a-half weeks of hard travel, the group crested a particularly steep dune and saw an army spread out before them. There were thousands of the demons – not monsters, but the red-skinned, horned demons they’d fought in the caverns – in the horde, but luckily, they weren’t facing toward the party of adventurers. Instead, they were gathered outside of a city. The group stood atop the dune, studying the scene before them.

Constructed of condensed shadows that mimicked more solid materials, the city was nestled behind a huge wall. The buildings within were made from the same material, adopting a minimalist architectural style – as if they were created to be as durable, yet cheap, as possible. There were various buildings throughout the city put the lie to that trend, but Talia’s eyes were drawn to a sizable ziggurat near the city of the city. To her eyes, it shone with unholy light.

“It’s Jariq,” Tucker said.

“What?” Zeke asked, turning to the big alchemist who’d planted himself at Zeke’s right shoulder. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Tucker answered. “I spent three years in that city, so I’d recognize it anywhere. It’s different, though. The real Jariq is made of sandstone, but a lot of the buildings are painted. Some are solid colors, but others have murals on them. This…this feels like an echo.”

“Or a different version of the city,” Abby said.

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Carlos stated. “Jariq isn’t something that was here before people got here. Unlike Salvation or Beacon, it was created entirely by humans. Why would it be here, too?”

“I have no idea,” Zeke said. “But I think it might have something to do with that.”

He pointed to an area just behind the back lines of the demon horde, where they could just make out a curving, white line. Talia followed it with her eyes, and eventually, she realized what it was.

“A ritual circle,” she said.

Zeke nodded. “I can’t really make much out from here, but there are some dense runes under it,” he said. “Whoever’s responsible for it has been planning this for a long, long time. Years, at least. Maybe decades.”

“What do we do?” asked Abby, and predictably, everyone turned to Zeke.

“I…I don’t know,” he said. “Let’s retreat a couple of miles for now while we figure out our next move.”