Chapter 640: The Night Plane
A now shapeshifted Mason climbed up the wall of the giant troll’s lair and looked down to see his enemy. The cave was at least half filled with water now, the beast below him swimming around chasing Streak and the twelve foot piranhas.
“How do I get myself into these things.”
In the final analysis, the water didn’t really change his plan. Unless there was something useful beyond the broken wall, his best bet still seemed to be: dig into the troll’s neck, and do everything to sever its spine. But the water sure made that plan shittier.
“Yes I know I came in on purpose,” he said as the wolf kicked a lazy circle around the walls, ‘communicating’ through their bond. “Since when do you even know what ‘optional’ means?”
Fucking mutant wolf. What did he know.
Mason could adapt to the water. Probably. His ever-improving Transformation could likely give him gills, and his immortality had already shown him he could hold his breath for…well, maybe forever, actually. But he had a feeling it made him weaker if he did it too long, like he might eventually go into some kind of stasis.
With a final sigh, and knowing Streak would get caught sooner or later, he jumped back into the water and swam for his target.
He couldn’t even catch the fucking thing. The water wasn’t just dark, it was full of crap—floating debris, giant fish. His Mark kept the troll glowing though and he pumped his limbs and tried to cut it off.
He considered asking the fish to give him a ride, but they seemed to have reached the limits of their brain power. They also didn’t seem interested in getting anywhere near the thing. He switched to Streak instead,
Stay near the wall. Circle back to me.
He did when he could, narrowly avoiding another swipe of the troll’s giant claw. He was faster in a straight swim and hauled ass towards Mason. There’d only be once chance at surprise. Mason went still, trying to relax, waiting. The troll came chasing like a fucking whale, throwing waves everywhere. Mason waited, and waited.
It came close. Was it close enough? He decided and reached, latching onto its shoulder with an extended Claw, instantly yanked through the water. He used his boots to reduce the drag, pulling himself tight against the creatures body. It took it a minute to realize he’d struck.
It started to turn and slash at him, but he crawled until he found an awkward angle on its back. The whole rear of the thing was basically solid rock, but not the side. He found the weakest spot with his Mark, and started digging.
The troll raged and spun. Streak felt the moment and came zipping back to bite and rake the troll’s face. The cunning troll was waiting, though, and reached up to grab the wolf and bite it back. Mason felt the pain, but had to ignore it. He activated Shared Pain and they suffered together, Streak ticking with his Duality, his regeneration, snarling and battling the giant like the warrior he was.
Mason only needed a little time. He dug through rocky carapace and hide as thick as a man’s chest, getting closer to tissue and bone. He yanked out great clumps of flesh, his ridiculous claws slicing sharper than any steel.
He felt the moment the troll began to fear. It spun and thrashed, swimming down and trying to slam him into the ground. The force hit his back and flexed his bone. But the troll wasn’t the only one made of stern stuff.
It reached him with a claw and raked him open. But he ignored that, too. He just dug down and smashed at the things that mattered. A building’s foundations. A body’s vitals. It was how a little thing like man defeated mountains, and maybe gods. You found where it was weak, and you hammered until it broke.
The giant spasmed and twitched as he reached its nervous system. The spine cracked, then snapped with a final Exploiting Strike. He took no chances and ripped away the connecting tissue, slashing and roaring with triumph at the primal contest until the troll stopped, and the head came off.
The fish came racing for their prize, and the hag shrieked in horror.
[Giant Hag Troll killed. Experience awarded. Optional reward deferred to dungeon completion.]
“My son! You killed my beautiful boy!”
The creature’s breath came in ragged pants, grief and fury intertwined.
A pulse of familiar magic thrummed through the water. Mind magic. Mason’s titles flared but didn’t stop it until Apex Predator clamped down and sealed his mind like a fortress. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t work either.
“Murderer! Demon of the prime! How did you…how is this possible…I…I cannot stop you. I see that now. Come and take your flower, monster, if you’re so driven by greed for its beauty.”
A tunnel opened in the wall, water swirling as it was sucked inside into a void. Mason knew it was another trap, but he also didn’t see much of a choice.
He quickly searched the body of the dead troll, finding nothing obvious to take except his grisly souvenir. Then he and Streak dragged the very large head, kicking their way through the water like aquatic ants carrying three times their body weight.
Darkness grew around them as they swam, every speck of light vanishing until even Mason’s eyes failed to pierce it. With a swell of pressure he was sucked forward, vomited out into open air as the water disappeared.
He dropped his weight, knowing between the reduced damage from a landing and his superhuman toughness he could literally fall forever and survive. Except the damn troll head plunged him down, and he didn’t want to let it go.
The darkness convalesced into a kind of…physical disc, a visible platform floating in even darker black nothingness. He fell towards it at full speed, fully prepared to hit and survive before the disc spun, moving under his feet until he was standing, as if he’d never fallen at all. He pushed the head back behind him with a disgusting squish.
A beautiful woman in a flowing red dress walked from across the platform. She had thick curves and flawless skin, the face of an elven princess. She carried a long stemmed rose.
“This is what you want?” she purred. “All this trouble for such a simple thing?”
“You’re the one who took it. You shouldn’t pick fights with gods unless you finish them.”
He glanced around and realized Streak wasn’t with him. The wolf’s mind was somehow blocked, or frozen, like time didn’t work properly here.
The woman’s thick lips curled down, eyes locked on his.
“Is that what she told you? That frozen whore. She’s always lusted for my things. Nothing grows in the endless winter! She thinks the life I made will somehow…”
“Let me stop you there.” Mason wiped a bloody, clawed hand on his armor. “I don’t care. She wants the rose, and she wants you alive. You don’t seem like some poor, innocent creature. So let’s go to the part where you try to kill me.”
“We both know I can’t,” said the woman, almost pouting. “But we can make our own bargain. What is it you desire? Beauty? I saw bits of your mind before you pushed me away.”
She smiled and stepped towards him, one bare foot in front of the other.
“Wouldn’t it be nicer to be friends? I can be anything you wish.”
She shrunk and became younger. Too young. A short-haired brunette girl, giggling as she covered her mouth as if shy. When he stared in disgust she grew again, splitting into a pair of half-naked blonde twins in bikinis.
“Or is it power you seek?” The girls spoke in unison, then held out their hands and formed two different potions. “I can improve your strength and speed. Your powers. In this place, I am gifted in many ways beyond brute force. We need only make a bargain.”
Mason turned on his Ranger’s Mark and focused on Apex Predator, trying to banish the illusion magic screwing with his eyes or brain. The blonde twins stepped back, twitching and shaking, crying out as their voices lowered in pitch and turned into the hag’s ugly shriek.
“Simple fool! You are a slave to that frozen witch!”
She turned and ran. Mason crossed the gap between them at full speed. He dove at her, but again she burst into that green mist and he fell to the platform with a clatter of claws.
He started charging another lightning bolt, watching as glowing circles that looked like portals opened all around the platform. The mist wasn’t escaping this time, instead just dispersing across the darkness. He released a blast, and could tell it did something. But he got the feeling he’d need about ten times the mana he had to actually destroy that mist.
Collared creatures started coming through the portals. Humanoids ranging from orcs to elves, and more strange beasts like the tentacle-tailed cat.
“This is pointless,” he said, watching them close. “You think slaves can stop me? They’ll all die for no reason. Your only chance is to bargain. Maybe I can convince the princess the rose and your dead son are enough. I might agree to try, if you stop now, and free these creatures.”
“Kill him!” The hag shrieked. “Push him into the endless night, my lovelies!”
Mason shook his head. He was already obscenely strong and heavy. But as he dropped his weight with his boots his legs felt like part of the platform.
“That’s the last mistake you’ll ever make,” he said, anger rising now at the thought of killing a bunch of slaves. In beast form, it didn’t take much to set him off.
Two collared gnoll champions like the ones he’d seen in the tutorial charged first. Back then, it had taken him several minutes of running around picking them off with arrows, afraid if they even touched him he’d die. Now he just waited.
He tore his divine-artifact infused hand through the first creature’s chest and shredded its heart like it had no bones. The other he just grabbed and tossed off the platform with a twisting throw.
More magic assaulted him. Mana gathered from the dark and the mist like a storm, spinning across with no obvious escape. He stood and watched. Every resistance worked together, but even so he felt the power prickling his skin and sloshing against the locked doors of his mind.
A vision of Demi swirled in the dark, laughing and running across open ground holding a child’s hand. She transformed into Haley. Into Naya. To Becky and Rosa and Lexi until the image shredded and Mason shook his head.
“That won’t work either,” he growled. “But you’re really pissing me off.”
The other creatures charged. They did their best. He crushed orc skulls and ripped apart alien beasts, making a bloody, viscera covered mess of the dark platform. Then the hag opened some kind of pools of darkness, and he felt the magic trying to drain him unless he moved. He didn’t.
Instead he activated Inner fire again. Blessing of Gaia kicked in with all the other titles and powers, the mana flickering against his skin, sparking like electricity as it tried and failed to drain him fast enough to matter. He stood there and stared.
“This is impossible!” shrieked the Hag. “Nothing can resist the power of the night plane!”
He decided to try his bow again, thinking maybe here in the inner sanctum his planar arrows might work better. He loosed a Crippling Strike, the shotgun-like blast of shrapnel hitting the green mist with a series of explosions.
He smiled as the creature screamed. Arrows didn’t take much mana. He could do that a lot more times.
The mist re-formed, the disgusting hag revealed in its true form, skin riddled with small wounds. She held up a long, jagged knife, eyes wild as she staggered across the platform.
“You’ll never take me alive! I’ll kill you, and your frozen master! My blade will feed on your wretched, mortal…”
Mason lowered his gravity, crossed the platform in a burst of speed, and slammed an elbow into the hag’s face hard enough to knock out a rhino. He caught the knife out of the air as she dropped, her face left a bloody ruin.
[Item obtained: Shard of Night. Identification required.]
A new item was a pleasant surprise. He imagined one of the legions of civilians in the east could figure out its properties. The thing felt wrong in his hand, like the affinity clashed with his. Apex Predator could probably solve the problem but he wasn’t enthusiastic about it. Maybe Carl would like a second knife.
The hag started snoring like someone with a brain injury. He imagined she regenerated, but for her sake maybe it was better if she didn’t. God only knew what the ice princess was going to do to her. He debated finishing the job and pretending he had no choice
But for the moment he just stood there looking out at the endless darkness, holding back a sigh.
“How the hell do I get out of here.”