Chapter 695: Alert
“Light!” Mason shouted, cutting off one of the champion clones from slashing Garet in the face. “Someone make some damn…”
A dozen powers flared simultaneously in the dark bubble of Becky’s wall power. Garet’s weapons. Becky’s shield. Adela’s chakrams. Chinua’s…everything. Mason squinted against the flash, but still slammed a little Ravasai clone across the twenty feet or so of space.
The veteran players all came together, ducking behind Becky and Chinua as defensive powers sprung up and wrapped around them all. Only Mason stood outside, moving to the center of the space, the demons all spread on the opposite side.
“I wasn’t sure if I should…I mean they were all stuck together, and I just had a second and I figured…”
“You did amazing, Becky.” Mason stared into one pair of the demon’s dark eyes. “Our friend doesn’t want to be here. Now protect yourselves while I kill it. Don’t be heroes.”
“Nothing heroic intended, Patron, no problem,” Tommaso said from the back. Mason grinned. He could hear Stag ramming into the wall from the other side and sent an annoyed command to stop through their bond.
You could still join us, whispered the demon with six voices. Even now at the end of the world. My masters would welcome a champion like you with open arms. You and your family.
Mason was ready with something appropriately contemptuous. But the paranoid little corner of his brain was screaming. This thing didn’t know fear, it didn’t just stop without a reason. It could have killed faster before but it didn’t.
Why? Why, Mason you stupid no good son of a, fucking idiot, would you just think faster already and what would a world-ending awful god-like being do if….
He tried to check his profile, his messages, and send something to Carl. Just like with those annoying little abyssal warpers, the message was scrambled. He couldn’t seem to ‘type’ the words before they jumbled and fell apart. Communications shut down. His teleportation shut down.
“It’s delaying us,” he muttered, heart moving faster. “They must be attacking the Nexus directly, infiltrating the city, I don’t know. Something. Forget what I said about defence, we have to kill it quickly.”
The demon snarled. Its smooth scales rose up like a porcupine’s quills. All six burst, little black spikes blasting around the confined space of Becky’s wall.
Mason launched through it, ignoring the many hits. The demons scattered and warped but there was too little space and Mason was too fast. He caught one of their arms and ripped it off but kept right on target. His Honor Blades rammed into his prey like pistons as he tore it apart.
The other clones started warping, still spraying scales, launching themselves at the others, a flying circus of black claws.
Becky was shouting words that echoed unintelligibly in the small space. Chinua roared and ran right through, spear flashing with power as lightning arced through at least three clones.
Players were groaning in pain and flashing with powers in what became an absolute maelstrom. Mason couldn’t stop it, couldn’t defend them. It had always been a weakness that meant he was stronger alone, or with people who could survive on their own.
He had to trust them. He hunted down Ravasai’s clones like the reptilian pests they were, pouncing after them with deadly claws and shredding them apart in seconds.
Two down. Three.
Another clone leapt on Adela, but blasted off from some kind of Shield power as Becky swiped and closed the gap.
Another warped and raked Garet. The Tactician fell back and formed his own physical shield, collapsing against the wall like a turtle under a shell. Mason caught it from behind, ripping off its head before jumping after another.
He watched Chinua explode something, then turned for Tommaso almost on instinct. He caught the last as it tried to warp at the thrower. It tried and failed to warp away, blurring in his grip, giving one last hissing snarl before he split it in half.
Abyssal magic vanished with a burst of smoke and stench. All the creatures little thorns started rosomg into the air like steam as the players stood there panting.
They bounced around trying to escape, but there was nowhere to run. He caught them and shredded them, ignoring the claws, the thorns, the beams of abyssal smoke-shot that followed. One by one he brought them down like a wolf in a lizard coop, stopping as he watched the last one collapse with Chinua’s spear through its chest.
[Event ended. Revenge of the Abyss. Ravasai, Champion of the Night Lord, defeated. Casualties: minor. Personal contribution: major. Points will be added to your personal doom score at the end of the game. Good work!]
“Minor casualties. Go fuck yourself,” muttered Chinua bitterly.
Tommaso and Garet looked like pin cushions. Half their bodies were covered in those now steaming spikes. Adela must have had Becky’s aegis because she looked fine. Becky and Chinua were, well, tanks being tanks. Tommaso groaned and dropped to a knee.
“Why shield the woman, ah? She’s grumpy. I love life much more than her.”
Garet looked at himself and his friend and groaned.
“We’ll live. But we need healers. Faster would be better.”
Becky looked the men over, too, and gave Mason a worried expression. She was getting so used to injuries she was basically a combat medic at this point.
“They’ll bleed out quick. I can’t put the damn wall down. Can you, I dunno, lift it or somethin’? I mean I know that’s fuckin’ ridiculous, but you’re…you. Or can ya cut through it? Tommy, quit whinin’, we’ll get you a healer. Turnaquette? What? Over yer whole fuckin’ body?”
Mason channeled a Nature’s Embrace—a kind of innate heal, and another gift from his time with Eve. The magic washed over both injured men, sending their bodies into a magically enhanced overdrive. They shivered and groaned as the few non-vanished spikes popped out, their wounds closing and even forming scabs with a hot, boiling wave of nature magic. They took turns crying out in pain. But they’d live.
Mason had mentally moved on before the spell was over. He wasn’t worried about them. As the spell took hold, he opened his profile with a mental cringe. Without the slightest bit of surprise, he watched the messages now pour in.
[Scout alert. Yellow. Possible primal lord detected. East side.]
[Scout alert. Yellow. Possible primal lord detected. West side.]
[Scout alert. Yellow. Possible primal lord detected. North side.]
[Scout alert. Yellow. Possible primal lord detected. South side.]
There were half a dozen more about renewed attacks. Clusters of more powerful enemies pushing with flares of energy. Finally a message from Haley, transmitting for Carl.
Mason they’re coming. They’re sending it all. Everything. All the rest of the primal lords, I think. They’re all attacking now. Hurry up and get back here. We need…maybe everyone. Should we abandon the city? I don’t know if we can fit everyone in the trees.
[Scout alert. Orange. Uncertain. Huge energy sig. Possible primal champion energy detected. Repeat. Possible primal champion detected. South side.]
Mason’s jaw clenched. They were sending everything? Now? There was still ten hours left in the day. He’d expected the ‘finale’ to be near the end in true roboGod dramatic style.
But he realized he was an idiot. The vision. The visions he’d seen of the final attack. They were in the day, not in the dark. So this was it. They were coming. Nassau was always the target. The city was only a distraction. He hoped he’d stopped it fast enough.
“Christ Jesus.” Becky was inspecting the men and shaking her head. “Look at that. Ain’t there anything you can’t do, Mason?”
Save the world, maybe, he thought but didn’t say. She was smiling and looking pleased. The were all staring again but he didn’t have time for this. For anything.
He turned and slashed at Becky’s wall but knew it would take him too long. He looked at the rocky ground at his feet and winced, popping open his profile again. He had his one-use teleporter beacon, but the others would be trapped. He’d need them, all of them. And Violet had given him new Wild Shape options he hadn’t used.
“Get back,” he ordered, mentally preparing.
Turning into a worm was a hell of a lot different than turning into another mammal. And he didn’t want to go too far or he might forget human problems and tunnel off looking for…whatever giant worms looked for, losing himself in the magic.
The others instantly sprung away, probably expecting some kind of blast into the wall. He took one last deep breath and clicked the form.
His body folded in on itself. He did everything he could to will his shape into something less alien—to keep his arms and legs and maybe some version of his…nope.
He felt his head pull back and split. The watching players were covering their mouths and making horrified sounds as his body warped and grew into a good ten foot version of a half-man, half-purple worm.
He tried to say something like ‘shut up, and follow me’. It came out more like ’shurgurglefm’. He gave up and slammed his head/maw into the ground, and dug down under the wall.
It was the strangest experience of his life. And that was really saying something. It was like chewing dirt while wiggling yourself like a snake, which somehow was more fun and less insanely unpleasant than it sounded. Mason hated being in the ground. He didn’t like feeling trapped ever, but ever since the Devourer’s lair and nearly being buried alive, he’d disliked it a lot more.
But he chewed himself a tunnel. He ripped out of the ground several feet from Becky’s wall-trap, flopping onto the battlefield next to a lot of confused players and demons. He was very thankful for the power, but he instantly re-shaped himself back to a man (rather than a wolf-bear man, which was a lot harder and he needed a baseline form to figure it out).
He heard the others crawling up behind him, and decided that was good enough. The ground was hard and would hold. They could get back to the wall themselves, and he could send orders from anywhere. Unless they could somehow block his God damn messages again.
“Champion’s dead. But get to the wall,” he said to the nearby staring players.
Then he dropped his weight and jumped a hundred feet in the air, forming wings as he rose, flying at top speed towards the teleporter beacon.