Chapter 702: What took you so long

Mason and Stag were nearly at the edge of the mist. The animal weaved through some kind of rippling explosions and screaming faces, just like it was dodging trees in the fey. It raced them towards the light. Mason held on and watched the demon chase them like the fucking terminator.

“Faster! Faster is better!”

Stag grunted, and ran like the wind. Mason…well, dragged. His body felt like deadweight. Now that he had a second, he was pretty sure his upper arms were broken. Not to mention a shoulder, a leg, and some ribs. But he at least remembered to drop his weight down to nothing so Stag wasn’t trying to win a race carrying an anvil.

It wasn’t enough.

At the edge of the mist, that awful tail lanced into the fey-beast’s back with an audible snap. Stag’s back legs collapsed, and they both went sliding and tumbling into the light.

Mason’s profile went crazy out of the mist. Messages he didn’t have time to read poured in. His powers lit green. His divine title kicked up.

[Poison detected x5. Seed of Destruction. Divine poison from the body of Yalor. A single drop can ruin a lake for a year. You are smaller than a lake.]

He groaned and tried to jump, to fly, but his legs and wings weren’t working. He couldn’t even budge them. So he gripped the ground with his Claws, and crawled with broken arms.

Players and demons were fighting everywhere. But where Mason had come out, there was at least a little open patch with Becky and a few others fighting on the other side. He was about to call out when something grabbed his leg. He looked back and saw…tentacles. A growing cluster of purplish, smoky tentacles, grabbing for him and Stag.

The players noticed it and stared. The demons noticed it and stared. Mason dug his hands into the rock and spit blood.

“A little help.”

“Get to Mason! Go! Goddamn now!”

Becky screamed and formed her mace, rushing straight in his direction with a few others. The nearby demons did their own version of a rallying cry. Pretty soon everyone was back to fighting in a giant cluster fuck, and Mason had no idea what was happening.

He was also poisoned to shit. He could feel it burning through him, warring with his resistances and titles. He rammed Share Pain and tried to think through it. To hold on a little longer while those tentacles tried to drag him back to the growling god.

Could Rosa save him like last time? He’d have laughed if he had the strength. She wouldn’t have anything to deal with divine poison. He noticed the tentacles were trying to drag Stag, too, so he hooked an arm through the creature’s antlers as he held on.

It was immortal and wouldn’t truly ‘die’. But Yalor had already bragged about taking Annie. Maybe it could dump Stag in the abyss for a few hundred years.

Some kind of heal washed over him. And did a big load of nothing. The tougher the target, the harder to heal, and not even Alex could do much with him on a good day. This wasn’t one of those.

He activated Inner Fire and tried to burn the poison away. He focused on his Gaia’s Blessing to cleanse it like he did corrupted pools. It was working, but it was like cleaning a sewer with a toothbrush.

More tentacles were grabbing at his legs. The rocky ground he was holding was cracking and breaking apart in his hands. He tried to dig in deeper.

Streak smashed into the ground beside him with a snarl. And also wings, apparently.

“What the hell took you so long.”

The giant wolf ripped into the tentacles, snapping them apart with bites and claws. But they kept coming and tried to grab him, too. The wolf got busy fast, but he was glowing with passives, and was ridiculously strong without them. He took a good portion of the effect. But more and more tentacles were reaching out from the mist.

Demons and players were fighting their war all around him. Powers and spells flashed back and forth, all of them trying to hurt or protect Mason when not hurting or protecting each other. He’d become the center of some insane game of king of the hill.

He reached, and he crawled, calling everything to him. The beasts. The trees. Anything that could pull him forward, or tip the scale. And he really hoped that giant undead monstrosity wasn’t going to turn and start coming closer.

Roots ripped out of the ground and wrapped around him. Something huge smashed a few feet from his head. Something else bounced a mace off his Aegis-guarded face before a player charged into it. The sky started raining fire.

He felt Shawk and Breaker tangling with their own enemies, trapped behind the army, frantic and frustrated as they tried to get to him.

Mason reached a hand forward, and crawled. He had no idea if he was making progress. Between the tentacles and the roots he felt like the middle of one of those Chinese finger traps. Except full of poison.

Blake landed right in the middle of everything. He dropped out of the air without his disc, hands held out in one of his dramatic nonsense poses, glowing with so much arcane power Mason just about gagged.

Was that…music? Was he playing God damn theme music?

Magic and flying buzz-saw constructs slammed into everything. Mason repositioned Stag’s antlers, feeling at least a few less things trying to drag him to his death for a second.

Violet ripped out of the earth, slicing through tentacles with professional enthusiasm. And between the new additions and all the players, they were winning. Foot by foot, Mason was putting distance between himself and the mist. The giant had stopped moving, but it couldn’t seem to change direction. He was getting free.

Blake knelt down in front of him with a grin, like he wasn’t standing in the middle of a damn battlefield, and Mason wasn’t half dead. He shook his head at the still grabbing tentacles, waving a hand at them now and then as he looked into the mist with glazed eyes.

“Can’t see a thing. What the hell’s in there? I mean obviously it’s bad. Is Annie alright? Whatever chases you out is pretty clearly a horrible, nightmarish…what is that?”

Mason moved through nothing but intuition. He reached out an arm to shield his brother. The scorpion-like tail slammed into the back of his non-broken shoulder. It ripped through Becky’s aegis in a single blow.

[Poison detected. Seed of Destruction. Divine poison from the body of Yalor. A single drop can ruin a lake for a year. You are smaller than a lake.]

Transformation and Blessing of Gaia face palmed. Mason’s body shuddered with the force, then a wave of abyssal magic followed and knocked Blake (and most everything else nearby) flying.

Mason groaned and turned, knowing that tail wasn’t done. It was still extended, stretched back all the way from the mist, rising up like a huge snake. It slammed into the soil twice, three times, as Mason rolled, and then deflected. He blinked and did everything he could to focus, to react with the insane speed required to avoid the strikes, and not to get pulled by the tentacles still gripping at his legs.

Beside him, he felt natural magic glowing with warmth. He was really hoping Demi had arrived and was doing something useful. He couldn’t hear much of anything and was afraid the demon or god had somehow knocked the hell out of the other players.

He couldn’t think. The poison was like fire in his veins. His legs weren’t working right. All he could seem to do was roll side to side, to get up a Sleeved arm and keep that awful dagger-like point from driving into his face.

The tail went low and hit his thigh, poison flashing yet again. He grit his teeth as he felt his leg snap. But the joke was on Yalor, he couldn’t feel it anyway. He felt the exasperated pulse from his regeneration. He felt the helpless desire to help from Streak and the others, and again hammered the Shared pain, somehow stomping down the runes for an Inner Fire to help cleanse.

Another swipe. Another deflection. Every moment he didn’t die another victory. Maybe it was hiding in the mist because it was afraid of the sun. Maybe if he could hit it with a Solar Wrath it would…

Stag stood up beside him. And started…pulling apart. Mason tried not to look or break his attention from not getting murdered, but in a few seconds his fey-beast went from half-dead to…shifting?

Yalor’s tail paused. Just a moment. Then struck again. Mason was ready-ish and held up his arms, prepared to slap the thing away.

Stag caught it in the air. With a hand.

The sound of the battle seemed…dull. For a moment Mason wondered if he’d been knocked senseless again, but he turned just enough to see Stag’s antlers. The animal had…shifted, growing taller until its body contorted roughly into the shape of a very tall, very green, fur-covered man. Who wasn’t Stag at all, but wearing the creature’s head like a crown.

Cerebus stood plain in the prime. He had snatched the scorpion tail out of the air, and was holding it firm. He angled his neck and cracked his joints as the transformation finished, then looked down at Mason with a toothy smile.

“You look pale, little wolf. Relax. Have a drink.”