Chapter 13: Chapter 13 - Vane/Gloria's

Randu ran ahead of Elia, leading her towards the location of the imp camp. He made his way to the top of a ridge and looked over the other side, before looking back to Elia and waving that it was clear. He watched her approach, floating for a few steps on her Wind feet, her short blonde hair whipping with each hop, before turning the power off for a while to let her mana top up.

He could see her concentrating on her steps, making sure the mana only flowed from whichever leg was touching the ground at any given time. As a result, she wasn't completely alert to her surroundings, relying on Randu for the heads-up if anything attacked. He shook his head – he was surprised Glory let her take this mission alone.

They approached the location of the hidden camp, and Randu got her attention and waved her back. He wanted to move ahead and confirm that it wasn’t much bigger than it had been hours before. The Speed runes on his legs lit up at the same time that a modified Light rune illuminated the back of his neck. Then he – and his runes – slowly faded out of sight.

Ooh, a Stealth-type Scout, Elia thought. Neat. That Light rune he used to go invisible was quite nice, but its limitation was that you couldn’t maintain that spell for very long. Elia already drained her core rather fast when she was using all her runes in a fight, or when sprinting around; invisibility on top of that might make her nonviable in a tense situation. Though having the option still appealed. Maybe if she ever got a handle on properly focusing her mana flow, she could take that rune.

Elia watched the traces of Randu running about: kicked up piles of woodland detritus that made a trail around the area, leaves shaking as he braced against trees, then a flurry of footsteps in a straight line towards her. Randu came out from his camouflage, his eyes frantic.

Elia tensed up. That can’t be a good sign.

Randu’s runes deactivated and he strode the rest of the way up to her.

“Gone!” he said, exasperated. “They were here not two hours ago, and now they’re totally gone!”

Elia raised an eyebrow. “Ok, that's weird. Usually even if they’re setting up a new camp, they leave a few imps behind.”

Randu lowered his voice, as though something hostile might be near. “I don’t like the feel of this. I think we ought to leave.

Elia's eyes locked onto his with determination. “No way. We should at least take a look around the area, see where it is they went. Can you track them?”

He shrugged. “Sure, I can. But I don’t like the idea of these things learning new tricks. Last time they did that a couple mercs and a Scout almost died.”

“How’s your mana, and potions?”

“Fine, I’ll be able to get away if I need to.”

Elia shrugged. “Well, me too. I have potions and I’ll let my mana start refilling just in case we find the things.” She shook her head and dug a toe into the dirt. “I don’t want to let this job go because it’s gotten a little weird. I should be able to take them as long as the numbers haven’t increased that much; and you said that kind of thing wasn't common for the imps here.”

Randu looked reluctant, but he nodded assent. He moved back to towards the abandoned camp and started scouring for the tiny tracks and refuse of their passing.

Elia followed behind him, feeling so slow now that she was walking normally to conserve mana. But the idea that they might round a corner and find a fight that she could throw herself into relaxed her frustration somewhat.

Randu guided her for another fifteen minutes before he moved back to where she followed him.

“You smell that?”

Elia sniffed the air. A campfire? With roasting meat on it as well. She nodded, and Randu started moving in a wide sweeping pattern ahead of Elia, trying to locate demons' position so he could determine if there was any chance of getting a drop on the enemies they hunted.

He brought them close to the source of the fire, into the range of raucous sounds, chittering and scampering. Voices filtered through the trees towards them, one voice deep and distinct, harsh but respectful; the other quiet and breathy, like a breeze shaped by a mouth of leaves.

Randu froze, invisible, by an elevated grove of trees he’d hidden behind.

Ahead of him, a group of fifteen imps encircled two taller figures. They marched around them, dancing and fighting each other, eating hunks of meat they tore from the roasting spit and arguing with each other in their scratchy yowls.

The tall demon was a lanky, infernal-skinned man. He had large eyes, and thick streaks of red ran across them and around his red irises. His ears, long and pointed, framed a bald head and a mouth of jagged predator teeth. He stood tall, regal in the face of the equally royal monster in front of him.

She was a tall, ancient woman. Her skin was tattered with age, though an intelligent green light lit her sunken eyes. She wore a draping robe of vines, and ivy climbed up her legs and arms. Randu paled – he knew what this thing was. A Forest Queen.

Elia waited, anxiously peering from behind her own trees, eyes curious. She craned her neck, trying to listen to the voices right out of her hearing range, but unwilling to get up and go closer. She hadn’t been too concerned when Randu had told her the imps were gone, but judging by the sounds coming from that camp, exactly the sort of reinforcement that Randu warned her about had taken place.

Keeping invisible, he listened in to whatever he could of the conversation.

The tall demon spoke in a low, crisp tone.

“…And like the imp today, we can bring you others in the future. Pieces of those like you, forest spirits and dead rulers of men, to reinforce yourself.”

The ancient woman answered. “What?” she tried to yell in her breathy voice. “Where from! This Mana!”

The demon replied in a calm tone. “These souls are scattered all around the plains south of here, outside the forest. But you won’t be able to take them without my help. Only the imps have the ability to channel dead souls. We will be raising more like you, but we can feed you those that will not make good allies.”

The Queen growled, angry. “Raise no others! Feed these to me! There can be only one ruler!”

“No.” The demon’s tone did not allow for contradiction. “We will bring some, but you are not enough for our needs. We will need more of you, and quickly. You will become mother to imps, and a ruler over demons. But you won’t be able to do it alone. You will need us, and you may come to need each other as well.”

“FILTH!” The Queen screamed. “They are ALL murderous filth!”

“Of course,” the demon said, sympathetic yet unyielding. “But your kingdom was no different. It also fell for a reason.” He took a step towards her, imposing. “You are also murderous filth. Aren’t you?” His voice cut her.

The Queen stared at the palms of her hands. They shook with a deep-seated rage, but her eyes were sad. She stared into her wasting hands, as though the bloody mass of death she'd caused were balled up in their fingers. She felt herself dropping; felt the tug on her neck; saw the swarm of eyes damning her as her feet swung.

“Yes,” she conceded. She looked up from her hands, and looked around the clearing, as though seeing the imps again for the first time, shoving and fighting each other for scraps of food when they had so much in excess still cooking on the spit.

“Mother,” she breathed. “Mother to imps. Mother to demons.” There was a hint of resigned disgust in her tone. But she looked up at the tall demon, and said: “Yes. We have deal.”

Randu saw so much hesitation in her face. Her agreement to his plan sounded like a last shovel of dirt over a buried dream.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see iow you as well.” He shook his head. “I was going to get ahold of you tomorrow, but I'll let you know now: We are going to be moving out there a lot earlier than we'd assumed we would be. The idea of the spectres being out there again is worrying, particularly right on the heels of our own war ending on the other side of the kingdom.”

“I expected that. I wanted to run a measure by you, before I take action tomorrow. I'm ranking-up every imp camp job to Rank 2. Sight unseen, I don't care if it's just one reported imp. I'll combine a few of the camps that are closer to each other into a single job, in order to keep the work-to-pay ratio up, but even if I can't, they have to be Rank 2.”

Durza nodded. “I suppose that's reasonable, considering the threat involved. I'll talk to the others here to make sure they don't throw an audit at you.”

Glory nodded to him. “Thank you.”

“So, what happened today?”

Glory poured out a glass of the wine that Elia hadn't finished. “I had a new Rank 1 girl come in the other day. Kept trying to get a...” She waved her hand, interrupting herself. “Anyway, doesn't matter. New girl. She took an imp camp job, solo; she had the runes and the equipment to suggest she could handle it. When they got there, they found the camp had moved, and when she and the Scout tracked it down, they found a clearing with fifteen or so imps, plus the spectre and what sounds like a forest queen. They were detected, and had to run. They caught and killed Randu, then made Elia run away. They told her about a 'pact' though Elia heard no specifics. And they again implied that we should send armies out to fight them.”

Durza lip curled as he mulled over the report, and Glory took a long sip of the wine. After a moment he spoke again. Make sure she keeps quiet about the spectre, Glory. The more ti-”

“No,” Glory cut in. “I'm sorry, but I've made up my mind on that already. I'm letting the mercs know. I'll tell Geon and Astria that they can talk about this again, and I plan to make an announcement tomorrow morning during the opening rush, and a few more throughout the day. When I tell them about the rank-up for the imp camp contracts, I'm telling them about the spectres.”

Durza's face grew stern as she spoke, though not angry. “That's not what we need right now, Glory, if people start hearing about demons making plans with monsters, we'll have panic. You're already going to have some smaller imp jobs that go undone because of the lower payout for such a small mission; that worry will spread to jobs for the non-infernal monsters if they know that some nebulous deal is being made with demons.”

“The only alternative is more dead mercenaries. I want these people going in with their eyes open.” Glory felt her face flushing, and she put the cup of wine down on the long table. “This is worse than Mom's stories about the spectres were. They rarely attacked directly in those old reports, just led a bunch of imps around, and in fewer numbers than we're seeing today. Now they're openly making deals and baiting us into attacking them? I don't like it. It's smacks of exactly the sort of thing she was worried about.” She glanced down. “I'm glad she got out of here before her nightmare came true.”

Durza just stood there and nodded. “I suppose I understand. The rest of the Office won't like it, is all I'm saying.”

They stood a moment, Glory taking a second to cool off. She downed the last sip of wine then filled the cup with water, sipping that, too. Durza just watched patiently, knowing she wasn't quite done.

“Want to clue me in on what happened with the other guilds?” Glory asked.

Durza seemed to debate internally before he sighed and went into it.

“The attack yesterday happened around the Vitria guild, way north of you. Some tall demon brought a large number of imps into a camp, totaled around twenty. With them was a large bestial demon, not one of the known growth patterns for imps. Something new. It killed off half of a team of Rank 1s before they were able to escape. Two dead.

“The other one, earlier today, was farther inland. A tall demon matching the spectre description had three weaker stone and water princes. They killed off the Scout that was following them, then ambushed the Rank 1s on the mission while they were looking for the Scout. Another Scout passed by after the assigned Scout missed their check-in, found the bodies of all three.”

Glory pushed down the small piece of stupid pride that was gloating at losing less people; she hadn't actually done a thing to make that possible. Hadn't even vetted the kid before she ran into that problem. Also, it was probably crass to compare death counts like that, but it was a vice Glory kept well to herself. Keeping her people safe was a priority for her, and she liked hearing about when she was more successful at it than other guilds. This job that Elia just stumbled back from wasn't the result of that ethos, though.

“So, when do you think you'll have someone out here to talk about preparations?” she asked Durza.

“Another couple of days. We just put him on the first leg out there. He'll be there in time to meet your inspector before he's due to leave.”

Glory huffed. She'd forgotten he was still in town.

“Did you get his report in yet?” Glory asked, brow raised in a half-teasing question.

Durza smirked at her. “Sorry, Glory. You aren't getting an early review this year, there's too much going on for us to break protocol.”

Glory shrugged. It was worth a shot.

Durza waved at her. “I'll let the Office know to expect your changes to job structure tomorrow. They'll adjust the pay for you.”

“Thank you, Durza. I appreciate it.”

They each ended the call, and Glory sat down in her sofa chair for a moment to think.

Outside her back room door, the lights in the lobby dimmed as Villara closed it for the evening. Glory took another few sips of the glass of wine, and thought over some of the expected changes.

Potion supplier was due in tomorrow; she'd have to speak to them about tripling the next couple of orders, just to have a buffer against the influx of people. She would probably want to personally check out the blacksmith and the alchemist in town, just to see if they had any specialty weapons or potions that she wanted to keep on the shelf. And she'd have to check with Larami about the status of the town as a whole; she knew he could handle all the day to day stuff, but she wanted to get an idea of how well-equipped Vane Gloria was to take in the expected soldiers, many of whom would move here permanently.

With a yawn, she shunted all of that planning off for tomorrow, and got up to clean up her booth, and she stopped by the job boards, pulling off every Rank 1 quest for an imp camp. They were so routine there was a small pile of smaller imp jobs laying on the counter in front of the Rank 1 job board, simply because they're common enough that they can't all fit onto the board at once without making it unreadable. Then she placed them in a file in her desk for her to work on tomorrow. Her whole next day would likely be spent on job routing and sparring with cantankerous rookies.

Yay. and she had to dash around it, as the branches on the remaining half rained down upon her with a flurry of exploding wood.

She heard more trees cracking around, as the Forest Queen realized that they were leaving the range where her powers could harm them. Tree after tree split, throwing splintered fragments of branches and needle-like twigs at both of them. Cuts appeared on Elia’s arms as she made it through the pieces of another collapsing tree. She looked out for Randu as she ran. He was running underneath a tree as it split apart, jagged boughs flying towards him.

The Queen hit him.

Elia’s eyes widened as she careened around towards his collapsing form. The imps were right behind him. She hadn’t even realized that they weren’t following her anymore. She got close enough to see him – and the rough stake that pierced his shoulder, into the dirt.

“No!” she screamed, panicking, and her sword flashed out, a streak of wind flying right at the group of imps, drawing more power from her core than the other shots. The white line of slashing force tore through the imps, cutting into flesh, spraying blood, and scattering infernal bodies.

It also sliced into Randu’s leg.

A spurt of red blood burst from the leg, and Elia winced as he screamed. He kicked himself back with his good leg, trying to get clear of the imps that were already turning to pile on top of him again, fangs bared. Teeth flashing.

Elia drew her right hand sword out of the sheath, forcing mana into it as she pointed at Randu’s struggling form and lunged. The sword pulled her through the air at the imps, and she lashed out with a wind slash from the other. The slash kept the imps back for a moment, but there were still eight of them left standing. Too many.

Randu, to his credit, had seen Elia streaking towards him, and pulled a health potion out of his belt, popping the cork and spilling it over the open leg wound. He seethed as the potion went to work, reknitting the cut veins and arteries, pushing out the dirt from the cut, and sealing the flesh.

Elia tried to keep the imps back, whipping slash after slash into the imps as she reached down for another mana potion, her core nearly dry again since the last time she’d used one.

As she pulled the cork out with her teeth, a shadow flicked from out of the trees. Startled, she dashed backwards away from it, spilling the potion all over the ground, but narrowly dodging a flaming strike that singed her nose.

Wild eyed, she tried to take in the sight of this demon. She hadn’t been with Randu as he’d looked over the camp, and this demon hadn’t shown itself on the chase until this moment.

It snarled in her face, disgust clear in its eyes. Another flame appeared in its hand, and Elia flinched back as another flame struck out. With a shock, she remembered the imps, and took a couple quick steps back to peer around the new demon.

The imps were circling behind their tall protector, eyeing Randu on the ground, slowly making their way around their master, and around Elia, to attack him. Elia gripped the sword in her left hand.

Did she even have enough mana left?

No.

A pit opened up in her gut. The tall demon struck out at her, and Elia raised her blade to block the strike, but he simply knocked her arm away instead, and followed up with a solid punch to the face. Elia was knocked back and blood sprayed her lip. She recovered, reset, tried to strike out. He dodged, leaning to the side, and Elia slashed with her other sword. He demon leaned back and she missed again, though he had to settle his stance after unbalancing himself to dodge.

Come on, she thought, reaching down for another mana potion. The demon struck out at that arm. He knew exactly what she was trying to do. With every step he forced her to retreat, she left an opening for the imps outside the reach of Elia’s sword. She could see the bloodlust in the quivering mouths of the imps.

Randu looked up at Elia. His eyes wide. Terrified. Furious.

Randu wanted to lay responsibility for this situation at her feet; for talking him into pursuing the imps, for cutting him when she tried to save him. But he should have been more careful. He should have insisted on retreating sooner, he just hadn't expected all this. It wasn’t her fault, the cut on his leg be damned. The frustration persisted, but he pushed through it for one last act.

“Go!” Randu seethed.

As soon as he spoke, the imps collapsed on him.

Elia’s eyes shook in horror as the imps tore into Randu, ripping bloody chunks out of his leg as he screamed, thrashing wildly as he tried to take any of them with him. Blood pooled out from him, tendons and veins were pulled taught and sprayed blood as they snapped, new bite wounds appearing as the horde crawled up his body.

The tall demon reached up and grabbed Elia’s vest, shaking her as she tried to stumble back in response. She hadn’t been paying attention, she was watching Randu get…get…

“Now you know!” The demon howled in her face. “Now you know what we are!” The demon threw her back, sending her sprawling onto the ground. “Maybe this time your leaders will listen, when you tell them of our pact. Maybe then you will bring armies.”

The Forest Queen caught up to them, raised her hand as though to strike at Elia – but the tall demon grabbed her hand, pulled her back behind him.

Elia grasped at a vial from her belt, popping the cork and gulping the blue liquid down as she scrambled back, clambering up to her feet. The demon stood back. Watching her.

Randu’s screaming became a liquid rasp, voice rattling as he was torn to shreds.

Elia turned and ran. Heart thumping. Teeth grit. Tears streaming.