Demonic Magician

Judgement was a double-edged sword. Although the System had a dim view of Player on Player murder, it didn’t really do much to prevent it. That a gang of those with bad intentions could hold part of the world almost at ransom with no recourse for punishment showed a serious flaw in the grand design. Perhaps I could let my ego have this one, think of myself as the solution brought into the world to carve such tumors from those more law abiding. Although, that didn’t allow me to feel any better for what I had become.

With our potential enemies holding down their fort, we elected to be more overt in our creature comforts for the evening ahead. One campfire, two tents. An uncontested night’s rest. A multitude of boxes to sift through and equip whatever gear gave me an Int or Dex bonus. The bigger question of what to use my Power Token on.

I was a man of simple flare. When you started from the beginning, you worked on the basics.

[Use Token on ?]

While I had started growing quite the crop of interesting skills and abilities, it seemed pertinent to start with my bread and butter. Without a second way of dealing damage aside from my summons, it seemed as though the card throwing might be my long term solution. A basic attack, if I allowed myself to make it sound so plain. An upgrade would remain effective no matter what.

Despite her inquisitive glares, I didn’t allow Ren to be part of the selection process. It had to rest solely on my shoulders, and now I knew in part the reason she had given the Token back. Not just that I had found it and should allow myself the share of my own spoils, but because a Unique Class had more potential. I assumed, anyway. A bit of late night melodrama had put the sparkle in my eyes.

[ is now Advanced: Two cards may be summoned at once.]

I sat outside my tent and grinned, earning her ire as I felt content with my choice. Not wanting to encourage her to move over and throttle the information out of me, I drew a purple card into the air, and then slid it to the side to reveal a second.

“More card tricks.” A statement delivered impassively.

It was much harder to move them separately than together as a double card. I focused on trying to juggle them like a cartwheel. Possible, but without the finesse I was used to. More things to play with and learn.

“You’re impossible. I’m going to sleep.” Ren turned and entered her tent as I allowed the purple cards to vanish.

I looked down to see my hand was bloodied. At least it didn’t hurt that time. Resigning to getting some proper rest, I entered my own tent and laid on the bedroll. Not quite as beautiful as seeing the stars, but a step above a hole in the ground. With the thin slit of the front of the tent open, I attempted to thread a card through it. Narrowed my eyes and cooled my breathing to focus. At first, succesful as it zipped out into the night. Then, after putting a card-shaped hole in the side of the fabric after a near miss on the third repeat, I decided to call it a night. Closed my eyes and let the worries flood out with a deep breath.

A dreamless sleep hit me like a sack of bricks, and before long, the murmur of a voice barely roused me from my bedroll.

“Max? It’s your turn to cook.”

With a groan, I slid from my tent out into the dew-laden grass and bright light of early morning.

“It’s murder-day, trickster. We’ll need our strength.” She wasn’t smiling, but there was an energy to her. Apprehension? Excitement? Hope that I had more sweet cakes stowed away?

I did, but that was beside the point. Murdering through the goblin hordes had earned me enough boxes of food that we could have a banquet. As I groggily got to my feet I stretched out and clocked that she had called it murder-day. Not that I was capable of forgetting such a fact. Perhaps some kind of mistranslation.

With a deep breath, I picked my jacket up from the ground, not really remembering taking it off. I waved it through the air to reveal the grill now standing on the grass.

Ren rolled her eyes. “Are you always this insufferable?”

“Yes,” I said with a grin. “Usually more so, I’m afraid.”

“Even when you’re alone?”

My mouth opened and closed while my brain tried to catch up. Internally, one of the boxes at the back of my mind was bulging, about to explode. “No?” I eventually offered to release some pressure.

“Then just act as though I’m not here. Although still make me food because I have quite the appetite this morning.” She brought out a chair to sit on.

I considered that saying ‘yes, your highness’ was liable to get me an arrow through the neck. Her bow lay against the front of her tent, just about within arm's reach. Still, that gave me a thought.

“Who do you think is faster out of us?” I asked, taking some meat from my Inventory.

“Hmm?” She raised one eyebrow, but the other doubled down on scowling.

“See that tree over, about sixty feet through the clearing? You reckon if I said ‘go’ now, you could hit it before me?”

She looked over at the tree in question, then back to me, where I had tongs in one hand, a slab of raw meat in the other. “Say ‘go’ and we’ll find out.”

I waited a few seconds to build the suspense. I could see her tensed up. The meat squished in my tightening grip, the grill sizzling beneath.

“Go.”

I dropped the meat and my card was the first out, slicing through the air in a tight arc just as she had rolled into a crouch - bow picked up and drawn with arrow at the ready. It took her a split second to aim and then it was on the way, traveling much faster than my skill.

And then, just as her projectile would pass mine, I split the card out into two and criss-crossed them quickly in the air. The diced parts of her arrow lost momentum and fell to the ground as my two cards slammed into the distant trunk.

She turned her scowl to me and sighed.

“Ta-da!” I announced, as I took a bow. Blood immediately burst from my hand, spattering across the nearby grass.

“Well, you’re burning the meat, trickster.” She rolled her eyes and moved back to her chair. “If you injure yourself before the fight, I’ll be pissed.”

Her facial expression might say otherwise, but I could tell she was impressed.

"The leader is a woman called Lady in Red... I know.” Ren rolled her eyes in seeing the look on my face. “She’s some kind of wizard or similar. I only know her name because of her second in-command, Grak. Huge orc barbarian, dual wields, and talks loudly in third person. He’s the one who…” she trailed off.

I nodded. “The rest, any specific Classes?”

"Not exactly, it's been a while since I've been up to date on information." The elf put her forearm over her eyes to shield them from the sun as she thought. “A type of fighter and a healer, for sure. Not sure on the other - possibly something melee.”

We had been making our way to their hideout - a small village in a cove by the shore - for several hours. Somehow, I had become calmer about the whole ordeal rather than more anxious. There was some finality to it, the last act before the curtains went down and I could relax. Possibly in a shallow grave.

I watched as Ren fired an arrow off, striking a deer through the chest and killing it outright. We walked over and I summoned Roger through it. The same purple energy, bright eyes, and weird ears despite the corpse not being humanoid.

“Woah, this thing has weird fuckin’ legs. Oh. Hey, boss!”

Definitely Roger still, not a different demon - which somewhat comforted me. “Just giving you a heads up, the next time I summon you, you will be in a human like me, most likely, and I want you to do your best to kill anyone you see that aren't us two.” I jerked my thumb between myself and Ren.

“Of course, boss.” He tilted his head to the side to glare at the elf standing behind me, who I assumed was glaring right back at him.

“It would mean a lot to us both if you could give it your all, and once you decide what kind of weapon you like, I’ll try to get you something nice and Rare to keep.” I gave him a wide smile.

“Yeah? Okay, count on me then, boss. I’ll go then, if that’s all - I don’t think I can actually move without falling on my face.”

I gave him a nod, and he vanished away, leaving the deer to collapse to the ground after giving the elf one last grimace. It was nice to know he could leave at his own discretion and wasn’t forced to stick around, even if I forced him to join this plane of existence.

“Let’s keep going.” Ren walked off. “We’ll be there within the hour.”

We had chosen a path that would weave around the various monster spawn points and anything that could interrupt our progress. While not a short of a journey as we would have liked, it did mean we arrived at the cove uninjured. We had the best gear we had found, enough healing supplies to carry us through, and I had secretly been holding onto two Sweet Cakes for our celebratory party.

The only ingredient left was murder - something I had become blissfully cozy with.

Ren stopped, and I did the same. The sound of waves lapping at the island could be heard clearly now. Something I hadn’t heard in probably-

“Boost me.” She gestured to the nearby tree.

“Huh? Oh, sure.” I stood with my back to the tree and interlocked my hands so she could hop up to the nearest branch. As she clambered up, I shook the mud from my hands. “Your boots are filthy,” I murmured.

She paused and looked down at me. “Do you want to climb the tree?”

I shook my head and wiped my hands across my sparkling purple trousers. They already had enough blood and who knows what else pasted across them. I really needed to get better adventuring clothes. Or be more diligent at repairing them when I had privacy.

After a minute or two, the elf climbed down, landing deftly on the ground. “They have two watchtowers near the road in. Our side is a steep hill like at the goblin village. The other side is remarkably mountainous. Then at the back of the hideout is the sea, opposite the road in.”

My brain tried to jumble the picture around to make sense. I tried to think of it as we were South, and the road in was from the East leading to the West where the sea was.

“Watchtowers don’t look occupied, but we’ll see.” She was scowling off at the far distance, her eyes moving about as if trying to read the plans her mind was concocting.

I let her ruminate without interruption. This was her show, after all. While my life was on the line, and I had an important role to play, this had to go how she wanted things to. While the front of my head liked to think I was being altruistic, the back of my mind knew this had been an anchor for me. A purpose for a man in purple; lost within a dangerous world.

“You ready?” She turned to me, still frowning, but blue eyes now searching me. Last chance to run and hide away, save my skin and escape the small pocket of terror she willfully inhabited. Just as others had done to her previously - I could read behind that expression all to well. Might not even blame me for losing heart and fleeing.

Unable to force myself to grandstand or come up with some heroic spiel to carry us forth, I just nodded, a grim expression on my face. “Ready.”

No further words were spoken until we were on the ridge, prone and crawling to peek over. Time seemed to go fast when you had murder on your mind. It was a small village, with little huts dotting the sandy area, waves lapping at the shore only a weak stone throw away. Idyllic, really - the sort of place you’d holiday to, or maybe retire once all the magician debt had been paid off.

To our right, the two watchtowers flanked the road leading into the village. The furthest one seemed empty, but the closest had a figure leaned against the back wall, staring off at the road away from us. Even with the vegetative cover we had crawled through, I’d stick out like a sore and sparkly thumb if they were even barely proficient in their role.

Down between the houses, a pair of figures moved from one house to another - and knocked on the door. Two more figures stepped out. None of them looked to be particularly green or red - and including the watcher that would make the cove a little more populated than we had ancitipated.

I raised my eyebrows to Ren, and she just worked her jaw as she glared back at me. Nothing needed to be said, evidentally they had done a little recuiting since she last had a chance to check. Even being this close to her, seeing the vibrancy of her eyes and concern wrinkling her otherwise-

She leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Plan stays. Take tower, burn them out into the open.” She moved back away.

For a second, part of me short-circuited and took me out of the large scoops of belief I had managed to suspend so far. Being corralled by a beautiful elf almost-princess to murder a village of possibly-real people to avenge her fallen lover, by summoning a host of demonic entities by manner of magic. Perhaps I had hit my head, and this was a fevered coma dream, or the afterlife. No. I wasn’t that lucky.

I nodded at her, and gave her the best smile I could muster, before turning to look at the watchtower.

A card of purple energy appeared over my hand and began to turn. I forced more energy into it, expending my mana as it glowed brighter - ready for what I considered an empowered single shot.

With a brief prayer to whatever entity might be listening to my inner monologue, I sent the attack off.