Demonic Magician

Ren’s expression turned into one of surprise too, in realizing who we were faced with. “Fiona?”

The fighter that she had mentioned back on the island. With the vague information provided, it sounded as though they had been briefly cordial before one wanted to move onto the wider world. Ren, of course, wanted to stay and enact her revenge—which I helped facilitate, as agreeing to murder seemed more palatable than trying to learn about the world alone.

It had worked out well for me, all things considered.

“Never thought I’d see that scowl again,” Fiona shook her head. “Honestly, it’s a relief to see that you’re not dead or part of this cult shit.” She spat atop one of the bodies—I couldn’t tell which after Wolf had given most of them a good chew.

“We’ve had our fair share of run-ins with them,” Ren said with a sour expression on her face. Left out the part where we had pushed the Lady into the wider world, which I appreciated. “This is Max, and Wolf.”

“Wolf,” the fighter nodded, repeating the name as if trying to taste the validity. “And, Max.”

I gave her a low bow, as was tradition. While I wasn’t in much mood to start performing tricks, I still had my manners about me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I straightened back up and clapped my hands twice.

All the villagers unfroze and started wandering about towards their homes as if nothing had happened.

Fiona, Ren, and the plain-looking man at the back didn’t receive a Dazzle icon, but the rest did. I also received a very warranted glare from the elf. Sometimes, timing was everything. How long did it take a Monster to bleed, burn, or suffocate to death? Not even the Demon Hunter part of me knew the answer exactly. The showman inside me could see the thread of eventuality, though—as if I received subtle help from the System to ensure I could pull off the tricks and not look like a total ass in front of present company.

“Interesting.” Fiona’s facial expression didn’t sell the remark. “You must come from a world where clowns are revered?”

I returned a blank expression, not really sure how far I wanted to dig into that question. Pretty sure there was a smirk on Ren’s face in my peripheral, but that could just be my mind filling in the gaps with what I expected. Instead of replying directly, I risked a pointed question of my own. My verbal swordplay was rusty, but the stakes were low.

“Forgive my rudeness, but I don’t suppose you’ve had a run-in with a chap with chainswords previously?” If this was a miss, I might just swap places with my patient canine and make a run for the horizon.

Her face clouded, and any humor she had drained away. “Yes, I have.”

“I hope it brings you some comfort to learn that I have killed him.”

She worked her jaw, and her eyes went over to the elf, who nodded briefly. The glare returned to me, but some of the iciness had melted away. “Doesn’t surprise me that Ren has kept competent company. There’s only two of you?”

“Three,” Wolf interjected.

The goblin jumped backward. “Oh fuck! It talks!”

“Wolf is a Player,” Ren explained. “Has all the things we do, just packaged into a half ton or so of grizzly bear.”

Fiona whistled. “That makes your survival make a lick more sense then. Look at us yapping on, though. We have a camp a little way away from here. We can walk and talk?”

Ren looked at me to see my thoughts. I gave her a nod and smiled toward the Party. “Certainly, a place to rest and have people that don’t want to cave our heads in sounds nice.”

I handed the Quest in as we set off, our trio walking beside their Party. Only experience. That was rather anti-climatic. Hopefully the villagers would clear up the mess that the Crimson had made, and things would be normal by the time new Players rolled through this area.

“We have a scout in the area,” the fighter began. “We’ve been keeping an eye this way since the fort burned down.”

“Also us,” Ren said with a nod.

“Excellent. When nothing immediately happened, we assumed they just fell apart because they’re thick as pig shit.”

“Or bear shit,” Wolf added, helpfully.

“So with Rolo telling us three figures had come across the bridge, we anticipated either it was some poor sods about to get killed by the Crimson—or perhaps new cult members ready to join this area.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “We took a few days of rest. It turned out that cleansing the first area of the Shadows was moderately traumatic.”

“Cleanse?” The goblin piped up. “You killed all of them?”

Ren shrugged as I raised an eyebrow at her. “We hope so,” I rubbed my chin as I answered the goblin. Although she had the same pointed nose and ears as the scores I massacred my way through on the starter island, there was a life in her that set her apart from the System-created versions. “I think in total we must have removed almost forty of them?”

“Including the ones on the island, perhaps.” Ren tilted her head, but ultimately was in agreement.

I tried not to count them out too hard—lest I become aware of being a mass murderer. Damn, there it was. Their Party exchanged glances, and I wondered if we committed a faux pas by being Player-killers.

“Not to sound like we have been slacking…” Fiona began, her brow furrowed, “but we have killed maybe… four.”

“Today? That’s not so bad.” I wrinkled up my face. It was high stakes and could wear on your soul—and the Shadows didn’t always fight fair.

“No.” The fighter grimaced and rubbed the back of her neck. “In total.”

I stared at her blankly, before looking at Ren. For a change, I couldn’t really read her expression. It was like some odd reveal where we found out we were the bad guys. Either that or things here were much different from the first area. Unlike me, I wasn’t really sure what to say—without making us sound like monsters, or paint them as weaklings.

“We ate more than that just in this first village,” Wolf snuffed from behind us.

“Yes, well…” Fiona exhaled through her nose. “We have plenty of problems of our own.”

She must have fought the chainsword-man in the first area, I considered. But the Lady had only converted people to her cult in the last week—Fiona should have been in this area for longer than that. Timeline didn’t really add up, so I made a mental note to think more about it later.

Ren moved across and we switched places so that she was next to the fighter. “Tyler? Katie? Rektar?”

Fiona grimaced. “Katie’s dead. Rektar is in a different Party further north. Tyler is…”

“One of your current problems?” Ren nodded.

I leaned my head forward and raised an eyebrow, hoping to be included in the loop. Perhaps a little too energetically, as a wave of vertigo made my vision blur.

The elf raised an eyebrow toward me. “Remember I said I had seen summoners before? Tyler is one, a certain kind of summoner.”

“Are you going to leave me in suspense or tell me what kind?”

“Not so funny when it’s the other way around, huh?” Her eyes narrowed, and a crack of a smile illuminated the corners of her eyes. “Necromancer.”

“Ah.” That was a puzzle I could put together. If he had fallen to the Crimson Shadow, then the Party here had probably been busy fighting off groups of undead to properly focus on getting rid of the root cause themselves. Or I was being overly generous with my assumption.

“He has been hiding away and sending groups of undead toward our camp every so often. It makes it hard to sleep and rest. Hard to move forward when we could be attacked at any moment.” The fighter shrugged apologetically.

“The undead fucking suck,” the goblin added.

“My apologies.” I gave the short greenskin a soft smile. “I do not believe we’ve been properly introduced.”

“Shit, sorry,” Fiona waved a plated hand. “I get so caught up in things I forget my manners. This is Ruby. Then behind we have Larius, Magnus, and Clive.”

The very average man being called Clive seemed to fit, as did Magnus for the large lion-man. They nodded their greetings as politely as they were able, but they didn’t seem much like socializing. In fact, they had spent a lot of time looking at our surroundings, when not give us odd glares. I had considered the possibility that there might be a trap here awaiting a reveal, but I trusted Fiona—as much as Ren seemed to, anyway.

“Pleasure.” I grinned with my show smile. Unlikely we’d be acquaintances for too long, but it paid to be on good terms with potential allies in such a conflict driven world. “Your scout, Rolo, hasn’t been able to pinpoint the necromancer?”

“Too dangerous. He tried, don’t get me wrong, but Tyler has other Party members assisting him that make it difficult to get close without being spotted.” Fiona shrugged.

Not something we couldn’t accomplish. Unfair, given I didn’t know the whole situation and was just riding the high of having survived the village. Another wave of vertigo made me shudder. I looked out at the scenery as we continued down the road; the village sinking away behind us. Hills, fields, and sparse groups of trees. There were some Monsters out to our right, but I couldn’t focus my eyes without them hurting. Terrible timing for a migraine.

“If you have space for us, we’d love to help you out,” Ren offered. A very strong statement from the elf, but I had no disagreements. Fixing the wrongs of the Shadows seemed to be our bread and butter now. Winning some applause from an actual audience was starting to warm me on the inside. Or was that nausea?

Wolf nudged me from behind. “You okay, Max?”

I turned my sweaty face to him and nodded. “Better than ever.” I maintained eye contact, then corrected course. “Actually, I’m feeling a little under the weather.”

He looked up toward the sky, and then nodded back to me.

Ren and Fiona had walked slightly ahead during my mania with the bear, so I don’t think she heard. Ruby certainly did, and prodded me in the side with her staff, causing the bell to clink a little.

“What’s your status say, purple man?”

I grimaced, hating to interact with the reports to find out what current malady was ruining my day.

[Health Report]

[Cursed]

“It says I’m cured?” My eyes blurred the text as I struggled to focus. The statement came out as a question, but she didn’t catch the nuance of it—so possibly my comprehension was correct. Cured of what? I sighed as I realized this was something I was meant to be better at now.

[Curse] [SSSS sssSS ssSSSs]

So, I couldn’t read most of that, but it certainly didn’t say ‘cured’ anymore. Unless I was cured of the curse? The looming inevitability that I may have mistakenly assumed I got away with the misdirection and my dove caught the curse started to weigh on me, and I-

I walked into the elf, not noticing that they had stopped just ahead of us. “Ack, sorry!”

She grabbed me, partially so that we didn’t end up on the ground, but also I could see her bright eyes burning into me. “Max, you look like shit—what’s wrong?”

“Cursed, I think.” I grimaced. As much as I wanted to put up a front whilst we had company, I couldn’t bring myself to lie straight to her face. Couldn’t even bend the truth most of the time. We had agreed to honesty and openness, to grow as a Party, and although it took me a few mistakes, we were there.

“What kind?”

She didn’t let go of me yet, which either meant I looked a lot worse than I felt, or she was worried and not afraid to put a front up while in present company either. It would have been a moment to reflect on, perhaps, if I didn’t feel like turning my stomach inside out onto the ground.

“Let me try to read it again,” I offered. “My vision is a little blurry.”

“Any of you have curse removal?” She turned her head to glare at them. Warmth came up behind me and she gently pushed me back to lean against the side of Wolf.

I slowly sunk down to sit on the ground. The comfort the bear provided was better than many medicines, and over our time together, it had become a bonding point for the three of us. He might not talk as much or engage in the System bullshit to as great a degree, but he was family to us all the same. “Thanks, Wolf,” I murmured, and narrowed my eyes at the text boxes again.

“Depends on the type of curse,” the goblin hopped over to me and put her hand on my head. “He is very warm.”

Ren plucked my hat off and put it on my lap, the slight breeze cooling my hair. It was messy, needed cutting at this point. Couldn’t be seen—no, focus, Max. “Yeah, it’s from the house monster. Apparently, killing it also gives you a curse, which is why I had to answer the riddle.”

The elf crouched down beside me and put her hand on my shoulder. If anything, it just made me feel warmer. Now that she showed me care and compassion on occasion, it made me feel worse for getting into these situations. Shouldn’t be putting that burden on her.

“What was the riddle, Max?” She asked me, eyes soft despite her concern.

“It was bugged or something, it just hissed at me.” I pouted, as if given a bad deal. Not that I would have tried to answer it, unless it was easy. Perhaps a lesson that killing my way through things wasn’t always the best problem solver. No, I didn’t like that lesson.

The goblin still had her hand on my forehead, which seemed unnecessary. The large lion head of the other Party member loomed into my vision. Why people felt they needed to be in my personal space all the time was beyond me.

“What did the creature look like, man?” His voice was deep, and just as how I imagined he would speak.

“Dark robes, pale face, large back eyes with white pupils. No other real features, I guess.”

He stood back away, his shadow passing and allowing the dim light of day to wash over me again. I felt relatively stable considering, wobbly and sick—yes, but it wasn’t getting worse yet. Magnus murmured something to the goblin, which I didn’t catch, as I was distracted by Ren. What an odd life I now led.

She leaned forward, her lips near my ear. “I fucking hate people. I can’t do this without you.”

I shivered, the words almost chilling me enough to break the fever.

A pulse of energy flooded through me as she moved away, coming from the goblin spellcaster rather than something borne from how my heartbeat had skipped. Some of the odd feeling washed away, and I regained my composure.

“Thank you.” I smiled, placing my hat back on my head but instead missing by several inches. It dropped to the floor, and I pouted again.

“It’s not a cure.” Ruby shrugged. “Some curses are super fucked, but it’ll keep you lucid until we can get you back to the camp.”

“Lucid?” Ren tilted her head and helped put my hat back on properly. “That’ll be a first for Max.”

“Listen,” I said, allowing her to help me to my feet. “I haven’t even-” One last wave of vertigo threatened to tip my head directly into the cobblestone road, to crack my head open just as I was about to say it. Probably my tight lips were the only thing saving it from becoming destiny. That and the tight grip Ren had on me.

“Fuck’s sake, trickster,” she murmured, wanting to release the near-hug she had on me, but also not wanting me to break across the ground.

I leaned forward to her ear. “Show must go on. Can’t do this without you, Ren,” I whispered.