Demon Core - Chapter 14: The chain of command

Chapter 14: The chain of command

~ [The Demon-King] ~

It is within the nature of men to squabble amongst themselves, no matter the times. When wealth and prosperity are abundant, piling up towards the sky like a mound made out of gold, people will clamber over one another to climb up to the crest, so that they themselves might be the one who has the greatest view from the lofty heights, even if the foundation is enough to provide acceptable sustainability for the lives of every creature there.

Those who remain down below will comfort themselves, praising themselves in vainglory for their asceticism, so that they too might be kings of their own hills, down below at the bottom of the material world.

‘I’m not like them. I’m not greedy and selfish like those people in the high places’ they will say, with heads held high in order to garner the adoration of those around them as they don their crowns of modesty. They will mock the higher positioned and wear robes of poverty as if they were those of an emperor and they will find comfort in their lack of position, not out of sheer acceptance of the situation and humble desires to live small, peaceful lives, but rather this is just the tale they weave for those around them, admiring their projected want for not.

And those around them at the bottom of the hill will admire these low-born kings, rather than those in the high places, as the separation between their states is not as dramatic and is perceived as achievable.

To be king of the wretches is every wretch’s dream in secret.

This is simply human nature.

And in the opposite times, in the times when wealth is not abundant, when scarcity ravages the landscape to such a degree that belts become nooses rather than simply being tightened, that is when the ugliness of humanity reveals itself. That is when they drop their porcelain theater masks and reveal the crooked, broken maws and empty eyes that lie beneath. When the mound of prosperity is flattened and all men and women are lowered to an equal footing, standing next to each other, that is when they will instead pile up the bodies of one another, so that they have something to stand atop.

For the chance to proclaim one’s righteousness and position over others, for the chance to stand just a single head higher than everyone else, they will each decapitate a thousand of their brothers and sisters, so that they might be kings of a mountain of bones and teeth rather than gold.

The Demon-King sits on his throne, watching the humans inside his castle. He watches the humans outside of his castle. He watches the humans in all of the lands and places that his touch has managed to reach, both now in this instant and in days prior, and all he sees as he scours the landscape, for as far as his hundreds of eyes can peer, is depravity.

Now that he has begun to flatten the fake mountain of human prosperity and abundance, now that he has begun to reduce each human to one another’s social height — that of a heap of ash — they have begun to drop the charades of their civility and their goodness. Now that the night of ten-thousand teeth and claws has come, threatening to never end, they too bare their own fangs. Yet they do so not at the hissing darkness of his creation, but rather at one another.

He can feel them.

He can taste the souls lost to the darkness that never stops, killed not by his doing, but by the hands of the men and women around them. Swords and knives, fists and stones, hands grip themselves around frail necks, and boots press themselves down over the skulls of those infants that had not been dashed against the stones and the rocks, and they descend down upon each other as would a serpent eating itself.

Horrific.

The Demon-King watches as humanity proves itself to be exactly what he holds it to be.

Monstrous, without a drop of ‘humanity’ within their disgusting souls. Without a hint of true love for the beauty of creation. Ugly.

They are demons, of a nature truer than anything he could ever hope to create.

And he watches as they praise themselves, claiming themselves to be good and just and noble and clean, praising themselves to be strong, beautiful creatures of nature when instead, they are nothing but a perpetually leaking cyst on what should have been a beautiful, jewel of a garden of paradise — this world.

~ [Derinji] ~

Human, Male, Knight Location: A town, some fifty kilometers north of the Demon-King’s castle Level: 60

“Get inside!” orders the man, moving the crowd along towards the village church, which the local priest is drawing a protective circle around in the soil. The line of villagers stretches out the door, as the few hundred people who live here all move towards shelter. “Come on, hurry!” calls Derinji, gesturing for the people to keep moving in rank and file.

There are hundreds of small villages like this one lining the wild-lands between all of the major cities. Their populations vary from the hundreds to the thousands in some towns.

“Bless your heart, young man,” says an old woman, holding out a small parcel for him. “Please, take this,” she insists. “For you and your friends.”

He looks down at the small basket, full of breads. “Thank you, ma’am,” he says, taking it and nodding. “Please head inside the church. It’s safe in there,” he says, gently ushering her along.

The man looks towards the south, watching the sky in the distance. The storm never stops, howling here even around them and soiling the landscape, which is beginning to flood in places from the constant rain. The Demon-King isn’t here yet, but he will be soon, according to the crisis window, which shows the distance drawing closer and closer to their location.

He turns his head, looking at one of his men, and hands him the basket. “Give this to the anqas,” he orders. “They’ll need the energy.”

“Yes, sir,” replies the man, taking the basket and going to feed their animals. They have to ride to the next village as soon as this is done.

The crowd files in, overfilling the church as the priest finishes his warding circle around the structure.

After a while in the rain, the building is packed, and the protective warding around it is complete.

Derinji looks at the priest. “We need to get to the next village,” he explains. “Will you manage from here?”

The priest looks at him and nods. “Bless you, brother,” says the man. “We’ll ride out the storm here until the Demon-King passes us by,” he explains. “Thanks to the capital’s materials, the warding will hold,” he says.

Derinji nods, looking at the small warding crystals they had brought by the cartful. Each town gets a few hundred to boost their defenses against the Demon-King’s corruption.

“Head inside. We’re leaving for the next village now,” says Derinji.

The priest nods, making his way to the packed church, and looks at Derinji, before closing the heavy doors behind himself.

Derinji stands out in the rain, waiting for a moment.

“Seal it,” he orders, sure that there are no stragglers left.

A geomancer moves to the front, placing his hands on the muddy soil, and in an instant later, walls of stone move out of the dirt, surrounding the entire building, as if it were in a crater. Muddy run-off runs down the incline, blocking the doors and the windows of the structure. A team of casters moves up the incline, already versed in this practice.

“Burn it,” orders the man.

Each of the four fire casters, one on each side of the building’s cardinal directions, standing on the upper ledge of the new crater that rises up to meet the structures roofline, holds their hands out and releases a constant stream of fire over the roof, which begins to smolder and cascade in.

The screams from the inside of the structure are easy to pretend not to hear, with the storm howling as it does and the rain always crashing, unable to extinguish the magical flames that consume the building, which is, in itself, placed in what amounts to a natural cauldron.

They’ve perfected this technique pretty rapidly in the last six villages.

Derinji turns to one of his men. “Collect the crystals, load them up. We’re moving,” he orders.

“Yes, sir,” replies the man, going to collect the same warding crystals they had already given several other priests and warders along the way.

The night is alight, burning brightly orange, as after a few minutes of sustained fire from the magic against the ceiling, cooking the dense mud and hardening it, the human fat inside the structure begins to catch, and it all rises into a superheated fire that continues to burn by itself as the troop of soldiers pack up their carts, mount their anqas and rides to the next town over.

The flames and the smoke are held out of the line of sight of those people by the storm, the screams never managing to leave the caldera as the fire consumes them whole.

Derinji kicks an empty basket to the side as he mounts the large bird, looking over his shoulder once back towards the sixth fire of the night.

It’s what has to be done, so that the Demon-King can’t take their souls.

It’s the right thing to do.

Besides, orders are orders. His hands are tied.

~ [Crusader Ritani] ~

Orc, Male, Paladin Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor Fourteen Level: 90

Before them, blocking the way forward, is a great waterfall that stretches to both sides of the room, a black, oozy tar of sorts runs down over the edge. He can only assume that the exit lies through it.

However, there is a wariness about getting anywhere near the liquid after what they have seen so far.

It runs in streams, thousands and thousands of gallons of the ink crashing down into what looks like a bottomless crevice in the rock. Given that they’re in the Demon-King’s castle, one can only assume that it’s some form of horrific poison.

Currently, the plan is to poke through the waterfall with tunnels made out of magical barriers. But this hasn’t led to any success, as in the areas they’ve tried so far, there is just a solid rock surface behind the waterfall. But the room is massive, and there are plenty of spaces left to look at. Just to be sure, other groups have been sent around to examine the walls for any secret doors or levers.

One particular group was sent to the top of the waterfall, having made a makeshift platform with the help of some geomancy and a few barriers, but they haven’t been heard from yet. So all there is left to do is wait.

He looks around himself nervously.

~ [Cartouche] ~

Gallu, Female, Dancer Location: The Demon-Carnival Level: 86

Cartouche hums to herself along with the melody, played by the ghostly musicians that accompany herself as she stands atop the carriage that hurtles down the road towards the north. Other wagons belonging to the carnival roll down along the muddy, torn roads. The cobblestones and paving have cracked and broken from the heat and slide out of place from the flooding starting, due to the rain that never stops. What this leads to is that the road everywhere within the aura of the Demon-King is essentially destroyed.

So, the carriage, pulled by undead who are indifferent to such things as poor footing and breaking ankles, throws itself around as they charge down the broken streets, the axle squeaking and screaming from the movements that would, under normal conditions, have broken the carriage.

She too, standing atop its wooden roof, is thrown around by the forces of the janking movements. However, she incorporates this roughness into her dance, springing to the left as the carriage throws her that way and spinning on the edge before it manages to toss her aside and then back the other way. Like a nightingale lost in the storm, she flies around through the night, swaying in a dance in much the same way as the carriage itself is doing, as the world itself does.

There is a dance to life that most are simply incapable of seeing, as they are not versed in the mindset of a dancer.

In the same way, this force, this dance like quality that she holds life to have, is also at the same time something that has nothing to do with the art of dance. It is the same energy that the painter, Abydos, admires through his artistry. For him, there is a visual, crisp beauty to life. This energy manifests itself as such for him. For the cook, Byblos, there is a rare inner sensory depth that she might perhaps describe as life having its own profile of flavors.

However, all of these aspects — the dance, the visuality, the profile of life all base themselves on the single word that they each try to achieve, through the filters of their individuality.

Beauty.

For her, life is graceful and serene because that is the mindset she has of herself, and so, her toolset is that of the dance, which in turn paints life as a dance. The same is to be said of the others in their own way.

And, as such, the same is to be said of humanity in its own way.

Those who partake in life but do not partake in the attempt to find or create beauty, through what mindset do they perceive the world? If they do not have the tools of beautiful creation, then there can’t be any way for them to understand this deeper truth, can there?

She doesn’t think so.

The dancer pirouettes as the carriage tries to throw her into the darkness, just as her old life had done to her. She almost fell for it, for the trap that all the others had fallen for too. The traps of survival and of human desire, the traps of the thoughts of vague responsibilities and needs, of existing with the so-called human condition. She had, in that old life of hers, failed to use the true toolset of her heart’s deepest depths and instead opted to progress towards her future with the toolset of a normal human — survival, situational growth, desires.

These are all well and good, but they won’t do anything except let you play the pretend game a little longer. They’ll allow you to sustain yourself longer in a game you didn’t enjoy playing to begin with.

This new thing, this ‘death’ of hers and revival as a servant of the Demon-King, while she understands its meaning through the lens of her old human mindset as being something that they would perceive as horrific or perhaps even pitiful, is for her the most beautiful moment in her life, as with this one now.

The thunder claps as she sways, the carriage throwing her around, as she incorporates these negative happenings into her routine of beautiful pursuit.

To be able to find beauty, one has to let go of survival.

Survival is an ugly, simple, base thing.

And real beauty — transcendent, ethereal beauty of a careening depth that can’t be grasped within the physical body of a human — cannot be pursued while one is surviving.

It is not a thing of the physical world.

~ [Crusader Ritani] ~

Orc, Male, Paladin Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor Fourteen Level: 90

— The stone tower that a group had used to reach the upper area, at the top of the ‘waterfall’ collapses.

People scatter away as the magic fails and rocks tumble downward. Screams fill the air, not from those around the site, but rather from high, high up above, presumably managing to carry this far down beyond the roar of the falls only due to their horrific shrillness.

They watch as a few small pinpricks form at the top of the falls and careen down over the sides, their bodies painted black from the ink that they’re soaked in as they tumble over the edge and vanish into the ravine below, being swallowed by the world.

“Well, frig,” mutters the river-sorceress, standing near the front of the leadership group. She turns her head. “Get another team up in the air,” she orders. “This time, stay on the dry side.”

The officer she had given the order to nods and grabs a few casters, going to build a new tower.

So far, it doesn’t look like there’s anything above the falls, though. There’s just another ravine from which the water spews before falling into the one below.

Ritani scratches his head before looking down at the ground below as something catches his eyes.

A vein of black liquid spreads through the stones, dripping and flowing unnaturally just before where he stands. He steps back, nudging the man next to him, as the ink begins to draw the shape of a person. Black water drips out through the stones below, like sweat from pores, to create the figure.

And then another one, followed by another. One vaguely body shaped splotch appears flat on the stones for each person that had been swallowed by the falls. But the shape of their bodies, while vaguely human in their making, is disturbed by an off detail. While their heads, torsos, and all such things are in proportion to what one would expect, the puddles on the ground have fingers that never stop growing.

The streaks from their hands reach outward, pressing forward and along the floor in long, crooked lines that make it look as if their fingers were endlessly broken, from the start of the digit to the end, which appears at the walls of the grand cavern.

— Murmurs move through the crusaders.

The puddles don’t move. They just stay there, cutting the floor apart with their presences. The many thin streaks of their fingers create small channels that have cut the room into several ‘islands’, each only a few inches apart from one another.

“What the hell,” mutters Ritani, staring in abject horror. Although he can’t help but give in to his curious instincts, as he picks up a small pebble from the floor and holds it over one of the puddles, letting go of the stone to watch as it splashes into the ‘body’.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

One of the great weaknesses of the demon-core is its limited range. The effects of the demon-sickness, while beyond devastating, are limited by his own growth to a radius of several kilometers. This is certainly a sufficient tool for his aims, but it does leave a weakness within his system of conquest, namely, that he always needs to be within reach of a region in order to cleanse it of the ugliness present within.

His wild monsters, present out over the nation, are certainly an effective tool in their own right, but they are being held at bay by the trained adventurers and guardsmen of the cities, outside of his domain. Fighting monsters, even his, is the bread and butter of such people, and so they are making little progress outside of the farmsteads and the small towns.

Even the human capital to the north has begun seeing fringe attacks by the unruly monsters of the wild-lands, whose behaviour has changed since his rising. But it is hardly a concern for them, other than the strain of a few raised eyebrows.

Monsters…

Swain appreciates monsters.

Like animals, they exist in a state of existence that could only be considered pure. Yes, beauty is perhaps a concept too abject for them to comprehend, but in their own way, they incorporate the perfect, natural beauty of the unblemished world.

It seems a shame that they, like himself in his old life, must exist under the crushing, suffocating, and spirit-killing weight of humanity.

Perhaps he should lend them a hand —

The Demon-King turns his head, looking at Kirsch the ghost, who is flying around, playing with the souls in the throne-room.

— As a friend.

NEW – (DEMON KING) ABILITY

[THE NIGHT-TIDE](Passive)

Gnashing teeth rip through flesh and sharp claws may break through bones, but the human-soul has been something impervious to most monsters — until now.

Effect: All WILD-MONSTERS of any attribute other than HOLY, ARCANE in the world are inflicted with status: [Rage]

All WILD-MONSTERS any attribute other than HOLY, ARCANE in the world will have their rate of breeding and growth doubled.

NEW – (DEMON KING) ABILITY

[DISTINCTIVE REGURGITATION](Active)

Cost: {10,000} COLLECTED SOULS

The human soul is a soft, malleable thing that is able to be shaped and changed, much like their flesh.

Effect: In leyline-spanning high-magic zones, where darkness and fear of the Demon-King have gathered as the predominant emotions, release a single, corrupted soul, pressed together out of the screaming mass of ten-thousand souls by incredible crushing darkness, in order to summon a [DEMON GENERAL] who will lead monster swarms in coordinated attacks and efforts against distant human strongholds.

~ [DEMON GENERAL] ~

A DEMON GENERAL.

Akin to a golem of sorts, a DEMON GENERAL is a particularly powerful, artificial soul that has been created as an amalgamation of living souls, pressed together into one coherent creation that follows the will of the Demon-King.

Spread across the landscape, DEMON GENERALS guide wild-monsters, collecting together great armies of snatching limbs and endless legs in order to lead them in coordinated assaults against human bastions, which would otherwise be impervious to simple monster assaults.

The goal of a DEMON GENERAL is to capture as many members of the common races as possible before bringing them back to the Demon-King to be consumed.

Class: OfficerElement: DARK Type: CommanderCategory: DEMON* Rank: SS Level: 86 [General] || [Red-Water {04}] || [Wild-Hunter] || [Lamashtu] HP: 86/86SOUL: 86/86 *A demon’s stats are based on the LEVEL of the demon-king. Its affinities are based on its past life.

[Noticeable Darkness]: All WILD-MONSTERS within the radius of the Demon-General will flock towards it, collecting together into a wild army.

The radius of a general is the same as that of the Demon-King’s territorial span, generating outward from within its own position.

Currently: 16.9 KM

[Officer]: Is able to give direct commands to any monsters under its control. [Leader]: All monsters under the general’s control gain an increase to all of their stats, equivalent to 10% of the DEMON-KING’s level.

Swain takes a hand and forces it down through one of the mouths on the side of his body, the teeth breaking and the lips ripping as he forces his arm into it, reaching in to grab the many souls that he needs.

All across the nation, wretched people are unifying in a collaborative defensive effort. It will make his life considerably easier if they are kept busy where they are, stuck in place, waiting for him to arrive, rather than them mounting a counter-offensive.

(Swain) has used: [DISTINCTIVE REGURGITATION] x {06} COLLECTED SOULS REMAINING: 209,455

A few generals across the landscape, close to the most significant bastions of resistance, would be wise.

~ [Crusader Ritani] ~

Orc, Male, Paladin Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor Fourteen Level: 90

His chest heaves in and out as he tries to catch his breath, finding it difficult to do so. There are too many needle-thin holes in his chest, five on either side, as ten impossibly long fingers, made out of inky blackness, hold him aloft in the air. His blurry vision looks down towards the ground, towards the human-shaped puddle, which has moved its hand.

The flat painting of a body, pressed against the stones, now lifts its arms out of its canvas, and they hold him aloft, high, high above in the air.

Ritani wheezes, his legs kicking, as he tries to grab the skewering fingers that move through him. But his hands glide through as if they were just water, despite the stability of them as they hold his entire body aloft. The man slides downward at an angle, as gravity pulls him down along the rails.

He slides down further and further along the fingers, nobody else daring to make a sudden move lest they disturb any of the other pools. And he slides, slowly, his blood greasing the array of needles as he descends back down towards the ground at an angle, moving straight towards the human-shaped puddle.

His face is above its face, and his legs are where its legs are. His shoulders, his chest, all of it is aligned with the puddle in the stones, from which the ten long shafts of ink had emerged.

And he slides straight down into the puddle, not having enough air left to scream.

It’s a perfect fit.

He vanishes.

— A new puddle appears on the floor a moment later, spreading its hands out wide with ten long fingers that cut through the entire room, creating a thousand criss-crossing tiny channels, waiting for anybody to disturb them.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

Swain watches through his many eyes as all around the country-side, large, horrific abominations of shadows, bone and eyes rise from the shadows beneath dead trees and behind gravestones, becoming whole, significant things of corporeal form, rising up to their feet to stand.

Eyes, scattered in the darkness of the night, peer their way as thousands of sharp legs and twisting bodies begin to collect in the wilds.

Good.

Swain looks back to his castle, having some more immediate problems to handle. Being a king does not allow for all too many moments of pure leisure, apparently. There is always more work to do.

Plus, he hasn’t written a poem in a while.

Swain looks around his throne-room.

— Perhaps work and play can be combined once again?

There are so many things to write about. Speed would be good; he could create some sort of force to help the carnival. Or perhaps something to help dispose of these latest intruders in his castle, though they seem to be stuck on floor fourteen at the moment. Or maybe something to help aid the outside effort against humanity, like his new generals? Or maybe…

Hmm…

“Paper,” orders the Demon-King, reaching out and taking a stack from a horrified ghost that arrives just in time.

~ [Zacarias] ~

Human, Male, Royal Guardsman Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor Fourteen Level: 91

“Grim. What’s the plan, Zac-man?” asks Ruhr, watching the last bubble vanish in the man-shaped puddle.

Zacarias looks at her and then around the room, shaking his head. “Hell if I know,” he says. “We’ll wait for them to keep searching the falls,” he explains.

Ruhr rubs her head. “I dunno, that seems too easy,” explains the half-elf. He nods. It does. It wouldn’t be like the Demon-King to just give them a door behind the waterfall.

Troublesome.

He looks over his shoulder, looking at a crate that the crusaders carry with them.

It doesn’t seem to be bleeding anymore.

He can’t say if that’s a good thing or not.

~ [Derinji] ~

Human, Male, Knight Location: A town, some forty-six kilometers north of the Demon-King’s castle Level: 60

Something smells like oil.

Weird.

He watches the sky. They’re losing ground. One or two more of these villages, and then they’re going to have to evacuate from the region, before the Demon-King arrives.

“Keep it moving,” says Derinji. “Everybody get inside,” orders the man, yelling over the storm as the people of the town take collective shelter in the city-hall. “Get those crystals set up!” he barks at his men, who are running around and setting up the warding crystals around the city-hall.

It’s just for show, of course, so the people of the town will cooperate and get where they need to be. They’ll pick them back up once they leave and then stash them somewhere. When this blows over, they can resell them on the market. For the military, they’re write-offs as is, so nobody will care.

He watches as the people all file along, corralled into their pen like animals to the slaughter.

— Somebody screams in the distance.

Derinji and the crowd turn to look, watching as some person falls to the ground, a pack of shambling undead having torn them down to the ground, where they now eat them alive. The villager screams, their voice drowning out in the new cries that come from the crowd, as everyone surges towards the shelter.

“MONSTERS!” screams a voice as the crowd panics, people pushing past each other to get inside the warding circle.

The soldier looks around the small town square, watching as undead leak into the city, as if manifested by the night itself; hundreds of them pour out from behind houses and out of alleyways from all directions. People are torn in the night, their horrified screams quickly silenced as they are added to the horde.

“Sir!” calls one of his soldiers. Derinji tsks, looking around. There are too many. He looks to the side, looking down the way towards their route out of the city. The darkness there is filled with thousands of glowing orbs — eyes — and just as many shambling silhouettes.

“Get inside the ward!” yells Derinji, ordering all of his soldiers to enter into the protective circle. “We’ll fight off the undead from there!” he commands, as he and his men all retreat into the circle outside of the city-hall. All of the townspeople have finished taking shelter and are watching from the windows in horror as the undead swarm towards the building, surrounding the warding circle entirely.

It’s a good thing they set this damn thing up, even if it was just for show.

Derinji looks around, certainly not relieved, though. The acrid smell of lantern oil still fills the air, never seeming to dissipate despite the storm.

“Casters!” he calls, as his geomancers and wizards line up. It’s been a long night. They only have so many soul-points left, so they have to be smart about their spell casting. “Wait for a break in their numbers we’ll make our move then.”

The undead can’t get into the circle, but they can certainly shoot out of it.

It’s a problem, but they’ll just burn their way out and then finish the job. Derinji stands at the edge of the circle, looking at a mangled face that stops a few feet before him, not able to come closer. It’s just a zombie. These all look like low-level undead. It’s not a real issue for them to handle.

His eyes wander the night as he looks at the undead horde. They got here unusually fast, but they must have been scouring the landscape when they just flooded over the town by chance. It’s bad luck, but that’s life.

The man’s vision stops, as he looks back behind the shuffling horde, trying unsuccessfully to push its way past the magic circle towards them. He narrows his eyes, trying to bring what he sees in the distance into focus.

“The hell is that?” he asks. Derinji takes a step back and then climbs up onto a pedestal, to get a better view over the horde.

There, standing at the edge of the night, is a gestalt far more composed and coherent than the howling zombies. It is the shape of a man, yet twice the size of one, with a cloak made out of nightfall and poise composed of the rigidity of a frozen corpse.

The shadow lifts a hand, gesturing with the wave of a single finger towards the side. The undead horde splits, wandering around the edge of the circle as if under its direct control.

It flicks another finger.

The undead stop. They stop howling and gnashing their teeth. They stop reaching and clawing for the magic that they can’t break, despite their desperate attempts to do so.

It flicks a third finger, and the hundreds of zombies that surround the city hall all take a step back.

And then a fourth.

A hundred some bodies drop to the ground, and then, with the rain cascading down over them, they begin to burrow, ripping away stones and breaking their fingers, nails, and teeth as they tear away at the roads and the cobblestones. The undead horde begins digging a perfectly coordinated circle around the city-hall, exactly along the edge of the barrier.

“The hell…” Derinji looks around in confusion. He grabs a wizard. “Hey. Kill that fucking thing back there,” he orders.

“Yes, sir,” replies the wizard, gathering a fireball around his hands and then arcing his arm back to throw it over the distance.

The creature, the large shadow, flicks a fifth finger, and the undead all around them fall down into the channels they’ve freshly dug.

Derinji looks down at the zombie laying at his feet, staring at its bloated stomach and glass-filled mouth, at the thick, black liquid that leaks out of its face.

He sniffs the air.

Lantern oil.

His eyes going wide, he looks around at the circle, lined with bloated, oil-filled corpses from which heavy vapors rise up into the air. In the glint of the fireball, he notices the shine of the broken lanterns stuck to their bodies, the zombies had ransacked the town, covering their bodies with anything and everything that is easily flammable.

“WAIT! ST-” yells Derinji, diving for the wizard just as he yanks his arm forward, lobbing the fire through the night.

— The vapors catch fire and a few, bloated, fatty corpses explode at once, breaking the protective circle from the force of the explosion.

Derinji tumbles to the side, his back cracking as he is flung against a pillar of the city-hall’s exterior.

Undead swarm in, the wave of burning zombies pouring down over his men and eating them with burning faces. The horde pushes past him, breaking through the doors to the city-hall.

With raspy breath, he lays there, watching as he is entirely ignored by hundreds of zombies.

A set of heavy, thudding steps move towards him, and he looks up, staring at the shadow of a horrific demon that towers over him.

It bends down, looking at him in the eyes for a moment, before nodding its head to the side.

— Undead hands grab him. But rather than eating him, they tear him off into the night, as they do with the hundreds of townspeople in the city-hall, ripping them through the ruins and into the darkness, towards the ever-approaching aura of the Demon-King.

~ [Zacarias] ~

Human, Male, Royal Guardsman Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor Fourteen Level: 91

“I have an idea, but it’s stupid,” he says.

Ruhr looks at him. “I’m listening.”

Zacarias looks around the room. “Let me borrow this,” he says to a crusader, taking his spear from him. Zacarias turns the polearm around, reaching over the ravine and into the waterfall.

“Be careful, Zac!” says Ruhr, grabbing him. “Don’t touch the ink!”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “The waterfall is fine. It’s the body-puddles you can’t touch,” explains the man. He pulls the spear back towards himself, black, thick ink dripping from the wood.

He lowers it down to the stones at their feet, finding a spot where there is enough room, and then draws a circle with it.

— A hole appears.

The door to the next floor.

Zacarias and Ruhr look at each other.

~ [High King Mercator] ~

Human Half-elf, Male, King Location: The Capital City, in the Distant North Level: 100

“Is the trap in place?” he asks, pointing at the map.

One of his advisers nods. “It is, my lord,” replies the man, looking down at the road to the north that the carriage is moving down. A great river with a ravine spans the landscape there. “We’re waiting for him to arrive now,” he replies, pointing at the location on the map. “He’ll be stuck there for a while.”

“Good,” says Mercator, rubbing his eyes and looking around the room. He’s so tired. It’s been days since he’s slept. Blurs and blobs move past him, and he honestly can’t tell which people in the room are real and which ones are just his double-vision.

Their shadows are odd too, shifting and blurring and sometimes becoming separate from the bodies that they’re connected to until he blinks again.

“Good…” repeats the man, looking down at the map, towards the trap they’ve set for the Demon-King.