Jay strained against the jaws that tried to crush her, surprised by how much effort it was taking to keep them from snapping shut. Despite all of her immense strength, she could feel her bones creaking as the Demon clenched down on her. Sharp, jagged teeth that looked more like pieces of larger bones that had been snapped into pieces dug into her hands. Blood trickled from the wounds just as sweat trickled down Jay’s back as she struggled to hold the Demon in place.
A large, black tentacle struck from the side, cracking against the monstrous Demon’s side. Several hands, each one a stolen limb from some unfortunate man or beast, blocked the blow but not without being broken from the power of the smiting strike. A burning blue aura suffused the attacking Demon and while there was no physical indication, Jadis could practically see the bastard’s health being depleted by the effect of Alex’s Bold Smite.
As Alex launched herself at the Demon attacking her, Jay shifted her weight in an attempt to yank the abomination forward and over the balcony edge and onto the stairs. She was confident that once she pulled it into easy view, she and Alex could crush the freaky fuck in a unified attack. However, as she started to drag the Demon forward, the elf woman who Alex had been inadvertently protecting let out another shriek of terror.
The woman hadn’t been idle: she’d tried to run away, but with all the blood and Demon bodies strewn across the stairs, she’d slipped and fallen. Unfortunately, the spot she’d landed at was directly in Jadis’ intended path. If she pulled the Demon forward, she’d be dragging it on top of the elf.
The split second of hesitation Jay showed was enough for the Demon to act. Twisting around, it spun like a corkscrew, jerking away from Jay as her grip slipped. Alex landed next to them in the same moment and slashed at the Demon with one of her larger arms, but the blow was glancing as the monster spun away in a chaotic mess of flailing limbs. Reaching out, Jay grabbed hold of one of the legs, one that had probably belonged to a cow or an auroch at some point, and tried to pull the Demon closer. However, the limb sloughed off the creature like the discarded tail of a lizard, leaving Jay unbalanced as she stumbled backwards. In the next moment, the long, centipede-like body of the Demon had disappeared into the shadows of the toxic gas cloud that had enveloped the first floor.
“Back up the stairs,” Jay commanded again without turning to look at Alex. She wanted to keep her eyes open for the centipede horror. “Quickly!”
Alex moved up again, this time picking the elf up as she went. For her part, the elf didn’t struggle against Alex anymore, which was a small favor, Jay supposed. Following right behind, Jay climbed up the stairs without taking her eyes off of the cloud. There was a lot of movement, a lot of spells being cast, and the swirl of partially obscured activity was a perfect cover for the ambushing Demon. She wouldn’t let the noxious thing get the drop on her again.
Back up on the second floor, Jay quickly reconnected with her other self, Syd, while checking on everyone else.
Her companions had maintained their defensive circle and had even added to it, rallying other survivors of the attack to them. With Syd running around and picking off every crawler in sight, the second floor was rapidly becoming a defensive point clear of enemy assailants.
The guards who had rallied together on the third floor were already moving down the stairs, doing everything in their power to protect the non-combatants they had rescued, but Jadis knew from when Dys had passed through that more Demons and victims of the attack still lingered on that floor. There were also three floors above the third floor to consider; Jadis had no idea how many people would have been up there, much less how many Demons could be attacking on those upper levels.
“I haven’t found Sabina yet!” Jay told Aila as she and Alex dropped the sobbing elf off with her and the rest of the survivors. “I’m moving to clear the third floor!”
“Not alone,” Aila said as she sent another bolt of arcane energy to destroy a strangling crawler that was skittering over the edge of the balcony.
“I’m never alone,” Jay shot back, but she didn’t argue further. “Alex, stay here and get healed, then help Syd deal with the Demons coming up from below. Kerr, come with me for support. Everyone else, hold the line and keep yourselves and the survivors safe!”
Jay’s tone left no room for debate. She rushed up the stairs with Kerr following right behind. As she ran, she checked her status sheet to make sure her condition wasn’t worse than she felt. With her adrenaline pumping and the rage burning in the back of her mind, she barely felt the pain of the injuries done to her so far. That didn’t mean she wasn’t in danger, though.
Jadis’ max health was a massive two thousand and forty points, an amount ten times greater than most other physical combatants that she knew. With the damage done to her by the Demons so far, her reserve had barely been scratched as it sat at a total of one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five. That was good, since Jadis was certain that Eir was going to need to save as much of her magic power for healing others as she could. There were a lot of wounded people who were in greater danger than her.
During all the time that Jay had been busy retrieving Alex from the stairs and fighting off the attack of the demonic centipede man, Dys had been searching for Sabina.
The large, open archway on the back wall of the third floor led to a grand stairwell that continued upwards to the floors above. The open area before the stairs, though, split off in an intersection with a hall that went towards the back of the building and a large, closed door that went to the right. Jadis hadn’t had cause to come up to this hall before and had no idea which direction she had to go to find the restrooms. However, the immediate concern was the group of people being attacked by Demons.
Dys picked up a crawler that had grappled onto a young guard and crushed the Demon’s ring-like body. She had to be careful how she killed the Demon, since its many hands had grabbed hold of the man and pulled him close, limiting the ways she could attack the Demon without hurting the guard. Once the Demon was dead, Dys was able to pull the man free and he stumbled to his feet.
“Thank—”
Dys didn’t wait to hear the man’s gasped gratitude. There were many more people being attacked in the hallway and stairs and she didn’t have the time to linger.
As Dys crushed multiple crawlers in quick succession, she saw that while some of the people had been unable to defend themselves against the attack and were severely wounded or worse, others had managed to fend off the Demons with greater success.
“Bastard spawn of Samleos!” A familiar voice cried out in mixed anger and pain. “I will not die to one such as you!”
Tossing another crawler corpse aside, Dys turned to see that Margrave Kernagin was wrestling with his own Demon. The old man had blood on his previously immaculate clothes and one side of his droopy mustache had been ripped off, but he was fighting the crawler with surprising vigor. He had what looked like a club or mace in one hand, but as Dys closed the distance, she saw that the weapon was made completely out of a brownish gray stone. She noticed that his left hand and arm were also coated in the same stone material, like a stone gauntlet. Before she reached the Margrave, he knocked the Demon onto the ground and with a quick gesture of his left hand, a rock the size of a softball materialized and blasted into the crawler’s body, crushing the spot it struck.
“Abyss take you!” Kernagin cursed as his spell finished off the abomination.
Spinning around as Dys dashed up next to him, he raised his mace to strike at her before realizing that she wasn’t attacking him.
“Ah, Lady Ahlstrom,” he panted heavily. “I’m glad to see you still fare well.”
“You too,” Dys rushed out. “Have you seen one of my companions come through here? Sabina. The half-elf with black curly hair.”
“Oh, ah,” Kernagin said as he looked around, clearly still reeling from the sudden demon attack. “I believe I may have seen her towards the restrooms,” he motioned with his mace down the hall. “At the end of the hall.”
“Thank you,” Dys said as she moved to race down the hall. “Gather the others and head to the second floor!”
“I will do so!” the old man said with conviction before he turned to strike at another crawler that was scurrying across the wall towards him. “Gentlemen! Ladies! If you have a drop of righteous honor in your blood, rally to me!”
Jadis didn’t pay any further heed to the margrave as she sprinted down the corridor, passing a few lifeless bodies that lay mutilated and limbless on the floor. Reaching the end of the hall, Dys checked the doors she found there. The first door was locked, but that wasn’t much of a barrier to someone of her strength. With a solid push, the wood cracked and split apart as she threw the door open.
Inside two young women that Jadis didn’t recognize screamed as they cowered in a corner of the room. Neither were Sabina.
“Get out and head to the second floor!” Dys shouted at them before quickly moving on.
The next few rooms were empty and Jadis felt a rising panic fill her as she failed to locate Sabina. She pushed that panic down, not willing to let it consume her. She needed to keep calm. Panicking wouldn’t help Sabina or anyone else, much less herself.
Kicking open another door, Jadis found two strangling crawlers on top of the corpse of another woman. One had her leg in the open ring of its maw and was in the process of chewing the limb off like a grotesque cigar cutter. The other had one of her freshly severed arms and was busily attaching it to an open spot on its body. Small, thread-like tentacles reached out and connected to the limp arm and she could see where they entered the gaping wound, the flesh turned gray and corrupted.
It only took a few seconds to destroy the two Demons. Dys turned away from the face of the shocked woman, not wanting to linger. She’d met her hours ago but had already forgotten her name in the whirlwind of introductions and activity. All Jadis could do was hope that the poor woman hadn’t suffered, and that she wouldn’t find Sabina in a similar state in the next room.
Out on the main part of the third floor, Jay and Kerr were thrashing the crawlers that were attacking the partygoers that still remained. Kerr had picked up a sword from a dead guard and while she was an archer, not a swordswoman, she was still an experienced mercenary and had a huge boost to her Strength from her Lover’s Bond. Jay had not found any convenient weapons to wield, but she was used to improvising. A large, heavy table worked well enough as a bludgeoning instrument and had the added bonus of making a halfway decent shield. Between the two of them, Jadis felt like they had already killed twenty or more of the crawlers, and yet more remained.
“Where are they all fucking coming from?” Jay shouted as she swatted a crawler off of a wall. “There’s no end!”
“From below,” Kerr pointed with the sword before using it to split another Demon in half. “They’re climbing up from the first floor!”
From Syd’s perspective on the second floor, Jadis could see that Kerr was right. Dozens of the nasty crawlers were making their way up from below. They appeared from out of the poisoned cloud, a tide of decaying flesh showed no signs of slowing. Were they coming from outside? Possibly, but Jadis didn’t think so. Trummelton’s was in the middle of the city, literally thousands of feet from the closest outer wall. There was no way such a large number of Demons had stormed through the streets of the city and gotten to the fancy restaurant without the alarms going off earlier.
No, in Jadis’ opinion, the most likely source for the Demons was the Undercity. Somehow, the Demons had gotten into the underground and were coming up from below. Jadis had no doubt that the restaurant had some connection, be it a drain or basement access. The floor might have even been broken through. Whatever the case, Jadis wanted to get into position to cut the Demon’s entry point off. Running around and slaying the horde was spreading her and the other defenders too thin. They needed to cut the attackers off at their source.
But first, Jadis had to find Sabina.
Reaching the last two doors at the end of the hallway, Dys chose the one on the right and smashed it open with her fist. It banged against the wall, having already been partially open. Inside was a man in a server’s jacket with a single silver knife in hand. He let out a yelp of fear at Dys’ abrupt entrance and brandished the silverware at her with a trembling hand.
“Get to the second floor,” Dys shouted at him, same as she had done for the others, before turning away.
With a kick, Dys knocked open the last door. Her breath caught in her throat at what she saw. Sabina was lying on the floor in a crumpled heap, face down. Jadis wasn’t sure if she was dead or unconscious, but she still had all her limbs attached and Dys didn’t see any obvious blood. The only thing that prevented her from instantly rushing to her lover’s side was everything else in the room.
Three men stood above Sabina. One was an orc, one was a gnome, and the last a human. The orc was wearing a white serving uniform but the other two were wearing what looked like the kinds of clothing cooks or kitchen assistants would be wearing. All three were holding wickedly curved daggers that looked out of place, their design unlike anything else Jadis had seen in Eldingholt. The men stared at her with a mix of expressions that didn’t match the situation. The gnome smiled up at her, a jovial look on his face, while the human looked tired, like he was struggling not to yawn. The orc, standing in the middle and just over Sabina’s head, had a blank expression that showed no emotion at all. His dead eyes regarded her with no more interest than if he had been staring at a piece of lint.
Raising up the dagger in his right hand, the orc pointed it at Dys.
“Drop your weapon,” he said in a strangely familiar monotone.
“I don’t have a weapon,” Dys growled out as she considered how best to take out the three men before they could stab Sabina with their daggers.
“Sorry about that,” a man’s voice said from behind her as she felt the sting of a blade stab into her back thigh. “They only know a few phrases.”
Spinning around with supernatural speed, Dys knocked the hand of the server who had been in the room behind her away with enough force that she heard the bones in his arm crack. He stumbled back, clutching at his broken arm as the silver knife fell from his hand. His expression was twisted with the pain of the blow, but his eyes glowed with a mad light.
“Kill her,” he commanded.
Reacting to the man’s words, Dys turned and dove into the restroom. All three of the men inside lunged at Sabina upon the server’s order. Using her body as a shield, Dys protected Sabina from their attacks. She winced as she felt the sharp knives pierce her flesh, the pain of the blades greater than she expected. She could also feel a growing, sharp pain spreading out from the spot on her thigh where the man had stabbed her, but that was a secondary concern compared to Sabina’s safety.
Lashing out, Dys punched at the gnome and the human on her left and right, causing both to smash into the walls of the restroom. At the same time, Jadis activated her Mirror Shine spell. She wasn’t sure if it would work, but any distraction she could use to keep the assailants from attacking her defenseless lover was a tool she would use. As she punched the two men away, she felt the larger orc slam his dagger down into her back near the base of her neck, the cold blade scraping against the bone of her spine from where it struck. All the breath was knocked from her lungs and she felt like she wouldn’t be able to take another breath, even as he pulled the dagger out of her back to stab again. Her body went half limp as it felt like something vital had been cut and she lost control of her limbs.
The moment the blade had cleared her flesh, Jadis used Mirrored Body’s shifting reflection to shift the stab wound from Dys to Syd. Instantly, Syd collapsed onto the ground as the damage and pain was transferred, though Jadis noted that the burning sting in her thigh hadn’t left Dys. Checking her status sheet, Jadis saw that her health had dropped by over five hundred points from the attack. Worse, it was still going down, the number steadily ticking lower every second.
“Poisoned!” Syd called out from where she lay on the ground a few yards away from her other companions. “Assassin on the third floor!”
Syd had been defending the stairs with Alex’s help from any crawlers or dead heads that tried to come up that way. As she struggled to get to her feet, Thea and Bridget rushed over from where they had been defending the second-floor railing from the crawlers coming up that way to drag her over to where Eir was.
At the same time, Jay and Kerr sprinted for the hall leading to Dys on the third floor. With how fast Jadis could move, it wouldn’t take long, except for the fact that both Demons and the survivors that Margrave Kernagin was escorting were in the way.
With her wounds immediately transferred to her other body, Dys snapped her hand up and caught the orc’s arm before he could plunge the dagger back into her. With a vicious twist, she broke the arm in two, folding the forearm back onto itself. The curved dagger clattered to the ground as his fingers went limp.
“Drop your weapon,” the orc repeated as he struck at her with his other fist, his attacks completely ineffectual without the dagger.
“Fuck off,” Dys snarled before taking hold of the orc with her other hand and using his body like a club to crush the gnome that was getting back onto his feet.
Both orc and gnome were pulped by the power of her bludgeoning attack. As their bodies were crushed, she saw wriggling tentacles try and slip out from between the buttons on their shirts and jackets.
The men had been possessed by Demons. It explained their unnatural expressions and lack of comprehension. They wouldn’t have any true understanding of the things they were saying, they were just mimicking what they heard. Or had been taught.
Grabbing hold of the last possessed server still standing by his arm, Dys crushed the limb in her grip before tossing the figure on top of the other possessed bodies, creating a pile of mangled men. They weren’t all the way dead yet, but they were more than disabled as Dys’ rough treatment wrecked their flesh and bones. She didn’t bother finishing them off, though. There was a greater threat to deal with.
Spinning around on her knees, Dys managed to face the other way just in time to stop the assassin from stabbing her with his silverware knife a second time. As his right arm hung limply at his side, he struggled to pull free from her grip so that he could use the poisoned blade, but he lacked the strength to make her even budge.
“Who the fuck are you?” Dys demanded, her barely constrained rage tempting her to simply crush the wretched worm like the piece of slime that he was. “What did you do to Sabina?”
“I am but a servant of the Father,” he replied with a pained fervor. “You and she will soon know His embrace, just as the Betrayer will be punished!”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out who the Father was that the man was rambling about. Samleos. Which meant this idiot was one of the cultists she had heard so much about.
“Samleos can eat my shit!” Dys shouted in the man’s face before tossing him away from her.
At that same moment, Jay and Kerr had arrived. Jay immediately picked the man up, one hand around the back of his neck and the other holding his unbroken arm. She didn’t want to kill him. Well, no, she absolutely did want to kill him, but she wanted to interrogate him first. After she’d wrung some answers out of him, then she would toss him out of a very, very high window.
“What’s wrong with her,” Kerr asked as she knelt down next to Sabina and Dys.
“I don’t know,” Dys said as she carefully lifted the unconscious smith into her arms. “I think she’s been poisoned.”
Sabina was definitely still breathing, but her breath was shallow and her chest barely moved.
“Let’s get her back downstairs,” Kerr said as she got back onto her feet. “And maybe we can persuade this czubek to tell us how to cure her.”
“You will rot with the rest of them,” the man choked out a laugh. “May you and the Betrayer be forgiven for your sins!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Jay said as she slammed his face into the wall, breaking his nose. It took a lot of restraint not to do more damage.
The man only laughed further before shouting out another word, this one something Jadis didn’t understand. However, as soon as he did, she saw that his whole body began swell as bubbling pustules formed under his skin and grew to incredible size in mere seconds.
“Shit!” Jay, Dys, and Kerr all cursed as they simultaneously realized what was about to happen.
As Jay and Kerr raced up the hallway back the way they came, Dys tossed the swollen cultist into the bathroom with the bodies of the three men who had been possessed. As she pulled the door closed, she heard his gurgling laughter choke off. A second later, she felt an explosion go off on the other side of the door as noxious greenish yellow gas seeped out from the cracks in the door. The smell was horrendous, worse than anything Jadis had ever experienced before, and the scent burned her nostrils like acid.
Quickly backing away, Dys dashed down the corridor to follow Jay and Kerr.
“We need to get back downstairs!” Dys shouted as she scooped Kerr up from behind as she and Jay sprinted.
“Obviously!” Kerr snapped as she flailed for a moment in Dys’ grip. “Sabina needs Eir!”
“Not just that!” Dys said as they rounded the corner and came out onto the open space of the third floor. “That freaky fuck said that the Betrayer would be punished! There’s only one person I can think of that Samleos would call a Betrayer!”
“Alex!” Syd shouted as she struggled up to her feet.
Eir still had her hands on Syd’s side, her healing power not yet done fixing all the damage that had been done to her body when Dys had transferred it to her. The constant damage being done by the poison in Dys’ flesh seemed to be actively slowing down the healing process.
Alex was at the top of the stairs, looking better because of the healing Eir had given her. She was in the middle of striking down a Dead Head that had tried to climb the stairs, but Jadis could tell she had her lover’s attention by the way her tentacles moved.
“Get away from the edge!” Syd called out her warning. “Get back over here!”
As Alex moved to obey, a malformed shadow rose up out of the putrid smoke cloud. With the speed of a true ambush predator, the centipede Demon snapped its jaws around one of Alex’s monstrous arms and several of her tentacles. In one smooth motion, it pulled back, yanking her over the edge. For a brief moment, Alex resisted the centipede’s strength as her tentacles wrapped around the stone railing of the stairs.
Then the stone broke and Alex was pulled down onto the first floor.
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