Blood and bits of unidentifiable meat were splattered across the floor, walls, and ceiling. Shreds of what had likely once been uniforms were scattered among the gore, as were the bent and broken remains of every imaginable kind of kitchen utensil. All manner of foods and ingredients were mixed in with the stinking piles of mutilated flesh, creating a nauseating morass of already badly decomposed organics.
Trummelton’s kitchen had certainly seen better days.
Syd winced as she had to step barefoot through the vile swamp of rancid gore. How everything could already look halfway decomposed when the ambush had only started less than half an hour ago could only be explained by magic. She didn’t have to guess why the Demons would turn everything to rot, either. With so much stinking filth, it acted as both a passive defense by triggering an intense gag reflex in every person who came near the kitchen; it also acted as a means to infect anyone who had an open wound with foul diseases. Jadis was glad she could transfer any injury Syd had onto her Dys self, as otherwise she was certain she’d catch something truly terrible from the demonically induced rot. She wasn’t entirely certain she wouldn’t catch something anyway just from breathing the noxious fumes in.
Jadis didn’t have to guess how the Demons had corrupted everything organic, either. The source of the rot was visible from the far back of the kitchen area, where she could see Ludger and Vraekae as well as a handful of the braver soldiers facing off against a… thing.
“What the fuck is that?” Syd coughed out as she hurried forward to join the magistrate and the Bulwark.
“A cultist,” Ludger replied, his tone grim. “Fanatical bastard.”
“That’s a cultist?” Syd asked with disbelief. “How?”
“He has sacrificed his life for Samleos,” Wilhelm answered quietly as he drew up next to her. “Empowering his foul maledictions with his own soul.”
The back of the large kitchen area had an open archway that led to what Jadis presumed was either more kitchen space or a storeroom of some kind. It was hard to tell what the space may have once been used for, since so much of it was covered with the branching mass of what had once been a person.
Near the center of the room stood a figure, approximately five feet tall. It had certainly once been humanoid, possibly an elf or an orc, but what remained of its flesh was discolored with rot. Its legs had been twisted together like twine and its arms were held out to either side of its body like a scarecrow. Most of the flesh of its limbs and torso had shifted upward, crowding onto the shoulders of the figure to create a massive meaty lump. Jadis could see the person’s organs, as well as features like its mouth and eyes, mashed together and mutated beyond recognition in the pulsating lump. From the top, Syd could see an open sphincter from which spewed a constant stream of dark liquid. It was a fountain of filth, and it was watering its own roots.
From the feet of the figure spread a network of fibrous fleshy growths that covered the floor, walls, and ceiling. The roots were stuck across every surface, to the point where the stone was barely visible beneath. There were larger lumps, though, particularly in corners, that looked like the remains of people which had been decayed down to little more than rot and bones.
It was one of the vilest things Jadis had ever witnessed, and she felt an intense need to burn the mass and then bathe herself in gallons of soap just from looking at it. Burning the transformed cultist didn’t seem to be an option, though. Not immediately.
A barrier of translucent dark energy was blocking the open archway. The magic barrier was the color of a midnight sky and a dark red symbol burned in the very center of it. Jadis recognized it as Samleos’ icon, a symbol that had been stricken from the traditional circle of symbols that the temples used to represent the gods of Oros.
“This is also the only way down to the basement storerooms,” Vraekae added with a wrinkled nose. “This fool’s sacrifice is blocking our path and allowing the Demons to pass. The breach must have come from down there.”
Jadis agreed with Vraekae’s assessment. There were dozens of crawlers and wights on the other side of the barrier, as well as a few of the demonic throw rugs and a couple of dead heads. Ludger stood with his tower shield pressed up against the archway, blocking the mass of Demons from pouring through the opening. From around the sides of his shield, many of the Demons were reaching out with claws and tentacles, trying to get at him or anyone else close enough to attack. The five soldiers who had made it into the kitchen with Ludger were hacking at any of the arms and limbs that stuck through the gaps, and Vraekae was occasionally sweeping her death orb across the surface of the barrier to mow down any unlucky limbs as well, though even her magic didn’t seem to be capable of passing through the demonic magic.
Inside, Syd could see that the Demons who were injured were visibly regenerating their lost limbs. It wasn’t fast, but they were being healed by the effects of the corpse flower thing in the center of the room.
As Syd observed the disgusting vision for a moment, she spotted some movement in the back of the room where a set of stairs that led downwards were just barely visible through the crowd of Demons. The elongated, many-limbed body of the centipede Demon was there, its various open wounds closing up as it regenerated. Syd could see that it had taken the corpse of a slain crawler and was tearing off the limbs from its ring-shaped body and adding them to its own mass, replacing the limbs that it had lost.
“We have to get in there,” Syd growled around the bile in her throat.
“Yes, we do!” Ludger gritted his teeth as a particularly powerful shove from the Demons knocked against his shield. “Willy! Do your thing!”
Willy?
Syd stopped short at the unexpected nickname. Glancing around, she didn’t see anyone else reacting to the moniker. They were all understandably focused on the Demons. She knew she needed to stay focused as well, so she mentally reoriented herself to the task at hand. But still.
Willy?
Stepping forward, Wilhelm readied his stance while taking a firm, two-handed grip on his longsword. At the beat of some kind of silent signal, Ludger pulled his shield away from the blocked archway. In the same moment, Wilhem lunged forward, his sword blazing with a fierce golden flame.
The tip of the Hero’s sword impacted the center of the demonic barrier with a sound like a thousand pounds of molten steel being dropped into a frozen lake. The concussive hiss was earsplitting, and everyone who had a free hand reflexively tried to cover their ears. Even the Demons on the other side of the barrier recoiled. Rainbow-colored sparks cascaded around the point of contact as Wilhelm forced the point of his sword against the dark magic that blocked the way forward. He leaned his whole weight into the thrust, one hand on the pommel of his golden blade as he forced his way forward. There was an excruciatingly long second that dragged out like nails on chalkboard as the barrier resisted the Hero’s attempt at breaking it.
Then a thin crack split across the surface of the dark blue magic, radiating from the tip of the sword to the furthest edge of the archway.
That was all the warning they got before the barrier fractured across its whole surface. In the next instant, the demonic magic exploded outward, showering them in a rain of glass shards. The blowback was strong enough that those standing close to archway were thrown off of their feet. Except for Ludger, of course, who stayed firmly in place as he blocked the pressurized explosion with his massive shield. Vraekae had the good sense to be standing behind the big man, so she was fine. Aila, Thea, and Bridget were all far enough back that they only stumbled a bit. The soldiers who had been supporting Ludger were tossed to the side in a clatter of armor, though, and even Wilhelm was knocked back several feet and struggled to maintain his footing.
The barrier was broken, but the stone archway was also left undefended by the shattering explosion. A sudden flood of Demons threw themselves out of the storeroom with eager fury as they strove to take advantage of the opening. Crawlers and wights surged forward while the magic spells of dead heads flew out through the gaps.
“Fuck off!” Syd shouted as she punched the forward-most wight with a straight right jab.
The force of her attack sent the jelly-fleshed Demon flying backwards at a downwards angle, bowling over those Demons who were behind it from the power of the blow. Spinning with the momentum of her punch, Syd brought her left arm around in a wide sweep that caught four or five of the closely packed Demons in the arc. She sent several of them crashing back into the ruined storeroom while those on the edges were crushed against the edges of the archway.
“Aila!” Syd shouted as she directly absorbed a fire blast from one of the dead heads on her shoulder. “Explosion!”
There was no hesitation from her lover. With a motion from one hand, Aila shot out one of her ghostly arcane force bolts into the corrupted room beyond. As it passed through the air towards the open archway, Syd followed along with the momentum of her attacks and threw herself upwards with a push of her powerful legs. She made it out of the way with barely a microsecond to spare, her whole body going horizontal as her back brushed against the kitchen ceiling. Aila’s arcane bolt passed underneath her, slipping by the Demons that Syd had knocked back to reach the mass of Demons and fleshy cultist-flower in the back.
Considering the nature of Aila’s force explosions and the close quarters of the demonically infested kitchen storeroom, Jadis wasn’t entirely certain how safe this particular maneuver was. It seemed like Syd and several of the others could very well be in range of the explosion’s sphere. That probably wouldn’t be a problem so long as Ludger repositioned his shield to block the archway again, but the Bulwark didn’t have the experience to know what Jadis wanted in the moment. He was a powerful and experienced warrior, but there was no bond there.
That was okay. Jadis had wonderful companions she could rely on to know what she wanted. And even in the rare circumstances where they, too, failed to know what she needed in the moment, she always had herself.
Jay crashed through the kitchen, knocking everything that stood in her way aside as she carried a heavy, solid oak dinner table in front of her. Everything that didn’t want to be crushed underfoot had to move, forcing even the Hero to spin aside as he dodged the running wooden wall. In the half second after Aila’s force spell entered the storeroom, Jay slammed the table against the edges of the archway, blocking the entrance off.
The detonation inside the enclosed space caused the table to buck and break against Jay’s shoulder. She held firm, keeping the makeshift barrier in place, but the thick oak planks around her cracked and popped like plywood in that single instant of mass destruction. Jay had to use all her strength to keep the table from blowing backward, but she managed.
Unfortunately, Jay’s focus on the table meant that she wasn’t able to assist her other self in landing from her dodge upwards.
Syd bounced against the top of Jay’s head as she grabbed at her other self’s shoulder. Fabric tore on her ruined dress and Syd’s grip slipped as she floundered in midair before flipping forward. Her body landed heavily against Ludger’s shield and she felt her heel strike the top of the man’s helmet as she landed poorly on the back of her shoulders.
“Fuck. Sorry,” Syd hurried to say as she righted herself while trying not to get even more of the nasty filth on the ground into her hair.
Ludger grunted uncomfortably as Syd disentangled herself from his shield. It wasn’t her most elegant display, but function counted more than form, in her opinion. She could live with making a fool of herself in front of people like Ludger and Wilhelm if it meant she and everyone else actually lived.
“Get ready!” Jay shouted as she reared back one fist. “Breaching!”
Jay crashed forward, breaking the damaged table to splinters as she punched it with all her might. She wasn’t sure what was going to be waiting for them on the other side, but she figured leading with an attack would be best, just in case.
Apparently, Wilhelm had the same thought, as he appeared on Jay’s right. He slashed his sword as he entered the room with her, sending out an arc of golden light that swept the side of the storeroom he faced. On her left, Ludger pushed his way in, mace raised high to strike at anything that came at them from the side. Jay even felt the whir of Vraekae’s red orb as it spun over her head, entering the space with them with all its spikes extended.
What greeted them was pure carnage. The storeroom, already a place of vile destruction before Aila’s spell, now looked like it had been put through a blender. Pieces of Demons were scattered everywhere, with many of the oozing chunks pushed around the edges of the room from the force of the explosion. The fleshy mockery of a flower that had once been a cultist was gone. Only the twisted stem of its legs remained still stuck to the center of the floor, with jagged bones sticking out of roughly where the thighs would have been.
Not all the Demons were dead, though. There were plenty of them just stunned by the blast and pushed towards the edges. Even as Syd and the rest entered the room, she saw the abominations clawing themselves back upright to continue the fight. The worst ones, the dead heads, were the most intact thanks to their magic shields. Considering what Jadis had seen the Hero do against them already, she doubted they were going to last much longer.
There was no sign of the centipede Demon, though. Just the dark, yawning maw of the cellar below Trummelton’s, the presumed source of the demonic breach.
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