Shadowbane

~One month ago, as the group is fleeing north towards Thule. Godwin POV~

Looking out my wagon window, I can see Rei doing her martial arts exercises.

"Rei, where did you learn those moves?! I've never seen anyone using such clean hand-to-hand techniques before." Hera asked.

"I learned them from something that no longer exists thankfully," Rei answered while doing a high kick, making the air snap.

It's no surprise that my daughter does not recognize those attacks; it's half a miracle I remember those moves. I only saw them once when I was barely an adult, infiltrating a location no human should have ever gone.

Fucking Xelba. All spies that were sent in stopped contacting their superiors soon after their first missive, while some didn't even get to send a single one. Because of this, we were never able to get any information on what was happening inside their capital, and even spies in the small villages would be killed off in the same manner. There were skirmish battles here and there, but it was mostly Xelba's elites destroying supply lines, razing farms, kidnapping people... Making life hell for everyone else. There were monsters that accompanied the younger elite groups which told us an Eldritch was running Xelba, and hopefully there was only one.

They were a constant source of frustration for everyone. The never-ending attacks on supply caravans, merchants, and kidnappings all around... it got to the point that a temporary truce was given through lifelong enemies for the sole purpose of destroying Xelba. Before that happened though, I made the biggest mistake of my life.

Me, my brother Dave, and our best friend Jeffrey had all decided to sneak into Xelba. Being young and brave, with nothing but victories under our belt, we believed there was no way we could fail. It was further exacerbated by how easily we infiltrated Xelba. We got inside with ease, sneaking in through one of the drainage pipes.

I can't believe how naive we were...

There we were, bragging about how we had broke into the 'impenetrable Xelba', not knowing that it was all based on design. Xelba had no one guarding the underground. There was no need.

Upon exiting the sewage system, we could hear what sounded like a party a few blocks away. Walking in that direction, we entered a square where a very large crowd was celebrating. The citizens were cheering while women held up their babies to what I assume were the Eldritch's Lords. I remember thinking it was all very bizarre and nothing more, till I saw the look on my brother's face.

Calling my brother a genius would be putting it mildly. He was only 19 and had one of the best scanning abilities around.

"What's going on Dave?"

"T-They're all cursed... Every single one of em. The Lord over there is placing curses on the babies." He whispered back.

All of them are cursed?! Why the hell are these people cheering then?!

Curses come in many varieties, so there's no way to know what it's doing to them, but I can say with certainty that none of the options are good. They're sure as hell nothing you would cheer for. It also takes a long time to place a curse; you can't just touch a person and be done... And yet, that appears to be exactly what they're doing. Even without that, I can tell why my brother knew it was a Lord at only a glance. The sickly aura emanating from the creature made me want to either curl up in a ball or flee, never to return. The fact that they're dressed head to toe in a light black cloak that is concealing their features entirely is making them look even more dreadful.

It was then that I noticed the Lords all looking at us.

The crowd went silent.

One by one, they turned to look at us.

Through the snickering, I heard someone mumble, "Again? They never learn..."

At that moment, I knew we were dead. My brother saying 'They're all cursed' rang through my head.

All the citizens of Xelba are cursed.

The cursemakers are forty feet from us.

And here we are, three non-cursed fools.

Why no infiltrator ever lives. Why it was so easy to get inside of Xelba. So many questions, all answered in one single instant. Cursegivers have better soul detection and soul magic by default. It's impossible to use curses without that level of skill after all. So the fact that we aren't cursed was probably evident to them the second we exited the sewage system.

This entire town is a prison...

To my right, I saw a long-clawed finger tap Jeffrey's shoulder. It was the Lord who was cursing the babies a mere moment ago. I only took my eyes off him for a second, and in that gap, he had appeared behind my friend. What happened next is a memory that haunts me to this day. His shoulder began expanding first, then it spread to his forearm and face. The screams that erupted sounded like the dying throes of a pig. The fear and sickness that hit me as he exploded I'll never forget... However, there was no time to calm myself down. The spawn were walking up to us.

My brother fell to his knees, emptying the contents of his stomach onto the street. Unable to help him, I readied myself for whatever dark magic these creatures were going to use, except what happened next took me completely by surprise. The two who came up to me began assaulting me with their fists and feet.

Up till this point, I've always thought of myself as a good brawler. In fact, no one had ever stood a chance against me when it came to fistfights. But calling what was happening now a 'brawl' would be ridiculous. Their attacks were fast, clean, and under normal circumstances, I'd even dare to call them beautiful. It must have taken them decades to learn these moves...

It soon became apparent why they were attacking with their fists instead of weapons or magic. Every punch or kick they landed left that part of my body feeling completely numb. Even though my barrier was blocking their attacks, they were somehow still damaging me. Since I was gifted in defense, blocking their attacks with my barrier while freeing up my hands to attack was the most obvious choice, and yet that common knowledge is why I lost so pathetically. Barely fifteen seconds in and I was already on the ground, unable to move. One hit to my arms and legs was all it took; I lost control of them instantly.

I passed out as they began dragging me along the ground. The last thing I heard was my brother screaming.

I awoke in my soul realm, something that had never happened to me before. The reason I was here became apparent immediately. Looking up into the sky, I saw a massive raven-like head turned sideways, staring down at me with one large golden eyeball. It reached out with its two human-like arms, grabbing the ground around me as its claws stabbed deep into the earth. Before I could process any of this, dreadful unspeakable scenes played out in front of me. The most horrific fact of all was I knew that these weren't merely fictions of my imagination. The Raven made sure I knew it was all real.

{GIVE THEM SHELTER...}. Images of well-built homes within and around Xelba appeared before me.

{GIVE THEM FOOD...}. Families eating a hearty meal near an open fire.

{GIVE THEM JOY...}. Multiple overlapping images of children growing into young teens, finding love, and being at peace in a safe domain to enjoy their lives.

{GIVE THEM PURPOSE...}. Merchant wagons toppled. Villages raided. Cities sacked. No torture, no rape... Nothing but a singular objective to capture every living being. After each enemy is felled in battle, they are stabbed with a small dagger that freezes them in place while making their bodies glow blue. Afterward, they are loaded onto a creature in the shape of a wagon.

One by one, the 'wagons' are emptied over a deep chasm within a tall beautiful building. The people laugh while congratulating each other on another job well done. They leave the building, heading to the town center where a banquet is held in honor of the 'heroes' who have recently returned with the spoils of their victories. Their friends and families swarm them, offering praise and thanks for their hard work.

{SHELTER... FOOD... JOY... PURPOSE...}

As the Raven speaks, I see hordes of bodies falling through the black chasm. Humans, Crotia, Fox-kin, Nei'lah, Dwarves...

{GIVE THEM THESE THINGS...}

Elderly, adults, children... no discrimination, all are offered equally.

A mouth as wide as the chasm appears before me. Tens of thousands of teeth line up and down the insides of the fleshy being.

{AND THEY WILL DO ANYTHING...}

The bodies fall into the being's mouth as it snaps shut onto them. The gnashing of teeth creates a crescendo louder than anything I have ever heard before. Meat, blood, and body parts fly every which way as the mouth chomps down over and over. But the eyes... they're looking at me. The world slows to a crawl as hundreds of eyes from the victims appear to be looking right at me. Judgment, hatred, disgust, jealousy, envy... Emotions of all types bombard me.

My soul itself starts to shake, aching in a pain I've never felt before when suddenly I feel a hard slap across my right cheek. A man is standing over me. His name was Viktor. He wanted me to take a letter to Rai'ga and Lord Shiva. There was no time to answer any of my questions. He apologized for being unable to save my brother, quickly turning around and running back toward Xelba as fast as he could.

Oh... he must have somehow saved me before I was fed to that... Thing.

He removed a good deal of the poison from my limbs, but I was still stuck there for several days before I could walk properly. Every second I lay there felt like an eternity. As I sat there crying, all I wanted to do was run home to my parents, back to normalcy...

At the same time, I also hated Viktor for saving me. I wished with all my heart that I had died with Dave and Jeffrey... All the while fearing the end that those two must have also faced at the bottom of that chasm.

Eventually, I was able to start walking, and for the first time in a while, I had some good luck. I ran into a caravan soon after I reached the main road that was conveniently heading for Viseux.

Whatever was in that letter must have been important. Soon after I delivered it the peace agreements were signed and all-out war was waged on Xelba. The Dwarves were already at war with them because of something that happened during one of their meetings, yet another detail that was never released. However, all of it was for naught. By the time the armies had finally reached the city, most of the people inside were dead. The few that survived said one of their leaders who went by the name of 'Viktor', and his underling a freakishly pale monster girl with red eyes, had slaughtered everyone inside. No one actually witnessed Viktor killing anyone, but they knew that the girl had worked for him for many years.

It wasn't till much later in life that I learned that the 'Tengu' Eldritch I had heard of before, was the creature who invaded my soul realm outside Xelba. After learning this, it became obvious that it was trying to turn me into a spawn of his, making me hell-bent on getting revenge on Xelba. I would have done it too... Had Viktor not snapped me out of it. Why the Tengu did not drag me back into my soul realm and continue the conversion, I'll never know. Possibly it saw what Viktor had planned and decided that was more beneficial to it? Either way, I really should tell Reimia about this... Hell, my family deserves to know too. I've never talked about what went down there though... I couldn't even bring myself to tell my parents about what had happened to their only other son. I lied and said he died in a fight with bandits. I've regretted that decision for my entire life.

In front of me, Reimia continues to 'shadow box' as she calls it.

How is it possible that she is here? After forty-two years she just suddenly re-emerges? There's also a very good chance she's responsible for all the skeletons that were running amok in Xelba killing people. After the siege, the alliance found large amounts of skeletons with blackened bones littered amongst what was left of the town. Two refugees said they watched her turn the corpses of people into walking skeletons. It was assumed she had either died or fled with Viktor when the city collapsed... yet, here she is over forty years later.

So far she seems friendly enough, and she did tell us about her origins, but there's no getting around just how bleak her history is. If it wasn't for Arkaios saying to leave her be, I would have distanced my family from her after the Satyr was slain. Arkaios is not exactly known for doling out knowledge like that, so it was shocking when Markus told me what he said.

... Or maybe I wouldn't have. All things considered, she is much more amiable than I would have expected from someone who lived in Xelba. Plus, I need to stop trying to control my kids. I think it's because of what happened to my brother, but I've always been very domineering in my families lives. Jasper wanted to become a spell researcher, and yet here he is, a damned Guardian because I forced him to be. If they think Rei is safe to be around, then so be it. I'm too old at this point, I think it's time to just let it all go...

A long line of light approaches from far off in the distance, accompanied by the rhythmic sounds of drums and horns.

"Fucking idiots..."

I knew they would do this. I knew those fucking stupid war-hungry pigs would empty the garrisons when they heard someone was daring to threaten their authority over Urza. Did they think about what would happen if something were to assault Viseux right now? Of course not. They already mapped out the tunnels heading north, leading straight to the portal they control up there. Both countries higher-ups will disappear through the portal to the nation they are allied with if things were to ever go south here.

Looking back in the other direction, I swear I can see the Harbinger smiling.

For over one week after Lady Aresa left, nothing had come out of the Demon portal. The volcano raged on, and the Lizardmen were unable to cool it down with water attacks. The Lizards warned us that they were letting the portal gather enough strength to burst through all at once, blitzing us with a massive wave of Demons.

However, what appeared first was instead a single Demon about four hundred meters tall holding a chain with a large bright-orange mallet head at the end of it. Wasting no time, it performed a large overhead swing, hurling the mallet through the sky in our direction. When it connected with the ground near the Lizardmen's portal, the earth wasn't disrupted at all. Instead, a massive one-kilometer-wide explosion of fire erupted from the mallet, incinerating all Lizardmen inside the blast zone. The mallet lost all of its color after the explosion, but as the Demon dragged the mallet back, it slowly became tinted orange. Once the Demon retrieved the mallet, it began spinning it around in the air, which led to the mallet shining a bright orange again within about ten minutes.

One day later Markus had finally arrived with the artifact fully charged, ready to purge the portal. Unfortunately, the Lizardmen casters had been bombarding the Demon for an entire day, and it was nowhere near enough. No longer needing to save up strength, Demons slowly trickled out from the portal, and they were clearly prioritizing casters. Most of the new arrivals were Imps who were taking turns infusing a barrier over the massive Demon. At this point the Demon had stopped using its mallet, instead choosing to stare at Markus, waiting for him to try and purge the portal. It was no surprise that it had been put on the defensive considering how threatening of an aura the artifact gives off when it is fully charged. Thanks to this the Lizardmen were able to approach from the back, and they were slowly gaining ground against the Demonic foot soldiers(a type of Demon I've never seen or heard of before). It seems 'new and unknown Demons' is going to be a running theme from here on out now that they finally have direct access to Urza. No longer needing humans to bring them over with chaos magic.

"Do not worry. Plan has been made. We deal with lava first, then Harbinger." The Shaman said.

Shortly after, one of the Lizardmens' Eldritch appeared through the portal. The Demon picked its mallet up, looking between the Eldritch and Markus, unable to decide whether to kill the Eldritch or keep Markus locked down.

All the Lizardmen hanging back now began to spread out. As I was watching them, out of the corner of my eye something large dashed out of the portal and jumped over the lava straight into the volcano. From the moment it exited the portal to when it landed in the volcano hole maybe two seconds had passed. It was so fast that none of the Demons had time to respond. Both the volcano and the lava froze almost instantly upon contact, followed by one of the largest explosions I had ever witnessed. The shockwave knocked down all that were present, including the Harbinger. As large pieces of rubble fell from the sky, the best I could do was charge my barrier and enhance myself to the max, not that it would help much against a massive chunk of earth falling from that height.

After the dust settled, I could see the portal was now floating in mid-air above a one-hundred-yard-wide crater. At that moment, another Demon came through the portal, subsequently falling down into the crater. Normally that would make me laugh, but at that moment I had a sinking feeling in my gut. Sure enough, the Demon jumping out from the crater was one such creature nobody ever wants to see.

"Satyr..." The shaman said, practically snarling.

While the Harbinger is obviously much bigger and technically more powerful, the Satyr is an all-rounder Demon that is a nightmare to get rid of once they are in your world. Thinking back on it, we truly were lucky that Markus was able to purge the other Satyr before it hid itself deeply underground somewhere.

A wide earthen walkway extends out from the Satyr towards the portal.

"As usual, the damned thing works fast."

From there, a very long protracted battle took place. With a Satyr present, the Harbinger was now free to exterminate any Eldritch coming through the portal. When the Harbinger spent its attack, the Templars tried advancing, which resulted in the Satyr pinning them down until the Harbinger was able to attack again. With all the Lizardmen and several Eldritch joining the fight now that the volcano was gone, we had managed to eventually kill the Satyr, but by the time we had done that, another had come through the portal taking its place.

Also, unlike other Demons, apparently the fucking Harbinger doesn't need to sleep. Not once during this month had it needed to rest.

All of it came to an end with the sounds of Urza's armies approaching. Jasper had seen them with his ability long before they came into view, but it changed nothing, we were still unable to overcome the Demons. Another week tops is all we needed... But that is obviously no longer an option. As the armies neared us, they began spreading out, apparently planning to encircle everything here, but that's the moment the Demons all turned and fled.

The Harbinger stayed behind, attempting to prevent any Lizardmen from chasing the Demons. Further back past the Harbinger, a long line of lights appeared directly in front of the fleeing Demons. Hundreds of magical guns began firing into the Demons' ranks.

"Honestly, I was a little worried they'd just plow ahead in one direction, consequences be damned, but it looks like they actually planned ahead," Jasper said.

More like the Ifrit Legion cut off their retreat, while Viseux only thought of killing the Lizardmen. The horns and drums back there must've been the Legion trying to keep the Demons attention on this side so they wouldn't notice the flank in the back.

"Leave Harbinger, attack humans behind us!" The shaman said.

As Markus moves towards the now unguarded portal, I can see the Satyr break the necklace around its neck. Instead of a powerful offensive spell appearing like I expected, it instead created a bright white circle in front of itself, angled up toward the sky. The Satyr jumps through the ring and is immediately launched into the air so fast that I barely saw the motion blur it left behind.

The shaman hissed. "It need long time to heal after using crystal. It hide, we find it! Very important!"

I don't know why he's certain we'll have enough leeway to find the damned thing...

I can see multiple types of Demons successfully escaping in different directions, including a unique Demon that was proving more difficult to bring down than the Satyr's were. We're lucky the Harbinger is focused on the Legion now, but they'll eventually bring him down too, leaving us surrounded and alone...

~Rei POV~

"Uh Ishar, you doing okay there?"

"N-No... What is with the temperature down here?!"

"From what Aresa told us, it's about to get much colder you know?" Alicia said.

"Crotia adapt to the climate around them, I just need time... About a week."

{But you don't have a week? Unless you stay outside the whole time.}

Ishar looked around in horror, before seemingly giving up.

"... I'll stay inside the outpost for a while to eat, but I'll sleep outside. Also, I will be riding on top of the wagon the rest of the way."

I could make him a heated cloth mesh too, but eh... He'll be fine. In the event he loses my armor, it's best he acclimates so he doesn't freeze to death.

Following Cera into the outpost, we're met with a single large room full of tables and a line of beds in the back.

"This is new. Are all outposts like this?"

"No doors or bedrooms, just one large room? Yeah, they're all like this. Oh, there is a door over there though, see? It's to the bathrooms." Cera replied.

One of the guards coming to greet us takes one look at me and runs away towards the bathroom.

Ahh... She's one of those.

"Did you do something to her just now?" Cera asked.

"No. Some people have an unnatural fear of me when my aura hits them. So long as she stays about twenty feet away from me she should be fine."

"Hmm..."

"Don't think about it much Cera. Arkaios vouched for her, as I believe I already told you." Blackwall said.

"Yeah yeah, I won't do anything. I'm still allowed to find what happened just now very strange though."

"Um, welcome to the border between Kellog and Viseux! We've been expecting you. The food will be ready soon. Commander Yulsif said to make it a feast." The remaining soldier said.

"A feast eh? Good thing I came inside." Ishar said.

Everyone sat down at the two center tables. Keith's group is on one table, and everyone else is on this side. As I sit down I can see Nisha glaring at me.

"How about her? You did something to her, right?" Cera asked.

"That's just sexual frustration, a lot of people feel that way after looking at me. Beauty of this level should be considered a crime..."

"Wait a minute, why did you ask that Cera? You can't possibly be unaware of what Keith's group did." Blackwall said.

"Of course I know what they did, and that Markus stopped them. What's that have to do with our self-proclaimed 'beautiful' girl here who scares off trained guards?"

"... Before I answer, can you give me a rundown of the reports you read on the incident?"

Cera recites the incident, not mentioning me even once.

Blackwall looks down, "Strange, that is not what I submitted. Was Rei scrubbed from the report? Why would the keepers do that?"

"Useless corrupt bums. They should be exterminated." Shana said.

Okay... That is not the personality I was expecting out of her.

"Ahem, Miss Shana, you really shouldn't be saying things like that. The keepers log and hold all the history of Urza, therefore they are considered important individuals who cannot be threatened openly in such a manner. If someone were to report this..." Blackwall said.

"Important individuals who scrub reports to their liking, always changing history to favor Viseux and the nobles above all else. They should be hung. They should be tied to Grakka's on each side, who will rip them apart at their torsos. Money and power-obsessed guts splaying all over Viseux's cold unwelcoming stone road---"

"Okay sweety please stop before this poor local guard has a heart attack," Cera said, cutting her off.

I'm liking her way more than I originally thought I would.

Aresa holds the board up to her mouth, trying to hide her laughter, which only makes Blackwall shake his head.

"We'll be there in about a week?" Alicia asked.

"Normally it would be five to six more days, but you all say we're about to encounter snow and ice so... Also, as a side note, I've never seen snow before so I'm kind of excited." Cera said.

{It's exciting for about a minute. Then you realize how bad it hurts when you're that cold.}

Cera winced, "It's that bad...?"

"One other question, is Kellog really going to accommodate us? Or is their 'help' basically just going to be surveillance." Alicia asked.

Ishar grinned, "Look at you, actually asking a good question. It makes me proud."

Alicia raises a middle finger at Ishar without looking at him.

"Honestly? Your guess is as good as mine. I've only been there one time as part of a trade convoy. We never got further than the meeting hall past the main gate. We were welcomed in and things seemed friendly enough, but there was this threatening atmosphere hanging in the air. It felt like they were daring us to do something to slight them, almost like they were hoping for it."

"I'll kill them if they try that with me. Then I'll go to their homes and help their families join them in the afterlife. It would be cruel to send them alone."

"Dear god Shana please stop..." Cera sighed.

"One last question. Regarding the 'Tengu', how hard is this fight going to be."

Blackwall laughed, "Saved the most difficult question for last huh? Well, it's hard to say. Each Tengu Lord specializes in an element of magic, while also being proficient in all schools of magic. You'll know which one it specializes in. It'll not only use that element the most, but it'll be the most devastating magic it uses."

"Do not forget, they are masters of evasion. Those wings are not just for show. The wings store ether over time, allowing them to quickly reposition about once a minute. It's probably the most difficult part of fighting them. That's why Templars were given the duty to slay them, they can lock the Lord down instantly after resetting it." Blackwall added.

"That will not be an issue with me here. I have yet to see an opponent my shout cannot lock down, but you'll only have a slight window to attack it before it's free." Ishar said.

"Oh? You have an ability like that? Now that is great news! Although, it's going to focus you after your first time stunning it. How good is your barrier at defending against magic?" Cera said.

"They always do. Nothing likes having their movement restricted. As for my defenses, they're relatively high compared to the average person. Sounds like this 'Tengu' is going to test my limits though."

"Have you been there before Rei? Xelba was only about a hundred miles away right?" Cera asked.

Behind Aresa, I could hear Keith ask "Xelba?" to his companions.

"No, we only hit the trade routes nearby, framing the scene to make it look like the Crotia did it."

"Was that necessary? They were already at war with Viseux and Kellog, while you were at war with literally everyone." Cera said.

"More animosity between those two was good for us. It made things much easier in the region. Also, I thought you knew nothing about me? How do you know about me being from Xelba?"

"My mom was a refugee from Xelba, of course I'd know about you!"

What?

Staring at Cera, I try to remember all the Nei'lah I met.

"Riva, she ran the bakery near your home. She talked about you a lot you know? A real shame she got away huh..." Cera smiled, but her eyes were glaring right at me.

... This bitch, her friendly attitude up till now was apparently a front. I could feel a strong pulse of energy escape her for a moment there.

"I remember her, I bought sandwiches from her for many years. Honestly, I did like her quite a bit, but it's as you're suspecting, she didn't get away because of my actions."

The message was clear. If I could have killed her, I would have. That whole place needed to be purged, with no exceptions.

A deep scowl appears on Cera's face.

"So the plan was to kill everyone, while only you survived?"

"Yep, that was the plan." I said nonchalantly.

"Enough Cera, go sit at the other table if you can't contain yourself," Blackwall said.

To my surprise, Shana was nodding along. Cera saw this and sighed.

"Why am I not surprised you're on her side..."

Cera stood up, letting Shana slide over and take her place. Cera then sat down to her right.

Shana looks at me. "Want to do the same to Viseux? I'll help."

Blackwall apparently having given up, instead chooses to pay attention to the food being brought out.

Ishar clapped his hands. "Now look at that! One hell of a feast indeed."

As the platters are laid out in front of us, I see Aresa holding her board up at me.

{Don't worry, she won't attack you.}

I hope she's right... There are already enough enemies waiting for us at our destination.