Purged by Fire

  So, of course, I wasn’t going to give them a fair fight. I mean, there were hundreds of the strange monsters, each with spikes and teeth growing in places neither belonged. Many were of a level higher than us. Instead I chanted the incantation to the stasis field spell. The horde of, let’s call them beastmen even if it wasn’t accurate, did notice me standing up straight, a staff held out in an outstretched hand on either side, chanting a fairly complex second-tier spell, and began to turn to run at me. But I’d been casting spells for weeks now, and had gotten quite quick with it. A second tier wasn’t going to be enough for them to close the distance. The bubble went up, and everything outside it froze.

  “Fucking chronomancy, I don’t like it,” Chum said.

  “I love this spell. It’s basically an instant cast for anything if you time it right with it running out,” I said.

  “Don’t rely on that shit too much, boss. Any caster worth their salt picks a chrono spell to cancel out anyone else using them. But it’ll work pretty good here. Anna’s up, right?” Chum said.

  Anna walked up to the front, nearest the clearing outside.

  “I can hit it with pretty much anything. What are you thinking?” she said.

  “I was thinking of the tier 5 if you have the juice. Burning the portal is good, but it won’t be much good if we’re swarmed by a hundred beastmen right after,” I said.

  “It’s all tentacles and spikes, dude, how are they beastmen?” Anna said.

  “Got a better name?” I said.

  “The spell takes about two minutes to cast in total. What’s the duration here?” Anna said.

  “A bit over ten. I could also try the spellrod, but if it’s going to hit the stasis field, it’d also drain your spell,” I said.

  “Alright. It takes all of my mana and about half my hitpoints. So you better not fucking miscount it,” Anna said.

  “I have the time, Ms.,” Clarence said. He’d adjusted to the time bubble even if I hadn’t really explained it before. He was walking around its edge, inspecting the monsters around us and looking for unseen threats.

  “Let’s see, with my current arcana and the spell description, it should be around 13 minutes and 40 seconds. Better to go over than under if you’re going to be casting from health anyways. I’ve tried holding a spell before, it sucks,” I said. I was pacing back and forth myself. I could try to hit the bubble with the spellrod staff, but I had no idea if it’d do anything.

  So ultimately there was no other sure thing to do but to wait. After what felt like a long time, Clarence said:

  “I advise you begin casting around now.” And Anna began her chanting. It sounded as complex and lengthy as before, and she was just as precise. Two minutes later, the field fell. The beastmen continued their charge. I spent one of my invisible barriers, as Anna was still chanting. The pillar of flame came down a dozen seconds after the bubble. And there was nothing left in the clearing after we blinked away the flash-blindness from our eyes. The only remnant of the force in the clearing was the front-half of the nearest beastman, a tentacled minotaur looking thing, burned in half from behind, so that his back and hooves were disintegrated and the rest fell on the ground in a nasty wet slap.

  “Nicely done,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Anna said. And bent over in pain, cheeks bulging as she tried to keep in the blood that sprayed out of her nose instead. I wondered how blood magic would work without our recovery abilities, but not for too long. Anna held up her hand to us and walked a ways off. She needed to recover enough mana to burn herself with magic for her recovery. It took her a couple of minutes, and not even twenty later she was healed.

  There were strange baying and glorping sounds coming from the woods in the direction towards Checkpoint and Clarence and myself got ready to defend ourselves from the creatures that had gone that direction, but that ended up being unnecessary. Whatever orders or instinct was guiding those beastmen, it overwhelmed their interest in what had gone on behind them.

  And with that, the first portal was gone, and we were all more or less no worse for the wear and had done it without exposing ourselves to almost any risk.

  “Splendid work, Mr. Vorhal, Ms. Anna,” Clarence said, sheathing his black blades back to his belt.

  “Why do you only seem to refer to myself by my last name,” I said.

  “Most people don’t seem interested in introducing themselves by it in these parts. And Ms. Artemis and myself are friends,” Clarence said.

  “Yeah, it’d be weird if you switched to surname now. I think I just won’t tell you,” Anna said. She still smoked, and while her black robes were glowing with a few embers, the fabric itself appeared untouched just as she herself did.

  “Wurm, how many of these things are out there?” I said.

  “Only knew of this one and one other. They are not very hard to find. Not hiding,” Wurm said.

  I flipped open my Journal to chat.

  Chat

  Artemis, it has really been a pleasure talking to you. Be sure to take care of yourself. I know you think you’re doing your best, but if you don’t get proper rest, you aren’t at a hundred percent, and then you can make worse mistakes than doing nothing. And speaking of which I’ll soon be off to sleep. -Will

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I have recovery abilities and people are dying. I appreciate the thought. Hoping for those reinforcements we spoke of. -Artemis

  Hi. Portal one is down. About 10 miles South-West of Checkpoint I think. Head to checkpoint or keep clearing these things? -Alex

  Hi Alex! Be careful out there. -Will

  Thank fuck for some good fucking news, Alex. We’re holding in Checkpoint, the problem is the respawning. If you can manage a few more portals, that’d be the most helpful. -Artemis.

  Copy. Hi, Will, waiting on that cavalry. You be careful too. -Alex

  I cannot die. I have a wife and a kid waiting for me. Good-night. -Will

  We’ll see what we can do, Artemis. We have a pretty good system going, best case we can clear it all out safely. -Alex

  Just remember that something is going to go wrong. -Artemis

  Always. We’ll push to Checkpoint once all the portals are down or we have to. Good luck. -Alex

  “We’re staying out here and burning more portals. Sorry, Wurm, but we should be at least as safe as the last one going forward,” I said. I closed the Journal and put it back in the inside pocket of my robes.

  “Now that’s just so inaccurate that it’s bordering on a lie, boss,” Chum said, then followed to flutter up above the tree-line, then shouted down “But I can see the clearings. One pretty much every couple of miles. Mephistopheles bless me, there are like fifty of the things within line of sight.”

  “Then we have plenty of work to do. Lead the way, Chum,” Anna said, patted her thighs and stood to keep marching. And the rest of us joined her.

  The night was pitch-black by the time we hit the fourth portal, destroying it with the same pattern that we had before. It was mechanical work- heavy on the mana for Anna, but ultimately safe. She was also getting the vast majority of experience for killing hundreds of monsters. By the fifth portal she was actually a level ahead of me, catching up from two behind at the start of this challenge. It was the walking, the darkness and the creeping delirium of being active for over 16 hours now that was starting to get to us, the monsters being an afterthought with their hell-bent progress towards Checkpoint.

  “I don’t think I can do more than two tonight. I’m getting close to stumbling over the visualization,” Anna said, and she was speaking lower and rougher than usual. Her healing ability still worked, but I knew that none of our abilities replaced actual sleep. Or, for that matter, food.

  “We can run on empty for maybe one more day. Hunt tomorrow? Doesn’t look like these beastmen have any supplies to raid,” I said.

  “Sounds good. Two more portals, then sleep, then food,” Anna said.

  “Does that align with the request made by Ms. Artemis, Mr. Vorhal?” Clarence said. He’d been, effectively keeping the normal monsters of the woods off us. I hadn’t even noticed him doing it until I realized that he kept disappearing for a few minutes every twenty or so and returning just as inexplicably, but we kept not being ambushed by the many predators in these woods.

  “She says the town’s holding. It won’t be forever, but it’s not like we can blow all the portals tonight anyways,” I said.

  “Very well, we are in unanimous agreement then,” Clarence said and we set off to the next portal.

  At first glance, it looked no different from the others, being even easier to see in its low golden beige glow through the pitch-black night. We sneaked up quietly, and I began casting.

  It was then that things started going strange. First of all, none of the monsters in the fire-blasted clearing even reacted to my chanting. In every instance in the past I had had to be faster than the nearest beastman, this time it was like they couldn’t even hear me. Which raised suspicion, but was fine, a positive, really.

  But when I finished chanting the stasis field several confusing things that I only put together later happened. Just as I finished casting the stasis field and the spell was coalescing, the split second that that took, my Contingency activated. It was also a chronomancy spell that activated when I was attacked by an unseen foe. Then, the innate ability of all chronomancy spells activated instantly dispelling both spells. Then I was hit in the back of the head hard enough that I slammed my face in the moss beneath. If not for my invisible armor, I would have been dead or unconscious from either of the blows, but instead the head-piece of my armor shattered and dissipated into loose mana in an instant.

  Not even looking behind me, not even waiting for the confusion to shake off I cast invisible barrier in the direction that the attack had come from from my staff while shouting “Incoming!”

  Anna chanted the spell that activated her fire-fist mode, and Clarence disappeared into the night. I rolled over on my back and sat up. From the darkness there came a feminine voice, teasing and cold.

  “A Chronomancer-Abjurer? A fascinating combination suited best for a coward. I will enjoy finding you,” she said.

  I didn’t have to see her to hurt her, because of my new icicle upgrade, and I knew she was a threat. So I cast conjured icicle elementals in her general direction hoping that my new minions would destroy her.

  A lance of pure red lightning zipped through the night forest and hit me directly in the chest. But instead of shattering my armor or doing anything to me, it was diverted into the spellrod. Thank fucking god.

  “I hate that fucking spell. Xem should have made it at least rank five. Then again, I wouldn’t be able to dispel it then,” the mocking voice said, still from the dark.

  But it was coming closer, and then she was there. A very tall woman with straight black hair in crimson robes sat side-saddle astride a black elk. She held a silver chalice in one hand and an atheme dagger in reverse grip in the other. On her head there were two brands that could be seen even through the darkness and understood even though we could not recognize the sigils.

  The burning brands said simply “Ruthless” and “Bitch”.