“So, what are we gonna do?” Erin looked up at the others.

“I know it’s playing her game, but I feel like we should hit the Dry Vault anyway. It’s a giant grinder, and we’re only a couple days hike from the Seal back there if we fuck it up,” Jack replied.

“Also, if the bitch queen is still watching us,” Layla flipped the bird to the surrounding air, “it’s at least doing what she told us so she doesn’t just bite our heads off now.”

“We have to figure out some way to get around her… invisibility, or whatever it is,” Rory pondered.

“I dunno, Boston. I wouldn’t bet on there being a good solution for that until we’re strong enough to fight her,” Layla sighed.

“Aye, boyo. There is’nae much yeh can do against a gap that big,” Maggie grimaced.

“Well, we’ve yammered enough. We’re all in agreement? We hit the Dry Vault anyway?” Jack stared out over the valley, toward the Astara.

The others nodded or voiced their agreement, and the five gathered up their gear to head back down the mountain.

“Is there any way to save time on the way down, Maggie?” Jack looked over his shoulder at the dwarf as they marched.

“Nae unless yeh learn how ta fly, lad,” she smiled at him.

“Alright, so the Lift, then, what did you call it, Wyverntail?” he asked.

“Aye, Wyverntail Switchback. The road down inta the Hollow” she replied.

“Alright, Lift, Wyverntail, then on to… Twin Watch across the Astara, then to the Dry Vault, right?” he scratched his head unconsciously as he recalled the route.

“Aye, just so,” she nodded.

“Alright. Time to get moving then,” he turned and began to march, the others falling in step behind him.

“Jack…” the succubus almost whispered.

“Yeah, El?” he didn’t turn around.

“I’m hungry,” she winced.

“Rory has the food. Eat and walk,” he still didn’t turn.

“I have to pee, too,” she sighed.

“You should’ve thought of that before we aggro’d a gribbly people-eating monster that wants to fatten up our XP bars before eating us,” he finally turned, giving the succubus a sarcastic grin. “Go on. We’ll wait.”

“Thanks, dad,” she rolled her eyes and hurried off toward the nearest bush.

-----

With bellies full and bladders emptied, they double-timed it down the mountain trail back toward Olvayn’s Lift. The trip back to the Lift was nearly fifty miles, and they stopped to catch a few hours rest just past midnight. Jack and Maggie kept watch, and the other Chosen slept with varying degrees of success.

Once dawn arrived, they packed up and headed out, eating on the road again. Sometime around ten in the morning, they cleared the trail and looked down toward the eastern side of the Silverglooms, where the Lift squatted next to the town of its namesake. Jack slowed and stopped, staring down at the tiled roofs surrounding the great dwarven head.

“Something’s wrong,” he squinted.

“No movement,” Rory confirmed.

“Aye. Town ought ta be bustlin’ this time o’ day,” Maggie added.

“So, what, she just… ate everyone there? To fuck with us?” Layla drooped down to sit in the dust.

“Whether she did or not, and whether she did it because of us or for us, doesn’t really matter, tart. We’re passing through. Maggie, can you operate the Lift if everyone is… gone?” Rory spit the last word out as though it was bitter on the tongue.

“Aye, ah believe so,” she sighed.

“Then let’s get moving,” Jack grunted and resumed marching.

Olvayn’s Lift was a ghost town.

As the five moved through the village on the way to the Lift, they found residual signs of life that suggested the town met its end during the night. Plates of half-eaten supper could be found on the cafe tables in the market, and many of the shops and residences’ doors were left swinging in the mountain breeze.

Cook fires and hearths had gone out during the night, but at least two buildings showed signs of fires that had burned themselves out.

“I’m surprised more places didn’t burn down,” Layla remarked.

“Remember, most of the buildings here are made from that ceramic. I bet it does a lot to reduce fire spreading,” Erin pointed out.

“Aye. Fired clay walls an’ tiled roofs. Generally, in the poor spots, ceilings’ll be made o’ wood. Oft’n, they’ll collapse inta the building, but the fire rarely spreads,” Maggie replied.

They continued to walk toward the lift, until Jack stopped in the middle of the road and sniffed the air like a hound.

“Blood. That way,” he pointed, taking a few steps toward the scent.

The nightbringer suddenly stopped and turned back to the others.

“Do we want to check it out?” he asked.

“Not really,” Erin replied with a weary sigh.

“I’ll pass on any additional horrors for the day, but you can scout it if you want,” the salesman sat down on a bench and began to retrieve plates of lunch from his storage.

“I’ll go with, Jackson,” Layla grimaced.

“Alright. Maggie, stay with them and keep an eye out?” he nodded to the dwarf.

“Arright, lad,” she nodded back, then sat down next to Rory and began to go over the little menu in his notepad.

The nightbringer and the succubus stalked through the town toward the cloying, coppery scent of death.

“I can smell it now. That must be a lot of blood,” Layla whispered.

Jack simply nodded, and continued forward. Eventually, the two came to a small plaza, where sighs of a dire fight for survival were strewn about.

In the center of the square, a suit of obscenely heavy armor lay, its massive interlocking, pinned plates peeled apart like an orange. Half of a shattered great-shield was still buckled to the left arm, and broken bits of the same shield were scattered nearby. A heavy sword was driven through the back-plate of the armor like an exclamation point, jutting upward through the shredded breastplate and deformed pauldrons.

“Looks like he made her work for it,” Jack walked toward the suit of armor.

“Fuck sake. Do you think this is all his blood?” Layla asked.

“Yeah. Look,” the nightbringer pointed to his right. “There’s his gauntlet and vambrace.”

The succubus’ gaze followed his finger.

“I think she tore his sword arm off,” Jack’s voice was grim as he surveyed the scene.

“He must have been strong as hell to make her actually fight him,” she replied.

“Yep. Look here. This is some kind of skill,” he pointed at a narrow gash in the cobbles, stretching twenty feet along the road and up the side of a two-story home.

He walked over and touched an interrupted segment in the line, almost a foot wide.

“See. He hit her with it. Some kind of… I dunno, extender, for his swing, almost like a sword beam or something. He swept his blade down, and it started cutting up on this wall, stopped where the skill hit her, then kept on cutting all the way back to where his stroke stopped,” Jack’s finger followed the strip of lacerated stone.

“Jesus, look at all this blood. This guy must have been in pieces by the time she finally finished him,” Layla frowned.

Jack walked over to look at the spatters.

“She hit him, here, after she tore his arm off. Knocked him over to where his armor is lying. This is when the shield broke. See the blood trail and the bits?” he pointed.

“Yeah, I guess. Hey, how do you know all this?” she quirked an eyebrow.

“Hunting. Everything leaves a trail. Stuff that’s bleeding leaves a trail with big glowing neon signs,” he looked back at the shattered armor. “Poor guy. You spend your whole life getting stronger than everyone else around you… then some monster with a chip on her shoulder comes by and takes you apart and kills your whole town.”

“That’s not gonna be us,” Layla took the nightbringer’s hand and squeezed.

“I know,” he turned and looked down at her.

The air was suddenly suffocating. Layla fell to her knees, trying to draw a breath through the thick haze of power that abruptly filled the plaza. In the back of Jack’s brain, something was screaming at him that he couldn’t breathe.

He ignored it.

“You are wasting time, mis queridos.”

“I don’t recall you giving us a schedule,” Jack replied through gritted teeth, the animal instincts of his body trying to rebel against the iron control of his mind.

The End of Heroes quirked an eyebrow at the first creature to sass her in a century.