Chapter 23 – The Escape

“This was a good day,” thought the shadow when she spotted the army sulking along. It wasn’t often that you saw an army moving down here, let alone a living one. A living army couldn't exist here for very long so they must be leaving. They were moving in a tight column towards somewhere, and she needed to find out where that was.   That meant they were trying to escape, and if they could get out so could she.

Of course, the old one was kind of annoying.  When the shadow got close, the wicked thing blasted at her with a shot of destructive gaze.  Thankfully Void effects were weak against Shadow, but weak didn’t mean entirely ineffective.

She only had one arm now.  Despite focusing and trying to draw together enough power to restore the limb, there was only so much she could do.  She could not die here no matter how much she might want to so the limb would eventually recover.  That said, the wound would restore slowly and painfully, as if the place was designed to maximize her discomfort.

Their general.  They fought off an initial attack by some strange bears, then quickly ate their remains causing the army’s scent to be obscured. Now, the army was moving quickly and efficiently through the forest.  Anything they ran into died instantly, in as much as any denizen of this place truly died.  However, that might be enough.  They clearly had a destination and without some major intervention they were going to escape.

The only problem they had was operational security.  The officers in charge were focused, in control, and nearly silent.  The younger ones were just so damn happy to be out of their prison they couldn’t help but talk, and it was enlightening.

She couldn’t get close, but she caught snatches of conversation.

The boss captured them hundreds of years ago during the purges.  Time flowed differently down here and the oldest one, General Gram as she was called, was old enough to even remember Badgelor.  She told stories about him to keep morale up over the years and they seemed quite confident that he had found a way out, which was news to her.

If anyone could escape this place, it would have been that wicked creature.

Their general was following his old path.  The scent of the living was so easy to pick out here that tracking a living War Badger should have been simple for someone like her.  Unfortunately, Badgelor was a clever one and masked his scent so the shadow world couldn’t find him, that made tracking the wily old badger difficult for even them.  A scent masked Badgelor would be impossible to track…

Or would it?

Her Tracking skill was very refined, for obvious reasons.  It also let her pick targets, which would further amplify the results.  All she had to do was return to the castle and find Badgelor’s scent.  She could figure it out from there.  Of course, that wouldn't be very entertaining and she did remember that pesky Behir.  It might enjoy eating an army.

War Badgers were so rare, after all.

***

“You should be thanking me,” hissed the badly wounded fanger.

“One,” I said, causing the fanger to flinch.

“If I had not found her in the dungeon, the creature would have consumed her, I am the only reason she still exists,” said the Master.  He was begging for his life, and it was only the fact that Jarra was between the two of us, with that bloody ring on her finger, that I hadn’t already run out of patience.

As it sat, I was on my last nerve.

“Is it true?” I asked Shart.

“The ring is a binding item, all one way of course,” said Shart.  “It's a typical binding, if he dies she dies, the reverse is not true.  It can only be removed if he voluntarily takes the ring off of her, divorcing her if you will.  Right now, she’s partially dominated, cannot hurt her ‘husband’ and her life force is just hanging on by a thread.”

“Jarra, why did you agree to this?” I asked.

Her proud voice was down to a slight whisper, “He saved me.  Had no way out.  You didn’t come.”

“I came,” I said, grabbing her frail hands.

“Too late,” she whispered, trying to remove her hands from mine.  Eventually I relented.  The Master looked both hesitant to interfere and very stupid with most of his teeth, and all of his fangs, missing.

I checked and the curse was still intact.

“You got her to wear the ring and cursed her in this unholy mockery of marriage,” I said.

“What is a marriage?  A miserable little pile of secrets,” began the Master.  I glared at the fanger and he stopped.

“I'm taking her back,” I said.

“If she leaves the castle, she will die,” said the fanger.

“I’ll kill your pet behir,” I said.

“That’s not my pet, there is a pack of them and they occasionally nap around my castle.  I was explaining that if she leaves my presence her life force will snuff out.”  He tried to smile, but again missing most of his teeth made that impossible.  His stores of Radiant mana were about tapped and the only reason Jarra was still here was that as a cleric she could generate a very small amount of radiant mana naturally.  All in all, that was probably just enough to keep her alive but not enough to replenish the rather deep draws the bastard had taken from her.

“Divorce her,” I grunted.

“I will not, I’m no good as a bachelor, and due to my recent beating at your hand I’ll literally die without her,” said the Master smoothly.

I watched Jarra’s tired body for a moment as she huddled near the Fanger.  She looked worse than any living human I’d ever seen.  However, dying in the Shadow Realm was a one-way ticket to oblivion.

“Trade,” I growled.

“Sorry, hon, you aren’t my type,” said the Master.

“Not me, her,” I said, nodding towards Bashara.  Her eyes went wide as the Master leered at her.  Her spirit already appeared to be broken, and it didn’t take long.

“If I must,” she said walking next to me.

“Excellent, always trade up to a new model,” said the Master, “I’ll have your oath that you and your companions will not attempt to stop me from exchanging rings.”

I nodded, receiving a quest prompt.  I accepted, feeling the magma boiling in my stomach.

The Master pulled on Jarra’s wedding ring.  Her boney, swollen hands didn’t want to release it, so he pulled harder and I heard a squelching pop.  He held up the ring, with her finger still inside.  Jarra collapsed to her knees and sobbed.

I felt the <system> driven compulsion settle over me, had it not I would have already ended this farce.  The Master gleefully slid the ring onto Bashara’s limp finger and grinned, “I do.”

Then he waited as Bashara stared at the ring.  There was a slight chance that she had Mental Resistance, or one of the lesser disciplines that would allow her to resist the effects of the ring.  Beyond that, she might just be mentally stubborn enough to resist the effect, which is why the fanger had a cursed ring.  The magical ring should have placed a curse on her, rendering her own ability to resist moot.

Of course, the ring couldn’t actually do that at the moment.

She said nothing until the system decided that the oath had been fulfilled.  Then she shoved her rod into the fanger’s side and activated all five elemental rings.

It was Grebthar’s spell, an old family secret.  Hers weren’t nearly as powerful as her fathers, but more than enough to catch the fanger for a moment, which was all I needed.  Without any source of Radiant energy to heal his wounds, the fanger was literally being burnt alive but that wasn’t enough for me.

I needed him gone, forever.

“Badgelor, chow time,” I uttered as I walked over to Jarra.  I picked her finger up off the ground and took her injured hand.

“You fool, I cannot be killed, I’ll just reappear in my coffin,” hissed the fanger.  At least some of him would, he would be a shadow of his former strength with no way to restore himself.  He still thought that as Ultimate Badgelor swallowed him.

The war badger waddled over to me and belched crypt dust into my face.  “Undead taste terrible.”

“I know,” I said, examining unconscious Jarra’s repaired hand.  I was using Treatment, and her condition was terrible.

· <system alert> Adventurer: Jarra is suffering from Radiant energy depletion.  Current energy remaining is 1.9 Radiant Mana.  Depletion 1.2 per day.  Clerical recovery base 1.0 per day is disabled because adventurer is under 10 radiant mana.  Return Adventurer to authorized plane ASAP or target will suffer dissolution.

“Dissolution means she will cease to exist,” said Shart quietly.

“I assumed as such,” I said, lifting up Jarra gently. A month ago, she had been a vibrant young woman, now she reminded me of my grandmother when I used to have to carry her to bed because she just couldn’t walk that far. “Is there any way to get more Radiant Mana into her, like if we get back to Ordinal.”

“Not really, Radiant Mana is shared between the soul and the body.  She has as much Radiant Mana as a sickly elderly person at the moment.  Even if she gets back where she can respirate more Mana, she’s maxed out at 4 points.”

“Could she remort?” I asked.

“At her age, that would be very tricky,” said Shart.  “Even if she did, when you remort you aren’t assigned a new body.  She’d be a level one adventurer with 4 points of Radiant Mana, probably less.”

“A new body?” I asked. “Like the Tier Two body I have?”

“Possibly, a brand-new healthy body comes with a full charge of radiant energy,” said Shart. “If you can get her up to a tier two body, that would fix it, but she’d have to survive to get the upgrade.”

That assumed we even survived to get out of here.  I walked over to Bashara.

“Not going to apologize, are you,” said Bashara.

“Nope, you tried to kill me too many times,” I said.

“Alright, how did you break the ring,” she asked.

“I drained it.  The ring can’t be a curse granting magical item without any magic,” I said.  “That and I filtered my thoughts that the only thing coming through was my desire to violently kill the Master the entire time I was watching him.  I think he understood if that ring wasn’t on someone in a hurry, he was screwed.”

“Badgelor, do you know how to get home from here?” I asked.

“Yes, it's not far,” said Badgelor, pressing his nuzzle against Bashara’s calf.  She knelt down and scratched him.

Will wonders never cease.

“That leaves the behir outside, I don’t think he is going to be happy we are still alive,” I said.

Shart wiggled his fingers for a moment, “He’s gone, ran off to the west?”

I stepped outside first, looking around.  The behir could have been hiding on the other side of the castle, but even then, he was so large I should have been able to see some evidence of him.

Badgelor stepped out with Jarra and Bashara on his back.  Jarra still looked terrible and barely conscious, but marginally better with the ring off.  Bashara looked… happy.  She was at least out of the castle, I supposed.

“We need to be cautious; I marked the path I used to get back but it's been a very long while,” said Badgelor.  He stood out in the middle of the courtyard and sniffed.  Then sniffed again.

“Yo, furball, what’s the problem,” said Shart, hovering above us to look off into the distance.  I clicked over to his vision and spotted something I didn’t expect.  The behir was attacking a group of creatures.  They were faring pretty well comparatively only because they were still alive and the behir actually looked damaged.

“We truly are in a place of nightmares,” I hissed as the purple beams washed over the behir, the Destructive Gaze carving a massive wrent in its flesh as the creature’s massive clawed hand lifted a small creature to its maw.

“NO,” Badgelor screamed, and there was no more talking.