Chapter 22 – Something Wicked

The shadow was bored, so very bored.  It was almost used to the boredom now, but the time spent down here was just unappetizing.  There was nothing to kill.

The foe was keeping her waiting, and the behir was glaring daggers at her.

Fortunately, she wasn’t very tasty so the massive creature just sat there watching her.  It would probably try to attack the foe when he climbed back out, or maybe the pesky war badger again.  She decided not to tangle with a War Badger, claws were painful things.

The shadow looked at her claws.  They were hands once.  She used them to try to pry of the collar, but it wouldn’t come.  It never did.  Part of her wondered what would happen if it was removed, would she die?

Wouldn’t that be a relief.  She was in hell, but it was a special hell just for her.  There was nothing to do.  Not only was there no one to kill, the tiny handful of beings who might come here were going to be powerful like the foe.  So powerful that she stood no chance of killing them.

She needed to be back on Ordinal, but there was no way to get there.  She was stuck in this horrid place without any chance of even the slightest bit of happiness and that was the rub.

More than one of her victims screamed that there was a special hell just for her, and now she was here.

She tapped her claws on the blasted stone wall and waited and waited.  Who knew how long the foe was going to make her wait?  She looked out over the shadow swept forest and moaned; she would do anything for just a tiny little bit of murder.  Even if she wasn’t directly involved, anything would be wonderous at this point.

Then she saw something grand, and all thoughts of the foe vanished.

***

“I got old,” said Bashara once she’d calmed down.  “After Grebthar vanished, I was taken by my mother to the fortress and we just kind of lived there.  No one else could get in and the dungeon was nigh impregnable.  Every so often mom would go out, but no one ever got in.”

“How long were you in there?” I asked.

“Seventy years,” said Bashara, “It was just me and mom, but she was immortal by then and I certainly wasn’t.  By the time of my one hundred and eleventh birthday party, I was ready to check out.  Reincarnation, and forgetting everything, seemed like a grand time.”

“So why didn’t you,” asked Shart, genuinely curious.  “Mortals aren’t supposed to be able to outlive their shells.”

I brought up my Treatment skill and looked at her for a long moment. Everything in her was natural but she had an additional organ located in her brain.  I’d seen something like that before.

“Is that supposed to be there?” I asked.

Shart examined the W shaped organ for a long moment, “Not exactly a Vloog gland, but it's close.  It looks like some sort of splice that fixes something into the Mana Network.”

“How big is someone’s soul?” I asked.

Shart held up two fingers very close to each other and then moved them towards our life-sized mental image of Bashara’s brain until they just encompassed the organ.  “Oh, that’s really clever.  I guess it is what you’d call a soul port, you would be able to insert and remove a soul, but it would still die if the body did.  It's not quite immortality, but it's much closer than I think any other human has ever managed.  I wonder who came up with it.”

I did.

“Maybe the Walker?” I asked.

Shart considered that for a long moment.  “The Walker of Siers had always been much too smart for his own good.”

“Do you remember anything that happened?” I asked Bashara.

“I don’t know, all I remember was waking up and being a very small child,” said Bashara.  “Mother was very happy, but I wasn’t.  I was an adult woman in a child’s body, and I’d done things in my previous life I’d rather have forgotten about.”

Bashara rubbed a spot on her face that wasn’t where her scar was.  I considered it for a moment, and realized it was the same spot as the scar on the oldest plaque in Zentarim.

“I was dreadfully unhappy. Mother said I was an ingrate. She must have put this scar on me before cursing me,” said Bashara.  “Everything got fuzzy after that.”

“Amazing,” said Shart, “She somehow managed to steal your soul from the Soul Sucker 9000.”

“If I’m my original soul, why am I only level 45,” asked Bashara.

“She probably couldn’t manage it right at the front of the line,” said Shart, before noticing our looks of utter incomprehension.  “The demonic economy runs on Experience Points, so obviously when a soul gets sent in for processing, they clear off those.  Then you go to the skill processor which strips off all of your skill points.  Skill points are less important, but still need to be pushed back into the system so Ordinal operates properly.”

“When do memories get erased?” I asked, remembering all the times Shart had threatened to remove mine.

“Last, they are kind of an afterthought and sometimes removing memories affects skills or experience points,” said Shart.

“Meaning if you stripped out my memories, I’d have been dropped back to level one?” I asked flatly.

“Possibly, depends on how skill the remover is,” said Shart. “Michael is actually pretty good at it but it was never a great solution if you were higher level.”

I snorted. Shart held that little terror over my head all the way until I got through the first demon door. I’d gathered that he wasn’t ever all that serious about it, but now I knew he would never have gone through with the process. He was too damn lazy.

Shart turned back to Bashara, “The Sphinx probably couldn’t steal you from earlier in the line. It would be next to impossible to break in before you got to the buffer for the memory wiper.”

“How long does that process take?” I asked.

“The first two are done pretty much as soon as the mortal perishes, but the memory wipe is usually reserved for the souls that are actively being sent into new bodies,” said Shart.  “So right when the little baby human takes their first breath.”

“Because that’s the first time they process Mana on their own?” I asked sweetly.

“Got it in one,” lied Shart.

Badgelor snorted, “That’s the last possible moment you lazy gits could do it.”

“It's like selling a new car, you don’t do the detail work until you put it on the showroom floor,” I grumbled.  The demons were painfully lazy.  There was no reason to get a soul ready prior to its insertion in a human, so they stopped bothering.

“I don’t know what a car is, but sure.  There is a huge vat of empty souls in the main processor, the Sphinx managed to break into there and steal a specific one,” said Shart.

“Given that large portions of the machinery are exposed in Jersey, I’m guessing that wouldn’t be complicated,” I offered.

Shart thought about it, “I mean, you’d have to have a copy of the machine’s plans.  Only Michael, Bruce and I have them.”

“She obviously did it though,” I said.

Shart considered that and nodded, “She must have figured out another way that I don’t understand.  You meat sacks are unusually clever when it comes to ruining perfectly good things.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because when I get back, I’m going to have to order the souls scrubbed all in the first process, and that means a second scrubbing when they are released,” groaned Shart.  “You know they hate me, right?”

I shook my head and focused back on Bashara.  She was staring at her hand.

“I’m young again, but I don’t feel young,” she said.

She was in her late twenties, or maybe her thirties.  Being stuck in hell had aged her.  She looked paranoid as well, which wasn’t a good look on anyone.

“Why didn’t you just leave?” I asked.

“The Master of the Castle is out there, I didn’t dare,” said Bashara.  I didn’t even mention the behir, who would have been totally unimpressed with her level of mental magic.

“Do you think he has Jarra?” I asked.

“You better hope he doesn’t,” replied Bashara.

“Why?” I asked.

“He’s an intelligent undead that owns this castle,” said Bashara.  “He can shape change, turn into a swarm of bats and likes to drink blood!”

“He’s a vampire?” I asked.

“What is that?” asked Bashara mouthing the word.

“I don’t know, he just makes stuff up some of the time,” said Shart.

“That doesn’t even sound a little scary,” said Badgelor, shrugging his furry shoulders.

“The master of the castle is one of the most feared creatures on Ordinal,” said Bashara, “He’s a fanger!” Badgelor winced and Shart shook his head.

“Yeah, on Earth, those are called Vampires,” I said.

“Wow, Earth sounds weird,” replied Bashara.

“Preach,” said Shart.

“I thought you hated her,” I said.

“She’s friends with my besty, Filly,” said Shart. “I can’t stay mad at that.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t call them tooth fairies,” I said.

“I’d rather fight a fanger than a tooth fairy, they sneak up and steal your teeth in the night,” said Bashara.

“They are a subspecies of bone fairies,” said Shart.  “They steal your bones.”

“While you lay down?” I asked.

“You kind of do that anyway without bones,” said Shart.

“Well, at least there aren’t any boner fairies,” I chuckled.

“Would it make you feel better If I told you they didn’t exist?” asked a serious-looking Shart.

“Yes,” I growled.

“Good to know,” stated Shart.

I looked over at the exit back to Windfall castle, as that was our only way out of here.  I checked with Shart on the alternatives which included planar shifting ourselves back, but those shifts were only one way.  I also checked on using the Demon Door, Shart could turn it on but without Jarra we weren’t going anywhere.  Finally, I checked on slipping through the Shadow Ley Line that ran under the castle.

“That would be a terrible idea,” said Shart.  “You do not want to come into direct contact with a Ley Line.  It will mutate you into some horrible, shriveled creature and totally warp your mind.  Heck, you’d ascend online.”

“Online?” I asked.

“On the ley line, Dum Dum,” said Shart.  “Seriously, you are too stupid to talk to at times like this.”

“It can’t be that bad,” I said.

“You’d probably make friends with a puma,” said Shart.

“Blasphemy,” I said before shuddering. That was a fate too horrible to contemplate.

With no other options, we had to go back into the castle and confront the Fanger.  It was unlikely that he had Jarra, but the Master of the Castle might be negotiated with.

Bashara gathered her few belongings.  That did include the magical rod she had used to practice with me back in Windfall.  It was also the item she used to trap me, meaning it was likely the only reason she had survived.  When she noticed that I recognized the item, she quickly put it out of sight.

“Still just as twitchy,” she said.

“Worse, actually,” said Badgelor.  Bashara looked concerned.

With everyone gathered up, we began ascending the stairs to the main keep.  The exit portal took us back to the castle, and it was a short hop to the main hall.  The room, if anything, looked worse and Bashara was all but pressing into my back.

I could hear her erratic breathing as she nuzzled into my back in near panic. The dark chamber did look particularly terrible, but out of a cheap horror movie. Then the shadow leyline crackled and I spotted a being that hadn’t’ been there a moment before.

“Bashara, I see that you have returned,” boomed a voice from the top of the staircase.  I swiveled to look at it, but by the time I made out the shadow on black image of the Master he had broken into a swarm of bats and vanished.  A lone, withered, zombie remained where he stood.

I considered vaporizing the wretched creature for a moment but decided against it.  He might just be waiting for me to try something like that and I didn’t know how powerful the Fanger was.

“I brought him,” she whispered.  That was a bad choice of words.  I was about to do something violent when the Master’s voice sounded behind me.

“The Jim, the one who won’t be afraid of me,” chuckled the Master before vanishing again.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I said, searching the area.

“Yeah, Jim’s only afraid of Pumas!” said Shart.

Then the Master appeared next to me, I’m sure he was planning on saying something scary.  Unfortunately, that was hard with my hand gripping around his throat.  The Master smirked and exploded into a wave of bats.

· Hack and Slash: Fist of the Northern Badger

My hands shot out at blinding speed.  Each fist found a bat and each bat I struck exploded into a fountain of gore.  Bits of bat splattered everywhere and when the Master did reform seconds later back at the top of the stairs, he looked vexed.

“That hurt,” grumbled the Master as the zombie moved to attend to him.

“Good, that’s what I was trying to do,” I said flicking my hand down at blurring speed causing the gore to splatter to the ground.

“You’ll find a Fanger is far more durable here in the Shadow Realm than anywhere on Ordinal.

“Fanger sounds stupid,” I grumbled.

“Why do you insist on your enemies having cool names?” groaned Shart.  “You think Goblins call themselves Goblins.  They are the gol’nek’kar’ans, a proud ancient race.  You people call them gobbos most of the time.”

“Goblin is a racial slur?” I asked.

“So is Orc, and elf for that matter,” said Shart.

“Elf is a slur, they don’t seem to care about it when I said it,” I began and realized that for a slur to work the other side had to care about your opinion in the slightest.  The average elf was the shining star in their own universe, what anyone else said did not matter.

“Enough,” bellowed the Master.  “Why did you seek me out?”

“A friend of mine was banished to this misbegotten realm, and with the power of the care bear stare, I will transform and roll her out to Ordinal,” I said.  The fanger, ugh, looked at me, then Badgelor and flinched.

“Surely you cannot be serious,” said ‘the Master’.

“I can, and don’t call me Shirley,” I replied.

The ‘Fanger’ paused at that, realizing for the first time in possibly his entire misbegotten life that he was actually in some degree of danger.  I had a vague understanding of his power, or at least what he had shown so far, and was not impressed, but the fanger was right in one respect.  This realm would be where he was at his maximum power, except of course for the one thing vampires actually needed.

“Doesn’t he need blood?” I asked, watching the creature’s impossibly patient eyes.

“Blood?  Yuck,” said Shart. “Why would he need that?”

“For power?” I said.

“That’s disgusting, Jim,” said Badgelor, gagging slightly.

“You dive through piles of goblin corpses,” I said.

“And what you described is disgusting to me,” said Badgelor shaking his head. “Get some standards.”

“Fangers draw on radiant mana for power, there should be almost none here so he should be about as weak as a kitten,” said Shart, out loud, for the fanger to hear.

I glanced over at Bashara, that explained why he was looking for her.  She was likely the only source of radian mana around.

Radiant mana was what actually made everything living function on Ordinal.  It was the higher tier form of life energy but was more concerned with energizing and processing instructions than actually running the details of your body.  Typically, undead didn’t need a spark of the stuff, but apparently a fanger could convert radiant mana into something useful.

That meant I should be at a major advantage, except as the fanger shoved the zombie away it's eyes flared red.  The next moment a fist slammed into my abdomen hard enough I was pretty sure it dislocated my spine.

Even with Mitigate active my chest caved in and I was flung backwards.  Master attempted a follow up strike, but even as fast as he was I still managed to activate my blink skill, materializing on his fine dining table.

The Master frowned, materializing in front of me.  “How droll, I was expecting something more.”

Badger style wasn’t the optimum stance for this engagement, but that was the style I knew best and I rushed forwards with a series of high strikes.  He blocked them, but that was the opening I was looking for and I slammed my foot into his chest hard enough to send the fanger back a half dozen logs on his table.

China shattered on the stone below.

The Master charged, turning into a massive wolf just out of my reach and snapping at my head.  I involuntarily went to protect my face and the fanger turned into his much smaller man shape.  My guard was too high and he managed to knock me off my feet with an uppercut before slashing at my chest with his claws.

My armor bore that well, but I felt blood seeping out and poison seeping in.  I made three more strikes, but the poison slowed me enough that on my third punch the fanger grabbed my arm and flung me behind him.

I landed on my feet, somehow, and twisted around in a powerful kick that he nearly avoided.  The fanger recoiled backwards, before teleporting behind me and slamming his hands to either side of my head.

I had to use Ignore Injury at that point, negating the effects of the minor concussion I’d just suffered.  That annoyed the Master, who seemed to be getting larger with each strike.  He swung both clawed fists at me and all I could do was grab them by the wrists.

Badgelor snarled for the first time.  He was all about letting me fight my own battles, until it looked like I could actually get hurt.  Then the badger had different ideas.  I mentally waved him off, I had this.

I slammed my foot down between us on the table.  It was a stout piece of furniture, and probably cost a fortune.  However, if the need arose, I could strike hard enough to stop a truck.  That was useful in more than one situation.

The table was not designed to resist a truck and snapped in half, proving that sometimes it was all about leverage.

I was expecting what happened next, he was not.  The strike caused the fanger to stumble towards me at which point I gave him the good old fashioned Basstown Headbutt.

The Master slammed into the other half of the table and both of them slid across the floor of the great hall for nearly six logs.  I’d knocked out three of his four fangs at the same time, and the poor creature had shrunk down to normal size.

The fanger stood almost instantly, the ruined half of the table he had been knocked into was now resting on the ground.  The legs on the other side of the table were still intact though.  The Master snarled at where I had been, before turning around to intercept my sneak attack, but I wasn’t attacking him.

I’d jumped nearly to the ceiling of the great hall and was right now doing a falling star strike on the other edge of the table.  It worked like a badly mismatched sea saw, that someone had dropped several bags of cement on.

I did not come out unscathed.  The table flipped right into me, knocking me down and hurting my pride.  The Master fared worse.  I had planned on him landing near the top of the stairs, but I’d overshot.

“Did his head go into the wall or was it crushed into his chest cavity?” I asked.

“I think a bit of column a, a bit of column b,” said Shart.

The Master’s body was exposed from the neck down and was thrashing violently.  He had struck the wall headfirst and apparently been hard headed enough to smash through the thing.  That left the master fanger hanging in midair trying to wriggle his way out of a trap.

The zombie rushed up the stairs to attend to him, as quickly as she could manage.  The poor creature was moving faster than I’d seen a zombie move before. From this angle, she looked old and worn. Then she looked at me and her head dropped slightly, it was a little thing, but I recognized it. Somewhere deep down I felt a rage building.

“Jim, I don’t think…,” started Badgelor.

“I know,” I said, taking the stairs a half dozen steps at a time.  I got to the zombie before she made it to her master and looked into her eyes.

Looked into Jarra’s broken eyes.

I grabbed the Master by his ankle and pulled him free.  Then I slammed him bodily into the ground droopy style until his foot came off.  He slammed into a bookcase and slumped to the ground.

“Jim, calm down,” said Shart.

I found a stake.  Well, I found a piece of mostly sharp wood that I was convinced would do the job if I tried hard enough, and got ready to do what you did to vampires.  If that didn’t work, I’d just keep trying until I figured it out.

Nothing could have stopped me from ending that beast, until a pair of frail, old, arms gripped me.  Jarra looked at me desperately while trying to restrain me.  I’d have pulled free, but she was so frail that I was worried even that act might kill her.

“I see you’ve met my wife,” hissed the Master, grinning, “You’ll find she literally cannot live without me, so how about we talk?”

“Not yet,” I growled.

I shoved my hand into his mouth and extracted his last fang with my fingertips.

I drained the fang of its magic before crushing it between my fingertips, “Now we can talk.”