Chapter 15 – My Adventures in Super Hell

“Badgelor lived through this,” I growled as we continued walking.  We were out of immediate danger.  Super immediate danger at least.  We were just off the beach following the edge of the inner sea towards Windfall.  It was going to take me at least a week to get that far.  I could have moved faster, but that seemed extremely suicidal.

I checked again and my mana recovery was greater than the cost of keeping myself invisible and hidden from the Shadow Creatures.  Fortunately, I had been correct in that they didn’t have comparable senses to us.

The creatures of the Shadow Realm searched for Mana, and more specifically Essence which was a kind of Mana according to my Mystical Lore skill.  By surrounding myself in an anti-magical barrier I was effectively hidden from them.  Which of course brought about the next question.

“So how did you manage to get through here?” I asked Badgelor.

“I pissed on myself,” said Badgelor.

“They don't like badger piss?” I asked.

“Well, they don’t like badger piss if you’ve been eating anything tainted with shadow, it makes you smell like them,” said Badgelor.

“How did you get past the guardian?” I asked, remembering the super Nothing just inside the door.

“I ate the herbs before I entered,” said Badgelor.  “They grow just outside the gate on the Jersey side.”  He reached into his pouch and pulled out several dark, undulating herbs.  “These aren’t perfect, so you got to move but by the time the guardian realized I was there I’d already gotten clear.”

“That sounds good,” I said.

“She chased me for 6 days,” said Badgelor.  “I had almost given up when the beast turned around and left me.”

“There is a maximum time a guardian can be away from whatever it's protecting,” said Shart.

“Yeah, and that’s supposed to be three days,” spat the badger.

Shart paused.  “Point.”

“So those trees, could we cut them down and make a boat?” I asked, looking at the undulating mass of death trees that were on the coast.

“That would involve sailing in the Shadow Sea,” said Shart, shaking his head.  “I doubt we’d make it five minutes, let alone across the whole ocean.”

I continued walking.  With all of my magical shielding and ample use of the Stealth skill, I was pretty sure we’d eventually make it to Windfall.  The problem was that was going to take a while and I didn’t know how long Charles was going to stay locked up.

There was a limited chance that all the Shadow Creatures I’d dumped onto him might overwhelm him.  If they could outstrip his magical regeneration, he would be trapped there for months or years while he came up with a backup.  Unfortunately, I doubted that would be the case.

He could already be free, meaning that I needed to hurry up.

We avoided a large herd of shadow creatures that were eating the screaming grass.  As herbivores, they had mouths like chipper shredders and were pulling up grass, stones and small animals as they hoovered up the local equivalent of plant life.

I pointed next to them and generated a portal.  They did not react.

“What are you doing,” asked Shart.

“Testing,” I replied as I opened another portal near to me.  Carefully I slipped just the tip of my finger out of it and lowered my anti-magical barrier slightly.  No reaction.  I lowered it more and still had no reaction.  Finally, I lowered the barrier nearly entirely on my hand and one of the creatures suddenly spun around and charged towards the portal.

I pulled my hand free and deactivated the portal causing the creature to stomp around where it had been while it looked for another treat.

I was able to generate three portals using a perk, so I did.  One portal was placed on one end of the field and the other on the opposite side.  The final portal was near me and I could shift the connection point between the portals.  I quickly had the shadow cows moving from one side of the field to another.

“What are you doing, dum dum,” groaned Shart as Badgelor and I remote controlled the shadow cows into smashing down several trees.

“Practicing,” I grinned, then jerked my hand back.  A large bird had pecked my hand.  With all my perks activated, the bite didn’t even draw blood but it hurt all the same.  I fully reactivated my magical fields as I tossed the creature aside.  It flailed its wings and managed to land somewhat normally.

I examined the wound, it was a bite not a peck.

The little creature had wings, but a lizard-like snout complete with rows of tiny teeth.  They couldn’t even give the local bird equivalents the honor of a real mouth.

The low drone of the shadow whale sounded as it flew overhead.  It too had seen my hand for a moment, and was searching the area for wherever it was.  I considered that for a moment, then stepped through my portal to the opposite end of the field from where I’d left the cows and closed all the portals.

The shadow whale spent several moments looking over the area before flying out over the ocean.

“Is the glider totally unrepairable,” said Shart.

“We can walk it,” said Badgelor sourly.

“I don’t have the skills necessary to repair it, or acceptable materials even with material substitution,” I offered.  The Glider that Beakatrix had built for herself, and given to me, had not held up very well to my long-term afterburner powered flight from the LOOKOUT! To Filly.  There was no situation where it was going to hold up for a flight from here to Windfall.

“Shame we can’t ride on one of those,” said Shart.

Badgelor looked at me, “Get us up there.”

“I thought you said we could walk it.”

“I’m fine with flying as long as I’m not the power source,” said Badgelor.  “Walking is dangerous here.”

“Everything is dangerous here,” I grumbled looking around.  Even with improvised tools and the glider I still didn’t see how we were going to get that high up.  I needed some specialized devices to be built to achieve that kind of lift and that would require some parts that I did not have.

Then a half dozen small bird like creatures stepped out of the trees before they all started snapping at the ground.  Each one was searching for tiny little shadowy bugs like some sort of farm animal.  Animals with wings and dinosaur mouths.

Scientists removed a gene from a chicken and ended up with a bird with a dinosaur mouth.

· You have discovered Shadow Chickens

“I got this.”