Demon Hunt

"I don't believe this," Robert said, shaking his head, "This used to be a mountain range."

"Indeed," Kant sighed.

"Um, Kant? Can you let me go now?" Phi pleaded.

Robert and Kant stood floating above a long-stretching plateau. Beside them floated two figures encased in shells of light. One was Phi, whose shell flickered regularly as she tried to break out without any success. The other shell appeared empty and was constantly changing its form, shifting and retracting like an excited amoeba. Within this second shell, shrouds of light swirled around, hardening and relaxing, separating the internal volume into a matrix of subdividing and merging pieces.

"In due time," Kant replied to Phi's plea.

"Still, you're not much better, Kant," Robert continued, "Do you have any idea what problems arose when the rest of the world lost all contact with one of the kings?"

"Well, I did also separate the timelines, so there should be little problem, as we were modifying the memory of all affected individuals regardless."

"I guess that's right, but a little notice would have been nice."

"Surely both you and your assistant felt my intentions as I enacted them. With such insignificant adjustments to our original agreement, I saw no need for a more explicit arrangement."

"Man, I hate arguing with you... Just give us more of a heads-up in the future, okay?"

"Noted."

As he said this, the swirls within the shifting shell came to a halt and a wisp of light snaked its way out of the shell and into his hand. A moment later, Phi was free from her shell.

"Erase this," Kant commanded.

"Sure thing," Phi obliged.

The wisp disappeared with a flash as Phi reached out and grabbed it.

"So she couldn't do it after all..." Robert muttered.

Phi shot him a quick look of contempt, as Kant rearranged the shell of light into a single whole, ending up with a humanoid figure.

"So, about done?" Robert asked him.

"One last thing," then Kant turned to the humanoid shell of light, "I have a… an order would be the most appropriate term. Create an instance of Solomon's workshop here."

Kant projected the location of Phi's initial blunder into the mind of the king with his domain. The king obeyed and the earth began to flow, creating a structure that mirrored that of Solomon's initial workshop.

Before the king could finish, however, Kant scattered the figure into a cloud of light. Once again, he pulled out a wisp and held it out to Phi.

"Phi, if you please."

Phi once again destroyed it.

Kant reassembled the pieces and let the shell disappear, releasing the confused king back to the world.

"What was the point of that?" Robert asked.

"Just a prediction. If I am wrong, fine, but if I am right, it would have been troublesome to do this later."

"Either way, the deviations on this world have exceeded allowable limits. The protocol normally calls for isolate and purge at this point, but seeing you still have use for it, we can hold off on the purging part at least."

"Thank you."

"You're going to be maintaining the isolation though. With things being as they are, I can't access executor mode. Besides, you happen to be a specialist at that, right?"

"Sure. I'll have Phi here purge it when we're done. She happens to be a specialist at that as well," Kant patted Phi's head, who smiled at the compliment.

"I'm sure she is..." Robert laughed nervously, eyeing the plateau below them, "Oh yeah. It's probably not my place to say, but are you sure it's okay to let Tau develop like this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Her domain is synchronizing with the world a little too well. Unless I pay attention, it's becoming harder and harder to distinguish her as a god instead of a mortal. And it hasn't even been all that long."

"I see. Your concerns are unnecessary. Gods will be gods, and mortals will be mortals. This cannot change. One may dream and forget for a length of time, but one will always awake and remember eventually. Besides, I believe I have already explained my reasons for this."

"Yeah, I thought you would say something like that," Robert said, scratching his head, "Well, fine. I guess I'll go and check up with Tania back at central. Until next time."

Robert disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

"Hmm… I suppose it's time to verify my prediction..." Kant muttered, rubbing his chin.

-

Tau sat atop the sword as Neu moved them forward. Every so often, she would brace herself as they came to a halt so that Neu could switch to a new anchor. In addition to spotting new anchors for Neu, Tau was also maintaining a bubble of air around herself; the drafts at that altitude were a little chilly and were probably capable of impairing her balance atop the sword if she let them.

Keeping with her promise with Mrs. Bentley, Tau had left immediately to meet up with Jacob's group after meeting with Father Dawson and getting approval from David. She caught up with them as they were investigating a spot on the road that looked like the aftermath of an encounter. There were three bodies with their parts strewn about and a trail of rot that led into the surrounding forest. The remains were lightly armored, each person wearing a basic chest plate and a pair of arm guards.

Jacob and his group's shock at her arrival by air wasn't going to wear off anytime soon. After talking briefly with Jacob about why she was there, she settled on the role of scouting ahead for them so that finding the merchant train would be easier.

It has been just over an hour since they left the village. Given the messenger's last words, they should be arriving at the site soon. And, sure enough, on the road, Tau spotted a train of abandoned wagons. Taking a brief flyover, Tau saw that in the middle of the train, the wagons had been damaged with wheels missing and frames splintered. That particular area of the train also had quite a few corpses scattered about. Most of the corpses were armored with basic chest plates and arm guards and had weapons lying nearby. A line of decaying grass extended into the woods on both sides. At the end of the train, several wagons were turned at odd angles and halfway off the road. Probably in a haphazard attempt to turn around and flee down the road which failed. Tau had seen enough, and so headed back to inform Jacob of the situation.

"Hey, the merchant train is up ahead," Tau called out as she descended from the sky where Jacob and his group had been waiting. Jacob's men quickly cleared some space for her landing and continued to keep their distance after she had done so, watching her cautiously. Even the horse that the group had brought with them neighed and backed away. Only Jacob stayed rooted in place.

"So, how was it? Any survivors?" he asked.

"I didn't see any survivors. But, most of the carts were abandoned, and there were only around ten corpses I saw near the center of the train, so there is a possibility. There was a line of rot that went through the center of the train, extending to the forest on either side and seeing that's where the damage was most apparent, that's probably where the attack originated."

"Hmm… I see" Jacob said, thinking, "The people at the ends probably split up and fled into the forest, we can try searching there… oh yeah, any sign of especially recent demon activity in the area?"

"None that I could tell. Only the trail of rot I mentioned earlier."

"Okay then," Jacob turned to his men, "Our goal is close! We will approach in the discussed formation. Anyone who starts feeling sick, give us a shout! Let's go get the goods!" Then to Tau, "Keep a lookout for us."

"Will do," Tau agreed and jumped back onto her sword and rose into the air.

Within the next fifteen minutes, the group reached the merchant train. Tau watched from above as Jacob gave orders and pointed at positions for some of his men to stand guard around the train of wagons. His men quickly strapped the horse to the first cart in the train and unloaded its contents, moving it to the other wagons.

The sea of leaves really interfered with Tau's ability to see the surrounding area, so after ensuring there was nothing out of the ordinary along the road, Tau descended once again to discuss the next steps with Jacob, who was inspecting the bodies and broken wagons at the center of the train.

"I think the attack probably came from this side," Jacob said as Tau landed beside him, "So people probably fled in that direction," Jacob pointed behind his back.

Looking at it closer now, Tau had to agree. Most of the bodies on this side were armored, and there were slightly more of them here than on the other side. Tau could easily imagine the armored guards gathering to deal with the threat as less combat-able ran away. However, Tau still had a feeling that there was something off about their assessment.

Regardless, it would still be necessary to search the surrounding forest, so they might as well start with the other side. Jacob left most of the group to watch the caravan and took two others with him and Tau to explore the side of the forest where they suspected the survivors to flee to.

The four of them split up, Tau and Jacob following the trail of rot to the right and the other two searching the dense forest to the left.

"Thanks for this," Jacob started as they trekked on down the trail.

"Hmm?"

"Ah, coming with us I mean. It's reassuring to have a holy sword wielder with us."

"I don't know. Your men didn't exactly look reassured."

"Everyone's just on edge. Anything unexpected would startle any of us right now, and your entrance wasn't exactly ordinary. Can you imagine, right when we finished confirming the area was safe and was busy investigating the scene, you fell out of the sky and greeted us," Jacob laughed, "It nearly gave me a heart attack! Not exactly the greatest first impression."

"Ah, well..." Tau smiled.

"Really though, having you around has made everyone calmer. I mean, our chances of getting out alive from a sudden fight with a demon when we only got these," Jacob held up the farming hoe he had been carrying, "Not exactly encouraging. With you around, the odds are more on our side."

Jacob trailed off a bit near the end. He sounded a little disappointed.

"To be honest, I was almost hoping that we would run into a demon," He admitted, "If I manage to kill one on my own, maybe Father Dawson will finally consider my request. And when I think of how we have suffered, how those survivors must have suffered, and how I couldn't do anything about it, it just makes me feel so frustrated."

Tau didn't know how to respond to that. Unfortunately, she wouldn't need to, because just then, the two of them happened upon another body of a guard. This one had been split completely in half, with his upper body on one side of the trail and his lower body on the other.

The smell of decay was especially potent here, and Tau had to hold back the urge to puke. Looking around, they found four other bodies. None of them were armored, and all of them had various appendages missing or detached.

Tau recalled that the messenger had mentioned that their company totaled fifty.

[Seventeen last night, three on the way, eleven dead on-site, and now five here. Another fourteen left unaccounted for.]

At this rate, the odds of them finding any survivors at all wasn't looking too good. It was then that a series of panicked shouts could be heard from the direction of the merchant train. Soon, the sounds of shouting ceased. Tau and Jacob took one look at each other and then both took off in the direction of the road.

Halfway back to the road, Jacob collapsed mid-step. Tau stopped to help him up and was surprised to see him clutch his stomach and puke.

"This is..." He mumbled, leaning his farming hoe as he stood up, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

"Don't push yourself," Tau said, helping him stand.

"I'm fine, this was just unexpected," Jacob said, taking deep breaths and wiping the sweat from his face, "We need to keep going. My orders were to immediately run in the other direction if anyone starts to feel sick. Something has to be wrong if we've reached the edge of the soul aura without meeting any of them."

Using his farming hoe as a crutch, Jacob continued on towards the road. Pretty soon, they saw what the problem was. Two figures stood beside a freshly overturned wagon. The figure in front had one of Jacob's men by the neck, and as they watched, the neck of the man rotted away until the demon's grip slipped and the head and body fell to the ground as two separate pieces.

{The one thing we wanted to avoid...}

Tau clenched her teeth.

"Damn it all!" Jacob slammed his fist into a nearby tree, "They've met up! We were too late."