CHAPTER 532: THE MOTHER OR THE QUEEN

Lava didn’t feel great. Both Mason and the demon screamed in agony, the skeletal creature trying desperately to use its snake-flail to drag it back up. It clawed and thrashed as it melted, slowly sinking into the burning liquid.

Mason held it down, and pushed. He turned and hacked at the flail, aiming for the now weakened, overheated links and smashing one completely away.

“It will kill us!” the demon screamed. “Has it lost its mind?”

The heat was overwhelming. Mason’s feet and lower legs burst into flames. He could smell his own flesh roasting, the nerves seared so fast he hadn’t really felt it yet. He stared into the demon’s eyes.

“Where are your little games now?”

A snake flail came whistling back, and Mason twisted and chopped it off at the base. The head dropped into the lava with a shriek, its last hiss the sound of it boiling.

Mason and the demon sunk, and burned. The demon vanished into the orange heat, nothing now but its top few inches, like a cage of bone being lowered with Mason on top.

“We will suffer,” it moaned. “But we will suffer together.”

Mason’s hands were on fire now as he held the creature down.

“Sure,” he hissed, voice trembling with the growing agony. “Sounds fun.”

“Mason! Grab it!”

A rope dropped from the air, and Mason looked at it and considered without comprehension. It was too far from the platform, and his mind was ready, his decision final. But he grabbed the rope with hands near as skeletal as the demon, more curious than anything. The pain was terrible, but seemed increasingly far away.

He pulled up and took the rope with both hands, crying out as it pulled him. He stared down at the dying demon, floating up and up and away from his doom. What a strange thing, he thought, to be alive when you expected to be dead.

He wrapped his mangled limbs around the rope and felt tears on his cheeks. It was the worst pain he could remember, so terrible and beautiful he bit his Sleeve and chewed. He was floating and laughing, nothing in the world but that pain—no problems or past or future. Only the frozen bliss of the agony of now.

It eventually dropped him back on the platform. He saw Alex shining with golden light, gargoyles ripping apart all around him. He saw little Annie crawl out of her own flaming corpse like she’d shed a second skin. Did that mean she wasn’t dead?

Becky ran towards him looking so beautiful and alive, and even Seamus touched down like a floating, Irish, angel.

“Christ, get him out, he’s still on fecking fire.”

Then people were all around him beating him with cloaks. Or something. Mason didn’t really care. He just lay there and looked at the roof, so happy when he saw Demi and Becky.

“My God,” he heard someone whisper. “Is he smiling?”

Course I’m smiling, Mason thought. There’s two pretty girls who are all mine. Look at those beautiful faces.

And Annie wasn’t dead after all. Though he had no idea how or why. But they’d done it, hadn’t they? He was pretty sure they had.

If nothing else, that demon was dead. Or probably dead. He felt better when he saw the text scroll across his screen.

[Infernal Champion: ‘Papa Bones’ killed. Event complete. Experience gained.]

[Title earned: Fire…not so bad. Survive a dip in lava. +2 vitality.]

[Title earned: Come hell or high water. Survive a targeted Infernal Assassination attempt. +2 primary statistic. Increased planar aura.]

“Mason?” Demi was beside him, her hands hovering like she was too afraid to touch him. “I still have mana. I’ll try and…at least as best I can. But I’ve never…this much damage…”

“I’ll heal,” he rasped, not worried. Though he wasn’t sure he if he’d formed words. No matter. The pain was so delicious and delirious he wondered why he even stressed about things.

He blinked and saw Cerebus’ face floating in the air. The nature god was grinning down at him, golden eyes filled with pleasure.

Another champion defeated, another victory for us both, young wolf, said the face in the steam of Mason’s own roasting body. One more arrow in your endless quiver. Here he laughed and showed his fangs. Shall I reward you alone? Or will you share your kill with that little pack of yours?

Was it real? It seemed kind of real. Sure, Mason’s body was shivering with a cocktail of hormonal painkillers. But the world of the ‘system’ had taught him one thing: best to go along with madness, at least until you had a better option.

“My pack,” Mason said, or tried to say, licking his lips. “Stronger…together.”

“You’ll be alright,” someone said soothingly. “Don’t try to talk. Can we get someone to look at Annie, please?”

The players were all looking at each other with concern. But steam-Cerebus ignored them all and nod/shrugged like he didn’t care. Then a bunch of people’s eyes glazed. Green portals started opening up around the platform.

“Holy shit,” Garet said, grinning like an idiot. “I think I’m getting a prestige class. Am I uh…is it…you know, safe and all? Should we stick around and…”

“Go,” said Phuong, nodding to both him and Jason, and apparently Tommaso. And John. Demi put a hand over her mouth, blinking again and again.

“Me too,” she whispered, eyes sweeping Mason. “But I…I can’t just…”

“Go along now,” Phuong lifted her up and gently pushed her towards one of the portals. “Mason brought us here for this. To get stronger. He’s fine, I promise you. Better than some of us in a few minutes. Don’t waste his suffering.”

‘Yeah,’ Mason tried to say, which for sure came out more like ‘yuungh’. But he gave Demi a smile. She went with tears in her eyes, but she went.

They all did, one by one, the remaining players sitting around Mason in a circle. Becky touched the least burned part of his face as Alex frowned and waved a hand over him, then thought better of it. He patted him somewhere else unburned instead.

“Maybe call you demon-bait now,” he said, no trace of a joke. He kept his hand where it was and closed his eyes, humming some song that sounded like a lullaby. Mason took as deep a breath as he could with what were probably burnt lungs, and rested his eyes. He felt pretty good, all things considered.

**

Demi stepped out onto moss so deep her feet sunk. A thick mist filled the air, so foggy she couldn’t see more than ten or so feet around her. The other players stepped out from portals just like hers, all sniffing the moist air and coming closer together.

“Where the hell are we?” Tommaso whispered. “This doesn’t look like some temple, eh? Like the others described?”

No. It certainly wasn’t a temple. It was whatever the opposite of sacred was.

Little hairs rose all over Demi’s body. Her heart sped up, the urge to turn and run filling her and drowning any rational thought.

“I hear something,” said John, his blue eyes going wide, head turning back and forth. “Something’s coming. It’s big.”

A long, low growl filled the air, then rose and fell at the end. Demi decided it sounded like a mountain laughing. She shivered as a giant, horned shadow emerged from the fog.

“Few mortals see my home and live,” it said with a deep, quiet menace. “My champion has earned you that privilege. Have no fear.”

Too late, Demi thought, staring up at a half-naked monster with black fur and golden eyes. He had horns like a giant stag, a bestial face, and claws the length of Demi’s legs. She knew who or what it was, by instinct as much as knowledge. The name Cerebus shivered down her spine

The god sniffed the air and smiled.

“You don’t belong here, flower.”

Demi flinched as it leaned towards her, nostrils flaring. He closed his eyes and breathed.

“I can see why he likes you. I couldn’t have resisted once, either.”

He looked at the others and stopped smiling.

“Walk the mist, clever apes. It will quicken you like the ‘temple’ you seek. But this is not some tomb of dead wizard fools. You will earn your gifts here. Go.”

Demi turned and ran. Cerebus’ voice lost no volume, as if he stalked and loomed above her and whispered in her ear.

‘No, flower, you needn’t fear me’, he said, as if amused. ‘Two goddesses await in my mists. They’ve been watching, and waiting. All for a chance with you.’

Demi wasn’t sure if Cerebus was trying to comfort her, but if he was it wasn’t working. She reached for her powers but couldn’t seem to think, no plan or understanding of what she was doing or why.

She slowed and eventually stopped, trying to block out the racing thoughts and remind herself she was here because of Mason—that this was a game, and a reward. She wasn’t in control, but she wasn’t meaningless. She mattered. Cerebus had told her as much.

“What do you want with me?” she called, finding her powers now and covering herself in Barkskin. She raised her hands and readied to fill the air with spores, to use the life teeming all around her. Again she heard Cerebus laughing somewhere in the mist.

The ground at her feet shimmered and grew up all around her with vines and flowers. They formed a woman’s face with a half a dozen beautiful colors.

“I offer life, and love,” it whispered. “Forever youth. Mate with the wolf. Tame and claim him as the earth claims all. Together we will guide this world.”

Arrogance, hissed a sudden wind so cold Demi shivered and lost her breath. The woman’s face blew apart, flowers dying as they sunk into the moss.

Life is fleeting, spoke the wind. I will teach you to stand beyond it. To become as eternal as the winter. Untouched and at peace. Reject the weakness of others, and you will endure whatever comes.

Demi felt the pull of both. A piece of her wanted to lie down in the moss, another to use her power and float away on the wind. She knew her magic had been inspired by both. That her affinity was a result of more than one of the ‘goddesses’ now fighting for her attention. System text scrolled before her eyes, making things crystal clear.

[Divine Patronage available. Please choose between Gaia, Mother of the Earth, and Queen Mav, Goddess of Air and Winter.]

Demi wasn’t sure. She didn’t know. A week ago she realized it wouldn’t have been difficult—that she’d have chosen Mav without hesitation. All she’d wanted then and most of her life was peace and quiet. A refuge from what she’d always seen as an undesirable world, or at least a world she hadn’t belonged in. But now…

She thought of Mason and all the chaos of Nassau. By choosing Gaia, and perhaps choosing him, she knew her life would be vastly more complicated. Her time in the ‘wilds’ would be truly over—her protection of not caring, of hiding, of being removed from it all, gone forever.

She had seen many forms of him now—the man, the wolf. The demon-killing predator—the half-dead thing lying burnt on the stone.

It was all just a part, a momentary truth of the thing underneath. She had seen the strength, even in that weakness. The concern for the others even as his body failed.

Mason was a force of nature in the shape of a man. Her man. Or at least he could be. All she had to do was have faith, and to choose. To have courage. He gave her the hope to try.

With a respectful bow and nod towards the wind, she lay down in the moss, and closed her eyes.

[Divine Patronage accepted. Formulating Prestige Class. Please do not move.]

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