Mage Tank

Something about the darkness was magical. Despite seeing a shadowy figure approaching, they never came into focus, even after coming to a stop only twenty feet away. Their soul was obscured, making it impossible to get a read on their strength.

Given that I was still being bombarded by mental attacks, I assumed it was high. The Holy Water was the only reason I was still in control of myself.

Good purchase, that one.

The person in the dark spoke, but their voice was strange. It was low and gravelly but sounded like they intentionally pitched down and forced the aged rumble. It was sort of like a woman pretending to be a man, or a young man pretending to be an old veteran. It was hard to pin down.

“I wasn’t sure you’d follow me,” they said. “But I’m pleased that you did.”

Another few heavy footfalls, and I was finally able to make out the edges of their form. They looked like a man, well-built and wearing close-fitting armor. His face was hidden, but his head looked too large. He must have been wearing a helmet that was oversized compared to his other gear.

“With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” I asked. I definitely didn’t recognize the voice.

“Do not toy around with me, Arlo,” they said. “Who did you believe you were chasing through that portal?”

I furrowed my brow. Was Aprogar pretending to be a young teen pretending to be an older man? That didn’t make sense.

Two more heavy steps brought the person within a dozen feet. They wore a tabard with the King’s Guard’s crest. They were the right height and build to be Aprogar. Their face was still obscured, but I could make out a well-kept beard. The man took another step forward. I could finally see their face clearly. They…

They were a fucking muppet.

The ‘head’ was some sort of mask. It was an oversized felt caricature of Aprogar, with an exaggerated frown and brows tilted at a severe angle. They cocked their upper body to one side inquisitively, and their pupils clattered around.

They had damned googly eyes!

Did the King’s Guard have a mascot? Because I was talking to a straight-up mascot. Even their hands were large felt gloves, and their boots were size twenty-five at the least.

“When Deletar’s inventory returned to the family vault,” said the muppet, “I knew they’d finally been killed. Years of wondering what had happened, years of trying to accept that he was gone.” The muppet raised an awkward fist, shaking it in the air as they leaned back. Their fingers didn’t quite fold in properly, their tips flattening and sticking out against their palm. Their voice quivered with all the heat of a high-school theater kid, taking things several notches past believable. “I never realized the wound was still so raw!”

“Uh, I killed a bug,” I said. “Not Aprogar’s son. Also–”

“Is that all he was to you?!” shouted the muppet, slapping a hand over their heart. It made a soft thump. The armor was painted cloth. “He was an insect to be squashed?!”

“No, um, he’d literally been turned into an insect monster.”

“Are you seeing this?” I thought to Grotto.

[Seeing what? I see Aprogar claiming you murdered his child.]

“Aprogar? No, he’s–”

It dawned on me what was happening. I glanced at Grotto, then back to the muppet.

“Wait,” I said, pointing my hammer at the mascot. “Were you wearing that the whole time?!”

They placed their hands on their hips and looked down at their clothes. They had to bend at the waist since the head was too large. There wasn’t really a neck. They popped back up and huffed.

“You dare insult the King’s Guard’s regalia?” the muppet said, affronted. “These garments were crafted by my wife! She is a well-known tailor! Her talents are in high demand!”

“Not the clothes! I mean, yes, the clothes as well, but your fucking face, man! Did… did no one notice?”

The muppet reached up and slapped a plush hand onto their fuzzy face, then ran it over their fluffy beard. The googly eyes rattled.

“What about my face?”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. What about my face?”

“You're a muppet, my dude.”

“What is a… ‘muppet’?”

“A big fuzzy fake person! A mascot! A guy in a costume!” I paused. “If you were an animal, it’d be called a fursuit.”

“Shit,” they said in a higher, slightly more feminine voice. It was still pretty low for a woman and had a bit of roughness to it. It wasn’t enough to enable any assumptions about their biology. “I was having fun with this one.”

They pulled off their gloves, revealing hands with long, slender fingers and a different pattern painted onto each nail. They reached up and pulled off the mascot's head.

The face that was revealed had bright white skin with a metallic sheen. Their lips were full and bright blue, and a web of cobalt veins spread out from the lips across their lower face.

Their eyes were like rippling pools of mercury, surrounded by a riot of color, with one sporting a large, green circle in place of a pupil, while the other held a small and stop-sign-red dot.

Their hair flowed like a drop of navy ink falling into crystal-clear waters.

Their features were delicate, but their jaw was sharp and defined. Their eyes were large and marked by long, dark lashes, but their forehead was wide, with a widow’s peak that hinted at the first signs of a receding hairline. Did they have a hint of stubble, or was that just their makeup?

Was it makeup?

They placed a hand on one hip and ran a thumb along their lower lip. They pressed in, pulling the lip down and revealing dark silver teeth set into dark-blue gums.

They threw their arms into the air with enough force to do a little hop.

“You caught me!” they said with a full-toothed smile. The veins around their mouth curled into spirals, then uncurled and swept in the opposite direction to curl in again. They held their arms out like a ballerina and did a quick pirouette, gliding across the floor and stopping just in front of my raised shield, wrists held out to me.

They were wearing a pair of handcuffs.

“Are you… going to arrest me?” they asked, looking up at me with sultry eyes. They were a head shorter than I was.

“Will you come along quietly?”

They stepped closer, running a finger along the top of my shield. “No,” they said. “I’m a screamer.”

“Ah. Well, I’m just here to get my friends back.”

“I can be your friend.”

“Did you kidnap my party members?”

They drummed their nails against Gracorvus. One of them had a classic yellow smiley face. Another had a severed head in a smear of blood, with x’s over its eyes.

“That depends,” they said.

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“On what?”

“Whether you’re my friend.”

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“I’m Hysteria! Now are we friends?”

“Would you happen to be an avatar, Hysteria?”

They gasped. “I am!”

“Well, we only just met.”

“That means we aren’t friends?”

As much as I was tempted to say that we were friends, I tried not to make friends with crazy. Not too many, anyway. Okay, it wasn’t really a barrier to friendship but this seemed like the wrong flavor of crazy.

“I don’t think so?”

“Oh, then I didn’t kidnap your party members.”

“That’s… good. Why did it matter if we were friends?”

“I don’t lie to my friends.” Hysteria’s eyes went wide and they cartwheeled away. When they stopped, the King’s Guard costume was gone, replaced with a tightly fitting ringmaster’s outfit, complete with long coattails and high-rise boots. Instead of slacks, they wore a mini skirt and sparkling fishnets. The front of the outfit dipped low, with a corset-style midsection. They had wide hips, but no obvious bust.

I felt like I was at a circus-themed drag show.

Hysteria reached up and clapped their hands. A loud clack sounded in time with the clap, and a bright spotlight shone down onto them from above. I squinted at the sudden light, which only served to illuminate Hysteria while making the rest of the room even darker.

“Master Esquire Arlo Xor’Drel, Esquire!” said Hysteria. “May I call you Meax’de?”

“Please don’t.”

“You unraveled my dastardly plot to abscond with–” They took a deep breath. “–His Royal Highness King Filix ‘God-Step’ Celeritia, Sole Sovereign of the Kingdom of Hiward, Defender of the Realm, and Hero of the War of Rebellion, long may he reign!

“But! Your keen intellect was ever so slightly too slow! I escaped, stealing away the king, your dearest friends, and a bunch of other people no one cares about. Also, Zura, who is kind of important, I guess.”

Hysteria spun and produced a baton, which they pointed up at the sky.

“Realizing the dangers of my deceit, you brought to heel three of Hiward’s most powerful defenders, sending them through a mysterious portal in pursuit of me! Alas, all three failed to reach my lair!

“Now, Patriarch Bobret Duckgrien struggles to climb from the deepest depths of a Mittan volcano, his every move challenged by a vicious swarm of inextinguishable fire elementals. Patriarch Ealdric Ravvenblaq battles a leviathan in the world’s deepest trench! And Matriach Cera Duckgrien has been sent to space!”

Hysteria spun and twirled the baton, throwing it into the air and catching it behind their back to twirl it around in front again. “Bitch didn’t see fucking space coming,” they said. “Will she survive reentry? Does anyone give a shit? I don’t!”

Hysteria tucked the baton beneath one arm and clapped again. There was another clack as a spotlight hit me as well.

“Now, our intrepid hero has taken it upon himself to rescue his allies! He bravely traversed a sea of time and space. He–”

Hysteria paused and looked at me, then stepped out of the spotlight and disappeared. I heard a sniffing sound behind me and turned to see Hysteria smelling my neck. They winked and darted away before I could turn completely, reappearing in the spotlight in a single step.

“The hero called upon the heavens to protect him from my outrageous sex appeal, shielding him from my charm and–” They clapped themselves on the booty. “–the mind-warping effects of my tight ass!”

You have resisted Dominate!

You have resisted Mesmerize!

You have resisted Paranoia!

You have resisted Psychosis!

“With the gods at his back and the System at his side, our hero has arrived to challenge me for the lives of those he holds closest to his heart!”

Hysteria pointed the baton into the dark, and another clack revealed a perfect replica of my lounge, with one wall cut away like it was the setting for a stage play.

King Celeritia was sitting on the couch, chatting with Ejta who sat beside him. Zura and the Eschens stood by the bar, having a few drinks and conversing with Xim and Nuralie, while Varrin and Riona each occupied a lounge chair, paying close attention to the rest.

Hysteria tossed the baton to one side, and it disappeared into the dark without a sound. They raised their hands and bent their fingers into claws, darkness rising through their outfit and staining it black.

“Our hero may have overcome near-impossible odds to reach my fiendish abode!” Hysteria shouted, voice rising to a crescendo. “Regrettably, he is but a single, lowly Level 12 Delver, who can’t do shit to me! How will he overcome?!”

A ring of runes burst to life at my feet, and I felt a wave of mana swelling to fill them.

I reached out to the dark, trying to find a place to use Shortcut, but everything cloaked in shadow felt like solid stone to my senses.

I teleported to Hysteria instead.

When I appeared, Hysteria was gone. I turned to see the avatar standing in the ring of runes, looking down at them curiously with a hand on their chin. They caught me looking, gave a wave, and then dipped into a flourishing bow. The runes faded away, then sprang to life at my feet.

“Shit.”

I swapped tactics, focusing on the flow of mana through the runes. I found a spot where the mana condensed and began to move from the outer ring inward toward the next. I did a quick spin, finding three more connecting points, then threw Somncres at full force. I split the hammer three times, using its new third effect to guide each one to a different target.

They crashed into the ground with a wrenching noise, tearing through a thin layer of metal but failing to penetrate any further. I realized the floor was covered in weave-enhancing Madrin. Whatever was beneath it had similar properties to the outside edges of the Closet, refusing to yield to the supersonic attack.

The runes squirmed and slid across the torn metal, reforming the connection just beyond the damage.

“That’s new,” I muttered. “Plan C.”

I locked eyes onto the outer ring, looking for the source of the mana leading into the runes. Like the weave in my bedroom, no chips were powering the magic, relying on an outside source. A thick thread of mana ran off into the dark, and when I focused on the origin point, I could make out hundreds more runes that hovered and swam in the air.

A hint of gold flickered. There was another Delver out there.

I fixed on the point using Shortcut, finding a small sphere of empty space that the darkness didn’t block. I teleported to the mystery person and didn’t ask any questions.

I threw Somncres point blank, layering on Oblivion Orb and copying the hammer four times. In the split second it took me to throw, I got a better look at the figure.

They had dark skin and leathery wings. Their body was shrouded in several layers of gossamer fabric that hung in the air like a massive, ethereal wedding veil. Each layer of fabric was covered in runes that shifted and moved, rearranging into new patterns every second.

A wall of metal appeared in front of the winged form, and a rapid series of deafening clangs sounded as my hammers collided with it. The veil behind lit up as the runes snapped into a defensive formation, and the outer layer of fabric disintegrated.

Block bypassed, first defensive ability spent. Dark eyes narrowed beneath the veil.

The wall of metal pivoted, and what I’d taken for a shield was revealed to be a sword as its edge shot toward me.

To be fair, it was wide enough to be a shield. It was just a straight-up Buster Sword.

I caught it with Gracorvus, and the shield strained against the hit, sending shockwaves through my bones and rattling my teeth. The hit slung me away, wind whipping past as I hurtled back toward the runes.

I activated Gravity Anchor to halt my movement, stopping myself just outside the hostile weave. The sword rose and rested on the shoulder of a hulking figure beside Veil, who was also surrounded by a suppressed golden Delver halo. It was hard to get a read on their Level with the darkness playing hell with all my senses.

I started channeling Explosion! but it was Dispelled immediately. I caught a glimmer of mana as a spell shot out from the dark on my left, revealing a third golden soul. Things were starting to get out of hand.

I used Reverse Card to return whatever it was back to sender. I hadn’t caught the full cast, so Magical Thinker hadn’t proc'd. I heard a shout as it collided with the caster.

Buster charged through the dark, massive sword held high, but they stumbled and reached up to grab their head.

“Thanks, bud,” I thought to Grotto. Before I could capitalize on my familiar’s mental attack, I felt something catch in my throat and an overwhelming urge to cough. All that came out was a wheeze. I glanced down and saw that an arrow had pierced through my gorget, and was sticking out of my neck. My nerves caught up with the damage and started screaming at me.

HP: 1898 -> 1471

I couldn’t breathe, but that was barely an inconvenience. I could almost go an hour without air. The arrow did distract me, though, and Buster hit me in the face.

Gravity Anchor kept me from going anywhere, but that may have made things worse.

HP: 1471 -> 1228

Before I could recover from the hit, something crashed into the side of my knee. I felt the joint bend in the wrong direction, my armor crumpling.

HP: 1228 -> 1005

A tiny man was standing below me, barely coming up to my waist. They were already pulling back their fist for another punch.

I went to block, but Buster grabbed my shield. The man was as wide as a bull, and Gravity Anchor didn’t seem to affect them at all. A spell flew out from the dark and wrapped me in a glowing bola. An arrow hit me in my other knee, ending my career as an adventurer. The only thing keeping me up was Gravity Anchor. Runes erupted on my armor, doing… something not good, for sure.

The little man caught my attention, fist glowing with a technique. White fur poked out from their light armor. It was a mini-yeti like Umi-Doo.

They let themselves fall toward my center and their fist hit my jaw, denting my bascinet.

Half of my health was gone.

I tried to cast Shortcut, but it was Dispelled.

I tried to cast Elemental Barrier, but the runes on my armor flared, canceling it.

My arms were bound by the bola.

Grotto had disappeared.

Another punch to my jaw.

You have been Stunned!

The last thing I remembered was a tiny foot flying towards my face.

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