Chapter Text
Essek stood huddled with the rest of the new players, listening to the safety brief in the growing dark. There were thirteen of them doing the newbie module, a good mix of classes and experience levels, from the spotty-faced teenagers in party city costumes at their first larp, to transplants like him who had an idea what they were getting into, but were unfamiliar with exactly how this game ran and what to expect from Wildmount.
It was fully dark by the time the marshal was done. She stepped back off the trail, and then they were a party of young travelers, trying to make it through the woods to the safety of Zadash, to the lights in the distance.
“Well. No time like the present,” one woman, a young elf in a short dress with a sword and shield, said with a bravery she clearly didn’t feel.
They started to walk. Two clerics at the head of the party held light spells to guide the way, and the rest just had to follow and trust that they were on the right path. They would be there soon. Essek could see points of light, not too far.
The woods were the kind of quiet-loud that made it impossible to pinpoint sounds. Footsteps through the brush, cicadas screaming in the dark, quiet voices whispering, wondering what was going on and what would happen next. Essek brought up the rear, trusting his night vision and his experience to keep him alive through the night.
“Hello there,” a low voice purred in Essek’s ear.
He shrieked and spun to see who had materialized behind him. He hadn’t heard anything approaching. All he could see was a shape in the dark, humanoid, unnaturally tall, crouched to whisper.
“Aww, look what I found. A lost pack of travelers, all alone in the dark.” He straightened up, and up, to at least eight feet tall.
“Light!” Essek ordered.
A cleric fumbled her spell toward the shape. The beam passed over another four in the woods, shorter, colorful, just out of view in the dark, and Essek’s eyes darted from form to form, trying to keep track of them all. It landed on the top half of a demon, purple skin, red eyes, dripping blood from one corner of its fanged mouth.
“What do you think we should do with them?” he asked, just loud enough to carry.
“Feed,” came the quiet answer from one side.
“Feed.”
“Feed.”
“So hungry.”
Essek’s hand went to his belt pouch for a spell. They weren’t moving yet, but the tension was like a weight in the air.
“Casters to the center,” the elf with the sword said. “Shield wall around them.”
Essek backed up a few feet and a man with a shield and mace moved to stand in front of him.
“Playtime, children,” the demon said.
It was chaos. The demons were everywhere, fast and agile and with just enough magic to tear through the group’s attempts at a line. There were only six, but it felt like there were dozens of them, the way they played with his group. Essek grabbed a cleric, the last one still standing with them after half the party made a break for it, and had her shine her light on the attackers one after another while he cast Magnify Gravity on them as fast as he could. Three of them hit the ground, pinned, and stayed there, screaming and struggling.
The rest of his melee rallied around the other two left and overwhelmed them. And then it was six of them, two wounded, the rest in bad shape but still mobile, against the eight foot tall demon.
“Get them walking,” he whispered to his cleric, and shoved her gently toward the wounded lying on the ground. He stood his ground in front of the demon, trying to look confident and like he had a plan. “Let us go and we’ll spare your life,” he said.
“Let us go and we’ll ne ne ne,” he mocked in a high pitched, nasal voice.
Essek raised a hand to cast.
“Mortal, you are playing a dangerous game. Do you know who I am?”
“Enlighten me,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel.
“You have the honor of meeting the one and only Lucien. Aren’t you a lucky little thing?” he purred, stalking slowly closer. He had a sword up, and the tip was dripping with more blood.
Essek heard the second cast of Healing Word go off, heard his teammates get to their feet. There were about thirty seconds left on his first cast of Magnify Gravity, and the other two would be down for five and ten seconds longer than that. It was them versus Lucien, for now.
He unsheathed a second sword from his belt and twirled them in unison.
“RUN!” Essek yelled, then turned and sprinted down the path, towards the lights in the distance.
Footsteps, heavy breathing, and clanking armor surrounded him, and in the dark behind him he heard an inhuman howl cut through the cool night air. Faster, they tore through underbrush on the edges of the trail, aiming for the safety of Zadash, closer with every step, until they finally broke free of the woods and into the open field surrounding the settlement.
He did a quick head-count in the moonlight. All six of them made it, and he could see the shapes of the seven who ran early not far off, catching their breaths.
More people poured out of the city gates to greet the new adventurers, surrounding them and welcoming them to Zadash, pulling them in toward the lights, to safety and warmth, drinks and stories.
Essek chanced a look back at the woods on his way through the gates and saw Lucien flanked on both sides by smaller demons, just inside the treeline, watching them.