The Isle of Terror: Part 7

I will never find out what caused Iocasta to shoot me. Did she think I was responsible for Civet’s death, and aimed for my least armored body part? Or did she intuitively realize what had to be done to bring me back to my senses? I find it comforting to believe it was later.

As I turned towards her, hoping to somehow explain that the tragedy that had struck wasn’t my doing, the sense of dread returned, stronger than ever, briefly paralyzing me in my tracks. I subconsciously felt that the demonic entity had lost its patience. One prospective pawn was killed, and the other came back to his senses. It wasn’t even going to bother trying to seduce the remaining survivors. All the horrors we encountered so far had been nothing more than a vetting process to weed out those unworthy of getting the infernal boon. Now, it was time for an execution.

Black mist came surging down the corridor, forming into a solid shape. The island’s guardian dog, whose puppets we had been fighting, was about to make an appearance. It was hard to tell its exact form, as it remained shrouded in shadowy mist, except for glowing purple eyes, but it mostly resembled a large feline – twice the size of the sabertooth tigers prowling the frozen north – with bull’s horn on its head and not one but three tails, each ending in a dark blade.

As soon as I noticed the creature beginning to take shape, I broke into a run, shouting a barely coherent warning in Iocasta’s general direction. She turned around, realizing the monster that was about to pounce, and with great alacrity shot it multiple times. The demon stalled, reacting to getting wounded similarly to how a normal beast might, then dispersed into black mist. It seemed too easy.

Iocasta turned towards me once again, opening her mouth as if to ask something. What she meant to ask will remain a mystery forevermore. As soon as her back was turned, the demon reformed behind her, much closer this time, looking no worse for wear, and swiped at her with its tail blades. She attempted to turn around while ducking simultaneously, but wasn’t quick enough. One of the blades hit Iocasta cleanly across the neck, separating her head from her body.

Before she hit the floor, I was already charging further ahead, discarding my gun and drawing my two close-combat weapons. The demon would close the distance anyway, and I doubted my handgun could get the job done. Killing the demon with one bullet seemed unfeasible, and it had already shown the ability to regenerate from non-lethal damage. I would have to end the battle with one sword strike to a vital point.

The demon didn’t idly wait and charged at me itself. I parried the tail swipe with my warhammer, which got knocked out of my already injured left hand, then dodged the massive body by jumping to my left, swinging and missing with my sword.

We both turned rapidly around. I decided a bold attack was in order, as a prolonged engagement was unlikely to end in my favor. I ducked under the tail blades, one of them glancing my shoulder, my armor protecting me from anything but minor scratches, and plunged my sword into its gaping mouth. Just as I was certain the fight was won, and my sword was reaching the demon’s brain, it turned to mist once again.

There was nothing in front of me to stop my momentum anymore, so I stumbled forward. Sensing the faint air current signifying the demon rematerializing behind me, I didn’t attempt to regain my balance, but leaped forward instead. Tail blades swooped above my head. I rolled on the ground, got back on my feet, and turned around. By the time I did all this, the demon was already upon me, and I had no time to react to the sweeping paw attack. It broke my armor, cracked several of my ribs, and knocked me straight into a wall.

I was struggling back to my feet as the monster was closing in for the kill, knowing full well I wouldn’t make it in time. But then, for the second time in a minute, surprise gunshots came to my rescue, forcing the demon to disperse into mist once again.

The rest of my party made their way towards the island’s heart just in time to bail me out. They managed not to get split further, and were all accounted for: three Treasure Hunters members, two remaining soldiers, and one sapper.

“It’s not dead yet!”, I shouted as loudly as my broken ribs allowed me, scanning the area and regretting discarding my handgun. Before my allies could comprehend the information and react accordingly, the demon appeared behind them, crushing one of the soldiers with its massive jaws. His allies turned around, and the monster went intangible again as they unleashed a flurry of melee attacks upon it.

Knowing now what kind of enemies they were up against, the survivors formed a circle, ready for an attack from any direction, and I joined them. The demon appeared once again, trying to find the weakest spot in our formation, giving us a few seconds to gather our wits. Considering how bad the situation was – our friends were slaughtered left and right, and facing a seemingly unkillable foe – everyone remained remarkably focused. The sheer weight of the tragedy that befell us would descend upon us like a sack of bricks soon enough, but adrenaline and willpower still kept us going.

“I will need to cast a banishing spell”, Annabel kept it as brief as possible, knowing it was a matter of seconds before another onslaught. “You keep it occupied a while – and don’t get killed, if possible”.

This was the most reasonable plan at the moment. For the benefit of those readers unfamiliar with demonology, I will go on a brief tangent describing the ways one could deal with a demon.

Demons are creatures that don’t belong to this world and are dragged into it by force. While here, they are forced to assume a physical form and are tethered to a person, place, or object. This leaves three paths to defeating a demonic threat.

The first one is to sufficiently damage the demon’s physical body, forcing it back into its home dimension. In our case, this wasn’t feasible due to our opponent’s ability to shrug off damage. Eventually, it could run out of magical energy, allowing us to destroy it, or someone could score a lucky hit, but it was likely we wouldn’t survive long enough for either option to happen.

The second one is to kill the summoner or destroy the object the demon is bound to. This causes the summoned creature to fade from existence, its ability to linger depending on its power. In this case, its master was the foul entity peering into our world from the altar room, but seemingly unable to directly influence the world beyond it. Permanently dealing with that malign force was way beyond our ability, and significantly harder than fighting its guardian dog. This wasn’t an option either.

This left us with one possibility: cast a banishing spell and sever the bond between the demon and the summoner, forcibly sending the monster back to hell. The sorcery that could accomplish this was complex, especially without a magical circle or any salt, but would get the job done if successful.

Annabel began her incantation. Realizing what was about to happen, and realizing it couldn’t afford to slaughter us at its leisure, the demon attacked.