Spreading Light, Growing Darkness

-Gray-

“You know, I genuinely thought I’d be able to fight alongside her at some point by now…” I muttered, running to make distance from the sizable horde of raiders chasing me through the town’s streets. The princess was off somewhere, helping evacuate the civilians to the church, leaving me alone against a bunch of guys who really want me dead.

Turns out, the next five farming towns we visited all got attacked the moment we arrived. And for some reason, the princess felt like I could handle myself against an army of people well enough to leave me alone and focus on the rescue and the giant ball of lard they call a devil.

As I reached a thin enough path through some houses, I ran through it, turning on my heel in time to throw a charged blade of air, slicing through a dozen guys at once while they were all grouped together.

“I mean, apparently I can handle myself, but I wanted to have a cool team up, you know?!” I yelled, clambering up to a roof to avoid some guy coming out of the shadows to strike me.

“And are you guys going to do that ‘Silence’ thing too, or not? I kinda wanted to see that!” But nope, for all five towns, the sky was only red with blood or black with shadows. No giant mouth sigil in the sky for us. Not that I even knew what it looked like, since the princess was vague about it. If the god of Silence had any presence here, I couldn’t tell.

Now that I was jumping from roof to roof, I changed my spells to fireballs, shooting them down at the hordes, melting through leather and metal and sending screams and smoke into the air.

“Whoa there!” I felt a small spear of blood strike my left shoulder, and managed to twist my body to avoid my spine getting struck as I stumbled backward, shooting a bolt of lightning at the sadist.

This always happens. I can’t exactly keep this up forever, and I still don’t have armor. So I always wind up singed and cut and needled with solid blood. I had more spines coming out of me than a porcupine last time.

I jumped to the next building as a golem destroyed the one I was on. I mostly just ignored them since they were slow, and I didn’t have a quick way to dispose of them other than just firing an explosion at them and letting them rebuild. But they do like shooting their rocks at me.

“Fine! You want to play dirty? I’ll just have to clean you up!” I was working on my battle banter, but a lifetime of sickness didn’t give me the best education for this sort of thing.

I jumped from roof to roof, barely weaving between spells and attacks, and tanking what I could to areas I could heal later. All while charging up a newer spell in my hands.

I’ve cast it before, a long time ago, but it takes time to get familiar again with spells I haven’t been keeping prepared in my mind. Like a magic caster in a TTRPG! At least, how I always visualized it. Truth is, I just need to be able to construct the spell in my mind to be able to create it.

“Try this on for size!” I threw the bubble of lime green viscous liquid at the road where dozens were gathering, working to surround me. The bubble popped in the air, spraying acid all over the people in high enough volume to coat the ground and keep it slick and deadly.

I ignored the screams of agony as dozens found themselves falling and pushing each other onto the flesh-devouring acid, and instead focused on the three thieves cloaked in shadows working together to kick me off the roof onto another dirt road.

A murderer was there, ready to strike me while I was down, but I burnt her ankles off with acid, followed by her chest.

The thieves didn’t give me an opportunity to recover, one striking me in the back of the right knee, one in the left side, and one in the shoulder, barely avoiding a lethal wound.

“Get the hell off me, you… you… grrr!” Blood was coating my body in waves now, obviously meant to be an enticing target for the goddess of blood.

Even now, I could feel her eyes slowly settling on me. I wasn’t ‘submerged’ in her domain yet, but it was a weird feeling. Like being slowly pushed under something metaphysically thicker than water.

I charged two spikes of ice in my hands, and enduring strikes from the other two thieves, I threw one spike at the third guy, who flipped out of the way, and got impaled midair by my second, curved strike.

Before they could process, I charged lightning in my hands, and grabbed the head of another in the middle of stabbing me, his screams muffled by his covered face. The third tried to escape, but was engulfed in flame the moment they turned their back.

By now, the horde was catching up, and I needed some time. So I pulled a massive hunk of dirt and stone out of the ground using a spell, (it's cheaper than just creating dirt out of nothing), and threw it forward.

I was losing a lot of blood, and definitely running out of energy with how much I kept healing and cleaning myself with my magic, but I just needed to hold out until the princess finished off the devil, and began her purge of the raiders.

Luckily for me, every single one of these towns was celebrating the same festival Chartreuse Town was, so delicious foods and beverages were scattered about. I used whatever time I could make to gorge myself on the most filling of foods, and a large dose of whatever protein-dense meals I could find.

With every gulp, I could feel my body already burning through the food in my stomach, turning it into the energy I need for magic. So it wasn’t unusual to see me running and firing spells with one hand, and a drumstick or a slice of meat pie in my other.

Which is something I’m sure irritated the raiders to no end. It wasn’t 100% efficient, but they wouldn’t realize that.

Still, as useful as regaining magic was, I was still getting more and more mentally exhausted with every spell. Even if magic can keep my body running and my muscles rested and my energy mostly refilled, I could feel my brain getting fried with how many complex calculations I had to perform in a moment to create the perfect spells.

The more I used these spells, the easier it became, the more instinctive, but changing spells on the fly felt like forcibly redirecting my thoughts into another direction. And I was switching spells rapidly, keeping everyone on their toes.

Murderer, I sliced with air.

Thief, I impaled with tree roots.

Bandit, I crushed with stone.

Demon, I melted with acid.

Monster, burnt alive.

Rogue, frozen.

Golem, blasted.

Brigand, zapped.

And yet more kept coming! How many were there! How could they muster the strength to attack five different towns within three days? This was ridiculous, and this constant fighting was draining. I think most of the raiders were swarming to me!

I didn’t have to hold out for much longer, as I could already see the princess flying like a golden ball of light with only half of her ‘halos’ zipping around the large devil in the distance. She couldn’t fly without all of them, but the way she was moving, hopping and zipping about would trick you into thinking she could.

“Alright you scumbags, I hope you’re ready for this!” Pouring my energy into one last gamble, I charged up a ball of white light in my hand, before activating it with a loud snap of my fingers, a throw never needed.

A beam of horribly bright light struck down from above, piercing through the dark skies, and blinding everyone nearby. It was harmless to everything but eyeballs, but if I tossed in a little fire magic where they couldn’t see, then it felt like they were standing in front of the goddess herself.

“It’s the princess, run!” I yelled in an imitation of a gruff voice, stirring some panic amongst them.

Of course, this was just a distraction, but it was fun seeing most try to run, and end up falling over in a pool of acid.

The ones that did see through my trick had a rude awakening when the princess did show up in a nearly identical beam of light, and whacked one guy with her staff so hard that he got flung into a building down the road. “Gray, are you fine?”

“J-just… peachy…” I panted out, collapsing on my butt.

She took a moment to look me over, hit me with a healing spell that helped get rid of the wounds that my magic didn’t, and began eyeing the fleeing raiders. “Stay here. Eat if you must. This won’t take long.”

And then the princess disappeared in a flash of light, followed by what looked like a lightshow fit for a concert occurring throughout the city.

I took a moment to chug some lemonade that looked clean enough, and began rummaging through destroyed homes.

My clothes were tattered once again, so I needed a new wardrobe. Which leads to me looting closets and wardrobes, trying on outfits, and occasionally pretending to be a model walking down a runway.

And if I happen to come across a child, injured or dead, hiding in some closet, gutted by raiders or crushed by debris, I help them out.

If they’re injured, it’s an easy fix.

If they’re dead, it’s a little more complicated.

“Let's see… no skull fractures, that’s good. Just some broken legs. Let’s fix those first.” I snap the leg bones into place, heal them up, and then charge up some black energy in my hands, releasing it into the child and ignoring the fire in my skull.

Within moments, the skin of the child began to fill with color, and their lungs surged with a sudden breath. “Hey, you okay?” I comforted the panicked child, who was wide-eyed, and a little delirious. “We almost lost you there. C’mon, let’s get you to the church before this place collapses on us.”

I try to keep it a secret that I can bring the dead back to life.

One, if everyone knew I could do it, people wouldn’t take kindly to me being particular about using it.

Two, it’s more expensive than a normal spell, and takes a lot out of me. Casting it here meant I was pretty much out of anything beyond small party tricks for the next hour, until the food in my stomach digests.

Three, it’s surprisingly limited in scope, due to rules set by the creator of the spell. If a skull is too damaged, then there’s nothing I could do.

Four, I’m sure the princess has thoughts about such magicks. And I really don’t want to disappoint her.

Five, I like keeping some cards up my sleeves.

I carried the child to the church, thankfully by then they were more cognizant, and even had an uncle and aunt who survived! So I didn’t just bring a kid back to be an orphan! Always a good day when that happens.

And as always, once the town is cleared, and I have some magic back, I work with the princess to clean the statue of the goddess in the center of town, just enough to reestablish the connection.

When the town is safely back under Light’s protection, we quickly feast on what we can before we set off for our next destination.

“This attack was smaller than the first one.” The princess said as she gulped down a mug of ale in between bites of roast pig. “I think the enemy’s army is reaching its limit.”

“You thought that the Pariahs couldn’t even muster up a force big enough to attack Chartreuse in such numbers. What makes you think that they only had enough forces to attack five?” I pointed out, gulping down some hot soup.

“I don’t… But we can’t keep going on like this. My kingdom has many such farming villages, and if every single one was under attack, then even I wouldn’t be able to handle ending them all. Maybe if I focused on just killing the raiders, but then-” She shook her head violently, her hair nearly whipping me. “No, I don’t care if it makes me weaker, I will not regret giving as many halos to local priests as needed to protect the common folk.”

“So, what’s the plan? Because I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.”

“Ugh…” She let out an unladylike groan as she rubbed her forehead, her hands running through her hair. “I don’t know. I need to protect the people, but the more I protect the people, the more exhausted I become. And eventually they’ll strike right at me…”

“Let’s not forget that these towns are being attacked right when we enter them.” It was something strange I noticed. If the goal is to make her exhausted, wouldn’t it be better to attack all the towns at once, and have her run haggard without breaks between fighting to clear towns that have been taken over completely?

Does splitting off her halos really weaken her that much?

She let out a louder groan, and dropped her head down to the wooden table we were sitting at. Her arms blindly reached out for another ale. I handed her non-alcoholic cider instead.

“Where are they even getting these numbers from! The Pariahs have never been this strong!” She took a deep gulp of her cider, before stopping, setting it down, looking at it, and then looking at me very judgementally as I quickly gulped down the ale meant for her. All with a wide grin on my face.

If there was one thing the princess liked, apparently it was her alcohol, because I found myself in a stranglehold.

Yet she kept speaking as if she wasn’t trying to snap my neck. “If the Pariahs have built up such a large army, that doesn’t bode well. We’ll need to strike them down first.”

“W-well, where are they getting their army from?” I squeaked out, a smile still painted on my face as I playfully struggled against her grip. Reminds me of how my uncles sometimes acted with each other.

“I don’t know!” She squeezed harder one more time, before pushing me away and onto the dirt ground. “If I knew, I would already be bringing the kingdom’s might down on them. All I know is that the army they’re building, it’d be impossible to make in the borders of the kingdom.”

“So… so what about other kingdoms? Perhaps someone else knows?” I pulled myself back to my feet, holding onto the table. My throat felt a little bruised, but I didn’t bother healing it yet.

A light shined behind her eyes, literally. “That’s it!” She stood up, slamming the stolen mug of now empty ale back down on the table, and wiping it off her lips with a handkerchief. “We shall visit our neighbors, and see what information they have. And if it’s revealed that they’re harboring these criminals, who dare to attack these innocent people…”

She shimmered with barely restrained light as the plate of roast pork in front of her began to smoke in proximity.

“I’ll scour the land with the sun’s rays.”