Farewell

The truck slowly repaired itself as I looked on. I’d seen this before, in small pieces after one of the prior fights, but never to this extent. Pushing my truck beyond its physical limits had, rather unsurprisingly, caused a large amount of damage to components both interior and exterior. The tires slowly mended themselves, reinflating once the tears had been patched. The suspension tightened, raising itself back into proper place in the truck’s chassis.

Galthranor stood next to me, observing the spectacle with curiosity burning in his eyes. “That truly is a marvelous machine.” He mused, “I cannot tell if that marvel was the cause of your defeat over the old Demonlord, or was caused by it.”

“I think it has something to do with his horns.” I explained, “My truck’s been acting weird ever since they got stuck to its hood. It repairs itself, as you see, and never runs out of fuel. And now, apparently, it can drive in excess of two hundred miles an hour.”

Galthranor nodded, scratching at his chin. “Indeed. The prior Demonlord was said to possess the power to absorb the magic of those he defeated. I’m beginning to wonder if your Ranger now possesses the same ability.”

“Excuse me,” said Lynessa, “But you keep referring to the Demonlord we defeated as the ‘prior’ Demonlord.”

“Ah,” Galthranor said, “You haven’t heard? Even I have, and I live under a rock. Literally.” He laughed at his own joke, his hearty voice rumbling from the walls of the tunnel. When he saw that no one else was laughing, he cleared his throat and continued. “Aparently a few of the demon generals have reassembled into a unified force, and they appear to have crowned a new Demonlord.”

“A new Demonlord?” Imalor fumed, “What was the point of defeating the old one if they can crown a new one just like that!”

Lynessa shook her head. “The demon generals are too self interested to ever work together. The Demonlord was the only one powerful enough to unite them, and he did so by fear. They have no reason to unify under another leader.”

“Demons are much like men.” Galthranor responded, “Give them a common enemy, and even rivalries as ancient as time itself may be mended.”

I realized that all eyes in the room were now on me.

“Oh no,” I said, “You cannot blame this on me.”

“Nobody’s blaming you Dale,” Lynessa said, “But we can’t discount the possibility that you may have inspired them to unite. You were the one to slay the Demonlord and you managed to defeat Spineripper on the field of battle.”

“Well, and we may have gone a fair bit above and beyond spreading the word of the Legendary Hero.” Imalor reflected, “We wanted to make it clear that the demons stood no chance of winning after the Demonlord’s defeat.”

Galthranor clapped his hands together. “Yes, well, that sounds like a problem for you lot to figure out.” He produced the Duskknife from beneath his robes and flipped it around to hand it to me. “Here you are, the Duskknife as promised.”

“Hold on a second!” I said, “Why can’t you just take us back here and now? You know perfectly well that I can’t use this!”

A mischievous glint appeared in Galthranor’s eye. “I’m merely fulfilling the conditions of our agreement. Being the Legendary Hero, it should be no problem at all for you to find a skilled mage to help bring you home.”

“Yeah, fat chance of that.” Atlas growled, “With a new Demonlord on the loose, nobody will be willing to let us go until he’s defeated.”

I narrowed my eyes. Atlas was right. No wizard worth his salt would send me home, not when they could force me to defeat the demons.

“Whose side are you on, old man?” I asked.

Galthranor grinned, “Who said anything about taking sides? Now take your knife and get out of my dungeon, I have some training to do. I wouldn’t want to be lacking during our next race.”

I reluctantly took the Duskknife from his hands. “It would be a lot easier to have a next race if you just took me back home.”

“Oh, don’t ruin the fun. It’s not every day a fellow such as yourself is given the opportunity to be a hero!” Galthranor responded. Was it just me, or did the wizard look younger now that he had relinquished the Duskknife? His hair seemed fuller and less gray, his skin less wrinkled and his eyes bright. He stretched upwards, cracking his back with a satisfied sigh.

“This thing doesn’t have any nasty side effects?” I asked.

“Nothing you need to worry about.” Said Galthranor, “In fact, I think you’re the only person in the world I’d entrust it to. Now get out of here, I have some packing to do. There’s a whole world out there to explore and I’d very much like to lock the door behind me. You know how it is, adventurers always trying to get in and whatnot. Exit should be just down the hall, first opening on your left. Just press the ‘E’ button when you reach the service elevator, it should take you back to the entrance.”

“Of course there’s an elevator.” Atlas grumbled, “Lazy wizards don’t want to climb all those stairs.”

“Who does, really?” I asked, “If the Duskknife wasn’t the only way to return us home, I’d have given up before we even made it up half of them.”

We piled into my truck and rode the service elevator back down to the roots of the mountain. A secret door next to the main entrance slid open, allowing us access to the dwarven tunnels. I sighed, remembering the long drive ahead of us.

“I really don’t want to fight yet another Demonlord.” Atlas said as we were slowly lifted through the Pass, “Haven’t we done enough for these people?”

“You’re right about that.” I said, “We just need to find the right person to send us home. Surely there has to be someone who likes us enough to send us back without us first having to defeat the demons.”

“I know I’m only getting half of this conversation.” Lynessa said, “But it seems to me that the Order of the Golden Sun should be able to help us. The Divine Speaker is traditionally a master of divine magics.”

“Us?” Atlas and I asked simultaneously.

“You’re not the only one who’s frustrated by our constant defeats.” Lynessa said, “I’ve lived my entire life with the threat of the Demon War looming over my head. I spent my entire life training to fight demons, to end this conflict. Every time it looks like we’ve gotten close to ending it, somehow things just end up going wrong. It always gets worse. I agree with you, Dale, I’m sick of failing. I just want to escape.”

“Come on now,” Imalor responded, “You just need to look at it from a different angle. We’ve thrashed those demons more times than I can count!”

“That’s not very high.” Atlas grumbled.

“Dale, you’ve defeated Spineripper and the old Demonlord, you saved Daletopia when nobody else could, and Lynessa, your efforts have not gone to waste. Little by little we’ve driven the demons back. The sun lingers just beyond the horizon, we just need to fight a few days longer.” The sun peeked over the rim of the Pass, slowly filling the grand lift with light as we were raised up into open country once more.

“No.” I said, “This is not my world. This is not my war.”

“You aren’t right often,” Atlas said, “But truer words have never been spoken. We didn’t choose to be here. We don’t owe them anything.”

“Think about it, Imalor.” Lynessa said, “We can make a new home in Dale’s world. We can be free from this conflict, free from expectations. We can be whoever we want in that new world. Dale, if you’ll have me, I’d like to join you on your journey home.”

“Fine by me.” I said, “So long as we actually get there.”

Imalor scoffed, fire burning in his eyes. He stamped his foot and paced furiously in circles for a minute, fuming.

He turned to us. “You’re cowards!” He snapped, “All of you! You’re no heroes at all!”

“Now he’s starting to get it.” Atlas yawned, “Took him long enough.”

“Imalor–” Lynessa began.

“No!” The dwarf shouted, “I don’t want to hear it!” He pointed a finger at me angrily. “If you intend on leaving this realm before it is saved, then you can count me out of your service!”

“Fine!” I snapped back, “I never asked for you to be in my service to begin with! I never asked for any of this, or can your tiny dwarf brain not handle the notion?”

The fire seemed to die from Imalor’s eyes. “Be on your way, then.” He sounded utterly defeated. “Just know that you condemn our realm to burn.”

“Fine by me!” Atlas chuckled, “Come on Dale, let’s go find the Divine Speaker. This place is starting to make me depressed.”

We left Imalor standing at the entrance to Carsinex in the shadow of the scarred mountains. He didn’t curse us as we drove off into the distance. He just stood, watching us go, tears silently streaming down his cheeks.

“Good riddance.” Atlas said, when Imalor had finally vanished in the rearview mirror. “We didn’t need him anyway.” He looked over at me. “Cheer up, Dale! We’re one step closer to home!”