Harrowing Path

Logistically speaking, our info and supplies were not doing so well. Not only were we severely lacking in stardust power to fight demons, but we also didn’t even know the true potential of our enemy. And as Uncle always says, “Knowing is half the battle.”

That was okay though, I figured. We’d been in tighter spots and made it through. Well, this might be the worst situation of my life to date…but I had confidence in our newfound skills, and a prayer in my heart!

“How exactly do we storm the castle, Old Man?” Indena asked Uncle.

“Without knowing the layout, rushing in there would be suicide.” Uncle held his chin and tipped his hat down. “We don’t even know what the streets are like, and I don’t want us running around like headless chicken again.”

“Chicken…” I uttered as I gazed up to a shelf with a fake chicken topping it.

The biggest issue right now was that our maps couldn’t download schematics of the location. And even if we could get the maps filled out, who’s to say the demons couldn’t just change the roadways on the fly? We had to expect strange things like that to happen.

“You think we need to send out a scout?” Miss. Emily asked.

“That would be ideal, but I don’t want to risk sending any of you out there again.”

Maybe I had an idea there, but was I willing to risk my pet snake, who I loved so much?

I snuck into a corner to whisper my plan… “Samael, you think you could maybe get us info on the roads?”

“Sss?” He hissed.

“Yeah. It would be just like back at the beach when I asked you to spy on the others for me. I think you’re the only one who can do this safely.”

With his small size and quickness, he’d be a hard target for the demons to catch, if they even noticed him at all.

“…” He slithered down to a table, then looked like he wanted to bite one of the auxiliary crystals on my arm. “Ss.” That was him giving this plan a go.

“Alright.” I pulled the crystal and handed it off to him. “Here. Now that you’ve said it’s okay, we can tell the oth-”

I turned around and saw everyone freakishly crowding around me, staring on with bug eyes.

“-others?” I finished my sentence. “Were you guys listening?”

“We were,” Uncle replied immediately.

I started pouting, stomping my feet in frustration. This was supposed to be a secret in case Samael didn’t want to do it!

“That’s actually not a bad idea, Yalda,” Emily said. “If your snake is brave enough for this, then we’ll be in business.”

“That snake’s brave enough, trust me,” Indena commented.

He’d done this once already, so had high hopes things would work out. But back then he wasn’t dealing with demons, so it was uncharted territory that kept me from getting too confident…

Still, I had faith the plan would work.

~☆☆☆~

Like the time before, I could see and communicate with Samael from my auxiliary heart in his mouth. This was a sneaky snaky operation, so I couldn’t talk much or too loudly. Because if I did, the demons would definitely hear him coming.

As Samael slithered through the streets and buildings I took up some good ole’ pen and paper and drew down everything he was seeing. I got landmarks, enemy hot spots, and the best paths to take, not just for a snake.

It was perfect! My map was really coming together before too long, and Samael was easily able to evade the notice of any of the night hags, courtesy of his being tiny. Even when he was about to encounter one, they were just too lazy to care. Some of them were even having nap time. Maybe snakes didn’t bother them?

“How’s the map coming along?” Uncle asked.

“Oh, it’s great!” I continued to jot things down, taking up a few different colors to add some pizzazz. I didn’t want them to see until it was finished though. It’s an artist thing, you know? “I’ve been marking down all the streets in green. The safest route I marked in blue.”

Surprisingly, the safe route was pretty direct. It was a big street with very little demon activity. Seemed a little too perfect, honestly.

Finally, Samael reached the entrance to the castle. It was at the end of a big circular plaza and fortified like one of Uncle’s patented vitamin rocks. Bowalkers set up on the roofs and night hags hid in crevasses that would be perfect little spots to jump us. A very tall demon with a green army helmet that read “GRAM” on the back was calling the shots.

Was that the demon lord? No… He actually looked like one of the tall demons Mella and I fought on the roof of the Longitude tower.

The tall demon pointed out to the streets, scattering large numbers of demons out onto the roads. That was cause for concern, but something big and probably pretty freaky was stomping in the fog. Samael was too afraid to get closer, and I couldn’t blame him.

Since we had all this info, Samael returned back to us, confirming that the safe route was still viable. Looked like everything was good, for now.

“Done!” I said, signing the corner of the map with my name in Nazalian. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got a map!”

I happily presented my work of art to them! I couldn’t wait for the accolades to start rolling in.

“Alright, So that’s the-the map?” Uncle looked a little uncomfortable, like he was trying to hide shock or something. “Oh boy…” he uttered quietly.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh boy?’” I asked.

Indena took a look at the map drawing too, but she started laughing. “What is this? It’s just a bunch of messy squiggles!”

“It’s stylized!”

Emily gave a patronizing smile after taking a look of her own, then patted my head. “Good job.”

Why did it feel like she wasn’t actually congratulating me?

“She could bury treasure and nobody would ever find it with an ugly map like this,” Indena said.

“Ugly?!”

You know what? I’d like to see them draw a better map from a snake’s perspective! I for one think it’s a work of art!

My pouty face turned up to the max and I stuck my tongue out at them.

“Turds!”

The maximum pouty face started to fail after I called them out as stinky poop heads and I just got all sad. Was my drawing really that bad?

*Sniffle* *Sniffle*

Uncle let out a sigh, then knelt down and pointed to a smiley face on the map.

“This is where we currently are, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“And this big birthday cake is the castle, yes?”

That wasn’t a birthday cake! It was the big tower thingies around the castle. I gave them big pillars of fire rising out of their tops to make them look more menacing. I don’t know if fire was actually coming out of them in real life, but I took some creative liberties with the drawing.

“Yeah. The entrance is this part here.”

“And these angry faces everywhere are supposed to be enemies?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Large groups of them.”

“Okay…” Uncle did his best to trace out the blue route from our current location to the castle, asking me to clarify a few spots. “This should work then.” He handed the paper back to me. “We’ll gather some gear and head out. Young Mistress, you’ll be navigating us. I have an idea of where we need to go, but just in case…”

“Okay, Uncle.”

“Good. Let’s get set and ready to leave.”

~☆☆☆~

After gearing up, we took to the streets again. Indena was the only one who altered her arsenal, taking fire proof gloves with makeshift stardust knuckles attached to them. I’d have to make sure to re-grow the stardust every so often for her, but those things would increase her damage against the demons for sure!

The night hags were quick to find our position once we were out in the open, sending word to their friends with loud grumbles and screeches. Not much time passed before their swarms came after us again. But we had the advantage since we picked an open path to follow. That gave us time to see them coming.

“Take that!” I jabbed my spear at one, using the momentum to swing around and cut a few more of them with the blade. They were dust in the wind!

Uncle was doing the bulk of the work here with his longsword. His wide sweeps cut down dozens of the small devils at once. I'd come in and poke at those he missed to finish the job.

Indena wasn't messing around either with those stardust knuckles. She was punching them out like a speedy pro boxer!

Carving through these little guys was like mowing the lawn. Not that I would know, because Uncle always cleaned up the yard around The Hive. But I watched him do it, and it looked easy.

*THUD!*

*THUD! THUD!!*

*CRASH!*

A car went flying out from the fog ahead of us, hitting a building and landing on some night hags!

*CRASH!* *SQUISH!*

Uncle pulled me out of the way.

“Woah! Good save!” I said.

“Quiet,” Uncle ordered.

We all stayed silent, awaiting what was at the end of the street…

*THUD!*

Amidst the fog ahead, something big stomped its way toward us…

This thing looked like an oversized night hag, but with a more melty looking feminine face, kinda like a stereotypical witch mixed with a hyena.

She just bulldozed anything in her path. Cars, telephone polls, mailboxes…Nothing was left standing when she came down town!

Whenever she would go to strike something her arms would swell with red veins, then slam into the object and send it flying.

“What is that fugly thing?!” Indena questioned.

*CRASH!*

Windows shattered as a big mailbox hit a building!

Uncle covered us over with a shield to protect from falling debris.

-WARNING! Harrowing Class demon sighted!-

-Harrowing Hag identified. Tagged; Foe-

According to my HELP menu, the harrowing class was the demon equivalent of a dire class monster. Big, mean and very strong.

She was unusually fast, using her powers to swell her legs and leap forward.

She was on us quickly with a few strides. Her big arm nearly backhanded Uncle, but his sword clashed with it just in time.

The stardust flame of the sword was burning the skin of that hulking hag, but like a dull knife, couldn’t cut through.

Her other arm reeled back to hit Uncle, but I stabbed it with my spear.

“Raaah!” she screamed in pain.

Little night hags started racing out from all over, like a bee hive had been shaken.

Indena was trying to take care of them with her fire, but that also got the harrowing hag’s attention on her.

“Raaah!” the hag screamed and easily threw Uncle aside, then attempted to reach Indena, only to be thwarted by my spear.

“Take that, fugly!”

I got her right in the chest, but missed the heart.

She threw her fist out and punched me hard, sending me flying back, but Indena retaliated with a flamethrower attack to force the demon back.

While stumbling backwards, the hag flailed her arms around wildly, crashing them into lamp posts and walls. Uncle waited for a moment to jump in.

She recovered, but seemed exhausted, slumping over and taking heavy breaths.

Uncle saw an opening, racing in and stabbing his longsword right through her back!

“Raaah!” She screamed, then rays of light burst from her skin!

She exploded into sparkling dust, leaving a pile of ash on the ground. As with the bowalker demons, a person was slumbering in the ash, this one was an elderly woman.

“What do we do about the old lady?” Indena asked, punching out the straggler night hags that focused almost exclusively on her.

“Grab her,” Uncle ordered. “We’ll leave her somewhere safer than this.

We could hear more of those hulking abominations ahead. Our safe route was compromised, so it was time for a little detour.