Rain of Arrows and Oil

We were all spread out around the car, I was in a booster seat in the back next to Indena and Marek. Uncle was in the front seat next to Emily.

"Your friend Yamin was taken by an actor?" Emily asked, keeping her eyes on the road, but clearly wanting to give me a funny look.

"Yeah!" I answered her. "His name was literally The Actor, and he had a funny theater mask that changed with his emotions. He was working for an evil organization that wants to blot out the sun!"

"Do tell." Emily nodded. "And he took her to Verrenvill. Why?"

"We know that a demon is there, and we think they’re in cahoots. That storm is caused by the demon's domain."

“I thought that was just a bad autumn storm,” she commented. “But you’re saying this has something to do with demons?”

“Yeah!” I nodded. “A bad one…I think his name is Belphegor or something.”

Her finger was tapping against the wheel, and she looked really focused on driving.

“How many more people know about this?”

That was a good question. The demon storm was really big, hard to miss from a distance, but it didn’t seem like anyone was talking about it or believed it was even there. The best thing we’d gotten was her taking notice after we told her about it.

“Nobody but us, I think. The army didn’t see anything when they went to check it out.”

“Yalda…” Uncle looked back at me with a scowl.

What did I do? Why was he upset at me?

“It’s alright, handsome.” Ms. Emily assured. “Her father is paying me, so I’m more in the know than you think.”

“Now, why would Master Asamo choose you of all people?”

“I guess I’m just special.” She smirked. “I’m not going to screw you guys over, if that’s what you're worried about. This job’s got some good money in it. And maybe I don’t like demons either. You don’t have to trust me, but at least work with me.”

“Wouldn't that require trust?”

“Guess so.”

Ms. Emily definitely had secrets, but she was trustworthy enough to help us out. I trusted her, at least if dad did too.

“Trust her or not,” Indena started, “she’s driving us into Hell. The least we can do is say thank you.”

“I don’t want to go to hell.” Marek whined, longingly looking out the window.

“Too bad,” Indena barked. “You know the song. Drop into Hell, then you get to see Heaven...or something like that.”

What song goes like that? Sounds like something only she would listen to.

~☆☆☆~

We weren’t very far from Verrenvill now, right under the big storm. Snow was falling all around us, but further down we could see a blizzard blanketing the land.

Emily claimed she wasn’t speeding, but she was going 100 Kph down a 60. Any normal traffic that would have been in our way was already pulled over, leaving a very long stretch of empty road.

These cars weren’t abandoned, there were sleeping people in them. That was freaky.

"Why are they sleeping there?" I asked.

"I wanna say it's one of those boring road trips, but why's all these people comin' out to the sticks for that?" Indena said.

“Do you think it’s part of the demon's domain?” Marek asked.

“It has to be,” Uncle responded.

As weird as it was, we had to leave the people like this. If we stopped to help them all, it would take forever. I’m just glad they were all pulled over, not stopped in the middle of the road. They were safe enough.

Now we were right under the center part of the storm, about a kilometer away from the town. Snow was falling hard, but we could just barely make out the silhouette of the town. Or, what was once the town…

There were towers, pointed at the top in a cone shape. Spikes protruded out of them with slumbering gargoyles at their bases. The towers were stacked in a staggered pattern, all topping some sort of larger fortress like structure

Each of these builds were connected by something larger, a massive keep almost resembling a palace.

“That’s no town, that’s a castle!”

Just like in my old story books, the whole town looked like one big castle, a spooky one. The kind you’d see bad guys use.

A big stone brick wall separated the castle from the outside land. It had to have been at least ten meters high, and that was just the first layer. It looked like there was an even taller wall behind it.

“That’s not Verrenvill…” Marek announced. “What has happened to it?”

No doubt this was the demons doing. He must have changed the entire town to look like this. It really was looking a lot like what happened back in Urnan.

However, this looked more controlled, more civil in a way. There was order and structure here, not randomly generated or warping things. Urnan was changing into something wild and untamed, like an uncoordinated Halloween town. It’s possible that we just didn't let the changes get this far, but even still.

The town had more than a few weeks to stew into this. We’d need to be ready for anything.

“How could the scouts not report this?” Marek commented. “Were they blind?!”

“Don’t forget, normal people can’t see this, Blue Boy,” Indena said.

Judging by Emily’s face, she was just as dumbfounded as we were that nobody was making a stink about this on the news. She stopped the car to pull out a tiny camera.

"They'll want to hear about this…" she breathed to herself.

We couldn’t trust that there would be a safe place to park the car near the front walls, so we parked a bit off the road and approached with caution.

“You’re coming too?” Uncle asked Emily.

“You want me to stay in a car by myself with this stuff going on?” She shook her head, showing a hint of fear in her eyes. “I need a strong man to protect me.” She sounded flurty and sarcastic at the same time. GROSS!

But she had a good point. Staying behind might be trouble.

“The first people to go in horror movies are the ones who stay in the car.” I said.

Uncle gave me a stink eye.

“N…not that I watched them!”

“Good save, Shrimp…” Indena facepalmed.

Truth is, I did watch and play a few horror movies and games when Uncle wasn’t around. I’m glad I did, because the stuff I learned might actually be important to surviving a land of evil.

As we walked right up to the front gates of the wall, I detected movement on the other side. With the interference from the fog of war the snow fall created, I couldn’t gauge how many enemies were there.

“Something’s moving in there.” I said.

The movement stopped, as if suddenly realizing we were aware of it. Then it scattered away like roaches.

That was weird…but it meant we'd have company once we got in.

I spawned the Spear of Destiny, then held it at the ready. I would have put on my Nazalian Battle armour +1, but it was in bad shape since I fired the mana cannon. I just equipped my Eighth Star Battle Dress.

"Shrimp's got the right idea." Indena’s fists lit up with fire. "We probably should get ready for anything."

Uncle spawned his broadsword.

Miss Emily pulled out a small hidden pistol from under her jacket. I was a little surprised she had that.

"A girl's got to be prepared," she said to me, noticing my funny looks. "It's not nearly as strange as a little girl materializing a spear out of thin air. Trust me."

Point taken.

And Marek had the pistol we found in the shipwreck. Now everyone was armed with something.

The road led right up to the front gates, and there was a small glass box with a person sitting inside of it. He looked like he was sleeping.

When we tried to interact with him, he didn’t budge.

“This is the guard who usually sits at the south entrance.” Marek said.

He wasn’t doing a good job watching the front gate asleep. Indena swiped his key card and used it to unlock the big door of the wall without as much as a peep from him.

Two large wooden doors began to part, revealing an inner path between the big walls. Knowing how these things usually go, this was a trap.

"Hey, handsome," Emily said to Uncle, "this has ‘ambush’ written all over it."

"My thoughts exactly."

They’d probably try to funnel us in and hit us from above. That’s an easy strategy to bottleneck invaders.

While cautiously entering, we all kept our eyes peeled on the walls above, staying right down the middle.

“Uncle, wouldn’t it be safer to stick to one side? Then the enemy would only be able to attack from the other.”

“Do you see those slots under the crenels?” He pointed to openings under the wall battlement. “If we walk under them, they’ll likely drop hot liquid on us.”

That sounded like a good point…we stuck to the middle.

Indena eyes darted to movement above. She lit up a fire ball and threw it in that direction.

BOOM!

"REEE!"

She hit something! Or, someone?

A burning crossbow fell from one of the wall battlements.

"Everyone, to me!" Uncle shouted.

*Dawwweee!*

He spawned a bubble shield around us!

Tink tink tink!

Splash!

Arrows and hot oil pelted down like rain! The bubble shield held strong against the assault, but we were stuck in here.

"Quick thinking…but how are we getting out of this?" Emily asked.

"I can't move while this large shield is up." Uncle said. “So my options are a bit limited.”

"I got an idea." Indena said, kneeling down and placing her hands on the dirt. "I've been dying to burn more stuff up."

Her tattoos lit up bright, a pulse of light energy radiated down from her arm and into the ground. The pulse of orange light traveled across the ground and up the walls. Tiny embers were left in its wake.

Fwoosh!

Flame walls erupted across the battlement, causing lots of sudden growls and screams!

"That’ll hold them for a few seconds!" Indena announced.

"Yalda, locate an exit!" Uncle shouted.

My map said we were close to the exit of the inner wall. A quick sprint would get us there.

Uncle powered down the bubble shield and we all ran quickly.

There was the opening! But an arrow was heading right at us!

TINK!

Uncle batted the projectile away! Good hit!

We were home free! Just to be safe, we got as far from those walls as possible and took cover in a broken down barn.