Raising Morale

The Actor leapt into the air and took a stance next to the Demon Lord's throne.

“I assumed you wouldn't break character, like you so eagerly assured me.” Belphegor said. “Isn't revealing your identity giving you less advantage?”

“Improvisation demanded I change the script. But really, isn't that more entertaining?”

“More than the rest of this match.” Belphegor replied. “So long as you hold to your end of this covenant, you can do as you like.”

A covenant, what’s that?

“You made a covenant with this creepy demon?” Indena asked him. “What’s going on here? Patriarch Karrah is gonna cut off your thumbs if he finds you dealing with demons!”

The Actor put a lot of energy into a hysterical laugh.

“Between the two of us, Karrah may be more disappointed with you than me. Unlike you, I’ve been following his orders.”

Indena didn’t believe her patriarch would ever allow such strange orders to be issued. She kept shaking her head and shouting that The Actor was a liar.

“Karrah saved me when I almost froze to death, and you think that same man is gonna just go ahead and make everyone else suffer a worse fate? I don’t buy it!”

“Tisk tisk,” The Actor shamed her. “It seems Arch Priestess Sovereignty has taught you nothing about respecting the Patriarch's plans.”

Indena’s fire grew three fold. He’d disrespected her teacher, practically her own mother. Anyone who dared to do such a thing would find their way on Indena’s hit list.

“That’s it! Let’s finish this stupid game of chess already!” Indena took on a ready stance, prepared for combat. “Let me take out the hasbin.”

It was good that she was all fired up. That helps us big time to have one more able body at full strength. Small or not, Indena’s a force to be reckoned with.

Seeing as we had to keep this match going, I kept giving orders to move pieces around and do battle. Indena and Uncle took the helm, supporting our front line. Coming up with strategies and predicting enemy movements was a chore.

The demon lord's forces didn’t retreat in the wake of our fight, in fact they pushed forward. But it looked like his men were making a few mistakes allowing us to capture their pieces quickly. Each captured demon soul flew right into that creepy book Yamin kept rejecting.

Speaking of Yamin, she looked like she was having a hard time breathing. Her body was hunched over and she was also rubbing her arms nervously. Marek moved to comfort her.

“Is everything alright, madam?”

“Ever since I let go of that book, I feel super icky,” Yamin replied. “Do you happen to have some water? I think I need it.”

As she requested, a night hag who was on our side of the board scampered off the board, returning moments later with a bottle of water. It was acting like a servant for her.

She was too desperate to deny his gift, so she drank a few sips. The little thing seemed pretty proud to have been useful. Keep in mind it's ugly as sin. Literally. So there's nothing cute about his attitude.

Out of spite, I stabbed that ugly thing with my spear.

Yamin took a deep breath. “You know how they say your skin gets all wiggly when you're trying to break an addiction?” She asked. “That’s how I feel right now.”

I flew over to get in on the conversation.

“Why do you think you feel that way?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But that book…I feel like it should be in my hands. The longer it's away, the more I want it.”

Even as she spoke, her hand was stretching in its direction. She kept having to pull it back, only to repeat the cycle, occasionally breaking it with a step or two forward. I had to kick the night hag away to keep him from goading her on.

She was fighting a pretty difficult internal battle. The sooner we could wrap this game up, the better.

As we took our next turn, our enemy moved one single pawn into position, and I saw why he was letting us advance so far in.

His remaining pieces surrounded a good portion of ours. None of them could escape, bar the few on the very edge.

One of our pawns made a move to escape, but he opened himself up to an attack of opportunity. The second Nephilim knight struck him down.

“No!”

I'd seen a few pawns get defeated now. They weren't very responsive to me besides when I gave them orders, so I kinda used them no different from the ivory pieces. But they were still people and I hated that they were in such danger.

“Uncle, Indena, focus on helping the pawns!”

Those two were working toward taking out the higher ranks of the demon army, but if all our guys were gone, it wouldn't have been any good for us.

I also jumped in to strike a few enemies down. We managed to save a couple before the enemy retreated.

When I asked the pawns if they were alright, they acknowledged my existence with a few grunts, but otherwise ignored me.

“Their morale is low.” Uncle explained. “You need to give them a reason to trust you.”

I was sorta dreading that in the back of my mind. I'm not sure I'd be very good at pep talking.

Indena had a suggestion. “Just think about what they like, and ask them to fight for that. People need a reason to put their lives at risk.”

Wasn't defending their hometown enough? I could always pull that card.

Tick tock tick tock…

I turned to the clock. We were running low on time, down to the single digits.

My heart sank. The time was breezing by, and we still needed to take out their king. How were we even going to manage that?

“We don't have any hope…” I almost started to cry.

“Yalda, calm yourself,” Uncle noticed I was flustered. “There's always hope, right? Until that clock hits zero, let's not lose it.”

His words gave me a good jolt. Losing hope now would certainly be a self fulfilling prophecy, so I held my spear high and turned this determination into action. I still wanted to cry.

“Alright men!” I announced, keeping my tears in. “We've got a mean ol’ demon lord who needs to be put down. If we don't stop him, he'll take over the whole world! You don't want that, do you?”

They shot each other glances, nodding and concluding that fighting was the only way to get through this.

“All I need from you all is to hold the demons off, I'll be pressing forward with Uncle and hitting Lord Sleepy Eyes where it hurts.”

“What about The Actor?” Indena asked.

“You and Mella can go for him. Keep him busy.”

The men had a little determination, just enough to let out a cheer and get back to the fight. I just needed them to hold off the brunt of the attack and clear me a lane long enough to deal with Belphegor.

But even at my full speed, I wouldn’t get to the end of the board and still have plenty of time for a fight. I needed to call in some reinforcements…a dragon sized reinforcement.