BI – Chapter 7: Enchantress (Patreon)

Theo

The feds had given us a number to dial in emergencies precisely like this. They had created massive facilities to study the demons at other locations, particularly in Indiana, so our little backwoods property on a crooked mountain road paved with gravel wasn’t ideal for them, but they had guaranteed they could be here in less than fifteen minutes if something went wrong. 

“Are you freaking serious?” I yelled, frustrated as the call clicked over to voicemail for the third time. “They promised they’d be there to help if something like this happened, and now, when we need them the most, they ghost us? Really!?” 

“What exactly is happening, Theodore?”

“Heck, if I know. Rio won’t answer her phone, and I don’t have any clue if she’s in danger or…” I trailed off with a frustrated sigh. 

“Did you ever find out how Rio knew the demons had returned?” Narae asked from the stool in the kitchen. The thin woman was situated where she could see both the front door and Seok out on the back deck through the window where he was keeping watch. She was a picture of poise and composure. Always had been. 

I shrugged. “She just called and told me they were back. That meant my priority was Trina. That was only about half an hour ago at this point.”

“And now she won’t pick up?” 

I shook my head bleakly. 

“They’re probably cleaning up the bridges,” Taemi piped up suddenly from the couch where she was holding her phone. 

I blinked. “Huh? What bridges?” 

Taemi hopped off the couch and walked over before turning her cell phone toward me. “The bridges. They’ve been falling everywhere. One of them even collapsed here in town. I bet Mrs. Tande is dealing with that.”

The phone showed a video of a guy panicking as a bridge collapsed right in front of him. The road before him just crumbled, concrete and metal all falling down to crash into a small lake. No one was even on the bridge. It just fell. 

Still, this wasn’t exactly unheard of. Bridges did collapse unexpectedly. 

“What do you mean by everywhere?” 

The girl shrugged. “I’unno. Bunch of them have fallen today all over the world. Some buildings and other stuff, too. Tic Toc has been going nuts.” 

My eyes glazed slightly. Tic Toc was a tad too young for me, or at least I’d always assumed so. I’d never even opened the site, and now I regretted it. Still, it wasn’t like I had no methods of gathering information. 

Opening a news forum that I was fond of, I discovered that, if anything, Taemi was underselling the problem. Hundreds of bridges were collapsing. There were even maps with data on the number of bridges that had fallen over the past day and grim expectation charts of which ones might be next. Roads were closing left and right and some areas of the country, ours included, were grinding to a halt.

Scientists were baffled but they’d already drawn the inescapable conclusion that it was happening in areas close to the dungeon entrances from six years ago. And it was spreading. 

A nugget of fear suddenly settled in my stomach. The demons were attacking. Just not with knives and swords anymore. They were attacking our infrastructure. 

“Well… shit,” I said.

“Daddy! Swear jar!” Trina shouted from the couch. 

“Fuckin…!” I hissed before pulling out my wallet and throwing two dollars in with a sigh. “Sorry, honey.” 

I’d been getting better about that until today. At least Narae looked amused. 

I walked over to the couch and slumped down beside my daughter. The girl seemed fascinated by the ring Dane had brought back and didn’t even look up. Narae followed me and took a spot in a wicker rocker. 

“What are we supposed to do? You still think we should go to town?” I asked her. “Getting out of here seemed like the obvious option, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Staying here isn’t an option,” she replied. “Even if there were any bridges on the way into town, going there is still the wisest choice for now. More guns and ammunition. More people to help if the demons do decide to come up. Maybe even a few classers. More food and water, too, if it comes to it.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “You think this is going to be that bad?” 

She shrugged. “If it does get that bad, I’d rather be in town than up here alone.” 

I… couldn’t argue with that. 

Decisions made, we gathered everything we thought we might need and loaded it into two cars. Dried food, canned soda, water bottles, camping supplies, blankets, clothes, and Trina’s precious stuffed animal, Kitty, were all stuffed into the trunks of two cars. 

I also took the time to don all of the equipment I’d gathered during the first invasion six years ago. My Nature’s Brow circlet, armguards, leather gloves, my Whirling Morning Star of Twilight that had finally been returned to me only about two years ago, and of course, my Good Looking Trousers that added one point to my Charisma. 

They were a must. 

I decided to forgo the durable breastplate in favor of a Kevlar vest. I didn’t think I’d be able to drive while wearing the breastplate, but I did throw it in the back of my truck along with every other weapon we had. It did add a few attribute points, and it also added three ‘armor.’ What armor did was still very arbitrary, though. Was it some sort of aura that defended me everywhere, or was it just a numerical representation of how much that article might protect me? 

I had no idea. If the government had done tests on it, they hadn’t released that to the public. 

Weapons were even worse. They had magic powers, but there was no indication of a weapon's strength. I would’ve expected some sort of “Damage” stat, but that wasn’t one of the magical effects revealed by the identifiers. I could assume that a mace strike from a spiked metal ball would undoubtedly hurt, but there was no system indicator that it might be weaker than a different sword or dagger. 

While all of them had universally been weaker than bullets anyway, a glowing mace could be handy in the dark.

I’d only found a few weapons so far. Rio’s dagger, Thorn, which she usually kept in her office, the set staff that was still unidentified, and the morning star. I thought Dane might’ve picked up a sword at some point, but if he did, it was probably back at his home and worthless compared to a gun anyway. 

In my preparations to leave, I dissolved all but three of my Wind Totems. The totems would last forever, but each one I summoned reserved a portion of my maximum mana. They also needed to be charged with mana to be effective, which I could do by simply being near them. Since we wouldn’t be staying here, the ones I had situated down by the dungeon’s entrance wouldn’t be useful to me. 

Like a little switch, my mana pool expanded, but I would have to regenerate that mana over time. 

Testing these things over the past six years had revealed a lot of information about the various abilities, and I was far from the only Druid to have picked totems and experimented with them. The druid subsection of Classers.org had been a veritable fountain of information on how to use my abilities in different ways.

“Daddy? Is… everything okay?” Trina asked suddenly. 

I turned and saw the five year old in my bedroom’s the doorway and winced. I was pretty sure she was still to young to really comprehend what was happening, but she was also smart enough to pick up on the worry of the adults around her. 

She looked terrified. 

I smiled, and reached out to her. The little girl walked over to me and let me fold her into a hug. 

“Everything’s going to be fine little one. We’re going to go see your mom, and we might end up spending a little while in town. Still, you’ll probably get to see Atla, and Bobby! You’d like to spend some more time with them, right?” 

She nodded, but still didn’t seem to be set at ease. 

“Dad… what’s happening?” 

Surprisingly serious. Surprisingly mature.

I sighed. How much to tell her? How much should she know? To terrify her with the full truth, or to lie and tell her everything would be fine? No… it would have to be somewhere in the middle.

‘I really wish Rio were here,’ I thought, as I took a breath. 

“We’re… being attacked little one. By the monsters,” I said. 

“The ones from your stories?” she asked, with all the gravitas of a preacher giving a sermon. 

“The ones from my stories,” I agreed with a nod. “They aren’t here now but they could be, and we need to go where there are a lot of people until we’re sure its safe to come back home. Do you understand?” 

She nodded. 

“That’s a good girl. Alright. It could be dangerous if you run off anywhere, so I need you to be on extra good behavior, okay? If I’m not here, you listen to Aunt Narae.” 

“But Aunt Narae’s no fun!” the girl exclaimed loud enough for the woman to hear her just down the hall. “She never lets me play on my iPad, and her food tastes funny!” 

I groaned in abject frustration. 

“Trina, that’s incredibly rude. You run down the hall and apologize to Aunt Narae right now,” I snapped. 

“But she doesn’t!” the girl insisted with precisely zero awareness of the insult she’d just shouted throughout the whole house. 

I could actually hear Taemi laughing down the hall while Narae snickered. 

“Go,” I insisted. 

“Aww…” 

Regardless of the backtalk, she did run down the hall. 

“I’m sorry I said you weren’t any fun, Aunt Narae!” the girl shouted directly at the older woman, while I remained there, mortified.

‘God help me,’ I thought, staring up at the sky, embarrassed and amused in roughly equal measure. ‘This girl is going to be the death of me.’ 

I followed her out to the living room to see Narae kneeling down to the girl’s height. She looked up at me with a smile. 

“I’m so sorry for her,” I said as emphatically as I could. 

Narae chuckled. “No no, she’s right. I am no fun. Ask Taemi.” 

“Mom’s no fun!” the teen piped up from the back room.

Trina turned back to look at me triumphantly like she’d won an argument. “See! She’s not mad!” 

“That doesn’t matter, honey. You don’t say things that will hurt other people’s feelings!” I said. “Now promise me that you’ll listen to whatever Aunt Narae tells you if me or your mom isn’t around!” 

She beamed. “I’d have done that anyway!”

“Trina…” 

“Okay! I promise, I’ll be good!” 

Narae laughed. 

It certainly didn’t feel like the shit had hit the fan with all of us laughing together. All I needed now was Rio to get home, and this would be a regular Saturday night with the neighbors. 

Still, it wasn’t a regular Saturday. The back of my truck had a damn armory in it. It looked like a lot more when I saw all the equipment we’d bought over the past six years stacked together in a heap. Thousands of bullets for at least ten different guns. Shotguns, rifles, pistols, machine guns, and body armor.

We made a quick stop at the Min’s home so they could gather the things they might need, while Trina, Dane, and I waited in the truck. 

Checking on her in the rearview mirror, I saw the girl playing with Dane’s ring once again. I was amused to see that the stats hovering over the ring were visible even in the mirror.

Charging Ring of Fire Resistance

Rare

+7 Intelligence

+13% Increased Electric Damage

+24% Fire Resistance

It took a few moments for me to notice. When I did, I almost hurt my neck, twisting to see the ring.

It… it had been identified. 

How the hell?