“Charge!”
Wyatt heeded the order of Demiurge’s guild leader, Commander Marlon, and sprinted forward. His eyes trained on the Splendid Devils ahead. Their Miasma tainted the earth they walked on as they spewed forward out of their Invasion Gate.
Powerful cards warped the air around his shoulders and hovered around him. His silver cloak billowed, his movements sleek and silent.
As he ran, he looked around and found his best friend, shifting his attack angle towards the Valiant Paladin. “Cameron! Are you with me, brother?!”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way!” The larger man’s brilliant set of blessed steel gleamed as it staved off the oppression from the Devil Lands’ shifting lights of red, gray, and black. “It’s everything we’ve dreamed of, my friend!”
Battle cries echoed across the open stretch as the two armies neared. Cameron slipped ahead of Wyatt, glowing like a brilliant lightbulb. A card appeared before Cameron, and his too-bright Ichor coursed through it.
Golden Ichor coalesced across the card and caused it to spin rapidly. The card shined like a star as it arced high above the Miasma-warped battleground. The golden energy exploded. A sword as tall as the guild building—five stories of pure architectural innovation—fell from the sky into the front of the Devils’ ranks.
Wyatt didn’t slack either, imbuing his silver energy into two of the cards revolving around him like an orbit of streaking meteorites. His Class, Summoner, roared to life as each card burst into manifestations of nature’s beauty.
His cavalry consisted of eight behemoths. Armored flesh, weaponized momentum, and a whole lot of pissed-off fury charged forward. Pride filled him as the Six-Legged Rhinoceroses slammed into the enemy’s front line. Their horns skewered any of the Splendid Devils standing in their way and trampled them underfoot. The Miasma eroded them as they stampeded farther.
Following them, Wyatt joined his summoned infantry as they waded into the mess. A curved sword of silver light streaked across the devils, leaving them in pieces wherever he struck. Their flesh bubbled and hissed from his attacks until they disintegrated into pools of Miasma.
With the rhinos leading the way and shaking the ground like an earthquake, he pressed on. The hard-hitters, red four-armed Davarian Mantises, rushed past him as he slashed and stabbed anything he could reach and scythed through the masses. Their powerful exoskeleton didn’t drag them down like the rhinos, allowing them to dance amongst the enemy lines with little to stop them.
Heads rolled, limbs flew, and black Ichor sank into the Miasma-tainted grounds.
Wyatt guided the third card up, and up, and up. With a flick of his wrist, another slammed into the first. “Illia and Wyrin, merge!”
His deep pool of silver Ichor ached, dropping by half in a split second. The two cards flashed even brighter than Cameron’s giant sword as their merger began.
With a trained motion, he pulled out a vial of Ambrosia and chugged it while dodging attacks from three ways. Wyatt grimaced at the taste akin to stomach acid and static arcing down his throat. The vile liquid sank down inside of him where his Ichor Hold assimilated the energy in a mere half-second.
Something foul, he’d heard stories of people describing Ambrosia as “crisp, sweet, and fruity” or “a feeling of satisfaction”. Couldn’t be me.
The two Legendary-rank summons warped the fabric of reality around them as their existences became one. A howling gale of primal fury erupted over the battlefield and shook the world as something defiant emerged.
Those of Demiurge were used to seeing this sight and the overwhelming power of the two summons, but the Devils weren’t. Half the army of Splendid Devils staggered or fell entirely, losing their footing. Wyatt’s guild members didn’t hesitate to capitalize on the passive, wide-range disruption his powerful merger caused.
Wyrin, an old Elfin Warlord, and Illia, a brilliant phoenix of silver flames, shouted into the sky as their brilliant silver power exponentially grew, the pressure of their mere existence causing hundreds of Imps to crash to the ground.
Together, the two Legendary Summons became something Mythic. A tale of tales, a rumor whispered on the winds, a theorized existence few ever achieved.
“Illiawyrin, at your service, boss!” With silver, blazing wings, eyes like liquid Mercury, and a penchant for dealing a whole lot of hurt, the Valkyrie swooped down from the sky and wreaked havoc amongst the Devils. Silver flame clung to the Miasma, fighting back the rampant growth of the Devilish Ichor. “Got a big one, boss! You do your thing, and we’ll keep him company.”
“Thanks!”
Until Illiawyrin made her appearance, the four Devilish Elemental Lords posted as an overwatch in the back ranks of the army didn't move. They watched and waited like the good lap dogs they were.
Of all the Elemental Lords, Wyatt knew the one flying through the air kamikaze-style well, head aflame like some edgy pyro lord. Once renowned as a great holy being, an Archangel by the name Samael split through the sky as nothing more than a rabid and pitiful husk of what once was.
“Valkyrie, you’re mine!” shouted the deranged Devil as his wings of molten flame carried him into combat, a whip of magma lashing forward as he left a smoking streak in his wake.
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“Don’t forget to tell Samael I said hi after you absorb his flames,” Wyatt hissed, remembering how many lives the Lord of Flames left as nothing but ash. “Make him suffer.”
“Wouldn’t think to do anything otherwise, though I’m starting to think he likes it,” she said, cutting their mental link so both of them could focus.
His nimble steps allowed him to evade the Splendid Devils’ attacks. The Fiend Imps launching flaming balls didn’t slow him either. His mantis infantry cleared the path forward for his side of the guild until the Invasion’s corrosive Miasma destroyed them.
The expended cards dissipated into silver. Seconds later, their physical form appeared in his spent box on his left hip. So far, he’d expended two and had two active of his twenty-two card deck.
Even though the battle ahead would be hard fought, today wasn’t like the first day the Dungeon World appeared. Fifteen years and countless life and death battles made this much seem little more than child’s play.
“We need to close the Gate as soon as possible,” he said, glaring at the swirling archway of doom. The first time an Invasion Gate appeared, he’d never known such an occurrence was possible. Eyanora was home, and to have the World Dungeon’s denizens cross over left him shaking at the fear of all the implications. This time, not so much. “If we get it before The Six Calamities appear, we’ll be fine.”
Nobody wanted the Gate to evolve past The Six Calamities.
He judged the numbers left in the horde of Splendid Devils. The more he observed, the more something felt off. A gut-curdling sense sank his throat into his stomach. No matter how much he looked, nothing seemed out of place.
Assuming you took a Miasma-spewing interdimensional Gate and an army of Devils as normal. Which the members of Demiurge certainly did. That happened to be their specialty, after all.
Cameron rejoined him from his flank. Wyatt pointed two fingers towards the second Elemental Lord, Gaian Mahazael, moving their way and called, “Do your thing.”
Walking fortresses, like the two of them, were meant for one another. Wyatt, though, wanted nothing to do with the mountainous demon man.
Having fought beside one another long enough, Cameron didn’t need to respond. His actions, reliable as ever, spoke for him. Three cards flashed in his hands. He threw one forward through the air and smacked the last two together.
Wyatt would never get used to Cameron’s transformation. Golden energy wrapped over his body. His Ichor streamed over the edges of a sleek longsword, giving it a holier-than-thou glow all the Devils absolutely loved.
Same went for the second card, expanding its square-shaped base out into a scutum. With his trusty Paired cards in hand and the Challenging Arena expanding around them, his best friend looked like the sun in the sky as he smote the foolish Devil over and over again.
A smile plastered on Cameron’s face as his laughs echoed across the battlefield. From the point of view of someone looking in from the outside, you wouldn’t think a literal world-ending tragedy had occurred.
Looking around revealed the rest of Demiurge wading into the Devil tides, reinforcing the breach. Wyatt swore, grimacing as Commander Marlon waltzed past without a speck of Devilish Ichor on his too-expensive armor. A man who knew how to tell people what to do without doing it himself, that’s for sure.
Knowing the commander and his groupies hated elves, Wyatt began singing a soft hymn in Alf, the language of Elves that Wyrin had taught him.
“Quit that!” one of the commander’s three lackeys hissed. “This is no time for fun and games.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Instead of waiting for a response, Wyatt turned and delved deeper into the horde of red, gray, and black-skinned invaders. “I’ll die young of stress if I take everything too seriously.”
Continuing his calm dance through the ranks of Devils, his curved sword a silver blur leaving behind puddles of Miasma that sank into the ground, he kept his attention on the conflict in the sky.
Illiawyrin flew through the sky with grace and finesse Samael had long since lost. She made his movements seem erratic as she both combatted the ex-Archangel and laid waste to the Devil’s army below.
Samael overcommitted, and in two short breaths, Illiawyrin deftly dodged, spun in the air, and ended their aerial fight. Just as Wyatt said, his flames were sucked into the Valkyrie and absorbed by Wyrin’s phoenix half.
The Valkyrie let out a victory cry as she nosedived at breakneck speeds, landing in a dignified pose in front of him. Samael’s hollow eyes stared back at him from the disembodied head. Wyatt jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and the Valkyrie grinned.
She passed him, and seconds later, loud shouting echoed up to him.
“Get that creature away from the commander!”
“That’s one of the Elemental Lords! Someone collect the head. It’s a valuable resource!”
“As expected of the Silver Summoner. You shouldn’t get on his bad side. Have you heard the stories?”
Wyatt didn’t care for the fanfare and gossip, nor did he care much about what they did or didn’t want from him. Their specialty was in paperwork—political, economic, and all the other things he couldn’t have cared less about.
Cowards.
He couldn’t remember the last time they’d shown up to an Invasion or crossed into the World Dungeon. The fact they showed up today felt like token support at best, the only thing redeeming about them the various artifacts they touted around with such confidence.
Wealth had power of its own, but in the face of trained skills and battle experience, the veritable fortune on them was being wasted. A single one of the artifacts given to any of the other Dungeoneers—the backbone of all the guilds—would’ve augmented their fighting forces many times over.
As they were, the artifacts might as well be shiny baubles.
Clearing his thoughts, Wyatt left a silver trail as he continued his graceful onslaught and danced his way forward.
He passed Cameron’s arena as the Valiant Paladin drove his sword through the Lord’s neck, slicing through like butter. The arena collapsed, and Cameron tossed the head back towards the commander and his lackeys.
When he finished, he grabbed Wyatt by his wrist and dragged him forward. “You’re not supposed to mess with the higher ups! Today of all days, you want to start trouble.” He huffed a deep sigh. “Not sure what’s going through your head, but get it in the game. We’re about to get a nasty surprise, so focus up, brother.”
“That can’t be ri—” His heart pounded as the temperature dropped below freezing. His temples throbbed as a dense fog of blue Miasma wafted out from the Gate. He held his head as the pressure of the Devil nearly forced Wyatt to his knees.
Cameron didn’t even flinch.
