Modern Age Online

They ran to the base of the castle where Jar-lock and Vivienne were pondering the castle’s gate. Mass and D34d-I were keeping watch. The massive muscular alien gave them a wave as they approached while D34d-I merely nodded. Kaleb scanned the pulsing, slimy castle as they approached.

It was a beast of a square castle with a large black sludge wall surrounding it. At its center was the keep that rose above the outer wall. It looked just as slimy as the rest of the place. Each of the four points of the square of the outer wall had its own tower. The keep itself had two more towers built on either end of it. Kaleb stared at it as Claire and Two Gun spoke to the others.

“You were right, the smoke was the Professor setting shit on fire.”

“Although Abby was helping him.”

Jar-lock turned away from the castle gate and smiled. “Was it working?”

Kaleb raised an eyebrow. “Have you not been fighting sludge creatures your whole way here?”

Vivienne and Jar-lock shook their heads. “We were dumped right outside this castle and haven’t moved.”

*Quack*

“Mass and I were thrown clear on the other side of the castle. But we didn’t see any sludge monsters on our way here.”

“Two Gun and I had to fight a few of the things and some moving trees. But nothing like you two were facing.”

Kaleb and Abby shared an aggrieved look before Kaleb explained. “Fire and Ice seem to work best. Energy blasts will eat away at the corrosive sludge and Claire seems strong enough to obliterate them with a punch. But you have to be careful, the suckers are sticky and surprisingly tough if they get a hold of you. Had one latch onto my back and try to claw me up. But I don’t think the sludge could solidify enough.”

Jar-lock gave him a once over. “Did none of your stuff corrode from the slime?”

“My hoodie did.”

“But none of my stuff has. I was even submerged up to my waist in a spawning pool of the stuff. But nothing happened.”

Jar-lock nodded and then turned back to the gate. The large sludgy facsimile of a wooden gate was pulsing and dripping with ooze as they watched. Kaleb was wondering what the problem was when Two Gun asked.

“Have you figured out a way to open it yet?”

“We were waiting for you and the others. But Jar thinks we can freeze it and crack it open. And with the Professor’s intel about the slime, that seems to be the best option.”

“So, what are we waiting for?”

“There’s a presence inside the keep.” Jar-lock said simply.

Kaleb crossed his arms and waited. Jar-lock would explain, but he’d have to drag his mind out of his own thoughts. When he did, he shook off whatever he’d been thinking about and turned to address the others.

“I don’t think the presence is demonic, though. There’s something here, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.”

“So where’s the corrosion demon the gang was trying to summon, then?” Claire asked.

“Probably near the gate we were flung through. They would want their army ready and waiting to cross over.”

“So we need to hurry.” Kaleb said. “They could be crossing through the gate right now!”

“No, they couldn’t. We fucked up the spell, remember? So instead of the portal dragging things from this demonic realm back to earth. The spell now drags things from earth to here.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound good either.”

“It isn’t, but at least on the other side, the cops can handle the portal. All they need are some smart mages, and they’ll be able to tell that the gate is going the wrong way.”

“So what’s our plan, then? Castle raid, and then we put this realm’s demon into a pain cage?” Abby grinned.

“No. We need to leave. This is the Demon’s realm. His own personal kingdom. Depending on how strong he is, he probably knows everything happening here. But…” Jar-lock glanced back at the castle.

Two Gun laughed. “But a castle is just too juicy to pass up, right?”

“Please don’t say juicy when it comes to this damn castle. It’s gross enough already.” Kaleb asked.

The others all chuckled and stared back at the large, black castle. Kaleb guessed they were each making the same calculation. How fast could they rob a demon’s castle? He figured they could rush in, find whatever was tripping Jar-lock’s magic sensor, and get out with no problems. When he said as much, Jar-lock and Vivienne shared a look.

“We could. But the source of magic within the castle is powerful. If we take it, the demon is going to notice and be on us.”

“Is the source a person?” Abby asked.

Vivienne winced as she nodded slowly. “It’s likely.”

“Well then, we are going in then, right?” Claire said.

“If we leave, we can escape back to our plane and close the gate. No demon and no problems. But if we go for the castle, we are going to have to fight the demon. In his realm, with his army at his beck and call.”

“Well, if the demon is at the portal thing, anyway. We’d have to fight him there, too. Besides, I know none of us are going to leave an innocent thing trapped in a demon’s castle.”

Jar-lock waggled his head noncommittally. “We don’t know if whatever is in there is innocent. It could just as well be a trap.”

Vivienne sighed. “Jar, you know that whatever it is doesn’t feel the same!”

“Besides,” Said Kaleb, drawing his Quad-Gun and setting it to ice. “How are we going to come to a demonic realm and not plunder a demon castle? That’s like Gaming 101.”

With that, Kaleb shot a stream of ice cold energy straight into the large gate. The black sludge froze, turning from black to a pale blue as the cold spread across its surface. When it was done, Kaleb released the trigger and turned to Claire. He waved her to the gate politely, and she gave a small curtsy of thanks before moving toward the gate. One massively strong punch later, there was a large hole in the sludge gate as cracked chunks of frozen sludge spread out everywhere.

“This is a bad idea.” Jar-lock sighed.

“And yet, you can’t stop yourself, can you?” Abby chuckled as they all slowly entered the bailey.

Kaleb kept his Quad-Gun up as he swept the large open area in front of the castle’s keep. There wasn’t much inside the castle’s walls except for the keep itself and a large two-story rectangular building along one wall. Two Gun nodded at the building, his gun’s poised and ready as well.

“That’ll be the barracks. But if the demon is out, that means he probably took his retinue, right?”

“Sure, but why wouldn’t he leave a guard?” Jar-lock wondered.

“Arrogance? Who can say? Let’s get into the main keep and look around, though. Castles mean treasure, and treasure is just another name for loot.” Kaleb chuckled as he hurried across the grey dirt bailey.

The keep was the same living slime that made up everything. But as Kaleb put his hand to the door and swung it open, he noticed that the sludge wasn’t sticking to him. It still left a slimy feeling on his hand, but it was a much more solid kind of sludge. Jar-lock seemed to also notice the unique properties of the slime.

“We should take some of this.” The big mage said as he examined the keep’s walls.

“Jar, you know that’s basically the demon’s body, right? I mean, it’s been detached and empowered with magic. But it’s still essentially demon flesh.”

“And wouldn’t you like to study it?”

Vivienne looked torn between intellectual curiosity and absolute disgust. Jar-lock produced a small glass beaker from his robes and scraped some of the sludge into it. Kaleb sighed as he realized he wasn’t the one that would have to examine the stuff. Jar-lock seemed more than happy to do it. Once the big guy was done, Kaleb lead them into the keep.

The first floor of the keep was just a wide open foyer with a staircase leading up to a second floor. There were rooms on either side and with no orders given, the group broke up and explored. Kaleb and Abby swung around the base of the stairs and found a hallway leading to either end of the keep, along with a doorway built beneath the stairs.

Jar-lock and Vivienne reported finding a dining room full of inedible and gross-looking food. Claire and Two Gun found a sitting room and an office. Mass and D34d-I went upstairs, but were staying quiet. Kaleb gave Abby and then the door beneath the stairs a significant look. She looked a little pensive, but then nodded slowly.

“We’re heading to the basement!” Kaleb shouted as he moved to the door.

“Wait! We shouldn’t get too far apart with our comms down… again.”

“Hey, next time, how about you build them?”

Kaleb scowled as they were joined by Jar-lock and Vivienne. Two Gun and Claire went to join the upstairs team as Kaleb opened the basement door, glancing through it. A dark tunnel of slimy sludge met their eyes. A steep wriggling staircase seemed to promise danger as Kaleb glanced at his friends. Jar-lock was intense but ready. Vivienne looked disgusted, and Abby was excited. She clutched Kaleb’s gun tight in her hand and waved for him to go first.

“Give me some light, yeah?”

Vivienne answered by casting an orb of light into the air. It followed Kaleb as he descended the staircase into the dark. The walls seemed to drip and pulse with slime, and the sound got louder as Kaleb hit the bottom of the stairs. He looked around, but the basement was so dark, he could barely see anything. The light from the orb seemed to be devoured by the darkness and Kaleb barely had three feet around him that he could see. He was turning to explain things to the others when he lost his footing.

It felt like the ground gave out beneath him as he spun. He was tilting backwards as Abby rushed to grab him. She seized his robotic arm and started to pull him straight when the ground gave way under her this time. The two of them went tumbling backwards. Kaleb on his back and Abby on top of Kaleb. The ride was quick, but harsh, as they slammed into a cushion of slime and bounced roughly into the air. Kaleb scanned his surrounding as he asked.

“You good?”

“Yeah, but your armor hurts like hell,” Abby complained.

“Then get up already.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Abby pushed against Kaleb’s chest and rolled off, revealing that Vivienne’s light ball had followed them down. Kaleb pulled himself to his feet and noticed that the light ball was working much better down here. He could see every corner of the large square room. It was mostly empty, and as Kaleb spun around, he realized that the light wasn’t coming from Vivienne’s ball. And the slide they had come down was gone. Ignoring the unknown source of light, Kaleb shouted up at the sludgy ceiling.

“Jar! Viv! We are in a sub-basement or something! If you can hear me, give a shout!”

A muffled shout could be heard through the ceiling of the room. But Kaleb couldn’t make out words. He was going to try to shout louder when Abby tapped his shoulder aggressively. He turned to see the short, dark-haired woman looking behind him in wonder. Kaleb turned to see what she was staring at and found the source of light in the room. He felt his jaw drop and his throat seize slightly.

Above them, the ceiling turned frosty blue and then broke apart as Vivienne and Jar-lock fell next to them. The muscular mage caught himself and scanned the room immediately as Vivienne rushed to Kaleb and Abby. She checked them for injuries as they stared at the only other occupant in the room.

“Is that what I think it is?” Kaleb asked.

Jar-lock and Vivienne spun to see what he was looking at as Abby nodded.

“I think so. That’s a fucking angel.”

The angel-like creature was suspended in the air and strung up between two pillars. It’s body wrapped in a cocoon of sludge. Their wings were spread out between the pillars strings and tethers of sludge spreading each feather out wide. The state of the poor creature’s wings was atrocious, and Vivienne gasped as she examined it from afar. She tried to rush toward it to help, but Jar-lock stopped her.

“It could be a trap.”

“Then we spring the trap and deal with it!” Kaleb said as he moved around Jar-lock and Vivienne.

He held up his quad-gun and pointed it at one of the pillars. He froze a section of the large pillar of sludge and then punched his robotic arm into the ice. The pillar cracked and fell, making the angel’s wing swing downward. Jar-lock took care of the second pillar with a spear of ice and Abby and Vivienne moved to help the creature. They caught it before it could hit the ground, but as they disconnected the strings of sludge from its body, the castle rumbled.

Kaleb and Jar-lock stood guard and waited. But nothing else happened as the rumbling slowed and eventually stopped. Abby and Vivienne tore away the sludgy cocoon and pulled the androgynous-looking angel up. The angel looked young to Kaleb. They were probably younger than Roy, if that’s how angel’s ages worked. He was studying the angel-like creature when Jar-lock swore loudly.

“Shit! The walls are turning watery!”

“What?” Kaleb asked, confused.

“I think the angel was keeping the castle solid. It’s collapsing!”

Kaleb spun and took in the room. The light coming off the angel was enough for Kaleb to see that Jar-lock was right. The room was slowly melting as the sludge lost its firmness. He moved to grab the alien, but Vivienne slapped his hands away.

“We can’t move them! They’re hurt. I think they’ve been tortured.”

“We are all going to be hurt if this sludge falls on top of us. We need to get out. Now!”

Vivienne bit her lip as her hands glowed blue. “Just give me a few seconds to stabilize them! Please!”

Kaleb growled low in his throat as he turned and started freezing a wall with his quad-gun. He held down the trigger until the barrel turned blue and then stopped. As he waited for the barrel to heat up, he watched Jar-lock throw blasts of freezing wind at the three other walls. The sludge was growing more solid, but it was just as quickly melting like cheese. The walls and ceiling gurgled and belched as air escaped the sludgy mass. Kaleb focused on freezing what he could as Vivienne did her healing. Abby glanced around as she held the angel’s head elevated.

“We still don’t have a way out!”

Kaleb nodded at the wall that he had been keeping frozen. “Jar-lock, give me a grenade spell on my wall. Abby, use the Cybar to keep the sludge back. Vivienne, I hope they are ready to move because we don’t have time.”

The ceiling was drooping down on them. Even as Jar-lock tried to keep the room cold. Vivienne answered Kaleb by wrapping an arm under the angel’s wings and lifting them up. Abby hurried to help as Jar-lock wedged a rock containing an explosive spell into Kaleb’s frozen wall. The magic grenade went off and a giant hole appeared in the wall. Kaleb ran through first as Abby fired at the edges of the hole, keeping the sludge back.

As a group, they ran into the next room and repeated the procedure again. In the next room over, Jar-lock found stairs leading up, and they rushed up the stairs. The girls let Jar-lock carry the angel on his back as they rushed up the stairs and into the kitchens pantry. Now on the ground floor, Kaleb found the nearest window and froze it before throwing his body, robot arm first, through the window. Abby, Vivienne and then Jar-lock followed them as they exited the keep on its right side and rushed around toward the gate.

Mass, Claire, and the others were there, looking harried but okay as the castle melted away around them. The bailey they were standing in was free of sludge, so they stayed put as Jar-lock gently put the angel on the ground. D34d-I squawked in surprise as Claire and Two Gun winced at the state of the poor angel. Kaleb agreed. In the dark of the basement and the rush to get out, Kaleb hadn’t realized how hurt the poor thing was. Its wings were almost plucked clean of feathers and its body was almost grey and discolored. Their dark black hair was messy and full of tangles.

“What the hell did y’all do?” Two Gun asked as the castle melted around them loudly.

“We stole an angel from a demon castle.” Kaleb said simply as he stared down at the angel.

Two Gun nodded as Claire asked. “The Demon will not like that, will he?”

“No. No, he most certainly will not.” Jar-lock sighed. “The demon was siphoning Holy Mana from the Angel like a battery. I think that’s why the castle was fairly solid.”

“So he tortured an angel to keep his castle solid?”

“Not completely. The demon was probably doing something else with them. Maybe trying to channel its power and pervert it?”

*Quack*

“I think we will get to ask it soon.”

D34d-I had his pistols in two of his hands as he nodded at the collapsing castle walls. As the black sludge walls fell to the ground, Kaleb could see a swarm of sludge creatures on the other side. The Corrosion Demon must have noticed his castle melting and marched his forces back. Now they were surrounding the castle. Hundreds of sludge monsters of various sizes screeched and babbled at them as the walls came down. Kaleb spotted a massive mound of sludge in the crowd of sludge monsters and watched as it momentarily pulled itself together. A large maw formed on its bulbous side and it roared angrily and incoherently at them.

“That would be the Corrosion Demon.” Jar-lock sighed.

“What? That mound of pus is the big bad?” Two Gun asked as he held his pistols ready.

“Don’t underestimate it. It’s a demon in its own realm with an army at its back.”

“And we have to defend an injured angel.”

“Just another day in the life of a Super Hero.” Kaleb chuckled.

The last of the castle walls fell into pools of sludge and the Corrosion Demon finished its roar. The massive army of sludge creatures pulsed with renewed energy and then charged. Kaleb and his friends readied themselves as the demonic army barreled down on them.