Modern Age Online

Kaleb always wondered about angels and demons in games. The symbolism was obvious. Good versus Evil, light versus dark, humankind’s capacity for cruelty versus it’s kindness. Demons were somewhat more understandable in games. Big beastly monsters that messed with your mind or beat up your body. But angels in video games could run the gamut. They could be these otherworldly creatures that helped your party out of the goodness of their souls. Or they could be pragmatic and pedantic assholes more focused on asserting some deity’s will upon you.

Or they could be talkative, asinine assholes.

“But the really interesting thing is the structure, magically speaking. It all hangs together neatly on the outside. But if you look beneath, it is literally decaying. Yet, somehow, never falls apart. So demonic realms, like their creators, are possibly in constant and unceasing pain. It’s truly fascinating.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And, of course, it’s an angel’s duty to help those in pain. Now, that doesn’t mean we are completely naïve. Demons ARE Demons and can’t help their nature. But I don’t believe we should blame them. They are tortured and twisted souls. Some archangels or the other choirs would probably disagree, but I think we should be understanding of our fallen brothers and sisters.”

Kaleb merely grunted as he readjusted his hold on the angel. For some reason, he was still dragging the angel, whose name was George, across the demonic landscape. George claimed that his legs and body were still recovering from whatever the demon did to him. Kaleb was starting to doubt that assertion. Not from any evidence, but mostly from sheer annoyance. The angel had been talking his ear off about forgiving the demons as a whole. Which Kaleb wasn’t necessarily against at the outset, but he was slowly coming around to a ‘burn them all’ mentality. Mostly because of George’s constant blathering.

“Are your leg’s well enough to walk yet?”

“Huh? Oh, no. I don’t think so. I was a prisoner of that foul demon for much too long. And this realm seems to be slowing my recovery.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Are we close to the Nexus yet?”

Kaleb stared out at the grey landscape, panting slightly. Everything looked the same without the landmark of the demon’s castle. The sludge and ooze were vanishing slowly, but the gray land seemed to stretch on forever in all directions. He tried to shrug, but the angel’s weight nearly doubled on his shoulder. Gritting his teeth, Kaleb turned to see the angel leaning heavily on his side. If it wasn’t for the tired and sallow look of the angel, he’d have tossed him off. Reaffirming his grip, Kaleb kept searching for clues to the castle’s location.

“I don’t know. The castle’s gone, and there are no big landmarks with all the sludge disappearing. Can’t you find it?”

“How would I do that?” George panted while looking annoyed.

“I don’t know? Use The Force? Feel it in your bones? Sense Evil?”

“This entire realm is evil, I don’t have bones, and what is The Force?”

“How do you not have bones?” Kaleb asked, stupidly.

“Oh, angelic and demonic anatomy is actually quite fascinating. We are not built the same, but the underlying principles are the same…”

George prattled on as Kaleb ignored him and looked around. They hadn’t been attacked for several minutes now and Kaleb could no longer hear the sounds of little gremlin feet. The realm itself was slowly becoming less active. He didn’t know how long they had until everything stopped and the realm collapsed. But Kaleb was sure it wasn’t very long.

With a huff, he marched on, George still yapping away at his side. Kaleb felt his mental stamina slowly draining away as the angel went on and on about the various aspects of Demonic existence. Apparently, the angel had been a fairly fastidious student. Because he was a font of never-ending knowledge when it came to demons. Kaleb only he hoped he was equally well-versed in portal crafting.

Kaleb wondered how his friends were doing. Were they having an epic fight with a sludge monster in the mortal realm? Were they already finished and mopping things up? If they were, how long would it take for Jar-lock to make a portal to come get him? Could Jar-lock make a portal?

A noise to Kaleb’s right shut George up and made Kaleb draw his Cybar. A sludge gremlin was making its way toward them across the open plain. It was moving slowly and seemed to be falling apart with each step. But the closer it got, the more feral it looked. Even as its face and body melted away.

Kaleb kept his weapon trained on the little sludge creature. But he was sure the thing would evaporate before it got to them. George whimpered into his armor, and Kaleb wanted to shake the useless angel. He had already proven himself capable of dispatching these gremlins en masse. But every time they got into a fight, George got scared and tucked himself into Kaleb. He readjusted his arm over the simpering angel and took aim with his Cybar. The poor gremlin was only half a body now and his chin hung down to his waist. It tried to growl menacingly and wave its clawed hands. But it didn’t have the strength.

With a disgusting plop, the sludge gremlin fell to the dirt and stopped moving. The sludge that made up its body spread out across the dirt and changed into dark smoke. Kaleb holstered his pistol and sighed as George’s whimpering stopped. Gulping in air, the angel looked up at the slowly evaporating monster.

“How long did that take?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a minute or two?”

“Then we don’t have long. We must hurry. Once this plane collapses, we shall be shunted into the realms between. From there, who knows where we might end up?”

Kaleb groaned. “I hear you. But I can’t find what’s not here, okay? The castle was the only thing here and now it’s gone. So all of this depressing plane looks the same. So unless you know how to hunt down a nexus point, we are screwed.”

George shuddered against him before whimpering again. Kaleb sighed and patted the angel’s shoulder near the wing. The gesture seemed to mollify the angel as Kaleb started marching again. Instead of continuing on his current path, though, Kaleb turned them onto a diagonal. If the demon’s plane was squarish, they’d have a better chance of hitting something. Besides, he needed to do something to increase their chances.

Time passed and Kaleb walked on. He was unsure how long he trudged through the dirt, dragging a talkative angel. But after a long while, Kaleb was surprised to find that George had gone silent. He had no recollection of the angel stopping his verbal diarrhea. But turning to look at George, Kaleb found him looking off to the right.

“Find something?” Kaleb asked.

George started and coughed awkwardly. “I- I don’t know. I think I feel something in that direction.”

George nodded his head off to the right and Kaleb turned them that way.

“I thought you couldn’t sense anything here? How do know something’s this way?”

George shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the divine helping us on our journey? Maybe we are being led by the righteous hand. Ha! Soon we shall be free from this doomed realm and be amongst the mortals once more.”

“Won’t you have to go straight back to heaven or wherever?”

George huffed in annoyance. “Not straight back. I imagine I’ll be given some time off to convalesce.”

“And you’re going to do that on earth? Where you were most recently abducted? Does that seem like a smart course of action?”

“You say that because you don’t know how boring Heaven can be,” George said derisively.

Kaleb quirked an eyebrow at the curious tone in the angel’s voice. But his eyes caught something on the grey ground and he focused on that. A portion of the dirt was scorched in a wide area just ahead of them. As he looked around, Kaleb noticed more marks and divots in the surrounding dirt. It was the site where he and his friends fought the Sludge Demon. Kaleb sighed in relief and lifted George a little higher.

The angel seemed to get his feet under him and leaned forward as Kaleb started to move toward where he thought the castle should be. Thankfully, the Sludge Demon had remained stationary through most of the fight. So Kaleb had a focal point with which to pivot. Also, George seemed to lean toward where the castle used to be at all times. The angel clearly felt something drawing himself closer.

Soon the angel was walking on his own, Kaleb’s arm over George’s shoulder. Kaleb wanted to curse in aggravation as it became clear the angel was fine. He’d probably been fine for the past the half hour the way he was moving now. George was racing across the dirt, head down and eyes searching for something. Kaleb guessed they were close to where the old bailey of the castle had been. He watched George practically sniff around in the dirt as he slowly checked the horizon.

Kaleb was pretty sure the sludglings were all gone at this point. But he at least wanted to be careful. The purple and black sky was getting dimmer and soon his vision was going to be highly constricted. Thinking about making a torch or something, Kaleb was interrupted by the sounds of something digging into the dirt. Turning, he spotted a smiling George eagerly ripping into the ground with his bare hands. Gone was the tired and whimpering angel. Now, George was a divine being on a mission.

“Hey, I know you want to get out of here quickly. But how about we look for a piece of wood or something? Save our hands for the demon battle that’s sure to be waging in the mortal realm.”

“Huh?” George nearly shouted as he looked up at Kaleb.

A weird flash of red appeared behind the angel’s eyes and Kaleb momentarily tensed. But the color disappeared quickly and George seemed to come back to himself. He looked down at his pale hands and saw them covered in grey dirt. He smiled up at Kaleb and coughed awkwardly.

“Ahem… Yes, that would probably expedite this process. Although I don’t remember spotting many trees in the area. Maybe we can use your armor as a shovel?”

Kaleb grimaced as he looked down at his new armor. He wasn’t completely against the idea, but he had just crafted the thing. Using it as a dirt-digging tool seemed disrespectful. Still looking down, Kaleb asked.

“What are you digging for, anyway? Is this Nexus thing underground?”

George coughed again, this time making the noise sound like a professor about to give a long lecture.

“Well, you know Demons reside in the demonic planes, right? Hell, the Infernal, Frozen Wastes, Wisconsin… etc? Well, when a demon advances to the point of becoming a Demon Lord, they break off a piece of their power and solidify it. That piece of demonic energy is then used as the basis for their own personal dimensional pocket.”

“So the demon sludge monster was a Demon Lord and a piece of his power is buried in the dirt?”

“Essentially.” George said, digging again.

Kaleb rubbed a hand down his armor as he considered things. “Wait. So why did the old sludge face leave this bit of his power behind?”

“Because once the nexus point is used as the realm’s foundation, it cannot be easily removed. It takes time and the proper incantations to remove the stone. And once it’s gone, the entire pocket dimension collapses. Sending all inside back to the Demon Lord’s original realm.”

Kaleb nodded a few times until George’s words finally clicked. Turning, he saw George, still kneeling in the dirt. His hands scrabbling at something Kaleb couldn’t see. Kaleb moved closer and slowly drew his Cybar. The manic look in George’s eyes was off-putting and Kaleb was sure the angel’s eyes were red now. George’s fingernails clinked against something in the dirt and the angel made a grunt of triumph. He redoubled his digging efforts as Kaleb swept around behind the kneeling angel.

Cybar raised and ready, Kaleb peeked over George’s shoulder. In the dirt, between the angel’s knees, was the surface of a glossy black orb. It shimmered in the ever-diminishing light, and George’s pale fingers pried at its curved edges. Kaleb felt his vision twist as he tried to look at the thing. It made him feel sick to even look at the large pearl. George, on the other hand, was staring right at the damn thing, cackling with sheer glee. As George turned to look up at him, Kaleb moved closer and put the barrel of his Cybar against the Angel’s head.

“What’s up, George?”

George started whimpering immediately and put his dirt-covered hands up. “Wha- wha- what!? What is the meaning of this? We have our way home now. Is this really the time for some petty mortal betrayal?”

Kaleb took a breath and nodded. “A couple of things, George. First off is how you are looking at that black pearl there. It does not look healthy. Second is the discrepancy in your story. You said this place would collapse without the Demon Sludge thing. Now you are saying you want to collapse it intentionally and send us to a Demonic plane. So I find myself asking: What the fuck?”

George’s red eyes crinkled with glee as the Angel smiled. His teeth were now sharp and pointed with enlarged canines. Glancing at George’s hands, Kaleb discovered long black nails sprouting from each of George’s fingers. His wings fluttered and Kaleb had to take a step back. But he kept his Cybar on the George’s head. George cackled, the noise sounding like high-pitched and grating.

“Hot damn! It looks like I’ve been caught.”

Kaleb felt a pulse behind his eyes and a screeching whine pierced his ears. He immediately had a headache and blinked. Opening his eyes, Kaleb found George standing now, his gun pointed at the Angel’s knees. Kaleb tried to lift his gun, but he wobbled unsteadily on his feet. George tutted as Kaleb tried to get a hold of himself.

“We were so close. The valiant mortal, risking life and limb for the weak and tired angel. It could’ve been quite a story. One I would’ve shared across the Infernal plane. Once I was back there. You, of course, would’ve been dead. Your soul ripped apart in the journey.”

As George spoke, his shape changed. His angel wings turned red and leathery, his skin turned almost maroon in shade, and his legs thickened and became goat-like. Soon, a red demon was towering over Kaleb as he tried to move, but his body would just not respond. And the headache behind his eyes was getting worse. Demon George flexed his wings and sighed dramatically.

“Now I have to change the ending of our tale. Now it is one of the hero stepping forth to unmake the mighty demon… and failing spectacularly.”

Demon George’s large red hand came up, his nails pointed straight at Kaleb’s face. Kaleb thrashed against the power, forcing him to remain still. But his body still wouldn’t budge. All he could do was barely move his lips. As George drew closer, Kaleb tried for a Hail Mary play as he stuttered through clenched teeth.

“Ty… Phan… Ysor…”

George stopped, his nails inches from Kaleb’s eyes. A shocked look across his demonic face.

“What?”

“Typhanysor.” Kaleb said, regaining control of his body once again.

The Demon’s arm shuddered, as though he was still trying to impale Kaleb with it. When that didn’t work, George threw his arm down and glared at Kaleb.

“Shit!” said the Demon Typhanysor.