Outside Influences

Bel awoke in her body, groaning from her encounter with Lempo. “Well, that was weird,” she said as she sat upright.

She paused, surprised by the scene in front of her. Orseis and Crecerelle wore tense expressions as they faced off against a small group of four strangers. Bel couldn’t understand what they were shouting, but from everyone’s angry voices she guessed that both sides were furious about something.

She hopped to her feet and grasped for her spear, only to remember that she’d gifted it to Orseis. Right, she remembered with a pang of loss, I wanted to keep her safe.

Bel pressed her lips together and quickly assessed the four strangers, preparing herself for a fight. Three of them stood together silently, apparently content to let the fourth one argue. They weren’t the same types of people, or at least Bel didn’t think they were, but she didn’t recognize their species. The fourth man, the one currently in a yelling match with Cress, was another one of the two-faced men that she had sneaked past in the pillar.

The largest and most imposing of them looked like a tall, hairy man with the head and tail of some other creature. His large, hairy head sported a long snout and an imposing pair of wide, curved horns. Bel tried to remember any creature that looked like that.

A steak? Steakhouse? Hornitaur? James had probably babbled about that particular horned creature at some point, but Bel couldn’t recall enough details while her heart was busy slamming adrenaline through her veins.

Whatever he was, he looked intimidating. He was decorated with golden rings pierced through his flat snout and long ears, but was otherwise naked except for a long loin cloth. That lack of clothes exposed his unbelievable physique; his muscles bulged to ridiculous proportions as he shifted a massive warhammer across his shoulders.

Bel tried to look at his eyes, but they were shaded by a pair of round, transparent stones held in place with a small metal frame.

She shrugged and looked at the other two. One was riding upon the other’s back. In another situation, Bel would have thought it comical.

The rider was a squat person with leathery green skin and a spiky shell on his back. His head was strangely flat and indented at the top and he sported the same shading eyepieces as the horned man. He saw Bel looking at him and grinned at her, revealing a mouth full of long, curved teeth.

The man he was mounted upon was another half-human, four-legged hoofed animal. His top half was human, with flowing brown hair and a dark, tangled beard. The coarse hair of his tail matched the hair on his head perfectly, catching her eye as he flicked it with irritation. His lower body was one of the horselike animals that James talked about, although Bel couldn’t tell the difference between a horse and a camel since she’d never laid eyes upon either. He looked larger and powerful though, and the ground shook with every stomp of his feet.

The continual shouting brought Bel’s attention back to the two-faced rule-enforcer. His skin was a bright crimson, although his face was turning an even darker shade from all of his shouting. As she began to pay attention to his words, Bel realized that he was speaking in the same version as the one she’d previously encountered. A quick glance at Orseis’ confused but guarded expression showed that the cuttle-girl still couldn’t follow the words.

“The evidence is quite overwhelming,” the man was saying. “You must come back for questioning.”

Cress snorted something in response and the crimson man lifted his lips in a sneer.

“Our divine justice follows all proper practices,” he huffed. “You gorgons are just guilty more often than not. And who else would have such a strong incentive to smuggle creatures for their abilities?”

Is he blaming us for whatever the giants were doing up here? Bel wondered.

She walked forward to join Cress and inspected the man. Unlike the rest of them, he wasn’t wearing something to cover his eyes and didn’t seem worried about Bel or Crecerelle’s gorgonic gaze. Now that she was closer to him though, Bel realized something.

His red glow wasn’t just from his skin – he was practically a beacon in Kjar’s sight. The goddess didn’t like that two-faced man.

She didn’t like him at all.

Bel felt Kjar’s outrage coursing through her. Her mouth opened without a conscious thought and she pointed an accusing finger at him.

“Your justice is a perversion of the word,” she proclaimed in Kjar’s voice, “and your claim of divine right is a blaspheme against any primordial or ascended being.”

The man spun – literally turning around so his other face could see her – and his face compressed with anger. “How dare you question our divine right to–”

“How dare you interrupt me!” Bel shouted back. She could feel Kjar’s wrath coursing through her. The heat and pressure of it made her hands tremble, but the force of the goddess’ rage made her take a step forward.

“The goddess Kjar curses you for your false claims of divine right! She curses you for your false justice! She curses you for abusing the powers and responsibilities entrusted to your people!”

The man’s eyes widened and he spun to face the other three. “Bounty hunters! These three are guilty and the sentence is immediate execution! Kill them!”

The horse-man immediately sprung towards Cress while the scaled man on his back hefted a spear.

Cress pointed to Bel and gestured towards the horned man, clearly indicating that she could handle the pair.

Bel froze for a moment, wondering if a two on one fight would be too much for the other gorgon, but in that moment of hesitation the horned man’s warhammer smashed through her head.

Orseis screamed her name, but Bel’s face was too busy squeezing around the hammer for her to hear anything properly. Liquid body saved her from losing her face, but having a heavy hunk of metal in her head left her disoriented.

Her attacker seemed surprised for a moment as her head squeezed back together, but he quickly swung his hammer again. Bel stumbled back from the powerful swings of the blunt hammer, desperately hoping that he would tire himself out.

If I could just get a moment I could mix with Sparky, she cursed.

The animal-headed man huffed with each swing of his warhammer, but his breaths weren’t growing the slightest bit ragged. Bel was sure that he would be able to keep swinging far longer than she could keep dodging.

I need to disengage to break his momentum, she realized.

Almost as though he could see her thoughts through her eyes, the horned man tossed his head up and bellowed. The ground around her rippled and cracked. Bel braced for an attack, but instead of something coming straight for her the ground rose up in multiple sheets of stone. As the walls formed Bel finally realized that she’d been enclosed in some kind of large maze.

“What the hell’s the point of–”

The wall behind her parted and the master of the labyrinth rushed through head first, his horns ready to impale her. She jumped to the side and barely dodged his sharp horns, but she slammed into another wall that suddenly appeared in her path. A flurry of arms erupted from the stony surface, restraining her tightly as the labyrinth master swiftly pivoted on his hoofed feet. Bel snarled at her restraints and liquified the wall just before he could reach her.

The charging man passed straight through the hole in the wall that Bel had opened up and she seized the opportunity to mix spirits with her magma snake.

Heat roiled through her blood and her skin cracked and swelled as molten rock squeezed from her pores. The metal plates of Kjar’s armor glowed with heat and the bands connecting the plates loosened, allowing the plates to expand along with her swelling form. Bel’s eye burned with fury as her body erupted in a wave of heat. Her transformation complete, Bel roared in challenge.

The labyrinth master answered, bellowing in outrage as he charged through another sudden opening in the wall at Bel’s back. Bel turned and slammed her leg into the ground. The rocks beneath her feet shattered and she forced a shockwave into the ground that emerged as a spray of molted rock aimed in a cone around her attacker.

He spun his hammer in response and a large slab of stone thrust up from the ground. It tipped over to create a ramp that mostly shielded him from Bel’s attack, although she was pleased to see some small patches of his tail catch fire. He roared with fury and leaped into a violent spin. He made a full circle and threw his warhammer at her.

Bel was caught flatfooted by the sudden assault, only managing to activate liquid body before the heavy weapon smashed into her. The weapon passed through her mostly without harm, although it caused a painful contraction of her internal organs, but the inertia of it pulled her backwards. Bel’s body struggled to keep up with the impact and she found herself toppling backwards onto the ground.

The stone ramp beneath the muscular man’s feet flexed, lifted him up and then launching him straight at Bel. He opened his hand as he was launched and the stone beneath him leaped into his grasp, forming a mace with a ball of rock as large as Bel’s head. He swung it down at her with enough force to splatter her, whether or not she tried to liquify herself.

Instead of dodging, Bel thrust her hands forward an concentrated a liquid shockwave on the mass of stone. The mace didn’t stop, but the head erupted in a spray of superheated rock that went in every direction.

Bel was already a creature of rock and heat so the bits of molten stone didn’t bother her, but labyrinth master roared in pain. Bel rocked back and planted a powerful two-legged kick on his stomach. He staggered back, desperately wiping the burning rocks from his face.

Bel hopped to her feet and squeezed her molten hands into fists. She took a step forward to press her attack, but her adversary summoned a slab of stone in her path. Bel growled at the impediment before quickly liquifying it and smashed through. She snarled when she found a second wall waiting behind the first.

The labyrinth master forced her to slam through a second and then a third wall before she found the coward. He had recovered from her earlier attack and stood ready with his heavy warhammer, swinging it at her the moment she stepped through the wall.

Bel caught the attack with her enhanced body, unwilling to let her attacker force her back again. The maul slammed against the scales of Kjar’s armor and the force of the strike rippled through Bel’s molten form, but she refused to let it go. She staggered to the side, but she trapped the weapon between her arm and her body.

The man snorted in anger and pulled. Bel’s feet slid over the ground, but she refused to return the weapon. The two of them bared their teeth snarled at one another. They locked gazes and Bel could see the fury in his red-rimmed, eyes.

Oh, he lost his little eye protectors.

She glared, hard, shoving as much extra energy through the ability’s channels as she could. The man’s eyes widened and then froze as his muscles seized up from her attack. As she rushed forward, Bel concentrated on her brazen nails, pushing more heat in her metallic talons. They glowed white hot as she slashed with her claws. The flesh of the labyrinth master’s throat hissed and popped as her glowing hot metal nails tore through. The smell of cooked flesh quickly filled the air.

Bel sidestepped most of the spray of blood as it was freed from his body. His paralysis broke a moment later and his body collapsed to the ground. Bel stooped to crack open his core, taking a fresh surge of vitality from his remaining essence. Her three cores swelled with the influx of essence and she was momentarily distracted by the unfamiliar feeling of her third core; it sloshed and surged like a barely restrained ocean.

She shook off the sensation as the walls of the labyrinth crumbled. Her opponent was down, but Cress and Orseis were still fighting the other two mercenaries. The shelled rider was keeping Cress at bay with a long-chained flail while the horse man tried to get a lucky shot on either of the girls with his bow.

As she watched, the horseman launched an arrow. It moved strangely through the air, bending and twisting in impossible ways, and a strange smoke clung to the shaft, making it impossible to track. Crecerelle waved her hand and a powerful gust of air removed the smoke. Then the other gorgon clenched her fist the arrow paused in midair.

Bel yelped with alarm when the arrow vibrated angrily and exploded, but Cress had stopped it too far away to do any damage. She was momentarily distracted though, so the horseman charged after the arrow and the shelled rider swung his flail, aiming for the defenseless gorgon. Before they could reach her, Orseis’ threw her spear. The horseman reared up at the sudden attack and the rider was forced abandon his attack and cling to his saddle to avoid being thrown.

The horseman’s hooves clattered angrily across the stones as he dodged the spear. He pulled another arrow from his quiver, but Cress jumped in front of Orseis before he could loose it.

A moment later the spear was back in Orseis’ hands and the adversaries had reset to the same position as when Bel first saw them.

Bel noticed that the horse man had only a few arrows left in his quiver. She glanced at Orseis and Cress – other than Orseis’ already shortened tentacle she didn’t see anything amiss.

I guess they’ve reached a stand-off.

Bel was behind the mercenaries, but Cress and Orseis could see her. She had the perfect opportunity for a sneak attack. Bel reached down for her slain foe’s enormous warhammer and hauled it from the ground.

Let’s see if I can provide a distraction.

She could feel her time with Sparky drawing to a close, but with the last dregs of her enhanced body she lifted the huge hunk of metal in her arms. Then she spun in place, gradually gathering up momentum, and then she released.

Her aim was terrible, but the extreme grunt of effort she made attracted the rider’s attention. His legs twitched as he saw a piece of metal the size of a tree flying vaguely in his direction and his knees jerked involuntarily. That sent the horse man prancing to the side, slightly closer to the weapon’s trajectory.

It still didn’t strike them – Bel’s aim had been terrible – but it smashed into the wall to their side, sending out a spray of shattered rock. The loud noise sent the horse man spinning in place as he searched for the unseen assailant.

Orseis took that moment to throw her divine spear. The weapon flew unerringly at the horse man and rider, but the shelled rider saw the attack. He tried to warn his companion, but Bel watched with confusion as the man opened his mouth without sound. He tried to twist in the saddle, but he was abruptly caught in the air. Bel finally recognized the work of Cress’ air manipulation.

The spear pierced straight through the horseman’s human torso. He yowled in agony as the weapon burst into blood-red dust and returned to Orseis’ grasp, loosing a gout of blood from the hole in his midsection. In desperation, he fired an arrow back at Orseis. Crecerelle quickly leaped in missile’s path.

She shrieked at the arrow and it shattered into a small cloud of wood dust a good ten paces away from its target.

Cress bent her knees and launched herself at the shelled man. She caught him in mid jump as leaped from the saddle. A swing of her maul smashed his body to the ground where another ear-splitting shriek splattered his head like an overripe fruit.

Cress’ snakes rattled with triumph. She spread her wings and lifted her weapon in victory.

Wow, she’s so cool, Bel thought, giving her fellow gorgon a quick round of applause.

Cress looked at her in surprise before laughing and bowing at the unexpected praise.

Then Bel’s transformation ended. Her body deflated, the rock chipping away from her skin as she cooled. Returning to her natural body left her feeling more exhausted than triumphant, and she fell onto her butt before heaving a heavy sigh of relief.

I’m glad I gave that spear to Orseis. It turned out that I didn’t need it.

That reminded her of the two-faced man. Bel twisted her body, searching for him, but man had cut and run after Kjar had cursed him.

Well, if being cursed is a big deal then I’m sure he’s having a bad time. That’s good enough for me.