Sell you a Bridge chapter 166

February 13th 2011 The OZ 6:00 AM EDT

The  trip through the "Fields of the Papay" was long and annoying. We had  to follow Cain's lead, which meant a damn slow walk because as badass as  the old man was, he was still human. In the meantime though it just  meant time to talk and figure out the situation here. Specifically,  while Zee was spending time entertaining DG, I slipped back to talk to  Dreamer. She was staring off into the distance past the group as we  walked, and jumped when I spoke up. "So. This is a bit different than  the last time you were here huh?"

It  took her a second to calm down after I scared her, but she shook it off  and gave me a rueful smile. "I suppose my distraction is anything but  subtle. Yes. I loved my time in the Wozenderlands, and I was very much  looking forward to my return. I'd only been here once, so I suspect now  that time may flow differently here than elsewhere. Faster. It has been  some few years since my visit, but not long enough for it to become..."  She gestured around us. "This." She gave the world around us a sad look.

The  look wasn't exactly without cause. The dead trees were twisted and  grotesque, with a seriously creepy vibe. Everyone in a while we would  pass small animal bones or the disgusting muck that Cain said was  digestive enzymes dripping from the trees. The whole place was a study  in death and horror, and I didn't blame Dreamer for being saddened by  what had happened to one of her favorite places.

I  put an arm around her, and she looked startled, but after a moment she  nuzzled against, resting her head on my shoulder as we walked. "For what  it's worth I am sorry. I know how excited you were to share this with  us. Hell, just to see it again yourself. It's hard to lose the things  that meant so much to us when we were younger. Maybe Central City is  better though? It could be more like what you remember. Plus Wonderland  is still around, I don't think we really have the time to visit but it  could still be the same as it was."

We  both knew I was lying to her of course. Central City sounded like a  nightmare, and Wonderland would wither be just as bad as the OZ or have  walled themselves off to keep the Queen of this shitshow from taking  over their entire kingdom. But Dreamer didn't need facts right now. She  need hope. She also needed cuddles, and not just from me. I reached out  through the void and with a pop I was holding a squirming Patches.  Dreamer giggled at the little puppy as I handed him over and she wrapped  him up in a big hug, nuzzling the squirming cornerpup.

I  felt a flash of gratitude and amusement over the bond from Zee and  turned to shoot her a smile and a wink as she went back to trying to  keep DG from spiraling. The girl was tough as nails for a normal person,  but having agents of an evil storm riding fascist secret police steal  your farmer parents and strand you in a hell world would get to anybody.  Luckily Zee's high charisma made her extremely well suited to social  interaction, and DG seemed to have developed a bit of hero worship for  the younger girl after she saw some of her magic.

We  all drew up short out of nowhere as one DG cried out in alarm. We all  looked over to find a strange blue web slime cocoon sort of them stuck  between a large group of dead trees, and inside we could see a shape  moving. We all crowded close, and most of us looked disturbed. Cain,  however just turned away. "Come on. They stuck it in here to eat later,  and they'll probably be back for the thing any minute." When he noticed  no one was moving he turned to glare at us. "I thought we agreed you  would follow my lead out here."

Honestly  I could see his point, but I wasn't scared of whatever weird monster  things were running around here, and the others didn't seem willing to  leave. Zee and DG both looked completely unwilling to move away, and  Wally was planted pretty firmly as well. I stepped forward, holding my  hands up placatingly. "I already proved I could handle things if the  Papay or whatever show up. No reason to leave the poor guy in there when  we could get him out. If it starts a fight I'll finish it, and the rest  of us aren't exactly helpless either."

Cain  looked annoyed, but he just turned his back on us and waited, not  leaving. DG turned to me. "Do you have anything sharp in that weird  pocket space of yours?" I did, in fact, have many sharp things. While we  had left the store stocked for Stanga we had brought at least a few  things with us just in case. I handed her a legend spike with a  sharpening enchant on it and she smiled her thanks before turning to cut  into the weird blue web...stuff. I was not looking forward to meeting  "the Papay" they were clearly very gross.

The  thing that came out of the web was...weird. It reminded me a bit of big  foot honestly, and it roared and waved it's arms, stopping when it  realized literally no one was impressed with it's show of force. It  noted how many of there were and sort of hesitated and stepped back.  Which was about the time that I felt a shaking in the ground. I spun  around to find some kind of weird root based bug beast speeding at us  faster than a speeding car. So I blasted it. A sphere of ectoplasm  smashed into the things face and it fucking exploded into a shower of  blue goo.

Everyone  turned to look at me and I shrugged. "It was coming right at us?" The  vibration started again, this time much, much more violent. I turned to  look behind us as Patches growled from his place snuggled into Dreamers  arms. Serifan stepped up. "We might want to be goin' boys and girls. I  can see them from pretty far out, and there are...a LOT of them. Might  be we can get rid of them all, but we have some fragile folks with us  too, and nothing saying one of them might not get past us.

I  nodded to him, that was a good point. We took off in another direction  on foot, though I spammed about ten clones for two hundred points and  sent them flying in all directions to distract the incoming horde while  Dreamer and I cloaked us all. "Let's go everybody, we don't want to be  here when that things friends show up." That said I cupped my hands and  infused demonic power, shadow manipulation, and ecstoplasm into a  compact shape and started tossing them behind us to act as traps.

Using  the ectoplasm as a fuel to propel the spikes of shadow, with the  demonic magic to act as a sensor and a trigger, I created makeshift  mines to line the road behind us, throwing out twenty or so of the  things to take out anything that followed. Between that and the decoys  we should be able to retreat in safety as we got the hell out of dodge. I  kind of wanted to rain destruction down on the things, but Serifan was  right, some of our people were too fragile to survive a surprise attack,  and despite my cloning ability I couldn't really be everywhere at once.

Sadly  there wasn't really far to go. We ended up stopped at a massive cliff  and we hadn't gone far enough to have lost the things yet. They would  definitely find us here, but we had a minute to think. I eyeballed the  distance to the bank of the lake at the bottom of this waterfall.  Climbing was out. I could probably lift everyone with an aura of  ectoplasm but it seemed like a huge waste of power. Which meant  teleporting down there. Shadow porting this many people would be fucking  annoying but it was doable.

I  looked around. "Alright, everyone gather round. I'm going to get us  down there. Get in close because this is going to be exhausting enough  without having to compensate for distance between us. Even crowded in  and I cracked my neck. I felt my clones start to vanish. Fuck, there  must be a lot of those things to kill all ten of them so far apart in  such a short amount of time. I was rocking almost ten thousand point  still. I'd spent two hundred on clones, another four hundred on those  ecto bombs (demonic magic was expensive) and this teleport would be last  minute so I was guessing four hundred or so as a safe number.

So  that was down to nine thousand. I turned to look behind us and grinned.  Putting my hands together I concocted another ecto spike bomb. A much  bigger one, for a thousand points. Considering the others had been  twenty a piece, this one was going to be a doozy. I dropped the super  bomb as I teleported us down to the lake shore at the bottom of the  cliff, having waited just long enough for the Papay runners to catch up  to us. Being a cool guy I of course, did not look at the resulting  explosion, but with that much power behind it I sure as hell heard it.

The  others all stared at me in awe as I closed my eyes to see the eight  thousand remaining points blazing behind my lids. Not ideal but that  could be worse. Once I checked that I turned to smile brightly at my  companions. "Well then friends, looks like we're in the clear for now.  Based on what Cain said that was far from all of those things, but that  blast should have put a hell of a dent in their hunting party, so I  doubt they would be in the mood to follow even if they could, which  based on the clear delineation in their territory they probably can't.  Which gives us some breathing room." I turned to fur boy. "I'd say it's  time for introductions, why don't you go first?"

The  furry guy shied away from my gaze, turning to cower from us, and I  honestly felt like kind of a dick. Cain noted a wound on the back of his  head. "Ah. He's a viewer." We turned to look at the older man  curiously. He sighed. "Viewers are like psychics, except instead of  seeing with their minds they see with their hearts. They can see things  far away, sense emotions. That kind of thing. Azkedelia abducts them and  uses their second sight to spy on people so she knows when to have her  longcoats dispose of dissidents."

That  was interesting. DG seemed to feel bad for the poor guy and stepped up  to put a hand on his shoulder and he jumped, shying back from her touch.  She tried again, slower this time. "It's ok. We aren't going to hurt  you. We're looking for my parents. Do you think you could help us? I'm  DG by the way, what's your name?" The furry man reached down with a  stick, writing the word RAW in the dirt.

DG  smiled encouragingly. "That's a nice name. Raw. It's nice to meet you.  Do you think you can help us?" The viewer looked a bit unsure, but  finally after holding onto DG for a bit he nodded. I saw in his aura  that he was reading hers, and he was touched by what he saw. DG really  was a nice girl, and she'd clearly gotten through to the empath. I  wasn't going to complain. Any help was welcome help. All the better to  get this done and get home where we belonged.