(Wheee, and now we’re on to chapter eleven! I have no idea how, why, or when, but I think the brakes on this crazy-train have been cut and there’s no stopping me! This chapter needs a big fat CONTENT WARNING, for homophobia and language, so please be aware of it. As always, I have a Patreon, if you feel like supporting me, please feel free to! Anyway, let’s-a go!)

I send a quick message to Asteria, giving her the exact location of the battlefield, before hearing that obnoxiously-loud screeching grow more alarmed. “Up there! There’s a flying one, shoot it! Kill it now!” with a beat of my wings, I bank to the side, narrowly avoiding a small salvo of crossbow bolts and a couple of spells.

“Oi, watch the aim! I’m not an enemy, I’m here to help! Give me a second; I have a friend on the way as well!” I shout down, waving my spear, before dropping my altitude to about ten metres above the scrimmage. “All Argonauts, brace yourselves for impact, I’m coming in!”

With a shout of confirmation, I furl my wings, aiming my greatshield downwards and triggering the Sky Hammer skill, momentum plucking my hair back in a long white stream as I plow into the small grey goblinoids at incredible speeds. Several end up crushed and impaled by the spines of my Needleboar shield, more falling back and scrambling to escape the site of my dynamic entry.

However, their momentary confusion gives way to the same mindless frenzy as before, and the tide of bodies presses in again. Filthy, straggly hair, unwashed, reeking furs, broken and chipped weapons… these things aren’t scary, just pitiful. However, the strange frenzy that drives them on has them in its grasp, and I end up having to use my shield more and more, slamming and sweeping it back and forth, taking wide swings with my lance whenever I can, the occasional discharge of the stored electricity snapping and booming every so often.

Despite my best efforts, I end up being pressed into the defensive lines of the other players, nodding as they squeeze aside enough to let me in. The pink girl is still yapping like an excited puppy, gesticulating wildly as she tries to give orders. Asteria arrives in a whirl of flame and frost, her massive scythe crashing into the ground and shattering, sending glacial razors everywhere, severing limbs and piercing chests.

Even with her magic, the battle is far from over, bolts of lightning and gouts of fire scoring deep gouges in the onrushing horde, but each gap is filled in moments, only buying us seconds at most. This looks bad… and, through it all, that incessant, high-pitched shrieking! Someone, anyone, please shut that girl up!

The booming of wind being pummelled by wings rises over the sounds of violence, and a loud, familiar voice roars out, “Incoming! I’m joining the fray!” a massive black orb slams down in the heart of the swarm of little grey monsters, sending bodies and limbs flying a dozen feet in the air.

“Harvenhaight!” I call, relief breaking into my tone and stabbing forward, activating my Stormstrike as I skewer the goblin-thing in front, the crack of ionising air rising for an instant as it spasms from the powerful electric shock, sweeping my lance to dislodge the corpse from its point as the formation starts advancing, another bolt of dark energy whipping down and smashing a line of creatures into twitching heaps.

Jeffrey’s avatar descends, drawing a sword made from condensed shadows, and dives, using one of his huge wings to batter one of the remaining antagonists across the blood-soaked grass, wielding that massive sword in one fist. “Not many to go, do not falter!” His deep baritone echoes out, and I roar back, followed by Asteria and what sounds like everyone else still standing.

Thanks to Harvenhaight’s intervention, the last of the weird little gremlins fall, one after another, and the only sounds left are those of exhaustion and pain. I sag, leaning on my spear as I support myself with the haft, dull, brackish fluids running down from the stained golden twist, the crystal within humming softly, almost charged once again.

While several of the group we’d helped began stripping what valuables and items they could from the carpet of grey bodies before piling them in a heap at the far end of the greensward, a short, burly dwarf in heavy armour approaches, raising his chipped axe in greeting.

“Thanks, you three. That was a mite hairier than even me, and I’m pretty hairy, I can tell you!” he chuckles, running a mailed hand through his matted beard. “Now, we should probably discuss your reward for the save, aye?”

Before anyone can say anything else, the pink-haired girl, who’d been mercifully quiet for the last ten minutes or so, revved up again. “No! You can’t give them anything; we didn’t need their ‘help’! We had it all covered fine!”  Everyone around us groaned and muttered at the statement.

The dwarf rolled his eyes. “Marika, are you blinder than a particularly concussed megabat? This whole mess is YOUR fault! YOU wanted to explore, YOU kicked one of those Hooloo, YOU brought the whole colony down on us, and YOU were the first to run for it! We lost over half our number! FIFTEEN. PEOPLE. DIED, because of YOU and your stupid decisions!”

I exchange an awkward look with Asteria as Marika puffs herself up.  “Well, if you’d been better at fighting, we wouldn’t have lost anyone! You’re to blame, Gimmel! You’re supposed to be the security guy!”

While the two begin full-on arguing, Harvenhaight begins walking around, administering some kind of first-aid to anyone who needs it. Despite everything, though, there’d still been a couple more deaths, and he kneels, closing eyes and offering his respects to the fallen. Finally, he approaches, looking Marika up and down. “So, who’s the one in charge?”

 Before Gimmel can say anything, the pinkette snaps, “Well I am, obviously! What are you, an idiot?! Go away and ‘save’ people who actually want it!”

Harvenhaight raises an eyebrow. “First, no, I’m not an idiot; I’m just someone who wants to know how the supposed LEADER of this band made it through that whole fight without taking a single point of damage. Your MP bar’s full, too, so you clearly weren’t using any magic either.” Marika goes absolutely scarlet, her eyes bulging.

Harvenhaight holds up his hand, adding, “Also, you’re around level 21, not bad. But, guess what level Kettrin here-” he gestures at me, and I blink in confusion, “-started this battle at level 5. A level 5, less than a quarter of your level, had the figurative balls to put herself on the front lines. Why did you just cower?”

Marika’s face goes an even uglier shade of crimson. “Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! I’M THE LEADER, HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME, YOU… YOU…. YOU FAGGOT!”

Before I can stop myself, I’ve crossed the short distance between us, and, drawing my hand back, I swing, bringing my palm into direct contact with Marika’s cheek, the slap sounding almost as loud as the discharge of my Stormstrike.

“Shut your mouth, you pink-haired dickroomba!” I yell down at her, as she gawps up at me, her hand pressed to her stinging face. “Say that again, and I’ll be REALLY mad, got it?! He saved your friends, he saved YOU, and you just insult him? Just how entitled are you, you Useless-saurus ?!”

Marika hauls herself up as the first snickers begin to fill the air, before a couple of Gimmel’s men join him, their expressions stony.

“What the hell? You got some kinda problem wi’ gay people??” one of them asks, his bushy eyebrows knitting together in a fierce scowl. The look on the girl’s face starts to look less sure of herself, the confident sneer dropping away to be replaced with uncertainty.

“It’s WRONG to be gay! It means you’re sick in the head and need to be fixed! Just like all those LABQT people!”

I lay a hand on Jeffrey’s forearm as I spot the expression on his avatar’s face. The bushy-brows dwarf stomps forwards, shaking a ham-sized fist at the offensive girl. “My cousin’s gay, and his husband is one of the coolest people I have ever met. They make a great couple. YOU, on the other hand, will find out if I can hit harder than that angel-girl does if you don’t apologize!”

Huffing and folding her arms across her chest, Marika’s next words seal her fate. “Why should I apologize to a bunch of homo-lovers?!” Silence. Pure, dead, horrified silence.

Harvenhaight’s face darkens. Shadows start to drift and swirl around him as his eyes start glowing white. His voice carries an echoing, dissonant timbre that seems out of sync with his words. “I was trying to be nice. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and never asked for a reward. But then, to say the things you did… Yes, I am gay. And I am proud. But to you, I will be your worst. Fucking. Nightmare.”

Harvenhaight’s shadow… rises, separating itself from him and splitting into a dozen wingless copies. The silhouettes warp and shift, growing broader and taller almost ten feet in height and four in breadth, their forearms longer than a normal person’s, each paw-like, nine-fingered hand sporting thick claws that reach their knees. Their legs are canine, bent back, with longer foot paws. Lupine heads, with massive muzzles full of smoke-wreathed fangs. The silent, sinister entities take up positions around Harvenhaight as his glowing blank eyes bored into the stunned girl.

“You have been nothing but an obnoxious, offensive, intolerant brat since the moment we encountered each other, and I have reached the limit on my patience with your rampant bigotry. If you have even a single brain cell rattling around in that skull of yours, you’d better use it to start running… or you will learn to fear the Black Parade.”

As one, the strange creatures rear their heads back and howl, a sound like the anguished dead suffering an eternity of agony. Everyone around fell to their knees or flat on their backs, gasping for breath. That howl… it held so much pain, and loss, and despair… such rage and fear… and we weren’t even the target of that awful, wretched cry.

Marika’s face drained entirely of blood, tears trickling down her still, blank face until she looked like a wax figure, before she backed slowly out of the clearing. The moment she was out of sight, the sound of desperate running and sobbing fades into the distance. The black, smoky creatures look to my friend, as if waiting for orders. He growls, “Chase her for five minutes, do not harm her, then return to my side and disappear into my shadow until I call you again.”

With another, less-disturbing cry, the creatures bound out of the clearing on all fours, vanishing into the trees in moments.

Picking myself up off the filthy grass, I help Asteria up, clinging to her hand nervously. I’d never seen Jeffrey get like that, and I was afraid for him. “Harvenhaight? Are you...okay? Speak to me, buddy, I’m right here…” I reach out and touch his shoulder, with some difficulty due to him being about eight feet tall. He snaps out of his weird trance and looks down.

“Ah! Uh… sorry about that, I just got kinda mad and set my Black Parade on the hunt. Those Wyrewolves are fully under my control, don’t worry.”

Gimmel recovers and thumps Harvenhaight on the back. “Well, I can understand why ye got mad, big fella. Honestly, if it weren’t you, it’d be one of us trying to feed her her own legs!”

The rest of Gimmel’s party joins us, and thanks are distributed, along with a hefty reward for our help. As a final act of spite, before the plunder is divided, everyone opens their menu and leaves Marika’s party, establishing a new one under the burly dwarf’s more-attentive leadership. I pipe up to invite Gimmel and the rest to share our camp for the night, and he grins, declining the offer. “Nah, we couldn’t intrude. How’s-about YOU three come to OUR camp? We’ve got a few more lads back there, as well as someone who’d be mighty interested in meeting y’all. He’s got this long-ass fancy name, but we jus’ call him Doc, or the doctor.”