We moved north through what had been thirty-one people’s camp and was now something else entirely. I kept a fast pace so that Dara and Bari would not be frozen by what they were seeing around them.
Dara stumbled, and I steadied her. Then, when I looked down, I saw that she had nearly tripped over the body of Mage Torvin near the overturned instrument tables, his magnificent mustache was covered with blood, and his dark blue field coat was dark with blood that had re-emerged from his body that had almost been cut in two from the neck down.
He was a researcher from the northern provinces whose name I had learned at the second evening meal.
Before long, we came across the body of one of the local porters who had laughed at Bari’s goat story, and then the militia escort who had complained about her boots.
So many bodies... I should stop focusing on them, I chided myself, it was only going to get me killed even faster.
A sound of fear drew my attention, and I saw that Pell was alive, pressed against the collapsed tent’s north face with his knees drawn up and his eyes fixed on nothing.
I logged it; there were certain abnormalities about the way these demons were killing that struck me as odd, and for now, I could not really think about it, so I kept moving.
The cold spot at my right shoulder flared and I turned and cast Spark before I found the target, trusting Death-Touched to show me the angle, and the discharge went wide, it was not as clean as I would have wanted in the past, since it was not aimed at anything I could see, but it connected with something in the gap between two overturned crates and the flat tone sounded and I heard movement that was not human movement and a crash as the cold spot at my shoulder faded.
Bari made a sound behind me.
"What was that?" he said.
"There are more of them around us than we can see," I said. "Stay close."
"How do you know where they are?" he said.
I did not have time to explain how Death-Touched worked, and I did not believe I truly understood all of it, but I knew that I may have just gained an uncommon skill [Marksman] because of it.
"Stay close," I said again, and this was all I could say for now.
We reached Commander Rel at the northern edge of camp, and she was exactly what I had always known her to be in the chaos of this hour, the one person present who was spending her training rather than her panic.
But she was injured, and there were two surviving expedition members behind her, three with Pell if he reached us. Perhaps I should have brought him along, but I did not think I had the time to convince a panicking man who was on the verge of losing his mind to his feet.
Unlike Acolytes who have been trained to push aside their emotions and think critically, and were aided by a greater soul capacity, allowing us to push our minds and bodies past what could ever be considered normal, most people would break in situations like this... I looked at my friends and Commander Rel... but not us.
The Commander looked at the three of us and made her assessment in two seconds.
"Voss," she said. "Where is Rex Aldran?"
I turned around and saw the realization and the horror enter the eyes of Bari and Dara, as we all realized that in our horror, we forgot one of our partners.
But then I realized that in the previous loop, Rex had vanished before the horror began, and now, even though I was not checking, I had not seen his body, and I don’t think I would have missed it because of his loud attire that reminded me of a peacock.
"Did you see Rex anywhere?" I asked the two, and they shook their heads from side to side.
Commander Rel frowned, and I instantly understood that she was more concerned about the safety of Rex than anyone in this expedition, but then, when I thought about the powerful Aldran family and their reach that surpassed even this continent, I could understand why the safety of someone like Rex was important.
But that did not mean that it did not piss me off.
Finally, she frowned and looked at us, "I see that you knocked down these demons by using Spark?" she asked as if she was surprised that something like that could ever work, and I could not even gloat, knowing that the entire reason I discovered this was by coincidence.
"Temporarily," I said.
"How long?"
"Seconds," I said. "Maybe less, but a proper Surge cast with Spark may keep them down permanently."
"You mean a lightning spell... good, I will send the message to the Adepts still alive, they are the only people who can rescue us. Stay close and..."
I was always aware that many cold spots surrounded me, and I wagered all of us here, and the cold spot at my left knee flared suddenly, and I was already turning and casting the last Spark I had with four percent Anima Depth left to me, the channel scraped almost completely empty.
The discharge was thin and weak and barely a Spark at all, at the demon that had come through the gap between the commander’s position and the pyramid’s north face, and the tendrils flickered, not locked, and the demon checked for half a second and came on.
The cold spots at my waist, neck, and heart all flared together.
I raised my staff, and not knowing why, I said what I said, even knowing there was no purpose.
"Dara," I said. "I have been here before. Many times. You will not remember this conversation. But I need you to know..."
The demon reached me.
"Up, up, lazy cur. Elric, I say, wake up!"
I opened my eyes, and I lay on my bed in silence, not making any move for five minutes, and then, calling up my status screen, I came to my feet.
"What progress have I made, and how can I become better?"