The stalkers came for Dan, but even without using spells, his increased speed, strength, and durability were enough for him to fight them on equal footing. At least one-on-one they were. Three of the great flying wolves surrounded him, nipping and slashing at Dan while he used his new agility and Spatial Shield to keep himself whole.
Periodically, one of the stalkers moved a little too slow and he scored their muzzles or paws with his sword, but even through his mana-fueled courage, Dan knew that he was losing.
Eventually, he would slip up, and one of the stalkers would catch him. The armor rune might protect him from the worst of it, but even getting knocked to the ground would almost certainly lead to his death. Surrounded like he was, speed and strength on their own just weren’t the solution. Internally, Dan shrugged. Maybe the mana rush was making him overly bold, but he was finally a wizard, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to use magic to get out of this mess.
Without giving himself time to second-guess his decision, Dan threw a fireball into the air directly above himself, immediately following it with a force bubble. Almost immediately, the fireball detonated, and Dan clenched his jaw, praying that his hasty trigonometry was accurate. Fire washed over the clearing, but the force bubble directly under the epicenter projected a cone of calm over Dan as the burning gases originally propelled in his direction by the first spell were deflected by the second spell.
Around him, all three stalkers shrieked and pulled back, their heavy, matted fur smoldering. Dan lunged towards the nearest one, pushing his runes to their limit and burning mana at a dangerous rate. Despite being temporarily blinded by the flash from the fireball, the creature sensed his approach and tried to swipe at him with its paw. Dan slipped under the gleaming scimitars of its claws and stabbed upward into the monster’s unprotected lower jaw. The beast’s shudder vibrated his hand through the hilt of his sword as the blade sank through its tongue and the tip lodged in its brain.
Dan ripped the battered sword out of the dying animal and shuddered as its mana flowed into him. The pink clouds at the edge of his vision deepened as the pleasure intensified. At some point, his mouth had locked into a feral grin. He whipped around and charged another stalker, only to dodge backward at the last second to avoid its claws.
“You’re not so tough, are you?” Dan’s voice was slurred. His cheeks felt like they were stuffed with gauze and his tongue was swollen, heavy, and alien in his mouth. Still, he didn’t care. His eyes didn’t leave the two mana-filled stalkers that cautiously circled him. “For all your size and strength, you’re ambush predators. You don’t know how to properly fight something that fights back. All I hafta do is get you in the throat and it’s all over. Just like anyone else wearing armor, I just hafta hit the weak spots.”
One of the stalkers leapt at him, its wings flapping once as it tried to bury him beneath its claws and bulk. Madness flashed in Dan’s eyes as he launched another fireball, this one set to detonate beneath the stalker. A moment later, the blast scorched the monster’s vulnerable underside and knocked it further into the air, forcing it to sail over Dan’s ducking form. The night filled with Dan’s unhindered laughter as he darted forward, two quick slashes severing the off-balance stalker’s rear hamstrings before its companion could come to its aid.
Dan spun away from the collapsing monster and faced down the sole remaining intact stalker. The final beast was cautious. Whether it learned from watching Dan maim and murder two of its brethren or some other sort of natural instinct, it refused to overextend itself. Dan took the initiative and moved the fight away from the injured animal. It may not be mobile, but he still didn’t want to get within the reach of its jaws or front paws. After everything he had been through, dying to a crippled stalker would be a little too embarrassing.
For almost five minutes, they engaged in a game of cat and mouse, the injured stalker mewling pathetically as it tried to comprehend why its back legs no longer worked. Dan took the opportunity to turn off all but the agility rune to allow his depleted mana reserves to replenish. Finally, as the euphoria from absorbing the two dead stalkers’ mana began to fade, Dan grew impatient. This fight should have already ended, but this animal refused to commit itself enough to a strike to allow a counterattack. If it would leave him alone for a second, he could finish off the wounded beast and take the edge off of the headache that was growing to fill the void left by the mana high.
He pretended to slip, falling to one knee with a pathetic yelp. The remaining stalker lunged at him, only for it to clip a stationary force bubble hovering in the air. The creature’s momentum spun it to the side where a Lightning Stroke took it in the wing. It spasmed briefly before recovering from the attacks, but Dan was already there. Runes blazing, he stabbed his sword into the stalker’s side. The blade cut through the creature’s thick fur and deflected off of an iron-hard rib to sink into its lung. Dan jumped back before it could retaliate. Already, its breath came in a shallow wheeze.
“Just die already,” he spat out through gritted teeth before raising both hands and unleashing a Lightning Stroke through each hand into the six to eight inches of his sword’s blade that were still exposed. The stalker spasmed as the conductive material directed the electricity into its soft internal organs. Dan took a step forward and grimaced at the growing mana depletion headache before unleashing a Flame Jet from each hand into the twitching creature’s face, erasing its eyes. Its mouth opened and closed mutely as it tried to respond with paralyzed lungs.
Dan walked around the creature and pulled his sword out of it. The stalker rolled over onto its side and pawed weakly at him, but he simply stepped to the side before returning to the creature’s front and stabbing the sword into its empty eye socket. It stopped moving, and a second later, mana poured into him, easing his depletion headache immediately.
His smile restored, Dan slowly approached the hamstrung stalker. As it sensed his approach, it tried to paw at the ground and flap its wings to escape, only for a Lightning Stroke followed by a pair of sword blows to sever them. Almost indolently, he approached the mewling creature. Looking it in the eyes, Dan shook his head.
“Friend,” he spoke to the crippled monster with faux sincerity, “almost a year ago I lay exactly where you were. Crippled from a fight that I had no business being in. I only survived due to tricks and luck. You, my friend, never had any tricks other than silence, and you are fresh out of luck.”
He stepped past a desperate paw swipe and stabbed the sword into the creature’s eye. A moment later, Dan shuddered as its mana poured into him. He removed the sword and wiped the gore from it on the side of the downed stalker. He looked up into the night sky, barely feeling the cold wind blow past him while his entire being was wrapped in the pink warmth of its mana.
The rest of the night passed in a blur. Stalkers challenged him in ones and twos, and he slew them. After his fifth kill of the night, the mana completely took Dan and he lost count.
Fights began to blur together. Dan’s sword seemed to rise and fall on its own as he fired spell after spell from his rapidly-replenishing mana into the vague forms of monsters that plagued Twilight’s perilous nights.
At some point, he ranked up, the change in his mana providing a brief moment of lucidity while he stood atop a gaunt’s mutilated corpse. He shivered, the monster’s rapidly-cooling blood covering his face and chest.
The creature had tried to warp his mind, its powers entirely useless against the pink fog of mana and pleasure that accompanied his rampage. Numerous System notifications blinked, awaiting his attention as they indicated that it had tried and failed to seize control of his emotions.
He glared down at its corpse, trying to piece together exactly what had happened as billowing clouds of pink smoke crowded at the corner of his vision, whispering at him to give in to the ecstasy of the moment.
Dan blinked to clear his vision, only for time to jump and skip again. He had no idea where he was, but his left arm held the bottom jaw of an unwilling stalker. He was riding the struggling creature, forcing its jaw shut while he sawed through its throat with his sword.
Distantly, Dan noted that his arms and legs should be tired to the point of exhaustion from the constant combat. Maybe it was the near constant mana high, but he felt fine. Better than fine.
Then, the stalkers stopped appearing. Dan searched, but nothing would approach. At least in this small corner of Twilight’s night, he was the apex predator, and the locals recognized him as such. After no more prey appeared for almost twenty minutes and the mana high began to wear off, Dan noticed Tanloff beginning to peak over the horizon. For whatever it was worth, he had survived the night.
He sheathed his sword and began his hike back toward the mansion, his body still tingling with the flashes of mana from his long night. He had to look like a mess, a mass of drying blood and bits of monster meat. Still, Daeson had set an impossible task before him once again, and he returned triumphant. After about ten minutes, Dan found himself approaching the mansion.
Daeson sat in a chair, an empty cup in his hand and wine staining his tunic. At his feet, five empty wine bottles cluttered the floor. The elf was asleep. Of course he was. While he sent Dan out to risk his life, Daeson threw himself a pity party and drank himself to sleep. Dan cleared his throat, taking some satisfaction in watching the startled elf stumble and fall out of his chair as he tried to stand up.
“Daniel,” Daeson sputtered, clearly drunk, “whatever is the meaning of this? Sneaking up on me like that and forcing me to spill my drink.”
“The drink was spilled when I got here Daeson,” Dan replied, wiping some of the blood from his face. “You were drunk and asleep.”
“I am not drunk!” Daeson shrieked, swinging his right hand, vambrace glinting in Tanloff’s light. An invisible hand swatted Dan. His nose broke with a sickening crunch and spray of blood as he was sent flying.
“I am sick of Jareth’s accusations that I’m a drunk!” the elf ranted, pacing back and forth. “I drink in moderation, but I am not an embarrassment to myself or this institution. Without me bringing in new students and grant money, where would this Academy be? Nothing but a collection of indolent second sons of merchants. No, without me we wouldn’t be on the map to begin with, and now you cast me aside. You say that I’m a drunk. That I fornicate with humans!”
“Ha!” Daeson was shouting, insensible to the world around him. “This board of regents disgusts me almost as much as humans do. So you will take everything from me, exile me to a tributary world to finish my research. This is not the last of me. Daeson Amberell will not be silenced by the likes of you!”
Dan stood up, pain radiating from his face. The blood from his broken nose dripped warm against the cooling gore from the monsters he had spent the night killing. This was the last fucking straw. Daeson was insane, but for a time, he was actually teaching Dan. Now, he was just a ranting menace that would kill him sooner or later. Probably out of madness and boredom rather than malice.
Really, it was Daeson or him. Dan had known that for a while, but the elf had always seemed unassailable. Too powerful to challenge in a straight fight and too resourceful to successfully escape. Now, though? He was drunk. So drunk he was debating an imaginary chancellor. Just standing there defenseless and full of mana.
Sparkles of pleasure and energy floated through Dan’s body as he thought of the prospect. Each stalker had been a banquet of pleasure, but they were candles compared to Daeson’s bonfire. This was really his only chance to get the drop on the batty old elf, and Dan would be a fool not to take it.
Dan slowly walked toward Daeson as the elf ranted to himself, doing his best to not draw the erratic elf’s attention. He licked his lips. The salt and iron from his blood mixed with the stalkers’ caused him to shudder. Soon it would be over. He would no longer be at Daeson’s mercy, and he would have all of the mana that the decadent elf hoarded for himself. Really, it was a service to Earth. Dan dismissed the voice in the back of his head that warned him he was about to make a mistake. Daeson was a threat to them all, and with his mana, Dan would be that much closer to reaching rank 5 and being able to return home.
He stopped ten feet behind the elf and raised his left hand. Plus, the idiot was just standing there defenseless. Dan would be an idiot not take the opportunity presented to him. He unleashed a Lightning Stroke at Daeson’s unprotected back.
The electricity warped harmlessly around a shimmering bubble encasing the elf. Dan stared blankly at his empty left hand.
“Treachery!” Daeson hissed, his golden eyes burning as he whipped around with ghostly speed. “I should have pegged you for one of Jareth’s agents from the beginning!”
