Sacred stood close, as if he already belonged to the group. “That’s the Guiding Eye of my Guardian Angel? Not that I believe- Gene just called it that and she’s the only ranger I knew till today. It helps us prophesize events.”
“We call it the Watcher, yeah,” Theo said.
“Uh, guys?” Keith said, inside the barn. “Something’s showing up on Mel’s radar.”
“Who’s Mel?” Sacred asked.
Theo looked into the noosphere as he spoke, to check if the hunk was going to freak out. “An allied Outsider entwined with Keith. *Not* a demon.”
Sacred raised his hands. “I’m not an idiot, okay? Willing to learn.”
Keith waved from the hole. “Seriously, Cor, take a peak and report.”
Coralline stepped up to the hole. “Tank, can you give me a lift?”
“Gladly, my dainty lady.”
“Can you do it without the sexism?”
“Hehe. One demand at a time, princess.”
Theo huffed a laugh. “I’ll housebreak him one day.”
They all climbed in, squeezing into the office where the desk was still blocking the door, lit by naked bulbs.
There weren’t fractures in reality this time but blurry bubbles, shapelessly wobbling and drifting. Coralline sent her report while the others counted. The wobbles were growing in number — and in size.
“Might be time to leave,” Keith said.
Something *clanked*.
A man had appeared at the exit hole, tall, massive, clad in a mix of knight armor and samurai gear. He held a spear. His eyes behind the helmet’s grate gleamed.
“Death to our enemies.”
The unreality blobs took over, filling the room like massive soap bubbles until they touched the walls.
“War archon or something,” Keith warned and Melisandre slipped out of his body as a woman made of night, rolling out dark clouds to block the enemy’s sight.
Wisps trailed through the air.
“Demon?” Dawn asked, her crossbow raised.
“Does it matter?” Keith said. “It’s a muse and it’s gonna kill us.”
“Might be protecting this place,” Godrick said. “Hey you incarnation of war or battle or what have you. Would you let us leave after some show combat?”
The war archon barreled through the dark clouds. “Death upon intruders.”
Godrick went in, opening with a flying kick.
Fulin had been pulling Theo and Coralline to the blocked door but the space behind it had turned into a labyrinth — or turned *back* into one if Sacred was right.
The path beyond the desk branched into two, then each branched again, twisting and turning up or down. They had to ask Sacred for his experience and ranger senses.
Where had he- The youngest Redeemer in the group was clutching his head and grimaced in horror.
“Oh shit,” Theo said and looked at his own lapel. His powered sigil, inspired by mock alchemical circles, was warding off dream wisps that brushed against him. Sacred had no such protections.
Theo pulled a spare seal from his pockets and slapped the paper on Sacred’s head. A wisp got pushed out.
“The frick?”
“Nightmare,” Theo said. “D-do you know how seals work? How to power them?”
“Uh, no.”
Theo tried to pin the strip to a button on the man’s leather jacket. “Just keep this here and don’t go too far. Beat up the war archon if you can.”
Rosamunde the bird had transformed into a whip of braided barbed wire, sparking around the archon’s armor. Dawn had managed to lodge a bolt in the enemy muse’s face plate but that didn’t slow the creature down.
“Demiplane,” Keith yelled. The office completed its magical transformation. Unreality made way for a new space.
It resembled in proportion what the original wooden church might have looked like, with arching windows of stained glass along the sides, self-illuminating. At the other end was a complex rosette window and before it a stone slab like an altar, three humans in everyday clothes draped over it.
The humans stirred.
Fulin had joined the fight against the war archon, letting Weidong snap from his chest to try and rip armor of the being while Godrick and his familiar in whip-form kept the enemy’s attention. Xiang in Fulin’s sneakers kept streaking ice onto the floor, forcing the samurai-knight to walk slowly and carefully.
Dawn joined Theo and the others. “My bolts aren’t doing a thing. Any bright ideas?”
Keith looked around. “This doesn’t seem like a demiplane of combat. He’s just a guardian but not the muse or god that made this sanctuary. If we can figure out who or what… Church, worship, harmony, glass, color, veneration itself?”
Theo pulled his inhabited water bottle from his bag. Maybe Sliver was going to be useful. He fed an iota of V into the glass wisp.
The three humans at the altar rose with poses that seemed too bent to be comfortable. Low moans, shambling steps. Two men, one woman.
The trio transformed.
“Possession,” Keith said. “And I think they’re corpses, not people.”
“I hope so,” Dawn said. “Makes this easier.”
She fired into one man’s thigh and he was pulled back by the empowered impact.
Theo pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and started drawing a seal, as elaborate as he could make it under time pressure. He was aware that the ambient nightmare wisps were still slowly chipping away at his anti-dream seals. He’d have to decide where to put his V.
The shot guy rose on a stiff leg and transformed. Glittering shards pushed out of his skin, jewels and gold and pearls, forming huge necklaces, bracelets and so on. A crown buried out of his head.
“Jewelry jinn,” Keith said. “Better not get cut.” He pushed Coralline behind himself and dark fog seemed from his legs, rising around them. “The others might just be sprites, so- Fuck, they’re also muses.”
The other man grew strips of fur and cat ears. Small, sharp teeth dug through his lips. He hunched over, not quite on all fours. The woman’s limbs burst into bundles of golden grain. A scythe formed in her wheat-grasp.
“Uh, cat fae?” Coralline guessed. “Would it be afraid of Weidong?”
Keith hummed. “And… a field fae? Harvest? Wheat? A nature dryad? That would make sense for the location. She might be the sanctuary keeper, but it’s not super barn-like in here.”
The jewel jinn was the only one interested in closing in. He came fast. Theo tossed his hastily drawn seal at the ground and the possessed corpse slithered aside. Darkness wafted up.
Dawn had loaded a bolt and aimed at the feline zombie. The cat fae got a shot to the head and crumbled. It rose again, but with a lack of motor control. The possessor couldn’t entirely work around the brain damage.
“Keith, give us cover,” Theo said and tapped his bracelet. Echo sprite Melody eagerly hoovered the V the blond shaman provided.
Their group ducked through Melisandre’s cover, leaving behind an echo — a static image of themselves, slowly fading. It was enough to confuse cat-man and wheat-lady until Theo, Dawn, Keith, Coralline and Sacred made it to the other side of the room.
“We could enter the labyrinth,” Sacred said. “But if we get cornered in a dead end we’re scrambled.”
“You guys can’t even say *screwed*?”
Theo only got a shrug in response.
The jewelry jinn slapped the echoes away and scanned the room. The field dryad leaked locusts from her… everything. The cat fae had given up on piloting the corpse like a human and pulled its joints like a marionette.