What Little Remains Of Terpsichore Ironheart

"That was brutal," Volex noted as I pulled my motorcycle out of its enchanted storage cloth.

"Volex, you're my friend, and after your history of friendship to my family and service in the war against Hell, I really, really want to trust you and rely on your help," I said. "However. You're also a creature of narrative, and this is the worst possible time for you to start setting up this stupid-ass betrayal arc."

"That's not what I meant," Volex said, her tail flicking from side to side like an agitated cat. "I don't give a fuck about those assholes, I'm worried about you. The first time we met, you killed a man who had personally done you a great deal of insult and injury, after a long, drawn-out fight to get the blood pumping. Here, you just executed four men in cold blood, and I'm worried about what that'll do to you."

"I assure you: my blood is not cold right now," I said, climbing astride my motorcycle. "I have, in fact, been seething with rage since the moment I woke up, because I do not have time for this kind of horseshit!"

"...I see," Volex said.

"They kidnapped my friends," I said. "They kidnapped three young women- barely more than just girls- to sacrifice them to a fucking demon. You think I don't care about that? That I can just shrug that off? Do you think, just because of my name, that I have a heart made of stone?"

"Okay, reel it back, champ," Volex said, before snatching up a cardboard tube with her tail. "By the way, you're forgetting this."

"...What about it?" I asked, looking at the cardboard tube she'd picked up. I'd dismissed it as just fireworks- something they had to ease the boredom of being stuck out in the middle of nowhere- but evidently Volex felt differently about it.

"It's a signal flare," Volex said. "Light this, and it shoots off into the sky, and the cavalry comes running."

"...Alright, okay," I said, nodding slowly. "I'm starting to see what you mean. Okay, I like it. Lemme set some stuff up real quick."

---

After the setup was completed, I got back on my motorcycle, and raced off into the desert. This time, though, I made sure to cross to the other side of the main pack's trail, and got some more distance before turning to follow the general direction of the horsemen, knowing now that they were heading straight for the Ziggurat, and where it was.

"Perfect," I whispered to myself, spying the telltale dust cloud of a pack of horsemen and one caravan moving over the sands. I raced around them, and set myself up on the far side of a tall dune, before pulling out a spyglass and lying in wait.

There, plain as day, was a gaggle of cowboys on horseback, surrounding a stationary, cherry red caravan. The cowboys had apparently demanded a halt for the horses to rest- it was hot, and the van was still fast enough that a horse had to gallop to keep up. The driver had gotten out of the van to argue with the cowboys, but it was too far away for me to hear anything, and I didn't really care- I could guess that the driver was arguing that he should just keep driving, and let the others catch up whenever they caught up, because nobody wanted to sit around the Black Desert doing nothing.

I spotted the Hellknight, whose own steed- a strange-looking demon, rather than a true horse- clearly didn't need a break as badly as the horses did. The Hellknight was approaching the driver and that argument, and if I had to guess, it was probably to argue that they weren't yet fully in the clear, and taking stupid risks like letting the van go ahead unprotected was just that: a stupid risk.

I carefully pulled a slip of paper from my pocket with a few magical sigils scrawled on it, and then, with the barest flicker of magicka, I set it on fire. Five miles away, that slip's matched pair caught alight as well, and hopefully ignited the fuse on that flare. The fuse looked to be about ten seconds, so if I was right-

Ah, it was a five second fuse, even better.

There was pointing and yelling, and the Hellknight turned to regard the flare as it hung there in the sky, before exploding into a bright burst, the faint sound arriving nearly half a minute after the light.

The Hellknight turned to give orders to the cultists, before charging off alone to deal with whatever prompted that signal flare- given the sorry state everyone's horses were in, he probably thought they'd just slow him down.

So, now it was just me and Volex, versus what looked to be... oh, about two dozen cultists, I'd say. About half of whom probably had lightning wands, and four of them clearly had the glowing red amulets marking them as demon-priests- spellcasters, to be taken out first. The trouble was, they weren't clumped up together, so taking them out with a single quick burst attack just wasn't an option, so...

"Volex," I whispered. "Can you do anything to clump up the priests? Without getting everyone alerted and angry and shooting at me?"

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"Nnn... No," Volex said, shaking her head. "If we were closer, and had some way of convincing them we were supposed to be here..."

"Y'know, it occurs to me that the only thing I'm missing that'd make me look like I belonged here is a fucking horse," I muttered, wearing a face-concealing set of hat, goggles, and bandanna. "And then I went and shot all of the horses at that campsite, like an idiot."

"Honestly, that wasn't a terrible decision," Volex said. "Horses don't have the same endurance as a motorcycle, and you've never ridden one in your life."

"Alright, well, onto Plan A," I said. "Shooting them a whole bunch and hoping they don't manage to shoot me back."

"I can fight, you know," Volex said mildly.

"What happens when you get shot?"

"I either drop and whine about it, or I turn into smoke and go back to the reliquary for a few hours."

"Hmmm... Hey, you're a shapeshifter, right?"

"Yeah? Why?"

"Can you turn into a bird and fly over them?"

"...I can make it look like I'm a bird while I fly over them," Volex said cautiously.

"Good enough," I said, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a few sticks of dynamite, followed by a cheap lighter. "Light the fuse and drop it on 'em. Try not to hit the van, but if you do, oh well, it's pretty sturdy."

"Where the hell did you get dynamite?" Volex asked. "This stuff is incredibly illegal to just own."

"I'm a Knight of House Redwater," I said. "I asked 'em for dynamite, and the only question they asked was 'how much?'"

"That would do it," Volex said quietly, taking the dynamite in one hand and the lighter in the other. "Okay. Wish me luck. And try to start shooting them after the dynamite goes off- I really don't want to draw all their fire to me."

"Of course," I said, pocketing my binoculars and inching down the slope of the dune. "I'm gonna get on my motorcycle, so I can have some immediate mobility."

Volex nodded, and began to weave an illusion around herself- a simple visual illusion, replacing the presence of a sexy lady with purple skin with that of a presumably-typical desert hawk.

I got on my bike, silenced the engine, and kickstarted it, as Volex took off into the air, going up in a spiraling pattern- I suppose she was flying with magical wings, rather than raw telekinesis. I saw her wings on occasion, but for the most part, she preferred to keep them put away, so people could have an unobstructed view of her back.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaand..." I said, watching and waiting, as Volex finally got to a good height and started to fly over the herd. She dropped something, and I started to grin like an idiot. "Aaaaaaaaaand... boom goes the dynamite."

I gunned the throttle, riding up and over the ridge of the dune, already opening fire on the dazed and confused cultists. A few of them managed to point crossbows and lightning wands in my general direction and pull the trigger, but hitting a moving target was always hard, and I was a very fast target indeed.

Once the initial ride-by was over, and I was coming around for another pass- zigzagging at random to foul their aim while I did so- I started to take more careful aim. One of the priests had his red-glowing hand in the air, opening up a portal to summon a demon. So I shot him in the head, and the spell fizzled. Then I realized the driver had just gotten back into the cab, and squeezed off another shot that, alas, hit the door instead, managing only to scratch the paint. Dammit.

Then... Something strange happened. The van started to rock from side to side, and I could hear the sounds of fighting coming from inside. Was that-

The van roared to life and took off, the back doors opening and ejecting a very angry-looking Paladin and an even angrier-looking grizzly bear onto the black sands.

Hrm. Well, I'm glad they're alright, but to be honest, I wasn't terribly worried about them. I was worried about Emily, who was not a fighter, and who was, to be clear, the actually necessary sacrifice for bringing Demon King Paimon into this world.

I hesitated, but... my motorcycle was faster than the van, and I could track it trivially, and I knew exactly where they were going. If I left Faith and Talia to fend for themselves, however, they could very well get killed here.

So, I wheeled around and sprayed down the remaining cowboy-cultists with a withering hail of bullets, until they were all down, and we were safe to take a moment to breathe.

"How'd you two escape?" I asked, as Talia turned back into an elf, and Faith let her divine armaments fade away.

"We were tied up," Talia said, breathing heavily. "So I turned into a bear and bit a guy's face off. Then I tore the ropes off of Faith, and by that point, we were getting charged by more of those cowboys- what the hell is going on with them, by the way?"

"This is the new Cult of Paimon," I said simply. "Okay, well, Talia, do you think you can turn into something small, so you and Faith can... ah, shit."

"What's that sound?" Faith asked, turning to regard the steadily-growing thunder of hoofbeats.

"That," I said, as our newest adversary crested the hill, "is a Hellknight. I thought I distracted him and lured him away, but evidently he didn't get far enough away."

"So you did survive," the Hellknight said, his voice echoing within his helmet. "Good. I was hoping for a proper fight."

Shit.