Doom Story/ The Baron's Prize word update

2k words. Since someone wrote the wrong title last post, I've tossed some titles around. Consider Cavorting was a close second, but The Baron's Prize seems more appropriate. Enjoy.

***

“We’ll be fine,” Andreas assured, placing the plastic explosives back in the pouch before setting off down the slope, his feet skidding on the loose rocks. Once the ground levelled out, he took off deeper into the ravine at a brisk pace, his rifle trained on the ravine’s upper rim.

He ducked beneath a slanted light post, a tremble in the gore nest portal making him hesitate. He was at his most exposed here on the low ground and a conduit to Hell in front of him, but he hadn’t seen any demons in the area. Hell must be pretty confident to just leave their conduits unguarded like this.

“There are other ways to deal with a nest you know,” Eva began, Andreas rolling his eyes. “Marking it for naval bombardment or an airstrike would do the trick.”

“Those jets are still around?” Andreas quizzed.

“Naturally. They will be bingo fuel in a half hour, but I can request air support at a moment’s notice.”

“Handy,” Andreas mused. “But I don’t think a flyboy could land a hit on that,” he continued, gesturing at the nest. “It’s buried in a trench in the heart of demon airspace. Taking it out requires a little more of a hands-on approach. Now, you gonna stop complaining and keep an eye out for me? My motion trackers are fucked.”

“A rip in interdimensional space tends to do that to electronics,” Eva replied. “It’ll only get worse the closer we get.”

By the time the nest was a stone’s throw away, even his HUD started to flicker and blur, the hiss of static oozing into the background. Andreas skirted by a car flipped onto its roof, taking care of his footing as he stepped up to the gore nest. It was a lot bigger up close, the cradle as tall as an office cubicle and just as wide, the suspended portal casting parts of the nest into shadow. Andreas grimaced when he picked up a squishy, smacking sound emanating from within the mouth, as though the thing was chewing its lip in thought. He’d seen nests like this before, but it didn’t make being near one any easier.

He craned his neck, staring into the spherical abyss of the portal. His mind couldn’t quite process what he was seeing, the ball bending the light around itself to make it seem like it was sucking up the surrounding air, a pang of vertigo shooting down his spine as an endless depth conjured in his head.

“There’s a time for everything except gawking, Seargent,” Eva chided, Andreas snapping himself out of it.

“Right.” He kneeled in the roots that sprouted from the nest’s base, producing the explosives again. As he set up the trigger to the right frequency, Eva chimed in again, a touch of concern in her otherwise flawless voice.

“Seargent, I’m picking up movement nearby, and I don’t think it’s interference.”

He stole a quick glance over his shoulder, scanning down the length of the ravine. A small landslide disturbed the slope on the right, a few rocks falling into the ditch, but there was nothing when he looked up at the street.

He focused back on his task, setting the plastic block by the foot of the nest. That horrible, squishing sound had taken on a more guttural quality, as though some monster from the dark was starting to growl. Had touching the nest disturbed it somehow? It was hard to tell whether the nest was alive or not.

“It’s in the rubble,” Eva warned. “They’re all around us. Seargent…”

“I’m working on it,” he grumbled, his heart beating against his chest. He heard another landslide strike the rocks behind him, but he didn’t look this time around, every second counted, Andreas placing down a fourth block, then a fifth.

After making doubly sure the remote was all set, he rose to standing, whirling around with rifle in hand. Movement near the flipped car caught his attention, Andreas training his sights on the pocket of rubble by the left wheel. The fist-sized stones rolled and shook, before a giant clawed hand burst up from beneath, sending a puff of dust wisping into the air.  The hand was followed by a narrow arm, a calloused shoulder, and then finally a shrivelled head of a zombie. It was like something straight out of a horror flick.

The demon released the beginning of a moan before Andrea put it down with a burst of plasma bolts, the superheated energy turning some of the surrounding detritus into bubbling magma. Eva pinged his attention further up the slope, and he watched as more pockets of rubble started to shake, the growls of dozens more of the undead reaching his helmet’s speakers.

“Gawking again, Seargent,” Eva warned. Her words spurred him into action, Andrea turning on his heel, rushing passed the undulating gore nest, the portals surface rippling with rings of energy that made it look like a giant archery target.

Ahead and above him, there was a flesh of red light, Andreas ducking just in time to avoid a fireball aimed at his face. Up on street level, an imp was standing over the lip, its tiny mouth pulled back in a vicious snarl.

Andreas shouldered his rifle, sending a stream of bolts the demon’s way, but the creature darted out of sight before his shots connected, reappearing further down the ravine. He was pinned, and the demon knew it.

Another car wreck lay a few meters deeper into the ravine, Andreas ducking behind it as another inferno was sent his way. The zombies were swarming around the gore nest now, yellow eyes gleaming as they chased him down. Andreas knocked four of them down with a sweep of his gun, but the rest simply dragged their mutilated feet over their fallen brethren, closing the distance slowly but surely.

He winced as the automobile rocked, a fireball shattering the window above him. He couldn’t afford to get pinned here, or else blowing this entire ravine up, with him and Eva in it, would be his last course of action.

He peeked over the hood, searching for a way out of this trap. A stretch of slope looked climbable on the opposite side of the ravine, he should be able to get back onto the street, assuming that imp didn’t burn him to a crisp given the lack of cover.

Taking his chance, Andreas vaulted across the car, sarying his plasma rifle up at the lip, forcing the imp to back away. He stumbled up the incline, fighting against his instincts as he tossed his weapon into the air, where it arced out of the ravine, Andreas hearing it hit the pavement with a thunk.

The rubble transitioned almost ninety degrees as it met the street, Andreas forced to haul himself up using his arms. The added weight of his gear and armour slowed his efforts, Andreas aware of every moment he placed his back to that imp and the zombie entourage directly behind him.

Andreas swung his legs up onto solid ground, but too late, a searing pain shooting up his side as something hard slammed him in the ribs. He dove away from the ravine to create distance, which was more like a roll. He recovered his plasma rifle laying nearby, glancing down to see where the fireball had hit, the scorch mark standing out against the ceramic plating on his chest piece. The armour had saved his neck, but it still felt like someone had punched him with a hot iron.

Looking around, Andreas found that he had emerged into a desecrated carpark, one side flanked by a sheer concrete wall, maybe a plaza of some kind. There were abandoned cars everywhere, the lot surrounded by a wire fence save for a pair of boom gates.

The hairs on his neck stood on end, Andreas looking back to see the zombies were following in his footsteps, two dozen clawed hands gripping the ravine’s edge.

“Seargent, I’m picking up so many contacts that my sensors can’t keep count,” Eva warned. “That’s a lie by the way, there must be a hundred demons buried down there. You don’t have the ammo for this.”

“Not an issue,” he replied nonchalantly, holding up the detonator. 

“But must have put seven pounds of explosives down there! Are you even at minimum safe distance?”

Andreas replied by squeezing the trigger.

-xXx-

She flexed her clawed fingers, a wisp of inferno blooming in her palm, the green flames reflecting in her eyes. It gave off no heat to her crimson hide, she could mash it against her face and she wouldn’t even blink, but that hadn’t always been the case. When she’d been a bumbling newt in the festering quagmires of youthhood, conjuring fireballs had been a difficult task, every attempt resulting in a harsh sting. That pain had translated to fear in her feeble mind, and it hadn’t taken long to earned the ridicule of her ‘peers’.

Sharrya sweet claws.

Her fingers snapped over the flames, choking them out. She had made herself the laughing stock of her peers. They had teased and called her other such names, right up until she had killed every last one of them. And even then, some Baron’s had made it a point she never forget her lapse. One even had the balls to die with a laugh on his lips.

That had been two score of an eon ago, basically another lifetime, yet remembering times passed was trivial in current circumstances. Reminisce was she could do in this malodorous world. That, and listen to the priest and his spiels. She couldn’t choose which was more torturous.

“-have more of the Possessed in reserve, in the unlikely event of retaliation. As you know, we-”

She tried to drone him out by counting the number of rafters on the ceiling, tapping her claws against the table she lounged behind. She was in the study, the east and west walls lined with stacked bookshelves draped with manuscripts and writings from all dimensions, including this one. Battleplans were pinned to every surface available, claimed and hostile sections of the city marked in reds and blues, travel routes for heavier forces snaking through the districts. She’d once called this her war room, where’d she’d stage attacks and posit strategies, but now it was little more than a study, the priest’s voice echoing off the black masonry.

“The cacodemon’s have also expressed their dissatisfaction with their food allocations,” the priest continued, sparing her a sceptical glance. “I reinforced the levels of generosity you’ve given already, but they were insistent. With the dwindling local fauna they’ve resorted to… mild levels of cannibalism. This may warrant problems if-”

“Yes yes, increase their meat reserves accordingly, priest,” she muttered, waving her hand before returning it to her chin.

“An astute choice, my Baroness. Very astute.”

The rafters were starting to lose their splendour. They started as columns rising from the floor, then began to sporut into several smaller branches two thirds up their lengths, webbing to the ceiling to create spiralling patterns. It was a universal choice of architecture. The cathedrals back in Hell were built exactly to theses specifications and were just as bland.

“I demand you tell me something about you, priest,” she began suddenly. “I seek a break in these monotonous reports and you will provide it.”

He lowered the scroll he was reading from, sparing her a curious glance as he straightened his posture. “M-My Baroness, you honour me, but I am not worth a modicum of your radiant attention.”

“I’m not interested in your miserable life, priest,” she snapped. “My wish is to discuss something other than the gluttony of demons.”

He deflated a little at that, but replied with a deferent nod, saying: “What would you like to know?”

“You were one of the first humans to enter Hell’s service,” she stated. “What did you do before that?”

“My mortal life is a distant fragment, Baroness,” he replied, glancing off to the side. “When I… ascended, entire chunks of my memory were erased. I can’t quite recall who I was.”

“You are quick to remember every simpering word in your dictionary, but your memory of your life escapes you? Try harder.”