Day 44

The portal is closed. It is done.

On the way back to the rift, Hail seemed… jovial. She skipped. Elemental censure in hand, orb of frost tucked in a pocked. Skipped. “It feels good to travel this plane again. And with so much less danger this time.” Didn’t provide any follow-up to that. Suppose that existing in all planes buys her some secrets. Brianca was again contemplative. Mary Sue was Mary Sue. Perhaps more generous. Saw a man on the roadside. She didn’t even suggest robbing him.

Everyone became more serious as we approached the rift. Hail was impressed with the size of the thing. Rattled on about its stability. More importantly, said she could close it. Held the censure aloft with one hand. The other, into the rift. To the elbow. It crackled. Shone. Sparks. Fire. Gusts of wind. Growing ivy encircled it, like a lattice. Flashes of dazzling light. Hints of bottomless dark. Hail’s eyes shone with almost as much complexity. “This is going to be one killer party.”

It began. First, a demon of dark night. Fading in, fading out. When I could see it best, saw claws emerging from its back. Like some dark spider. We slew it. A demon of wind, materializing. Swirling. Striking lighting, swiftly wisping away. Brianca froze it. Shattered it. Laughed.

They came quickly. Frost. Sun. Earth. Flame. Night. Wind. Too many to count. Not enough time to count. Brianca countered each demon. Illuminated the night. Burned the vines from the earth. Cooled the flames. Melted the frost. Stoicism gone, she embodied each spell she cast. A fiery mage, burning the world. Calculated and cool, freezing the wind itself. Whatever she needed to be, she was. Mary Sue danced. Among demons, she was a demon. Wind and edges. The demon of knives. I threw everything I could reach. Dug pits around the altar. Littered the room with boulders. Threw the altar itself into a flame demon. Then a frost demon into the altar.

The rift was a frenzy. Flashing between the elements faster than I could see. Hail’s eyes, a mirror of the rift. Her mind, fighting frantically in a plane that wanted desperately to swallow ours. Her hair, straight out like wire. Her skin, translucent. I could see every vessel encircling her head. She was magnificent. She was a terror.

There were, as always, too many. Hail chanted on. Brianca summoned an ally. An astral projection of herself? It flashed between fire and ice, mirroring whatever she became. Together, they were balanced. The projection, Brianca, and Mary Sue joined hands, encircling Hail. A triangle of last resort. An Earth demon lowered its shoulder for a charge. I had thrown boulders to block it. There was a gap. A weakness. I rushed to fill it. Lowered my own shoulder. I was Earth, too.

Braced for impact. Nothing. The demon was flying above me. Hail SCREAMED. Somehow louder than before. The chamber was a tempest. Fire and night reached to claw at the ground. To hold themselves in this reality. It was futile. The rift was calling them back. Demanding them back. It would not be denied.

The last demon flew screaming into the rift. It closed. Not exploded. Not shattered. Closed. It simply ceased to be. In its place, Hail’s outstretched hand. What remained of it. Shriveled, shrunken, like ash given form. We looked to her with concern, but she simply laughed. “This? It’ll be fine. My old body has seen far worse.”

It is morning now. I awake by the fire. Still smoldering from last night. The sun is rising. Painting the clouds over Gloomhaven a brilliant orange. Neither the purity of yesterday’s sun demons, nor the hate of yesterday’s fire. It is simply a sunrise.

We make for the city. The demons cannot follow.

–Balboa