In Yhtar — the universe that eats universes, the home of the demon tribes — three companions, survivors of a battle lost, fight to escape death. They would name themselves as followers of Irkulla, Panisis, and Beleroth. But we who are from other worlds would name them as demons. Demons of Ruin, Ecstasy, and Onslaught.

Torin senses that soon these three will arrive upon Mideon. The goddess says they represent both destruction and a chance for renewal. In that cycle of duality she sees opportunity.

I have my doubts, but Torin, unlike other gods, does not demand blind faith from me. She allows me my doubts, perhaps even encourages them. What I do know is that we must keep our enemies close. And so I will go to greet them.

Bastian Oriel, Lorekeeper

---

“Fool,” Masuzi muttered to himself as he rummaged through his alchemical rack. He found the healing potion he’d been searching for and began to carefully pour small droplets onto the largest of his battle wounds, muscle and sinew exposed in a deep cut along his thigh.

The gash was wide and jagged. It would have surely proved fatal if not for his biomantic powers and alchemical knowledge. Even after weeks of treatment it bled profusely, refusing to scab over into the festering sores common amongst his kind. The stubborn bleeding had grown worse after he and his two companions had scrambled down into this crevasse to escape the persistent scouts of Ugul-Hul.

Where the potion droplets landed, his blood sizzled and hardened, creating a seal and staunching the flow. He made quick work of it, but continued to mutter darkly as he returned the bottle to its place in his store and readjusted his robes. Unless they found a source of essence soon, they would wither and die here.

Further inside the crevasse, Masuzi watched the pawn of Panisis, as she reclined in the cradling curve of her symbiotic wurm, a polyphonic hum quietly buzzing from her chest. Her vacant eyes glowed with a soft blue light as she stroked her wurm with lazy flicks of her right wrist and hugged her lute to her chest with her left.

Aria, as she called herself, appeared unfazed by the strenuous series of events which had led to their current state of constant running. Though her face was more gaunt and her ribs were now visible beneath her breasts, her skin still glowed as if freshly cleansed. It had been two weeks since their escape from the battle at the Malifica essence farm, Ola'awa. Two weeks since their overwhelming defeat. Two weeks of him itching to end her disgusting and worthless life.

The children of Irkulla and those of Pannisis did not enjoy one another’s company in the slightest.

Masuzi watched her as one watches a slimy insect they long to squash underfoot. His eyes narrowed in deepening disgust as Aria’s blue light flickered over even the smallest of her cuts, sealing them and leaving the skin smooth and even more vibrant than before. Such a vain and frivolous expenditure of essence.

He hissed in disgust at her imprudent behaviour. Those who followed Irkulla would never waste their energy on such a conceited whim. If he’d known he would have to take up the company of such a repulsively clean and beautiful and arrogant being, he would have never joined the ranks of Queen Kalvera. That’s what you get for following a reckless Queen of Beleroth. “Fool,” he berated himself under his breathe once more.

Surely the light of Aria’s essence would give away their location. He broke his gaze from her, briefly, to scan the sliver of darkening sky above them. Nothing. But he had learned that silence did not mean safety in this wasteland.

The Shattered Planes were even less forgiving than demon legends warned. They had spotted the scouts on their tail three days ago, and had been forced to run without pause across the open stretch. The scouts did not let up, apparently fixated on capturing every last survivor and squeezing every morsel of essence from their battered bodies.

When the threesome had finally reached this section of forested cover, the crevasse had posed the best chance for concealment and thus recovery. And now here they were, licking their wounds and waiting for nightfall.

Time was running out for this ragtag crew. Perhaps it was time to go their separate ways. Masuzi had learned from their time together that very little could rouse Aria from her healing reveries, and now would be the perfect time to strike her, to cut her down and feed upon what was left of the essence in her. With just a touch of power, he could acidify her blood and watch as her flesh melted away from the inside.

Yes. The fingers of his right hand curved with building energies as he raised his arm, and then Drelgoth’s hulking form blocked his view, breaking his concentration. Masuzi instantly deflated, reabsorbing his power and adjusting the sleeve of his robe to hide his intent. To instigate violence in front of a berserker of Beleroth would only be a means to his own death.

Onslaught’s children were already unpredictable in combat but, once turned berserker, they were easily spurred into bouts of uncontrollable blinding rage. It did not take much to push them over the edge, and once lost to rage they could hack and hew friend and foe alike for days on end before collapsing from exhaustion. Drelgoth had unknowingly been Aria’s sole source of protection because of his unpredictable nature. The gore and violence of a biomantic death could very easily spark a berserking rampage.

“It is time, wizard,” Drelgoth growled at Masuzi, flicking his head towards the dark above. Then he briskly stomped his way across the slippery wet rock towards Aria.

“Don’t!” Masuzi hissed, but he was too late. The brute rapped the butt of his axe on the wurm’s side in a bid to rouse Aria from her healing reverie. Her wurm hissed loudly. The humming ceased instantaneously as the blue light vanished from her eyes and her saber-sharp spinal claws whipped towards Drelgoth’s head.

He stepped back quickly, but not fast enough. One of the claws connected with the tip of his horn, and a loud crack reverberated around them. A flash of rage crossed Drelgoth’s features, but by some miracle he was able to quell his instincts even with the rush of adrenaline that had washed over each of them. The three demons stood frozen, ears strained for any sound from above.

There was no chance that their pursuers would have missed that noise. Masuzi slung his alchemical rack across his back in a flurry of robes and tentacles and began clambering up the incline, all else forgotten except escape. He could hear the other two close behind as the nails of his fingers and toes scraped across the rocky wall.

The climb was long, but only steep at the top. Nearly there. His potions rattled from inside his rack with the vigor of his movements as he reached the final incline, and then he heard it: the snap of a twig. It was close. Too close.

“Back! Back!” he hissed to the two demons below him, and they knelt quickly behind a cluster of boulders with their weapons drawn.

The icy wet of the rocks seeped through Masuzi’s robe, numbing his shoulder. He listened carefully, hardly daring to breathe. His two companions were also silent in the dark behind him as a faint thumping shuffle moved closer from above, until it abruptly stopped at the edge of the crevasse.

Masuzi peered cautiously upwards from the darkness and saw the outline of two long furry ears on an ovular frame. It was a small, harmless mammalian creature. A small laugh of relief escaped his lips as he turned to his companions.

But they did not look relieved.

He looked back in time to see the long ears of the mammal morphing and shrinking as its form grew larger and more humanoid.

“They are here,” the figure called down into the crevasse, as if simply informing the threesome below. A second figure appeared beside the first, carrying a lantern that illuminated the top of the incline. Two figures, Atriarchs of Ugul-Hul, their bodies twisted masses of pointed tentacles and blinking eyes.

“Only two,” Aria whispered with a smile. Her claws unfolded, each joint emitting a sharp clicking sound, and Drelgoth laughed with her as he raised his battle axes a little higher, engaging his biceps.

“But where are the others?” Masuzi hissed at them from his cover. “Wait, they will not be alone!”

The two smiling demons showed no sign of hearing him, and stepped out from their hiding places.

“Indeed we are here,” Drelgoth bellowed from several feet behind Aria. Aria delicately bounded towards Masuzi until she was near the base of the final incline, where she winked at him.

“Agh. Irkulla’s shit,” Masuzi cursed as he stepped from his hiding place. Drelgoth lowered himself and charged towards them at an alarming speed.

They both stepped out of his way.

At the last moment, in an incredibly synchronized yet unplanned motion, Aria leapt onto Drelgoth’s horns, from which he launched her into the air like a provoked bull. Masuzi could see the berserker rage building in Drelgoth as his skin tightened over bulging muscles and his eyes narrowed to slits.

Aria’s acrobatics had served another purpose.

The two Malifica scouts, who had kept their eyes on the bellowing Drelgoth, were entirely surprised to find a siren flying full tilt at their faces. In a matter of seconds, Aria’s fingers plucked expertly at her lute, the vibrations awakening her wurm’s powerful vocal chords.

There was no time for the scouts to defend themselves. They were hit with the full blast of her building sonic wave as her wurm amplified it. Even in a half-charged state, it was just powerful enough to knock them off their feet. She landed between them without pause in her plucking, as she began to sing. Each note amplified into a sonic weapon by the coils of her symbiotic wurm.

The scouts clambered to their feet, backing away from her sweeping claws, as Drelgoth crested the crevasse with Masuzi close behind.

The left scout screamed an incoherent garble of noise, over his shoulder. A cry to his brethren.

As he backed away into the bushes, a swarm of fifty or so lesser followers of Ugul-Hul — Tendrils — surged onto the ridge.

Drelgoth barreled straight for the scout on the right, who barely had time to produce an arcane-looking sword before Drelgoth’s brutal axes came down on him. He managed to deflect the blow, but the axe’s trajectory continued downwards, taking a bundle of tentacles with it.

The scout let out a pained and enraged cry as he lashed out ineffectually with his sword, purple blood oozing from the wounded tentacles. In the second it took Drelgoth to pry his axe from the ground, the scout had enlarged its form to match Drelgoth’s size and backed into the swarm of Malifica tendrils.

Masuzi barely had time to be concerned about the fleeing scout’s intentions before the first tendrils were upon him. He hurled pots of alchemical toxins brewed from his own bile and blood. They broke open over the two closest Tendrils, rendering flesh and bone into sludge. They fell at his feet and he consumed their essence, hungrily.

His first meal in over a month, and there was no time to savour it.

The third and fourth Tendrils were upon him. He swung his staff in a wide arc, its warped shape imbued with his biomantic power. The seemingly rotten wood hardened into something more like bone, tiny splinters breaking off and penetrating the flesh of his adversaries.

The Tendrils did not die immediately, but it didn’t take long for the splinters of his biomantic staff to swim through their flesh, piercing arteries as they sought out the heart and brain. He cut through the sea of approaching Tendrils like a scythe through amaranth, magenta blood spraying through the air in misty bursts much like petals at harvest.

Masuzi could see that the Tendrils in Aria’s corner were struggling to enter the radius of her song as her wurm amplified her damaging ultrasonics. If any got too close, their discomfort would grow until they fell, immobilised, at her feet. In their moments of weakness, the fallen were slain by her spiralling claws or consumed by her hungry wurm.

As always, she seemed unfazed by her surroundings and swayed dreamily in time with her song. The tendrils had mostly given up on her and were flocking towards him and Drelgoth.

Drelgoth had entered a blood frenzy, as the bulk of the Tendril horde swarmed around him. It would be too dangerous to assist him at close range when he was in his state.

Instead, Masuzi reached over his shoulder, deftly selected a collection of potions from his rack, and threw the lot of them into the mess of tendrils surrounding Drelgoth. Where they landed, they exploded in clouds of colourful acidic smoke, which melted the Tendrils like candle wax.

Drelgoth was now able to slash his way through the depleted tendril horde to their leader at the centre. Blood dripped down his legs in thin rivulets, a mix of his own red and the magenta of his many victims. He did not seem to notice, and was quite the sight to behold as he began pummeling the scout with axe slash after axe slash until he could deflect no more.

The left axe sent the scout's head flying from his shoulders, and the right slashed from heart to stomach. All remaining Tendrils instantaneously lost all purpose and self control, flopping to the ground like beached fish.

The battle had ended in mere minutes, but Drelgoth’s insurmountable rage compelled him to continue slashing at their defenceless forms.

“Aria!” Masuzi called to the songstress who was happily feasting on the essence of her victims. She turned to him.

“He is beyond control,” yelled Masuzi.

I need her after all, he thought, and grimaced at the idea.

Aria’s eyes narrowed with annoyance at his interruption, but she started up her song again. This time it was a low crooning paired with harmonic plucking of her lute. Masuzi just barely managed to jam his fingers deep into his ears as a soft pressure built in the back of his head.

He watched as Drelgoth’s movements slowed until he crumpled in an unconscious heap. In any battle with the berserker the distinction between friend and foe was apt to be lost, and Drelgoth could rapidly become more liability than ally.

Masuzi and Aria kept watch. The essence from the slain demons flowed into them, even into the unconscious Drelgoth. Essence was all they needed to survive, and in most of their world it was available in abundance. But here on the Shattered Plains the natural order of things was disrupted, and almost all their sustenance came from the essence of the slain.

Essence was the only thing Yhtari needed to survive, and they did not generally eat or drink or breath except to enjoy the physical sensations. Only Masuzi felt true hunger or thirst. In fact it was all he felt, and he felt it all the time, regardless of the amount he consumed. Eternal craving was a blessing that only the followers of Irkulla knew.

He slurped up the raw flesh of a fallen tendril, smiling at Aria’s disgust.

Upon waking, Drelgoth, like his companions, was renewed. Being rendered unconscious had proved the best method for calming his rage, and the three of them gradually absorbed every last morsel of essence left by their slain foes. Their complexions became visibly brighter, their frames swollen with power.

Wounds knit closed differently for each of them. Drelgoth’s turned into proud battle scars. Aria’s disappeared as though they had never existed, her flesh flawless. Masuzi’s only closed in part, remaining festering and pus-filled. It would have been painful if not for the deadness of his rotten nerves.

“The Malifica scout will be back with reinforcements,” Masuzi said as he watched their wounds knit closed.

“I will not die in the cogs of an essence farm,” Aria said in passive agreement.

“But we have regained our strength,” growled Drelgoth. “Would it not be better to wait for more enemies to arrive, a second feast?” The worst of his wounds were now sealed, but he made no effort to wipe away the dried blood which covered his skin.

Aria stroked her wurm’s face with the back of her hand. “My wurm has already begun to deplete my essence stores again,” Aria mused, tossing the dirty cloth into the flames.

“But they will not make the same mistake of underestimating us again,” argued Masuzi as he regathered his belongings. “We should have chased down that second scout. If a king or queen is on our tail now, we are as good as dead. Our only hope is to find a new patron to serve.”

“In this wasteland?” Drelgoth scoffed. But he, too, gathered his weapons.

The three demons set out into the darkness, knowing that they were hunted, knowing that the flow of essence in these lands would not be enough to sustain them. They surreptitiously eyed one another. Each wondering when ally might become enemy, or, if needs must, food.

---

The following five days were heavy with arguments and directionless wandering. They had returned to daylight travel, as the dark forests had proved difficult to navigate without a light source. It was especially dark in the vast canyon which they had entered on the fourth day. The Shattered Plains were relentlessly draining away their essence with each passing day, both exhausting them and keeping them on edge at the same time.

The three unlikely companions, weary with each other’s company, now travelled with a distance of at least twenty feet between them. Drelgoth held the middle position, acting as a buffer between the rival followers of Irkulla and Panisis. Masuzi’s hatred had not quelled, though Aria remained indifferent to his presence, lost in her own world as she was. Her face, which had become plump and healthy after the feast at the crevasse, was once again growing gaunt and angular, and even Drelgoth’s strong and confident gait was becoming progressively heavier and slower with each passing day.

Something is very wrong in the Shattered Plains, Masuzi thought to himself as he flicked his staff at the undergrowth obstructing his path. Essence is not usually lost so quickly. And why have we not seen a single living creature for days? He longed for clarity and reason. The silence weighed on him, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

There was a strange energy now gently pulling them deeper into the canyon. It pulled at their collective essence like a magnet. He knew the other two had felt it too, but none of them could name it. Whatever it is, there is something there that we might be able to feed upon. Ignoring one another, and without any other plan of action, they had instinctually continued to follow the intriguing pull.

As they trudged along, dusk began to settle over the forest, leaving grey and black shadows in place of the vibrant green leaves. Masuzi paused to light his lantern, and Drelgoth appeared beside him.

“Let us rest,” Drelgoth growled as he gestured towards a clearing to their right.

Masuzi gazed longingly ahead. The magnetism was growing stronger and more enticing; surely it was only an hour’s trek more. “I think we’re close,” Masuzi said over his shoulder as he continued onwards.

“Close to what?” Drelgoth snapped, his anger building. “It has drained us!” His shoulders were hunched as if the weight of his body might pull him into the earth at any moment.

“It’s our only chance, you brute!” Masuzi’s exhaustion had gotten the better of him. The words were out before he could stop them. “Can’t you feel the power there? If we could only harness it…”

Drelgoth’s frustrated bellow rang out through the trees. Aria hurried to catch up with them while softly singing and plucking at her lute, but she hardly had time to soothe Drelgoth’s nerves before the ground began to shake.

A low rumbling came from the canyon wall nearest to them, about a hundred yards away. Masuzi ducked down into the brush and placed his ear against the ground.

Footsteps. Hundreds, if not thousands. Something was emerging from the canyon walls in droves.

Masuzi snapped to his feet and pelted into the trees without a backward glance. The rumbling continued, making the ground feel unsteady underfoot. Masuzi was vaguely aware of the laboured breathing of Drelgoth to his right, and the frustrated hisses of Aria’s wurm at his back, but most of his attention was on the forest floor ahead.

He swung his lantern from left to right, scanning the rocky undergrowth for any sign of shelter. Just when his lungs were about to give way, he felt the magnetic pull draw him downwards.

“Here!” Masuzi gasped, as he spotted the four-foot radial hole in the prickly undergrowth. He dove in, headfirst, adrenaline masking the pain as the rocky surface ripped at his robes and flesh.

The slope ended abruptly, dumping him onto a damp stone floor. His lantern cracked on impact, but still emitted enough of a glow for him to see that the cavern continued further underground, and he began to make his way deeper.

Drelgoth was the last to enter the cave, nearly knocking Aria onto a patch of particularly pointy stalagmites with his momentum. Masuzi heard her hissing angrily at Drelgoth in the language of the Panisii as the two struggled to catch up in the dark.

They were nearly there. Masuzi could feel the essence passing through and around him, flowing like the tides in and out of an unseen pool. It renewed him. If he had been mortal it would have been similar to an oxygen starved environment, his body slowly shutting down, his brain dying. Now that the essence was again flowing he was reinvigorated. He continued onward, ignoring the shouts and heavy footsteps that sounded clearly on the ground above them.

But suddenly, there was no more cave left. A dead end.

Masuzi ran his fingers along the cavern wall. The magnetic pull felt like it was coming from all around him. He could hear the gentle shushing sound, like air being pulled through a small space.

“A dormant Discord hive!” Drelgoth was growling under his breath as the two finally caught up. “Beleroth’s tears, you led us into a Discord hive, you rot filled dolt,” he barked at Masuzi.

“Is there an essence farm here?” Aria snapped at Masuzi. “I feel it. A flow moving through us, revitalizing us. There is more than just a hive here, but I see nothing.”

Masuzi ignored them and continued to run his fingers along the wall until he felt the cool rush of moving air. There in the cavern wall, imperceptible to the naked eye, was a very thin crack.

“It’s a rift,” Masuzi whispered.

He felt as if he had swallowed a stone as he sank to the floor. He rested his forehead on his fingertips, allowing his nails to pierce his skin as he desperately searched his brain for an escape route.

If we don’t pass through the rift, then the devotees of Discord will be upon us. Long ago the other tribes of Yhtar had gathered and wiped out most of the followers of Discord whose true name should not be spoken. Kings and Queens, Lords and Ladies, there were none left alive after the betrayal of their progenitor.

But the lesser children of Discord still clung to existence, hiding in places such as this, where essence was hard to come by, and the other Yhtari avoided. They would hibernate, and then feed when opportunity presented itself. There was no way that a horde of their Discord brethren, freshly roused from torpor, would not rip them all to shreds.

“What is it?” Aria reached over him and pressed an inquisitive finger into the crack, then quickly withdrew it with a surprised hiss.

Masuzi stood to face his now silent companions. “It’s a rift,” he sighed.

“What are we waiting for then?” Drelgoth stepped closer.

“Rifts are death,” Masuzi said, raising his hand to gently halt Drelgoth’s advance, "Few return, fewer still who have not been turned inside out."

“We may be better standing our ground,” Aria added. “There’s no telling where a rift might lead, what horrors could be inflicted upon us.”

“We’re already dead,” Drelgoth growled. “I have been dead to my clan since my failure at the tempering. I refuse to let my essence feed the Nymur filth that pursue us,” He pushed Masuzi aside and then, defying the laws of physics, disappeared into the crack a mere fiftieth of his size.

---

Drelgoth had spoken the forbidden name of the Nymur, their despised kin, and stepped through a rift to who knew where. Perhaps to a place where Nymureth herself waited with open arms. Reckless, reckless fool. Aria winked at Masuzi, smiled wryly, and followed the berserker.

Masuzi was the last to step through. Even with his hood shielding his face, it took several seconds for his eyes to adjust to the bright grey skies. A soft mist hung at ankle height, leaving droplets of dew on his cloak. The air smelled of freshly wetted soil, animal dung, and a sickeningly rusty metallic scent.

Blood?

Masuzi turned to look for the rift, but it had evidently sealed itself as he found only empty air. He shivered, wondering what might have happened if he had been caught inside when it had closed. Wherever they were, there was no way back.

He searched the open grassy field until he spotted his two companions, creeping excitedly towards a titanic stone column. He trudged carefully across the field to join them, his robes whipping about in a powerful wind which now carried the mist away across the field.

The massive stone effigy with an elven face towered above them, essence swirling around it and seeping between its cracks. Even the cobbled base glowed with abundance. The carvings on half the effigy wore peaceful expressions, smiling down on them with closed eyes. The other half seemed filled with righteous fury, scowling upon them in judgement. 

The three demons stared up at it in awe. None of them had seen an essence store like this.

“An eternal feast,” Aria said with a bright laugh as she skipped ahead of the others. Her wurm vibrated with excitement, amplifying her voice so that it was not lost on the wind.

Here the essence flowed. It passed through the companions, each breath restoring them.

Masuzi hung back, a slight unease sinking in like the cold wet earth beneath his feet. Such a place seemed too good to exist.

He crouched to sink a long, boney finger into the moist soil. The sludge clung to his finger as he pulled, the pressure finally releasing with a loud squelch. He watched the little beads of red drip from his cracked yellow nail back to their place beneath the grass.

He licked his fingers, the copper tang seemed like it might almost be enough to satisfy his eternal craving.

Story by Emma Yarrow and Peter Adams