The furthest-right tent in the camp opened up. Zilara was about. Only now, the holy child had that same glazed-over countenance. Unlike Jelena, however, Zilara possessed an Interface designation…

  Calaf gasped. There was a charm upon Zilara.

  Asleep. That proved that she, and by extension, Jelena and the rest of the camp, were still blissfully in slumber even as they rose and walked into the desert.

  Summoned Hither. A rare status. But no pinnacle-leveled INT stats were required to surmise what it signified. The caster of that charm was calling its victims closer.

  The source of the charm sent a bloodline-instinctual chill through every vein. Ancient fears resurfaced, vestigial terror buried in some furtive part of the human psyche, dormant but never forgotten.

  “D-demon! Demon!” The Squire stammered.

  The cry wafted out into the moonless night. None responded, for none remained unenthralled in the camp to heed the warning. Calaf’s words were drowned out by the constant rhythmic hum from over the dunes.

  In an oblivious daze, Zilara turned at a right angle and walked towards the edge of camp. She was destined to follow the same route as Jelena, now well on her way to the northern dunes. No sooner did the sleepwalking holy child pass the leftmost tent however did the tent flap burst open. A blur tackled Zilara into the soft grass.

  “Restrain her.” Enkidu’s signature growl was, for once, a relief. “Tie her in her sleeping bunk. Otherwise, she’ll keep attempting to return to the source of this damnable screeching.”

  They left charmed Zilara in her sleeping cot. She was tied up securely in her bunk, only her face visible. The holy child wouldn’t be going anywhere. Good, as if they let her feet touch the ground even once, she would try to take off again. She remained in her tent, restrained, looking upwards, asleep but with eyes wide open.

  “The Interface. What Demon is it?” Enkidu asked. “Tell me. Hurry. Depending on subtype, we may have little time.”

  “H-how did you know?” Calaf took a deep breath to stave off panic. “Piper. It said, ‘Piper Demon’s’ next to Zilara’s name. As if… possessing ownership. Just like when under charm.”

  Enkidu let out a rough exhale that showcased a pair of filed-sharp incisors. He reached back into his tent and retrieved his blade. Then, he pulled the entrance to Zilara’s tent as tight as the fabric would allow, sealing it shut with two pulled-taught strings.

  “Can we leave her in this state?” Calaf asked.

  Hairs on the back of his neck were still standing upright.

  “Unless you want to use her as bait. Let her walk out into the desert and lead us to the source of this accursed tune.” Enkidu stared dead-eyed at Calaf. “She is short and walks slow. That would take some time.”

  Time Jelena may not have.

  “What about animals? Predators?” Calaf asked.

  “We could light the fire. But an untended campfire risks burning the tent down with her inside.” Enkidu said.

  True. The ‘Camp’ inventory item came with a fire that put itself out after a few hours, as safely and responsibly as possible. But a manually gathered or relit fire would be less reliable.

  Calaf waffled, unsure what to do.

  “A handful of people remain in the other tents,” Enkidu said with an impatient huff. “Most are under charm but haven’t been summoned yet. These merchants have meat on their bones. Dire-beasts will eat them first.”

  That wasn’t helping. Enkidu provided no reaction to Calaf’s piteous gaze.

  The pair found the only two merchants left who didn’t have a ‘Piper Demon’s’ title to signify their enthrallment to some fell, malevolent entity from centuries past. This pair could barely function from grogginess, but Calaf relit the nearest campfire with a well-applied fire spear.

  “Stay here and guard the camp. If we’re not back by morning, flee for Port Town,” the Squire ordered, stern.

  Now reasonably certain that Zilara and the few who remained entranced in their cots were not about to be eaten by wandering dire-cassowaries, Calaf and Enkidu set out over the desert.

  Demons. Direct extensions of the Demon King’s will – its eyes and ears in the world. Even a single demon was stronger than any human unblessed with the holy powers of the sacred Menu. Higher-ranking demons could slay armies unaided.

  They are supposed to be extinct. Calaf shuddered at the implications.

  Evidently not.

  In the old days, remembered only in the annals of Church history, these fiends terrorized, consumed, and otherwise enslaved humanity as the vanguard servants of the indomitable and implacable Demon King. Now the old lord’s dry, dead bones made up the grand and most holy Archcathedral of the Menu. Any demons should have been cast to the winds, rudderless and without leadership, centuries ago. A crusade or two hunted the remnants to extinction in this land. Any demon that survived the hunting years would necessarily be expertly hidden or obscenely powerful.

  “A Piper Demon. Collector of bodies. Unbranded are especially susceptible to its call.” Enkidu marched quickly through the sands. “That’s the purpose of the song. Jelena wouldn’t have noticed anything was awry. Zilara maybe, if she paid attention to her interface as the charm set in. But she was fast asleep all night.”

  Calaf could barely keep up with the lanky giant's massive strides.

  “Lure in those without the Brand for… sorting.” Enkidu punctuated this with a fang-bearing growl quite like a dire-hound. “Branded are resistant, but not immune. Your Priestess never discovered the formula; she had little experience with charms. It’s some compounding combination of Effect Resistance, awareness via the Agility stat, and Arcane. Not important. Your Endurance gave you a boost. That’s why you’re not marching out there with her. Lucky you.”

  Footprints in the sand proved easy enough to track. Jelena’s were soon joined by dozens of others who’d been called ahead earlier. The pair caught up with Jelena in due time. She walked onward at a casual but consistent pace, arms barely moving at her side in a most unnatural gait.

  “Jelena.” Calaf waved his gauntlet in front of her face, to no reaction. “Jelena!”

  “A wasted effort.” Enkidu walked ahead of her. “Stopping the song will prevent the victims from following it back to the source, at least.”

  “How do we wake her up?” Calaf asked.

  “Kill the demon.”

  Guilt and shame pooled in Calaf’s gut. Jelena and the Squire had been engaged in passionate sunset standing waterfall sex mere hours before! Now she was trapped under indefinite demonic thralldom. He should have noticed that the song was already bringing her under its sway when they’d first made camp. They should have listened to Enkidu’s warning. Calaf was the team tank and protector - but what could he do to shield against an arcane spell of this size and scope?

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Enkidu easily outpaced both the sleepwalking Jelena and worry-wart Calaf. The route led across a tall dune in the distance, so large it blocked out the stars on the horizon. But at the Squire’s insistence, they slowed to walk alongside her. They looked almost like their usual group, save that their infamous relic thief was wearing one layer above underwear and sleepwalking obliviously to her doom.

  “The demon will have been dormant since your Paladin landed his mutually assured destructive blow,” Enkidu said in what counted as a whisper for him. “Asleep, cocooned, waiting for programming that can no longer come. It’s probably gone feral, carrying on its last provided mission. Was there an Interface designation to this song?”

  “No. I received a Resist notification, but no song or spell description.”

  “Then it’s not Branded. It reincarnated, likely several times, until the lord’s shackle was entirely erased. That makes it less predictable. With the Interface, its moveset would be simple enough – eat, eviscerate, ensnare, enslave. After centuries of evolution, who knows what else it can do.”

  Each revelation boggled Calaf’s mind. Could a vile, unholy demon even be Branded? Even though Calaf hadn’t set foot in a church except to rob it since pursuing this sinful lifestyle with Jelena, Brands were meant to be holy symbols of righteousness. The very divine System by which humans threw off the yolk of demonic slavery and slayed the Demon King in the age of ancient heroes. His church education from back in the orphanage scoffed at the very concept of a demon using the Holy Menu.

  “Demons do not learn aside from firsthand observation. They do not make inferences.” Enkidu looked up to the sky. He masked a faint snarl, flashing a fang-sharp incisor. “They will never dream or possess what you would call an imagination. More specialized appendages for the Lord to utilize than true, living organisms. What they can do is evolve. Reincarnate, is perhaps a more accurate nomenclature. This one will have molted over in a cocoon. It will have imitated anything it happened to touch or consume while in its chrysalis.”

  Onward, Jelena walked. They were at the foot of the dune, and she wasted no time securing her footing. Calaf frowned, casting a piteous look at the fate of his partner. He followed, wondering what could have been done to avoid the Piper Demon’s snare.

  “How do you know all this?” the Squire asked Enkidu, incredulous.

  Enkidu did not respond.

  This was knowledge befitting an archbishop, or perhaps a high-level monster-hunting Battlemage of the Battletower. Both careers would require a Brand and a level north of eighty. Enkidu possessed neither and indeed had never been Branded at all. Calaf raised an eyebrow as they began to climb up the desert’s largest dune yet.

  Calaf’s knowledge of demons came from the good Pryor Yordan’s many lessons to the Riverglen orphanage. He had a mental image of a horned, fat creature with stunted wings and a great rebar club with which to punish the brandless.

  As they climbed the dune, they ran into some others from camp who’d succumbed to the song. These stragglers were likewise under the song’s sway but were having trouble scaling the lip of the dune. Spared, temporarily, by their natural lack of dexterity. Calaf patted sand down in the nearest victim’s path. This proved a mistake, as the entranced merchant resumed his walk over the dune unobstructed. All the while, Jelena continued onward, her path straight and her eyes unfocused.

  “Do we… need to worry about these people being used to attack us?” Calaf asked, gazing upon Jelena with concern.

  Enkidu shook his head. “Unlikely. Charms reduce motor skills and higher thought processes. It’s a stat debuff under the Menu. The wider the net the more general the control. More people, less direct ability to command.”

  A crowd gathered in a rocky valley beyond the dune. Jelena picked up the pace on her way down. It was most of the merchant camp, yes, but also strangers from far-off camps and caravans coming over the far dunes. In the center there was a great pit. No, not a pit, but a carnivorous antlion tree’s waiting maw. Instead of leaves and branches beckoning na?ve prey into its digestive pit, there was a twiglike stalk with two hands and some shriveled thing at the end roughly approximating a head.

  The Piper Demon.

  What passed for its mouth was open, unmoving. Despite this, the song didn’t seem to come from there, rather just emanating into the night air. Calaf realized as they approached that the sound was coming from the ‘antlion’ pit fused to the creature’s torso. He received another ‘Resist!’ notification. At least his Effect Resistance was holding.

  “You may wish to hang back,” Enkidu said.

  “I won’t leave her.” Calaf tried in vain to take Jelena’s hand as she continued her steady march.

  “If she is summoned down that pit you won’t have a choice.”

  Jelena came to a stop at the back of the gathering. She stood between two figures – a Branded and an unbranded – both in light armor. They were the original watch shift for the camp, Calaf realized. Spirited away alongside those they were meant to guard.

  Up ahead, an unbranded stepped forward… and was picked up by the spindly frame of the Piper Demon. It turned its sleepwalking victim about, examining it like a doll. Then, it leaned down and placed the man carefully into the modified antlion pit. Then it repeated the movement with another victim.

  “It’s prioritizing unbranded,” Enkidu said. “Meaning Jelena has little time. Stay with her, block her from walking forward if necessary.”

  Already, Enkidu had his sword out and was walking through rows of sleepwalkers towards the demon’s ‘torso’ – which looked quite like a dire-stickbug from the delta. A twisted smile adorned Enkidu’s face. He was anticipating this immensely.

  With a mighty leap and a war cry, Enkidu landed atop the lanky sticklike form of the demon and swung away with his sword. It took three mighty swings before the demon closed its upper mouth. With a silent shove, it batted Enkidu off his footing – into the waiting maw below.

  Calaf gasped. The fiend just ate his last ally standing! There was a moment of eerie silence, with the stick-demon contorting at odd angles, examining its surroundings with its eyeless face. Then, from the pit:

  “Its lower half is mimicking a plant,” Enkidu cried out with a gurgling sound that made it clear he was beset by stomach acid. “Fire. Use fire!”

  Flaming Sword of Faith was a spell that would cast the pointy end of any weapon on fire. Calaf used it upon his spear and ran forward.

  Ahead, the demon sensed some threat to its person and reared its massive, oblong plant body upwards. Three quick thrusts set the ‘bucket’ ablaze; it was surprisingly dry and brittle, a pale imitation of life. The bucket burned away, causing the demon to recoil from its own body.

  Enkidu jumped out of the bucket as it toppled. His clothes were frayed but the acid wasn’t hindering his onslaught. Calaf quickly looked inside the creepy plant and saw a dark, towering environment double or triple the height of the outside ‘bucket’. He recoiled on instinct. The urge to retch crept up, but his superior tanky constitution stifled the reflex.

  The demon batted its arms about, again in total silence. At least that song was gone, though the line of victims had yet to stir. Then, with a sickening sticky sound, the ‘stick-bug’ body of the creature detached from the digestive sack of a torso.

  “On guard,” Enkidu said, sword out in a taunt. “Keep your shield up. It’ll be faster than it looks.”

  “Can we lure it away from all these victims? They’re defenseless.” Calaf shot a look back at Jelena.

  A dozen limbs whirled as the slender form of the Piper Demon rushed them, grabbing and grappling.

  Calaf’s feet pushed up great mounds of sand as the mighty demon skittered after him. Legs crashed against his shield in one, two, and three-limb combos. Still, the heavy redstone shielding stood firm. All the while the demon advanced in utter, persistent, silence.

  Stabbing with the spear, aflame or otherwise, proved as effective as poking at solid stone. Demonic carapace was so sturdy it served as endgame armor for the Arbiters.

  “The others aren’t moving.” Calaf took his eyes off the creature for only a moment to observe the lines of charmed subjects.

  “They will remain that way until released by the demon or after it dies,” Enkidu said.

  In that momentary distraction, the demon pushed Calaf off his feet. Enkidu jumped into the fray, sword swinging. Calaf stayed back to catch his breath.

  Enkidu’s sword proved more effective at slicing through the chitinous flesh of the demon. Two arms flew off… only for the creature to instantly grow four more in their place.

  From this vantage point, the patchwork demonic physiology was more readily visible. There was the slender build of a dire-stick bug, the grabby feelers of a dire-dung beetle. All this and more were thrown into a melting pot and blended alongside that antlion plant.

  On his knees, Calaf realized something. They’d been tracking Honest John’s footprints all day. Only, he’d escaped on a dire-horse. When the disaster merchant had lured them into this demon’s territory to lose his tails, his tracks had been human footprints. An intentional misdirect. It was the bastard’s fault that Jelena was in thrall to a demon. And Calaf’s, for not seeing through the ruse sooner. The revelation caused Calaf to see everything in a deep crimson shade. Blood ran hot. He rose, teeth clenched, tightening his grip on his shield.

  Hymns and scripture said Paladins were stone walls against corruption. Protectors of the weak, standing firm behind their shields. General Perarde had long adopted a more kinetic approach to chivalry. Efficient savagery masked as honorable justice. But looking at the writhing, spindly demon before him, Calaf had to admit he felt a sudden affinity for Perarde's bloodthirsty approach. With a renewed grip on his shield, Calaf rotated his shoulder. No matter the moral code or justification, he just really wanted to smite this thing.

  Now ready to go another round, Calaf cast Flaming Sword of Faith on his Shield and Spear, then rushed in beside Enkidu.

  The collector demon was up to thirty-four flailing limbs. Calaf slammed down with his flaming shield, smashing the creature’s head into the ground. Enkidu kept up the attack aiming more to slice than to sever. Calaf followed up with another shield bash, dashing the creature’s eyeless face against reddish rocks of the desert bedrock. Calaf let out a mighty war cry and bashed the demon upside the head again.

  Every swing of the shield, Calaf imagined the demon’s featureless face was instead the unblemished half of Honest John’s. The Squire’s war cries grew manic as each shield bash applied greater force from rage-boosted multipliers.

  With no Interface, there was little indication that the creature was hurt. Cuts and scrapes along its carapace did not bleed. That barely-there mouth opened out of some crease on the stone face of the demon. The whole spindly creature shuddered after a particularly heavy flurry of bashes from Calaf's desert-forged stone great shield.

  “It’s afraid,” Enkidu said.

  “Is it?”

  Enkidu maintained a rare defensive stance with his sword; he typically tanked any incoming blows and struck out even as he was hit. The demon’s attacks were too strong to trade tit-for-tat.

  “Blunt force trauma. Shield bashes to the head tend to discombobulate them in this form.”

  What counted for the demon’s face gazed at Calaf, specifically. Though it had no eyes Calaf could tell it was gazing into his soul.

  The collector demon rose on what passed for its hind legs. It looked up at pitch black sky offering no illumination over the secluded valley. The creature raised its primary hands skyward.

  “What’s it doing now?” Calaf asked.

  “Stay back.”

  With its ‘mouth’ still wide open, the fiend was quickly enveloped from the bottom up by a sticky film. This film inflated as it grew opaque into a round bubble.

  “It’s molting.”

  Two hands poked out of the shell, stretching well beyond what the creature’s slender build would have allowed. Hands groped about over the desert, looking for something…

  With an ill feeling in his gut, Calaf moved to put his shield between this shell and Jelena. Enkidu ran to cut off the hands, but not before they grabbed two hapless figures – a random unbranded merchant and another figure listed as Bartholomew, the caravan leader. Both hands shot backward into the cocoon, dragging these two warm bodies in with them.

  “What was that?” Calaf asked. “Can we get them back?”

  “Too late,” Enkidu growled. “Now, we wait.”

  The creature returned to its pupa state behind a protective shell. The egg-cocoon pulsated, as if waiting to grab anyone else who ventured too close. The battle was at an impasse, for now…