“Hey!” Ember jerked away from a tiny, thin tentacle lashing out of the black smoke to whip against her face. “Ugh. Get off me.”
Cheyenne blasted the tentacle with her other energy sphere and grabbed Ember’s wrist. “Come on.”
A wall of dark flesh darted up from the ground in front of them and reared back, hissing. Cheyenne sent two more crackling black orbs into its open mouth, but they didn’t do anything. The creature lurched forward and sprayed the air with hundreds of barbed projectiles. They bounced off Cheyenne’s well-timed shield, and the halfling tugged Ember after her and around the attacking creature. Maleshi brought her four-inch claws up through the creature’s side from behind, and it shattered too.
“Piece of cake.” Byrd hurtled balls of bright-green fire into the floating masses of black shards as they tried to rearrange themselves. Each of his attacks made the creature start all over again until it finally spat a glob of black slime at his arm. “Ah! Asshole!” He shook off the slime and attacked faster.
Cheyenne blasted the creatures materializing in front of her, sending black energy spheres left and right. When the closest winged creature snapped its black-slobbering beak at Ember, the halfling’s tendrils whipped from her fingertips and coiled around the thing’s beak and its neck, and she jerked down. With a shuddering crash, the creature toppled sideways on the ground, giving Lumil the perfect opportunity to land a flying punch in its heaving side. The in-between monster exploded and fizzled away.
“Ha! There!”
Cheyenne faced the direction they were headed, and her eyes widened.
“Is that normal?” Ember squeaked.
“No clue, Em.”
Byrd stopped when the massive creature rising in front of them cast its shadow across his body, and he turned too. Maleshi and Corian stepped toward each other, blocking the slavering beast with four gnashing sets of jaws from the goblins, Cheyenne, and Ember. Glowing red eyes spewing smoke rolled in the giant head. Between the nightstalkers and the creature stood L’zar with his hands clasped behind his back, which was turned toward the newest threat rising taller every second behind him.
“L’zar.” Corian cleared his throat. “We have to keep moving.”
Lumil growled. “If he’s not gonna bash that thing to bits, I will.”
L’zar’s glowing golden gaze settled on the goblin woman, and he raised an eyebrow. “That’s enough.”
He slowly turned to face the snorting creature. All four of its mouths dripped with glowing black ooze. Its red eyes centered on the drow, and its jaws spread wide to bellow in four different voices. The force of that roar whipped L’zar’s white hair away from his face and cleared the black smoke that had filtered back into the area.
L’zar stared at the creature without moving. He didn’t even flinch when the thing came down with its open mouth as if it meant to rip him apart with each one. Two feet from the drow’s head, the creature froze, shrieked in rage, and splintered into a million fragments that shot to either side of L’zar like he’d tossed them aside with his own hands.
The creature Byrd blasted with his green fire screamed and withdrew behind the black smoke. The rearranging pieces of black creature unfolded themselves and scattered. The flying creatures that hadn’t been vanquished screeched and took to the air again.
Turning around to look over his shoulder at the rest of the party, L’zar dipped his head. “I’d say we’re close.”
Without commenting on the monsters, the drow gazed at the lightless sky and swung nonchalantly around again to continue in the direction they’d been heading.
“That’s it?” Cheyenne muttered. “Did he even see those things?”
“I mean, he did stop.” Ember moved quickly beside the halfling, searching through the trails of black smoke snaking through their party. “Other than that, yeah. Didn’t look like he noticed anything.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Cheyenne picked up the pace, skirting around Byrd and Lumil until she fell in line between Corian and Maleshi, slightly behind them. “What was all that about?”
“We keep moving, kid. That’s all this is.”
“He didn’t lift a finger to help us fight those things.”
Corian shot a quick glance at her over his shoulder. “The beasts in this realm are the least of the threats we’ll face today.”
“Can he see them?”
This time, Maleshi turned to gaze at the halfling. “What would make you ask that?”
“Because L’zar looks like he’s floating through la-la land up there. No reaction to us fighting or to that giant thing about to rip his head off in four different pieces.”
Corian raised a finger beside his shoulder. “But it didn’t.”
“Yeah, and I wanna know why it and all the others scattered like that. Did you guys know that would happen?”
“Not explicitly, no.”
“But you expected something.”
“Hmm.” Maleshi tilted her head from side to side. “Interesting line of questioning while we’re crossing through, kid. Makes me wonder why you’re so curious and why it can’t wait.”
Cheyenne snorted, blinking in surprise. “Because it’s weird. It doesn’t feel right.”
“To whom?” Corian asked softly. “Looks to me like everyone else is feeling just fine about not having to fight those things.”
“Well, everyone else is just passing through this place like regular magicals, aren’t they? But I got moved by this plane to a different exit the last time I was here. The creatures saw me in drow speed, just like the last war machines. They knew I had the activator. Now L’zar’s just breezing on by without a care in the world, and the things existing in here just give up. What’s going on?”
Corian sniffed, his tufted ears twitching atop his head, and shrugged. “Must be in your blood, kid.”
“No, that’s not an answer.” Cheyenne shook her head and peered at the tall shadow on their left. For a moment, she thought she saw the Nimlothar tree from her vision, then the black smoke thickened and blocked it from view. “And I’m sick of hearing about my blood.”
The nightstalkers exchanged knowing glances.
“Be that as it may, Cheyenne, we have to focus.” Corian peered behind them to
