The carrot was there dangling on the end of a stick. The echo of the demon’s voice still hovered in the night air. Leaving was all it would take for us to survive… all of us. It truly was a troubling proposition.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, I’d seen the darker side of humanity—most of us here had. Lying was easier than telling the truth, and whatever little bit of naive hope I had once held had left long ago, nothing came free. Even Lucas let out a snort and then raised his voice loud, “If you want to leave and gamble your life on the words of a demon then go ahead, but you won’t be coming back after.” He was right: they were either with us or against us in this moment.

  “I doubt there will be an after,” I added, “what would it take to kill any one of you? One demon?”

  “One would stop them for sure,” Alan agreed.

  “I mean there’s enough for them to send two, that would be a death sentence I think.” I felt like an evil cartoon character voicing these thoughts aloud, but sometimes some honest sobering was all it took to snap people back into reality.

  I heard Evee muttering to Marcus something along the lines of it being safer to stay as a group. There was no guarantee we were strong enough, but at least it seemed they would fight until it got bad. If it got bad.

  I looked back at the other two groups, “Let’s discuss plans.” I took their swift movement as a tacit agreement to staying and fighting. I already had a basic understanding of their skill breakdown, but it was very different to apply them in a cohesive way with our own party in a real combat like this.

  Marcus proved to be quite the tactician, bouncing solid ideas off Lucas until a general game plan developed. My group would be the main fighting force, which went without saying, and they would act as support.

  We had the abode to our back, which allowed us to avoid being surrounded, and with so many tanks we had plenty of meat in front of us to keep the mobs off. We’d seen how the demons fought, and these lesser demons were straightforward opponents with telegraphed abilities and attacks, albeit hard-hitting ones.

  Their intelligence was obviously better than a wild animal, but it was minimal enough to abuse with some good tactics. The wild card was the boss, whom I assumed was a Greater Demon. Could he be something higher than that? We couldn’t know for certain. Jessica had attempted to check his level and stats, but something blocked her from doing it.

  It was clear though, from his speech and mannerisms, that he was something more than just an NPC. Whether he would go along with our tactics was something to be seen. Surely there was some hope of survival, which meant this couldn’t be an impossibly difficult challenge to surpass.

  Oddly enough, the demons seemed to keep their word as we formed up. While we tried to avoid making it completely obvious we weren’t planning to leave, after an hour of meticulous planning it was pretty apparent our decision was to stay and fight. Still, they stood patiently and waited.

  That only made me more nervous. Was their posture a bluff? Confidence through assured victory? Regardless, there was nothing to do about it but fight. None of us knew of another abode within the next hundred miles. With so many of us, and the red hue beating down from above, that journey was near suicide.

  “Are we almost ready?” I asked everyone. We had spent long enough, and the conversations were starting to loop. I’d prefer if we were the first to strike, and no amount of more discussing and talking would do us any good, we all knew what needed to be done.

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  “I think everyone knows what their job is.” Lucas said while eying Marcus and Bethany. They in turn looked at their members and confirmed it a second time.

  It was a short silence, which told me there was no objections to his statement. “We pull in five minutes. Make your final preparations.” Only a few left to use the bathroom or secure a quick bite to eat. This could be over in five minutes or drag on for hours.

  The rest of us were too tired, or apathetic to move around tirelessly. Some movement would calm their jittery nerves and hopefully have them a bit more alert. This was just another day… a shitty one though.

  Once everyone returned, the group repositioned in front of the gap between the two abodes. Jessica laid her traps in front of the group and Maria was prepared with her Ensnaring Arrow. The tanks positioned in front of the opening as all ranged DPS moved back into the gap, protecting our sides with the two buildings.

  Rebekah summoned her treants and they moved with my skeleton warriors who floated outside of the tank wall. Spikey #1 and #2 were positioned in the back gap behind us, each of them able to kill a demon on their own, and fend off two of them if they focused purely on defense. Mark and Glenn joined them, providing some backup in case of an emergency.

  Alan was going to main tank with Richard doing his best to support the other tanks. Thomas was solely responsible for healing Aaron. Ryan, Marcus’ priest was going to heal the other tanks, and Rebekah would pickup heal on anyone else who needed it as her kit was mostly HoTs and best suited for spread healing.

  The plan was to deal with the thirty or so lesser demons first, funneling them into a narrow opening and bombarding them with AoE. Explosive arrow, Blizzard, and a new skill that Evee provided—Bullet Rain.

  Lucas, Bruce, and anyone who didn’t have AoE, would do their best to get quick shots in through their respective tanks, which they had been assigned previously. If things went smoothly, everyone would be safely behind the tanks.

  Once the lesser demons were dealt with, we would tackle the boss, with our group doing most of the heavy lifting to ensure nothing untoward happened. I was most confident in covering for my friends than the new additions if things went haywire. I gathered my thoughts and took a deep breath. “Alan,” I said.

  “Ready,” he replied, which started a chain reaction. Before a dozen seconds passed everyone said they were ready, a few being more reluctant. A few seconds before a fight that could be their last.

  “Maria, Jessica, Evee, don’t hold back,” I said, “on Jessica’s count.” I took a moment to look out into the darkness. The silent night was only broken by a light crackle of fire—an orange glow flickering over the demonic bodies that seemed to be one with the darkness.

  Maria and Jessica knocked their bows and Evee placed her rifle over Marcus’ shoulder for support. “Three,” Jessica exhaled deeply, “two. One.” And then an explosion rocked the night air, a blast of hot powder escaping the rifle’s barrel.

  Godless Arrow connected at the same time, cleanly dispatching a single unsuspecting demon immediately. Explosive Arrow landed half a second later on the left side of the enemy forces, throwing at least five or six demons into chaos.

  The boss didn’t move or speak, but the demons rushed in like a tidal wave. The sound of their approach vibrating the air and shaking the earth beneath our feet. They were on the traps Jessica had put out in what felt like a second, and Ensnaring Arrow flew a second later.

  They stampeded towards us, kicking up moist dirt.That smell of earth, together with the scent of oak, ignited my senses. It was once again kill or be killed, and yet I somehow felt a yearning for it. The brief second it took to look around made me realize there were more smiles than not. I wasn’t the only one.

  I focused back to the incoming forces, my summoned troops strewn about the field did their best to latch on to any enemy isolated after Maria’s explosive shot. The remaining twenty or so demons crashed into the tanks a moment later, but we miraculously held.

  The space for them to reach us was only so wide, and the five or so in front of us couldn’t overpower our four tanks focusing purely on defense. Blizzard and Bullet Rain came from above, and within just a minute the first five enemies fell before us.

  I felt hope we could all make it out alive.