Apocalypse Failed (WP Response)
In response to a Tumblr Writing Prompt, here is a short story for you. A dark summoning ritual goes wrong in the most unexpected fashion.
WP:
The villain has won. You and your friends lay, exhausted and defeated at his feet as the ritual is completed and the dark god summoned. You are no less stupefied when all that appears is a sticky note bearing the words, "yeah, sorry guys. Apocalypse canceled. Just not feeling it anymore."
—
We knew we were finished. It was evident. No matter how much weaponry, how much magic my small team could bring to bear, the Ebon Mask had won. I knew what came next. Sacrifice. Our still living bodies would be food for the Dark One. There would be pain unrelenting and terrible. The Dark One was known to feed on the pain and suffering of those who were in that being’s… care.
The Ebon Mask laughed, high and derisive, while drawing in the air the enchantment that would summon that ancient evil from the mists of the Aethyr, all the while using what was left of our souls to power the enchantment, taking just enough not to kill us, while not permitting any healing or magic use of our own. More and more magic gathered in the circle, and the Mask’s laughter acquired a spooky, otherworldly resonance, vibrating me to my core with a feeling of utter wrong. There was nothing about this particular experience I would wish to remember if I came out of it alive, to be sure.
The longer this lasted, the more disheartened I became. No one was coming for us. No one would even care if we were gone. To this point it had just been my small team of ten that were at all fighting the Ebon Mask and his cohort of conjured soldiers. No matter what, every other mage and warrior in the land had decided that we were insane to even try. They preferred slavery and submission to freedom. That was not what myself and my team wished.
I am sure some prayers went to whatever deities existed amongst those of us on the ground, being subject to this constant torture of steadily sapping our soul energy, but for the moment, not even the Gods had any desire to help, it seemed. All was well and truly lost.
But, then, in the spot where the Mask had expected the appearance of the Dark One, a small scrap of ancient yellow parchment appeared, affixed to a stone with some weird mild adhesive, and upon it read the words that would forever change the color of history. It read, “The Dark One apologizes to the parties involved in the summoning. Beginning on or about one year prior to this summoning, The Dark One obtained a different food source, that of ambient living energy, as is felt within a city, and realized that the pain and suffering of those offered to the Dark One no longer held any desirable attributes, and held significantly less power than that of the energies of the living cities. It is with great sorrow that the Dark One apologizes for any misunderstanding. At the reading of this document, the energy and life force of those used for this summoning is returned to those who were sacrificed. This is an automated document.”
At the end of the document, every bit of pain and theft of magic just… stopped. And all of it returned to us. Our strength, our magics, our abilities returned to us as if they never left. Also, our wounds seemed to have healed, as if never applied in the first place. And for the first time, it appeared that the Mask was on his back foot. This time, we had the upper hand, because no longer did that energy sapping spell work, for some reason.
This fact we used to our advantage, as one would. We overpowered him, but unlike him, we gave him a chance to change. We gave him an opportunity to correct the wrongs he had done to us and so many others. He did NOT take that opportunity. And, well, you can imagine the outcome. And the welcome for us when we returned. Believe it or not, not a thing changed. We were not welcomed as heroes. In fact, we were not acknowledged at all. Those who saw us never knew we were the ones who guaranteed they would not live in fear of the Mask anymore.
So, we decided to leave. If they would not fight for themselves, or even acknowledge those who did, no longer would we be their patsies, doing the hard work that they would not lift a finger to do. As a group, we left that country, and never will we return. Among my group, I found my love, and most of our group have as well. In general, our new land has welcomed us when our old land refused to even acknowledge the work we did. Now we live our lives free and unencumbered. And we now no longer fight battles meant for others.