That’s when he heard the noise.
It was a dull thudding, like a drum. He frowned. It seemed to be coming from the other side of the building, and he quickly advanced the last couple hundred feet and cast gravitas on himself again, floating up the side of the building. He shot past the top and then reduced his gravity until he was floating free in the air. Casting blink step, he landed on the roof, not wanting to worry about controlling the landing properly with gravitas.
He could hear the throbbing better now; it was coming from the open area on the south side of the DIA building. When he finally reached the corner, he caught sight of his first human life since Katie.
The public entrance of the DIA building was adjacent to several parking lots and a couple baseball fields off to the west, as well as a well-maintained soccer field to the south. Moving around on the soccer field about half a mile away were a few dozen humans. They appeared to be dragging other humans to a large stack of wood they had built up in the center of the field.
The source of the throbbing sound was indeed a set of drums. Three figures were seated and beating on a single drum that must have been at least a meter in diameter, although it was hard to tell at this distance and it might have been much bigger.
He watched entranced as they dragged half a dozen people (Or were they bodies? They weren’t moving.) over to the pile of wood, carefully placing them on top of it. Once all they had all been placed on the wood, the figures all stood in a circle around it, except for one who stood closer and began gesturing with his hands. He could hear words being shouted, but it was difficult to make them out over the wind and the drums.
The one in the center then pointed at the woodpile and a crack of lightning descended from the sky, catching the wood on fire with a thunderous boom. That’s when he heard the screams. The people in the fire were crying out in pain and fear. They were still alive.
Drew slumped back down onto the roof, his face turning white as he realized that he had just witnessed people being sacrificed.
Chapter Twenty — Ashes
He kept telling himself that there was nothing he could do against 20 people. He almost believed it. Could he cast a storm out that far? None of his spells listed a range he could cast them at. They all originated from him, but how far could a fireball fly?
Spending however long it had been in the close confines inside of HQ, he hadn’t had a lot of opportunities to try out how far away he could cast his spells. He peeked back over the wall, studying the figures standing around the circle. Each was clothed in robes that covered their entire body. If he cast storm on them, they would die, and he would be a murderer.
He had already killed sentient beings before. Was he already a murderer? There was something comforting about the fact that the orc blood had been green, inhuman. Some part of him was convinced that because they weren’t human, it was alright. He frowned, realizing how slippery that slope could be. Just because they weren’t human didn’t mean that they deserved death. Or did it? Humanity was locked in an eons-long fight against someone. What if that someone was the Orcs? Didn’t that mean they were at war? Plus, they had attacked him first, had killed Juan and Mitch. Even if they claimed that humans had killed their people, they were still the aggressors in that fight.
Had he been shanghaied into an intergalactic Hatfield and McCoy scenario without realizing it?
Shaking his head again, Drew cleared his existential crisis thoughts away. He could deal with them later. Besides, he knew it was just his mind trying to find an alternative to thinking about that ash filled morning five years ago. There was no way for him to save those people on the pyre. Or was there? He began casting refreshing rain. He felt it was unlikely that they would be able to pinpoint his location; he would just be another minuscule dot on the roof half a mile away. Unless they had a skill to see where the spell was coming from or something…
After five seconds the rain appeared; he could indeed cast it from this distance. The blaze had only been burning for just over a minute. However, they had clearly used some sort of accelerant, as the rain didn’t seem to have any effect on the blaze. The robed people around the fire had a very different reaction: the drumming stopped, and everyone ceased to move or chant.
Had they been sacrificing these people to some form of weather god? The thunderbolt they used to light the fire made that likely. If so, did this mean their god was angry at them or happy with them? Drew’s fingers were already tracing another casting. He aimed for the figure that had called the lightning bolt, whom he designated as the head cultist.
He couldn’t save these people, they were already as good as dead; but he could at least give them a quicker death than suffocation and bring some vengeance on their tormentors. Frostfire Storm formed slightly off center of the pyre, encompassing the head cultist and several additional cultists in its blast radius. Without stopping, he began to cast firestorm, which then caught an additional four cultists. By now the cultists had broken ranks and begun to run, their sense of self-preservation forcing them into action. Drew smiled grimly as the majority of them made a break towards him, bunching up enough for him to hit them with his spells a few more times before they could reach safety.
After finishing the cast on firestorm, he immediately began to cast ice storm on those that were running towards him. He had contained all but a handful of the cultists that had scattered to the south and west within his stormy vengeance. He turned his attention to the frostfire storm that was about to expire. He was ready to cast his last storm spell if there was anything still standing, but the storm cleared and all that remained were motionless bodies on the ground.
The storm had ripped their clothing, revealing their dark skin. But what caused the hard lump in his throat to go away was that several of them had pools of blood around them. Green blood.
A notification popped up in the corner of his vision, so he figured that meant he was out of combat. Glancing at them quickly, he didn’t see Gravitas mentioned, so he ignored them for now. He waited, wanting to ensure all the cultists were dead and that no reinforcements were going to arrive. Once satisfied, he made his way to the west side of the building and then jumped off it. His stomach lurched from the fall, responding to his instincts telling him he was falling to his death, despite his brain telling it that he would be safe. Casting gravitas halfway through his fall, he slowed down until he was free floating a foot or two above the ground and then lowered himself slowly to the grass.
Limping again, he skirted the road, eyeing the houses that were between him and the commissary. Base housing wasn’t large, but he didn’t really want to come across a mana twisted dog. He also wanted a better look at the cultists. He avoided the houses by walking through the field.
The first clump of dead cultists he came across were torn to shreds; sharp hail, wind, and lightning having done a number on them. The smell was horrible. He covered his nose and mouth with his shirt as he approached. He counted three heads. The first two spells had caught the clear majority of them. These three had just been either lucky or faster than the others.
Their faces were clearly not human; a flat pig nose, feral red eyes, and sharp fangs made up most of their facial features. Their skin up close was a green so dark that it was almost black, without any hair on their bodies. It was hard to say if there was an analogy to any mythological creature he had ever seen in a game; he certainly couldn’t think of anything.