"Not your average bed and breakfast," Beast Boy half-heartedly joked, "but it'll be fine, I guess."
He was talking about the large pine tree they were currently camping under. Robin had decided that, though they were definitely in a hurry, his team needed some rest.
"How about through here?" he'd asked, using his sword to cut a path through the trees.
They found a pine that was dry and warm underneath, and using their weapons, they cut and gathered some ferns. In their packs were some warm, yet thin blankets and they draped them over the ferns, making some bedding.
"I mean," Cyborg shrugged, "I'm not sure we can sleep anyway?"
It turned out that the duration of 'night' in game-time was only a few hours, and their journals recorded their energy and health stats. By resting, they would slowly regain stamina, but they weren't sure yet if they could sleep or eat in this world.
"Regardless," Robin continued, "we should get some rest and figure out what to do next."
"I found an apple core in my bag," Beast Boy suggested. "I can try stomaching it?"
"Do it," Cyborg grinned.
Robin and Starfire watched in horror as Beast Boy attempted to gnaw on what looked like a rotten old apple core that someone else had been munching on. As he did so, he had difficulty biting through it, as though it were made of stone.
"Nothing's happening-" he began, but then there was a pinging noise and the apple core disappeared. Beast Boy yelped and suddenly his green health bar in his mirror went up a slight degree faster than it had been from resting.
"What happened?" Cyborg asked, disappointed in the outcome.
Beast Boy rubbed his stomach.
"I think it's... inside me."
Robin flipped through his deck of cards.
"I think it says that an apple core item has to include a roll of higher than six to see if it either heals you or harms you. Raven must have rolled for you."
"Thanks, Rae," Beast Boy grumbled, feeling queasy but slightly better.
"Your health bar went up," Cyborg said, peering over Beast Boy's shoulder into the mirror.
Cyborg's health bar was also steadily rising as they rested, but not nearly as fast.
"I do kind of feel more awake," Beast Boy said.
The rest of them rifled through their packs and found crusty old bread, a bottle of warm milk, and what looked like a chicken leg, but no one could be sure. They each took turns consuming their meagre scraps, and each one of them felt a little better. Raven must have been rolling for them each time, because even the milk wouldn't come out of its bottle until there had been a slight delay, and then it was in Cyborg's stomach.
"So," Robin finally said as they settled back down onto their threadbare blankets, "you're all at level seven now, me at level eight. There are only ten levels, so we must be reaching the game's finale."
"Which means things are only gonna get harder," Cyborg added.
"And that Raven is nearby," Starfire said.
"Exactly," Robin nodded, "which is why we need to maintain vigilance and keep our guard up. We don't know what's coming and we have to be prepared."
"So what's our next move?" Beast Boy asked.
"Now we get some rest, regain our strength, and push the game into the last stretch tomorrow. We're dwindling down on our time limit as it is."
Beast Boy didn't even want to look at the timer on his mirror. He settled back against the soft ferns and morphed into a spaniel dog. Curling into himself he laid his head on his paws and closed his eyes, keeping his ears open for the sound of anything sinister.
As the team rested, they fell further and further into a sleepy state. Their exhaustion and need to recover overshadowed the very crucial fact that there were things lurking in that forest.
Dark things. Wild things.
Things that were salivating over what seemed to be a very easy meal.
...
"I think your idea of 'fair' is the same as my idea of 'ridiculous'," Malchior commented when she'd called out in protest. "You weren't supposed to weasel your way out of my blanket charms the first time, and yet I allowed you that one cheat. I could have disqualified you, you know? The least you could do is condone mine."
Unfortunately, Raven actually had to admit to herself he'd been playing fairly for the 'villain' role in this game. Yes, her friends had had to deal with monsters, traps, riddles and hordes of orcs. However, everything that happened was something she'd done at least five times when they'd first bought the RPG game. While she shivered, both in sickness and in unease, she closed her mouth and consented to his stupid trick. With one exception of course.
"You're not allowed to kill them," she said frankly, and he grinned when he realized she was giving in to him.
"With underhanded tricks, Raven? Not likely. I want to see their faces when I kill them. Remember, they do return to the real world once they die here, though."
She'd forgotten about that.
"Then what's the point?"
"You are the point, my love. Even if they 'die' and reawaken, you're still mine forever. Whether you like it, or not."
He stood from his chair once more and leaned over her.
"Although your little speech earlier was off-putting, instead of keeping you for company like I'd wanted..." he wound his long, clawed fingers around her throat, barely touching her skin, "...then I'll just have to consume your soul."
...
Beast Boy couldn't help but think about Raven.
Was she trapped in a cold, stone tower somewhere like a damsel guarded by a dragon? It seemed like something Malchior would do, considering Raven had mentioned that the book he'd been trapped in was from the Dark Ages.
Beast Boy worried about that, and he worried for her health, too. No one really knew what a human cold would do to her, least of all Raven. Cyborg was the closest thing they had to medical help, but even he wasn't sure how their demon girl would handle it.
It isn't like she'll die, right? When was the last time someone died of a common cold?
Beast Boy adjusted his sleeping position beneath the pine tree, startled a little when some sap fell on his head. He itched it out of his fur and sighed. Of all the ways he thought he'd spend the weekend, being trapped inside of an RPG was NOT one of them. He'd wanted to go to the beach, binge-watch movies and maybe pray a little that no one would terrorize the city on a hot summer's day so he could relax.
Instead, he was here.
Beast Boy gazed up at the artificial moonlight in his spaniel form and shivered a little in the early morning dew, still just thinking about Raven.
Then he smelled them. His ears had perked while they lay around lazily, waiting for the sun to rise. His dog nose lifted into the air once, twice, sniffing at the earthy smells around them. Something was off. There was just a lot of calm.
He noted a musty, dark smell. A deep, bloodcurdling one like a bear or a large moose. A smell that meant whatever it was could kill you with very little trouble, and that you'd better scurry up the nearest tree. He was about to alert his team when the forest around them erupted.
Giant monsters sprang from the bushes and ferns, teeth sharp and lashing out wildly. They were like bears and wolves; giant shadow-animals that seemed to disappear and reappear in the darkness of the trees. Beast Boy now, more than ever, wished for the sun to rise.
Robin was on his feet, sword already drawn when he yelled, "Titans, GO!"
The battle was rough. It was clear that there was something supernatural going on with these animals, just like the shadows in Malchior's trap earlier. When Cyborg had first swung his axe on the bear-like creature, he'd expected it to almost tear in half. Instead it was just knocked back a foot, and then kept charging as if nothing had happened.
"Uh oh," Cyborg blinked.
He went toe to toe with the monster. His armor screeched with every swipe of the monster's claw. Beast Boy tried to flank it with a mean bite to it's hind leg, but was instead kicked promptly in the face and he had to back off a bit.
Cyborg kept its attention by yelling obscenities at the monster, and when Beast Boy had time to recover, the two worked as a team to finally bring the thing down.
While they were occupied, Robin and Starfire tag-teamed a pack of four wolf-like monsters. Each black or grey wolf was two and a half times the size of a regular wolf, towering over them with teeth bared.
"Starfire, behind you!" Robin called out to her. Just in time she was able to turn and land a huge blow on a leaping wolf. It yelped and skulked back into a shadow to recover.
"Don't let them respawn!" Robin called out to the whole team now. "Starfire, get some light in here!"
She nodded and, with her mage abilities, she was able to pull out an illumination card. It was called 'Moonbeam' and it explained that it was able to "create light where it had not been before". Now the clearing was extremely bright, almost day. The team was now bathed in bright blue moonlight, but could now see what the beasts really were.
They were, indeed shadows, but without the darkness to dissolve into they were clearly also rotten. Like necromancy, these beasts looked like they had been brought back from the dead. They didn't ooze like the last few monsters had, but instead were falling apart. Robin could see their rib cages ghosting out of them like a white fence. Their jaws were protruding out of the skin and their tails were half gone or hanging off.
"AH!" Beast Boy exclaimed. "Turn the lights back off! They're hideous!"
One great bear let out a terrifying scream and the rest of the pack charged. When he swung down, Cyborg was shocked to find that his axe finally made contact on their now corporeal forms. Robin's sword was hitting its mark and Starfire's Starbolts set some remaining tails on fire.
Beast Boy tried to imitate their images, but was unable to transform into their half-dead state. Instead he became a polar bear, overwhelming the wolves. He swiped with his monstrous claws, raking them across the face, the back; the legs. He roared and fought, but grew more tired with every swing.
He wished that he'd been able to keep the rose-vine weapon from the last challenge, but after trying to take it from the clearing he was penalized ten experience points. Rather than keep losing skill, he left it where it was.
Now, he and his team were both exhausted and outnumbered. They hadn't had enough time to rest before the attack, and he started to feel sick.
He was drained and lacking in the strength to keep going, though not the motivation. Every time he thought of Raven, or Malchior or his own crumpled body on the kitchen floor, Beast Boy became more and more determined to not only finish this game, but to burn it to the ground.
They were only just starting to win the fight when the moonbeam card started to fade. Starfire called out that they had only five minutes left before the beasts would overpower them. Robin thought about calling for a hasty retreat, but there was nowhere to go. Instead, they pushed through it, until the last few seconds of moonlight. Cyborg's stamina was at zero, he looked like he was about to power down. Starfire's mana was at twelve percent. Robin had run out of steam, and he stooped over his sword like a cane, pressing the tip of it into the ground. Beast Boy was out of energy and out of ideas.
As the last of the light began to fade, the beasts made a retreat into the shadows. For a moment, everything went silent again, but the team knew that they couldn't rest, fearing that at any moment the monsters would emerge from the forest again.
It was for the rest of the night, until sunrise, that the Titan's would be scanning the treeline, completely on edge.
...
"An underhanded trick," she said aloud, staring at the gameboard.
"That's what I said," he told her, lounging in his armchair.
"I'm..." she hesitated, "almost impressed."
Malchior smiled, much to Raven's dismay.
"It is something you would have done, isn't it," he asked her. "Weaken your opponent before a larger battle to come. Put them on edge, sap them of their energy, their wits. Clever, don't you agree?"
"They're my friends, Malchior."
"Emotions can cloud judgement, love. Yes, they are your friends, but now that you know they won't rightly die, your mind has returned to a more strategic position than one of overprotectiveness. You're noticing their failures, their weaknesses as pawns now, aren't you? Their potential to lose thereby rooting you in this realm forever." Malchior was beaming. "Finally. Welcome to the game, Raven."
"What about your emotions?"
He paused. "I don't know what you mean."
Raven held his gaze for a long moment, forcing him to look in her violet eyes. He did not react at first, only defiantly looking back. In a quick moment of cruelty she gave him a fake, seductive smile. Raven saw him swallow, and it was he who broke eye contact first.
"Don't," he told her, "play pretend with me now."
"I know it hurts," she mocked his words from years ago, "but you're not going to cry are you?"
Malchior licked his lips in irritation and avoided her eyes.
"Does it bother you," she continued, "knowing that I would have followed you anywhere back then? That we would have been powerful together, a pair of sorcerers unlike the world has ever seen in centuries? Does it just eat you up inside that you ruined it that night? That you said those things to me and lost everything?"
He didn't answer right away. He didn't seem to know how, but Raven could tell she was right. He was lonely, one of a kind, and because there was no one like him in the entire world, he was utterly alone.
"I didn't realize before," she finished, "but I truly hope that it does. I hope that it is killing you, and you couldn't possibly lower yourself to offer up an apology, because you're smart enough to realize that it wouldn't do you any good."
Raven leaned triumphantly back against the couch, reveling in his silence. The grandfather clock ticked on.
"You know," Malchior finally said as he twisted his empty teacup in his hand, "they really should be saving their energy. Perhaps they will awaken in their world when they leave this one, but that doesn't mean I won't make it hurt first."
Between his thumb and forefinger the teacup cracked, and Raven was left to wonder how far she had pushed the dragon this time.