The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The road north of the Hollow Crown had not been paved with stone.

It had been paved with everything the Hunger Emperor had tried to pave it with.

Dark roots writhed beneath the grassland in straight lines, carving a way between abandoned factories and dead farms. The expedition walked alongside their portable ledger’ white guidance line beside it. Every mile markers, the road contorted around them, offering shortcuts it knew they would take.

Austin Veyron strode beside Calder.

The contestant marks on their wrists blinked every time they got too far apart.

"That’s intentional." Calder said.

"It is." Austin Veyron watched the ground shift underfoot between them. "The Emperor wants us to believe there’s only one way to survive this is by staying fused to each other."

"So we witness each other but stay two separate strategies."

Austin Veyron nodded. Lia and Mara led the portable root charge, with Veyra and Rin bringing up behind them. They were walking in front not because the adults wanted symbolism, but because Lia could see silver residue the others couldn’t, and Mara could hear the black roots when they were lying about a clear route.

The first attack took advantage of a dried out riverbed.

Feeder husks rose out of the cracked dirt. Their corpses constructed from every broken faceplate of the avatar’ roots the Emperor had discarded over centuries. They did not attack Austin Veyron immediately.

They attacked the white root line first.

Veyra and Rin moved to cover the scribes. Maelis pushed the husks away from the route tube with precision fire. Calder sniped at the command roots beneath the riverbed, but three feeders still managed to crawl through and wedge themselves between him and Austin Veyron.

Their contestant marks flared.

’SEPARATION ENDANGERMENT. DUPLICATION ADVISED.’

Austin Veyron suppressed the notification and yanked the white root chain across the biggest feeder’ throbbing neck. It screamed and tried to pull him closer to the black road, where another fresh heart pulsed beneath sand and stone.

It was so easy to do.

Accept their terms. Gain strength. Finish the battle.

Instead Austin Veyron chopped the feeder loose from its command tether. Calder severed the second tether from across the riverbed. They attacked on separate sides of the road but within eyesight of each other, coordinating their ally’ options over the portable ledger.

"I witness Austin Veyron." Calder called.

"I witness Calder." Austin Veyron replied.

The lights dimmed.

The feeder husks collapsed under their feet.

Mara tapped at the riverbed next to her. "The road’s clearing there."

A pitch black doorway blinked open in the clay beneath them, filling their vision with an assault on Grand Meridian. The Emperor had learned what they were afraid of and weaponized it as a beacon.

Nahlia studied the route indicator. "It’s a deception. The city is stable."

The doorway yawned wider. Another image flickered behind it, depicting Lia trapped in a cage. Then Mara. Then Calder wearing the black crown. Each vignette asked without speaking.

How far would Austin Veyron go to stop it?

He couldn’t give an answer. The entire team converged on the doorway and dismantled it as one. Rin slashed at the outer tendrils. Veyra broke apart the frame. Maelis burnt away their memory sigils. Lia and Mara said each others’ names until the black markers lost their right to speak for the road.

Dusk settled when they found the final checkpoint.

A small stone table sat off to the side of the road. Centered on its surface was a single letter, written in white bone ink across several pieces of flesh paper.

Austin Veyron unfolded it.

’TO OUR CHALLENGERS: THE FIRST FEAST INVITES YOUR DECLINATIONS. BRING THEM TO THE HOLLOW NORTH.’

Beneath that message was another map.

The Hunger Emperor hadn’t just extended them another invitation.

He’d shown them where he wanted them to kneel.

There were three roads to the Hollow North marked on its surface. One passed through the old border outposts, surrounded by black scout sigils and residents who couldn’t easily leave. One cut through a thicket of crown roots that would conceal them from Sable but likely sever the portable route line. The last was the Emperor’ given road, broad and inviting, with every threat left openly visible upon it.

The group assembled around the stone table like it was council.

"Given road would be a fucking parade into a kill zone." Rin spat.

"The forest route will cut us off from help." Nahlia said through her communicator.

"The outposts have innocents." Lia responded softly.

There was no tactically correct answer. The Emperor had structured it so each path challenged something new: speed, allegiance, or civic duty.

Austin Veyron rolled the letter closed and looked at their white portable root beside him. "We take the border outposts. We help people first and keep the route open."

Vharra eyed him distrustfully. "Sable will have time to set up shop."

"And we will show the Emperor we won’t accept his choice about who matters."

Calder inclined his head. "What if the route becomes compromised?"

"Then we fight it together." Austin Veyron finished.

The contestants marks blinked once in near agreement, then went dark.

Before they started down the road again, Mara noticed an italicized line running beneath the letter’ map.

It was written in small print by someone who hadn’t used the Emperor’ bone ink.

’DON’T LET HIM GIVE YOU THE LAST MERCY. — S.’

Sable had written the message herself.

Veyra read it over twice. "Why would she want us to win?"

"Maybe she doesn’t." Austin Veyron said. "Maybe she wants us to remember she knows what that offer is."

The black letter dissolved from his hands.

North of them, a low horn sounded across miles of dead farms and factories.

The First Feast road was already watching for them.

The expedition took the road through the settlements and marched north beneath the constellations, white witness line following at their feet. They arrived at the first outpost just before dawn.

Its townships still stood, though every door had been branded with a small black crown. Lights showed in none of the windows. The white portable root quivered in place before they reached the main street.

Rin dropped to her knees beside a new set of footprints. "There are people inside. They’re too afraid to answer."

Austin Veyron didn’t force anyone’s doors. He led the scribes down the street and instructed the ledger to transmit whatever signal the portable root line could through the white line directly.

’WE HAVE NOT LEFT YOU. YOU MAY CHOOSE YOUR PATH FORWARD.’

There was silence for several minutes.

Then a door cracked open. An elderly woman shuffled out onto her porch, clutching a kitchen knife in one hand. Behind her, a boy carried her grandchildren out into the street. She gestured to the others, and doors peeled open behind her like scales from a fish.

One by one, families stepped out onto their porches and joined the procession. Every household only opened their door after someone else decided it was safe to follow.

The black crowns started to smoke where they touched the doorframes.

At the far end of the street, one of the Emperor’ feeding roots pulled itself up from the road. It wore the faceplates of everyone who had kept their doors locked against the group. It began attacking as soon as the families started moving, yowling in hunger as they tried to run.

It had been baiting them for an opening. Seeing a settlement work together had denied it the fear it craved.

Veyra and Rin chopped it in half before it could reach the first woman. Calder severed its root tube. Austin Veyron ate the command letting the black crowns adhere to the homes and left the inhabitants themselves untouched.

As the crowns melted away from the doors, the feeder whispered into the waking dawn.

’AT DAWN, THE LAST MERCY WILL BE GIVEN.’

The phrase from Sable’ note echoed in Austin Veyron’s head.

The First Feast wasn’t waiting for them at the Hollow North.

It was here, among every hopeful settlement they chose to rescue, finding new ways to turn their hopes against them and poison every road they trusted while it waited for a time to offer a lone witness the Emperor’s version of mercy at dawn.

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