After an hour or so of the most spectacular fighting between a vending machine and a Jack O'lantern that the cosmos had ever seen, they settled in to do what Ashtoreth had been begging them all to do since the start of Halloween: tell stories.
"...And then," Ashtoreth said, leaning into the light of the fire, "everyone who had once been a part of Mrs Johnstone's grade six classroom confessed that they, too, had kept the list of complints they'd once been made to write to one another because they liked to read them so much."
She grinned broadly around at them. "The. End."
"That was it?" Kylie asked.
"Uh-huh!" Ashtoreth said, nodding. "They all kept the list of complints."
"I don't get it," said Hunter.
"It wasn't even scary," said Kylie.
"Was it supposed to be?" Ashtoreth said. "It's heartwarming! Even after they'd all grown up they rembered how nice it was to have everybody they knew write sothing nice about them."
"That's the whole story, though?" said Hunter. "One day at a funeral, everybody figured out that they all kept the list?"
"Uh-huh!"
"You are so weird," said Kylie.
"Well you know what, Kylie?" Ashtoreth said. "You've got great style."
"Ugh."
"And even if you don't admit, you're really smart. You're really good at being a necromancer."
"Stop it."
"I think Dazel's story was the scariest," said Frost.
Hunter frowned. "His was really good, but I didn't understand the ending when she opened the box."
"What didn't you get?" said Dazel. "She was condemned to eternal tornt."
"Okay, but who's Angela Anaconda?"
"Not who, what," said Dazel. "That's the eternal tornt part." He shrugged. "I guess I coulda gone with Caillou, that might've landed better."
"It was a good story, but I liked Kylie's better. It had a happy ending."
"I stole it from a book I read once," Kylie said. "And the ending wasn't happy."
"But he didn't get in the elevator! He survived."
"Yeah, but his life might've still sucked."
Ashtoreth frowned. "Well, you didn't tell that part. So I choose to believe that it didn't."
"It's too bad we haven't got any candy," Hunter said, looking around at the camp. Ashtoreth had glamoured a lot of authentic festive decorations, which mostly ant that instead of creating an illusion of real spiders, cobwebs, and ghosts, she created illusions of tacky plastic ones. "It's not as authentic without thirty tiny bags of chips with six chips each."
"I made due," Ashtoreth said, reaching into her satchel and removing a half-eaten heart on a stick. "See? It's like a candied apple, but there's no candy and it's sobody heart." She took a bite and then munched happily away.
"The proper thing once it gets late is to watch a horror film," said Frost. "But we haven't got any."
"You'd think the system could have given us a party kit instead of our boss loot," Ashtoreth said. "Instead I just got a slightly better pair of boots again."
"Now I'm curious," Dazel said. "What movie would you want to watch, Frost?"
"I don't know," he said. "Sothing new, if it was an option. I like trying new things. Plus, my favorite horror movie is Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I don't want to watch an invasion movie right now."
"Oh," said Dazel. "Understandable, I guess. My favorite horror film is Persona."
"I only know the video gas," said Hunter.
"Those are a different thing. What about you, Kylie, what's your favorite horror movie?"
She shrugged. "My parents showed the Brenden Fraser Mummy when I was a kid," she said. "And I didn't get that it was like, supposed to be kind of funny. Anyway, it's full of people getting devoured by flesh-eating scarabs that crawl under their skin and like, people having their organs sucked out. I was seven and it scared the shit out of ." She shrugged again. "Good movie though."
"Okay, but it doesn't count if it only scared you when you were a kid," said Dazel. "What's the scariest movie you can think of now?"
"I don't know," Kylie said. She looked at Hunter and a faint smile ca across her face. "Maybe the thing I fear most is that I have to listen to you two have a shouted argunt about that elentals guy cartoon again."
"'Elentals guy?'" Hunter asked.
"I think she ans Avatar," said Ashtoreth.
"Whatever one had you guys getting so angry about a beach last night."
"Actually," said Ashtoreth. "It's The Beach. And I can't help getting a little emotional at Hunter's terrible take on it."
"It's a bad episode," said Hunter. "Too forced; too on the nose."
"Okay," Kylie said. "This wasn't an invitation to start again, you two. One of you give us a horror movie instead."
"Made in Abyss is horror," said Hunter. "I pick that one."
"What's that?" Kylie asked. "I've never heard of it."
"It's an ani."
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"Like the elents guy show?"
"Uh, no. Avatar is western animation."
Kylie shrugged. "I dunno, I don't watch that manga crap. Cartoons are for kids." She turned away from Hunter, seemingly oblivious to the murderous glare he was now giving her.
"What about you, Ashtoreth? Favorite horror movie?"
"Huh," she said, thinking. "I don't know. Movies don't scare all that much."
"Okay, but you've got to be able to think of sothing," said Frost.
She shrugged. "I don't watch a lot of horror movies. The Exorcist was pretty funny, but I haven't seen many. Maybe Lake Mungo. At the end she's all alone."
The others kept talking for a while, and she mostly only listened. Frost, it turned out, was a horror enthusiast who had seemingly seen every movie that the others had.
She didn't need to be a part of the conversation to enjoy it, though. She was doing Halloween, after all: a human holiday celebrated with all of her humans.
And they were getting along. It felt like a shock to her even if it was everything that she'd anticipated: ti, confinent, and their need to work together in order to progress had gradually softened all their resentnts.
Even if Kylie wasn't exactly warm and friendly, she'd beco much less abrasive, especially once Dazel had taught her a spell to let her fly. Frost had beco a team player almost imdiately, and Ashtoreth guessed that his resistance at first had mostly been from the shock at the sudden apocalypse.
Eventually the conversation slowed, and Hunter was the first to rise. "This was nice, all things considered," he said. "We can do it better next year back on Earth. Or I guess this year, with ti unfrozen." He yawned. "Hard to believe it's almost been a month. I'm going to bed now."
"Goodnight!" Ashtoreth said.
"Is everyone else level 200, now?" Hunter asked. "I've still got to pick an advancent."
"Sa!" Ashtoreth said. "I've been really picking up flight speed lately."
"My teleport keeps going up in range," said Hunter. "And my perception… I can easily make out individual droplets of water when it rains. It's crazy to think of how hard it was for to kill hellhounds, at first."
Frost made a noncommittal sound. "I worry about what this kind of power can do to soone. If our minds are actually built to handle being able to crush rocks into dust in the palm of your hand. The world feel like it has less substance to it, now, you know?"
"I like it," said Kylie. "Feels like I matter more when I can fly, phase through objects, and kill anything that breathes."
"That would be the thing I'm worried about," Frost said. "Getting hooked on a sense of power."
"I've been hooked on worse," Kylie said. She smiled, then added: "Officer."
"Hey," Hunter said quickly. "Let's not end the night with a fight."
"I'm not fighting," said Kylie, raising her hands defensively. "I'm just saying that there's worse things in life to fall in love with than flying around and destroying your enemies."
"That's the spirit, Kylie!" Ashtoreth said. "More power is always good. Say, do you guys want to see sothing I can do now that I've got higher stats?"
She flicked her tail through their, the motion fast enough, and stopping suddenly enough, to make a cracking noise like a whip.
Crack!
"I'm strong enough to do the tail crack!" She said. The rest of them stared at her as she continued.
Crack!
"You need high stats because it's kind of like snapping one finger."
Crack!
"It feels like high fiving yourself, I think."
Crack!
"It feels good, is what I'm trying to say."
Crack!
"Kind of really painful, though."
Crack!
"Those are bones making that noise."
"You're crazy," Kylie said, smiling. "I'm going to bed."
"Crazy fun, maybe," Ashtoreth said. "Goodnight!"
The rest of them followed suit, and soon she was lying on her cot with Dazel. "You see?" she said "I told you so."
"Told what?"
"Stockholm syndro," she whispered excitedly. "It's working! Humans probably form bonds because it helps them survive, even in abusive environnts."
"Yeah, wow," said Dazel. "The real magic is friendship. You got on that one, boss."
"I told you," she said. "Optimism beats cynicism every ti."
"I'm not sure 'abuse works' is the most optimistic of takes."
"I'm gonna level," Ashtoreth said. "Advancents?"
{Reaching level 200 has granted you advancent. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Armant].}
"I feel like I've been a roll with [Hellfire] lately," Ashtoreth said. She brought up her last ten advancents:
100: [Hellfire Javelin]
110: [Rammstein: Efficiency Alterations]
120: [Hellfire Blast II]
130: [Rammstein: Spare Magazine]
140: [Daywalker III]
150: [Rammstein: Draining Rounds]
160: [Hellfire Volley]
170: [Wanderlust: Bloodfire Well II]
180: [Hellfire Rune]
190: [Wanderlust: Well Storage]
[Hellfire Javelin] had given her a long range, homing missile. [Hellfire Blast II] had just let her charge a bigger, more [Bloodfire]-efficient explosion. [Hellfire Volley] allowed her to conjure a multitude of javelins, much like the dragon Crucifect had done, and launch them at a target all at once. And [Hellfire Rune] was a triggerable trap.
With her scythe out, they were all very powerful. And with [Wanderlust: Bloodfire Well II] and [Wanderlust: Well Storage], she could not only hold three tis her normal maximum [Bloodfire], but store it in her scythe even when it wasn't conjured, allowing her to quickly swap to her scythe and then swap away again to fill her resource pool.
[Rammstein: Efficiency Alterations] made the cannon semi-automatic and allowed her to load her four rounds into a conjured magazine, and [Ramstein: Spare Magazine] allowed her to have a second magazine conjured. In all, she could have eight shots of her cannon.
This was crucial because [Rammstein: Draining Rounds] might have been her strongest new upgrade. The rounds dealth no physical damage, instead just delivering a very potent [Energy Drain] at high range.
In the rare event that she t a boss with [Defense] so high that she'd need to whittle it down instead of just killing them with a volley of shots from her cannon, the draining rounds would allow her to hopefully begin the fight by hitting them with a massive [Energy Drain] debuff and using [Theft of Power] to drastically increase her own stats.
All in all, it was more potential for boss killing: she could rapidly even the playing field between herself and a vastly superior foe.
{Advance [Hellfire]}
{Choose an upgrade to gain, then choose to retain or replace all other options}
Upgrade [Hellfire] with [Hellfire Penetration II]:
Your hellfire now ignores an amount of your enemy's highest resistance against it equal to three and a half tis your level.
Upgrade [Hellfire] with [Hellfire Volley II]:
You can forgo launching your hellfire javelins after you conjure them, and you can have up to 12 javelins conjured at a ti.
Upgrade [Hellfire] with [Hellfire Nova]:
You may spend an extre amount of [Bloodfire] to create a hellfire novaheart.
Thereafter you may channel [Bloodfire] into the novaheart, up to a maximum of thirty tis your normal maximum [Bloodfire].
You may detonate the novaheart, causing a hellfire nova, when you have channeled six tis your normal maximum [Bloodfire] into the novaheart.
Ashtoreth's eyes widened. "Did—did I…."
"Hm?" Dazel asked. "What?"
"...Did I just get a nuke?"
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