Gerald and Jillian may not have seen eye to eye in all matters, but the witch found it quite pleasing that, at least in this discussion, the necromancer had generally shared her view and feelings. What he said about the Crusaders and their efforts in curing the plague made sense, and mirrored Jillian’s own suspicions, but much like she had thought they should, Gerald also surmised that it could not harm to at least try and gain some information from Kevalorn before they would ultimately undo him. Moreover, both of them had lost their interest in further pursuing this discussion, as Jillian could clearly see – it was one of the presumably rare times that Gerald actually showed signs of weariness, his bony shoulders slumping and his posture betraying a feeling of resignation or exhaustion. Not that she could blame him, after the day’s events or facing the prospect of events to come. She too was gravely affected by the things she had seen that day, and they touched her more deeply than even she was aware of at the time. Thanks to Crone’s restorative spell from before, her body may not have shown it then, but her mental exhaustion ran deep and could only be cured by time. And yet, time was not one of the things she or anyone else gathered there had.

The dark magician must have come to the same realization, for he dismissed the elder dragon’s offer to visit Aliostar entirely, and instead pledged his assistance to helping the guardians of Anaxim with sealing Kevalorn away immediately, before the demon lord had a chance to recover from his wounds and rally his followers. There was a certain sense of nobility in how the necromancer said that the cure could wait, Jillian thought, for she knew what implications his statement carried. To postpone the quest to drag one’s own life from the jaws of certain death for any other cause was not an easy decision to make, and the witch knew not if she would have done the same in his place. How long had he been infected by the Withering by now, she wondered? Knowing that the disease was lethal within roughly a week, she could only guess at how long Gerald had been suppressing his inner death. Months? Years? It was impossible to tell, but impressive either way. Perhaps when things calmed down a little, she would find a chance to talk to him about it. He did not seem like the sociable type, and so she imagined that he might never have really talked about his disease and how he coped with it until then.

But only a fool would hope for things to calm down, for that was not a path that destiny had foreseen for the two exiles. For reasons beyond either of the two’s understanding, Crone appeared upset, or perhaps insulted, and produced a spherical piece of rock from the depths of her shawl. Jillian had little time to wonder why she would even carry around such an object in such a place, for she was to behold yet another one of the ancient woman’s little miracles. Only this time, it was not a work of arcane magic or the invocation of a god’s blessings, but something far more sinister, viler perhaps than even the black magic that the witch was so familiar with. As if the inside of the basalt orb were aglow with a miniature sun, golden lines began forming in a specific pattern across the sphere’s smooth surface, almost like cracks that gave way to the light within. At first, she thought little of the lines, unable to recognize their meaning, but after a few moments of staring at their gilded glow, she realized that she was looking at sigils written in the same language that she herself used to invoke her most devastating of spells: the Devil’s Tongue. Equal parts intrigued and wary, Jillian all but forgot to pay attention to Gerald, her attention entirely devoted to the orb of encapsulated evil resting in Crone’s palm.

Lacking the finely attuned senses of her fellow exile, Jillian was notably slower in noticing the buildup of magical energy that accumulated within the sphere and which began radiating from it, touching – or perhaps tainting – the entire area. In a sense, the sheer enormity of this power was not what unsettled the witch; it seemed that whenever Crone elected to work her magic, it simply had to escalate and turn out to become a spectacle of unfathomable proportions. That this latest trick of hers did not deviate from the established pattern was thus not a true surprise. What did bother her, however, was the inexplicable feeling of dread that came with it; dread that was no doubt justified if so much power was channeled into an object that she could only guess would be used for nefarious purposes. Anything that had to do with demons or the Devil’s Tongue was bound to be vile. Maybe the same could even be said about herself.

Dark energy engulfed the meadow like a black star, radiating what felt like pure evil upon the world. Crone’s own face was contorted with fear or disgust at what she was doing, and indeed, even the mighty elder dragon recoiled from the sphere’s unholy presence. When the golden etchings aligned on the stone’s surface, the entire orb turned crimson like a sword put into the furnace. Jillian’s viridian eyes transfixed on the now vibrating artifact and she began inching closer to Gerald without fully realizing it. Just as it turned a deep red color, the ancient woman hurled the stone into the depths of the nearby lake, where it sunk beneath the quiet depths with a loud hissing that Jillian was quite familiar with, having lived in a household with its own smithy. From where the rock had sunk beneath the water, vast clouds of vapor rose and gathered in a swirling whirlpool of smoke, discolored into an eerie red from the glow which still haunted the lake from its bottom. As if a gateway to forbidden planes, the scarlet mist gave way a mysterious figure, tall and ominous in its appearance. At the time, Gerald gasped in surprise or shock, and he might have felt the unfamiliar grasp of Jillian’s small hands enveloping one of his arms. Having moved entirely on instinct, the little woman had placed herself halfway behind the necromancer and clung to his arm.

"So you still possess one of my remaining sigil stones?" the demonic entity asked, Crone, his voice surprisingly smooth for that of a hellish creature – depending on what one might have expected. Jillian had, after all, never talked to or overheard a demon speak, and thus had no real preconception of what they ought to sound like. In spite of this, there was a certain sense of malice in his tone, a difficult to define hint of evil within the speaker that simply carried over in his words. Even if he had not looked the part, Jillian would have quickly suspected a foul character in the summoned creature – a suspicion that, as it turned out, could not have been better placed. Crone, or as the demon called her, Eliza, revealed that she had beckoned forth none other than the Grand Master of Evil, that vile spawn of Ismyel who was conceived many ages ago and who rules over even the likes of Hazzergash.

Something must have snapped within the witch, or perhaps her brain was simply incapable of understanding or coping with the situation presented to her. Perhaps she simply could not fathom such bottomless evil, or perhaps the combined duress of past events had accumulated too much for her sanity to remain intact. Whichever it was, Jillian suddenly ceased to act frightened – instead, she laughed. As if it was all just smoke and mirrors, or a bad joke, she simply laughed as she stepped next to Gerald, her left hand still clinging to the cloth of his arm.

“Can you believe it?” she giggled, “Some people would call [i]me[/i] reckless. Hah!”

Jillian looked at the Grand Master, observing his translucent form and finding it odd that he was see-through. It inspired in her the idea that it might, indeed, be little more than an image, an illusion so to speak, similar to the shadow images that Gerald could invoke. It was also unreasonable that all it took was a stone orb to allow one of the mightiest demons to cross the Divide; the more she thought about it, the more plausible it seemed that this here was not the real Grand Master at all, and merely an extension of his consciousness, and thus entirely harmless. Evil, certainly, but harmless. Why did Crone summon him in the first place, though? Nobody had concluded that he somehow held the answers they were seeking. Did she think he would know? Well, he was here now.

“Fine, then,” Jillian concluded after taking a deep breath, her tone sounding more rational this time, “Let’s talk to him.”

“Today can hardly get worse,” she said to herself a little more quietly as she began shuffling closer to the lake and pulling Gerald by the arm if he did not move on his own accord. The two came to a halt at a respectable distance to the shore, not far from where Crone was standing.

“So, well. I am Jillian Veldaine of Zerul – or was, I guess – and it’s, uhm, a pleasure to meet you. Grand… Master of Evil,” she stammered, very uncertain how to address a creature like him. She was torn between being courteous or not, considering that the Grand Master of Evil may not care for such pleasantries, or that he might not even deserve to be addressed with any sort of respect. Yet, being rude to him also felt misplaced, even if his name did trigger the desire to ridicule him for his title.

“So, Gerald?” she then turned to her companion with an expectant look on her face, wanting him to introduce himself or initiate the conversation, or do whatever else the necromancer could think of.