A silent man, garbed in robes of midnight black, stood atop Paterdomus' grand walls. The stranger's hood was drawn up, hiding the sinister thing that hid within. Perhaps the stranger could have passed for a woman in mourning, for the billowing robes revealed nothing of whatever form that was concealed within their folds. Still, a mourning woman would not have been allowed to defile the sanctity of the Holy City's walls by walking atop them; that was a job only for sworn knights, righteous crusaders, and ordained priests. Still, the stranger walked unchallenged, as the men on the walls were lost in the scene unfolding just outside the city.

Row after row of Paterdomus' soldiers and sorcerers had amassed outside to guard the city from the Infernal King's scion, and they had broken like so many clumps of dirt flung at a wall. The huge, fiery beast billowed out smoke and ash, and before long those shrouded the entire battlefield. In the ensuing chaos, there was a rout, with dozens of men running back for the walls. Normally they would be condemned for their cowardice and left to die, but not this time. The stranger saw the men in the gatehouse, a good hundred feet above the ground, slowly operate a winch to raise the iron portcullis before opening the heavy oaken gates.

The stranger, however, continued to peer down at what was happening below. He knew tales of lesser ritualists working the art of golemancy, creating magical automatons from inanimate objects and either their own willpower or the souls of the dead. He suspected that this hellish leviathan wreaking havoc for no purpose and against impossible odds was stray and without a master, content with merely destroying things for lack of any other instruction. However, from the whispering from the bleating, cowardly men standing atop the wall besides the robed figure, it was possible that a so-called 'Infernal King', scourge of this city, still commanded the monster. The stranger had to wonder whether this creature, and the Infernal King, if he was still alive, would be hostile or a potential ally.

The stranger's musings were cut short by a monstrous roar from within the smoke, accompanied by a tremendous thud. The smoke gradually cleared to reveal the creature lying upon the ground. A raucous cheering quickly erupted, rather than panic, as a priest garbed in crimson saw the sun's sudden change and declared, "The Fire God has saved us! Praise Caldor!" 

As in for the creature below, it didn't appear dead. It was likely either crippled, dying, or collapsed from exhaustion. In any case, it would not be long before the cowardly humans worked up the courage to execute the now helpless thing. The cloaked figure let his hood fall and tore off his robe, revealing what was underneath- nothing. A shadow. A nearby soldier, just now noticing him, let out a cry in alarm. However, the Shadow had already gone, and as the robes fell to the ground they too vanished into nothing, having been made of woven shadows themselves.

Shaige quickly reappeared down on the battlefield, amidst burned corpses, dying men, and the occasional straggler who walked around aimlessly, made lightheaded and disorientated by the ash. The Keeper walked towards Ifrit, and with a gesticulation manipulated the dispersing smoke. The fumes immediately ceased thinning out, and were pulled back to the center of the battlefield, concealing the fallen monster and revealing all the carnage and charred land. Safe for a little longer within a cloud of impenetrable smoke, he had time to devise a way to rescue Ifrit. Perhaps it was stray, and would prove a loyal minion, but if not it still would not help to have a friend in this 'Infernal King'.

As Shaige had a closer examination of the infernal, skeletal hound or massive proportions, he quickly realized that he had not even the slightest indication of what was wrong. The Keeper's spell was weakening; soon the smoke would disperse once again, for good. Shaige would be able to escape easily enough, by simply drifting away or moving into the spirit realm. However, drifting away with Ifrit in tow would be impossible, and dragging the monster into the spirit realm would require a tremendous amount of power, power that Shaige simply lacked so far from his Heart and after all his recent exertions.

There was, however, a huge abundance of one particular resource in the immediate area- souls. The helpless ghosts of the hundreds of men that had been burned, suffocated, or crushed would be more than enough to create a huge hole to the spirit realm right where Ifrit had collapsed, at least for a moment or two. So the robed figure that was Shaige manipulated the darkness beneath the smoke to form a staff, and then raised the black rod into the air. The ominous wailing of hundreds of souls could be heard as they were ripped from the bodies of both the dead and the dying, and pulled into a great vortex. They spun and spun, whipping up a cyclone that swirled around with ash, smoke, and spirit alike. Then, Shaige tapped Ifrit's skull with the staff. The cyclone abruptly died, and the air rapidly cleared. What was revealed was a burned field full of the dead. The scion, the souls, and the strange hooded man had all vanished into the wind, not unlike smoke.

Shaige stood before Ifrit in the relative safety of the spirit realm, the tiny shadow somehow managing to loom over the massive beast. Then, the Keeper began to wait, hoping that the creature would wake up. Patience was a virtue that Shaige did not lack, unlike most of his Keeper brethren. Still, he would not wait a terribly long time. Ifrit would have to awaken soon, or not at all, as the spirit realm had a way of sapping the vitality of things that weren't dead, and there were all manner of nightmarish phantoms that could descend at any moment to attack such easy prey.