Torrens had been having such a good time, lavishing in the temperatures of the blacksmith's furnace, that he had completely lost track of time. At one point Octavius had popped by briefly to check that the blacksmith had been secured, but despite that brief interruption Torrens may have sat there until all the coal in the house had been consumed, if beautifully sung lyrics didn't drift their way across the entire village. Torrens took it as a wake-up call, and finally crawled out of the furnace and stepped into the room proper. He was in much better condition than at the start of the raid. His skin had gone from a dull to a bright shade of red. The stones beneath his feet were already red-hot after only a few moments of contact. And his incandescence was visible, like that of hot coals.

The blacksmith backpedaled away from Torrens as he walked ahead, in case the demon had decided to turn on him, but Torrens instead went for the door and opened it, leaving a blackened imprint of his hand about a centimeter deep in the wood. He poked his head outside and looked both ways, and discovered that the raid was almost at a close. There were bodies down the main road, some with mortal wounds or mutilation, others just stone cold dead, some unhurt but unconscious and unmoving. The other raiders were leaving the village, with prisoners in tow, and some raiders were leaving the village in a great hurry. And near the center of the village stood Emily, facing away from him and singing next to part of the giant glowing red rune which encircled the whole village. He had noticed, when he was standing on the roof, Emily doing something flying around the village shooting lines onto the ground, so he figured this must be it.

Torrens stepped out of the blacksmith's and motioned for his captive to follow. "I think we're done here. You go join that lot over there," Torrens said to the blacksmith, pointing to the group of prisoners being led out of the village by Athinar, "Hurry over, surrender yourself to them, and you should be fine. Tell them that Torrens the fire demon sent you. If you flee, they'll murder you. Run along now." Left with no real option, the blacksmith hurried to catch up with the group of prisoners being led by Athinar.

Torrens, on the other hand, turned and walked towards Emily. There was no rush. No panic. No fear about the possible effects of this massive rune. After his veritable feast and brimming with overconfidence, Torrens felt nothing short of a lake or a village-obliterating explosion could threaten him. He figured that dumping a lake on the village would be unlikely for Emily to do and a little silly, with what knowledge he knew about her, and one does not stand willingly in the epicenter of village-leveling explosions unless it was a suicidal last resort, so it probably wasn't the second option either. And so Torrens walked casually until he was standing about 15 meters from Emily, positioned far enough in front of her to have entered Emily's vision.

Torrens nonchalantly leaned against a house, the stone wall and the dirt beneath him slowly starting to melt, and listened to Emily's song for a few more lines before speaking out. "Lovely song. If you can't respond, I understand, but what will this rune do?"