Zerul City, the Drunken Dove
The two deo'iel seemed to possibly glance at the laser-cut in Ixion's shoulder for a moment when he mentioned his condition, but it was really impossible to tell exactly where they were looking at the moment; as was the case with Nightwalkers, demonspawn's eyes were uniform across the entire surface, making following their gaze difficult under normal circumstances. The exception to this was when they invoked the power of their demonic blood, of course, as their mirror-eyes would crack then, creating something akin to glowing pupils. Neither of them seemed to react to the assassin's condition in particular, though, and they seemed more interested in his questions concerning their prey.
"Well," the blue-haired one began hesitantly, her left hand keeping up the painful pulling of her own hair, "the original name given to him by the Dread Mother was Gaath - that is 'death' in the Devil's Tongue - but not only is it unlikely that he would use that name, but it is no longer the only name taken from Himyth's womb he possesses. He also has a number of ways to kill, though his favorite appears to be to melt people."
"He is special," the other deo'iel broke in gruffly. "The ability he had from birth was one to draw Himyth's blood from other demonspawn and take it into himself, stealing their name and power. He has quite a few demonspawn inside of him... including some pretty troublesome ones."
The less demonic one felt the need to clarify. "Until recently we were able to track him because demonspawn can sense each other, and he normally gives off a much stronger aura than other of our kind. Now, though, he's absorbed a demonspawn that was capable of completely masking her own aura and appearance... so we can't do that anymore. All we can do is sense him when he uses his powers, which is what lead us here."
---
Duchy of Pelgaid, secluded pond, in the dark embrace
"Save Kreshtaat?" Gerald murmured as he looked at Jillian curiously, his eyes narrowing in thought. How, he wondered, did she intend to accomplish such a thing? What did she think she could say to sway this ancient nemesis of Reniam? Did she presume that one could talk sense with him? No, that would be preposterous; there was no logical argument that could possibly dissuade Kreshtaat by now. He was probably the single most powerful being in existence, with a horde of bloodthirsty demons and a number of powerful demon lords at his beck and call. And he had the Withering. Logically, Kreshtaat was not only unlikely to back off from his current course, but was in fact quite likely to be able to force any opposition the rest of the planes could ever muster against him into submission.
Did she presume to speak to the good in him, then? Was she hoping for a fairy-tale ending, where the big bad demon lord was made to recognize the error of his ways by the intolerable redhead and her feeble companion? That they would be able to speak to his heart, remind him of love and friendship and all of that nonsense?... Well, such ideas did come from mortal minds, after all, and part of Kreshtaat was still mortal, apparently. Maybe it was not impossible.
They would have to be careful, though; even though Kreshtaat was allegedly not very impressive as a human, the time of Kevin the Insignificant had been thousands of years ago. Not only would he possess experience far beyond the scope of other mortals, there would be no way to ascertain how much his mortal power had grown in that time, either.
"I suppose it couldn't hurt to try," he decided with a shrug, though he was far from convinced that they stood even the shadow of a chance of managing such a thing. And if they did? The implications were almost too overwhelming to even think about.
"You're free to do whatever you want, of course," the Grand Master waved them off impatiently. "As long as you end the Withering one way or another, our contract states that you will have won our wager, and if you fail, you lose. I am satisfied either way, honestly."
It occurred to Gerald that they had missed an important question. "How are we supposed to get to Kevin in the Spirit Realm? I don't know about you, Veldaine, but I can't reliably make myself have a lucid dream."
"In Fokon," their fiend announced, "in the Joint Temple of Immortals, you will find that the Wardens and scholars there are capable of brewing a potion that can force the dreaming self of the imbiber to awaken in the dream. From there, you can get to the Spirit Realm."
---
There were a lot of things that Jaelnec had wanted to do before they left or while they were on the road; things he had been planning ever since last evening, when he had officially - or at least as officially as a squire-ranked member of the order was capable of - included Thaler in the Knighthood of the Will as an apprentice. He had wanted to reinforce the bond between them that this shared affiliation would give them, to tell her more of the knighthood and the knights of its past glory days, to describe the world she had become part of to her and to immediately start teaching her the skills and techniques that they were expected to possess. Last night he had been almost giddy at the thought of trying to teach her to fight as a Knight of the Will and start educating her on the nature of various monsters and opponents and how to deal with them. He had had even more plans than that, plans of bonding with Aemoten as well, trying to keep the spirits as high as they had been that night...
But when morning came, spirits had no longer been high... had they? Waking up to find the world collapsing around him, having no idea what was going on, and soon finding himself surrounded by danger and despair on all sides; even if he had not been the true victim in all of this, and probably the least affected of the four of them, it had still been far from pleasant. It was hard to feel sorry for himself, though, when all he had done was to fend off crows, be bitten by an yth and blocking a single blow from a treacherous rune mage's blade. So what? Thaler had apparently been harassed by Rilon himself, though the details were still unknown to him, and had been forced to betray the deal she had made with the Blood God both because Aemoten had forced her to, and to stop Rilon from killing them all for wanting to get rid of the Black Thorn. She had witnessed a creature she had pitied get killed by a man who had just - apparently - confessed to be in love with her. Aemoten, in turn, had suffered all of this from the opposite side of the table, realizing that the woman he loved went through all of this, all while she seemed to resent him for insisting that she do as he thought best. Fighting monsters, one relatively mundane, the other so abominable that he had had to sacrifice part of his magical energy to even render it killable. Even Olan, the harmless old man, had suffered; being impaled by Rilon's thorn-clad hand, nearly dying and only being saved by Thaler's trading of the Black Thorn, and then somehow losing his memories... or most of them, anyway.
Compared to the others - perhaps even Etakar, although Jaelnec did not really know how the dekkun had been injured - it seemed pathetic to feel bad about his own, comparatively gentle fate this day. That said, it was still hard for him, even now... not because of what had happened to him, but because of how his friends were suffering.
Yes, Jaelnec had had a lot of plans last night, but they had all worked under the assumption that there would not be a disaster before he had the chance to carry them out. When disaster struck while he was still sleeping, however, there was little he could do about it.
Off they went from the outpost, heading towards times that Jaelnec could only hope would be better than this morning. Had he still had faith in Laon, he might have prayed for just a short while of mercy... but that was why he had lost faith in the first place, was it not? Because gods, spirits and demons were all the same; none of them had any mercy, and their indifference to mortal suffering made them unworthy of his worship. It was ironic that their suffering came at the hands of a devil-god, of all things, and a Death Clan-member. It would always be ironic when the world itself seemed to verify one's thoughts. Just once in a while, though... he wished that he would be proven wrong in that regard.
The squire rode next to Aemoten during the entire trek, trying to stay as close to the other's horse as he could so that he could catch him if he fell. The young Nightwalker was the only one of them aside from the Sekalyn himself who knew that their leader was suffering the effects of rather severe magical exhaustion at the moment, and he knew that he would need to be vigilant in case Aemoten was assailed by greater weakness than he could bear. He did not speak much aside from when spoken to, but simply remained near the man, silently being there to support him.
Meanwhile it was somewhat evident that Olan was still himself, even if the loss of his memories was quite observable as well. The older Nightwalker rode the donkey and stayed with Thaler, and occasionally spoke animatedly when he noticed something he thought unusual or otherwise interesting. His spirits, at least, were high as ever, and he smiled and laughed as he commentated their journey as though he did not even register Aemoten and Thaler's misery. There were times when one, if one ignored the hopelessness that lay over the rest of them, could almost forget about the ordeals of the morning in the face of Olan's enthusiasm and optimism. But in between the times when the explorer extraordinaire had things to talk about, he fell into periods of silence that were most uncharacteristic for the cheerful man; silences that came not from lacking desire to speak, but from not having anything to talk about. Yesterday Olan had been filled to the point of bursting with countless crazy stories and apparently boundless knowledge of the world, but today he had no stories left to tell and no insight left to share. He was as he had been before, just... emptier.
Then Etakar had them diverge from the road, and Jaelnec remained by Aemoten's side as they went to follow the beast... if such a label could indeed be used about a creature of such evident intelligence as the dekkun. Olan, he noticed, followed only for a short time before turning back, going to stay with Thaler at the edge of the cluster of trees, dismounting and settling down on the soil by the tree next to the one she was resting at. Jaelnec did not mention this to Aemoten; wherever Etakar was taking them, they would hopefully return to the road shortly.
What they found was enough to give the squire pause: two humanlike beings, a man and a woman, accompanying some sort of creature the like of which Jaelnec had never seen before. Some manner of large, black-furred beast slept there, and near them lay a dead and mutilated lohk. It was just a male, so far as a lohk of any sex or size could ever be "just" anything, but if these people were the ones who had killed it, the Nightwalker was impressed. Lohks were powerful and tough to kill, and were foes to be respected even by experienced hunters of monsters and evil; for someone not trained to fight them, defeating a lohk definitely spoke volumes of their prowess.
Noticing the strange man among these people glancing at what appeared to be a quite advanced and high-quality lever-operated crossbow, Jaelnec's own right hand automatically went to his chest, brushing aside the cloak to allow easier access to the throwing knives he carried in the straps on his chest, and incidentally uncovering his ghiril cuirass as well. Once the other seemed to decide not to brandish his crossbow - a wise move, considering that Etakar would likely have horrendously mauled him for having done so - Jaelnec instead raised his right hand to the brim of his hat, pulling it down a little to shade his eyes better in the gray, sporadic light that filtered through the trees.
Jaelnec wanted to ask these people if they were the ones who had defeated - and subsequently cut apart - the lohk, but the man spoke first, addressing Aemoten, and the Sekalyn replied. The stranger seemed somewhat amiable, at least, although one could never be sure how much of that good nature came from fear or suspicion; Aemoten was rather harmless in his current condition, but Jaelnec was in good health and capable of fighting, and Etakar - even injured - was still a force to be reckoned with.
These people had possibly killed a lohk, though... so chances were that their two groups were more evenly matched than they would appear. Especially if that big black-furred creature was even half as dangerous as it appeared to be...
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