The boy's eyes glowed blue. It was a spectral blue, a glowing blue, the kind of blue that sparked flames and rode lightning. The abandoned town hall around him lit up in response, with a dim tinge of illuminated magic. The entire entrance hall was in a state of utter disarray. The room was symmetrical, a reception desk at the centre, and two curving stairways first heading away from each other before leaning towards the middle, leading to the second floor. Various wooden doors lined the walls to the boy's sides. They were decorated, ornately crafted, with different paintings and frescos hung on their hooks.
The boy, in his flowing blue hooded robes and holding his long gnarled wooden staff, sifted through the wreckage and debris on the floor as he scanned the room, blue light filling his line of vision as he moved his head. Bricks and mortar were pushed aside as he continued on forward, opening door after door, lingering only for a few moments to survey the room before pressing on.
He opened a door, this one leading to a much bigger room than the rest. Judging by the lines of dusty shelves and heaps of torn and tattered books and scrolls on the carpeted floor, it must have been the library. Slowly but surely, he watched his step as he entered the room, circling it, searching it, staff brushing away the debris as he did.
A steady stream of water drops trickled from a crack in the ceiling. The books directly underneath were wet, but still intact. It couldn't have been too long since this building was sacked. With a firmer resolve about him, the boy sifted through the wreckage.
Underneath a book he pushed away, the boy found a thin pool of blood. It was fresh; the carpet hadn't completely absorbed it just yet. He pushed away more books, then more, until he found a tiny, almost imperceptible trail of blood droplets smaller than a man's little fingernail leading to a wooden bookshelf. It was tall, about six or seven rows high, but the wood was rotten and aged.
Slowly, he lifted his gnarled, wooden staff. He carefully placed the blunted end on what appeared to be an especially rotten part of the shelf, whispered a word, and pushed. The shelf splintered open, cracking, like an egg shell over a kitchen bowl. With the gnarled end of his staff this time, the boy hooked his arcane focus onto the shards of wood hanging onto the shelf, picking at it, until he created a hole just big enough for him to fit through.
He stooped low, bringing his legs over the hole with his back bent, and he stepped through the little passageway he created, careful not to have his rucksack or water skin catch on the exposed wooden crags.
The boy was in a cave now, the air frigid and the floor extremely slick and damp. Encased in blue light, the cave's uneven stony walls jagged and jut out of the sides, forcing him to crouch and stoop and duck to make his way. Diluted with residual cave water and puddles on the floor, the boy kept a keen eye for even the faintest traces of blood, his only trail and his only clue.
After a time, he found himself at a fork in the cave passages. The boy uncorked his water skin to take a swig of lukewarm, tepid water, then ducked down to examine the trail. Here, the thing must have lingered awhile, likely unsure of which direction to head. He made a few ways down left, but then must have changed his mind and walked back to the fork, before heading to the right. The cave was getting dark now, it must have been likely holding on the cave walls, grasping for a sense of direction.
He nodded to himself, assuring himself. The fire in his heart burned bright, affirming his determination. He gripped onto his staff that much tighter, and the blue light projecting from his eyes intensified. The cramped cave passageway was swathed in light as bright as a city at dawn.
Making his way down the passages, he could feel the air shift and strengthen. An opening of sorts must be coming up, a clearing perhaps, maybe even an exit. Before turning the corner, he grabbed a small stone, held it open in his left hand, and touched it with the gnarled end of his staff. The stone glowed a bright blue. He threw it around the corner blindly, waited for a moment or two, then popped his head over the side, staff at the ready.
There he was.
Dagon was bloodied, his suit and vest in shredded rags covering him as he laid down on the cave floor, slightly propped up against a small boulder. Overhead, a thin crevice in the ceiling allowed for gentle moonlight to shine through into the cave, a dim mixture of a yellow wash with a hint of night blue. The trail of blood ended just by the creature, who was struggling to breathe, his chest heaving up and down, gasping for air.
He spoke with a feeble wheeze, "Chase Fischer…"
"Where are they?" Chase pointed his staff at the bleeding, pale creature. "Tell me where they are!"
"If you think-," Dagon had started, before the boy rushed over and had him by the collar of his ruined shirt in one hand and a gnarled wooden staff pointblank towards his head with the other.
"If I think what? If I think that I can scare you into telling me where my friends are by threatening to kill you? No, Dagon. I know better than that. You're dying. Look at you. Look at all the blood you've lost. You're dying. You don't need to be scared of death," Chase stopped for a breath, then through gritted teeth, let out, "You're dying, but that doesn't mean I can't make it longer. Prolong it for hours. Mend your wounds only to open them again. You're as good as gone, Dagon, but you can make it faster if you tell me where they are."
The creature chuckled in the boy's arms. "You're useless, Chase. Do you think you're of any help to your friends? You have a keen eye, boy, I've seen that in you. You understand details, you understand people. The world even, to an extent."
Chase's staff glowed brighter and brighter, and his brows furrowed even more in intense concentration. "You're going to have to start talking…"
The creature ignored him, almost as if the boy hadn't spoken at all. "You understand me as well, of course. Some would even venture to say that you're obsessed with me! Is it true, Chase? Are you obsessed with me? Have you been tracking me for the past six months of your ephemeral human life?"
"And more than that," Chase responded, "I've done more than that - I've tracked you! I've done what no one else could. I have you in my arms! My staff pointed right at your heart, your bloody, dying heart. A thousand years of sin and villainy, Dagon, but it ends now."
"Tell me then, boy, if you know what I am, what makes you think your friends are still alive?"
Chase's jaw slacked a tiny fraction. Could it be true?
"That's your flaw, boy, that's what makes you weak. You are idealistic. You can't accept the truth. You'll weave a web of illusions and stories just to save you from living in reality."
With a short burst of blue translucent light and energy, Chase picked up the creature who must have weighed at least twice that of himself, and threw him to the cave wall. "Liar! Enough!" He stomped his boots on the damp, bloody floor as he walked over to the creature, and threw a hefty left cross, catching the creature straight in the jaw.
Dagon continued, "You're observant, but what use is that if you can't handle the facts you're given? If you can't discern reality for what it is, if you substitute your own tales and narratives and force them to fit what you can't accept?" His voice rumbled and grunted, a gruff baritone that filled the cave with ease.
The creature was slumped against the cave wall, leaning on the stone that he had stained with red to keep himself from keeling over. Chase's boot connected with the creature's neck, and he fell in a heap onto the wet ground.
"And another, boy, another thing that keeps you from being great-"
The boy picked him up by the neck, holding the creature upright so he could hold his staff directly underneath its chin. The staff began to glow blue, but a different shade of blue this time, a shade of blue with more malice, with crueler intentions, the kind of harsh blue that colored the sea in an angry storm or the kind of blue that would pool up in a vial of snake venom. The air grew hotter now, and the staff vibrated intensely in the boy's hands.
"-you lack mindfulness!" Dagon growled. "You observe what you want to observe, but the rest of the world is lost on you."
Chase ground his teeth in immense concentration. "That doesn't matter now. I see you. I observe you. And I see that you're about to die."
"Answer one last thing for me then, boy, take my last words."
"What is it, demon? Spit it out, and be done with it."
Dagon's voice was smoother now, sharp and confident, the gravel gone and replaced with syrup. "Do demons bleed?"
It took a moment for Chase to comprehend, then he remembered his studies and his arcana. Around him, he discerned the reality of the cave, of his surroundings, of the blood trail that had led him here. Reeling, he let go of Dagon's collar, as he watched the streaks of blood and smears of scales across his hands fade slowly, leaving behind nothing. His hands were clean. The cave floors, the walls, everything was spotless. Dagon was clean, unbloodied.
The creature stood up, to its full humanoid height. He towered over the boy, easily staggering at a height that would be taller for most doorframes. Pure, animal muscle ripped through the creature's pale skin, and long, wicked fangs sprouted from its mouth. Curled horns grew out of the creature's raven black hair.
"Do I bleed?" Dagon repeated. With a great force, the demon brought down a clawed fist at the ground where Chase had just been, goring thick black claws into the stone, leaving behind a sizable crater. With his talons planted in the ground, Dagon pulled at the ground, launching himself at the boy.
Chase, waved his hand reflexively, a wave of thin blue translucent lights following his fingertips, and he blinked out of existence.
Dagon crashed into the stone wall with a thunderous crunch of muscle and sinew and stone. With a slight fizzle and crackle, Chase reappeared again out of the aether, already running for the exit where had had entered from. Dagon roared, the howl thundering throughout the cave, echoing within every crevice. It was bloodcurdling battlecry, a boom that could shake men off their feet.
Keeping up his pace, Chase dipped and swerved, jumping over obstacle after obstacle. When the stone walls ahead seemed to form in a way that would slow him down too much, he would point his staff ahead of him, blink and disappear in a small cloud of blue energy, and reappear with a soft crackle ahead of the rock formation. Keeping up on the boy's heels, Dagon crashed and pummeled through the stone, barely slowed even by the boulders.
In a booming, deafening roar, Dagon bellowed out, taunting the boy, "Am I dying now, boy? Are you going to end it now? Answer me!" Over his shoulder, the sound of the demon crashing and obliterating stalagmite after stalactite thundered and echoed.
Overhead, the cave itself played slave to the demon's wicked battlecries and taunts, rocks and debris showering from the ceiling. Chase aimed his staff ahead, and in a display of iridescent blue energy, blasted a hole through the wooden shelf that he had shimmied through. Once in the library, he spared a moment to look back, then with the energy emanating from his staff, flung bookshelf after bookshelf at the breach that he had escaped from. He piled the wooden barriers on the breach until he couldn't feel the magic flowing through his veins anymore, until his staff had fizzled out of bright blue energy. He couldn't even see the breach now. He had piled tons and tons of wood over the passageway.
Chase stopped to catch his breath. Hands on his knees, a bead of sweat dribbled down from his forehead, downwards to his thin, tanned nose, and dropped onto the floor. Mentally, he counted down until Dagon would reach the barrier. Surely he wouldn't be able to find a way through?
A thud, muffled at first. Then another, and another.
The boy straightened himself. He raised his staff yet again, and began channeling a spell, casting a weave of tendrils and ropes and strings, faint blue energy struggling to keep the mass of wood and planks together over the breach. His robes flew wildly behind him, caught in the crosswind of power between Dagon's battering against the breach and Chase's abjuration over the barrier. With each booming strike against the barricade, the building shook, loosening dust and fine debris that had been resting in the floorboards overhead. Chase inhaled a bit of particulate and coughed. His concentration over the barricade was wavering. Fatigue was having its say.
Suddenly, the battering ceased. Chase's defenses sparked, faltering, and the boy was perplexed. Any time now, Dagon's going to come crashing into my blockade! the boy thought, I have to keep the wall up. I can't let it go!
Repositioning himself to find his proper form, toes pointed and shoulders square, Chase structured his defenses once again.
A moment passed, then another. The sweat was pouring out of the boy's forehead now, and his hair was wet with perspiration. Where was the demon? Why wasn't he poundi-
The blockade exploded in an eruption of splinters and wreckage and shards of wood flying in every direction. Chase wasn't ready; he couldn't sustain holding down the barricade over such a long period of time. A long, thin spike of wooden shrapnel came flying towards him. He dropped to the floor, but it was too late, and the spike impaled Calum through his left thigh. He grunted in shock, but he couldn't feel the pain. He couldn't feel the spike. The boy collapsed, his left leg kneeling, forcing him into a genuflect.
Dagon boomed, "Where are you, boy? You've studied the planes of death - come and see them for yourself!"
Chase was on the floor, a steady supply of blood being lost through his left leg, and he felt an overwhelming sense of dread. The demon was so big. So powerful. He was only a boy with a spike through his leg.
"There you are, boy!" Dagon shrieked, locking eyes with Chase. "You fool!" the demon cried, as it leapt, its thick muscly legs bending and launching itself forward in a leap over ten meters long, covering half the large room. He landed right next to Chase.
He blinked in a puff of barely visible blue energy.
Chase reappeared, giving himself barely a split second to survey his surroundings. He was in the main entrance hall again. He Blinked yet again, and found himself at the top of the staircase.
Hobbling on one leg, Chase used his staff as a walking implement to trudge through the debris. What should he be looking for? What could possibly help? He didn't have much time. Dagon would be stomping after him soon enough.
He peeked into one room. It was a meeting room, ordinary enough. A table in the centre, chairs strewn around fallen over, all over the room. To one side, however, three suits of armor stood tall. One began to move, animated, halberd at the ready. Its eyes glowed amber. Chase snapped his fingers and whispered, "Silence," emitting a spark of light from his staff before the suit of armor collapsed onto the floor, plain hunks of metal and iron.
With a pronounced limp, he made his way into the next room. The kitchen, now, countertops and stoves in the centre of the room. Canisters of furnace fuel were stored in a cabinet to the far end of the room, door broken and dismantled. One side of the room, a window overlooking the River Mazares and a faucet underneath. Nearby was a sizable hole through the floorboards, and a cabinet full of kitchen implements.
Dagon was stomping through the staircase, making his way for Chase, working off the scent of his blood It was so close now. The hair on the back of the boy's neck would have stood if they weren't slicked with sweat. He made his way for the kitchen implements, his leg oozing with scarlet and crimson around the spike that had impaled his thigh. Maybe he could get a knife. A blade. Anything?
Chase was leaning against the cabinet when Dagon came, his left hand clutching a cleaver and his right hand feebly holding onto his dimly lit staff. The energy emanating off the gnarled arcane focus wasn't even blue anymore. "Stay back, Dagon!"
Dagon bellowed with a deep, hearty, sinister laugh. It was earthy, gravelly, like the earth's plates themselves were shifting unsteadily. "Do you think me a fool, boy?" The demon sauntered slowly towards the boy, rubbing talon against talon as he walked. "That I could fall for your little trick? My own illusion, even?" As if to mock the boy, Dagon crouched low, to keep his eyes level with Calum's. "Do you think I can't see through this little parlor trick of yours, you little copycat?"
"Maybe not," Chase replied. He dispelled the illusion, and the blood trail he had left behind vanished along with the spike that had been driven through his thigh.
"You are going to die now," Dagon licked his fangs as he taunted Chase. "You are going to die thinking that you were clever, that you had me dying in your arms and that you had tricked me. You are going to die now knowing how wrong you were."
"Dagon, before I go," Chase breathed in and out with a heavy heart, "can you answer one thing for me? Just one thing, for a lost soul with no friends and everything taken away from him?"
"And what would that be, boy?"
"Are you watching closely?"
The illusory floorboards underneath the demon gave away just as the Illusionist kicked off the demon with both legs, sending Dagon to the floors below and Chase sailing through the window overlooking the River Mazares. Mid-air, he snapped his fingers, sending a spark of blue flame into the kitchen, igniting canister after canister of potent furnace fuel and setting the entire wooden building ablaze. The resounding boom was massive. Across the street, decrepit windows shattered from the immense level of force.
Chase crashed into the river neck-first. As soon as he made contact with the water, his staff let go of its energy completely, powering down, and his eyes dimmed and lowered down until they were normal again, his pupils visible. He blacked out, and the current carried the Illusionist away.