~~~===~~~
Chapter Three: Dark Renaissance
~~~===~~~
I had finally reached Toroia, nearly two months after I'd broken camp with Callista near Eblan. A current I hadn't been expecting had led me off course, and I'd gotten into several close encounters with the creatures near Silvera before I'd gotten back on course. After Toroia, I planned on returning to Mount Ordeals, to see if I could finally find the revelations I'd been seeking while Cecil and Rosa were being married.
Oh, who am I kidding? I used that as an excuse to avoid having to be Cecil's best man at the wedding. It wouldn't be fitting to want to change places with the very person I was there to help, and bear good wishes for. But this time, this time I'd be sincere in my desires. Maybe that would be enough to earn some of the peace I wanted.
In the meantime, though, I wanted to visit Edward. He might never have been too useful in a fight, if the stories I've heard were right, but he'd kept Cecil and Yang alive more than once during the attack on Fabul. I owed him the honor of considering him a friend as much as Palom, Porom, or any of the others I'd never fought beside. Thankfully, they'd all chosen to accept the offer, rather than trying to wipe me off the face of the planet when they remembered what I'd done to they and their homes.
"Who goes there?" One of the guards of Toroia, a young woman in a uniform that I realized was strikingly similar to Callista's.
"Kain Highwind of Baron, here to see Edward von Muir, formerly Prince of Damcyan." The guard's eyes grew wide when she heard my name - unusual, but not a response I was wholly unused to.
"Yes, sir, Lord Muir should be in his chambers. Are you aware of where they are?" I smiled at her, trying to put her at ease.
"Quite," I explained. "And try to relax some, please. You're making me nervous," I continued once the gates were opened, and I was walking in. I had no idea just what I was walking into though.
It did take me a few minutes to find Edward's room, I'm afraid - the airship he'd been controlling during the battle with the Giant of Babil had been hit hard, and his already frail body was nearly shattered in the crash. Since then, he'd spent most of his days under the care of the doctor and nurse who had restored him to health after his encounter with Leviathan. He could move about well enough, though moving quickly pained him and he didn't even have the endurance he'd had before. The only problem this posed for finding him was that Castle Toroia was practically a maze if you hadn't been there often before, and I'm afraid that it was one of the places I visited least.
When I found his room, he was sitting quietly, his harp on his lap as he looked out the windows at the large, sparkling-clean moat around the castle that the nearby river made possible. I walked into the room as quietly as I could - he was prone to long bouts sitting at the window, daydreaming, if you could call his visions of Anna daydreams, given the way they were parted.
"Edward?"
"Hello Kain," he answered quietly, not turning from the window. Even speaking, his voice held the deep musical tone that had brought the Dark Elf to its knees, and royal courts around the world to tears.
"How're you doing today?"
"As well as anybody else who's just gotten bad news." I cocked my head and looked at him.
"Bad news? What's wrong, Edward?"
"As if you didn't know," he mused quietly, almost to himself.
"I don't know, Edward. I haven't been to a town for months, and I was only in Eblan briefly before I left. What happened?" I faintly heard a tune being plucked on the harp, almost too quiet to hear, as I nearly dozed off into slumber. Shaking my head, I took a step away from the young man whose bardic skills I'd nearly forgotten.
"Have you lost your mind?" Edward stood and spun around to face me, holding his harp close.
"No, but you must have!" He strummed a sequence of notes on the harp, sending a wave of mystical force slamming into me, though I barely felt it through my armor. Damn good thing for Edward that I'd left my weapons in the hidden boat, or he'd probably have a lance through his chest.
"What the hell was that for," I yelled at him even as I heard the sound of Toroian guards running towards the room. Damn, this was not what I'd been expecting. I put my hand on the hilt of the short knife I used for my meals, ready to use it if I had to.
"Kidnapping Rosa again, what else," he snarled at me, and I stood there, stunned for a moment. What had he just said?
The guards entering the room snapped me out of my surprise, and I spun around, grabbing Edward and holding my knife to his throat.
"I just want out of here, and you can have the princeling back," I said, hoping that I sounded more confident than I felt. My heart was pounding harder than it had in years, my knees almost shaking, but I knew that if they captured me, I wouldn't find out what was going on until it was much later, and if Rosa had been captured again, I was not going to be thrown into a prison for it while I could be trying to find out who had really taken her. The guards lowered their weapons, and I backed towards the window. I pushed the terrified Edward at the guards as I jumped out the window, diving into the moat and grabbing onto the edge before my armor dragged me to the bottom. I climbed to the edge even as a hail of arrows bounced off the dragon-scale armor I wore, and leaped away from the castle, into the forest, towards the riverbank where I had hidden my lance and other equipment. Mount Ordeals would have to wait - Baron needed me more now..
~~~===~~~
It's hard to explain oblivion, really. Those who claim to return from it speak of darkness, but that's not really the right term. After all, darkness exists - and in true oblivion, nothing exists save for the most rudiment extensions of consciousness. Is it any wonder that we three Fiends, born of this maddening nothingness, are a touch.eccentric?
No, that's hardly the proper term for us. We're all lunatics - Scarmiglione and his obsession with death, Caignazzo's over-complicated plots and need to surround himself with an army of creatures made only to serve his whims, Valvalis and her eagerness to torment and maim. And then there's myself, Rubicant, Fiend of Fire. An honorable creation of chaos and destruction. Perhaps I am the maddest of us all - the others certainly seem to think so. But to me, what I have done in the name of survival is the true madness. Betrayed everything I believed in for my creator, fought those I respected, slaughtered innocents - I became the monster people think me to be. All because I feared the power of Zemus to destroy what he had created.
All because I was a coward.
To my surprise, I wasn't the first of us to awaken. To my disgust, I realized Valvalis was as I felt her feather-soft lips against mine, a trace of pressure against them telling me she was looking for more. As soon as I was aware of that, I flared to full consciousness, my need to get away from her overriding any desire to remain in oblivion. She leapt back as my cloak ignited and I flew away from her enough to be sure I could use my magic if she made a move for me.
There was a reason I had grown as powerful as I was. And she knew that she was that reason - that she had driven me to become powerful enough to make her seriously regret doing anything I didn't want her to do. She pouted as she looked at me from across the room.
"Oh, come on, Rubi - don't tell me you're still a little sore about our last little fling." I almost gagged as I listened to the innocent tone in her voice. Such deception was unbecoming in anybody, but she specialized in it.
"My name is Rubicant," I said quietly, a hard edge to my voice. "You will address me as such unless I tell you otherwise. As for our 'fling,' you know as well as I do that the only way you'll ever bed me again is by having our brother animate my cold dead body for you." Almost on cue, Scarmiglione and Caignazzo began to stir on the tables their bodies were resting on. Valvalis scowled at me, lightning flashing through her eyes.
"I'm more powerful than you remember, pet," she growled. "Remember that I've been known to take what I want."
"Is it my fault that the only things that would sleep with you willingly in the last thousand years were those bitch sisters? Of course, they were better than your other bedmates - at least they were only slightly crazier than you are." She snarled as she flew towards me, and I prepared to meet her charge with a spell, but a barrier came down between us.
"Enough of this foolishness," a low voice intoned from the shadows surrounding the area we were in. I looked in the direction of the voice, and squinted as I looked beyond the sight most mortals used, seeking the heat of the speaker. I found him, sitting in an ornate throne, as Scarmiglione rolled his obscene mass off of his table and Caignazzo reduced himself to a reasonable size before scuttling over to the edge of his, and falling off, landing perfectly on his feet. As the turtle-beast returned to his normally immense size, I realized that the chamber we were in must be truly gargantuan to hold the weakest of us, ironically also the largest.
I smirked as I heard Valvalis whisper a curse at Scarmiglione - no doubt one of his tentacles had "wandered" up her leg, I realized, as he squirmed a few more inches away from her.
"What do you want with the Fiends of the Elements," I demanded, using my best 'listen to me or die painfully' tone.
"Please," the shadowed speaker said, in a tone that revealed just how unimpressed he was, much to my chagrin. "Listen well, Fiends. I am Lord Dragonheart. You may call me your Master, as once you called Zemus such. I have brought you back from the oblivion you were cast into, and increased your powers. Most," he paused for emphasis, looking at me, "of your powers. You, Rubicant, would seem to have some difficulties with fighting your foes properly. Perhaps having to face them as the weakest of the fiends will change that." I smiled grimly. This was truly a fool if he thought that I was the weakest of us, even if he had given them more power than Zemus himself had possessed.
"I doubt that, if you mean fighting dishonorably."
"What is honor to you?"
"Enough to be willing to die for, twice, and take my siblings with me," I said plainly.
"Are you willing to die for it a third time," the voice asked, even as its heat pattern dimmed in the manner I knew well from watching one mage after another hurtle spells of ice and snow at me.
"Yes," I said without a moment's hesitation, gripping my cloak with one hand.
"Then so be it. Blizzaga!" Pillars of ice fell towards me from the heavens as I spun my cloak around my body, raising the ancient barrier as I had learned long ago. The spell fell harmlessly, and I felt the magic behind it infuse me with energy.
"Consider yourself lucky, Dragonheart, that I want no part of your power, or I would simply sit here and let you hurl the northern winds at me until you were hoarse. Then I would use your own power to rend you limb from limb. As it is, I shall simply take my leave of you," I said, rising a few inches from the ground as I bowed mockingly, and flew towards the roof that I could see far above me, changing into pure heat an instant before I struck it, moving to the outside in an instant. The air was thin and cold where I emerged, and I quickly allowed my solid form to plummet towards the warmer Earth below. I had work to do, not the least of which was hindering the fool who had dared to wrench me from the comfort of oblivion. But first, I had a friend to find..
~~~===~~~
Dragonheart's already dark mood had just grown much worse as Rubicant fled the airship. He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair as the remaining fiends shifted nervously. He heard the low, sibilant voice of Scarmiglione speaking quietly to Valvalis.
"Should have known better than to try a spell against Rubicant." Dragonheart turned towards the grotesque creature, and pointed a finger at him.
"Flare!" Scarmiglione screamed as the infernal heat erupted from the air around him, Valvalis diving to the side just in time to avoid the intense blast of heat. A few moments later, the charred hulk was whimpering in agony as Dragonheart watched, satisfied.
"Anybody else care to comment on my strategic skill?" Silence answered him.
"Very well, then. Any questions?" Again, silence.
"Good. Now, I'm going to tell you why I bothered to resurrect your useless corpses, rather than throwing them into the power supply of my ship. You are going to serve me the way you served Zemus and Golbez, and aid me in my plans to conquer this world. You will do so because, while I have yet to choose to kill any of you with a word, I am quite capable of it, as the rather pained lump of flesh in the corner can attest." Valvalis and Caignazzo looked over at Scarmiglione, who had crawled up against one of the tables and was trying to repair his flesh with his necromantic spells. They turned back to their new master, and bowed their heads.
"Excellent. Now, familiarize yourselves with the ship. And take that thing with you," Dragonheart said, indicating the Fiend of Earth. The Fiends left, and Dragonheart leaned back in his throne, motioning for one of his servants to bring something to him. What they brought was the bound Queen of Baron. She was dropped unceremoniously at his feet, and she looked up at him with a sneer. Her face was marked with burns from where his dark power had played over her skin, her hair singed in places, her once-bright eyes dull and sunken, but still defiant.
"Looks like one of your little pets doesn't want to play with you, traitor."
"Such harsh words, my Queen. Surely you realize that I am no traitor where I come from, but as much a hero as your husband."
"Then I pity whatever cesspool you crawled out of."
"You don't understand, do you Lady Rosa? The 'cesspool' I crawled out of is the one you created." Rosa spit at him, but didn't have the strength to hit his face. He chuckled at her and grabbed her hair, yanking her back to raise her face towards his.
"Deny it to yourself, to me, to all the gods if you want, but you and your husband are directly to blame for anything that happens to your world. You and your kind are festering boils to my Lord and Lady, and it is my sworn duty to eliminate you."
"Then why don't you do it now, rather than stretching it out?"
"Because, Lady Rosa," he explained, gripping her head as he had so many people who had displeased him, "I still need you to bring that fool Paladin to me. Now, for today's session, I think I'll take that annoying Wall spell from you," he said, as his hand began to glow with dark power again, and the Queen of Baron screamed through the agony of having her life and knowledge ripped from her by Dragonheart's unknown magic.
A few moments later, he cast her unconscious form aside, and began to adjust his strategies for his new power, even as his skeletal servants hauled her back to her cell to recover for the next time..
Meanwhile, the three remaining Fiends were following the orders of their new master, exploring the ship they were on and becoming familiar with its layout. Or, at least, two of them were - Scarmiglione was still whimpering and trying to fix his body.
"Oh, would you just shut up!" Valvalis ended the spell that had been carrying her brother, letting him fall to the floor heavily. "You should have known better than to criticize Master Dragonheart - of *course* Rubicant could stand up to him. If he'd thought he had to, he might have been able to stand up to Master Zemus!"
"Just slow down a bit, please," the master of earth and death moaned. "I must feed." Suddenly, a motion off to the side caught his eye, and one of his tentacles shot towards out, grabbing a hapless soldier and dragging him to its owner. Two withered hands clutched the warriors shoulders as Scarmiglione drained his life away, then swallowed the withered corpse, his own burnt flesh finally healing. When he was finished, he squirmed ahead of his two mildly disgusted siblings, continuing their explorations without a further word. Valvalis and Caignazzo started to follow him, thinking about what their new master wanted with them.
"He seems to be more powerful than Master Zemus, in ways," Valvalis mused quietly.
"Yes," the Fiend of Water responded quietly. "Yet like Master Golbez, he serves another. I could see the darkness that enveloped him, that it came from another."
"One more powerful than he? That would mean that, though he could resurrect us and make us more powerful than we've dreamed, there is another greater - that can't be possible."
"But it is. He does not bear the Mantle of Creation, or did you fail to notice that while you were eyeing Rubicant?" Valvalis hissed at the giant turtle she called brother, and moved further up ahead. Caignazzo smiled to himself and slowly moved after them.
"Well, sister," he thought to himself, "it seems that you've been spurned again. Perhaps next time you'll be more gentle with your toys."
~~~===~~~
End of Chapter Three: Dark Renaissance
~~~===~~~
Chapter Three: Dark Renaissance
~~~===~~~
I had finally reached Toroia, nearly two months after I'd broken camp with Callista near Eblan. A current I hadn't been expecting had led me off course, and I'd gotten into several close encounters with the creatures near Silvera before I'd gotten back on course. After Toroia, I planned on returning to Mount Ordeals, to see if I could finally find the revelations I'd been seeking while Cecil and Rosa were being married.
Oh, who am I kidding? I used that as an excuse to avoid having to be Cecil's best man at the wedding. It wouldn't be fitting to want to change places with the very person I was there to help, and bear good wishes for. But this time, this time I'd be sincere in my desires. Maybe that would be enough to earn some of the peace I wanted.
In the meantime, though, I wanted to visit Edward. He might never have been too useful in a fight, if the stories I've heard were right, but he'd kept Cecil and Yang alive more than once during the attack on Fabul. I owed him the honor of considering him a friend as much as Palom, Porom, or any of the others I'd never fought beside. Thankfully, they'd all chosen to accept the offer, rather than trying to wipe me off the face of the planet when they remembered what I'd done to they and their homes.
"Who goes there?" One of the guards of Toroia, a young woman in a uniform that I realized was strikingly similar to Callista's.
"Kain Highwind of Baron, here to see Edward von Muir, formerly Prince of Damcyan." The guard's eyes grew wide when she heard my name - unusual, but not a response I was wholly unused to.
"Yes, sir, Lord Muir should be in his chambers. Are you aware of where they are?" I smiled at her, trying to put her at ease.
"Quite," I explained. "And try to relax some, please. You're making me nervous," I continued once the gates were opened, and I was walking in. I had no idea just what I was walking into though.
It did take me a few minutes to find Edward's room, I'm afraid - the airship he'd been controlling during the battle with the Giant of Babil had been hit hard, and his already frail body was nearly shattered in the crash. Since then, he'd spent most of his days under the care of the doctor and nurse who had restored him to health after his encounter with Leviathan. He could move about well enough, though moving quickly pained him and he didn't even have the endurance he'd had before. The only problem this posed for finding him was that Castle Toroia was practically a maze if you hadn't been there often before, and I'm afraid that it was one of the places I visited least.
When I found his room, he was sitting quietly, his harp on his lap as he looked out the windows at the large, sparkling-clean moat around the castle that the nearby river made possible. I walked into the room as quietly as I could - he was prone to long bouts sitting at the window, daydreaming, if you could call his visions of Anna daydreams, given the way they were parted.
"Edward?"
"Hello Kain," he answered quietly, not turning from the window. Even speaking, his voice held the deep musical tone that had brought the Dark Elf to its knees, and royal courts around the world to tears.
"How're you doing today?"
"As well as anybody else who's just gotten bad news." I cocked my head and looked at him.
"Bad news? What's wrong, Edward?"
"As if you didn't know," he mused quietly, almost to himself.
"I don't know, Edward. I haven't been to a town for months, and I was only in Eblan briefly before I left. What happened?" I faintly heard a tune being plucked on the harp, almost too quiet to hear, as I nearly dozed off into slumber. Shaking my head, I took a step away from the young man whose bardic skills I'd nearly forgotten.
"Have you lost your mind?" Edward stood and spun around to face me, holding his harp close.
"No, but you must have!" He strummed a sequence of notes on the harp, sending a wave of mystical force slamming into me, though I barely felt it through my armor. Damn good thing for Edward that I'd left my weapons in the hidden boat, or he'd probably have a lance through his chest.
"What the hell was that for," I yelled at him even as I heard the sound of Toroian guards running towards the room. Damn, this was not what I'd been expecting. I put my hand on the hilt of the short knife I used for my meals, ready to use it if I had to.
"Kidnapping Rosa again, what else," he snarled at me, and I stood there, stunned for a moment. What had he just said?
The guards entering the room snapped me out of my surprise, and I spun around, grabbing Edward and holding my knife to his throat.
"I just want out of here, and you can have the princeling back," I said, hoping that I sounded more confident than I felt. My heart was pounding harder than it had in years, my knees almost shaking, but I knew that if they captured me, I wouldn't find out what was going on until it was much later, and if Rosa had been captured again, I was not going to be thrown into a prison for it while I could be trying to find out who had really taken her. The guards lowered their weapons, and I backed towards the window. I pushed the terrified Edward at the guards as I jumped out the window, diving into the moat and grabbing onto the edge before my armor dragged me to the bottom. I climbed to the edge even as a hail of arrows bounced off the dragon-scale armor I wore, and leaped away from the castle, into the forest, towards the riverbank where I had hidden my lance and other equipment. Mount Ordeals would have to wait - Baron needed me more now..
~~~===~~~
It's hard to explain oblivion, really. Those who claim to return from it speak of darkness, but that's not really the right term. After all, darkness exists - and in true oblivion, nothing exists save for the most rudiment extensions of consciousness. Is it any wonder that we three Fiends, born of this maddening nothingness, are a touch.eccentric?
No, that's hardly the proper term for us. We're all lunatics - Scarmiglione and his obsession with death, Caignazzo's over-complicated plots and need to surround himself with an army of creatures made only to serve his whims, Valvalis and her eagerness to torment and maim. And then there's myself, Rubicant, Fiend of Fire. An honorable creation of chaos and destruction. Perhaps I am the maddest of us all - the others certainly seem to think so. But to me, what I have done in the name of survival is the true madness. Betrayed everything I believed in for my creator, fought those I respected, slaughtered innocents - I became the monster people think me to be. All because I feared the power of Zemus to destroy what he had created.
All because I was a coward.
To my surprise, I wasn't the first of us to awaken. To my disgust, I realized Valvalis was as I felt her feather-soft lips against mine, a trace of pressure against them telling me she was looking for more. As soon as I was aware of that, I flared to full consciousness, my need to get away from her overriding any desire to remain in oblivion. She leapt back as my cloak ignited and I flew away from her enough to be sure I could use my magic if she made a move for me.
There was a reason I had grown as powerful as I was. And she knew that she was that reason - that she had driven me to become powerful enough to make her seriously regret doing anything I didn't want her to do. She pouted as she looked at me from across the room.
"Oh, come on, Rubi - don't tell me you're still a little sore about our last little fling." I almost gagged as I listened to the innocent tone in her voice. Such deception was unbecoming in anybody, but she specialized in it.
"My name is Rubicant," I said quietly, a hard edge to my voice. "You will address me as such unless I tell you otherwise. As for our 'fling,' you know as well as I do that the only way you'll ever bed me again is by having our brother animate my cold dead body for you." Almost on cue, Scarmiglione and Caignazzo began to stir on the tables their bodies were resting on. Valvalis scowled at me, lightning flashing through her eyes.
"I'm more powerful than you remember, pet," she growled. "Remember that I've been known to take what I want."
"Is it my fault that the only things that would sleep with you willingly in the last thousand years were those bitch sisters? Of course, they were better than your other bedmates - at least they were only slightly crazier than you are." She snarled as she flew towards me, and I prepared to meet her charge with a spell, but a barrier came down between us.
"Enough of this foolishness," a low voice intoned from the shadows surrounding the area we were in. I looked in the direction of the voice, and squinted as I looked beyond the sight most mortals used, seeking the heat of the speaker. I found him, sitting in an ornate throne, as Scarmiglione rolled his obscene mass off of his table and Caignazzo reduced himself to a reasonable size before scuttling over to the edge of his, and falling off, landing perfectly on his feet. As the turtle-beast returned to his normally immense size, I realized that the chamber we were in must be truly gargantuan to hold the weakest of us, ironically also the largest.
I smirked as I heard Valvalis whisper a curse at Scarmiglione - no doubt one of his tentacles had "wandered" up her leg, I realized, as he squirmed a few more inches away from her.
"What do you want with the Fiends of the Elements," I demanded, using my best 'listen to me or die painfully' tone.
"Please," the shadowed speaker said, in a tone that revealed just how unimpressed he was, much to my chagrin. "Listen well, Fiends. I am Lord Dragonheart. You may call me your Master, as once you called Zemus such. I have brought you back from the oblivion you were cast into, and increased your powers. Most," he paused for emphasis, looking at me, "of your powers. You, Rubicant, would seem to have some difficulties with fighting your foes properly. Perhaps having to face them as the weakest of the fiends will change that." I smiled grimly. This was truly a fool if he thought that I was the weakest of us, even if he had given them more power than Zemus himself had possessed.
"I doubt that, if you mean fighting dishonorably."
"What is honor to you?"
"Enough to be willing to die for, twice, and take my siblings with me," I said plainly.
"Are you willing to die for it a third time," the voice asked, even as its heat pattern dimmed in the manner I knew well from watching one mage after another hurtle spells of ice and snow at me.
"Yes," I said without a moment's hesitation, gripping my cloak with one hand.
"Then so be it. Blizzaga!" Pillars of ice fell towards me from the heavens as I spun my cloak around my body, raising the ancient barrier as I had learned long ago. The spell fell harmlessly, and I felt the magic behind it infuse me with energy.
"Consider yourself lucky, Dragonheart, that I want no part of your power, or I would simply sit here and let you hurl the northern winds at me until you were hoarse. Then I would use your own power to rend you limb from limb. As it is, I shall simply take my leave of you," I said, rising a few inches from the ground as I bowed mockingly, and flew towards the roof that I could see far above me, changing into pure heat an instant before I struck it, moving to the outside in an instant. The air was thin and cold where I emerged, and I quickly allowed my solid form to plummet towards the warmer Earth below. I had work to do, not the least of which was hindering the fool who had dared to wrench me from the comfort of oblivion. But first, I had a friend to find..
~~~===~~~
Dragonheart's already dark mood had just grown much worse as Rubicant fled the airship. He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair as the remaining fiends shifted nervously. He heard the low, sibilant voice of Scarmiglione speaking quietly to Valvalis.
"Should have known better than to try a spell against Rubicant." Dragonheart turned towards the grotesque creature, and pointed a finger at him.
"Flare!" Scarmiglione screamed as the infernal heat erupted from the air around him, Valvalis diving to the side just in time to avoid the intense blast of heat. A few moments later, the charred hulk was whimpering in agony as Dragonheart watched, satisfied.
"Anybody else care to comment on my strategic skill?" Silence answered him.
"Very well, then. Any questions?" Again, silence.
"Good. Now, I'm going to tell you why I bothered to resurrect your useless corpses, rather than throwing them into the power supply of my ship. You are going to serve me the way you served Zemus and Golbez, and aid me in my plans to conquer this world. You will do so because, while I have yet to choose to kill any of you with a word, I am quite capable of it, as the rather pained lump of flesh in the corner can attest." Valvalis and Caignazzo looked over at Scarmiglione, who had crawled up against one of the tables and was trying to repair his flesh with his necromantic spells. They turned back to their new master, and bowed their heads.
"Excellent. Now, familiarize yourselves with the ship. And take that thing with you," Dragonheart said, indicating the Fiend of Earth. The Fiends left, and Dragonheart leaned back in his throne, motioning for one of his servants to bring something to him. What they brought was the bound Queen of Baron. She was dropped unceremoniously at his feet, and she looked up at him with a sneer. Her face was marked with burns from where his dark power had played over her skin, her hair singed in places, her once-bright eyes dull and sunken, but still defiant.
"Looks like one of your little pets doesn't want to play with you, traitor."
"Such harsh words, my Queen. Surely you realize that I am no traitor where I come from, but as much a hero as your husband."
"Then I pity whatever cesspool you crawled out of."
"You don't understand, do you Lady Rosa? The 'cesspool' I crawled out of is the one you created." Rosa spit at him, but didn't have the strength to hit his face. He chuckled at her and grabbed her hair, yanking her back to raise her face towards his.
"Deny it to yourself, to me, to all the gods if you want, but you and your husband are directly to blame for anything that happens to your world. You and your kind are festering boils to my Lord and Lady, and it is my sworn duty to eliminate you."
"Then why don't you do it now, rather than stretching it out?"
"Because, Lady Rosa," he explained, gripping her head as he had so many people who had displeased him, "I still need you to bring that fool Paladin to me. Now, for today's session, I think I'll take that annoying Wall spell from you," he said, as his hand began to glow with dark power again, and the Queen of Baron screamed through the agony of having her life and knowledge ripped from her by Dragonheart's unknown magic.
A few moments later, he cast her unconscious form aside, and began to adjust his strategies for his new power, even as his skeletal servants hauled her back to her cell to recover for the next time..
Meanwhile, the three remaining Fiends were following the orders of their new master, exploring the ship they were on and becoming familiar with its layout. Or, at least, two of them were - Scarmiglione was still whimpering and trying to fix his body.
"Oh, would you just shut up!" Valvalis ended the spell that had been carrying her brother, letting him fall to the floor heavily. "You should have known better than to criticize Master Dragonheart - of *course* Rubicant could stand up to him. If he'd thought he had to, he might have been able to stand up to Master Zemus!"
"Just slow down a bit, please," the master of earth and death moaned. "I must feed." Suddenly, a motion off to the side caught his eye, and one of his tentacles shot towards out, grabbing a hapless soldier and dragging him to its owner. Two withered hands clutched the warriors shoulders as Scarmiglione drained his life away, then swallowed the withered corpse, his own burnt flesh finally healing. When he was finished, he squirmed ahead of his two mildly disgusted siblings, continuing their explorations without a further word. Valvalis and Caignazzo started to follow him, thinking about what their new master wanted with them.
"He seems to be more powerful than Master Zemus, in ways," Valvalis mused quietly.
"Yes," the Fiend of Water responded quietly. "Yet like Master Golbez, he serves another. I could see the darkness that enveloped him, that it came from another."
"One more powerful than he? That would mean that, though he could resurrect us and make us more powerful than we've dreamed, there is another greater - that can't be possible."
"But it is. He does not bear the Mantle of Creation, or did you fail to notice that while you were eyeing Rubicant?" Valvalis hissed at the giant turtle she called brother, and moved further up ahead. Caignazzo smiled to himself and slowly moved after them.
"Well, sister," he thought to himself, "it seems that you've been spurned again. Perhaps next time you'll be more gentle with your toys."
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End of Chapter Three: Dark Renaissance
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