Author's Note: Well that was a disappointment, ran out of reasons to keep writing this story so... back to focusing on other things now I guess.
Chapter 6: Down Below
It wasn't often that I got to study the remains of the Dwarf's folly first hand. Well the Dwarf's and my distant ancestor's folly. Really I would probably side with the Dwarfs on this one, considering they stole a trinket that by our standards isn't that valuable and my ancestors responded by trying to render them extinct. Except that the Dwarfs were already treating the entire continent as their own personal treasure vault for centuries before then and no one was really doing anything to stop them, well not that anyone could really do anything to stop them, till with one smooth 'gift' some especially vicious wizard denied hundreds of miles of territory to the little bastards. Still the union of my ancestors blatant spite and Dwarf greed had bred abominations far worst then what the Dwarfs were capable of, which we were now dealing with. It was a shame about the blessing really: Mother's Order Demon would be able to quarantine the creatures energy without needing to compromise the energies of below that would make this a much more fascinating sectioning. No matter. Opportunities to acquire other specimens would occur I'm sure.
"Are you done yet?" I intercepted Sparrow before he could drag the corpse off somewhere to have it taken apart and sold at the Bazaar, dissecting Spawn was too good an opportunity to pass up.
"You would have gotten more money out of these corpses if you didn't have them blessed before dragging them in." Demonic materials were so rare after all, he could've made three times what he would make now.
"I'd have more demonic corruption too." Well, it wasn't Sparrow's fault he didn't have the ability to handle demonic materials without hurting himself. I knew how, but unlike Mother I didn't have a demon bound to my whims to contain them for me.
"As promised..." I held up a vial full of black liquid with red cracks going through it. Lava Essence. "...the lava essence from the Spawn. Doubtlessly waiting for you to convert it into a nasty explosive of some kind." I informed him drily, even if the task was some what important that I finish it I was still enjoying the prospect of the study itself.
"What can you tell me about what this thing was?"
"I should be asking you that." I took one of my Screeching Blades in hand as I prepared to carve through the corpse's hard shell. "You saw it when it was still moving, and before the blessings destroyed the innate magical properties which would allow them to move and give context to what I am working with."
"That was part of the idea." Sparrow snarked prompting me to roll my eyes.
"My point here being, that if you want me to figure this out then it's going to demand time. Which by standing there demanding answers I don't as of yet have you are wasting that time which I require." I cocked my brow suspiciously as I waited for his retort.
"I'll be back later then."
I put in ear protection as Sparrow left and then activated the enchantment that gives the Screeching Blade it's name as the high pitch vibrations that it lets our gave it impressive cutting power in addition to a ear piercing shrieking noise. With the hardened shell out of the way I got to work. Creatures with large amounts of genie blood in their veins are often times more construct then creature, the loss of flesh replaced by lava was not unexpected, but what about the loss of flesh like substitute? Unless special care is taken to preserve the tissues naturally occurring necromancy would rot the flesh until nothing but bone remained, and that applied to construct flesh too. Well becoming undead in addition to already being part Genie would just reinforce their nature as constructs, which would force them to abide by a set of rules in order to maintain their existence, depending on the species of Undead that rule could be 'kill everything in sight.' Or it could be the result of demonic corruption, which is more like hacking into the formula for the existing construct and reprogramming it to serve the demon responsible, even then Demons don't have free will so much as they have the desire to spread their influence as far and as wide as possible. But I was getting ahead of myself, I only just finished cutting it open.
"Armour like shell, intrinsically tied to the rest of the creature so... Draugr? Undead then, or so I think." One of the three most common types of undead among the spawn, which while it bode well for the lack of demonic influence did not rule it out. I next brought out a book on past Spawn dissections, tracking the deformities and mutations caused by Deep Spawn to determine what occurred according to the Spawn's deviations and the demonic influence which usually amounted to lose of bone density and enlarged craniums. Demons lacked intelligence but they did not lack cunning, they recognised which alterations to reality around them induced the best results for them, twisted the lifeforms they came into contact with into combat oriented forms that would serve their exact purposes the best as opposed to the undead and genie which had to work with what they got. The presence of hardened bone and overly large gatherings of mass in the upper body indicated that this was subjected to the mutations that demons of violence were most well known for. "A Draugr sent under the influence of the Hell of Violence then."
With my conclusion in hand I went about gathering further information for my research. I went to my mirror pad to acquire reports on the movement of the Draugr army below my feet, and of the most recent hell portals to open to that land. Sadly scrying didn't work below sea level, which in turn required that I rely on second hand reports of the deep dwellers, who hate us.
"Huu. I'm going to have to summon a devil aren't I?" Not the most pleasant subject to come to mind, summoning from the hell of violence was considered a war crime under Alliance law, not to mention that the psychotic lunatics were notoriously hard to treat with. Then there was the bindings I'd have to employ to get him to want to actually talk to me instead of butchering my enemies like cattle. I wonder if I still have any of that pain medication that got me utterly stoned a while back? While thinking over this situation I noted that Apple was standing over my shoulder so I removed my ear protection.
"Are you okay?" The blonde beauty asked having clearly seen my state of exhaustion.
"I am reasonably certain that there is a Unknown Demon of Violence wandering around I know not where gang pressing Draugr into attacking for reasons I cannot think of beyond the usual 'kill every thing' spiel. To acquire the answers I desire for both my safety, that of my country men and my neighbours it will require taking action that makes someone, some where, unreasonably uppity and thus cause another incident like the one that landed several chunks of building in my back." In response to my doom and gloom Apple grabbed me by my arm and dragged me off to some place. "Where are we going?"
"Ice cream." Well, she wasn't wrong in her assessment I suppose.
"I need to lock up the laboratory before we go, there's a lot of valuable material inside and Sparrow will get mad at me if someone makes off with his loot." After the lab was secure Apple and I were sprawled out on the school's lawn enjoying ice cream, one of few pleasures I was still able to enjoy as it did not demand the use of my legs to make it happen.
"So... summoning a devil is a bad thing?" I gave Apple the bluff notes of the situation while we were getting ice cream.
"Long story short: yes." I replied as I went about enjoying my rocky road.
"Short Story long." Apple did not so much ask as demand.
"Part of the narrative that 'Bosheit is not a band of evil mages who for centuries actively worked to bring untold horrors into creation to actively bring down other nations' is that all of the Devils and Demons that enter the realm do so through naturally created portals, which are then either put down or bound in the interest of stopping more of them from doing that." I stated after thinking about how to word this properly.
"Alright sounds good so far." Apple indicated that she was following Raven's line of logic.
"Another part of that is that we don't actively bring dangerous demons and devils into creation to harass and attack other nations, like for instance the theoretical informant the theory I didn't have would bring into creation because technically speaking we aren't even supposed to be discussing the idea of this like at all." I stated as Apple nodded her head in thought.
"Alright. So what other way can we find this thing that we need a devil to find for us?" Apple asked as she folded her legs together and ate her ice cream while deep in thought.
"A Lesser Breach, or the Demon that came through it." I informed though that still didn't help us.
"Since I assume you tried to come up with a magical solution already and failed maybe we should make use of a foot search."
"Apple. The tunnels are massive, sprawling and filled to the brim with Demons, Devils, Spawn and Undead. The two nations don't have a army big enough combined to cover all of that while fending off monsters that specialise in remaking the cave system to their whim." That would just be a massacre, of biblical proportions I might add and not in our favour.
"Hmm. Do the dwarfs know anything about this maybe?" Apple asked looking up to the air in thought.
"A army of the creatures they blame us for unleashing upon them cutting them off from a vast stretch of territory that they consider to be rightfully theirs is attacking the same people who they think unleashed them on them in the first place. I would say that they would pop a bottle of champagne to celebrate but honestly when don't those stupid drunkards drink themselves into a stupor." It took realising that 'stealing things from people who habitually trap demons and devils inside of the shiny objects in question is a bad idea' to make them stop stealing things from Bosheit, and her mother going down there and breaking them before they understood that Ever After is not their personal vegetable garden before they'd stop stealing supplies from up here in order to feed themselves, cause as it turns out burying yourself miles beneath the surface of the earth is counter productive to producing produce. Go figure.
"Alright so dwarfs are a no go. So what do we do?" Apple rubbed her temples as she heaved a sigh.
"I've already sent a report detailing what I think of the situation to mother. The fact that I cannot think of a legal solution this situation tells me that she's once again going to do something that's going to piss someone off and we're going to get invaded for it. Again." Raven breathed out a sigh as Apple looked at her suspiciously.
"They'd invade over one little devil summoning?" Apple asked holding her finger and thumb a hair apart.
"They'll take any excuse they can get their hands on to avoid dealing with their own problems." I was tired, impressively so in fact. It was getting to the point that I just wanted to Wake up and let this nightmare end. "It's a tactic that works out brilliantly for us. We're too busy fighting for our own survival to worry about taxes or what the superiors in our government is doing. But not everywhere has demons, and devils, and genies and gods know what else living in their backyard so instead they send their crusades over here."
"There's demons in like half a dozen other places across the continent right? Why aren't any of the crusades going over there?" Apple, the sweet naive thing she was, asked looking just as tired as I was.
"Dwarfs." The blighted creatures seemed to be the root of her problems lately. "Clearing those tunnels are an investment. A massive one. It takes armies to wipe out Spawn and Demons and most of them won't come back. Even if they succeeded the Dwarfs would just claim that the tunnels below a certain depth belongs to them anyway and wipe out the now crippled army. It's a massive risk, carrying with it lives lost in the tens of thousands, for no reward."
True invading Bosheit was a monumentally difficult task, they'd have to, and probably want to, kill all of the things we currently have to deal or otherwise make them submit, but there were lots of magical resources here and if you can un-screw the land then there's also a lot of habitable and farmable territory as well. In short it was a more dangerous and difficult task then just taking the spawn but the up side to that was there was a massively bigger payout to be had too. Even a failed invasion would nab them time to go pillaging for resources to take back home for experiments. It wasn't just the crusades that made blatant grabs for Bosheit. Darkun actually had some consistent idea of how to use all the materials in these lands, being a fellow magic obsessed Below aligned nation, albeit one with little to actually trade us for those materials beyond the use of occasional useful gems for magic crafting. Mind you they've come up with some er... rather creative tactics over the years: like invisible armies and invading us through the Hells.
"Huu. Whatever. It's not our problem to deal with. Come on, I want to squeeze in some more quality time with Learn before the day it out." I had Nevermore flop me onto her back and carry me while Apple showed a visible look of concern.
"You do know that over relying on aspects would cripple your ability to function without them right?" Apple asked though I brushed the concern away. "You do realise this place has one of the biggest libraries in the world right?" Learn was still a new Aspect for her, there was only so much time in the day that she could use it for, even if she exhausted it every day for a month there was still plenty that needed learning for her, even if she only prioritised efficiency over quantity or quality. I had gotten three days worth out of the effects of Learn before I got word back on the matters of the Dwarf Spawn and how we'd be dealing with them. And yes I meant We.
"The school's the one being deployed to fight the Spawn?" I asked looking as Sparrow and Daring got their ruck sacks loaded onto the back of the Dragon Wagon. Why they were using a cargo hauler when Sparrow's already basically a walking storage space was beyond me.
"We're the closest entity trained in the use of violence. And we have Charming who decided to bring all the Named we got along with him." Sparrow explained while he helped his fellow Named onto the wagon, which unfortunately included Apple and me.
"So what are we just killing off all the pointless violence in the area of the portal so that it closes up and we can go home?" If that was just the case then she can just flood the tunnels and drown the bastards out.
"You presume that your country men would not interpret a portal to the depth's of hell as yet more opportunities to plunder for inherent resources." Briar, the Cursed Princess, stated as she examined the sharpness of the switchblade she had on her, before that is her narcolepsy kicked in and she fell over asleep.
"Huu. It's sad that I can't argue the fact that my country men would see a hole torn open in the fabric of reality as a opportunity rather than something to be concerned about." Mind you I would prefer if those opportunities were instead geared towards solving our problems instead of making more of them.
"Everyone ready to go?" Darling, Daring's younger sister and also the Dragoon was sat atop of her Guard Drake which she had ironically named Hero.
"Ready as we'll ever be." And so the twelve of us began our descent into the depths of hell.
Credit where do, the ironically named Hero was proving himself to be the natural enemy of these lava spewing abominations, his tendency to freeze over everything he comes into direct contact with or uses his breath weapon against turned out to be the natural antithesis for lava monsters. For now we were protected from their blatant corruption, ironically enough by more demonic corruption.
"We're sure that thing is safe right?" Sparrow, in what was doubtlessly a feat of Aspect enhancing archery, was loosing arrows down and around the tunnels nailing the Spawn as they appeared.
"I've no reason to doubt my mother's spells." The artefact was a piece of Spell work based on the corruption of the Demon of Order. Order was one of the stronger demons but also the most versatile, it's power basically amounting to rewriting the laws of the universe in a given area, in our case the artefact had been set to 'darkness doesn't impede vision' so that we could actually see what we're doing. The real benefit though was that us already being affected by demonic corruption immunised ourselves against any other form of corruption as well, and order was the easiest to remove if necessary. The downside being of course that Order wouldn't have any affect on the Spawn either, at least the ones who were touched by the demons anyway, so they could afford to set the thing to support at the cost of taking any offensive options off of the table.
"Just keep shooting them until we find the portal." Daring's Beastly side wouldn't be much use here, he'd grow bigger then what this cavern would allow. Sparrow was currently working hard to disprove the notion that long distance fighters had no business being under ground, Darling and her pet were currently busy doing most of the heavy lifting while Briar hung back and I worked to maintain our counter corruption measures. Apple, along side the other half of our classmates and our psychotic blood knight of a combat instructor were currently busy 'distracting' the main horde of the spawn.
"We're at another fork in the road." Sparrow informed us using his bow to pick off more of the bastards, none of his fancier arrows right now, given their tendency to explode that seemed reasonable here. "Which ever one takes us down, near as I can tell we're above the hell portal." I replied as that seemed to be where the strongest reaction of the demonic corruption seemed to have been coming from right now.
"Yosh! Leave it to me!" Daring had traded his sword for a war hammer, though now he that he had gotten some space away from the the spawn he had turned his attention to the ground, already weakened from the lava and ice monsters wandering over it.
"DARING NO!" Daring brought his hammer down and the ground shattered allowing us to to spill out and crush the spawn beneath us in a cave in, the stone melting beneath our feet while the lava spewers tried to bore their way out. Sadly though they were also going down, which means that we were soon contributing to a second cave in, the combined weight of the first two led to a third, then fourth and onwards. We only stopped falling when we hit ground solid enough to support our weight.
"We found the Hell Portal at least." Daring intoned trying to be helpful, or cover for his mistake, he wasn't. Being helpful that is. It was buried under a mountain of rock and lava Spawn, the later of which were trying their damnedest to bore their way through the first to let us know exactly how much they appreciate us burying them alive while more spawn flooded in through the tunnels. Then I felt the floor start to collapse.
"Hang on I'm going to alter the rules again!" Seeing in the dark wasn't a concern with all of this burning hot rocks around us, couldn't do anything to the lava, could do things to the things lava would ruin though, in this case us. 'Flesh Does not Burn.' "Hang on everyone! Look like we're going for a ride!"
The pile of rocks collapsed beneath us and we started swirling down below riding on the lava. Well these clothes were ruined away, we weren't burning to death though so that was a plus, but I think we had bigger things to worry about as we sifted directly into the hell portal. Suddenly Nevermore spread her wings and took off, Shadows spreading off of her form in mass as she scooped up the others, and good thing too since the rock below had already melted.
"Let's try to avoid a repeat scenario shall we?" Sparrow aimed down and fired off one of his ice arrows freezing the rock as it was being drained into the hell portal and creating a makeshift seal. "Daring, any time you wanna do something a little bit 'Beastly!'"
"Unleash!" Daring was dropped onto a group of enemy spawn as he transformed into his beastly form.
"Hold." Sparrow dropped a massive club from inside of his his pocket dimension and Daring wasted no time putting it to smashing into the enemy forces.
"Clad!"
Evidently transformations runs in the family, because Darling's body was wrapped it energy and transformed into knight with armour made out of ice blue scales as she and her matching drake slammed into the enemy forces with icy blows. And so that's how it went, Darling froze them, Daring smashed them, and when all the pointless violence in the area was done with they hopped onto Nevermore's shadow and flew back to the point that they could escape again.
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