Chapter 4. The Black Dragon Falls – Part 2.
Lina glanced back as she ran, and saw half a dozen boulders raining down the slope; she suspected from the still strengthening background noise that there were many more incoming from beyond the veil of darkness. The stones no longer stuck to the path, which left the party at a huge disadvantage in speed; in fact, the first few were already upon them.
"This'll slow them down a little," the sorceress said as she extended a hand behind her back. "BOGARDIC ELM!"
The contours of a good thirty feet long portion of the cave floor behind them changed instantly as the slope's rocky texture seemed to melt away. As the spheres reached the area, they sank into the ground exactly as if they had tumbled into a muddy bog. The next wave rolled over them, but met the same fate shortly afterwards.
"I bought us some time, but this won't keep them at bay forever!" Lina yelled ahead. "Tell me if you see anything resembling a door!"
"But what if there isn't any door?" her pupil shouted back.
"Use your head, Jane!" Lina snapped at her. "There is something hidden in this place, and I don't think smashing that treasure with falling rocks was part of the defense plan! It has to be in a separate chamber to keep it safe!"
"The tunnel ends up ahead, Lina-san!" Xelloss called. "There looks to be a narrower passageway there."
"Yes, but something seems to be in the way." Nilian added as she tried to make out the details as the exit emerged from the cave's darkness. "It's some kind of… metal…"
"Whatever it is, it's toast! FIREBALL!" The sorceress launched her spell at the first glint of metal she caught in the distance. As the fiery sphere neared its target, it was revealed to be a large, thick metal disk. The projectile reached it, but instead of impacting with a great explosion, it only produced a small flare of light and blinked out.
Lina knew all too well what that meant.
That disk is made of orihalcon… Someone really upped the ante here.
"Okay, change of plans!" she ordered. "We need to roll that thing out of the way!"
"By 'we' ye mean me, huh?" The giant growled, sizing up the metal disk. "Fine, but ye better get those boulders off our backs 'cause it ain't gonna be quick."
"Aye-aye, Captain Emo." The sorceress raised her hand to a mock salute and turned around as they reached the end of the tunnel. The noise still came from a distance but gradually drew closer, meaning that her mud pool just got filled up. Lina secretly wished the boulders would run out before that, but she was not all that surprised by the opposite outcome.
That would have been too easy.
The priest moseyed over to stand beside her. "What is the strategy, Lina-san?" he asked with amused interest. "Another obstacle perhaps?"
"No, I won't risk another Bogardic Elm with the others so close to us. There's always a chance that it'll make the walls collapse," the sorceress answered as the first incoming stone appeared ahead. "Our strategy, Xel, is—" The boulder burst to bits after encountering a red flare of light. "—to shoot everything that moves!"
The mazoku smiled. "Hmm, simple but effective, I suppose." He made a swiping motion with his staff, and a dark cloud consumed three additional spheres, which then lit up and exploded, leaving only fine dust behind.
He'll help me just like that? That sounds almost too good not to be suspicious, Lina thought as she let loose another spell. They needed to maintain a constant barrage of destructive magic, not only because of the sheer number of incoming threats, but because after Xelloss began using his power offensively, the light from the jewel on the top of his staff faded – the flare of the explosions now provided the only source of illumination in the dark cave.
In the meantime, the captain put all of his weight against the orihalcon disk, his eyes squeezed shut in the effort, but the obstacle did not move an inch. With a frustrated snort, he relaxed his posture and opened his eyes to see if it would be easier to try from the other side, and noticed his wife propped against the metal surface beside him, trying to push it with all the little strength she had for her slender physique.
"…what are ye doing?" the giant asked, bewildered.
"I want to… help you," she managed through gritted teeth.
"Always this silly stuff ye get into yer head!" he spat the words with apparent exasperation in his voice. "Can't ye see there's nothing ye can do? Leave this to me and go hide somewhere!"
Nilian straightened and looked his husband in the eye; the fear the situation instilled into her showed in her mannerisms and expression, but that just made the anger burning in her gaze even more vivid and resolute.
"Of course, I should just hide, right?" she hissed. "Like when you, the brave captain, were always at the sea for months on end, and I sat in my family's grand prison of a mansion, hoping that my big, strong man would not get killed by someone even bigger and stronger like any 'good wife' should do! Yes, those were the days, Elric!" She turned away and began pushing the metal disk with greater effort than ever before, as if out of spite. "I am through with this!... I don't care if I sleep in a run-down inn, I don't care if those boulders rain down on our heads, I want to be there with you!"
Sadness deflated the captain's tall form like a giant balloon. "But Nilian…" he said almost beseechingly, "can't ye see that neither of us is made for this kind of living…? Why do ye keep up with this bloody conviction?"
All restraint gone, her wife yelled at him at the top of her lungs. "Because I love you, you lumbering imbecile!"
Elric Henton hung his head in defeat. "Aye," he murmured, readying himself against the disk as well, "I guess that'd be a problem we got in common."
A giant pillar of flame rose from the ground ahead, crushing several boulders in its wake and bathing the cave in a crimson glow for several seconds. Scared by the light and the booming noise, Jane curled up behind the goat-sized rock she used as cover, her body shivering in terror.
"Why… Why am I so frightened?" she whispered to herself. "Isn't this what I requested? Wasn't I doing the s-same things before I lost my powers?" She looked down at her hands. "Without that nameless demon… am I r-really… so weak?"
A large dark mass flew over her head. As she raised her gaze, she saw Captain Henton holding a stone almost as big as herself in his outstretched hand; he just barely caught it before he or his wife were crushed.
"What's the matter with ye, Inverse?" the giant bellowed at the sorceress. "I thought ye were keeping these hellish things away!"
"Sorry!" Lina glanced back nervously. "I blast everything I can see, but the visibility sucks!" Firing off a beam of crackling white energy towards the rocks with her left hand, she flung her right upward, and a sphere of light came into existence above her head – still, next to the flashes of the other spells and the darkness of the cave, it looked tiny and insignificant. "That didn't help much." She shot a glare at the priest. "Xelloss, don't tell me someone of your caliber can't keep that light from your staff going in parallel! Stop messing with us!"
"How ungrateful of you, Lina-san. Even though I was being all cooperative…" the mazoku said, his mouth twisted into an infuriatingly fake pout. He then turned his head back as well, one of his eyes open to glance at Jane. "I don't think we'd be having issues if each of us would do their part, am I right?"
The girl quickly looked the other way, but still stood from behind her cover. "You're r-right." she stuttered. "I c-can't just lie here like some coward…" Mustering all her courage and willpower, she set her face into the most resolute expression she could manage, and shouted, "I'm not just s-some demon's pawn! I'm Lina Inverse… Lina Inverse's greatest pupil ever and I'll show you my true power! Or… something along those lines!"
Jane clenched her eyes shut; her mind focused solely on her goal, she began the incantation, "Light which burns beyond crimson flame, a-allow thy power to gather in my hand!"
The sorceress' head snapped back in alarm. "Jane, stop! I told you it's 'let' not a—"
"L-LIGHTNING!"
Something took form in the girl's hand that made even Xelloss take a step backwards.
"Get down!" Lina cried out and dove towards the ground. She could not see, but still clearly felt a wave of enormous energy passing over her, producing ear-splitting claps of thunder as it crashed into the incoming stones – or more precisely it did not crash into them, but went through them, destroying everything in its way in a heartbeat.
By the time the sorceress looked up, the cave ahead of her loomed empty and silent.
Jane just stood there with an outstretched arm, her face blank. "I messed up… right?" She winced.
"Well," Lina walked up to her to look into her face with an annoyed frown, "that surely was the most horrible piece of spellcasting I've seen in a while…"
"Yeah," the girl mumbled, "I'm really not a—"
"…but it also worked out pretty well, so keep it up!" the sorceress added, her frown morphing into a grin. Ignoring Jane's flabbergasted look, she turned to the captain and Nilian. "Any luck so far?"
"We could move it just enough so we can squeeze through," the giant panted. "If ye won't fit in it's yer loss though, 'cause I ain't touching this bloody piece of scrap again!"
Really? This coming from the guy who's almost as broad as he is tall?
In the end, they all managed to get through rather easily. What greeted them beyond was a smaller tunnel; it appeared to be part of an entirely natural cave, which made it harder to walk through, but at least they were not going any deeper this time.
"Gah, Miss Lina, my feet are disappearing!" Jane suddenly shouted from behind the sorceress.
"That's smoke, Jane," Lina replied dully. "It's coming from the chamber up ahead."
The room they entered was lofty, but nowhere as deep as the cave before. The unnaturally chilling smoke got thicker and filled the ground up to their waists, with a few small grey puffs floating even higher, preventing them from examining the chamber in its entirety.
This feels familiar for some reason… as if I read about it somewhere. Lina's hand moved to cast a spell to sweep out the pool of smoke, when a deep, malevolent voice filled the room.
"Pitiful mortals… entering this cave to steal its treasures," it spoke. "The only excuse you may have is that you couldn't know that the embodiment of terror itself stands guard here…" As if a curtain had been lifted, the smoke moved to the side to reveal a stone pedestal at the other end of the chamber with a book resting on top of it, along with a pale, scarcely humanoid figure. "…your certain doom: The Great Wyqixaould!"
What the—?
"I-It's that Wiqi-something person again!" Jane yelled.
"But what on Earth is he doing here? He's supposed to be sealed away into a manuscript I found decades ago!" The sorceress tried hard to make some sense of the situation, but could only come up with the conclusion that it made absolutely no sense. "And since when do you know about him, anyway?"
"Jane-san had broken the seal by accident," Xelloss explained in a carefree voice.
She did what?
"Yes, and shortly afterwards the mighty Wyqixaould has decided to guard the tome within this chamber," the demon continued. "It's not as if he was blackmailed into doing so, by the way. No, the Great One was certainly not threatened with immediate destruction if he refused to comply – he came here because of his own dark and mysterious reasons."
"Who is this Wik-whatever son of a biscuit eater that thing keeps talking about?" The captain snorted.
"It is called the third-person self-reference you insolent worms!" the ghastly (and now more than a little angered) mazoku hollered. "All those who are disrespectful will feel Wyqixaould's terrifying wrath!"
"There's just one little problem with that." The sorceress stepped forward. "No matter how you came free, I can still easily put you back." Her hand reached under her cloak for the book – when she noticed that she was not wearing any.
Oh shoot, I forgot I left the cloak and my shoulder guards upstairs! If I could only…
Her expression hardening with concentration, Lina muttered a short incantation and disappeared. The demon glanced upwards at the ceiling.
"The Great One demands to know what you are doing up there, Lina Inverse," it called.
"Ahm… savoring the view!" the sorceress said as she clung to a long dripstone with both arms and legs. "That, and also—" a barrier of wind forming around her, she let go and flew directly at the mazoku. "—preparing for a surprise attack! ELMEKIA LANCE!"
"Ha, is the so-called powerful sorceress such a fool, that she thinks she can harm Wyqixa— Ouch." The deformed demon staggered back as the light blue beam hit him in the face. "Well, maybe a little."
"We're just getting started!" Lina landed in front of her opponent, another spell within her cupped hands at the ready.
The mazoku apparently did not want to risk being hit again – disappearing in a burst of smoke, he withdrew to the Astral Plane. "True greatness also means knowing when to make a tactical retreat!" his disembodied voice sounded.
Yeah right.
"Wise words, Wiki-san," Xelloss spoke. "Now the only thing that remains is to show even greater wisdom by voluntarily returning to Lina-san's book."
"What?" the demon boomed.
"It is just a simple piece of advice of course," the priest shrugged with a jovial smile. "In order to avoid, you know, certain accidents from happening."
"W-Well..." the voice of the mazoku was disappointed, broken, almost sad. "The greatness… the wisdom of Wyqixaould truly is… uh, it is truly… truly… ah, damn you all!"
The sorceress could feel the barely detectable presence quickly departing the cave.
"Do you think he really returned to the book?" Jane asked.
"No doubt about that one," the sorceress said before Xelloss could answer, with a disapproving look on her face which could have been intended for the priest or her, or both.
"I am really sorry, Miss Lina." Jane bowed her head. "I should not have disturbed your belongings."
"Hey, the only reason you could get hold of that book is because I let you to," the sorceress' expression softened. "To be honest, I did not expect you to have the guts to do it."
Not to mention to do that with it… I only left it there for her because there were some pages from a course book in it which she could use. A certain smiling priest has a lot of explaining to do…
"So Nilian," Lina retrieved the tome from the stone pedestal, "want to have a look at this? It's what we came for, after all."
"Ye bet we want to look at what ye made us risk our necks for!" the giant marched up and grabbed the book from her hands. He probably never was an avid reader, as he spent several moments silently spelling out the golden text on the leather-bound cover. "…well I'll be a lily-livered land-lover…"He handed the tome to his wife with utmost care; the moment she set her eyes upon it, her face lit up with joy.
"This is fantastic!" She beamed. "Thank you so much, Lina!"
"What? What is it?" Jane edged closer to get a glimpse too.
"The greatest treasure this place has to offer," the sorceress replied with a wink, while the girl finally managed to peek over Nilian's shoulder, and beheld the title with widening eyes:
THE MOST SECRET RECIPES OF THE SORCERER-COOK MACEN VRUMUGUN
Written by Macen Vrumugun and Lina Inverse
(Vault, traps, monsters and other stuff keeping you from reading this cover by Lina Inverse)
Nilian's happiness and enthusiasm remained limitless long after they returned to the inn. She took a seat at one of the tables and squarely refused to tear her gaze away from Macen Vrumugun's book.
"And here is the apple cake!" she spoke with overflowing excitement. "Yes, this makes so much more sense! With the help of what I've managed to learn so far, I will be able to make all of these recipes!"
"It's not as easy as it looks, you know. It wouldn't be so secret otherwise." Standing beside her, Lina made a half-hearted attempt to steer her back towards reality. "I suppose you will get the hang of it eventually, though."
"We will make the Black Dragon Inn famous again," Nilian turned towards her other neighbor at the table, "right, Elric?"
"Aye, that we will, that we will." The giant nodded mechanically. He still did not share much of his wife's enthusiasm, but now he did not seem to be brooding either – at least until he set his eyes on Lina. "One thing is still bothering me though."
"Who would have guessed?" The sorceress rolled her eyes. "What is it now?"
"Ye never answered my question, Inverse." He regarded her with a suspicious gaze – although Lina began the suspect that the look she thought to be of suspicion was actually more his way of displaying bewilderment. "Why did ye help us like this? What was in it for ye?"
"Give me a break; it's not like that." Lina crossed her arms. "It's true that the inn is nowhere near a place I'd want to spend my time as it is right now, but…" Her gaze wandered from the captain to Nilian and back, a small but warm smile forming on her lips. "…two people like you, completely out of their element, starting a business like this… you're either very crazy or very brave, but regardless, one can't help but respect you for it a little."
Her smile spread into a flustered grin. "And also… well, half of the Black Dragon is actually mine."
Deafening silence reigned for several long moments around the table.
"Like hell it is!" the giant managed to shout in the end. "We bought the whole thing from the Vrumuguns fair and square!"
"The Vrumugun family could only sell what they still owned, Captain Henton." Xelloss approached from the direction of the staircase. He held a large sheet of aging paper in his hands with Sairaag's seal at the bottom. "I recall being with Lina-san in this inn only once, but it looks like she was a frequent guest here afterwards as well. According to this contract I found in the city archives, she eventually managed to convince Macen-san to commission a vault under his inn, and her payment was the aforementioned share in ownership."
"Says you!" the captain spat, pointing a hand at the mazoku. "Everyone can write some scribble like that—"
"It's legit, dear," Nilian shot him down after taking a look at the seal, although she appeared no less shocked by the development.
I can't believe Xelloss managed to track that down. Lina eyed the old writing in the priest's hand wonderingly.
"Well, Mac had to agree with me that losing these recipes would have been a great tragedy to the world itself." She nodded self-righteously. "I never saw a single coin out of the whole deal though, because the witty bastard paid me with part of his inn instead. A lot of use that was to me… but at least I could always count on a free room and some delicious meals when I came by here. That was the reason I told you who I am in the first place – I don't check into places with my real name all that often. Too many complications."
"So ye were doing this for the free food then?" the giant snorted. "Aye, 'it's not like that' at all."
One of these days, I am going to blast this guy to the Moon.
"But if you own half of the inn, Lina," Nilian asked the sorceress with a questioning look, "where does that leave us?"
Lina pretended to consider the question for a moment. "How about this? We'll keep the same agreement I had with Mac's family. You cover all the costs and get all the profits, and I get my 'free food'." With a meaningful glare, she extended a hand towards the captain. "Deal?"
The giant drew a deep, weary breath. "Why look at me?"
"Oh, I know you're not wearing the pants in this family." The sorceress gave him a cheeky smile. "Just trying to humor you."
Lina was fully prepared to hear a string of curses or some other violent outburst from the captain, but instead, the man flashed her a toothy grin.
"Well, I don't envy ye with the Ol' Squinty Eyed priest, either," he chuckled good-naturedly, and shook the sorceress' hand. "It's a deal, Inverse."
…what can I say? I've just been nailed.
The sun did not cover much distance on the sky yet; thanks to the long summer days, dusk was still several hours away. Lina regarded the group of wooden buildings musingly as she and the priest strode along the edge of the forest line, following her suggestion to speak in private. From where they were, the inn's walls gleamed like gold in the bright sunlight which shone from the almost completely clear sky above – if the sorceress did notice the clouds gathering at the edge of the western horizon, she paid them no mind.
"My, is that nostalgia I see in your eyes, Lina-san?" Xelloss asked with an eyebrow raised, stealing her attention away from the inn. "Do you miss your settled down life? I understand that for many of your race, it is as normal as life can be; but in your case I could never quite grasp the fact that you could spend decades in one place, which humans affectionately call 'home'."
The sorceress smiled faintly at the awkwardness that crept into the priest's voice at that last word.
"I was never glued to any one spot," she muttered. "But yeah, it felt very different. For a while, I never thought I'd be able to settle down, either." Her gaze slid along the path ahead of them. "After being on the road for years, though, you just start to miss something… not a place to live your life like some reclusive hermit or a meek housewife, but a place to return to, after you finished going around the world for the umpteenth time. It actually felt pretty nice." She punched a hand into the air. "That time is not this time though! Right now, it feels great to wander around the globe again." She turned to her companion with a smirk. "Actually, Xel, you too ought to feel lucky that I am in such a good mood. If I was feeling just a little bit crankier, I might have set Captain Unbearable on fire, but you on the other hand would have deserved something far-far worse."
"Some really harsh words," the mazoku said, his own smile also not wavering for a moment. "But can you honestly blame me for attempting to discover your secret, after what you did yesterday? It was one straightforward challenge if there ever was one."
"Yeah, that's all just fine," Lina halted and leaned closer to the priest irritably, "but you completely ruined my beautiful vault! It was a masterpiece, I tell you: traps upon traps, ingenious spells and curses, scary and powerful golems – everything! And what did you put in their place?" She shook her head with a disgusted look. "Boulders…! Boulders and a mazoku who might have had a career prospect as a circus clown if he weren't so darn ugly! I've never seen a bigger waste of talent and resource – my talents and resources – in my entire life!" Her outburst finished, the sorceress turned away to glance at the inn again; there, in one of the rooms of the upper floor slept her previous doppelganger, completely spent by the day's events. "It was about Jane, right?" she asked in a lower, much more serious voice.
"In part, yes." Xelloss nodded.
"That power she summoned back at the cave was no simple lucky spell mishap, that's for sure," Lina commented thoughtfully. "And she shouldn't have been able to even find that page with the seal in my book without the proper incantation."
"Indeed. And there are also other things to consider," the mazoku added. "Does Jane-san strike you as the kind of person to survive in the wilderness alone for any amount of time, without help from a being like the Nameless One?"
"Err, not really." The sorceress had to concede that the girl's tales after losing her powers seemed pretty far-fetched. "Many things don't make sense with her to begin with."
"There is more to Jane-san than meets the eye, certainly, just like I believe there was more to the reason why the nameless demon trailed her in the first place," the priest continued. "I can't say I know the answer, but some of my suspicions were confirmed at least."
"What suspicions?" Lina looked at him curiously. "Do you think—" She was silenced by an index finger brought to her lips.
"A secret, I'm afraid," Xelloss replied merrily, like he was allowed to say that phrase for the first time in a hundred years. "It feels splendid to have things back in their proper place, don't you agree, Lina-san?"
"Yeah, splendid," the sorceress deadpanned. She turned around to start walking back to the inn, but the priest's voice stopped her.
"By the way, I would have been very interested in looking at your vault. I'm willing to admit that my own creation suffered from the short deadline I had to consider."
"What are you talking about?" Lina looked back incredulously. "Weren't you the one who ruined it?"
"Oh, not at all." The mazoku shook his head. "You see, the ground is a bit unstable in this area. Unnoticed by humans, parts of it move by a yard or so every hundred years. For buildings aboveground this is less of an issue, but for underground caverns… well, when I discovered yours, there was very little left except for the staircase and the tome itself buried in the depths of the earth. Unfortunately, I could only discover this fact shortly before lunchtime; you did manage to obscure the entrance quite well."
Lina stared at the priest, her expression blank.
In other words, if Xelloss did not do what he did, I would've made a complete fool out of myself in front of everyone. That's… embarrassing beyond words.
She cleared her throat to break the odd silence.
"Well, I still think the boulders were pretty horrible," she asserted, blushing slightly. "If it weren't for those, though," she looked up to him with a warm smile, "I might have given you a kiss just now."
She then grabbed the priest by his collar and yanked him downwards. "Ah, what the heck."
As to be expected, however, with the best of moments came the worst of timings.
"Lina Inverse…! By the God of Flames, I cannot believe I managed to find you so quickly!"
The sorceress displayed amazing acrobatic skill by jumping several feet away from Xelloss as she heard the unknown voice.
"What-where— who is it?" It took a moment for Lina to notice the scarlet-robed figure that stood among the forest trees. His lined, aging face and receded white hair was distantly familiar to her – she met the man once, not long ago. "Officius?... You're Officius Petrakos from the Temple of Flarelord in Atlas City?"
"Yes, I am he." The old man approached them, with much more vigor in his steps than the sorceress remembered.
"Well then, ah, great to see you again!" The sorceress tried her best to act friendly. "How's it going? You sure left us in a strange situation last time."
"True, and I can't even begin to say how relieved I am that we crossed paths once more," he said in an honest voice. "It was maddening to discover all too late that Vrabazard-sama's smaller prophecy she had given to me in the city was actually about you as well, and that I let you leave unaware of the danger."
"Hey, hold it, slow down." Lina raised her hands in front of her chest. "Did you just say 'prophecy' and 'danger'…? Let me guess, the world faces imminent destruction? Again?" She cast a flat look in Xelloss' direction. "Can't your folks ever go on a vacation or something?"
"This is just as news to me as it is to you, Lina-san," the mazoku replied, his slitted eyes examining the priest in red with noticeable unease.
"You misunderstand. I fear that the danger to the world is not directly about the mazoku." Officius sighed, gesturing towards the sorceress. "The biggest threat to us, Lina Inverse, is none other than you, yourself."
All humor disappeared from the situation for Lina in an instant.
"What are trying to say by that?" she asked quietly.
"I can understand that this is shocking news." The old man took a step forward, extending his right towards the sorceress. "Come, let me show you what my god has shown me, so you can see the tragedy that befell you – no, that befell all of humanity."
Lina instinctively took a step back, while Xelloss next to her tightened his grip on his staff. "I'd rather hear the live version, thanks," she said apprehensively.
Officius tiredly shook his head.
"Forgive me, but I have no time. I must bring the news to as many people as I can, and the army does not wait for me."
The next thing the sorceress knew, Officius somehow skipped the ten feet distance between them and now stood right in front of her.
He teleported? But—
She could feel cold fingers touching her face, and her world went blank…
…only to be replaced by a world of red.
Everywhere she looked, the landscape showed a tint of scarlet – under a sky covered by crimson clouds she saw a rocky terrain with brass stones. Ahead, upwards on a cliff stood several figures; their clothes, also bathed in red light, were torn by the roaring wind. She could not see them clearly, except for one person at the middle of it all: herself.
She wore the same monochromatic clothes, placing the vision somewhere in the near future, Lina thought. Still, there was something strange about the apparition, part of it being the sword hilt she saw sticking out from her back above her shoulder line. The sorceress had no time to dwell on it, however, because her double opened her mouth to talk.
"Shield me with everything you've got!" she ordered those around her. Then the apparition looked Lina in the eye, slowly began raising her hands above her head, and spoke Chaos Words that belonged to a spell which the sorceress thought she would never hear again.
"Darkness beyond blackest pitch, deeper than the deepest night! King of Darkness, who shines like gold upon the Sea of Chaos!"
Lina's eyes widened in terror. "Stop, you idiot!" she screamed. "Without the talismans, there's no telling if you can handle the perfect Giga Slave or not!"
Her voice was lost in the tumult as the wind blew even stronger, only the sound of the incantation reaching over it as a sphere of utter chaos and void took form within the apparition's hands.
"I call upon thee and swear myself to thee! Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the power you and I—"
In that moment, time halted and refused to go forward. There was no longer sound or wind; as Lina brought an uncertain hand forward, she could touch the tiny glistening speckles of floating dust from the cloud that just passed by her when it was frozen into the unchanging present. Her gaze was still drawn to her petrified double, however, and for the first time she realized that she was not seeing the scene with the eyes of a human, but with that of a far greater being. An aura began to appear around the apparition's form, slightly flame-like in appearance, twisting around her body. Somehow she instantly knew what it was: in addition to the physical reality, she was gazing into the Astral Plane, the realm of the spirit as well.
That aura around her double was somehow wrong, she realized. It felt foreign, unfriendly and dark, and while everything else remained unmoving, it seemingly grew bigger and bigger, now almost covering the entire cliff.
A human's astral body can't… it can't be that big.The thought ran through Lina's mind, only to be followed by another, which she knew was not hers.
"It does not belong to a human. It is that of a mazoku."
She sensed paralyzing fear in the air, and suddenly, as if time tried to make up for its previous inactivity, everything started moving with incomprehensible speed. She no longer saw herself, but the faces of those standing around her, still unrecognizable, but certainly struck by shock and panic.
"Lina-san!" A female voice shouted her name, but neither she nor anyone else could reply as everything, even time and space itself fell apart, and she could feel all of it falling along with her into a bottomless pit, collapsing into a tiny, indiscernible black void of never-ending pain and agony…
Her eyes flew open as she felt her back hit the ground. She scrambled to sit up just in time to watch Officius slamming into the dust as well, a residue of crackling black energy tearing at his clothes for an instant before dissipating.
"Interesting," Xelloss spoke, his staff pointed at the priest. "I'm sure I put enough power behind that beam to end your life many times over."
"I don't know why you raise a hand against me, mazoku," Officius promptly got to his feet, looking entirely unharmed, "but Flarelord-sama gave me more than enough of her might to drive your kind away."
He made a thrusting motion towards Xelloss, and an invisible shockwave hit the mazoku priest from behind; his eyes wide open in surprise, he whirled around and struggled against it, but was fighting a losing battle. The unseen force threw him off his feet and flung him into the canopy of the forest. As the old man lowered his hand, Lina could see a holy magic seal engraved into the back of his right palm, turning invisible quickly as its light died out. Her body drenched in sweat, the sorceress tried to stand, but her feet were not obeying her commands.
"You saw it, didn't you?" Officius turned his attention back to her. "The end of the world as we know it. The fate which is worse than death."
Lina was not sure what she saw at the end of the vision; all she knew was that it had to have been something horrible enough that her entire being protested against even the thought of recollection. "And what if I did?" she seethed. "Even the start of it was pointless. If I am really that great threat you speak of, then who on earth I would use the Giga Slave against? Unless your god thinks I throw that spell around on a whim…?" she spat with disgust.
"I don't doubt your good intentions at this moment, but it is likely that the Demon Lord will already influence your decisions by that time," the old man spoke in a grave tone. "You surely remember what happened to the Red Priest, Rezo? Vrabazard-sama's wisdom had shown me his slow but steady descent into depravity, just as I was shown the quick but nonetheless tragic descent of the former assassin known as Luke."
"Luke?" the sorceress whispered. "But why…? You can't believe that I'm—"
"This prophecy is undisputable proof, Lina Inverse," Officius declared. "You hold one of Ruby Eye Shabranigdu's fragments within your soul, and the seal is about to be broken. This will be the Demon Lord's fourth awakening in a very short span of time, which foretells a sure end to all of creation very soon – unless we deal with not just the current calamity, but the root of the problem as well."
Lina found herself without a word to speak.
"What nonsense is this?" Xelloss appeared between the priest and the sorceress, his open eyes ridiculing the former. "My race naturally never held the shinzoku in especially high regard, but this underwhelms my worst expectations. I have known Lina-san for a century; during these hundred years she has met many of my superiors, including two resurrected pieces of Ruby Eye-sama himself. Does your master take us for such fools to think that none of us would have noticed if Lina-san truly had a piece of our creator within her?"
"What you believe, mazoku, is none of my concern." Officius raised his arms again, and the sorceress could see the holy magic seal on his hand lighting up once more. "For the sake of the world's survival, Lina Inverse must not leave this place alive. If you interfere, I will put you out of my way."
"Oh, please try." The mazoku's face twisted into a malevolent smile as he grasped his staff with both hands. "It will be entertaining to see how you'll fare now, without the element of surprise on your side."
Neither of them moved, but the sorceress could feel enormous magical energies building up in the air around them – she could not guess exactly how powerful Officius was, but she knew that he was capable of at least as much of destruction as herself. Her thoughts fell back on the Black Dragon Inn, standing only a few hundred yards away…
Ah, move you stupid legs, move!
Her desperate struggle to stand up was interrupted by the old man's scream. Officius inexplicably fell to the ground, gasping for breath, his limbs twitching uncontrollably.
"The sickness… no!" he yelled, clearly in pain. "Not now..! Not when I'm so close!" After a last, exasperated cry, he disappeared from view with a flare of golden light. Not a second later, a two feet long cone of pure darkness struck the spot where he lay, blasting a small crater into the ground.
"Well, I must say that was quite pitiful," Xelloss said evenly, relaxing his stance and dismissing the cone from existence. "He seems to have a good grasp on holy teleportation magic at least; I cannot tell where he went except for a general direction."
"Don't worry, I think he'll turn up soon enough," Lina replied in a weak voice. The priest glanced back at her, surprise spreading over his features as he saw the sorceress propped against a tree, barely managing to stand on shaky legs.
"What did he do to you, Lina-san?" he asked, bewildered.
"Threw me for a spin… that's for sure," the sorceress managed to say between ragged breaths. She raised her gaze to the sky; the sun's rays seemed to be missing their previous warmth, and the storm clouds from the western horizon were slowly but steadily drawing closer.
Jane wandered into the inn's restaurant section still half-asleep, suppressing a yawn. She had not slept even a full hour before hunger overcame her fatigue and was now intent on getting herself something for dinner in order to return to bed.
She found the others arranged more or less in the same way as she left them: around a table in the back. For some reason, though, the atmosphere in the inn felt nowhere near as triumphant as before.
"But Lina, could you at least tell us something about why you have to leave so abruptly?" Nilian questioned the sorceress, her tone kind but also a bit exasperated.
"Sorry, but the less you guys know, the better it is for all of us," Lina answered, reservedly stuffing a fork-full of pancakes into her mouth. "Let me just say that things might soon get messy and I don't want to get any of you into trouble."
The young woman did not seem to be satisfied with her answer; as a last option, she turned to Xelloss. "Can't you tell me anything then?"
"I could tell you many things, Nilian-san," the priest said, raising her hopes if only for a fleeting moment, "if they weren't a secret."
The captain stood a bit farther from the table, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, and studied Lina's features intently.
"Is someone out to get ye, Inverse?" He threw up the idea as an offhand comment. "A new 'friend' ye ran into outside?"
The sorceress nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, you could say that."
"But why—" Nilian began, but her husband stepped closer and put a hand on her shoulder, making her fall silent.
"Listen woman, if an assassin or the devil knows what just attacked Inverse and managed to escape with his life, that ain't no laughing matter," he muttered. "I hate to say it, but she's probably right to go somewhere she can face the bastard alone. Killers care nothing about collateral damage."
It took Lina a few seconds to recover from the shock caused by Captain Henton actually agreeing with her on something. She then set her face into a resolute expression and rose from her seat. "Okay Xel, I think I'm fine now. Let me get my cloak and then we can be on our way." She glanced towards the couple. "The pancakes were great, Nilian, thanks. Take care, both of you."
"Hey, hold on!" Jane stood in their way as Lina and the priest moved to leave the room. "Please give me a few minutes to pack my belongings; I want to go with you!"
"Sorry kid, that's not gonna happen." The sorceress looked her over, her face determined. "I can't say you've become my favorite pupil since yesterday, but this mess is way too big to drag you into it. You can keep your money; today's lesson was on the house." Her gaze relented slightly. "Do yourself a favor and go home… and try not to get yourself killed along the way."
With that, the sorceress walked to the staircase. Had she turned back, she would have noticed Nilian and even the captain looking after them with worry, while Jane hung her head and trudged into the restaurant section with a depressed sigh.
Lina's room felt somewhat unfriendly compared to what she remembered from the morning. A chilly wind blew in from the open windows; the weather turned slightly cold as the sun dove into the mass of thunder clouds ahead, its radiance dying out.
"What an awful time to hit the road,"the sorceress murmured as she grabbed her cloak and shoulder guards from the coat stand.
"I haven't seen you this serious in a long while, Lina-san." The priest picked up conversation while she fiddled with her gear. "You can't possibly believe what Officius-san said, can you?"
Lina hurried to the windows to close them, as the wind now chilled her to the bone. "Of course I don't believe it, but you haven't seen what I've seen, Xel," she answered reluctantly. "In that vision, someone… something seemed to take control of my body in the middle of casting the Giga Slave, and the result… I'm not sure what it was, but it left a hell of an impression on me." Still not satisfied, she fastened her cloak and tightened it around her, refusing to consider that her shiver might actually have little to do with the wind itself. "We can interpret these prophecies any way we want, but Flarelord never comes up with complete nonsense; something will happen which is in some way connected to me, and I don't like that one bit."
"Well, this would not be the first time when Vrabazard was entirely off base about something," the mazoku commented musingly. "In fact, you also witnessed one of her great blunders very recently."
"I did?" Lina blinked. "When did that happen?"
"Remember when we first met Officius-san?" Xelloss gestured towards the southeast, in the direction of Atlas City. "As he told us not long ago, he received his first 'magnificent prophecy' back then. This vision failed to identify you as the world's biggest threat, but on the other hand offered the quite amusing theory of the two of us being a married couple."
The sorceress chuckled as her thoughts jumped back to the embarrassing scene in the temple. "Hey, you're right. I guess not all of Flarelord's divinations are all that accurate in retrospect…" She trailed off, noticing that something else got her companion's attention. Xelloss gazed confusedly at the ceiling, his eyes snapping open.
"No," he whispered, "I must be mistaken…"
The walls of the inn shook, a giant crack appearing on the western facade. Then with an earsplitting blast, the window frames flew apart, and through the hole a stream of flames flooded the room with searing heat. Only her enchanted clothing saved Lina from receiving possibly lethal burns; the fire spread unnaturally quickly to everything around them, and turned their surroundings into a bonfire in a matter of seconds. After recovering from the shock, the sorceress put an arm in front of her to shield her face and ran across the blazing room. With a grunt, she lunged through the cavity in the wall, using a Levitation spell to slow her fall.
Once on the ground, she gazed at the burning inn blankly, petrified by the sight as the neighboring pens and other buildings also caught fire. It was no accident or ordinary sabotage; someone poured the cloud of flames on the structures directly from above.
"Is Officius insane?" she shouted beside herself, grabbing the mazoku's arm as he landed next to her. "Xelloss, the others are still in there! We have to get to them, now!"
"Lina-san, I don't think it is him…" The priest looked stupefied. "It makes little sense, but from what I've seen there are—"
"Less talk, more teleporting!"
In a flash, their surroundings were replaced by the interior of the inn's base floor – the heart of an inferno. The ceiling and most of the tables were burning, the heat in the air quickly becoming unbearable. Jane, Nilian and the captain had been driven into the corner, next to one of the few non-flammable parts of the building, the stone fireplace.
Several figures made of living darkness were advancing on them – low-ranking mazoku, from what the sorceress could guess.
"Elric, look out!" Nilian yelled in fright.
"Get away from us or I'll break yer neck, ye demonic scum!" The giant stood between the two women and the attackers, who did not seem to heed his warning. With a roar, the captain punched the nearest one in what he considered to be his head, sending the creature flying across the room. The others lashed out with their shadowy limbs towards him, but before they could reach him, their forms were enveloped in a blue-white column of light, which devoured them in a second.
"MOTH VARIM!" Lina already cast a second spell; several orbs of light rained down upon the flames around the fireplace, extinguishing them and clearing the way. "Move it!" she yelled at the three. "Head to the exit, quickly!"
Xelloss glanced upwards. "Lina-san, the roof—"
"I know!" she snapped back, casting several more anti-fire spells as they worked their way towards the inn's entrance. "The way is open, run!"
Nilian and Jane wasted no time tearing the door open and jumping out. As Captain Henton reached the doorframe, however, he glanced back and noticed a leather-bound tome on one of the burning tables – the flames had not touched it yet, but it looked to be only a matter of moments before it was incinerated.
"By all the demons in Hell, the woman's bloody recipe book!" he swore, almost knocking Lina over as he spun around and ran back into the room.
The sorceress was about to scream something horrible at him when she heard an ear-wrenching crack from above. By instinct, she launched a Fireball upwards to clear as much of the falling debris as she could; the point-blank explosion's force propelled her and Xelloss through the door, out of the building.
Then, before their eyes, the Black Dragon Inn collapsed completely into a burning pile of wood.
"Elric!" Lying on the ground, Lina heard a scream. She distantly registered it as belonging to Nilian. "We have to get him out!"
"He is no longer alive." The priest's simple words also sounded miles away.
"How can you know such a thing?" It was Nilian again, on the verge of hysterics. "You don't know anything either!"
"He… He can tell." The sorceress was not sure how loud had those words left her mouth, but the woman's protests stopped, and were replaced by violent sobs.
The sense of danger drove her back to her feet; she could feel the presence of several enemies appearing all around them, their half-visible forms similar to those from before.
"M-Miss Lina! Look!" Jane shouted, pointing at the sky. Before the dark backdrop of the storm clouds circled two yellow flashes of light: golden dragons.
If we've been attacked by mazoku… what are the dragons doing here?
As if they waited for this moment, the creatures halted their maneuver and dove through the air towards them. They opened their mouth, something flaring up within…
"Enough."
Lina's body froze; she was hit by some kind of a mental pulse which numbed all her limbs for an instant. The blurred demons around them recoiled, and the dragons also broke their dive, flapping their wings to hover in place. She glanced in the direction she felt the shockwave coming from, and saw Xelloss floating about four feet high in the air above them.
"A little time out, if you all don't mind," the priest said, only a fraction of his usual mirth traceable in his voice. The demons moved further back, but one of the golden dragons ignored him, choosing to swoop down towards Lina and the others once more.
"How rude." The mazoku flicked his hand, and a burst of darkness enveloped the dragon, nearly cutting its wings in half. The creature trashed desperately about in the air before crashing into the ruins of the inn – Lina barely had the time to put up a wind barrier to protect them from the outbursting debris.
"Damn you, Dragon Slayer!" the other dragon boomed angrily. "We should be allies right now!"
"Allies? Please, don't insult me like that," Xelloss spoke in a voice that was both kind and icy cold at the same time. "Now, where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? Oh yes, I meant to ask what is happening here." He looked down at the pack of demons. "You are remnants of Chaos Dragon Garv's army, I take it? I've heard that he was not above trying to make deals with certain ryuzoku clans, but to use such an alliance against simple humans… that is a brand new kind of low."
"W-We aren't servants of the traitor, Xelloss-sama," one of the demons stepped forward, its snakelike voice hissing obsequiously. "Our master is the great Dynast Grausherra, and we are currently under Priest Huraker-sama's orders to be here."
"Haven't you heard, mazoku?" the dragon called from above. "The gods and demons have made a pact. I don't like it any more than you, but our races have been united under a single goal."
What? Lina shook her head in disbelief. That's ridiculous! The shinzoku and the mazoku were fighting each other since the dawn of time! They'd never do this!
Xelloss looked to be sharing her doubts. "Forgive me if I have a hard time believing you." He cocked his head to the side mockingly. "As things stand, I think I would ask you to leave. If you do meet Huraker-san, please give her my most heartfelt apologies for interrupting her work."
"But… Xelloss-sama…" one of the demons began, but the priest's gaze made it fall silent.
"If you wish for a less peaceful solution, that can also be arranged," he offered in a dark tone.
No more convincing was needed for the demon squad – they all blinked out from the physical world within seconds. The dragon landed carefully on the other side of the inn's remains, and reached forward to touch its wounded partner.
"Your masters will hear of this, Beast Priest," it growled, before both dragons departed with a flash of holy power.
Seeing that all of their enemies had gone, Xelloss descended back to the ground; Lina ran up to him right away.
"Thanks, Xel," she said, her voice still grim despite her words. With the attackers' departure, the flames disappeared as abruptly as they came, and the sudden quiet around them felt very disconcerting after the previous chaotic clamor. The only clearly identifiable sounds were Nilian's miserable sobs; the young woman could barely stand while she hugged Jane's neck, her face buried into her shoulder.
"Lina-san, I must return to my Mistress quickly," the priest spoke, tearing Lina's eyes away from the scene. "It seems that I have been away far too long, and I've already overstepped my boundaries here." He glanced towards the smoking ruins. "I cannot tell what exactly is unfolding before our eyes, but I am certain that she has some answers. It shouldn't take long."
The sorceress gave a tired nod, although Xelloss did not wait for her consent; his form disappeared from view immediately. It took a few seconds for her to register that she was now simply staring off into empty space; slapping her cheeks angrily, Lina marched to the other two women.
"Listen here, Jane…" she began, but the girl's expression remained blank; she showed no signs of paying attention to her. "Jane!" she roared.
Her pupil's head finally snapped up. "Y-Yes, Miss L-Lina …?"
"Take Nilian and go as fast as you can along the road through the Miasma Forest," the sorceress ordered. "You will eventually reach Sairaag; that place will me be much safer for the both of you." She leaned closer. "I'm trusting you with this, so don't mess up – now go!"
It took the girl a few seconds to digest this information, and afterwards she could not give more than a barely noticeable dip of her chin in reply. Mechanically putting one foot after the other, she departed to the east, half-carrying half-dragging Nilian along with her.
Once they disappeared behind the mass of trees, Lina chanted the Ray Wing spell under her breath and took to the skies. She flew straight up for a long while, ascending to the greatest possible height the spell allowed her to. Once she felt the wind barrier waver dangerously under the strain, she stopped and switched to Levitation. Her eyes searched over the horizon, clinging to the hope that her terrifying presentiment would turn out to be false.
From such a height, the ground under the darkening sky resembled a map; she could see the roads winding along the plain towards towns, villages and other settlements – but to the west, those settlements were nowhere to be seen. Only columns of smoke rose from the spot where the sorceress thought they were supposed to be; as far as her eyes could see, not a single hamlet was left standing.
Lina's heart sank as she realized that each and every settlement has been systematically destroyed – and they have just met with the precursor of the army responsible.
What did Officius say…? Deal with the 'root of the problem'? Is this the single goal that unites gods and demons? To destroy us?
As she slowly descended towards the ground, Lina's mind reeled with thoughts and questions. The betrayal of the shinzoku, the supposed protectors and benefactors of the human race, felt less shocking than it should have; she knew from experience that for the gods, the safety of the world as a whole came first and everything else second. Many years ago, Milgazia explicitly warned her of their fear of a new War of the Monster's Fall breaking out, and of their willingness to do anything necessary to prevent it.
As for the mazoku however, the sorceress was fresh out of ideas. While the creatures of chaos naturally could not care less about a nation or two disappearing off the face of the world, mankind's complete extinction was a serious threat to their own long-term survival as well: Ruby Eye's sealed fragments held their greatest chance for victory over the forces of creation, and without humans, the possibility of resurrecting their master would be lost forever. If their alliance with the gods did not sound improbable enough, their joint goal certainly did.
But the biggest question is,Lina thought, casting one last glance towards the smoking wrecks in the distance, if everyone did put aside their differences just to take us down… how are we supposed to fight back?
Jane could not keep her eyes on the road; every other moment, she looked nervously to the side, staring at the surrounding trees in alarm. Everyone knew of this trait of the Miasma Forest: it muffled all natural sounds within, there were no birds or crickets to be heard; the place had an overall unnerving presence which washed over everything else. Common knowledge or not, though, the girl had to realize that knowing something and experiencing it were often two very different things.
"Mrs. Henton, I'm sorry but please attempt to walk on your own now," she grunted from the effort, "you are, uh, a bit heavy for me."
The young woman felt like a dead weight. She was leaning against Jane's shoulder, barely bothering to even walk; at times it looked as if she had to be physically dragged along.
"Please, Nilian, pull yourself together," the girl pleaded, trying to come up with something encouraging to say. "I'm sure, ahm… I'm sure Miss Lina will find a way to make things right… somehow…"
"Well now, what do we have here?"
Now Jane truly regretted not paying attention to the road; two fearsome creatures stood only mere yards ahead. The left one was of short stature; it crouched on the ground in the same posture as an ape, but its skin was without fur and its face had disproportionally large fangs and glowing, red eyes. The other one was similar to human skeleton, but with four arms instead of two, its bones covered by some bright yellow slime.
"It's a surprise to still see living humans in these parts," the ape-like monster spoke to the other one. "What should we do with them?"
"We've been only sent to scout the city, true," the living skeleton replied with malevolent cheer, "but that shouldn't keep us from having a bit of fun…"
Jane's legs started to tremble. "Mazoku…" she whispered. "No, I can't fight those like this…"
She was almost thrown off balance as Nilian abruptly let her go and stood on her own with her gaze on the ground.
"Mazoku…?" she slowly repeated Jane's words. "Mazoku?" Then her head snapped up, and with insane fury in her eyes she began to run towards the pair of monsters. "You goddamn murderers!" she shrieked. "I'll kill you! I'm going to kill you all!"
"Wait… don't!" Jane could only watch as the woman sprinted towards her assured doom. When she almost reached the demons, however, the monsters' sadistic expressions morphed into one of fear.
"The… the nameless abomination!" the skeleton stuttered, one of its hands pointing towards the forest. "Run! Run before it sees us!"
Nilian's outstretched fist only punched the air. Disoriented, she kept running forward. "Don't flee, you cowards!" she screamed at the empty road, her voice breaking. "You can't… you can't run away from me!"
Jane looked dumbfounded at the young woman's departing form. "What just happened?" she mumbled. With no one to answer, she took an uncertain step forward, and then she saw it: someone still stood on the road in front of her.
Only small fluctuations in the air revealed its indistinct, roughly humanoid outlines, wavering constantly; while Jane saw next to nothing about the creature, she got the impression that it was exhausted, barely clinging to life.
"At last, I caught up to you…" the being's voice was like the howling of the wind, without tone or personality. "Before I truly die… I will have my revenge… Lina Inverse."
If her previous troubles were not enough, this certainly made Jane Smith forever curse the moment when she foolishly got herself involved with that name.
Leaving the ruins of the Black Dragon Inn behind, Lina strode hastily towards the road which led to Sairaag. There was no reason to tarry any longer; from what she saw, everything that stood between the rebuilt City of Magic and the force of dragons and mazoku was already beyond help. Xelloss' intervention might have halted their advancement temporarily, but she was sure that they would be back, probably with plenty of reinforcements – even driving the two dragons and the squad of demons away by herself would have been a very risky endeavor, and the sorceress had no intention of facing even more of them alone.
She should catch up with Jane on the way, she thought, and then go straight to the Sorcerers' Guild headquarters. Some of the most powerful living mages were working there, and many of them had her to thank for getting the opportunity to attain such a position in the first place – with their help, she might just be able to…
…to do what? Lina made a face as she approached the edge of the Miasma Forest. The most we could manage is to buy some time for the residents of the city to clear out… but after that?
In that moment, the sorceress could not find an answer to her question. She knew one thing, however: they needed a plan, and they had to come up with it quickly.
Maybe Xelloss will think of something… after all, he's supposed to be the great chess master around here. It's not fair that I always have to be the one to come up with the world-saving ideas…
"Greetings, Lina-san."
The sorceress whirled around just in time to see the mazoku priest blinking into existence only a few steps behind her. "Don't startle me like that!" While she was generally used to his random appearances and disappearances, the current situation set Lina's nerves too much on the edge not to be annoyed by them. "Speak up already, what's the damage?"
Xelloss absent-mindedly began inspecting the gem on top of his staff.
"Well, one could say that I had the most humorous, and at the same time, the most humiliating discussion with Zellas-sama yet." His mouth twisted into a wry smile. "I certainly had problems with laughing."
Lina's brows furrowed even deeper; an unpleasant feeling crept up her spine, as if part of her mind was shouting something at her, something obvious which she should have noticed a long time ago.
The mazoku's gaze finally rested on her. "Basically, Lina-san, everything we heard today is true. The shinzoku and mazoku of the world have made a temporary truce, which will last until they have jointly purged all humans from existence – with you being right on top of the list. And in accordance with this agreement…"
With a broad movement, Xelloss raised his staff to point it at the sorceress. Lina's eyes widened in realization – she could not understand how she was able to forget this. Even for a minute.
"… I have been ordered to personally see to your demise."
A long streak of lighting crossed the overcast, fully black sky above. The storm was upon them.
To be continued…
-o-
Author's notes:
Well, I guess I owe an apology to you all. Yes, the "Lina is a Ruby Eye shard?" plot device is incredibly old and lame. I am using it mostly as way to stay close to canon: If I remember well, there is a part in the second novel arc where Milgazia does warn Lina of the fact that the gods may be willing to eradicate humanity in order to keep a shard from awakening. I can promise one thing: The fic will not turn into a "is she or isn't she"-angst fest from now on, because the story is not about that. First and foremost, this is a story about Xelloss and Lina - and OK, maybe about an enjoyable plot, too. ;P
As usual, a huge thanks goes to Kaeru Shisho, my still-awesome beta reader. :) I also thank everyone who reviewed or just read the story - it is your encouragement that allows me to go forward, and I cannot even begin to say how much I appreaciate it.
And some mind-blowing news: The fic now has illustrations! :D Thanks to the brilliant Apple Cake from DeviantArt, chapters one and two now have their own full-color illustrations which are just indescribably awesome for me to look at - I hope you will also find them fun. Check out her other works while you're there too! Her website can be found at "apple-cake" DOT deviantart DOT com".
May we meet again soon. :)