Chapter 6. The Demon King's Decision - Part 2.
The sorceress stared intently.
The pale female ghost returned her gaze, her emotionless features frozen like the endless ice around them.
The sorceress crossed her arms, the staff falling from her hand into the snow. Her stare intensified.
The ghost did not move.
The sorceress shifted her weight from one foot to the other impatiently.
The ghost merely stood there - or perhaps floated, it was hard to tell.
The sorceress kept staring. The intensity of her gaze drew zigzagging red lines into her eyes…
…until, after several minutes, she blinked.
Damn. I lost.
"Err, sorry to interrupt, Loud-san," the mazoku's voice came from the staff in the snow, "but I don't believe this method is going to get us far."
"Yeah, I suppose you're right." She pouted while reaching down for the wooden stick, and glanced behind her back from the cave entrance. "Let's go through this again, Garen: you say she's the one who's supposed to give us our task for the next round?"
"Right you are, miss," the undead swordsman standing at the edge of the slope answered, his flippant mask back in place. "My sister is the game master for this round."
"Great, but then why isn't she saying anything?"
"Perhaps determining the details of the second round's task is also a part of the task itself," the demon speculated.
Hey! Don't give them ideas!
"Ah, right! Your friend hit the nail on the head," Garen spoke with a mischievous smirk.
…Too late.
"Fine, whatever. If she won't speak, maybe we can get information out of her otherwise." The sorceress turned back to the translucent spirit. "Hmm, so talking's a no-go… how about nodding then?"
The female figure nodded slowly.
Hey, I didn't expect that to actually work! We may get somewhere yet. Let's see… I guess it's pointless to take anything Garen says at face value, but still…
"Does the task have anything to do with the curse on us? Will it help us find out what it is?"
The ghost inclined her head once more.
"Really? Finally!" The sorceress shook her fist triumphantly. "The question is, how can we find out anything? Do we have to go somewhere? To the source, or something?" She glanced around, her gaze resting on the darkness of the cave in front of her. "Go inside there, maybe?"
Another nod came as a reply.
I have to say, this is going almost a bit too smoothly.
"Okay, just to put it all together: we need to go inside the cave and find the origin of the curse. That's all we have to do in the second round, right?" Yet another nod. "Then how about—"
"Is the sky purple?" The sorceress was interrupted by a skeptical voice coming from the staff.
"Uh, Spookster, what the heck?" She glanced at the red gem with a puzzled look.
"I'm asking a question to the game master: is the sky purple?" the demon repeated calmly.
To her astonishment, the apparition slowly inclined her head.
Say what?!
"Does one plus one equal three?" the mazoku continued.
Without hesitation, the ghost gave another nod.
The sorceress' expression darkened. That blasted—! She drew an irritated breath, and asked in a dry tone, "Are you an idiot?"
Another mechanical nod came.
"Nope, that would be me," the sorceress said, her voice bitter. "I can't believe I fell for that. You just nod to anything we ask, don't you?"
The spirit stared at her… and slowly shook her head.
…Okay, you know what? I'd rather do a thousand more quiz games‼
"So some of your answers were actually true, I take it?" the mazoku spoke up once more. This time, the ghost gave no response. "Ah, we have to find that out for ourselves. As expected."
"Yahoo. Then I guess into the cave we go," the sorceress said dully, walking past the translucent figure.
"Wait, Loud-san, shouldn't we ask a few more—"
"I'm done with questions!" she snapped, leaving no room for arguments. "The sooner I get these two creeps out of my sight, the better!"
The figure of the sorceress soon disappeared within the gloom, and the periodic noise of the staff's tip hitting the cave floor faded away not long after.
Garen approached the other spirit, his expression troubled. "Sis, what was that all about?" he asked, gesturing towards the entrance. "You weren't supposed to help them, ya know!"
The translucent woman simply looked the other way, and remained silent.
Lina's sleep was restless. She turned time and time again on the bedroll, never finding a comfortable spot; the modified enchantment on her clothing protected her from the weather, but something still deprived her mind of peace.
To make matters worse, her awakening was just as uncomfortable: she turned onto her stomach too quickly, the momentum moved her off the soft fabric - and her face hit hard, unforgiving rock.
"Ptooey! Bleh!" She hastily pushed herself away from the stone floor and sat up, trying to wipe the dirt from her lips. "Oh crap, did I really fall asleep? This is embarrassing…"
She felt slightly better than before: she had no problems with balance as she climbed to her feet. The nausea was also gone, but Lina was certain she had not cured her condition, merely lessened the symptoms. Something within her still felt unusual.
"Just so you know, this doesn't mean that I was wrong," she declared stubbornly as she tried to put her creased clothing and cloak in order. "I slept like hell; if I really were tired, I wouldn't have recovered an ounce of strength from this."
With a strained expression, she waited for her companion's inevitable quip of a reply – but heard only the howling wind.
The sorceress glanced out of the cavity in the mountainside. "Xelloss? Are you there? …Hello?" The priest was nowhere to be seen. Her mouth twisting into an angry frown, Lina marched out into the snow. "Hey, where in the world are you, damn it?! I'm telling you now, I will hurt you in all sorts of ways if I find you just left me here! For all you know, I could have been eaten by the shades three times over in my sleep—!"
She came to an abrupt halt. The sound was faint, but Lina still thought she had heard a moan from somewhere nearby. She took a step in its direction, and nearly tripped.
At her feet, half-covered by fresh snow, was Xelloss, lying still on the ground in an unnatural pose like a rag doll. The priest's eyes were clenched shut, his face taken over by sheer terror.
"You can go straight ahead for a good thirty yards, Loud-san," the mazoku's voice pierced the darkness. "Watch your step though; there are a few loose stones lying around."
Now the sorceress missed her magic more than ever. The cave was pretty much one long, winding tunnel so far; while that kept them from getting lost, it did not help with the fact that it completely lacked illumination. Her numerous attempts at a Lighting spell failing once again, she was forced to rely on her demon companion's instructions to move forward, who could apparently perceive the world around him in a way that cared little about the absence of light.
Stumbling in the dark, she tried hard to find something to keep her thoughts occupied. "Hey, Spookster, about this curse…" she muttered. "Don't you think it's strange that it only takes away parts of our memories?"
"Only certain parts? How so?" he replied with interest.
"Well, we still know how to talk, for one. I remember my spells, even if I can't use them. I may have forgotten the names of people and similar details, but I know what ghosts are, and I can also recall a few basic things about humans, elves, dragons… even mazoku." She added a wry smile. "Actually, from what I remember about your people, the way you're helping me out now is pretty unusual, to say the least. Most of the time your race is too busy trying to destroy everything, us included."
A chuckle escaped the staff. "True, but before I can get back to plotting the end of the world, I obviously need to return myself to normal. I suppose each of us needs the other for the time being… Careful, you're getting too close to the cave wall." He waited while the sorceress changed directions. "No, that's not entirely accurate, I suppose; the sad truth is, it's largely me who needs your help, and thus I strive to keep myself useful. Just in case, I'm also trying to manipulate you into having some feelings of camaraderie towards me, to offset any second thoughts you may still have about our cooperation."
The sorceress raised an amused eyebrow. "Really? And isn't it a bad idea to tell me all this?"
"Ah no, I'm sure you already noticed, anyway," the demon spoke cheerfully. His companion's expression morphed into a small, telling smirk. "But speaking of the unusual, you do not act the way I would've expected from a human either, Loud-san… or, well, if mortals calling mazoku by nicknames is the new norm right now, then I am perhaps less eager to get my memories back. Any particular reason for that?"
She gave a shrug. Heh, beats me. It's not like I—
Her thought broke in half. She held a memory before her mind's eye; it was hazy, incomplete, but nonetheless there as if it had been present from the beginning, merely waiting for her to look for it. "Wait… I remember… I knew… I used to know someone like you!"
"Oh, did you? Interesting." The mazoku sounded surprised, but the emotion was quickly, forcibly quelled from his voice as he continued in a more thoughtful tone. "So far, the only memory we could work with was the mission that brought you here. If you're able to remember this person as well, I can only assume that he must be very important either to that goal, to the curse, or maybe to both. Any details you can recall? Who was he? A long-time enemy, perhaps?"
Since she could not see anything anyway, the sorceress closed her eyes and tried diving further into the memory. Small tidbits flashed up in her mind: a figure standing over a lake of lava, an elongated, cat-like pupil, impressions and emotions - but the name, voice or appearance of her acquaintance remained elusive. "No, I don't think he was an enemy," she said after a while. "Or even if he was, I think he was also a lot more than that. The whole thing feels a bit… complicated."
"Complicated? Goodness me," the demon seemed to find the word greatly amusing. "It certainly wasn't my intention to insult one of your comrades. Or should I say friends? Or… was he perhaps even more than that…?" The sorceress kept inching forward in the dark cave without reply. "Um, Loud-san, I was obviously joking. I believe now is the time when you're supposed to laugh and threaten me with grievous bodily harm if I don't stop spouting nonsense."
Her eyebrows furrowed slightly in annoyance. "Ha. Ha. Ha."
"…Err…" While he lacked a face, it was possible to hear the mazoku cringe. "You can't possibly mean that… that he was actually—"
"So what? I only said he was." The sorceress' expression moved further towards a scowl. "And if you really want to know, I'm pretty sure I came to hate his guts by the end. Can we move on now?"
"…Of course. Do excuse me, I didn't mean to pry," the demon apologized hastily. "Well, to give you some better news, I believe I've spotted the light at the end of the tunnel. Quite literally."
She looked around, the oversized cloak swaying on her shoulders. "I can't see anything."
"You will, in a moment. Take a step or two forward, then make a sharp turn to the left. But watch out for—"
"Ow!"
"—the long dripstone hanging from the ceiling. My apologies."
Once the sorceress made it through the U-turn the tunnel took, she indeed saw what the demon mentioned: a large patch of light on the cave floor ten yards ahead. A few hurried steps later, she was gazing at the source of the illumination in the ice-covered ceiling.
Well I'll be…
"Hmm, perhaps I spoke too soon. This seems to be nothing more than an ordinary crevice," the mazoku commented with some disappointment. "Perhaps we should just continue on?"
"No… I say we'd better take a good look around," the sorceress whispered, her eyes glued to the ceiling. The crevice was filled with unnaturally transparent ice, letting her see through like it was made of glass. "Spookster, I think I can see the sky through here…" She turned to the staff with wide eyes. "…and either I've gone crazy, or it really is purple."
Lina took hold of the priest by his cloak, pulled the upper half of his body out of the snow, and attempted to shake him to life with growing concern.
"Hey, Xelloss! Come on, wake up!" The sorceress lightly slapped his face - then tried a few more times much less lightly. "Give me a break, mazoku don't faint! If this is a joke, it's not funny!"
Her companion's mouth moved a little, as if he was murmuring something incomprehensible - but that was his only reaction.
With some effort, the sorceress dragged his limp body back into the stone cavity, laid him on her bedroll and methodically checked him over, paying attention to the smallest bruise on his skin or tear in his clothing. As she expected, nothing on him would explain his current state; the priest appeared to be unhurt, if a bit low on body heat.
"No, more like his projection looks unhurt," she muttered to herself, then raised her voice slightly. "Xelloss, if you can hear me with… whatever it is that you normally use for hearing on the Astral Plane, give me some sort of sign, okay? Blow a hole into the rock, make a few dancing lights, anything."
Her gaze swept through her surroundings several times, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Only now did she notice that even the orb of flame the mazoku had summoned to keep her warm ceased to exist for some reason while she was asleep.
"So, what was it again?" With a glare, she turned back to the priest's unmoving form. "There's nothing here, right? Some special curse on this place? Nah. Everything is all fine and dandy, and this is absolutely normal! …Moron!"
Lina had little doubt that the priest's condition was linked to her own; what she found strange was how his humanlike body remained intact, even though he apparently was in no shape to otherwise affect the physical world. The only explanation she could come up with was that whatever got hold of him had done so through his projection - in which case, destroying said projection could allow Xelloss to break free.
On the other hand, though, as she looked at his strained features, stiff limbs and clenched fingers, the sorceress was unable to shake off the unsettling feeling that his body was the only thing that connected him here - and losing it could push the mazoku beyond her reach for good.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the realization that the priest's figure had started to shiver - illusory or not, it seemed more than real enough to be affected by the freezing cold. Lina regarded the mazoku with a hard look for long moments, before she made an irritable wave with her hand as if swatting an annoying thought away, and loosened the clasp of her cloak.
"I sure hope you feel grateful that I'm not leaving you here, 'cause… eh, who am I kidding?" the sorceress grumbled as she removed Xelloss' own cloak and secured her enchanted cloth around his shoulders. Now, however, she felt that the protective magic of the rest of her gear could no longer keep up with the freezing temperatures without another layer providing insulation - and so, with much reluctance, she put the priest's black, gold-trimmed cloak on herself in turn. "Ugh, this thing is terribly huge. If it's part of you anyway, why can't it just resize itself? Thank the gods no one else is around to see this— oh, wait…!"
She ran a few steps up on the slope; once she was above the cavity, she cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled, "Hey Riksfalto, I know you're around! Would you mind showing your face? I'm not sure you noticed, but our mission hit a bit of a snag here." None but the wind replied to her call. "What? Do you want to spend the next week watching us become two giant blocks of ice or something…?"
The general still failed to show, and Lina was about to turn back towards the cavity, when she noticed the snow moving slightly at her feet. She crouched down to take a closer look - and in the same moment, a muscular arm with a metal wristband adorned by fish-scale patterns shot out of the ground.
The sorceress took a step back in alarm. "Riksfalto?"
"Unnngh…" A pained moan escaped the snow as the hand slumped back, its strength lost. "The… water… they just sprinkled… some stupid water… on me and… I… can't…"
"Water? What kind of water? And who are 'they'?!"
The general could no longer answer her question: Lina watched stunned as a thick layer of ice spread over the now limp hand, covering it in a matter of seconds.
Of course, she would not give up so easily. "FLARE ARROW!"
Three low-powered bolts of flame hit the ground, possessing just enough energy to melt the snow and ice in their vicinity. The sorceress intended to dig Riksfalto out, but the arrows abruptly disappeared from existence without much effect, leaving only three small puddles of water behind - which were inexplicably frozen solid almost right away.
What happened then was even more unsettling, however: the frost reached out from the frozen puddles, covering the ground in a sheet of ice that expanded in all directions. Lina started to back away from it; unnaturally intense cold radiated from the ice, and after seeing what happened to Riksfalto, she knew she had to avoid coming into contact with it no matter what. The frost showed no signs of slowing down; before she realized, it had already pushed her down the slope to the entrance of the stone cavity. The sorceress snapped her head to the side, and saw ice crawling down the rugged ceiling towards Xelloss' unmoving form.
"Damn!" She rushed to the priest and quickly pulled him out, but that only won her a bit of time: it was obvious that she could not drag the mazoku in the snow fast enough. There was no choice for the two of them but to flee into the air instead. "Nngh… I didn't know you were this heavy…" she groaned while clumsily hauling Xelloss onto her back, and put all the energy she could gather behind her next spell before she toppled over. "LEVITATION!"
The wind magic took some of the weight off her shoulders, and Lina ascended towards the sky, watching with worry as the bewitched ice covered everything below. Then the wind picked up, and a cloud of snowy vapor hid the mountain slope from her gaze.
The light sifting through the crevice was not very bright, but the sorceress took advantage of every inch of lit wall to search through the nearby stone structures. What she found gave her something to think about, even if it did not make her especially happy.
"There used to be a side tunnel here," she said, pointing at a section of the wall three yards to the left of the crevice. "It caved in pretty long ago though, and even if we could clear it out safely, that's way too much rock to move by hand."
"Still, this tunnel may lead us to some answers, so I'd suggest we find an alternative," the mazoku spoke lightly from the staff. "It's about time we looked into how to restore your magic, don't you think?"
The sorceress cast an annoyed look at the red gem at her eye level. "Why you make that sound like it's easy, I have no idea. Yeah, I managed to cast that Fireball during the quiz somehow, but no matter what I've tried since, I couldn't get it to work again."
"Perhaps it's not easy, but it's nonetheless well worth a try or two, no?" the demon asked, his cheer unrelenting. "Something about that Fireball must have been greatly different from all your other attempts. Think back on your thoughts, your emotions, in that moment; can you explain how you felt?"
"Hmph, I was pissed off, obviously," she answered with some impatience. "I wanted to grab that jerk, punch his face in, then set his hair on fire, and then—"
"I see, so it was anger," he interrupted the sorceress, who looked a bit too eager to go into the details. "Unfortunately, anger in general is… well, an emotion you show quite often, so perhaps we need to be a bit more specific than that."
Pushing her frustrations aside, the sorceress' gaze slid towards the crevice in thought. More specific, he says. I… don't really remember anything more than that… Her eyebrows shot up. "What about you? How did you feel when I lobbed that Fireball?"
"Me?" He sounded surprised, and perhaps oddly nervous as well. "Why would that be important?"
"Don't give me this evasive junk, Spookster," she grumbled. "If you're allowed to peer into my head, then I have every right to peek into yours, so skip those lame excuses and start talking."
The staff went rigid in her hand. "As you wish," the demon spoke after a second. "Perhaps I could say that I was feeling… expectant. Garen-san clearly put one over you, so your anger came as no great shock; the question was whether you could actually do something about it. I was eager to see if you could find a way to get back at him, or…"
"Just flail about helplessly like the puny human that I am?" The sorceress smirked.
"Well… that is one way of putting it, yes."
"Heh…" she chuckled, something mischievous glinting in her eyes. "Okay, this idea is pretty far-out, but might still be worth a try… Time to blow that cave wall to bits!"
"Blow the— Hold on for a moment, Loud-san," the mazoku protested, "what exactly are you planning to do?"
"Just wait and see. Watch really closely." The sorceress' mouth twisted into a manic grin as she imagined Garen's smug face on the loose stones in the wall. She extended her free hand to the side, a spell's incantation flashing up in her mind… "FLARE LANCE!"
She did not glance at her hand, but let her instincts take over her movements - and she was nearly blinded by the thunderous burst of fiery energy. It felt as if the whole mountain shook; most of the rock blocking the passage was blasted into minuscule fragments that scattered upon the cave floor, revealing an opening just wide enough for the sorceress to walk through.
"Ah, I see now," the mazoku spoke, intrigued. "We have to somehow combine our wills and emotions for your spells to work. This would be the situation where one plus one is indeed greater than two, I suppose?… Loud-san?" The sorceress stumbled, nearly collapsing. "Are you alright…?"
She hugged her chest as her body was shaken by wave upon wave of coldness emanating from within. "I'm f-fine… this happened during t-the quiz too, it's some kind of backlash… I guess the curse d-doesn't like being ignored. Give m-me a sec."
Still, this means even if I know how to use spells… I have to be careful when to use them… No fun at all.
At a painfully slow pace, the icy sensation lessened to a tolerable level. Feeling slightly spent nonetheless, the sorceress fumbled her way to the entrance of the passage and forced herself through the narrow hole. The same transparent ice from the crevice filled the cracks in the ceiling of the steeply ascending side tunnel as well; the light sifting through wrapped everything in a faint reddish glow, just enough for her to see.
"You're right, we have an idea about what works now," she commented as she began to climb upwards, "but we still have no clue why it works. It feels almost random, really."
"Not quite," the demon spoke in a contemplative tone. "Now that I've experienced it for the second time, I think I'm beginning to grasp what is happening: your anger to get back at those who have wronged you, combined with my piqued interest to see whether you can actually succeed, seems to have allowed you to somehow tap into my reserves of magical energy."
The sorceress' eyes widened slightly. "You mean… I'm casting the spell through you?"
"More or less," he replied, an unseen smile in his voice. "To put it simply, I still have all my powers as a mazoku, but lack the ability to use most of it, while you can still cast spells, but the curse keeps you from drawing energy for them from the Astral Plane through your own soul. Working together, however, it appears that we can both fill in the gaps for each other."
"That sounds awfully convenient," she commented, not sounding very convinced.
To her surprise, the demon agreed readily. "Yes, not to mention impossible. No matter how powerful I might have been before I ended up here, only specific black magic spells should be able to call upon the power of a mazoku like me, and you were using shamanistic spells both during the quiz and now."
Feeling out of breath, the sorceress stopped climbing and set her back against the cave wall, forced to take a short break before speaking up. "On the other hand, it's not the first time I've heard of something like this… There's a bunch of magic rituals designed for several mages working as a group. You know, holding hands in a circle and chanting together and stuff. They combine their magic capacity to create something more powerful than what each of them could do alone. Still, they have to know each other pretty well and need to practice together a lot to pull that off, so it's not… really… uh-oh…"
Her eyes widening further, she slapped her forehead. Oh great. I think I can see where this is going…
"…Is something the matter, Loud-san?"
"Well, you hit the nail on the head before. We were… pretty close," the sorceress stated out of the blue. "Not sure about the details, but I'm pretty sure about that one."
The demon seemed confused. "I'm sorry, who?"
"Come on Spookster, you can put two and two together. Who is the only person I can recall anything about? Who also happens to be a mazoku?" Wearing a sour expression, she skipped a beat to let her words sink in. "That's right. There's no way I remember that guy by mere coincidence."
His tone turned cautious. "So you are suggesting that… he and I are…"
"No, I don't think you're the same person," the sorceress shot him down. "Even if he carried a staff as part of his human form, my instincts tell me it looked nothing like this." Glancing at the brass casing that surrounded the gem on top of the wooden weapon again, she took another deep breath and resumed climbing upwards. "But, well, if he and I really had been around each other for a while, then maybe our circumstances were similar and forced us to cooperate. I can't think of a much better explanation as to why I chose to stay with him for so long, anyway, no matter how close we might have been. I mean, no offense, but keeping mazoku company is hardly a proven way to a long and happy life."
"Oh, none taken. In fact, I quite agree." Again, while his tone did not change substantially, she could not help but associate a wide grin to the demon's words. "I feel compelled to ask, nonetheless: if the truce between the two of you was merely one born from necessity, like ours, what brought forth all those hard feelings when your cooperation finally came to an end?"
She raised an uncertain eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about your reaction, Loud-san," he replied patiently. "You told me that you've come to 'hate his guts', and the whole subject in general seems to irritate you at least as much as Garen-san does, which I'd say is an accomplishment in itself. So why is that? From what you just told me, everything that happened was only to be expected. As long as your interests overlapped, you worked with each other; when that was no longer the case, you became enemies. It seems you knew this yourself, so why should you get so upset about it?"
A long moment of silence passed between them, with only the faint sound of dripping water reaching the sorceress' ears.
"I… I don't know," she admitted, her head hung a little. "But I don't think that's how it happened either. If it did, maybe it really wouldn't have been so big of a deal; I guess I figured once we'd become enemies, we would fight, one of us would bite the dust, and that's that. But in the end…"
"That did not turn out to be the case?"
"Yeah." She narrowed her eyes. "I'm not sure how, but not long after we both tried to kill each other, the whole thing turned out to be some fluke. Something like 'oh sorry, my mistake, please ignore what just happened'… How the heck was I supposed to react to that?"
"Well, evidently…" A puzzled voice escaped the staff. "If nothing changed, I suppose you could've continued where the two of you left off?"
Another tiny drip of water could be heard from somewhere nearby.
Her expression gradually darkening, the sorceress' mouth opened slightly, like she had a scathing response on the tip of her tongue – but in the end, she just slowly shook her head.
"You know, that might just have been the reason." Her voice was barely a whisper. "That something like that is so easy for you to say."
No more words were spoken for quite a while.
As the sudden snowstorm intensified, for Lina it seemed almost like she was floating in the middle of a vast, white void, where no earth or sky existed. With the malevolent ice and the shades around, she deemed it too dangerous to land nearby, but the worsening weather also robbed her of her sense of direction. She originally wanted to head straight to the north, following the same route Xelloss took; now however, the best she could hope for was to avoid flying around in circles – the fierce wind even made advancing in a straight line difficult.
"Feel like waking up, already? I could really use a bit of astral vision right now!" she shouted towards her back. The priest's limp form did not budge, causing her to grind her teeth in frustration. "Lousy freeloader!"
Lina commanded the Levitation spell to slowly turn her around, gazing intently through the curtain of snow to spot any kind of landmark nearby. She knew her chances were slim; even the parts of mountain rock not covered by snow were usually of a faint grayish color, which offered only meager contrast to its surroundings, far too little to be made out under such conditions.
All the greater was her surprise when she did notice something: an unusually dark mass of indiscernible shape almost straight below her. The relief of her discovery proved to be incredibly short-lived, however, as she realized what the darkness below probably was – and this realization nearly came too late as well.
As quickly as the spell's meager speed allowed her, the sorceress moved to the side. The dark mass rose from the ground with alarming speed, stretching into the air like a giant black pillar. In a second, it had already engulfed the spot where she had been floating before, and began to expand in all directions in hopes of reaching her.
"I'm so not glad to see you!" Lina sneered, disappearing in a flash of gold, and re-materializing a hundred feet higher. She had to gain some distance from the shades; Levitation lacked the maneuverability to dodge their attacks, and with Xelloss in tow their combined weight would have been too much for Ray Wing to handle.
Below, she could make out the blob of darkness stretching even higher towards her; summoning crackling red energy into her palm, she waited for it to get within range. But then something unusual happened: the black mass slowed down, then halted entirely. It released several dozens of the arm-like tentacles upwards that had previously succeeded in seizing her, but even those failed to reach the sorceress and stopped a good twenty feet away, visibly struggling in vain to get any higher.
"Oh, so you can stretch and jump, but not without limit. And it looks like you can't fly," Lina taunted the shades with an evil grin, taking great satisfaction in blasting the tentacles apart with a couple of well-placed Blast Ash spells. "Well, I guess I'll catch you later!"
The sorceress directed her spell to move forward; from the corner of her eye, she could see the pillar of darkness below following after her. She was almost grateful for this fact; the shades served as a good point of reference, assuring that she could move in a straight line in the snowstorm without difficulty.
She continued flying for a good while, glancing behind every minute or so to see if the darkness was still where she thought it should be; she was thus quite surprised when she suddenly noticed a distant black mass in front of her as well. She snapped her head back once more, but the original was still where she last saw it; the shades in front had apparently belonged to a different group. Not much later, a third black patch came into view - and if that was not ominous enough, they all seemed to be gradually rising higher, forcing Lina to ascend to keep her distance.
"We must be flying above the side of a mountain, and that's why they can get closer," she muttered. "Maybe it'd be better if we changed directions; I don't want to force Levitation to go too high while certain people are hanging from my back."
The subject of her complaints still gave no sign of consciousness. Still, no matter how baseless the notion may have been, Lina had the feeling that Xelloss heard what she was saying, even if he could not reply.
"I thought you talked Riksfalto into blowing these things sky high," she continued. "They could be different ones than before, of course, but why are so many of them here? Did they feel my presence, or…?"
She trailed off, remembering the priest's recent explanation: the shades were not wandering around randomly in Dynast's domain, rather, they were put there to guard a very specific location…
The sorceress gazed towards the unseen mountain before them, thought to be hidden behind the curtain of wind and snow. "Does that mean… we're right where we wanted to be?" She glanced back at the group of pitch-black blobs, still reaching towards her relentlessly. "In that case, I guess it's time for a change of tactics."
The currents of wind keeping her afloat died down as the Levitation spell dissipated; needless to say, with Xelloss' weight on her shoulders, the sorceress began hurtling down like a rock. She passed by the dark pillars, but the shades seemed to be confused: Lina was moving so fast that they could not intercept her. Falling feet-first with her hands clutching the priest's shoulders to keep him in place, she set her eyes downwards, peering intently for the first sign of the mountainside below.
A steep, icy slope with grayish rocks faded in from the whiteness of the snowstorm; in the same moment, Lina uttered the Chaos Words of the teleportation spell. Now that she saw the slope, she could safely set her destination to a spot higher up on the mountain. The dimension-bending magic, however, did not alter her momentum: when she reappeared, she was still falling just as fast as before. She snapped her head back for a split-second; the shades were upon her, hustling up the steep rocks with incredible speed - she had no choice but to chant the holy spell again to move further up. But the more she used it like this, the faster she fell; and the faster she fell, the less time she had to make decisions. By the sixth hop, she could barely glimpse her next destination and finish the incantation in time before she would have hit the mountainside; knowing that she could not continue, as the teleport magic activated, the sorceress cast Ray Wing with a thought, directed it blindly upwards and hoped for the best.
The wind roared around her as her flight spell, overladen by weight and opposite momentum, tried to at least slow her fall. She could feel an unbearable strain on the Ray Wing's protective barrier - and Lina found herself plunging deep into fresh snow.
Her bones were still in one piece; she was safe, for now. Rubbing her sore shoulder, which, along with her shoulder guard, had absorbed the fall's remaining impact, the sorceress got to her feet. She was standing on a smaller cliff with a sizable mound of snow in the middle, probably piled up by the storm not long before. The winds let up a little, allowing her to spot a path leading up the mountain, and also the mouth of a large cave about fifty feet away.
Lina angrily shook her head to snap herself out of her thoughts. There was no time to gape at the scenery; the shades were probably already close by. She had to drag Xelloss into the cave, and then from there she could give those demons a real fight…
"No need to rush, Lina-san." A cheerful voice reached her ears. "They won't dare to follow us here."
She whirled around; the priest stood behind her, brushing the snow off her cloak on his shoulders with an absent-minded smile.
He did not stay on his feet for long.
The sorceress collapsed onto the cold, rigid stone. To say that she was not feeling well would have been quite the understatement: the freezing sensation penetrated her body as if her blood were replaced by an icy river; the migraine plaguing her made every beat of her heart send another jolt of excruciating pain through her head – not to mention that she felt like she may throw up any second.
However, in that moment, another feeling within her overrode everything else: satisfaction.
"See that, Spookster…?" Between ragged gasps for air, she threw a grin at the staff laying next to her on the stone floor. "I told you I could fly all the way to the top…!"
"While I told you that the curse was going to push your body to its utmost limits if you used Ray Wing like that." The mazoku seemed to make an attempt to chide her, but his voice lacked any sort of conviction, with a tinge of excitement shining through. "I suppose we were both right."
"No-no-no," the sorceress shook her head, even though it felt like it made her brain bounce between both ends of her skull. "You were right about a tiny, totally pointless detail, while I was—" Another intense jolt of pain made her bite her tongue. "Ouch… Fine, you were about… forty percent right, okay?"
"Oh, you are too kind."
"I sure am. In fact, I demand to be called 'Magnanimous-san' from here on." She grasped the staff and used it to push herself off the ground. "Where the heck did we end up, anyway? Everything's so bright, I can barely see after walking around in that dark cave for so long…"
"Do take your time to look around," the demon answered mysteriously. "I think the sight will be well worth the wait."
Blinking a few times, the sorceress raised her gaze straight up - and saw the clear blue sky.
Oh wow…
The illusion was nearly perfect; only tiny, barely noticeable glitters of light betrayed the fact that she was looking through a nearly transparent crystal, which made up the entire ceiling of the cave hall. The crystal apparently reached all the way to the surface, and even more strangely it was not covered by snow there, which would have obscured the view.
Around the middle of the gigantic hall, the transparent ceiling gradually gave way to dark, polished rock, somewhat similar to obsidian. The rock reached well into the hall in the form of a large dripstone-like structure which hung from the highest point of the ceiling. Liquid glittered on its surface, flowing to the tip where it dripped down into the large lake below, which filled most of the hall except for the small ledge at the entrance. The sorceress' gaze lowered as she regarded the pool; the liquid in it resembled perfectly clear water, except for a slight reddish tint, which was responsible for making the sky appear purple back when she saw the lake and the ceiling through the ice from below.
Naturally, the most unusual thing about the liquid was how most of it remained unfrozen, even though the temperature in the hall was biting cold – in fact, much of that coldness seemed to radiate from the pool itself.
The sorceress stepped closer to the edge of the lake, gazing into its depths intently.
I think I can make something out over there… It's almost like… Damn…
"Spookster, do you see that?" she spoke in a whisper, her free hand pointing forward.
The answer came in a surprised tone, "Are you saying your eyes can peer into the lake? My senses cannot seem to penetrate it at all…"
"I can see into it, alright." The sorceress nodded slowly. "And I think I just managed to find our game hosts."
Not far from the shore, at the bottom of the lake, two human skeletons lay upon the rock. One of them still wore the remains of what seemed to be leather armor with a dagger hanging from the belt, while on the other one, torn rags of what once might have been a violet robe could be seen. Their arms reached out toward each other, but could never meet: both had been frozen into a thick block of reddish ice, held in place for decades at the very least.
Why are they frozen? There's next to no ice in the pool elsewhere… Or… could it be that…
The sorceress ran her fingers through her hair, retrieving a single strand which she quickly flung into the lake. The moment it touched the liquid, a layer of ice formed around it, growing gradually as the piece of hair sank towards the bottom.
"I could clearly see that strand fly through the air, but the very instant it touched the surface, it was gone," the mazoku commented. "Loud-san… is this what I think it is?"
"I don't know what else it could be," she said, her mouth pressed into a thin line. "Looks like we just stumbled upon the source of the curse."
"Why you—‼" Lina's enraged voice rang throughout the desolate scenery of the mountainside.
She tackled Xelloss into the snow; unsure whether to start with punching, kicking or strangling him, she ended up with something that could be called a bizarre mixture of the three.
"Were you fooling around this whole time?!" she bellowed. "You think running away from the shades while carrying your fat ass was funny?! I swear, I'm going to screw your head with that idiotic grin right off your shoulders!"
"It's… good to see that… you've returned to your old self a bit… Lina-san…" the priest somehow managed to say. "However… I have to disappoint you… since I came to… mere moments ago."
The sorceress' grip weakened, letting Xelloss slip out of it in a blink. "Moments ago?" she echoed, still looking suspicious.
"Indeed." He inclined his head with a smile. "As odd as it may sound, I seem to have fallen unconscious, or something close to it. I became aware of what was happening to me after a while, but it still took me some time to regain control of my physical and astral form." He paused, glancing at the sky musingly. "Even then, it would have been all too easy to drift back into a coma-like stupor, but… I recall someone's voice being so very loud that it wouldn't have let me even if I wanted to."
A vein popped out on Lina's forehead. "I dare you to say that again."
"Oh, no need to get angry." The priest raised his hands in front of his chest in a calming gesture. "In fact, I believe it's only fair to give you an apology. You were right, Lina-san. Something disturbing is afoot here, and we would do well to get to the bottom of it while we still can."
She took a deep breath to calm herself down a bit, then regarded him with a serious look. "Do you have any idea what did this to you?"
"As a matter of fact, I do." Xelloss raised his left palm to his eye level, his movements careful like he was re-enacting a recent memory. "Water."
The sorceress stared blankly at him – but then realization opened both her eyes and mouth wide.
"Riksfalto told me the same thing before she disappeared into the ice," she said, her voice uncertain. "That something… no, someone poured water on her."
The priest's catlike pupils emerged slightly from under his lids in reaction, before his gaze slid uphill. "At any rate, we may be slightly safer here. We are nearly at our destination: Ruby Eye-sama is sealed into ice right at the top of this mountain. Mindless or not, even the shades keep their distance from him, so—"
"Watch out‼"
It looked as if history was repeating itself when Lina jumped at the mazoku again and pushed him to the ground, but this time her voice was alarmed instead of angry, while his expression had no trace of his previous mischievous smile, the events taking him by complete surprise.
"Lina-san, what happened…?"
Lying on top of him, the sorceress' form lost all of its strength, her head slumping over his chest. It took him a moment to notice: her hair was wet, the water forming several drops at the end of her brown locks and glittering with a reddish light.
With a gasp, the priest's form blinked out from under hers before the water drops could reach him, reappearing a few feet closer to the cave entrance. Something went wrong with the teleportation, however, and Xelloss ended up falling face-first into the snow. With strangely uncontrolled movements he scrambled to his feet, his eyes darting across the sky to find the source of the attack, whatever it was.
A female-looking figure floated in the air a good twenty feet above them, her entire form as blue as the sky itself, as if her body were nearly transparent. Two orbs of crimson-tinted water levitated in front of her outstretched hands; one of the orbs trembled, releasing a cup's worth of liquid at high speed towards the mazoku. Looking slow and confused, Xelloss could barely avoid the projectile.
"I can see it, but I cannot sense it otherwise," he muttered, reaching down towards the sorceress' unmoving form. "Looks like I've indeed made quite a fool of myself, Lina-san."
His hand glowed blue for a second as he waved it above her head. After three increasingly impatient attempts, the wetness of her hair, along with the growing layer of ice around her body, finally disappeared; he scooped her up into his arms and ran towards the cave, barely avoiding another bullet of water.
Once inside, he laid the sorceress down gently on an uneven granite slab covered with pebbles, a good ten yards from the entrance.
"I removed the water… can you hear me? Lina-san?" His words were met with no response. The sorceress lay on the uncomfortable stone surface completely unmoving, except for the barely visible rise and fall of her chest as she took quick, shallow breaths.
"Don't bother. She's not going to jump awake just because ya dried it all up."
Xelloss narrowed his open eyes at the unknown man in a fur coat and leather armor standing in the cave's mouth, blinking several times as if he had trouble focusing his gaze on the newcomer.
"It was really fun watching the two of ya succumb to the curse," the man continued, his voice shamelessly mocking. "Especially you. Mazoku are some weird bastards; I think you unconsciously realized that you no longer had the power to fight those black blob-like pals of yours and changed your mind at the last moment to dump the task on that other mazoku. Of course, that trident-wielding woman was in even worse shape by then than you were…"
"And… who you might be?" The priest tried to use the few moments bought by his question to get closer to the man, but could only manage a shaky step or two.
"Heh, good question. Garen, maybe? I'm not that sure either," his expression was twisted by a brief flash of anger. "It's all thanks to ya goddamn demons. Well, at least you won't remember my name for long, anyway. Your sorceress pawn is already as good as dead, and you'll be following her soon enough."
Xelloss smiled as if he'd just been told that his team is bound to lose the next brass rackets match. "Don't count her out so soon, I'd say… She may surprise you yet."
As soon as those words left his mouth, he disappeared, rematerializing near the edge of the cliff outside the cave. Once again, the teleportation wasn't perfect, causing the priest to fall to the ground, but even as he fell, he threw his new, brass-adorned staff through the air — and hit the half-transparent woman floating above him squarely in the chest.
The ghostly mage's mouth opened to a silent scream as she stumbled backwards; no longer bound to her hands, the two crimson-tinted spheres of water lost their shape, fell apart and produced a small downpour on the mountainside further below.
"And my astral senses are still not as bad as you hope them to be, either," the mazoku said as he struggled back to his feet.
"You bloody bastard!" The man that may have been called Garen screamed as he ran out of the cave after him. "Leave her alone! We've spent ages collecting that water!"
"Ages, you say?" It seemed to take Xelloss great effort to even remain standing, but his smug expression never wavered. "Then I assume that liquid is just as dangerous to you as it is to us, which is why you must take such care in handling and collecting it, right?"
Ignoring the other man's hateful stare, he looked around, apparently searching for the spot where his staff had fallen after hitting the apparition above - but unfortunately for him, the weapon was now about forty feet below them, sticking out from the snow of the mountain slope. The priest extended his hand to the side in a summoning gesture, no doubt trying to use his power to retrieve the staff, but even after several long seconds had passed, nothing happened.
"Too late for you to do anything, though." The mazoku's vain attempts had allowed the man in the fur coat to regain his composure and walk forward, his tone mocking once more. "Ever since the cave's been opened, the cursed water has spread to the point that it's now everywhere around this mountain. Its vapor is in the air, in the snow… a much lower dosage, so it's not as deadly, but both of ya have been exposed to it for quite a while now. We had to endure a much higher concentration for countless years, so it doesn't bother us that much, but you…" He approached Xelloss with careful steps, gauging his reactions. The mazoku's form blurred, but then solidified again – a failed teleport attempt, if his furrowed brows were any indication. "…You won't get the chance to do the same."
He raised his hand like he wanted to throw a punch at the priest, who immediately tried to take a step back to evade – but with his shaky legs, that was exactly what put him off balance. His eyes snapping open, Xelloss reached for the sleeve of the man's fur coat to steady himself, but his hand passed right through; falling backwards, his form disappeared behind the cliff edge, hitting the rocks of the cliffside several times as he fell. It started something of a small avalanche; the falling snow quickly covered both his staff and his motionless form on the larger terrace section of the slope below.
In the cave, as the noise of the avalanche died away, everything became still, wrapped in almost complete silence; only the sound of wind and dripping water echoed within the walls.
Drip.
"We saw your bodies at the bottom of that lake. You two are under the curse just like us, aren't you?" The sorceress' words sounded less like a question and more like an accusation, as she confronted the two ghostly figures at the entrance of the cave.
The woman, supposedly Garen's sister, lowered her head slightly; were it not for her unchanging, blank expression, she could almost look guilty.
Garen himself, on the other hand, merely folded his arms and reflected the sorceress' pointed look right back at her.
"So what if we are? We said you'd find out what the source of the curse was." He gave a shrug that was meant to look nonchalant, but oozed of barely contained frustration and anger. "And I guess you did just that, didn't ya?"
The sorceress was about to reply with something nasty, but the mazoku was faster.
"My, now I have no doubt that you're under the curse, Garen-san," he stated cheerfully. "After all, how else could you forget that you also promised to cure us of its effects, should we win your little 'Curse of Icy Doom' game? You surely did not mean to deceive us, did you?"
"Nah, Spookster, I'm sure that thought never crossed their minds," the sorceress continued with the same scathing sarcasm. "They just wanted to buy some time until we finally kick the bucket, and then join their merry band of specters destined to revolutionize show business."
She pointed her free hand at the ground between the four of them; a moment later, a fiery arrow blasted a hole the size of a watermelon into the snow.
"How… how can she use spells like this?" While the fire magic could not have any effect on him, Garen still reeled back, looking aghast.
The sorceress clenched her fists; what seemed like a display of ire was actually to keep herself from crying out in pain as the curse's icy grasp tightened around her chest. "You're… going to tell us everything you know. Right now," she hissed. "No more games, no more commercial breaks, just answers. Got it?"
Garen stared at her for a couple of seconds, his eyes narrowing, then gave a curt nod. "Fine. Let me show you something first." He had barely finished talking when he was already in front of the sorceress. Her surprise was natural, as he did not move any of his limbs – contrary to his previous behavior, the ghost did not try to mimic the movements of the living, but merely floated closer with shocking speed. "Here's what you can learn when you're trapped in a damn cave for an eternity!"
What the—?!
The sorceress could not even blink as Garen's supposedly incorporeal hands grabbed her by her oversized cloak, and yanked her violently towards the edge of the snowy path. Despite her best efforts, she could not regain her balance in time, and started tumbling down the mountainside.
Unlike earlier, however, now she knew how to stop her fall.
"LEVITATION!"
As the winds slowed her momentum and raised her into the air, her first thought was to ascend right back to the cave entrance, but the sharp icy pain convinced her otherwise; she landed carefully on the larger, mostly level terrace below instead, and fell to her knees.
"I'd hoped the more spells we used, the easier it'd get, but no such luck…" she murmured through gritted teeth, her eyes clenched shut as she waited for the pain to subside.
"Um, Loud-san…"
"Ugh… Just give me a minute, Spookster."
"I'm afraid we might not have a minute."
The sorceress forced her eyes open – and could see several amorphous black blobs, each the size of a cart closing in on them from further down the slope. The heck are these?!
"Have fun down there!" she heard Garen's gleeful voice from above. "Those things usually don't come this high up, but I guess even they can become angry if you provoke them long enough! You can thank me later!"
Forcing herself to ignore the pain, the sorceress jumped to her feet. "I hate to say it, but I don't think we're in any shape to fight these things… Let's get out of here!"
"You do have a point." The mazoku's voice sounded strangely distant as the staff turned cold in her hand. "Well then, Loud-san, I suppose this is where we shall part ways."
She stared at the piece of wood in confusion. "Err… Run that by me once again, will ya?"
"Look around you. Don't you find our surroundings familiar?"
It took her a bit to realize what he meant. "This place… this is where I found you!"
"And most of my projection is still here in fact, under the snow," he explained, unable to quell the unease from his voice. "These are… shades, I believe, and I don't think they've been drawn here merely by Garen-san's taunts; they already sensed that something is buried in this area, and their incessant hunger pushed them into coming this far. I am not in a condition to defend myself, and if they were to find my physical form, and through that, attack my astral body as well…"
The demon did not continue. There was no need.
Scurrying closer and closer, the black blobs were almost upon them.
"Fine." The sorceress flashed a wicked grin towards their attackers. "Let's give them hell right here."
"But Loud-san, you have no reason to—"
"Don't give me that crap, Spookster." She shook her head resolutely, her grin still in place. "We need each other, remember? You didn't manipulate me to think of you as my comrade for nothing!"
The mazoku had no response to that quip.
"Just make sure to keep your expectations high. I'm going to need all the magic power I can get for this one!" No sooner had she finished her sentence than countless black limbs shot out from the blobs towards them – and hit nothing but air. With a flash of gold, the sorceress was already behind her opponents.
"Was that… holy magic?" The demon seemed astounded.
"Don't ask me! I have no idea what I'm doing," she shouted, gathering vibrant energy within her palms, "I'm just doing it! ELMEKIA FLAME!"
The pillar of bluish white light burned away a good chunk of the shades' body, scattering the rest in the form of tiny black droplets. These fragments quickly began to reform, but, to the sorceress' surprise, did not seem to move towards her for the time being.
"I think they've noticed me," the mazoku stated in a grim voice. "At least they'll leave you alone for a minute or two while they try to dig me out."
Down on one knee, the sorceress slapped her cheeks to force herself to focus, her entire body trembling in excruciating pain. "Let me confirm something: if I cast a shamanistic spell big enough to reach your body as well, that won't hurt you, right? Just these guys."
"I… believe so," he drawled, clearly apprehensive. "But you'd need a rather powerful spell to—"
"Just what I had in mind! BLAST BOMB!"
The sorceress threw herself to the ground as a swarm of giant fireballs rained down on the mountainside, their combined might producing an explosion big enough to create a thirty feet wide crater in the snow. At the bottom of said crater, she noticed the blackened silhouette of something roughly resembling a human.
"Hey… you said you wouldn't be hurt!" She cursed under her breath, trying to stop the world from spinning before her eyes. "I think I just cooked you medium rare at the very least…!" Moments passed, but the staff next to her on the ground did not respond. "Damn it, Spookster, say something!"
The sorceress tried to get closer, but even when she somehow managed to disregard the horrifying migraine that plagued her, her legs would still refuse to obey – they felt like two blocks of ice attached to her torso.
Oh, come on…
With stiff movements and great effort, she used her hands to push herself forward and crawl into the crater. As she neared the mazoku's blackened form, she could hear a strange noise akin to boiling water all around her; small black pebbles rose from below the snow outside the crater and immediately started to merge with each other.
"This… this isn't funny," she breathed as she reached out and grabbed the demon's form by his shoulder, pulling him closer to make him face her. "Could you please do me a favor and… and not be dead…"
To her relief, his eyes slowly opened. Catlike pupils stared into her ruby orbs for a second, and the sorceress said the first word that appeared in her mind out of nowhere.
"…Xelloss."
His eyes widened further, and now his voice came directly from his mouth, though no more than a whisper.
"Lina… san."
In that moment, something clicked into place within her.
She momentarily forgot that her head hurt, that two ghosts nearby were after their lives, or that the shades were about to attack them – and gently swiped away a few sooty locks from his astonished face.
"Hey, time to wake up, sleepyhead." She blinked a few times, trying to keep the strange, salty sensation in her eyes at bay. "I'm sick of doing all the work around here, you know."
The priest managed to prop himself up on his elbow, and slowly glanced around, as if he really had woken from a deep slumber. The black blobs were almost finished reassembling themselves and started to inch their way into the crater, somewhat more cautiously than before.
"Well… my… apologies for slacking off." He managed a faint smile, and extended his hand towards the staff lying next to sorceress; the wooden weapon rattled for a moment, but then became still once more. Judging from his expression, this development did not surprise the mazoku at all. "Sadly enough, while I'm in better shape than I was before, the curse still has a hold over most of my abilities. I fear we'll have to keep relying on each other to manifest any kind of magic, but… well, I now remember a way to avoid those side effects from earlier."
His darkening expression did not escape Lina's notice. "Whatever that is, something tells me I'm not going to like it."
He gave a quick nod. "Perceptive as always. Frankly, I'm not too enthusiastic about this method either." With an apologetic look, he offered his hand to the sorceress. "But as they say, desperate times…"
She took one last glance at the approaching shades, sighed, and grabbed his hand tightly. "Desperate measures. I'm in."
They locked gazes one more time… and Xelloss' human form began to distort, his body and clothes turning into a swirling, multi-colored mist as Lina's own cloak fell off his shoulders and hit the ground.
The mist circled the sorceress once, twice… and finally disappeared into her body through her abdomen.
In the next moment, she let out an ear-splitting scream.
Whatever pain and icy numbness she felt from the curse before, they were nothing compared to the agony that assaulted every single cell of her body. Xelloss' power burned through her, and she felt as if it took her apart on a microscopic level, only to immediately reassemble her in a way that wasn't quite the same… wasn't quite normal.
Then the pain was gone. She slowly sat up; the numbness of the curse was no more. Her movements felt effortless, the sensation of the cold snow under her distant – as if she wasn't actually there to feel it. The wind howled, and that felt cold against her skin as well, somewhat - but it simply did not matter.
She stared down at her body: both the cloak on her shoulders and the staff in her hand seemed to have grown smaller, adjusting their form to fit her size perfectly. Her clothes were no longer wet; she instinctively understood that they would only interact with the world around her as she wanted, no more and no less.
The shades were right next to her, she could tell as much without looking – or more precisely, she could see without looking, being able to perceive the world from multiple viewpoints around her simultaneously. In an odd moment, she caught herself gazing at her own face; her features seemed normal at first glance, but then she noticed her eyes: the ruby pair of irises housed two catlike pupils.
She recoiled from the sight, but that sensation passed as well – she did not have the time for it, her enemies came first. Then again, the shades already had plenty of time to attack… what kept them? Why did they remain almost motionless?
Her mind reached out towards the towering blobs, and, much to her amusement, the answer came immediately.
Even these beasts, these mindless machines of destruction – even they knew of fear.
Lina's lips curved into a small, chilling smile.
Payback time.
She stood. The shades immediately moved a bit further away, her demonic eyes following their frightened movements with a malicious glint.
"Do you know what you guys remind me of?" she purred. "Bandits. All gung ho, quick to attack, to mock you or to issue threats – at least as long as they're convinced that they are stronger than their would-be victims. But show them some real firepower, and they freeze up… or try to scurry away like cockroaches."
The earth shook as purple-black flames of vibrant energy sprang from the ground around her, melting the snow immediately on contact. The black blobs now gave up on simply backing away, and started fleeing in random directions.
She chuckled. "Let me show you the reason behind the one nickname I'm actually proud of."
With a cruel look on her face, Lina raised her staff into the air, then plunged its tip deep into the snow.
"DIE."
The power within her responded to her single word the same way as if she had cast a spell – and the shades, along with a good chunk of the mountainside, disappeared in a flash of nothingness.
End of Part Two.