Chapter 3
Damion pov
I felt a cold chill run up my spine, that was weird. I unwrap myself from these blankets and stretch, my wings spread out and flap a few times as my demonic features appear on me. I let out a yawn and stand up, I walk down the hallway till I turn the corner and walk into the lady from yesterday, I look up at her while she looks down at me. She didn't seem to know what to do because she just starred at me with a strange look. "Good morning." I say before walking down the hall towards what I can only assume was the kitchen. But I then stop when I feel something I haven't sensed in a while, I turn back to her and look her up and down, "Why are you contracted with 4 demons?" I ask her and she visibly flinches. "Being a Demon I can sense the contracts you have, but two of them have been severed."
"That is none of your concern child." She said clearly annoyed with me.
"Hey, I'm not a child. I'm 12." I say with determination, she laughs in response. I role my eyes and start to walk away again, I dealt with enough ridicule on Korit to know when someone was about to insult me and I didn't want to deal with that right now. I arrive in a kitchen and look around for some food, thankfully there was some fruit and bread for me to eat. I grab some for Jace and walk back towards him after making sure that woman was gone, I give Jace some food and he thanks me. "So what do we do now?"
"Well, I came to Innistrad to find Sorrin Markov to help with the Eldrazi. If anyone can help the Gatewatch with Emrakul he can, and the only lead I have is Markov Manor."
"Well if that's our only lead then lets go." I jump with excitement read to go.
"You want to come? Jace asked.
"Well I did say I would consider joining you so that means I need to stay with you, plus this might be fun."
"Alight then let's get ready to go."
I smile as I start to wonder what we were gonna find.
Time Skip
Well, I was not expecting this.
The castle known as Markov manor was, as best I can describe, warped. Section of the building were floating in the air as if gravity had no hold in them, other places were tilted and in ruins, the bridge that connected to the castle was destroyed as well. "What the hell happened here?" I ask in shock, who had the power to do this, and why?" I ask Jace who didn't seem to have an answer at the moment, Jace recommended that we should examine the manor. I offered to get a view from above and Jace said that it would help in gathering information, so I extended my wings and launched into the air.
I saw Jace make his way into the manor while I looked around, I landed on top of a large section of the manor and look inside. I jump back in horror, hundreds of what I can assume to be vampires were stuck inside the walls, frozen like statues. I took a few steps back before I heard the sound of wings behind me, I turn to see what it was but no one was there. I scratch me head, "Am I hearing things again? First that ladies voice and now this." I hear the sound of wings again and I look to see what is causing it but overtime I look the noise stops and appears somewhere else.
I turn one last time and to my surprise I come face to face with a winged woman, an Angel to be precise. Her skin was pale and her hair was pure white, her outfit looked like a white dress with armor covering it, and instead of the usual white wings like the usual Angels her wings were black and blood stained. "Hello Damion." I was immediately on edge at how she knew my name, and the fact that she said it in a tone that sent shivers down my spine. I notice her wings were covered in blood and so was her weapons which were a scythe and a sword, "Come with me, Avacyn would like a word with you." I don't know who this Avacyn is but I could tell she was not someone I wanted to meet.
"How about no?" I say to her, several other angels drop down and surround me, each holding a blood covered weapon.
"I'm afraid you don't have a choice, she was very clear that you are to be brought to her. Alive." She said with a wicked grin.
"But I'm not sure why she would want an abomination like you." Another angel said, I'm not sure what she meant by "want" but I probably didn't want to find out. Anyway I was to mad at the angel calling me an abomination, the angels on Korit actually treated me better than this. At least they never insulted me, now that I think about it they were the only ones to treat me like a regular person.
I glare at these angels and show all of my demonic features, claws extend from the tips of my fingers, my fangs grow, I spread my wings as I feel a surge of energy course through me. "Try and take me, if you can." The first angel lunged at me and I stepped out of the way at the last second, I got up close to her and punched her in the gut causing her to let go of the spear. I grab the weapon and use it to block another blade that was aimed for my head, "Did you really think it was gonna be that easy?" I push their blades back and swing the spear to knock the angels away from me, I jump and fly towards another section of the floating castle snd look at the angles flying towards me. I throw the spear and it successfully hit the one of the wings of the black winged angel, she lost control and collied with the castle.
The next angel tried to cut me with her sword but I block with one of my own before it breaks. I summon another blade and try to hit the angel, but she was more skilled than I thought and she managed to cut my cheek. She smiled and I took that moment to cast a spell, cracks spread across the ground where she was standing before the ground gave way. I grabbed onto the edge so I didn't fall with her, I pull myself up and take to the sky. The angels that weren't injured flew after me, I flew around the floating stone castle looking for something I could use to my advantage. Finally I spot a large price of the castle that was perfect size for what I needed, I flew towards the floating ruble and fly inside. I land and cast a spell on the entrance before running down the hallway, all the angels make it inside before the entrance collapses in on itself. I run as fast as I can down the hallway before I finally see the exit, I cast another spell and the exit starts to crumble, "This is gonna be close." I say to myself.
Just before the hallway collapsed I jumped out the exit, trapping the angels inside. I flap my wings and float there while the angels scream to be released, I then remember the angel I injured. I fly back towards her and land next to her, she sees me and stands up, she looks to be in a lot of pain, I knew her wing was sensitive and the spear in it wasn't helping. She falls to her knees again before glaring at me, "Well? What are you waiting for?" She asked in anger, "Just kill me already."
I move towards her and she closes her eyes waiting for me to hurt her, but that's not what I was gonna do. I kneel down and put my hand on her shoulder, "I don't want to hurt you but removing that spear is gonna hurt so hold still." Her eyes snapped open and looked at me in shock, she didn't give any indication of refusal so I put my hand carefully on the spear, she flinched as I slowly pulled the spear out of her wing. Her body flinched and she whimpered slightly as I removed the weapon, once the spear was out she let out a gasp of relief and started breathing heavily. I held my hands over her wing and cast the strongest healing spell I knew while channeling as much mana as I could into her, the blood (that was hers) started to disappear as the wound on her wing started to close. Once I finished I leaned back and let out a sigh of relief, "There you go, good as new."
She looked at me and blinked a few times before looking back at her wings, she hesitantly moved her previously injured wing. She flaps it a few times before smiling and turning to look at me with a less insane grin, "Thank you." I was about to respond but her body was covered in a blinding grey light, I averted my eyes so I don't go blind, I feel a warm feeling in my chest before the light dies down.
I look back but the angel was gone, I scratch my head in confusion, "Where did she go?" I look around for a minute before I remember what I was here to do. I'm supposed to be helping Jace, I look around for her one more time before I go back to what I was supposed to do.
I fly up and look around at the ruble to see if there was any pattern to the destruction but I couldn't find anything. After a while I notice Jace was exiting the manor and I fly back to the bridge, I noticed he had a very elegant looking book that seemed out of place. "What's with the book?" Jace then explains what he discovered in the manor about how the book helped him realize how the angels went made and how someone destroyed Markov manor as a challenge to Sorin Markov. As he explains more I start to see how it all fits together.
After he finishes we start to walk away from the manor, Jace then starts to talk about the strange stones called cryptolyths and how they were all over the plane. After a few minutes we started to walk in silence, I couldn't help but wonder what happened in the manor to make him so quiet?
We made our way towards Gevoni, it's still evening and it was raining, I laughed a few times when Jace fell in the mud. I used my wings to keep me dry as we both conjured a light glowing blue and purple respectfully to allow us to see through the rain. Unfortunately Jace decide to read the journal while walking and what creeped me out the most was the fact that he started talking to the journal, I decided to ignore that. After a while I started to get concerned with Jace, he hadn't let the thing down since we reunited, we trudged through the muddy paths while I used my wings to keep myself mostly dry. Jace however had some trouble keeping his balance and I got a few laughs out of watching him walk into things or fall over, we eventually made it to a Gevany, I think it's called. It was a bit harder to get here through the rain than we thought it would be, the ball of light we both created only allowed us to see a few feet in front of us but that was it. Soon we heard voices in the distance and we started to move towards the voices, but we made it only a few feet before Jace pulled out the Journal again.
He opened it and started to carefully look through it, I watch as Jace moves over towards a rock and sits down on it, I guess we're taking a break for now. I sit down on a rock a good distance away, might as well try to figure a few things out. I wrap my wings around me as I start to wonder what happened to the angel, she was right in front of me before she disappeared, where did she go? I think to myself. But more importantly why do I feel like I've seen something like this before?
I grab my head as pain shoots through my head, before I even knew what was happening everything around me changed, I was high above the tree line of a lush jungle, filled with life. I could see so much beauty in this world, I looked down in shock, I was sitting on top of a massive hydra head. Before I could even ask what was going on the hydra turned into an orb of grey light before it flew into my chest.
My eyes snap open and I find myself wrapped back up in my wings, I put my hand over my chest where I saw the orb go, "What the hell was that?" I tried to focus on the point where the orb entered but a sharp pain shoots through my head causing me to stop. I shook my head and unwrapped myself to see that the mist had cleared and the moon was providing enough light to illuminate our path. Jace was currently starring at one of those monoliths. He suddenly seemed to realize something and jumped to his feet, he was grinning and it seemed he was relieved at the moment.
"What's up?" I ask him.
"For the first time since I got here things are starting to make sense."
"How so?"
"Look at the monoliths, they are all pointing towards one another in that direction." I look at the monoliths and I was surprised once I noticed it, how had we missed that before? Jace opens the book back up and flips through the pages till he comes across an accurate drawing of one of the stone monoliths. The page was labeled "Entry 643 Hunter's Moon." Most of the words used to describe it I barley understood but Jace seemed to understand it perfectly, Jace explained that it disrupted the flow of mana in the plane as well as create a magnetic field. Apparently the distortion of the mana lines could cause problems for being made of mana such as Angels, is that why they're going crazy?
Jace dragged his hand across the surface till it reached the tip, immediately a small pop and a few sparks shot out of the tip. Jace jerked his hand back as a thin trail of white smoke trailed from his glove. "Are you alright?" He asked the book, I let out a sigh, this guy needs to find a hobby away from books. He opened the book back up and flipped through it again, "Well, did you ever find out what these actually do? Or am I just following someone else path?" He continued to read through a few entries. Something about the moon being effected by something massive object no one could see. He let out a sigh as he kept reading.
"Hey what's wrong?"
"We found a path, we should follow it, I just-I wish I knew what exactly we were looking for." We both move to look over the ledge of a cliff with a small town at the bottom. We walk along the narrow foot path to the town, Jace and I felt are way around a bend in the path, and nearly collided with a fisherwoman.
"Oh! Sorry, I didn't see you th—" Jace tried to apologize but she cut him off.
Her eyes affixed to his—wide and vacant with an unblinking stare that sent a shiver up my spine, that's usually not a good sign it that happened to a deamon.
"So...another come to listen to her call, hmm?" she asked slowly. "You've come to see her too?" Joy crept into her voice. "So many have arrived just today!"
"See her? See who?" Jace asked trying to get more information from her.
"She's finally here! Brought her feathered ones from the sky, tide came up right on with them! Broke right through the floodwalls, washed all of it away!"
"You've seen the tides shift, too?"
"Oh, we had no need for all those things, we've found...something so much more than us! Think of all these things we're holding onto, weighing us down. Living in these shells made of meat, carrying our worries, slogging forward day after day. She's up there now, waiting for us, waiting to take it all away for us, to usher in a new world!"
"Slow down...'she'? Who is 'she'? What is she bringing?"
"Jace I don't think she's in the right mental state to answer." I say to him as I recognized this as the beginning of influenced insanities first stage.
The fisherwoman barked out a laugh that lingered too long. "I was like you once. It's a terrible burden, knowing. So many questions, drowning in questions, and never enough answers! Now I've let them go, washed right out of my mind like the sea over shipwrecks. But once I'd wanted to know…things. Lots of things! Silly things. What is my greater purpose and will I ever achieve it? How will I die? When will winter end? Where does the eye stare? How many eyes? How many legs on the moon shrew—?"
She kept rambling random words until she gasped for breath like she hadn't breathed in ages.
Jace's eyes lit up blue as he reached his hand out towards the woman, I could tell he was going to read her thoughts, I just hope he's smart enough to avoid the insanity. After a while I started to get worried but before I could do anything his eyes snapped, his body fell to the ground as he grabbed his head in pain before he curled up on the ground. His eyes darted around the area as if he was looking for something that wasn't there.
The fisherwoman stumbled as she came to, locking eyes with Jace in a brief, knowing stare. After a few inaudibly murmured words, she scrambled to her feet with a guttural snarl and scurried down the path away from the coast.
"What the hell did you do in there? I ask him as he sits up.
"I wasn't able too find anything useful." He stated before we continued to walk. The trail ended on the rocky shores just north of the reef near a small fishing outpost. Its floodwalls, as the fisherwoman had mentioned, were nearly a foot underwater, and a thick shining layer of rotting marine slime coated what had once been the dock and its ships.
Boots caked in slime and sand, Jace walked into the shallows and let the waves pass over his feet while I used my wings to fly just above the water. Strange how it wasn't receding. South of the village, the moonlight shone down on a massive ring of jagged structures jutting up from the ocean, clawing at the waves and passing ships.
"The Drownyard," Jace said excitedly. "This is it! All the cryptoliths point here!"
Above the jagged ring was...still nothing? but I felt like there was so much more, I grabbed the side of my head as it felt like something had hit me but nothing did. Images of Eldrazi appeared in my vision before disappearing. What the hell?
"I thought you'd promised me something here! You told me I'd find something!" Jace hastily fished the journal out of his pocket and flipped it open.
He stared down into the empty, unfinished ring of stones dubiously. "Uh, exactly how large were you thinking this thing is?"
"What are you talking about?" I ask but I was ignored.
"Astral body? Moon-sized?" Jace looked down into the empty area above the ring. Was there something I was missing?
Jace flipped forward in the book, but clearly didn't find what he needed. "You can't stop now! We're so close! Tell me! Tell me what it means!" He gripped the leather spine and shook the book with more force than he intended.
Flashes of movement caught his eye and mine as well. Dense clouds roiled overhead, and a long procession of shambling humanoids waded through the cold, shoulder-deep ocean water below. Zombies. More specifically, the waterlogged corpses of long-dead sailors left within the reef.
"No!" He shouted causing me to jump slightly. I watched him as he seemed to be struggling with his thoughts and realization dawned on me, Jace was being affected by the insanity spell from before.
"Jace you need to calm down." I say trying to get his thoughts under control but he was so wrapped up in his own thoughts he didn't even realize I was here anymore. Dammit, a telepath with insanity was not a good combo, "Sorry Jace, but until you're you again, I can't be near you, but I can still leave a message." I cast a spell to activate when Jace becomes sane again, a message to let him know what happened. I spread my wings and shot into the air to avoid Jace.
I glanced at the strange structure as another another vision came. This time it was surprisingly clear, I was in a room that seemed to be made of storm clouds the Angel from before appeared asleep floating in the air, there was something else but it was covered in clouds preventing me from seeing it clearly. But one thing I could tell was it was massive, had LOTS of eye, and they were all looking at me. I raised my hands and saw my arms covered in a bone like armor.
The world around me disappeared and became a swirling blur before I crash into the ground as if I had been hit back towards the ground. It was strange, I knew that I had just accidentally planes walked but I was still on Innistrad. I stood back up only to see several Angels land around me, each with a weapon pointed at me, I wasn't to concerned but then I saw one Angel that was clearly different then the others.
The angel hovered, her massive wings and long white hair stained with fresh blood, her spear molten and ablaze. Her outfit was all black, making her look even scarier. The look on her face was one of restrained amusement, her eyes seemed to look at every detail about me. "What do you want?" I ask as my demon features appear.
"Damion." Her voice sent a chill to go up my spine, her voice was a tone I never heard before, it made me feel weird. Her eyes were half open as she looked at me...longingly? Why do I feel like I should be anywhere but here right now?
"Um, I'm gonna go now." I spread my wings but the Angel gripped her spear tightly.
"How...do I respond? I don't want...you to leave!" She lunged towards me, she got closer to me faster than I thought and I barley moved out of the way in time as she flew past me.
"What the hell!?" I shout as the Angel turned to look at me again. I was so distracted I didn't notice the white chain wrap around my left wrist until it was to late. I tried to pull myself free but the chain seemed to slowly be draining my energy. I had to dodge the crazy Angel again only she grabbed the chain and wrapped the other end around her wrist. "Let me go!" I shout at her.
"I won't...let you get away from me." She said in that strange tone again, once again I felt like being anywhere else but here.
"Sorry, but I have to be anywhere but here." I channel my magic and create a blade and slice the chain in half causing the Angel to fall back from the lack of force holding her up. As the sword disappears I punch the ground and use my wings to create a small dust cloud to let me escape. I shot into the air and flew in the first direction I faced, I don't know how long I was flying but my vision started to get all fuzzy, I then realized part of the chain was still wrapped around my wrist, "Dammit." My vision darkens and the last thing I see is the ground approaching, this was gonna hurt when I woke up.