Raem's Waking
Somehow the violent convulsion of the Meteor Parasite's final dissolve was enough to jolt the great demon Raem out of his spell of slumber—but it was too late, as he discovered upon coming to Mount Vellenge. The source of the miasma had been destroyed, meaning that the reign of monsters and the pain that they could inflict was counting its last days.
Furious, Raem flew over the mountain with evil shades following in his wake, so that hopefully he would catch the meddling fools responsible and make them pay for their treachery. But to the demon's greater anger, only four bodies could be found—all under a mysterious ring-of-protection spell that none of the minions could penetrate to do further harm to the bodies. One belonged to a blond Clavat who had obviously been fighting much of his life but was at last fatally wounded at the hands of a death-knight. Another Clavatian body lay curled up in a fetal position under a shield. A third corpse was that of a Yukish woman who had to have known that Raem would be coming for her and plunged into the miasma until her feet could take her no further. And it wasn't until the scouting shades reached the foot of Mount Vellenge that they found the last body of one who had died on the mountain: a Selkie maiden whom one of the tentacles must have thrown down a steep slope.
"There was supposed to be a Lilty among them—where the hell is he?" Raem thought angrily. But there was no trace of a Lilty, nor even a crystal chalice that this caravan was carrying and from which they had fled to outrun Raem. Was the Lilty hiding in a moogle nest? Raem was about to order another search—until he realized that if there was a moogle nest in which a Lilty, or anyone else, could hide, it was probably under a similar protective spell to save the mortal survivor from the minions.
"This is Mio's doing," Raem fumed, "for only she protects the mortals whom she favors in this manner—where have I seen this protective spell used before?" At last his gaze fell on Anaїs Nin, the Selkie who had been thrown down the mountain, and Raem knew the answer to his own question. "The one I underestimated—she should have died at the dragon zombie's claws several months ago. I might have known! Well, she won't defy me a third time!" So Raem concentrated a surge of evil energy into a curse upon Anaїs Nin:
"Rumble and erupt as Mount Kilanda may—
And I know full well it will, if Lady Mio has her way—
No life, no life at all, will e'er take root upon that isle:
Future bleak it follows ahead, all th' eternal while.
It was probably one of few curses against which Lady Mio would not have had the forethought to shield Anaїs Nin. Right now, the Queen of Memories was more interested in intertwining the fates of those living (or waiting for revival by those able to wield Life magicite) now than in shaping the future that those not yet born would wield.
Gathering his forces one last time in a rallying roar, Raem set a course across the continent to the proud Lilty city of Alfitaria. Furious at being unable to find the Lilty among the motley either dead or alive, the demon at least assuaged his anger with the knowledge that the people of that tribe would be the first to pay for the brash challenge to his dominion.