(Quick note; Why Kain could not floa down. When Kain floated in the games, he spread his arms out wide. This suggests that he needed to do this action in order to float.In the fic, hehad one hand around Janos and the other around the canister, keeping him from floating.)

EWODEN

Chapter 6: The Hylden dimension

With the Wraith Armour now in control of the translocation spell, all either Ewoden or Sally could do as hope for the best. The swirling mists of magic surrounded their bodies as it felt as if the floor of Vorador's mansion had been turnout from under them. Hanging onto each other for dear life, the spell tossed them about on unnatural winds that started out as a pale white but quickly turned to a sickly green. A near overpowering sense of displacement forced itself on the both of them, before the spell ended and both vampire and former Sarafan were thrown violently onto a hard rocky floor.

The air around them was thick and the green mist still hovering like suffocating cloud of gas and instantly the world in which they no occupied radiated unrivalled emotions of despair and dread. Ewoden's sallow breathing resonated through his body and into the air around him, vibrating like a marching drum.

Opening his eyes, he got his first glance of the Demon Dimension. The Prison into which the Hylden had been banished. Everything seemed to a pale green. The sky, the ground and the distant horizon, all blurred together so no point of reference stood out at all. Far away in the mist, jagged spikes of rock lanced out of the ground, curved and serrated; pointed towards the sky.

"Wh…What is this place?" Sally asked, slowly picking herself up. Looking back at her, Ewoden could see that her image was blurred slightly and nearly out of focus. He blinked, then looked again. Her blurred outline remained the same.

"I don't know." He lied. Janos had told him of this place one, but he didn't want to upset her by announcing that they had set foot in a realm that could drive you mad from staying here too long. Why would the Wraith armour take them here? Could it be possible that the Scion of Balance was a Hylden? He scolded himself for that idea. That would be pointless. The Hylden were all driven mad from their imprisonment, they would never help the vampires in any way shape or form.

Perhaps the Wraith armour had messed up? No that wasn't likely either. The armour was created by the ancient vampires, accomplished enchanters. They made sure their creations didn't make stupid mistakes like that.

Still, if the Scion was here, then why? Or, perhaps a set of more important questions could be; how were they going to go about finding him and escaping before this realm turned them insane?

Almost in response, the gauntlet on his right arm pulsated angrily. Bringing it up to his face, he could see the black metal emitting a soft white glow that intensified depending on what position he held it in. To his left, the glow almost died down to nothing, but held to the right it began to glow like a beacon on the shore.

"What's it doing?" The female vampire asked, inspecting the gauntlet with morbid curiosity. Ewoden hummed to himself, then a grin spread over his lips.

"It's like a compass." He began. "The glow strengths when it's pointed in the Scion's direction."

"So he is here then?"

"Let's hope so." Without a deafeningly loud thud, the ground shook unexpectedly. And then again, and again, like giant footsteps. The latest one nearly knocked the former Sarafan's feet out from under him. Striding out of the green mist was the largest and perhaps the most hideous creature either of them had ever seen. It was well over twenty foot tall and covering it's muscular body was a thin layer of black fur. It had goat like legs and arms rippling with muscle, a large series of bony spikes jutting out of it's back and long tail. It was waling across the wasteland some distance away but as some point it caught their scent and stopped. This creatures was so similar to the one that had chased him out of Avernus, Ewoden couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. It's large hand, crowned with a pair of curved horns turned to face them, a pair of blood red eyes fixing the two significantly smaller creatures with an animalistic stare.

"Don't move a muscle." She told him through clenched teeth. That however became and impossible when it reared it's head back, bellowed and belched a torrent of fire straight at them. "Or we can run away!" They turned and fled, dropping to the ground only once to avoid the deadly flames before scrambling to a run. The demon screeched and began after them, it's tall size allowing it to easily close on them.

Darting behind a rocky outcrop, they narrowly avoided being trampled underfoot by the ferrous beast. Quickly slipping into a crevice in the rock as the shadow of the demon passed over them, the former Sarafan and the female vampire remained perfectly quiet as could.

The beast stopped a short distance away and sniffed the air, luckily, the stench of the realm itself was blocking it's sense of smell and it was not able to locate them that way. For another couple of minutes the creature searched around in the green mist, angry that such an easy meal that slipped away, before eventually and reluctantly it abandoned the search and wandered off. The two of them waited for a whole half an hour after it had gone to make sure it had left before climbing out.

"This place is evil." Sally nearly spat, her skin crawling. "Why could the Scion of Balance dwell in such a pit?" Ewoden couldn't answer that as he'd been wondered the same question. Still, the gauntlet of the Wraith armour continued to tell him that they were going in the right direction. Besides, until he located the Scion there was little chance of escape. He doubted the Wraith armour would let either of them leave until it was returned to the presence of it's intended user.

The landscape of this realm was to be as escaped, hard to traverse and ugly to look at. From time to time, they spotted shapes moving in the mist and kept as far away from them as they could, following the trail the armour led them on. There was no vegetation or water in this wasteland, only unattractive rock formations scattered everywhere. Sally, who was so used to lush forest and dense undergrowth found it more than a little disturbing.

Finally, when they reached a cliff top, in the distance they spotted blinking green lights on the horizon. For a moment they spotted to examine them. They were too far away at the moment to tell for sure, but from this vantage point they appeared to be lights from windows. A Hylden settlement perhaps? The former Sarafan raised his gauntlet. According to the glow, the Scion of Balance was somewhere in the general direction of those lights. Perhaps he had dismissed the notion of the Scion being a Hylden all too quickly.

"We're getting closer." He told sally, before started to make his way down the unsteady slope down towards the canyon below, a large crevice in the ground that lead more or less in the direction they wanted to go.

With a loud shriek and the rippling of the air, several more demons manifested out of notion. Not as large as the previous one, yet just as intimidating. Large bipedal creatures with insect likes pincers for hands, the blue sparks of electricity passing between the claws. Their mouths fall of sharp fangs, eyes raven black and set into a crab like face. Quickly they surrounded Sally, drawn nearly instinctively to her by her vampiric scent. Ewoden turned and held up his left hand, muttering ancient vampiric tests under his breath. Around his hand red runes began manifesting, before a fire ball spell ripped through the air and sent one of the creatures flying backwards, engulfed in flames. Another turned, screeched into the air before charging. But now Ewoden was back on the top of the cliff face, the Axes Havoc and Malice already firmly in his grasp.

Ducking under a deadly swing, the former Sarafan swung his body around slicing it across one of the legs with the edge of Havoc before going for an upper cut, Malice' blade cutting deep through the armoured flesh.

Sally reached into her clothes and withdrew two curved daggers, each with a serrated blade edge. Somersaulting over a swing from one of the demons, quickly she about faced in mid air and drove the blade into it's eye. Shrieking in frustration rather than pain it staggered backwards, clutching at the weapon with it's oversized claws, desperately trying to dislodge it.

While it convulsed, Sally got as close to it as she could a crossed her arms in front of her chest; arcane runes glowing a bright blue appearing one by one around the creature. Once all where it place, the female vampire held her arms out and bolts of silver lighting lanced down from nowhere, tearing hung chucks of flesh of the demon as they systematically striped it's body down to the bones.

Another roar broke the sky and manifested out of nowhere came another demon, larger than the first three and built very much like that one that had chased them when they first arrived; only with fiery orange fur instead of black. Rearing it's head back, it began bellowing torrents of scorching fire at them.

Sally dived to the side, pushing Ewoden out the way as it soured past them, igniting another demon. The creature screamed and began staggering about as it's body was consumed by fire; before it lost it's footing and fell off the cliff.

Despite attempts with spells, this new demon seemed immune to magic and the blows inflicted by the weapons seemed as significant to it as a insect sting. This was one battle they could not win.

Backed up against the edge of the cliff, they had only one place left to go. Giving each other lone last glance, they turned and jumped to the cliff top, a millisecond before the demon igniting the air around them.

Falling down towards a ground engulfed in mist, Ewoden threw himself forward, taking the full blow of jagged rocks that lanced out into the air, protecting Sally from injury. Just as Vorador told him, the wraith armour lessened the damage caused to himself; but at a price. He felt his reserves of magical energy going down. Once they were depleted, the armour would start taxing his soul. Ewoden really didn't want to be in that scenario.

Sally, being a vampire was easily able to slow her decent by gliding. Being human, Ewoden was not so fortunate. However, he was relatively lucky that he had managed to gain some footing on the slope that lead away from the cliff face as he neared the ground. That broke his fall considerably, however he still ended up with a face full of dirt.

High above the demon screamed in outrage before sliding off the cliff edge itself, stumbling clumsily using the curvature of the slope to slow itself. After pulling Ewoden roughly to his feet, they began running towards the Settlement in the distance. Looking back, the former Sarafan could see that the demon had nearly reached the bottom of the cliff. They would never be able to outrun or hide from it now, especially this out in the open. Holding one hand out, he sent a concentrated blast of magic cascading into the rocks above the creature. They trembled as whatever force that held them together dissipated and they collapsed in a rockslide, cascading down on top of the goat like demon, trapping it's large bulk and pinning it to the ground. The creature screamed, desperately trying to pull itself loose as it watched it's intended prey get further and further away.

That would not hold the demon for long. The rocks were already beginning to give way, The former Sarafan hoped however that it had bought them all the time they would require. The gauntlet of the Wraith armoured glowed even brighter than before. Something inside told him that they were now very close.