Durlag's Tower, Endgame I
It was short, of course. A misty dwarven apparition, unclear to mortal vision. Not many live to speak and fewer live to leave.
"Are you Durlag?" Faldorn said breathlessly, stepping forward. Jok oc Durlag, in his language, subject-verb-object to phrase a question. Ghosts did not care.
"It is a ghost and no heethir'ku." Viconia whispered her words; but they echoed nonetheless.
"It's a male like any other," Shar-Teel said; her contempt gave some confidence to the remainder of us.
"Am I...Durlag?" Its voice was a whisper colder than Viconia's, hesitant and whistling like wind that bore sleet and old seaspray. "You have cause to wonder... you have seen traps, and illusions, and phantoms..." The ghost's pause was long, and it seemed to turn toward Faldorn's direction. "Are you...Fuernebol? You laid...grasses over a stone...one young as he..."
"I am not," Faldorn said. Her voice was confident; but Ajantis stepped to stand beside her.
"Phantom, if you dare to harm her..."
The ghost—was it Durlag?—ignored him. "You wish to...to holan?" it whispered. To take this. "Three paths...another..."
"I thought when I entered that Silvanus wished me to reclaim the land for Nature and to rebuke you," Faldorn said; and we stiffened, placing hands upon weapons. The ghost's form flickered, but it did not attack her. "Now I am not sure that I must rebuke," she said. "But I can end it for you. Grant me the key."
"Gand xoth...Oen gand under..."
To gain understanding; and to beware of dark secrets.
"You don't know anything of Dalton...do you?"
The spirit hung within the air, and spoke no more.
These passages had once been lined with still more traps than the other parts of Durlag's stronghold; and many remained still, though we saw signs that other humans had passed through.
"Gloomy, and I smell something decaying," Aquerna said, wrinkling a furry nose. "But if you say we near our goal, my dear, then I shall believe you."
Into green-glowing caverns, moss on the walls that glowed a weird and poisonous light; to touch it made human skin burn. The thick smell of slime rose from sewers untouched for...one did not wish to think upon it. The ghouls came; as did white carrion crawlers with green mire dripping from their maws. Within the gnoll fortress once I prayed not to meet them again, giant and bloated and white and horrible. Their bites even stopped Shar-Teel and her emperor's blade in place, though Viconia took that one through the brain with a sling's bullet. We brushed rotten flesh and slime from our bodies, waded through painful ooze that ate into boots.
In the furthest reaches of the slime-soaked depths was a rough voice that hailed us; a grotesque that held dark brown flesh above black eyes that burned in their depths, the skeleton that lay below it warped and twisted. Five ghouls stood about it in a pattern so regular that it shocked the eye to see it, as steady as a military formation. Their leader stood taller than Shar-Teel; but of the five, four were dwarven-sized.
"My name was Grael!" it spoke, and then in its hands appeared a sword set on fire. And in the hands of the others also came weapons drawn: a mace, a crossbow, a warhammer, a polearm, an axe wielded by a still-muscular left arm. "Great heroes we were! Ours the souls that lost!"
There had been a list. Of Grael, the noble warrior; of Hengriffe once called Clangeddin's arm; of Chalmon Keen-eye; and of Tuorna Brightarm, the greatest axe-wielder of Durlag's armsmen.
It came to pass that Durlag Trollkiller and Arlo Stoneblade ventured into the bowels of the Great Ryft. They fought the hideous tanar'ri Aec'Letec...
"I—you were Grael the hero?" We must have the knowledge of the history; for a moment I forgot to be afraid. "You fought the demon?"
The ghoul spoke again, darkness whistling through its gaping jaws. "An evil so grand only fools chase and fight! A Tanar'ri true and horrible! Its name you do not speak unless its attention you wish to bring!"
Aec'Letec, ran through my mind. I did not speak it.
"What happened? Can we help you?" Imoen said.
"No longer against unthinkable evil! The demon's gaze that is not a gaze, but a look into your soul. We fought along with Durlag to encase the evil away. Islanne's was the casting that weakened, his the blow that won, ours only the also-foughts that legend ignores! Here we stay, turned to evil and unredeemable, but heroes still and not to be killed! A cruel charity...as is given to you, fool who chases another! Fallen as we!" The black gaze of the ghoul upon Ajantis, the six rotting faces turned to him; and he stepped away, grown pale once more.
"Boy: hold and have courage," Aquerna spoke.
"Then you are...undead abominations," Ajantis said, hesitating over his words. "Is the right thing to destroy you?"
"Or to subvert you to serve?" Viconia hissed, raising her dark circle of Shar; and Grael screamed his own name once more.
"Take my name from this place! Take the memory of battle and my name and we will be free from the shadow of Durlag and that dammable demon! Fight now, that you can say true that we battled ferocious! Hengriffe, Aughym, to right and left flank! Chalmon, to fire! Lamai, centre! Tuorna, to me! You will take the memory from here!"
Shar-Teel's sword found his flesh, and the axewoman her. Viconia fell, a crossbow bolt in her arm, her holy symbol flung from her hand. Imoen's spells ignited, a pair of flaming arrows into the ghoul at the back; then Ajantis rushed forward behind his shield, to take the archer. Faldorn chanted of preying undead, and commanded the very slime to hold them, the moss to bloom vines from the wall to seize the arms of the ghouls and hold them back from their weapons. I did not use the blue to heal Viconia; instead arrows to the wielder of the polearm, Lamai who in Durlag's history was once called the Storming Fury, bride to noble Grael. She burst to fire and was frozen by ice, her dead flesh melting from her.
Grael's blade burned. Shar-Teel shouted her battlecries, though the ghouls did not bleed; she fought to slough their flesh from their bones, her greatsword cleaving through the head that was once Tuorna, axewoman of the bright arm. The fire was uncanny to my eyes, and prompted wonder at it; Imoen sent another spell of missiles, pure force that showed how ferocious she could be. Faldorn's wolf leaped for their throats.
Aughym came to me bearing his warhammer blazoned with the runes of the clan of Trollkiller. Varscona in the left hand, the shortsword of one of Durlag's graves in the right to serve; the ghoul's form was strong, but I held it back, wounded it by a slash of the cold sword. Faldorn cast to slow it, manipulate it by a green fog that clung to its grinning undead face; and I stabbed to the heart, killed a ghoul as it wished to die.
Lamai to Imoen's bow; Tuorna Brightarm to Shar-Teel's fury. Then Viconia had healed herself, and cast a black fog upon Chalmon Keen-eye; Ajantis fled from it, and the ghoul collapsed within her poison of Shar. Hengriffe to Faldorn, forced to sink within the slime's poison, finally stabbed by Ajantis with the head removed. Grael joined battle against Shar-Teel, the greatest of our warriors in turn; she carved him slowly but she carved surely. She was as strong as he; as skilled as he; as quick to riposte as he; but it was that she was able to change her strategies and strikes whereas he was dead and gone long ago. Grael's memory that he was strong remained: he fell as he demanded.
I will write of this history, perhaps...
"A wardstone," Faldorn said, bending to grasp it from the ghoul's dark body; marked blue-black on stained grey stone.
"Demons can do that to you, just by a gaze," Imoen said, sitting down upon a projecting stone that stood relatively clear of moss. "Just looking at you. That seems so harsh."
"Nature is harsh," Faldorn said, though her voice cracked a little.
Viconia smiled in the darkness. She bent down and picked up the crossbow, testing it in her fingers; "This instrument is lightweight," she said, "and my goddess does not have quite the same scruples as more foolish surface deities. The concept appears simplistic enough. Faern, measure it for me..."
But Imoen was already casting her spell to identify upon the burning sword; which I had taken from the ground. It sat oddly in the hand. The rune upon it was not dwarven, nor any other old language of which I had ever heard.
"Before Neverwinter was warm and before Anauroch was desert and before the North was ice and snow," Imoen said, "or I could just say once upon a time like a made-up fairytale. A long time ago, anyway. There are few relics of such a time, and fewer still have a purpose that we could understand. Toldja I wasn't much good at this spell," she added as an aside. "There's fire in it, that's easy to see. And something in the rune—" Her brow furrowed; her white-tinged eyes examined the flame sword closely. "Something in the rune talks about the earth, the magic says. The Burning Earth, that's what it's called. The burning comes from the earth. I can't see anything about who made it, or why or how or even when. It looks like it'd fit a human hand. Wouldn't hurt you. 'S all yours, I guess."
A sword with a rune from a language nobody knows and from a time divination can't find... I swung it in place of Varscona; Imoen was right that the grip fit a human hand, and fit my hand. It had that same magicked edge that spurred it toward a target, burning fast and strong and light in my grip. A very serviceable sword. And yet something in it was wrong: it strained the forearm a touch, did not fit my hand just right. For whoever it was made for, perhaps it was not quite for anything humanoid...
A sword with a history that I didn't know. The rune was five lines, two scratches, and a circle, two characters combined; definitely not the style of the Dethek runes, the futhorc used by some Uthgardt tribes, or the still-older Untheric cuneiform. I did not wish to put it down...
"Take the cold blade in her stead, chi'dilok," Viconia said; both of those words had something to do with falling. "You shall become slightly less impotent than usual with it, I think?" Ajantis opened his mouth, looking gravely offended.
"Yeah, just take it." Imoen looked at the crossbow; "Enchantment for a light draw; enchantment to make the aim better; enchantment to make bolts hit harder. Here you go."
"Members of the clergy should not wield sharpened weapons," Ajantis said sharply; a debate upon that began, but he picked up Varscona to carry.
Faldorn stepped lightly ahead; we returned from the slime, walked through stone passages. Further tripwires, further ceilings that would slam iron-hard upon anything in their path. The passages widened, and became decorated by the remains of gold filigree at the walls and elegant tiles upon the floors. Stained, of course, by the trails of filthy green we left behind. She inserted the wardstone to gently open a door; and there in a wide hall stood a white marble throne more elaborate than Kiel's seat, pyramids of tribute in jewels set below it. Most importantly, another wardstone within the treasures;
"Think we've kind of got enough shiny things for now," Imoen whispered miserably. "Maybe I'll think of it later and kick myself for leaving it all behind, I guess. But I don't want any more jewels, I just want out of here."
Dalton; "Soon," I said—though I was in no position to promise anything; Imoen was stronger, her magic powerful.
"Can't stand the buzzing..." she said; and suddenly brightened as we turned another corner in the labyrinth of Durlag. "Fal! Wardstones?"
A machine device, yet running after centuries. The air forced from it raised Imoen's mage's robes, setting them flapping around her ankles; and she touched it and cast spells upon it, seeking to understand it as if it were a thief's trap. She grinned when the buzzing stopped, and pointed to etchings hidden below a panel of it that seemed to show another path. It lay quiescent behind us like a resting monster. Our feet sank into red carpet runed by gold. The runes led to another path above streams of molten rock that served the machinery with fuel; and translucent wraith spiders that released their poison deeply. There was a well beyond them, but not a trace of water and with only darkness below it.
It was Imoen to pick up a stone, drop it down, and listen. After the passing of a minute there was but a faint rustling that was not unlike the rustling of paper of a book; and then no sound at all. Even Faldorn made no comment. In the corner of the chamber stood a clay statue of a dwarf; and it spoke.
"Questions I have of you: none but kin of clan may pass."
The hall shifted; the floors moved below our feet; the walls closed in upon us in a perfect circle; three other dwarves rose up from the ground. Shar-Teel made as if to move, and found she could not; runes bound her feet to the ground, held all of us to await the questionings.
"I am ready," Faldorn said. Her brown eyes glinted a reddish shade; the flickering light had no visible source.
The first statue spoke, its face not dissimilar to that of the silver ghost: "The mother of the sons, Kiel and Fuernebol. The matron of the clan: what is her name?"
"Islanne," Faldorn said, before any of the rest of us; "Islanne," Imoen echoed, glancing down at scrolls she carried.
"Durlag, builder of the clan, had a name bestowed by deed of the fortune of battle. With axe and fire he cleansed the land when axe alone would not suffice. If you know of Durlag, tell the name he earned for himself."
"Durlag Trollkiller," I said, and spoke truth.
"Then the father's father of Fuernebol and Kiel. The wanderer who lived by the strength of his weapon. The clanless man who engendered the building of this tower."
"Durlag was son to Bolhur Thunderaxe," Faldorn said, which showed that she had listened to what I had told her.
"Three answers. Now know my fear."
"A true druid is not afraid of anything..." Faldorn said.
"And that is a most foolish notion, young lady," Aquerna said.
The three set about the room spoke. One's face twisted to an ugly sneer that did not belong on the face of human or dwarf, and it spoke as a hiss; the second's face widened to a blank, desperate fear; and the third narrowed to a scowl, its face guarded. They talked in unison, each one of us hearing only a portion of what was spoken:
"We were the fearr made flesssh! We came to the home that Durrrrlag built and we hid in the people he forrrmed. We were the fearr made flesssh: but it was already here!"
"We followed Durlag. We were his people. We were the future, his family, and if we were lost so was he. We hid the fear beneath. We followed Durlag. We were his people."
"We built here against all that would come. We built retribution into the tripwires, vengeance into the fireballs, hatred into every nook and cranny. The foundation was his fear that the same would happen again. We built here against all that would come."
The last voice thundered to cut them off.
"Trace the path of my fear. My father roamed. Well respected he was, but he had no home. He died with no dwarven kin by his aside. I would not allow myself to follow his steps that far. I would not be Durlag the clanless. From where did the fear began, and where did it find its last home?"
"It won't seem like much," Imoen said, "but I'll tell you how I knew the most fear. There was that ogre attacking me and Skie not long after we left, and it was just the two of us with Monty and Xzar, mad mage and halfling. I remember just thinking, Oh, hells, we're going to die. Oh, Tymora, Mystra, we're dead. Big ogre, swinging his club and knocking over trees and the crazy wizard screaming like a little girl, and I reckon I was screaming too and I dropped my sword. Then it stumbled and missed me, but I was on the ground shaking like a leaf, and I knew for sure I'd have to learn spells not because fiddling with cantrips used to be fun if you could stand all the boring books and memorisations, but learn spells to stop us dying...
"The first fear came from what was inside you; you wanted a home because you hadn't got one, and I...well, for me I just really wanted not to die, and I'd got kinda used to looking after Skie too." She patted my arm.
"Then you buried it under building your clan," Faldorn said. "I... The first time I tried to be initiated as a druid, I failed. They laughed at me and said I was only thirteen winters. Though I had used the words to call on Silvanus' power many times before, they dried in my throat when I was in front of them and I could not cast. Then my teacher Corsone brought me to another grove, and the second time I gained the initiation and bound my wolf to me through a hunt. Then I was powerful enough to be sent to the Sword Coast to be tested. Silvanus knows my true faith.
"You buried your fear while you built your clan."
"I hide away from things and don't tell about things," I said. "I never went to my father and asked him why he didn't talk to me, and I wanted to run away with Eldoth rather than defy my family. I'm not clever enough or strong enough or pretty enough for...people to care about me. I was surprised that Eldoth did, he was so sophisticated and charming and good at magic and adventuring. I run into the shadows instead of fighting...but it still comes after you.
"You built over your fear, and that's why the invaders came."
"A charming sharing of insecurities, kivvin," Viconia said in a low hiss. "In the Underdark we do not call upon weakness so freely." And yet: she was no longer in the Underdark, it seemed not entirely by her own will. "You had your fear of loss of clan, built upon it, and invaders came at the crude temptation of gold. Then it became your home more than the mere stone of this place. One lives with loss; shapes it... I killed several of my sisters myself, and there is little of my family I would have so much as spit upon should I have come upon them set afire by some useful rival. None," she added fiercely.
"Your fear was your home."
"You begin to understand," Durlag's shape said. "Now tell us of the pain."
Tangling voices spoke as if they pleaded for something we did not know how to grant.
"It began with ussss...and the masterssss...Durlag's own family ssssought his life, and he ssslaughtered their falssse facessss. It began with ussss, from the wessst..."
"This is not my face. My child rose against me. It was not my child. I was in the south among the last; but not the very last. This is not my face."
"I was hired after the battles were done, from the east. Durlag's visions grew darker and soon we could not see. I was never truly sure whether he wished to keep the intruders out, or himself in."
Durlag's statue stood in the north of the compass rose across the runes, and spoke last.
"Then from where did my pain come? Where did my pain stab home? Where did my pain take root? Where does my pain now reside? You will speak now."
"Your pain struck from the west, because you were a fool," Shar-Teel said harshly. "You kill them when you first can before they kill you, and you should know to expect pain."
"It stabbed in the south when your own children attacked," Ajantis said. "I know the feeling of that which you love turning to black and rotted ash in your hands, when it has slipped away from your grasp perhaps forever."
"Then you hired people to make it worse for you," Aquerna spoke. "Really, 'twas not the most sensible of decisions, as troubled as you surely were. One ought to listen to wise counsel and reason." She flicked her tail in her position on Ajantis' shoulderplates, and the dwarven statue seemed to glance briefly up at her. "I understand what pain is, but one does not have the right to make others miserable." She sounded complacent in her pronouncement, slightly too complacent to make that judgement; but surely she was right.
"And it rests—" Imoen began.
"In you," I finished.
The statue's features shifted again; half a smile. "You understand a little. You must also understand the blame."
"We came to kill, but not without reasonssss. We were here before. The dwarves did not hide their wealth. The bait too great to passs. We came to kill, but not without reasonssss."
"There was no warning, but it would not have helped. The Trollkiller was our provider, and he would protect us. We put down our swords to live the life he always wanted: we lived as family. Suspicions were for outsiders, guards for wartime. There was no warning, but it would not have helped."
"We crafted as we were told. We trapped every inch of every step, and made sure that to enter meant death. We have killed many over time, though it was not our will. Because the challenge is there, they will come. We crafted as we were told."
"This is the end of all things," spoke the statue of Durlag. "Here I stood and struck them all down as they came. My family and my clan, with their false faces. I killed the doppelgangers that had taken their forms. I cursed the doppelgangers for destroying my dream. But the real evil could not save my people before this deception. The real evil hid from life in the face of this tragedy. The real evil deserves the blame. Understand where the blame lies."
It was horrible for him, I found myself thinking, the dreadful story. I wouldn't kill something with Imoen's face, I couldn't.
"You think the monsters were not to blame. I cannot fathom your reasoning," Ajantis said. "They were monsters..."
"And he tortured them," Imoen said.
"Monsters are to be killed! Evil is to be purged! —Especially in oneself..." Ajantis said, stricken. "I do not accept these monsters had justification for the bloodbath they committed," he added more slowly. "But it is plain what Durlag thinks." He stared at the statue with the twisted sneer.
"Your family were foolish weaklings who failed to see the danger," Viconia said. "The imbecile ghost treats them too kindly! If your foolishness is the cause of others suffering, then the drow would say that it is the fault of the one who did not abandon the failure in time. You do not hold the one who caused the suffering to blame because they showed some childish courtesies in the past..." Her eyelids dropped, as if she looked to something inside herself. "It is a poor fool who becomes sacrifice to things of another; a poor fool who shall cease to exist."
"The craftsmen made all the traps and made sure that people would be killed," I said. "We came to rescue a boy who might have already been hurt by them; I'd blame the craftsmen—" One did blame a thief for exercising her skills; one couldn't pretend you had nothing to do with what happened. "But you don't blame the craftsmen, because they crafted as they were told."
"Dalton is his name," Ajantis said, his voice steadied once more. "We come to spare a boy's life. The blame... You blame yourself for all that happened, Durlag. You blame your fear; as I have blamed my judgement."
A long silence, as if we had gravely offended the statue. We waited for its promised vengeance, shifting weight from foot to foot. It spoke at last:
"You have understood. You may yet survive what I could not."
White fog surrounded us, forced us to lie with closed eyes on the ground; the workings of the room turning and turning.
My hair was awry, flung to the left after lying on stone. I sat up, rubbing my head; Imoen was beside me on the floor, drawing a sleeve across her eyes as if to wake from sleep. Viconia swore softly in drow, a long string of indecipherable curses; Shar-Teel leapt to her feet, scowling as usual, the pair of greatswords crossed behind her back. We were once more within the passage we had first entered beyond the game of chess. Ajantis stirred, Aquerna resting on his chest.
I saw that the ghost was here, and that Faldorn stood by it.
"A...creature below...powerful beyond all..."
Shar-Teel impatiently shook her head. I thought: Not more powerful than Durlag's young dragons; than Grael or the chessboard or the golems; please...
"You must remove...or it shall make this place its own...such a fortress...impenetrable if remade in its image..."
"We shall," Faldorn said, promising things on our behalf. "I see that would be even worse; by Silvanus I won't let it happen."
"There were others...it was not defeated...you must have a care..."
Viconia yawned theatrically and stretched, in a way which was unlikely to have an effect upon a long-dead dwarf. "Hargluk, what manner of creature might it be?"
It seemed to speak to Faldorn. "A great evil...that I did not place here...that came from far below..."
"Things forged in what is barren and molten and still below that," Faldorn said. "I understand."
"So young...but the god you favour...what he wishes the earth to be aids me," the ghost spoke. "But my son...my young son too much a child to fight...perhaps your way, Fuernebol..."
Imoen rose to her feet, holding her spellbook in both hands, her arms folded protectively across it. "Faldy's still got to act like a normal girl. I'm sorry about your son and all, but you're not supposed to know how to fight when you're young..."
"I have faith in Silvanus," Faldorn said simply. To the ghost, she added: "The earth was father and mother to me, the Shadow Druids my teachers since my first memories. My family gave me as offering, and I learned knotwood club in place of lute, the words of callings to Nature's power instead of songs. I am different, and because of it I set you free."
"Fuernebol...I will show you the way..."
The ghost's silver finger pointed at a featureless wall; it slid open, showing the path to come. This time, the way was dark and narrow and dirty; few traps, only wooden boxes that had rotted by time, layers of dust and grime upon the floor, rubbish stored. We entered into a larger storeroom that stood with crates smashed to pieces though methodically piled, signs perhaps that someone had been within in recent memory. The walls seemed solid, with no obvious way out from it bar the path we had came; Imoen and I went to search the walls, alert for secret levers and panels designed to open. If we ought to be so eager about a great evil... Something of what I'd used to be was returning, perhaps. The Burning Earth hung ready on my right hip.
We had searched for some time, fruitlessly; and behind us was something that we ought to have seen if it had been there before. A dwarven woman. Her dress was a translucent pink that looked as if it had once been a warm red, a thick and rich fabric; her beard hung in three full brown braids, her hair bound with gold. The expression on her broad face was remote and sad, her features clearer than those of Durlag. She spoke.
"Children...you have come far and seen much...leaving is what I offer."
"—No," Imoen said, "we can fight what's down here." She looked suddenly stern and resolute, and then shrugged; "Puffguts and Mr G. never backed down when they were adventuring. 'Leastways, so's they always said."
"I cannot see the madness that lurks here. You are as stubborn as my Durlag..."
Islanne. I saw Imoen look at the ghost with renewed curiosity. "The depths belong to the dead...the world above is yours..." she told us.
"You ought to be freed of this unnatural place," Faldorn said.
Islanne shook her head sadly. "My Durlag...I will not leave until he..."
"And could you tell us more about your magic?" Imoen said, irreverently practical. "Got your fireball and your strong charming, but some of your others don't hardly make sense..."
The phantom seemed to blink, translucent eyelids opening and closing. "Not spells alone...wisdom to defeat what lies ahead. I will send you when you wish. Would that I could send the weight from his shoulders thus..."
Behind her, something tapped upon the wall; and we pressed open the panel and went forward with weapons ready.
She was human and grimy and stood below a curling stair, a longbow shaking between her hands; yellow-haired and armoured, a face like a hungry fox and a voice full of fear. We stared at her as she stared back; she threatened that she would shoot; and then she told us her name.
"Clair De'Lain; I should be dead. A Demonknight! Such a thing as rare as it is evil! It flings fireballs at whim, it only troubles to draw its sword if it believes you worthy. It has the Mirror of Opposition. It made a simple gesture with its hand, and all the hells broke loose. It created doubles of them all, and laughed as they all killed themselves. Dalton screamed the loudest; he was the youngest, and I think he's still alive..."
Ajantis looked at me. I knew his thought, our eyes meeting alike: rescue a boy, this time...
"Fear not," he said to Clair, and sounded like a knight in shining armour. "We will face it, and we will save you and Dalton both."
In preparation, we sat under pink magelight Imoen conjured. "Flings fire," Imoen muttered as she paged through her spellbook, "could be what we saw in the entrance, that means..." She glanced briefly to Varscona at Ajantis' side while he cleaned and patched his armour, but said nothing. Viconia and Faldorn spoke their prayers, one pleading to Silvanus to hear her despite being in unnatural construction and the other appealing to Shar to forgive what was likely the wrong hour to pray. I opened the book of Melair, the one which had borne the word wisdom; turned through the pages until the very last; and it melted in my hands, though the words seemed to be within my head still. Warfare and wisdom, to learn more to help the others fight...
Demonknight.
—