Haldor Tvon had a problem – a huge fucking problem to be exact. The last three souls he'd fed to the Ring of Halinox hadn't been fully absorbed. Only a fraction of the magical black soot had actually reached its destination while the rest had just floated on the air a moment before it had plummeted to the ground like a maid cleaning a rug. From what he could tell, they were okay for the time being, Maurice remained under their control and King Artem had proven himself little more than a busybody whose mind had started to fail him. However, if the Ring of Halinox continued to reject Tvon's sacrifices, then the spell would soon cease to function and King Maurice would regain control of his faculties, Gaston's plans would go out the window and Tvon's greatest wish to become a demon lord would fail. He'd become powerful enough to use spacial magic, but he knew he still had work to do before he could claim himself a demon lord.
The boy escaping was another problem, one that Gaston insisted on blaming Tvon for as well even though Gaston's men had been left to guard him. How incompetent did Gaston's men have to be to have allowed a child to escape the dungeons? Then again, they had opted to support Gaston in this quiet coup so they were likely rather stupid. For the love of Drazva, Tvon wished his cohort was smarter. Although, with what he'd chained down in the dungeons, he could understand why Gaston's grunts were so scared to be down there long. Despite everything, Tvon refused to look as inept as Gaston's thugs. Maximilian Demeer had appointed him Avonlea's Court Mage making him the youngest to ever be granted the position, he was powerful, he was intelligent and he would succeed where Ravavena and the other demon lords had failed! Haldor Tvon would become the most feared demon lord in all of Dreymyr; he even had the dragon to prove it. He would figure out why the Ring of Halinox suddenly turned its nose up at the sacrifices, he'd use Gaston to take Avonlea and then kill him to make way for his own land and absorb the Ogre Territory into it. Tvon wasn't like his old classmate Timothi Menou, who'd become Balmund's Court Mage, a man lacking any real ambition, who spoke of kindness for all races and cooperation – pathetic! Balmund was nothing but a tiny kingdom with nothing to show for itself except a giant pit in the middle of their territory. Avonlea, meanwhile, was large and filled with resources that Tvon would monopolize when he finally became the fifth demon lord. Didn't matter how thick the walls of Galedhor Castle were, Tvon would burn it to the ground and take his time teaching Timothi Menou that kindness and compassion wasn't the wealth he thought it to be.
Oh, he longed for the day he became a true demon lord. He'd imprison the Dark One right beside Ravavena's cell down in Akula Prison and use them for his experiments. Gaston would die, King Maurice and any other sovereign who got in his way would die, Belle – well, Tvon would probably take a leaf out of Gaston's book and have her for his wife.
Tvon chuckled. "Yes, a sexy little plaything like Princess Belle would make for a lovely bed warmer. The sound of her tears can lull me to sleep in the evenings."
Before all of that though, Tvon needed to determine what was wrong with the Ring of Halinox and where the fuck the Dark One had run off to.
~X~
Since shortly after arriving in Bichelberger, the city had begun to feel small tremors here and there. At first the locals had mostly ignored them, then they'd been blamed on the Ophidian Mountains and the hræsvelgr who lived up there despite the mountain range being a ridiculous amount of miles away; locals had even joked a greedy adventurer must have stolen some eggs. However, those of the Arcane University hadn't been as convinced and neither had Rumple. While powerful, the massive distance between the mountains and Bichelberger made it unlikely for the hræsvelgr to be the root cause – especially when the closer city of Berryburn hadn't reported similar events. The Church hadn't been convinced either, though they'd decided to use the earthquakes to their benefit. Of course they had, the Church did love their sophistry. The Steeple was the name of the large Drazvan church within Bichelberger and the priests there had wasted precious little time spinning tales of quakes being a warning to the faithless and those who followed the Vita Tree or Stewardism, that Drazva was angry and the earthquakes were just a taste of things to come should the wicked not correct their evil ways. The naïve within the city had flocked to the Steeple fearing divine punishment, while the mages had only grown more alarmed because Yanhil, much like Vell, Avonlea, Dorovoth and Nalessa, truly prided itself on being an inclusive kingdom. The Church may have told their stories, but Rumple and Demeer knew better, knew that whatever had caused these growing earthquakes had a significantly less religious reason, and was instead almost certainly connected to the odd dark magic whiffs Rumple had experienced since arriving.
Rumple had come to learn very quickly that he rather enjoyed residing at the Arcane University, even if he did have to train with the Valkyries every few days, because he had a wealth of knowledge at his fingertips and people didn't look at him suspiciously ever fifteen seconds. Whatever had caused the tremors likely came from beneath the University itself and he'd have rather nipped it in the bud before it brought the whole institution down on their heads.
Displeased Belle had been when Rumple had told her he'd be putting further halts on dealing with Gaston and saving her kingdom - it was a rather pressing issue that had already been ignored too long after all. However, Belle had faith in Rumple and knew protecting the Arcane University and the innocents living in Bichelberger to be important as well. So, after a long conversation in Demeer's office with Rumple, Phria, Leotomas and the Grand Mage himself, they'd concluded the tremors to originate deep in the vault. The University's vault was vast, spread over multiple levels and had so many items inside that conducting a full inventory was next to impossible. That caution was what had prompted Phria to put together a larger team of Valkyries and Demeer to insist Rumple accompanied them. Rumple had taken a little convincing but, when Demeer had offered his personal assistance in dealing with Haldor Tvon in exchange, a deal had quickly been struck.
Jefferson had opted to remain outside the vault with Leotomas where they could see to an evacuation should such a thing become necessary; and it was nice to have somebody trusted to watch over Amicia. Meanwhile, Rumple, Belle and Azzy accompanied the Valkyries down into the rarely entered vault. The moment they entered the large doors of stone were snapped shut again and the sound of locks and wards clicking back into place echoed off into the dank darkness. 'Likely relying on me to just magic us back to the surface' grumbled Rumple's mind, he wasn't a glorified wagon. One of the Valkyries, the taller of the two redheads, called forth several balls of light to hover over them while Rumple snapped his fingers to light the sparse sconces.
Belle didn't quite know what she'd been expecting the vault to look like, but she'd expected more than carved rock which looked like a slightly more artful cave. As if sensing her silent question, Phria spoke as she pushed a few strands of escaped white hair behind her furry ears.
"The vault was built out of a natural cavern, it's why the Arcane University was constructed here."
The Valkyries and Rumple glanced around at the various hallways leading off to other rooms and who knew what.
Belle's brow furrowed. "Where are we actually going?"
"I'm not entirely certain," admitted Phria. "I can't sense this dark magic the way Master can."
Rumple groaned internally, he really wished the beautiful pantherian stopped calling him that soon. He took a moment to just breathe, to lock on to the dark magic and which direction it lay in while the women waited.
His eyes flicked open. "I know where it is. I can feel power down here, it's definitely dark magic."
"So you can track it to the source?"
Rumple breathed out a laugh and peered at the woman he loved. "Don't start underestimating me now, sweetheart."
Belle smiled, Phria's ears drooped, and Rumple turned back to the task at hand. The pantherian Valkyrie leader had brought five others with her all dressed in cobalt armor, though the designs varied somewhat. By this point both Belle and Rumple had figured out the Valkyries had three types of blue armor to suit every kind of fighter they had. There was the light armor made of leather designed for agile movements and geared toward rangers, those who scouted and delivered blows while tanks held an enemy's attention; this was the style Phria wore. Then there was the standard plate armor Rumple was familiar with from the Enchanted Forest, a heavy armor meant to be resilient and allow the women wearing it to act as tanks during battle; two of the women with them and Cynthia Stonecrop wore such armor, though Cynthia's was rather different for some unknown reason, possibly her position within the organization. Then there was – in Rumple's mind anyway – the most intriguing of the Valkyrie armor types: he'd been informed this armor was called enhancement armor and was worn only by their skilled magic casters or those using magic to power their weapons. Upon first glance the cobalt armor looked to be adorned with gold details but it was actually a network of magically conductive copper that allowed magic to flow around their whole bodies; three of the women with them wore such armor.
A lancer named Scarlette Ravenscroft stood out front with Phria and Josephine, whose long sword was almost as big as she was. Meanwhile the two redheads, Jayne and Ashuna, a dedicated spellcaster and skilled poleaxe wielder respective, brought up the rear with Excella – who looked an awful lot like Scarlette though was a half-elf – who had her bow at the ready. These women were all highly trained and ready for just about anything, frankly it made Belle feel somewhat redundant.
The group walked for a short while with Rumple guiding them only by the odd tingle he felt every now and again. Items of varying degrees of power littered the vault, some simply placed on podiums to gather dust, others secured underneath warded cages of lead. Azzy continuously sniffed the air as if unsure of what all the strange scents meant but Belle's reassuring pets to his ears relaxed him. After almost fifteen minutes they reached a narrower hallway lined on each side with bookcases which ran to the ceiling.
"Books!" Belle announced happily as she shuffled closer to the glass doors for a better look but Ashuna, the taller of the two redheads, held out her poleaxe to block Belle from getting closer.
"You don't want to risk touching them."
Belle hadn't actually intended on pulling a glass door open to grab one of the mysterious tomes, they'd clearly been locked away in the vault for a reason, but still Belle's curiosity had her ask why; it was Phria who answered.
"They're cursed books. The sort that turn you to stone."
Belle stepped closer to Rumple. "No books today then."
Rumple ground to an abrupt halt once they'd reached the other end of the hall, a stop so abrupt that Azzy had walked into the back of him. The Dark One peered around for a few seconds before he crouched down to place a palm on the dusty floor.
"It's below us."
Phria drew closer. "There are three levels beneath us, Master. I can take us to the stairwell, it isn't far."
With little other choice, they followed Phria west toward the stone staircase which spiralled down into yet more unnerving darkness. As they drew closer to the bottom, Rumple leaned in so as only Belle could hear him speak.
"Belle, whatever this is feels like it wants to explode." Her eyes widened. "The closer we get, the more magic I feel. When we find it, you stay with Azzy and only provide your healing potions to the others rather than using your offensive ones. I may even return you to Gordana's office."
"This is so powerful that you would teleport me kingdoms away? You know what that distance would do to me."
In response he only provided the single, solitary word of 'yes' and Belle knew just how serious he was. Whatever lurked within the Arcane University's vault, it had almost immeasurable power and was totally unpredictable. Part of her wanted to argue that she wasn't just some teenage girl who needed protecting but, when she thought about it logically, there wasn't anything she'd be able to do to help were a battle to break out and Rumple would send her away because he loved her, because she needed to protect their daughter if he couldn't. Not that Belle thought anything strong enough to defeat Rumple, he was a double-gold ranked demon lord after all.
They descended several more meters into the inky blackness with only Jayne's balls of light to illuminate their way. Once they reached the very bottom level though, even those with a low magic level like Belle and Phria felt a sinister weight settle. Azzy stuck to Belle like glue determined to protect her to his last breath should the situation arise; he may have been a fairly lazy animal who enjoyed naps above all else, but he owed his life to Belle and wouldn't let anything happen to her.
"I feel it now, too." Phria swallowed.
Whatever had been causing the tremors was close by and soon Rumple guided them to a stone door at least twice their heights barred and sealed with chains in a more extreme version of the library vault's door.
"We'll surely need the Grand Mage or Leotomas to open this," said Josephine.
"No need." Rumple waved his hand and, with all the magical knowledge he'd eked from the University's book collection, had the chains fall away in an instant. They collapsed to the ground around them with loud metallic thuds and, though the Valkyries had already seen how powerful he was during their training, many of them stood open-mouthed. "I'll tell Demeer to do better when it comes to keeping a demon lord out."
If any doubt that this strange imp was the Dark One remained, it surely died there and then.
A gust of unforgiving wind blew the heavy stone doors open wide and Rumple entered with the women at his back. Belle obeyed his wishes, she stayed out of the way by the door with Azzy as her noble protector.
It was dark inside the chamber, cold as well, so Jeyne quickly created several more balls of golden light then moved them to float high above them and Rumple lit the two candles he spied. None of them quite knew what to make of the chamber, it a perfectly round room of carved rock with a dome in the middle which looked almost like the mouth of a cave. Inside it stood a raised platform topped with … something. A strange structure of points one couldn't quite describe; somewhat reminiscent to an old fountain he'd say were someone to force a description out of Rumple.
The Valkyries spread out on Phria's order, each of them prepared for a fight, while Rumple slowly rounded the raised platform. From the opposite side he saw that the odd podium of points was hollow and simply a display for an ovular black rock with a purple sheen – no, not a rock, an egg. The entire chamber had been blanketed in dark energy to the point it was nearly choking, and all of it radiated from that egg. All of them could feel it but only Rumple understood just how concentrated the dark magic had become.
"It's an … egg." He told the others which had everybody grow confused as Phria joined him. "What sort of egg is this?"
"I honestly have no idea, Master. I've never seen a black egg before, or one so large. Maybe it's a linaelor or perhaps a teratect?"
Excella pushed a stray strand of brunette hair behind her pointed ear. "Aren't linaelor eggs white-green in color though, Captain? And they don't usually have dark magic swirling around them."
Rumple leaned in closer for a better look, he squinted at the egg suspiciously while Phria and the others simply watched him. Phria could practically hear the cogs turning in his head, yet another quiet show of his intellect.
"There's some sort of carving on this, actually scratched into the shell."
"Let me see," Belle began. "I've read a lot of books on sigils and warding." She made to step closer but instead found a page suddenly floating in front of her face with a copy of the design in black ink. She shoved away her innate reaction to sigh and instead snatched the page out of the air to scrutinize it intently.
"It's old, that's for certain." Yes, they'd all gathered that much. "The mortal races favor circles and triangles for our sigils and magic circles as they're easily drawn in a hurry and are strong shapes. This though, this would have taken care and attention to draw, especially on an eggshell. Each of these points are slightly different shapes so it isn't meant to simply loop power back on itself, the points all represent something individually. The inner markings look like they may be rooted in Draconic or with the Cardinal Dragons themselves. Just because it's carved into an egg, I'd say its likely a protection symbol."
Oh, bless Belle and her borderline encyclopedic knowledge, she sure did fill in for many of the areas Rumple still hadn't gotten to grips with.
"A dragon egg?" Scarlette suggested and actually seemed excited about the prospect; excitement which had Excella roll her eyes.
Belle shook her head. "Probably not. No one has seen a living dragon in numerous generations and other intelligent creatures used this type of sigil, it just started with the dragons. I'm not an expert by any means," she admitted. "That egg could be just about anything, but from art and historical descriptions, I'd assume dragon eggs to be larger."
That seemed like a logical argument to Rumple. The black egg was likely only a little bigger than his head, that didn't seem nearly big enough for a proper dragon egg. A snake with the same spell he used to scale Azzy up and down on it, a deformed linaelor or one of the allegedly extinct basilisks, could have been just about anything inside there. No matter what the egg contained though, Rumple knew it to be the source of all the accumulated dark magic and the earthquakes.
Suddenly Phria sheathed her short sword and turned to face Rumple with a big smile, like she wanted him to be proud of her.
"I know what it is! I thought it was a myth." Rumple stared expectantly until the white-haired pantherian explained. "My mentor told me it as a child. She said that Isra and Msiddi had a second egg. They had Rael the amphisbaena and the second-"
He cut her off as soon as he remembered Belle telling him a similar story once before. "Ah yes, the mages, Hero and the adventurers killed the basilisk and destroyed her egg. Only, it doesn't look very destroyed to me, darling."
"Maybe they couldn't. Maybe Msiddi carved the sigil to protect her baby."
Rumple looked around the cold room as the dark magic again condensed. "I honestly don't care. I'm more concerned with it exploding."
"Or hatching." Belle added which only made the situation worse.
"I can probably form a containment spell of some sort around it to keep this thing from blowing us to Oz. Although, somebody with a batter understanding of dragons and their half-breed children should be consulted."
"Annette Battlewayne in the magical creature department."
"Perfect, darling." Said Rumple which had Phria preen.
He decided placing a barrier around it would be the best course of action for the time being but the lead woven into the raised platform would prevent it, so he picked it up to place on the ground a few steps away. However, the second his hands touched the black shell, Rumple's very life force was ripped out of him at an agonizing speed. As an immortal he had an unending amount to give so it wouldn't kill him, but the unrelenting speed of it stealing had him light-headed and caused Rumple to drop the egg more than let go of it.
For a second nothing happened, then a crack escaped the eggshell and Azzy growled. A second crack, then a third and fourth. Rumple only just managed to send the wolf and woman he loved to Demeer's office; he'd have rather sent her to Gordana but somebody had to tell the Grand Mage what had happened.
The Valkyries rallied around Rumple unsure of what they'd be facing and, frankly, Rumple wasn't sure either. The creature had absorbed so much dark magic so quickly that it rivalled Rumple's own power and, for the first time in centuries, he felt like that cowardly spinner staring up at Hordor.
The black egg blew apart violently revealing a form a little smaller than a goblin. A black snake-like being with the torso of a human female and long hair obscuring her face. For a moment nobody moved so much as a muscle, the creature just blinked through her hair at him, then blackish purple wings splayed open like those of a bat. Rumple's head tilted to one side, this thing was a child.
It was Josephine who caused all hell to break loose when she screamed: "We have to chain it down!"
The creature jolted at the sudden sound, realized how many people seemed intent on killing her and panicked. All that dark magic that had been swirling around the room was rapidly absorbed with a scream causing the creature to double, triple then quadruple in size without warning. Before the Valkyries could so much as contemplate a strategy, the creature was as large as the chamber and burst through to the upper levels, she surged upwards away from the Valkyries while Rumple tried to figure out exactly what had just happened. Rubble fell from the ceiling but the Valkyries didn't hesitate, they activated their wing gear – a magical device only they were allowed to use – and flew up through the hole after the creature.
A glance upward told Rumple the snake-like creature had bust through to the surface so he quickly teleported upward to find himself in the University's courtyard. Students screamed and fled while the Valkyries flew around the gargantuan creature in an attempt to subdue the flailing beast. Rumple didn't attack though and he found his cowardly fear had left him. For almost a full thirty seconds he simply watched the giant creature, her tail destroyed the fountain and her arms swung around violently at the Valkyries but Rumple thought her panicking rather than evil. Suddenly it was obvious to Rumple that she couldn't sustain this level of dark magic, had likely been absorbing bits from the other objects in the vault for centuries to keep herself alive. Then he and Jefferson had come along with more powerful levels of magic and had pushed the sigil over the edge, the tremors had been the egg trying to hatch and him touching it had been what was needed to finally push it over the edge.
Brown eyes spotted Phria flying high above him and with hardly a thought he'd summoned her to his side; the sudden movement had almost had Phria collapse before him.
"Order them to stand down!" Rumple demanded.
"What?!" Phria's eyebrows shot upwards. "No, that thing-"
Rumple had no time for arguments. "Stop them or I will."
Both knew how much blood that would end in, so Phria finally relented with a nod.
"Very well, Master. I need you to tell me why though."
She may have had a surprising level of faith in the Dark One, but she was still the Captain of the Valkyries. Phria wouldn't blindly go along with things no matter how much she'd come to respect Rumple.
"Because I think she's less evil and more of a scared little girl."
He'd seen scared children before, he'd been a scared child before, and that creature's eyes were those of a terrified little girl rather than the brainless monster they'd all assumed her to be. Rumple was many things, but he drew the line at harming innocent children.
Having seen the seriousness in Rumple's unique eyes, Phria nodded and flew off to order her soldiers to stand down. They clearly all thought her insane but, when Rumple moved himself to stand directly in front of the creature, they hoped the Dark One had a trick up his sleeve.
The giant snake-like creature stared down at him through that mess of black hair, him a small ant compared to her. Rumple raised his hands in as non-threatening a pose as he could muster and spoke in a tone reserved only for Bae and Amicia.
"Hello, little one. You've had an alarming first day, haven't you? That big, dark room, then people trying to hurt you because they don't understand." The creatures large arms lowered, seemed she at least understood him to some extent. "You're in pain, little one. Your body isn't meant to have that much dark magic in it. I can take it out, I can make the pain go away if you let me."
Slowly, with more bravery than he knew himself capable of, Rumple stepped closer to the creature's tail, which was easily as thick as he was tall, and she allowed it. Gently so as not to spook her, he placed his hand on those black scales with their purple sheen to siphon the dark magic before it destroyed her and the entire Arcane University. He sucked all that stray magic into himself and brought it under his own control easing the dark tension in the air while flying Valkyries watched on. As soon as the surplus had been drained, the creature rapidly shrunk back down to a regular size about the height of a short dwarf and collapsed before him. Her tail still long and coiled around her, her wings curled in on themselves and her mouth hung open revealing two sharp fangs. Black eyes stared up at him.
"Papa?"
Then she dropped to the ruined courtyard floor unconscious. Rumple simply stared at her. His curse was the reason he could contain so much dark magic but the girl hadn't had that, she must have been in agony. Numerous eyes were on him but Rumple wasn't certain what to do next. He'd been a fairly decent father to Bae until he'd become the Dark One and he hoped he was a good one to Amicia, so he let instinct take over and knelt to lift her small frame into his arms. Phria landed at his side then with confusion; before her was the First Demon Lord cradling a baby monster almost lovingly in his arms, the child of the fearsome darkness dragon and his consort. They'd been trained to defend against dark magic and monsters but, as she just stared at the sight before her, Phria couldn't see anything but a man protecting a newborn.