Wilhelm, the Hero of Valtar, strode forward with quick, confident steps. His shining armor and golden sword were every bit as grandiose as Jadis had expected. His knightly visage was like something out of a storybook and even though she had been fighting for her life and the lives of her friends and loved ones right up until that moment, Jadis couldn’t help the thrill of delight that stirred within her inner nerd at the sight of the man. This man, who had come riding in on the wings of a literal griffon, gave off the sense of a hero. A True Hero.
He was also, Jadis noticed as he rapidly drew up next to Syd, not particularly tall. That wasn’t to say that he was short. He definitely wasn’t a short man like Runar’s fist-fighting second in command. No, Wilhelm was just… average in height. No taller or shorter than the rest of the soldiers running around them. It was an odd break with Jadis’ expectations, since Ludger, the Hero’s best friend and Bulwark, was probably half a head taller at least. Jadis figured he would have been at least as tall as his companion, if not taller, to keep up his larger-than-life appearance.
As Wilhelm approached, he called out to the captain of the soldiers who was commanding the shield wall blocking the way in and out of the restaurant. His voice was tinged with the same Germanic accent that Ludger had, though his wasn’t as thick. His tone was soft, but firm, and it rang with the same air of vibrant power that his sword radiated.
“What’s the situation inside?” he asked. “Are there any civilians still trapped within?”
“There are most certainly some trapped on the fourth floor and above,” the captain replied, sounding harried from the intense situation. “But they are likely secure enough for now. There may be more on the first floor, but the second and third have been cleared. Demons are still inside and there appears to be a breach in the kitchen area where the demons are coming from.”
The captain paused in his explanation to order a couple more men over to another window to cover it from any demonic breakouts. Not wanting to just passively stand by while others took control, Jadis took advantage of the opportunity.
“Magistrate Vraekae and Ludger are in there blocking them off, but there’s a Greater Demon still stalking the first floor,” Syd jumped in with her own information. “I was just about to get in there and back them up, if you can help.”
The Hero turned to look up at Syd, almost as though he was just noticing her for the first time. His expression was hidden under his helmet and his body language didn’t change at all as he regarded her, so it was impossible for her to judge what was going through his mind. She could guess some of his thoughts, though, considering how she knew she looked.
Syd’s dress had been torn half off around the skirt by her own hand. She was shoeless, her feet covered in dirt and gore, and there was blood and demonic ichor splattered across every visible part of her. Her white hair had been stained with the grime of battle, and the fingers and knuckles of her elbow-length gloves had been torn away due to all the powerful punches she had thrown. She looked like a complete mess, and not a little bit crazed considering her combined tension over the tenuous fates of Sabina and Severina, her concern over her own dwindling health, the possibility of one or more cultists still running around near Eir and the rest of the survivors in the pastry shop, and her eagerness to hunt down and kill the centipede Demon that had so grievously wounded both Alex and Severina.
Whatever the Hero’s thoughts might have been concerning what he saw when he looked at Syd, all he said in response to her statement were three words.
“Lead the way.”
Syd immediately turned to make her way back into the building. As she did so, she motioned to Kerr and the possession Demon she still held in one hand.
“Get that over to Dys for safekeeping,” she told the archer. “I don’t want any stupid accidents to happen in all this mess.”
Kerr frowned and muttered a curse under her breath in a language Jadis didn’t understand, but she didn’t put up an argument. She did glance at the Hero as she passed, though, and the Hero glanced back at her. As well as at the Demon that dangled from her hand.
“How’s your magic?” Syd asked as Bridget, Aila, and Thea followed her back into the building, with the Hero right behind them.
“I’m fine,” Bridget told her as the lantern she carried continued to pulse its warm, energizing light. However, that light was almost completely overshadowed by the Hero’s presence thanks to the golden glow that came from his sword. “More than enough to keep going.”
“Down to my last third,” Aila admitted, her tone all business and almost comically normal considering the situation. “I was worse off earlier, but a soldier gave me a magic restoration potion that gave me back fifty points.”
Thea said nothing, since she had no magic from her two classes. Her eyes kept drifting over to look at the Hero, though. Jadis supposed she couldn’t blame her. It was faintly surreal to have the famed, almost mythological, figure actually jogging along with them into the embattled building.
Unexpectedly, the man himself spoke up.
“Here,” Wilhelm said as he pulled a small flask filled with a dark green liquid from a belt pouch. “Drink this.”
Aila almost flinched when the Hero addressed her directly, but as he held out a hand to her, she took the proffered potion with a mild word of gratitude before quickly downing the flask. From the way her eyes widened a moment later, Jadis could guess that the effects of the potion were powerful.
By that point, they had pushed their way past the soldiers and into Trummelton’s. The somewhat thinned cloud of noxious gas was still obscuring the area, but once more the Hero flicked his sword and caused the air around him to be purged. The effect wasn’t strong enough to clear the whole first floor, but the further they went, the more of the gas that expunged, allowing for far greater visibility.
Without the fog, the extent of the damage was far clearer, as were the figures rushing about. Jadis could see lines of soldiers moving up the stairs to secure the upper floors, and more heading in the direction of the kitchens where Vraekae was. Then there were the Demons. The ghostly wights were a lot easier to spot at a distance without the cloud, as were the less stealthy monstrosities like the dead heads and crawlers. Jadis was even able to spot a few more of the flat and disgusting belgramathr slowly oozing across the floor as they continued to spew the green gas from their corrupted fungal growths.
Several of the wights launched themselves towards their small group, their translucent forms rippling with the golden light cast by Wilhelm’s sword. Behind them, Syd spotted a dead head forming the arcane runes in midair that would cast an ice spell, based on the color. Whatever the spell was, it looked like it was going to be big.
Syd darted forward to intercept the closest wight. As she punched down at the smaller figure, she called out to Aila.
“Shoot the dead head over—”
A shining arc of holy energy blazed across the ballroom, striking the dead head directly across its torso. The icy shield that materialized to block the magic proved to be no barrier at all as the arc passed through it to hit the Demon unhindered. In the next heartbeat, the two halves of the stricken dead head collapsed onto the ground, a golden flame slowly burning out on the gaping wounds.
Wilhelm recovered from the broad swipe he had made with his sword with a smooth, practiced motion. With the same move, he closed the distance on two wights who were rushing towards them. With one slash and a forward lunge, he killed the two wights with a speed that Jadis barely kept up with. With another swipe of his sword, he killed a third wight with another gold arc of holy light before it could reach Thea’s shield. Then, turning on the ball of his right foot, he spun towards Syd and swung his sword, beheading the final wight that she had almost forgotten about before it could reach her.
When the last Demon fell dead at Syd’s feet, she gave the Hero a surprised look. He tilted his helmeted head up at her for a moment, then turned away to glance around the large room.
“Which way to the kitchen?”
The Hero really was the powerhouse Jadis had been told he was. She could see that clearly now.
What Syd could not see was the centipede Demon. The creature was nowhere in sight, either dead or alive.
Jadis had every intention of hunting the cruel Demon down as soon as possible, but she wasn’t going to rush off on her own. Not even with someone as powerful as the Hero around to watch over everyone else. She didn’t have any idea where the bastard had disappeared to, for one thing. After that display, she had growing confidence in the Hero’s abilities, but that didn’t mean she was going to repeat her previous mistakes of running around blindly without backup again. And for another thing, blocking off any more Demons from entering through the breach was a bigger priority than her revenge.
Not that Jadis couldn’t focus on more than one priority at once. Case in point, Jay had reached the pastry shop with Severina in her arms and had gotten the badly wounded woman to Eir.
“Is she going to make it?” Jay asked as her priestess lover pressed one hand against the Seraphim’s pallid forehead.
“I think so,” Eir said as her healing magic poured into Severina. “I should be able to heal her enough to staunch the internal bleeding. But I’m running low on magic reserves.”
“Okay, hold tight,” Jay told her as she got up from her kneeling position. “Some of the soldiers have potions to help with that. I’ll get some for you.”
Eir nodded her head in thanks as she turned her attention back to the unconscious Seraphim. Wrapped in the bloody remnants of Syd’s skirt, Severina really did look like a corpse with how pale and unmoving she was. She wasn’t the only one who looked rough, of course. Sabina lay on the ground nearby, physically fine but still unconscious thanks to whatever poisons had been pumped into her by the cultist. There were other badly injured men and women as well, many with missing limbs or terrible wounds that had been inflicted on them by the demonic attack. Looking at her other self, Jay could see that Dys was among the worst-looking of those gathered. Not only was she covered in the gore of Demons from the fights she had been in, but she was also covered in her own blood. All the wounds Jadis had sustained throughout the fight had been shunted onto her, and while Eir had been pouring hundreds, if not thousands of healing points into Jadis, the poison that even then still ate away at her health was countering all of her attempts to heal her. The many terrible wounds still covered Dys, some of them partially closed but still raw, while others were still practically wide open and still weeping blood.
Turning away from Eir and her other self, Jay rushed to the front of the shop where most of the less injured people were as well as many of the guards. Jay could see that Aila’s mother and father were there, busily tending to some of the wounded with bandages and clean water, but she didn’t have time to stop and check on them. Instead, she made a bee line for the head guard who was at the entrance to the shop. Sorcha was there with him and the two were directing who was allowed to enter and leave as they did their best to follow Jadis’ order to prevent anyone from fleeing.
“No ma’am, you cannot leave yet,” the guard said to a matronly noblewoman whose face was streaked with tears. “Everyone must stay here until we’ve had time to check everyone for injuries as well as demonic possession.”
The guard did not bring up Jadis’ suspicion that there was a cultist hidden among their number. Checking for possession was a far more reasonable excuse for holding everyone, one that most wouldn’t argue with considering the circumstances.
“I need to find my daughter!” the woman cried out as she barely contained her tears. “She’s not here! I must go find her now! You can use a detection stone on me, just let me go so I can find my Letty!”
“It’s dangerous out there,” Sorcha told the woman in her matter-of-fact way. “There are soldiers and Demons running around and if you go out there, you’ll just be getting in the way.”
“But I need to—”
“Go! Sit! Down!” Sorcha cut her off before the weeping woman could continue. “If you were strong enough to fight Demons, you would have helped earlier! You didn’t, so you can’t, so go sit down and let the professionals work!”
Sorcha’s blunt assessment worked to back the woman off, much to the relief of the guard. The man didn’t look like he was comfortable telling nobles what to do. Sorcha did not have that problem.
“Do you have any magic potions?” Jay asked the guard as she rushed up to him and Sorcha. “I mean, potions to restore magic reserves? Eir is running low and she needs to keep healing.”
The man shook his head, having nothing on him that could help. As he looked around, possibly searching for someone in the ranks who might have something, a feminine voice at the door called out in answer to her plea for help.
“I have potions, both for magic and for healing. Let me pass and I’ll help.”
Looking past the guards who blocked the door, Jay saw the most unusual sight of the night. Possibly of her life. And that was not a thought she entertained lightly, considering all she had come across since being reborn on Oros.
Just outside was a Lares. The Lares, was, in and of herself, not all that unusual. Like others of her kind that Jadis had met, she was a feline the size of a house cat whose fur was made of flames. This one was a little smaller than Vita, and had a pattern of bright orange and dark smokey stripes across her flames that made her look almost like a tiger. Her eyes were two different colors, one green and the other blue, and they shone like burning jewels.
The Lares wasn’t the weird part, though. The weird part was the cauldron that the fire cat was sitting on.
The black, cast-iron cauldron was set inside of a strange, four-legged construction made of gray stone that stood somewhere between four and five feet tall. The stone legs were blocky, but the feet were modeled after a beast’s paws and had actual claws at the tips. Around the rim of the cauldron were root-like limbs that looked like some mix between spider legs and a cat’s paw. All were long and thin and while most were tucked up tight against the sides of the cauldron like a crown of vines, a couple were stretched out and had potion bottles held in their claws. The cauldron itself had a purple liquid brewing inside of it, a constant flow of light steam rising from the bubbling concoction. The Lares was sitting on the back lip of the cauldron where a small perch had been made for a creature of her size.
Of course, the weirdest part of the whole thing was that the cauldron was moving.
“Well?” The Lares said again, her high-pitched voice carrying over the noise outside. “Will you let me help, or are you going to make me stand out here all night?"
“No, of course not,” Jay said as she motioned for the guards and Sorcha to make way for the cat and cauldron. “And you are?”
“Amarantha,” she replied as her strange cauldron casually strolled into the pastry shop. “A pleasure, I’m sure. No need to ask who you are. There can’t be too many marble giants running around in the capital.”
Amarantha. That was the name of the Mystic who served as one of the Hero’s companions. Vraekae had told her that she had a witch-like class of some kind, and that she was a young Lares who had unlocked her class while working with the Hero in the early days of the demonic invasion. The fact that she rode around on a walking cauldron had failed to come up in conversation.
“Everyone!” Amarantha called out in her almost squeaky voice. “Line up and take a drink of the potion I have brewing here! It will cleanse you of any minor negative effects and grant some regeneration!”
As she spoke, one of the arms of the cauldron pulled out a ladle and began passing out portions to the people who gathered close for some of the bubbling brew. A different arm reached around the back of the construct and took two bottles out from a pouch and held them out towards Jay.
“These should help your friend, Eir. Have her drink both right away and she should be able to continue for quite a long while yet.”
By the color of the liquid in the small bottles, Jadis could tell that at least one was the same kind of potion that Wilhelm had given to Aila to restore her magic reserves.
“Thank you,” Jay said as she took the two ampules from the cauldron. “These will save lives.”
“That’s the idea,” Amarantha replied with a catty smile.
At that moment, Kerr had arrived and was pushing her way past the protesting guards, the squirming Demon clutched in one of her hands.
“Here, Kerr, take these bottles to the back with that Demon,” Jay told the archer, who gave her a frustrated look.
“What am I, a courier?” Kerr groused as she violently shook the Demon to get it to keep still. “Where are you going?”
“I need to get back into the restaurant!” Jay shouted over her shoulder as she pushed out the door.
She really did need to get back as quickly as possible. Her other self, her companions, and the Hero had reached the kitchen, and it was a lot worse than she had thought it would be.
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