They took turns changing while the rest kept a watch. When it came to Eliza's turn, she quickly changed into her new clothes. They were made of rough, scratchy material and were a dull red, akin to the color of a brick.
The shirt was a type of robe that wrapped around the front and tied on each side. As for the pants, since a regular pair wouldn't fit over her new legs, Leah's solution was a large cloth wrapped around her waist in the form of a skirt, and the hem rested halfway up her shins. She wrapped one of the scarfs Leah had created around her neck so that she could pull it up to cover her face whenever she wanted. Finally, she put on the cloak and pulled her hair out, letting it rest over the hood before rejoining the others.
While another person went to change, Eliza stood guard with the others.
"Even with the Magic gained from Demitrus's contract, I still recommend eating to gain some more," Isradine said, materializing beside Eliza.
Eliza's face blanched, dreading the thought, "I'd rather not."
"What's the problem?" Isradine asked.
Seeing the look on Eliza's face, Demitrus spoke up, "I'm sure we can manage to get out of here with what we have." He was sitting on a boulder, experimenting with his new magic. Shadows interweaved through his fingers as he manipulated them into different forms.
"I don't get it but suit yourselves," Isradine grumbled.
It didn't take long for the rest of the group to change, and they immediately set off, leaving the clearing with dead bodies.
Not having to slow down for Demitrus and Eliza, the group made a good time and had a relatively uneventful journey. It didn't take long for Eliza to get used to walking, but she knew she needed to train to get used to fighting with her new legs. They had to course correct a couple of times, but the trees soon began to thin, and the red mist began to disperse. Eventually, they entirely left it behind and came to a river of clear flowing water.
Isradine breathed a sigh of relief, "This is the territorial marker separating the neutral zone from Steel Blood territory." a hint of anxiousness entered her voice, "Hurry, we need to cross the river before anything else happens."
"Afraid it's a bit too late for that, Isradine." A voice said from behind the group.
Immediately everyone spun around. Leah backed off to the back of the group, taking the baby Rakna with her while the rest took up positions with Eliza at the forefront. Isradine floated beside Eliza's head.
Eliza reached out to summon her Naginata, but Isradine stopped her.
"Wait on summoning your weapon Eliza. He'll underestimate you. Limit his movement and break for the river when I tell you guys too. He's too powerful for you to beat right now." Isradine whispered to the group.
A Demon walked out of the tree line. This was a new type that stood at about her height. It appeared similar to a Hobgoblin but had bright red veins running through its charcoal-black skin. Its blood-red eyes looked directly at Eliza, and he flashed her a smile full of pearly white fangs. In his clawed hand, he held a long, jagged, steel blade that similarly had red veins running down the length of it. The red mist seemed to follow the Demon, radiating out of him as he approached the group.
"...Who were you again?" Isradine asked.
The HobGoblin froze, a look of disbelief crossing his face, "What? Did you go senile while you were in prison? I've told you time and time again, and I'll only tell you once more, my name is Trelzahar." He growled, glaring pointedly at Isradine.
"Rather than going senile, I don't bother remembering insignificant no-names."
Trelzahar gnashed his teeth, "It seems fifty years wasn't enough to cure you of your ill-conceived tongue," he said, mockingly holding his arms out. "To think I would see the day that the candidate of the once great Shadow Weaver clan contracted with Humans and Elves of all species. How does it feel to stand on the same level as the rest of us?"
Isradine didn't respond, letting Trelzahar run his mouth.
Seeing that he wasn't getting a rise out of Isradine seemed to piss off Trelzahar even more, "Not even going to dignify me with a response?" He sneered, "Fine. The clan leader will have a field day when he learns that Abernach let you out of all the prisoner's escape. I'll start by dragging you and your new toys before him so that he can decide how to punish you."
"And you wonder why you're an idiot. Why reveal yourself and spout so much nonsense if you're just going to attack us alone?" Isradine asked with a sigh.
Trelzahar jabbed a finger at Isradine “See? You do remember me. How does it feel to be on the receiving end of one of the dramatic entrances that you're so fond of?" He said with a sneer.
Demitrus chuckled derisively, "You call that a dramatic entrance?" casually brandishing his dagger, "Clearly, you do not understand the point behind dramatic entrances."
Isradine sighed. "Right? He completely missed the mark. It seems like it's a lost art these days."
The veins of red across Trelzahars body flared with his rage, "Cease your contemptuous slander, for your remarks, I'll tear out your tongue and force you to eat it." He growled, glancing at Demitrus momentarily before returning to Eliza and Isradine and smirking. "But first, I'll take care of the human idiotic enough to stand at the front weaponless. Isradine couldn't have chosen a poorer vessel."
Eliza's eye twitched, and she reached internally for her Naginata, itching to wipe the smirk off his face. She lowered her stance as Trelzahar kicked the ground and charged straight for her at an incredible speed.
When he had almost fully closed the distance, he drew his sword back and thrust it straight toward Eliza.
Isradine yelled, "Strike now!"
Immediately Eliza stepped back and spun on her back foot, bending forward, and the thrusting blade passed harmlessly over her shoulders. Mid-spin, she summoned her Naginata and, utilizing her momentum, slashed the blade into Trelzahar's knee.
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At first, the Naginata easily cut through into the skin by about an inch, eliciting a howl of pain from Trelzahar, but almost immediately, the skin glowed red and hardened, forcing the blade to a stop.
"Run now!" Isradine yelled, and Eliza immediately unsummoned her Naginata and kicked the ground, jumping backward just in time, too, as Trelzahar slashed his blade down in retaliation, the edge covered in a shimmering veil of red magic. The magic leaped from the sword splitting the stone where Eliza had been standing.
Eliza landed a couple of feet out of range, and Trelzahar fell to one knee. The rest of the group started running, but Eliza held back, resummoning her Naginata and twirling it with one hand before stabbing the butt of the pole into the ground.
"Eliza, what are you doing? I said to run," Isradine whispered urgently.
Eliza ignored her and couldn't stop herself from flashing Trelzahar a grin showcasing her new fangs, "Of course, I wouldn't stand at the front if I didn't have a weapon. It seems that between us, you're the bigger idiot."
A gratifying feeling rose in her chest as Trelzahar let out a rage-filled howl. The veins around his body began to glow a brighter shade of red, and the mist around him became much, much denser.
"Eliza, RUN NOW!" Isradine yelled.
Eliza needed no further encouragement and immediately booked it for the river. It only took her a couple of steps to speed up, the new muscles in her legs propelling her until she ran far faster than she had ever run.
Up ahead, the group was crossing the river; the water was deep enough to come up Leo's upper thigh. He was holding the baby Rakna in one arm and Leah in the other, who in turn was holding onto Xalefore.
The hairs on Eliza's neck stood on end, and she felt a massive increase in the magic behind her. Before Isradine told her to, Eliza kicked the ground and jumped to the side.
Eliza landed awkwardly, almost losing her balance. Reflexively she stabbed her Naginata into the ground. The blade sunk into the softer dirt and combined with her new clawed feet digging into the ground. She quickly came to a quick stop. Just in time, a massive flash of red light crashed into the stone ground where she had stood. The light faded to reveal Trelzahar kneeling with his sword buried into the shattered stone ground.
His leg was still clearly wounded, so somehow, he had managed to jump that distance with that much force using only one of his legs. Growling, he slowly turned his head to look at Eliza.
Eliza needed no more encouragement to continue running toward the river. She heard, no, she could feel Trelzahar gathering energy for another attack, but it was too late. She pumped as much strength into her legs as possible and jumped.
Eliza felt an exhilarating weightlessness as, combined with her new speed and the force of her jump, she practically flew over the river. She cleared the river bank on the other side and came down on the soft dirt.
The feeling disappeared to be replaced by panic as she tried to stick the landing but found out that she did not, in fact, know how to land with her new legs yet.
She tried to dig the balls of her feet into the dirt but only succeeded in falling forward quicker. At the last moment, she tucked in her shoulder and rolled sideways. As a result, instead of landing facefirst into the dirt, she bounced across the ground and came to a rolling stop, ending up on her back next to the rest of the group that had gotten across the river a bit ago.
Heart pounding, gasping in lungfuls of air, Eliza was looking up at the sparkling crystal ceiling. And, surprising even to herself, she started laughing.
"Looks like she's finally lost it," Leo muttered, sitting on a rock while holding the baby Rakna.
"Lost it? Pama lost it?" The baby Rakna asked,
"Hush. You do not need to worry about it for now, child." Leo said, drawing a finger across the top of the Rakna's head, causing her to emit a small hum in pleasure as she leaned into the finger.
"Did I not tell you to run after you hurt him? Why in the world would you stick around to taunt him? Do you even know how close you were to death? Isradine asked incredulously.
Eliza let out another chuckle as she got to her feet. She fixed her clothes and ran her fingers through her hair several times to clean the dirt out of it, "Coming from one of the two who's always talking about dramatic entrances?" She finished cleaning out her hair and tossed it over her shoulder, "Evidently, we can't always be dramatically entering a place, so at least one of us needs to work on the dramatic exit."
Demitrus heartily chucked, "She's got a point."
Isradine let out a long-suffering sigh, "What did I ever do for my first two contacts to be you two? If things like this keep happening, I'll die from the stress before anything else."
"Oi, don't forget that you approached me first. Besides, from the sounds of it, you made plenty of daring escapades yourself a long time ago. Why all the stress now?" Eliza asked.
"Because back then, I was myself, and I was much more powerful than you are right now with plenty of reliable tricks I could use to get out of a situation. However, right now, you're weaker power-wise than many of the Demons down here, and, for now, everything depends on you, at the very least, staying alive. So please, limit the dramatic escapes. At least until we're more situated."
Demitrus gave her a toothy grin, "Can't promise that now can she? Demons keep to their word, right? What if we come to a situation that requires a dramatic escape in the near future? What would we do then?"
A smirk came to Eliza's face, "Yeah, what would we do then?" she asked, parroting Demitrus.
"Aren't you all forgetting something?" Telzahar called out from across the river, "Im not done with you yet!"
"You're still here?" Isradine called back, letting a hint of exasperation come to her voice, "Having crossed the river, These newest members of the Shadow Weaver clan have officially begun their first trip to Iyanu. As such, you can't do anything unless you break the pact of the neutral zone. Why don't you go back already and report to Mellifax about how you failed to stop me? I'm sure he'll love to hear that you failed again."
Telzahar growled and pointed his sword at Eliza, "Rejoice, for you have bought yourself another day to live, but you can't hide in there forever. I won't forget what you have done; someday, you will pay for your trickery." He threatened before spinning on a heel and storming back into the forest.
"Get in line!" Eliza yelled back, but he gave no indication that he had heard her.
Once he was gone, Eliza turned to Isradine, "So what would we do then?"
Isradine sighed, "Just drop it already, we should make it for Iyanu, and maybe we'll make it before Darkfall," she said, floating off in a direction, and the group got up to follow.
The group lapsed into silence for a moment before Eliza said, "You gotta admit that it was cool, though."
"That's irrelevant," Isradine grumbled, and the group fell silent.
"C'mon, you can give me more than that." Eliza pressed, a small smile coming to her face.
"I never took you as someone who fished for compliments, Eliza," Leo said, walking beside her. The baby Rakna had decided now was the best time to nap, nestled as she was in the bend of Leo's arm.
The growing smile on Eliza's face froze, and she slowly stopped," I'm not." she said. Why was she fishing for compliments? That wasn't like her. Furthermore, why had she ignored Isradine's command to run earlier? She may get sarcastic, but ignoring such direct instructions before, especially in a life-or-death situation, was disciplined out of her by her sensei a long time ago. Why was she suddenly acting differently?
Isradine sighed, "I heard about it, but I didn't think it would be this frustrating."
"What, what's going on now?" Eliza asked, her stomach curling in dread.
"After making a contract, the contractee's desires are amplified, sometimes even greater than a normal Demon, and depending on those desires, the contractee can be really annoying. Eventually, the amplification lessens, but their emotions and desires will always be harder to control than before the contract." Isradine said, floating over to Eliza and lightly bopping her on the head with a shadowy hand, "I'm already dreading what that one will get up to in a few days." She said, indicating Demitrus with a shadowy tendril.
"Is that so?" Demitrus said with a dangerous gleam in his eyes, "I look forward to seeing what I'll get up to."
Eliza recalled how she had acted when she had woken up, how she had no control over herself. And now this, her not even realizing that she was acting differently than usual. Her body may turn into that of a Demon, but would even she lose her heart? What of her training? Her ideals and values she had lived that father had taught her? Everything that made her different from others, everything that made her, her?
Her mind froze as fear blossomed in her chest. No, she couldn't allow that to happen. It was completely and utterly unacceptable. She tightened her fist and started walking in the direction Isradine had been leading them with a determined gleam in her eyes. She had all but given up her body to the power of Demons, but at the very least, she would preserve herself.
"Let's go," she said roughly, walking past the rest of the group.
"Are you okay?" Leah asked as Eliza passed by.
"I'm fine. We should get going." She said, giving Leah a reassuring smile before she turned to look at Isradine." Will we be able to get food in the city?" she asked, changing the subject.
"We'll be able to get some in the Shadow Clan's district," Isradine said.
"Let's hurry then. I'm getting pretty hungry." She said before immediately setting off in the supposed direction of Iyanu. No one stopped her, and the group fell into silence.
As they traveled, Eliza kept her focus on scanning the environment for any sign of Iyanu instead of focusing on what was happening to her.
The difference between the environment here and the Steel Bloods territory was significant. The landscape was comprised of rocky crags with small crystals embedded into them, and they were coated in luminescent fungi and moss that alternated between four colors.
The two most common colors were red and green, followed by light blue. The final color was black, intermixed with violet-colored moss. Wherever she saw it, the blackish-violet moss struggled against one of the other colors, most commonly red and green, and losing.
After going around a large hill, they came to a ravine that cut through the rocky cliff before them. Carefully the group made their way through the ravine, the rock walls around them growing taller and taller the deeper they descended into the canyon. Eventually, they came out on the other side, and the terrain opened up into a large clear cavern. And out in the distance, they saw what could only be Iyanu.