One moment, Derek was watching from the ground, as the devil assessed the situation from atop the pile of corpses. He was ready for more ice-demons to try slipping through, and was assessing the state of himself, his body, his magic... and the magic around him. He could sense something out there; something big, and dangerous, even moreso than the devil... but he couldn't see it, yet. When the devil shouted at him to jump back through, he turned to the portal... hesitated when he looked at the giant fire immediately on the other side... and that was it.

One moment, he was well on the way to recovery. Healthy. His body forming up nicely. The next... he felt his blood run cold. His sweat turn to ice. His vision blurred, his feet, buried in mud.. were frozen in place as the mud converted into frozen dirt... he felt... awful. He was reasonably sure if he hadn't been altered, that would have killed him; the way he felt, the temperature... humans weren't made to have blood this cold. The devil came running up behind him, grabbed him; yanking him free of the frozen mud... and leapt through the portal, aiming at the ground outside the fire; chanting something out, loudly, even as he came through.

Derek felt himself thrown through the air... as the devil carrying him was abruptly stopped in mid-throw, as if he bounced off of something invisible... and fell right back through the portal... which abruptly snapped shut, leaving the devil on the other side.

He fell to the dirt just outside the fire; thankful for its warmth, not even knowing about Praxius being launched back through... just groaning in pain. Kylie stepped up close, staring at the fire, mouth open... while Terra shouted, reaching out for a space that was no longer there.. "Grampa!"

The group all just stared at the fire for a moment, shocked... Kylie recovering first, kneeling down beside Derek; placing a hand on his shoulder, which felt cold as ice, and starting to channel a healing spell... filling him with a comforting warmth.

His body seemed settled. He was... fine. He fell asleep face-down in the dirt beside the fire, completely out of it.... dreaming strange dreams. Dreams of storms, of deserts... and of sleeping atop piles of gold in the darkness.

***

Terra stared into the fire as the priestess knelt by her sleeping boyfriend. He... was a sadistic asshole. The absolute happiest she'd seen him during the time she'd known him was during these past few hours, as he was just viciously murdering those demons. He had no compunctions about torture, and had been ready to abandon hundreds of people to just terrible fates. And yet....

He cared about her. And didn't just say it... he taught her. Did things for her. Was there, as much as he could be. She hadn't known him for long... but he was everything her mother had told her about, and more. And now.... he was trapped in the pit? Or could he still get back to Hell? Was there a way for him to get back? She stifled her tears before they could start. She still needed to get back home. And... she was a lady now? This...

The priestess coughed. Terra glanced at her. "I promise I will do everything I can to get you back home safely, even if it risks my life. This... it was Derek's fault, for his experiment, yes. But it was mine, after that. I... couldn't give him up. And now... well. I saw what was over there. I felt it. Whatever it was... I don't think even he could handle it. He... made an agreement. A pact. And... he was willing to die for it. He... may have just done that. So... whatever it takes to make it up to you. Whatever you want. If I need to swear fealty, now that you're.."

Terra sighed, and put a hand on Kylie's shoulder. "No... no. He'd tell me I was an idiot for not taking you up on that, but no. We're friends. I was willing to risk my life for him, too; we've saved so many lives together, and.... after we get home, and I get my mom to take over this whole Ladyship business... I'd like to keep adventuring, the way we planned. Hopefully Derek has learned to be a little more... cautious... in his experiments."

Kylie nodded, firmly. "We can let these rangers start getting things setup there for when the others show up from Rockdale, see if we can recruit someone like we wanted... and move on."

One of the massive blond twins stepped forward... the spellcaster. Marie. No scar on the face. "My lady. Why recruit? We'll gladly go with you. We're sworn to your service, after all."

"...Aren't you supposed to be, like... among the ten I'll have to keep ready if the King calls everyone to service?"

She chuckled. "Well, sure. But we don't have to stay home to be ready, just near your territory. We aren't supposed to just stay at home, on guard. Lord Rockson kept thirty... ten knights, twenty rangers... and while the knights usually just guarded the keep and the town, the rangers would always be out on patrol once they were fully trained. Usually not heading to other villages, but just making sure nothing happened in the woods near town they didn't know about. We were from all sorts of villages, there training at the academy in Rockdale."

"Oof. Really could've used all of them at Valdale, and then for the final set of events there in Rockdale. Well. We'll see. I'm going to be putting my mother in charge.. 'Lady Xius' now, I guess... and she can decide." Terra looked back at the fire, as if hoping the portal would somehow re-open. But... it didn't work that way. Someone who knew how would need to call him back. If he was alive.

Stolen story; please report.

***

Standing in the circle of once-burning wood, looking at the patch of ice where the portal had once been, Praxius considered his options. He could go back to hell, right now. That was always an option, though he'd need to make a proper accounting of himself to his superiors. Showing up as he was now, a bit stronger than he had been before, and completely covered in the blood and gore of ice-demons, they'd probably not bother asking many questions, aside from 'why didn't you invite us along'. He could simply say he'd felt like butchering some Ice Demons, and used an incursion portal to lure some to a killing ground... and that would be fine. He could go back to his home, torture some of the souls he'd enslaved over the centuries, or even just go back to one of the more organized conflicts; they could always use another hand.

On the other hand, if he showed up with the skull of a Frost Prince in hand.... he stretched a bit. He could hear the heavy footsteps of the prince approaching, feel the overwhelming power of the behemoth. He smiled, as he reached into a pouch; pulling out a bottle of a thick, oily liquid; and carefully broke the seal before he started pouring it onto the flails as the footsteps drew closer.

He had chains scattered through the snow and the corpses. He could use that. Run some chains through and around corpses and either make the giant think they were zombies, or just use them as projectiles; extremely flammable projectiles. He could light his flails on fire, that'd give him another advantage. The idiot had opened up with an ice blast; so either it didn't know he was a Kyton, which would be foolishness, or didn't know chain devils didn't care about cold in the slightest, which was ignorance. He might even think he was dead... or frozen.

He splattered some of the oil onto the nearby corpses; and tossed the bottle onto the barricade, shattering it. As the oil started to dry, the flails lit up; vivid blue-white flames emerging from the spiked balls... and the corpses it had touched started to light up as well shortly after.

The giant had clearly noticed. He'd stopped advancing... and another burst of that white energy enveloped the barricade; snuffing out most of the fires immediately, sending a comforting chill through Praxius's flesh... but the flails, and the corpses the oil had touched, simply re-ignited moments later.

He grumbled to himself for a moment as he wove a set of chains around his body; three or more was ideal for this sort of work, but he always preferred just walking; and lifted himself into the air as if he were hovering, smiling at the frost giant, a flail dangling on either side illuminating the area.

The giant studied him for a moment. He seemed confused. He must have finally realized what Praxius was; may have been wondering just what a chain devil was doing in the pit.

His time for wondering vanished moments later; as a large chunks of burning ice-demon flesh hurled at him from two directions... and a laughing devil leapt forward at a creature substantially stronger than himself, swinging both flails in a downward arc; enjoying the satisfying crunch of broken bone and mangled flesh as he struck the arm lifted up to block the attack, the blood splatter causing the flames to sputter but not die.

It might not be the same as rocking his grandchildren, but no joy could match this, the feeling of facing down a titan of chaos... a titan that would either kill him, or be begging for mercy before it died. Only one way to find out.

***

When Derek awoke in the morning, he felt... amazing. He was simply laying on a bedroll, next to the fire, and everything smelled like blood and ash... but he felt... as if he could just... fly. He gave a low stretch, looking around... seeing one of the ranger women leaning against a tree, keeping watch, with Parkins, Terra, and the other ranger all laying asleep in a circle around the fire. Kylie was nowhere to be seen... he pulled to his feet, looking around... and sensed her, in the carriage.

He didn't sense the devil anywhere. His memories of the night before were a confused jumble. Did he go somewhere cold? Was there a portal, somehow? The fire wasn't just a fire... it was a funeral pyre for some sort of giant blue insects, at least four of them.. and some spiders. There was also a few feet of what looked like a spiked wooden fence... which also felt familiar.

He shook his head. He could ask the others once they awoke. He needed to focus. Assess himself. At the academy they'd taught a whole course in assessing yourself and others, figuring out relative strengths, and assigning values; that this was something done for and by the entire army of the Empire, allowing them to better understand their capabilities.

He felt like he was..... level seven? That was... amazing! He'd jumped three levels in one evening! That was practically unheard of, if he brought this elixir to the academy and showed them his results, they'd likely jump to fund his research! But...

He couldn't use fourth-circle spells. A wizard was supposed to be able to use fourth-circle spells at this level, and if he tried to take his summoning spell and amplify it... the best he could do was still only second circle. Except....

He frowned. He felt as if there was almost a third-circle spell he could use. But when he tried adding any threads to it that weren't connecting to lightning, it broke apart. If he toyed around with it, maybe, he could make one of his other spells work, if he used it for something mostly lightning-related. He'd need to try. This....

Had he crippled himself with this? Every level was harder to get than the one before. Was he going to need vastly more power to use spells, and even more to use ones that weren't lightning? He focused inward once more. His body had always been, maybe, above-average at best. Now... the muscles were.... different. The skin, different. Not just the patches of blue scales that were now all over his flesh. This.... this sort of strength was something a human should have to train for years to achieve. If he was scaling it properly, he might be able to pick up a horse.

So. He was tougher. Stronger. Now that he thought about it, he was actually thinking more clearly. He was a little bit better in every way... but especially strength and durability. He'd half hoped he'd grow wings, but that hadn't happened. Was he as much better as he should be, for someone this much stronger? He wasn't sure.

He could keep going like this. Taking samples of exotic creatures and using them to augment himself. He'd likely end up very... different... from a normal wizard. He could probably use that lightning-based third circle spell for illusion, or light-based magics; blue dragons were supposed to be good at illusions, and if he could somehow get a sample of a beholder, it'd likely open all sorts of possibilities. First though, he'd need to figure out what all happened the night before, and what he'd need to do to replicate the process.

Hopefully nothing too difficult.