Darkness and Hellfire
Volume Five: The Greatest Adventure
To be capable of love is to be capable of hate. One cannot truly hate unless one once loved and had that love turned into suffering. Do not let your strong dislike and disgust be mistaken for hate. Doing that is a great disservice to those that truly know hatred.
- Lenna V’Nova
Interlude 9
In the sky, or where the sky would have been, above the underground city of Safeharbor there was a phenomena known as The Inverted Moon. There was a perfect ring of fire that burned upside down. It was large enough that anyone inside of the cavern could see it lording above Safeharbor. Inside of the circle of orange and red flames there was a burning crescent that was an exact match to the phase of the real moon.
The Inverted Moon was a marvel of magic and authority that few people actually understood. Even so, brave souls from across the ‘Civilized’ parts of Primatia made the trek to witness it purely for appreciation of the spectacle. Little did any of those travelers know that the spectacle of The Inverted Moon was about to be used as a backdrop for the owners of the domain in which it resided.
On silent wings, that did not beat but brought with them a wave of wind and magical pressure, divinity raced into the air between The Inverted Moon and the city it lorded over. A dragon made of bones blotted out The Inverted Moon with his monstrous wingspan for a moment before he looped upwards with a simple shift of the angles of his plate-like wings. He let gravity slow him until he was but a dozen feet below the fiery moon where he seemed to hang in the air. He tilted backwards and let gravity pull him towards what would have been the cobbled stone of the city square of Safeharbor. The city square in question had turned so solid and purely black that no reflections or features could be seen. The total blankness of the void made it hard to look at as one’s eyes would unconsciously slip off of it.
The dragon’s wings closed once he was pointed directly towards the most open part of the square. The area wasn’t large because it was mostly just the area behind the statues that overlooked the square but it would be large enough for him to stand. He was nearly at the height of the rooftops when his wings opened up to their full glory and almost all of his momentum was yanked away. A wave of wind and shunted away mana rocked the surrounding area before his massive claws reached out and sank into the blackness. He stood there bathing the area in his majesty for a long moment before it was time for him to return to his resting place.
The dragon shook slightly, almost like a dog but slower and with much, much, more power. He then almost lazily turned and took two steps while curling around himself and laying down. His tail passed over the heads of a dozen onlookers with inches to spare before its tip settled by his snout. He let out a huff, despite not having lungs, and black smoke rolled out and into a passerby who was gawking with his mouth agape. The dragon slowly sunk into the void blackness of the city square, over the course of a dozen seconds, before he fully vanished with the onlooker still coughing out black soot. Once he was gone, the field of shadows dispersed like whisps off a foggy lake.
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Elsewhere, the dragon’s riders were already sitting down for lunch with their children. The spectacle was merely the announcement of the couple’s return home.
—
“So, how was fighting a horror beyond my comprehension?” Amaranth Serentia V’Nova Wexler, Lady Sentinel and Grand Magus of Spellcraft, questioned with no small degree of sass.
“Not even a ‘welcome back’.” Her father, Isaac Wexler, The Demigod of Darkness, replied flatly. “Fine. It took ages to put down though.”
“Ah, the old ‘hit it until it stops getting back up’ plan.” Her brother, Claus Izen V’Nova Wexler, Lord Sentinel and Captain of the Safeharbor Guard, commented.
“That’s my favorite plan.” Her little sister, Celeste Aria V’Nova Wexler, the Heiress of Fire and future Lady Sentinel, added while nodding sagely. Amaranth had no idea when she had started emulating their brother but she hoped that Celeste would only pick up the better parts of his personality.
“That is your mother’s favorite plan as well.” Isaac replied with a grin.
The woman in question, Lenna V’Nova, The Demigoddess of Hellfire, smiled warily and rubbed her shoulder as if she was trying to loosen a tired muscle. “‘Hit it until it dies’ is what every monster hunt turns into. None of them go down easily anymore. No tricks work and there are no clean kills.” She explained. “But yes, I prefer the simple approach when possible.”
“So?” Amaranth questioned. “Are you going to regale us with the battle in question or simply continue to allude to it to make us suffer?”
“Perhaps one day,” Isaac began with a twinkle in his eye that everyone present knew meant that he was about to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult. “one day we might have caught up to this point in time and I will have you pen it.”
Amaranth scowled at him. “That is cruel.” She told him.
“Yes, let the contempt flow through you.” He prodded. “I am almost getting enough power from it to make another Walking Shadow.”
Amaranth’s eye twitched before she took a deep calming breath. “You truly are a nightmare, father.” She told him.
“Alright you two, enough.” Lenna scolded them and then turned to the maid that had just wheeled in a cart, loaded with freshly baked bread and slices of half a dozen different kinds of meat that were framed with leaf vegetables and coated in savory sauces. “Mary, thank you for the food, as always.”
The maid bowed before she began setting the table. “It is my pleasure, as always.” She told the demigoddess with a smirk and a wink. She met Isaac’s eyes a moment later and she returned his almost imperceptible nod with a deeper one of her own. Even if Isaac rarely, if ever, openly thanked the manor staff for the things that they were expected to do, they all knew that he appreciated them, if for no other reason than their considerable pay.
Hours later, the pair, who had been going back and forth at the lunch table, were once again seated in Amaranth’s office. “Are you ready to finally continue where we left off?” She asked him.
Isaac smirked. “So, after the wedding-” He began but cut himself off with a chuckle at the sudden spike in irritation he felt from his daughter. “Fine, fine. Final preparations started the day before the wedding. By then, Aira and Claus had arrived from Outpost Charles, after Alexander had called upon them with long range telepathy, and Aria was busy fussing over all of the things she was supposed to say.” He shook his head. “She didn’t even have the mindfulness to keep from bringing my anxiety up with hers.”