"Gather all of my painting supplies right. I want every possible color available," Morrigan commanded as soon as she exited the glittering cave. Everyone outside was startled at her sudden command, still unaware of the trouble going on inside.

"Morrigan, have you completed the ritual already? It couldn't have been that fast," Viana narrowed her eyes. "I know that the inside of it would make for a beautiful painting, but we cannot waste time on that. The ritual takes precedence and it won't take long for those with weak magical aptitude to start feeling overwhelmed by the magic."

"No, there…" Morrigan wanted to explain the situation but realized that all the guards and servants were listening as well. If she were to reveal that some weird, indestructible orb was placed inside the cave, it could cause panic. Or worse, the word could spread outside and throughout the Demon Kingdom. No, she could not allow that to happen.

"Azrael said that he needs some time to prepare the ritual properly, so I figured I might start on the painting while he does," Morrigan chuckled. The servants and guards visibly relaxed and began searching for her painting supplies. Viana, however, didn't buy it and arched her eyebrow suspiciously.

"I'll explain later. In a place where we can put on some privacy wards," Morrigan said to her. Viana's expression hardened as she realized that the matter must be quite serious.

"Alright. Do you… need help?" she asked, trying to keep her question vague.

"No? I'm not sure if I'm being honest. For now, I'll try to handle the matters myself. I think I know a solution," Morrigan explained, and Viana nodded in understanding. "Where's Deziara? And Haku? And Galandir?"

"Those three decided to take a stroll through the surrounding area. Saw a glowing lizard or something like that and decided to chase after it," the older princess said dismissively.

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"No, it should be fine. There's nothing living here that could outmatch Haku."

Morrigan nodded, although she wasn't completely convinced by that statement. This was the Underworld after all. You could never know what dangers lurk in the darkness. But for now, she had other matters to worry about. The servants had brought the easel, canvas and the paints which were neatly packed in a bag of her own creation. Her father hadn't been too happy about it since it had a more Earth-like design, but the materials could easily be attributed to the things accessible in the Underworld, so she got a pass. Barely.

With painting supplies secure, Morrigan went back inside the cave. She heard loud thumps and crashes coming from within it, as Azrael no doubt was trying to destroy the orb. But judging how his groans of frustration were growing increasingly louder, it wasn't going very well.

"Will. You. Break!" Azrael shouted, plunging the black orb into blue flames. He kept the flames going for a solid minute before releasing them, looking hopefully beyond the smoke cloud. Unfortunately, the orb still sat there. Completely unblemished. "Oh, come on! What is this thing made out of?"

"Let me try something," Morrigan spoke up, watching with concern how sweat was dripping down his chin. He must have exhausted a fair bit of his magic in an attempt to destroy it.

"I've already tried everything – breaking it, burning it, freezing it, turning it into goo, stabbing it, moving it. Heck, I even tried to cut it out from the cave wall around it, but these crystals have such a high concentration of magic within them that they are indestructible. The damned orb must be made out of something similar," Azrael muttered while he glared at the orb – as if that could just make it disappear.

"So it is basically protected against everything?" she asked.

"Yeah. The creator of this thing must have warded it against all possible physical and magical damage. Must have taken ages to create and tons of money as well. I remember the time I created that protection amulet for you. It only protected against physical harm and yet it took so much effort to create. Just imagining trying to cover every single type of magic and how long it would take makes me shudder," he said.

"So the creator of the orb would have to account for every single type of magic?"

"Yes. One by one. One would think that I'd know at least one spell this thing isn't warded against, but the creator must have been very thorough," Azrael pondered, then blinked as he finally noticed that Morrigan had hauled all of her painting supplies along with her. "That's it! Paint magic! This ability is completely unique to you. He couldn't have accounted for it."

"Yes, that's what I was thinking too. I'm not sure how to use it on already existing objects. I once tried to alter one of the bushes in the Demon Castle yard by trying to turn it into a rose bush from the Overworld."

"Did it work?"

"No. I ran out of magic. It drained far more energy than when I just tried to create things. But this orb is relatively small so maybe it could work," Morrigan looked at the orb with a worried expression.

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"Hm… it is likely that it used more magic because you weren't just creating a new thing. You were destroying the old thing before creating something new, so my guess is that it would require double the energy," Azrael scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Give it a try. There is lots of magic in the air here, even with that thing siphoning some of it away. And if you start running low I'll supply you with my own magic."

"But… there's another problem…" Morrigan said as she began setting up the easel.

"What?" the demon's eyebrows furrowed deeper. Such a serious expression really didn't suit Azrael at all.

"The cave itself… it'll be very difficult to capture and paint," she said nervously, looking at the crystal walls. It was unlike anything Morrigan had seen before. They produced light, but at the same time, you could see their structure. They were translucent but at the same time, each crystalline wall had a distinct color. It was very difficult to describe. And likely even harder to capture in a painting.

"Can you not do it?" Azrael asked.

"I probably can. But it'll take time and effort," she replied and laid down her paints on the cave floor, so she could clearly see them.

"Time is not on our side, Princess. At the latest we have to leave this place before tomorrow evening," he warned.

"I'll do my best then," she said resolutely and picked up her brush, ready to take on her biggest challenge as an artist yet.

There was a problem right away as she had a hard time choosing which color to choose as a base. Initially she felt like leaving it completely white and then add colors by moving from one crystalline structure to the next. But as she looked carefully at the cavern, she realized that she should leave the white color for the highlights.

Then she contemplated making the base light blue. However, the cave didn't have the cold feel that the blue color usually portrayed. Instead, it felt warm and welcoming, aside from the sinister black orb sucking the magic away. So then she thought of switching to light pink. But that color didn't feel right either.

There were certainly pinks among the crystal wall structures, but it wasn't the dominating color. In reality, there wasn't a single color that would dominate more than the other colors. So Morrigan thought of reaching for the neutral gray. However, the cavern was very bright, and shadows as such didn't exist within its walls.

"Princess, are you alright? You've been staring at that wall for about five minutes now," Azrael asked, looking rather concerned.

"I'm just trying to figure out which color to use as a base," she replied, still wondering which color to pick.

"Does it matter? Don't you normally paint over the base color?" he asked.

"Base color is the most important one, it's the one that defines the image at its core," Morrigan retorted, and Azrael raised his hands defensively.

"Alright, alright. Just pick it up faster. If it takes you so long to just pick the base color, then at this rate we'll be here for days," he said. Morrigan sighed, feeling the pressure of the situation. She needed to act fast, but at the same time, she needed to be precise if she wanted the magic to work.

Through the years she had already tested to what level of accuracy she needed to paint to get the desired result from her magic. As it turned out the paint magic required a rather high level of precision so anything more stylized ended up as just a two dimensional rendition of the thing that she drew rather than the actual thing.

After a few more minutes of contemplation Morrigan finally settled on a light purple color – something that was neither too cold, nor too warm. Also she had a feeling that purple was the representative color of magic. She didn't know why exactly, but it felt right.

With the base color set down, Morrigan began working on the cave walls. As it turned out, the job of painting it was even more difficult than she anticipated as crystals were not only of different colors but also had precise straight edges. She couldn't just draw the colors change willy-nilly. Instead, she had to carefully observe where and how each crystal met. How their color interacted with each other. For example, at the very entrance, there was a large blue crystal with a yellow one next to it.

However, at the place where these two crystals met, their colors jumbled together, creating a green tone. Or rather a slow green transition, making the task only more difficult. But Morrigan didn't feel dismayed. In fact, she felt excited. She wanted to see how each color interacted with the other. She saw some places where three colors met, creating something completely new and wondrous.

Another challenge was that the colors on the cave walls did not interact with each other like her paint would. While her blue and yellow would certainly create a green color, it would be a different tone of green, for every color in the cave was pure, unmuted and seemingly untouched by darkness. They were very bright. But at the same time they weren't obnoxious.

At some point, Azrael spoke to her, saying something in a vaguely worried tone. But Morrigan paid him no mind. She was in the zone. She took one color after the next and painted. She mixed colors and then carefully compared them to crystals to make sure that the one she created was the same.

"Morrigan!" Azrael called, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Huh?" she blinked her eyes slowly, only now realizing how dry and tired they felt. Hunger and thirst began gnawing at her as did her other, forgotten bodily function.

"You've been here for five hours. I think it's time for a break," Azrael said. She slowly put the paintbrush down and then looked at her painting as a whole. It was barely halfway complete.

"I can still keep going. Just need a short five minute break," she said and ran outside the cave, feeling nature call to her more incessantly. Azrael called something after her but she was already gone.

After taking her of her needs and dodging curious questions from the servants and Viana, Morrigan went back into the cave.

"Princess, it'll be nightfall soon. You'll need to rest," he said sternly.

"Yeah, of course," she said dismissively and picked up the brush again. There was no time for rest. It was time to paint.

For a while, the demon left her alone, allowing her to continue her process. However, after another three hours, he flung her over his shoulder and dragged her out of the cave by force. Morrigan initially protested his brutish behavior, but before they could even fully leave the cave, she already felt herself dozing off, her tired body screaming for rest. Before long, she was cradled up in her sleeping bag with her guards diligently watching over her.

What the poor Azrael didn't notice was Morrigan getting up merely four hours later and going back inside the cave. Nobody would be able to stop her from finishing this painting anymore.