Gwin stared at the piece of cake in front of her. She would have enjoyed it if she was in any other place but here. Her instincts were screaming at the absence of mana — and she was holding back the urge to run.

The Scourge’s dining room was no place for a mage. The wards in place would make an archwizard powerless — let alone someone like herself.

If it were any other person, she would have expected a trap — but this was the Scourge. He was eccentric and frustrating, but he was never malevolent.

Well, there was that incident in the cave where he made them feel like guinea pigs being fed to spiders — but that was more like pushing them to their limits rather than leading them to their doom.

Of course, what he intended for that cave was a different matter. If she had to guess, it was probably some sort of artificial dungeon for the farmhands and the other kids in the barn.

Some would consider that evil — and some would say it was just training for the harsh reality of the world. Gwin chose not to judge the wizard.

It didn’t take long for the Scourge to appear. He looked disheveled, even with his cowl pulled up. After his trip to bountiful, it seemed like the wizard opted to keep his cowl up all the time.

Was he hiding a horrible scar from the battles? Was the cowl somehow enchanted? Gwin focused on the wizard — noting the minute traces of psychic energy emanating from his cowl. She was right — the cowl was newly enchanted.

Instead of heading to the head of the table, the Scourge just sat on the nearest available chair — placing himself beside Siege and across from her.

“Now that you’re all here, we can start with the meeting.”

The Scourge seemed enthusiastic — seeming to gain energy as he started talking.

“I wanted to learn more about elven history, and Sebas also wanted me to inform a few trusted allies about the coming attack.”

“What attack?” Dallarath asked. “Cultists again?”

“Maybe, I’m not really sure,” Jeremy answered. “I just got summoned by a wizard and he relayed the plan to attack the duke’s estate.”

“Wait,” Gwin gasped. “You were summoned by a wizard? Was he a high-ranking one — and why would the duke be attacked?”

Her question was met by a confused look from the wizard.

“I’m not sure if he was high ranking,” he started to explain. “He was a shadowy type — like those demon-summoning kind of wizard.”

“So a wizard who holds rank on you, summoned you to tell you that he was going to attack the duke?” Dal raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t make sense!”

The Scourge frowned. He wasn’t hiding his disdain for Dal and his questions.

“When I said summoned,” he exhaled as if calming himself. “I meant the circle of summoning kind. The kind used to summon demons.”

“That’s even more absurd!” Dal answered back, his voice getting louder. “How could you get drawn by a summoning? Do you have demon blood? Is that even possible?”

“Well I was wearing my full raiment at that time,” Jeremy explained. “I had my staff, my robes, and I was wearing this.”

Gwin watched as Jeremy fumbled to pull down an ivory mask from within his cowl. It was a strange-looking skull mask.

She could feel the air thicken with malevolence. It felt like a predator was eyeing her, waiting to flay her skin and eat her alive.

The feeling passed after a few seconds — dwindling down to the level of someone threatening her with a knife.

She remembered a similar feeling the time the Scourge raged at the kobolds when he thought the hydra was dead. This time, that feeling was magnified twofold.

“So this wizard, Clarence — he wanted to summon demons and such,” the Scourge started his tale. “He ended up summoning death. Isn’t that funny?”

“So he summoned you and you appeared there?” asked Aven’R. “Why didn’t you just take him out?”

“What’s the fun in that?” Jeremy answered. “He also offered me five hundred souls as a price for cutting short the duke’s life.”

“And you accepted?” Dal roared in outrage.

“Of course,” the Scourge dismissed his outrage. “By now, Sebas should have succeeded in ending the duke’s life a bit earlier.”

“You sent the butler to kill the duke!” Dal was on the verge of pulling his sword.

“No, I sent Sebas to bring him a cake.”

“Poisoned cake?”

“Strawberry and cheese. Sebas makes such succulent ones.”

“Will the duke die?”

“Yes,” the Scourge answered with a straight face. “Same as all of you.”

Gwin couldn’t believe her ears. She searched for a way to exit the small cabin, knowing that the doors were probably barred. She watched Dal draw his sword, preparing to battle the wizard. Aven’R also drew her daggers.

Oddly, Rem was calm and Siege was laughing.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“He didn’t say today,” Rem spoke, not caring to explain any further.

“Yes, not today,” the Scourge gleefully continued, as if unbothered by the more hasty reactions. “That cake is full of sugar — and Sebas said that eating too much sugar will eventually kill you, or make you horribly fat.”

Gwin stared at Dal. He was calmer. Still irritated — but at least he wasn’t planning a last stand. Aven’R was more embarrassed than outraged.

She couldn’t calm down. The Scourge was summoned! If what the Scourge said was true, then the mask he was wearing was an artifact of incredible power or they were in a room conversing with an entity that was beyond their understanding.

“Anyway, Clarence is planning to send demons to the duke’s estate so I can come in and deal with the duke — which I already did.”

The Scourge seemed proud at his little achievement. Gwin know that when dealing with demons and otherwordly entities, precise wording was essential. It seems like the wizard was bound by the same rules — or at least chase to follow them.

“The attack will happen on the third of Widow’s month, which is just a few days from now. It would be good to have your party at the estate when the time comes.”

“Shouldn’t the guild or the church handle this?” Aven’R spoke out. “Wouldn’t they be better equipped and prepared to deal with demons?”

The Scourge frowned and sighed. “Clarence might get spooked if the church or the guild started fortifying the estate before the attack. “We also don’t know the wizard’s connections — and any leaks would threaten the lives of his five hundred hostages.”

“So it’s up to us?” Rem asked. “Just us?”

The wizard smiled at the healer. “Yes.”

“Can we even handle them?” Rem continued to protest. “None of us have experience fighting demons!”

“Ehem,” Siege coughed. “That might not be entirely accurate.”

Gwin stared at the dwarf. He looked proud, but there were traces of fear and trauma in his eyes.

“If experience is all that’s needed, I can easily provide that,” The Scourge beamed. “We’ll have individual trips and then a group outing to test your cohesion. It’ll be fun.”

“I can skip this one, right?” Siege almost pleaded.

“You need a refresher, dwarf,” the Scourge berated him. “I also need someone to keep them alive while I take notes.”

The look on Siege’s face gave Gwin an idea of how the training would go. The dwarf was close to fearless, but now he was almost shaking in horror. No, it was something else. Was it anger? Frustration? They would soon find out.

“Now that the whole demon attack is settled, we can move on to more important matters.” The Scourge took out a piece of paper and started to sketch. “This here is Cloudy. An acquaintance of mine wants to reunite with him — and I would like to make it happen.”

Rem took the paper. She seemed to grow tense as she studied the drawing. Almost a minute passed before she passed the drawing to Siege.

Gwin snatched it from the dwarf, curious to see what bothered her sister. “This is—“

“It’s Gavroth the Devourer.” Rem finished her words. “You know where the creature is?”

“Yes.” the Scourge answered blandly. “My problem is getting the creature from one place to another.”

Gwin held back her shock. The wizard was casually talking about moving a creature that once threatened her entire race. It took the sacrifice of an entire city to banish it from the world, and now the Scourge was talking about moving it as if it was a pet.

“This acquaintance of yours,” she started. “It wouldn’t be a demon lord?”

She phrased her question carefully knowing that wizards rarely lied.

“Some people might call him that,” he started. “To me, he’s just a pesky nuisance.”

Gwin wanted to reply but couldn’t. It wasn’t that the Scourge was associating with demons — a demon lord, for that matter — it was that he merely considered it a nuisance.

“You can’t do this,” Rem pleaded. “It took the lives of every elf in one of our largest cities to banish the Devourer.”

“So it was lives and not mana.” The wizard took out a notebook and started to make notes. “Elves live pretty long, so was it a sacrifice of lifespan or just the usual life force?”

“Stop it!” Rem pleaded. “Leave the Devourer where it is, lest you unleash it on the world.”

The Scourge seemed unconcerned at the plea. “I won’t be unleashing it on the world — I’m sending it to hell. And Cloudy isn’t that big a deal. We can even visit him once all of you have had your turns fighting demons.”

***

Jeremy was excited. The talk with the elves was productive. They were a bit hesitant to share what they knew — but he got valuable snippets of knowledge from their words.

At first, he thought banishing Cloudy required the mana of an entire city. That was not the case. The spell somehow required the lives of all of its residents to make the spell work.

Now that he knew the effect of the spell as well as its prerequisite conditions, it wasn’t difficult to formulate his own hypothesis on how it worked.

Elves didn’t have an afterlife. Their souls returned to the river upon their death to be reborn as new elves. Sacrificing that many lives to open a gate to hell didn’t make sense — not on its own.

The elven sorcerers somehow managed to create a bond with Cloudy and the city’s residents — or their souls. The simultaneous deaths of tens of thousands of souls would have opened up a giant rift — large enough for Cloudy. He was missing a few details, but that was the gist.

A gate to hell opened with the rift. Jeremy was sure of it because Cloudy didn’t look like it reincarnated. It was sucked into the gate as the elven souls were crossing to the river.

There were three bonds of resonance. One for the two gates, another that bound the elven souls to Cloudy, and a third that bound the act of crossing over to one gate to crossing over into the other.

It was more like a ritual than a spell — and he couldn’t perform it where Cloudy was presently situated.

The sacrifice of that many lives also bothered him. It sure wasn’t a soul for soul basis since Cloudy shouldn’t have that too strong a soul. It could be that Cloudy was not a single entity. If it was a horde of flying snakes trapped in some kind of cloud, then the number of snakes could necessitate the number of sacrifices.

Jeremy pondered at the elven city and its mages. The loss of that city was the turning point that led to the domination of humanity. The elves sacrificed a lot to keep the world safe.

He went through numerous calculations in his head, searching for a solution that replicated the elements and results.

None of them made sense.

He ran the calculations again — this time only replicating the results and disregarding the elements.

The wizard frowned. He needed less than half the city to banish Cloudy — not everyone needed to die.

He closed his eyes once more, trying to figure out a simpler solution. Sacrificing people to open a portal was just too inefficient — he could probably manage the whole thing with just a single sacrifice.

Jeremy smiled.

When the time came, he could always sacrifice himself.