What felt like hours later, we were moving through the narrow caverns towards a cacophony of insanely loud screaming and howling. In the distance, a dull red light indicated the end of the tiny cavern system. Lark swam ahead of us, and I could almost sense how content he was with the situation.
I couldn't blame him. His intel on the location of the first Lieutenant had proven exactly right. The thing was, he didn't want to tell me where he had gotten the intel, which was bothering me immensely.
Between Lark knowing exactly where the hidden cave system was and the tiny demon that had led us through the maze, everything was way too easy, and the fact that we weren't chased by anything almost seemed like nobody cared.
Something is wrong here, I mentally told Casiron, wondering if he was going to reply. I just don't know what. I added.
The Dracoserp remained quiet for over a minute, almost like he was busy with something which took all his attention, and I was about to ask again when he finally responded.
Yes, Casiron said, sounding distracted.
I sighed in annoyance. That was even shorter than the last time we spoke outside of the battle.
I was about to message Eliandra that we had finished the first Lieutenant when Casiron continued, drawing my instant, full attention.
My apologies, Est. It took me a long time to figure out what was going on, but I just saw the last thing I needed, Casiron said. His voice was soft and worried.
Let me guess. Does it have something to do with that orange stuff? I asked, pretty sure I knew the answer to it already.
That was Dracoserp Essence, Casiron said. The core of what made my species unique and one of the few things that remained uncorrupted by the Guidar.
As I wondered what he meant by that, I noticed something else. I would have expected Casiron to be way happier about finding something that dealt with his people, but instead, he projected a sense of distrust and even disgust.
Alright, I said curiously. And this is bad, why?
Seconds ticked by, and I almost feared he had drifted back into his own memories when Casiron sighed.
I wish I could say you were wrong, but yes... it's bad. This Essence is that of those that used the Ulixer'sin to attempt to survive. Worse, it is even more corrupted, as it partially mingled with the blood of demons.
As he spoke, I felt his poorly hidden sense of uncertainty, as if he doubted his own words.
I had guessed something when we first met Lark, as his new body has the traits and signs, just incredibly diluted. Still, I wrote it off. I knew the final living remnants of my species had found their demise below these filthy waters but now. If Lark gains enough essence, he might turn into something very closely resembling a Dracoserp, but one governed by the mind of a Demon.
Casiron fell quiet, staring at Lark swimming ahead of us for a long minute before he continued. With so few Deities and an incoming incursion from Leralion, I'm afraid large parts of Kernstalion would be overrun if Lark changes, as he would be able to take full control over the demon horde.
I felt my mouth turn dry, an odd sensation when it's full of murky water. Lark seemed happy and carefree, not at all like a potential planetary scourge.
Does he even know what he is doing? I finally asked.
No, Casiron said. Lark is like a child, trying to survive in these Trenches amidst other children. From what I can tell, no Demon we met is older than ten. Almost as if they are actively being culled before they can grow. However, Lark will likely learn what he is doing if he absorbs one or two more like Yox'plir. Dracoserps have hereditary memories, which guide our young to become strong and independent.
I didn't reply as I wondered what we were to do now. I needed the information that Lark had, and he was clear that he wouldn't share it unless I helped him. However, if that turned him into another monstrous thing, what use would that be?
Rathica should be able to hold him at bay if she has a Pantheon, I thought to myself.
So, what do you think we should do now? I finally asked, curious to see what Casiron thought. He probably hadn't told me this if he didn't have more to say.
I don't know, Casiron said, sounding exasperated. I've been breaking my mind over it for the last few hours. If I thought there was any way for him to become a non-corrupted Dracoserp, I'd want to help him, but….
I could sense the trepidation and loathing from Casiron as his voice petered off.
Is there no way to prevent him from turning into a Dracoserp? I asked.
None. The Essence of my people is powerful, and it will assert itself, corrupted or not. You saw what I did. He already knew the Essence was there, was hunting it. He has had a taste before and won't stop until he gets more.
My gaze drifted to Casiron when an idea formed in my mind.
What about you? Can't you absorb the Essence? I asked, staring at Casiron's wooden shell. It wasn't alive. Wouldn't that prevent the Demonic spread?
Casiron was quiet, but I could almost sense the shock emanating through my connection with him.
I don't know what the result would be, he finally said, his voice laced with desire. But we can try!
As I listened to him, something tugged at me. Something that seemed odd. For a moment, I thought I had it. Then it drifted away again. I tried recalling it, but there was nothing, almost like an idea had appeared, and drifted off. After a few seconds, another problem occurred to me.
That still leaves us with the following problem; how will we make sure Lark won't snatch the next one before you can reach it? I asked.
The conflicting feelings from Casiron abated, and for the next few hours, we tried to come up with a way that would be bulletproof. Sadly, we couldn't think of one. We resorted to having Casiron remain beside the next Lieutenant and grabbing the Essence before Lark could. Casiron said he was sure he was fast enough. The trouble then would be, how would Lark react?
--
"Rot Bane, we are two daysss from one of Puil Da's campsss!" Lark hissed.
"Let'sss bring this thing over there as proof!" he said, shaking the heart he was still holding in his maw. It had long since stopped bleeding, now no more than a black hunk of flesh.
I blinked, shaken out of my own thoughts and ponderings. We traveled for almost a day, and I didn't understand where this suddenly came from. Our initial plan had been to go to both lieutenants, after which Lark would share what he knew and head back while Casiron and I could use the information. We hadn't spoken about anything like this, and heading towards the base of another powerful demon didn't seem like a great idea.
"I don't think that's smart," I said. "Who knows how the demons there will react to my presence? They might just steal the heart!"
The orange swirls were bright and obvious in Lark's dull red eyes as he stared at me.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"There isss nothing to fear! None would dare harm you with my current strength or even contemplate stealing from me!"
"How can you be so sure?" I said, not in the least bit relieved or interested in going to a camp with unknown demons. Casiron suddenly interjected in my mind.
Perhaps we can find someone else who can tell us what is going on! That will make it, so we don't have to rely solely on Lark!
"Becaussse I know the ssstrongest one there," Lark said before I could think about Casiron's interjection. "He is a Fousir who drifted here from a place he called the Howling Foressst! His kind is weak!"
My hair stood on end as I heard the familiar name. What did a demon from the Howling Forest do all the way here? No, since when were there even demons there?
"How close to the main conflict is it?" I finally asked.
"Far enough to be sssafe! There isss a minor hatchery there, nothing like the true one near the Yellow Plume fieldsss. There won't be any ssstrong demons!"
Do you know what that means, I asked Casiron, only to get a mental shrug.
I think we should go, the Dracoserp said. We will be here for a long while either way, and it would only be two days. Besides, without our help, Lark wouldn't be able to kill the other Lieutenants.
It was the last thing he said, which meant I wouldn't have to worry about Lark turning into some powerful demon which was the deciding point. It meant I wouldn't have to worry about killing Lark. Yet.
"Alright," I said, slightly uncertain. "But let's not stay. Drop the heart, and head to the next target."
"Yesss, ofcoursssee," Lark said, hissing softly.
Ten minutes later, we changed course, Casiron leading us into a narrow cavern, the ceiling no more than a dull red glow, with purple growths all across the right side.
"Ssstay far from the yellow podsss," Lark said.
I looked around until I saw what he meant: venus-flytrap-like disks hidden below the gently flowing purple plants. As we passed them, one began hanging our way, gently swaying but still twenty feet away.
What the hell are you going to do? I thought, just as a six-foot-wide, ten-foot-heigh maw shot forward, aimed at Lark. It moved like a green blur, but before my warning came out, Lark's tail swatted the plant away, then he continued as if nothing happened, the maw stunned behind him, connected to long thin brown tendons. It wasn't moving, but serrated teeth lined both flat mouths as it lolled on the always present current.
Stay away from those, I told myself.
I was about to command my Armedsharks closer to the other wall when one swam past a Demonflytrap, which didn't react at all. Curious, I had one of them move even closer, eventually prodding the thing which simply remained unmoving.
Perhaps they can detect life? I thought curiously. It seemed plausible, though I wasn't willing to risk my own safety to try it. Still, it made things easier as I ordered the shark to swim between me and the dangerous wall.
Four hours later, I was hanging on, drowsy and staring at the neverending V-shape that vanished into the distance. Lark had said we would need almost a day to move through, which was longer than I liked. It was a roundabout way, but it was the safe path. If we took the faster one, we would be a day quicker but have to navigate through the skeletal remains of a titanic demon, which was home to a brood of Xandi leeches. Lark had been clear. None of us would come through alive if we tried.
I wonder what Libidi is doing, I thought as I pulled up my messages, ready to chat with Eliandra.
--
Grem hovered behind the cliff of puckered stone, staring at the skulls below. There was a tiny teal light, one of the two.
Why did they have to split up, he thought. Now he had no idea which of the two was Est and which was Libidi.
"Yes, yes," he hissed at the annoying voice in his mind. "I'll go and see now! This is the nearest one and the one furthest from the dangerous parts. I think this will be Libidi, but I might be wrong."
He shot forward, his smooth green and gray body effortlessly withstanding the insane pressure of the depths, something he'd worried about before. The teal glow, a tiny flame only he could see and marking the tiny tracker he'd planted on the two, remained inside the skull, unmoving.
Perhaps one of them died? he thought, praying it wasn't Est. He needed the Prime, even if only for his ability to summon Casiron.
The brittle white skull had a crack to the side and a set of eyes as large as doors. Grem hovered before one, the inside clear to his enhanced vision. There was no movement, but a few demon corals had grown inside, and the glow was below one. He grunted and swam forward, keeping a lookout and ignoring the insistent voice in his head pressuring him to hurry.
He held onto the edge, his claws slicing into the bone. A tiny glyph, teal and arcane, hovered in the water.
Grem blinked in surprise when something struck his back, propelling him against the floor. Before he could even struggle, a thin sharp blade pressed against his neck, just below the jawline.
"Wait, wait, it's me! Grem!" Grem hissed as he felt the blade slice down through his supposedly impenetrable scales. Half an inch deep, the blade froze as hot pain flared up.
"Your voice is familiar, but you look like a demon and smell different," a cold voice whispered beside his head.
"Yes, yes, it's just a body morphing spell! Nothing special," Grem hissed. "It's me, Grem. Remember? I'm the one with the-"
"I remember you," the cold voice hissed. "Why did you put a tracking spell on me?"
"In case I needed to find you and Est," Grem said, wishing the cold-eyed woman would take away the blade.
He had seen her with a dagger before, a remarkably well-crafted piece of work, but he had never thought it would be able to pierce his Credion scaled skin. He might have asked to inspect it if she hadn't been using it to slice towards his arteries. It had to be some form of masterwork item, and he wondered where she had gotten it. With how skilled Est was, it was possible that he was the crafter. A part of Grem's mind compartmentalized away and began rapidly thinking about things to ask the other if that proved true. As that happened, the central part of his mind remained ready to act if he had to.
"And why are you here now?" Libidi asked, her voice still as emotionless as before.
"I need to find Est," Grem said.
"Why?"
And that was the question Grem had hoped wouldn't pop up ever since he'd seen they had split up. He had no idea if he could trust the cold, emotionless woman. She and Est had tried to keep a secret that there was something up with her, but he knew she wasn't normal. There was something… off about her. His mind unified again.
"There is something dangerous down here, specifically targetting Prime's," he said.
"What?" Libidi asked cooly.
"I'd rather tell Est directly," Grem said. "I'd hoped you were him but-"
"Est is dead," Libidi said. For the first time, there was a tiny bit of emotion in her voice.
Grem frowned, then blinked. His mind ran at speed most others couldn't fathom as he went from a 'no he isn't' to a 'did she kill him?', past 'why do you think that?' at the blink of an eye, to end at a fake and confused, "What?"
The knife remained where it was, even cutting slightly deeper, and he mentally prepared himself to morph, cast, and morph again. It wasn't something he wanted to do due to the risk, but he would if he had to.
"You think he is alive."
Libidi's cold words surprised him, and Grem almost raised his head in shock, barely stopping in time to prevent himself from taking his own head off.
"Well…" he began, and the knife cut another quarter inch down. "Yes, yes!" he shouted. If she went any deeper, she would hit a blood vessel, and that could prove lethal, even to him.
"The tracker on Est is still moving…" the calm words were accompanied by a slight reprieve of the knifes pressure. "Where is Est?"
"Two days to the southwest and a mile deeper," Grem said, still ready to move if she moved again while hoping he wasn't forced to.
It was quiet, the tension unnerving, when the blade pulled back slightly.
"You will take me to Est," Libidi said.
Grem blinked in surprise. So she wasn't here alone by choice? Had she lost him? Had they fought, or perhaps have a falling out? She seemed to like Est, perhaps even more than that, but that could easily be play-acting.
"Alright," he said. "I'll bring you to him."
"If you try anything, you will force me to act," Libidi said. "I won't like that, and neither will you."
The ice-cold anger dripping from her words made Grem almost trigger his defenses. He barely resisted, though he wondered why it sounded like she didn't want to do that. His analytical mind started splitting off again, trying different possibilities while he mainly focused on her.
"I won't. I just need to find Est," he said.
There was a last moment of lingering tension, then the blade and the pressure vanished. Grem moved away and turned to the dark shape with its two crystal clear blue eyes.
"Move," Libidi said, and Grem sighed. The voice inside his head had been quiet up to that point, then began to whine that he was a weak little something or another.
"Right," Grem said as he moved away, using his body to obscure the spell he cast with his nimble, clawed hands.
The wounds on his neck healed, and a few tiny glyphs appeared in his eyes for a moment. If the odd woman attacked him again, she would not enjoy the result, even if he wasn't happy at the cost.
"Let's go as fast we can. He is far away," Grem said as he swam out of the skull. "Can you keep up?"
There was no reply, but the dark shape rocketed forward, and he saw the fins between her toes. Had she had those before? He couldn't recall. Then she turned and stared at him pointedly.
"Let's go," Grem whispered as he sped forward, wondering what he had done to be left in the depths with two bossy women.
The response he got made him grin and shake his head.
--
Rathica gazed at the pattern. Ulderion stood beside her, and they shared a look.
"Nothing?" the plant Deity asked?
Rathica didn't answer but turned to The Stone.
"I'll help you until we are free, then I'll leave again," she said, hiding her annoyance. "I'm the one who creates my binding spell, and I'll not accept any meddling with it."
Flowheart stepped forward, eyes cold as glaciers, but The Stone was faster.
"That is fine. I hope I can eventually prove to you that it will be in all of our best interest if you join us," he said before turning to Ulderion. "And you, ancient tree?"
Ulderion shook his head and sat down. "No," he simply said.
The other Deities looked at him for a moment, but it soon became apparent that Ulderion wasn't going to say anything else.
"Then let us begin," The Stone said as he moved forward. The red-eyed goblin Deity hung quietly in his grip, grinning madly.