“I think I need to take that.” Cheska sounded confused, almost questioning.

“I think we need to break it!” Dovhran nearly shouted, his voice still at a heightened volume. He reached out to snatch the crystal from Flip’s hands, but was off quite a bit. It occurred to the wizard that the changeling was still far more drunk than he appeared. But that also spoke volumes about his luck. To have made it through such a fight relatively unscathed was truly an unnatural feat.

“Do either of you know what a demon’s core actually is?” Flip raised an eyebrow and began a more careful inspection of the object.

The dark crystalline structure was a twisted mess, almost like a lotus in appearance. The material itself was a dark purplish-black mineral with shadows of green and black dancing subtly within it. It’s edges were jagged in formation and pointed at what seemed like every possible angle. It was difficult to hold without the various points of crystal digging into Flip’s hands.

“I know they’re not supposed to be able to linger here after a demon is killed. According to most of the guard, when they kill an imp they catch a sight of their core for a second before it gets thrown back to the obscure.” Cheska muttered, her hand still held out to take the core from Flip.

“And imp cores are smaller. I’ve killed imps before, and their cores are more like a porcupine’s quill or a splinter of wood.” Dovhran sighed, suddenly taking in the gravity o the situation he was in. Adrenaline has a harsh way of sobering a drunk, and the changeling was definitely coming down from his burst of adrenaline.

“A demon’s core is made of unique crystalline disaster native to the Obscure. When the shadow of a powerful beast passes over that crystal, it imbues it with the presence of a demon. That is how all demons are made. Some are made from the shadows of demons, and those instances make slightly weaker demons. Those demons make more demons and so on. The end result are imps; shadows of shadows of real monsters. That’s why imps don’t cast shadows. They don’t have enough presence of being to make anything weaker than them.” Flip trailed off. The study of demons was frowned upon, but he had gathered all he could on the beasts and seldom gained the opportunity to share.

“So why isn’t this being sent back to the Obscure then?” Cheska reached out to touch the core as she asked, curiosity clearly evident in her expression. Flip retracted it from her reach, but not forcefully.

“The charms I gave you, were part of an… experiment. I told you before I didn’t quite know how they worked. But now that I’ve seen them work on fellfire and demons, I believe that I have gained some understanding. They are imbued with dark aster.”

The sound of coughing interrupted Flip’s explanation. The three gathered around the demon’s core had all completely forgotten the presence of the priest who had fallen to the flames at the front of the churchyard. As they turned to look, they saw a soft silvery white glow silhouette the priest as he sat up. His wounds had visibly faded, and he moved far better than a badly burned individual should have been able to.

“Priestess Devo, come here, please.” The priest croaked, still coughing. He appeared to be stuck.

“If I turn back around and that core is gone, no home will hide you from me,” Cheska hissed. Dovhran held his palms up and backed away from the wizard.

Cheska ran up to the side of the priest, knelt next to him and pulled his arm over her shoulder. There were whispered words shared between them, but nothing said loudly enough to be heard by either the changeling or the wizard.

“You want, I can kill ‘em both.” Dovhran muttered quietly in Flip’s direction.

Flip ignored the offer.

“How long till you’re sober? I don’t know anything about the constitution of changelings.”

“Give me… five hours.”

“Do changelings not handle drink well?”

“Shuddup about the changeling stuff. I just drank… a lot. I don’t know exactly what it was.”

“It was probably granny Jo’s star pod hooch,” Cheska chuckled as she returned to earshot of the conversation.

“He’d be paralyzed from the waist down if he drank more than half a bottle, Cheska, I think he just can’t handle his drink.”

“We can talk about drink later,” the priest seemed to have recovered more but still held on to Cheska’s shoulder for support. “What happened to the demon?”

“I think it remains here. But trapped.” Flip gestured with the core.

“That’s not possible.” The priest hissed. He had grown immediately suspicious upon seeing the core and the charm affixed to it, and Flip’s statement only seemed to cement his distrust.

“This is a dark aster charm, forger Morgan. It paralyzed the beast while it was running amok and it has sealed it within its core.” Cheska attempted to calm him, though her words did not seem to sway him much.

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“Then we should destroy it,” the priest hissed. “Nilant’s codex…”

“I don’t think we should.” Cheska’s announcement turned all heads in her direction. She had requested that Flip give her the core, but without reason. Her statement that the core should be preserved didn’t make sense to Flip, it didn’t reflect what he knew about her.

Forger Morgan immediately released his grip on Cheska’s shoulder and stumbled as he attempted to balance himself. He was clearly in pain and exhausted. Flip had no idea how long the forger had been keeping his protective barrier active before the Demon arrived, and the spell itself likely took a toll to cast in the first place.

“Don’t take my decision for sympathy for demons or a sign of dark motives, Forger. But… I cannot explain the impulse I have to make something more of this thing. Every time I look at it I see… images of… designs and instructions in my mind. Like a recipe. I feel there is a very specific way to make this core safe and useful.”

The priest seemed to relax at the explanation, but only slightly. He didn’t argue further, but he didn’t offer any other words apart from the incredulous blessing of “chains, hold you together” before limping back to the still standing structure of his chapel.

“Flip, you were about to explain the charms. What’s happening with the core?”

“Why does she call you Flip, Faengil?” Dovhran narrowed his eyes at the wizard in drunken suspicion, but went unanswered.

“The presence of aster—the essence of pure light—clashes with disaster—the essence of pure darkness. Normally that clash results in… neutral matter,” Flip gestured to the world around them, “though the two elements will push apart before any sort of reaction occurs. That usually means either is drawn back into their plane of safety when exposed to even the smallest influence of the other. When a demon’s core is exposed and weakened, it is drawn back to the Obscure—the plane of darkness. But dark aster exists as both aster and disaster, it mimics the properties of both the dark and light essences simultaneously.”

“What does that mean for this core then? Why does that prevent it from being drawn back into the Obscure?” Cheska held her hand out again to take the core, but this time Flip didn’t withdraw the crystal.

“It is effected by the presence of darkness here. It acts as though it is still within the belly of the demon, though the presence of light keeps it from manifesting the body of the demon. That is my prevailing theory. It could be a matter of confusing elements, or it could be something else entirely. Before now, dark aster was entirely theoretical. I still hesitate to call this dark aster, as the leading theory on crafting something with the properties of both aster and disaster center on the energizing of neutral matter.” Flip had begun to ramble, but kept a close eye on Cheska as she observed the crystal in her hands.

“Are either of you familiar with Nilant’s codex?” Cheska asked quietly. Her eyes seemed to be partially glazed over as she looked into the crystal.

“I know what it is, but I never read it.” Dovhran sounded as though he were slightly offended at the question, but he too was more distracted by the core than invested in the conversation.

“I believe I read the same copy as you,” Flip answered bluntly.

“Let’s go back to the hearth… the backside of the hearth.” Cheska didn’t wait for response or even check to see if either Flip or Dovhran followed.

Cheska made her way to the back of the temple, to where the chimney for the hearth rose off the side of the building. The back of the chimney was exposed and part of the interior of the temple could be seen beyond the flames. The yard behind the temple had several features; a garden, an outhouse, a tool shed, and most notably a small space for blacksmithing. An anvil was set next to the opening to the hearth, a bucket of water and various metals and materials were accessible from cabinets and shelves affixed to the back of the building.

Flip and Dovhran turned the corner around the building into the forge area just as Cheska set the core down on the anvil. For a moment, Flip thought that Cheska would bring her hammer down on the core and shatter it, but she merely waited. Once the wizard and changeling were close, Cheska opened a locked cabinet build into the side of the building and retrieved a large tome before closing and locking the door again.

“This is a copy of Nilant’s Codex of Infernal Terrors. It is both an account of the demon king’s rise to power and a manual on the best practices for dealing with demons.” Cheska laid the tome out on a workbench beside the anvil and flipped through until she found the page she was looking for.

The pages were well-worn and aged, and several were clearly more read than others. But the page the priestess turned to was not one of the well read pages.

“This is a description of a fellfire pack hunter: A demon with elongated features and pale skin, typically bruised, bearing the features of a mundane beast such as a wolf, cat, or ape. Such a demon produces fellfire as a dragon produces regular flame, and may also exhibit great speed and resilience to pains. And I believe this describes what we have just captured.”

“Minus the wing,” Dovhran interrupted.

“Yes. But demons are known to spawn with incredible variety. Nilant writes about this in the codex as well.”

“I remember this entry in the codex. Why do you bring it up?” Flip was growing frustrated. Cheska was not making her point clear.

“I know you read the codex, Flip, but you never looked at the pictures.” Cheska turned the page to one of the more well read sections. “And I always loved the pictures.”

Cheska gestured for the wizard to come closer and look. She had placed her finger on a specific image on the page. It was a chest plate for a suit of ornate armor. The text by the image read gorget of the demon king. The main feature of the piece was an ornate crystalline structure that seemed to twist and creep out across the metal armor and up towards the shoulders and down to the belly.

“Nilant never explicitly states this, but, going by these illustrations, armor and jewelry can be made from the cores of demons. This gorget is said to have given Nilant the power to cow powerful demons into utter submission.”

Dovhran had become suddenly very interested, as he peered over Flip’s shoulder. His eyes were now drawn to the core with a mix of greed and awe.

“Could you make something like that?” The changeling asked eagerly. “I would pay you very handsomely for a gorget or helm made from the core.”

“I think I could.” Cheska didn’t sound completely confident, but more like she had been talked into doing something. “It would take a great deal of time… and I don’t think I could make anything you could wear that would accommodate this sort of shape… so I might be forced to break off parts of the core… which could weaken it.”

“Cheska, I trust it to you.” Flip gave the orc a subtle nod and took a step back. “If you are being guided to make something useful from this nightmare, you should do it. Joanna wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment if she thought it was Haemer’s instruction.”

Cheska smiled at the wizard’s words. “Go get some soup, both of you. You look like you just fought a demon.”