The dog, hearing the doctor’s voice, turned around with a big smile on his face. He ran to Leonidas, circling around his legs with excitement as the doctor took a knee and held his hand out to the canine. The pup sniffed his hand before he leaped to lick his face. “All right, all right,” Leonidas said, patting the spectral dog on its back, “I know where that’s tongue been, buddy.”

“Doc?” Jeanne asked slowly. “The hell is going on?”

“Oh yeah,” Leonidas said. “This is a friend I made for a while when I was in The Outlands.”

“And you named him … Puppy?” Kveldulf asked.

“He prefers Puppý, there’s a little flair at the end.”

“Is that what he calls it?”

Puppý turned to growl Kveldulf, lightly growling. “Oh he’s just playing,” Leonidas said before petting the dog’s head.

“He’s so adorable!” Hypatia said. “Can I hold him?”

“Can we please focus on the plethora of dead men in the room?” Kveldulf followed.

“Oh yeah,” said Leonidas, “might’ve forgotten about that.”

“What one earth could’ve caused all this?” Jeanne asked.

“My money is the flagellants were trying to summon a creature to ambush us, but botched the whole thing and wound up blowing themselves up in the process,” said Leonidas.

“Is this something you’ve seen happen?” Hypatia asked.

“Oh yeah, many times.”

“Well, I guess we should be lucky this worked out the way it did.”

“Just another example of a bunch of idiots thinking they can mess with things they have no business with handling.”

“But now you have a spectral puppy,” Hypatia said, bopping Puppý’s nose.

“It is nice to see this little guy again,” Leonidas said, with Puppý playfully barking at her.

Leonidas put Puppý on the ground and pulled out a red stone as it hovered in his hand. He moved towards the walls as iconography and writing, now displayed clearly than the columns they found earlier. Leonidas held the red stone near the images and examined them with careful intent, his spectral companion following closely behind. “Huh, that’s interesting,” he said.

“What is it?” Hypatia asked.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“Well, this seems to be images portraying the events of the Days of Woe. Specifically, when Daemon Lord Vollenmar ruled the region.”

“I thought that was all stories,” said Jeanne.

“It’s hard to know what is true and what was conjured by imagination of writers. But usually there’s a kernel of truth to what has formed our mythology.”

“What a wonderful thought,” Jeanne said as she looked at the image of a daemons and other vile creatures spreading across the landscape.

“Why would flagellants be in a room where this is being depicted?” Kveldulf asked.

“There’s a few variations. Much of it revolves around a night who banished the daemon back to the shadow, others say a group of mages did the deed, and a few even state that the creature was killed by being stabbed in the heart with a holy weapon.”

“That doesn’t give a lot to work with,” Hypatia said, looking disappointed.

“Blame that on the chroniclers back then,” said Leonidas. “Many didn’t feel the need to be detailed in their accounts during that period. Let alone getting their facts straight.”

“You think it was confuse people who’d bring the daemon back?” Jeanne asked.

“What do you mean?” Leonidas asked.

“Well, if people know specifically what banished the daemon, they could find a way around it and keep the entity from being banished.”

Leonidas turned to Jeanne, astounded.

“What?” she asked.

“That is fucking brilliant,” he said.

Jeanne bobbed her head with pride. “I’m fucking brilliant,” she said with confidence.

“Oh Barna’s blessing,” said Kveldulf, “you’re going to be like this all day.”

“And tomorrow,” Jeanne followed.

“Does it say what the daemon’s name is?” Hypatia asked.

“Isn’t it bad to say a daemon’s name in a place like this?” Kveldulf asked.

“Sometimes, but usually when you’re actually summoning the entity. Which we’re not,” Leonidas said, looked at the three, “right?”

Kveldulf, Jeanne, and Hypatia all shook their heads rapidly.

Leonidas looked to his right and spotted a slip of paper with burn marks around the edges. Picking it up he read some faint scribbles on it and as he lifted his eyebrows he softly said, “That’s interesting.”

“What is?” Kveldulf asked.

“It’s a little hard to tell, since a lot of it was destroyed, but if I was to take a guess, these were the instructions used for the summoning.”

“I didn’t think people would be reading from a book when spell casting,” Hypatia said.

“It’s no different than when a chef uses a cook book for a recipe. You can adjust it here and there once you’re more acclimated with the craft, but you need to know the basics to achieve the main thing you’re trying to get.”

“Was there anything else to it?” Jeanne asked.

“Well, whoever wrote this, got their directions wrong,” Leonidas replied.

“What do you mean?” Jeanne followed.

“The direction switch back and forth from summoning a mindless entity and a sentient one.”

“And that’s bad, I’d imagine?” Kveldulf asked.

“Consider mixing two recipes, one is making a dessert pie, and the other is frying meat. They’re fine separated, but put them together and you get a wild mess. Which when you’re mixing magical spells, and you’re not well verse in the matter, can be … well …” and Leonidas looked around at the bodies around them, “… this.”

“Good thing we weren’t here when this went down,” Jeanne said.

“Agreed,” said Leonidas.

“Guess we should inform Cid of what happened,” Hypatia said.

“Yeah, he’ll definitely enjoy this tale,” said Kveldulf.