They walked towards the gates of Angelzark. Hecate was making her plan on how to not get too much atenttion while inside the city, she looked at Shade’s appearance a bit “Can you remove your horns and not wear them from now on. so people don’t get too suspicious about it. And if someone asks you something, just tell them you are my familliar.” Hecate said to Shade as they were heading towards the city. Seems like she was taking precosions before hand “Also, don’t attack anyone if they do something that offends you, i’ll deal with them in a peaceful manor.” she continued, he only listened without answering her in anyway though. He made his horns vanish with a snap of his fingers.
Soon they reached the bridge that was leading inside the city. There were still a few corpses left around from the werewolves that attacked last night. The soldiers were talking care into dispossing of them, but because of that the patrol was increased in case of another attack. The town was surrounded by a deep moat, it was at least six meters deep, water was running through it which who knows how deep that was.
They passed the bridge, entering the city through the Southren gate which was guarded by a dozen soldiers two outside of the gate, two inside while the rest were on the walls looking at the surroundings. Nobody stopped them at the entrance, it seemed that things went well so far, but the soldiers were on ahigh alert, they were twice as many as usual.
Inside the city there were lots of people on the streets heading to different huge buildings. Each one was heavily decorated with columns and giant statues in front of each one of this buildings depicting vairous individuals.
“We should be cautions from here on, to not offend anyone. Most of the buildings here are temples where people come to pray to their gods and bring offerings to them. There is a total of 34 temples in this city. One for each god, the big statues in front of them is a representation of them.” Helena explaind to him as they walked on the side of the street, keeping away from the temples and the crowed gathered in front of them.
The city was huge and even more filled with people then Hazefol, but unlike there, people here weren’t as friendly although its a very visited town it was filled with fanatics. While walking around town looking for a tavern to stay until night came, they saw multiple patrols walking around the town between the crowd as well as sitting at the entrances of the temples.
This city had no way of sustaining the citizans, the market was well developed but it only sold objects of various kinds. What made this city so prosperous and wealthy were the temples that were constantly being visited and the places where the visitors had to stay. Reason why this town is filled with taverns and inns.
They checked a few of them but they were all full. One of them inn keeper’s kicked them because he didn’t like them. Another didn’t want to rent them a room cause of how Shade looked saying that the tavern was only for humans. After wondering around town for at least two hours they finally they managed to find one after so many tries. It was just a little away from the main square of the city.
Inside the tavern there were a few people sitting at the tables eating, drinking or talking. They walked towards the tavern keeper which was sitting on a chair with his legs crossed, looking outside through the window.
“Excuse me, we’d like to rent a room for two people, for one day.” Helena said to him while smiling.
The keeper looked at her, checking her from head to toe and with a uncareing tone “Three gold coins.” as he extended his hand. Hecate took a small pouch from her bag from which she handed the money to the keeper “Third room on the right on the first floor.” the keeper said as he put the money inside a pouch that was hanging by his belt.
They went up the stairs, looking around the place as they searched for the room. It was a mediocre looking place, barely maintained at all. The floor was creaking from each step you took, not to mention the spider weebs on each corner. They finally found the room which the rented.
Once inside the room Hecate showed an angry face and started to spout curses towards the tavern keeper “What is with this ridiculous price, three gold for two people for one night is completely absurd, this conditions aren’t even worth one silver for a dozen people. Damn this place..” she took a short break to catch some air after which she continued “Just becasue there are lots of people coming here doesn’t mean you should ask for a fortune. How am i going to sleep in this place?” she finally showed signs of calming down, leeting out a sigh. The whole time Shade was just sitting there looking at her while resting his back against the wall with his hands crossed.
“Oke, lets eat something Shade, then talk about what we’ll be doing next.” Hecate said as she waved her hand as if wipping clean a window. A few packages showed up on the bed, she started to unpack them. Inside each one there were vegetables, baccon, cheese and some bread “Come Shade, lets eat.” she looked at him while making a sign with her hand for him to come.
He looked at her with a confused face “Eat?” he said as he observed her eating from the things that were inside the packs. She took a moment to finish chewing then tried to explain to him “Yes, consume the food to get energy and not starve.” but he still didn’t understand “You take this things and put them inside your mouth like this and start chewing on it.” she showed him how to do it, putting some cheese and bread inside her mouth then started chewing.
“And after you chew the food enough you swallow it. And you repeat this until you are satsified.” that made things a little clearer to him, but he didn’t show any sign of wanting to eat.
“I’ve never eat such things before.” he said as he continued to sit in the same spot.
Hecate was eating without minding anything, she took short breaks to answer Shade’s questions or to ask him some “Then what did you eat before? You can’t tell me you’ve never eaten something in your whole life.” she asked him, while stuffing a piece of baccon in her mouth, chewing it slowly as she looked at him with a curios face.
He gave her the answer after a few moments passed “Stars. Only stars.” he said bluntly.
In that moment she stopped chewing and made a long face as if her jaw was about to drop at any moment. She swallowed hard, then asked him “Wait, then you mean you want to eat the star that we are looking for?”
He lowered his head while shacking it “That is none of your buisness. But something that i have to do.”
Helena didn’t ask anything anymore, it was obvious he wouldn’t tell her what he’ll do once he gets his hands on the star. She continued to eat, until she finished all the food.After she was done eating and packing everything up with a snap of her fingers, she cleaned her hands with a napkin.
“Why do we have to wait till the night comes?” Shade asked her, he didn’t seem to understand why do they needed to wait.
“Its because this place is filled with strong soldiers, also its the place where the gods are worshiped and the god that watches over this city isn’t someone to take lightly and will come deal with those attacking the city. Even more so when they hear you are resembling a demon. That is why we should take care.” she explained to him.
Shade made a confused face once he heard the word god, as if he was thinking of something “Gods defend this place? I’ve never heard of a god like that.” he thought to himself.
“Since we got everything set up, i’ll go to sleep till night comes. Care to join me?” she said to him as she laid down on the bed.
“I don’t need sleep, i’ll just sit here.” he answered as he sat down on the floor resting his back on the wall in a squat position.
Hecate in that moment remembered what happend this morning, blushing slightly “As you wish, wake me up once the sun starts to set.” she told him at which he noded, she thought that maybe he didn’t want to sleep because of what happened this morning.
Everything was as peaceful as possible. There quite a few noises from down stairs and some dogs barking outside but it seemed that those things didn’t wake Helena up. The sun began to set, but Shade didn’t wake her up right away. He waited until it was almost night before walking towards the bed. He tried to call her a few times but she didn’t show any sign of waking up. So he then started to pat her head, remembering that this morning that made her react, at the same time he called her a few times with a louder voice. That seemed to make her slowly open her eyes. She saw Shade sitting by the bedside looking at her face.
She wasn’t as surprised as before, but she still slightly blushed “Lets go. The sun has set.” he said to her.
She quickly got up from the bed when he notice the whole room was dark “Why didn’t you wake me up sooner? I told you to wake me up before the sun sets.” she was in a rush to get ready to leave. She then got two black cloaks out of her bag which seemed to be made from a material that absorbed all the light, she passed one over the Shade “Wear this, it will make it harder for people to see us if we keep to the shadows.”she said to him as she got hers on.
Shade didn’t take the cloak, instead he gave it back “I don’t need this.” he replied to her, she looked at him a bit worried “Are you sure? We wouldn’t want to be seen while sneaking around the temples at night.” she asked him, he answered with a nod, “Oke, then lets go.”
They went outside of the tavern by jumping through the window, so nobody would see them leaving their room. They ran in the backstreets, since the place was smaller and rarely someone could be found patrolling around.
It seemed that the increase in patrols also affected this area, as they spotted three soldiers up ahead. The soldiers were walking in the same direction but at a slower pace. So they had to walk slower and hide from time to time.
Helena was walking ahead, it seemed like she already knew where they should go. Things went really well, the soldiers went to the right and now they could rush through the allies towards the temple.
Shade suddenly grabbed Helena by her shoulder, making her stop, she turned her head towards him “What happened?” she said to him.
He made a sign to the right with his head as he said “There are two people to the right, sitting there.” she was a bit surprised to hear that from him. No noise or sound could be heard from the two he mentioned yet, they were actually far from the corner of the building mentioned by Shade. She crouched and moved slowly with her back against the wall towards the corner, Shade followed her, walking normally. There they could hear the soldiers, they seemed to be talking about something, Helena stopped there for a while to listen to them.
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“What is the prince doing in this town?” one of the guards said to the other.
“Didn’t you hear? It seemed like he was just passing by, until those people from that temple pissed him off, now he wants to take some girl from there.” the other answered back.
“I only heard that he saved the bishops right hand priest from a werewolf attack when he was coming back and dispite that he hit the prince with his crane.”the first soldier said.
“Yeah, that was how everything started. Now the prince wants them to pay up and give him some girl.” the second soldier replied back.
There seemed to have been some problems happening around with the temple of the new god that was build in this city. She pondered a little thinking what could the prince want from that place and what girl were they talking about. Suddenly something flashed through her mind “It can’t be.” she said with a loud voice, she made a sign to Shade, to move slowly ahead so they won’t notice. After walking a bit further from that place she raised her pace “We need to hurry, seems like someone else is interested in that star.” she said while almost running thourgh the backallies.
At the temeple, the prince’s guards were all awake standing on guard as the girl was laying on the bed. Yet to awaken or show any sign of moving, it was almost as if she was dead. Someone knocked at the door, everyones attention got focused towards it. They all drew their weapons as two of them went to open it to see who it is.
Once the door was open all of them releaxed a little, it as only the Bishop that came over. The sergeant sheated his sword and walked towards him “Greeting Bishop, how may i help you?” he said towards him.
The Bishop made a bow gesture towards him “I came over to take the girl to the altar to remove her curse.” he told the sergeant.
He looked at him for a few moments, the turned back to his soldiers “Round up men, we are moving the girl to the altar, everyone stand on your guards.” he ralied the soldiers to move out.
The Bishop looked a little troubled “There is no need for you and your men to come over, its only gonna be me and a few other disciples who will perform the ritual.” the bishop tried to convince the sergeant.
The sergeant didn’t show any sign of letting him take the girl, he came in front of the bishop while his men were standing behind him, three of them carrying the girl “I don’t think you understand, we were ordered to stay with this girl all the time, no matter where she is.” the sergeant said to the Bishop with a thick and intimidating voice.
He let out a sigh, seeing that there was no way to convine him. He noded and lead the way towards the altar. They moved down inside the temples basement, it took them a while to reach their destination.
Once there, they saw that the room they’ve entered was a huge dome like place with pillars on the sides. Near each pillar there was a priest, a total of two dozens of priests with hoods covering their heads were in that room.
A lot more than what the Bishop said. Three more stood in the middle, near some kind of stone altar. “Please, place the girl on the altar so we can begin.” the Bishop said to the sergeant, which turned his head back to the soldiers that were holding the girl and noded his head, they moved with the girl towards the altar, placing her on it.
The priests quickly took their position two sat at the girls feet while one was sitting by her head. The Bishop walked towards them picking up a huge book from a stone table before sitting on the side of the altar.
The sergeant slightly turned his head to his soldiers “Take positions around the altar and have your weapons ready. I don’t want any surprises.” everyone drew their weapons without delay and slowly moved a bit closer to the place were the girl was sitting. Some where looking towards her while the others were keeping an eye on the priests that were on the sides.
The Bishop noticed them with the corner of his eye, but did nothing to stop them, he continued his chanting.
Some time has passed and nothing happened, the sergeant looked at the solider at his right “Go inform the prince, that the curse is almost removed. He can come here to pick the girl up.” he whispered to the soldier.
The soldier noded, sheating his sword and moving out in a rush the same way they came.
Meanwhile outside of the temple, Helena and Shade finally made it. “We’ll go through this door” Helena said as he pointed to a door at the side of the temple, “Once inside make sure nobody catches you and if someone sees us, make sure to knock them out before they alert the others.” she briefed Shade before going in. She unlocked it with a spell and slowly cracked the door to check if there is anyone nearby. “I’ll go check up stairs, you check this floor and downstairs.” Helena told Shade which was ready to leave.
“Wait, if you find her, let me know.” she pulled out a weird stone with some writings on it from her bag “Here take this with you, it will help me know where you are at all time. If you find her, break it and i’ll rush to your location. Also if i’ll break my stone yours will glow very brightly and soon a wisp will show up leading you to me.” she continued.
Shade looked at her as she explained, after that he reached for the small stone that was in her hand. He noded twice then turned around, both of them went in opposite directions in search of the star.
Helena walked around the huge halls in search of the stairs to reach the next floor. But it seemed as if she wasn’t doing so well. Just as she was about to give up and use some magic to break through the ceilling and go up. She found a small set of stairs going up, they were almost hidden around a corner.
She approached them carefuly, after confirming that nobody was coming she rushed up. Quickly reaching the other end and again stopping by the entrance to check if anyone was around. She was starting to grow suspicious of this place, although it was night it wasn’t past ten, some of the priest should be still patrolling around the temple. She didn’t see even one of them so far. Now that she reached her destination, she now began to look for the star.
Although there were many rooms on this floor, she didn’t bother opening each one of the doors. She casted a spell which allowed her to see the magical essence of those inside the room. She only needed to place her hand on the door or wall to see it clearly. Now she was walking quickly from door to door looking for the strong magic essence that the star was giving off.
She reached a room with huge doors, inside she spoted three persons, one of them having a really high magical essence, not as high as she had before, but then again maybe they used something to conceal or block her mana.
Helena sat near that door for a few moments laying some magical traps around the hall that would make a lot of noise if someone walked over them, so she won’t be caught off-guard. She pulled a small dagger from her bag, then approached the door, slowly opening it. The room was pitch black, that you could barely see anything. With a snap of her fingers a small fireball was summoned which floated by her side, enough to light the surrounding.
She approached the middle of the room, the place from where the magical essence was coming from, as she got close enough to see what it was. It shocked her so hard that the small fireball grew bigger and bursted into many smaller ones that went to each candle in the room lighting the whole place up in an instant. In front of her there was a huge bed with an elf girl tied up with ropes from the beds colums. The girl was laying face down, completely naked, multiple burises on her body.
Helena tried to call out to her but without any response, she was unconscious. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t wake her up so she started to look around the room only to see two more girls tied up in different manners at both sides of the bed. Unlike the elf that was on the bed, both of them were tied with something strange. Some black like tendons were wrapped around them, keeping them tied up and as if that wasn’t enough, there were also some huge leechs on their whole body.
Helena was completely shocked at such a sight, she couldn’t believe that something like this could happen into a temple. She quickly cute the ropes that were holding the elf girl, then rushed towards the other two. Using fire magic on the dagger, heating it up to cut off those tendons down after which she used it to remove the leechs from one of the girls.
There were at least twenty leeches on her body. On the legs, hands, stomach, neck and breasts. She removed them one by one very quickly with the heated dagger. Just when she thought she was done she saw one more, but this one wasn’t attacked to her private area. When she touched it with the dagger, it slightly came off, but it was still hanging so she grabbed onto it with one hand and pulled it off. To her shock this one wasn’t a leech, but instead a worm the size of a palm, half of it was inside of the girl. She quickly pulled it out and immedialty let go of it, the worm was swirling on the floor, until she used a spell to lift up a bookshelf that was on the side and use it to squash it.
It took her some time to recover since she didn’t like worms at all. There was still one more girl to release. She was already disgusted by what happened here. Again, multiple leeches on her body, removing them was no hard task. But after finishing came the problem, the leech that was attached to the girls private parte seemed a little larger. She thought that maybe it didn’t get inside of her yet, but just touching it made her shiver. Touching it with the heated dagger gave no result at all, thinking that maybe its dead she stabbed the worm with it.
In that moment the part of the worm that was outside, around ten centimeters, pulled itself inside of the girl as if it went back into its den. Helena was shocked by how the girl was reacting, gasping for air and leaning her head back. Her stomach was starting to deform quite a lot until it suddenly bursted open. A huge worm, almost the size of a forearm, came out spalshing blood all over the room and spitting onto Helena, the worm jumped to bite her, but she casted multiple fireballs and threw them in an instant towards the disgusting creature, burning the girl along with it.
Helena was completely covered in blood from the girl and some disgusting liquid that the worm spit at her. She fell on her knees almost as if she was about to cry “I HATE WORMS!” she screamed while shivering all over. It took her around five minutes to calm down and take something to clean herself. She got up, looking towards the girl that was burning, before walking over to the other two, placing them onto the floor and teleporting both room they rented earlier. Before she left the room, she set all of it ablaze “And you hunt witches down for making pacts with demons.” with annoyed tone she talked to herself.
Meanwhile Shade was running through the halls of the temple in his wolf form, so quickly he finished the floor he was on in just a few minutes. But when he went down on the stairs towards the basemenet, he saw someone there. It was a soldier in armor laying on the stairs. He seemed as if he wanted to go up, he turned back into his humanoid form before approaching him, just as he got a little closer the soldier turned his head “Please, someone... go tell the prince.... we need reinforcements... they...” the soldier said with his last breath.
Shade only looked at him before he moved on. Once he finished decending the staris he found himself into a maze like place. He looked around at the walls which were made of stone with torches hanging on them. The floor didn’t show any tracks at all. He changed back into his wolf form and started to walk around in the maze in search for a scent to follow.
By this time the Bishop had just finished the ritual, he turned around towards the sergeant and his men “Thank you for your assistance, i have succesfully removed the curse.” he said to them with a tone filled with superiority.
The sergeant made a sign with his head to three of his men to go and get the girl. The three soldider sheated their weapons and went up the stairs, towards the girl passing by the bishop and pushing aside the priests that were near the altar. Just as they laid their hands on the girl and she started to scream, slowly emiting a light that was getting brighter and brighter as if she was the sun itself. The whole room was covered by a blinding light which made everyone cover their eyes, except for the bishop which was standing with his back towards her.
While the soldiers were covering their eyes, screams and cracking sound could be heard from all around the room. When the light finally dimed out, the sergeant saw the three men he sent for the girl all bent into unnatural ways, their heads behind their backs, their hands and legs twisted all around as if they were some toys.
While the soldiers where shocked to see their comrades in such a state, the Bishop was smiling while looking down on them, one of his arms had turned into a long tentacle like thing. The sergeant pointed his sword at him “So you finally showed your true colors? The prince knew something was wrong with this place. You won’t get out of here alive, even if you kill us.”
The Bishop started to laugh when he heard him, the sergeant and his men charged at him while he was laughing just as soon he was close enough the Bishop grabbed him with his tentacle, swinging him left and right knocking all the soldiers on the ground then tossing him on the floor near his soldiers “Finish them off.” he ordered the priests that were sitting on the sides, he then turned around and started walking towards the altar where the star was laying.
The priests that were around the room pulled out of small dagger from under their robes and rushed towards the soldiers that were on the ground, stabbing them. The sergeant and few other managed to get up in time to stop the assailants. They proved no challenge for him and the soldiers to kill. Once up they saw that ten of their own got killed by them the rest of the priests backed off quickly.
The sergeant looked towards the altar and saw the Bishop holding the girl. He was licking her cheek down to her neck with his long tongue while grooping her left breast. The sergeant tried to rush over at him, but some of the remaining priests blocked his way. They started to fight, although the priests were weak and could easily be killed, they were three times more than them.
While they were focused on fighting the priests the girl screamed loudely before fainting. The Bishop continued to do what he wanted to her.
“Think you are that powerful, bullying girls? Leave her alone and come fight us, worm.” the sergeant yelled at the Bishop while pointing his sword at him. Bu he didn’t even bother turning around, he wasn’t affected by his taunts at all.
From one of the tunnel on the side of the chamber a big wolf showed up from the shadows “You dare lay your filthy hands on her.” the wolf talked with a deep and angry voice that echoed through the whole room, his voice instigated fear to everyone in the room, even the soldiers seemed to be terrifed. That voice made the Bishop turn around in his direction, noticing a large black wolf that was growling as he approached the altar.