“So the dragon soul said that the demons ‘melted down’ the artifacts to extract their magic?”

“That’s right. It looks like this place isn’t going to provide anything for you. Do you think we should just leave? It doesn’t feel right to turn back empty-handed after coming all this way.”

“It definitely doesn’t. The situation with the demons bothers me as well. Lesser demons are already stronger than most Elites, and if there were more than a dozen greater demons here in addition, then something big is going on.”

“I agree,” the Sun Knight said. “Usually, greater demons don’t act in groups, and they don’t come to the earthly plane unless they are summoned or there is an open portal. Something strange and foul is definitely afoot. We must eradicate the demons here.”

“Without our magic, how do you propose we do that?” Rai asked.

The Sun Knight bent down and picked up the star fragment. “The Sun God will provide a way.”

“Not that I doubt your god, but… how exactly is that?” Isa said.

“I do not question the ways of my god. I simply trust.”

“That’s all well and good, but we’re all more than half-dead,” Rai pointed out. “I’m not going to take on, what, nine greater demons and who knows how many lesser demons in that state, least of all without access to magic, just on the hope that we’ll have sudden divine intervention. The gods are pretty hands-off, acting through their intermediaries alone – such as yourself – rather than intervening directly.”

“That is usually the case. However, with a threat like this…”

“We don’t even know what they’re doing here,” Isa pointed out. “Maybe they’re just trying to get stronger. That’s a thing demons do, right?”

“You are treating this too lightly!” the Sun Knight in a sudden burst of anger. “Demons are the antithesis of all that is good, holy, and just! They are the dark mirror of the divine! Even Archdemons may not be as strong as the gods, but demons will stop at nothing to make a place like the Desert of Death look like a paradise compared to what they will bring unto the world! They must be stopped!”

“Whoa, calm down,” Isa said. “I don’t really know much of anything about demons, just that they’re super evil.”

“And I’m not religious scholar, so I only know as much as the average layperson when it comes to beings divine and demonic. I know that, collectively, they are a threat to all life in our world, that the celestial beings fight wars against them to prevent their entry to our plane, and that they dwell in the hells. I know that crazy idiots obsessed with power sometimes summon them to make deals. And that’s it,” Rai said.

The Sun Knight took a deep breath. “You know most of what needs be known, then,” they said. “Demons, beyond being bringers of death, are vessels of corruption, turning what is good and pure into evil and decay. But perhaps most terrifyingly, they can eat souls.”

“Did you say eat souls?!” Isa exclaimed in horror.

“Yes. I assume you know that all living creatures have souls, the true essence of their being that departs for the hereafter upon death… usually. There are exceptions, such as the dragon soul with whom you conversed, and ghosts or other wandering souls who lost their way. It is possible for a soul to become corrupted, usually by the mind becoming corrupted. If the dragon had not had his soul separated from his body, his soul would have corrupted into a thing of pure madness.”

“Like the spirits in the jungle,” Isa said in understanding.

“Yes, like those spirits,” the Sun Knight agreed, having already been filled in about them when the fallen stars were explained to them. “The divine snake spirit transformed those mad souls into spirits, causing them to lose their former identities but regain sanity, as you said. I do not know how to feel about that; it is disturbing but could be considered a mercy. Under most circumstances, however, a soul cannot be completely destroyed. There is one exception: demons can eat souls. Usually, they do this with souls they have bargained for possession of, but they can also eat the souls of individuals whose lives they take with special rituals. An eaten soul is utterly destroyed – a True Death. This, more than anything else, is what makes them so profane.”

They paused. “If greater demons are gathering in such numbers on the material plane, and using objects like this star fragment possessing mysterious energy, then they may be preparing to enact a wide-scale ritual, or to open a permanent portal to the hells. They must be stopped.”

A long silence followed while Rai and Isa absorbed what the Sun Knight had said.

“…How?” Rai said at last.

“Your carbuncle guy must have come from somewhere,” Isa said. “Maybe if we can find the other carbuncles, we’ll get a hint? Let’s search the Tower for them. I’ll teleport you with me.”

“All right. Sound good to you, little one?”

“Yi-meep!” the carbuncle said with conviction.

And so they set out. They encountered several groups of lesser demons over the next few hours, including an ice demon, a stone demon, and even a water demon, which resulted in all three of them sustaining further injury. Finally, they found a large chamber with a lush, wild, natural-looking garden, complete with a fountain pool in the center. A star fragment was embedded in the fountain.

“Yi-yi!”

“Meepi!”

“Meep-meep!”

“Yi-meep!”

All around the fountain and scattered around the garden were about a dozen carbuncles. Eight of them were kitten-sized; the rest were cat-sized.

“Yi-meep!” the carbuncle on Rai’s shoulder exclaimed.

“Why are you being so noisy?” a female voice complained from up above, and a moment later a water demon – mist for hair, blue and red skin, and claws coated in water – dropped out of a hole in the ceiling directly into the fountain pool.

“Oh?” she said in surprise upon seeing the party. “A saurian, a human, and a holy knight? How the fuck did you get here?” A water spear appeared in her hands. “This carbuncle farm belongs to us demons. …Hey, wait, didn’t Aerikel take that one to be used?” She pointed the spear at the carbuncle on Rai’s shoulder. “How did you get it?”

“Was Aerikel the name of a wind demon? I killed her.”

“You what?! The three of you killed Aerikel?!”

“No, I did it by myself.”

The demon blinked. “Oh. Oh fuck. …Wait. You’re all heavily wounded.” She smiled. “I think I can take on three near-dead fools.”

Rai dashed forward and lunged, giving the demon no time to react to his Lightning Strike, which blew a hole through her (unarmored, barely covered) torso, right through one of her lungs. Her eyes widened in surprise. Isa charged next, entering Berserk Mode with a shout of “Savage Rush!” The demon blocked a downward swing but failed to move quick enough to avoid the follow-up horizontal strike, which tore through her side and front. Blood went everywhere fouling the pool and sending the carbuncles fleeing. The demon staggered back a step, then unleashed three rapid thrusts. The first pierced Isa’s side, but the second the Sun Knight managed to lunge in and deflect with their shield, and the third simply missed.

“Healing Light! Sacred Exorcist!”

The demon died, and the most recently inflicted wound on Isa partially healed.

“I thought you were out of healing power?” Isa panted as Berserk Mode vanished.

“I am – healing power that I can completely control. Healing Light and Solar Heal Strike are divine combat arts; I can’t use them unless I have a foe to smite. I can only use them in combat.”

“Yi-yi!” the carbuncle on Rai’s shoulder cheered.

The other carbuncles continued to hide.

“We should remove the body from the fountain and cleanse the fountain… oh. We can’t use Tricks to clean it. No magic.” Rai sighed. “I’m so reliant on that spell that I sometimes forget it’s magic.”

“We can still take the body out, though,”

Several minutes later, the fountain pool was free of the corpse and had somehow cleansed itself of the taint. The carbuncles slowly returned as the trio sat on the edge of the fountain.

“Yi-yi-yi,” Rai’s carbuncle said to the other carbuncles, who circled around. Their gemstones all began to glow, rainbow light flowing from them to the one on Rai’s shoulder. Then, once their glow had faded, the gem on Rai’s carbuncle changed from red to rainbow, and a flash of light caused him to shield his eyes.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Rai felt a sudden change. He raised a hand and an orb of light appeared.

“Our magic is back!” he exclaimed.

“My wounds are healing,” the Sun Knight said in wonder. “Slowly, but surely.”

“Mine, too! I apologize for ever doubting your god’s guidance,” Isa said.

This wasn’t the act of a god, Rai thought. This was the doing of the carbuncles.

It took about ten minutes for their wounds to fully heal. Rai repaired the Sun Knight’s armor and shield, as well as his own clothing, and Isa cleansed them all of blood.

“Thank you,” Rai said to the carbuncles. Then he addressed the one still on his shoulder. “Do you want to stay here with the others?” He carefully set the carbuncle down. “We’re going to be doing some more dangerous fighting.”

“Yi-meep!”

The carbuncle jumped back onto his shoulder, then raised a paw and in an up-and-down waving motion toward the other carbuncles.

“You want to stay with me? I’m touched. Well… you’re in for a wild ride. I wonder if you have a name? Not that you’d be able to tell me if you did. I’ll give you a name; I can’t keep thinking of you as just ‘the carbuncle.’ Hm… your gem is still rainbow-colored. How about Prismeep? Prism plus meep.”

“Yi-meep!” Prismeep said happily.

I have no idea whether you understood any of that or not, but you seem pretty cheerful, so that’s good enough for me, Rai thought.

“I wonder what these carbuncles are,” the Sun Knight said. “If you’ve never heard of them, then they aren’t an ordinary magical beast, but I’ve never heard of them either, which means they aren’t from the heavens or hells.”

“I wonder if they’re star-beings,” Isa said. “Living among the stars, brought here when they fell. That would explain how they were able to counteract the magic-disrupting effects of the fallen star.”

“Perhaps,” Rai said. “Well, speaking of stars, I strongly suspect whatever the demons are doing has to do with the star, so we need to find it.”

“Agreed.”

Rai and Isa flickered as they cast Force Armor and Enhance Scales, and then they were off once more.

-x-

Pop!

They appeared in a circular room some hundred and fifty feet in diameter and sixty feet high, ringed by large open windows that let in the late afternoon light. They were about a third of the way into the room from the wall, facing the center, where a shattered fallen star far larger than the one they had seen in the jungle lay. A magic circle more complex than any Rai had ever seen was painted on the ground in blood, with a diameter of a hundred feet and its center-point the star, many fist-sized fragments placed along its circumference. A dozen pillars ringed the center at a distance of approximately two to three dozen feet, one close to where they stood.

Lesser demons stood around the circumference of the magic circle, while six greater demons – fire, water, ice, lightning, metal, and stone – stood near pillars. By the shattered star, two darkness demons, one standing even taller than the Sun Knight, held their hands out to the star on either side, chanting.

The taller one, undoubtedly more powerful than even the greater demons, spotted them and stopped the chant.

Music: Facing Chaos, By Phil Rey Gibbons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVEnTlVcHxE&list=PLrnCj7Hn8NgTjgPA9ESeFRX70zd0vPPqu&index=2

“Foolish mortals. You believe that reaching this means you can stop us? When our ritual is complete, your world will tremble at the might of Hell. With the power of the stars, we will be unstoppable. Lesser demons! Kill them all!”

With a roar, the dozens of lesser demons rushed forward as the lead demon resumed his chant, his words echoed by all seven of the other greater demons.

“This is a holy crusade! By the might of the Sun God!”

“This is our world! We will not let it fall to the likes of you!”

“Prepare for annihilation!”

Lightning bolts and fireballs, tripping stomps and Corrosive Claw bursts from halberd swings, sword swings imbued with evil-slaying light, blasts of dragonfire… the trio rained death upon the demons. Yet still they came, heedless that it would lead to their demises. As their numbers dwindled, they finally surrounded the trio, who then switched to other arts. Damage was sustained, then healed in part by the Sun Knights arts.

As the last of the lesser demons died, the demon leader shouted.

“We cannot stop now! All of you! Crush them!”

The fire, wind, and lightning demons, closest to the group, broke off first. Fire blade, wind arrow, and lightning claw met their Isa, Rai, and the Sun Knight.

Isa, covered in blood armor, staggered, then swung her halberd with a roar, shattering the sword on its next swing, then with a shout of “Dragon’s Wrath,” nearly cut the demon in two, the halberd flashing as she did. The demon summoned another sword to his hand, but she thrust her left claws straight through his chest and out his back, corrosive blood discoloring his skin even as he perished.

Rai jerked from the arrow, then twisted and dodged, evading both of the subsequent shots before slashing. Heedless of distance, his art cut across the demon, the gash deep. With a Silver Parry, he deflected the next arrow, ducked under the following two. As he rose, another slash. The demon staggered back, then toppled as blood fountained from its corpse.

The Sun Knight shouted, “Withstand!” and remained unmoving when the claw penetrated armor. The lightning and a flash of evil energy coursed through them, but the claws stopped short on their skin. Out of qi for arts, they simply retaliated with an upward then downward slash, then blocked the follow-up strikes with their shield before slashing across the demon’s throat and then stabbing it in the chest. It fell lifelessly to the floor.

The blood circle lit up, glowing with a dangerous red light, and the shards of the star also glowed green with a wavering aura. The remaining three demons from the pillars stopped chanting and rushed at the trio. Isa rushed to meet the stone demon, who looked like he was made of granite and carried an oversized stone hammer. She forewent her art cries, swinging her halberd with speed and might, carving right through the stone skin. He whirled his hammer and slammed it into her side, cracking bone and sending her flying. With a speed that belied his appearance he leaped the distance after her. She hit the ground and rolled just far enough that his floor-shattering swing missed. She rose with a lunge. Her halberd smashed into him, and blood leaked from his mouth as his eyes shone with malevolent light. He swung, and she shattered the haft of his hammer just below the head, which glanced off her armor and scales. Tossing away the remaining haft, he summoned another hammer, but with a roar of “Hurling Toss!” she smashed her fist into him and threw him through the air to shatter on landing.

Rai parried blows from the ice demon’s frost sword, his Lightning Strike thrusts finding gaps in the icy armor she wore and striking critical locations. His qi ran dry, and she landed a heavy slash across his chest. Two more precise strikes, and she staggered back. Raising her weapon high, she brought it down. He threw himself to the side, then countered, and the demon went down.

Metal met metal as the twin-sword wielding metal demon clashed with the Sun Knight. Blocks, parries, swings, and thrusts. Both drew blood – and pain, for both wielded weapons that were designed to do extra harm against opposite forces, good and evil. After several exchanges, a thrust through the chest that should have rendered the Sun Knight unconscious simply staggered them, and a retaliatory strike felled the demon.

The glow grew brighter, and the star in the center erupted with an eerie green aura.

“So close now! Keep chanting! I will finish off these mortals!”

The leader stormed forward, and Rai and Isa moved to intercept him. He flung his hands out.

“HAH!”

They went flying. Isa was knocked out of Berserk mode, and Rai’s adrenaline-fueled strength vanished; he couldn’t stand. The demon marched over to Isa, then stomped on her chest, snapping ribs. She gasped in shock and pain.

“This is the end of the line!”

A greatsword of darkness appeared in his hands and he raised it high.

Music: Sanctifier By Phil Rey Gibbons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePmDjWpY-I4&list=PLrnCj7Hn8NgTjgPA9ESeFRX70zd0vPPqu&index=8

“NO!” the Sun Knight screamed. “GOD! AID ME!”

The windows all brightened in a flash, light flooding the room. The emblem on the Sun Knight’s shield and armor lit up with a blinding light, and light spilled out of their helmet.

“I am here. Foul Demon, you shall not be allowed to complete your wicked work,” a voice not their own emanated from the Sun Knight’s helm. “I shall borrow my valiant servant as a vessel, and I shall smite the wicked!”

Wings of light erupted from the back of the Sun Knight’s armor, and they charged, gliding swiftly an inch above the floor. “Sun God’s Healing Evil Slayer!”

The Sun Knight’s sword seemed to transform into light itself as it came down on the demon superior, and light flowed through the demon and the trio alike. Where it healed their wounds, it caused the demon to roar in pain as a glowing golden gash stretched from shoulder to hip.

The demon responded, clashing swords with the Sun Knight once, then again, throwing their sword to the side, then smashing aside their shield and bringing down his sword on their helmet, splitting it wide open, the two halves falling to the floor and revealing the Sun Knight’s face.

A halo of light surrounded their head and golden light spilled from their eyes, showing the Sun God’s possession, but the face was not that of a human or elf. The Sun Knight had no hair, their head bald. Small tusks jutting from their lower jaw, and their skin was the same bruised purple of an orc. Blood flowed down from under where the helmet had been struck.

Isa gazed up in shock.

“Half-orc… I was right,” Rai whispered.

“You chose the spawn of an orc and a human to be your servant – even your vessel?” the demon said in surprise.

“I chose the most faithful, who embraced their potential. The light of the sun shines upon all living equally. Now die!”

Sword clashed with sword, again and again. The demon cut through the Sun Knight’s breastplate, blood splashing out.

“Sun God’s Healing Evil Slayer!”

A diagonal cut facing the opposite direction formed an X with the first slash, and the Sun Knight’s and Rai’s wounds completely vanished; Isa’s wounds healed further, bones returning to their proper positions and fusing once more.

“Go back to your celestial hiding place, foolish god! You can’t keep healing your vessel forever!”

The demon hammered on the Sun Knight’s sword, denting then splitting it in half – and lopping off the Sun Knight forearm at the halfway point.

“I don’t need to! Sun God’s Holy Exorcism!”

The sword of light came down directly through the center of the X, and the demon of darkness screamed. The three golden gashes glowed brightly, and the demon’s body disintegrated from the gashes out.

The magic circle brightened further, and the aura around the shattered star flared ominously.

“Your body is at its limit to serve as my vessel. I must leave you. Companions of my servant, you must stop that final demon at all costs!”

The light went out from the Sun Knight, and they collapsed, unconscious. Rai and Isa scrambled to their feet, Prismeep climbing back on Rai’s shoulder, and they charged at the final demon. Isa powered herself up with star energy from her qi core.

“Savage Rush! Dragon’s Wrath!”

The demon expired to her halberd mid-chant.

The glow of the blood circle faded.

But the aura of the star grew stronger. A powerful wind pulled toward the shattered star, and Rai had to snatch Prismeep to keep the carbuncle from flying forward. At the center of the shattered pieces, a black sphere appeared.

“What is that?!” Isa cried over the howling of the wind.

“I don’t know! I think interrupting the ritual made something go wrong with it!”

The wind intensified, and they began to slide forward.

Isa stowed her halberd in her ring and reached out and grabbed Rai’s arm.

“Rai!”

“Isa!”

“Meep!”

The wind stopped.

“…Well, I guess it’s ov—”

With a terrifying roar, and sucking force, they were yanked off their feet and thrown into the sphere.

Six star fragments quickly followed after them.

The sphere shrank to a dot and vanished.

And then there was silence.