Chapter 5: Alarms blazing

Summoning is an art. Much like healing, mage craft, and alchemy. It takes mana, and calls a summon to the summoner. Most often than not, the summon places the summoner through a series of tests. To see if the summoner is worthy of its time...

"Hey, Thomas, we are back," Harold said, and Thomas's eyes snapped from the book. There was a vile stench in the air.

"The hag is dead?" Thomas asked, as he took a scented handkerchief and pressed it to his nose.

"More dead we couldn't make it," Harold told him with a grin. A sack was placed on top of the desk, in the special crate that was there for the checking of the bounties.

"Let me see," Thomas opened the sack, and saw that the hag's eyes were still moving. She opened her mouth, and he saw that she didn't have a tongue. "You know the rules, Harold. We don't burn things alive. It is against the law."

"Oh, come on, Thomas. It is a hag. If we don't burn her, she will regenerate," Harold whined. Thomas looked as the hag looked at him with barely veiled amusement. She was just a head with matted brown hair and rotting teeth, yet, when she opened her mouth again, he saw that there was a tiny tongue in her mouth.

"Call the guild master. Now!" Thomas closed up the sack, hoping beyond hope that the static rune on it will do its job. He pressed the panic button under the desk, and backed away from it.

"She is regenerating already?" Beth looked pale. "But I cut off her tongue and then burned the spot with mana."

"Her tongue is getting back to its original state. Come on, call the guild master," Thomas all but yelled. A hag here, with almost everyone off to a quest, meant that things were going to get ugly. Most of the people still in the guild were civilian personal. They would be cannon fodder for the creature.

"Everyone, get out of here. Move it, people," Andrew yelled, and he took off his shield and then moved to the sack.

"We can't leave you behind," Beth spoke, voice erratic.

"This thing was so easily decapitated because we caught it sleeping. Now, it is awake and angry. I will buy you time. Go, now," Andrew commanded, and his two teammates ran out of the reception room, to rush up the stairs. Only the guild master was good enough to bring down a hag. Everyone else that could, was out.

Then, Thomas got an idea. Lucius was still in the training hall. An S ranked rogue. Thomas rushed as quickly as he could towards the training hall. Just as he closed the door and locked it, he heard a cackle from inside.

He said a prayer for Andrew as he ran, and cursed his legs constantly for their lack of speed. When he reached the training hall, he saw that Lucius was doing push-ups. Not caring about the alarm that was blazing up above him.

"Lucius, thank the divines you are here. Quick, the party Golden Leaf brought in a still live hag's head. It began to regenerate," Thomas said in one go. Lucius sprang to his feet.

"It wasn't a training exercise? Damn. And here I thought that the alarms were for nothing. Ok, you stay here and lock the door. I am on my way," Lucius ran out with a speed that Thomas could only admire. The receptionist went and locked the door, slumping against it.

Lucius made it to the reception room, only to see Andrew, the tank of Golden Leaf party, slummed against the door. His arm missing. His shield split in two.

"Where is the hag?" Lucius asked. Andrew blinked at him. He opened his mouth, and Lucius saw that he was missing a tongue. "Just point in the direction it went in."

Andrew pressed two fingers into his ripped off arm, and drew an arrow on the floor. Then, his head tilted to the side, and he fell. Losing consciousness.

Lucius's eyes widened when he saw that the arrow pointed down.

"The vault," the vampire said, his voice a whisper. The hag could take any weapon from there and claim its power for herself. The disaster that would be was...massive.

The vampire went inside the reception room, and saw that the thick door leading to the hall with the weapons was torn off its hinges. The traps that were at the front of the tunnel had been activated.

There was a bloody trail leading down. The rogue knew that a little lost blood wouldn't stop a hag. They were nearly immortal. Only having them eat their own heart could kill them.

He sprinted down the tunnel, dodging traps that activated and aimed for his vital spots. The alarms were blazing all around him. Then, he saw her.

The hag was there, before the door to the vault. Cloaked in a black mist, she looked back over her shoulder, disinterested. Lucius took out a dagger and approached.

The hag must have not had enough mana to overpower the ancient runes on the door. Which was a small mercy, as far as the vampire was concerned. Had she even taken the weakest of the weapons that the guild had confiscated from various monsters and criminals, before killing them and turning in their heads, then, she would have been too hard to kill.

"What is a vampire doing as a lapdog of the humans?" She rasped, as Lucius kept on advancing.

"Not a lapdog, ally," Lucius then charged at her, his dagger pointing at her chest. She cackled and sidestepped him. Yet, Lucius did a sidestep of his own, and managed to get her on the arm.

She snarled at him, and then the mist surged forward. There was no dodging that, and Lucius grit his teeth as the mist began to eat away at his flesh and clothes. The attack took only a minute to turn his clothes in torn tatters and his skin in a spider web of wounds. Still, the hag did not see him rise his dagger through the black mist, using it as a cover, and bring it down towards her eye socket.