It took all of Elaina’s strength in her weakened state to shove Resius away from her as the demon charged at them. They narrowly avoided the swing of its vicious claws, which dug deep grooves into the earth. It shrieked again, the terrible noise from its beak rattling her a little less than it had the previous two times. Resius fell heavily to the ground, fumbling clumsily with his weapon as he tried to pull it from the holster. Elaina drew her own weapon more deftly, briefly speaking a word of magic to ignite it with the Radiant Blade spell.
The demon hesitated in the bright light being cast by the sword, clearly taken off guard by the display. With the spell active and the sword in hand, she felt a surge of strength run through her. Elaina couldn’t tell if it was confidence, adrenaline, or the magic itself, but whatever it was, she wasn’t about to let it go to waste. The swordmage darted in, taking several swings at the creature that managed to stay just out of her reach, its wings offering it a level of maneuverability she’d not accounted for.
Once the demon found its footing, it went on the offensive. As it swung with hungry claws, though, the outline of its body began to blur, making it difficult to track its movements accurately. So rather than try to make precise parries, she did her best to avoid them instead.
Resius was back on his feet, weapon primed and drawn. Once he was sure she wasn’t in the line of fire, he squeezed off a shot that lit up the area around him for several feet, casting distorted shadows in all directions. The blast of light passed through a blurred part of the creature’s wing, leaving it completely unharmed as its form separated. Now, rather than one creature, there appeared to be three that overlapped with one another, shifting and moving in ways that made it impossible to keep track of.
“Don’t let it get too close to you,” Resius advised, “Nasty spores that flake off of it will take the wind right out of your sails.”
“I already feel like a tub of shit, thanks,” Elaina replied, her eyes remaining focused on the shifting mass of the creature and its illusory counterparts. It was an interesting trick, she had to admit. It made it very difficult to place a skillful shot, forcing most combatants into more broad sweeping strikes in the hopes of tagging the creature. Such attacks would be clumsy, creating openings. Even with more precise strikes, openings would be presented for exploitation.
Elaina played with illusions every day, though, albeit minor glamers. It was how she kept her face from looking as ragged as she felt and how she kept her face painted despite carrying no makeup. One simple glamer applied to her face every day had made her well accustomed to how they interacted with physical matter. More importantly, though, she knew how they interacted with light. It was essential to know when you had to have something that stood up well over a whole day. It was the sort of thing most people would never learn and never notice, but that she painstakingly tweaked for months before she had been happy with it.
The swordmage stepped back, moving her sword in long looping flourishes, allowing its weight to contribute to its momentum. The creature moved in small motions to each side, looking for its opening amid the flashing barrier of her sword. The quicker she spun it, the more of a strobing effect it took on, and the more it began to hum in anticipation of a strike. Usually, the technique was one that she used to disorient something in the dark for a strike, but this time she was using it to track the shadows and see how the light fell upon the creature from different angles.
Resius even seemed disoriented as she moved forward, spinning her whole body around to add to the gyroscopic motions of the light before passing it behind her back and around again. It was hard to say if the demon had failed to anticipate the strike or was so sure of its illusory doubles taking the brunt of the attack that it simply hadn’t moved, but Elaina found her mark. The sword sank deep into its shoulder, a shriek of agony joining the bubbling hiss of the radiant energy reacting to the fiendish flesh it was buried in.
Elaina held her breath, not wanting to risk breathing in any of the spores Resius had warned her about. She dragged the blade from its home in the demon’s shoulder, cutting a long line in it as she moved diagonally down and out. Then, pivoting to a fixed, powerful stance, she brought the weapon across its waist and back up across its chest opposite the first strike to carve a line up and out of the opposite shoulder.
With a beat of its mighty wings, the demon shot back away from her, buffeting her with a powerful gust of foul air and fell spores that began to go to work on her exposed skin. Breathing them in wasn’t necessary at all, it seemed. Small, thin, deformed vines began to sprout across her arm and up along her neck.
“Agh, fuck!” Elaina cried, feeling a numbing weakness begin to run through her body. Her grip on her weapon was starting to weaken, the light radiating from it flickering. If she dropped it, the light would be extinguished as the spell ended, and she would be plunged back into darkness once again.
“Your luck has run out, meat,” The creature declared wickedly, the blood pouring from its wounds seemingly forgotten.
“Maybe, but mine’s just started, mate,” Resius declared, leveling his weapon on the creature. Only then did the demon realize that Elaina’s assault had purged it of its illusory duplicates and that it was the only thing left to take the brunt of the attack.
With a loud crack of thunder and a flash of light, the occultist put a gaping hole in one of the demon’s wings. He hadn’t been aiming specifically for the wing, but in a desperate bid to mitigate the damage about to be done to it, the demon had turned at the last possible second. It wasn’t enough to end the fight, but it was enough to rob the demon of some of its mobility. As if in disbelief of what had just happened, the demon tried to take to the sky. The large hole in its wing allowed it only a few feet of altitude before it sank back to the ground again.
Elaina’s arm was almost too weak to move, so she reached over with her left and took the weapon. She wasn’t nearly as skillful with her off-hand, but it kept the spell alive and her in the fight. Before the spreading vines could rob her of any more of her physical ability, she rushed forward in a sprint toward the demon. It braced itself, expecting her to take its head off, so she slid into a slide through the dirt to clip the muscle and tendons in the back of its leg.
Falling to one knee, it didn’t have time to avoid another shot from Resius that splayed the wound in its shoulder completely open, turning it at the waist from the force of the projectile’s impact. Elaina scrambled to her feet, leaped into the air, and drove the blade down into its back at a steep angle. The amount of blood flowing freely from the creature made it impossible for the spores to get far from its body, which sank lifelessly to the ground only a moment later.
“Nice one,” Resius complimented as he holstered his weapon, the shrieking of the demons locked up in the gatehouse making it a little difficult to hear him.
Elaina nodded once, her eyes looking over at the penned-up creatures only to see them rotating and shuffling in a strange dance, “What the hell are they doing?”
Resius glanced over, doing a double take once he could make out their movements, “Bollocks!”
Without another word, the man desperately hoisted Elaina over one shoulder like she was a child and began running as fast as he could with her. Behind them, Elaina could see a strange glow forming between the demons, followed by sparks of electrical energy. As they approached the other end of the bailey near the keep, Resius dropped her behind what was once a decorative stone pillar of some kind that existed merely as a broken stump now.
“What’s going on?” she asked, confused, as he pressed against her, sandwiching her between his body and the stone behind her. A moment later, a terrifying sound of deafening thunder, the likes of which she had not heard in her entire life, filled the bailey up. Along with it came an expanding field of lightning that instantly appeared, striking at anything exposed within the courtyard. Plantlife exploded, stone was scorched, and long grooves of burned churned earth were carved out of the ground in all directions from the point of origin of the gatehouse.
A scant few arcs of lightning licked across Resius’ back, scorching his tunic and flesh. But Elaina knew it was nothing compared to what would have happened if they had been caught in the open. Despite his body covering her, she also caught some electricity up along the numb arm sitting limply at her side. Feeling immediately returned to the arm, though Elaina wished it hadn’t.
“What the fuck was that!?” Elaina screamed, not realizing how loud she was until she’d spoken.
“It’s a little thing vrocks do when they get together. Looks like they thought they’d avenge their buddy,” Resius explained as he peeked out from around the stone of the broken pillar. He winced slightly at the pain in his back but otherwise seemed alright.
“Vrocks,” Elaina repeated, only just now learning the name of this particular breed of demon.
Resius nodded, “Lucky for us, we already locked them behind metal bars, which dampened the effect of their trick quite a lot.”
If that was the lesser version of their lightning explosion dance, or whatever it was called, she hoped never to see it at full strength. “Are they dead?”
“What? No, no, it doesn’t do anything to them. They’re just pissed off now, lifting the portcullis right now.”
“Lifting?” Elaina exclaimed in disbelief, “They can lift that?”
“Oh yeah,” Resius scoffed, “Strong blighters. Figure it should only take them a couple of minutes, so we should be gone by then.”
Elaina pushed herself off of the broken pillar to stagger to her feet. It took her a moment to locate her sword, which she had dropped nearby in the confusion. Then, without looking back at the furious vrocks freeing themselves from the gatehouse, she pressed on toward the keep. They wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell in a fight against more than one of the things, no matter how well she knew her way around illusions.
The wicket set into the massive doors of the keep was unlocked, which they slipped through immediately and locked behind them by way of a heavy bar that slid into place. She didn’t know if it would keep the vrocks out, but at this point, every little obstacle she threw between them and the demons would be a small blessing.
“Let me get these for you,” Resius said as he drew a small knife from his belt, immediately cutting the thin vines free from her body. After each cut, he would give a slight tug, ripping up the remains and leaving blood streaming down her neck and arm, “These would have dried up and died soon, but best to be rid of them quick.”
“Would they have killed me?” Elaina asked, a bit of fear in her voice.
“Unlikely, but there are things worse than death. Most varieties of these can’t survive long in our world, but they make up for it by using every last minute they spend here hell for whoever they grow out of.”
“Delightful,” Elaina said blithely, glancing up the stairs that led into the main atrium, “Wonder what kind of crap is waiting for us in here.”
It was then that she noticed that the temperature had dropped drastically. It hadn’t been sweltering when they were in the courtyard, but inside, it felt like they had stepped out into the snow. Elaina took a deep breath and noticed that she could see it when she exhaled, “Cold.”
“Aye, it is,” Resius responded, fishing in his pocket briefly before producing a stump of a dark purple candle. With a snap of his fingers and a brief flash, the wick at the top ignited, and an eerie blue flame danced in its place. The candle cast a similarly eerie light around them, the blue hue oddly adding to the sense of cold that prevailed about them.
“Stay close,” the occultist instructed, “So long as you stay in the light of this, ghosts and the like shouldn’t be able to detect you.”
“Really?” Elaina looked curiously at the candle, “There are that many around that we have to worry about?”
“Indeed,” he answered as he made his way up the steps. Ahead of them down the hall, several figures seemed to wander aimlessly this way and that, heads hanging sullenly as they milled about. Elaina blinked a few times, a chill running down her spine, though it had little to do with the cold around them. The idea that so many of them were just here shuffling around felt unclean to her, not to mention depressing. These had been people, once upon a time. Now their existence was walking up and down a hall for eternity.
“Without the candle, would they be hostile?”
“Not always,” Resius sighed, motioning for her to follow him down the hall, “But you really don’t know which is which until they make a move for you. Then, of course, there are the ones we can’t see.”
Elaina nodded slowly, unconsciously scooting a little closer to the man. She hadn’t ever thought of herself as someone overtly afraid of ghosts, but now that she was weaving through a small gaggle of them, she was beginning to feel differently.
The corridor continued to another set of double doors, the great hall where official business and grand feasts would be held. But off the corridor were several side passages, one of which would allow them to make their way around to the kitchen, larder, and storage cellars without going through the great hall where they would be more exposed. Without a word, the swordmage gestured to their right allowing Resius to lead the way with the cold blue light of the candle.
Were it not for the light of the candle, Elaina had no idea how they would have navigated their way down the side corridors. Each one was much more narrow, and the unsettling translucent forms of the dead crowded the space more and more as they went. She couldn’t help but gawk a little at each one as they passed, many of which had no readily discernible cause of death on their spectral forms. Others would have gaping wounds, revealing dark spectral innards or missing limbs with wispy stumps that would have been bleeding profusely were they alive. Each looked haggard, tired, and despondent. Ragged clothing hung from some, likely those who had been servants in life, while others were dressed in finer clothing, albeit several decades out of date. More disorienting was how some would randomly pass into a wall, vanishing from view, while others would suddenly emerge from a solid surface and nearly collide with them.
On multiple occasions, they would pass close to a ghost, causing it to stir from its ghostly fugue state and look in their direction. Despite many of them staring the two of them right in the face with blank, lifeless gazes, they could not see them. After moments of searching, the glimmer of awareness would leave their faces, and they would return to their wandering.
Elaina continued to direct her companion with motions of her hands rather than risk saying anything aloud. Finally, after several turns that looked like they might end up doubling back in the direction they had come, they found their way into the kitchen. The swordmage glanced around, noticing a ghostly figure standing at a stove stirring a pot with nothing in it.
“What’s he doing?” Elaina whispered. The ghost glanced in their direction, revealing the other half of its face covered in horrendous burns. The eye on that side had been completely burned out of its head, leaving an empty socket with a single pinpoint of ghostly light within. But, like the others, it didn’t see them.
“A lot of the time, these lot will just go about whatever simple routine they had in life, even if it doesn’t make any sense,” Resius whispered back. The candle in his hand looked like it was beginning to run low. She guessed they wouldn’t have much more time under its protection.
Instead of continuing, Resius took a moment to examine the shelves and cupboards. Elaina couldn’t imagine what he was looking for. All that seemed to be left behind were old pots and pans and an incomplete dinnerware set. Even the spices that had been hung from a rack looked as though they had long passed into the hereafter, along with the ghost working the unlit stove. Shuffling around inside a cabinet a mere three feet from the undead cook, Resius seemed to find what he was looking for. He held a short wooden tube in one hand, which he handed to her.
With a twisting motion of his hand, he motioned for her to unscrew the top, which she did as instructed. Elaina didn’t know what she expected to find, but seeing that the tube contained nothing more than salt felt a little disappointing. He held his hand out, palm up, nodding for her to pour some into it. Again she did as instructed until he bid her to stop with another motion of his head. Then, with a small white pile in his hand, Resius turned to face the cook. Leaning close to the unsettling entity, he blew the small mound of salt from his hand and into its face.
Each grain of salt that passed through the hazy skull of the ghost flashed and sparked as the ghost let out a cry of pained surprise. A split second later, starting with its head, the ghost seemed to lose form and dissipate into oily smoke.
“The hell was that?” Elaina blurted out without thinking.
“What we’ll have to rely on once the candle’s out,” Resius replied as he pulled another tube of salt from the cabinet, “bastards can’t stand the stuff. Regular ghosts like this can’t cross lines of it, and it burns them like acid, as you saw. But it’s a temporary solution at best. The more powerful ones shrug it off pretty easy, though.”
“Salt,” Elaina said incredulously, “That’s all it takes?”
“If it’s of the right purity, aye. Kitchens in castles are almost always guaranteed to have plenty of it, though,” he confirmed.
“Sure, why not,” the redhead replied, screwing the top back onto her tube of salt. She winced as some pain shot through her shoulder and forearm. The cold from before had helped to keep her mind off of it, but with the kitchen ghost gone, the temperature seemed to return to normal.
“You still got the potions that Lenuta gave you?” Resius asked quietly.
“Yeah,” Elaina nodded, patting one of the pouches on her belt, “But I’m saving them for something a little more serious than this.”
“Don’t,” Resius objected, “No idea what we’ll come up against. Better to be as close to your best as we can get.”
Elaina stared at him for a moment but decided against arguing and retrieved the potions from the pouch. Pulling the stoppers from the vials, she downed the contents of each with a single gulp. The liquid had a sweet flavor and felt cool and soothing as it went down her throat. Almost immediately, she began to feel warmth around her wounds, which were now visibly closing. It took only seconds for nearly all of the damage her body had suffered to be undone, with the drying blood and torn fabric being the only signs that she had ever been wounded.
“She does good work,” Elaina observed with an appreciative sigh. Moving her arm, the new pink flesh where the wounds had been felt tight and itchy. But it was a small price to pay for such effective healing, and it wasn’t as though it would last long.
“You still have yours?” she asked.
Resius nodded, reaching for one of his pockets but producing only one of the vials. In retrospect, she realized she should have waited to see how she felt after one before taking the second, but it was too late for that now. He downed the vial’s contents as quickly as she had, and the result was much the same, with the burns from the lightning across his back losing their redness and crispy texture within seconds.
“All good?” Elaina asked, exchanging the vials with the tube of salt on the countertop.
The occultist twisted at the hip a few times and rolled his shoulders, experiencing the same tightness in his body as she was, “Yeah, think I’ll be alright.”
Elaina heaved a quick sigh and pointed at a door on the far end of the kitchen, “Larder, then storage cellar, then cistern,” she said.
“Alright, then, let’s get to it.” Resius turned to lead the way, keeping the remains of the candle in hand as it burned lower, its strangely earthy smell filling Elaina’s nose.
