Chloe looked at the assembled guards and felt releaved. "No Im fine but Im worried Ashley and Charles they got separated from us. They where being chased by some creature that seemed to absorb magic." Chloe sighed and hoped those two would be alright. Not being chased by the undead and relatively safe Chloe once more offered her thanks to the entity that had bolstered their strength down below.
Chloe: HP = 76, PP = 65, EP = 71/75, Status = Fine, Eyes of the Cat, +22 Dodge (Force Armor)
Ashley: HP = 19/49, PP = 66, EP = 5/45, Status = Injured, Eyes of the Cat, +18 Perception (Lesser Strength), +20 Body (Lesser Strength), Low on Energy
NPC stats
Tesnya: HP = 65, PP = 55, EP = 80/110, Status = Fine
Jenn: HP = 52, PP = 69, EP = 41/47, Status = Fine
Charles: HP = ??/81, PP = 75, EP = 43/60, Status = ??
Nina: HP = 35, PP = 50, EP = 27/55, Status = Fine, Eyes of the Cat
Rolls
Ashley casts her buff while the monster gets up.
Casting : Success.
Buff: 10 * 2 = +20 Body.
The monstrous creature squirmed on the ground, ponderously righting itself and getting back onto its misshapen feet as Ashley cast a spell ti augment her strength and speed. It turned back toward her, but by then the wind mage was well into casting her second, far more impressive spell. A vortex of wind lifted the thing and spun it about, smashing it against the walls of the chamber repeatedly as it flailed uselessly against the wind carrying it about. Back down to the ground it fell a moment later, lying on its belly for a moment before it once more began to move, to climb awkwardly back to its feet. Damaged thought it might be, Ashley's spells hadn't destroyed it yet, and she was running out of energy to throw at the behemoth.
~~~~~~~~~
The teacher turned sharply upon Chloe, "Do you know where they are?" he demanded, and several others watched her as well. "I won't leave a student behind if I can help it, but sending more people down there to die isn't an option, particularly if they might have already been killed... Can you give us an idea of where they might be? Locate spells don't work around here, we've already tried, but if you can give us a location... Or even a general area..."
"I don't know they where pulled away by some apparition down a secrete passage. I tried to lead my group in the same direction but we got stuck in an old alchemy lab. Im not sure how far away they where from us. If the passage they followed didn't turn it should be fairly close from where we where."
Things were not looking good. Ashley thought she could manage one more spell to knock the thing on its ass, two if she weakened her spells. She'd have a few more seconds to fight in the down time either way, but her choice would be between cantrips and bullets. She had already hit it pretty hard, but it didn't exactly look on the edge of collapsing. Somehow it didn't seem likely that a few bullets would make it keel over. A big blast of wind and a few bullets... maybe. Probably not. And after that, it wouldn't take long to be on her.
Ashley glanced at the dented, shattered stone where Charles had been lying, and felt sick. If it hit her, the fight would be over. It didn't seem to be ridiculously fast, so maybe she could dodge it. For a while. But it would keep coming, and there was no way around it, no convenient way to lose it. Maybe the best thing to do would be to fall back. Throw up an illusion or something to delay it, and just get the hell away. She flicked her eyes towards the still form of her fellow student. No.
Maybe try to pull the ceiling down on top of it? She'd had some luck working rock earlier, but she'd never tried something like this. And that assumed that there was solid earth above the tunnel even if she could manage it.
But no, she would stick with what she knew. She stepped forward, holding her pistol in a two-handed grip as she began pulling the trigger. It would get up before too long, and she would throw the best wind she could with her remaining strength, having gotten close enough to Charles that she could cast over his inert form without doing further injury. Hopefully that would kill it. If it didn't... If that doesn't kill it, I'll have to think of a new plan. Quickly.
Take a pot shot. Badarian Revolver, with 18 body, Lucky, and her +20 buff.
Chloe: HP = 76, PP = 65, EP = 71/75, Status = Fine, Eyes of the Cat, +22 Dodge (Force Armor)
Ashley: HP = 19/49, PP = 66, EP = 1/45, Status = Injured, Eyes of the Cat, +18 Perception (Lesser Strength), +20 Body (Lesser Strength), Low on Energy
NPC stats
Tesnya: HP = 65, PP = 55, EP = 110, Status = Fine
Jenn: HP = 52, PP = 69, EP = 47, Status = Fine
Charles: HP = ??/81, PP = 75, EP = 43/60, Status = Badly Hurt
Nina: HP = 35, PP = 50, EP = 55, Status = Fine
"But you don't know anything for sure...." the teacher stated, his expression hard and angry. "And those tunnels are a death trap. I won't throw away more lives for a maybe... You said Charles and Ashley? You didn't mean the wind mage for the latter, did you? What's your patrol number, and who had the badge?"
~~~~~~~~~
Taking a shot at the creature as it rose, it was hard to tell whether the bullet that slammed into its form did it any real harm. Ashley's next step, to smash it in the chest with a line of wind, was just as successful as her previous attempts to do the same had been. The creature was lifted and hurled against the rear wall with a resounding thud, causing the stone to crack, but once more her blow barely seemed to phase it. Scrambling slowly along the ground, it began to ponderously rise to its feet once more, and now Ashley was almost completely out of energy. She still had her gun and the ability to throw cantrips, but neither seemed to be an effective deterrent against this monster if it had shrugged off so much of her magical punishment already.
"Yes the same she is still stuck down there we need to get her!" Chloe looked at the professor. Evocation never held much interest to her till these events so she only knew him from reputation.
The gun hadn't done any visible harm. For that matter, the most she could see as a result of her more powerful spells was that it was knocked over. So even if it wasn't immune to magic, it seemed unlikely that a few cantrips would cause it any serious inconvenience. And Ashley didn't have enough magical endurance remaining to knock the thing down again.
She glanced at Charles, his fallen form still. Maybe the thing would ignore him now that he was down, continue after her? She hoped so, because it seemed the only hope he might have. Without thinking too hard about either that or the ridiculously dangerous plan that had risen in her mind, she spun and ran back the way she had come, at full sprint with her magically-enhanced muscles. She stopped where she had stood trying to break the candles and glanced over her shoulder towards the entrance where the monster would appear.
The wind mage reached out with her magical abilities, carefully channeling the ambient energy without touching her own near-depleted reserves. She was deathly tired, having fully drained her magic for the second time in... there was no way to judge the passage of time since this nightmare had started, maybe hours, maybe minutes. But this wasn't a time for lack of concentration. Ashley thought back to the first time she had used magic, still watching for the beast with a tiny portion of her mind.
The young girl looked back at the city she had spent her entire life in. She was leaving now, wearing only the clothes on her back. Even now she knew that it was unlikely to be a happy sort of adventure, at least near the start. She had enough food to last perhaps a day, no water at all, no changes of clothing. She was a woman - a girl, really - alone on the roads of Badaria. Her tale might one day have a happy ending, but nothing 'happy' seemed likely in her near future.
She didn't regret it in the slightest. If she stayed, her fate was sealed. Within a few years she would take her mother's place, and be lucky if the worst she suffered was an unwanted baby. Eventually - maybe quickly, maybe decades down the road - she would die at the hands of the soldiers she had served and serviced. Just as her mother had. The road might be bad to start, but one day she might find happiness.
The spike of anger she felt at the thought happened just as the first bolt of lightning slammed down from the unnaturally spinning clouds and into the barracks. Ashley could see the glow of molten iron from nearly a mile away, though she only imagined she could hear the screams of wounded and dying soldiers. Her anger intensified, and so did the lightning. She didn't look away until dawn was starting to lighten the horizon, and the only things moving were the buzzards circling the blackened circle where the barracks had stood, now in the heart of a ruined town.
She didn't regret it in the slightest.
Back in the present, she delicately began moving the air. Control hadn't been in the cards back then, but since then she had had teachers, and practice. What had once come unconsciously and uncontrolled was now as simple as breathing. A little heat here, a little cold there, a nudge in the right direction, and a breeze came into being. Nothing like the power she had unleashed that terrible night, at least to the casual glance, but of the same basic nature.
But while her first teacher had only really taught control of what she did naturally, the Academy had broadened her horizons. She touched the breeze with traces of magical energy. When she had used a similar spell before, she had tried to disguise the magical nature of the wind, to be sure nothing magical touched the wards. Now she did the opposite, bending the spell through the material and ethereal planes; turning it into a breeze of magic as much as of air.
And rather then throw the pitiful amount of energy she had managed to gather at the monster, when it appeared Ashley turned and directed it towards the wards.
Throw a cantrip at the wards just as the monster closes to melee distance. Magic Missile if I have to pick a specific spell. Also full defensive fighting (to increase dodge), and whatever else is possible to avoid the sort of spell she saw when she tried to blow the candles out. Jumping out of the way or at dropping to the floor, maybe.
Chloe: HP = 76, PP = 65, EP = 71/75, Status = Fine, Eyes of the Cat, +22 Dodge (Force Armor)
Ashley: HP = 0/49, PP = 66, EP = 1/45, Status = Badly Injured, Low on Energy
NPC stats
Tesnya: HP = 65, PP = 55, EP = 110, Status = Fine
Jenn: HP = 52, PP = 69, EP = 47, Status = Fine
Charles: HP = ??/81, PP = 75, EP = 43/60, Status = Badly Hurt
Nina: HP = 35, PP = 50, EP = 55, Status = Fine
Rolls
Casting: Success. Magic Missile doesn't allow defensive fighting cuz no attack roll, but it doesn't matter much which one you use among the other available level 1 spells. She has an effective 40 + 10 (buff) + 20 (defensive fighting) + 6 (circsumtance bonus cuz she knows that it's coming) + 3 (Lucky) = 79 Dodge.
Ashley has triggered the wards. 65 random AoE damage-dealing effects fill the room each round as they discharge, with level and specific spell determined randomly. They use juggernaut dice to determine whether they hit.
1st spell: Fire, level 5, Godsfire
Attack: 12 + 20 = 32 to hit. Not enough to hit either of them.
2nd spell: Fire, level 4, Cone of Flame.
Attack: 40 + 20 = 60. Misses Ashley but hits the thing.
Damage: 2 + 1 + 8 + 2 = 13 * 4 = 52 - 20 = 32 damage, total of 203 damage.
4th spell: Wind, level 2, Lesser Gust.
Attack: 60 + 20 = 80, hits both of them.
Damage: 3 + 8 + 2 = 13 damage to Ashley, none to the creature.
Resistance: Both shrug it off.
5th spell: Earth, level 4, Stone Barrage.
Attack: 59 + 20 = 79. Hits both ;_;
Damage: 4 + 1 + 8 + 2 + 2 = 21 * 4 = 84 - 16 = 68 damage. Total of 269 damage on the creature.
Ashley turned sprinted down the corridor back towards the room that had once contained the wards and spells crafted to defend this place. After a moment she heard the lumbering footfalls of the creature that had terrorized them since they'd come to the abandoned church, following in her wake and chasing after her. As it turned out, the malformed monstrosity was anything but slow on its feet, at least in a narrow corridor, but her head start and the magical enhancement she'd cast to enhance her strength meant that she beat it down the ramp with ease. The cloud of darkness that had once been her guide was gone, though she spotted a shadowy substance slipping into the crack she'd put into the wall just before she turned to find the thing barreling down on top of her. She dove aside just in time to dodge its initial charge, and all that she needed after that was a tiny bit of magic to spark the supercharged wards into action. It had even gone and put itself into perfect position for her, coming to a stop just beyond the edge of the wards and turning to reorient itself back towards the battered wind mage.
Exhausted as she was, the simple spell was something that Ashley could have been done in her sleep, and with another dive she dropped to the ground just before there was an immense pressure that emanated from the center of the room. What happened next happened extremely quickly, as a fiery explosion first burst out from the center of the room. It washed over the creature... Or where it had been a moment ago, as its route toward her took it largely out of the path of the flames, but then mostly filtered out through the doorway. The shockwave passed Ashley by... Mostly, but a secondary blast as the flames continued to burn caught her and. for the second time that day, the wind mage was picked up hurled violently against the wall of the chamber. The creature was hit too, but like her it only got winged, and it had a great deal of mass over the feathery wind mage. Her clothing torn, her energy depleted, and her body battered to the point of collapse, Ashly still managed to turn her head and watch as the undead behemoth swooned aside under the force of the gale-force pressure wave from the blast, slamming against the wall and shaking as if its legs were about to buckle out from under it.
Only, they didn't. The monster simply adjusted for the shaking of the chamber, turned toward her, and took a step. And then another. It was moving slowly now, partly for stability but partly because it was simply savoring the kill, that much Ashley could tell simply from the way in which it moved. Her life flashed before her eyes as it took each step. Her mother and the mistreatment she'd suffered at home. Her departure, a familiar sight as it had flashed through her mind only moments prior. Her teacher, and the first steps she'd taken to controlling the vast power that she had under her command. *Thump* Artmirst, and all that had happened there. *Thump* Her battle with the very Queen of Hell. *Thump* Her subsequent years at the Academy, and her further study and mastery of magic. *Thump* The attack by the monsters from the sky, and the wind storm she'd called, and - *Thump* the creature was standing over her, and it was raising its fist over its head until it hit the ceiling, and it was going to kill her. It was going to crush her skull like a piece of overripe fruit, and given the power it had displayed so far it was unlikely that her torment would end just because she was dead. The blow that was going to kill her descended just as the explosion of fire and force from the center of the room redoubled, and she saw in the periphery of her vision that stones were falling from the ceiling, and then something struck her sharply on the head, and the world went black.
~~~~~~~~~
The red-clad man frowned and scratched his chin, an act that was likely infuriating to the near panicked Chloe. "We can't just leave them down there, where did you get into the tunnels from?" he asked sharply, unfolding his arms. Before Chloe could answer, however, the ground suddenly shook violently as a loud boom occurred a ways to the South. Turning in that direction as a small plume of dust rose up from a section of the ground that had seemingly collapsed, the whole of the party that had greeted them as they climbed out of the tunnels turning in confusion as one. Chloe spotted the glowing red orb that sped toward them out of the corner of her eye, something that her companions noticed a half-second after she did. One of them, Jenn perhaps, gave a tiny, frightened gasp just before it came to a stop over the site of the strange phenomenon.
It floated there for perhaps a second before suddenly diving down into the earth, and Chloe got a brief glimpse of a dark garbed, masked figure in the center of the crimson orb just before it vanished beneath the ground.
~~~~~~~~~
Ashley came back to the world of the living in an agonized daze. Her head felt like it was split down the middle, and her left arm felt worse, while a stabbing pain from her side throbbed dully in the background. Trickles of warm liquid and a general stickiness around her head and side suggested to the mage that she was bleeding in those areas as well, though that was likely not very surprising. She could barely breath, as a great weight rested on her chest, but after a moment's effort she would manage to shift the load off of her. Pain shot up her body, originating from her side as it nudged something that now seemed to be sticking out of her, but in the pitch blackness Ashley couldn't tell what it was or how bad her injuries really were. She still felt exhausted magically, and that combined with her continued bleeding suggested that she hadn't been out for very long, long enough for her spells to collapse but not long enough that she had begun to recover from all of her exertion.
That meant that she'd only been out for a few seconds, maybe a minute tops, and for a moment she might have thought that she was safe... That she'd won. Then the heavy, floppy something that had been on top of her shivered and began to stir, and the wind mage realized that her nostrils were filled with the sickly scent of rot. The monstrosity rose, the single tiny pinprick of light that appeared next to her and then rose up signalling that it was very much alive... Or whatever you'd called it. If she held any hope that it wouldn't be able to sense her battered form beneath it, she was sorely mistaken, as a familiar scene played out before her, now lit in bright crimson. The abomination drew back its single functional arm, scraping the nearly-collapsed ceiling, as it prepared to crush her. She could already feel the tendrils of its essence reaching for her, clutching at her soul in preparation of the meal that it would no doubt make of her.
It swung down, the end coming... And then the ceiling collapsed again, a brilliant red glare filling the room as a familiar dark-clad figure descended from the ceiling with a resounding crash. There was a glint, and a wet splitting noise as that glint descended, and Ashley felt the spiritual tendrils yanked suddenly away, scattered in every direction but each of them curling towards the masked daemon that now stood behind the one that been ready to kill her. "Ashley," Matthias said, his loud, low, grumbling voice crystal clear and holding perhaps a little bit of bemusement, something that she wasn't used to from the previously monotoned daemon. As the two halves of the monstrosity simply fell apart to either side, the daemon slowly sheathed his sword and tilted his head, gazing down at her with two pinpricks of red light not at all dissimilar to the one that had meant her doom only moments prior. "Just like old times."
A bright white light suddenly appeared over his head, bathing her in light and leaving her momentarily blinded as her eyes adjusted. When she had, she was able to examine her own wounds, finding that a sharp bit of stone was sticking into her side, moving right along with her ribs. Her left arm was broken halfway past the elbow, but the bones were still inside of her. Her skull was in better shape, not broken in any way save for the skin that lay over it. She might have a concussion, or that dizzyness could be from any of the fairly large number of things that had happened to her over the last two days. It was kinda hard to tell. "So.. How've you been?" he asked, his tone almost conversational as he towered over her.
~~~~~~~~~
After a moment of stunned silence, the party at the surface moved quickly to surround the hole that had been made in the ground. Much of it had collapsed inwards following its creation, leaving it largely closed, but they were still able to hear a deep, masculine voice emanating from below. None of the words were intelligible to Chloe, but the elven instructor turned to her anyway and said; "Do you know what the hell that was?"
Ashley stared blankly at the daemon for a moment, then at the bit of stone sticking into her side. Possibly a broken rib, certainly a broken arm. Still bleeding, not enough energy left to stop it quickly. And she wasn't sure if the Daemon didn't know how to talk to people, didn't recognize injuries on a mortal, or if she'd just been hit on the head hard enough that she had missed something. She decided to assume that what he said made perfect sense under the circumstances, on the basis that if she was wrong she would just seem sarcastic. "I seem -"
She stopped talking at the pain from what was now certainly at least one broken rib. She tried again, more quietly so that she wouldn't move as much. "Fine, until this morning. Um..." The wind mage seemed to recall sleeping after reaching the church. "Yesterday." And possibly after her storm at the Academy? And how long had she been in these tunnels? Or... captured? "Or something."
The thought occurred to her that Matthias was in much the same position that the beast had been moments before. And, if anything, she was more helpless before him then it. And while he had never been hostile towards her, it had been more 'ignore the mortal while consuming more powerful beings to gain their power'. And she had certainly increased in power since... but no. She was still a mortal, and in any case there wasn't much she could do if she thought Matthias was going to attack her. In fact, that was drastically overestimating her chances. She wasn't thinking clearly. Maybe if she took a little nap...
No, this wasn't over yet. With considerable effort, she looked back up at the daemon and focused as well as she could manage. The similarities really were striking - especially the eyes - now that she had a chance to make the comparison, and Matthias only assumed a human form by choice. "Was that another Daemon?" It made a sort of sense. Luring already-exhausted mages in to consume their souls and power, with anti-magic spells woven tight around itself so that they couldn't effectively fight back.
It had just bitten off more then it could chew. Only, maybe it hadn't. It had beaten Ashley, in the end, and for all she knew its minions had already killed or disabled her friends. And Charles... "Charles!" The injured mage moved to sit up, but froze at the stabs of pain from her ribs. She settled for just glaring at the Daemon.
"No but I bet that is where we will find Ashly and Charles. Come on we need to free them." It was about the right spot but the deeply masculine voice worried Chloe but it also gave her hope. "ASHLY CHARLES HANG ON WE'RE COMING TO GET YOU!" Chloe tried to move the rocks with her bare hands after all she was not nearly as talented in other magics as her companions.
Chloe: HP = 76, PP = 65, EP = 71/75, Status = Fine, Eyes of the Cat, +22 Dodge (Force Armor)
Ashley: HP = 49, PP = 66, EP = 1/45, Status = Low on Energy
NPC stats
Tesnya: HP = 65, PP = 55, EP = 110, Status = Fine
Jenn: HP = 52, PP = 69, EP = 47, Status = Fine
Charles: HP = ??/81, PP = 75, EP = 43/60, Status = Badly Hurt
Nina: HP = 35, PP = 50, EP = 55, Status = Fine
Rolls
Not really.
Congrats! You have beaten DG2! Mostly. Now it's just wrap-up stuff. You both get 16 experience, and if your character opt to remain at the Academy and will be returning for DG3, will gain budgets for enchanting gear at the Academy of up to 400 denarii on top of personal wealth. You may also buy enchantments for much cheaper, enhancing things and buying reagents for enchanting for 1/2 the listed cost in the item shop. That's 1/2 the listed SELLING price.
"That's terribly unstable... Magically shifting that earth might bury them down there. How did you get down there?" the instructor asked, repeating an earlier question with a bit of an edge to his voice, and Jenn was quick to answer; "Through the church, there was a passageway... We can show you!" The elven man nodded, "Whatever's happening down there, they may be injured. Lead on." Tesnya, Jenn, Nina, and Chloe led the elven mage into the church, leaving behind about half of their group to watch the entrance while they moved to the entrance to the cellar that they had entered what must have felt like months ago.....
~~~~~~~~~
Standing above Ashley, it seemed as if Matthias didn't even recognize her injuries, and he stood silently over her like the specter of death even after she had remembered her injured comrade... Until he suddenly lifted his hand toward her, causing the stone to pull free of her side and her arm to bend back into place at the exact same time. Taken separately they were only agonizing, but together they very nearly caused her to black out again for the half second that they lasted. The pain was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving Ashley merely exhausted... And possibly surprised, given how long it had been since she'd been subjected to the daemon's exceedingly quick healing processes. "Better now, I hope..." he remarked sardonically, again displaying a good deal more feeling in his voice than the mage remembered from the previously inhuman being.
Reaching a hand down towards her, Matthias helped Ashley to her feet as he said; "Yes, that was another daemon. That would be why killing it repeatedly availed you so little." Standing on her feet, it was then her presumed goal to be off down the hall, and a few moments later Ashley would find Charles slumped over in exactly the same position in which she'd left him. A simple cursory examination would be enough to reveal that the man was in his very last moments, his chest crushed such that his shattered ribs would have pierced into his lungs and possibly even his heart, but despite the agony that he must have been in, Charles opened his eyes as Ashley touched him. Recognition filled in his otherwise pain-blanked eyes after a few seconds, and he slowly mouthed her name, unable to speak aloud despite his earnest efforts.
"Don't try to talk. I'll -" Ashley had set a hand gently on his upper arm, and started to gather in her power. Healing wasn't exactly her specialty, but her general experience and raw power meant she was capable enough. Except that she had burned all her energy in the fight with the daemon, and Matthias hadn't restored it. No healing would come from her, at least for a few minutes.
The first time Matthias had healed her - also after the fight was over, though she had 'won' that time - he had restored her energy. Why hadn't he done so this time? And for that matter, who had restored it earlier, when the strange woman had showed up... and who had that been anyway? Those questions would have to wait, at least a moment. The wind mage turned to glare at the daemon again. "What about him? And my other friends? Are they...?" It had probably only been a few minutes since she had seen Jenn and the rest, and they were all capable mages, but anything could have happened in that time.
Intend to cast Maximized Healing Touch should Ashley find herself with the EP and Charles still injured. Also, I'm sure she had a whole list of other questions after her immediate concerns are addressed.
"He is alive, but only just. The rest that were drawn here with you are safe and on their way.... Along with a larger group from the Academy," Matthias replied, and then simply stood there behind her. No rush of energy came forth, and though he let off enough energy that she might have compared it favorably to a ley line, she could only tap so much of it at once. "Oh... You probably want to heal him," he added, and then a flicker of energy from the daemon suddenly filled her to bursting with magical strength. Turning back to Charles, a quick burst of magic caused him to shiver and let out a tiny cough, his bones squirming beneath his skin as they were forced back into position. "That looked painful," Matthias remarked in amusement, but there was nothing for it at this point, and she was forced to cast the same spell again, and again. Each time it seemed as if Charles would simply die from the shock of the healing magics as they repaired his shattered body, but something kept his heart beating, kept his lungs drawing breath. He passed out after the third casting, but it was clear that the damage had been largely repaired by then.
Ashley turned to face the daemon again, as sure as she could be that Charles was at least stable. A better healer then her would have to finish the job, maybe even take away the pain. But now that her friends were safe, she had some questions. The daemon didn't seem like the sort to stick around when there were people about, but perhaps she could get at least something out of him.
"Who and what was that strange woman who led me to the candles? What were the candles doing? Would it have stayed dead if I'd finished it off with the candles out, or if not then what would it have taken?"
"And what about you? Are you.. why are you watching me?" That he was watching her seemed not to be a question. Obviously he hadn't blown through the ceiling in front of her by chance, and he had also whispered to her inside the invader's ship, and possibly even appeared during her Storm. Why he should watch a mortal woman - especially before she had done some of things she had done in the last few days - was a puzzle.
There were certainly more questions swimming around Ashley's head, but she suppressed them, waiting to hear his response - if he did respond - before continuing.
Matthias didn't complain about Ashley's line of questions, instead simply answering them one at a time in his normal grinding, monotone voice; "Another daemon. One that the one that stalked you sought to extinguish as the last threat to its dominance over this region. It might not seem like much, but these sorts of things have started gods before.... Not gods that you've ever heard of maybe, but they do exist. The candles were its defense, shrouding its presence from beings that might destroy it before it could grow beyond their abilities. They had nothing to do with its ability to animate more corpses as bodies, but I imagine that it would have retreated if you had killed its shell again, allowing you to retreat so that it could repair its defenses in safety."
Her last and perhaps most worrying questions caused the daemon to provide her a moment of silence, but only a brief one before he replied; "Firstly, because you are competent, and competence is something to be desired in one's associates. Secondly, because I considered myself in your debt following the events in Artmirst two years ago. I... Would have come to assist you earlier, but Sivicine was closer, and I would rather not have risked you and all those others in the crossfire if she and I were to meet. And thirdly.... I've been looking for people to fill a number of roles that have long been left vacant, and you are one of my candidates. Letting someone else eat you would not be practical." It was difficult to tell if the daemon was joking or serious in his last sentence.
Ashley considered his last thought for a moment. She knew enough about Daemons to know what he meant when he said 'eat', but the implication was that doing it himself might be practical. Well, it was clear that he was too far out of her power class to do anything about that. So perhaps best to continue being competent. And whatever 'role' he had in mind for her... well, she'd deal with that when the time came. In the meantime, she'd continue being herself.
And herself had another question. It was a little unwise, but given what she had just been told it seemed relevant. In fact, maybe it was more then a little - before she could second-guess herself too much, she blurted it out. "If all I did was destroy its body again, it still could have thrown more corpses at me, or even just collapsed the ceiling on its way out. How would I actually kill a daemon?"
Asking another daemon this might not have been the safest way to get an answer, but if doing it was easy there wouldn't be so many of the damn things around. And she'd also have to do some more in-depth research on Daemons when she got back to the university, plus this 'Sivicine', but this was still an important question to have an authoritative answer to in the event that she faced up against one again.
"Yes, if you killed it again it could have attacked you in any of a number of inventive ways, assuming that it thought to do them.... Which it probably wouldn't have. Even if it were intelligent enough to attack you in a more efficient way, it likely would have retreated anyway. Throwing around that kind of power draws attention unless it's warded properly, and if it animated another body or collapsed the ceiling you after you brought the spell protecting it down, you'd have likely been its last meal. Permanently destroying a daemon requires that you shatter its spirit into enough pieces that it can't just pull itself back together.... The gun on your hip can do such, for instance" he stated, gesturing toward the old revolver that Ashley had found hidden in the closet of the church.
Ashley caressed the hilt of the strange gun for a moment, then let it go. "Interesting." That would be another thing to take a closer look at when she was safely home. Was it the gun, the ammo, or both? Could she have more ammo made, or alter the ammo to fire with her own gun, or... well, that could wait.
There were plenty more questions, but none offhand that only Matthias could answer and was likely to actually do so, and there were still other concerns. Well, maybe one last question. She gestured at Charles. "Um... how do we get out of here?"
"Walk," Matthias replied simply. A moment's pause later, he supplied; "Your companions and others from the Academy are on the way. There is no further danger here, so I will be departing before they arrive. If you would have anything more of me, ask of it now. I do now know when we will speak again." If Ashley had nothing further, the daemon would simply vanish before her very eyes, leaving her alone save for her unconscious friend.
.... Choe, among those that had come with her through this dread place the first time and those that were experiencing the church' eery atmosphere for the first time, found herself in the small chamber in which they had split from Charles and Ashley. They had encountered many corpses, but no moving ones, and none that belonged to Ashley and Charles either. Other than that, the gloomy basement felt... Different, from the first time she had been there. Not cleaner, but somehow... Safer, as if its malignance had been removed, leaving only the echoes of it that could persist for time immemorial. Jenn pointed to the hidden passageway, which now stood open once again, and said; "They went down that way."
Their superior nodded and strode forward, and when he reached the first intersection her remarked; "There's a mark here.... A magical one." Looking at it, Chloe saw it too, and there were many more, simple arrows that glowed against the stone. Following the arrows, they quickly stumbled upon Ashley, who stood next to Charles as he laid against the wall of the tunnel, his entire front covered in blood as he laid very still.
Ashley, deciding that she had pushed her lucky enough for one day, said "No, I think that's all for now. Thank you." The daemon vanished without a trace.
A reasonably short time later, a group from the academy walked around the corner to find an impatient wind mage standing over the still form of Charles. "There you are. He needs urgent attention."
That taken care of, she searched among the faces of those present until she found Jenn, and ran over to embrace her friend. "You're okay? Everyone else made it out safely?"
As the group made their way back to the surface, Ashley gave her version of what had happened to the man leading the search team that had located them. She started with just a summary, assuming that others had mentioned the important parts, expanding if asked. Their encounter with the church before being captured. The ambush. Their rescue. The fog, what they had seen in it, and taking refuge in the church. Killing the abomination several times before being split up.
After that, she went into more detail, since Charles still wasn't exactly in a position to be talking. Their guide, and the room with the candles where they had been led. Charles going to delay the coming beast. How she had disabled the warded candles. Her final confrontation with the beast, and the gambit that had been her last effort.
For her conclusion, she chose her words very carefully. "The spells that the ward released were unpredictable, and the final one his both of us pretty hard. We were both about finished, but before things could go any further a more powerful Daemon arrived. It destroyed the daemon that had been stalking us, and informed me that the candles had been powering a spell that hid the recently-destroyed daemon presence from more powerful beings like itself. Then it left."
After some thought, and once they were out of the church, Ashley decided to add one final bit of information, carefully watching the others' reaction. "The second daemon, the one that came through the ceiling, was one I've seen several times before, as far back as Artmirst. It... he called himself Matthias."
