"We've Been Waiting for You"
Eveningstar, Emphyralis
After nearly a week of Witchborn coming into Silvermoon, it was impossible to hide it. Not that it was being hidden. Once the women in charge agreed to help with the operation, there was no longer a need to hide what was happening. In fact, the prospect of being able to use the magic they developed to reconnect to Thale enthused a lot of people.
"Is it possible to get our hands on the spell they're using?"
Seamus Eveningstar had initiated a meeting with the high-level members of the organization to discuss what was happening.
The one who asked the question was Vikkernoff Blackhollow.
Seamus had his back to them, looking out the window of his study. "I'm trying, but none of my people have been able to get close to the Earthborne. She's the one who knows the spell best. From what I've been able to piece together, she helped develop it," he answered coldly. He was trying not to gnash his teeth.
Adonis Brightflame was a bit confused. "Even the High Mage doesn't know it?" he asked.
Seamus scoffed slightly. "The Earthborne female is close to Chrystianna. The High mage is aloof. She wouldn't trust him with such an important spell," he answered.
"Could a Truthcaller be used to get the spell out of one of the mages under her?" Yvor Sleetfall asked curiously, glancing at the cold-faced visage of Lucien Coldstone.
Lucien shook his head. "No. The spell is probably highly complex. Truthcalling so much information would damage the Mage's mind before they could impart it properly," he answered. Truthcalling was a sacred and powerful ability. Forcefully pulling the truth from an unreceptive mind always caused slight damage. In small amounts, it was unnoticeable and would heal quickly. Repeated calling the truth from a highly resistant mind would cause severe damage. Death could even result.
Yvor shrugged uncaringly. "I was hoping to finally be able to travel off this island without being noticed," he mused drolly.
Draycen Bloomingtree hadn't said much. He had his own concerns. "I heard that some of these people had the ability to grow and control plants. Avalon Treestar wants to accept some of them into the Mage Guild," he said distastefully. "Are there similar plans in other places?" he asked.
"Of course, the Tower is accepting these people if they choose to learn. That is the sole reason Chrystianna wanted to help these people, I'm sure. Anything to strengthen her own power," Seamus said. He tended to view people through the lens of what he would do. "I plan to try to recruit some to the Eveningstar Tower," he said.
Adonis agreed. "Elektra also plans to welcome them," he said.
"Last time I saw Boyce, he mentioned that some of them would also be welcome in Underreef," Yvor put in. Boyce Oceantide was the counterpart to Baroness Rainsong in their organization. He also dwelled in Thale. Yvor had contact with him occasionally. He was quite fun to play with until he got around to finding someone to have children with. Egh.
Seamus shook his head. "They never learn. Didn't the Wars start because they trusted foreigners? If it weren't for those eight-armed Octhligians introducing the Dragon Hunters to Emphyralis, and those foolish women welcoming them with open arms, would the Wars ever have happened? Would the Plague? Now they're trying to reopen paths to other planets? Fools. The lot," he scowled.
Vikkernoff sneered. "What's the use of complaining? Unless you are willing to kill them all and forcefully take power, we have no way to stop them from doing these things," he said. He curled his lip. Seamus was too much of a coward to be so straightforward.
Proving his point, Seamus immediately dismissed this. "Do you really think that would work? We don't have the forces for a frontal confrontation," he said coldly. He narrowed his cold gray eyes and looked right at Vikkernoff. "Could you even touch Zane Darkwynde's pinky?" he asked.
Vikkernoff's face darkened. He could not. If there was one person born for combat, it was Zane Darkwynde. The man killed more Dragon Hunters alone than entire battalions.
Seamus snorted at him. "Try to get your hands on some of these people. We'll use them if we can," he finally stated. He waved a hand and ended the conference with them. He went back to looking out the window. Humans were easier to manipulate than other creatures. He didn't know what value these Witchborn actually had, but they would extract all they could.
He also had another idea. They had contacts in the Upper Parliament. He doubted he could stop this whole thing, but he could make things difficult for those women by having the Upper Ministers bring up objections. He smiled slightly at the thought.
The Antisenati Syndicate was nothing if not persistent.
--
Terranthea
It wasn't that the demons were under reacting to the appearance of these "angels". They just didn't know -how- to react at first. They knew better than anyone else that angels were not real. The Upper Realm was sealed off. Even if the occasional Upper being came to the Mortal Realm, it would only be one. These angels were numerous.
They appeared, killed demons, rescued witches. The few times they tried to stage an ambush, they had the tables turned on them. Another distressing thing was that their access to the Forsaken was being cut off.
There weren't many Forsaken in the world, but they paid special attention to them. There was nothing quite as satisfying as corrupting a witch. However, ever since the angels appeared, the Forsaken have been dwindling. Some they could no longer find; others were simply blocking them somehow.
A demon spawn managed to get a copy of the portable transfer spell. They couldn't understand it. It was written in a language they had never seen before. The overlapping circles made them dizzy.
They didn't know for sure what they were for but heard from a captured witch that it was transporting them to a safe place. They didn't know where the witches were going, but they did know who would know.
The Crowley witches.
It's all because of the Crowley witches. They were too powerful. They caused a lot of unease in the Lower Realm. They also lived too long. They soon realized that they weren't aging. They would be dealing with these powerful witches for a long time. That was one of the reasons they accelerated plans to corrupt the humans and deal with the witches with mortals.
It was beginning to work. Witches were being captured, killed, and Forsaken.
They did not realize they somehow kicked an iron plate. What did the Crowleys summon? There was only one way to find out. They had to go directly to the source. The Crowley House in Nova Aurelea.
--
Nova Aurelea
Britiana and Sariya hurried down into the underground Crowley House. "Can you see anything on the surveillance?" Britiana asked urgently. In these few days, they'd expanded surveillance, not only with Terranthean technology, but also with Emphyralian technomagery. Watch stones were set up in places where electronic cameras weren't viable. The technomages managed to fuse the interfaces to observe the watch stones on computer screens.
For several miles they blanketed the property. They did this because Amalthea speaking out made the Crowley's a target. Romily was on duty at the time. She touched what she was now calling a central processing stone. Images on the screens began to flicker as she used her Sync ability. After only a second or two, the images became still. In the darkness of the night, figures were beginning to appear near the edge of the property.
The property itself had been warded to stop demons from being able to just appear on their property. They had to gather at the edge and move in manually. And, boy, were they gathering. There were at least twenty. That wasn't the worst part. There appeared two huge canine-like animals with demons riding on them. They were fifty percent larger than an adult Dragon.
Darius, Lazarus, Britiana, Sariya, Delaney and her aunts gathered in the study to see the surveillance. They'd been alerted by Darius when Britiana alerted him. "What are they?" Britiana asked, eyes widening.
"Hellhounds," Delaney answered. "They aren't common in the Mortal Realm, but they do occasionally bring them up here," she said.
Darius looked at her. "How tough are they?" he asked.
"Killable with enough power. It usually takes an entire coven. Last time we faced one, it took all five of us," Amalthea answered. "That was before Delaney was born. We were very young. We weren't as powerful as we are now," she answered.
"Call all the guards. We'll go meet the demons. Let them think this is just a demon versus angel conflict for now," he instructed Lazarus. The guard smirked. He went to summon the guards. They were from five different nations, but they obeyed the orders of Darius and Britiana.
They slept at the shelter except for a few who had guard shifts at the house. It took only a few minutes for the guards to gather. Gorka wasn't a guard, but he didn't want to miss the action and hurried to catch up with them. Darius didn't argue with him joining. A Terrakinetic could be useful in a fight.
Gorka was from a family of Topaz Dragons that lived among Dwarves for generations and took on their fiery temperaments. He produced an ax. The only reason Gorka didn't join a regular army is because he roamed around the world, visiting several dwarven colonies, therefore had no home country. That didn't make him any less of a fighter. He also adorned himself in battle armor.
The guards also equipped themselves in armor. Those who needed fake wings wore their fake wings. Some of the logisticians were mages and would provide long range cover from within the fog. Sariya covered her hair and would stalk the night with her bow and arrow.
They were not unprepared for an all-out fight between them and the demons. They mustered quickly and made their way out of the underground and waited in the fog for the demons to get closer.
The demons weren't cautious, they barreled toward the ruins. The hellhounds trotted at the head. "Witches! This place means so much to you?! We'll demolish this spot and this city!" one of the demons shouted from the back of a hellhound.
"What you're dealing with isn't witches!" a woman's voice shouted. An angel flew out of the fog with glowing white wings, an airy white dress, and long blond hair.
"We aren't dealing with angels either! What are you?" another demon demanded.
Britiana laughed, throwing her head back. "Something you can't even imagine," she answered tauntingly.
"Attack!" The demons didn't like being taunted. They were high level demons. They didn't like being talked to like they were stupid. Some of the demons summoned fireballs and tossed them into the fog like grenades.
The expected explosions didn't sound. Instead, the fireballs were tossed back at them. The ground exploded around them, some of the fireballs hit their bodies. They screamed in pain and shock.
A man walked out of the fog. His dark skin gleamed as flames licked along his bulging arms. He had long thick braids, and gleaming flame-colored eyes. One of his pointed ears had various jewels hanging from it while the other only had one. Quinlan Firebrande was an Amber Dragon from Wyntercrest. He was young and hot blooded. "All right! Who wants to play with fire!" he asked loudly and began throwing fireballs of his own. Lysithea wasn't far behind him. Her fire-based magic wasn't as strong as his, but it did improve a bit since eating mostly Emphyralian food for a week.
The "angels" came out of the fog, using that as the start of the fight. Some of them took to the air, zooming around the hellhounds, dodging and slashing the extraordinarily tough-skinned animals with their swords. Others stayed on the ground and engaged hand in hand. Mages launched the occasional offensive spell from far away. None of them were battle mages, so they could only do what they could.
Gorka was having fun. He didn't even reach the waist of the biggest of the demons, but his battle ax was fierce. "Take that you great big deebru itsishee," he cursed in the native language of the Emphyralian Dwarves. He swung his ax at a demon who had long, needle-like fingers that tried to grab him. A leg arched through the air.
"Quite brittle, aren'cha?" Gorka asked gleefully.
The demon stared at him in horror. His body gave a cringe-inducing bone cracking sound as he bent his back and tried to crab walk backwards, trying to run away from the manic small man with an ax.
Gorka cackled as he chased the retreating demon.
Swords, magic, and axes weren't the only problem the demons faced. A contingent of large "birds" flew overhead. But when they opened their beaks, blasts of condensed energy like large bullets flew out. It was like being shot at from the air. Every time the "birds" circled overhead, they attacked again.
The demons still outnumbered the "angels" and their inexplicable allies. Not everyone was unscathed. A Starshadow guard was flying around one of the hellhounds and didn't bank quickly enough. He was smacked out of the air by a massive paw. He crashed into the ground and crushed his fake wings. A demon tried to take advantage, but he rolled into the shadows.
An arrow flew out of the darkness and stuck in the demon's shoulder. He snarled and jerked the arrow out and looked at it. Then he began to feel strange. He looked at the hole in his chest that was beginning to spread. He took two steps before falling to the ground. His entire body began to disintegrate.
In the darkness of the night, Sariya snorted. ShadowBane was still effective for ordinary demons but had little effect on the rampaging hellhounds. Those things were extraordinarily tough.
Lazarus regrouped with Darius. "We have to take down those hellhounds," Lazarus said. Darius agreed.
Britiana was in the fog. Romily had come up as well. Neither she nor her husband were fighters. She was only there for one reason. "It's time!" she told the Ruby Dragon. Some Ruby Dragons have the ability of Physiokinesis. They can, to certain degrees, manipulate and control matter. They can even make it seem as though they're slowing down or freezing time. These were roughly called Slowing and Freezing.
Romily stepped to the edge of the fog. Britiana released a starburst of light. This was a signal to retreat to the edge of the fog. The demons were slightly confused when the battle paused midway, but they tried to give chase to the opponents that suddenly retreated for no reason.
Romily's hands glowed slightly as she held them up and suddenly pushed out. A nearly invisible ripple of energy fanned out from her and passed through the demons. Their movements inexplicably slowed. It wouldn't last long. Romily was only around seventy years old. Her power wasn't strong, but her Slowing would last much longer than her Freezing. All they needed was disruption. Once she released her power, she staggered back. A non-combatant logistician caught her and gave her some everberry wine.
Britiana flew into the air again. She looked over the almost comically slow-moving demons. "You wanted to know what we are?" she asked the demons. "We'll show you," she promised, narrowing her eyes slightly.
Every guard that was a guard, aside from Troi, was in their Changing Age or older. The slow-moving demons watched with shock and a little bit of fear as at least ten soldiers began to transform. Bodies expanded, elongated. Scales grew. Wings sprouted. Two legs and two arms became four legs. And they grew. They didn't grow as large as the hellhounds, but they were large, long, and magnificent.
The largest of them was a deep, gemlike brownish-yellow Dragon who began to eyeball the one-legged needle-fingered demon.
There were Silver Dragons, Gold Dragons, and Bronze Dragons. There was an Amber Dragon, a translucent, pale purple Jade Dragon, Sapphire Dragons, a fiery Amber Dragon, and an Emerald Dragon. Like living metal statues or carved gemstones, they'd never seen anything like this. Britiana still hovered above them. "This is your answer. We are Dragons," she finally announced. She darted forward, transforming mid-air. She opened her mouth and shot a ball of condensed mental energy out of it. The blast hit one of the hellhounds in the eye.
The impact knocked it aside. The other Dragons finally attacked. Several more Dragons appeared from the fog. The effects of the Slowing were beginning to wear off and some of the demons began to try to run away.
"It's impossible to leave now that you're here. Didn't you think that if we had the power to keep you from using magic to get here, walking was too simple?" The young Silver Dragon circled the air as she spoke to the now horrified demons.
Demons were arrogant by nature. They were angry that somehow, they were blocked from magically appearing on the Crowley's property. When they found they could enter by physical means, they never thought to wonder why.
Why, if they had the power to block magic, would they not have the power to block feet?
It never occurred to them.
The demons then heard her whisper in their minds.
Her laughter lingered in their minds as she flew back into the fog. Although she just scared the brimstone out of the demons, she didn't do this for dramatic effect. Her multi-broadcast telepathy was extremely weak, and that last line used up her strength. She landed in the fog and transformed back to her humanoid form. She stumbled over to Romily and sat down beside her. They'd both used up their strength. A logistician gave her some everberry wine.
Darius chuckled at his sister. "Keep one alive to warn the rest," he instructed the others. He sprang into action, bounding toward a hellhound. Lazarus' Onyx Dragon bounded toward another one. The other Dragons dove into the demon now desperate, attempting to flee demon horde.