"Do you not care about fighting?" asked the voice in the darkness.
"Not really. It seems boring." Guit fidgeted next to him, terrified of the elder demons before them.
"This is unacceptable. He shows no signs of any of the cardinal sins. How can he be trusted to follow in our plans?" asked another voice.
"On the contrary, he follows sloth quite well."
"This will never work. I move to banish him."
"I agree. Send him to the humans and let him be dealt with there."
"Master, are you asleep?" whispered Guit as the sound of snores filled the room.
"How insolent! Does he not know that we could crush him beneath our feet?!"
"Banish him. He has done nothing to prove his worth. Let him cause trouble on the human realm and draw the angels away from us!"
As the portal opened to swallow him, Guit gave a small squeak at the thought of remaining in the elder demons' presence alone, and jumped through as well.
XxxxX
The houses near the marketplace needed a lot of work. They were structurally good, but some had broken windows and doors, while others had huge holes in the walls.
"What should we do?" asked Grey. "There's plenty of empty houses, but they need to be fixed up."
"Maybe if we fixed one up, that would work?" asked Airow. "The problem is, how do we fix up the house?"
"Let's pick one that doesn't look too hard to fix. I don't have money for new windows, so we need to find a house to fix up that doesn't need new windows."
"This one has a hole in the wall. Maybe we could fix that?"
"Let's check out the inside first."
As they entered the house, they found it fully furnished. Whatever broke through the wall was long gone, and the owners must have abandoned it.
"This should be perfect. Let's find a board to fix the wall, then tell Bob we're done with the mission."
"I remember seeing a board that should work, near the debris I was tasked with cleaning up."
"Great! Let's go!"
Grey and Airow quickly claimed the board, to much confusion of the workers, and returned to the house. They puzzled over how to use the board to block off the hole, and still make the house look nice, for about an hour.
They were heading back to the bar, when screams broke out in the distance. More demons were approaching the city!
"We need to go fight the demons off!" cried Grey.
"No! Remember? Angels will come and we can't risk blowing our cover! Let's go turn in the mission and help people to hide!"
As she glanced back at the approaching horde, she grudgingly agreed, and followed him to the inn.
"If angels don't show up, we will fight!" she declared and he agreed.
They ducked into the bar, to see people talking quickly and rushing around.
"Ah, you've returned!" said Bob with a smile as he calmly returned a clean mug to the shelf behind him.
"We've found a house and fixed it up for the family," said Grey, distracted by the activity around her.
"Wonderful! I'll let them know. Here's your pay," he said, holding out his hand with several coins.
Airow took them and added them to his pocket with the other coins from earlier.
"If you're ready, I have another mission for you. It's a bit of an urgent mission, and will pay nicely."
"What is it?" asked Grey, suspiciously.
"Defeat the demons that are about to invade the city, before the angel army can arrive. The reward will be two gold."
"Can you make it so that no one sees us fight?" asked Airow.
"For the price of a gold I can give you an elixir that will make you invisible to humans only, for two hours."
"We don't have a gold," said Grey.
"I can deduct it from your pay, after you complete the mission," he said with a smile.
"Very accommodating of you," said Airow, graciously.
Bob handed them each a small vial of glowing liquid. Slipping out of the bar, they headed towards the wall where the demons would no doubt swarm through.
"If we can trap them here in the bottle neck, we should be able to kill them all as fast as they can get into the town," said Grey.
"Sounds good," said Airow. As they drew closer to the wall, he held up his vial and they both swigged the liquid together.
The bitter flavor hit their tongues and slid down their throats before they had a chance to pucker. People were streaming past them, but could no longer see them.
"Time to fly!" cried Grey, jumping into the sky.
Airow jumped after her, and they got a clear view of the enemy. Demon imps were streaming towards the hole in the wall.
"I have no weapon," said Grey, realizing her sword had been taken.
"Take my sword. I will use my bow." He pulled out a great bow that he could shoot twenty arrows from at a time.
"Thank you! I shall return it immediately after the battle!"
"Let's hope we finish this quickly!" said Airow swooping towards the fight.
He landed on top of the wall, shooting the demons before they could reach it.
Grey slashed at the first demon, that tried to run past her, cutting it across the belly with a spray of blood. Swinging her sword to her other side, she caught the next demon just under its chin as it tried to dodge past.
Slashing the next, it fell at her feet as her sword cut through it, and she jumped over it, spinning in the air, and bringing her sword down across the next, cutting it in half. As the number of demons grew, she jumped high into the air, with a flap of her wings, then slammed the sword down, to the ground, releasing a blast of energy out. The demons around her flew back, off their feet, disappearing into dust.
Airow raised his bow into the air, loading all twenty blast arrows, pulled it back, then released. The twenty arrows flew up into the air, splitting apart, and found their targets below. Pulling the string back as fast as he could, he shot the demons left and right. Each arrow found its target, either in the face or chest, before disappearing with the demon corpse into dust.
One tried to climb the wall, to sneak up on him, but he aimed down, and shot it through the mouth, out the back of its head, and hitting another at the base of the wall who was trying to follow it. Several more tried to climb up, probably to overwhelm him, and he only smiled as he loaded several arrows onto the bow, shooting them all at once. The arrows landed in the middle of the horde, releasing a blast that killed them all.