They had flown down into the lower areas of the tower, when no new monsters appeared. The main room, which had the remains of several tables in the middle of the room, seemed to have been carved out of a cave. The walls were stone, and had scorch marks all over them, probably from the explosion.
Guit moved over to investigate a row of tables against one wall, while Cherry, Grey and Airow looked over the stack of cages against another wall. Every animal that had been left, was dead from either neglect, or the explosion. Some of them, they couldn't tell what had killed them. A door next to the cages still seemed to be intact, so they prepared their weapons before kicking it open.
In the dim light, they saw several large cages. Inside each cage was a child, staring back at them in complete terror. Of the fifteen cages, there were six empty.
"Oh!" exclaimed Grey, rushing in and starting to open cages. "You poor dears! Let me get you out of there!"
Cherry and Airow quickly rushed forward to help her, and soon the nine remaining children were freed. Wounds, bruises, scratches and scrapes covered their bodies, but they didn't seem to notice them as they were brought out into the light of the main room. Taking turns, they flew them out to the sunny spot where Argen was sitting, resting after his near-death experience.
It was interesting to Airow, to see the kids watch Argen carefully, as if they knew he was a demon, or at least, had been one.
"We need to get these kids back to the town. I'm sure the leader of the guild, what's his name, can tend to them far better than we can here. Those demons could be anywhere."
"You mean Omen," said Airow nodding his head in agreement.
"If I'm counting right, I think there must be one more monster they've made, or are going to make," said Cherry, looking over the small figures.
"What do you mean?" asked Grey.
"Well, I'm assuming they are using one child per monster hybrid, and there were six empty cages. That means there's one unaccounted for."
"What about all of the werewolves?" asked Guit, landing next to them and quickly changing back to his human form, as the kids started to cry in terror.
"I'm not sure about that, maybe they restocked with new kids?"
"That's horrible," said Grey, shaking her head in condemnation.
"We should get going," said Airow, glancing at the sky. "There's too many kids for us to fly with, so we will need to travel by foot. It will be dark before we can get back here and start tracking down the demons."
"I agree," said Argen, standing up.
For the rest of the day, they moved very slowly, carrying children when they grew too tired to walk any further, finally reaching the town at dusk. The wall had been largely repaired, thanks to the hard work of the workers, but they dropped their tools and rushed over when they saw them approaching the gates with their arms full of children.
Omen rushed over to them, as the children were taken away.
"What happened? Did you kill the demons?"
"I thought you didn't believe us about the demons?" asked Grey.
"I surely didn't believe you would be returning with little kids. There must have been some truth to your story."
"We were able to kill the monsters that the demons had created, but they managed to escape while we were fighting them. We found these children when we explored the remains of their tower, and decided it would be best to bring them back instead of continuing the hunt."
Omen nodded his understanding at Airow's explanation, and turned.
"I was just discussing your goals with some of my guild members, and they've all agreed to help you hunt the things down that did this. Though, I caution you, tonight is supposed to be a full moon. The werewolves in the area are going to be extremely difficult to overcome."
"We can deal with mere werewolves," said Guit. "We've fought them before."
"If you don't have special protection, you will get their curse if you get bit or scratched."
"We understand, thank you," said Grey, as they followed him back to the guild.
When they arrived, they saw Shiv, Crow, Wes and Blaze waiting for them.
"We refuse to let you take these things on, without us," said Crow.
"Yea, it's our job to hunt those werewolves!" exclaimed Shiv.
"What good are we to the town, if we let outsiders deal with our problems?" asked Wes.
"I just want to see things burn," said Blaze, holding his hands up as everyone rolled their eyes.
"We appreciate the offer," said Grey, glancing at Airow. If these four came with them, the fight would be much easier, but they wouldn't be able to expose themselves in their true forms, and use their full abilities. It was nice, being able to train with them earlier, but to defeat the two demons together, they knew they needed to use their full powers to take them out.
"Look, we understand you probably have secret techniques that you don't want to give away, but so do we. Whichever guild sent you, can rest assured we won't try to steal your secrets, or give them away to anyone. We already told Omen that we would respect whichever rules you placed on us for this hunt. The other guys wanted to come too, to get back at whoever tore up our town and killed our people, but we told them no. We knew you guys from before you got here, and they didn't." Wes grinned at them.
Grey thought hard about the offer. Normally she would have asked Airow what his thoughts were, but she knew that she was ultimately the one in charge. If they hurried, they might be able to catch up to the demons before they corrupted the last child. If she could save just one more child, it would be worth the risk.
Taking a breath, she nodded at her decision. "You four can come with us, but you have to listen to our rules, or we'll leave you all behind."
"We understand!" they all said at once.
"Rule number one, is that you can't talk to anyone about what you see," said Airow, as they all groaned.
"Sweet!" exclaimed Blaze with a wide grin.