"Bloody bastard!" Kael cursed loudly at Nerghall, his eyes reddening immediately.
He rushed forward, sword drawn, and not even the stop command from the instructress could hold him back. Fiona tried her best to restrain him from butchering Nerghall, and succeeded only when two others of the Brazen Fang girls came to her aid.
"Take him to the infirmary I say," Master Kaicho ordered again, and turning to a swearing, crimson-eyed Kael, "I'll see to you later."
Ashviel, along with Nerghall, was lifted from the ground and placed on a stretcher that came from the instructress's space pouch. Kyra followed the girls into the infirmary, seeing to it that her friend is fine. A lot depends on Ashviel, and as she cleaned his blood-soaked face, she saw how doomed they would be if he dies. A direct basting force to the face was lethal enough, and Nerghall had done that to Ashviel with his fist transmuted. She resented Nerghall, and felt like stabbing him as his palsied body lay beside her. She knew from Kael that that was pointless now, and could even cause more troubles for them.
She knelt by Ashviel's side, half-sighing, half-soughing. As she looked at him, she noticed that while he was visibly unconscious, his hair kept moving, and his eyes were squeezed shut. She peered into the one of the large cuts in his face, and was captivated as she caught a glimpse of his veins rejoining, closing the wound slowly but steadily. She rubbed her eyes; perhaps to be sure it was not just a wishful imagination. She looked again, closer even, and became dead certain that Ashviel's wound were healing far faster than a wound should. 'Could it be related to Damnation?' she thought.
"Dress him up and stop glaring at his face," one of the Brazen Fangs shouted at her.
"Uh, yes," she said.
She quickly covered his face with the towel. If the apotheosis possesses superior healing powers, then it would mean trouble if a Capricorn mage ever discovers. Promptly, she collected a patch from the girl beside her and dressed up the wounds.
"All right, that should do," said one of the girls. "He'll be lucky to survive with a broken jaw."
"I don't think so," said another. "I'll bet you a hundred goldies he won't survive."
"Why?" Kyra asked the girl that spoke.
"Only a month ago, my uncle died of two basting forces to the neck, and he was a first-class novice."
"Poor Uncle Shaibel," said the first girl, and Kyra began to fear what would happen when Ashviel wakes up.
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"What the heck did you think you were doing?" Fiona shouted at the manacled young man before her. She had led him into a dark room, as Master Kaicho ordered, and he was to spend a week therein — alone, and with chained arms and legs.
"Nerghall went too far," he said back. He had grown quite calm already, and the red in his eyes was all gone, surrendering to a liquid sapphire.
"And he's going to get his due punishment too," said Fiona, clasping a heavy shackle on his wrist and legs.
"For how long will I be here?" Kael asked.
"A week," she answered, "and consider yourself fortunate it is Master Kaicho. Do the same for Master Crans and you'll end up in Devil's Jaws."
She turned to leave. "See you in seven days."
"Wait, won't you come to feed me every day?" Kael asked. With the chains in his hand, he wondered how he was even going to eat.
"You're a mage; a week of starvation should not kill you." She said and slammed the door shut before him.
Immediately she left, Kael lit up the room with fire Rek. "There, better," he said.
He observed the chain; massively built and strengthened with magic. He gave it a light pull, but the cold iron chain only felt tighter. He pulled harder, tugging at the fetters like a lunatic, until he realized the vainness of his endeavors.
Finally, he gave up the exercise to think about Ashviel and Kyra. Ashviel had survived Edward's strike many months ago, and while a sword cut and a basting force are different from each other, Kael was sure that Ashviel would recover from the attack. He shivered at the thought of Capricorn mages getting a hint of Ashviel's powers. He thought of Kyra, and rebuked himself for the troubles he must have caused her.
Perhaps it was magic induced, or it was only out of extreme boredom that Kael soon fell asleep after an hour in the cell.
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Ashviel woke up with a loud gasp, breathing hard as if he had been drowning in a sea. Alas, he was in a sea — a hot and bubbling sea of seething molten rocks that gave off a dark smoke. He looked around the infernal environment, and knew immediately that he was in the damnation plane. Without thinking too much, he remembered lucidly how the fight with Nerghall had left him unconscious.
As he stepped out of the sea and walked into the equally seething land, he heard an icy voice ring in his head. "Vauxall is crazy; he chains me down while he lends the vermin my powers," said the grating voice.
Sure enough, it was his Valkyra, sitting on a dark throne and staring down upon Ashviel as if he was no more than an incorrigible pest.
"Valkyra," was the first word said by Ashviel in the Damnation plane. He was not sure he opened his mouth to say it, but as soon as he decided to, the word just flew out, ringing in his head and perhaps in the Valkyra's, if that big black mass could be called a head.
"And now his little student feels worthy enough to mention my name," retorted the Valkyra.
"How did you get into me?" he asked the Valkyra, ignoring its sullen mood.
The Valkyra gave a long cackling and strident sound, and Ashviel concluded that that must be its imitation of a laugh. "More like how such a leech as you contain me."
He rose up to him, taking a terrifying form similar to Master Vauxall's when he ravages his foes, except that Master Vauxall looked like a demon when he was furious, and the Valkyra looked like a demon already, so it looked more human but all the same terrifying.. He drew closer, and Ashviel felt an enormous fear grip him, shaking him to the core.
"A vermin dare questions me," he roared. "I it was that plundered the worlds, ravaging the good and the bad. I it was that singlehandedly overthrew the Orks; I stripped them of their wealth and laid waste to their lands. And the Corons? I made mansions of their bones. Oh, how Vauxall now ridicules me."
He drew closer as he spoke, but to Ashviel's surprise and relief, the Valkyra stopped suddenly as it came a few paces before him. Its eyes became white, and it seemed the creature was in pains.
High up in the sky, a large coffin was forming from a mass of crackling lightening.
"No, not that, Vauxall, no!" the Valkyra shouted as a long chain shot from the coffin and circled his body. The chain pulled him closer, and the coffins opened to reveal a place that seemed even worse than the Damnation plane, as the Valkyra kept screaming and shouting.
"Vauxall No!" he shouted again. "I promise not to go round your barrier again. I promise!"
The chain was unforgiving; it pulled the Valkyra closer and dragged him into the coffin.
"No!" screamed the Valkyra as the coffin finally closed him in.
Ashviel was amazed at the display, and he thanked whatever it was that Master Vauxall had made in place to protect him from his Valkyra. His questions were still unanswered, but he was glad it was all over.
Then, his emerald eyes opened to the real world.