Damien shook his surprise off as Henry retreated back into the depths of his mind. Sylph gave him a curious glance, but he just shrugged with a slight smile.
"Let's get this over with. It would suck to decide to do this, only to find out we missed the window by a few minutes," Damien said.
"Right. Let's gather what we need just in case we need to leave immediately," Sylph suggested. She paused for a moment. "And let me know if you need a quick escape from the quest. I'll find a distraction."
"Thank you," Damien said, their eyes meeting for an instant before they both glanced away. He grabbed his travel pack off the ground and took his toothbrush and soap from the bathroom, tossing them into it. He took a small flask of water and emptied it onto the ground before turning the shower on and filling it with healing water.
Sylph gathered her own meagre belongings, and the two of them headed out of their room. They walked down the mountain and through the town, arriving at the treasure pavilion after several minutes of travel.
The guards at the buildings entrance stood to the side as they entered.
Auntie glanced up, her graying hair falling down over her oversized spectacles. The short woman brushed her hair away and hopped out of her chair.
She adjusted her glasses and squinted at them. "The two of you here for the special quest?"
"We are," Damien said.
"I see," Auntie said. "Come with me. Jake, watch my desk."
One of the guards nodded to her. Auntie flicked her hand, and the massive golden door behind her swung open soundlessly, revealing a long stone hallway lit with small orbs of light caged within metal lanterns.
She led them into the hallway, and one of the guards closed the door behind them. Damien and Sylph exchanged a glance, but Auntie was moving fast enough that they didn't have time to dally.
Auntie took them past several heavily reinforced doors in the walls, not stopping for an instant. After several minutes of walking, she abruptly came to a stop before a plain metal door. She pressed a hand against it, and the door let out a creak as she pushed it wide.
"There's a portal in this room," Auntie said, a small frown crossing her features. "It's already set to take you to the right location. The rest of the team is there already, but I'm sure they'll be glad to see you."
"Thank you," Damien said. Sylph thanked her, too, and the two of them stepped past the woman and into the room. A small arc sat in the center of the stone room, dark energy twirling faintly in its center.
"Take care, kids," Auntie said, making eye contact with them. "Don't get hurt doing something stupid."
She slammed the door closed before either of them could respond.
"Well, that isn't ominous at all," Damien muttered. He glanced back at the portal behind them. "Shall we?"
Sylph nodded. The two of them walked forward and stepped into the churning energy. The world twisted and wobbled around Damien. Darkness rushed forward and enveloped his vision.
Damien's skin prickled as his body was plunged into what felt like ice cold water. He gasped, and the liquid rushed into his mouth and filled his lungs. His stiffened limbs failed to respond to his desperate attempts to struggle and his mind went blank.
Something tickled Damien's cheek. His body felt heavier than ever before. His nose twitched, and he slowly opened his eyes. Warm sun beat down on him, illuminating the grassy field surrounding him in golden light.
Damien lay on his back. His travel pack had fallen several feet off to his side, and Sylph was draped across his chest like a human-shaped blanket.
Her head slowly rose as she shook off the confusion.
"Sorry about that," a male voice said from behind Damien. A hairy hand passed over his vision. Sylph reached out and took it. The person pulled Sylph to her feet, then gave Damien the same offer.
He grabbed the man's hand. The world shifted around him as he was effortlessly lifted into the air and plopped down on his feet. A large man with a dense beard and heavy metal plate armor that covered his entire body gave Damien a wide grin. He brushed some grass off the boy's shoulder.
"The two of you are probably feeling a little disoriented. Sorry about that. The long-range portal technology isn't the most fun, but it's the best method for traveling long distances. It'll wear off soon enough."
Damien and Sylph both nodded. Damien's mind was still spinning, and his full train of thought had yet to return to him. He rubbed his forehead and grabbed his travel pack from the ground before slinging it back over his shoulder.
"I'm Simon," the man said. "The rest of the team is waiting in the village just over the hill. The spell isn't perfectly exact, so we try to send you into the grass somewhere instead of plopping you through some poor sod's roof in the village."
"I suppose that makes sense," Damien said. His lips felt thick, and his words were fuzzy, but at least his brain had started to chug along again.
Simon chuckled and started walking across the field. Damien and Sylph followed. They reached the top of the hill a few minutes later. A village rested in a small valley below them. It was on the smaller side, with only two dozen houses of varying size. Almost all of them were one story, aside from a large building in the center that looked to be two.
From what Damien could tell, all the buildings were wood. The town was empty aside from three people who stood around a well and a few animals grazing in pastures.
The three of them headed down the sloping hillside. When they reached the bottom, Simon made a beeline for the group, which consisted of two women and a man. All of them wore light armor. They turned to watch as the three of them approached.
"Ah. The two of you would be the students Whisp talked about, then?"
a woman with long dark hair asked, waving to them.
"That's probably a safe guess," the man beside her said. "How was the teleportation?"
"Not fun," Damien said. A lot of the fuzz had left his mind, but he still felt a bit sluggish. "Is Dean Whisp going to be here as well?"
"She's already on the job," the second woman said. She had long blonde hair with dark streaks running through it. The woman adjusted her leather armor and rolled her eyes. "She's trying to find the monster without us.
Like a single person could find them."
"Dean Happenstance could have," the first woman said.
"Happenstance is still somewhere in the Wastes," Simon said. "We're on our own for this mission. How about you all introduce yourselves?"
"Shoot, sorry. I'm Tenbi," the dark haired woman said. "The woman beside me is Yaga."
The blonde woman raised her hand in greeting.
"And I'm Volt," the man said, giving them a wide grin.
"I'm Damien, and this is Sylph."
"It's a pleasure to meet both of you. You must be quite the students if Whisp invited you along," Tenbi said. "We don't usually get tagalongs."
"I'm not entirely sure why she invited us to be honest," Damien said, hiding a frown. "What exactly are we supposed to do against a powerful monster?"
"Find it," Simon said, putting a hand on Damien and Sylph's shoulders.
"This is strictly a recon mission for the two of you. You will not be engaging the monster. In fact, you should avoid even interacting with it. All you have to do is help us figure out where it is."
"Why do you need students for that?" Sylph asked curiously.
Volt curled his lip in disgust. "Because the damn thing is hunting younger magic users. We don't know why, but it's a master at hiding. We can't find it on our own. Our best efforts have led to nothing. If the two of you go into an area where it's active, you can lure it out. We'll be only a short distance away, and all you'll have to do is notify us the moment you find it."
"How do we do that?" Damien asked.
"Slow down, bud," Tenbi said, giving them a smile. "We aren't all like Whisp. You and your friend need to take a little bit to readjust and relax after the teleportation. We'll fill you in after dinner, okay?"
"We're paying," Simon added, guiding Damien and Sylph toward the village without waiting for a response. The roommates exchanged a baffled glance but said nothing as they were herded into one of the larger buildings with a small pillar of smoke rising up from its chimney.
A table had already been set with half a dozen plates of food. The smell of rich grease tickled Damien's nostrils, and he had to keep himself from drooling. The food looked delicious. It wasn't quite as fancy looking as the food in the mess hall, but Damien suddenly realized that the teleportation had left him famished.
He and Sylph shot over to the table and pulled out wooden stools next to each other, pulling food over and chowing down eagerly on it. The four older mages chuckled and sat beside them.
After a few minutes of stuffing his face, Damien rocked back with a relieved sigh. He wiped the grease from his face with a napkin and sunk down a little in his chair. Sylph looked a little more dignified when she finished, but only slightly.
"Good?" Simon asked.
"Very," Damien said. Sylph nodded in agreement.
"Glad to hear," Simon said. "I'm not much of a chef, but I've picked up a few things. Now, are the two of you thinking a little more clearly?"
"Yes," Sylph said. Damien voiced his assent as well. The cobwebs had almost entirely been brushed out of his mind, although a bit of the haze still remained.
"Good," Simon said, rubbing his hands together. "Now, we can start the boring stuff. This mission is classified as secret. That means the two of you must not speak about anything that happens during it to anyone. Is that understood?"
They nodded.
"Our goal will be to locate a monster, or group of monsters. We aren't sure yet. They'll be referred to as Targets just in case any of us slip up in public and say something aloud. Our goal is to locate the Target, or Targets, and then kill them at any cost. The two of you will simply be seeking them out."
"By acting as bait?" Damien asked.
"That's an ugly term," Tenbi said. "Maybe scouts would be more appropriate."
"Scouts, then," Damien said, sitting straighter in his chair. "How are we supposed to hold off a dangerous mon— A Target?"
"So far, it's only gone after untrained mages," Simon said. "The two of you are near the top of your class. You should be able to hold it off for a few seconds, which is all the time we'll need to get to you."
"Does it have some way to detect how much magic we have?" Sylph asked. "How would it know if it was attacking a trained mage or a kid?"
"There's a possibility it has high intelligence," Simon said, shifting uncomfortably. "We aren't certain how it determines who to attack. That being said, we can't wait around and hope we get lucky. It's already killed or kidnapped over fifteen kids."
"So, we wander around in its territory and hope it attacks us," Damien said. "Then what happens when it does? How do we contact you?"
"That's where I come in," Yaga said. Her voice was a harsh whisper that grated on Damien's ears. She gave him a sharp-featured smile. "My magic allows me to listen and view things from a distance. In order to make it easier on my magic, you'll have a keyword to say that I'll be listening for.
The moment you say it, I'll locate you."
"And then I'll teleport the team right on top of your position," Volt said, offering up a cocky grin. "As long as you're within a thousand miles— which you will be—I can be there within moments."
"Seriously?" Damien asked, his eyes widening. "That's amazing."
"Don't feed his ego, please," Simon said. "It's big enough already. But, when we arrive, the two of you will retreat immediately. We'll take on the Target and kill it, then find you afterwards. You will not engage it under any circumstance. We don't want to turn fifteen casualties into seventeen."
"Don't annoy the scary thing," Damien said. "Got it. But how do we even start looking?"
"We've found that the Target seems to follow a circular pattern," Tenbi said. "It goes in rings around several large cities, preying on anyone in the fields after night. It seems to strike methodically. Judging by its previous attacks, it should actually be attacking a city about fifty miles to the north of here within the next few days."
"So, we wander around the outskirts of the city and hope it goes after us?" Sylph asked.
"Yep," Volt said.
"What if it doesn't?" Damien asked. "It could go after another kid instead."
"Then the count goes up to sixteen," Yaga replied. "And then we go to the next town and try again. We've already spent several weeks trying to hunt this creature, but it's evaded us every single time. We're out of options, hence why we're asking children to do our fighting for us."
"Well, if we can help, we'll do it," Sylph said. "What's the keyword?"
"Pickles," Yaga replied. "You're not going to be talking about them normally, but it'll be easy to remember."
"And Yaga has a horrible sense of humor," Tenbi said, rolling her eyes.
"Well, I think we can remember that," Damien said, rolling his neck.
"When do we start? And what about Dean Whisp?"
"Immediately after we give you supplies," Simon said. "And Whisp is going to lock down the area so that the monster can't escape us. The moment it shows its ugly face and Volt teleports us, she'll stop all the spatial magic in the area. There's a good chance it'll try to run when we show up, and we can't have that happening."
"That makes sense," Sylph said. "What are the supplies?"
Simon rose to his feet and walked over to a large backpack on the ground at the far side of the room. He picked it up and tossed it to Sylph.
"It's got rations, two bedrolls, a tent, some fire starters, bandages, and even two basic healing potions. You shouldn't have to use any of the healing supplies, but it's better to be safe than sorry. We don't have a dedicated healer on the team, but that shouldn't matter for you. Just make sure you don't engage the Target."
Damien and Sylph nodded. Damien felt fear and excitement knotting in his stomach. Henry had been silent the entire time they'd been here, but that made sense if Whisp was in the area.
"Come on, then," Simon said, giving them both a grim smile. "Let's go kill a monster."
Even though Damien and Sylph already knew the plan, Simon had made it sound a lot more exciting than it actually was with his last sentence.
Shortly after they finished their food, Volt teleported the two of them out of the village.
They were deposited in a grassy field. Mercifully, the spell didn't affect them as badly as their latest teleportation. At the very edge of the horizon, Damien could just barely make out what might have been the walls of a large city.
The sun was already starting to set behind them. Sylph rooted around in the supply bag and pulled out a bundle of cloth and several metal sticks.
"Do you know how to set a tent up?" Damien asked, watching Sylph as she laid the tarp out and started fiddling with the sticks.
"Yes. It was one of the things my master trained me in," Sylph said. The tent quickly took shape before her. She stomped the last of the stakes into the ground, pulling the tarp taut and stepping back to examine her work.
Sylph nodded to herself and tossed the pack into the tent. It wasn't particularly large, but they weren't exactly on vacation. Damien mentally nudged Henry to get his attention.
Any idea what we're dealing with here? It's not a Void creature, is it?
"It isn't," Henry said. "Aside from me, my brethren are single-minded in our goal. They wouldn't be wasting time killing individual humans.
There are a lot of monsters that might try to kill humans, so it's hard to narrow it down much from what we know. The best we can do is wait around. If there's something here, I'll know it's coming long before you can even see it."
Well, that's reassuring. Just make sure Whisp or the others don't spot you.
"Whisp is nowhere near us," Henry said. "And the others don't have the power to spot me. I was observing them while you ate. I suppose they're strong for human mages, but their strength is nothing compared to that woman."
Is she really that strong?
"Let's just hope you don't ever have to find out."
Damien shook his head and glanced up at Sylph, who watched him with a bemused expression. "Talking to your companion?"
"Yep. Nothing too interesting," Damien said. "Is there anything we should do to prepare?"
"We're just bait," Sylph pointed out. "There isn't even anything near us.
Volt clearly set us down somewhere far from the city to avoid civilian casualties, so I suppose all we can do is sit around and see if something happens. Maybe cast a little magic to draw it in?"
"That's a good idea," Damien said, drawing Ether through his arm and forming a ball of destructive magic at his palm. It shifted shape to a cube, and then a knife before returning to normal. Damien dismissed it a minute later and shrugged. "Now what? This doesn't even feel like a real quest.
We're just…sitting here."
"That's how real quests are," Sylph replied, sitting down on the grass in front of the tent. "Ninety percent waiting, ten percent action."
"It sounds as if you've done this before," Damien observed.
"I have," Sylph replied. "And it isn't something I want to think about.
My early training was not enjoyable."
"Fair enough," Damien said, sitting down beside her. They watched the sun creep through the sky in silence. It finally dipped below the horizon.
The last orange-red hues in the sky faded to purple and black.
"We should go to bed," Sylph said. "I'll take first watch."
Damien started to nod. Then he paused, drawing Henry's attention with a mental poke.
I think we can trust her.
"You intone that like a question, but you've already made up your mind," Henry said, giving him the mental equivalent of a shrug. "As far as humans go, she seems decent. It doesn't hurt that we've got a kill switch over her core. I wouldn't give her extra information, but she already knows about my presence."
No killing Sylph. Could you...
"Already on it," Henry said, cutting him off. A ring of dark energy shot out of Damien's chest, rippling off the walls of the tent. Sylph raised an eyebrow.
"I don't think that's necessary," Damien said, giving Henry a small mental nod as his companion slipped back again. "Henry can take care of it."
"Henry?" Sylph asked, raising an eyebrow. "Your companion? I thought you were keeping it under wraps."
"Him," Damien corrected her. "And you already know about him. If you were going to try to rat me out, you would have already done it."
"I suppose that's true," Sylph said. "At this point, I think we're in the same boat. I'd be in just as much trouble as you if they found out the truth of my companion."
Damien fought back his curiosity and managed to restrain himself from asking her why. If he wanted to keep his own secrets, he had to respect hers.
Sylph rose to her feet and pushed the tent flap open, gesturing for Damien to go first.
He gave her an appreciative nod and slipped inside it. Sylph followed after him. The inside of the tent was cramped, but there was enough space for both of them to lie on the ground. There were even two small pillows at the far end.
As the two of them laid down, Henry shifted down into Damien's shadow. It peeled away from him and rose from the ground. For an instant, dozens of eyes blinked down at them. Then Henry slipped through the tent flap and vanished into the night.
"Seven planes. What is he?" Sylph's eyes widened as she got her first look at Henry. She shook her head and sighed. "Rhetorical question, sorry."
"It's fine," Damien responded. He laid back on his pillow and stared up at the tarp above him. He heard Sylph do the same beside him.
They lapsed into silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Damien tossed and turned for several minutes, desperately trying to calm his nerves enough to fall asleep. The rhythmic breathing from beside him proved that Sylph had no such issues. After nearly an hour of fitfully tossing, Damien finally slipped into a dreamless sleep.
When Damien awoke, his chest was on fire. He jerked upright with a gasp, his hand flying to the searing runes. Sylph snapped awake as well.
"What is it?" Sylph asked.
Damien pulled his shirt back and looked at the runes. There was no blood, but it felt like his chest was trying to split apart. The pain faded, but the adrenaline coursing through his veins didn't. An alien presence that he knew all too well brushed across his thoughts.
"Be wary," Herald whispered. "And observe."
The tent flap flew open, and Henry slipped in, melting back into Damien's shadow.
"It's here," Henry said. "And you need to run. Now."
What? Why? What is it?
"No time to explain. Call your mage friends."
"Pickles," Damien said loudly. Sylph's eyes widened as Damien grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the tent. The sun had just barely started to rise, and the world was cast in gray and orange hues.
"What's going on? Is it here?" Sylph asked.
"Apparently," Damien replied. The air crackled as Volt and the other mages popped into existence around them.
"Where is it?" Simon asked.
Where is it?
"Southeast, coming quickly. It's in the air," Henry said. "Start running."
Damien relayed the information to the mages. The four of them swung their gazes up to the air. It took them a moment, but Tenbi called out as a small black dot appeared in the sky.
"Run!" Henry snapped.
"Get out of here," Simon ordered them. Earth rose up around the man and formed into a massive great sword in his hands. "You've done your job.
Whisp is securing the perimeter from a distance that it can't notice her.
We'll find you once this is done."
Damien and Sylph nodded. They sprinted in the opposite direction, putting as much distance between them and the monster as they could.
Magic crackled and flew through the air behind them with enough force to shake the ground.
"What is that thing?" Sylph yelled, glancing over her shoulder. Damien snuck his own peek and nearly tripped over his own feet.
A massive gargoyle the size of a two story building flew in the air above the mages. Its eyes crackled with malevolent green energy, and it was covered with pockmarks. Acid dripped from the creature, drawing smoke from where it touched the earth. The monster's claws were nearly as long as a human body.
"No idea. It looks like some giant gargoyle, but I don't think it's just an ordinary monster," Damien replied, gasping for air. "We just need to put as much distance between ourselves and that thing as possible."
They continued sprinting away from the fight as fast as their feet could carry them. Damien found himself thankful for all the training Sylph and Delph had put him through. Had he tried to do this a few weeks ago, his legs would have turned to jelly already.
The sounds of battle grew more and more distant as they ran. However, they didn't stop, even after nearly an hour of running. The two of them skidded to a stop to catch their breath.
"Do you think they're still fighting that thing?" Sylph asked.
"I feel like it would have come after us if they weren't. I don't think they've lost yet," Damien pointed out, pausing in between sentences to gasp for air. "I'm sure they can handle it. They're professionals. I need to talk to Henry. Give me one second."
Sylph nodded as Damien reached within his mind.
Henry, what was that? Why were you so worried about it?
"A Corruption Seed," Henry said, his voice grim.
The thing that Herald said would destroy the world permanently?
"A seed of it," Henry corrected defensively. "Still dangerous, but not world ending. Yet."
Can those mages even do anything about it? They're going to get killed!
"On the contrary," Henry replied. "They'll probably kill it. It'll be hard, and one or two of them might die, but they'll kill it. A Seed that hasn't sprouted isn't strong enough to wipe out an entire party, and they seemed decently strong for mortals. It's still dangerous, though, especially if it manages to sprout. This explains why kids were going missing."
What do you mean? Why would something like this go after children??
"The missing kids are potential hosts," Henry said. "The seed is looking for something that can contain it. If it's incompatible, the person or animal it's in transforms into a grotesque form of itself, and then the seed seeks out a new host until it finds one it can live in."
It sounds like this has happened before.
"It has," Henry said. "At the end of every cycle. The seeds set out to find a host, but it usually takes them hundreds of years to find one they can control properly."
And then?
"We don't tend to let it get much past that," Henry said. "We restart the cycle."
I'm not particularly partial to that. You said that the Seed controls the host. What if the host is in control?
"That's never happened. Humans can't overpower it. That's why the Void exists."
Right then. How many of them are there? Can we kill them all? That would stop the corruption completely, right?
"Not exactly," Henry replied, letting out a sigh. "There are six Seeds. If we managed to kill them all, it would slow the Corruption significantly.
However, the Seeds are just the overt signs. It would creep through the crust of the world, slowly infecting more and more of it over the course of the next thousand or so years."
A thousand is better than a few hundred. All we have to do is find the other five and kill them, right? You can do that, can't you?
"If I had to," Henry said. "Look, Damien, you can't seek these things out. They exist to fight the Void. If it gets wind of you, it'll do everything in its power to kill you. I can defeat it, but I can't keep your mortal flesh intact. You just aren't strong enough yet. Don't worry, though, I'm still on your side. There's a lot left to do in this cycle. Just stay away from the Corruption for now. We can deal with it—" Damien's chest erupted in searing pain. At the same time, Sylph slammed into him. They both fell to the ground, narrowly avoiding the massive, curved blade that erupted from the earth where they'd been standing.
The earth parted, and a chittering hiss rose as an insectoid looking creature pulled itself up from beneath them. It looked vaguely like a praying mantis made of stone, but each of its limbs ended in a sharp claw longer than Damien. Just like the gargoyle, it was covered in pockmarks and green acid dripped from its body.
"Shit! It has some form of stealth technique. I can't pick it up at all!"
Henry said. "Give me control. I can teleport us out."
No, you can't. Whisp is locking the area down.
Henry swore in a language that Damien didn't know. Sylph leapt to her feet, and Damien hopped up after her. The monster let out a chittering laugh and circled around them, its beady eyes focused on Damien.
"Another one?" Sylph asked, her tone wavering. A blade made of dark energy flickered into her hands.
"Sylph, we need to run," Damien said, channeling Ether through his limbs and forming two gravity spheres. "This thing is way above our paygrade."
"I don't think it's going to let us run," Sylph said, taking a step back.
The mantis lashed out with a claw. Sylph dropped into a roll as it blurred through the air, howling through the space where she'd been standing. "We need to fight it."
Any chance we can hold it off until the mages finish the other one?
"Minimal," Henry said. "Syph has no way to fight this thing. She's going to get slaughtered."
The mantis blurred forward again. Sylph hurled herself out of the way, shimmering and fading into the background. The mantis spun, lashing out toward an empty space in the air. Damien's hand rose of its own accord. A rune sprang to life, and a purple shield formed in the mantis' path.
Its claw slammed against it with a loud crash. Sylph flickered back into vision on the other side of the shield, her eyes wide. Damien's body went stiff as Henry surged forward, taking control of Damien's body.
The air crackled as Henry thrust a hand forward. A glowing purple lance shot out of his hand. It slammed into the Seed's chest with a loud crunch, shattering some of the stone that made it up and forcing the creature several steps back.
A wave of dark energy erupted out from Damien's chest. It washed across the field, leaving motes of darkness in its wake. They all morphed, forming into floating eyes that tracked the Seed. Energy sparked and crackled between them.
"Time to go, Sylph," Henry said, his voice coming out from Damien's mouth. "This is my fight."