[41st Year of Foresai, Lower Fire Month, Day 5]

Lakyus dashed overtop the collapsed home, ascending along its skewed crest and leaping into the square below. Pointing Kilineiram down, she sank it through the head and into the chest of a ram-headed demon, riding it to the ground. Letting herself roll off, she ripped the blade from its head, slashing wildly to lop off the head of another, carrying her momentum and driving through a third. Planting her foot firmly around and whipping the ailing fiend around, she caught three rusty spear points thrust by its fellows. Before they could pull away and strike again, the ram-men were all at once caught in a conflagration, the demons set aflame in a great explosion. Lakyus let herself fall to her knee, sheltering herself behind the skewered demon and her blades - embedding in the ground in two walls three a piece - the flames breaking around her. After a moment, Lakyus rose, letting the sizzling creature slide off her blade; she caught the next rain of fireballs, pummeling the crowd and blowing apart a dozen demons more. Great spurts of debris sent up rained down, revealing yet more horned heads and hooved feet beyond. There were hundreds.

Gazers, another two of the gray men, a brass devil-drake, imp murder, quazit swarms, chasme horde- damn, another one of those scaled creatures. Still, not many of the heavy demons left.

Then, all around her, came her comrades. Tina fell to the left, then Tia and Gagaran to the right, and then beyond them to either side were the front liners of the other parties in her assault. Lakyus raised her sword, booming her voice as loud as she could.

“Everyone select targets! Gazef, the scale demon! Blue Roses, the drake!”

“Got it!”

“Check!”

“Understood!”

“Let’s go!”

Responses came from near and far, more of her fellows entering along her flanks. They were winning, having pushed the demons back to their final line. The surprise arrival of Gazef, alongside a refreshed rearguard of Valencia’s men-at-arms, had tipped the battle, the whole of the forces of men having swept to the core of the flame, Geyda square. In the chaos, it had lost its form, its proper dimensions ruined thrice over by demons, a mundane blaze, and then the sudden shaking of the earth. Around its center for nearly thirty paces in every direction, the city was in ruin, buildings toppled or burnt out. Why demons still clung to its bounds was unknown to Lakyus, the enemy seeming to have cleared some of the rubble for the purposes of defense; further, while their line spanned its edge, there was a wide gap in their center, something she did not have the height to fully reckon. On the far side of the square was another bespoke plaza, Darkness and Evileye engaging the enemy command somewhere in the city beyond that. She raised her off hand to the sky, reading her blade as she began to pray.

“He of the Sweeping Tide, I fall on my knees by the side of your waters to speak my prayer and render unto I and those by my side your dearly desired aid.”

A circle appeared centered in her raised hand, holy script writ in its layers. More leapt into the square, melee fighters leaping down from buildings or slipping through what remained of chance alleyways. Other party members perched on half collapsed structures, loosing or firing onto the space below.

“He of the Froth of the Spray, render unto I and my companions the strength to vanquish the taint that lies before us!”

The circle pulsed once, a ripple of light shooting out with a ring. The world seemed to slow, then speed again, the aches in her joints suddenly losing their sting as her body limbered and her stride became longer. She increased to a jogging pace, drawing forth her blades to knock a few scant bolts loosed her way. A pair of explosions thundered to her left, the last of a barricade manned by the beetle demons scattered into their square as more of the guild’s forces poured through, along with three lances of horseback knights bolstered with men from the church.

“He of the Vaulting Froth, render unto I and my companions the diligence and the zeal to run down and destroy those foul things which exist in defiance of your will.”

The world again slowed and sped, her senses opening as the enemy seemed to gain an especial prominence in her vision, vulnerable features standing from the night. She broke into a flat dash, lowered her hand as she picked out one of the gray men interposed between her and the drake. Extending a finger, she marked it.

“He of the Brackish Marsh, render unto I the power to deal this thing death.”

The gray man charged, and she met its lumber with a swift arc of the sword, splitting it in half down its length. Its insides spontaneously set aflame, drowning her in radiant white and ridding the square of night. She kept moving, rushing through the acrid white smoke and through the line of demons into the empty space in the center of their last stand. Some dared turn their heads, yet were then harried by fire from on high; fewer were the rams or beetles foolish enough to reposition their shields, losing their lives for the act. Lakyus shot a glance to the right, seeing that Gazef had done much the same as her, having already breached his portion and set upon the winged, bare-skulled hulk. A moment later, her party came rushing up, Lakyus finishing out her prayer.

“He of the Torrential Rain, I thank you for the aid which you have already given. I leave the side of your waters now, but I bear your name and your symbol until we too join that which we have cleansed tonight.”

“We ready, Boss?”

“How do we want to take this, Fiendish leader?”

Neither of you two need to be here, you know?

Despite the moment, Lakyus smiled. Both Gagaran and Tia were stretching themselves beyond any reasonable limit, both pale and soaked in sweat. Not just a base ailment that could be cured with a simple healing spell, resurrection sickness was a condition all unto itself. It not only taxed the body, but the spirit, He of the Dust and Diamond returning the beneficiaries of his grace with only some of their strength, leaving them both physically weaker and lesser in their ability to perform feats. Anyone, no matter how mighty, would be bedridden from such magic; even the pair walking in kit would be absurd, far be it from fighting. Lakyus flicked her eyes to Gagaran, meeting a fierce yet exhausted gaze.

“You’re the wyvern hunter. What do we do?”

Gagaran gave a breathy chuckle, turning to the drake.

“Pin it. Go for the neck.”

Simple enough.

Lakyus spun on the spot and advanced, serving as the vanguard to her three fellow Blue Roses. The iron-drake, having been scurrying round at the base of the hump, spotted the lot and began to buck, kicking up the earth with its hind legs as it slithered and snapped. In place of scale, its body was hewn from rusted iron plates, shards the three handspans long and one across layering across one another to give the impression of a wyrm’s form.

“Tia, Gagaran, keep any stragglers off of us! Tina, with me!”

The women split apart, the sickly pair stopping and turning around to keep any other fiends from interfering in their kill, Tina beginning to circle the thing to the left

Not a dragon proper, so no forelegs. Get right up close and gore its neck.

Lakyus broke forward, dashing toward the monster in a two handed stance. It flapped up onto its haunches, whipping its head up and unfurling its wings with a cavernous shriek. It flapped once, then twice, billowing its wings of the rusted-iron plate, though slickened with some pitch colored substance that dripped onto the ground. It fell forward, curving its neck up and then down again to act as a spout, before opening it and unleashing a plume of dirty flame. Lakyus interposed her blades, but they were not tight enough, and she yelped as jets made it through the curtain to roast her.

Dammit!

Closing her eye from the sudden heat, she stumbled back a step, before breaking to the right and rolling out. The creature’s gush slowed, then flamed out with one final spew of a black mist. On her upswing, a little of the ichor splashed overtop her brow; hot and viscous to the touch, smelling sulfurous and yet sweet at the same time. It rolled down her face, a sharp pain when it reached her brow.

Shit, I’m burned.

The left side of her face had been swept with flame, having scorched her skin. A rotten smell, along with a new found bareness on her brow, told her she had lost the facial hair from that half. The drake bucked again, chest swelling and undulating as it prepared a second bout. With a snap of her fingers, Lakyus triggered a healing spell and sprung out of her crouch, running opposite Tina’s direction. The creature again moved to spit flame, but before it could, something caught in the dark, a thrown charge that exploded at its feet a moment later. A turbid, carmine colored smoke poured from the spot, the fiend enveloped in the stuff an instant later.

Come on, fall for it.

Lakyus again changed directions, again bearing directly for the demon. Then, in a way that belied its inner cunning, the rusted drake simply ignored the smoke. Had the thing been an actual beast, it perhaps would have panicked and hurriedly tried to clear the stuff away or otherwise rout outright, but it was no beast. Wicked intelligence burned behind its eyeless face, and the thing aimed its head at Lakyus - silhouetted in smoke - and pumped its breast one last time to disgorge its fire. It lit the cloud, oranges and reds akin to a sunset, yet the flame did not break through. It was caught by the smoke, a pall that somehow dragged it and sent it upward. Lakyus’s smile grew a little wider; Tina’s gambit had worked.

She called up her floating blades, setting them level on either side as she swelled her energies in her legs and leapt. The drake tried to scurry back, but it was too late, Lakyus barreling overtop the thing with Kilineiram outstretched. It dropped, flattening itself against the ground to turn her strike from a slash to a thin cut. Lakyus used it as leverage, wrenching around to land on its lower back. The drake instantly moved to throw her off, but her floating blades were an instant quicker, swooping up and over to pin its wings to the ground. The thing nearly fell out from under her, its head whipping around to the right only for an off-post Gagaran to strike it square in its temple and send it down. It bounced off the ground with a sound akin to a bang, then tried to come around the other direction to spout at Lakyus, but this she already had all the time she needed. Running up its back, she raised her blade for a thrusting strike, aiming her blade at the nape of its neck.

Foul thing, die!

The thing seemed to sense her thoughts and shudder. She reached the apex of her stance, surging the æther in her arms as she prepared to plunge. Then, all at once, all of the creature's plates flattened as tight as possible and ground against themselves. A few, chance sparks flew, and Lakyus realized too late that the viscous, black substance covering its body was not an ichor, but oil.

The entire creature set ablaze, the sudden burst nearly forcing her comrades off their feet as they left back. Lakyus was caught fully in the burn, her legs entirely enveloped by it. She gave a quick cry from instinct, a mistake that filled her chest with the smoke, sending her internal energies awry. That moment of lost focus set off a cascade in her arms, and each of her palms burst open in a dozen places, blood spurting out as she lost herself to a coughing fit. The thing swept its head around to the left, battering a blade and knocking it from its place. Lakyus tried to replace it, but lost it in a billowing curl of the black cloud, feeling the monster jerk as it ripped its left wing free, then leveraged that to unpin its right.

Shit! I almost had it!

It jerked, pivoting then leaping swiftly to the right, Lakyus feet slipping out from under her as she fell backward into the burn. Before she could react, her entire body was subsumed in the blaze, everything on her person capable of catching fire doing so. She tried to choke out the words for another prayer, but found her throat was ruined, instead issuing them inwardly.

He of the Secret Mere, deliver me from flame.

Though she was still deep in the fire, the crushing heat suddenly seemed to fade, the tendrils which danced across her skin somehow seeming distant. She felt a thin layer envelop her, a gauze-like substance that lay across her skin and armor alike. With this, she ripped around, rolling onto her front and reaching through the new barrier to grab at the fiend’s scales.

He of the Cherished Pool, deliver me from my wounds.

As she reached, the charred flesh of her hand suddenly shed, blackened parts sloughing off and replacing themselves entirely when she successfully gripped the thing. Flame continued to jet from beneath the scale, a spray of burning fluid covering Lakyus’s offhand. Lakyus turned her head, shouting through the roaring fire.

“Everyone! Get away!”

She didn’t need to see her comrades to know that they had done so, a faint affirmative drifting into the soundscape. She tried to summon her blades, commanding them to spasm against the ground so she could find them, but she was unable to make out any rattle. Before she could think further, the beast again shuttered its plates, then broke forward, its legs pumping, then its wings. With a beat, it sent Lakyus flying up and back; despite its power, she held, flipping around to again face forward as she slammed back into it on its next upstroke. Another beat and the thing left the ground, fighting its way up into the sky with her on it.

Now what?!

Lakyus was exasperated. The previous drake had been slain with magical battery, and though she had not been there to witness it, she had at least felt it possible that she could slay another herself; on the attempt, she had instead been surprised twice over with fire attacks and fumbled her killing blow at a critical moment. This was made all the worse by those watching her, almost every adventurer available near the capital witnessing her current debacle.

I look incompetent. No, wait, this- this is good! I think. It can’t create distance, and if I force it down-

Lakyus was interrupted by a sudden jink, the creature suddenly banking in the air and making a hard turn to the right. She flailed wildly in the air, legs and sword flopping askew as her whole body was torqued around, but her offhand held fast. Another jerk, and she was nearly thrown off, her handhold now well and above her head, arm held in a painful position. Keeping what power of hers she could focused in her hand, she attempted to turn round and climb back onto the beast, but found herself wholly in danger of slipping off. With great effort, she twisted herself back onto the thing during one of its downstrokes, embracing it with Kilineiram still in hand.

Each stroke of its wings cleared away the flame for a brief moment, and in the next of those, her head lolled down to take a reckoning of the landscape below. She was far above it, dangling from nearly the height of the flame wall. It swept by quickly, the beast pitching downward to gain speed. The demon had gone a-ways out over the crowd, but had now turned back north, dragging Lakyus over the adventurer vanguard, the last demon line, and to the clearing in the middle. As it went further on, Lakyus caught her first clear look of the hump in the middle.

The ground seemed to swell up like a tick-bite from the earth, then doubling-back to slope in. As she went further on, the ground pitched further downward, slope growing sheer in the center of the hill, before it dropped away altogether. There, in the middle, she saw straight down a distance much greater than was her height to the city around her, an open wound in the earth that plunged into a glowing red depth. Things crawled along the walls, indistinct in the distance. The realization of what she was seeing struck her as the iridescence passed out of sight: the mosquito bite that had ripped a hole between her world and the netherrealms. The demon thrashed again, but Lakyus was secure in her grasp, the flame again washing over her as the land below was lost to a muddy orange.

That’s where they slipped through, it must have been! We almost have them!

With the object of her reverie lost, Lakyus returned to the task at hand. She climbed, building power in her legs and core before springing forward on the drake. With another beat, the flame cleared once again, Lakyus turning round to look at the spot the creature had launched from. Commanding her blades to rise, she saw four of her six ascend, the other two likely pinned. Ordering them to point to her and fly, three came hither, the other shooting off in the opposite direction and skewering a chance chasme. The demon continued to trade height for speed, entering into a sharp curl around the square. Lakyus kept the blades in close pursuit, before forcing them to overtake and fall back upon her and the drake. It rolled over in the air, lithely slipping through the blades, but Lakyus continued to volley them.

Come on, slip up!

She sent the blades across its path another five times, before the one nicked its tail on the sixth pass, spiraling away to the ground. The thing screeched, once more trying to shake her off, and when that failed, entered into a dive. She kept with it, letting the creature pull her faster than she could fall, raising her sword against the wind. The demon realized the error too late, pulling out of its dive with a hard turn. Lakyus pitching forward at that moment and slaking herself upon its wing with a rapid strike, empowered with the anathematic energy of her blade. She sliced through what would have been the fleshy membrane on an actual drake’s wing, instead ripping through the thin metal and fouling it. The stout tear she made grew much too quick as a black web spread across its wing, the break growing to its stem, before the whole structure violently fell apart in a cone of flaming shrapnel.

Lakyus and the drake dropped, she leaping from the thing and landing with a roll as the thing spiraled into the ground. Flipping over when it struck, it was caught in a roaring burst of its own fluids, leaving flaming streaks of itself as it ground to a halt. Its apparent fear to fly too far out from the core had meant they had crashed within the bounds of the square itself on its far side, in the midst of a crowd of imps. The things at once took flight, fleeing the chaos as a few chance arrows smote them one by one. Lakyus advanced on the wounded drake, blade extended. What flames shot from its mouth and scales were now dwarfed by the fireball emerging from its wounded stump, the thing limping backward into the cloud of smoke it had made. Walking through it, she closed her mouth, unwilling to breathe the poisoned air. She arrived faster than it could crawl away, planting a boot on its ailing form and taking its head.

It fell limp, a new jet of flame sprouting from its neck. More fluids leaked from other exposed veins, demon blood proper, clear liquids that ran thinner than water and ate at the stone below, a similarly thin yellow liquid that likewise caught fire, and several other substances that turned into variously colored steams. Lakyus backed away as the corpse turned to slag, whatever magical property that had kept the heat from destroying the creature having been dispelled. She watched satisfied for a moment longer, before turning to take stock of her situation. A few fiends stood idle near her, a few gazers and beetle demons unwilling to approach, and who shuffled uncertainly when she came to them. She again raised her blade, arms tired from the slaying, before all at once, a change came over those demons in front of her; they began to retreat.

Jaldabaoth is vanquished?!

By themselves, demons were fickle, self-serving creatures. They did not feel camaraderie in battle, only a shared impetus to ruin what was decent and deface what was good. When slaughters became slogs, what kept fiends fighting were those superior fiends who would destroy them were they to run. Here, fear of adventurers had taken none of the enemy, and thus, the flight of the creatures in front of her meant that they no longer feared retribution from their commander.

Momon has claimed victory, hasn’t he?

Lakyus cast her gaze around the square, seeing the enemy had begun a complete route inward, towards the mound. All pitkinds, except those lost in rages or bloodlusts, made for the hill; the two standing frog creatures lumbered on, tramping through a crowd of mephits and quazits; the imp swarm she had scattered to the sky a moment prior now swirled round and dove in, their larger kin following in after; the beatles and rams marched backwards, making metered and regimented steps back in formation, with other stray exotic kinds mixed in. The earth began to rumble much more, the hill depressing as demons desperately scrambled in. Everyone charged after, warriors rushing forward to cut down stragglers, spellcasters unleashing every ordinance at the crowds they could, the air fizzing with light and color as the demon force completely collapsed. Lakyus ran too, catching a crow headed demon in the fray and slicing through its back. At that, she witnessed the hill finally disappear, the wound in the earth heaving as sealed shut, the ground meeting as if it had never fractured at all.

And that’s that, isn’t it?

The last few remaining demons were quickly slain, the last survivor of the enemy force being a hellhound whose body was ripped to pieces by a dozen blows. Then, all around, the flame-wall fell, the last tendrils of it drifting off into what remained of the night as if it had never existed at all. A general cheer went up, the hundred adventurers present at once yelling in celebration. Lakyus opened her mouth to join that cry, but found herself too exhausted to manage. Instead, she looked around for her comrades, spotting them not too far away. She waved them over.

I should find Momon and Evileye. I wouldn't be surprised if either is wounded, and I don’t think Nabe possesses any healing magic.

“Boss, that drake was some work!”

“Nice kill, Fiendish Leader.”

It wasn’t exactly clean.

“Good job, Evil Boss.”

Lakyus blushed, realizing she was unlikely to shirk the praise. She turned away, embarrassed. To her relief, it stopped, her teammates either too understanding or too tired to continue. Gagaran choked out a few words a moment later.

“We gonna find shorty?”

Lakyus nodded, before waving to the lot and turning north. A few teams were already beginning to make in that direction, filtering toward the northern exit to the square, one that connected to the smaller plaza of interest to her. The Blue Roses went after them, working to the front by way of authority alongside Gazef, who joined them to step out into the plaza. There, alongside Evileye and Nabe was Momon, and after a moment’s conversation with Evileye, the gathered crowd witnessed him throw up his sword and give a cry of victory, its edge catching the first light of dawn from the rising sun. The moment was absolutely perfect.