The Traveler Tribe of Rough, Autumn, Forest and Purple showed their ill-gotten books to one of their many fencers throughout Porus. Though this fencer was only interested in something very specific, books, the harder to find the better.

  The tired man looked through the pile of books they’d permanently borrowed from Zach until one caught his eye.

  “Contingencies of Daemonica… Where did you acquire this?” The man, Dreaphs, asked as he shot up, his voice turning serious in an instant.

  “Found it, on the side of the road as usual.” Autumn said, sticking her tongue out playfully as Dreaphs scowled with a very aggressive side eye.

  “31 gold, and I don’t report you shuglets to the church for possession of heretical items.” Dreaphs explained bluntly as he snatched the book and slammed the money into Forest’s hands.

  “Hey! The hell man?! We’re always getting you these scribble books! What’s with all the aggression?” Rough barked as he angrily approached Dreaphs. Both the men were exceptionally tall, towering over the two women. Both their heads brushed against the ceiling as they puffed out their chests at each other.

  “You’re lucky this book isn’t drenched in Demon magic or the Church would’ve found you first, they’re nowhere near as accommodating as I am.” Dreaphs asserted as he stared into the Beastkin’s feral eyes.

  “Hey hey, settle down. Sorry he’s not used to trading.” Autumn apologised, pulling Rough back by the tail while Forest quickly added the wealth to her overflowing inventory, forcing down a pole that attempted to burst out.

  Dreaphs scoffed before turning back to his desk, saying nothing as he added the book to his collection. Rough growled as the three left, turning to leave the basement.

  “What’s his problem?” Rough asked, crossing his arms in frustration.

  “Dunno but he pays well. I heard they kicked him out of the church for being a naughty little boy and asking too many questions.” Autumn grinned as they all walked up the narrow stairwell together.

  “I heard that.” Dreaphs declared dully from his dreary desk, causing Forest to flinch fearfully.

  “Not that we’ll need to be selling things for much longer…” Forest added with a small laugh, a wide grin growing on her face as she worked out their respective cuts of the profits.

  “Yeah, once we get out of Porus we’ll split up everything.” Autumn said as they turned the corner of the stairwell, where Purple was keeping an eye out by the front door, tapping her foot anxiously despite her facial expression remaining neutral.

  “That sucker and the two weirdos following us walked by earlier.” Purple whispered bluntly.

  “WHAT?!” Autumn and Forest exclaimed simultaneously, the women suddenly panicking while Rough tensed up, ready to fight.

  “And another knight looked kinda like the Hero.” Purple added, her arms crossed as she sunk her face further into the cloak she’d purchased.

  “Are you kidding me?! He should be too hungover to do anything!” Autumn hissed incredulously, she’d given that man a lot of free alcohol for a reason.

  “Did they see you? Where are they now?” Rough asked quietly, poking his head out onto the road.

  The basement Dreaphs had made his home was on one of the many offshoots of the main Porus Boulevard on the more industrial side of town. Though it was still early in the morning there were plenty of workers making their way to the factories.

  “No they didn’t. I saw them about 20 minutes ago, they’re going to the hideout. The weirdo’s probably told them.” Purple explained. The three let out a sigh of relief.

  “They’ll be there by now… If we’re careful we probably won’t be-”

  Autumn was interrupted by the sight of some unmistakable silver hair poking out from above the crowd.

  “Run.” Autumn hissed before bolting.

  Rough looked around confused before seeing Zach leaping over the crowd and into the hanging lights.

  Pulling them all down as he crashed into the ground and rolled in front of the Beastkin.

  “Shit, I thought that’d be cooler than it was.” Zach groaned as he got up, wiping the molten wax and dirt off of his body.

  The crowd of people screamed and ran away, quickly emptying the street and leaving just Zach and the Beastkin.

  “H-Hi! I’ve been looking ALLLL over for you!” Autumn stammered looking around for an escape, Forest, Rough and Purple had all joined her.

  “Yeah we just moved businesses and you weren’t there or at the hero’s guild and it was so crazy and how flat and hard it was I mean it was crazy and-” Forest began before being cut off by Autumn covering her mouth.

  “I thought you didn’t know these guys.” Zach responded, crossing his arms smugly.

  “I uh, found them?” Autumn blustered as Zach approached, suddenly the group of Beastkin were all respectively shaking in their boots, amongst other things.

  “Look, just give me back the money you stole from me and the stuff you stole from the Academy, and you can keep whatever other junk I had alright? I don’t really need all the equipment.” Zach sighed, as soon as Douglous and Vivette showed him that the hideout was the very same Bath House he’d been mercilessly robbed at, it all clicked into place.

  “How’d you know about the Academy stuff we stole?!” Rough asked indignantly as Autumn covered her face in despair.

  “Oh my god Rough…” Autumn audibly groaned.

  “I’m just that smart, how’d you think I figured out this was your other hideout?” Zach boasted, though really he had just ran around main street until he heard them speaking, abandoning the rest of his party a couple of minutes ago with barely an explanation other than shouting ‘I GOT IT’.

  “Whatever, we still have most of your money but we can’t give back the Academy's books.” Autumn sighed, deciding it was better to cut her losses with this idiot before anyone else showed up to complicate matters further.

  “Eh, whatever. As long as I get my money back I don’t really care.” Zach shrugged, he thought playing hero was fun but quickly that idea was quickly becoming too much of a hassle.

  “W-what?! B-b-b-but… my cheeses.” Forest whimpered, her dreams of a villa in the mountains with a stockpile of every dairy Helvetia had to offer, gone, vanquished in an instant.

  “Just get his money before any else arrives.” Autumn hissed as Forest pouted. Dutifully Forest opened her inventory, a few pieces of clothes and other miscellaneous pieces of junk she’d taken from the hideout flying out of her overstuffed inventory. Forest got the pouch of coins and Autumn quickly snatched it from the despairing Mousekin’s hands. Zach grabbed the pouch and counted them slowly and deliberately.

  Realistically, the 100 adamance pieces and a singular mythril piece would be more than enough for anything he and Taro did. Though Zach did remember he in fact had 2 mythril pieces and looked towards Forest.

  Forest started shaking anxiously, having kept one mythril piece for herself, with Autumn glaring at her. Before Zach could say anything, loud footsteps began echoing from the cellar that the Beastkin were standing in front of.

  “Of course… Why do I even bother warning people…” Dreaphs groaned as he emerged from his basement, holding a long holy sword that had been rusting with blackened ash as it neared Zach.

  “A-ah we were just-” Forest began before being pushed aside by Dreaphs who quickly approached Zach, pointing his blade at his neck before it disintegrated into black dust.

  “This is the most powerful Demon I’ve ever seen, he might even be from the Infinite itself.” Dreaphs thought as he threw the ashes of his blade onto the ground.

  Zach looked up and laughed apologetically.

  “Sorry, church stuff tends to rust near me. I’d turn it off if I knew how!” Zach said as he quickly pocketed his gold into his inventory, revealing to Dreaphs the bizarre inventory that Zach used. One which now only had a copious amount of monsters in storage, clearly labelled for all to see.

  “Good to know. You travellers should run.” Dreaphs declared emotionlessly as he ducked and hit Zach square in the jaw with an upper cut, sending him flying backwards into the other wall.

  “He has an inventory that loudly displays that he has enough monsters to flatten this city. He’s threatening me.” Dreaphs frowned as he got into a proper fighting stance.

  The Beastkin looked at each other before quickly running away through the crowd and onto Porus’ main street.

  Zach cracked his neck as he got up.

  “I almost felt that one, but chill out man I’m just trying to get my-” Zach tried to explain before Dreaphs closed the distance between them in an instant, kneeing Zach in the chest and into the wall, leaving a divot in the bricks.

  Zach glared at Dreaphs as he dodged his next attack by sliding to the side and quickly standing up.

  “What’s the big deal dude? Are you working for those guys or something? I don’t care, I just wanted my money back. We chill now.” Zach explained quickly as he dodged the flurry of attacks that Dreaphs launched at him.

  Dreaphs took a step back, panting.

  “Eugh, no. You’re far too powerful of a demon to leave alone.“ Dreaphs said coldly.

  “Is it the blue skin or metal hands that gave it away?” Zach snarked. Dreaphs pulled out a crystal on a string he had in his pocket, it was rapidly pulsing with purple light.

  “There’s stranger looking people than you, but I’ve never seen this before.” Dreaphs explained as he rolled his neck and shoulders, raising his fists up in an attack stance.

  “Chill out dude, I’m just tryna get out of here!” Zach snapped as he dodged Dreaphs brutal set of attacks, they didn’t hurt but he didn’t want to get thrown to the dirty ground anymore than he had already.

  “You’ll leave when I’m done killing you.” Dreaphs scowled. Zach groaned as he tried to back off before getting his legs kicked out from under him and thrown back down the alley, the people watching from inside the houses screamed as Zach flew through more of the lights they’d hung up.

  “This was going to take awhile wasn’t it.” Zach thought to himself as he flew through the air, resigning himself to trying to fight this guy as he flipped and landed on his feet, stumbling backwards from the moment as Dreaphs closed the distance once again.

  “Nothing’s working. Do I just cut my losses now and try to get out of Porus while I still can?” Dreaphs thought coldly, whatever this demon was planning he clearly wasn’t going to be able to stop it. So long as he could leave with his equipment and his new copy of the Contingencies of Daemonica it didn’t matter. Unfortunately, Dreaphs knew he wouldn’t be able to escape should this Demon get the opportunity to attack properly.

  Zach lifted his hands up to try and throw a punch as fast as his new body would allow. The air burst outwards from the sheer energy, Zach’s fist was where Dreaphs head should’ve been. But Dreaphs had ducked long before Zach threw his punch and upper cut him, sending him flying while doing no damage to Zach.

  “This is going to really take a while.” Both the men thought in unison.

  …

  “So your friend uh, where do you think he went?” Vivette asked nervously.

  “I imagine he must’ve used his superior senses to locate the dastardly thieves!” Taro declared confidently, responding as his hero persona Cedrick.

  “The Demon Lord had heightened senses at least, Zach probably didn’t just go crazy randomly. Hopefully…” Taro thought with an internal groan. The three had tried to follow Zach but he was too fast and had started running on roof tops.

  “I’m sure he’s fine, but can someone… help me… with this…” Douglous grunted as he tried to remove a manhole cover in the large hole in the ground in the moldy backroom, the sewer pipe that fed it water had been hastily plugged up with some kind of mucus.

  Cedrick approached confidently and with his sword, used it as a lever to assist. It was heavier and larger than a normal manhole cover, and as the pair managed to get it vertical it slipped into the cavernous underground of Porus’ sewer system, crushing a grand piano that had been unceremoniously crammed into the hole along with all of Demon Lord’s other junk that the Traveler Tribe had stolen and couldn’t stuff into their inventories.

  “Good golly, Zach really had all of this in his inventory?” Douglous remarked as he squinted down the hole

  “He did say it was a lot… But my word.” Vivette remarked as she poked her over the rim.

  “He was something of a hoarder! However I suspect the university's Phoenix Egg and books have long since been sold! ” Cedrick asserted confidently, though Taro didn’t have a clue and just wanted to leave the rancid smelling sewer hole.

  “Yeah, hold on, let me try some divination magic.” Vivette said as she got an arrow out of her quiver.

  “Ah of course, using your natural elven magic. Indeed an intelligent choice.” Cedrick nodded. Vivette laughed awkwardly and nodded before carving a sigil in the dirty and moldy floor.

  “I’m uh, a little young to know Elven Magic actually. I mostly just know the basics…” Vivette explained as she finished the sigil.

  “Don’t sell yourself short Viv! You know way more about magic than I do. You’re like… crazy smart.” Douglous added cheerfully.

  “I-It’s nothing really, there’s just a lot of time to read when travelling.” Vivette retorted, grabbing a red feather from her pack.

  “She can read too.” Douglous whispered with a smug smile.

  “Can you… not?” Taro asked, the Cedrick persona dropping from surprise. Literacy wasn’t common amongst the peasantry in this world still, but peasants didn’t normally get Gold Rank in the Hero’s Guild without dying.

  “This guy is either the most competent peasant I’ve ever met or the dullest noble I’ve ever met.” Taro thought as Douglous cocked his head with his usual lopsided smile.

  “I mean, I know half the letters. They just get too squiggly and blend together for me.” Douglous shrugged, causing Vivette to let out a small chuckle.

  “Dullest noble it is.” Taro sighed.

  “You don’t have to share everything that comes into your head Lou.” Vivette sighed as she dropped the red feather onto the circle before casting a small spell.

  “Tori no no mah bura.” Vivette cast, in a language Taro could only identify as coming from a language somewhere on the western continent.

  The sigil lit up and the feather burnt away, the smoke started trailing down into the hole.

  “Tell me that spell's name. I need to get Yin to learn how to do that.” Taro remarked sincerely as he watched the smoke flow into the hole.

  “It’s just a charm spell I picked up in Vespucia… I’ll tell you about it later. The smoke only lasts for a minute or two so we better hurry.” Vivette explained as she grabbed a rope from her backpack and tied it around the pipe.

  “I can probably jump it.” Douglous said.

  “You can’t jump it.” Vivette sighed.

  “I can totally jump it.”

  “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “You worry too much.” Douglous laughed as he took a step into the manhole, Vivette let out a sigh as Taro watched the debacle play out.

  Stolen story; please report.

  There was about 3 seconds of silence that was interrupted with the extremely loud sound of a man down a deep hole falling onto a piano and smashing it to pieces.

  “I’m okay!” Douglous shouted with his usual enthusiasm and vigor.

  “Does this happen often?” Taro asked with a bemused laugh, the dynamic between these two reminded him of his old party. The laugh faded into a determined scowl as Taro reassured himself that they were still safe.

  “Yes… He’s very energetic.” Vivette groaned as she threw the rope down the hole.

  “I FOUND THE EGG!” Douglous shouted from noticeably further into the sewer.

  “Great, now bring it up!” Vivette shouted back, hesitating on going into the sewer.

  “CAN’T, COME DOWN AND SEE FOR YOURSELF!” Douglous shouted back. Vivette groaned.

  “This was my nice tunic too… I just had it cleaned and everything…” Vivette groaned as she lowered herself down the rope quickly and gracefully. Taro opted to just jump down, landing on the shattered piano and other assorted items of junk that had been unceremoniously dumped down here.

  The sewer was cavernous and made from large stone bricks, lit up by some of the city's eternal candles that flickered a dim green light from inside their small glass containers.

  Further ahead the smoke was swirling around a gigantic rock with the egg wedged inside of it, with Douglous kicking it fruitlessly. The rock was blocking the sewer water, keeping the human waste from reaching the rest of the junk, the water on the side closer to the entrance was crystal clear.

  “That’s gotta be the egg right?” Douglous asked as the smoke dissipated, Vivette making her way down the pile of junk that was slightly taller than her and towards Douglous through the empty sewer canal.

  “What the… What happened?!” Vivette gasped as she tried to figure out what could’ve possibly occurred to lead to this.

  "That's a Phoenix egg alright.” Taro remarked as he looked up at the huge rock, it was around twice his height with the egg poking out around halfway from the top of the boulder.

  “You’ve seen this before?” Vivette asked, surprised before smacking herself on the head.

  “You’re THE Hero, of course you have…” Vivette reprimanded herself quietly.

  “Yeah, not this big before. I think I know what happened though.” Taro explained as he tapped on the rock, it made a solid sound like you would expect from a sedimentary stone you’d find on the beach.

  “Do phoenix eggs just turn into rocks after a while?” Douglous asked.

  “No, but they purify everything around them. It’s a by-product of phoenix regeneration magic according to Kiko. Useful to heal in a pinch but it makes the mother very angry.” Taro explained as he looked up at the encased egg.

  “Alright… what does that mean this is?” Douglous asked cluelessly as he hit the stone with his foot again before Vivette realized what it was.

  “Oh no, that’s from all the poo isn’t it? It’s purifying the water and leaving behind…” Vivette gagged as she took a step back from the boulder.

  “Petrified poop.” Taro said grimly as he looked to the other side of the boulder, seeing that the rock was growing slightly in the direction of rushing feces.

  “It’s not going to turn back into poo when we remove it right?” Vivette asked despondently.

  “Probably not but… I think we should stand back just in case.” Taro groaned as he climbed up onto the walkway and out of the drainway, Vivette and Douglous quickly followed.

  “You’re the lightest, you should try and pull it out first.” Cedrick declared confidently, falling naturally into the position of party leader.

  “W-what? Oh, I mean… okay.” Vivette muttered, anxiously looking to Douglous.

  “You’ll be fine. I’ll catch you if anything goes wrong.” Douglous said reassuringly. Vivette nodded and cautiously climbed on top of the rock, it was completely clean thanks to the phoenix magic, but as she stood on top of it and saw the rushing sewerage to her right she felt a sense of dread come over her.

  Looking at Cedrick, the hero, she took a deep breath and grabbed the egg, it came out of its stoney shell effortlessly, though that was primarily because the stone disintegrated into dust the moment she touched the egg.

  Grabbing the egg tightly as she fell she saw the wave of filth come flooding towards where she was landing, it wasn’t going to be a hard landing at least but she wasn’t looking forward to getting filthy.

  Without a moment of hesitation and before Taro could quite recognize what had happened, Douglous had leapt across the river of filth and pushed Vivette onto the raised walkway, managing to avoid spilling a drop on her.

  Though unfortunately this resulted in him landing face first in the rushing river of sewerage and crashing into the pile of junk below the entrance.

  “LOU!” Vivette screamed as she put the egg down and quickly ran towards him, letting out a sigh of relief when he managed to push a thumb up from the torrent of brown water that he was slowly but surely breaking free from.

  “Nope, definitely a peasant. No noble would jump into a river of filth like that.” Taro thought with a macabre chuckle as he walked over and grabbed Douglous’ hand, pulling the now filthy man out of the water and onto safety.

  After spitting out whatever horrific liquid had gotten in his mouth he looked to Vivette with his usual lopsided smile.

  “All good?” Douglous asked without a worry in the world.

  “Idiot, I told you to stop doing stuff like that.” Vivette chastised, looking away in frustration as she pushed the phoenix egg into Douglous’ arms. It quickly cleaned the man of all the disease and pestilence he had just ingested. Taro couldn’t help but smile as he remembered how Yin would get whenever he did something reckless.

  “C’mon let’s get out of here and find Zach.” Taro said with a chuckle before remembering that he’d left Zach alone again.

  “Hopefully he hasn’t caused too much of a scene.” Taro thought anxiously.

  …

  Zach flew backwards spinning into a tailor's store window, causing an aristocratic woman being measured to scream and quickly cover herself as Dreaphs kept using magic to close the gap between them.

  “Sorry, sorry.” Zach apologised, throwing an Adamance coin at the front counter before slipping away from Dreaphs next attack by jumping onto main street, where some city guards had gathered to watch the battle.

  “Are we gonna do anything captain?” The younger guard asked.

  “Nope.” The captain replied, stroking his white moustache ponderously.

  “Why not?”

  “Way above our pay grade.”

  “Oh.” The younger guard replied as Zach and Dreaphs flew over them.

  They continued down the main street towards the center of Porus, the Mauvais Tower. It was a huge spindly tower made from the continuous melting and forging of candle wax that spiraled up from four main pillars that combined to one point that was constantly lit up and added too with the city's numerous new candles.

  “What’s your problem dude! Seriously!” Zach shouted, getting pissed off now at this guy as he grabbed him by the shoulders as they flew through the air and towards the Mauvais Tower.

  “Your connection with the infinite is too strong, you’re either a demi-god or working for a god. Either way I’m not letting you leave alive.” Dreaphs shouted, his emotionless face getting animated as he struggled to do anything to Zach.

  As the pair were about to land Dreaphs lurched using all of his body weight and the last of his MP to start the pair spinning so Zach would crash into the ground, hard.

  Zach saw this and saw the group of screaming people they were about to crush.

  “DUDE!” Zach shouted angrily as he quickly willed to go up, inadvertently casting a flight spell that flashed purple and began propelling the pair high into the sky, far above the roofs of Porus and just to the top of the candle wax tower.

  Dreaphs, entirely drained of energy, floated limply from Zach’s flying spell. Zach felt his own energy drain dramatically from using that spell and started to pant.

  “I don’t know what this infinite is, I don’t think I’m a god or a demi-god but fucked if I know anymore.” Zach shouted frustratedly as he crossed his arms, letting Dreaphs slightly float away. Zach could hear the crowd clearly as they gathered.

  “Who are they?”

  “Is that a holy knight?”

  “I think I know him.”

  “What are they saying?”

  Dreaphs said nothing and simply glared at Zach as they both floated uselessly in the air.

  Zach let out a frustrated groan.

  “I didn’t choose this body dude, I’m just trying to go home, I don’t want to hurt anybody, even fucking dickheads like you I would really rather not hurt. So please can you stop trying to hit me?” Zach pleaded earnestly to the immobilized Dreaphs who was still slowly floating away.

  “What do you mean, ‘go home’?” Dreaphs asked once he regained his breath, still floating away gently.

  “You promise to chill the fuck out if I tell you?” Zach asked.

  “Eughh… Fine.” Dreaphs groaned with a long exasperated sigh.

  “I’m from the other world, the real one. This isn’t my body, it's the Demon Lord. I think we swapped minds or something. But I’m working with THE Hero, he’s like the good guy yeah? He trusts me so like, we’re chill yeah?” Zach explained erratically. Dreaphs looked at him for a moment and nodded.

  “Okay.”

  “That's all? You attack a guy for like twenty minutes and that’s all you give me?” Zach responded annoyed.

  “I apologise. I thought you might know the truth of this world, not that other one.” Dreaphs sighed.

  “The fuck kind of truth were you gonna get from trying to beat my ass?”

  “Beings of borne the infinite respond only to force.”

  “Whatever dude… Now how do we get down?”

  “It’s your spell.”

  “Yeah well, I fucking don’t know how to do magic properly yet.”

  Dreaphs looked blankly towards Zach for a moment before bursting out into laughter suddenly.

  “W-what?!” Zach asked incredulously.

  “You really are not one of them. I’m sorry.” Dreaphs explained, wiping tears away from his eyes.

  Zach looked blankly for a moment, his brain struggling to find a suitable response to this man who’d spent the last half an hour trying to send him to the grave in order to somehow get answers to questions he never even asked. Eventually, Zach settled on laughing as well.

  “Fucking fine, apology accepted. You owe me a drink or something later.”

  “Deal, I may like to learn of this other world you hail from as well.”

  “Yeah it’s pretty cool, though we don’t have to deal with this magical bullshit.”

  “Fascinating.”

  From below, Taro, Douglous and Vivette stared at Zach and Dreaphs laughing as they very slowly started to float down to the ground along with the rest of the large crowd that had gathered.

  “How the hell did this happen?” Vivette asked incredulously.

  “I don’t know, I think he’s just a magnet for bad luck.” Taro groaned.

  “Perhaps he’s cursed.” A short hooded figure cackled from Taro’s legs.

  “Feels like it.” Taro replied with a sigh, looking around for where the voice had come, but the short hooded figure had already disappeared.

  Hitop, disguising himself with a large hood was blending in the crowd of humans as well as a 2 foot tall Imp could, ducking and weaving between legs as he found somewhere to hide from Zach’s incredible sense of sight. He had found his master's body thanks to his own extensive intelligence network, entirely separate from that of the Demon Army’s of course.

  “I won’t ruin the surprise just yet, oh it’ll be so much FUN to see their faces when they see this defilement of their lord's body.” Hitop thought to himself deviously.

  “Think the flying guy is the thief?” Douglous asked curiously, still cradling the egg like a smooth baby to get rid of the lingering sulphur scent. Vivette looked at the path of destruction that had led them here and then back to the pair laughing about something they couldn’t hear over the crowd chatter.

  “Doubt it, we’re looking for Beastkin and that’s a Seraphs man. Probably from the Church, might’ve decided to take exorcising Zach into his own hands ....” Taro sighed, seeing the Adamonic Knights enter the central Porus plaza from the other side, their glistening white armour starting to rot as it approached Zach.

  “Exorcising…?” Vivette asked anxiously, she had suspected Zach was some kind of Demon though the thought was too frightful to bear.

  “Like a workout?” Douglous asked cluelessly, he didn’t know what the word meant and assumed this was a sparring match gone wrong .

  “Come on, let's go see what’s going on.” Taro groaned as he made his way through the crowd to the knights, Douglous and Vivette following close behind.

  “You’re a pretty funny dude y’know?” Zach exclaimed as the pair slowly lowered closer to the streets.

  “You are quite funny as well. When I figure out the truth of this world, I’ll tell you first.” Dreaphs replied, a small smile on his dreary looking face.

  “What truth are you even looking for anyway?”

  “The truth about God, the truth about the war and the Demon Lord. The church says the Demon Lord declared war against God because he is pure evil, and that God is pure good. But what do you think?” Dreaphs asked seriously.

  “I mean, I was in the guy's castle, he doesn’t exactly seem like a stand up dude.” Zach shrugged.

  “No no that’s not what I’m saying. God isn’t pure good, I have reason to believe she’s the one who made the Demon Lord.” Dreaphs explained, his tone growing frantic and conspiratorial.

  “Right… I mean I’ve never met God so I can’t comment.” Zach shrugged atheistically.

  “You don’t have to, look I’ve been studying metaphysics for years now, I’ve bought lots of books from lots of places and they’re all pointing to the same thing. All gods, all magic, all of that comes from the infinite. God is in charge of the infinite, the Demon Lord was born from the infinite. So she must’ve made him.” Dreaphs continued seriously.

  “Yeah look I dunno man, tell me this again when we’re a couple dozen drinks in.” Zach replied with a laugh as they got within the crowds hearing distance, he could sense this was probably a taboo topic, especially since a familiar looking member of the Adamonic church had approached the central plaza.

  Mosus looked bewildered as he halted his men from going forward any further once he saw Zach was one of the flying men, almost immediately recognizing Dreaphs from afar.

  “What is that heretic still doing here…” Mosus scowled to himself.

  “Oh! Look, it's the Hero!” Sister Night exclaimed excitedly, the crowd suddenly looking to Taro who internally despaired but quickly put on the Cedrick persona.

  “Yes yes, at ease everyone let the professionals handle this situation.” Cedrick declared, raising his hand and waving to ease the suddenly awestruck crowd as they quickly stepped backwards from him.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” Taro asked in a hushed tone once he closed the gap between him and Mosus.

  “We just heard two people were fighting, it looks like it was your friend and someone who shouldn’t be here.” Mosus explained, glaring at Dreaphs.

  “I assumed he was one of your guys.” Taro replied surprised as he faced the two men who had floated down halfway the Mauvais Tower, talking about something or rather still and clearly having a good time.

  “He was, a long time ago.” Mosus explained bitterly as he threw off his blessed armour before it rusted away and grabbed an unblessed set he had Sister Night carry for him, putting it on as he walked towards where Dreaphs and Zach were about to land, pushing his way through the crowd.

  Dreaphs suddenly stopped laughing, heart dropping as he stared at Mosus. Zach looked towards Dreaphs and Mosus, sensing the tension in the air.

  “You uh, know each other?” Zach asked with an awkward laugh as the pair hovered slightly above Mosus still.

  “Yes, care to explain?” Mosus asked, like a parent who found the folder filled with all of your weird porn, the bad stuff.

  “Ah it was just a misunderstanding-” Zach began before Mosus put up his finger to silence Zach aggressively.

  “Not you, him.” Mosus interrupted, pointing towards Dreaphs. Dreaphs glared at his former mentor before grabbing his crystal and throwing it at Mosus.

  “I followed the crystal, it led me to him who I mistook to be an Arch Daemon.” Dreaphs said bluntly.

  “You’re not even supposed to be on this continent let alone here. You know I’ll have to report this right? I’m not going to be able to cover for you again Dreaphs!” Mosus shouted, throwing the crystal back at Dreaphs as the two men landed on the ground, Zach awkwardly stepping away and through the baffled crowd.

  “So be it.” Dreaphs bitterly stated as he stepped away. Mosus let out a frustrated groan as Sister Night stepped through the crowd to join Mosus.

  “What happened?” Sister Night asked, confused, arriving as Dreaphs disappeared into the chattering crowd.

  “God decided to reintroduce an old pain in my ass.” Mosus lamented. Taro, Douglous and Vivette pushed through the crowd to join Zach.

  “Was that the thief?” Douglous asked hopefully.

  “No, I think they just sold him a book… Fuck I should’ve asked him about the gang.” Zach cursed realising he’d missed the opportunity.

  “Wait, a book? Are you sure?” Vivette asked, ears perking up excitedly.

  “Yeah, he said he buys lots of books. But weren’t we looking for an egg as well?” Zach asked, turning to Douglous, seeing him carrying the egg.

  “Oh, well then.” Zach remarked, pleasantly surprised.

  “Yeah, but we couldn’t find our money.” Taro grumbled. Zach grabbed his pouch of coins and handed them to Taro.

  “I actually found the Beastkin first before he started fighting me. Got my money back… mostly.” Zach sighed, he’d ended up spending around half of his money trying to pay for all of the damages he and Dreaphs had caused as they happened.

  Though luckily he still had more than enough money for Taro’s wizard friend to cast his locating spell and any other expenses their quest to rescue Taro’s party might accrue.

  “Huh, that worked out better than I thought it was going to.” Zach remarked, right as his MP hit zero and he passed out, falling to the ground like a log.

  “Is he okay?” Vivette asked nervously.

  “Probably… Come on, let's get him back to the guild.” Taro said dutifully.

  “Yes sir!” Douglous replied, jokingly saluting as he handed the egg to Vivette and grabbed Zach by the legs. Taro started to wonder if Zach was more of a liability or an asset as he started dragging the heavy man.

  “Do you… want help?” Douglous asked as he saw Zach’s head jerk with every bump in the pavement.

  “No.” Taro groaned.

  “On one hand, he’s incredibly strong, damn near indestructible. On the other hand, he can’t fight to save his life and if he casts more than one spell he passes out. God Yin why can’t you be here to teach this idiot magic already?” Taro lamented.

  …

  Yin swung in her cage boredly, waiting for Titania to return for their daily gossip chats.

  “It’s a shame that she’s a monster.” Yin lamented aloud, the silence of the dungeon was getting to her. Though she had grown to really enjoy her time chatting with the goblin woman, perhaps that was just Stockholm syndrome setting in.

  “Maybe man was the real monster all along, slaughtering us Demons oh so carelessly?” Hitop mocked with a cackle as he suddenly appeared from the shadows, gloves and hat manifesting first as his dark orb of a body expanded out like black ink in the sky, his smile cracking open last.

  “Yeah no, orcs killed my parents and nearly burnt my entire village down. They are absolutely the real monsters.” Yin retorted unamusedly.

  Hitop shrugged, his wide smile not wavering.

  “Maybe they deserved it. Why assume your parents weren’t evil?” Hitop posited rhetorically.

  “What do you want Imp, you don’t strike me as the kind of spirit to do social visits.” Yin asked, unphased by Hitop’s prodding, being a spirit mage she was used to handling their particular brand of torment.

  Hitop let out a laugh.

  “Oh fine you caught me! I wanted to let you know, you’re going to be rescued soon~!” Hitop cooed, clapping slowly in a mocking manner.

  “R-really?!” Yin gasped as she scooted towards Hitop, holding the bars of her cage.

  “Well, assuming I don’t tell the rest of the Devil Knights to come and kill your little friend… Cedrick was it?” Hitop asked with a devilish grin.

  “I-I… Yes… Assuming you don’t do that.” Yin stammered, her hope quickly dashed.

  “Oh but don’t worry. I’m great at keeping secrets. It’s actually in my vested interest that he finds you fast!” Hitop laughed as he faded back into his shadow, the Dungeon Portal suddenly opening as Titania came through.

  “You will NOT believe what just happened today, you are the FIRST person I’m telling because you are going to LOVE IT!” Titania announced dramatically as Yin slumped in her cage, suddenly feeling a pit in her stomach, mixed with a small drop of hope.

  “Oh Cedrick, please be safe.” Yin thought to herself before quickly putting on a pleasant face as Titania poured her a cup of tea.