Untitled - ch1

The village was by far the worst that Suriel had seen in a long time. Everyone seemed to be sick. Those who didn't seem very badly off were lathargic, laying arround and not doing much, leaving the very few who had not gotten sick at all to tend to all. Suri managed to stay out of their way and not get run over, but it wasn't an easy task, for those who were well were running places constantly, and knew the town much better than she would have thought possible. They kept appearing in the most unexpected places. Walking mostly unnoticed through the quiet streets, Suriel came apon the house in which they kept the dying. She could hear the groans and ramblings, and quickly circled the house looking for a door. One of the survivors saw her and tried to shoo her away, but was too late. She opened the sliding door and walked in, stoping to kneel beside the first person she found inside. Quickly she checked over the feverish young man, and found every sign of the illness that she had been following. Frustrated, she rocked back, easily standing on her feet, and turning toward the weary looking young woman who was one of the few survivors. "Your concerns are well founded, but there is no possibility that I will end up as one of your patients. I thank you, most are not concerned for the health of a druid, but only interested in the healing that one can provide."
The young woman smiled tiredly. "Sick druids are not easy to care for, and we have three of them here. One has already passed on, and the others are not far behind. There is a Circle nearby where they meet from time to time. We thought to ask for their help. We didn't think this would happen. Noone's ever heard of anything like this, well, unless the ledgends can be trusted."
Suriel frowned. Ledgends? What does she mean by that? "What ledgends? I am sorry, I was raised in the coastal reagions, and I know little of the ledgends this far inland."
The tired girl smiled weakly, and motioned for the druidess to follow her. "Come, let us find some food and I will tell you the ledgend of Balarase, the Plague Demon."
Both young women headed off and managed, between them, to find enough food to prepare a decent meal for them and the others who would soon be retireing for the night to the house out on the edge of the village. There one of the older survivors heard that the druidess was asking about the Plague Demon ledgend, and offered to tell the story. He sat down beside the fire, hoping to draw some of it's warmth into himself so as to steel himself against the unplesantness of the tale he was about to relate. After taking a deep breath, the man who introduced himself as Tainis, began the tale.
"Long ago, back when the world was young, ther lived a young man of little judgment and brash temperment. His name was Bal. Bal's father, Sol lived by the sun and it's daily trek across the sky. Every day Sol would venture out and take his son to tend the fields and herds. Bal was not, however, interested at all in what his father wished to teach him, about living with the land. Bal was more inclined to use the knowledge that his father had given him to work cruel jokes on their neibors and even on his own family. Instead of using herbs to cure ailments, he used them to cause problems. Everything he was taught, he turned arround to hurt those who took the time to teach him. This angered his father, but there was little he could do about it since Bal would just retaliate against him further, and put his own family further into poverty. Sol went to the hilltop, and knelt and prayed, seeking guidance. For days he stayed there, unmoving, begging for help with his son. Finally he was answered. He was told that his son had little good inside him, and that now, from this point on, every evil act that the young man committed would erode a bit of that good, until Bal was nothing more than a demon in a man's body. Sol was grieved, but this was the answer he had recived in response to all of his prayers, and so, he returned to his village, telling noone of what had been told him. He waited and watched as his son's actions grew more and more cruel. Not only did his actions change, but so did his countinance. Bal was one of the most handsome men in the village, but as the goodness inside of him began to erode away, the wholesomeness behind his looks started to dissapear as well. His skin started to take on an unearthly paleness, like one who suffers from a high, uncureable feaver. His eyes changed from their earthy brown to blood red, and began to glow. Instead of walking upright, he began to croutch, and stick to the shadows, until he became one with them. It is said that after Bal died, his spirit was kept in a deep corner of Hell, where only those who plot crimes against their families are kept in torment. Some say he shattered himself into many pieces, and escaped from hell to create chaos in the world. Others say that unexplainable plagues are the fault of the Balarase, a plague demon named after Bal. Personally, I think he came back for revenge on those who caught and killed him, and not finding them, he is taking out his vengance on their offspring."

Suriel frowned, mulling the story over. Unlike other stories she had heard in her travels, this one seemed to have a ring of truth to it.

The boy fought back with every ounce of strength, thrashing, even using what little control he had over the fire that came so easily to his control. The demon still had ahold of his arm. Wouldn't let go. They kept going down. Down. Further. Hotter. He could hear screams. He could feel screams. His screams. Over and over. He flintched and the pain of movement brought him to wakefullness. His wrists were still manicaled to the walls to either side of him. His wings were chained backward, to the wall corners of his cell, stripped bare of feathers. Feathers that littered the floor allong with other things like blood. Lots of blood. Ezutiel shook his head, trying to clear it, yet again. He was here in concequence for trying to escape. Right where he wanted to be. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Ezu reached out with his mind, to touch Thathir, the hellbeast he had befriended in the years he had been stuck down there, searching for a way out. The prearanged signal had been given. Ezu closed his mismatched green and blue eyes, and concentrated on the metal touching his skin. The one benefit of being stuck in a cage for ten years was the time that could be spent honeing talents, like this one, to prefection. The thought made him smile. Neixtroph, or in commonspeak, Pheonix. From the ashes he was going to rise, with flame as his weapon. The metal touching his skin arround his wrists, wings, and ankles melted off, dripping like water until he was free. Reflexively he stepped away from where he had been standing for the past, well, what seemed like forever, and streatched. Momentarily he wished that he could magically grow back his feathers, for his wings looked like those of a plucked chicken, but that desire vanished as he silently dressed, and felt the familiar weight of his swords on his hip. Few knew their secret, and none of those were in residence down here, thankfully. Thathir padded through the open doorway, and dipped his oddly shaped horse-like head to his friend. We must head for The Breach, Ezutiel. There will be a long line. Ezu nodded, and grabbed a handful of Thathir's flameing mane and pulled himself ontop of the fire steed. They raced off, toward where they had created a thinning between the relm of Hell, and the real world. They raced toward the small breach, mercilessly dispatching anything that came within range. Both were determined to never have to look back again. Ezutiel dismounted just outside the breach, and set about muttering the right Old Toungue phrases to not only close the breach, but strengthen Hell's defences. Thathir was left with fending off the Clerics that had responded to the invasion of hellbeasts and demons. His clawed feet raked the air arround the braver of the Clerics, and his soundless screams seemed to deflect even the most powerful of their attacks. His flameing mane and tail somehow did not set fire to anything, but seemed to pass arround the greenery. One of the Clerics managed to get arround Thathir, and behind Ezuiel. Both flame bound beings turned as one, Ezu blocking the attack with a flame shield, and Thrath sweeping the Cleric to the ground, and pinning him beneath one foot, needle sharp claws sheathed, but ready. All movement stopped, and all turned with apprehension to see what those so recently escaped from Hell would do now that they had one of the Upper World's few demon warriors pinned against the ground, helpless. Ezutiel sighed in relief. He had no wish to be mistaken for a demon, though his relief was short lived as he remembered his appearace would change during his fight to the surface. With hesitation he reached through the bond he shared with Thrathir to find what dammage had been done durring his time in Hell. Fortunately his eyes were still the same, odd mismatched sky blue and emerald green. That was as far as the similarity to his old appirence went. Dark brown, almost black skin covered his rough features instead of the light, suntanned skin of the young man who had been dragged down all those years ago. His hair was also changed. Instead of raven's wing black, it fell straight, colored as silver as moonbeams. Ezu cursed softly. So much change. How was he to accept it and reasure Thrath and fight all at the same time? Surely that was impossible. He retreated from his friend's mind and glanced arround at the surrounding Clerics with his newfound perspective. Slowly, so as not to provoke an attack, he knelt beside the one his flamebeast had caught. That act in and of its self almost brought three of the younger of the warrior priest order into Ezu's circle of reach. He looked over the rather frightened young man pinned beneath Thrathir's foot and smiled slightly. He spied a scroll tucked into the man's belt, and retrieved it. Apon opening it, his eyes widened. After glancing over it a couple times, he tucked it into the back of his own belt. He tapped Thrath's foot twice, and the hellbeast removed it as the Cleric scrambled backward as fast as he could, though he didn't make it far. In his haste, he placed his right wrist badly and all in the clearing heard the audible snap. All present, including Thrathir froze, watching each other as the young Cleric began to silently shed tears as evidence of the pain he was feeling. Ezutiel's eyes softened a touch with intimate knowledge of the Elf's pain. A thought, though quickly abandoned, had raced to the forfrount of his mind. It had wispered ways of torture, ways of pain. He quickly rejected it, almost as quickly as it had come to him. Slowly he drew his swords and drove them into the earth, point first. Wordlessly he bade Thrathir to go and stand over them. The company of Clerics had tensed as the demon looking man had drawn his blades, but had become rather curious as he plunged their tips into the earth. Ordering his hellbeast to stand guard over the blades had only puzzled them even further. Ezutiel started toward the fallen Cleric who's eyes were closed, and he was gritting his teeth against the pain. All the other Clerics started to draw their weapons, but stopped at the unthinkable sight. Ezutiel, the half demon, was kneeling beside the fallen Cleric, tending to his broken wrist. Ezu took a small bit of skin on his forefinger between his teeth that had become fangs and poked a big enough hole so that blood would flow. The fallen Cleric watched, mystified, as symbols were painted on his painfully broken wrist. Then, like magic, the break was gone, and the demon man hissed through clenched teeth. Taeri, the fallen Cleric watched with wide eyes as the demon man's wrist broke in exact place his had been. All of the Clerics tightened their grip on their weapons as the head of their company broke rank and started toward the demon man and the fallen Novice, ready to plunge into battle at a moment's notice. Ezutiel backed away slowly, stumbling backward before coming to rest heavily against the sholder of his hellbeast. Thrathir pinned his coal black ears back against his neck, and snorted a small plume of flame in the general direction of the Cleric leader as he walked toward them.