Haunted & Hunted

The duo followed her. The next room was just a large, empty chasm.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"How do we get to the dungeon?"

"Apart from where it's located, I have no idea, unfortunately," the Devil said. "Could be as easy as taking out a book or as hard as locating a switch."

Lillith looked at the room." And whats this room for?" She said very low and a little sad. " But there are tons of books here! That could take a long time!" Then she thought about it." You know ive bever done this before but I could phase you both underground."

"No idea," Azzar said. "The one person that knew is dead and we're stuck bere." Even necromancy was out of the question, as the body was bits and pieces.

"Do it." Kit, however, did not share the Devil's confidence.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"What?! No! Nonono. If you haven't tried it out, we might end up getting stuck in a wall or worse."

"She deserved to die..." Lillith thought about how to get to the other side."Maybe there is an invisible pathway to cross..." Lillith started to throw ink above the chasm and let it fall to see if any of the ink lands somewhere."Do you have any better ideas Kit? If not than we are going to have to do it."

The walls slid open and odd-shaped rocks started spewing fire, incinerating the ink in midair. Then, when the ink was toasted, they slid back into the walls. The ink remnant appeared to have fell on an invisible floor.

"I have some resistance, but this is ridiculous," Maggie whined. "How are we supposed to get through this?"

"Very carefully." Azzar joked.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"F-fine! But if I die, I'm haunting you!"

"Ok... there is an invisible floor.I'll throw a bunch of ink.maybe itll get distracted by all the commotion and you guys can run through." Lillith started to throw tons of ink. Aiming in all directions. "Now go!" " dont worry i'll try my best to not let that happen. How are you going to haunt a ghost?" Liela went to her body to possesses it. Then she held both of her hands out to them."Now please hold my hands tight.If you start feeling weird dont worry.That's just how the intangiblity feels like."

Tze distraction worked. The fire spitters started firing at the ink, completely ignoring the group and allowed them to swiftly reach the other side. 

Azzar hoped Lillith hadn't wasted too much of her ink in the bold, yet effective move.

The devil grabbed her hand, a smug look on his face; Kit had to manually turn off her fear subroutines and still couldn't get the face of absolute terror off of her faceplate as she grabbed her hand.

This was gonna be awesome; this was gonna suck.

Lillifh followed behind the group.Breathing a little heavily."Is e-everyone ok?" "Liela concetrated puting her energy to both. Then Liela looked down."Alrigth guys, be ready for traps." Liela started to leavitate down phasing through the floor taking them both down.

"Yeah, we're fine," said Azzar, barely breaking a sweat. "I'm really beginning to think this whole place is tailored to ink demons." Except the water part, of course. Still, there were far too many coincidences.

Speaking of coincidences, Liela's phasing ended up taking them right to the short, trap-free section of the dungeon, right next to Maggie.

"Maybe that's because whoever made this is an ink demon. Maybe..." Lillith wondered if she was just that lucky. As soon as Liela saw she was in another room she dropped to the floor. She fell face first.""OUCH!!!"

The group just stared as mistress Liela entered. The collective look on their faces was a mixture of suprise and disappointnent, knowing that their little adventure was about to be cut short.

Kit landed on her back with a loud thud and immediately went to help Liela up. The Devil decided to show off by showcasing his fiery wings and stuck the landing perfectly.

Azzar immediately went in front of Lillith to protect her."I sense a demon," he said. "A very strong and dangerous one."

"AHHH MY BACK" Liela grabbed her back. Lillith went to liela but looked at the devil. "Woah!!! Are you the new big boss?" Lillith sounded excited but also a little scared.

Kit carefully laid her on the ground whilst Maggie examined her. "Funny how only you ended up with something broken," she said."Don't suppose you can summon a healer, can you?"

The Devil smiled. "Only if you want me to be," he said, correcting his glasses. "Your friend is right. I am a powerful demon."

"Thats not funny" " What di you mean if i want to? Why are you not in hell?...Have you come to take me?!" Lillith went behind Azzar.Shaking a little.

Maggie touched a random part of her back to determine which exact part of it was broken. "Well, none of us have that kind of magic, so, might as well." Meanwhile, Kit was loading her first aid program again, this time with additional gimmicks for spinal injuries.

The smile on the Devil's face vanished. He didn't want to intimidate her. "Sorry, that didn't come out the way I inteded it to," he said. "I am allowed to move around freely because of my stature. No, I haven't come to take you away. In fact, I didn't even know such a thing as an ink demon existed until your worrisome friend told me." The stature part was where Azzar figured out his estimate was an undestatement. Whatever he was, he was no coming within arms reach of Lillith.

"What do you mean you've never heard of an ink demon? You're the big boss now! You should know all demons!" Lillith looked very serious." I went to hell! I did my time!! Why the old big boss even said I'm a one of a kind demon!!!  HOW DARE YOU HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF MY KIND!!! " Lillith now looked mad.

"Calm down, okay? I only got the job a couple years back," he explained. "I've been hitting the books, but after what happened in the last seventy years, they're quite hard to come by." Entire libraries were burned as part of the rebellion. There were enchantmengs to fireproof them, but the greater demons always postponed their application and did not expect the rebels to destroy the most valueble thing they have – information. Information that concerned them the same way it did the rebels.

"What happened in the last seventy years, big boss?!" She still sounded mad but there was a hint of worry. "Why would such easily accessible knowledge be so hard to find? Just ask one of the greater demons. They always have books?"

"A civil war," he lectured her. "Many things were destroyed and greater demons no longer have the upper hand or knowledge anymore. You probably wouldn't recognise Hell if you visited it now."

Lillith let out a gasp." w-what?!? That can't be! " Lillith sounded very surprised and sad." Big boss would never let such a thing happen! " Lillith's face looked hurt.

"Big boss' dead," he said. "When everything became more-or-less normal, my father took over. When he died, I succeeded him." The book Liela had? His father's possession. If it and more of his tnings were here that meant that mortals had something to do with it. How would they even kill a demon that strong?

Lillith's ears went down. She lifted her hand to say something against that but she quickly put it down. "I see..." Lillith was really depressed."Guess things can never stay the same." She looked at the ground.

"I don't believe they'll ever return back the way they were," the Devil admitted sadly. "Sure, we were oppressed, but the greater demons knew how to keep order." Common folk barely cared who they called master, but most agreed that the current situation was worse then before. Being from a mixed family also complicated things, as none of greater or lesser demon families were willing to commit to him.

In the meantime, Kit started treating Liela's injuries with Maggie's assistance and the Tempest returned back to her summoner via a rather flashy teleport.

"I wish I was there to help but I had to serve my master." Lillith went back to Liela. Liela looked like she was holding some pain. "You sure you can heal this. I feel like I broke my back or something!" Lillith was going to saw something bit the tempest teleported in the room making Lillith jump to azzar.

"Well, you didn't want to summon a healer, so-" Maggie wasn't actually joking when she wanted her to do just that.

"I have come to serve my master," the tempest proclaimed. "I was worried that I may have lost her." And she made that evident by making her voice sound less monotone by a whole one percent. Whoever heard the difference was a god amogst men.

"One of your toys?" Azzar asked, giving a judgmental look at the Devil.