Eight

Demon tricks group of friends. Chaos ensues.

Vale promptly gathered her belongings - which, somehow, had been unharmed and showed up next to her when she found herself in this cave.  Sure that she was free of whatever outside influence had been controlling her, she made her way out, swinging her staff wildly as she stepped through the cave exit.

The staff flared to life as she took her third step outside of the chamber, letting off a burst of flame to signal something that Vale didn’t understand.  The flame spurted forth, and from where it stopped the skeletal, robed woman heard a small cry.  Appearing out of the very air itself was her brother, Zen’dik.  He stepped back a step and drew a knife from the scabbard at his side.

“You’ll pay for what you did to me all those years ago!” he shouted, and cast the blade forward just before his strength gave out.  Zen’dik collapsed from exhaustion.  Beside him, Lia and Brandis appeared.

Vale felt a strange force rock her body, despite the fact that the knife sailed harmlessly past her.  It seemed that she was dying a thousand deaths of the most gruesome and painful sort.  Falling to her knees, she found that she could feel flesh - a sensation she’d not had since she had been forced into this sorry state by the Demon Lord Yugongu, almost sixty years ago.

The woman collapsed to the ground, her staff hitting the soft dirt as she screamed once more in agony.  Lia walked over to her and held out her hand.  “You won’t leave me like that, Vale,” she said with an arrogant tone in her voice.  The elf-wizard raised her staff into the air and brought it down.

Again.

And again.

Vale screamed once more as she felt the spirit of evil enter her once more.  The flesh began to burn away, and the pain made her angrier.  Vale fought for her freedom harder than ever before, pushing against the force of the demon’s power.

And just like that, it was over.  “You shall not keep this form, demon,” she said, standing up and feeling the tingling of flesh and muscle growing across her bones.  Lia’s form, too, began to shift.

As Zen’dik and Brandis looked on, their friend became a huge, hunched-over, red form with leathery wings spread behind its back.  The creature screamed a terrible, abyssal scream, and flames seemed to come up from the ground.  Lia disappeared in a puff of smoke, and all was still.

“You’ll pay for what you did to me, demon... what you turned my family into... what you made them think about me.  You’ll pay for all of this, and not even the fires of the abyss will protect you!  I swear!”

Zen’dik looked at Brandis, then at Vale.  “She played us,” he said.  “It’s the only explanation.  How else could she have... done that?”

Brandis shook his head.  “I don’t know.  It explains why she seemed so distant.”

“And,” added Zen’dik, “Unconcerned after you died.  Oh, she ‘tried’ once or twice to bring you back, but then she just said ‘Let’s go, then,’ and off we went without another word.”

Though Brandis and Zen’dik were fuming at this betrayal, Vale was - naturally - the angriest of all.  It was her, after all, that had been possessed and turned into and undead wreck, and made to think that it had been her fault that her brother had become a tiefling!

Brandis shook his head again.  “Whatever she is, we should be careful, and tread lightly.  If there really is some demonic power after us, we’ll have trouble just surviving.”  He drew his sword out of its scabbard and slammed it down into the dirt.  Crying out in anger, he fell to his knees.  The light surrounding him flared up and began to change.  Slowly it was developing into something not so benevolent.

Within moments, Brandis was on fire, yet feeling no pain.  He sprang toward Vale, shouting, “This is your doing!”

Zen’dik, having just been given proof that his sister was really his sister and no longer under the influence of whatever had been controlling her, wasn’t about to abide by seeing anybody attack her.  With ferocity unlike anything, he went berserk, swinging his sword wildly and barely caring what it hit, as long as it did not strike his sister.

Brandis turned as Zen’dik’s sword came his way, and spoke a word of power, commanding the tiefling to stop.  The sword stopped an inch from the mercenary’s face, and he let a burst of fire off from his hand, blasting Zen’dik backwards several feet and landing him on his back painfully in the dirt.

Vale whacked Brandis to no end with her staff, but it was in vain.  The flames surrounding her attacker would suffer no piece of wood to pass.  Dropping the scorched weapon, Vale raised her hands into the air and called out an incantation of some sort, for though she was no longer undead, she still had command of many of the powers that came with that status.

Up from the ground, pale hands reached, breaking the surface and stretching out with dark fingernails.  The soil split open altogether, in between Vale and Brandis, just as Zen’dik got to his feet and charged back into the fray.

As Zen’dik swung, Brandis was already trying to cross the gap, leaping forward with his hands burning.  The sickly pale creatures that were rising out of the ground gave him no heed, he simply plowed through them, scorching them and throwing their ruined bodies back into the chasm they came from.

He almost fell short.  Brandis landed on the very edge of the chasm, his feet halfway off.  The impact caused him to drop his sword, which clattered to the ground.

Vale kicked it into the dark hole where Brandis would not be able to reach it.  Then, she let her fist slam into his breastplate.  Though it did no direct harm, he could not escape the force and fell back an inch.

That was all he needed to lose his footing.  Brandis plunged down into the darkness, screaming horrifically.  The horrid sound echoed throughout the area, as Zen’dik leaped across the chasm and landed nimbly on the other side, sliding forward a bit to be on the safe side and sheathing his sword again.

“He didn’t have to do that,” whispered the tiefling.  “He didn’t have to die.”

Vale and her brother turned away from the dark chasm, ready to fight whatever Lia had become.  They heard a noise behind the as Brandis’s gauntlet dug into the dirt.

The mercenary clambered up and faced the siblings.  “You shouldn’t have done that, Zen’dik,” he said.  “You betrayed me.  You said you needed to kill your sister, and then you tried to kill me.  I should never have trusted you.  I should’ve known you for the demon you are.  Both of you - both of you!” he shouted.  “Both of you will die today, by my sword.”  The flames disappeared, replaced again by the gleaming light as a voice seemed to ring about the area.

“Very good, my champion.  Strike them down.”

Brandis came in fast and hard, recklessly making a risky swing at Vale by first bringing the blade up above his head and then swinging it down in a huge arc.  The blade would have struck true, if not for the sword of Zen’dik which dove in to protect his sister.

Zen’dik drew out an extra dagger and thrust it, sheathed, into Vale’s hands.  “Use this,” he said, unsheathing his own dagger and stabbing towards his former friend, causing Brandis to reel backwards.