The Soul Keeper

Despite Mona's speech and my own logic, I followed the demons with the feeling of impending doom. Yet, the only 'doom' that befell us was reaching the hills and promptly losing sight of the demons.

"Oh, come on!" Mona shouted. "Unfair!" She glared at hills, gradually becoming taller and larger as we scaled them. "Why the hell can demons even fly?" She grumbled as we reached the peak of the small hill we were climbing.

Since we had no answers to her question, we simply pushed on. I took to the skies a few times but took care not to stray too far away. Despite our best efforts though, we failed to relocate the demons.

"Should we turn back? I asked as we finally decided to rest for a few hours. Mona immediately shook her head. "No," Her gaze wondered aimlessly. "Not yet," She said with a low voice.

I sighed but didn't protest. I couldn't force them to stop if they didn't want to. All I could do was leave, but I wasn't about to abandon them in the middle of nowhere like this, especially with demons out and about.

We rested for a couple of hours, ate what Theresa quickly prepared, then set off again. For a while, we wandered around seemingly aimlessly. Laura was leading us, and I was certain she had something in mind as she cast a spell every once in a while. I wanted to ask what the spell was, but seeing how focused she was, I decided not to disturb her. I knew all too well what could happen if a spell failed midway through.

"There's definitely something in the area." The blonde woman finally said after a long stretch of silence. 

"What do you mean?" Theresa asked. "What kind of thing?"

Laura hesitated as if she were searching for the right words. "I don't know," She finally said, apparently giving up. "But those demons weren't the only ones who passed by here recently. I can tell you that much."

We pondered a while as she cast her spell again. "Come on, let's not waste any more time," She said and once again began leading the way. We followed her like before, but now I felt a whole lot more anxious.

Were the demons gathering an army perhaps? Were they planning to launch an attack on Baile Chailce? That though brought about another one; would I care if they destroyed Baile Chailce?

The city was the Divines' stronghold – with it still standing, I had little chances against Aelith or the other Divine – Alina's patron. Would it not be better for me if the city – and the Divine Pillar with it – were destroyed? In fact, wouldn't that count as a game over and wouldn't we be freed?

I wasn't sure about any of these. I felt like I couldn't forgive myself if all the Ereth in the city died. Not all of them were evil – I had met the kind and good hearted ones too. I sighed. They weren't real though, were they? I suddenly flinched as another, more terrifying thought occurred to me. What about-

"Look!" Laura's voice startled me. I lifted my sight from the ground, then nearly choked on my own breath. Among the large, rocky hills was a gap. A gap protected by a barrier. 

"That's demonic magic, isn't it?" Mona asked, glancing at me. I nodded. "Why can you see it though?"

"Because of my spell – it allows us to notice things we wouldn't otherwise. Only the surface though – the barrier must be sloppily made because we wouldn't be able to see it otherwise. The spell isn't quite that powerful." Laura quickly explained, then prompted us to follow her. 

We did so, and she led us slightly to the side, behind some tall rocks. We crouched behind them. It was best not to announce our arrival anyways. I once again appreciated Laura's quick thinking moments later because another group of demons appeared in the distance.

"What are they even doing?" Mona whispered. As we watched, they flew closer and passed through the barrier. 

"Oh," I said. "It's a camouflage." The demons had disappeared as soon as they passed through the magical barrier. For some reason, knowing that only made me feel more anxious. How many troops were hiding behind that magical veil? We had no way of knowing.

"What do we do?" Theresa asked, glancing at Mona and Laura. The blonde woman hesitated while Mona's stern, determined expression already gave her thoughts away. "We go in," She said with allow voice, surprising no one.

"It's too dangerous." I protested. "We don't know the number of soldiers, their power levels, nothing. We could be walking into a fully armed fortress for all we know."

The druid shook her head. "They wouldn't hide a fully armed fortress behind a sloppy camouflage like this. Even we can see it with Laura's low level spell."

I gritted my teeth. She did have a point, but I still felt like something was off. Like we were overlooking something. "Still," I mumbled. "I don't like this."

"You worry too much." Mona smiled. "We'll be fine – we are always fine."

"Don't tell that to someone who already died once," I said. I did feel a little bad as her smile shattered, but now wasn't the time to think about it. Instead, I pushed myself up and quietly approached the barrier, making sure to remain behind large rocks that could hide me from view.

"Hey!" Mona hissed. She wanted to follow me, but Laura stopped her. "Don't rush, we'll follow him slowly." Despite the distance between us, I could hear the blonde woman's whisper clearly. Noise travelled quite far in these barren hills. The lack of plants was a bigger issue than I thought.

It took me some time to reach the barrier. As I stood perhaps half a dozen steps away from it, lots of things suddenly became much clearer. The barrier wasn't soppily made – it wasn't made from demonic magic at all, in fact.

"What's wrong?" Laura asked as they arrived as well. I took a deep breath. How much did they know about the primal cores? How much was ok for them to know? I wasn't sure, so I decided to give only a rough explanation.

"This isn't demonic magic; it's using something else as a source of power. The demons must have simply guided it to form this barrier. That's why it looks sloppy." Since they couldn't directly use the primal core's power, they couldn't perfect the spell. Only I could do it – or, more accurately, my predecessor could.

"They have other sources of power?" Theresa asked in surprise. "That's… less than ideal."

I nodded. I knew they had all of the primal cores in their possession – I had seen them when I went to steal the primal core of wind. But if a primal core was powering the barrier over this place, then what had happened to the teleportation things? Had they disassembled them? I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or worried.

"What would happen if we passed through it?" Mona asked. I hesitated as I inspected the weaves of magic that formed the barrier. The flow of magic didn't seem to have been created in a way to harm others, so I was guessing it would be fine.

"Probably nothing," I mumbled. She immediately took a step towards it as soon as I spoke. I caught her arm at the last second. "But that doesn't mean you get to rush through!" I said as I pulled her back.

She rolled her eyes. "You just said it's probably fine."

"Probably is the key word there!" I glanced at Laura. "Say something please?"

The blonde woman chuckled. "Kai's right. Stay still Mona – we are not in a rush." Mona stuck her tongue out. "Ugh, fine." She giggled. "So, what now? Do you take down the barrier?"

I shot her a surprised look. "What? No, are you insane? I'm not about to alert every single demon in there of our presence." I took a step closer. "I'll just see what it does first." I carefully touched the barrier with the tip of my finger.

Nothing happened.

I took a deep breath as my racing heart began to calm a bit. I took another step forward. Now, my arm up until my elbow was inside the barrier. "Well," I mumbled. "Looks like it's fine." I stepped through the magical veil.

I honestly felt a bit stupid as I opened my eyes to look at the other side.

There was a small keep with a watchtower. That was it. I counted perhaps half a dozen demons on the walls, but nothing else. I hadn't stepped out of the veil in front of an army, or there was no Vixia waiting there with that scheming smile of hers.

I dashed behind some rocks, then watched as the others stepped through.

"Underwhelming." Theresa said as we all watched the scene before us.

Yet, I was not underwhelmed. In fact, my palms itched with anticipation – more power was within my reach. Another primal core. I wanted it.

I needed it.