A Demon's Core

After leaving the dungeon, the journey back was thankfully uneventful for the humans this time. It was a little past nightfall when the group neared the checkpoint by the bridge and William floated the idea of continuing on the rest of the way instead of stopping for the night, but the suggestion was rejected. Even putting aside safety concerns, though it was generally considered safer on the other side of the bridge, it would be quite late by the time they made it back and no one fancied the idea of trekking through the darkness with naught but battery powered torches to light their way.

There was a time, before the war, when the city streets would have been well lit throughout the night by the streetlights lining the road, but that was back when the city was lively and populated. Now the vast majority of it lay quiet, empty and forgotten, with nothing left to hold back the relentless encroachment of nature that sought to slowly reclaim all that it once owned.

There were no people left in this part of the city and it was considered a waste of resources to maintain lighting in areas long abandoned. And so the group approached the metal roller door that was the entrance of the military operated checkpoint. William and Cassandra fished their wallets from their pockets before William knocked on the door. After a short wait, it retracted upwards revealing a soldier wearing the standard issue AMCU.

"William Blake, D.M.O and Cassandra Thorne, D.I.D, plus four guests. We'd like to stay the night please," William introduced the group.

"ID's?" The soldier requested.

William and Cassandra pulled out their work ID cards and handed them over to the soldier who inspected them, nodded and passed them back.

"Official business?" The soldier asked.

"It is for me," Cassandra replied. "You can confirm with my agency if you need to. These four are with me so you can also bill their fees to the D.I.D," she said, gesturing to Johnathan and his friends.

"And you?" The soldier asked William.

"Personal business, my stay fee will be going on my tab," William replied while returning his wallet back to his pocket.

"You know the rules?" Was the next question from the soldier.

"Yeah, we've all been here before," William confirmed.

The soldier stepped back into the building and waved them through.

"Sign in sheet is on the counter to the left there. Please make sure everyone fills it out correctly," he instructed.

There wasn't much to signing in, the document only required a name, basic contact information, some details of who they work for, if applicable, and whether their stay is for official or personal business.

Since Johnathan and his party were being considered guests who were accompanying Cassandra, that was all they had to write about who they were working for.

The soldier who greeted them quietly watched as they each filled out their details and only spoke up again when they were done.

"You said you'd all been here before so I assume you know where to find everything and where not to go?" He inquired, to which William confirmed that they did.

"Alright, I'll leave you to it then. Don't forget that there are security cameras and they are being monitored, so please don't cause trouble or do anything stupid," he warned.

As an additional benefit to staying the night, guests were offered one meal, with only the finest selection of MREs on offer. After everyone had made their choice from the available options, they settled in to eat. William chose one that was labeled 'Beef Bolognese'. The taste was a little bland, but not bad by any means, as expected of standard issue MREs; still a satisfying meal overall.

He struck up a conversation with Jenna while they ate.

"You're going to be eighteen this year right? Have you given much thought to what you'll do for work?" He inquired.

"Yeah, Mum and Dad have been helping me look into some things," Jenna replied.

"I offered to put in a good word for her if she wants to try for a position at the D.I.D," Cassandra chimed in.

"Hey, that's not a bad idea. Coincidentally, I also put in a recommendation to the D.M.O that they should consider trying to recruit her," William added.

"Oh, thanks…I think. Um, if you don't mind me asking, why're you both trying to help me like this? Not that I don't appreciate it, but why me?" Jenna asked

"I assume you've been informed of the laws regarding mages finding employment?" William asked and Jenna nodded solemnly in response.

"I don't like seeing teenagers forced into military service…like I was," William paused with a somber expression. "Not that I'm saying that's going to happen to you, I'm sure you and your parents will be able to find a suitable alternative," he continued.

"We're just trying to give you more options," Cassandra clarified

"Isn't the D.M.O part of the military?" Mark interjected.

"It is run by the military, yes, but they do also offer contracts for civilian employment, which are much less restrictive than military contracts," William explained.

Jenna was quiet for a while, unsure of how to respond

"Thank you. I'll let my parents know, I'm sure they'll want to look into it," she eventually said.

After eating, the four younger humans retreated to a small recreation room on the second floor, which contained a functioning blu-ray player and selection of movies, while William and Cassandra separated from them to find a private place to talk.

They found what appeared to be an empty office with a few chairs to sit in and they entered the room and each took a seat. Spotting a small dome security camera on the ceiling in one corner of the room, Cassandra stared up at it.

"What do you think are the chances that their surveillance also includes audio?" She asked.

"Wouldn't surprise me, but don't worry about it, I got us covered," William stated. He spread his arms out to both sides and created a shield around them both.

"A mana shield?" Cassandra asked, raising an eyebrow. "You know those don't completely block sound right? At least not all of it," she questioned.

"This one will, trust me. It's something I've had a lot of practice with," he assured her.

Cassandra considered that for a moment and eventually nodded.

"I'll take your word for it, I guess."

"Alright, so where do you wanna begin?" William prompted.

"What's your assessment of Rose and Magentam's ability?" Cassandra asked.

"Well, assuming their claims of being self taught are true, I'd say they're doing pretty well. There's still a lot of room for improvement, but they're already significantly better than any of the new recruits I sometimes helped train. Of course, we don't actually know how long they've had to learn before now. We don't even know how old they are, maybe that's something we should ask next time," William suggested.

"Do you think they'd actually tell us?" Cassandra retorted.

"No, probably not," he admitted. "Still worth a try though."

William then gave her a basic rundown of the parts of the training she wasn't present for and how well they performed each task.

"Did you notice anything unusual or otherwise noteworthy about their use of magic? Magentam's in particular?" She questioned.

"Not really. I was paying close attention to how the mana was being manipulated, trying to sense anything out of the ordinary, which as it turns out, is a lot easier inside a dungeon, probably because of the higher ambient mana density. But I didn't notice anything anomalous about it. It all seemed pretty normal as far as I could perceive it," William explained.

Stolen story; please report.

"I guess it was a long shot to expect anything there," Cassandra accepted.

"Actually…there was one thing," William began, but paused to organise his thoughts.

"Well? Don't leave me hanging," Cassandra urged, leaning forward in her chair.

"When we were going over shield breaking, I wasn't sure what to expect from Magentam since it generally requires direct contact with the shield. But it actually did feel like something was directly touching my shield, like physically. There were two distinct points of contact and while I couldn't get a good feel for their shape, they were small. Their size, distance apart and height from the floor weren't so different from when Rose put her hands on the shield when it was her turn," William explained

"What do you think it was?" Cassandra asked, brow creased into a frown.

"I have one idea, but it might sound a bit silly," William admitted.

"Let's hear it," Cassandra prompted.

"What if Magentam is actually an imp that can turn invisible? Maybe it's not that they can just use magic anywhere in the dungeon, but rather that they were actually physically present and we just couldn't see them?" He suggested with a serious expression.

"Magentam has specifically claimed not to be a demon, though," Cassandra countered.

"That could still be a lie. It's not like we've been able to confirm it with our own eyes. Or maybe they're something else entirely that just happens to be of a similar size, but that doesn't really matter; it's the potential invisibility that's the important part," William insists.

"But it's not just invisibility, we're talking about being completely undetectable. It seems hard to believe. Not even the vak can do that," Cassandra retorted, unconvinced of the idea.

William leaned back in his seat and looked up at the ceiling.

"Yeah, well, I did say it was a silly theory. Then again, in all the time I spent on the battlefield, I never once saw any of the vak teleporting. And yet, there's an imp who can do it, supposedly with little effort and great precision, if we accept that Mark and his friend's accounts aren't exaggerated," he stated.

"They definitely weren't exaggerating. In fact, they might have even been underselling it," Cassandra asserted.

"Oh? You actually got to see Coal fight?" William perked up, his interest immediately piqued.

"Not Coal," Cassandra corrected him, shaking her head. "It turns out he's not as unique as we thought. There were two others there just like him."

"They could teleport?" William asked, not liking where this was going.

Having one teleporting imp was already a worrying situation, but he was at least able to take comfort in his assumption that Coal was an anomaly. The possibility of that not being the case wasn't something he wanted to think about.

"Yes, but not only that. They looked like him as well, similar size, build and colouration. They also didn't seem to speak Balkret, it looked like Coal had to translate for them," Cassandra reported.

"Sounds like they might be some kind of sub-species perhaps, possibly originating from a different part of their world than the rest of the imps there?" William suggested.

"That's pretty much what I was thinking," Cassandra agreed.

"That means there could potentially be more of them, a lot more even. That's…concerning, to say the least," William concluded, paling a little at the thought.

"Unfortunately, the situation is actually worse than you're probably imagining," Cassandra said grimly.

"Eugh, I'm not sure I even want to now at this point," William groaned, leaning forward and resting his forehead in one hand, shaking his head slightly. He sighed and sat up straight again. "Okay, lay it on me, how does it get worse?"

"They can teleport through mana shields," Cassandra replied flatly.

William blinked and stared at her blankly for a moment.

"I'm sorry, what?" He eventually responded.

"When they teleport, they can go right through mana shields, like they aren't even there," Cassandra reiterated.

"Right, that's what I thought you said. You're certain of that?"

"Yes, I fought one of them myself. I put a shield around her, completely enclosed, so she should have been contained. But she just popped right out like it was nothing more than a mild inconvenience," she confirmed.

"Hold on, tell me the whole story from the beginning," William requested.

Cassandra recounted how each of the fights went for both her and Johnathan, with particular attention given to detailing their battles against the teleporting imps. William listened attentively and occasionally asked questions to clarify certain points. At the end of it, he leaned back quietly in his chair to collect his thoughts.

"Well, shit. This'll definitely make some waves," was all he could think of to say.

"What's interesting to me is that, I have a suspicion that the vak do not actually know about this," Cassandra commented.

"Really? How do you figure?"

"I've read the transcripts of many of the recent interviews conducted with vak prisoners, particularly those in which they were asked about imps. They really have nothing nice to say about imps; for all that they make a lot of rude comments about sucubirus, their opinions of imps seem to be even lower, but that's not the point. The important thing is, when asked if they would classify imps as a threat, all those interviewed gave generally similar responses. They consider imps to be a terrible nuisance, but not a real threat in any way," Cassandra explained.

"I just don't see any reasonable explanation for how a creature that can effortlessly bypass mana shields would be categorised as merely a 'nuisance'," she concluded.

"That's not exactly conclusive, but I see where you're coming from. Were they asked about teleporting imps in general?" William inquired.

"Not in any of the transcripts I've read."

"I'm sure that'll change once you report today's little adventure," William said. "Do you have any other startling revelations to discuss?" He continued after a short pause.

"Well, I wouldn't call it startling, but Rose did threaten to kill us today," Cassandra reported with a smirk.

"Ahh, is that what had you reaching for your gun when we were setting up the charger?" He asked and Cassandra nodded.

"Yeah, it felt like it came out of nowhere so I assume Magentam must have been talking to her."

"Did we do something to upset her?" William wondered.

"Not this time, I don't think. She was talking about keeping us from telling people about something," she relayed.

"The old 'dead men tell no tales', type situation. Classic," William let out a small chuckle. "That pretty much tracks for her, though. She seems to be a lot more hostile than the other imps, have you noticed? I wonder if there's a reason for that, I mean, besides the obvious."

"I have noticed, and not just that. From the way she interacts with the others sometimes, I think she also holds some authority over them. We should be careful about how we deal with her," Cassandra suggested.

"Oh, hey, there's something else interesting that stood out to me when we were in the core room; did you happen to notice something was missing?" William questioned.

"You mean the big boulder that was in the corner last time?" Cassandra offered.

"Yeah, a bit odd don't you think? Carrying something like that all the way up to the fifth floor, only to move it again later. Strange thing to put so much effort into, wouldn't you say?"

"Is this the part where you tell me you have another 'silly' theory?" She asked.

"It is and this one might be even sillier than the last, so bear with me," William said, breaking into a grin.

"Alright, what've you got?"

"So I was thinking, what if that rock wasn't a rock?" William begins.

"Okay, it certainly looked a lot like a rock, but go on," Cassandra replied skeptically

"I had a thought that maybe, what we initially believed was a large boulder that they dragged in from outside for some inscrutable purpose, might actually have been Igneous," William put forward.

"Igneous? As in, the bald, winged humanoid creature that you were teaching about firearms earlier today? That Igneous?" She responded incredulously, looking at William like she was wondering if he was still in possession of all of his mental faculties.

"Yes, exactly," he confirmed enthusiastically.

"You lost me there. You're going to have to explain how you reached that conclusion?"

"Of course. So when I noticed the boulder was missing, I recalled what Jenna said, you know, when she asked if Igneous was some kind of rock monster. It made me wonder if she was actually right.

"Igneous and Marble, the only examples of their species we've seen so far and they're both named after rocks. Is it just a coincidence? Or were they maybe given those names for a reason? If they could, hypothetically, disguise themselves as rocks, that'd be a pretty good reason," William elucidated.

Cassandra waited for him to continue, but when he didn't say any more, she assumed he must have been finished.

"Is that it?" She asked and William nodded. "Honestly, I think that's even flimsier than my justification for assuming that the vak don't know about the teleporting imps."

"I know the idea sounds a bit far-fetched and my explanation probably wouldn't even count as circumstantial evidence. But it would explain how they managed to move such a large rock up all those stairs. It'd be pretty easy if it could just stand up and walk on its own," He asserted.

"There are a lot of creatures capable of camouflaging quite well with their environment so it's not like the theory is completely without merit. But thinking about their appearance and body structure, nothing I have seen really lends itself well to the idea that one of them could so effectively disguise itself as a large rock like that," Cassandra retorted.

"You're probably right," William conceded with a drawn out sigh. "But maybe we could still suggest keeping an eye out for any mysterious boulders in suspicious places."

They were both quiet for a little while and it seemed they didn't have anything more to discuss about the day's events.

"So, how should we report all of this?" Cassandra queried, breaking the silence.

"Technically, I don't actually have to make a report since today was my day off, so none of this was for work," William remarked with a smirk.

"Right, and when the information from my report starts to circulate and people question why you didn't submit anything, I'm sure they'll accept that as an excuse," Cassandra chuckled.

"Touché."