A Demon's Core

Rose sleeps for several hours after that, during which time I do not stop trying to heal the last imp. I still do not know how much it is actually helping, if at all, but if it can make even a little bit of difference, then it is worth the effort.

Violet spends most of her time watching over the new imps while periodically checking on Rose. They are all doing much better now than when they first arrived, all awake without any signs of relapsing. I hope that means they will be able to recover the rest of the way on their own even without any further intervention from Rose.

Most of them are able to move around now, though they are weak and still complain of pain over most of their bodies. I have told them all to rest and not push themselves too far yet. Under Violet's direction, they have no shortage of carers willing to help them with anything they need.

I am concerned for the one that Rose did not finish healing though. She is not bleeding anymore, but she is still having some difficulty breathing. Occasionally she will cough up some blood, although now it is more like blood soaked sputum, instead of just spraying out blood on its own, which seems like an improvement, though still quite worrying.

She is going to need more help from Rose, so I will continue my own efforts until she wakes. Like the others, she also has not gotten any worse while Rose has been sleeping, as long as that continues to be the case, it seems her life will not be in immediate danger.

The next time Violet goes to check on Rose, the bedroom door is flung open shortly after she enters.

"She's awake," Violet announces, before quickly returning to Rose's bedside.

I also head in to see her while also carefully maintaining the flow of mana to the imp I am still trying to heal, which becomes more difficult the further I move away from her, but I manage with a little extra concentration.

Rose is sitting up in her bed, leaning forward with her eyes closed and one hand on her forehead.

How are you feeling?

"My head hurts," she groans.

How bad is it?

"It's tolerable. I just…need a moment," she says and soon sits up straighter and opens her eyes slowly. "How are the, uh…"

"The new imps," Violet offers.

"Yes, how are they?"

They are doing much better, thanks to you.

"How many are there?"

Nine that survived.

"Out of how many?" She probes after a slight pause.

I am hesitant to answer that as I worry she will blame herself for the ones she could not save, but I doubt she will let it go if I try to evade, so being straight-forward is likely the better option.

Fourteen.

Rose goes quiet for a little while and shakes her head.

"I'm sorry. I should've…"

Stop. You have nothing to apologise for.

"But I let some of them die," she argues.

You did let them die. You did the best you could to save them. The ones who are alive now only survived solely because of your effort.

"Maybe if I was stronger, I could have done more," she laments.

No. You did everything you could. More than anyone else could and more than should have been expected of you. What you accomplished was nothing short of extraordinary and you should be proud. If anyone needs to apologise, it would be me.

"Why would you need to apologise?" Rose questioned.

I have a lot more mana than you do and I do not seem to suffer negative effects from prolonged use of magic the way you do. Yet, despite the power available to me, I can barely heal scratches.

"But that's not your fault. You can't heal others the way I can and you helped a lot by providing me the mana I needed to keep healing as much as I did," she insists.

And that is my point. I did the best that I was capable of under the circumstances. So did you. We saved the lives of nine imps who would have otherwise died. Of course it is unfortunate that we could not save all of them, but what we managed to achieve is nothing to be ashamed of or apologised for.

Alright, I understand," she concedes after taking a little time to process, though I am not sure she is totally convinced. "Wait. What about the one I was healing when I passed out?"

She is alive, though she could use some more attention if you feel up to it.

"Right, I should also heal the others some more while I am at it," Rose agrees.

When she climbs off her bed, she sways a little in place and grabs onto the bed again with one hand to steady herself.

"You okay?" Violet inquires, placing a hand on Rose's shoulder for support.

"Yeah, I'm alright, just a little dizzy," Rose insists before taking a deep breath and standing up straight. "Let's go."

Rose first takes a moment to retrieve some clothes from her wardrobe. She did not worry about her lack of them earlier due to the urgency of the situation, but now that things are not quite so dire, she at least has some time to actually put something on. After that, Violet leads her to the patient and Rose kneels down beside her. The imp looks up at her and smiles weakly.

"Hello," she tries to say in a raspy voice, ending in a cough.

"Hi," Rose responds with a warm smile. "I'm going to help you now, alright? Just relax," she says, placing her hands in the center of the imp's chest.

After a few minutes of Rose channeling her mana, the imp seems to be breathing easier and is able to take deep breaths without any coughing, wheezing or gurgling. Even the blisters she has across her body have healed a little and gotten smaller, not by a lot, but enough to make a noticeable difference.

"That should be better now," Rose remarks as she cuts off the mana flow.

The imp smiles slowly and clasps both of Rose's hands in hers.

"Thank. Better now," she reports.

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Rose stands up slowly and still appears a little unsteady as she looks around.

"Let's move on to the next one," she declared.

No. There is no 'next one'. You still need to rest.

"But the others still need more healing," Rose protests.

They can wait. I let you heal this one because I felt she really did need it. The rest of them may still be uncomfortable, but their lives do not seem to be in danger and they are otherwise fine. You can hardly stand without wobbling right now. We have been over this before, but I do not want you wearing yourself out like this when it is not necessary. Exceptions can be made for emergencies, but if no one is actually dying, you can afford to take it a little bit slower.

"Okay fine, what should I do now then?" She reluctantly accepts.

"You hungry? Magentam sent some imps out to get food for you and the sick ones. I put something for you next to your bed in case you wanted to eat when you woke up, but then you came out here instead," Violet offers and races back to their bedroom without waiting for an answer.

She comes back holding a plastic container with a dead bird inside. The bird is black and white and looks like it might be too big for an imp to eat in a single bite, but I doubt it would take much more than two.

"Thank you," Rose says, taking the bird and biting into it head first.

This is not the first time I have seen an imp eating a bird and it intrigues me a little that they do not care at all about removing the feathers first.

"So do you know what happened to them?" She asks after swallowing her first bite

Not yet. I assumed you would also want to know so I thought it might be better to wait for you to wake up before we ask.

While Rose finishes off the bird, one of the new imps actually shuffles over to talk with her.

"You fix us?" He asks.

"Fix? You mean heal? Yes, I did," Rose replies.

"Heal…How?" He tilts his head to the side a little and winces when the movement causes him some pain.

"I can use magic."

"Magic? Like Vukra?" He ponders.

"Yes, just like Vukra. She's really good at it and can do so many things," Violet cheers while some of the other new imps move closer to listen.

"Oohh, amaze. Show?" He eagerly requests.

"Not right now, I'm a bit tired. But maybe later," Rose deflects.

"Later, okay," he nods merrily.

While we have your attention, would you mind answering some questions for us?

The imp narrows his eyes and looks around suspiciously.

"Voice again," he growls.

"That voice is what brought you here and also helped me heal all of you," Rose assures him.

"Voice…friend?"

"Yes, the voice is a friend," Rose confirms.

"Okay," he beams.

Now that that is established, can you tell us what happened to you all before I brought you here?

"Wake up in white room. Room empty, can't climb walls. Then fog. Hurt all over. Hurt inside too. Then here. Here better," he explains in that broken way of speaking that is normal for most imps.

Have you been in that white room before?

"No, that first," he replies, but does not elaborate further.

I assume that means it was his first time there. It feels like he is leaving out some important details, though probably not intentionally, he just needs to be prompted for more specific answers.

Do you know how you got to that white room?

"Nope."

I share the question with the others who are gathered but receive similar answers.

Can you tell me what you were doing before you were in the white room?

"Hmm," he hums while taking some time to think about it. "Some find big box, fruit inside."

"Me! I find!" One of the other imps interjects.

"Bring box home, all share fruit. Taste strange, but okay. Then sleepy, wake up in white room," he continues.

That has a number of concerning implications. 'Finding' a whole box of fruit just lying around seems a little unlikely. They might have stolen it, though maybe not on purpose.It could be possible they simply did not realise that it belonged to someone, not that that would excuse the theft.

But his description of strange taste and then becoming sleepy sounds more likely that the fruit might have been drugged. If that were the case, it is possible that it was left somewhere for them to find intentionally.

It would explain how they ended up in the white room, if they were drugged to knock them out, it would make them easy to capture and move to a different location. That leads to the inevitable question of 'why?'.

They were brought to an empty room and he said they could not climb the walls; does that mean it was a room specially made to keep them from escaping? And what of the fog? Was the room filled with some kind of gas after they woke up? That seems to me like the most logical interpretation of what this imp described, but what was the purpose of it all?

I doubt it was simply to kill them. If that were the goal, it would have been easier to just finish them off in their sleep or spiking the fruit with something deadly instead of only rendering them unconscious. The only explanation I can think of that makes sense under these circumstances is that these imps were being used to test…something.

The obvious query would then be 'what exactly were they testing?' Considering the state these imps were in when they arrived, I also have to question; did something go terribly wrong with the test or did it work exactly as intended?

Before my thoughts spiral too far down that path, something else catches my attention.

You said you all shared the fruit. Does that mean your entire pack had some?

"Maybe," the imp shrugs.

Were they all there in the white room as well?

"Think so."

Are they all here?

Rose mentioned in the past that an imp pack usually has around twenty members, but only fourteen appeared here.

The imp looks around at the others gathered around and over to where we moved the bodies of the ones who did not survive, which we have not dealt with yet.

"Not all," he confirms.

That is what I was afraid of. If the whole pack was together before I summoned them, but they are not all here now, that means some were left behind. Given the circumstances, the most plausible explanation would be that they were left behind because they were already dead. Alternatively, maybe whatever had intervened in the summoning to facilitate bringing a large group over did not possess enough power to send the entire pack, though that seems less likely. The way mana was actually flowing back to me from the rift suggests there was mana to spare.

Even if they were not quite dead yet at the time, it has already been several hours since then. There is no way they could have survived this long without significant medical attention. Somehow, I doubt the kind of people who would do this in the first place would care enough to heal them afterwards, so there is nothing I would be able to do to help them at this point.

Rose and Violet have more questions for them and they undoubtedly have questions of their own, so I mostly turn my attention elsewhere as I have a lot of other matters to consider. We are going to start needing supplies soon. I have noticed that imps going out to hunt have been taking longer recently. It should not be surprising that after all the time we have been here with a steadily growing pack of predators, prey close by would eventually become scarce.

Suddenly introducing predators like this would naturally disrupt an ecosystem so now they have to spread out further to find food. Having an unexpected influx of nine imps at once will undoubtedly compound the issue. There is also the issue of clothes. The things William has provided have been quite well received so far, so it would be quite helpful to get more of them.

One of the new imps is noticeably smaller than the others though, leading me to suspect that he is not fully grown. He is not as small as Calla so is most likely older than she is, but probably still a juvenile, so he will need to be measured for clothing size. With all of that, it is probably about time I consider negotiating a more formal trade agreement with the humans to ensure a steady supply of necessities going forwards.

I will need to decide exactly how much to tell William about this incident. He would probably want to know how I managed to summon a whole group at once if I mention it, but I do not have the answer to that either so there is not much I can say about it.

Should I reveal the condition of these imps when they arrived? It becomes a question of whether or not he needs to know. These imps speak Balkret and mentioned vukra, so it is reasonable to assume that the ones who did this to them were vak.

While it may be extreme, I do not think it is unreasonable to conclude that they might have been using these imps to test chemical weapons. That is not the sort of thing that people develop just for fun, so it is hard to believe anyone would make something like that if they were not planning to use it. If that was the case, the humans would probably appreciate being made aware ahead of time, before it gets used against them. Though I cannot prove that that is definitely the situation, I probably should still let them know, just in case.