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That there would be someone standing guard at the armory did not surprise Nathanriel but what he saw still caught him off-guard. Scattered in front of the door were the bloody remains of at least a dozen individuals, most of whom used to be guards based on the tattered clothing on what’s left of their torsos. And standing amongst all that carnage was another Kinal, the same species he was.

Most of other Kinal’s body was covered by a dark green, heavy looking cloak. He could see only their face clearly and even though this is the first time that he’s seen another member of his own species, just that much was enough that he could tell that it was a female, making her the most attractive thing he’s ever seen. Granted her fur coloration is much different than his own as her fur seems to be a mixture of black and white, with the fur around her muzzle and her ears being white and everything else a shade of black. Several other people have gathered around the armory, apparently with the same goal in mind as he and Angylia have but no one has yet tried to step past the carnage.

“The cloak looks clean,” Angylia comments with a confused expression on her face.

Nathanriel checks again on the other Kinal and notices that fact. Despite all of the blood and guts scattered around her, the cloak looks almost brand new. There isn’t a single drop of blood or the slightest smudge of dirt on it. One of the others apparently gets brazen enough and storms forward.

“Out of my way. I’m not letting this prevent me from getting out of here.”

The other Kinal looks at this person walking up suddenly and as soon as he’s gotten far enough away from the others quickly raises a hand and points it at him. From a finger a bolt of light shoots forth and goes right into his head. A split second later he starts to convulse before doubling over and his body flies apart from an explosion of white energy. The explosion causes everyone to take another couple of steps backwards and once done Nathanriel can see some of the viscera sliding down the outer edge of what looks to be some kind of invisible barrier surrounding the other Kinal.

“Go into the armory,” the Voice states into Nathanriel’s head.

The black and white Kinal suddenly turns and faces him, moving as if he had spoken up, which strikes him as odd unless somehow she’s able to not only hear the voice inside his head but could locate that it was in his head. On top of that it looked like she was looking through him rather than at him. Swallowing, Nathanriel musters up the courage and steps forward, expecting that at any moment for her to raise up an arm and shoot that light of death at him. Nathanriel keeps his focus only on the armory door, fearing that to do otherwise would make him lose his nerve or worse, provoke the vixen into attacking him. As such, he hears rather than sees that Angylia had started reluctantly following behind him, which surprises him. He makes especially sure that when passing the other Kinal that he does not look in her general direction. As such, he freezes stiff when he suddenly hears a soft, feminine voice whispering into his ear.

“If it come out when I near, I will kill you.”

Nathanriel turns suddenly to try and swear to that effect but when he does so she isn’t there anymore.

“Where’d she go?” he asks.

“Don’t know, she just vanished.”

When Nathanriel enters the armory he isn’t very impressed with what he sees. A lot of the weapons have more than a little bit of rust on them and some of the wood of the weapons and the leather on the armors look rotten. But, Nathanriel reasons, rusted weapons and rotten armor is still better than to not have a weapon nor any physical protection. As he heads over to the swords he can hear some others start to venture inside as well. A moment later screams followed by sounds of an explosion turn both Nathanriel and Angylia back towards the entrance. Nathanriel guesses that either that other Kinal had returned, had left behind something that is continuing to kill people or fights have begin breaking out amongst the other escapees trying to get to the weapons.

Either way Nathanriel doesn’t want to go any further without some means of defending himself. He is about to grab one of the less decrepit looking two handed swords but the Voice in his head gently urges him to instead grab the one after it, the blade of this one being slightly longer and heavier than what he’s used to not to mention seems to be coated in a thin layer of rust. But so far the Voice hasn’t gotten him killed and if he ignored it then it’ll likely start making his head hurt again anyway.

Shrugging his takes this longer blade and heads over to look for some decent enough armor that he’ll be able to use. There’s more screaming and another outside. Angylia seemsd to have picked up a small dagger or two as he can see her hiding at least one of them in her clothing. Nathanriel looks at the armor available, noting that a few have already been taken by some of the others that had entered and had decided that armor was more important. Which was fine. The Voice isn’t as insistent on which armor he should pick and given that he decides to go with one that is large enough to fit him and light enough that he can be at least slightly protected without being slowed down, the decision partly made remembering how fast that previous guard was.

“All ready?” Angylia asks as she heads back towards him.

“I guess,” he states as he hears another explosion outside, though oddly it hasn’t stopped the slow trickling in of people wanting to arm themselves. “Now to just figure out how to get out of this room alive.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” a voice nearby replies calmly. “The entrance is just warded.”

Nathanriel turns towards the voice, instinctively tightening his grip around his new sword. The person that spoke is a demon like himself, garbed in the same outfit as the guards. Looking at him Nathanriel can’t tell if he’s some sort of canine or feline, the characteristics of his appearance sort of a blending of both. He has a sort of spotted appearance to his fur, and a long fluffy tail but the muzzle is rather long as are his ears.

“Are you a guard?” Nathanriel demands.

“No. I was captured about five months ago. It’s just not all of their captives are put into the pits. Some are set to cleaning and all the other dirty tasks they don’t want to pay people to do. I’m Robert Restal, though everyone just calls me Bob. I hope you’ll let me tag along with the two of you. I’m not much the fighter and the more the merrier, right?”

“I’m Angylia Selol and he’s called Nathanriel. I don’t think I caught a last name from him yet. Anyway, you said something about a ward?”

“Oh yes,” Bob chirps, happy to have some means to show that he’d be valuable to them “that other fox demon did it. Really ingenious work too, especially when you consider how she made it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well it’s one thing to make a ward but it’s another matter entirely to do so without visibly moving. The reason she was just standing there like a stone is that she couldn’t move or else she’d have likely lost her focus and botched the wards. When she killed that one guy she did so moving only one arm, meaning her other was still being used to finish the wards. It’s only when she went to talk to you that it was clear she had finished.”

“Why don’t you think they’ll be a problem then?” Nathanriel asks.

“Because you’re already on this side. I’ve seen enough of the wards they’ve put all over this place that I can recognize a ward when I see it and a rough idea of what it does. I do not have enough knowledge or power to create or destroy any wards, though. But what I do know for a fact is that wards only work to keep undesirables out. The gates of the cells used a repelling ward, one which used electricity to cause pain to push anyone on the inside away. This particular ward is a killing ward, killing the ones that activate it outright, and with such precision and power that I don’t think we could have taken her on even if we all had rushed her at once. But since we’ve been able to cross the ward once already, whatever it is that that ward is looking for, we don’t have it.”

“Either way,” Angylia states as a few more seem to gather around them, “it doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to have to leave this room at some point or another else we’ll never be able to get out of this place.”

“Excuse me,” a female demon among the gathering group speaks up, one that reminds Nathanriel a lot of the pictures he’s seen of gryphons though she stands upright and is a lot smaller than they were, “but if I might make a suggestion. The ward isn’t our biggest problem. It’s the crowd.”

“Why do you say that?” Nathanriel asks.

“She’s right,” another one chips in as if suddenly realizing something. “There might be some out there that will be reluctant to try and enter this place due to the ward but would have no qualms about taking the chance and killing an armed individual to get their weapon.”

“My sentiment exactly. Some of them might be willing to take on a single or a pair of armed demons, but a dozen?”

“Well I imagine that that will be the case for us at least until we’ve gotten out of this place entirely. So I guess we might as well work together. We are all heading to the same place, after all,” Nathanriel shrugs as he heads out of the armory door towards the crowd likely waiting outside the effective range of the wards.

If anything the crowd around the armory has grown since he had entered. There are also more bodies littering the ground and some are even still intact further away, implying that at least a couple of fights have broken out in the crowd. Not wanting to encourage anyone into thinking he’s vulnerable enough to attack he takes a deep breath before marching towards them with as much confidence as he can muster, trying to make himself look as much the soldier as possible. The crowd seems well enough to buy it for though they don’t exactly open up a path for them they do not make any effort to stop or even slow their departure.

Though none of the group seemed particularly willing to say anything about who they were before coming here, Nathanriel was at least able to learn all of their names and how they ended up in this place. The most interesting one coming from a small demon named Juur that reminded him of a goat that’s about half the size of a human who had been starving and had slipped himself in a sack to avoid getting caught while he was stealing food and was found by accident in the kitchens after the food was brought in. That and he apparently liked calling everyone ‘boss.’ Nathanriel also learned that Bob is apparently actually a human that was cursed with his current form as well as Kree actually was a gryphon, it’s just that she’s learned how to condense her form to something that is more manageable in such small areas.

During an ambush by some of the guards two of their number were killed, though Nathanriel, Kree and Juur all proved themselves the most capable fighters of the group by far. Unfortunately, the layout of this place is very confusing and some of the passages had started to collapse by some probably impressive displays of magic as some of the brick in the debris from fallen walls looks completely melted. Regardless, such passageways were impossible to cross so they had to backtrack.

Things started going awry shortly after Bob assured them that they were getting close to the exit of this place. When another goes down by an arrow in the chest they all take cover and realize that the rest of the guards must have put up some kind of blockade to keep people from escaping. It is while hiding here that they are hit by a sort of wave of air. It is like a force of pressure coming from everywhere as soon as the wave passes them and continues further into the building. The air seems to get so thick and heavy that they all are struggling to breathe. There also seems to be a sort of strange cadence accompanying the wave that makes Nathanriel’s ears hurt though it’s clear that all but the ones that look almost human can hear it. Thankfully, the guards seem to be as affected by the strange new air as well, though it is hard to tell given how the air seems to warp this way and that.

Nathanriel is just about to assume it an optical illusion or the result of slowly suffocating when he sees an arrow fly past his head. Well, flying isn’t exactly the right word. Instead of moving in a mostly straight line it instead moves as being walked by a drunkard. As Nathanriel falls to his knees due to lack of oxygen Kree quickly moves her hands and arms in a series of gestures and a barrier forms around her. Nathanriel start to try and crawl towards her but stops as a barrier forms around him as well, his centered around something that had apparently materialized out of nothing.

This creature is very small, about the size of a small dog or cat. It has a long, narrow muzzle, big eyes that are almost too expressive and ears as large as its head and a long fluffy tail that is long enough and thick enough that it could probably hide another of itself in its own tail. And it seems to be covered entirely by a thick layer of turquoise fur. To Nathanriel it looks like a very sickeningly cute wild animal. However, Bob seems to know it as he walks over and scratches the thing behind an ear, making it coo at him in response. If nothing else, Nathanriel has to give this thing some credit as it is at least allowing him to breathe normally again.

“Is everyone all right?” Angylia asks the group.

“I think Kroshei didn’t get into one of the barriers in time, boss.”

“Well I’m fine for the moment but I can’t move my arms anymore or else my barrier will fall,” Kree informs.

“So what is this?” Bob asks as another arrow passes by them.

“It’s a demon pulse, though I’ve never even heard of a demon powerful enough to do all this,” Angylia answers.

“What’s a demon pulse?” Bob continues.

“It’s an aura of excess magic being exuded by a demon when it’s fighting at full strength, though some tend to try and push magic out of their body just to create an impressive aura. But this one’s more than that, it also seems to have some magic imbedded which I’ve never heard of anyone doing either.”

“Well we might as well press on and hope that whatever is doing this is friendly. But this air gives us an advantage so long as we make keeping that creature and Kree alive our top priority.”

“Gin. She’s not a creature, she has a name. It’s Gin.”