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Description
Voque gradually ascended the stairs to his quarters. He had spent a hard day training with his drechii, or master in the Iilithine tongue. His drechii, a human, had given him a pebble and told him to stay there, magically lifting it for the whole day. He had foolishly assumed it would be easy.

Voque remembered it was easy, until he got hungry, and his mind kept slipping, until eventually the pebble had dropped to the floor, when it hadn't even gotten to noon yet. His drechii had given him quite a lecture, and kept him from having lunch.

Sweat dripped from his brow from the effort of holding the pebble for so long. His blond hair was middle length and drooped down from the wieght of the numerous beads that adorned it in nearly random positions. His robes were a shining purple with yellow trim, the basic apprentice wear. His scorpion tail stuck out the back and looped back to rest on his shoulder. It had a decorative sheath on it so he never accidentally pricked any humans.

Voque looked forwards just in time to see a shadow slink around the corner.

"Alright, Lith, come out. You're not gonna scare me today." his voice was soft and gentle, a bard might describe it as a falling leaf in autumn.

"Aww, darn. You were daydreaming again too."

A female Ilithine with black hair and brown streaks began to form out of the shadows in the room's corner. Lith, the only other "scorp" as they were sometimes called, at the tower, had slender arms and legs. She also wore the purple and yellow robes of an apprentice, but wore a red sash around her arm to show she'd been training for a year. Unlike most Iilithine mages, she carried a long, many notched staff with feathers and a tiny blue crystal perched inside a cresent moon. Her tail was a light green with dark green streaks running all the way up the sides. It hovered over her head like a guardian angel, but an angel would be the last term to describe her. She was more an imp.

She wore a innocent expression, despite her attempted scare. "How did you know it was me?" she asked.

"Who else would be scampering in the dark during lunch hours?" He said, thinking of the generally greedy human students in the building. "You know why mages get their bad names."

She nodded "So I heard the drechii gave you a little test earlier today."

Damn school gossip, he thought. "Yah, yah." His face turned a brilliant shade of red from embarrassment.

"Don't feel too bad, he pulls that one on every new student he gets." She gave him a fantastical roll of her eyes and offered him a hand which he laughingly refused.

"Oh, don't be such a wuss." She tossed a small spark at him to give him a playful shock which he skillfully dispelled before it even fully left her finger.

"Darn, you're getting good at that."

"Been practicing to avoid it."

A voice suddenly boomed from the ceiling. "Hurmph, I did come here more than to watch my students flirt, entertaining as it is."

Both apprentices blushed and looked up to see a bald man in green robes who could just barely be called overweight. He clung to the ceiling by some means of magical magnetism.

"We weren't flirting, drechii." Voque said with his hands on his hips. He tapped his foot on the floor while waiting for his master to come down.

He floated down on a gental spell that left small sparkles in the air. His robe was coated with all kinds of trinkets and badges, and in a gaudy, off-beat sort of way said authority.

"Lith, how am I supposed to teach my students lessons when you keep making them feel better?" He gave her a small shock which she failed to dispel in time.

"Drechii, you said you came for a reason. What is that?" Voque's master barely came to Lith's shoulder, and he was a head taller. illithines were not a short species.

"Ah, yes, I will be conducting a conjouring tonight of a fourth-level Glabreazu, and I would like it for Lith to assist me. I couldn't find her in the dining hall, so I checked to see if she was following you like she usually does."

"...what?" he said, a very faint smile touching his lips.

"Umm, yes drechii, let's get going." She said.

"Hold up, a demon, drechii?"

"Yes, that is correct." The hair on the back of Voque's neck stood up. He was a good conjouror himself, but he avoided the art whenever he could. He hated bringing demons out with their realm to serve him. Their constant threats a disire for revengealways unerved him.

Hismaster sighed and said. "Humph, they arevile beasts, yes, but oh so useful. You need not fear, I have a perfect pentacle chamber. Not even a titan could get out."

Voque nodded, somewhat reassured. "Alright."

He began to shuffle up the stairs again but hesitated when Lith winked at him as they parted ways. He had meant what he said. He had always assumed it was play.

He shook that off himself for now and began the walk to his study. He had enough to worry about, even without Lith stalking him.

Later that night...

Voque studied to the meager light of a single candle. He had been fortunate enough to get a room with a huge window and excellent view of the mountain all the way down. Tonight, it was mostly blocked by angry storm clouds.

Just the kind of night for a demon to escape. He thought. He pinched himself for having such dark thoughts. Drechii had assured him the pentacle was perfect. Nothing will go wrong.

He realized he wasn't focusing on his spellbooks and decided that tonight was over. He had studied later than most of the human mages anyways. He hung up his think robes on a gold peg sticking out of the wall, then laid down on his bed without bothering to slip under the covers.

Try as he might, Voque couldn't get to sleep. Images of demons kept flitting through his mind of them tearing up his friends and devouring his drechii.

He gave up and rolled off the bed, beginning to walk over to the windowsill. What's happening to me?

BAM BAM BAM BAM! He nearly jumped out of his skin when a frantic pounding burst from his door. He dashed over and opened it.

Lith fell in and stumbled, gasping, her hair a mess and her nose bleeding.

Voque caught her and shook her up. "What happened?" but he had a bad feeling he already knew.

"Voque! It's terrible! The demon escaped! It killed our dechii!"

Something black and huge flew by the window. Lith began to scream, but Voque clamped his hand over her mouth and dragged her into a corner.

"Calm yourself, your entering hysterics. Calm down."

Lith did begin to calm down, her breathing grew steady, and her sobs decreased. That mission accomplished he snuck over to the door, opened it silently, and slipped through, he reached a hand back and motioned with two quick jerks for her to follow. She gave one last sob and trailed him through the door.

"What do you intend to do? It killed out master, it'll be more than capable of killing us."

"I don't know yet, just give me some time to think. First find somewhere safe."

He looked around. Nothing seemed like a demon wouldn't torch it down. He heard glass break in his room. He grasped Lith and cast a levitate spell. Seeing what he was doing, she added her spell in. They floated up to the ceiling and lay with their back to the ceiling support beams even as the demon broke down his door and gave a soul chilling screech.

It stormed around the room. Voque measured by the sounds what type of creature it must be. He heard two thuds, so it walked upright and scraping sounds, so it must have a thick tail.

Lightning flashed and the demon played with the light effects, giving off screams promising torture and death to all within earshot.

Wings flapped twice and Voque readied the most powerful spell he learned, It might buy Lith some time, but he would be to drained afterwards to do anything.

But the wings blasted their way through another window rather than flying up to the rafters. Voque cried as he relaxed his tense body. He was worried for other mages who had no warning.

He looked at Lith, trying to think up some plan, and was held in morbid awe at the tears on her face mixing with her blood.

"Listen, Lith, I have a plan, but you won't like it."

...

The two were running through the halls, Voque almost dragging Lith behind him. "It won't work." She whispered. "It escaped, why won't yours?"

"I told you already, his pentacle must have had an unseen flaw!"

"Where are you going to find another pentacle? Hu? A perfect pentacle? That's right, he had the only one!"

"No it wasn't. Trust me."

She looked at him through her tears. He was reacting calmly, or looked like it. She used his courage to calm herself. Lith raised her head and looked forwards.

"Where is the other pentacle?"

"You remember Klinth? He was suspended for trying to conjure a balor."

"What?"

"The disorderly behavior you head of was a lie, to keep us from panicking."

He stopped and his view swept over a wall with two torches. Lightning flared outside and the demon laughed, followed by two screams.

"Hurry. And how did you know?"

He pressed his hand against the wall under the left torch. He felt six bricks down, six left, and six down again. He pushed in that brick.

"666. That's Klinth alright. I know because you failed to overcome the assumption that I don't sneak like everyone else does."

The hidden door opened, and thunder boomed in violent harmony with screams of the dying.

The two illithines ran down the stairs. It got increasingly dark as the stairs. Lith eventually pulled a torch off the wall.

Just before Lith was about to ask how far the stairs went, they ended.

A large room forged of black stone with a misshapen dome roof. In the dead center of the room was the largest pentacle Lith had ever seen, it might have been 13 feet across.

"Definatley built for a balor." she whispered, admiring the obsidian ring around the pentacle. "Never thought about using obsidian rather than chalk..."

Voque wasted no such time examining the architecture. He strode boldly up to the pentacle, Lith waiting behind with the torch casting an eeire glow over the rocks.

Voque began the incantation and Lith took the opportunity to look around. She found several torture devices and some magical item maybe used for conjouring. She considered adding them now, but rejected the idea. To do so would upset the magic.

Voque was finished reading the runes on the obsidian.

"Erateth, Zepliath, Harkratous!"

The last word had to be the name of the demon summoned. The rest were commands in the demon language.

Energy coursed throught the runes making them glow a Halloween orange. Lith's torch flared as energy began to spin around the pentacle. A mist rose from the center and began to form the shape ofa four legged, spidery abdomen. From their it worked its way up to a humanoid torso coverd in an blue-green exoskeleton, parts of it cracked open showing the rotting flesh around the ribcage. A long tail with human bones for accessories extended outwards and four arms broke out from the chest, each bearing a wicked pincer, a mouth att he center of each. Last to come was the head of the monster, a vile insect like thing with multi-faceted eyes and a foul, four segmented beak mouth, poisonous saliva dripping from all four tips.

"Why have you summoned me?" It said in a ghastly, rasping voice. It raised one of its four arms and slammed the invisible walls above the obsidian, testing its strength. The wall held.

"Another demon was conjured to destroy our building." He lied. If it knew it had escaped, it might try to find out how.

"Lucky bastard." The mouths said, each one possessed of a differing voice.

"You are charged to stop it. No casualties will be permitted. You are not allowed to strike anyone but the demon and keep destructive spells to a minimum."

The demon hissed and spat venom at the walls, but there was nothing it could do. The shackles were placed on it and it had to obey its master's rules.

"Once you have detained the demon, you are to return here without damaging anything and are to wait until I dismiss you."

"I despise you mage! The instant I am free, I will hunt you down as a cat hunts a mouse! And believe me, the time will come, it is coming... fasssssst." A long forked tongue shot out and slammed into the wall, coating it with acidic venom.

"Now go."

The invisible barriers disappeared but the demon jumped over Voque, unable to resist what the master told it to do. It stopped for a moment and looked back. "The day is coming." it whispered. "Sooooooonnnnn." Then it climbed the stairs to fight, It's spidery legs skittering along with a distinctive clicking sound.

As soon as it was out of sight, Voque collapsed to his knees. Lith rushed over to him. She knew he had to be kept conscious. If he fainted, the demon would be free. She cast a heal spell, but it didn't help much.

"Harkratous, he fought me. He shouldn't have been able to..." His eyes went meaningfully to the obsidian pentacle.

"When he struck the pentacle walls, it hurt like he actually struck me"

Concerned, she cast a poison detect spell. "You hid the pain well."

He nodded. "But damn it was hard to do." He thought about the demon's parting words. "The day will come..."

Her test resulting negative, she refuted Harkratous. "You can't really be giving the demon credit. He was trying to distract you."

"I don't know, I've become a seer or something lately. I thought this was going to happen... it did."

"He can't have been telling the truth. He won't kill anyone, the pentacle held."

"We better follow him. Stealthily. Something is going to happen." He stood up shakily. He almost laughed at her concern, so obviously was it on her face.

Seeing him smile helped her, and she nodded. "We'll use my staff." They reached out, grabbed the staff, and their forms descended into shadow.

Harkratous clattered along. Its kin was hired to attack the place? He should have questioned. The scenario was interesting.

The demons knew all the rules of conjuring, and were slowly learning to defy them. The mage who had conjured him was strong. He didn't think he'd ever felt a pentacle so solid. But he was inexperienced. There were some loopholes he might find chance to exploit.

His brotheren was not difficult to find. Just follow the trail of blood.

The escaped glabreazu was in the midst of devouring a living, screaming mage when Harkratous stepped in.

It looked up and roared at him, not needing an explanation. Its skin was mottled and grey. It looked like a large snake but it had two legs and giant black bat wings. Its eyes were a pure, milky white but they leaked a yellow glowing fluid, which dribbled off its face and fell into the mages body, healing him so he may be devoured once more. Cruelly barbed spines wove its way down its back. What appeared to be giant centipedes wrapped around its shoulders, drinking its blood which ran from open, everlasting bite wounds.

It roared again, and fire sprung up from its wounds, lighting it from the inside. The fire expanded and flashed through the room. Harkratous knew the trick and dodged as a solid black beam punctured the place where he had just been standing. He lunged forwards through the blinding fires and raised both his right arms, intending a quick but painful kill. It slammed its two pincers forwards but hit nothing but empty air. The demon rammed it from behind, sending them to the ground. It began to bite and claw its way through his exoskeleton. He brought his fists up and rammed it in the skull, the mouths at the center of his pincers ripping into the skin with deadly power. He picked the thing up and tossed it across the room, casting a fury of magic bolts to chase it.

The bolts slammed into the wall, but it burst from the smoke, all claw and fang. The blasts and blows of the demons were only matched in sounds by the mage's pleas and screams.

The attacking demon crawled and slithered across the walls, but Harkratous was able to throw it off every time it attacked. He failed to notice the vile centipedes crawling into his skin, their numbing saliva working perfect.

The two illithines faded out of the shadows. "Do you think we should have summoned something more powerful?" Lith whispered.

"No, I wouldn't dare. There is something wrong with that pentacle." he attempted to take a look around the corner, but fire shot from the duel room, followed by the mage, who's ruined corpse was thrown against the walls. It landed at their feet, its eye rolled out of its socket leaving a gruesome trail of slime. Both Ilithines grimaced, a Lith's face turned green. She managed to hold the vomit back.

The demons continued their fight. "I found a loophole-AAAH!" His leg fell off, and rotten flesh that bore a resemblance to muscle poured out. He brought his hand down hard, and killed the two insect culprits. The demon snickered at his pain, the lightning even joined into the mocking. Harkratous wasn't finished. The wound closed over and his bones stretched and refit. He was now a tripod. "As I was saying, ass, I have no charge to protect my master. If you kill him..." he let the thought hang. "He also neglected to mention that I should not destroy the tower before you are stopped, only after. So kill him. I'll have to fight you, but you're much faster, winged one."

Harkratous charged, but the demon laughed at the ease of which they could destroy the mage's hope. The demon's wings were to large to extend in the thin hall, but that was solved by superheating the edges, so they simply burned away the wall around them. "Very well, I'll kill the fool mage! Maybe Transentjen will even recruit you as well!"

Around the corner, Lith and Voque looked at each other in horror. Voque was stunned. Harkratous had found such an easy loophole! He had forgotten to always, always, charge a demon with your protection. Damn he was a fool.

He snapped out of his horror induced trance and became aware of Lith frantically pulling him away. "It's going to kill us!"

He jumped to realization and in true terror for his life, turned and ran down the hall. It's one thing to have a demon devouring everyone you know. To have it hunting for you and you singularly...
Is the most horrifying experience you can imagine. The demon shot around the corner. Magic bolts from Harkratous were fired through the halls. They left scorch marks in the wall.

"At least... I told him no destructive spells." He'd have to destroy the tower with claws alone.

He heard a support beam smash and realized there was no difference.

Harkratous still followed, bound by rules to destroy the demon. Before it went out of sight, he crossed his pincers and in the middle shadows collected. It was a sphere that was made of black burnt material. It sling-shoted out of sight and trailed the demon with homing precision.

Harkratous grinned with his twitching, grotesque beaks.

The two illithines ran down the hall at top speed. The demon was gaining fast.

They ran into the end of a hall, a window set with a view of the mountain and tow doors on either side. In the fractions of time it took for them to reach out for a door, the first attack was launched. A black line shot from seemingly nowhere and speared through Lith's shoulder with flesh and bone parting. It erupted from the other side with an impressive display of blood where it's larger, spear like black tip curved in to form a hook. The whip retracted and sent her sprawling on her back.

Voque looked up and saw the demon. The whip was its tongue. "Hahaha... Did I get your girlie?" It said as Lith writhed on the floor, clutching her shoulder. "I was aiming for you... better practice." It shrugged in the best way it could with no back legs. Its tongue retracted and made her lurch back to underneath his jaw, dragging her by the bolt through her shoulder. "Die or she-"

The demon never got to finish his sentence because a black swirling orb discharged it's energies into his spiked back, launching him head over heels through the window.

Lith, with the dreadful hook still in her shoulder, was caught under the windowsill, the demon, dangling by its tongue, content to let his weight dangle by the blade until it tore out of her shoulder.

Voque wasn't going to let that happen. He held her still and examined the hook. But it was painstakingly slow when the tower began to shudder, Harkratous shattering the beams apart with nothing but his claws.

"Damn, damn!" He swore furiously. Rain pelted him through the open window, and rubble collapsed inches away from the pair. He looked at the muscle structure of the hook, and finally found an answer, simple though it was. He reached just above the pointed hook's tip and pulled, the joint automatically snapped back into place. The weight wretched it out instantly, and the vile whip writhed with a rabid fury before dropping from view.

A menacing rumble was all he got for a warning, but it was enough, he grabbed up Lith and charged headfirst through the window, seconds before the tower imploded, letting blood spill on delicate shards of glass.

Voque let them fall the most of the way, only using his levitation spell to slow them before they hit the ground. He ended in a roll, dropping Lith when it was safe. The rain came on in stormy angry waves brought forth by gusts of wind.

Lith was only barley awake and the wound from the spear was bleeding. Voque worried about infection, but that was the last thing he needed to worry about as the tower came craching forcefully down.

He grabbed up Lith again and carried her away from the wreckage.
He did have one thing on his side. There was no way the demon could fly in this storm or smell them out.

He set her down by a tree, and sat next to her, trying to think of a plan.

As a black beam shot out of the forestand pierced the tree close to his head, he thought better of the plan. He rolled out to the side. The grey demon slithered into view. It dropped its heavily fanged jaw and hissed. "Die!" It brought its palm to the earth and a line of spikes shot up from the ground.

Voque put up a soft green shield, which might even have held had he not had to extend it to Lith as well. The shield smashed into hundreds of pieces.

The demon, growing tired of magic, lunged at the pair like a striking snake, fangs bared, tongue ready to leap.

To his own amazement, Voque lifted a small knife from the folds of his sleeve and threw it. It hit home, and cut out the cord connecting the demon's tongue. The demon, shocked, flapped his wings and retreated. That same weird fluid that fell from its eyes fell from the wound, healing it, but not replacing the tongue.

"NO! I needed that to taste... your blood!" Electricity brimmed around it, jumping off the rain, and it shot a lightning bolt right at Voque.

Voque dispelled it seconds before it touched his skin. The demon's eyes widend. "But how?" It protested, wondering if the mage had been playing games with it. It took an uncertain step back, hissing and spitting. His centipede followers had been fried.

"Thank you Lith." He muttered. The demon heard him, and misunderstood completley.

"Herrr?" It tried to flick it tongue, remembering to late he no longer had it.

Realizing the demon's intent Voque ran as fast as he could for Lith. The demon charged a beam and fired, but without his tongue the aim was off and it blasted the tree again.

Voque heard the bark snapping and dove under the tree, tackled her and tried to roll out. He heard the demon laugh, then all he knew was pain, searing, dire pain. He looked back through watery eyes and saw his right leg smashed in and held firm by the tree. Blackness worked its way into the edges of his vision, but still he could still see the demon casually slither his way. Angry gusts of wind sent waves of water over everything, and he soon mercifully saw nothing.

The demon yelled, and the rainy gust cleared. Lith had overcome the pain and jumped onto the thing's back, stabbing its eye out with her tail. She was no match for the demon, however, and he through her off with one arm. She flew spinning until she hit a study mountain rock. Even through the rain and pain, Voque could hear her bones breaking. That was the last straw.

He reached up, pulled a single bead from his hair, and threw it at the demon. A tiny diamond sparkled once. Voque raised a hand, casting what he expected to be his final spell. A small blade of green wind blew from his hand, knifing the diamond in half.

Where the diamond had been, a glowing thing stood. It was a light elemental, a being with no legs, but a strand of light that hovered inches off the ground. Its body was entirely made of light. Its arms reached out in front of it. Waves of energy rolled out, engulfing the demon. The elemental extended its arms and lifted its head to the sky. It drained the light from the surrounding area, darkening the forest, making the powerful being glow even brighter. The demon stood, held by the magic, awed that the apprentice could control such a creature.

The elemental unleashed all the light energy, shoving back everything, the demon, the stones and the dust, everything but itself and it's master. The demon was still held as the blast hit it, forcing it to thrash about its cage until it screamed.

Voque couldn't hold it on the material plane any longer, and it fixed and retreated into it's crystal home, the link to its magical wavelength.

The demon collapsed, paralyzed. Voque couldn't do anything more, He was out of offensive spells, and was out of strength to cast them.

He watched with grim acceptance as the demon's claws twitched, and it began to righten. Its wings extended catching the rain while its maw hissed and its scales shimmered. With a flex of its arm it was pouncing towards him, intending to make Voque's death slow and agonizing.

A heavy pincier caught it by the neck, pinned it to a tree and began to chew out its throat. Harkratous had caught up.

The pincer-mouth made short work of the weary, snarling demon's neck; sawing the head off entirley. The glow of the eyes dimmed as the head fell to earth, sinking into the mud with a splash.

Harkratous was bound to head back to the pentacle, and did so eagerly, hoping his weaked master would die.

No such luck. "Stop." Voque ordered weakly. Harkratous snarled but his three legs came to a abrupt Halt. He spun to face Voque, willing him to faint or die.

"Get this... tree off me." He gasped. Voque grasped at the ground as the pressure left. Feeling returned in an agonizing rush. He inhaled with a choking sob. Harkratous hefted the tree up with two hands and threw it down the slope.

Voque crawled over to were Lith lay dieing. With amazing willpower, he stood up and even lifted her prone form into his arms. The rain still came, but to Voque, the only liquid around was red. "No." He said, hoping his words would change fate. She wasn't dead, or even unconscious, but she would be soon. Her body trembled slightly and her eyes began to close.

Voque hung his head, and for the first time this whole adventure, a single tear slid down his cheek and landed on her neck.

Voque blinked in amazement. Tears. That was it. He bent low and whispered into her ear,

"Listen, Lith, I have a plan, but you're not going to like it."

Description
Voque gradually ascended the stairs to his quarters. He had spent a hard day training with his drechii, or master in the Iilithine tongue. His drechii, a human, had given him a pebble and told him to stay there, magically lifting it for the whole day. He had foolishly assumed it would be easy.

Voque remembered it was easy, until he got hungry, and his mind kept slipping, until eventually the pebble had dropped to the floor, when it hadn't even gotten to noon yet. His drechii had given him quite a lecture, and kept him from having lunch.

Sweat dripped from his brow from the effort of holding the pebble for so long. His blond hair was middle length and drooped down from the wieght of the numerous beads that adorned it in nearly random positions. His robes were a shining purple with yellow trim, the basic apprentice wear. His scorpion tail stuck out the back and looped back to rest on his shoulder. It had a decorative sheath on it so he never accidentally pricked any humans.

Voque looked forwards just in time to see a shadow slink around the corner.

"Alright, Lith, come out. You're not gonna scare me today." his voice was soft and gentle, a bard might describe it as a falling leaf in autumn.

"Aww, darn. You were daydreaming again too."

A female Ilithine with black hair and brown streaks began to form out of the shadows in the room's corner. Lith, the only other "scorp" as they were sometimes called, at the tower, had slender arms and legs. She also wore the purple and yellow robes of an apprentice, but wore a red sash around her arm to show she'd been training for a year. Unlike most Iilithine mages, she carried a long, many notched staff with feathers and a tiny blue crystal perched inside a cresent moon. Her tail was a light green with dark green streaks running all the way up the sides. It hovered over her head like a guardian angel, but an angel would be the last term to describe her. She was more an imp.

She wore a innocent expression, despite her attempted scare. "How did you know it was me?" she asked.

"Who else would be scampering in the dark during lunch hours?" He said, thinking of the generally greedy human students in the building. "You know why mages get their bad names."

She nodded "So I heard the drechii gave you a little test earlier today."

Damn school gossip, he thought. "Yah, yah." His face turned a brilliant shade of red from embarrassment.

"Don't feel too bad, he pulls that one on every new student he gets." She gave him a fantastical roll of her eyes and offered him a hand which he laughingly refused.

"Oh, don't be such a wuss." She tossed a small spark at him to give him a playful shock which he skillfully dispelled before it even fully left her finger.

"Darn, you're getting good at that."

"Been practicing to avoid it."

A voice suddenly boomed from the ceiling. "Hurmph, I did come here more than to watch my students flirt, entertaining as it is."

Both apprentices blushed and looked up to see a bald man in green robes who could just barely be called overweight. He clung to the ceiling by some means of magical magnetism.

"We weren't flirting, drechii." Voque said with his hands on his hips. He tapped his foot on the floor while waiting for his master to come down.

He floated down on a gental spell that left small sparkles in the air. His robe was coated with all kinds of trinkets and badges, and in a gaudy, off-beat sort of way said authority.

"Lith, how am I supposed to teach my students lessons when you keep making them feel better?" He gave her a small shock which she failed to dispel in time.

"Drechii, you said you came for a reason. What is that?" Voque's master barely came to Lith's shoulder, and he was a head taller. illithines were not a short species.

"Ah, yes, I will be conducting a conjouring tonight of a fourth-level Glabreazu, and I would like it for Lith to assist me. I couldn't find her in the dining hall, so I checked to see if she was following you like she usually does."

"...what?" he said, a very faint smile touching his lips.

"Umm, yes drechii, let's get going." She said.

"Hold up, a demon, drechii?"

"Yes, that is correct." The hair on the back of Voque's neck stood up. He was a good conjouror himself, but he avoided the art whenever he could. He hated bringing demons out with their realm to serve him. Their constant threats a disire for revengealways unerved him.

Hismaster sighed and said. "Humph, they arevile beasts, yes, but oh so useful. You need not fear, I have a perfect pentacle chamber. Not even a titan could get out."

Voque nodded, somewhat reassured. "Alright."

He began to shuffle up the stairs again but hesitated when Lith winked at him as they parted ways. He had meant what he said. He had always assumed it was play.

He shook that off himself for now and began the walk to his study. He had enough to worry about, even without Lith stalking him.

Later that night...

Voque studied to the meager light of a single candle. He had been fortunate enough to get a room with a huge window and excellent view of the mountain all the way down. Tonight, it was mostly blocked by angry storm clouds.

Just the kind of night for a demon to escape. He thought. He pinched himself for having such dark thoughts. Drechii had assured him the pentacle was perfect. Nothing will go wrong.

He realized he wasn't focusing on his spellbooks and decided that tonight was over. He had studied later than most of the human mages anyways. He hung up his think robes on a gold peg sticking out of the wall, then laid down on his bed without bothering to slip under the covers.

Try as he might, Voque couldn't get to sleep. Images of demons kept flitting through his mind of them tearing up his friends and devouring his drechii.

He gave up and rolled off the bed, beginning to walk over to the windowsill. What's happening to me?

BAM BAM BAM BAM! He nearly jumped out of his skin when a frantic pounding burst from his door. He dashed over and opened it.

Lith fell in and stumbled, gasping, her hair a mess and her nose bleeding.

Voque caught her and shook her up. "What happened?" but he had a bad feeling he already knew.

"Voque! It's terrible! The demon escaped! It killed our dechii!"

Something black and huge flew by the window. Lith began to scream, but Voque clamped his hand over her mouth and dragged her into a corner.

"Calm yourself, your entering hysterics. Calm down."

Lith did begin to calm down, her breathing grew steady, and her sobs decreased. That mission accomplished he snuck over to the door, opened it silently, and slipped through, he reached a hand back and motioned with two quick jerks for her to follow. She gave one last sob and trailed him through the door.

"What do you intend to do? It killed out master, it'll be more than capable of killing us."

"I don't know yet, just give me some time to think. First find somewhere safe."

He looked around. Nothing seemed like a demon wouldn't torch it down. He heard glass break in his room. He grasped Lith and cast a levitate spell. Seeing what he was doing, she added her spell in. They floated up to the ceiling and lay with their back to the ceiling support beams even as the demon broke down his door and gave a soul chilling screech.

It stormed around the room. Voque measured by the sounds what type of creature it must be. He heard two thuds, so it walked upright and scraping sounds, so it must have a thick tail.

Lightning flashed and the demon played with the light effects, giving off screams promising torture and death to all within earshot.

Wings flapped twice and Voque readied the most powerful spell he learned, It might buy Lith some time, but he would be to drained afterwards to do anything.

But the wings blasted their way through another window rather than flying up to the rafters. Voque cried as he relaxed his tense body. He was worried for other mages who had no warning.

He looked at Lith, trying to think up some plan, and was held in morbid awe at the tears on her face mixing with her blood.

"Listen, Lith, I have a plan, but you won't like it."

...

The two were running through the halls, Voque almost dragging Lith behind him. "It won't work." She whispered. "It escaped, why won't yours?"

"I told you already, his pentacle must have had an unseen flaw!"

"Where are you going to find another pentacle? Hu? A perfect pentacle? That's right, he had the only one!"

"No it wasn't. Trust me."

She looked at him through her tears. He was reacting calmly, or looked like it. She used his courage to calm herself. Lith raised her head and looked forwards.

"Where is the other pentacle?"

"You remember Klinth? He was suspended for trying to conjure a balor."

"What?"

"The disorderly behavior you head of was a lie, to keep us from panicking."

He stopped and his view swept over a wall with two torches. Lightning flared outside and the demon laughed, followed by two screams.

"Hurry. And how did you know?"

He pressed his hand against the wall under the left torch. He felt six bricks down, six left, and six down again. He pushed in that brick.

"666. That's Klinth alright. I know because you failed to overcome the assumption that I don't sneak like everyone else does."

The hidden door opened, and thunder boomed in violent harmony with screams of the dying.

The two illithines ran down the stairs. It got increasingly dark as the stairs. Lith eventually pulled a torch off the wall.

Just before Lith was about to ask how far the stairs went, they ended.

A large room forged of black stone with a misshapen dome roof. In the dead center of the room was the largest pentacle Lith had ever seen, it might have been 13 feet across.

"Definatley built for a balor." she whispered, admiring the obsidian ring around the pentacle. "Never thought about using obsidian rather than chalk..."

Voque wasted no such time examining the architecture. He strode boldly up to the pentacle, Lith waiting behind with the torch casting an eeire glow over the rocks.

Voque began the incantation and Lith took the opportunity to look around. She found several torture devices and some magical item maybe used for conjouring. She considered adding them now, but rejected the idea. To do so would upset the magic.

Voque was finished reading the runes on the obsidian.

"Erateth, Zepliath, Harkratous!"

The last word had to be the name of the demon summoned. The rest were commands in the demon language.

Energy coursed throught the runes making them glow a Halloween orange. Lith's torch flared as energy began to spin around the pentacle. A mist rose from the center and began to form the shape ofa four legged, spidery abdomen. From their it worked its way up to a humanoid torso coverd in an blue-green exoskeleton, parts of it cracked open showing the rotting flesh around the ribcage. A long tail with human bones for accessories extended outwards and four arms broke out from the chest, each bearing a wicked pincer, a mouth att he center of each. Last to come was the head of the monster, a vile insect like thing with multi-faceted eyes and a foul, four segmented beak mouth, poisonous saliva dripping from all four tips.

"Why have you summoned me?" It said in a ghastly, rasping voice. It raised one of its four arms and slammed the invisible walls above the obsidian, testing its strength. The wall held.

"Another demon was conjured to destroy our building." He lied. If it knew it had escaped, it might try to find out how.

"Lucky bastard." The mouths said, each one possessed of a differing voice.

"You are charged to stop it. No casualties will be permitted. You are not allowed to strike anyone but the demon and keep destructive spells to a minimum."

The demon hissed and spat venom at the walls, but there was nothing it could do. The shackles were placed on it and it had to obey its master's rules.

"Once you have detained the demon, you are to return here without damaging anything and are to wait until I dismiss you."

"I despise you mage! The instant I am free, I will hunt you down as a cat hunts a mouse! And believe me, the time will come, it is coming... fasssssst." A long forked tongue shot out and slammed into the wall, coating it with acidic venom.

"Now go."

The invisible barriers disappeared but the demon jumped over Voque, unable to resist what the master told it to do. It stopped for a moment and looked back. "The day is coming." it whispered. "Sooooooonnnnn." Then it climbed the stairs to fight, It's spidery legs skittering along with a distinctive clicking sound.

As soon as it was out of sight, Voque collapsed to his knees. Lith rushed over to him. She knew he had to be kept conscious. If he fainted, the demon would be free. She cast a heal spell, but it didn't help much.

"Harkratous, he fought me. He shouldn't have been able to..." His eyes went meaningfully to the obsidian pentacle.

"When he struck the pentacle walls, it hurt like he actually struck me"

Concerned, she cast a poison detect spell. "You hid the pain well."

He nodded. "But damn it was hard to do." He thought about the demon's parting words. "The day will come..."

Her test resulting negative, she refuted Harkratous. "You can't really be giving the demon credit. He was trying to distract you."

"I don't know, I've become a seer or something lately. I thought this was going to happen... it did."

"He can't have been telling the truth. He won't kill anyone, the pentacle held."

"We better follow him. Stealthily. Something is going to happen." He stood up shakily. He almost laughed at her concern, so obviously was it on her face.

Seeing him smile helped her, and she nodded. "We'll use my staff." They reached out, grabbed the staff, and their forms descended into shadow.

Harkratous clattered along. Its kin was hired to attack the place? He should have questioned. The scenario was interesting.

The demons knew all the rules of conjuring, and were slowly learning to defy them. The mage who had conjured him was strong. He didn't think he'd ever felt a pentacle so solid. But he was inexperienced. There were some loopholes he might find chance to exploit.

His brotheren was not difficult to find. Just follow the trail of blood.

The escaped glabreazu was in the midst of devouring a living, screaming mage when Harkratous stepped in.

It looked up and roared at him, not needing an explanation. Its skin was mottled and grey. It looked like a large snake but it had two legs and giant black bat wings. Its eyes were a pure, milky white but they leaked a yellow glowing fluid, which dribbled off its face and fell into the mages body, healing him so he may be devoured once more. Cruelly barbed spines wove its way down its back. What appeared to be giant centipedes wrapped around its shoulders, drinking its blood which ran from open, everlasting bite wounds.

It roared again, and fire sprung up from its wounds, lighting it from the inside. The fire expanded and flashed through the room. Harkratous knew the trick and dodged as a solid black beam punctured the place where he had just been standing. He lunged forwards through the blinding fires and raised both his right arms, intending a quick but painful kill. It slammed its two pincers forwards but hit nothing but empty air. The demon rammed it from behind, sending them to the ground. It began to bite and claw its way through his exoskeleton. He brought his fists up and rammed it in the skull, the mouths at the center of his pincers ripping into the skin with deadly power. He picked the thing up and tossed it across the room, casting a fury of magic bolts to chase it.

The bolts slammed into the wall, but it burst from the smoke, all claw and fang. The blasts and blows of the demons were only matched in sounds by the mage's pleas and screams.

The attacking demon crawled and slithered across the walls, but Harkratous was able to throw it off every time it attacked. He failed to notice the vile centipedes crawling into his skin, their numbing saliva working perfect.

The two illithines faded out of the shadows. "Do you think we should have summoned something more powerful?" Lith whispered.

"No, I wouldn't dare. There is something wrong with that pentacle." he attempted to take a look around the corner, but fire shot from the duel room, followed by the mage, who's ruined corpse was thrown against the walls. It landed at their feet, its eye rolled out of its socket leaving a gruesome trail of slime. Both Ilithines grimaced, a Lith's face turned green. She managed to hold the vomit back.

The demons continued their fight. "I found a loophole-AAAH!" His leg fell off, and rotten flesh that bore a resemblance to muscle poured out. He brought his hand down hard, and killed the two insect culprits. The demon snickered at his pain, the lightning even joined into the mocking. Harkratous wasn't finished. The wound closed over and his bones stretched and refit. He was now a tripod. "As I was saying, ass, I have no charge to protect my master. If you kill him..." he let the thought hang. "He also neglected to mention that I should not destroy the tower before you are stopped, only after. So kill him. I'll have to fight you, but you're much faster, winged one."

Harkratous charged, but the demon laughed at the ease of which they could destroy the mage's hope. The demon's wings were to large to extend in the thin hall, but that was solved by superheating the edges, so they simply burned away the wall around them. "Very well, I'll kill the fool mage! Maybe Transentjen will even recruit you as well!"

Around the corner, Lith and Voque looked at each other in horror. Voque was stunned. Harkratous had found such an easy loophole! He had forgotten to always, always, charge a demon with your protection. Damn he was a fool.

He snapped out of his horror induced trance and became aware of Lith frantically pulling him away. "It's going to kill us!"

He jumped to realization and in true terror for his life, turned and ran down the hall. It's one thing to have a demon devouring everyone you know. To have it hunting for you and you singularly...
Is the most horrifying experience you can imagine. The demon shot around the corner. Magic bolts from Harkratous were fired through the halls. They left scorch marks in the wall.

"At least... I told him no destructive spells." He'd have to destroy the tower with claws alone.

He heard a support beam smash and realized there was no difference.

Harkratous still followed, bound by rules to destroy the demon. Before it went out of sight, he crossed his pincers and in the middle shadows collected. It was a sphere that was made of black burnt material. It sling-shoted out of sight and trailed the demon with homing precision.

Harkratous grinned with his twitching, grotesque beaks.

The two illithines ran down the hall at top speed. The demon was gaining fast.

They ran into the end of a hall, a window set with a view of the mountain and tow doors on either side. In the fractions of time it took for them to reach out for a door, the first attack was launched. A black line shot from seemingly nowhere and speared through Lith's shoulder with flesh and bone parting. It erupted from the other side with an impressive display of blood where it's larger, spear like black tip curved in to form a hook. The whip retracted and sent her sprawling on her back.

Voque looked up and saw the demon. The whip was its tongue. "Hahaha... Did I get your girlie?" It said as Lith writhed on the floor, clutching her shoulder. "I was aiming for you... better practice." It shrugged in the best way it could with no back legs. Its tongue retracted and made her lurch back to underneath his jaw, dragging her by the bolt through her shoulder. "Die or she-"

The demon never got to finish his sentence because a black swirling orb discharged it's energies into his spiked back, launching him head over heels through the window.

Lith, with the dreadful hook still in her shoulder, was caught under the windowsill, the demon, dangling by its tongue, content to let his weight dangle by the blade until it tore out of her shoulder.

Voque wasn't going to let that happen. He held her still and examined the hook. But it was painstakingly slow when the tower began to shudder, Harkratous shattering the beams apart with nothing but his claws.

"Damn, damn!" He swore furiously. Rain pelted him through the open window, and rubble collapsed inches away from the pair. He looked at the muscle structure of the hook, and finally found an answer, simple though it was. He reached just above the pointed hook's tip and pulled, the joint automatically snapped back into place. The weight wretched it out instantly, and the vile whip writhed with a rabid fury before dropping from view.

A menacing rumble was all he got for a warning, but it was enough, he grabbed up Lith and charged headfirst through the window, seconds before the tower imploded, letting blood spill on delicate shards of glass.

Voque let them fall the most of the way, only using his levitation spell to slow them before they hit the ground. He ended in a roll, dropping Lith when it was safe. The rain came on in stormy angry waves brought forth by gusts of wind.

Lith was only barley awake and the wound from the spear was bleeding. Voque worried about infection, but that was the last thing he needed to worry about as the tower came craching forcefully down.

He grabbed up Lith again and carried her away from the wreckage.
He did have one thing on his side. There was no way the demon could fly in this storm or smell them out.

He set her down by a tree, and sat next to her, trying to think of a plan.

As a black beam shot out of the forestand pierced the tree close to his head, he thought better of the plan. He rolled out to the side. The grey demon slithered into view. It dropped its heavily fanged jaw and hissed. "Die!" It brought its palm to the earth and a line of spikes shot up from the ground.

Voque put up a soft green shield, which might even have held had he not had to extend it to Lith as well. The shield smashed into hundreds of pieces.

The demon, growing tired of magic, lunged at the pair like a striking snake, fangs bared, tongue ready to leap.

To his own amazement, Voque lifted a small knife from the folds of his sleeve and threw it. It hit home, and cut out the cord connecting the demon's tongue. The demon, shocked, flapped his wings and retreated. That same weird fluid that fell from its eyes fell from the wound, healing it, but not replacing the tongue.

"NO! I needed that to taste... your blood!" Electricity brimmed around it, jumping off the rain, and it shot a lightning bolt right at Voque.

Voque dispelled it seconds before it touched his skin. The demon's eyes widend. "But how?" It protested, wondering if the mage had been playing games with it. It took an uncertain step back, hissing and spitting. His centipede followers had been fried.

"Thank you Lith." He muttered. The demon heard him, and misunderstood completley.

"Herrr?" It tried to flick it tongue, remembering to late he no longer had it.

Realizing the demon's intent Voque ran as fast as he could for Lith. The demon charged a beam and fired, but without his tongue the aim was off and it blasted the tree again.

Voque heard the bark snapping and dove under the tree, tackled her and tried to roll out. He heard the demon laugh, then all he knew was pain, searing, dire pain. He looked back through watery eyes and saw his right leg smashed in and held firm by the tree. Blackness worked its way into the edges of his vision, but still he could still see the demon casually slither his way. Angry gusts of wind sent waves of water over everything, and he soon mercifully saw nothing.

The demon yelled, and the rainy gust cleared. Lith had overcome the pain and jumped onto the thing's back, stabbing its eye out with her tail. She was no match for the demon, however, and he through her off with one arm. She flew spinning until she hit a study mountain rock. Even through the rain and pain, Voque could hear her bones breaking. That was the last straw.

He reached up, pulled a single bead from his hair, and threw it at the demon. A tiny diamond sparkled once. Voque raised a hand, casting what he expected to be his final spell. A small blade of green wind blew from his hand, knifing the diamond in half.

Where the diamond had been, a glowing thing stood. It was a light elemental, a being with no legs, but a strand of light that hovered inches off the ground. Its body was entirely made of light. Its arms reached out in front of it. Waves of energy rolled out, engulfing the demon. The elemental extended its arms and lifted its head to the sky. It drained the light from the surrounding area, darkening the forest, making the powerful being glow even brighter. The demon stood, held by the magic, awed that the apprentice could control such a creature.

The elemental unleashed all the light energy, shoving back everything, the demon, the stones and the dust, everything but itself and it's master. The demon was still held as the blast hit it, forcing it to thrash about its cage until it screamed.

Voque couldn't hold it on the material plane any longer, and it fixed and retreated into it's crystal home, the link to its magical wavelength.

The demon collapsed, paralyzed. Voque couldn't do anything more, He was out of offensive spells, and was out of strength to cast them.

He watched with grim acceptance as the demon's claws twitched, and it began to righten. Its wings extended catching the rain while its maw hissed and its scales shimmered. With a flex of its arm it was pouncing towards him, intending to make Voque's death slow and agonizing.

A heavy pincier caught it by the neck, pinned it to a tree and began to chew out its throat. Harkratous had caught up.

The pincer-mouth made short work of the weary, snarling demon's neck; sawing the head off entirley. The glow of the eyes dimmed as the head fell to earth, sinking into the mud with a splash.

Harkratous was bound to head back to the pentacle, and did so eagerly, hoping his weaked master would die.

No such luck. "Stop." Voque ordered weakly. Harkratous snarled but his three legs came to a abrupt Halt. He spun to face Voque, willing him to faint or die.

"Get this... tree off me." He gasped. Voque grasped at the ground as the pressure left. Feeling returned in an agonizing rush. He inhaled with a choking sob. Harkratous hefted the tree up with two hands and threw it down the slope.

Voque crawled over to were Lith lay dieing. With amazing willpower, he stood up and even lifted her prone form into his arms. The rain still came, but to Voque, the only liquid around was red. "No." He said, hoping his words would change fate. She wasn't dead, or even unconscious, but she would be soon. Her body trembled slightly and her eyes began to close.

Voque hung his head, and for the first time this whole adventure, a single tear slid down his cheek and landed on her neck.

Voque blinked in amazement. Tears. That was it. He bent low and whispered into her ear,

"Listen, Lith, I have a plan, but you're not going to like it."