Plan

Arguing ensued as negotiations with the mages of Suthanis followed, with no clear winner in sight, all the while Rethys stared at them, stone-faced and unreadable.

The mages, or rather their red-haired leader, claimed to only be here to recover powerful magics for the Mage Order and thus the rest of mankind. They apologized profusely, displayed proper deference and respect toward Sevi, and all around handled the whole thing immaculately, speaking in circles and shifting blame enough to at least walk out of here unharmed if not secure their haul altogether.

He was familiar with this kind of talk, the kind nobles used when they tried to scam his master by putting his commoner lineage into question and then segueing from there into doubting his legitimacy as a mage. A very specific set of actions done just to acquire barely expensive materials by the already wealthy, or sometimes, they just did out of spite.

On the other hand, Sevi continued to impose pressure on them through intimidation and persuasion, all the while extracting as much information from them as possible. She walked a very thin line of lies and half-truths that gleamed as much knowledge about the mages' circumstances of arrival all the while lowering their suspicion and remaining threatening, thus presenting herself as both dangerous and credible, trustworthy even.

She masterfully controlled the conversation, knowing when to let the mages talk between themselves and when to interrupt them with her terrifying aura. She also spoke in euphemisms as much as she could, surrounding the duo in an air of holiness, yet knew when to speak clearly to deliver as great an impact as possible. She even occasionally singled out one or two of them to feed their paranoia or confidence, then other times switched to speaking to them all at once for maximum effect.

She was good at it, navigating conversation just as good as Rethys navigated ether, yet not even that was enough.

The battle of words seemed at a standstill, yet was anything but, and he could see it. The mages seemed unwilling to cooperate aside from the bare minimum of returning the weakest artifacts and leaving the tower. Rethys didn't partake much in the exchange, not that he was interested, and only bothered with maintaining his cold and harsh glare. And this idleness gave him the room and time to fully monitor the mages' temperaments.

They were willful, he noted, and completely unwilling to abandon their haul. He might've given them flak for their subpar performance, yet they had good understanding and trust among themselves. They understood that they didn't want to leave empty handed, and trusted one another to not back away, even in the face of Sevi's genuine threats. It was impressive, in a way.

'They won't submit.' he concluded. 'This is a waste of time.'

Still, he knew that they couldn't just kill them, after all, that way they might lose their way out. He didn't know how Sevi would proceed and didn't know what he would do in her shoes.

Eventually he heard something that snapped him out of his boring yet oddly comfortable idle thinking, Sevi seemed to have realized that she wasn't getting anywhere, and thus upped the forcefulness of her methods.

Blood began slowly appearing all around the hallway where they stood, it began bleeding from grooves in the stone of the walls, pooling imperceptibly from the floor itself, and dripping from the ceiling. The ghastly sight sent a wave of fear through the entire group of mages, yet just as before, their leader remained steadfast.

The pointless arguing was about to come to an end.

"I tire of your mockery, mage of the Storm's Spire." Sevi intoned, casually dropping one of the more obscure names of Mt Suthanis. "You will return what you have stolen from our legacy or suffer the consequences of your actions. There will be no compromises. The daemon will be dealt with, regardless of your cooperation. Your actions will simply determine your fates."

Having their origins be called out didn't thwart the brazen looters however, and their leader eventually answered.

"I am sorry, old one. I understand your position, but I'm afraid I can't cooperate." He responded, dropping the pretenses as his allies around him began readying their magic.

Seeing the mages' response, Rethys felt a baleful feeling overtake the ether. The legionnaire was free, and way ahead of schedule. Sevi had freed it.

'We need to get back what they took while leaving as many of them alive as possible to lead us toward an escape.' A voice resounded in Rethys' head.

"Got it." He coolly muttered under his breath while he conjured his red dagger, it was time to fight.

He always predicted that it would eventually come down to this, he knew he would have to fight the mages.

But what he didn't predict would be for the legionnaire to suddenly appear between them in a rumble of thunderous force, its form sheathed in smoke as it decelerated and turned around.

Time slowed down for Rethys as he struggled to understand what happened. The legionnaire was already here, and it had already blindsided them with an attack so unfathomably fast that it didn't even register in his senses.

He had actually sensed the attack, he realized a moment later, only barely managing to steer his body away by pure reflex. Yet just as quickly, he realized that he had not fully escaped the legionnaire's ambush, as his left arm was entirely missing.

If he had not moved, his whole body would've been cleaved in two.

He looked around, his eyes moving far too slowly, only to see his torn limb flying away faster than Sevi's tendril of blood could catch it, the force of the daemon's attack catapulting it to some far-off hall of the tower.

But not even such an injury daunted him, as his senses sharpened and his body tensed, ready for combat.

'The legionnaire should be disabled for a while, aim for the kthans, he has what we need.'

Yet just as Rethys felt time resuming and quickly dashed towards the kthans mage, a massive, extremely dense and pure pulse of Malice magic rapidly overtook the entire hallway. Their entire surroundings were suddenly awash with the single most powerful spell Rethys had ever seen, and though he scrambled to cover himself in a Barrier spell, he soon found out that the spell did not aim for him.

No, the flows of the spells quickly converged upon the items Rethys and the mages carried on them, causing them to glow profusely with the ominous pink of Malice, and it only took moments for everything to shatter to pieces.

Magic items, artifacts, the research journals of daemons and eldritches that Sevi needed, even the legionnaire's own weapons, all of it was torn into dozens of pieces. Their magic didn't even react in an explosion or anything, everything simply shattered like brittle glass, the sheer power of the spell subverting all around it.

The skeletal warrior then wrapped up its spell by sending a wave of fire towards the remains of the journals, torching them to oblivion.

"...huh...?" Sevi murmured in disbelief.

The priceless magical artifacts they had, the knowledge Sevi needed, all of it was gone. Her plan was ruined.

"RAAAGGHHH!!" The legionnaire yelled, its three skulls screaming as it dashed towards Rethys, brandishing its bony claws.

He saw the daemon's three gazes on him yet did not feel them, they went through him, it seemed. He then felt emotions flow through him, sorrow first, then raw, uncontainable fury and hatred, and he realized in his very soul what this creature wanted.

There was no stopping it now, not after it had found Sevi. More than just loathing burned within its otherwise empty sockets, a dangerous hint of cognizance.

The legionnaire had lost its weapons and even heavily damaged its chains, yet did not care as long as it hurt Sevi the most.

Rethys quickly dodged to the side, avoiding two claw swipes from the fearsome creature before having to jump away to dodge two more.

'It's slower.' He noted.

He strained his body, ignoring the severe injury he now had and the imbalance that it caused in his body, moving as best as he could, dodging the legionnaire's violent attacks and trying to create some distance between the two.

Yet his efforts were completely pointless, the creature effortlessly kept up with him, using the irregular movements of its body and limbs to attack from every angle imaginable, its bones snapping and chains rattling as it thrashed around in focused violence.

Rethys was hopelessly outmatched, he had no fighting chance whatsoever. The only reason he wasn't already flattened into red pulp was the creature's size difference, which gave him some leeway in his movement.

He dodged and dodged, even occasionally deflecting strikes as best as he could, doing the best he could with one arm, and even though it felt like his bones would snap from the slightest misstep.

'Shit!'

Eventually however, the legionnaire moved faster than Rethys could react or predict, slamming its bony foot into his abdomen, throwing him into the distance and breaking most of his ribs.

"Snap... out of it..." He grunted.

The legionnaire dashed forward, catching Rethys' head in two of its hands, but before it could crush it, a huge tendril of blood erupted from his body, lashing out and pushing the daemon away.

Rethys' wounds then healed, his chest setting back into place with disturbing clicking sounds.

"What's the plan?" He yelled as he got up and ran towards the end of the hallway, towards a stairway upward.

His running was awkward, his gait was unbalanced, and only now did it become apparent to him that he lost his whole left arm.

'Can magic even heal this...?' He wondered, mortified at the possibility of the injury's permanence.

He then noticed in his senses that the legionnaire was back on their tracks, causing him to double his efforts.

"What's the plan?!" He repeated. "Answer me Sevi!"

"I... I do not know..." She answered.

"What do you mean you don't know?!" He asked.

"I... we..." She weakly muttered, her soul exuding nothing but extreme panic and confusion.

It wasn't that he didn't understand her, but now was hardly the time.

He jumped to a nearby balcony before beginning frantic leaps to neighboring terraces and hoping the legionnaire wouldn't be able to follow him.

Unfortunately, it seemed able to manage its enormous weight and deftly jump around and keep up with Rethys, and eventually began catching up.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!!"

Leaping off a nearly five-storey height, he fell through a floating sculpture of delicate crystal, shattering it and barely breaking his fall. And as he rolled to the ground, a fist-sized stone thrown by the legionnaire hit his right knee, completely shattering it and just barely not severing the leg entirely. He tried standing, only to fumble to the ground and then just barely manage to hop on one leg away.

"SEVI SNAP OUT OF IT!!" He screamed.

His limbs then healed just in time for him to get knocked back to the ground as the legionnaire's whole mass landed near him.

It didn't even bother charging, it simply walked slowly, painfully, its hateful, six-eyed stare alone threatening to carve his chest and rend the gem within asunder.

He could see the creature's bones shuddering, its violence barely contained. It could lunge at him at any moment now and he'd be dead, serving only to paint the ivory stone under him a pinkish red hue.

This thing was dangerous, he thought, the only truly dangerous thing they encountered thus far. Other daemons may have had some rudimentary intelligence, yet this one had something much, much worse; it had a will.

'Damn it all.' He thought, activating his infusion magic.

He couldn't fathom what was going on in Sevi's head, yet he wasn't going to sit around waiting for her to just heal him from injuries she could've prevented. He was going to decide their plan now, and it involved going straight to those mages.

And if that didn't work, then it was going straight to the teleporter.