[IC] Really? You're the Demon King?

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

"Probably, but I might not be able to get up again later if I don't eat something. It's happened before; it was terrible." He shook his head a bit at the memory, not really wanting to repeat it any time soon. The sides of his mouth quirked up a little at the question, however. "Well, I am the demon king. If you're asking about the doors, though, it's just because they know me. Pretty much all the ones in here do."

Once seated, he placed an arm on the table and let his head rest on it while he watched her looking around. "Wow. Even with nice equipment, that's a lot to expect from one person. There have to be a ton of ways for that to go wrong." He raised a hand to point to a cabinet near the counter. "There's probably some bread or biscuits in there somewhere. I think I left a box of tea on the shelf above it, too. Feel free to help yourself to anything else you find if you want. The icekeep has a few items as well."
Letting his arm fall to the table next to his head, he closed his eyes for a second before another thought occurred to him. "Oh, we'll have to get your sword back. That definitely can't stay there."

[onenote]

Wrenna rolled her eyes at Soreth's smirk. "I think by now we've established that titles don't really mean much now haven't we. As for the doors..." She looked at them. "They're alive? Like they can think and what not? I mean they must if they know you." She told him as she took another look at the doors...maybe that's why none of the doors weren't locked to her. Soreth must have asked them to be open for her. "Well they apparently didn't get the memo to keep me away from all my portraits..." She added, just cause she could.

"Anyways, you don't seem to understand just how powerful human belief is. Convince someone that someone else is the "chosen one" and they won't care if its a girl barely out of adolescence, they'll have total faith in them that they can save the world." Wrenna told him as she started to pull some things out and sat them on the table. "And yeah, I had thought of that. I better go get it now before someone finds it. You eat something and I'll be back in wink." She said as she started to head towards the door.

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

The observation regarding the titles made the boy chuckle a bit. "I guess not, huh? And it's a little tricky to explain about the doors. There's some kind of ancient magic in them that gives them some kind of slight consciousness so they respond to commands I give...I guess they're sort of alive, in a way." He shrugged. "It certainly makes security a lot easier."

The comment about the portraits caused him to wince a bit and hide his face in his arms. That really was unfortunate, however that happened. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind for the time being when she tried explaining about human faith. "Hmm...does that help, I wonder? It makes me more nervous, somehow...Oh, before you go..." He lifted his head and pointed to the door again, speaking a command to go with the hand motion he used this time. A few markings glowed on the door and traveled to the wall before disappearing. "That should help you avoid being seen while you're doing that. If any of the doors aren't open or close suddenly, leave them alone and get out of the area. Higher ranking demons who have business here can still open them manually without trouble. Hurry back."

[onenote]

"I wouldn't really know if faith would help. For me it's always been "Do what you have to" Which getting my sword back is one of those things." Wrenna told him as she stopped at the doorway. Then she watched as Soreth invoked some spell (or maybe just asked the doors?) to...watch over her? Yeah. He had definitely made her journey to find him the castle easier with this hadn't he... "Alright...Thanks." She said before she quickly dashed off down the hallways. While the setting was completely different, Wrenna couldn't help but reminded of her childhood while running down the tight corridors, a little like the back streets of home where she lived before her Father managed to convince the whole human realm that she was the hero of legend.

Wrenna didn't allow herself to slip into fond memories. She knew exactly where she was (and was really actually hitting herself for staying for so long even if she had nowhere else to go...) and knew what would probably happen if she ran into another demon. Especially without her own sword...Finally she got back to the room where she had fought against Soreth. Only about half an hour ago, she had walked in expecting to kill the guy, and now she was going to meet back with him for a meal...Wrenna really should have learned that there was no hope for a normal life when those first few people started to believe her Father. Wrenna quickly grabbed her sword and started to head back to Soreth's room...only to find the door closed. "Oh dammit..." She muttered as she looked around. All the other doors were closed to and if she listened carefully she could hear footsteps coming closer to the room. She had to hide, but where. There really was no real place to hide...except for one place. A chandelier high up in the air. Wrenna quickly used another wind spell which sent her flying up where she grabbed a hold of the chandelier with one hand, keeping hold of her sword in the other as she waited to see what would happen down below.

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

"Well, something's not right, and if this doesn't prove it, then nothing will!" Within moments, the footsteps reached the doors and they were pushed open, two demons of a similarly tall height entering quickly. The two of them both seemed to wear uniforms of the same design, but in different colors that matched the tails and wings that they possessed. Unlike Soreth's, one carried wings of a dark red color while the other had a dark blue pair. They slowed down significantly upon seeing the state of the room, as small remnants of the previous battle lay scattered about the room. Mostly stray ice shards and a few singed places, there wasn't much damage to utterly shock them so much as just alert them to the fact that something had indeed happened here.

"He's not here. Looks like he was, though. Was he actually fighting them?" The blue-winged demon walked closer to the center and examined one of the ice shards left behind. The red-winged demon joined him to try to get his attention back. "Not sure...he was expecting something earlier, so this might just be from that. In which case, he has no idea that they're in here yet. We have to get to them before they become a problem."

Nodding, the first one turned back to face the other, scratching his head. "Of course, we'll have to find them first. They probably never made it in here as far as I can tell. At least, not if he closed them himself. They wouldn't have been able to move them."

[onenote]

Wrenna looked down at them quietly, trying not to make any noise as she continued to hang onto the chandelier in hopes they wouldn't look up. Wrena didn't know much about the hierarchy of demons, other then the king ruled over all of them, but if they could open the doors, then they were pretty high up on the ladder...Wrenna briefly wondered if she could take on the two demons if worse came to worse...She could probably kill one right away if he got into the right place down below and she dropped on him. Then maybe she would still have enough time to catch the other one unaware enough to at least hurt him. And she doubted they had magic like Soreth. But still, it would be better not to take the chance...

Despite having to hang onto a chandelier for dear life, Wrenna was kind of glad they stuck around as their conversation gave her some new insight. They said them. Soreth had told her himself he had expected an army to be with her, but since she hadn't brought one, the rest of him army must have thought she brought in a small party of assassins or something along with her. And now they knew that she at least was in the castle, which meant that it might not even be safe to try and get back to Soreth at the moment. But they at least didn't know that Soreth had given her permission to run about the castle. 'Why would they think that anyway?' Wrenna thought to herself as she clutched the chandelier tighter. 'They probably understand logic better than Soreth or I do....' Wrenna really hoped the two would go away soon...Her arm was starting to hurt, and it was the one that Soreth had cut into. Wrenna just gritted her teeth and beared it.

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

After agreeing on the known places that whatever breach in security they were looking for could not have gotten to, the two demons began to move slowly from the center of the room, only to stop when the red-winged one brought up another concern of his. "You know that there's another rumor going around regarding the disappearance, don't you? Apparently, it's been spreading around in some of the groups assigned to special tasks." The other demon groaned. "Yeah, some of the veterans have caught wind of it as well. One of them was theorizing that it has something to do with 'the new awakening', or something crazy. They ought to know that story's a myth, nothing like that can be done even with the ancient magicks."

The two were soon interrupted by a noise from out in the hall, much like someone pounding against one of the doors. "Someone doesn't know about the door situation, it sounds like. Probably one of the captains sending a messenger from outside."

The red-winged demon sighed, starting back toward the door the had entered before. "Must have gotten cut off by a couple of them. That, or they're too new to know any of the alternate routes. When this is over, we're going to have to have a serious talk about making sure people who know the routes are used instead. There's no excuse for this by now."

His companion followed a short ways behind, but stopped before reaching the doorway, looking around suddenly. "Something's off here..."

He didn't have too long to figure out exactly what was wrong, however, as he was called back to the hallway by his companion. "They found one of them! We need to make sure it's properly dealt with." Somewhat dissatisfied, the blue-winged demon left the room, assuring those outside that he was on his way.

[onenote]

Wrenna was beginning to wonder if the two beneath her were just trying to skip out on some work by hiding in the throne room with how long it was taking them to leave already, when they started to talk about something interesting...Something about a disappearance, rumors, "the new awakening" and things like that. But apparently those were just rumors...And then they finally got called away, which almost made Wrenna thank the gods out loud. Of course one of them just had to get the feeling something was off and almost stay. Thankfully he was finally pulled away by the new of...they found one of them? Who was them? She hadn't brought anyone...Wrenna waited till the door was close to let go of the chandelier, slowly her fall with another aero spell before looking around for an open door. When she saw it she quickly went through it, quickly making her way back to Soreth, confused and slightly annoyed that she had to hang in the air for about 15 minutes.

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

Soreth had actually dozed off with his head on the table while Wrenna had been out. He had managed to make two sandwiches and set up the tea kettle before doing so, though the kettle remained filled with cold water on the table rather than having been set to brew. The cloak really was warm, even if it was heavy, and it made for a nice blanket for the time being. He cracked an eye open when he thought he heard someone approaching, opening the door with a lazy wave of his hand. "Did you find it?"

[onenote]

"Yes." Wrenna said as she got back inside and quickly closed the door. "I had to go through a lot of trouble to get it back and my arm hurts now but that doesn't matter! there's something going on out there." She told him before she started to explain what she heard. "I really didn't bring anyone with me so I don't know who they managed to catch...unless someone followed me? But that's extremely unlikely..."

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

"Huh? That's weird, I didn't hear anything about this. Nothing much appeared when I was scrying before that fight, so it must have been pretty recent. I guess it's good that the guards were on the alert after all." He rubbed at one of his eyes and yawned a bit, shaking his head to attempt to clear it a bit. It only really succeeded in making his head ache again, so he leaned back onto the table again. "I'll deal with it if it becomes necessary, but it's probably best to let them handle it. I'll get a full report soon."

"Oh yeah, we forgot to actually deal with treatment before. Um...hold on, I still have no energy, but there's some stuff around here somewhere..." Pushing himself out of the chair, he moved over to the cabinets and began searching until he pulled out a box. "Oh good, I haven't moved it yet. There are some bandages and things like that in here if you want me to wrap anything up. I don't think you can just burn wounds closed or anything, so this is all we have right now." Placing the box on the table, he sat down and opened it up, checking to make sure that everything was in there.

[onenote]

"Thanks..." Wrenna said as she took some bandages out of the box and started attending to her arm. "I got it though. I guess you really didn't have your gauntlet poisoned or anything. I would have thought you would have, but I'm beginning to think you had no plans to kill me from the start. Also, is there any way for you to scry in here?" She asked him, not looking up from her arm. "If someone did try and follow me and got caught, I need to know what's happening to them right now." She didn't want to think anyone would want follow her, seeing how it would be an extremely dangerous mission, but there were a lot of crazy people in the world she lived in so Wrenna wasn't about to say that it was impossible. She made a little knot in her bandage to make sure it didn't slip off. "Oh...wait, so you no energy to do it huh...Well, how hard is scrying?" During her training there had been no time to learn any other spell then those that might be useful to her in battle, but Wrenna was a fairly competent spell castor. Surely something as simple as scrying in an area close by would't be to hard for her.

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

"It's not that I couldn't! I just...hmm..." Soreth puffed out his cheeks, not sure how to take the accusation. It was his job, he was supposed to take out the hero. But the whole observation flustered him somewhat. "...did you really want me to or something? We can worry about that later." He puffed out a little air and listened to her request regarding scrying, hoping to drop the other subject for the time being.

"Well..." The boy stretched his hands a few times as he thought about his answer. "...I'd say that it's not too hard...I've been using it for a long time, though, so I'm not sure exactly how different my perspective on it is. It's nice for keeping an eye on things without moving." Wincing a bit at stretching his left hand a little too much, he tucked it under his right arm and leaned back in his chair. "It's nice since it's versatile. Just a bowl of water can do wonders if you know how to use it. We're better off using one of the mirrors in the bedroom, though. They're already charged with their own energy, so it's easy enough to use them without needing to do too much."

Picking up one of the sandwiches, he mumbled quietly before biting into it. "Of course, the best one is probably in the art studio..."

[onenote]

Yes, almost poped out of Wrenna's mouth when Soreth asked her that question. An uncertain future wasn't something Wrenna wanted to face, disappointing her people and possible getting called a traitor by them was not something she wanted to face, disappointing her father was not something she wanted to face. Dying would have meant not having to face any of that. But Wrenna enjoyed living far to much actually say he should have just killed her. Wrenna still planned to live...she would either just have to face all of that or come up with a plan to avoid all of that stuff.

"Hm...thats all it takes huh?" She hadn't imagined getting the materials would be to hard and apparently she was right. "Well, if the best one is in the art room I say we get that one then since it'll save us time and energy...What?" She asked when she noticed Soreth's tone. "C'mon, I already seen your portraits of me, and like many things in my life, I am already over it so lets just use it. The matter might be one of life or death." She told him as she started towards the kitchen door.

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

The boy's face pinkened at the mention of the portraits again. "I'm not over it..." He tried to muffle the complaint by stuffing another bite of the sandwich into his mouth. He stood up when she moved to leave the room, though, following behind a bit shakily, sandwich still in hand. At the sight of the other door, he flicked his wrist to unlock and open it, taking a mental note to remember to check that it locked when he was done this time.

"It's actually on the wall next to the portraits...what exactly do you want to look for? You usually have a better chance of seeing it if you have some idea of what you want to find."

[onenote]

Wrenna made sure to stay close by Soreth's side in case he were to start to fall again as they made their way over to the art room. Once inside she started to look for the mirror he mentioned. It wasn't to hard to mix, it wasn't exactly a small mirror after all. She could pratically see her whole body in the reflection and plenty of the area around her. "I'm not to sure what I'm looking for." She admitted as she went over to the mirror. "All they said was that they had "found one of them" and "they were going to be properly dealt with. I'm assuming they're human so where would you put human prisoners here in this castle?"

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

"Human prisoners? Hmm...let's see...we don't exactly get a lot of them, since most aren't crazy enough to end up here. Unless they come in force, but it's been a while since any have made it this far. I guess...the dungeons would be pretty obvious place to check." The demon boy pulled up a stool to sit on while he thought about it. "I wonder if it really is a human, though. I feel like that would be kind of odd, all things considered, though I guess it is possible. But exactly what they'd be doing here is beyond me, if you didn't bring them. Unless they wanted to be sure of their hero's safety on their own?"

Pointing toward the mirror, he looked back toward Wrenna. "Have you ever tried scrying before? Or do you want any pointers?"

[onenote]

"That's what I've been thinking. Though this is sort of odd. I haven't really gotten that much help before. Usually the help I got was from people who were really passionate about the specific cause we were fighting for at the time, not the over goal. But I guess there's a few crazy enough people to care enough to follow me." Wrenna had to admit, if that was the case that was going on here, she would actually feel kind of touched...

"Yeah, a few pointers would be good." She told him as she looked back at him, "I don't really know the first thing about scrying. I mean, I've seen it done a few times before but this is the first time I've ever done it..." She paused for a second. If scrying was so hard that you had to be kind of specific with even a good tool as this mirror, how had he found her so easily...well it was probably just the magic that he got by being a demon king that helped..."Anyways, what do I do first?"

[YamiCuoreLaroux]

Soreth opened his mouth only to close it again with a look of confusion. "Uh...hold on, I don't even really think about it so much anymore..." He tapped a claw against the side of his jaw before pointing at the mirror. "Go touch the surface. It'll help you connect your energies. After that, you just need to clear your mind and focus. I know it sounds really simple and obvious, but that's the basic gist of it."

Taking another bite of the sandwich, he stood up and walked to the side of the mirror. "This might be a little tricky, since I doubt that you've seen the dungeons yet. Normally, you'd have to spend some time and extra energy searching, but I can help with that. Here, just start the process and I'll give it a command to direct it."

[onenote]

"Alright. I understand." Wrenna said. This was a little like how she first started to learn magic. Except she didn't have to touch a mirror. Wrenna gently reached out and touched the surface of the mirror. It was smooth and cool...probably the coolest thing she had touched since arriving into the realm. As she tried to clear her mind she couldn't help but look at her own reflection. She was slightly bloody, her clothes worn a bit from the battle and she looked...tired. Not physically (but the hints of that kind of exhaustion was starting to show) but, tired of putting up with all of this. She really shouldn't even be caring about who ever it was that they had captured. By not killing Soreth, she had thrown away the title of The Hero. And with her situation being as it was, even if she found who ever was captured still alive, there was a good chance she couldn't do anything for that poor soul. All of this was probably just a waste of time...

"Shut up you're worrying to much..." She mumbled to herself as she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting all of those thoughts go away. After just a few minutes of just breathing and trying not to think of anything, for the first time in a long time, her head was clear of any worries...and when she opened her eyes again, she didn't focus on the girl standing right in front of her, rather she tried to look through her. Then the reflections in the mirror started to go dark, and after a minute they were completely black. And then, a light. A torch light in a dark hallway that gave off an air of dispair.

Yup, that was a dungeon alright.

"Alright, you can step in now I think." Wrenna told him, keeping her focus on the mirror.