Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Hours passed by and the group simply sat and watched the shadow move back and forth in front of the cabin. Lucius was spending most of the time trying to discern what it was that was moving, but the mist had turned into dense barrier that blocked sight, smell, and sound. If it did not exist inside the cabin, it was as if it did not exist.

"I think I want to try something." Lucius said finally, breaking the silence. "Rena, give me a bit of fire please."

He broke off a leg of a chair, wrapped it in cloth, and then soaked it in oil. Rena struck a match and lit the torch he had made. Using magic would have worked, but there comes a time when spells are overkill for simple tasks.

When the flame seemed to take well enough not to be snuffed out, Lucius stepped up to the door and opened it. For a moment, the other party members took in a deep breath, worried what might happen with the mist. He then quickly tossed the torch out the door and closed the door. He moved over to the window to watch his experiment.

Sometimes with the fog, light could help push some of it back, but he did not know if that was the case with this unnatural mist. Sure enough, when he looked at the torch on the ground, he saw nothing.

"Rena, give me a light spell. A simple one will do." He requested while moving to open the door again.

The girl took a deep breath to prepare herself for the fear that threatened to grip her heart. "[Lux: Floating Lantern]"

An orb of light formed in the palm of her hand and floated gently out the open door. Once again, Lucius swiftly closed it again and moved over to the window to observe. He requested for Rena to move the light to roughly where the torch had landed previously. Rather than disappearing into the mist, the magical light endured and the mist seemed to disperse around it.

"Rena can you make it bigger or brighter?"

"I can…but I won't be able to do it for very long. With the current size and light level, I can maintain it for a few hours maybe…but it is almost like the mist is siphoning the magic from it at an insanely fast rate because I should normally be able to hold this spell for a day…"

The area of safety granted by the magical orb was a circle roughly twenty feet in diameter. A large area, but not really one for a large-scale fight…

While Lucius was pondering the options, the shadow in the mist began to move again, towards the light spell. As it approached the edge of the mist, a foot stepped out of the fog. The shadow had belonged to a frail looking man with gaunt skin, yellow eyes, and long fingernails. His clothes were tattered, but they looked like the uniform that the Lelvern city officials would wear.

"No forgiveness, only atonement. Suffer as I have suffered…no forgiveness, only atonement… Suffer as I have suffered." The individual continued to repeat the same phrases over and over again while shuffling endlessly back and forth.

For a moment he stopped talking and moving, then turned his head to face the window and locked eyes with Lucius. The poor creature's eyes went wide as he darted towards the cabin, making Rena jump back with a shriek.

"The mist, its there. We did this to ourselves. Don't go in the mist. Don't make them suffer! It's your fault. Its my fault.

It always was our fault!"

The former city official ruthlessly bashed his own head on the side of the building while repeating these new phrases non stop. Blood streamed down his face until finally he stopped and collapsed to the ground.

Another figure then appeared in the fog, moving towards them with purpose. However, unlike who turned out to be the city official, this figure did not step into the illuminated space. Instead it stayed obscured and then spoke, somehow audible in this strange phenomenon.

"Welcome to my home…you are not like those who lived here…but you might be like those who came for him. Are you here to kill me too?"

"What should we do?" Jen asked. "I'm open to suggestions, because this is just…well…you know…"

Lucius felt something strange coming from the figure. It was something familiar. He thought about that feeling and what it reminded him of. The figure seemed to stare at them from it's impenetrable wall of fog, waiting for a response.

Finally, Lucius disentangled Rena from his back because she had returned to clinging to him, and walked outside.

"What the hell kid, what are you…"

Lucius slammed the door close before Jen could finish complaining to him, and stepped into the area of the fog cleared by Rena's spell.

"Are you here to kill me, like those others?" The figure asked again. This time it was more aggressive, as if Lucius being outside was a threat.

"I know what you are." Lucius said plainly as he raised his left hand and faced his mark towards the being. "I am like you. Marked."

The figure stood in silence for a moment before it began to laugh and stepped forward into the light. He was a scrawny man, looking scarcely better than the villagers or the city official from earlier. However, he was healthy enough to still be alive. His hair was long and stretched down to his waist, but it was stringy, matted in places, and had clearly been left unmaintained for quite some time.

"I am like you?" the man whispered after he had finished his dry cackling. "You and I are not the same. We bare the same sin, but we do not share the same past."

"That may be so."

"Are you not going to ask why I am doing this? The other's asked. They had a lot of questions. They acted like they cared…then they tried to kill me." The man gave Lucius a toothy grin. "They lied to me. They wanted to kill me."

"No, I'm not going to ask why." Lucius answered plainly. He was telling the truth. He simply did not care about the man's motives.

"The village suffered the way I suffered. They did this to me." The man gestured to his general form.

"So, I did the same to them."

Lucius simply said nothing. He had no idea why the man was monologuing to him when he already told him he did not care. There was one simple truth that this boiled down to. This man opposed Lucius and threatened Rena. The lives of random villagers and hunters meant nothing to him. He did not even know them.

"I can tell you want to kill me. I know you want to. I can feel the threat of death in your gaze… but you cannot defeat me. Not here. Not in my mist. This is my domain.

Here, the world is what I desire. With the Mark of the Mist, anything I desire can be made here! Including killing you…"

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