Adventurer Series 1: The Fairy

Chapter 10: The Daemon

I'm certain I broke my own speed record flying out of that dungeon. I made it out with plenty of time to spare before it started falling apart. Kurtis was still inside to my knowledge, and he was trying to let that daemon loose. A minute later, the daemon rushed out of the dungeon just as it collapsed and fallen in on itself. Soon, the dungeon was entirely leveled and Kurtis was nowhere to be seen and there was daemon on the loose. The daemon, however, seemed to celebrate its new freedom by rolling on the grass and running around the meadow. It angered me how this damned creature could frolic while my friend was buried under all the rubble. It angered me to the point where I felt I could challenge it, and win.

"Hey! Daemon!" I shouted as I flew over to it and started pulling at its hair. "What did you do to my friend?!"

The daemon responded by whining in pain and trying to swipe me off with its paws. It went as far as to slam its head in the ground to try and squish me, but I always managed to escape and resume my attack.

"Because of you, my friend is dead now!" I shouted right into this daemon's ear. "Because of you, I'm a disgraced companion!"

The daemon managed to throw me off, and by the time I recovered myself, it was lying on the ground and cowering in fear. I was about to keep fighting it until I heard some rubble shifting aside. The daemon and I both went to investigate the debris of the fallen dungeon. When we arrived we could see a hand shoot out from the stone. That hand was holding Excalibur and it was trying to pull itself out of the ruins. I started to move some of the smaller stones away while the daemon dug away at the larger ones. Soon, Kurtis' body emerged. He looked beaten and bruised severely as he crawled his way out of his burial site.

"Kurtis, are you alright?" I asked in concern.

"Get the shaman." He said weakly. "I can't move my legs and it hurts to do anything..."

It had only been a couple of days, but Kurtis woke up inside the small den. The mountain goblins had wrapped him in bandages and covered him in medicine. He sat up with a loud, painful groaning and a group of shamans tried to stop him from hurting himself.

"Kurtis, just rest." I told him. "From what the shamans said, both your legs are broken, but your right leg is worse than your left, and your chest seems to have been nearly crushed."

"It hurts to breathe." Kurtis moaned. "It hurts to speak. Everything hurts."

One of the shamans gave Kurtis a basin of water for him to drink out of, which he did for a moment until his ribs started ailing him again.

"Excalibur..." He moaned.

"It's safe. It's right next to you." I said.

"The daemon; where is it?"

"It's outside, but it's being kept at bay."

"Let it in." Kurtis said, which shocked everyone around him.

"Kurtis, maybe you're not thinking straight; we can't-"

"Let it in!" Kurtis said loudly before succumbing to the pain in his chest again.

The daemon was escorted by an armed troupe of mountain goblins wielding stone-tipped spears. It move very cautiously around them all until it reached Kurtis, where it sat down. Kurtis slowly raised his hand, and to everyone's concern, started petting it. The daemon, in reply, started licking his face. It would've been cute to see if it wasn't a daemon doing all this.

"Has your friend been corrupted by the monster?" one goblin elder said.

"I don't know." I wasn't sure of Kurtis had succumbed to the daemon's charms, but if he was wielding Excalibur, he couldn't have been consumed by dark magic.

"Pixie, be nice to her; she's been locked up in that dungeon for centuries." Kurtis said weekly, as he reached for Excalibur. With some effort, Kurtis had cut off all the restraints that the daemon had on its body. Soon, it surrounded by swirling, bright magic and then it was covered in a blinding flash of light. When the light faded, what remained was a human woman; at least, it looked human; it still had its ears sticking out of its head and its tail coming out of its body. I had heard of stories of shapeshifting daemons taking on different forms to trick humans into doing their bidding, and this looked something similar to that.

"Kurtis, don't fall for its tricks! You're better than this!" I started tugging at Kurtis' eyebrows and started kicking his nose.

"Pixie, stop that!" Kurtis shouted. He tried swatting me away until his ribs hurt again. "God damn it, this hurts!"

"Kurtis, you're being influenced by the daemon! Fight it! Use Excalibur to kill it or something!"

With his recovered agility, Kurtis grabbed me out of the air. "Pixie. Her name is Lady Prana, and you will respect her. She has been locked in that dungeon for centuries, and I'm her savior." Kurtis was not under any kind of influence; he was acting normally by his standards. Meanwhile, the daemon, who now looked like a woman, was hanging its head down. Kurtis sat up with some effort and then wrapped his blanket around it to try and preserve whatever decency it had.

"How do you what this thing is?" I asked Kurtis. I wanted answers for his newfound kindness for this daemon.

"Excalibur. It speaks to me. I can hear it. It conversed with Lady Prana during the centuries of isolation. It seems to like her."

It's not unusual to hear about wizards whose weapons and tomes have a connection to them. Some wizards claim that they can hear their weapons "speaking" to them. This appeared to be the case for Kurtis and Excalibur, but I didn't trust the daemon, even if it appeared nice. Then again, Kurtis could've been delirious from the medicine and from how much pain he was in.

After resting for a week, Kurtis was able to walk on one of his legs again. The daemon, "Lady Prana" as he calls it, helped him out of the goblin den offering Kurtis to lean on it. As superstitious as I was of this daemon, I was at least happy to see Kurtis alive. Seeing him achieve his goal of obtaining Excalibur made me think to myself: maybe I could achieve my goal of being an official companion for adventurers. Hopefully, the elders would accept me back.