Devil's tale

Devil's tale chapter 12

Over the next few days, Rheagos spent most his time either sleeping or pacing around his cave sluggishly as his scales slowly began to loose their colour as they were being replaced by new ones. The dragon's inner fire, which Avarice could sense, was growing steadily weaker with time. Jazz was either rooting around the dragon's horde, or sneaking off to a dark corner to read the romance-story in Avarice's notebook. The minstrel often asked Jazz for feedback, asking him how he could improve the characters, make situations funnier and more, but the goblin always told him to shove it with an embarrassed look on his face. Avarice, for his part, was rooting through the prayerbook he'd 'borrowed' from Emily most of the time. He was searching for a way to relieve himself of Mormir's curse, but also contemplating certain theological questions. Such as why a god like Leto would allow two people on opposing sides to both wield his power. Did gods pick sides? Did they even care about things like righteousness and virtue? Avarice would have thought not. There were masses of religious folk who were honest, hardworking people, but there was also a plethora of religious figures who were corrupt and abused their power. If gods could interfere on earth by granting mortals their power, then surely, if they had moral alignments, the would withhold power from certain individuals. He wondered what Robert and Emily would have to say about all this, though he doubted it'd be anything good. The prayerbook itself was full of long, borings stories that had Avarice been analysing them as a critic, he'd have torn to shreds for having no emotional stakes or intrigue. But that wasn't the book's purpose and he knew that, and even if he hadn't, who was there to listen to him rant? An adolescent dragon and a goblin. Not exactly deeply religious beings. He eventually found a story related to curses and how to cure them. He read for hours until finally, he got to the part where the specific prayer was detailed. It was one hell of a long spell. It'd take an hour to cast, at least, and would take even longer without the proper ceremonial items such as holy water and divine symbols. Figuring there was no time like the present, Avarice got to work on removing the curse, still finding it humorous that a devil, especially one so closely connected to fire, could call upon the power of the god of light with no issue. He spent hours whispering prayers, singing hems of Leto's glory and overall practicing more religion than he'd ever thought he would in his life. He felt a little bad he didn't actually believe most of the stuff he was preaching, but no one was there to hear him, so at least he wasn't being an actual charlatan. Eventually, a soft, golden glow began to fill the cave and the feeling of healing magic washed over Avarice. It wasn't nearly as pleasant as when Emily healed him, but it got the job done. He felt the curse lift from his soul and the noxious, magical fog around his mind dissipate. Immediately, he contacted Robert, saying.

"Green devil on his way to eastern boarder to commit regicide. King doing surprise inspection somewhere. Make sure all castles on guard."

A response came back.

"Is this a trick?"

"I swear on Roland's honour it isn't. I'll be there as well. Devil's name is Mormir."

"Understood. Will pass information on."

Avarice breathed a massive sigh of relief and slammed the prayer book shut.

"Hey, check this out!" Jazz came running out of the horde, holding what looked like a normal, metal mace.

"Yeah?" Avarice asked.

"Watch this!" Jazz slammed the mace against the ground and blue sparks appeared around the ball-shaped end of the weapon.

"A magic weapon? Interesting. It's not functioning properly though."

"How so?"

"Those sparks aren't nearly enough current to actually do damage. I could sense as much. The weapon probably has an activation-word or something."