Demon's Of Pain

Chapter 5

As we sit having breakfast I ask Gale about the visions he showed me, "I received the vision of Valzure's birth from one of his former Demon commanders" Gale explains, "One of the five demons that helped us seal away Valzure. I believe that, if we can understand the spell used to bring him to life that we may be able to reverse it. But alas, unfortunate for us, the demons that performed it have been destroyed and the spell has been lost to us. Demons sacrificed themselves to create the most powerful demon ever known, he was out of control and destroying everything, Even his own kind. Valzure's own commanders turned on him and helped us lock him away. There is no known way to destroy him sadly."

We walk through the village in the direction of my hut, stopping outside Gale turns to me, "You must bathe every morn and evening, fresh robes have been provided for and a bath has been drawn, I will wait for you here." I proceed into my hut and find fresh robes on the little table and a wooden bathtub has been placed in a corner of my room, the water steaming, I lower myself into the bath and appreciate it greatly, it has been days since I last remember bathing, scrubbing all the dirt from my body. I dress in the orange and yellow robes and head back outside to Gale. We continue to walk past my hut and into the forest, we walk for over a half hour and eventually come upon a big clearing next to the mountainside, what I see blows me away. There carved from the side of the mountain are giant hands sticking out at odd angles.

"This is where you will do most of your training, away from the village just in case Valzure breaks free, There will be monks close by at all times during training in case of such an event, I'm sure you understand?" I nod in agreement.

"What kind of training will I be doing?" I ask, "You will be doing meditation, martial arts, and demon arts, I will also train you to use the energy of Mother Gaia as each monk here does." Gale answers, "Now come and sit, we will begin with meditation, you must focus your energy on everything but yourself, empty your mind of yourself and fill it with your surroundings."

I sit down and cross my legs in one gigantic palm, trying to focus but my mind is filled with the thoughts of my family, their smiles and gleaming eyes staring back at me before turning into the scene of their lifeless bodies lying on the floor. Gale appears in my mind, "Calm yourself, child, control your mind and empty it, do not let the ghosts of the past control you." I breath in deeply and focus on emptying myself, locking my thoughts in the back of my mind and trying to take in everything around me, for a brief moment I feel something touch my mind and my focus is broken, opening my eyes I find myself standing on the grounds of the great battle, Valzure is there facing me, looking menacing.

"I offer you my help and this is how you repay me?!" He screams at me, "Offer your help?" I scoff back, "I'm nothing but a puppet to you, you help no one and no thing, only destruction, and torment is what you care for!" I can feel his rage as he lunges at me, I conjure magic missiles, as many as I can and fire them all at him in unison, one sweep of his fiery arm and they are all swatted back in my direction, Immediately I bring up my magic barrier, the barrage of missiles starts to hit, wearing down the barrier and my stamina, just as the barrier is about to break Gale appears once again, grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me out of the nightmare trance state I've been in. Breathing heavy and laying on my back in the palm of the giant stone hand, Gale still in his meditation pose floating about a foot off the ground opens his eyes and looks at me in concern. "What is going on here?" I demand of Gale,

"This is a sacred place that brings our demons to light and forces us to face them. We need to do this in order for you to gain control over Valzure."

We continue the meditation throughout the day, stopping only to eat lunch. Nightfall soon approaches and Gale decides it is time to head back to the village. The whole time I am still plagued by the hateful gaze of the people that dwell here, It makes me feel very uneasy but I bare with it, all of this is for my own good and to keep Valzure from destroying everything we know. Gale asks me to join him for dinner in his hut, I'm feeling exhausted from my mental battles with Valzure but agree to join him. We seat ourselves around the firepit and just as we are about to dish our food there is a knock at the door, "Enter" Gale says in response to the knock, an elvish woman steps inside and bows to the elder, "Elder Gale I come with news." She says while glancing briefly at me. She is beautiful, pale skin and raven black hair, sleek and slender build to her body and wearing tight-fitting robes showing her figure off nicely.

"Come, my child, join us for dinner then we shall speak." Gale beckons her to join us. We sit in silence while we eat, I eat ravenously, very hungry from the days training. Once we have all eaten and washed our bowls we return to our seats, feeling sluggish and sleepy now I listen to Gale and the elf speak. "Elder, I have troubling news from my recon in the Kingdom of Men. The sourcerer believes that the Demon commander of Valzure hold his essence within him and has forcibly taken the demon within himself to gain Valzure's power." At this news, I sit up straight with attentiveness, "This is very troubling indeed" Gale shakes his head, "This explains why one of the five seals has been broken and Valzure walks amongst us again." He says gravely. The elf looking shocked fixes her gaze upon me and asks the elder, "Is that why this man is here?" Gale nods at her sternly, "Please forgive me, sir, I meant no disrespect." She bows to me, "Think nothing of it." I reply. "A part of Valzure has possessed this man, We must train him to control the demon and utilize his powers. LaFael I must ask you to take over from me as mentor for a short while, I will be leaving the village for a short time to do some investigations on the rest of the seals." LaFael nods "As you wish master" and exits with a bow.

Training continues for three more weeks and still no sign of Gale, I wonder what investigations he is doing. Training with LaFael has been difficult, she has been merciless and relentless on our training schedule, often beating me senseless during the martial and demon arts training but I am getting used to it and slowly learning the arts, the beatings aren't so bad now. She has something of a savage beauty to her, ferocious and unrelenting, yet kind and soft at the same time. Her movement is fluid like water and sharp like a cat's.

She would answer and questions I had about the training but I failed to gain anything personal about her, she remains to me, a beautiful mystery. Every morning starts off with meditation, and as usual I'm faced against Valzure, slowly I am winning the battle but only with little by little more each time, It's also teaching me to combine my magic with the fighting styles I have used, It's an interesting and very exciting avenue of experimentation I have set myself upon. In my free time I train myself with my magic combat, combining martial, demon arts and magic. LaFael present at every one of my self training sessions as I had to seek permission for it. Guards incase Valzure breaks free and an area a safe distance away from the village had to be arranged for this, I had to go before the Pillar of Elders to inform them of my plan and wait for them to decide, It was all very tedious. I take one day every week to relax and recuperate, the mental fights with Valzure really saps my body of energy.