The Black Witch's Gambit IV

Mana. 

A common resource used in any fantasy video game. 

It's often characterized as the color blue, resulting from it being a form of 'energy'. 

Mana in CoE is described as the life force of the world. It acts as the invisible force that permeates throughout life, much like the atoms that construct our being. 

Everything in the world has Mana, and without this 'essence'; there is no world.

The essence of the world was pouring into me.

It wasn't the color blue, but rather, an oil spill of the spectrum; Magic's mercury.

The magic staff was shooting a pure-white beam of sub-atomic vaporizing heat straight into this swirling black void that appeared out of my chest. 

This same Mana had revitalized me, bringing me back from the brink of death from casting the spell. It was as if I was absorbing it, this swirling void was eating at this magical power.

But so was it destroying me, erasing my life force the longer I held on. This wasn't a fight of attrition, I would lose the longer this kept on.

I felt its power flowing through me as I barely held on to the magic staff; it was as if I was holding onto lightning itself. 

I couldn't move, I couldn't say a single thing, every ounce of my being was concentrating on maintaining this stance, of keeping this staff from moving even a centimeter away from this void that had sprung out. 

If I failed to do so, I couldn't fathom the destruction that would happen beyond me. 

"NNNNNNNNGHGHHHHHAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" I screamed, this pain had ripped my dulled senses to shreds; I was feeling every single molecule of heat eviscerating my soul. 

I... I wanted to give up, I wanted to let go. 

But,... 

No. 

No, I will not. 

I will not let go.

I've come to this world for a reason, and I will not be leaving without knowing what it was for. 

It felt like a rejecting magnet, that invisible force that rejected magnetic space when you were to put identical polarities together. 

The staff's magic was rejecting it, it was vying to escape my grasp-- to escape this void. 

But, I will not let go. 

"GYYYYYAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" I screamed, gritting my teeth as willed myself to pull the magic staff deeper into the swirl. 

Slowly, its prismatic gem had begun to disappear into the pitch-black maw. 

"MOOOOOORRRRREEEEEE!!!!" I shouted, digging my heels into the clearing's superheated earth as I felt the hellfire enter my spirit. 

As half of the gem entered the swirl, the magic that was protecting everyone else under the tree had dissipated; revealing the three of them to me. 

I could see them shouting, their eyes widened by fear of what they were witnessing, but I couldn't hear them over the roar of the Magic being shot into me. 

The voice from earlier was long gone now, I couldn't hear or sense their presence any longer. Whatever I do now is of my own volition, all I had to do was will myself through this final push. 

I couldn't fail, I mustn't fail...

I wouldn't fail.

I pivoted forward, driving the end of the staff into the dirt as I in turn lunged forward; stabbing myself with the spear and using the ground itself as the fulcrum. 

With the crumbling earth as my anchor and my lunge acting as the piledriver, the last of the gem from the staff ran through my chest; disappearing into the void. 

And with it, the spell itself. 

"I... won," I weakly mumbled to myself, as I fell to the ground; falling unconscious. 

The last thing I could hear was the sounds of frantic footsteps rushing over to my body. 

---

Within the ramparts of the castle Vongart, there was a woman by the name of Elkris. 

She was the head sorceress of Baron Valefor's army. 

Being a prestigious sort, she had studied the magical arts since her youth in the capital of Ars Goetia-- decades before the latest monarch had come to power; the despicable Black Witch. She was of House Asmodeus, one of the surviving Great Houses. With dark brown skin, and horns that staggered upwards like twin spires, she was as beautiful as she was intelligent. 

Here, she was biding her time as Valefor had instructed her to keep scarce as rumors of spies from the Black Witch had been circulating. If they knew she was here, then she would be a likely target for assassination. More so, if her Father, Lord Asmodeus, were to discover her here; he'd kill her himself.

"How dull, what should a lady do in her spare time?" She mused as she wandered the many halls of Vongart, making sure to only venture within its inner chambers. 

Elkris dreamed of one day claiming a powerful spell for herself, to be written onto the Airis Salcrum, the Sorceror's Vestige; a monument dedicated to only the most powerful of magic casters in Demonkind.

But such a dream was a lofty hope, even for a head sorceress like her. 

"Milady, you have been summoned," A guard decreed as he kneeled before Elkris, this message had come straight from the council.

"Of course I have, what else would those old sacks of bones do if not steal away at my time?" She cursed as she shooed the guard away. 

This was a near-daily chore for her, to be summoned by the council of mutineers and discuss the current civil war effort.

But, if only that was such the noble case. 

Elkris stomped angrily down the hall, making it known to everyone in her path that she would be left alone; as it was now time to play her part in the circus.

"Hello, all," Elkris greeted, fixing her long raven hair as she walked into the war room. 

Inside were five others, all men, and all twice her age. 

From ascending order of importance in Valefor's council so sat the men in the room on the roundtable: Boljar the Beastmaster, Askerr the Chief Blacksmith, Nurfi the Vile Blade, Oljaxxan the Steel General, and lastly, Zerrukt the Grand Strategist. 

One man was missing from this group, but he was out busy growing his cult in Quell. It was a sort of freedom that Elkris envied greatly, she would do anything to escape the misery of these five. 

"Hail, Head Sorceress Elkris," It was Oljaxxan who was the first to greet Elkris back, he did so with a bow. 

He was a member of House Valefor, being a brother to the Baron. With similar features such as their red-tinged skin, Oljaxxan was slimmer in build however, and he sported a terrible scar that gouged his right eye down to his lip. 

Elkris gave a simple, but agreeable nod to him as her heels clacked against the marble floor as she walked over to her seat on the table, the others began to greet her in turn as she took her seat. 

"Took you long enough, Elkris," Nurfi snickered as he picked at his yellowed teeth with a dagger. 

Elkris wrinkled her nose at him, she detested Nurfi's lack of manners; he had no class to speak. He was a part of House Vinea, but he had no close ties to the respectable Countess who ruled the northwestern region of the continent. Demons of Vinea were more spiderlike than Demonic, with their inclusion of four arms and six eyes. 

"Mind yourself Nurfi, your disgusting breath is leaking out into the room," Elkris hissed as she paid him no more mind. He dug his dagger into the table in retort but said nothing else as he closed his mouth. 

"She got you good Nurfi, gaha," Boljar laughed, his lumbering size made the chair he sat in seem minuscule. 

"Shutup, Dogface!" Nurfi cursed at him. 

"Dogface? Why you!--" Boljar snarled as he snapped his snout at Nurfi; he leaned away from catching his bite.

Boljar had no ties to any House, he was a hybrid between a Demon and a Kobold with his Koboldic dog face being transplanted onto a pale-skinned hulking body. He refuses to wear anything other than a loincloth. 

He was the Beastmaster and was in charge of all the beasts in use in Valefor's army. 

Elkris had no qualms with him, other than the fact that he smells like a wet dog all the time. 

Askerr was quiet in his seat, he was too busy fiddling away with a contraption on his side of the table. It looked like a silver gyroscope, made of hundreds of tiny pieces that formed its outer shell. He simply grunted at Elkris, that being the extent of his acknowledgment of her entrance. 

Elkris did not know what House he belonged in, and neither did Askerr make it a known fact about it himself. All she knew was that he was a grey-skinned imp, his arms were as thick as logs, but the rest of him was as stout as the hammer he would swing in the forge.

"With you here, we can begin our meeting; wonderful," Zerrukt said as he clasped his hands, he was the meekest looking out of all of the old Demons. 

Long, slender, and dressed in a long grey robe, Zerrukt looked like an academic; through and through. He was a part of the tan-skinned cyclopsians of House Dantalion, and unlike Askerr, he made it his mission to inform everyone around him that he hailed from it. One of the handful of Houses who had mutinied from Ars Goetia with Valefor's split, he had direct backing from his cousin in the east. Lord Dantalion and his sea of riches; literally and metaphorically. 

Out of all the Demons here, including Ervwin who was in Quell, the one Elkris distrusted the most was Zerrukt. She could see through his facade how cutthroat he truly was. If Valefor were to ever fail to meet his expectations, Zerrukt would be the first in line to stab him in the back and run for the hills; this was a fact that Elkris kept close to her heart.

Elkris fixed her eyes on the large balcony that peered off into the countryside in the room. This was her favorite thing to do while the old decrepits prattled on about useless things such as rabblerousing for funds from the locals and the like. 

Her sight trailed over to a distant treeline in the horizon, it was a thin green line that separated the tanned earth and the soft blue of the sky. 

"I believe it's time to finalize a consensus on how we should deal with the Demon Queen," Zerrukt said, piquing Elrkis' attention as she looked away from the treeline and back at him. 

"Oh? What's with the sudden interest in actually doing something about her?" Oljaxxan asked as he scratched at his scar. 

"Yeah, the Baron said that it's too soon to make a move. Something about uh, what was it again?" Nurfi pulled at his whispy goatee as he tried hard to think. 

"Rebellion, that it'd cause an uproar among the peasants," Zerrukt finished Nurfi's sentence for him. 

"Who cares what a bunch of commoners think, if we kill her now, we don't have to deal with raising more troops once she slinks away back to the capital," Boljar added. 

"Be it so, Boljar, but there is much more at stake here than simply killing her," Zerrukt began to explain. 

"Let me put it like this for you, if we were to kill her now, the news of her death would reach the other Houses. And as you, the majority of the Houses, especially the greater Houses, are still in her fold." 

"Bah, as if they would do anything. They're too busy dealing with their sorry lots to care about the death of the girl," Oljaxxan added in. 

"That may not be the case anymore, Oljaxxan," Zerrukt said. 

"Hm? What are you talking about?" 

"Ervwin has reported a mysterious Demon joining the Black Witch, and with his arrival, the children were returned," 

"WHAT!" Nurfi exclaimed, his four arms pounding the table in frustration. 

Elkris was surprised as well by this information, the abduction of the Black Witch's siblings was a primary component of keeping her situated in the surrounding area of Quell for months. But now that they're back--

"The Demon Queen can leave at any point now," Zerrukt concluded, finishing Elkris' thought. 

Even Askerr looked up from his tinkering and gave an annoyed sigh. 

"Who's this bastard unraveling all of my hard work!? It was enough of a chore working with that fat Human worm and his whore of a Queen!" Nurfi scowled as he voiced his rancor. 

"I understand your frustration Nurfi, but there is still hope for a turn around-- which is why I've called for this meeting in the first place," Zerrukt explained. 

"Ervwin has conquered Quell and his cult of the 'Pure' is ready to be us--"

 Elkris was the first out of the table to notice the prismatic explosion of Mana that had sent a shockwave out into the air. 

It was supercondensed pure mercury as it ran through the wind like an invisible tidal wave; shaking the castle's walls with force. 

Without a moment to spare she cast a protective wall around her and the others. It barely withstood the force of the magical energy as it absorbed its impact.

"S-Such power," She gasped, choking in the magical energy that had phased through her. 

The others too reacted, they reeled from its sheer force. 

Elkris sensed it, it came from where the thin green line connected the earth and the sky.