Nightmare unleashed (Ruminal/Shard Mission)

Today and for the past week, Ruminal spent his mornings locked away in his room. As of late he hadn't been feeling to well. Unknown to the rest of his guildmates, Ruminal harbored a demon inside of him for at least the past year and a half now. Ever sense he had helped Kaisto with his exam he had slowly started to realize that his mental seal's holding the demon at bay had started to break. The demon was getting stronger somehow and tearing away the seal's one by one trying to take control and free itself. Ruminal was spending his mornings now repairing the seal's as best as he could but it seemed whatever he did meant little. Everyday it seems the same seals needed repairing so all of Ruminal's efforts were merely to slow it down. Ruminal knew he can't keep doing this forever, eventually he would need to come up with a solution but this was the best way for now. He needed to buy as much time as possible to figure out a solution.

When he was finally finished for this morning he noticed the clock and it seemed it kept taking longer and longer for him to repair the seal's each day by mere minutes at a time. That may not seem like much but eventually those minutes will escalate into hours. In time he won't be able to keep up with it even if he spent every waking moment keeping the demon sealed. There were a total of 7 seals inside of him keeping the demon trapped and one keeps breaking on a daily basis. The seal's aren't easy even for Ruminal to get to in his own mind if more than two started breaking at once, he feared the worst. Regardless he had nothing to worry about at this moment in time and Ruminal was ready for some breakfast.

He maid his way down to the main tavern area and ordered his usual breakfast, bacon and eggs with some hash browns and toast. He enjoyed yet another fantastic breakfast, going about his day as if nothing was wrong so is to not worry his other guildmates with his problems. This situation was his burden to bare and his problem to solve. Was then that Magna stormed into the tavern asking around for help on a job he was about to take. He asked that they be at least C rank and it didn't look like there was any takers. He must be taking a dangerous job to be asking for someone at least C rank. However something bugged him, Magna usually went on jobs with Shade and Jiyu. Ruminal knew Jiyu was busy today with other things but wondered why he wouldn't just ask Shade? It must have been one of those rare moments where both his job partners were unavailable and Ruminal was more then happy to help. Ruminal jumped up and raised his hand to the sky with a big smile on his face saying "I'd be glad to help you out! Where we going?" Ruminal had never worked with Magna before or even really conversed with him much in the many months he's been here now. However Ruminal had observed most of his guildmates around often enough to feel as if he knew most of them by now.

Magna folded up a piece of paper into a paper airplane and had it glide over to Ruminal. Luckily Ruminal was just far enough away to react in time to catch it. Magna mentioned that the job location was the Haunted Village, a village Ruminal actually hasn't been to before. He spent a great deal of his time exploring the land and all its beauty but hasn't even heard of this village. Magna continued to mention that it was a dangerous zone so that would explain why no one talks about it much. Moving on Ruminal unfolded the letter and began to look it over. It was a message from the Magic Council addressed to Magna in hopes he could take care of a high value threat in Haunted Village. Now this is what interested Ruminal the most, the threat was a 7 year old girl. The Council classified her as a A rank dark mage that needs to be captured or killed. Apparently she took out a whole guild by herself and has even took down some other dark mages. Its apparent this little girl is going after whoever gets in her way. What could posses a child to commit such atrocity?

The whole time Ruminal was looking over the letter from the Magic Council Magna made his way over to the bar and seemed to be having a conversation with someone behind it. If Ruminal remembered correctly, Magna was the head chief. He must be letting them know he's going to be out for the day. Ruminal walked over to Magna and handed him back the letter. "Ok now you diffidently caught my interest." Ruminal wanted to have a chat if possible with this little girl and see if he can't figure out what's going on here. However by the way it sounds that isn't going to be possible. "Well, I'm good to go whenever you are."

"Sounds good." Ruminal replied to Magna as they started to head out into town. Ruminal's mind kept racing which idea's on what could possibly drive such an innocent girl to do such horrible things. Manga managed to find them some transportation to as close to the village as the driver could possible dare to go. As they got comfortable Magna asked Ruminal if he wouldn't mind sharing some information about himself. "Well... To put it simply I'm a support type mage specializing in healing and protection. My magic allows me to tap into natures energy supplies in order to cast my spells. Think of it like I use my magic to take old of natures natural energies and use it how I see fit. A healing spell for example, I normally take hold of enough energy to surround my target with it and the energy causes the targets body to rapidly heal itself until the energy I grabbed is depleted. I can also bring forth other elements of nature to help me as well such as water from the plants to ward way attackers around me and I can take the earth on the ground to create a second skin around my target to absorb damage." Ruminal explained as best he could. Most of his magic skills to this day have been mostly a mystery on how exactly it works. He mostly goes off of feeling it out, it must be his god blood that is helping him with what he can't understand.

Magna went into a short detail of what magic he specialized with saying he mostly uses cooking type magic and something called Cerberus slayer magic. Ruminal has heard of slayer type magic before but nothing like what Magna described. The one's he was familiar with are the usual dragon, god, and demon slayer types of lost magic and to his knowledge has yet to meet anyone that uses those types. Magna went on to say he mostly relies on fusing spells together and was fascinated that he could do such a thing. "I heard spell fusion was extremely difficult to master. Most difficult of them all being Unison Raids." He asked.

The journey to the haunted Village was a long one. Ruminal was conversing with Magna most of the way but the rest of the time Ruminal spent it looking out the window. They were currently at the entrance to the forest to the Haunted Village. As he was looking around he could have swore he saw someone standing in the distance. It was just a glimpse however and when he turned back to confirm what he saw, it was gone. He didn't want to shrug it off as his imagination just in case and felt it was worth mentioning it to Magna. "I think I just saw someone watching us over there. I didn't get a good look though."

Magna opened a small panel to the driver of the coach and told him that this was far enough and that they could walk the rest of the way. In addition to that Magna asked that he drop them off discreetly cause they believed someone was watching off in the woods. The coach nodded slightly cause he didn't want whoever was watching to be tipped off on what they were doing. Ruminal and Magna exited the coach from the opposite way Ruminal noticed the unknown person as quietly as possible and quickly hid behind some nearby tree's. The driver turned the coach around and began to head back  home while Ruminal and Manga tried to sneak there way towards the village. Was then that Magna asked Ruminal if he notices the unknown individual again to try and let him know without signaling to whoever is watching that Magna also knew. "Not a problem. While outside I can detect any presence within a 25 meter radius thanks to the connection I have with nature. He wont sneak up on us easily. I'll signal you by having nature blow some leafs to dance in your path." Ruminal conversed under his breath.

It was still a little way's to the Haunted Village yet, at least 5 miles. It was getting late into the day already so by Ruminal's calculations they should reach the village by sun down. It was a rather long way to go for sneaking so Ruminal kept his senses sharp. He even switched into his wolf form to have less visibility and sharper hearing to boot. While in wolf form Ruminal was only 9 inches off the ground from shoulder to paw making him walk pretty quietly as well. He followed as close behind Magna as he could while ducking in and out between tree's.

By now they have traveled about 3 miles to there destination and there was still no sign of the person Ruminal caught a glimpse of before. Either they gave it the slip or it was really good at hide and seek. About another mile in Ruminal got a whiff of  who was watching them. It was a scent he wasn't familiar with and they weren't far behind them. It was at least 30 meters back, did this person somehow know about Ruminal's ability? Or were they just being careful? Ruminal didn't want to look incase he gave away there element of surprise. Instead he did what he said he was going to do and communed with nature to blow some leafs in Magna's path to give him a head's up. The leafs would dance in front of Magna for a few moments before being blown away to let him know that it was without mistake Ruminal trying to contact him.

Ruminal watched as Magna quickly turned to throw what looked like a fork at a tree like a kunai. Not to long after a sword floated out into sight. Ruminal reverted back into his human form and he has a suspicious look on his face. How is this blade floating in the air like that? Is something there invisible to there eyes or perhaps its just a magic sword? Ruminal didn't believe so. It seemed Magna was thinking the same thing. "I don't know. It might be an illusion, but that doesn't mean it can't hurt us regardless. If there is an illusionist around here we can't rule out the fact it can make the illusions real." Ruminal replied. He watched the blade closely, it kept creeping closer slowly but surely. It didn't seem hasty to start a fight. Ruminal blinked and noticed something odd. He closed his eyes for a second and he could still see the floating blade. That wasn't normal, guess that confirmed it being an illusion. "Hey Magna close your eyes for a sec and look at the blade. What do you see?" Ruminal wanted to confirm if Magna would see the same thing. If so then yes this blade wasn't real. After confirming he could still see even though his eyes were closed Ruminal said "Then yes this blade isn't real, its an illusion made to spread fear into there opponents."

The blade was halfway to them at this point still taking its sweet time. It wasn't doing a good job giving off any fear to the two magi. Suddenly the blade stopped in its floating tracks and began to glow with a dark aura. Not wanting to take any chances Ruminal turned to get behind Magna but when he did the blade moved fast enough to stay in his sight. It seems this illusion was made to stay in the opponents sights at all times. "It seems as though this blade doesn't want to leave our sights. I'm guessing its still behind me where your looking?" Ruminal asked. After hearing Magna's answer Ruminal asked "Any ideas?"

Taking Magna's advice they decided to ignore the floating blades and continue to make there way towards the village. However it was hard to ignore something that stayed in your line of sight at all times. After a few moments of running this started to be less scary and more funny. No matter how fast they ran the blade would stay its exact same distance away from them and give off the illusion that it was getting closer slowly. Ruminal would shack his head a bit here and there to make the blade look like he was spinning around out of control and chuckling a bit at the thought.  Apparently someone made this illusion to slow them down but why? What was going on at the village that someone would try to slow them down or scare people away? Could it be the little girl mentioned in the letter? Was she trying to warn us to stay away? Nothing was certain and Ruminal wanted to get answers. Luckily the blade vanished after a while and to Ruminal's disappointment cause he was getting some mild entertainment out of it.

Finally it was getting dark and they made it to the village. "I see why its called the Haunted Village. It looks like a twister hit the place hard." Ruminal stated. The village was in ruins with buildings broken down, roofs collapsed in, windows broken out and there was no living person in sight. Not only that but the village seemed to give off an ominous presence like they were being watched. Suddenly Ruminal heard some whispering in a nearby building but when he turned towards it there was no one in sight and the voices seemed to have moved over to another building. They were loud enough for anyone to hear but Magna didn't seem to notice. "Hey, did you hear that?" Ruminal asked. The whispering voices didn't stop and every time Ruminal would turn towards them they bounce to another location. He couldn't make out what they were saying even with his heightened hearing. It was starting to freak him out but he remained strong. He just kept telling himself that they aren't real just another illusion but Ruminal couldn't really tell if it was the illusionist doing this or the village itself.

While Ruminal was being messed around by some mysterious whispers, Magna seemed preoccupied at looking around for some reason. Not only that but he put his hand to his knife again. It wasn't the first time Ruminal noticed him doing that and it got him wondering what that was about. Magna went on to talk about his last experience in this village. Apparently an event happens here every so often. It seemed like a kind of event for werewolves to gather to ride out there transformation till dawn so no one would get hurt. Normally its controlled but that time it wasn't, the werewolves went on a rampage. That would explain why this village is so damaged but Magna also mentioned that there was more damage done recently.

Magna couldn't hear any of this annoying whispers meaning it really was an illusion being cast specifically on Ruminal. However the moment Magna suggested Ruminal try to not ignore them entirely they suddenly stopped. Finally Ruminal could think again. "I think they have finally stopped. Thank god too, they were starting to give me a headache." He said giving off a sigh of relief. "So I've been meaning to ask you something." Ruminal started to say. "Why do you keep grabbing that knife on your waist?" It was a question Ruminal had been wanting to ask for a while now and felt it was now or never. "If its to personal then forget I mentioned it." He was curious but didn't want to dig into anything personal.

Was then that he heard someone laughing off in the distance. The voice was echoing all over the place making it impossible to determine where it was coming from. The laughter was that of a little girl. "Please say I'm not imagining this too."  Ruminal said grabbing Magna's legs as if trying to hide.

Magna told his story about the spirit within his knife. It was a spirit bound by oath and friendship to help keep him safe from harm. Sadly Magna hasn't seen or heard from  this spirit sense it saved him  from the werewolves last time he came to this village. Ruminal felt sad about Magna's story and hoped they be able to communicate again.

At least Magna could hear the laughter unlike the whispers  from earlier. Ruminal was starting to feel like he was going insane, but it turned out to be more illusions. However after what was coming next Ruminal would think Magna was the one going insane. He suggested that it would be better if they split up to search for the little girl. "Wait, WHAT!?" Ruminal said loudly and confused on where this became a good idea. As Ruminal continued to voice his opinion on this matter Magna kept going on with this plan. He handed Ruminal his precious knife and even cast a strength, speed, endurance, and stamina buff on him then left."Wait! Don't go!! When did this become a good idea and he's gone...." Magna left Ruminal standing there alone in a small broken down village named for how haunted it was. Not only that there was a serial killer on the loose.

Ruminal walked around the main road of the Village into the town square. He was quickly looking around all over the place making sure no one was going to sneak up on him. He was breathing fast and his heart was pounding out of his chest. Finally he took a deep breath to try and calm down. "Get a hold of yourself Ruminal. You can do this. Sure you can't fight but you sure can run. Remember you out ran over 30 vegetable demons at once!" Was then he heard something run by behind him in a dark ally way and he did a quick yell of surprise  and quickly turned. "Who's there! Show yourself!" As if he really expected whoever that was to just walk out and surrender. He inched his way towards the dark alleyway. He peeked his head around the corner and started to hear crying? Ruminal was to smart to fall for this old trick but he couldn't just ignore this either. "Why must I be such a goody goody...." He followed the crying till he saw the little girl just squatting in a corner crying her lungs out. Ruminal kept his distance not wanting to get close. He has her cornered but no way of keeping her there if she decided to attack. "A... Alright! Get up slowly and keep your hands where I can see them! Don't make me have to hurt you!" He said lying in order to try and end this peacefully. She didn't budged or respond to his commands. "I'm not coming over there! I wasn't born yesterday!" He yelled and yet she still didn't move. "Alright... How about we start by you telling me your name?"

"L... Lilith" She finally said. "Ok, Lilith. Are you the one who took down that small guild all by yourself?" She nodded her head a couple of times while still sitting down sobbing. "Why you do it?"

"I had no choice. It made me do it"

"Who made you do it?"

She finally stopped crying at this point and managed to get up on her feet however she was still facing away from Ruminal. He was expecting the little girl to turn around showing her true evil colors but that wasn't the case. She turned round slowly face red and wet from all her crying and said.pointing behind him. "He did." Ruminal's heart skipped a beat and broke out in a cold sweet. He slowly turned his head and saw! A teddy bear laying on the ground. Ruminal took a big sigh of relief. But when he turned back towards the little girl she was standing right in front of him and was covered in shadow energies and her teeth were like a sharks.. He yelled as loud as he could and fell backwards onto the ground and tried to crawl away as fast as he could but it was too late. Lilith cast some kind of illusion spell that bound Ruminal in chains, he was trapped.

Just as Ruminal thought he was done for Magna swooped in to save the day. He jumped down from the rooftops and firmly landed a double kick to Lilith's rib cage however she didn't move from her position. Just when Ruminal thought he could breath easy again Lilith twisted her head around to look at Magna with an her eerie smile. "It's about time, I was getting bored." It seemed as if she conjured some more of her chains and had them around Magna's ankles keeping him from landing the blow. In one swift motion she spun Magna around like a rag doll and sent him flying into the back part of the  alleyway. "Magna!" Ruminal shouted trying to get up but the chains around his arms and legs wouldn't give. It was as if his arm's and legs didn't want to move.

Lilith laughed maniacally at Magna's pathetic attempt to catch her off guard. She walked over to where Ruminal was being held down and grabbed her teddy bear. "Let's play some more!" She spoke raising her free hand into the air. Suddenly the chains that bound Ruminal began to lift him up onto his feet. A chain appeared in Lilith's hand that was connected to all the chains on Ruminal and she lashed her arm down and Ruminal charges head first towards Magna. "Hey what's going on!" Ruminal yelled. Lilith was controlling Ruminal's body with the illusionary chains and forcing him to attack Magna. If one would look closely enough, they would see that Lilith's teddy bear's eye's were glowing with a purple light. "This is my Crippled Soul spell. The chains are like puppet strings and your the puppet!" She explained laughing her evil little laugh. "You two thought you could come here and beat me? You're easier to toy with then that weak guild."

It was a nice attempt, opening a hole in the ground in order to trap Ruminal so they didn't have to fight each other would have been a good move in any other situation. Unfortunately for this situation, falling into a pit wasn't a solution. Thanks to the chains around Ruminal's wrists and ankles working like puppet strings, Lilith was able to suspend Ruminal in the air preventing him from falling. That didn't stop Magna though, while Lilith was busy trying to save Ruminal so the fight could continue the chief leaped into the air and propelled himself via his gauntlets in an arc to try and slam into the teddy bear. Magna had a blade extend from his wrist to try and pierce the bear but once more Lilith was one step ahead of him. Chains spawned to block him attacks once again. They bound themselves to Magna's arm forcing him off course and onto the ground. Magna wasn't going to take this lying down however, pun intended!!! He twirled his leg around and struck the teddy bear right out of Lilith's hand and sent it sliding down the alleyway.

Meanwhile, Ruminal was suspended in mid air trying to break free of his chains. It was no use, he used every trick the could think of but to no avail. He was floating in mid around just off ground level above the pit Magna had made earlier. He watched as Magna tried to do his best to free him. Once Magna managed to knock the bear out of Lilith's hand Ruminal yelled out in joy "Yah! Nice going Magna!" However the chains around Ruminal's arms and legs didn't vanish like he'd hoped. It seems that the bear wasn't her medium for her magic after all. Outraged that Magna hurt her toy bear she took a more firm grip on the chain that was connected to Ruminal and lashed it down towards Magna while jumping back a distance. As a result Ruminal began to move again and began to fly towards Magna while pulling out the knife he gave to Rumi earlier. The knife lunged forth right before Ruminal got to Magna, it was speeding right for his heart! Ruminal closed his eyes not wanting to watch how this unfolds fearing that he might end the life of a new friend.

Magna successfully managed to block Ruminal's unwanted attack and free him from his chains. Ruminal was relieved to finally have them removed, he didn't want to harm a friend by any means. Now that he was free he was mad and ready to finish this fight. Lilith was bearless and out numbered two to one. She could still access her magic even though the bear was blown down the alleyway a bit behind Ruminal and Magna. With them blocking the path to the bear victory was almost assured. Magna made wanted to make sure Ruminal kept a keen eye out for more chains and any other tricks she might have up her sleeves. "Don't worry, I won't fall for the same trick twice." He replied. Also while they had a moment to breath, Ruminal kicked Magna in the chin. "That was for leaving me alone!" The kick wouldn't hurt  as much as it looked but it still make Ruminal feel better. "Next time warn me when you want to use me as bait."

While this was going on Lilith was slowly backing up into the dead end part of the alleyway, smiling like nothing has changed. "It's over, surrender now and we wont hurt you." Ruminal offered. He knew full well she wouldn't surrender but at the least it would make Ruminal feel better knowing he  gave her the  option. "You should know better then to corner a wild animal, they have a tendency to show there teeth." She said mockingly. Ruminal kept his eye's on her ready for her to make the first move. Suddenly she slowly raised her right arm and pointed behind them. Ruminal's eye's narrowed, last time she pulled this trick it was her bear behind him. "I'm not falling for tha..." Was then that Ruminal questioned something, how did that bear get there last time? It wasn't there when he walked in. He remembered the first job he went on after first coming to this world, him and his father went to investigate some strange toys that could move on there own. He quickly glanced back to the bear and it was standing on its own feet glowing that sinister purple aura. "Magna! The bear is alive!" It was too late however, the energies the bear was charging up unleashed and enveloped both Ruminal and Magna. The strange thing was, it didn't seem to do anything. Ruminal had a bad feeling about this. Suddenly an afterimage walked out of Ruminal and Magna then took a solid form. The bear cloned them, created a pair of illusion that resemble them both.

Ruminal looked back at the girl but she was gone and when he looked back at the bear so was it. An echo of the little girls voice could be heard then "Let's see how well you fair against yourselves!" She taunted laughing maniacally. The Ruminal clone looked exactly like the original however you can see the difference with the clones eyes. They were black as the void, empty as a hallow shell. It started to laugh as well while Ruminal was looking it over. "Your pathetic, I'm so glad to finally be free of you. No matter how hard you try you will never be any use to anyone." It spoke attacking Ruminal with its words. "Let's find out then." Ruminal replied getting ready for the fight that was about to go down.

Ruminal charged at his clone, with only one offensive spell under his belt that did little damage he was  left with just his fists to fight. His clone was in the same boat with nothing but support spells and there fists. His clone, which will now be called shadow, stood there as Ruminal threw the first punch of the fight. Ruminal hit his shadow square in the face. Shadow just smiled "That all you got?" Ruminal kept up his attacks punching his shadow multiple times aiming for his face and chest area's. Again Shadow just stood there taking every blow not moving from his spot. No matter how many times Ruminal punched him he wasn't going to move and it kept a disappointed look on his face. Ruminal jumped back suddenly. He had a worried look on this face. "What's going on? I can't be this weak?" Ruminal thought to himself. Shadow spat out some blood before saying "You are weak, until you give in to it that's all you will ever be." Ruminal knew what he was talking about. "That's not going to happen. I don't need it to beat you."

"Then allow me to show you  what you could be capable of." The Shadow replied. He leaned forward slightly and soon after his body began to alter. His hands became claws, teeth replaced by fangs, skin darkened and had that familiar symbol appear on this forehead however instead of red it was black. His hear grew longer down to his mid back. Ruminal stood strong ready for what his shadow was going to happen next. Shadow charged forth faster then ever, he grabbed Ruminal by his face and slammed him threw the back wall into the broken down house. The assault didn't stop there, while still holding onto Ruminal his shadow kept going till they passed straight through the whole building and made there way to the main streets on the other side. Once there Shadow threw Ruminal across the street. Ruminal got up slowly, his head was ringing like a bell and bleeding in multiple places. "Now we can get some privae."