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Job Sign-Up: Page 8, Post Number 197

-Outside Silent Cemetery-

It had barely been a day since the brouhaha at Haunted Guild with the cult attempting to bring Infernal Lord Zupazu back onto the physical plane by sacrificing virgins and Victoria's help had been requested by the Order of Lightbringers for a second time to deal with more cult activity. According to what the Order's letter had told her, the same cult that had taken over the Haunted Guild had now went underground in Silent Cemetery... literally. The holy order suspected that the cult had long ago set up a crypt as a backup headquarters and were now making use of it after being driven out of the Haunted Guild stronghold. It was up to Victoria and her Order partners to find that crypt and shut down the cult's operations for a second time.

Wearing her Steel Matron t-shirt under the Azure Armor with a black skirt and white tennis shoes plus the Silver Dagger on her left hip, Victoria stood outside the gates of Silent Cemetery waiting for her team to arrive. She was kind of hoping that she would get Amberlin as part of the team so that she could thank the pink-haired cleric for trying to rein in Serena the other day. The brunette listened to the howling of the wind and felt it blow around her ponytail while she waited for her partners to arrive so that they could go into Silent Cemetery, find the crypt, and play Whack-A-Cult. Victoria had the feeling that even if they were driven out of this secondary headquarters, the cult already had another backup headquarters ready to go in some remote location. Fortunately the Sabertooth mage was used to lengthy chases; the hunt for Alexander Kerwes took her to three islands and consumed several months before finally ending in Sin, a fact that the the tall brunette found to be grimly amusing.

-Thirty minutes later-

Victoria had been standing outside the gates for thirty minutes waiting on the Order team to arrive when she felt magic signatures approaching from behind. The brunette turned around to find a pair of people approaching; one of them was in predominantly white garb and armed with a fancy golden spear while the other was a short redhead in predominantly red garb. She recognized the spear-wielding chick as the cleric named Athena, but who was the short chick in red?

"Hi Victoria. It's been awhile!" Athena greeted the brunette warmly.

"Hey Athena. It's been awhile since that adventure in Sombras Manor!" Victoria answered back. She recalled meeting the tall redhead for the first time at Sombras Manor when Amberlin and Serena called for help from a senior cleric to banish the tome that the souls of the manor's staff had been bound to guard by a cult. Victoria wondered if the cult that had killed Sombras Manor's staff was the same cult that had taken over Haunted Guild. It was only a hypothesis since the tome in the manor basement had belonged to Infernal Lord Zupazu and the Haunted Guild cult had tried to sacrifice virgins to the same demon lord. It was a tangential connection, but one that might be worth following up on.

"You've gotten taller and curvier since the last time we met. Don't worry, I don't think you're a succubus!" Athena said, making a reference to Serena's name for Victoria. Victoria sort of laughed at the name.

"Though you are hot, I'm not going to lie." Athena muttered to herself. Victoria blushed and looked at Athena, who quickly changed the subject and introduced the red-clad redhead who had been keeping her distance from the pair. The redhead had a steel hammer on her shoulder that had seen a lot of use over the years.

"Victoria, meet Order Knight Jessica." The cleric introduced the Sabertooth mage to the redhead. The redhead walked right up to Victoria and extended her left hand for a handshake. Victoria took it and they shook hands.

"I'm Order Knight Jessica. Ready to kick some cultist ass?" Jessica asked Victoria after they had shaken hands. Victoria could tell that she was going to like this knight already.

"I'm ready." Victoria said laconically. The trio heard moaning come from inside the cemetery gates. That meant only one thing... zombies.

"Well ladies, it looks like we woke the dead." Athena commented dryly.

"Have you ever been here before, Victoria?" The redhead asked Victoria.

"It's not my first rodeo. I've been here a few times before. One time I took on a necromancer by myself and won." Victoria remarked to Jessica. Zombies were the same everywhere the brunette went. They were personal space invaders with bad hygiene and a walking speed that could best be described as glacial. They also went down from a bullet to the head just like a lot of living things. Zombies were the least of her worries.

"I think that the cult raised the zombies as an early warning system. There's so many of them that stealth isn't possible, so we'll just have to force our way through them." Athena opined. Victoria did not entirely agree with that opinion. In her experience the dead interred in Silent Cemetery tended to rise without the "help" of outside influences.

"I think they just got up on their own because that's what corpses in Silent Cemetery do. But I agree with you about stealth being pointless. There's no point in bothering when there's so many standing around that we can't sneak by them, so let's just bash our way through 'em!" Jessica chimed in. Victoria was starting to like her even more.

"I agree with you guys." Victoria added simply and succinctly. She was not good at stealth partially because of her straightforward personality and partially because of her magic. It was hard to suppress the loud roar of a Shotgun, the rapid chattering of a Light Machine Gun, or the WHOOSH of a Rocket Launcher, after all.

Now that the planning phase was over, it was time to get this show on the road. Athena walked over to the cemetery gate and opened it.

"Ladies first." She commented dryly. Victoria brought out her Light Machine Gun and went through first, followed by Jessica holding her hammer at the ready. Once they had went through Athena went last and firmly shut the gate behind them so that none of the undead could get out after the trio had moved deeper into the cemetery. Now that they were in Silent Cemetery it was time to start tracking the cult to their new lair and shut it down.

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-Inside the cemetery-

Once the trio was inside it did not take very long for the action to start. A zombie in a tattered brown suit shuffled towards Jessica and the diminutive knight charged towards it. She delivered a jumping downward swing that connected with the top of its head and the result was... messy. There was a spray of brain matter and blood that was nothing short of disgusting, but that mess did not dampen Jessica's spirit at all.

"YEAH!" Jessica exclaimed as if she had just won the lottery. Athena, not content to let the knight have all the fun, twirled her spear about with both hands and eventually pointed the tip of the spear at the head of a female zombie dressed in a mildewed white wedding dress. The cleric held the spear level with its head while the spearhead glowed gold; once the spell was ready Athena fired a beam of light that disintegrated the target zombie along with another female zombie wearing a wedding dress following behind the first and two more zombies beside the second before the beam faded.

"Showoffs." Victoria said jokingly. She did not have their powerful Holy magic or ability to fire ranged spells through melee weapons, but she had plenty of ranged weapons in her arsenal and she shared their enthusiasm for a good fight. Victoria raised her Light Machine Gun and aimed it at the head of a zombie in a tattered black burial suit, then fired a ten-round burst that nearly tore its head off but still killed it. More zombies approached them, but the trio was not worried at all. Jessica, Athena, and Victoria had more than enough firepower to take them all on and win.

Jessica led off with a jumping downward swing to the head of a teenage zombie wearing an old faded band t-shirt and blue jeans, smashing his skull in. She followed up with a repeat performance on an elderly zombie in a moth-eaten brown suit and then added another elderly zombie wearing an intact blue suit to her tally. Athena held out her hands and muttered an incantation before firing a burst of Divine Seeker orbs like Serena had done in Haunted Guild less than a day ago. The six orbs sought out six zombies and hit them in the head, bringing them down almost all at once with a coordinated strike that convinced Victoria that Athena was just showing off. The Sabertooth mage noticed that Athena had fired only six Divine Seekers but had aimed them at the heads of her targets, making her wonder if Athena's version fired only six in exchange for greater control over them or if that the caster could choose how many to fire and where they were aimed.

Victoria did not have time to ask the cleric's secret because there were still a few zombies left on their feet and shuffling towards her. She raised her LMG and took on the ones approaching her with a few ten-round bursts of the weapon, carefully measuring the bursts so that the recoil did not affect her aim too badly. She dropped one zombie in a white wedding dress and turned to another one in a black suit with a top hat before firing at it and sending it to the ground with holes in its head. A third one got to within ten meters of her and the brunette fired a Five-Round Burst to the head that sent it sprawling backwards onto the dirt. A fourth zombie went down with a Five-Round Burst to the head and Jessica leapt up to smash the skull of a fifth who had made the mistake of going after her.

Athena held her hands out and fired off another burst of six Divine Seekers that homed in on the heads of six separate zombies and connected at almost the same time. Victoria eliminated two more zombies and Jessica took out the last one to secure the area for the time being. She was pretty sure that the noise of the fracas would draw in more flesh-eating corpses, but again the trio had more than enough firepower to take them on and win.

"That was fun!" Jessica exclaimed, performing a golf swing with her hammer that hit empty air.

"Don't get tired just yet, Jessica. We've still got a lot of cemetery to cover before we find the cult's new headquarters." Athena reminded Jessica to save her energy for the main event.

"We're off to a good start, but we've got a lot of ground to cover. And zombies might not be the only things out here." Victoria seconded Athena's opinion and added her own reminder that more than just dead people were out here.

"Eh, it doesn't matter what they do. We can take whatever that cult throws at us!" Jessica asserted. Victoria let the subject drop as the trio got on the move after defeating the first wave of fetid sentries. The trio formed a single-file line and walked between the tombstones with Victoria leading the way, Jessica in the middle, and Athena bringing up the rear.

The trio walked down the path in front of them while looking out for more zombies, more undead of different types, or even a cultist or two who thought that they could handle the combined might of two Order mages and Sabertooth's second-strongest mage. They passed by the tombstones without incident and found themselves standing at a branch in the path. They could either go left or they could go right.

"Which way do we go?" Victoria asked the Order mages.

"There's so much dark energy in this cemetery that it's hard to get an exact fix on where to go. Hang on a moment and let us see if we can't detect a higher concentration of it in one direction or the other. Athena requested. Victoria obliged and stayed where she was, looking around for trouble while the knight and the cleric used their ability to detect evil to get a fix on where the cult's new headquarters could be. It might take awhile for them to get a direction, but it was not like the brunette really had anything better to be doing. She was being paid well by the Order for her time and effort, so she would stay focused on the task at hand and play Whack-A-Cult for as long as it took until they were defeated once and for all.

That could take awhile because they had survived one beating at Haunted Guild and neither Victoria nor the Order of Lightbringers knew the cult's exact numbers or the locations of all their bases. That meant that the brunette and the Order would be busy for quite awhile trying to stop the cult before they summoned Infernal Lord Zupazu or another demon into the world. Victoria would keep at the task until it was done because a demon manifesting on the physical plane would be bad news for everyone in Earthland.

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[Total Word Count: 2,272/11,000]

The trio stood at the fork in the path trying to figure out which way to go. Since she lacked the ability to do so, the Sabertooth mage was relying on her Order companions to sift through the dark energy all around them and determine the approximate direction of the cult headquarters. She kept a watch for zombies, cultists, or any other threats to come their way, but so far all Victoria had seen was the sight of nothing but tombstones and the occasional lantern light flickering in the distance. There was no wildlife around, but it probably would have been zombified anyway because the Cursed Lands were just that... cursed.

"We've almost got a fix on a dark energy reading that stands out from the rest. It'll take just a few more minutes." Athena announced to break the silence. Victoria was on the edge of hope when she heard that getting an exact location would take a few more minutes. The brunette swallowed her disappointment and looked around again for trouble. She did not see any, but she heard a bellowing noise in the distance that sounded faintly like a bull. The noise came from off to the right.

"Ya hear that?" Jessica asked Victoria, readying her hammer for action.

"I heard it." Victoria replied succinctly, facing right and aiming her Light Machine Gun down the dark path. The brunette waited for the sound to ring out again and soon heard it. The more she thought about it, the more the noise sounded familiar.

"You act like you've heard that noise before, Victoria. What is it?" Athena asked the brunette.

"I think it's one of those pink Bull Demon things. I fought some of them in an arena when I helped Amberlin and Minerva save Serena from Sombras Manor a few months ago." Victoria told the pair the circumstances under which she had encountered them. Jessica looked at the taller mage.

"Bull Demons, huh? I fought them in Fat Monsterland a few months ago alongside a blonde mage who wore a green, white, and gold outfit and carried a silver sword." Jessica explained how she had known about them. Victoria thought that the blonde mage in green, white, and gold sounded familiar but could not quite place a name to her. Oh well. She looked down the right path and waited for one or more of those living pink battering rams to come stampeding down the path looking to trample the trio into crimson paste. Much like the animals they were named after, Bull Demons traveled in herds, which made fighting them difficult because one could act as a bullet sponge while the others closed in to trample their prey to death.

"Yeah. I hate those things. They're faster than they look and they hit hard too. A hit from one of them bruised my left ribcage and that was with me wearing this armor. My ribs would have been completely broken if I hadn't been wearing armor." Victoria told Jessica how much she detested the Bull Demons. Jessica nodded in agreement.

"I've managed to narrow down the dark energy signature of their underground headquarters. It's somewhere on the path to our right." Athena announced to Jessica and Victoria. The two silently rejoiced when they heard that news. Their joy was short-lived when they heard the bellowing noise again.

"Looks like we're just gonna have to fight through those Bull Demons if we want to get to that crypt. Let's get going. I'll take the lead for this one!" Jessica said to her companions. Jessica took the lead while Victoria walked in the middle and Athena brought up the rear. The trio traveled down the path that Athena had determined would lead them to their destination and watched for zombies or the Bull Demons they had heard bellowing in the distance.

-Down the right path, ten minutes later-

The trio had been walking among tombstones for quite some time now and had not spotted either zombies or the demons. Victoria was getting more than a bit worried. She had been hearing them but had not seen a single sign of one. Jessica was getting anxious too and looked around for the large and muscular beasts.

"They're really aggressive and charge at the sight of humans. Normally those things would be stampeding at us by now. Where are they?" Jessica asked. Victoria only shrugged her shoulders. Athena pointed down the path just ahead of them. The trio strained their eyes and could see approaching shadows that had open mouths, horns on the head, and hunched-over postures. They began to hear the thundering footsteps of a herd of their quarry.

"There they are." Athena snarked. Victoria raised her LMG to fire and waited until one was within sight before firing. She did not have long to wait because a herd of ten soon thundered out of the shadows and stampeded towards the trio without heed for their own lives. the brunette's weapon began chattering as Athena stepped forward and fired a burst of six Divine Seekers. The Bull Demon Victoria was shooting kept charging but was starting to slow down under the numerous wounds the LMG's withering rate of fire produced.

After five more seconds of sustained fire the Bull Demon had finally had enough and fell to the ground never to move again, but nine of them still remained. The Divine Seekers fired by Athena had done some damage, but the homing projectiles mostly pissed them off and gave them even more reason to close with the mages and try to bite their faces off. The pink demons were within five meters of the mages.

"Now it's my turn!" Jessica said, her hammer glowing gold. She stepped forward and jumped to deliver a downward swing, catching the demon on the top of the head and driving its face into the dirt in a display of power that killed the demon. Jessica withdrew the hammer from the top of its head and faced off against another Bull Demon that had picked up the gauntlet; it charged and Jessica jumped to the side to avoid it. The others streamed by the two combatants to close with Victoria and Athena, which meant that the brunette would have to start using her Beam Cannon spell for quick kills... she dispelled her LMG to free her hands to use her most powerful spell.

"Up for some bullfighting?" Athena quipped before twirling her spear in both hands and channeling magic into the spearhead.

"Eh, why not? I'm game." Victoria quipped back, putting her hands together and forming them into the shape of a gun to prepare a Beam Cannon spell.

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Victoria had just put her hands together for the Beam Cannon when one of the pink demons got the bright idea to charge at her. The brunette took careful aim and fired the spell, punching through its skull and downing it in a single shot. It skidded to a halt approximately a meter from her, but not before plowing the earth with its face. Meanwhile Jessica was still facing her opponent, but she was not worried at all. She had jumped over another charge by her opponent, then spun around and delivered a jumping downward swing to the face just as the demon turned around to locate its red-clad quarry. The demon did not stand a chance against the hammer driven into its skull with all the force the knight could put into the blow.

The CRUNCH of bone breaking went through the air, but Victoria did not have time to celebrate the Order knight's victory because another pink bull thing had singled her out and was charging around the corpse of its fallen friend. Victoria backed up and started to ready another Beam Cannon spell when Athena stepped in front of her and pointed her spear at it, then fired a wide beam of Holy magic that completely engulfed the demon and turned it to dust. A third demon charged at Athena, but Victoria stepped around the Order cleric, dropped to a knee, and fired the Beam Cannon spell directly between the eyes, dropping it like a sack of potatoes.

"Nice shot." Athena praised Victoria for her swift intervention... not that Athena really needed rescuing.

"Thanks." Victoria answered laconically. She prepared another Beam Cannon when the remaining bull demons abruptly turned from the trio and retreated, stampeding away before any of the mages could muster a response. The trio was utterly confused by their sudden retreat.

"I don't know what's going on here. Normally those demons don't run away from anything and fight to the end no matter how it goes for them, but they just ran away from us. This is weird." Jessica opined to Athena and Victoria.

"They ran away, but not because we're the best demon slayers they've ever seen. Someone's got to be pulling their strings, maybe the high-ranking cultist who summoned them. Why else would they run away when they still had a slight numerical advantage against us?" Athena asked her colleagues. Victoria shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't get it either, but this is only my second encounter with them, so I don't know what to expect from them other than for them to charge at us and try to get close enough to bite our heads off." Victoria told them the extent of her knowledge about demon behavior. She was not educated in the subject but had seen enough of the dark arts used against her to know that they were not something to be trifled with. It was one subject where the brunette believed that ignorance was bliss. She was sure that her Order partners would readily agree with that.

"That's the short and long of how Bull Demons behave. Now let's follow them and see where they went!" Jessica said to her colleagues before shouldering her hammer and going in the direction that the retreating demons had went. Athena and Victoria followed close behind the red-clad knight so that her eagerness for battle did not get her in too much trouble. The trio went straight ahead and heard the sound of moaning in the distance, which meant that more zombies were nearby.

-Ten minutes later-

"Hey guys, looks like we've found enough zombies for a Greg Morreo movie." Athena snarked. Victoria laughed a little before turning her attention to the gaggle of four dozen zombies that barred their path. Jessica brought her hammer down into a ready position and Victoria brought out her LMG, but Athena impatiently stepped in front of them both and pointed her spear directly at the mass of zombies and channeled Holy magic into it. Once it was ready Athena fired the same wide beam that she had used on the Bull Demon earlier, but this time she sustained it as the cleric swept the path clear of the shambling corpses. Jessica let out a long whistle when she saw that all four dozen of them had been disintegrated.

"I didn't know you could do that, Athena. When did you learn to sustain the Holy Beam spell?" Jessica asked Athena, who casually twirled her spear in her right hand. Athena then dropped to one knee and began breathing heavily.

"Eh... it was a trick that I learned a few years. Ago. From Father Morris. I don't do it very often. Because it's taxing." Athena answered in between deep breaths. Victoria wondered why Athena had used such a powerful spell on a gaggle of dime-a-dozen walking corpses instead of blasting the Bull Demons into dust. The reasons were undoubtedly her own, so Victoria did not really question it. She shouldered her LMG and waited for Athena to recover from the exertion of the spell before putting another foot forward.

"I can tell. I didn't know that it was even possible." Jessica said to the cleric. Using her spear as support, Athena soon got to her feet looking none the worse for wear other than a light coat of sweat on her brow. Victoria saw that the orange-haired cleric did not need any medical attention, so she stayed where she was and kept a watch out for trouble while Athena used her ability to detect dark magic to point out their next destination. The brunette thought that their path was pretty obvious, but she kept quiet and let the Order mages do what they did best.

"OK, we keep going straight. The dark magic is strongest in that direction." Athena told the trio as she took the lead again. Jessica fell in the middle and Victoria brought up the rear. Together they would go deeper into Silent Cemetery and find the cult's new headquarters, then serve them an eviction notice before they could bring Infernal Lord Zupazu or another demon lord into the world. At least that was the plan. Plans had a peculiar way of being derailed by things that one could not account for, such as more zombies than usual roaming the cemetery or demons that were a lot smarter than they looked, if only because someone smarter was controlling them.

Oh well.

No one ever said that stopping a cult hellbent on bringing a demon lord into the world would be easy. If it were easy the Order of Lightbringers would already be out of a job. They would probably like nothing more than to be able to stop hunting demons and those who summoned them, but until that day came they would stay the course and try to limit demonic incursions into Earthland the best they could.

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-Twenty minutes later, deep in Silent Cemetery-

The two Order mages and Victoria had moved deeper into Silent Cemetery without encountering much opposition to speak of other than the odd walking corpse that had mistaken them for a meal and had caught a bullet to the head for their trouble. Victoria and Jessica were surprised by the lack of serious opposition... they had expected the Bull Demons to return, a large army of the undead, or even some cultists to show up to try and stop them. Athena appeared to have more sensitivity to dark energy than Jessica, so the orange-haired cleric was leading the way to the cult's supposed underground headquarters.

"We shoulda found them by now. I wonder how deep they are in the cemetery?" Jessica asked Athena.

"I'd say that they took over an underground crypt, but I'm not really sure which one. This whole cemetery is saturated with dark energy, so it's like finding a needle in a haystack." Athena replied to the knight's question. Victoria felt compelled to weigh in on the subject.

"That's probably why they chose this place as their new headquarters. They knew the Order of Lightbringers would come looking for them, so they set up shop in a place that would be hard to find them in." Victoria chimed in with an opinion that was not exactly insightful but was nevertheless a good reason for the cult to set up shop all the way out here. Aside from the dark energy that saturated the area and made getting their exact location difficult, the remote location also worked in their favor. Only the strong or the brave would dare enter Silent Cemetery for any reason, which made stopping intruders a cinch.

"I'd say so too, Vic. It's not like they could just set up shop in the back alleys of Capital Crocus and expect to thrive. It's way too obvious that there's something funny going on when all the homeless people start to disappear 'cause the cult's taking them as sacrifices. At some point the authorities would have to investigate what's going on, if only to keep the cult from getting funny ideas about taking the "good" people as sacrifices once the homeless are all gone." Jessica opined in return. Victoria frowned when she heard Jessica's statement about the homeless being taken as sacrifices since few people really cared about them just as long as they stayed out of sight. It also hinted that the Capital Crocus police would only care when the "good" people of Capital Crocus started to disappear, a statement which was ugly but true.

"I wouldn't put it past 'em, Jessica. There's a lot of homeless people in Capital Crocus and the authorities care more about keeping them out of the nice parts of town than making sure that some cult's not kidnapping them for sacrifices. Unless the Order caught on and stopped the cult immediately, by the time the authorities caught on demons and cultists would already be riding on parade floats through the city's streets." Victoria said to Jessica, adding a large dash of cynicism about Capital Crocus police's lack of concern for anyone who did not have money. Her cynicism was showing, but the brunette did not care. Capital Crocus had a lot of institutional rot beneath the glitz and glamor. Many of the city's "best and brightest" were morally compromised people who cared more about enriching themselves and moving in the right social circles than turning Capital Crocus into the wonderful place it could be, but the Sabertooth mage was not one to dwell on utopian ideals. She thought of Fiore's capital as a nice place to visit, but it was not somewhere she cared to live again if she could help it.

Athena led them towards a large and nondescript stone crypt that dominated the center of the right cemetery fence. The Order knight and the Sabertooth mage followed her towards it and carefully walked down the stairs. Victoria dispelled her Light Machine Gun so that falling down the stairs did not result in anyone getting shot... besides, she was not sure if she would have enough room to wield the weapon once they entered the crypt. Many crypts tended to be old and not designed for combat in mind, which made it tough going for intruders looking to stop the cult.

Once all three mages were at the bottom Athena paused outside the door and spoke to her colleagues.

"I have a feeling that this is the crypt we're looking for. The dark energy coming from here's slightly stronger than the dark energy in the environment, so I think we should check this out." Athena said before pushing on the door. The door opened without any resistance and the trio went into the underground crypt to try and stop the cult before it could bring their patron into the world. Victoria was not sure whether to bring out her Shotgun or Submachine Gun for the close-quarters fighting that was almost certain to ensue.

-In the catacombs-

Athena raised her right hand and called upon an orb of golden light that drifted up into the air and hovered just above her head, bathing the immediate area in golden light. The trio looked around and saw that there were skeletons lying in individual alcoves carved into the stone walls. The corridor ahead of them was so narrow that it could only accommodate a single person or a group that walked in single-file, which made it hard to traverse but easy for the cult to defend.

"Well, the catacombs aren't gonna explore themselves. Let's get going." Athena whispered to try and preserve what little stealth the trio had left. In between the noise of the fighting above ground, the encounter with the Bull Demons that they suspected were directly controlled by the cult, and the glowing golden light above Athena's head, the trio was not exactly going to win the "Stealthiest Team In Earthland" award this month. Still, a golden light that gave them away to anyone who could see was better than no light. Who knew what unpleasant surprises the cult had waiting for them deeper in the catacombs?

The group moved forward at a careful pace while watching the skeletons in case they took umbrage to the trio's presence and decided to get up and do something about it. So far the dead remained where they were and the group explored unhindered. As they approached the end of the corridor they saw the cult's black banner featuring two crossed executioner's axes behind a smiling crimson skull hanging in front of them.

"According to a few documents the Order recovered from the Haunted Guild, the cult calls itself Zupazu's Executioners." Athena chimed in with a bit of occult lore while pointing towards the banner. Ordinarily Victoria did not care about cults beyond how much magic or lead it took to kill their members, but now she had a name to call them by. "Zupazu's Executioners" sounded like something out of a comic book, but the cult's goal was no joke. They were looking to bring a demon lord onto the physical plane and make him the ruler of the world.

"Why Zupazu's Executioners?" Jessica asked what Victoria was thinking.

"They see themselves as sacrificing society's parasites to bring their patron into this world. They think that they're doing the world a favor by getting rid of the weak and useless to usher in a demon-controlled world where only the strong survive." Athena explained. Victoria could not believe the load of bull fecal matter that had been dropped at her feet. The cult was being played like a kazoo and they were blind to it. Demons did not share power with anyone, let alone humans.

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"Yeah, like a demon's gonna share power with a bunch of humans. From what I know, demons are proud and don't like to share anything they think is theirs. If Zupazu takes the world, he's not gonna share it with the cult... unless they wanna be his slaves." Victoria snarked. The brunette was not educated in demon lore like her two Order partners, but one conversation with Infernal Lord Zupazu beneath Hargeon Town during the job that earned her her Azure Armor told her all she needed to know about demon lords. Demons were proud beings who considered themselves superior to humans and saw humans only as prey or as playthings. Victoria was no demon slayer like the Order of Lightbringers, but she had banished Infernal Lord Zupazu back to the demon realm for one hundred years and had thwarted an early resurrection only days ago, so she was fairly confident in her ability to send demons packing. Maybe that was why the Order kept requesting her help on matters such as this one.

"You're right, Vic. Their patron's playing them like a kazoo and they don't see it. Either they don't want to see it or they're deluded enough to believe that a demon lord's actually going to honor his promises to them." Athena chimed in. Jessica soon added her opinion.

"Or maybe before they joined the cult their lives were so bad that helping a demon get into the world couldn't make things any worse for them then they already were. Desperation makes people do a lot of strange things." Jessica mused. That statement struck a cord with Victoria, who once upon a time had lived on the streets in Capital Crocus and had to do some things she was not proud of to stay alive. She recalled the days of eating out of trash cans and stealing food from street vendors when there was no other choice and she was one of the lucky ones. Others in her place stole from the wealthy, which was something she avoided doing at all costs because when that happened the police were roused from their lethargy and hunted the thief with much more effort than they put into protecting the poor from abuse. That was as far as the brunette wanted to think about that subject.

"You can say that again." Victoria said cryptically. She did not like to talk very much about her past. She also did not see how willingly bringing a demon lord into the world would help anything, but she knew from firsthand experience that desperation made people do very strange and very stupid things. When one felt that they were about to die they would do anything to stay alive no matter how questionable it was. Victoria hated to think about what could have been so bad in the cultists' lives that willingly summoning a demon lord could not make things any worse for them... that had to be a special kind of despair they were going through.

"Let's keep going. There's a path to the right." Athena said to Jessica and Victoria, pointing towards an open passageway. Athena led the way and Jessica and Victoria followed behind her, pushing deeper into the cult's underground lair. Victoria wondered what they would face the deeper they pushed into the narrow catacombs.

-Deeper in the catacombs-

The trio wound their way through the catacombs and eventually ended up in a large room that had more wall alcoves with skeletons lying in them. The room was about 25 meters long and 25 meters wide, a size which was unusual for catacombs only meant to house the dead. Either Zupazu's Executioners had long ago chosen this place as a backup base and altered it accordingly or they had lucked out when picking an underground base to occupy after the Haunted Guild was lost to them.

The trio finally had room to move, so they spread out and stood side-by-side while they got the lay of the land. There was not much to see other than skeletons reclining in wall alcoves and the occasional cult banner on the wall along with blood red torches lighting the room. The trio started to walk towards the door on the other end of the room when iron bars came up from the floor and blocked both doors. Moments later pink orbs appeared behind them and dropped in a herd of Bull Demons for them to contend with; the herd was fifteen strong and all of them looked pissed.

"Hey, the Bull Demons from earlier came back!" Jessica exclaimed.

"I wish they'd have stayed gone." Victoria snidely remarked. It was one thing to fight them out in the open. It was another thing to fight them in an enclosed space, even if said space was somewhat generous. The trio would have their hands full.

"It's been almost an hour since something last tried to kill us. Nothing lasts forever." Athena brought her own brand of sarcasm to the table. The trio readied their chosen weapons and the Bull Demons bellowed before charging the mages. Victoria powered up a Beam Cannon spell and fired, bringing one down with a shot through the head, but two more charged around the body and rushed at her like muscular pink heat-seeking missiles. Victoria stood her ground and started to prepare another Beam Cannon spell, but they were closing in too fast, so she stopped and instead opted for another spell. Meanwhile Jessica and Athena did the best they could to stem the demonic tide that threatened to sweep them away.

Jessica jumped into the air and brought her hammer down with both hands, smashing in the skull of a Bull Demon who made the mistake of getting too close. Two more homed in on her and the red-headed knight was forced to take a few steps back to avoid being caught in the jaws of her aggressors. Athena had already dispatched one demon with a spear through the head and gracefully leaped over a second who had charged her. Victoria did not have time to see the rest of what happened because two of the demons were looking to take a bite out of her, so she used a Shockwave Punch to generate a bright light and a concentrated cone of sound that disoriented the second demon long enough for her to flee the third demon before it could get to her.

Victoria met Jessica while running and began preparing a Beam Cannon spell to hit back with, but like with Minerva almost a month ago, Athena's acrobatic act would make hitting the demons difficult because there was no telling if the Order cleric would land where Victoria planned to shoot. The brunette held her fire and continued to run for it alongside Jessica until the opportunity to fire presented itself. Suddenly Victoria stopped, aimed at one of Jessica's pursuers, and fired, drilling it through the side of the head and dropping it to the floor. Jessica in turn turned around and dropped the hammer on the other demon chasing her, killing it with one powerful hammer blow.

Five Bull Demons were dead, but ten were still up and running and one of them slammed into Victoria's left side at full speed, sending her sprawling to the floor and sliding on her right side a good meter before coming to a halt. Victoria hated those things because they were a lot faster than they looked and hit like a freight train. The brunette's left ribcage was badly hurt and her left arm was also badly hurt, meaning that using a Beam Cannon spell would be quite the chore. That was what she got for losing focus during a fight with demons.

"VICTORIA!" Jessica called out. Victoria hurriedly forced herself to her feet and stood up, but her legs wobbled and threatened to bring her down again. To make matters worse more demons were streaming towards the pair, presumably because they perceived Victoria to be easy prey.

[Post Word Count: 1,338]
[Total Word Count: 7,176/11,000]

Victoria, who was still feeling wobbly from the force of the Bull Demon's charge, did not have time to stagger around like she had imbibed too much vodka. She needed to start fighting back before the Bull Demons trampled her to a red paste on the floor and fight back she did. Victoria brought her hands up and prepared a Beam Cannon spell, then deftly spun to the left of the charging demon who had hit her the first time. She was about to fire at its back when the bellow of a second demon interrupted her aiming. Victoria spun back around and quickly aimed, firing the Beam Cannon at her aggressor when it was only a meter away.

It hit the charging demon squarely between the eyes and brought it down, sending it falling onto its face and sliding towards the Sabertooth mage. She quickly sidestepped to the right and watched it slide by harmlessly. She then turned to face the demon who had charged past her. Jessica stepped between them and rushed to attack before the Bull Demon could build up momentum for another bone-jarring collision. The diminutive knight jumped into the air with her hammer held above her head and brought it down on the demon's skull with a CRUNCH.

The beast fell backwards and blood trickled out of its mouth, meaning that it was no longer a threat to the trio. Three more were left and they looked angry. One of them charged and Victoria and she deftly jumped to the left to avoid it, taking shelter behind the corpse of the fallen demon she had killed less than a minute ago. A second demon thundered around the body of its fallen fellow and angled straight for Victoria, who shrieked and somehow jumped just high enough to clear its head. She had barely dodged that threat when a third stampeded in and slammed Victoria in the stomach, sending her sprawling into her back.

"VICTORIA!" Jessica shrieked. The dazed brunette did not make a quick recovery from this attack because she had had lost her breath in addition to feeling like she had been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer. Even her Azure Armor did little to ease the pain, but at least she had been wearing armor. Had she not been wearing it she would have been hurt a lot worse than she was. Victoria's ribs and stomach hurt badly, but she had to get up and keep fighting unless she wanted to get trampled into the floor.

Victoria struggled to get to her feet but only managed to get to her knees before the demons snorted in her direction, but Jessica quickly came to her defense. She performed a leaping hammer blow to the skull of the first demon to cross her path, then used a horizontal left-to-right swing to bat another one out of her way and break its jaw, causing it to give a pained and partially muffled bellow. The third one moved to attack Jessica, but a quick jumping attack to the top of the skull did it in and saved the dazed Sabertooth mage from being attacked while she was in no shape to defend herself.

"Thanks, Jessica." Victoria thanked the Order Knight for coming to her rescue just in time. Jessica helped Victoria to her feet as Athena finished off the last of the demons she had been fighting. The Order Cleric made it look so easy that the brunette was jealous.

"It's no problem, Vic." Jessica assured the Sabertooth mage that it was no trouble at all. Athena walked towards them with blood-soaked spear in hand and looking like she had just won the lottery.

"That was fun. Wonder what they'll find to throw at us next?" Athena asked Jessica and Victoria. Jessica laughed and Victoria tried to but in between the injuries to her ribs and stomach she could not even think about laughing. It was probably for the best. Dealing with demons and the cults who summoned them was no laughing matter. Victoria looked back towards the door they had used to enter the room and noticed that the bars blocking it were still up.

"We killed all the demons, so why are the bars still blocking the doors?" Victoria asked her colleagues. Jessica looked at the door behind her and so did Athena.

"It looks like they aren't done with us yet. They're probably going to send in more demons shortly, so get ready!" Athena advised Jessica and Victoria. Jessica was in good shape, but Victoria was not doing so well after being hit by two separate demons in the ribs and the chest. She needed to patch herself up before the next wave arrived.

"Victoria's not looking so hot, Athena. She got hit by two separate demons." Jessica reported to Athena. The cleric turned to Victoria, who had channeled golden magic into her hands and was preparing a Field Hospital spell with which to heal herself.

"I've got this." Victoria said. She cast the spell and instantly felt better, but she had to keep a watch on her magic reserves because Beam Cannon chewed through it like popcorn. However, using that spell was necessary to punch through the thick hide of the Bull Demons and kill them in a timely fashion so that she saved magic energy in the long run by not having to heal herself or her teammates.

"Wow! I didn't know you could heal yourself!" Jessica said to Victoria. Victoria was now healthy enough to smile without pain.

"Yeah, it's a trick I picked up from a friend of mine." Victoria replied to Jessica.

"Healing yourself and others is a good trick to have. It means that you can do more than just be a fighter." Athena added. Victoria could agree with that. Versatility was always a good thing because versatility gave her more options. Combat Medic magic allowed her to switch between lethal or less-than-lethal weapons at will, heal herself or other people, or shield herself from enemy spells. Combat Medic magic allowed Victoria to serve as either a frontline fighter or a support member with little difficulty switching between the roles.

Victoria had healed herself, so now she could fight the demons without dragging Athena and Jessica down by having them babysit her while also fighting demons. She was sure that when the next wave arrived it was going to be made of more heavy hitters from the underworld. The cultists would do everything in their power to keep the trio away and would bring out any demon that seemed able to stop them in their tracks. The Sabertooth mage and her Order partners would have to be ready for whatever came next. Victoria still had slightly over half her magic reserve available, but she would have to ration it carefully to get through the fight.

[Post Word Count: 1,147]
[Total Word Count: 8,323/11,000]

The trio waited for whatever horror would be sent their way next and while they waited Jessica finished off the demon whose jaw she had broken. It had survived the first strike, but Jessica made sure that it did not survive the second hit with her hammer. Soon after it had been dispatched for good the room glowed blood red and red orbs appeared and soon disappeared, leaving behind over two dozen giant brown spheres with mouths, slender arms, a single eye, and curled horns near the top of their "heads." The spheres were roughly a meter tall and were almost twice as wide.

"What the Hell are those?" Victoria asked, pointing her left index finger at the creatures.

"They're demons that we call Maws of Hell. You get three guesses to how they got that name. The short version is they spew explosive skulls of the damned at people." Jessica told the Sabertooth mage. The brunette took one look at them and quickly deduced how they had earned their moniker. They were mostly mouth with a single eye and horns. They also did not take long in making their presence felt. When their mouths opened Victoria felt a powerful and overwhelming sense of dread like she was staring into the mouth of Hell itself, a dread that temporarily rendered the Sabertooth mage unable to act until Athena shouted at her.

"Look alive, Victoria!" Athena urged her. Victoria snapped out of it and brought out her Light Machine Gun to use against the Maws of Hell since getting close to them looked like a really bad idea. She raised it and aimed for the first Maw she could see and opened fire on it. The rounds struck its flesh and drew blood, but far from going down in a heap of flesh it only got angry and fired a skull at her. Victoria shrieked and Jessica and Athena scattered.

The brunette dropped to the floor and avoided the skull, which detonated on the wall behind her and burst in an orange ball of flame that was hot enough to feel even at a distance. The Maw then emitted a deep bass laugh while using its arms to hold its sides... it was laughing at her. The hell beast was not impressed with the brunette's performance against it, but it did not have long to laugh because a beam of Holy energy hit it in the open mouth and caused it to explode from within. Its remaining fellows turned to the trio and began to fire skulls at them.

Victoria, sensing that her LMG was about as harmful to them as a water pistol, switched to something with more punch, something normally used to take on concrete pillboxes or Armored Fighting Vehicles. Victoria dispelled the LMG and pulled out her Rocket Launcher. Since it could take down AFVs, it should have enough punch to take on demons... at least she hoped it would. Demons did not exactly play by mortal rules and they could resist a lot of things that would kill humans ten times over.

The brunette ducked and weaved around explosive skulls and eventually got an opening to fire a rocket at a Maw with its mouth open. Making sure that the Order mages were not standing right behind her, Victoria fired a rocket that flew right into the mouth of the target and exploded with spectacular results. The creature went up in a ball of orange flame and ceased to be. Now that the brunette knew how to kill them they lost some of their terror, but she still had to deal with twenty-two of the angry beasts and they were not just brainless berserkers like the Bull Demons.

They fired their explosive skulls in staggered intervals; a group of three would fire simultaneously at all three mages while their fellows "reloaded" for another volley, a process that only took three seconds. The Maws had a brain hidden somewhere beneath all that mouth and they used it to surprising effect. Staggering their volleys meant that the trio were almost always under fire from at least one group of Maws.

"I can't get anywhere near them!" Jessica complained, ducking under four skulls fired in her direction.

"That's the point, Jessica. They're floating artillery platforms that hover around out of reach and wear you down from a distance before going in for the kill." Athena commented sourly like she should not have even had to explain that to the Order Knight. She ducked under a barrage and then hit back with a Holy Beam to the open mouth, blasting another Maw into an orange fireball that made its fellows take notice of the cleric. The single eye of every Maw glowed red and the floating beasts fixated on the trio.

"I think you just pissed them off big time, Athena." Victoria commented. The cleric did not bother with a wisecrack and issued a simple command.

"RUN!" Athena ordered. The trio scattered and ran for their lives as they came under fire from a barrage of skulls from angry floating mouths. They ducked, weaved, and zig-zagged to avoid being hit with an explosive skull and were succeeding so far, but now the Maws were firing at a speed of a skull every two seconds. It was making life hard for the trio and while it was not too hard to dodge the skulls they could not win the fight by running and dodging. Eventually they would have to go back on the offensive.

Victoria kept running until she spotted a Maw on the right side of the room on "reload." She took a risk and stopped running just long enough to aim and fire a rocket. The rocket zoomed into its mouth and sent it up in an orange fireball just before it could fire, bringing their opposition down to twenty Maws. However, Victoria's left shoulder was grazed by a skull and she felt the burn on her unarmored neck. She did not have time to relax because more and more Maws were focusing on her and she had to run before she got burnt even worse than she had.

The brunette resumed running for her life and narrowly avoided bumping into Jessica by veering right at the last second; the diminutive Knight was frustrated that the Maws floated well beyond her reach. The redhead wanted nothing more but to cave in the skull of one for all the trouble they had been put through so far, but the beasts stayed out of melee range and kept firing skulls to wear their prey down from a distance. Even the brave Athena was finding it difficult to get an opportunity to strike back against their infernal tormentors. The trio would just have to keep dodging until an opportunity presented itself, but in between the increased rate of fire of the Maws and their rudimentary but effective tactic of staggering volleys, the trio might not be fighting back any time soon.

Maw Of Hell:

[Post Word Count: 1,168]
[Total Word Count: 9,491/11,000]

The trio kept dodging for around ten minutes, but the angered Maws were not going to stop their relentless assault unless they were forced to. The three mages were more than willing to take the fight to them, but they could not afford to trade hits when the chance that still more demons were being held in reserve was high. They needed to end this fight as quickly as possible and with a minimum of hits taken. Athena wordlessly stopped running, raised her spear, and glowed gold as she channeled magic into her spear. Victoria knew what was going on... she was about to fire another sustained Holy Beam, a powerful but taxing technique that Father Morris only taught to a few clerics who were deemed responsible enough to learn it.

Victoria did everything she could to draw the attention of the Maws by shouting, running towards them, and firing a rocket in mid-run which somehow found its way into the mouth of a Maw on "reload", destroying it and drawing their attention to her. For once that was what the brunette wanted. She needed to take the literal and metaphorical heat off of Athena as the latter charged her spell to wipe out the floating demonic artillery platforms in one blast.

"VICTORIA!" Jessica shouted. Victoria stopped and ducked, just barely avoided a barrage of skulls aimed towards where she was going to be. She then popped up and started running again, avoiding more explosive skulls and almost getting her tennis shoes singed when a skull hit the ground behind her feet. She felt the heat on the back of her legs and thanked her lucky stars that she had not been badly hurt. She kept running towards the door on the opposite side of the room while dodging still more skulls fired to stop her in her tracks... it was a good thing that Victoria had learned to run fast when she was a child.

"I'M OK!" Victoria shouted back to Jessica as she kept moving to throw off the aim of the Maws and buy Athena a little more time to ready the spell. Athena should have finished charging the spell by now. What was the holdup?

Victoria looked towards the cleric and need not have worried. She soon began to fire the spell and started on the right side of the room, turning a lone Maw to dust. She swept the Holy Beam around the room, dusting more Maws who had their back turned to keep their eyes on the brunette. The floating mouths disappeared one by one as Victoria relaxed and watched the full power of the Order cleric cleanse the room of the floating demons. Once they were all dead the cleric collapsed to the floor, falling to her knees and leaning on her spear for support.

The brunette hurried over to Athena just as the bars blocking the doors dropped. Jessica was already there to help the orange-haired mage get to her feet. Victoria covered the remaining distance in about five seconds of running and stood to the left of the mage being helped to her feet.

"Well, that does it for me being able to cast magic on this adventure. I've used all my magic, so you two will have to take it from here until I can get it all back. That's gonna take awhile, so don't expect any more last-second rescues." Athena told them as she wobbled on her feet. Victoria was of two minds on the matter. Part of her was upset to see such a powerful asset out of action for the remainder of the job, but on the other hand Athena's sustained Holy Beam had just saved her from getting roasted by the Maws of Hell. Victoria was thankful that Athena was selfless enough to use the last of her magical energy to ensure the brunette's safety.

"We should be able to take it from here, Athena." Jessica said with none of her usual bluster. Victoria remained silent and watched the door on the opposite end of the room for any new enemies swarming in to take advantage of the exhausted mages. There was no activity, but Victoria kept watch on it and trained her Rocket Launcher on the door in case some of Zupazu's Executioners decided to put in an appearance. None of them showed up and Victoria soon put away the Rocket Launcher to bring out her Light Machine Gun again.

"Yeah. We'd better get going, though. I'm sure the cult's scrambling reinforcements or evacuating this place as we speak." Victoria suggested to them. Jessica looked at the brunette.

"You go on ahead, Victoria. I need to look after Athena first. I'll catch up with you later." Jessica said. Victoria nodded and raced ahead with her LMG in her hands. As much as she would prefer to wait for the Order mages, she needed to hurry before Zupazu's Executioners fled Silent Cemetery with all of their notes and plans. She reached the opposite end of the room and flung open the door, leaving it open so that the Order mages could follow her later.

-Inside the hallway-

Ahead of her loomed a long hallway that was about 200 meters long and was wide enough for four people walking side-by-side to go through. On the walls around her were cult banners and blood red torches in wall sconces place in between wooden doors that burst open to reveal cultists clutching scrolls, maps, and other items of value. They seemed less interested in fighting her than they did fleeing the area, but Victoria was not going to let them get away if she could help it. A few seconds later brown-robed men with melee weapons began streaming into the area to fight her, but the brunette was not going to let them stall her while their colleagues got away with precious intelligence on the cult's operations.

Victoria took aim at the nearest fleeing cultist to her left and opened up on him, bringing him down and causing him to drop a book onto the floor. She spotted another one to the right with a scroll in hand and shot him down with a ten-round burst from her weapon. A third cultist on the far end of the hallway met the same fate and dropped a box full of scrolls. Victoria then moved forward three meters to meet the melee cultists in battle and to secure the evidence for the Order of Lightbringers before it could be destroyed. She snagged the book that the first cultist dropped and awkwardly held onto it while aiming her LMG at the nearest enemy.

Victoria riddled one man holding a greatsword with LMG rounds and he fell to the left, making way for a man holding a wooden shield embossed with the cult emblem and a steel mace to approach her. Victoria opened up on him and easily punched through the shield to bring him down, but a few brave cultists in green robes rushed from the far end of the hall to try and reclaim the scrolls. Victoria would not let them.

She quickly set the book at her feet and planted her left foot on top of it, then formed a Flashbang in her left hand and lobbed it towards the men scurrying for the box of scrolls. Victoria shielded her eyes and was spared from the worst of the flash. The men screamed and stopped where they were, giving her enough time to take them down before they could run off with or destroy the scrolls. Victoria finished them off and then turned her attention to the melee weapon-equipped men, who had fallen back and formed a wall to protect the remaining cultists who were fleeing with books, scrolls, or dark relics. A black-robed cultist with a strong magic signature appeared to lecture her.

"You have won today, unbeliever, but before this is over you will end your life on a sacrificial altar!" A black-robed cultist vowed before spinning on his heels and disappearing through a door on the top left of the hall. The melee weapon-wielding cultists broke formation and followed their leader away, leaving Victoria with a book and a few scrolls for her trouble. Victoria heard noises behind her and turned to find Jessica with Athena in tow.

"So, what did we miss?" Jessica asked Victoria.

"You missed a battle with evacuating cultists. They managed to make off with most of their dark relics and other goodies, but I saved you guys whatever I could get my hands on." Victoria replied while still facing forward.

"Well, we'll just have to take what we can get." Athena commented on the matter.

[Post Word Count: 1,453]
[Total Word Count: 10,944/11,000]

-Back at Holy Castle, thirteen hours later-

The sun shone on Holy Castle as Victoria, Jessica, and Athena arrived back at Order headquarters carrying what few items they had managed to recover from the former cult headquarters in Silent Cemetery. Victoria had checked the rest of the rooms in the hallway in which she had fought the cultists and found that they had been picked clean by Zupazu's Executioners. Nothing but cult banners and torches remained. She hoped that what few items they had managed to retrieve would be of some use to the Order of Lightbringers.

"Well, we're here. I hope that you guys get some info from these things." Victoria said to Athena and Jessica once they stood outside the large double doors that led into the Order headquarters. Victoria had carried the book while Athena carried the scroll and Jessica had carried the box of scrolls. The double doors opened and out came Father Morris himself.

"I see that you three have returned from your mission with some items from the cult!" Father Morris greeted them warmly.

"We did, Father. Unfortunately we weren't able to wipe them all out because they summoned Bull Demons and Maws Of Hell to slow us down while they evacuated." Jessica said to the Order's leader. His smile turned to a frown.

"So they can summon Maws Of Hell to do their bidding..." He said cryptically. Victoria had no idea what that meant and she was not about to ask either. There were some things that she was better off not knowing.

"The evacuation was in full swing by the time we got past the demons. They made off with most of their stuff, but we retrieved what we could." Victoria chimed in, offering the book in her hands to Father Morris. He took it from her and began to read it with a worried look on his face.

"This is one of their tomes on summoning demons. Inside it are the details of rituals needed to summon and bind demons to their service." Father Morris explained the significance of the book Victoria had kept from being taken away by the fleeing cultists.

"That's great and all, but what we really need is to find where they fled next." Athena voiced what Victoria was thinking. Father Morris turned to the orange-haired cleric holding the scroll and Athena turned it over to him. He closed the book and unfurled the scroll.

"Here is detailed a ritual to summon a demon lord to the physical plane with the sacrifice of virgins." He declared before quickly furling it back up. Victoria did not like the sound of that.

"You probably won't like this box of scrolls then." Jessica said to the bespectacled leader. He approached the diminutive Knight and picked out a scroll, unfurling it and reading it.

"You are right, Jessica. Here is written a treatise on how to build and expand demon cults under the noses of the authorities by posing as philosophical societies with an upscale image with which to attract wealthy and connected members." Father Morris replied. Victoria did not like the sound of that either. Such a cult could easily take root in Capital Crocus and go undetected for quite some time, possibly too long to do anything about it before demons paraded down the streets.

"What do you want to do with these items, Father? Do you wanna burn them or do you want to hand them over to the Order librarians for processing and safekeeping?" Athena asked him.

"We will give them to the librarians for processing and safekeeping. We must learn all we can about Zupazu's Executioners." He announced. Victoria figured that she had better be on her way and leave them to it.

"I'll leave you guys to it then. I'll just get in your way if I hang around." Victoria excused herself.

"Thank you for your help, Miss Sheridan. We will keep in contact." Father Morris thanked Victoria for her assistance on the mission to Silent Cemetery. Victoria waved back and turned to started the lengthy trip back to Sabertooth Guild Hall. It was going to be a long walk and she needed to get back so that she could take another job or begin her long-delayed search for the truth behind her new body.

[Post Word Count: 720]
[Total Word Count: 11,664/11,000]