“No, wait. Can we go back to the part of the story where Emyr threatened the mayor of the town?” Liliana demanded between bites of a chicken leg. The thing was huge, and Liliana never wanted to meet the chicken it came from. It was big enough to be used as a club, but it was delicious and she was starving.

“Threatening is such a harsh term.” Alistair deflected with a nervous smile.

“No, it’s accurate. I pulled a knife on the man.” Emyr smirked, eyes dancing with malicious glee.

“I honestly thought he’d kill the mayor,” Corbin added in eagerly, shrinking slightly when Emyr turned to look at him.

“It was a distinct possibility. He’s utterly incompetent if he didn’t notice a Fiend in his backyard.” Emyr sniffed, folding his arms as he defended his choices.

“You won’t hear me arguing with that,” Liliana grumbled, rubbing at her abdomen. Even under her clothes, she could feel the hard knots of scar tissue. The bigger the wound, the bigger the scars, even with magic.

“It is strange he didn’t notice such a powerful creature so close by. Its nest couldn't have been more than a day’s journey away,” Alistair frowned, eyes going distant as he thought.

“Fiends aren’t stupid,” Liliana said slowly, “hang on… Let me just…” Liliana muttered as she summoned a book from her storage.

Her personal library had grown over the years. The main focus of it was, unsurprisingly, beasts. A book appeared in her hand, title ‘Creatures of Fire and Brimstone: A Compendium of Hell Beasts’. The author was a rather renowned zoologist who had been obsessed with hell beasts. His renown came from the fact he’d managed to converse with Fiends and Archfiends, who never spoke to humans, beastmen or dæmen.

He’d eventually died doing what he loved, studying an Archfiend who had grown tired of him and killed him. He was often used as a cautionary tale in many bestiaries. Never forget that a beast was a beast and rarely subscribed to the same morals as mortals.

“Here,” Liliana said as she used [Threads Of Control] to levitate the book and flip the pages to the beginning of the section on Fiends. That section alone was over a hundred pages, but Liliana didn’t need her friends to read all of it. Just the beginning.

“’Fiends are notable not just because of their incredible power, that almost always sets them as dungeon bosses unless in the case an Archfiend is the boss, but because of their high intelligence. While there are debates as to whether Fiends can be considered more intelligent than the mortal races, and therefore deserving of a classification separate from beasts entirely, their intelligence cannot be denied. In fact, it is the reason Fiends and their evolved brethren Archfiends refuse to converse with the mortal races, as they see us as lesser.’” Liliana recited from memory as the others read the passage she was referring to.

“So what? They’re full of themselves?” Alistair asked, looking at Liliana with confusion.

“Well, yes.” Liliana snorted at the succinct description, “but what I mean is, they’re smart. It’s not inconceivable for a Fiend to be smart enough to hide its presence from people. The Hellcats likely provided a wonderful distraction,” Liliana clarified.

Corbin snapped his fingers. “Give people one obvious problem and they won’t look for any others,” the beastman said as he came to the same realization she had. Liliana nodded at him, biting back into her chicken-leg-club with relish.

“They still should’ve noticed something,” Emyr asserted stubbornly. Liliana rolled her eyes. It was obvious Emyr was looking for someone to blame. He’d already exhausted his blame of her, and now he wanted to hoist it onto someone else.

“Perhaps, but that’s inconsequential,” Liliana waved off Emyr’s words. The Fiend was dead and gone, after all. And they weren’t here to deal with improper town management. That was the job of whatever noble held dominion over this territory.

“The real question is what a Fiend was doing out of a dungeon,” Alistair grasped her point quickly.

“I hadn’t heard anything of a dungeon break when I was exploring Meshire. News like that would’ve been huge. Students wouldn’t be allowed in any territory that had one until all beasts from the dungeon were neutralized.” Corbin frowned, concern and fear on his face. Who was to say it was only one Fiend that got out? For all they knew, there was an entire clan of Fiend, or gods forbid, Archfiends, running about.

“A dungeon break?” Emyr asked softly, eyes stormy.

“That’s the only explanation, isn’t it? Fiends don’t spawn naturally,” Alistair didn’t sound so sure of something that had once been considered a fact.

“Why is that? Most dungeon monsters spawn naturally somewhere,” Corbin asked, looking to Liliana. Actually, Emyr and Alistair turned to her too, and Liliana was reminded once more that when it came to beasts, her friends expected her to hold all the answers.

In this case, they were right, but still. Corbin was right there. He was a tamer too!

“No one knows for sure,” Liliana prefaced as she flipped through the book to another page, “but it’s believed that ten thousand years ago, Archfiends and Fiends once lived on this world beside the mortal races.” Liliana flipped to a page with rather masterful, but graphic, illustrations.

“They attempted to subjugate the mortal races, as they believed, and still believe, themselves to be the superior race. So many of the mortal races begged their gods to save them, and a curse, or a stigma, was applied to Fiends. Imprisoning them within dungeons.” Liliana turned the page to a new illustration depicting godly beings above Fiends trapped in a dungeon.

“Apparently the Fiends even have mythology referring to this, though we’ve lost any traces of it. Likely because it was a chaotic time. A lot of knowledge was lost.” Liliana surmised the text for her friends, which said much the same, but took twelve pages to do so. Corbin took the book when she was done, flipping back to the beginning to read it himself, eyes alight with the same interest Liliana fancied she showed whenever presented with new information on beasts.

“What’s really interesting though,” Liliana sat up straighter, half finished chicken leg forgotten as her eyes sparkled.

“Here we go,” Alistair muttered affectionately. Liliana ignored him.

“Is that apparently there is a sort of prophecy that the Archfiends have. It’s been passed down orally through the ages, or through some kind of connection all Archfiends have with one another, or the dungeons. That bit’s unclear.” Liliana waved her hand, still gripping the chicken leg, at the inconsistent information. She was fairly certain it was a translation error.

“But it says more or less that one day, one will come who will unite all eight clans. All Fiends belong to a clan that correlates to a stat, and free them from their curse. This ‘Great Uniter’ will return them their glory, and bring about a new age of prosperity to all fiendkind,” Liliana gushed the words, barely resisting the urge to bounce. It was all rather intriguing to her, though after her recent adventures she doubted she’d ever want to get first-hand accounts of the ‘prophecy’ from an Archfiend.

“I thought prophecies came from the gods? If the gods punished the Fiends why would they give them a prophecy?” Alistair asked, and Liliana’s nose scrunched. That part she didn’t have a clear answer to.

“Well. No,” Corbin was the one who spoke up, face set in concentration, “prophecies can also come from the System, though it’s rarer,” he clarified. He looked up to see confusion on the faces of his companions and he sighed.

“It doesn’t make as good of a story or song to say the System chose someone, but we’re taught a lot of the origins of songs in Music class. It hasn’t happened often, but System given prophecies do exist,” Corbin explained.

“That doesn’t erase the potential that it’s a false prophecy,” Liliana added, to ease some of the worry that was filling the room. A sudden invasion of Fiends and Archfiends was a matter of grave concern, seeing as it had taken all of them and all of Liliana’s bonds to take down one Fiend. And Liliana had very nearly died in the attempt.

“This still doesn’t explain how a Fiend got out without a dungeon break,” Emyr redirected their conversation back to the problem at hand.

“Well, it does if the prophecy is real,” Corbin tentatively offered. Emyr shot him a glare that could peel paint before his eyes flickered to Liliana, changing from anger to fear.

Liliana could understand his fear. She was already drenched in fate. A new prophecy coming onto the playing field would be too great a coincidence for him. And as she thought about it, fear trickled down her spine. What if the thing in the Fiend’s prophecy was the great evil Vita wanted her to fight?

She’d almost prefer that, instead of there being two entirely unrelated beings of immense power trying to destroy the world in her lifetime. One Dark Lord or Dark Lady a lifetime, please and thank you.

“The pendant,” Emyr muttered quietly, face dark.

It took a moment for Liliana to understand what he meant. She sucked in a sharp breath when it clicked for her. The pendant had been a dungeon reward. She’d almost forgotten that part. Whatever was behind it had some influence or ties to dungeons, or some dungeons at least.

Liliana had written it off as an unexplainable occurrence, or a rogue or corrupted dungeon core. Some skill or spell, or something she wasn’t knowledgeable enough to understand at the time. Or at worst, Fate trying desperately to course correct its errant villainess-gone-hero. But now there had been a creature that only existed in dungeons wandering about. And it was present during yet another student assignment. It was a web of coincidences that at first, and second, glance had nothing in common. No links. But it was still suspicious.

“Do you think?” Liliana asked.

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Emyr shot back, and Liliana nodded reluctantly.

“Wait, you two don’t really think the pendant has anything to do with this?” Alistair asked, face going ashen.

He had never forgotten what Liliana had become in first year, after she’d run into someone else being controlled by a cursed artifact. They never had caught the man, it was as if he’d never existed. Liliana still hesitated to walk around the capital, even with friends. Unable to shake the feeling of eyes watching her.

“It came from a dungeon,” Emyr pointed out. Alistair’s lips thinned. He nodded his head reluctantly.

“I’m sorry. What are you three talking about?” Corbin demanded, finally losing patience with the coded conversation. Emyr, Alistair and Liliana froze, trading guilty looks.

Alistair and Emyr looked to Liliana, deferring to her to explain what she wanted about the situation. Liliana had never told anyone other than those she knew could reasonably be targeted by the being behind the pendant, therefore Corbin had never been brought into the secret. It wasn’t something Liliana liked to discuss, even now, years later, with the memories locked up and the trauma worked through.

“When I was, fifteen?” Liliana looked to Emyr.

“Fourteen,” he corrected, and Liliana nodded. Gods, she’d been so young. So alone and scared. Looking back through the wisdom gained with age, she could more easily understand the choices she’d made then. Stupid, reckless choices, but understandable, in the end.

“When I was fourteen, I was possessed by a magical pendant we found in a dungeon. Emyr thinks it’s connected,” Liliana finished, giving as little information as she could.

She might be more forgiving of the choices a younger, more vulnerable version of her had made, but it didn’t make her any less ashamed of them. She’d had so many other options available, if she’d just taken the time to look. If she’d just trusted a bit more, all of that pain could’ve been avoided.

“A cursed artifact? But that’s impossible. Dungeons generate the rewards from Mana, or use items from dead adventurers who went to the dungeon before. But even then, going through the dungeon’s Mana should remove any curses,” Corbin muttered, eyebrows scrunched as he tried to understand the information given to him.

“Exactly!” Emyr nodded at Corbin with a rare, approving smile. Corbin looked lost and slightly terrified at the unexpected approval from someone who threatened his life more often than he greeted him.

“It’s abnormal dungeon behavior. Unexplainable, just like a Fiend escaping one without a dungeon break,” Emyr elucidated and Corbin’s face turned to confusion.

“So you think they’re both connected because they have to do with dungeons acting oddly?” Corbin asked, slowly, “we don’t even have proof the Fiend escaped a dungeon. It could’ve been created from Mana,” Corbin continued, earning a glare from Emyr.

“That makes less sense than the two instances being connected.” Emyr huffed.

“Or,” Alistair held up a hand to forestall the brewing argument, “or, the Fiend did escape a dungeon, but the two events have nothing to do with each other.” Alistair finished. Neither Corbin nor Emyr seemed pleased with the new possibility.

“Let’s work off the assumption they’re unconnected events, for now.” Liliana said, shooting Emyr a look.

He knew more than the other two did. He knew why Vita had sent her here. There was a possibility all of this was interconnected at a deeper level. Liliana felt like she had a pitiful few puzzle pieces in her hand. None of them fit together, but they were all part of something so much larger.

It was frustrating how much she didn’t know, and she regretted that they hadn’t kept the Fiend alive long enough to interrogate. It would’ve been far too dangerous to do, but the information he might have held could’ve been invaluable. It could’ve proven or disproven her theory that someone was behind all of these incorrect assignments, possibly sending the beasts in to attack the students.

“Fine,” Emyr growled, shoulders hunching as he glared at them all. He hated being told his theories were wrong.

Liliana imagined his conspiracy board would see a lot more red string when they returned to the Academy. It still delighted her to no end to see one. Thanks to the memories she’d shared with him, Emyr finally understood the context behind it, and why Liliana found it so hilarious. If anything, he used it more now that he understood where the idea had come from, enthralled as he was with anything related to Earth.

“We need to alert an Adventurer’s Guild about a potential dungeon break in the area, if the mayor didn’t after Emyr threatened him at knife-point for neglecting to mention the Fiend lurking in his fields,” Alistair spoke up.

“Do you think he will?” Liliana asked, curious.

She knew how politicians worked. They preferred to hide their mistakes to avoid public favor turning on them. Being utterly unaware of a threat that could’ve wiped out his entire town wouldn’t endear the mayor to his town. If he didn’t get chased out by a mob, Liliana would be amazed.

“No, he’s going to try to hide it until the last second. He’s probably liquidating all his assets now and picking out a new country to move to,” Emyr snorted disdainfully, rolling his eyes.

“That’s most likely. Coming forward won’t look all that good in light of there being a Fiend so close by,” Corbin agreed, looking much aggrieved to be agreeing with Emyr about anything at the moment.

“So we’ll need to declare it ourselves,” Alistair decided, rubbing at his face wearily.

“Do we need to worry about being silenced?” Liliana asked idly, resuming eating her now cold chicken leg. It still tasted delicious, at least.

“Excuse me?” Corbin squawked, while Alistair buried his face in his hands with a tired groan. Emyr looked thoughtful.

“We know something that could ruin the mayor’s life. People have killed for much less,” Liliana pointed out, finishing her chicken and popping a square of cheese into her mouth.

“No. Several people saw us return, and even more people saw our confrontation with the mayor the next morning. If we turn up dead, he’d be the first suspect. He’ll just try to flee,” Emyr decided, and Liliana nodded.

She wasn’t overly concerned about whatever thugs the mayor of Meshire might scrounge up to pay to kill them. No one in this town was a high enough level to be a concern. He’d need to go to a larger city to find someone to hire, and they’d be long gone by then.

“So we’re just discussing possible assassination attempts like that’s normal, alright,” Corbin muttered, looking shell-shocked.

“Well, for us it is rather normal,” Liliana pointed out. Alistair lifted his head with a gusty sigh, but he nodded in agreement.

“Nobles are messed up,” Corbin said after a few moments of silence.

“It’s the inbreeding,” Liliana said with a sage nod. Alistair choked. Emyr hid his face in the crook of his arm as he chuckled.

“Don’t look at me like that. Some of the noble family trees are just elaborate circles,” Liliana hissed, but she couldn’t help smirking at the outrage on Alistair’s face.

There were consequences to nobility refusing to marry ‘below’ their station. Cista had a good amount of noble families, but over the years, the blood lines entangled enough that almost everyone was some sort of distant cousin.

Some more than others, Liliana didn’t think the Bealstals and Rosengardes had a common ancestor for at least twelve generations, maybe more. It helped that their country did occasionally grant noble titles to commoners, either because of their prowess in battle, heroic feats, or because they had the money to buy one. And a few noble families were rumored to marry commoners. So the nobility wasn’t entirely inbred.

However, sickness, as a result of some families being more staunchly blood obsessed, was more common than many nobles wanted to admit. Marianne was a good example. The royal family never married anyone who couldn’t trace their ancestry back to nearly the founding of their country. The System was likely the only reason the royal family still existed at all, as it could heal even genetic disorders that weren’t magical in origin.

“That is enough. You are tiring,” Serenity’s voice broke up the rather odd conversation on inbreeding. Liliana blinked, realizing she was exhausted.

She hadn’t thought just talking and eating would be enough to exhaust her. Then again, she’d spent a half hour sitting there while she got nagged by six different people, counting her bonds, so it made sense. It had been exhausting to hear, ‘Why are you so reckless?’ and ‘You nearly died!’ no less than thirteen times.

“We’ll go. You sleep, we’ll leave when you’re back up to full health.” Alistair said, face still dark in a flush as he took the tray of food from her.

“Sleep well,” Emyr added with a pointed look that said they’d be talking privately later.

“Don’t get injured before we see you again,” Corbin warned, eyes flicking to Emyr and Liliana had to wonder if Corbin somehow got blamed for her injuries in the fight.

The boys left the room, but her bonds stayed. Serenity tried to glare at them, but her other three bonds seemed to become selectively blind and deaf to her complaints and looks. The Axolong eventually gave up. Her aura released and Liliana blinked heavy eyes as the comforting sensation rolled over her.

“Sleep, heal.” Serenity ordered and Liliana nodded, dazed, as she laid back on the bed. Before she could formulate another thought, she was asleep.