"I was told everything, and I am NOT letting this go unpunished." Seroteth said, utterly enraged.
Aralith and Anaru entered, and Aralith raised an eyebrow. "Cormac, where do you get metal armor? I haven't trained you in that yet. I have leather armor for you here."
"What about me?" Delas asked.
"It might be best if you remain here and help Loke, should the faeries come here."
Delas looked disappointed, but could tell from the look on Aralith's face that arguing wasn't a good idea. He took his spear nd left the room."
Cormac went off to change into the leather armor. Wyn followed Delas. "Delas, I hope I remembered your name. It's nice to meet you."
"So what's the plan?" Marius asked once Cormac came back into the room.
"I will lead you to the place where our coven is housed. It's a bit of a walk, but it should be fine. We'll break up into three teams: the two diversion teams, and one main team who will go through and head directly for the babe. I'll go with the main team, since I need to put the babe back in."
The teams were divvied up: Heceril, Hjulmir, and I'Karis made the first team, Aralith and Anaru made the second, and the main team would be Astien, Seroteth, Cormac, and Marius.
"Are you Wyn? Cormac was right, your hair is really really red." Delas noted.
Marius squeezed Astien's hand. "We'll get him back."
Wyn giggled. "Thank you. Yes, I am Wyn. If you want, I can help you protect the castle if you want." She took her hair pin from her bun and by the time her hand reached her side it was a rapier. "I'm fairly well versed in formal swordplay."
"Seroteth," Heceril started, "Should you really be fighting? You are heavily pregnant, after all."
"I'll be fine. These faeries need to learn a lesson. Now let's go." Seroteth said, and e left te room, his two drakes each splitting off and joining the diversion groups.
"Okay. That Loke guy doesn't seem like very good conversation. I think he went rhis way." Delas led Wyn to where Loke had gone.
Cormac followed his grandfather with Marius and Astien not too far behind him. He took a deep breath to clam himself. He wasn't really expecting Wyn to show up with his grandfather, but he wasn't all that surprised when he saw her. She can handle herself, he told himself. She'll be fine.
Wyn followed Delas.
After a few hours, an old, ruined castle came into sight. The teams split up, and the attack was begun. As they traversed the old castle, they saw bodies along the halls. "These are some of the people who were killed by the babe. He knew he wasn't in his mother's womb, and killed them for it. But my kin are growing desperate, and they keep trying again and again. They're any him to be born as one of us."
"Kind of like what he did to those harpies," Cormac said as he made kept pace with the rest of the group. Marius kept close to Astien.
"Not quite, but close enough, I think." Astien said.
"Incoming!" Garrand cried, and a few faeries phased through the floor.
"Garrand, you traitor!"
Astien stepped forward, rage in his eyes. "WHERE IS MY SON?!" He shot lightning from his fingers, but it did nothing against them. Seroteth changed to his drake form and skirted behind them, breathing fire all the while.
Cormac sheathed his sword and shot fire balls from his hands.
Marius tightly gripped his great sword and swung at the faeries that came towards them.
The faeries were stubborn, but eventually they died. Astien healed up everyone's wounds and they ventured on. Astien places a hand on his stomach. "I feel so empty.…"
"We'll get Aiden back inside of you," Marius said.
"I'll make sure of it," Cormac stated.
Seroteth returned to his human shape. "If they try to take my child, they'll wish they'd been eaten by a dragon." He turned to Cormac. "Cormac, I doń like that you're here. We should have left you back with Delas. This is too dangerous for you."
"I can handle it," Cormac stated. "I'm not a child."
"Can we hold off on the familial bickering?" Marius questioned. "We have a task at hand and I'd like it if we stayed focused."
"The stairs here." Garrand said. "Up here, last I knew, is where they're keeping whoever the babe is currently inside."
Cormac nodded and ran ahead up the stairs.
"Cormac! Dammit, get back here!" Seroteth called, and the rest hurried after him
Upstairs, faint whispering could be heard in one of the rooms.
"Shit, what do we do?!"
"I don't know!"
"She's dead, and we're under attack!"
"This fetus is stronger than we thought. Call in the next one, we need to turn it into one of us."
"I told you we should've killed that guy, but we just HAD to keep him alive."
"Just call in the next one."
"Let's just forget it, this thing's nothing but trouble!"
"There's no way we're giving up a chance to have something so powerful among us!"
"There won't be anyone left f we keep going!"
"Yes there will, now shut up and call the next one!"
"I'm not dying for nothing!"
"Shut up and do as I say, or I'm sticking this thing in your belly next!"
Cormac waited near the top for the rest of the group to catch up.
As the rest caught up, Astien peeked inside. He saw two faeries moving the body of a dead female faerie, and on the female was a large belly, whose contents were squirming, kicking, and struggling. "Aiden!" Astien called as he rushed in.
"Astien wait!" Marius shouted.
Cormac ran in behind Astien.