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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Drusilia Nailo" data-source="post: 279545" data-attributes="member: 2062">The IslandThe mermaid swam closer to the shore, but still kept quite a distance from it.  She called across the water, “You shouldn’t interfere with this!  The children have to die, and that is final!”    Aelric growled, and waded out, up to his knees into the water.  “Don’t you know that the demon is using you,” he half-demanded of the mermaid.    “Never!  Arust loves me!” she cried out.    Aelric snorted.  “Has it occurred to you that he’d gladly take the lives of the children, along with yours, to ensure that he would become a god?  Why should he share that power with you?”    Meanwhile, Ivae exchanged glances with Maera, and motioned for her to wait.  He then began to sneak around the perimeter of the lake, towards the side of the island that was not being guarded by the mermaid.  Maera’s bear knew no such subtlety, and plunged into the water to swim for the island.    Fortunately, the mermaid’s attention was riveted upon Aelric.  “But...”  her voice trailed off, plaintively.  “No!  He loves me!  I will be a goddess, I don’t care what you say about it!”  She started to chant, and the water of the lake lept upward, forming into a surprisingly solid looking blade.    She began to swim towards Aelric with deadly purpose in her eyes.***************************************************    Ivae ran, leaping over logs, and dodging bramble bushes.  He didn't want to be stuck here in this dead forest any longer than he had to be, not when there were the children to save...  once he got out of the mermaid's line of sight, he broke out of the forest completely, and waded into the lake.  With an anxious glance towards the front of the lake where the action was, he began to swim.***************************************************    Aelric sighed, drawing his own blade.  “It doesn’t have to come to this,” he said, wearily.  “You have not gone past the point of no return... with the Father, forgiveness is always possible.”    The mermaid hesitated after raising her blade above her head.  She hesitated just long enough.    From the banks of the lake, Maera, forgotten up to that point, had been chanting and pleading with the forces of nature and of the Mother to aid her in restraining the enemy.  The water of the lake began to seethe and seemed to boil as aquatic plants erupted from the bottom, surging for the top.  They became hard as rope, and just as unforgiving, as their tendrils wrapped around the mermaid, entrapping her arms, legs and torso.  They began to drag her down, so that only her head remained above water.      The mermaid spluttered, and her blade dissolved back into lake water.  And then all of the fight went out of her.  “I’m sorry,” she said plaintively, looking at Aelric with widened eyes.    The old paladin stood watching her for a moment, and then called back to the shore, “Let her stay like that.  It will give her some time to think...”  He began to wade back out of the water, onto the shore.  “Come, horse,” he said to the yet unnamed paladin mount, leading it into the water.          The group reconvened on the island, Ivae moving to join his companions.  He looked around at the unnatural island nervously, and murmured to Aelric, “Of course, we have no idea of where the children are.”  He shrugged, then, and began to move to the center of the island.  “I imagine that we’ll find them.”    And so they did.  They heard the sound of a crying child long before they found them, and the angry shrieks of another.  Ivae broke into a run, into the direction of the cries, leaving the armor-clad paladin behind to catch up as best he could.    There were two small demons, standing next to two children.  One of them was holding down the girlchild, somewhat roughly, although his voice was entreating.   “Now now, you want to behave, don’t you?  Please?”  The girl was a little bruised up, and apparently, it was because of this.  She was shrieking her rage, pounding her fists against the demon.  “Hate you!”        The little boy seemed to be unharmed, but he sat there in the dirt and wailed.    Standing in the center of the clearing was the largest demon that either man had ever seen.  He looked very humanoid, but was covered with glossy black fur.  His eyes were red-rimmed, and he seemed to radiate evil.  There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was the Demon Lord Arust.  He was looking straight through the bushes at the three crouching hunters, and smiled slowly.  “Ah.  I see you have come at last...”</blockquote>

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