Arc 3: Chapter 17: An Academic Guide to the Profane
We gathered in the bowels of that hidden tower in the lower city, myself, my ward, and the scheming wizard. Lias found all the material relevant to our research he had, and we began trying to determine which of the Dread and Awful Presences infested Garihelm.
It is not always exciting or active a thing, hunting fiends. That had been true even when I’d been with the Table. There had been long, tiring hours of research, meditation, and consultation with the other knights, scholars, sages, and the Sidhe.
I didn’t have all the resources of an ancient realm at my disposal anymore, but Lias had never been an ally to dismiss. His “small collection”turned out to be a veritable treasure trove of occult tomes, preserved tablets, and sealed scrolls, many of which I imagine the Priory would be none too happy about him keeping.
“So where exactly do we begin?” Emma tossed the question out in idle inquiry, lifting one of the ancient black books Lias had spread across his tables in some abstract order.
Lias snatched the book from her hand, placing it back in its prior place with meticulous precision. Emma scowled at him, but the magus ignored her and paced over to another table, this one laid with even more material.
I remained standing, arms folded, inspecting the dizzying labyrinth of lore we had to sort through. I had a bad feeling this would be a long night.
“The first thing you must understand about demons,” Lias said, with all the self-assured gravity of the lecturing tutor, “is that they have no beginning and no end. They are hunger incarnate, spirits born of primeval forces most of us…” he let the implication that he didn’t include himself among most of us hang… “cannot truly comprehend.”
Emma looked at me and lifted a dark eyebrow. “Is he always like this?”
“Most of the time,” I muttered, my eyes on the black-garbed wizard.
Lias didn’t deign to respond to our commentary, instead walking a slow set of concentric circles around the tables as he spoke. “Our understanding of many dimensions beyond our own, along with the beings who inhabit them, remains academic at best.” His voice echoed eerily in the study, emerging hollow from the unnatural shade beneath his cowl as though it originated from the depths of a cave. “We are aware of such places as the Wending Roads, but they are little more than a borderland, so close to our own plane one is often hardly aware when they have strayed. Not so for places like the Abyss.”
At that last word, Emma’s show of insulant boredom faded. She sat up straighter, paying more attention to Lias’s lecture.