Defend yourself

“Don’t forget, this is a daemon," you remind yourself. “Do not take it lightly.”

You raise the sword of Saint Magdalena in front of yourself and hold it steady. If the daemon attacks, you can defend yourself.

The creature skitters to its left, then its right. Then raises its tail and jabs at you. You block its attack with your sword and push the tail to your right. The daemon sees an opening in your defenses and jumps to a table to your left. He then faces you and jumps.

You ball your left hand into a fist and swing it in the daemon’s direction. The metal plated fist hits and you manage to knock it out of the air. The arachnid falls on the ground but quickly finds its footing. It tries to scurry away but you manage to grab it by its tail. You pull at the tail with all your might and swing the creature through the air. The daemon screeches as it flies around the room and slams against the stone frame of the open fire. The daemon's chitin shell shatters and green lymph splatters all over the extinguished fire.

You’ve done it. You’ve slain a daemon. It takes you a while to absorb the situation. When you regain your senses, you realize you’re still holding the lifeless tail. You quickly drop the daemon’s tail and jump away from it.

You were lucky sister Gabrielle had given you those gauntlets. If it wasn’t for them, the creature might have latched on to your hand and crawled all over your body. You don't even want to think about what horrors might have befallen you then.

With the daemon dead it is now safe for you to search for the secret passage. The rumors suggested something about the fireplace. You knock on the stones which make up the frame, but none of them sounds hollow. It is only when you hit the steel place in the center, where the wooden logs usually lay burning, that you hear a dull thump. It takes quite a bit of **** to shift the steel plate out of the way, but you finally find what you have been searching for: a secret passage out of the abbey. You climb into the hole and shift the steel plate back into place. If another daemon enters the kitchen, he would only notice his dead fellow.

The passage is narrow and dark, but easy to navigate. It is a simple tunnel that went in one direction. The trek through the passage feels like hours. You thought it would simply lead out of the abbey, not a fair distance away.

When you finally near the exit, you see it is hidden by a large bush that blocks its presence from outside view. You step through the bush and find that you are now inside the Blauwalt forest. You cannot even see the abbey behind you through the trees. You must have traveled more than a mile underground.

Blauwalt forest straddles the Victory Road that leads to Gerlangen. The High Abbey is there and you must warn them about what has happened here. However, you do not even know where you are in the forest and many dangers are known to lurk within, not to mention the daemons which have been loosed upon the realm. This is going to be a most difficult journey.

You set off in what you hope is the right direction as the evening begins to fade into night. You wonder what you might encounter along the way.