Page 130

The lingering miasma was faint on the second floor now. There were a few more of the faceless shadow demons in the service rooms but most of them had been concentrated in the ballroom. It wasn't long before the miasma had thinned to ambient levels, what was left now was coming from the other floors of the castle. It did strike me as odd that there was so much miasma here. Despite the number of demons we killed there was still a lot, the only time I had felt this much miasma in one place was inside the midnight castle dungeon.

We also came across the castle's private library but after a quick sweep for monsters, we didn't spend any time in there. The guard captain was keen on reminding everyone, including the guards, that reading any of the books in the library wasn't allowed and taking any of the books would be considered stealing. It seemed like he wanted to say it in a roundabout way without directly implying any of us would steal anything. It was a bit disappointing that I wouldn't be able to skim the books but it wasn't like we had the time to explore the library's collection anyway.

Eventually, we came to the end of the castle's second floor. Here there was a stairway up to the third floor as well as a passage that led all the way down to the basement, bypassing the first floor completely. On our approach, Jasper immediately ordered his men to block off the door while we explored the last of the above-ground floors as we had discussed earlier.

I was with the captain in the third group they sent up the stairs and it only took me a moment to realize that nearly all of the miasma on the entire floor was concentrated in one spot. There was nothing of note in our immediate area and the guards who had come up first had already started sweeping the area.

"Jasper." I tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

He quickly glanced over to me before bringing his attention back to the hallways in front of us. "Yes, do you sense something Lilith?" He continued to scan our surroundings, staying on guard.

I nodded. "Most of the demonic miasma is concentrated in one spot up ahead. I can't see it from here but it's down that hallway and to the left."

A grimace settled on the man's face. "That's the direction of the Baron's office. I was hoping we would be able to recover his remains but that may not be possible."

I scratched the base of my horn, unsure of how to respond. "Well, the miasma is less concentrated here, we shouldn't have to deal with as many other enemies. At least not to the same extent as the other floors."

"That's good to hear, thank you for bringing this to my attention."

"Would it be alright if I participate in clearing that final room?"

He turned toward me and looked me up and down. "You seem like you can handle yourself but the priest told me to keep you out of harm's way. You weren't intended to be included in combat at all."

"Well, it's a little late for that. We already had to fight the shadow flame behemoth together and I did prove helpful there, didn't I?"

The guard captain turned away from me, watching his men carefully enter each room. There were some sounds of fighting here and there but the well-organized guardsmen didn't have any trouble killing the stray faceless shadows that hid inside.

He sighed. "Very well, you can be near the front when we engage with whatever is in the room. Your experience may prove helpful, just stay out of the fighting directly unless you are forced to. Whatever is in that room, I would prefer my guards take care of it. The behemoth was likely the biggest thing will fight here but that doesn't mean it is automatically the strongest."

"Understood. Thank you guard captain," I replied.

He moved ahead of me to check more closely on the next room. I turned and saw my party members gathered together waiting for me.

Silva raised an eyebrow. "So?"

"There's a lot of miasma near the Baron's study, Jasper agreed to let me be near the area when they fight whatever's inside," I said.

She nodded. "So, where he died then. Sera and I were on the second floor when the attack started. I brought her to his office just as he was killed."

My brow furrowed. "You were all the way up here during the attack? How did you escape?"

"I fought a few of them on the way to his study. After we saw him die, we left through a hidden escape in the basement, past the dungeons. We didn't need to go through the ballroom or the castle gate to get out. It's the only reason we were able to evade so many of them." Her face had gotten dark, putting herself back in the memory.

"Silva, you and Torien should stay near me when we get to the office. I want you to see if you can find anyth-"

There was suddenly a scream from one of the rooms that brought a bunch of the guards running over. It didn't share the same pitch as the banshees we fought and it was soon clear why.

"Survivor!" one of the guards yelled out.

From one of the rooms, a young deerfolk woman wearing a maid-like servant's outfit was carried over to our group to receive healing. The woman looked fairly similar to Bella, though she had darker fur and fewer spots on her coat. She looked severely malnourished and looked very anxious being carried over. One of her legs looked broken based on how it was hanging and she had a black bitemark on the same leg. She probably wouldn't have made it much longer if we hadn't found her now.

"It's okay. I'm a healer, we're here to help you." Bella tried to soothe the woman as she was set down in front of us. But when she saw Silva she jerked and tried to struggle out of Bella's grasp.

For her part, Silva just looked confused by the reaction. "Matilda? Is that you? Are you alright?"

The deer woman froze in place at the words before looking around again, relaxing slightly. "I- I've been trapped here since the attack. I ran out of food but there were monsters roaming the halls..."

Bella gripped her scepter and placed a hand on the woman's leg. "Don't worry, we can get you some food and escort you out but let me heal you first. I want to patch up that leg and make sure you don't carry any diseases."

"Okay..." she replied in a weak voice.

Green motes of light flowed from Bella's scepter and into her hand before flowing into the young deerfolk. Bella's expression suddenly changed from one of compassion to confusion before settling into a professional mask that was very unlike her. The magic took a while to work but the bones in the woman's leg eventually snapped back into place.

Bella tapped on the woman's shoulder to get her attention again. "I'm sorry but the next part is going to hurt. I'm going to need to burn away the diseased flesh near your wound before I can heal it properly. Please bear with it."

The woman hesitantly nodded before gripping the remains of her dress. The wound started to make a sizzling sound and the woman cried out in pain. Slowly the blackened skin burned away leaving angry red flesh underneath. Once all of the blackened skin was gone it slowly started to knit together once again but it left a nasty scar where the bite had been.

With a gasp Bella pulled away, she looked worn out and exhausted. That... kind of confused me though. I've seen her heal worse wounds before much more quickly and with less exertion. Something was wrong, Bella was acting strange.

Bella took a deep breath before pulling away. "That's all I can do for now, perhaps you can get more healing once we take you from the castle."

The deer girl nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes. Bella quickly stepped away before giving me a look and stepping away from the rest of the group. I glanced over at them. Other than Mimi, they hadn't noticed Bella's weird behavior, they started to ask the deer woman questions about what happened while we slipped away. The woman visibly shrunk away from Silva every time she spoke. She was deathly afraid of Silva for some reason.

Mimi and I took some distance and walked over to Bella. I expected Mimi to suddenly hug her as soon as we got close, like she usually did, but instead, she stood protectively between us and the rest of our group.

"Bella, what's wrong?" I whispered.

She looked over before turning back and speaking through our bond. -- "Lilith, did you check her karma?" --

I hadn't. There didn't seem to be a need to but since she brought it up... Negative 2680... What?

Bella looked at me knowingly. -- "She has the lowest karma out of anyone I've ever tried to heal. Because of the trait I received when I became a succubus, I heal people better and more efficiently the stronger their karma. She has negative 2680. It was like my magic was actively resisting me. I don't know what she's done but something is really wrong. I didn't stop healing her but we need to be careful." --

I looked back over to the deer woman who was still being questioned by my friends. -- "She seems to be afraid of Silva and they seem to know each other. Silva doesn't look hostile though, it looks one-sided." --

-- "You don't remember?" --

I turned back to her. -- "Remember what?" --

-- "Matilda is the name of the deer beastfolk Fae told me to keep an eye out for. This woman is why Fae was so attached to me." --

My eyes widened. Right! -- "I totally forgot about that to be honest. With everything going on the name slipped my mind. I was so surprised we found a survivor at all, I didn't consider who she may be." --

Bella nodded. -- "Right, but now what do we do? Her karma is so low that surely she has to have had some part in the attack on the castle right?" --

I scratched the base of my horn as I considered the question. -- "...Technically that isn't true but it seems very likely. I'm not sure how her karma could be so low otherwise. I don't see a servant having many opportunities to lower it so much, unless she's some kind of prolific serial killer. And based on the feeling I get from her level, she's much lower than us, making that scenario basically impossible." --

-- "Is it possible she let them in somehow? Letting her get partial 'credit' from every person the demons killed?" -- Bella asked.

-- "Maybe." --

Torien noticed the three of us standing away from the rest of them and came over. "Is something wrong?" she spoke quietly.

I looked at Bella before deciding to tell Torien. "We think Matilda was involved with the attack."

Torien's eyes widened and she turned back to look at the deer girl. "What? Why would you think that?"

"Don't look at her while we talk, she might catch on. A lot of the abilities succubi share are related to something called karma. You can think of karma as a pseudo-stat that is determined by all of your good deeds subtracted by your bad deeds. Her stat is negative and by a substantial amount, meaning she's done something or multiple things that are very bad. Bella first noticed because her healing is improved by positive karma and the magic was fighting her when she was trying to heal the woman."

Torien's face turned grim. "How reliable is this stat? How much can you trust it?"

"I think it's reliable enough to say that she's done some very bad things. I can't be sure that it's related to this event but I find it likely based on how strong she is. She also has to have done something without getting any direct experience from it. I can't think of many things that would lower her karma so drastically without killing other people but I suppose it's possible. She's also seems to really afraid of Silva."

"I noticed that too. Silva asked her about it but she didn't say anything. I had assumed it was for a similar reason as Fae but I'm not as sure about that now." Torien scratched her chin.

The woman had passed out and was now sleeping with Silva and Morrigan watching over her. The guards were finishing up in the area and it looked like Jasper was preparing to move on soon.

"We'll keep it in mind. For now I don't think she's a threat. We'll have to question her about it later. We should keep this from the guards though, I don't know how we would explain our suspicions to them... Maybe I wouldn't mind talking to Nathaniel about it. Do you mind filling in the others when it's safe?"

Torien nodded. "Of course."

"I'll see if I can get one of the guards to take her somewhere safer than the floor in the middle of the hallway." We walked back over to the rest of our group. I could see the questioning look in Silva's eyes but she didn't express it.

I took one more look at the sleeping doe on the floor. -2680