After checking on everyone and making sure nobody in his party was injured, Eiro led them all down into the tower's basemnet rooms. There, hidden by some old boxes and crates with cobwebs practically as thick as a head of hair, was a trapdoor that seemed to be leading down into the mineshafts.
"What do you think this place was before the Devil took it over? It doesn't look like he built it himself," Jess wondered curiously, trying to peek into some of the crates to get any sort of hint. James slowly replied, seeing as nobody else was offering a reply, "It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so maybe some research thing?
I heard that a lot of mages that are trying to develop new spells move to desolate places like this. You know, in case something goes wrong..."
Eiro nodded his head, "That seems to be the case. Though it doesn't seem like it had been in use for quite some time before the Devil found it. There were a few rooms for botanical and alchemical research, and the top of the tower was mainly for researching new spells. Though, judging from the size, the amount of living quarters, and...
well, the chapel near the entrance, it housed a lot of individuals at once. This tower probably belonged to a small mage guild at one point in the past," Eiro explained, turning around toward the others as he lifted open the trapdoor, "The canyon provides the perfect testing ground for new and work-in-progress spells, or for properly analyzing the effects of existing spells.
And of course, if something does go wrong and the place blows up, then no civilians are dragged into it."
For a few seconds, Krog stared at Eiro while deep in thought, "If other mages come out to places like this to make new spells... why do you do it at the dinner table? The other day you were literally writing something into your grimoire while wiping a mess from Avalin's face..."
Eiro and Krog locked eyes for a few moments. Slowly, the demon looked down into the long vertical shaft leading down into the earth, "Sarius, could you light the space up a bit?"
"Hah?" The salamander asked, surprised, "Why'd you want me to do it? You can do it yourself, can't'cha?"
"Yeah, but I know that you haven't been keeping up with your practice properly while in the plane of fire. So just do it. Enough to give the others some light to see, but without burning any of us," the Demon said, as the salamander grumbled.
"Well, Merlin's actions are actually giving us a tactical advantage. Merlin seems to have an ability to mess with senses, perception, and even other arcane artifacts. So he must have been able to trick the Devil well enough into believing that he was his pawn; I doubt he would really expect us to get down here this easily.
He was also clearly expecting you all to be taken out, otherwise he wouldn't have sent specifically-curated monsters after each of you," Eiro pointed out quickly, before slowing down a bit, "And... as for Nelly, I... her magic is destabilizing... her body isn't doing well, but she's a lot more stable in the plane of water. And I'm sure Nelly knows something about the Naiad Queen that we don't.
She should be fine soon."
Ariella looked at Eiro with a concerned expression. It was close to pitch-black down here, but the soft shimmers of light from Sarius' flames above were enough for her to see the Demon's pained expression. Things hadn't been going as he was expecting. Nelly was heavily injured and a man who Eiro thought he could consider family once before had become an enemy like none other.
And while Ariella wasn't there herself, the few things that Eiro had explained about Merlin already seemed incomprehensible. To Eiro, this all must seem incredibly frightening and nerve-racking. But even so, Eiro pushed on and was relentlessly aiming for the Devil's neck.
"I'm sure that everything-" Ariella started, slowly taking a step forward to try and embrace Eiro for a moment, but before she could, the Demon strongly pushed back against her. She hadn't even realized what was going on. It was only a few moments later that she realized she was bleeding from her neck. It was a shallow wound, and there wasn't even any particular pain.
It would heal up in no time, but the problem was that she had no idea what had done it. Confused, she tried to see Eiro. One of his arms was cut off nearly all the way, barely holding on by a few muscles.
Without hesitation, the Demon used one of his hands to hold his arm into place, fusing his own flesh back onto himself and using healing magic to take care of the rest, "What's happening?" Ariella asked, although she already knew what the answer to that was. The lights from above were getting closer, so there was more light for her to see with.
In the darkness of the mineshaft stood a figure clad completely in black feathers. Their body was thin, but their legs were thick and powerful.
"You evolved?" Eiro scoffed, looking at the figure in front of him. It was the crow monster that the Devil had raised. The one who held one of the pentacle cards, giving them 'Ultimate Agility', much like Eiro's 'Ultimate Perception'. They were faster; much, much faster than when Eiro had last seen them.
However, Eiro came prepared as well. Eiro entered a combat-ready stance. All over his body, a number of eyes popped open, duplicated from his real eyes, numbering a total of 13. This time, Eiro wouldn't let the crow escape alive.