Many people were hurt. Some were simply turned to ash by a direct hit. Some were trampled by the stampede of people running away as fast as they could. It was complete chaos. Fred wondered what he could do, and quickly decided. He plunged to the old wolf, the closest of Fred`s creatures. He "grabbed" the wolf by the ears, and hovered down until he felt the weird melding which would give him control over the beast. The wolf wasn`t sleeping. It was already keyed up, perhaps because of all the noise and stress happening close to its lair.

　　Fred/wolf ran out of the lair, and it was just a few steps to pounce on the demon from behind. This worked great, but the demon turned out to be denser and heavier than Fred would have guessed. The demon wasn`t knocked down, and the wolf ended up towering over the demon, chewing on its neck. This was also problematic. The demon tasted horrible, and its tough acidic skin was burning the wolf`s lips and tongue.

　　Then the demon rather casually reached its hand back to touch the wolf`s head. And its fireball blew the wolf`s head off almost instantly. Fred was sent spinning. For a minute he wasn`t sure who or what he was. Controlling a creature at the moment of its gruesome death was surprisingly traumatic for Fred. He felt the pain of the death, and also felt like he was being pulled in different directions, like a bit of steak being wrestled apart by several dogs.

　　When he finally got his head back together, he looked out at the demon. It must have been a while, because the demon was ringed by different people, prepared and armored, all of whom were now attacking. The demon kept slinging fire, but now it was bouncing off of shields and magical wards. A constant rain of arrows was hitting the demon, though none were penetrating. Several magical attacks were flung at the demon, who shrugged them off, except for a wad of ice, which clearly slowed it down.

　　Now the arrows stopped, as several large fighters with big sharp swords stepped forward. Right in the middle of these warriors was the fighter from the Four Tropes. "Wow, cool! You go, dude! Good to see you again!" Fred laughed and waved to himself. It felt rather absurd to have such a happy reaction to a man`s face, in the middle of such danger and seriousness, but nonetheless it broke Fred`s tension and let him step back and look around.

　　Quickly the demon shuffled back as it endured a rain of sword blows. Almost all bounced right off. The demon was amazingly tough. But The Tropes fighter suddenly stepped forward and plunged his sword straight through the neck of the demon. "Wow, sharp sword." Fred heard himself say. This wound was serious, and the demon grabbed its neck and collapsed. The fighter stabbed the demon twice more, then held up his sword for all to see. It was smoking, as was the ground around the demon.

　　The demon`s black blood seemed to be acidic; the sword blade was bubbling and sizzling as the fighter held it aloft. The ground around the demon was also being burnt by the spilled demon blood, and as the smoke got thicker all the humans started coughing and hacking, and stumbled back to get away. Soon the humans had retreated to ten spans away from where the demon was bleeding out.

　　Fred could see that the Tropes fighter, and everyone else who`d gotten a lung full of the smoke, was still in bad shape, struggling to breath and writhing on the ground. The sword the Tropes fighter had used was now melted in half; its pointy end was completely gone. The demon was also writhing, spilling demon blood from its wounds, wreathed in smoke. As the people watched, the demon grew weaker, and finally stopped moving.

　　Then it exploded. The demon just popped like a water balloon, spraying toxic acidic blood everywhere. Ten spans was not enough; lots of people were splashed, and the screaming and hacking multiplied. It was complete chaos. Fred thought that it sounded like hell itself, so many people crying and screaming and running.

　　Then the Mother was there, chanting, and her white light shown from her hands, covering the whole scene. She and her followers had run up from the temple, Fred assumed, likely because of all the noise and tumult. A cool wind swept all the toxic smoke away, and everything got a lot quieter. Still, there were a great many injured, and Fred watched as the Mother`s seven followers moved into the crowd, all business, responding to all who needed them. After a few moments of shock, the rest of the humans got busy and helped them.

　　All the injured were walked through Fred`s domain to the healing temple, where the Mother started working on the most critically hurt. The temple quickly filled up; Fred counted over a hundred injured people, many of them having severe breathing trouble. One guy had his leg amputated. "That`s horrible. And amazing. Didn`t somebody say demons were toxic? They didn`t prepare me for this." Fred said to himself.

　　To Martin and Kumbanaka, he said, "Okay, big demon fight! That was something."

　　"Tell me all; I couldn`t see anything. But what I smelled was a new kind of horrible." Martin complained.

　　"Well, I couldn`t have been any closer to the action. But I had no idea THAT would happen." Kumbanaka replied. He sounded unhurt.

　　"Kumbanaka just wanted to question the guy, `cause his& magic looked funny to me. Then his head came off, and the demon crawled out of him, and suddenly fire everywhere! And his blood was like acid. Bad acid. And after he died, he exploded!"

　　"I heard all the humans wailing and crying. I did like that part," Martin snarked. "But the stench of the demon`s blood. I`ve never experienced such foulness. It makes me want to tear off my own nose."

　　Fred looked again at the scene of the battle, right at the entrance to his domain. The marvelous black marble that Fred had laid down was now scarred and pitted across a large circular area, and a few spots were still fitfully sizzling and smoking. The humans were staying well clear. The body of the wolf was just now dissolving into sparkles. "Good try, old boy," thought Fred to himself. Now that he thought about it, he`d never once considered the sex of the wolf, or of most of his creatures. But having been the wolf (in a way), he now understood the wolf was male.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it`s taken without the author`s consent. Report it.

　　Fred looked closer at the burns on the marble. He saw that the continuing smoke was from a few hunks of demon flesh that were still lying around. He wanted them gone, so he tried to grab them and push them into the stone. But they not only resisted his control, but as he "touched" them, he felt a burning sensation, as though the acid was affecting him.

　　"Ow! This stuff burns me too!" Fred exclaimed.

　　Kumbanaka replied, "Be careful, Fred. Those humans seem to have suffered greatly from the toxic nature of the demon`s fluids. It`s not impossible that you could be injured too."

　　"Oh bosh," Martin disagreed. "Do you know how hard it is to hurt an Earth Spirit?"

　　"Those weedy wizards from before sure hurt me."

　　"Yes, Dear Spirit, but they had some sort of spell, especially made to harm you. I doubt demon blood is similarly crafted. Besides, you still don`t understand your own power. You`ve grown so much and in such a short time, of course you still feel vulnerable. I assure you you are not."

　　"Well, maybe, but this demon blood is still nasty. I want to get rid of it. And fix the stone it damaged."

　　"If you leave it, the humans will take it away." Martin said. "I told you they are far too clever. They`ll figure out a way to safely handle the stuff."

　　"I guess so." Fred looked out on his marble entrance. The normally busy and festive night was fully shut down. All the merchants were packing up their stalls. No more food was being sold. Everything was quite subdued, except for knots of humans talking together, tensely and quietly.

　　As Fred looked around, he realized that there was almost certainly more than one demon hiding in the town. So he turned on his mana sight, and carefully studied every human he could see. After an hour, he felt he`d looked at every human in town (and in the domain). He identified two more "people" with that distinctive magical shimmer, one in the new tower, and one living on the top floor of the Glass Citadel (Fred still thought that name was cool), where the princes were.

　　"Okay, I`ve looked all around, and I`ve spotted two more demon guys," he said to Martin and Kumbanaka. "I don`t think fighting them and letting them explode is a good idea right now."

　　"They are clearly spies. Infiltrators. How exciting. Please let me hunt them with you, Fred." Kumbanaka said.

　　"Spies are sent where they are needed, to gather information. To prepare for an invasion. To engage in sabotage." Martin mused. "Why don`t you just drop them into a hole?"

　　"But what fun is a pit trap?" Kumbanaka groused.

　　"Yeah, I can drop them in a hole, can`t I?" Fred said. "Thank you for reminding me. I`m gonna have to talk with Jim about this, so he can warn everybody else."

　　"Everybody?" Kumbanaka asked. "You mean the other Earth Spirits?"

　　"Yes, that`s it. If the demons are spying on me, they`re doing it to the other Earth Spirits. I need to warn them about exploding and acid blood."

　　"You could use your drums," Martin pointed out.

　　Fred replied, "I don`t actually know the word for demon. Jim can explain things in better detail, quicker." He did want to warn them, and wished he were more facile with the drums language. He thought briefly about sending a drum message anyway, but he reasoned that he couldn`t do anything to really explain (in detail) what had happened, so there wasn`t any reason to stress the other Earth Spirits out.

　　And that was the excitement for the evening. Nobody was really happy, the town didn`t really settle down, and the temple team was busy throughout the night. "Workers? Priests? Followers? What do I call them?" wondered Fred. Whatever they were called, they worked with care and efficiency, and managed to heal and send away half their patients within a few hours. The rest were clearly staying the night, laid out in every room and across the temple floor. Many still coughed and hacked and had trouble breathing.

　　Fred saw the Four Tropes team visiting their stricken member. The fighter was in bad shape, probably because of how close he`d gotten to the demon. Fred hoped he wouldn`t die, but he didn`t see how else he could help. He`d already given the guy a magic health tree and a special healing temple.

　　In the middle of the night, the drakes came. Six of them, stepping with quiet purpose, single file, they strode into Fred`s domain. They were all different colors, but about the same size, four spans long, nose to tail. They looked exactly like small dragons. Together they slipped past the front lairs, and proceeded through the man-bat`s room and the ogre`s lair. Both of these creatures hardly looked up at them, and certainly gave them no trouble. After passing through, they each chose one of the new big lairs in the back, and settled in.

　　"Drakes! Elemental drakes. I haven`t smelled them since&" Martin spoke up.

　　"Cool," Fred said. "You can tell me about them while I give them proper lairs." He went about looking at each lair with his special magic.

　　The fire drake needed almost nothing. It liked the bare stone walls, apparently. But it wanted a red light and heat. So Fred changed the ceiling to give off a red glow, and plenty of heat.

　　"Drakes are to us as horses are to humans," Martin opined. "Strong, loyal, useful animals. I`ve kept a few myself, back in the day."

　　Next door, the ice drake wanted only blue light and cold. So Fred adjusted the ceiling of that lair.

　　"Of course, those were Greater Drakes. These are elemental drakes."

　　"What`s the difference?" Fred asked.

　　"These are a bit smaller, and tied more closely to the raw elements. It makes them more viscous, more feral. As companions, or guards, they take more effort to train."

　　The poison drake didn`t seem to need anything. It was happy with its bare room.

　　"The humans will have to think carefully before attacking. Each of these drakes is an elemental challenge." Martin continued. "Of course, the poison drake has nothing to compare to my breath weapon."

　　The magma drake wanted a central depression in its lair room, almost seven spans across and one span deep, so Fred quickly obliged. Almost immediately, the drake rose up, and started vomiting red hot lava from its mouth. Fred was surprised, a little grossed out, and then wondered if the magma drake was gonna fill the entire basin. "That`s a lotta vomit," Fred mused.

　　"Ah, the smell of magma drake vomit! It`s very& well, it`s actually rather disgusting, when you think about where it came from. And how the drake just lies in it all day." Martin mused.

　　"Yuck," said Fred.

　　The water drake was very similar. It wanted a depression for a pool, which it immediately started filling with water. Water that came gushing without pause from its mouth.

　　"It`s rather surprising to have a water drake here. They are much more comfortable in lakes and streams, and places big enough to drown their prey. All of these elemental drakes like their solitude, so I hope you`re giving them each a separate lair?" Martin asked.

　　"Yes. Well, I made six liars, and each one has walked in and claimed one. Hey, if I`d made more lairs, would I get more drakes? How many kinds are there?"

　　"Oh, many more than six. Only a few more elemental types, like Smoke and Earth and such."

　　Finally, the wind drake wanted a higher ceiling, a dome, in fact. Fred obliged it, and the wind drake immediately started generating a cloudy, swirling little storm inside its lair. All six drakes seemed happy and glowed green, now. Though (to Fred) they all looked serious and focused, like veteran warriors on a mission.

　　"But then there are the Greater Drakes, the Trilligargs, the Vallochars, so many sub-species. Then there are the familiar drakes. Humans like them for their pets, at least while they`re young. And there`s the oh-so-stuffy Felldrakes. And more I`ve only heard of. Did you know there`s a Portal Drake, which can teleport humans straight into a pit? Marvelous!"