Please, tell me about this huge cavern you`ve opened!

　　"Oh, yeah. I was digging, like you said. And I started making room for more creatures that would be easier than the ogre." Fred continued, telling Jim about the Lined Hallway Zone, how he`d dug stairs down to make lairs for truly dangerous creatures, how he`d opened the cave and found the pyramid and made the paths and new lairs.

　　Yes, the pyramid is interesting. Who made it? And why? What was it used for?

　　"I dunno. It`s not magical."

　　And you have new creatures. Six drakes, of all different colors. How marvelous!

　　"Yeah, they just showed up together. I`ve seen the water drake fight. It`s dangerous."

　　Yes, I expect they all are. But that`s a good thing, and you`ve placed them well.

　　"Oh, also. Kumbanaka was saying how super bad the demon smoke was. It hurts peoples` eyes and lungs. He said that if the tree magic and the priestess and the temple weren`t all working together, nobody would have gotten better at all."

　　That`s believable. I told you that demons are shockingly toxic. I`m glad the humans know it now, too. They need to know the truth, if they are to fight well for Aeru.

　　But this temple of yours has exceeded our expectations. And it was all your idea, Fred. You knew the humans needed it, you made it, and look how much healing it`s done already. You`re an amazing Earth Spirit, Fred.

　　"It`s not a competition. With the other Earth Spirits, I mean. We ARE in competition with demons, I guess." Fred tried to be humble, but he did like the praise.

　　Before I go, Fred, I have to tell you something. The demons have been attacking other Earth Spirits. Only six so far, and none of them near you.

　　"Those wizards were sent after them? Martin said the weedy wizards were all done. We`d destroyed their cult."

　　Yes, that`s probably true. But these attacks on the others are different. Well, not actually very different, but nothing exactly like what you experienced. Most WERE groups of human wizards, but we suspect that some of the attackers had more direct demonic help.

　　"Was anybody hurt?"

　　One of your peers is still pretty damaged by the attack he suffered. I`m working with him now. I`d ask you to reach out, but he`s all the way on the other side of Aeru from you. No other Earth Spirits have been seriously injured. And they all took care of their attackers the same way you did; by crushing them or having their creatures counter-attack.

　　"Well, good?"

　　These attacks are increasing. And not everyone has the same fine domain you do, or the number of humans nearby. I fear it`s only a matter of time before the demon attacks become fatal to one of your peers.

　　"How can I help?"If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

　　You`ve already been a gigantic help. I`m off to tell everyone to find an Orichalcum alloy sword with a blessing of sharpness.

　　"Wait, I still have two demons in my town."

　　Deal with them, Fred. Get Kumbanaka to help you. Get Martin to eat them, if necessary. I have to go now.

　　"Okay, then. Bye." Fred said to Jim. To himself, he said, "Okay, I have a bunch to do tonight."

　　First he sent a drum message. He`d gotten better at pushing his drum properly, without it slipping out of his "grasp". He tried to drum extra loud, so everyone could hear him. He still wasn`t feeling that he knew the drum language perfectly, but he managed to send that he was fine. That his domain was growing. That he had six new creatures. That the weather was clear. And that he`d found a pyramid in a cave.

　　At least, he did the best he could, since he didn`t have the words for pyramid or cave yet.

　　Once that was done, he called a war council.

　　"Jim told me to take care of those two demons that are still in town. Will you help?"

　　"If you let me fly into the town, I can grab the demon and throw it as far and hard as I can." said Martin. "But don`t ask me to eat it or cut it. That I won`t do; too much acid."

　　Kumbanaka riposted, "You and I can hunt much more precisely, Fred. let me lure the demon out into the open. Then you can drop it into a hole, and pull it apart underground."

　　"Kumbanaka`s plan sounds good. I can drop it in a hole, no problem. I`ve never tried pulling anything apart, though."

　　Kumbanaka and Martin both made noises, clearly meant to imply that Fred should have no problem with such an action. "I suppose I`m willing to try. We gotta do something."

　　"I`m ready," Kumbanaka said. "Tell me where they are, and I`ll start the hunt." He purred in a terrifying way.

　　Fred looked around the town. He found one demon where he expected; with the prince`s group in the top floor of the Glass Citadel. He initially couldn`t spot the other, but soon he glanced into one of the farthest privy buildings, and saw the demon, holding a private conversation with another demon. "Two of them!" Fred almost shouted, in a way that Kumbanaka and Martin could hear.

　　They pestered him with questions, but Fred was already in action. The privy had a cistern directly below it, beneath a thin stone floor, so it was less than a thought for Fred to remove the stone floor, and both demons fell immediately down into the filthy pit. This was quite a surprise to both of them, and they started shouting and thrashing about in the sewage. Fred quickly rebuilt the floor he`d just erased, to make sure no one heard the demons, and to keep them in.

　　Fred was actually amazed that the demons were now standing in filth up to their knees (and they were currently normal human sized). "I guess I have to start mucking out these toilets, sooner than I thought." Then he remembered all the humans that the other demon had killed with fireballs, and he got angry. "No time like the present."

　　He dug down. He pushed the whole bottom of the cistern deep into the ground. He kept pushing and pushing, and before he knew it, the pit was now 50 spans deep, and pitch dark. The two demons fell with the digging, into the darkness that Fred called his domain.

　　Now he grabbed the walls of the bottom part of the pit, and pushed them together like a child pushing two blocks of clay together, pressing as hard as he could, trapping the two demons in stone. As he did, he could feel the demon flesh, covered in slimy shit, crushing and deforming between his stony "hands". He`d definitely never done this before, and he could feel the stone as if it were his own body, so feeling the destruction of the demons so viscerally was horrible. If it wasn`t demons, if he`d felt that he was squishing humans to death, he wasn`t sure he could do it.

　　As if that wasn`t bad enough, the demon bodies popped like balloons, spilling all their concentrated, acidic blood into the surrounding stone. This stung Fred, an irritant that felt bizarre to him. It also stole the control of the surrounding stone from him. It was as if the demon blood was taking over the stone, removing Fred`s control. This effect didn`t spread very far, but after a moment it left a rough sphere of stone, about five spans wide, that Fred couldn`t control or feel inside. It was a bit like finding a seed in your pudding.

　　A moment later, both demons exploded. Being trapped deep in the earth, it was muffled and contained, but it was a shock big enough for all the humans in town to feel. Fred stopped, and (metaphorically) took a deep breath.

　　Martin and Kumbanaka hadn`t shut up, so Fred finally answered them. "I found two demons talking in the bathroom. I dropped them into a hole and squished them. Into paste."

　　"Well. Commendably efficient, Fred." Martin replied.

　　"You`ve destroyed them? In the bathroom?" Kumbanaka asked.

　　"Yes, well I dug a deep hole under the bathroom. And yeah, they`re just demon parts, now."

　　"Fill in the hole, or that bathroom will be even smellier. Ho ho." Martin cracked. But he had a point. Fred did fill in the rest of the deep pit, so that the privy and cistern were back to how they had been before.

　　"So that`s it, you`ve destroyed both demons? We`re done?" Kumbanaka said with obvious disappointment.

　　"No, there`s another. Up on the top floor of the Glass Citadel. With the princes. Can you go get him,and lead him somewhere where I can dig a hole under him?"

　　"Hooray! With pleasure, Spirit." Kumbanaka ran off.

　　"Glass Citadel. Pfahh. How pompous." Martin said.

　　"Hey, I like that name. A lot."