Fog was crawling over the surface of the island like a slow moving avalanche. It's source was not yet to be revealed, but when, in a clear warm night, the temperature suddenly drops, and fog begins to hide the landmarks, it is seldom a good sign. You almost expect things to be hidden in the mist.
Locigan knew this. He knew that it always created this tingly feeling in a humans stomach, if they entered such a fog: Not being able to point out the source of unknown sounds, but comforting themself with the thought that "it's just a fog... calm down...". And he knew that one could almost raise the tension to the point of panic, if there is movement in the fog here and…. there… One of his favourite techniques.

The curtain that separated their world from his was especially thin at this place, many helpless females must have found their fate in the arms of monsters at this location. Their fears, their degradation and their loss of self respect had created copious amounts of tainted mana. Every blade of grass was filled with cries of former victims, their pain was sensible even in the world of Locigan, creating small waves of pleasure as he imagined what these girls must have gone through, that even now there was this residual shadow of their fear. How much more intense must it be on the other side of the curtain, in the world he was not able to reach…

Locigan had to admit… the place had style. The nearby swamp, the razor sharp rocks, the foreboding shadows of the nearby forest… and the girl.

Whoever this girl was, this night would become something far worse than her worst nightmare.

High above, a lithe figure hovered just outside the borders of this mystic fog, trying to discern what it is, and who was making it. Beings who had this sort of ability often had wellsprings of mana far beyond that of mortals, mana she so desperately wanted for herself, drawing her to it like a moth to a fire.

Mage was no mere moth though, she was able to sense the malevolence behind this magical shroud, she just needed a way of piercing it and seeing through the barriers enchanting this haze. round and round she flew, undaunted by the vastness of it all, diamond eye flitting about, trying to find a spot where the magic was weakest, where it spiked, where the barriers stretched, where they collected, every last bit of information that might lead her to uncover what is beneath all this foggy soup.

Her patience was wearing thin as she circled and circled, unable to find out anything new, so it seems she was going to have to use the direct approach. Mage flew down towards the fogs edge, landing a few meters from its border. Not wanting to give herself away totally, she masked her own energies, making it seem like she was an ordinary mortal, though this was risky, for while masked, no being would be able to sense her properly, and she herself wouldnt be able to sense anything properly as well. Wits at the ready, she strode into the fog, readying herself for whatever is to come.

The feeling was almost physical, just as if Mage was passing through a real curtain. Something had changed in the direct surrounding, and all of a sudden a whimper could be heard, just as if she entered a new room through a curtain, and was now able to hear what was lying behind it. But the fog was still filtering all sounds, dampening them, and taking their direction.

Mage would knew the place of course, it was a place filled with tainted Mana, and while the sensation of it was not really sensible, it still created some form of background noise that spoke to her subconscience. And like a purling river drew ordinary people towards it, inviting them to rest and listen, this background had always made this place an attractive resting place for Mage.
So it was not the really the feeling she noticed, but it's sudden dampening. And as the Mist began to clear, she would, in a more empathic way, already know that she was not in her world anymore, but someplace very different.

The fog cleared slowly, unveiling bit for bit of the surrounding. This place was a masterpiece, it was just alien enough to raise doubts, but still similar enough to the world beyond the curtain, that this doubts could be repressed. If a human wouldn't know about it, the human ability to blend out all things that "just can't be..." would find explanations for all the small differences this place beared compared to the original. Even the impression of decay all over the place, the threatening branches like arms of the nearby trees and the even sharper rocks, which alltogether turned this place into a literal threat.

A girl, blond, shapely, clad in the school uniform, kneeled on a small rocky Plateu, whimpering, her lithe frame trembling due to the sudden drop of temperature. Her face was buried in her palms, but raising her head, she seemed to relax a little. She raised, and Mage woul notice her beauty, and her clear green eyes. Behind her, unnoticed by her till now, there was a carriage, a literal cliche, for it seemed to be constructed from Bones, drawn by four giant grey Horses, which... had no eyes, but monstrous sharp fangs protuding from their mouths. The hooves where hidden in black shadowy smoke, and the carriage itself seemed to float, it's bone white wheels not touching the ground. A creature... a being sat on the coach box, literally made of shadow and fangs. It was holding a rotting whip in his black claw, and now,it was turning his head towards Mage.

The girl seemed unknown, probably one of the new girls which had just arrived. Her voice trembled insecure, as she asked
"Can you help me please, i think i lost my way..."


A voice like an icepick could be heard by Mage, and she would know, she would feel, that it was only in her head...

You are invited, why don't you bring the girl too, she is some sort of our main dish, if you wish to see it that way... If she makes trouble, my servant will sincerely enjoy to help you shut her mouth...

The servant smiled encouraging, bearing terrible fangs...

And not far away, the hidden Locigan observed the scenery. The pieces where in place...

Interesting.

She expected something a bit less, but planar manipulation at this scale was something to behold, if she could learn how the being responsible managed this, it would greatly help in her efforts to re-unite her soul, and ultimately, her power, with her physical self. Upon passing through the barrier, though, she felt something odd, but couldn't quite put her finger on it, still, she carried on.

As the mist cleared even further, Mage caught sight of the girl, no doubt one of the more careless students of the island, and the bone coach, very much reminding her of that time her friend, Vlad Tepes, asked her what to do with all the corpses he had amassed.

"Invited?" she replied to the demonic coachman "I dont take lightly to being toyed with, beast, now take me to the being you serve, and quickly".

She flicked her hand out to the girl, wanting to throw her into the coach with as little contact as possible, but try as she might, the girl wouldnt move to her will. "tch.." she mumble under her breath. She quickly grabbed the protesting girl by the arm and shoved her into the coach, with the requisite kicking and screaming. Fortunately, her strength was still augmented, so it took little effort to push the girl inside, herself following and closing the door.

"Lets ride, beast, I have much to discuss with your master."

Tears followed Mage all the way as the carriage continued his ride. The girl was trembling all over her body, yet the only open reaction to the terrifying realization about her situation were silent tears, and the expression of disbelief on her young face. Her gaze steadily moved from Mage to the astonishingly tasteless interior of the carriage, which was all held in the colors of rotting flesh, and then back to Mage.

This is a game, is it? You are one of the seniors, are you? You test the freshmen, don't you?

Statements posed as questions, the first step to denial. We are not really having a ride in a carriage from Hell are we? was implied, but unspoken.

Why don't you comfort her? Isn't it much sweeter when finally they realize that all their hopes are shattered, and all their trust is betrayed? Don't you want to see it in her face? You know as good as i that her fate is sealed, so why don't we play a little with her?

The voice in her head was slick, cold and tempting. But the words weren't words at all, but something like her own thoughts, brought up from the depths of the subconscience, but twisted to the will of the speaker.

Along the entirety of the ride, Mage kept her hand in front of her, palm facing her face as she furled and unfurled her fingers, one by one, from the pinky, then the ring, to the middle, down the index, to the thumb, and repeat, over and over, trying to reason out why the mana of this plane didn't weave to her will. Different it may be, but mana is mana, no matter which plane you exist in, and as such, the same skills in manipulating these energies should apply.

She took no notice of the girl since the fools whimpering ceased, she was grateful, actually, if theres one thing that gets on her nerves, its a person in the throes of desperation... desperation that she didn't cause.

once again, the the coach mans voice, at least she thought it was the coach mans voice, echoed through her head, making thoughts at the back of her head come to the surface, an activity that annoyed her to no end.

"I have no intention of shattering this girls hopes, I'm not one to finish what I didn't start, its simply not fun... for me...". she snapped back "Besides, why rush, why not simply let her wallow in desperation, and then destroy that last flicker of hope...". The girl was sure to notice the sorceress talking to herself, responding to some phantom dialogue that only she heard, The girl mustve thought she was nuts. Another round of finger furling later, and Mage felt a strange sensation within her, a familiar sensation she felt only in when in her compressed form. With a heave of her chest, she drew in a good lungful of air....

and yawned.

To any normal person, yawning is normal, but to Mage, it was not, the energies that fed her in this form should sate any and all physical needs, yawning included. She stared at her half-open palm, disbelief in her eyes, did she really just do that?

The eyes of the blond girl clenched, and she shook her head slowly. There was noone here, yet this strange woman was pretending to be talking to somone. "... wallow in desperation, then destroy the last flicker of hope." and then her yawning and the surprised look... made the girl lose her well guarded self-control. Now she cried loudly, and, interrupted by incoherent sobbing, she pressed out the sentence:

...You are so mean, i will talk to the headmaster about this, and then your little game will end. You will never see this island again, i promise you...

and again, from the back of Mages head, thoughts resurfaced which weren't hers at all:

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... Psychological Warfare... In times of War, False Information, Rumour, and Exxageration do good servive, but they are by far outplayed by Denial. Brilliant, detached and, in a heartless way, perverse... in all those years you haven't changed at all

Locigan landed on the roof of his keep, which was, of course, the counterpart to the school building in the human world, and watched the arrival of the carriage. In one thing Mage was right, he was speaking to her trough his servant, because his servant was essentially a part of him, a part that would return soon, and with him came an opportunity he had waited for so long.

The girl had raised from her seat meanwhile, and was desperately trying to open the carriage door, yet it seemed, of course, to be sealed.

Leave me out... you will pay for this, you will all pay for this...

she shouted, desperately jolting the carriage door. Then the carriage stopped, and after a short time, the beast of shadow and fangs opened the door, staring at Mage and the girl with glowing red eyes.

We have arrrrrived... the massssterrrr awaitsssss you...

The girl screamed.

Putting that awkward moment of mortality aside, Mage could barely stand the girls incessant whining, and the who was this being to think that she had anything to do with lower beings such as they, it almost sounded like it was stalking her throughout her whole life. Right now though, there are more important things at hand, such as shutting up that blithering idiot of a girl.

Since what comes naturally doesnt seem to be working for her, she decided to take her mana weaving step by step.

Specto~

Mage drowned out everything in her vision; the tasteless interior, the distorted landscape, the panicking girl, focusing only on the threads of mana that flowed in this plane, themselves looking like barbed wired that flowed all around them

Contraho~

She lifted her hand, letting strings of mana out of her fingers, using those to snag some of the ambient energy, making them collect around her hand like a jumble of criss-crossing threads. The mana of this plane didnt only look like barbed wire, it felt like it too, the taint spearing the channels of energy within her, causing mild discomfort.

Vieo~

With energy in hand, she uses her own energies to 'weave' the mana she collected into a spell of her desire, but with this energy, it was anything but easy, not to mention the pain that was distracting her.

Eximo~

Mage now had her spell, her focus was given towards the girl, and all that was needed was the chant to release the spell.

With a quick flick of the wrist, she casts the rather haphazard spell, shouting the spells name in order to complete the casting.

"SILENTIUM!!"

No sooner had the girl begun screaming at the sight of the doorman did her voice suddenly disappear, the much desired silence Mage wanted finally attained. Casting that spell with this planes energy was not without its drawbacks, as was seen when Mage suddenly took hold of the hand she used to cast the spell, clutching it as sharp pains shot through it like thorns, her face crinkling with pain, another thing she hasnt felt in this form for a very very very long while.

Taking a moment to compose herself, Mage shook off the pain, conducting herself as if nothing was amiss, disembarking from the bone coach like royalty while behind her, the girl grew even more panicked at the loss of her voice. The keep was quite impressive, albeit rather gruesome, like some goth cathedral, designed by goth architects, built with goth materials, and put together by a goth workforce.

"My patience is running thin, no more delays, or you will find yourself on the wrong side of the river styx..." she barked out to the shadow creature. "And make sure the girl back there is gagged the next time I see her... now take me to your Master."

Eyes are the window to the soul, and now, that no sound was able to escape the girls throat anymore, only her eyes were left to communicate her fear. Anyone who would have looked into the green lakes of her eyes would have seen, that her mind was in the process of breaking, while it tried to integrate the newfound horrors into her world view. It failed, because tears were just not appropriate anymore. Fears that she wasn't able to scream out, began to eat away her will. After the shadow-servants claw curteously helped Mage off the carriage, it was able to pull the girl off the cart, without any mentionable resistance. The being of shadows and fangs shouldered the girl effortlessly, while at the same time signifying Mage the way with his other hand.

It would not have been nessecary, because the way was obvious. Skulls, and women that beared the marks of whips on their nude skin, hung at large black wooden poles. The women were chained to the poles at their wrists, signifying the path to the entrance of the keep.

Mage would have to wander through the main gate, which reminded at the mouth of a giant wolf skull, and through a long corridor which followed. The corridor was lined by dark black pillars, which were constructed of... people, each of them petrified into black obsidian, each of them showing a different Form of Horror in their expressions. The pillars, and the incoherently flickering torches created a muster of shadows, in which Mage would recognize hidden people... hidden women, which seemed to seek the gaze of Mage, but when she would see them, they turned away, as if they were ashamed, seeking to hide deeper into the shadows, and escape her gaze. All this happened without a word, even a sound, and even the shadow beast, which followed Mage closely, did not say anything, until they reached a blood red metal gate which opened before them.

At the end of the long hall which followed, Mage would spot him, sitting on the Throne of black obsidian and white giant bones, surrounded by torches, whose orange light immersed his muscular body in a play of red and shadows. His name would come to Mage easily. Once, eons ago, before even her exile, he was just a minor demon, one of the beings in the service of the High demon lords, which ruled most the multiverse with iron fist. Mages, who were careful enough, could conjure him, and entrust him with evil deeds to do to their rivals. Mages who weren't careful or powerful enough, were abducted, never to be seen again.

But now... he was obviously much much more.

The surroundings did little to faze Mage, though the decor was rather intruiging, an interesting collection of girls that have long given up attempts of escape, obsidian pillars carved by some twisted chisel, and the inhabitants were quite welcoming... in a silent and eerie sort of way. It was a little bit grandoise for her liking, but then again, she didnt have to look at this day after day, so to each their own, as they would say. The gate itself was another hint of the humongous ego that hid behind those crimson doors. The shadow being open these up for her, and like some demonized butler, bowed her into the chamber. Mages heels clacked away on the ebon floor, her diamond stare fixing upon the muscular entity that sat on the throne. Too far was she to get a good look at her host, but as she drew closer, she could start to make out the appearance of the being these demons called Master, until finally, the identity of this mystery beast came known to her.

"Locigan..." she said as-a-matter-of-factly. "Fancy meeting you here, I havent seen you since I sent you on that errand.... what was it... oh yes, pelting old crone Morgana's house with tomatoes. How did that go, anyway?"

Mage waved her hand, and a chair slid from the side, stopping just behind her. There she sat, crossing her legs, putting one hand on her knee, and the other on top of that hand. "So tell me, what brings you to this plane?"

As simple as a display that might have been, Mage didnt want to betray her difficulties in this realm. She had been concentrating on that chair halfway through the hall, weaving silently, slowly, holding the spell in her hand up to the point where she needed it when she called the chair to her. Even as she sat, she tried hard not to show that the hand she used to cast it was in pain and shivering, hiding it between her knee and other hand, Trying to keep a straight face as she sat there facing her host.

The demon rises, raising his giant muscular frame from the throne, slowly, obviously enjoying the view as he was immersing the girl, which had been dumped before the throne, in shadow. Deliberately ignoring Mage, he approached the blond girl that backed up from him, struggling with her legs to get up, while he spoke, now perfectly audible...

The night has befallen my kingdom, and it is time for the hunt. These are the rules: I will give you an advantage of 3 hours, then me, and my minions, will come for you. If you can escape us till the morning dawn, you will be free. But if not... you will be mine.

The girl got up, and, walking backward slowly, she kept her gaze fixed on the monstrous frame. It took time for her to realize, that this being was really not following her, rather staring at her unambigously. She turned around, and ran through the open gate. Following the young student with his gaze, Locigan added, without even considering to look at Mage:

While i am pretty sure it happened, I can say that i don't know about this anymore. One of the merits, if you live in a world which provides you with enough diversion, is that you may allow yourself to forget. Contrary to the situation if you are forced to live in a prison void of any sensual input. Then you would probably have to wallow in memento of every sensation witnessed once, just to stay alive...

The demon turned his head, and then his body, towards Mage.

You insist to use the Mana of this place , instead of your own,for a mundane spell which does nothing but drawing a chair.

It must quite hurt...

The magical axioms of the human world, and the ones here, are not quite the same. Which, of course, is utimately the reason for our meeting...

The demon finished his speech, and it didn't seem as if he was considering to answer Mages question.

"My reasons are my own, demon..."

With the truth about her spellcasting on this plane now in the open, Mage no longer hesitated in shaking the ache from the hand she had tried to keep hidden from him.

"And I do not take lightly to being ignored or to being evaluated.. or to being led around by a demon whos taste in furniture has barely evolved...."

Mage switched legs, crossing on over the other before continuing her speech. "And as you can plainly see, I managed to circumvent my exile, so do not take me so lightly, he who I sent as cannon fodder... Now come, why all this trouble just to get me here?"

The sorceress showed no sign of fear or weakness, save for that little shake of the hands earlier, for if she did, the demon would most likely pay her less respect, or none at all. The earlier tries at spell weaving did, however, hone her abilities at gathering the energies of this plane, so she still had a minor advantage.

They still hurt like dragons fire, though.

See... Magic is not the way it was when you were exiled. This dimension was once the world behind the mirror. It was the twin Sister of the world you were born to, and just one of the countless possibility spaces, which were born from your homeworld.

Slowly the demon was shaking his head, smiling, thus bearing his shrp yellow fangs.

Tss... has barely evolved...

His eyes clenched, and, now more threatening, the demons voice spoke, but now in Mages head again.

When you stare into the Abyss for a long time, then the Abyss will start to stare back. Talk to the women around. Here the only place for a woman, is as a slave. Here it is not a social code, but a natural Law. I could keep you here and, given time, the axioms of this world would change even you... but...

The voice felt like a complete loss of private sphere, just as if her own thoughts would betray her. It was speaking in her voice, urging her self-confidence to trust it , yet she knew it were Locigans words, Locigans will that spoke to her through her. Then it was over and he resumed speaking with his deep, dark, cold and raspy natural voice

... i will not do it. I will send you back. But before that, i will allow you to take from me what you desire so much. And you will be allowed to come back for more... as often as you wish... What do you say?