Influence of a Maiden

Yamin’s body rose up from the coffin she had been sleeping in. The room she was in was unmistakably similar to the cathedral in her own hometown. With how much time she’d spent worshiping in here, this was her second home.

Unlike the services she attended, the floors were not clean, but filled with sludge and slime. Large veins of black and red lit up the walls, flowing right into a mass of darkness above her head.

“This can’t be right…what's wrong with this place?”

It slowly came back to her what had happened. The battle at the seaport against pirates, a tower sending mana into the air...all happening before she completely blacked out.

What had happened to her friends, did this mean they’d lost the fight? Her heart couldn’t believe the premise. They had to still be out there, probably heading this way. But if she was truly in Verrenvill, she’d traveled quite a long way on her own.

“If this is what happened to the church, I don’t wanna know what happened to the rest of the town.”

Any attempt her imagination made to fill in blanks was thwarted in favor of keeping her sanity high.

That book from her dream was on her stomach, her name written on the cover in Nazalian. She couldn’t describe it as comforting, but it wasn’t unnerving either.

“This book, it’s real.” She opened up the pages, but noting them as blank. “What even is it?”

Suddenly she was reminded of the man with blond hair and blue eyes in the dream. His face wasn’t hard for her to recall. It was even a bit familiar to her, but why?

For all she remembered, so many things raced through her mind, causing her memory to be unreliable.

This coffin she’d been sleeping in was comfortable, but eerie all the same. She eagerly jumped out, immediately having a clearer train of thought. She needed to escape this place and reunite with her friends.

In the meantime, being so deep behind enemy lines had a perk. What info could she gather and give to those who could weaponize it?

Yamin wasn’t the bravest, but she was no coward. The darkness and hazards of this place wouldn’t overwhelm her faith in God's protection. Carful steps carried her along, trekking deep into the unknown, guided by a shining light within.

Even more then she expected, the church was completely different, but there were remnants of the place in the layout. Stretching her mental map allowed her to reach the cathedrals front door.

It wouldn’t budge. She was too weak to open it. So much for escape being simple.

There was another way out, a secret exit in the basement for gardeners to access tools they stored downstairs. Would it still be there?

Even if it was, there was a problem. The basement was spooky.

Not just the simple fright of marching around a dark cathedral, but there were noises down there, heard even on this floor. Screams, screeches, and crashes of all kinds.

Her bravery was put to the test, but it may have been all she could do.

~☆☆☆~

With each step descending downward toward Lord-knows-what, the sounds became louder. Black and red masses on the wall were dense the further she descended toward the source.

Just at the bottom of the stairs she hid behind boxes, fearing that something was coming. Something huge.

A warden marched these halls, big and ugly. The more she watched this monster stomp around, carrying a very dim blue flame in hand, the more she noted that it was an oversized version of the little demon goblins she seen before leaving the town several weeks ago.

Would it see her here? Likely not. She was hidden far too well from sight.

Smelling her however…

The big goblin monster sniffed through the air, letting out a short growl.

It shoved the boxes aside, revealing Yamin behind them.

They both looked at each other. Yamin was unable to control her bodily functions, and her mind erased all logic from its banks. She awaited how the thing would end her adolescent life.

Its growling stopped, then it nodded.

STOMP! STOMP!

And it left…

Within moments, her mind processed everything, but she hardly believed it. What sort of demon creature, especially one so big and ugly, would spare her?

It didn’t make sense. She found the idea absurd on every level.

Or, maybe this was the work of divine protection? Who knows…

All she knew was that she didn’t want to wait for it to come back.

~☆☆☆~

Under the cathedral were many rooms originally used for young children to have school and play with the nuns. They’d post up drawings, sing hymns, race around like little scamps…

It was a place for spiritual learning as much as it was fun.

But now it was a place of metal bars and black sludge.

This dungeon was not what she wanted to see here, and even much less did she want to see all the people trapped behind the bars, held in place by webbing of black tendrils.

A concentration of the black stuff was around their heads, like crowns. A red glow emanated out of it.

“Oh my God…” Yamin fearfully breathed out.

The door into the first cell was wide open. Had any of the people on the inside been free, they could have left at any time.

Yamin didn’t want to get too close, but she entered in to examine more of their condition.

The black substance she’d been seeing everywhere was clearly made of darkness, and darkness was weak to stardust. A power she knew very well.

With a tiny bit of what she considered divine inspiration, she opened her palm and the light of the stars radiated from her skin.

FWEEESH!

BLUUUUP…

The light melted the black webbing, allowing the people to slide down from it and lay on the floor.

This room was full of men, and several she recognized once the nasty stuff was out of their face.

One man was a war veteran of just over sixty years old. Another was a man in his mid-twenties, whom ran a small tailor shop in place of his retired father. That same father also happened to be here. A few more were casual church goers.

Each of them were starting to wake up on the floor. Yamin took a few steps back, so they wouldn’t look up her…

…her ash colored wedding dress? Why was she in such a beautiful outfit? Even her short hair was done nicely to seem more tame then normal. If only she had a mirror.

The men all groaned, but stood up and shook off the grogginess.

“Yamin…what’s going on?” One of them asked, recognizing her.

She took a breath and conquered her fear long enough to speak.

“I hope you all can see the bad stuff all over the place.” She pointed to the black webs on the walls. “Please…please tell me you can.” She cupped her hands, cutely pressed her legs together and leaned forward with hope.

All the men gasped as their vision revealed the darkness they’d once been trapped in.

“Son of a bi…” The veteran swore under his breath. “What the hell is this crap?”

“You can see it!” She cheered, starting to cry. The mid twenty man moved close to comfort her a bit. “Nobodies been able to see it…not anyone who lived here.”

The veteran lifted up his hat and whipped the sweat from his brow. He gave Yamin a sorry look, then turned to the other people.

“Anyone of you greenhorns seen this before?” The veteran asked. None of them were any wiser about it then him. “Alright. Yamin, what’s the deal with this place?”

She explained that a demon had taken over the town, and that she’d been trying to find someone to help her save it. She neglected to mention any of her friends, or how a car she was in was mysteriously teleported away from the town on its own.

They all looked at her, listening to her voice, hardly processing it while distracted by her femininity. Her maidenly shape, her kindness and wisdom…she was the essence of goodness that they all wanted to safeguard. How could they not obey their most cardinal desire to protect her?

If some awful demonic force had come to harm her, then they were holy crusaders waging war on the deepest pits of Hell. Each and every one would stand against Satan himself if it meant keeping this young lady from his grasp.

“Men, were going to show these demons they can’t just take our home!”

“Yeah!” They cheered, looking for objects around the room to use as weapons.

“But, you all just woke up.” Yamin fret. “I’m worried you’ll make yourselves sick trying to fight.” She said in a caring voice, and fluttering her watery eyes.

All of the instincts of the men were heightened, they were no longer tired. Sleeping be damned! They were all excited. And if they got sick, then perhaps the gentle care of the young maiden would await their future? Perhaps their minds wandered a bit too far.

Now the silent thrust of emotion gave them motivation to clench fists around their tools. She is what they all needed to protect…keeping the pure and innocent out of harm’s way.

“There’s no sickness holding back divine justice!” The veteran shouted. “Men, you want those demons trying to take your wives and daughters?”

“No!” They all shouted, banging there crude weapons together.

“Damn right you don’t! I don’t even wanna think about what those nasty bastards tried to do to this young woman right here! Let’s show them who they’re dealing with!”

“Yeah!” They marched to the cell door, filing out of the room and raging through the halls.

"We'll protect Yamin!"

"For Yamin!"

Yamin sat back, wondering why, why all this for her?

Nothing about her was so special, not compared to other girls her age. Were they creeps, hoping to win her over? Some of them she’d known her whole life. They were married men, had girlfriends, or never showed much interest in girls to begin with. What changed now?

It had to have been the heat of the moment. The fact that the situation called for their most basic masculine instincts to fire up and protect a damsel in need.

Was it wrong to think this was a positive outcome? What else could she have gotten them to do had she only asked, catering to their protective desires? Or maybe even…

“I can’t think like that!” she shook her head, tapping her book against her brow. “That’s not right.”

She’d gotten what she needed here, and that was help enough. But her work wasn’t finished. The warriors who fought in her honor would need her to supply them with stardust for their weapons against darkness.

“Hey, wait! You need stardust!”