Lily’s vision began to slowly fade in from the still black nothingness. She blinked a few times, taking in the light from the magical adornments attached to the ceiling. Lily felt a hand in hers and a familiar pressure on her lap. She looked down and saw a sleeping Meimei. She was laying her head against Lily’s lap and was holding her hand. Lily smiled a soft comforting smile that only Meimei could bring about. Lilly sat herself up against her pillow and reached over with her right hand, softly stroking Meimei’s straight white hair. Meimei made a cute sound before slowly opening her eyes. Meimei locked eyes with Lily and froze for a second before jumping onto Lily and tightly wrapping her arms around her.

  “I was so worried about you!” Meimei started sobbing.

  Lily held Meimei tight, rubbing her back. Meimei took a minute to compose herself before slowly pulling away from Lily. Meimei had a droplet of snot on her nose which Lily reached up and wiped away.

  “Lily!” Meimei yelled as she started to blush.

  “You’re cute as always,” Lily said, looking at Meimei adoringly.

  “I am just glad you’re okay. When I heard that an Incarnation attacked you… I assumed the worst.” Meimei trailed off towards the end of her sentence.

  “We made it, somehow,” Lily looked around the room.

  “How is everyone else? How is Ardi?” Lily asked with some strain in her voice. Her last memory of the Labyrinth was Ardi lying on the ground lifeless, with his dagger still inside of him.

  “They are all alive,” Meimei responded, carefully choosing her words.

  “They are in different states of ‘okay’, though,” Meimei added.

  As Meimei and Lily spoke with one another, an older gentleman wearing a black and gold robe walked through the door, flanked by a younger women and younger man who were both carrying briefcases. Lily and Meimei looked towards the group. All three of the people had pins on their laplet which were gold and adorned by a triangle with a hand holding it up. Lily recognized the symbol. They were with the Commission of Magicians. The Commission was in charge of magical occurrences which were out of the realm of normal magic. Typically, they dealt with the most mystical of magics.

  “Good afternoon, Lily Bergstrom.” The older man greeted Lily and turned his eyes towards Meimei. “I’m not familiar with your name, my apologies. Could I ask you to step outside for a moment?” The man asked.

  Meimei looked at Lily and then stood up. She gave a quick wave to Lily before stepping out of the infirmary. The man turned his attention back to Lily before one of his assistants pulled up a chair which he promptly sat down in.

  “First, I want to offer my apologies for your wounds. The Commission was in charge of setting up the safety barriers inside of this labyrinth, in your case they obviously failed, and you truly faced near lethal outcomes due to our failure.” The man bowed his head in apologies.

  The female assistant handed the older man a piece of paper which the man looked at before handing back.

  “My name is Obrian Trueman. I am a lead inquisitor for the Commission of Mages. First, I am sure that you are aware of our pedigree, I want to assure you that you are not in trouble. You will not receive any punishment for what happened in the Labyrinth, this failure is purely on us. The purpose of my interview with you is to gather information on what exactly caused the failure of our barriers.”

  “You said the barriers failed; how did we make it back then? The last thing I remember was passing out.” Lily asked, looking into the older man’s back eyes.

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  “Someone happened to be nearby, they brought you back. Unfortunately, they left before we could interview them… or even get a look at them for that matter.” The man trailed off. The man looked back towards Lily, “right, please tell me from the beginning of your last encounter, what happened?”

  “Well, as you know we encountered an Incarnation –” Lily was suddenly cut off by the man.

  “No! We did not know; you faced an Incarnation? Are you sure of this? How could you tell?” The man’s words raced.

  Lily slinked back due to the man’s unexpected rush of emotions.

  “I thought you would have been told already; didn’t you interview everyone else?” Lily asked.

  “No, you are the first coherent enough to speak,” the man replied.

  “But then who told Meimei?” Lily asked.

  “I’m not sure of that, perhaps someone had said something else then. This is the first we heard about it though,” the man replied.

  “Okay, well, if I remember correctly, Manny… er… Manrin is the first one that noticed.” Lily began to try to recall the events of the Labyrinth.

  “We had just defeated the True Lich. Suddenly we felt a massive mana surge and the pieces of the True Lich began to reform. Once they had reformed, amber crystals began to grow all over the body of the True Lich. That is when Manny- Manrin yelled out that it must be an Incarnation. After that Ardi told everyone to cast their most powerful spells, so we did.”

  Lily finished her recount of what had happened. It was still hard to think about. Images of Rel, Ardi, and Manny suffering kept flashing through her head.

  “So, what happened next?” the man asked.

  “Huh?” Lily answered.

  “I mean, no one has ever survived an encounter with an Incarnation, so how did you survive? Did you defeat it?”

  “No.” Lily grasped her head with her hands and pain shot through it. She was trying to recall the end of their encounter, but it caused extreme pain for her.

  “M, if you would,” the man said to his female assistant.

  The female assistant moved forward, casting a basic comfort spell on Lily.

  “I understand that it may be difficult for you, but please try to remember what happened,” the man said, trying to keep a comforting tone.

  “Yes sir.” Lily began to unscramble the mixed images in her head.

  “Right after everyone had completed their spells, I heard a voice… I think… No, I am sure, it was a Hybrid Cast.”

  As Lily finished her sentence the man stared daggers through her. His two assistants hid their shock far less well, audibly gasping. Hybrid Casting was the magitechnical term for Demonic Magic. Originally, humans did not cast magic with spoken words, instead simply relying on their innate magic. Many thousands of years ago humans made contact with demons for the first time. Demons have no innate magic, and so spoken or written incantations were required for them to cast magic. Demons were highly developed in magic, and many years before meeting humans had developed a magical spell that mimicked their voice. They cast this spell in layers, allowing them to condense an entire incantation into just a few words by speaking multiple parts of the incantation at the same time.

  The man shifted in his chair before speaking, “How can you be sure it was a Hybrid Cast?” He asked.

  “I am sure. I heard plenty of Hybrid Casts when my village was destroyed by demons years ago.” Lily looked with vengeful eyes at the Inquisitor.

  The man simply nodded his head in return.

  “Assuming a demon was there, it would be strange for them to help you.” The man took a moment to collect his thoughts. “I think we should assume the demon was only there to defeat the Incarnation.”

  Lily shook her head in agreement.

  “So,” the man leaned forward towards Lily, “what spell did the demon cast?”

  Lily took a moment, trying to piece together the words in her memory.

  “I heard two Hybrid Casts, the first was ‘Silence Magic’. The second… I am sorry to say I can’t remember.” Lily bowed her head in defeat at her failed memory.

  “I see.” The man paused for a moment before moving towards Lily to lightly pat her hand. “Thank you for letting me hear your recollection of the event. Please get some rest. I am sure your friends will be ready to reunite with you soon.”

  The man smiled at Lily before standing up and bidding her goodbye. His two assistants dutifully followed him out of the infirmary. As the trio exited the infirmary the man locked eyes with Meimei who was leaning against the wall outside. He looked at her for a moment before looking away towards the hallway. After the group was an appropriate distance from the infirmary the man cleared his throat.

  “Mili,” The man said plainly.

  “Yes, my lord?” The female assistant responded.

  “Prepare our dissertation for the High Council. Using ‘Silence Magic’ against so many high-level spells at once is something only a very powerful demon would be capable of.” The man’s words held gravity to them.

  “A demon capable of defeating an Incarnation is beyond ‘very powerful’,” the male assistant added.

  “Indeed.” the inquisitor responded.