With some reluctance I am posting the continuation of my story. Let me 
know if you guys have completely lost interest or whether you want to 
see it through to the end.

***

SLAYERS INHERITANCE
"In the Clutches of Evil! Welcome to Wolfpack Island!"
by Michael Hopcroft

"Anya Inverse here! Not that I'm exactly sure where 'here' is; last 
thing I knew we were
fighting demon wolves then Xellos pops up out of nowhere and suddenly 
I'm - well, I'm
wherever I am frankly I have no idea. Those wolves have better not have 
gotten Valgaav,
or there'll be hell to pay!"

' RAH TILT!" cried Prince Cardanis as one of the wolves leapt at him. 
The wolf
dissipated and vanished. He looked back at Valgaav. "OK, two of them, 
two of us. We
need to get rid of these wolves. I'll hit the one on the left, you hit 
the one on the right!"

"Got it, Your Highness." Said Valgaav, who slew a wolf with his breath 
weapon.
Cardanis let fly with another Rah Tilt, slaying the other one. They then 
looked around in
dismay. The common room of the inn was in ruins, and worst of all Anya 
and Titania
were not there.

"This is not good at all," said Cardanis. "I feel like I've failed them. 
Who knows where
Xellos could have taken them?"

"You've never faced adversity, have you, Cardanis?" Valgaav asked.

"Not like this."

"I can tell because you're letting your panic interfere with your 
memory. Remember
Anya and Titania's dreams? They both had a dream in which Xellos 
summoned them to
Wolfpack Island, and then Xellos appears and whisks them away. Whenever 
I put two
and two together I invariably get four."

Cardanis grabbed Valgaav by the shoulder. "Wolfpack Island! That's when 
Beastmaster
Xellas Mentallium, Xellos' mistress, lives! The place is crawling with 
Mazoku! And it's
thousands of miles away!"

"Yes, I know it's a very bad place for the girls to be. Which is why 
we're going there to
get them." Valgaav smirked. "Are you up to a suicide mission, Your 
Highness?"

Cardanis shrugged. "If we go in expecting to die, we'll fail. My father 
says that was the
most important lesson Lina Inverse taught him. We're going to go there 
and get our girls
out!"

Valgaav blanched. "Wait just a minute here! Who said Anya was my girl? 
Certainly not
Anya!"

"You'll never know unless you get her back. So do you have any idea how 
we can get
there?"

A man in gold priest robes suddenly appeared in front of them. "Maybe I 
can help answer
that question. I've been watching from your mother's house, Valgaav."

"Milgasia! Then you know what happened?"

"I know that Lina is ready to roast Xellos over an open spit. Your 
teleportation won't get
you far enough unless I boost it. Besides, you don't even know where 
Wolfpack Island is,
and I do."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Cardanis asked. "Or can you not send 
both of us?"

"Oh I can send both of you, but you won't arrive in exactly the same 
place. And once
you're there we won't be able to watch over you. You're going to be on 
your own, in the
middle of the enemy. The odds will be very much not in your favor."

Valgaav grabbed Milgasia's hand.  "Right now I don't give a flying damn 
about the odds!
Just do it! Tell Mother I'm coming back WITH Anya!"

Cardanis took Milgasia's other hand and Milgasia recited a spell. In an 
instant the two
were teleported away. Milgasia teleported away himself, and was soon 
back in Filia's inn.

"Well," asked Lina, "what's going to happen to my daughter?"

"Valgaav is charging to the rescue. I've got to give you credit, Filia 
dear, you raised the
boy with guts."

Filia frowned grimly. "I just hope those guts don't get splattered the 
length and breadth of
Wolfpack Island."

Lina was visibly shaking. In all her travels, not even she had dared 
take on the horrors of
Wolfpack Island. Gourry took her shoulders in his calloused hands. 
"Darling, please calm
down. Anya's going to come out of this. I promise."

"I shouldn't have let her go out alone!"

"And if you hadn't gone out alone all those years ago, none of us would 
be here. Have
faith in our daughter - we owe her that much."

Lina kissed one of Gourry's hands and clutched it in her own for dear 
life. "I know, I'm
just scared. I've never been this scared."

"You're a mother, whose beloved child is going into battle. Millions of 
people have
experience what you're going through. All we can do now is hope and 
pray. L-sama
willing, that will be enough."

***

Anya woke up alone in an ornate bedchamber. She looked at herself in the 
dim
candlelight and saw that she was fully clothed and appeared unmolested. 
That, she
thought, was the only good thing about her situation.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that there was no visible 
door out of the room.
On the walls were frescoes of numerous things too revolting to mention. 
The situation
was getting worse. She grabbed one of the bedposts and chanted a light 
spell, which
illuminated the room much more brightly. More importantly, to Anya, it 
proved her
magic still worked.

She was thinking about this when Xellos suddenly teleported into the 
room. "How do you
like your new quarters?" he said. "I trust the bed is comfortable and 
the decor not too
excessive."

"I'd be happier with the decor if it u\included an exit." Anya replied. 
"What right do you
have to bring me here, anyway? And where's Titania?"

"Safe. And frankly you don't want to leave this room. It's very 
dangerous to mortals
inside. Some of the residents might think you're an intruder, and they 
don't like intruders.
Trust me, you're safer here."

"All right, you might as well tell me what's going on. I know about 
Titania being your
daughter and all, but what the hell do you want with me?"

Xellos sat down on the bed, and offered the spot next to him to Anya. 
She shook her head.
"You see, Anya dearest, it's all about power. You have inherited from 
your mother great
power, power too dangerous to my kind to be allowed to go unchecked. But 
that power
could also be of great use to us if exercised properly. Did your mother 
ever tell you the
goal of the Mazoku?"

"To destroy the world, and return it to a sea of Chaos.'

"OH, more than that. You see, once this world is destroyed we can 
reshape it - rebuild it
into something more to our liking. You must admit the world outside is a 
cold,
frightening place. With all this free will business running around, 
people keep making
mistakes, falling into pits of their own devising, Greed, lust, hatred - 
so many traps that
make people's lives miserable. We can change all that. We can build a 
world in which
there is no lust, no greed, and no envy."

Anya shook her head. "But there would also be no hope, no joy, and no 
love. None of the
things that make life worthwhile. Sorry to disappoint you, Xellos, but I 
won't be turned. I
AM going to get out of here. I AM going to find Titania. The world may 
indeed go back
to the Sea of Chaos - but not today."

"Odd," said Xellos, "you're talking as though I were YOUR prisoner and 
not the other
way around.  The chamber pot is under the bed. I'll send you food and a 
new one every
day until you see reason." With that, Xellos vanished.

Anya began to think. "Now what would be the best way to make a door?"

***

Titania had been trying every wall in her room. None of them budged. "Do 
they teleport
everywhere around here?" she thought out loud.

"Now, now, Titania" said a voice behind her that Titania instantly 
recognized as Xellos.
"Exercises in futility will get you nowhere."

Titania turned around. "You! Where am I? What have you done to Anya? 
Where's
Cardanis?"

"Was that the young chimera's name? It's wouldn't surprise me if the 
Hounds had made
short work of him. Princes belong in palaces, not in battles with monsters."

Titania looked him square in the eye. "You're lying. Cardanis is alive. 
Do you know how
I know that? I know because there's something inside me that would tell 
me if he were
dead."

"You're starting to sense the world around you. That's good. You are 
proving quite
worthy, daughter. Now you must master the arts of subtlety and 
discretion. So far you've
been able to exhibit flashes of raw destructive power, but to truly 
serve our mistress
you're going to have to learn to control yourself, to use your powers 
when it is to your
best advantage."

Titania walked up to Xellos and whispered in his ear. "Yes, discretion. 
Discretion tells
me you know the way out of here, so it would be unwise to do what I 
really want to do
right now - and kill you."

"Is that so? Well, let me let you in on a little secret, darling 
daughter of mine. If you did
kill me, you would probably be doing my Mistress a favor. I sense she's 
growing tired of
me, of my tricks and experiments. Pleasing such a demanding mistress is 
so wearing."

"Is that why you brought us here? So I could kill Xellas Mentallium for 
you?"

"No. You see, I love my mistress in spite of everything and would hate 
to see her come to
harm. Aside from which, you couldn't hurt her anyway."

"Then why did you bring us here?'

"That is a secret." And with that Xellos vanished.

***

Valgaav appeared in the middle of a darkened hallway. He took out a 
stick from his belt
ouch and cast a Light spell on it. The area thus illuminated did not 
make him feel very
comfortable at all. "Cardanis!" he called out. "Are you there?" he got 
no answer, which
led him to believe they must be farther apart than he had thought.

At that moment he heard a noise behind him. Valgaav turned and saw a 
great ravening
beast, with huge, dripping jaws, bearing down on him. Apparently the 
thing thought
lunch had been served unexpectedly.

As he tucked the lighted stick into the headband behind him so he 
wouldn't drop it,
Valgaav came to the conclusion that this simply wasn't his day....

TO BE CONTINUED...





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