The Age of Solace: The Silver Wolf

Chapter 31: Journey to the Dead City

"Our team needs a name!" Castor insisted.

"Does the Alpha team have a name?" Syrah responded, clearly annoyed. "No, no they don't!"

"They don't need one, they're Alpha!" Castor countered.

"Yes, and we're Beta!" Syrah yelled back, but then the reality of her own words hit her. "Okay yeah, you might actually be on to something for once."

Castor grumbled an incoherent response at Syrah's response. It was quite obvious that he was interested in her, and even more obvious that she hated his entire existence. Still, she found it quite amusing to berate a Castor that was severely outnumbered, outmatched, and without support from his lackeys. Syrah was careful to ensure that even her potential compliments were layered with insults.

As far as the journey went, they were quickly coming upon the borders of the city. Already, the sky had become foggy, dark shades of green plaguing their vision as the once blue sky was being tainted by the high levels of spirit activity. For such an event to occur there would have to be a very large concentration of spirits in a single area. Yet, despite this fact, the beta team of Corvin's Blades had not come across on a single spirit. It was out of boredom that the current conversation had arisen.

"Of course I'm on to something!" Castor argued back, finding his stones and summoning an abyssal hound to snarl in agreement. "And our name shall be Penta-kill!"

"Why?" Dester face-palmed.

"Because we hunt demons, there are five of us, and it's a play-on word for pentacle!!!" Castor shouted smugly.

"Yeah but pentagrams and pentacles only mean anything in stories." Dester argued back. "Real demons use runes in place of words for spells, and each has their own personal mark. The pentagram was a generic symbol cultists used to justify their claims, and the pentacle is a witch's symbol that means loyalty."

"I'm impressed, that was mostly correct." The Black Rose added.

Dester grew aggravated and began to question her about which parts of what he said could have possibly been wrong, and going into detail of the amount of time he and Tara had put into studying demonology since Castor's first duel with Faradeigh. Apparently, Dester had been hoping for some time that he would be acknowledged as a greater warrior. As such, he had been trying to expand his skill set, both physically and with his studies.

Several other names had been thrown around for debate as well. It went without saying that Syrah had hated them all, and if not her then another member would cringe in disgust. "Corvin's Seed" was agreed to be, by far, the most repulsive name that anyone could have come up with. In fact, only Castor, who had come up with the name in the first place, had put any effort into defending it. He was trying to imply that they were the product of the great angel whom their elite syndicate was named for. And while Syrah was amazed that he put that much thought into naming their Beta team, it was still so very wrong in a multitude of ways.

'Oh angels on high, is it wrong to hope he dies on this mission?' Syrah thought, trying to rub her growing headache away.

When she looked up, she noticed that they had arrived at the entrance to the city, and the sky had revealed it to be nightfall. With all of the distractions her team had been providing, she had missed the sunset. While upset at this notion, she supposed it was only natural since they were on a long trek towards a haunted city. However, even with the setbacks they had faced along the way, Castor having been a source for the majority of them, things had gone fairly well for the newly formed group.