"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE!?!" the single guard on duty at the Tomb of Heros ran for the source of the scream. He found what looked like a fifteen year old girl with an odd-looking sword. He noticed, not without a great deal of trepidition, that she was regarding the ruined grave of Xellos Metallium.
"Who are..." the girl grabbed the guardsman by the throat with a speed he'd only seen the Regent-Prince and his daughter achieve.
"You are going to tell me what happened to Xellos's tomb...Now!" She released her grip enough to allow the man to breathe, but not for much more than a whisper of breath.
"Grave..." she pulled him away from the wall and slammed him into it.
"I gathered that! Who?"
"Bounty hunter...Zangulus...nearly killed his daughter..."
"I don't care about what happened to Princess Amethyst!!"
"The...fox-girl...Xellos Metallium's daughter..." The girl stayed silent for a long moment.
"Where is this girl now?"
"Looking for...what was stolen...staff...body."
If his staff is still intact, it might prove useful for our master.
"Who. Is. The. Mother?" each word was puntuated by a slam into the wall.
Jealous perhaps?
"I...don't know...please, let me live." The man stammered, he had recognized the slit pupils and knew what this girl was. Considering her current attitude, bringing attention to himself was the last thing he should have done. The mazoku slashed forward with her blade and gutted the man, then letting his body dropped to the ground.
"I'll get that staff for Dynast-sama," Sherra promised her sword. "And then we'll eliminate the threat of Xellos's daughter."
All for the glory of Dynast-sama, of course.
"What other reason could there be?"
The hormonally exaggerated response of someone stuck in adolesence?
"Shut up!"
The "zombie" stared at him with hate-filled eyes. Hate-filled eyes that bore intelligence and unwilling loyalty. This was something more than the common zombie, it had a cold aura of power about it. Nothing so great as even a lesser demon, but still more than most sorcerers could create. He had successfully bound a spirit into a body, it was an amazing, supposedly impossible feat.
"It's a key," he muttered in wonder. "It makes since considering the creature was supposedly playing games with the fabric of space when he died."
"Is there anything you wish of me?" the zombie asked in a raspy voice.
"Perhaps a test is in order," the Necromancer considered. "You had a family?"
"Yes," the dead thing rasped.
"Go and kill them, return with their heads and by then I should have I real task for you."
"Yes," the zombie growled tightly, turning about and leaving the chamber on its way to obey its new master. Despite how much it despised doing so.
"Now, perhaps, I can proceed with creating minions of REAL power."
They were an easy group to track, Zangulus noted. Princess Amethyst might not have been as vocal about her justice kick as her mother had been, but chimera's were hard to miss. Especially chimera's that didn't care that people knew they were a chimera. The fox-girl and her brother were equally easy to mark. They were travelling with a large swordsman and an elf with a reportedly dangerous sense of curiousity. The swordsman interested him, some of the descriptions he had received sounded familiar.
It certainly made sense, the bloods of Lina Inverse, Xellos Metallium, Zelgadis Greywords, and Amelia Sailoon were all present in their children. Of course Gourry Gabriev's kid would be there. And this certainly gave him a chance for some revenge.
He should have been tracking down Roquen the Necromancer, but they were doing basically the same thing. The slayers always had been good at stumbling onto things. Following them might just get him to the staff faster than he could get there on his own. Of course, catching up to them would make this much easier, so he bent himself to the task of inquiring as to where they went.
"...and he bore a twisting staff forked at the top and holding a blood red gem," Xina actually stopped eating and looked to where the traveler was telling his story. "He's some kind of sorcerer I tell you playing games with the spirits of the dead up to the north!"
"Xina-san are you alright?" Amethyst asked upon noticing that the fox-girl wasn't eating with her normal gusto.
"That sounds like the staff," Xina said, pointing at the man in the black-feathered cloak.
"I thought you said you were a travelling entertainer," one of the man's audience grumbled. "That was a stupid story, I hope you don't expect us to pay you for that."
"Why don't you play us some music on that horn of yours?" The man picked up the instrument, an odd thing of pipes and valves.
"This?" he asked amused. "This is a remnant from my days in the military. I keep it around for when they call me back."
"When do you think that will be?" somebody laughed. The traveler smiled, a showing of teeth.
"Oh, not for a long time yet," he promised. "I've been seeing to that."
"Hey you," Xina called over. "Talk about that staff again!"
"If you'll excuse me," the man stood up and bowed. "I seem to have an interested audience." He padded over to the table where the new generation of slayers sat. "Lycanus Kord at your service, how my I help you?"
"Did you actually see that staff," Xina asked.
"Of course I did, but you don't want to get mixxed up in that," he told them.
"Why not?" Jolrael asked.
"Didn't you hear me? The man is playing games with the dead! I half think he's set on taking over the power vacuum left by Phibrizo's death!"
"We have to go then, this affront to justice must be stopped," Xalan nodded in agreement with Amethyst as Xina rolled her eyes.
"You know this staff sounds like its a key to the dimensional walls, allowing much easier access to the various other planes of existence," everybody turned to face Tinuviel for a moment, but she had returned to trying to see just how much she had to apply with the knife before it actually cut her. If she hadn't known any better, she could have sworn something was pulling up on the blade to keep it from touching her.
"Where did you see it?" Xalan asked as he turned back to the traveller.
"In the region of Zefilia," the man said honestly. "North of here somewhere. But you really shouldn't go there, this man is dangerous."
"Let us worry about that," Xina waved the problem away dismissively. "We can take care of ourselves." Xina went back to eating, while Xalan and Amelia turned to their beverages. Jolrael continued watching Tinuviel's knife, he appeared to be sweatin.
"Ahem," the traveller held out his hand. Amethyst winced and handed over one of the gold pieces they had liberated from the bandits lair. "My thanks, and I wish you luck on the voyage though I don't know that you will have any." With that the man bowed again and walked to the bar with a menu in hand. The slayers had looked away and so they later assumed that they had just missed his exit. Because the next time they looked to the bar, he was already gone.