A brilliant orange flare shot past Sylphiel, dispersing on the spider. “I hate spiders! Fireball!!” Lina shot another Fireball at the now-burning husk. “Especially the kind that have been tainted by Rezo’s magic!” She scowled as the spider refused to fall. “Die already! Elmekia Lance!”
        The white light flared out, spearing the spider. For a moment, everything hung in bas-relief, and then the world righted itself as the spider dissipated like a low-level Monster.
        Eris stopped shrieking, and looked over to Lina gratefully. “Thank you… I just can’t stand spiders…”
        Lina rolled her eyes. “You sure she’s related to you? I figured she’d be made of tougher stuff than that.”
        Zelgadis smirked, pointing off behind Lina. “Lina, if you take two steps to the side, the slug will miss you.”
        Lina froze; turning an unhealthy shade of blue, but then caught on and smirked. “Yeah, yeah, Zel. Not funny.”
        Two eyes on long brown stalks peered over Lina’s shoulders.
        Time stopped.

        “AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! FOR THE LOVE OF CEPHEID, I HATE SLUGS!!!! GET IT AWAY, GET IT AWAY… GOURRY, SAVE MEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

        Amelia sighed happily, a large slab of slug stuck on a stick, roasting over the campfire. “I love the smell of slugs cooking.”
        She was, of course, the only one enjoying the slug meat. Lina was cringing in her bedroll, and Gourry was busy cleaning his sword after hacking the slug into bits. Eris and Sylphiel had resumed their chatter about Cepheid, and Zelgadis had walked off in disgust, finding himself in front of the door to Rezos’ lab once more. Casting a glance back up at the archway up the stairs, he slipped into the lab, closing the door silently behind him. What they don’t know can kill them… I have to be sure…

        The rooms were dark in the underground lab, the passages that he took as familiar to him as the stones on his hand. He’d slipped through a hidden door in the first room, passing into secret passages that facilitated travel between rooms.
        He wasn’t worried for himself. He had the same magical presence as Rezo, given both that he was a descendant of the Red Priest, and that Rezo had created his current body. In this case, it was almost convenient. Here he could walk without danger. The others couldn’t.
        And he didn’t want them to know what was down here.

        Zelgadis emerged in a large room with a series of crystals, each clouded and dark. If anything had been alive within them, it was certainly dead now. He paused in front of each crystal, reading the cryptic symbols set by Rezo’s hand long ago. None were of concern, none posed a threat. So far, so good.
        He didn’t know that he was being watched.

        Lina had sufficiently recovered from her panic, and looked around the campsite. That’s odd. Zelgadis is… missing. “Has anyone seen Zelgadis?”
        Amelia, Sylphiel, and Eris all shook their heads. Gourry looked up from his sword. “Oh. He went back into the lab.”
        Lina grabbed the swordsman by the throat. “You saw him go back into the lab by himself, knowing how dangerous it is, and you DIDN’T TELL ME???”
        “Um… you’re choking me… you weren’t listening when I told you…” Gourry managed to sputter.
        Lina dropped him, grabbing her sword. “Let’s go. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

        Zelgadis was thinking almost the same thing as he moved silently along the hallways. He’d figured that Eris’ sudden change from reluctant to help in the research to overzealous about it had something to do with the copies. He just hadn’t been certain that the overzealous Eris was a copy. Now that he was certain, the facilities had to be down here, and Zelgadis was going to destroy them.
        He slipped through another secret door, moving swiftly along passages until he came to the room with the one door in the complex that he’d never passed through. Rezo had always stopped him.
        But Rezo wasn’t around anymore.
        Zelgadis stepped into the room, the light level only slightly better than in the passageways. He cast a light spell and looked around, recalling the various days of his life spent within, seeing books on the shelves that he had collected.
        Shaking his head, he turned to look at the door that had always been closed to him. It was, of course, still closed, but this time Rezo wasn’t here.
        He walked up to the door and put his hand on the knob.
        “Zelgadis,” came an unearthly voice. “Have you completed your studies?”
        Stunned, Zelgadis spun at Rezo’s voice, seeing the Red Priest before him. Old habits died hard, and he stammered for an answer before he realized that it wasn’t Rezo. It wasn’t even a copy. It was an old spell that Rezo had cast in order to fool a younger Zelgadis into leaving.
        Smirking, Zelgadis replied. “That’s none of your concern.” He turned and opened the door, walking through and leaving the spell-image behind him.

        The room was large and his footsteps echoed in the darkness as he moved though to the center of the room. There was something in front of him, and he brought more power to his light spell so as to see it better.
        Before his shocked eyes was a crystal with his very image suspended within it.
        Him. Zelgadis. Human.