Chapter Text
In the realm of Andora within the city of Alzkor many people were going through their daily lives, a royal carriage was entering the main city gates for the princess that was coming to visit her fiancé, which surprised the princess since she would always have to send out invitations or come over herself to even meet her future husband. The princess sighed lightly as she fixed a strand of hair she noticed poking out, she watched the commoners going about their day, some humans haggling a price with an elf, children seeming fascinated by the passing carriage, she noticed two of the kids walking by looked like a small humanoid goat with wings, huffing off with food and other supplies. "Huh...you don't see many goatman with red fur," mumbled the princess a bit curious, even more so of seeing that they have wings, must be a new beastman cross mix.
"Ugh...I don't know how those creatures can mix," said one of the princess's lady in waiting that was also in the carriage, fanning herself a bit. "They defiantly looked much shorter then the few I have seen...such small wings too so who knows if they can even use those wings...they seemed well dress for a mixed breed..."
"Of course, you should know this kingdom worked and fought hard to ban the use of slavery, that has been almost 100 years so there shouldn't be a reason for them or others to hide, so you shouldn't be having those thoughts," the princess gave her a warning look at her. "Now on to a different subject...it is defiantly quite unusual that he actually send me an invitation to actually come visit. Hopefully this means he's finally taking this seriously and not stalling on excuses on the marriage and work together," she smiled when they slowly pulled up to the front of the castle.
"Her highness, Princess Lily is pulling up...where the hell is Christopher?!" mumbled the head butler as he quicker ran outside to the entrance. "You!" he pointed at a nearby butler. "Go check the wine cellar! He better not be drinking already as soon as he woke up..." the butler quickly straighten his suite and waited nearby the carriage. 'She's not going to be happy he isn't even here to greet her, this is going to start the day terrible!' He needed to figure out a proper apologize to think of. The butler he pointed at was quick to sprint straight to the main kitchen to find the entrance to the wine cellar, but it wouldn't budge open at all no matter what he did. "I'm going to need some help getting this open." said the butler as he ran off to look for a few guards to help break the door down.
On the other side a shelf full of alcohol and wine was keeping the door barred, it was quick dark in the huge cellar until the middle of the room a summoning circle drawn in blood and gore, remains of bodies laid about around the freshly drawn circle, 1 man stood in the middle while looking at a floating black sphere. "Ah...that must be them looking for me...I guess my fiancé have arrived, the rest of the sacrifices are here now," Christopher slowly backed away from the circle, his eyes looked out of place, dazed as he mumbled under his breath. "Wait until a few more minutes..." blue spark lightning swirled around the ball, a redish pink mist swirled, along with a light red musical notes pricked out. The crystal sphere started quivering, more magic started seeping out in anticipation.
"Your highness! We are coming in, you better be somewhat sober up!" yelled the butler banging on the door, after a minute of no response he moved out of the way for the 2 guardsman that came with and started slamming on the door. Christopher looked over at the door, his focus seemed almost back...but such tempting words lured him back to the sphere. "Yes...time...it is time..."Christopher raised the knife at the same angle at his neck, his hand shook, a mental fight but it seemed in vain once he plunged the knife in his own throat, collapsing over the circle, the circle flared up and it quickly spread out to 6 other sections that had the same summoning circle, same dazed people holding knifed to their neck. Once those circles glowed they dug the knife in their throat and collapse in the middle, their bodies slowly breaking up and being pulled in the spheres as if drinking it up, growing in size as the spheres slowly changed from black to red, once they fully consumed the sacrifices the spheres burst and a huge wave of demonic magic spread out and anything that got surrounded by the black magic were consumed, screams didn't last long. it was traveling faster the more it consumed.
The 2 little red goats with wings flinched, they sensed danger, Razzle quickly transformed into his large form, his serpent pupils shrank as he sensed the magic increased, a nearby paladin seemed ready to argue with Razzle but Razzle grabbed him and quickly flew to the direction where Charlie is, he noticed Dazzle was also in his demon form. Razzle dropped the knight next to Charlie and they coiled around the 2, spreading their wings out and a holy protection shield.
"Razzle! Dazzle! You shouldn't be in your demon forms in town!" said Charlie getting up and helping the Paladin up, she seemed ready to grip but that went away when she felt it, demonic magic...she hasn't felt that much demonic magic in the living world at all. She gasped as she saw 6 areas burst out around the city, then she saw the castle exploded as well. "No...a summoning?!"
"What?!" said the knight next to her. "We need to save anyone close by," but he didn't get far with Dazzle raised his head and knocked him back in the middle. "You cheeky, smelly ass goat! If we can't save them then we're fucked as well! We're in the circle, aren't we!?" The knight pulled his sword out and seemed ready to fight them to get out. He froze when the black magic quickly surrounded them but none of it got through the barrier. "How? Doesn't everything...get killed in demon rituals?"
"It can, Richard...but no demon power is as powerful as my fathers magic," said Charlie looking at her surroundings with shock, she heard light screams but they were quickly gone just as quickly as she could hear them, she was close on the verge of tears. 'No...I can't start crying, there is a threat coming and I don't know which demon is coming up,' thought Charlie and she kneeled down to quickly grab her staff and mumbled a few words and started casting enchant and buffs on Richard, then a protective shield. "Richard, I know enough about that spell that the stronger the demon, the more sacrifices it needs. We should expect a fight-"
"What type of demon was summoned?" said Richard digging through his bag to pull out a golden piece of paper, a feathered pen appeared once it was pulled out and he quickly wrote on it before it flew to the sky. "I don't know how long it will take for that to reach up for back up, but I will leave none of them alive," Richard grabbed his sword and shield and watched the black demonic slowly start vanishing. "I know they are your people...but they just killed thousands of people-"
"I know," said Charlie as her eyes glowed red as she noticed a few demons being seeable slowly, she didn't want to fight. Yet she knew whoever they were, picking the city she was in meant she was probably part of the sacrifice needed. 'I'm glad father never told anyone about Razzle and Dazzle, since he created them himself.' She knew they weren't the brightest, but their danger sense was defiantly something. She always thought she didn't need them since not many things can harm her in the human realm...yet here she is being protected from one of the largest demon ritual summoning she has ever seen.
Razzle and Dazzle released the shield once the black mist vanished and started eyeing the few nearby demons, they seemed confused seeing a couple survivors but they quickly shook their heads and raised their weapons to charge at them. Richard quickly took out 3 in one slash while Razzle leaped forward with Richard to join the killing, Dazzle almost joined in, but stopped himself when he noticed Charlie froze and looked at the remains of the castle, he let out a demonic bleep of concern to her, not paying attention to one demon trying to charge at Charlie, Dazzle's tail easily smacked the demon to the direction of where Razzle and Richard were fighting.
"It can't be...overlords?" Dazzle growled and lowered his neck for Charlie, who quickly jumped on. "Richard, I can sense their magic...it's overlords. 3 have come." Maybe if she can be fast enough her and Richard can keep them at bay until backup arrives. "We should head to the middle! The 3 Overlords all spawned in one spot, Richard nodded and didn't complain when Razzle grabbed him and placed him on his back, he placed his shield on his back so he has a spare hand to hold onto a fistful of fur before Razzle leaped in the air with Dazzle
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"I never thought I would smell the living world again!" Valentino laughed loudly as he scanned the area while walking around the front of the ruined castle, he kept his wings wrapped around his body like a coat.
"It defiantly was the perfect time while Lucifer and his wife were going through an argument," said Vox dusting his tunic, he was mostly human other then his head, it was a sphere with eyes and somewhat of a mouth, the few demons around seemed eager to go. "Huh...this is odd...there is less demons that came throu-"
"Yeah no shit," said Velvette glaring at Vox, she was wearing a skirt that is slightly above her knees with a sleeveless shirt. "It didn't look like not even 60% of our minions came through...are you sure the devils brat was in this town?"
"I am certain! Do you think I would spend a whole year hypnotizing the prince to mess up her location? One thing I've learned, she doesn't hide herself so keeping a spy on her wasn't hard! Maybe the bitch walked out of the town..." mumbled Vox, but he knew that couldn't be it, the nearest inn her and that paladin rested was quite deep in the city so there wouldn't be time for them to leave after they restocked their traveling supplies.
"Hm?" Valentino squinted and cover his eyes from the sun. "There's something coming this way, what is-"
"Look out," yelled Sir Pentious, quickly slithering to Valentino, grabbing one of the 4 arms and yanking him down, Razzle was inches from biting Valentino's head off, but Richard's sword got a light slash in on Valentino's chest. the other 2 V's quickly ducked low themselves after seeing the close call Valentino had, who shoved Sir Pentious away as he expanded his wings, there was a good hole in one where the sword got him, it was slowly healing.
"Shit...the paladin," said Vox his sphere head slowly turning black from irritation as the Paladin leaped off of Razzle, as soon as the Paladin landed Razzle leaped straight for Velvette, her eyes glowed and she pulled out a small roll of cloth, the clothe unfurled and placed in front of her as a shield. Razzle easily ripped it but it quickly wrapped around his body in an attempt to bind him. "Fuck...I need more cloth if you want this" Razzle was able to free one arm and roared at Velvette's area. "Ugh, the fuck has this thing been eating?!" she made a face and the slight distraction was enough for Razzle to quickly change to his smaller form to get out and dash out to change back into his larger form.
A shield dome surrounded all of them, Dazzle stayed in the air for Charlie to cast it before heading back down in the shield dome, the demons that were out of the dome were crashing into it, unable to enter themselves, she was already panting from casting the shield dome but it should be able to handle a few hits from them. She can't rest yet, she needed to help Richard. "Hah...I can do this..." mumbled Charlie as she pulled her staff off of Dazzle's back, the red gem at the top glowing brightly, raised it up, creating multiple illusions of herself, Razzle, Dazzle and along with some of Richard, a total of 50 illusions were everywhere.
"An Enchantress? That's what she decided to learn while in the world of the living?" Vox couldn't help but laugh, funneling lightning out of his hands and striking a few of the illusions, only 1 vanished but 2 still stood and kept fighting. "Shit, these things are sturdy-" Vox spotted a few of the Charlie illusions started enchanting and noticed some started to glow. 'Also an augmentation mage?! She's buffing them too!?' Vox panicked and cast more lightning, he felt it was getting weaker. 'Shit, of course it's getting weaker...we're loosing so many demons we made contracts with,' Vox scanned the area and once he spotted Valentino he quickly ran to the moth demon, it seemed his wing was almost fully healed but he was flapping smoke with one wing, which wouldn't do much to illusions since they didn't breath at all. "Val! I need you to fog this whole dome!" Yelled Vox once he was sure he was close to be heard.
"Didn't you say not to so I wouldn't kill any of our contractors?" said Valentino looking baffled at him. "Plus I'm busy looking for that damn useless snake! He quickly fled after saving me! I wasn't done beating the shit out of him!"
"There is no time for that," Vox growled, he tossed a dagger for Valentino, the blade shimmered and turned green right before Valentino stabbed a Razzle illusion which burst in the green mist. Vox didn't know how long they'll last if they can't get rid of anymore of the illusions, especially the Charlie ones that kept casting either buffs or shields on the others.
"Oh for fucks sake!" yelled Velvette while she hardened scrap of cloth into spikes and stabbing what she can. "Make it where it harms the damn Paladin! He's human isn't he?!" Velvetta was getting annoyed how useless she was feeling right now, none of the real ones were nearby to manipulate their clothes, and it seemed barely any clothes were nearby when the summoning happened.
"But...isn't he a holy-" Valentino was about to say but Vox interrupted him.
"Just do it! If it works we can have a leverage on the brat," said Vox grinning, which also gave hope to Valentino. 'After a year of watching...she'll defiantly do what she can to save her companion. Psh. Even though the holy temple keeps a paladin close to her just in case she breaks her agreement to be able to wander the world of the living.' Valentino made a face as he moved his still injured wing, but he fought back the pain in order to start flapping his wings, forming smoke with each flap. Some of the surviving demons flinched when seeing the smoke slowly engulf in the dome, yet after a few seconds of not feeling the affect they continued their assault. Vox just needed to hear it. Just a-
A loud cough could be heard. Richard dropped his sword and shield to quickly get his helmet off, as soon as he took it off he puked blood and collapsed. Charlie screamed and quickly ran to him, she was attempting to try and heal him, her hands glowing. It wasn't helping...being in this smoke...Richard was just getting poisoned again and made her use more magic just to try and keep him from puking up more blood. The remaining illusions that were still active, 20, quickly circled around the two protect them...yet the demons kept a good distance. Charlie frowned while looking around to see what they were waiting for, one of the illusions slightly flickered. 'Crap...I'm using most my power to keep Richard alive, this smoke...it isn't going away! What should I-"
"Princess! Lovely to meet you!" yelled Vox with a smirk as Velvette and Valentino were next beside him, Valentino still using his wings to keep flapping smoke out. "The shield dome not a bad idea...well...not so great for the human. Hm...how about this, if you let up the dome then my pal here will stop with the poison. He might survive in the next few minutes," Vox kept a cool head, but he was panicking slightly in the back of his head. He knew the other 2 were worn out and him included, yet it seems the princess is in too much of a panic state to realize she can easily finish them off, but seeing the flicker on one of the illusions gave him hope to gamble on this.
Charlie was very conflicted, this smoke wasn't affecting her, she could let Richard die and keep the dome up until the back up comes...but she couldn't watch Richard die. Even though he's only been traveling with her for the past 8 years. Charlie looked down and noticed Richard's breathing was getting dangerously quieter and blood was still dripping from his mouth. "Fine...but I'll give you 5 minutes of a run," said Charlie glaring at them, at least taking the dome down she can use that power to heal Richard. 'Oh please, Lucifer...let the back up be here,' Charlie raised her staff and the large dome around them. Vox nodded at the other 2, Valentino wrapped his wings around him like a coat and quickly sprinted of with Velvette, Vox gave Charlie a slight nod with his sphere head before following suite too as all the rest went to follow as well, some were bitten and ripped to shred if they got close to Razzle, Dazzle or the other illusions.
"Do you seriously think most of us is going to survive this once the time is up?" said Velvette glaring at Vox while running. "We could at least kill the human..."
"Now now...if we did that, what would stop her from finishing us off? Not all our contractors made it through...our powers are limited," said Vox as his sphere head glowed red. "Plus with what I heard she's had 100 years up here to fight without relying on demon power. I have an idea up my slee-" Vox stopped speaking once a horn could be heard. On their right there were 10 cavalrymen coming at them, wearing holy armor and weapons. "We'll have to stall them," Vox cursed under his breath and gave an order to the demons to attack. "Expect you!" Vox pointed at a snake like demon. "I have a job for you!"
~~~~~~~~
All the illusions have went for the chase to assist with the Cavarly that came, Charlie focused what remaining power she had left to make sure it was fully gone. The air was clear so she couldn't stop constantly channeling it in him. "Whew...the back up came...but I don't think they'll get all of them," she noticed how pale Richard looked. 'He did loose a lot of blood...if only I was able to help restore some of his blood. Hopefully they brought a priest.' Charlie set her staff down so she can wipe her forehead, but the relief was short lived. Was it because she was tired? She didn't sense this small snake demon slithering out of a nearby debris and stabbed Richard under his chest plate, he let out a pained gasp...then he let out one last breath as he went limped. Charlie sat there stunned and as she slowly turned to look at the demon, her eyes glowed red and her horns slowly grew out.
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"This is bad...this is very very VERY bad!" mumbled an overlord demon after getting a report from an imp about how Vox, Velvette and Valentino have successfully left hell, yet quite a bit of their horde was still left here so the imps were busy rounding up the sinners and other demons that were part of the invasion. "Has anyone notified Lucifer or Lilith!?" Shit the angels will defiantly be beyond mad, he noticed that Zestial already seemed in a hurry. Wait...he was heading where Lucifer's office is. "Sir!"
"Thou has no time for his misery!" said Zestial. "This has happened under thou watch! Carmilla is already looking for Lilith...I'll talk with sir Lucifer..." he held back a groan as he got to the door, being mentally ready to enter his office. Yes...it was full of rubber ducks again, as he walked up to where he saw Lucifer laying on his desk moping. "Sir! Something terrible has happen!"
"Not now...I really am not feeling like working today. I'm sure either Beezelub or Satan can handle whatever sinner is causing trouble," mumbled Lucifer while sniffling. "I am just not in the mood for dealing with trouble maker sinners-"
"We are not dealing with a riot, lord..." Zestial took a couple seconds to see if Lucifer will get up before continuing. "Lucifer...3 overlords have successfully activated a summoning circle to the world of the living. It wiped out the kingdom of Alzkor-"
Lucifer quickly got up and was in front of Zestial, despite how short Lucifer was he still felt a shiver seeing Lucifer's eyes glowing red. "My daughter was in that town! Did she-"
"Your daughter is safe...wouldn't thou sense the demise of thy bodyguards? I naught know what else happened...but that city also had a population of 3,000. Not adding the travelers. The High Heaven will defiantly be contacting you and thy wife soon..." as if one que the medium size crystal ball on Lucifer's desk gleamed a gold aura out and out came quite an angry voice. "Lucifer! We need to have a word with you and your overlords in 2 hours!" and the crystal ball dimmed out.
"That was one of the Seraphim's...shit..." Lucifer slightly jumped when someone else came in, slamming the door open, Zestial moved out of the way when he saw who it was. Lilith came walking in as Zestial gave a bow to her before heading to the door where Carmilla was. "H-hey...darling. Look...I know this seems bad and everything-" said Lucifer smiling quite nervously as he slowly walked back until he hit his desk. Lilith gave the 2 overlords one look and they quickly left, closing the door for the 2.
"Tis seem we have 2 hours until a meeting," said Zestial as Carmilla and him walked through a hallway of chained souls, not many seemed responsive. "I will inform some demons and imps to quickly pass thy message so everyone-" a cackle slowly was heard building up in a different hallway, pitch black. It was where the worse souls that the royal demons punished, and they knew there was 1 soul down there laughing as if this situation was hilarious. One question they had...how does he know what's going on.
Down in the hallway a small little demon sinner with one eye was sitting on another sinners head that was chained to a wall, though there were spikes embedding out of his chest dripping blood on the floor. Probably left in the sinner for some punishment, he opened his eyes which glowed a red color slightly brighten some light around his face to reveal that he also had a muzzle on him. Yet it didn't stop him from laughing while listening to the information that oh dear...sweet Niffty was telling him, blood trickle out of the muzzle. A black box covered in runes and chains right next to him started shaking violently, flicks of black shade tried to slither out but seemed to struggle to get out.
Chapter 2
Summary:
Meeting siblings during a meeting and figuring out how
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Most the overlords and a few of the royal demons were already seated and waited patiently for everyone to gather in the meeting room, Lucifer and Lilith were heading over with Carmilla following behind the 2. "We have killed most the demons that were part of their plot...but at least 200 sinners were also part of the invasion were not able to get summoned, once the meeting is done us overlords will get together to figure out what to do with those sinners since I'm sure this is enough of a riot to increased their torment," Lucifer gave a light nod to her before he opened the door and allow Lilith and Carmilla to walk in while holding the door for them. The meeting room was already almost filled up with the royal and overlords now, even all the 7 deadly sins were here too, the last overlord to show was Fredrick von Eldritch, wiping his hands from what seemed to be fresh blood, shoving t he handkerchief in his coat pocket.
"I do apologize for almost being late, I was in the middle of punishing a soul when this sudden meeting came to my attention," said Fredrick with a slight smile while walking to his seat.
"I see you didn't bring your son Seviathan to this meeting...wouldn't this be a good opportunity for him to have a meeting with the High Heaven," said the overlord next to him. "I know you've been having him come with you to learn the ropes-"
"He is not ready to talk to angels...much less keep that mouth at bay to not disrespect these holy beings, leaving him to finish punishing the sinner should be good enough," Fredrick slightly shook his head with a slight frown, his sound was still acting foolish and impatient he was not going to bring him to something so sudden and important like this.
Angelic magic slowly started forming in the middle of the room and extending outwards on the floor like water until it covered the whole middle of the floor, after a moment they can see the Angels, quite a bit of the Seraphim's and Lucifer spotted a few Archangels seated a bit higher up, including his twin brother Michael. 'This isn't good...especially if the Archangels are even here to listen in on this meeting,' thought Lucifer holding back a frown when seeing his twin brother and younger sister Azrael.
"Hello, I would like to start this meeting to thank you for everyone being able to make it despite the short notice, you can call me Serah, the leader of the Seraphim's. The archangels have come to join this meeting because not only 1 overlord was summoned...3 were,' Serah frowned while looking at Lucifer and Lilith. Micheal let out a cough as he stood up to take the floor. "I will ask you this, brother...Lilith...are you guys planning on invading the world of the living?" Michael asked. "Because it wasn't a normal ritual summon that was used in a large kingdom that had a population of 5,000 people! To think you would allow them to look at that ritual!"
"Excuse me?" both Lucifer and Lilith said, a bit taken aback from Michael's outburst. The Sins seemed to somewhat pay more attention now. "Why would I even attempt a demon invasion!" Lucifer grabbed the paper in front to quick read the report. "And with 3 human sinners?! Come on, if I was going to do something such as an invasion I would of used royal demons! They have more power then sinners!"
"Lucifer..." said Lilith smacking the back of his head. "Even if we had the intention...the pact agreement between us would of warned you guys before we can even start up an idea of such an attack force, we have no reason to go up there. Also, which summoning ritual did they use? None of them should know many complicated ones since the mortals only know little summoning spells for just imps and succubus...I guess maybe a royal or 2 but overlords shouldn't be able to."
Seraphim grabbed the small stack of golden paper and they vanished, each paper appeared in front of each Deadly Sin. "This is the ritual that was used, we don't know which mortal these overlords go in contact with to start this, but the center point was right at the castle of the King and Queen. Once we're able to talk with those souls once they get done with judgement, we're hoping to figure out who it was." Sera noticed Lucifer was wide eye when looking at the golden papered.
"Lucifer...did you really give this?" said Asmodeus after burning the paper after looking at it.
"I didn't! I would of known if anyone even touched the book, I don't leave it out on the table for everyone to look at when they come with their weekly reports from my circle. I promise I'll figure out how they got a hold of this and if there was a 4th...oh they will feel my wrath!"
Michael seemed to ponder if Lucifer was lying, but seeing how enraged Lucifer is about this ritual getting out. "Will you swear it wasn't you if I ask? Swear under your name that you didn't start this invasion to the mortal realm?"
Lucifer stood up and glared at him with distaste, yet his 6 wings came out and glowed such holy power. "I, Lucifer Morningstar did not start this stupid invasion and not share my grimoire to these sinners!" Lucifer waited until Michael nodded and the both of them sat back down, the Seraphim stood back up and waved an angel to walk somewhat to the middle of the room, they stood like a human but had a more dog feature with pure white fur over most their head, some gray under the neck. "Luckily the paladin that was with your daughter was quickly judge and welcomed to heaven, thank you for being here to tell us what happened."
"It is my honor," said Richard giving a quick bow. "I'll answer what I can from what I recall during that day...other then who started it, we weren't close nor inside the castle to know who."
"That's fine, one of the main question I do have is this, was Charlotte Morningstar involved with it," Seraphim paid no mind to Lucifer seeming ready to stand back up and argue, but Lilith quickly pulled him back down to sit, she had a glare too but seemed to expect them to accuse their daughter.
"No," Richard reply rather quick while staring at the Seraphim. "Her 2 bodyguards reacted right before it even started and pulled the 2 of us together and set a protective shield to protect us from being sacrificed..." he carried on with his story until his last moment of life when Charlie was trying to keep him alive from the poison smoke. "I don't think they would causes an uprising in the town their daughter was visiting, risking her to being killed in the process...which I'm sure everyone here can agree on that." The Seraphim's nodded in agreement to Richard's last statement, it seemed half the angels seemed disappointed that they wont get a reason to kill those overlords. One angel in particular defiantly didn't hide his disapproval, Adam's angel mask defiantly show the frown and irritation. As much he wanted to taunt Lucifer or share his opinion...Michael has told him to stay quiet and save his opinions for the end. 'I didn't think he would even sit in this meeting, then I would be giving these demons one hell of a talking to,' Adam thought as he glanced over where Michael was, if there was one thing he's learned that was the Seraphim's has much better patient then an archangel when testing how far he can push his charm.
After the angels and Seraphim's shared questions with some of the overlords and royal demons Lilith noticed a couple overlords seem a bit nervous. Odd, so far everyone has shown they were not part of the plan, she written a few of the overlords name down and slid the paper to Lucifer. 'We will have to investigate these guys later,' Lilith thought but the looked she gave Lucifer he understood what her look meant, folded the paper and put it in his pants pocket.
"Now that we have settled this matter I would like to ask something," said Lucifer standing up. "Is there something you need from us to help this situation? I know you guys protect the mortal realm more then my people do and it's not often you request the overlords, from my ring specifically, to join in on this talk." Most the overlords stiffen and straighten up, they didn't know if they should be concerned. "The questions you gave them could have easily been handled by my wife and I."
"Indeed," said Michael standing up to take the floor. "We would like the assistance of either sinners or demons in tracking down the 3 overlords, as much as our angels do aid with the mortal realm there is a limit to what we, Archangels can offer since having us come down is just as bad as you and your wife. We plan to send Adam's exorcists down to hunt these overlords, but I don't think it will be easy for them to find these overlords-"
"What!?" said Adam finally snapping and stood up while glaring at Michael. "My girls are the finest huntress they are! You think they can't track down-" A powerful force forced Adam back at his seat and something clamped on his mouth, no matter how much he struggled he couldn't get up nor speak.
"Overlords are much different then regular demons that your exorcist hunt, they can cause harm to your exorcist to even kill if they build up enough power. I'm sure with the help of either a sinner or a demon they might have a better idea what they're plotting or finding their hideouts then the mortals can give for the exorcists. I'm sure there are at least some demons from any of the other circles and the other overlords can find someone that can assist this conquest."
Satan snorted and shook his head. "I'm telling you now, I doubt I have anyone to consider to even think about helping mortals, even the ones with sound mind are just more bloodthirsty then anything."
"If I may speak," said Fredrick slightly waving his hands. "I'm sure another overlord will have a better chance to assist these...exorcists, it also lessen the risk of the demon or sinner to be tempted to join them, we are quite smooth talkers in convincing mortals." A few demons to Fredrick left was a woman wearing a slim light red dress with grey shoulder pads, then end of her dress has greyish black frills and it seemed something came to mind as she grinned her sharp teeth. Quickly pulling her fan to hide her face so no one can see her smile.
"No," said Sera to Fredrick's advise. "Yes you guys can probably have a better chance, but what if they convince one of you to join them and now we have 4 to worry about. I'm sure you have at least a sinner somewhere down there can be cunning. Also an overlord will require to use a large amount of sacrifices. The town that was destroyed had a few thousands mortals, not adding the animals that were also offered to the summoning."
"Oh ho...we might have one," said Rosie quite cheerily. "I can't give out a name to your holiness since it is a touchy matter on this sinner," Rosie let out a little giggle seeing half the overlords register what she meant and had a moment of fear before looking away or down at their desk. Many of the angels and Seraphim's noticed the reaction.
"Give us a week," Lilith quickly said. "It will take us time to find trustworthy beings, sinners and demons down here won't be as honorable and eagerly to do something for the greater good, but we will try our best to find anyone that can do the job."
After a few words share between Michael and Azrael, Lucifer sister nodded. "Ok, but only a week, we will probably already have exorcist ready at the churches once you figure out your chosen warriors, we will get in contact with you after a week so we can inform our people which demons to not attack. Have a good day Lilith...Older brother Lucifer," said Azrael and the image of the Holy meeting started to vanish and the water like holy magic started evaporating into nothing. While the overlords started bickering with each other Deadly Sins got up to get ready to leave after letting Lucifer and Lilith know they'll see if they even any demons or sinners in their circle, then they all left.
"Rosie...please tell me you aren't thinking of that sinner..." said Carmilla walking over to Rosie. "You should know that Alastor probably won't help ever since he's been stripped from being an overlord, also! Have you forgotten the past 70 years he's been back to being tormented?"
"And in between those 70 years how many demons, sinners...and overlords he was able to devour? He is a cunning sinner for letting them think they broke him, and besides, wasn't the last overlord he tried to consume Vox? 1 of the 3 that have fled, I'm sure if he was offered to hunt him down he just might," said Rosie chuckling while still smiling wide while speaking loud enough for quite a few people to hear.
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"Darling, I really don't know how they got a hold of that grimoire," said Lucifer once him and Lilith got back to his office room. He went to his bookshelf to grab the book, it glowed once Lucifer touched it. Nothing felt off of anyone physical touching it. "I know I have been...off these past years, but I wouldn't ignore if my seals warned me of someone touching this shelf."
Lilith set the pieces of paper down about the 3 Vs and raised an eyebrow after finishing Vox's records. "Lucifer...can your spell only detect flesh or can it also sense prosthetics limb replacement?"
"Huh? A what now?" said Lucifer confused.
Lilith sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I guess you weren't lying that you don't keep up with keeping up with the mortals...they had found a way to use magic to make limb replacement for people that lost limbs," Lilith handed Vox's paper to Lucifer. "Apparently Vox was Alastor former target and he ate Vox's left arm...and it didn't grow back, yet it seems no one mention about him walking around with a missing limb."
"It should of grown back, peoples limbs always tend to grow back during the tortures...is Alastor's demon ability able to stop limbs to grow once he eats them? I didn't think it could do that, we know he can devour demons and sinners down to their soul where they don't come back...that fucker still won't tell us or spit any of his victims out no matter what we do. He just keeps smiling...wait you think my spell won't sense this...prosthetic limb since it isn't flesh?" Lucifer grabbed a bell on his desk and rang it, an imp quickly showed up in 1 minute and bowed. "Go find a prosthetic limb, or anyone that is even making any down here."
"And I guess you don't know about their advancement with communication, it is recently new of 10 years...have you not notice the overlords and imps using this?" Lilith pulled outa rectangle looking box with a magic crystal at the top of it, it was big enough to fit in her hand and there were symbols carved on the front with the crystal and the back. "This also apparently can take pictures recently...the things that those mortals are figuring out magic mix with...electricity...I think that's what they called it." Lilith walked over to grab the grimoire once the imp left, setting the book down to flip a few pages, she sat down on the chair and waved Lucifer over so he can see. "It's best you learn how this works so you can understand how this works, because if this is how they got information out of this book then we need to change how the security works around here," Lilith pressed a couple of the symbols while hovering it over a page, a click noise was heard and Lucifer slightly flinched away from hearing it with concern. "Did your spell react to me taking a picture of the page?"
Lucifer looked to see that the little crystal, it started showing an image of the page that Lilith took the picture, he let out a gasp of disbelief as he quickly hover his hand and didn't feel anything different from the spell on the book. "No...it didn't react at all from that box thing taking an image of the book...shit then maybe what you're saying about this spare limb! We need to dig more into this," Lucifer felt his horns come out from anger. Lucifer turned his head quickly when hearing an 'eep' from the imp that returned, it quivered but it slowly walked over to him with his head bowed and holding up an arm that looked a mixture of stone and wood with a mix color of black and brown. Lucifer took a deep breath to calm himself before grabbing the limb, not wanting to break it if he let his anger get the best of him right now. "Do you know how this works?" Lucifer meant the question more to Lilith, but the imp let out a cough and spoke.
"I-I do...sir, I sometimes see some sinners that came down here with missing limbs using them. Also some of us imps that get into accidents, though it may work better when it's connected to flesh or something...I don't know how it really works sir."
Lucifer lightly tapped the arm with a bit of his magic with focus. "Hm...so that's how it works," mumbled Lucifer before snapping his hands and he created a mannequin with a missing limb, he placed it on it and waved his hands as the mannequin moved around with the prosthetic limb moving. "Alright, if you don't mind trying to touch this book, you don't have to once you see the symbols. I just want to make sure it reacts to someone other then me," Lucifer grabbed the grimoire and kneeled down, holding the book out for the imp who slowly walked over and raised his hand to the book. The imp backed away when it quiver and demonic symbols showed up, Lucifer nodded when seeing it and raised it up to the mannequin which walked over, used the limb to reach for it and easily yanked it out of Lucifer's hand. "What..." Lucifer was baffled.
"Hold on, darling...let's run another test, could you bring another imp that is using a spare limb so we can properly test someone else trying to grab it, and also, do you know who is making these limbs in hell? I'm sure it can't be a regular sinner or demon."
"It's a demon overlord named Ronnith, your majesty...I will do that right away. Please excuse me!" The imp was quite eager to run out the room.
"Isn't that one of the names you've written on this paper?" said Lucifer pulling the note out and handing it to her. "I'll let you figure that out...I'll have more tries with this..." Lucifer let out a light growl and grabbed the head of the mannequin and just crushed it, he wanted to crush the prosthetic limb but he knew breaking it won't help right now. "Hopefully it's just because it just senses my magic."
Lilith nodded as she left Lucifer to figure it out while she gets ready to either torment a demon or murder them. 'Ronnith isn't a royal if I recall so there won't be much of a problem getting what information I need, this food should of told Lucifer about this.' Lilith sighed after the thought, of course he wouldn't, Ronnith got tempted in their plan and he's defiantly going to regret it...in fact maybe giving Alastor a roommate for a playmate might help him regret it... wait, they can't since he tends to eat anyone that gets put down there. That's still a mystery how even though they barely take the muzzle off his face the past 15 years he's been down there with his shadow.
Wait.
Maybe Ronnith can be useful.
~~~~~~~~~~
After a couple days no one has brought any good candidates, Lucifer was groaning from reading these choices, then meeting them and shaking his head. Some still had intentions of harming innocent and that is one thing the angels required them not to do. "at least a quarter of these sinners will seek vengeance, one here is an alcoholic so she will not be much help...really? Who petition this person? Has collected human ears and nose, along with having multiple cases of assaults when someone looks at him funny? These won't do," Lucifer took off his hat to scratch his head after getting back to his office. The few imps and hell hounds weren't great either, a few are curious how crime is preformed, or if eating innocent people taste any different then a sinners. He really didn't think this would be this difficult, he defiantly can't rely on demons after hearing one wanting to try and open up a leather store that used human skin.
The communication device ding on his desk and words glowed above the crystal:
From: Lilith,
Come to the 3rd meeting room, I might have an idea who will be a good choice.
Lucifer groaned but put his hate back on, grabbed the device to put in his pocket before walking out again. He really feels like he needs a nap after today, maybe there is a way he can get Charlie to talk through this communication device. 'Wait...doesn't Charlie even have one of these? Maybe I should send her one, hopefully it'll be easier then the sending notes every few months.' He smiled most the way there of the thought of having an easier way to maybe communicate with his daughter. Once he opened the door he noticed 4 imps were setting a sealed box down across the table where Lilith was sitting, 5 feet away from her there was something covered with a drape over a chair. Whatever it was stirred here and there, but seeing the sealed box start struggling and black mist trying to come out brought a sort of dryness in his throat. "You don't mean-"
"If you weren't spending these years pouting and being depressed then we won't be in this position, we need to do whatever we can to fix this and maybe sending a predator to hunt their prey that fled is what we need to do."
A humanoid bird demon opened the door and yanked the chain he was holding to tug Alastor in, the demon must of freshened him up since last they knew he was left with torn clothes. He seemed freshly out of a shower with black trousers, the undershirt with his red vest seemed to be a darker black then his trousers. They didn't bother giving him shoes but can still hear the clack of his hooves walking to the chair that was bound to the floor. As soon as he sat down the Bird demon snapped his fingers and bound his hands and a rope tied around his chest.
"I hope you do understand, with how unpredictable you are, we need to keep you bound. You do tend to find a way to run despite your shadow being sealed," said Lilith waving her hand to the box which seemed to stop jerking around once Alastor entered the room. "Go ahead and remove the muzzle, this may take some time talking with him and I'm sure it will be quite hard to have a proper conversation," said Lilith leaning forward a bit on the table as she patiently waited for the demon to take the muzzle off and left. 'It seems you still hold that smile.'
Alastor moved his head a bit as if stretching his neck, moving his mouth a bit before showing a toothy smile. "Why, when I was told I was joining a meeting I didn't think it would be with the Queen and King of Hell. What can I do for you?" Alastor voice was quite hoarse, he left out a few coughs. "Oh dear, my apologies...it has been a while since I get to talk and not laugh at my tormentors!"
Lilith snapped her fingers and a small stack of golden papers showed up between her and Lucifer with an ink and quill. "I have a proposition I think you would be amuse with?"
Alastor's eyes widen a big and his smile grew even wider. "A deal? My you sure know how to get my utmost attention."
Notes:
Enjoy! happy to see the kudos and people checking it out c:
Chapter 3
Notes:
small section of some blood and gore will be a (( warning ))
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Charlie woke up, after 2 days of the fall of Alzkor she's been traveling with the cavalry that came to her and Richard's aide back to the nearest church, which from what she was told before going to bed that they should be reaching there today around lunch time. Razzle and Dazzle have made themselves comfortable on her sides in the bed all curled up on top of the blanket, still snoozing away until they started feeling Charlie shifting under the covers, Razzle slid closer to Charlie's face and rubbed against her cheek.
"Good morning Razzle...Dazzle where is my morn-" Charlie stopped when she saw Dazzle just sitting on the other side of the tempt where it was mostly empty...where Richard would usually sleep and would have quickly left to give her the privacy to change Dazzle let out a sad bleep, she can tell he was sad with a hint of guilt. "Sweet boy...it's not your fault, I'm sure if I stay focused and not wear myself out I could of sensed the demon. Let's look on the bright side that he'll reach heaven, maybe we can see if we can contact him at the church while they figure out who else they will be having escorting us," Charlie waved her hand to Dazzle to have him come over for a hug. She wanted to cry some more herself, she may always have someone escort her when they either have enough or fall in battle...but Richard was one of the few that didn't walk away or requesting to a different position after traveling with her for a few years, staying around for at least 20 years was defiantly the longest that any of the paladins stayed with her. His loss defiantly hurt the most since he actually seemed to care about seeing her more then just the fallen angel daughter that might create chaos and destruction, well...that's what they tried to make it sound like it was her fault when they found her semi in her demon form. Yet they notice she was protecting Richard's body until she passed out from exhaustion.
"It would be nice if he was still around...at least someone wouldn't look at me as if this was all my fault..." mumbled Charlie while holding both Razzle and Dazzle for a few minutes until she finally decided to get up and find her pack to get out of her night clothes into her traveling gear, undressing out and grabbing her Corset first to put on first, while working on getting her pants on Razzle grabbed her boots and set them next to her and Dazzle pulled out a laced dark green dress, flew over to Charlie with it since he can't fly above her with the lack of space due to the tent. "Thanks," said Charlie before grabbing it and putting on the dress. She nearly jumped when someone called her name outside.
"Madam Charlotte, may I enter?" it was a females voice, it must be one of the priest.
"You may," said Charlie as she sat down on her sleeping roll and pulled her boots over so she can start putting them on.
A woman dressed in pure white robed outfit with a white staff that has golden wings carved into the top as a pure white gem was set on top of the staff, almost the size of the woman head. Charlie was a bit confuse when she noticed the priest made a disturbing look while looking at her feet, well I guess in Charlie's case her hooves. Charlie rolled her eyes as she shoved her boots on and started tying them. Razzle gave a slight growly and perched himself on Charlie's shoulder as she stood up. "Good morning, holy maiden. What brings you to my tent? I was already told about us reach to the church by lunch time.
"A note has arrived sometime during the night from the high priest, it seems once we get there a Seraphim wishes to speak to you about a meeting they had with the beings of hell. I figured you would wish to know before we had breakfast and start packing up," said the priest fixing her facial to a neutral feature. "And...it seems you may be staying at the church for a few more days until they choose your next escort...it seems they are going to have an exorcist angel accompany you from one of Adam's chosen pick, how lucky you are!"
Charlie mentally frowned hearing that but kept a slight smile to the maiden. "Thank you for letting me know, I'll be heading out to get something to eat and I'll be ready to go."
"You don't have to worry about that one of our men has a tray here for you so you can enjoy it in your tent," as soon she finished her sentence a man came in and handed Charlie a tray of food, gave a slight bow before leaving. "I'm sure it will be less awkward for you to eat in here and not be stared at by everyone else. I'm sorry if it seems rude but I do hope you understand..." she let her sentenced trailed off, she gave a bow and a somewhat apologetic look but Charlie knew she was faking that sorry expression.
'Of course, none of you bother to try and get to know me or hear my opinions other then being Lucifer's and Lilith's daughter,' Charlie thought but kept her smile on, thanked her and waited for her to leave before sitting on the ground and letting a few of the tears come down, gently petting Razzle who was still on her shoulder. "It's ok...we know it's always like this every time, you think I should be use to this. I guess still mourning doesn't help at all. Well! Let's get this done and over with, eat breakfast and deal with the church for a few days and back to working on saving mortals!" Razzle and Dazzle gave little happy chirps and instruments appeared in their hands, one a flute and the other a violin, playing a melody while Charlie eat. Listening to music helped her feel a little better and smiled at the 2 demon goats as they landed on the floor to do a dance while playing music.
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Lilith had an idea that Alastor would burst out laughing after being told that overlords escaped hell...but for a good 5 minutes? She can tell Lucifer's eyebrow twitched and she herself felt ready to yank Alastor's ears off to get him to shut up, but from what his tormenters told her, he will just continue laughing if they attempt any sort of pain or physically harm. Once it seemed he went from laughing loudly to light chuckles Lucifer decided to speak up. "The angels have asked us to help them in tracking the overlords, they know they can be more cunning then anything the mortals of the living can deal with, and knowing how prideful angels can get," Lucifer had to stop for a second when Alastor gave a loud 'HAH!' at his comment. "We believe you are one of the few that can successfully track these guys with or without the angels help...and knowing your records here..." Lucifer looked at the plain white stack of paper next to the golden paper. "Already eaten almost 18 overlords and almost 1,000 souls over the century, which...by the way, you still refuse to release them. Quite a stubborn sinner you are."
"And don't expect them back anytime soon," said Alastor smiling in amusement. "As much I wouldn't mind going on such a hunt, I doubt I'm going to the mortal world completely free. What else is in it for me? And do I know any of these overlords that have left to the realm of the living?"
Lilith pulled 3 papers out of the pile and slid them over for Alastor to see the 3 pages. "One of them is one you failed to eat, and I'm sure you're the type to not let your prey go easy," she noticed Alastor stared at Vox paper with such eagerness, leaning forward as if he would be able to smell Vox scent on the paper with a predatory stare and such eagerness. "I also learned you bit his arm off and ate it so I'm sure you want more then an appetizer." She was very curious how him eating the arm stopped it from regrowing but she figured they can work on that later, just from his facial features he doesn't plan to explain why or how. If he fails maybe they can make that part of the bargain on getting him to tell them that ability of his.
Alastor licked his lips and seemed to swallow a few times, trying to control how quick his mouth started salivating, and as if his body wanted to add to his hunger, his stomach growled quite loudly. "Hm..." Alastor felt his hunger telling him to take the deal. It's been so long since they gave him any type of meal to eat, the lesser demons have been more careful and after the 'sudden disappearance' of sinners they put in the prison with him. Sensing his shadow bloodlust wasn't helping either with how close they have it. Proper choices and decisions are defiantly going to be difficult and he needed to keep his mind clear, he also needs to check the conditions of this contract before agreeing to even accepting the deal after this first offer to go after an old prey of his. He is also quite curious what was next to them, no matter how many times he sniffed the air he couldn't catch a scent. "Let me see what the conditions are, I would use my powers, but..." a little black tendril twirled off his finger like a snake, but as soon as he did that the chair glowed and Alastor felt a burst of lightning shock his entire body until he cut the power off, he let out a scoffed laughter while smoke trailed off his hair and body from the shock. "Lightning? No setting me ablaze in hellfire? How boring."
Lucifer opened his mouth to say something but then Alastor summoned another eldritch tendril which caused another round of shock, he didn't understood why he was doing that...while laughing. 'Shit...is he already broken? Or is this idiot become a machoistic? I guess it can explain how it seemed physical torturing him slowly did less results," Lucifer thought but shook his head and slammed his hand on the table. Not knowing if Alastor was even paying attention, but it seemed he stopped trying to cast his power and stopped getting shocked. Lucifer waved his hands as the golden papers floated in front of Alastor's face and snapped his other finger to clean up Alastor since his clothes looked ruffled, burned and somewhat singed now.
Floating each page out of the 50 pages defiantly took time, would of defiantly been much faster if they allowed Alastor hands free but they weren't going to let that happen until he either signs the deal or does a handshake with Lucifer or Lilith, or both. He stayed quiet as he put his focus on each paper, a few twitch of his ears here and there along with a few sneers and Lilith noticed when his frown looked less friendly by the end of the paper but he put his neutral face back on and stared at the golden paper. Alastor tapped the arm of the chair with his clawed hands as he looked like he was thinking.
"I do not approve of these terms you have laid out for me, unless you are willing to make some changes. Then I decline," said Alastor as his ear laid flat on his head as he gave a light glare at them. "Too many restrictions. As if you just want to send me out with nothing but my hands and teeth." If he didn't had his hands bound he would defiantly set the paper on fire just to add to the dramatic. 'Hm...can golden paper even burn?' Alastor tilted his head in wonder while staring at the paper, slightly distracted for a moment at the random thought, then looked back at them with some anger in his stare to show his displeasure of this pathetic offer. 'Ok...now let's see what I can change on this contract with them, they should know I would say no to this, barely anything helps me out in the long run,' The sealed box next to him rattled, a light cackle and slight whispers crept in his mind. "My dear friend has a point, not even letting him come along with me even though you allow him to join me? He's quite hurt...now then, I would like to add some changes if we can agree on these."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Charlie was thankful finally seeing the town less then a mile away as the sun reached midday, at least Razzle and Dazzle played music during the trip for her. Razzle had a Lute and Dazzle with a recorder sitting in the cart with her, no one tried to stop them but Charlie believe because it was something to listen to, the 2 weren't bad at playing any instruments they create with their magic. She looked up to stare at the church once they pass the gates around the town, as usual the Church was 5 times the size of any other building, if it was in a major town it would be the 2nd biggest compare to whichever King of Queen lived there but since this is a nearby town with a governor it wasn't as grand. Quite a bit of the villagers came to watch them walk by, some gave Charlie a startle look, but the kids were more fascinated with her 2 companions and requested a song, which the 2 goat demons bleep in happiness and started playing some songs that got quite a bit of the kids dancing until their parents or older siblings started to leave and get back to their daily lives. As soon as the cart stopped in front of the entrance Charlie jumped off and stretched her legs while avoiding to rub her butt from sitting in that cart for most the ride here.
"They will carry your stuff to your quarters while you are having a meeting with the Seraphim," said a priest that gave her a slight bow after he came down to greet Charlie, Razzle and Dazzle tossed the instruments in the air then they vanished, they both gave childish smiles as they flew side by side with Charlie. "Um...do you think they can wait for you in your room?"
Before the 2 demon goats can growl at the thought Charlie shook her head and raised her hands to cover both the demon goats mouth to stop them from giving a warning growl. "I'm sorry sir, but they were told by my father to stay by my side unless I tell them to go, but with the treatment I get every time I come to any churches I don't trust being alone. They won't cause any harm as long there isn't anyone around wishing to attempt to harm me, they know to always stay with me when I come to holy grounds and will stay behaved as long you don't give them a reason to be on alert." She assume this priest must be recently new to the church, she's never visited all the churches but they should know her bodyguards will always stay with her no matter what, especially when 1 time a Paladin tried to stop them from following her and got their arm bitten off. Boy that was a pain to explain they weren't trying to attack that church.
"I understand, this way please," said the priest seeming a little nervous before leading the way, the hallways were simply decorated, some vases with lovely flowers that were from the local wilderness looked lovely, this place wasn't all white like the main ones were so it's a nice difference, she quite enjoy the light brown walls with the wooden floorboards.
'Ah...of course the main hallway will still have the statues,' thought Charlie as a couple knights opened the double doors that went in a large room that could probably fit all the townspeople in, and the biggest statue that sat at the end of the room was of course Adam, the first angel and mortal in heaven while the other statues were consider angels to the church, but she knows from their battle armor and how most were woman they were his exorcists. A few other angels were in but they don't communicate or get much involved with mortals as much as Adam does, though of course with restrictions from the archangels that they put on him due to some problems before she was born, she doubt anyone would believe her if she told them how high that angels ego is.
They walk behind the podium where a golden crystal shaped like a flower floated above the podium where the High Priest stands to give out their sermon when the townspeople come to listen. Charlie went to stand under the floating crystal, she smiled and thanked to another priest that came over to give her a cushion for her to sit on while she tried to feel a bit more comfortable in her sitting position, still slightly sore from the cart. Adam's statue glowed with holy symbols, his hand hovered over the floating crystal and a beam of light that hit Charlie and as she looked up her eyes glowed a bright light yet she can also feel her demonic side feel slight pain but she was able to put a protective barrier around it so she wouldn't get hurt while the Seraphim was putting a mental connection for them, she saw pure white for a moment until she saw the one Seraphim that was quite small compare to the other and gleefully hugged Charlie when she stood up. "Oof! Hi, Emily! I know it's been some time since we got to talk. You really shouldn't be using these for chit chats until my Uncles and Aunts might get annoyed," said Charlie as she hugged Emily back. Emily shrugged and gave a light giggle.
"It isn't as if I'm telling you anything you might know later, or if I want to talk to another immortal. Also...I'm sure you would want some more information at what happened at the town, we were able to get some more information once more souls that were done being judged coming to heaven or hell, and also what Hell gave too after these 2 days defiantly help learn more on the situation. It seems they got their information much faster then we did with our own souls, I guess they're really trying to show they had no involvement with those overlords."
Charlie sighed in relief, she may have been gone for almost a century but she didn't believe her father and mother would allow something like that to happen. "Yes...I would love to know what happen, maybe I can pass the news to the mortals so maybe they stop looking at me with such judgement." Emily gave a sad smile and nodded. "But knowing how they listen to Adam I'm sure he makes sure most the church wont trust me until I go back to hell." Their minds formed 2 chairs with a small table between the chairs, Charlie quietly listened when Emily explained that the prince was the one to activate it. The prince has summoned a few demons before but decided to attempt to summon a Demon Sinner, the one he summoned looked more naga with a human top and the lower part of a snake yet it had many eyes even on the hood of it's head.
"Apparently he got distracted by the appearance of the Sinner he was slow to put the binding contract on the demon before it hypnotized him and set a red crystal ball in his hands, then he heard 3 powerful voices overwhelm his mind and he barely had control of his body. It gives a hint that one of the overlords also has hypnosis abilities, a stronger one since he almost fought through the sinners spell. The prince is in hell and didn't put much of a fight on spilling everything...other then why he was summoning demons around, I think they said he appeared in the Greed circle," said Emily seeming sad. "It seems it might be too much for mortals to try and solve so they are letting Adam send his exorcists down to aid the mortals, they also request hell to find some demons or sinners in hell that can also assist in the situation."
"What?" said Charlie sounding surprised. "I was already somewhat surprised being told an exorcist would be accompanying me soon...getting hells help is defiantly something I wasn't expecting...I guess I can understand, I'm sure my parents and other relatives will find a few people! Maybe I can meet one of them and see if I can maybe see if my redemption idea will work, I was hoping to have more successful attempt with regular mortals but it seems most of them don't take it seriously...or just ignore me. If I can't get them to listen to me alive then how am I going to be successful when I go back to hell?"
"Oh...I guess the last person you tried helping didn't go so well? Wasn't she with you for a few years?" said Emily shaking her head. "What happened?"
"Apparently she was still going out doing drugs and was still gambling...she just did it less often or waited for me to sleep. Sir Evan was with me during that time before he wished to retire escorting me and told me she wasn't his problem to worry about when I woke up one morning and heard she was found dead outside one of the pubs. I have tried with a few others while Richard was with me...did he make it up there?" Charlie let out a little sigh remembering what happened with Beth.
"Yes he did, he even tried to talk to Adam to allow him to escort you again as an angel, exorcists are consider close to it...but...he told him no, I don't think he will give up though so I can see him still trying even after sir Adam sends someone down. I do hope whoever he picks won't be as stuck up as he is and considers your attempt at wanting to save mortals from eternal suffering." The 2 shared stories with each other of Charlie's attempt with helping mortals while Emily has been trying to find others that are willing to support Charlie's idea of redemption once she can show some progress or proof, which it seems both are not having much luck in both their endeavor. A slight wave of nausea came slowly to both Charlie and Emily after 5 minutes of their conversation and both sighed. "I guess we can't keep this going for much longer...I do wish you luck in figuring out if people can be redeemed, something like that defiantly takes time!"
"Thanks, at least I have you that understands and supports it. I hope I can figure something out soon," Charlie kept the smile until Emily slowly faded away and she slowly started seeing The Nave again, she stared at the floating flower crystal for a moment before rubbing her head of the coming headache. Doubt slowly crept about her attempt on helping people, sure 100 years doesn't seem that long to beings like her and Emily but compare to the mortals lifespan it was a rather long one. She noticed the 2 priest weren't far, sitting on the closest bench while they were reading books, looking out the window it must of been a couple hours where the sun was sitting. It does explain how even more stiff she feels. "If you don't mind...does your High Priest have time? The Seraphim has given me information what happened to the kingdom of Alzkor." While following them with the 2 demon goats following a sad thought crossed her mind. 'Maybe I should head home after dealing with this situation...if I can't find anyone to even try, maybe it might be best to head back home after dealing with these 3 overlords.'
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"30%," yelled Lucifer pointing at the paper in front of Alastor.
"65%, you expect me to go after 3 overlords with 30% of my power? Not like I plan to use my abilities on the innocent," Alastor growled as his smile looked more like a smear with him glaring at Lucifer.
"Yet the difference here is you have more power then what you have when alive, including whatever ability you got when you turned to a Demon Sinner," said Lilith using the white paper to write or re-write the changes they are arguing in between. "We agreed you can take your shadow, talked about maybe consider you getting an overlord spot or even work as a punisher...if you succeed, we may have stripped you of being an overlord but we can see you are still emitting more power then a regular sinner in your position," said Lilith staring at Alastor as both his ears twitched and pulled back against his head. "You really can't hide that from us, your powers are quite a hassle down here so who knows how you'll be with it back in the world of the living."
"You may as well throw me back in my prison then, you already convince me to give 5% of the souls I've consumed and 1 overlord once I finish the job, and now you're trying to cripple me?" If Alastor wasn't dealing with Lucifer or in front of a noble lady as Lilith he wouldn't hesitate to try and bite Lucifer's hand, if he leaned forward enough he maybe could get a finger. He just kept his cheeky smile as he leaned back in the chair and stared them down he wasn't going to back down, even if he did let the urge to bite Lucifer overwhelms him he wouldn't even leave red marks from the bite.
"Then 60%, we will put terms on the restrictions," said Lilith after what felt like 20 minutes talking to a brick wall. "You can not use them on the innocent, avoid dealing with mortal war and conflict. You're there to focus more on the demons and sinners that are causing havoc, there will be some moments we'll let the binds of your power be release. Yes I mean you being able to go full power, but!" Lilith noticed his ears perked up in excitement. "The only way for that is if you or my daughter life becomes in such danger, then and only then will you be able to use such powers. Once the threat is gone you'll feel the chains back on you, you won't be able to pretend you're in danger," Lilith and Lucifer watched him as he put to thought on it until a slight nod. "Do you have any other problems until the remaining 3 days until we see what the angels opinion will be?"
"Just one...the last part where I can't harm or eat any demon or sinner until I leave? That's quite agonizing for me who hasn't had a meal in quite some time, I don't know when was the last person to be put in the same prison quarters a me but that was the last being I ate and I'll tell you my hunger will be quite hard to keep myself under control," Alastor didn't bother to keep his drooling under control and his eyes were slowly turning black as his pupils turned a blood red and glowed like a gemstone in sunlight. "At least let me devour the ones that didn't go through, they will still be suffering."
Lucifer shook his head and noticed Lilith was a bit in a thought. There was no way he was going to allow that...that's almost 200 sinners, that's too many souls to even consider giving him...but they really couldn't put Alastor in front of the Seraphim's and the few angels looking like he's ready to harm anyone while chained. There was no way they would see him as a good choice if he looked like a rabid animal.
"Instead of all those sinners, I can give you 1 meal but you need to let it last until the meet up and leave a good impression. I'm sure you'll enjoy this then sinners," Lilith stood up to walk over to whatever was covered with the drape. "Lucifer, if you don't mind writing down the new contract because I'm sure we'll be finishing up."
Alastor eye twitched and both his ear flatten back again at seeing how smug Lilith was being, after seeing Lucifer's reaction there is defiantly a good amount of sinners that were dumb, and he was ready to try and see how many he can get. "I doubt I will be satisfied with just 1 sinner...I am quite picky who I choose if you haven't-" Alastor trailed off when Lilith yanked the drape to reveal not only a sinner, sniffing the air he could tell it was a demon. He grinned a bit seeing the unconscious demon that had features of reptile skin and parts of gecko features on his face and claws. He froze as he sensed the demons power, had him start salivating as he saw the power that was around the demon, it was an overlord they are offering him! The chair shocked him just as quick as his body attempted to grow in size, his bloodlust took control for a moment there with his hunger. 'Damnit...I defiantly can't pass this up, he will defiantly be worth it...' Alastor spent the time Lucifer writing a new contract to work on keeping this hunger at bay, they may take the opportunity to maybe add something while his mind keeps getting distracted at the demon. Yet now he was filled with impatient, and his bloody shadow wasn't helping since it was also blood hungry too to partake as well as much as himself too.
As soon as Lucifer finished writing the new deal he gave a worried look over to Lilith as he used his magic to float the papers again, he was shocked to see that one of the overlords was under there. Underneath the cloth were some magic symbols, probably hiding his presence from the both of them especially from the sinner in front of him with how sensitive Alastor's nose is. The sinner took a few moments it seems to compose himself every time he kept eyeing Ronnith and the few shock warnings that kept sparking showed how much Alastor was struggling at keeping his composer. 'It has been 15 years since he's even been giving even soup to eat...will he even be able to make this last?' By the last paper he neatly set it down and got up with Lilith, both holding their hands out. Lilith on the left and Lucifer on the right and they let out their power seep to their hands.
((Warning: Blood and gore ahead))
Alastor almost broke his grin as he slouched back and bowed his head, his body quivering at their intimidation and glared at his hands shaking. Oh he hated feeling this but he planned to find a way out of this contract one way or another. Taking a deep breath he looked up at them with a struggling smile and unclenched both his hands. "We have a deal then, I accept the terms." They both grabbed his hands and he let out a gasp, then bit down hard to hold back the urge to scream from the power of the contract going through him. Blood started slipping out of his mouth from biting the inside of his mouth, once it was done he gasped heavily once they let go of his hands and was dazed enough to not notice they both left. Lilith said something but his ears were still ringing...but he became alert when he felt the rope around his chest drop and his wrist free, the breaking of chains had him look over as the black box broke and his shadow burst out and eagerly connected back to him. "Ah...how long has it been. Yes I know I haven't forgotten our meal, let's go ahead and enjoy it." Alastor walked over to the demon who still seemed out cold. "This is no fun if he isn't awake..." his shadow slithered around and took a bite on the shoulder and ripped a good chunk off, blood got on Alastor. All thoughts of enjoying this was gone once he licked some of the blood off his face and his horns grew and a bit of his body and ripped the remaining of the arm his shadow didn't take off and started eating, leaving nothing behind his shadow and him left. He didn't know when the demons body fell to the ground but it didn't matter, it was easier to tear open his chest. The shadow whispered in protest when it saw Alastor pull the heart out, which he glared back and with a guttural voice said. "You can have the next one, you took the first bite from me so consider this punishment," he growled at his shadow before eating the heart in a few bites then carried on eating the ribs as he just let himself loose control while feasting.
It was the quickest he ate someone, probably because his shadow was just as eager so it was quite a fight and didn't felt shame at how he ate until his mind was more focused again, groaning while looking at how the floor and the chair were covered in blood and he was covered in blood himself. He let out a snort as he stood up as he wiped his hands on the side of his trousers while ignoring his shadows urge to lick the blood off the floor. 'Control yourself you idiot! I shouldn't of let myself get overwhelm by your urges there like a mad animal. Now we don't have anything else to entertain ourselves until we leave, I was hoping to wait for him to wake up so we can have some more fun...' Alastor rolled his eyes after one complaint after another from his shadow as he started walking to the back door he came from, opening the door to see a couple imps there and flinched when they saw him, he gave a toothy grinned at them and leaned down to hover over them. "Do you know where I can freshen myself up before heading on out? I don't know if there is one nearby here and I don't wish to visit a friend looking like this." Alastor gave a toothy grin as blood drip from his chin and it dripped on the imps head.
"His Higness and Majesty has a room already set for you, we can show you the way since it doesn't lead to the main hallways," said the female imp keeping her composure despite wanting to back away, hearing the stories of this sinner eating anyone and anything down here in Hell, smelling the demon blood all over him made her and the other imp worried they were next on the menu.
"Lovely! Do please show the way!" said Alastor with a cheery tone as he stood up straight and waited for them to start walking to lead the way, placing both his hands behind his back as he hummed through most of the walk to his chambers.
Notes:
didn't expect to make this a little bit longer but kept adding more while I was cleaning it up! Next chapter we'll see how they feel when they introduce Alastor to the angels are their choice of sinner.
Chapter 4
Notes:
Well here I am, confident that I can make weekly chapters until my ADD brain decides to shove me off a cliff. Thanks brain, didn't need that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The news of Alastor being allowed to walk around spread quickly to everyone, even though Lucifer assured everyone that he is under supervision on won’t be attempting to devour souls or torment them until the panned meeting with the angels. Many still felt uncertain and kept their distance when he finally left the room that was for him to stay momentarily. Alastor was given gray trousers and a red plain long sleeve tunic that left a hole in the back for his tail to have room to poke out, which he hated how they wouldn’t give him a coat to properly cover his tail. His tail flicked the same time his left ear twitched in irritation as he was walking to the exit of the building, he needed to get proper clothing.
Alastor took a deep breath once he got outside hell once he got out of the building, it still reeked of ashes, dirt and slight smell of blood. Looking up at the sky to see the dark red crimson sky that has no sun but a huge pentagram that extended as far as he can see gleaming a white glow. Alastor didn’t think he would be able to have another chance to be out after being chained and tortured for…almost 60 years?
‘It defiantly felt longer,’ thought Alastor as his shadow popped up from under him and seemed quite excited as it looked around and eyed a few passing demons, nodding its head around as if it was talking to him.
“We do have plans to go to a few places, dear friend, but first we will be going to meet Miss Rosie now, I require proper clothing since those imps will not assist me in getting the right attire I want,” said Alastor gritting his teeth just remembering how they kept repeating on saying they were only told to show him his room and give him such clothes. “I swear I think they know I can’t kill them right now…” he mumbled under his breath while placing his arms behind his back while walking to the direction he sure is the right direction to cannibal town. His shadow twirled around him as it quietly whispered to him.
“There’s no reason to travel through the shadows, I’m going to enjoy stretching my legs if we end up imprisoned again, we can’t look too eager to impress or wanting that slight taste of freedom,” though he didn’t know if his situation can be considered free being chained by a contract. His shadow scowled and slowly slinked back to the ground. “Yes, we have to assume an if, stop it or else I will go back on my promise to let you the first meal when we get to the mortal realm. You nag at me is not helping me figure out a plan.”
Alastor was thankful for the quiet for now, as much he does enjoy his shadows company and how they are back to being connected again, it was defiantly much more talkative than ever, it needed to shut up so he can figure out the next step to convince the holy beings. He let out a drawn-out sigh, if they’re anything like Lucifer then they are probably just as stubborn as the fallen angel.
He focused on his surroundings when he noticed more demons were more well dressed as middle-class people would wear, with pure black eyes when he looked at them. Some seemed startle to see him, a few greeted him with a tip of the hat from some of the men and a little curtsy from some of the woman, which he polity gave 1 of his charming smile and bowed his head slightly. There was quite a bit of cottages buildings along with a few manors here and there, once he finally found the largest building that seemed to be a town hall that’s connected to a boutique store, he knew he found the right place.
‘Thank goodness she hasn’t changed this town much over the years,’ thought Alastor letting out a little sigh of relief as he walked to the door that enters to the boutique store, there were quite a few demons checking out the racks of clothes. The demon at the desk noticed Alastor and seemed ready to ask what he was doing here until he realized who he was. “Oh! Alastor! I’ve heard the rumors you were out, it’s nice to see it was true! Not hanging down to torment sinners?” said the demoness giggling while opening her fan to cover her face, trying to seem more charming.
“I’m glad to show that the rumors are true, and as much I wouldn’t mind joining on punishing the sinners I do am in need of new sets of clothes, darling,” said Alastor backing up a few steps so she can see. “Imps seem to not care much about appearances one must have after being absence from everyone!”
“Indeed!” The demoness said looking him up and down. “Let me show you to the back so we can get you measured, and I can go get Miss Rosie, she will be delighted to see you,” she led him to the back to a small room with a small podium in the middle with mirrors around it. “I will find another employee to get you measured,” she waved him in and left as he walked up to the podium and stood there and waited patiently until the demon knocked on the wall to let him know they were there before walking in.
“It’s quite nice to see you, sir,” said the demon as he pulled out his measuring tape after tilting his head to Alastor. “Will you be needing more then just a suit made for you?”
Alastor raised his arms and gave the demon a nod. “It seems so, I doubt my wardrobe was left alone all these years. Nor probably taken care of so I may require even some comfortable clothing too.” Alastor stiffened through most of the measuring, his ears drew back.
“Oh my! It’s so good to see you, Alastor!” Rosie voice was heard once the demon just got done measuring him and he stepped off the podium, she grabbed him by the shoulder and twirled him around once in her excitement. “You defiantly looked like you lost quite a few pounds there,” said Rosie as she let go of his shoulder and was smiling quite happily. “I’m glad they are giving you a chance at this, who knows…maybe getting some fresh air might be the best for what you need!” Rosie went over to her employee. “Do make sure we can at least get a wardrobe ready for him in a few days.”
“Ah, dear Rosie, that shouldn’t be necessary to get that many clothes made for me. I don’t even have anything for payment,” said Alastor, his eyes widened from shock. “Just a few sets should do.”
“Nonsense, you’re going to need a set once you get approved! There aren’t really many outfits up there that let’s outfit grow with your body. I have heard such outfits are very rare to get and not many mortals even need those, only a few races from what I heard.”
“Hm…you make it sound like I will get through easily, I’m sure they will be just as stubborn as someone we know down here. How has the selection been so far? Have they approved any demons or sinners at all?”
“So far no, they are going by sections from what I have heard. I think they have got done with seeing who the ring of Greed has chosen, Pride is last so that will defiantly be in a few days. I’m sure with your special ability you have there they really can’t complain…though I guess that means I should expect less sinners coming down, come! Let’s go have some snacks and share some drinks while you’re here. I’m sure you would want to hear some more gossip!” Rosie led them to where it led to where the town hall section is and sat at the nearest table with 2 comfortable armchairs. Alastor quite misses this comfort of talking to someone that wasn’t himself or his shadow. Despite half the talk being about some drama happening in her town, he couldn’t help his smudge face with what Rosie asked next.
“I also heard you bitten Vox’s arm not long after the meeting we had with the heaven. I’m more shocked that barely anyone knew but another overlord named Ronnith…but he hasn’t been seen once the King and Queen learned about it.”
‘Ah…so that’s who I ate, I guess he was more then just a bargaining chip for me to agree to the contract,’ thought Alastor letting out a light chuckle. “I haven’t met many of the overlords ever since they left me with the royals, but yes, I did get a good piece from Vox before him and someone else were able to wound me a bit. I am hoping to get some pay back and finish what I started with that sphere face buffoon. Now then, how about some nice stories about the other 2 overlords that you can share with me? I would love to get a head start on gathering information.”
Alastor almost slipped up on the 2nd day when he took that day to go visit Zestial for a short greeting and small talk to the good man, and maybe a little favor from him to get a cane made by him. He almost let out his sigh of relief when Zestial agreed, Carmilla was going to be his 2nd choice, but he has quite the magical gemstone collection that he collects that can be a great for a to channel his magic through.
“I can see what thou can do with such a request from thee,” said Zestrial as he got up from his seat once they came to an agreement on how it was going to look like, walking to the door to open for Alastor. “I may get Carmilla’s assistance with it, I am sure once I mention it will help, thou mission to capture the 3 overlords she will sure help make sure it will work well as a wand.” Zestial wasn’t much worried or suspicious about Alastor coming to him even though others have told him to don’t bother with the sinner. He has watched this mortal come down and grow quite fast for how young of a sinner he is. Who knows how hell will become once he returns back.
After waving and giving Zestial a nod he got up out of his seat and exited his room and walked out and through the hallways. One of Zestial’s demons was leading 5 sinners through the hallway, probably being led to the punishment rooms. As soon as Alastor walked by his shoulder stiffened and he stopped in his tracks.
Fresh sinners, the smell of life still lingered on them…his most favorite type to punish.
Alastor licked his lips then twisted his head 90 degrees to look at the group still walking, his eyes turned black, and a drool of black blood trickled from his mouth. ‘I’m sure taking a couple hands will be fine,” thought Alastor as he turned his body. Yet, as soon as he raised his hand to try and reach for the nearest 1, the collar slightly showed up around his neck and gave a warning shock. That was enough of a reminder to quickly turn back around and keep walking as if nothing happened. Other than his glare.
Zestial raised an eyebrow, he was still watching Alastor leave, he wasn’t even going to be surprised if there was 1 less sinner. He saw the collar show up on Alastor’s neck and he left out a hum. ‘So that is how though are under control and behaving for now,’ thought Zestial letting out a small chuckle as he closed the door and went to carry on his day.
On the 3rd day Alastor got a knock on the door and was greeted with quite a few boxes a few demons from cannibal town carried in for him, setting it down next to his bed. Before they left 1 of them handed a smaller box to him. “Told us to give it to you since you’ll probably need it,” he said before tipping his hat and leaving with the others. Alastor opened the boxes and was quite amaze how quick Rosie got all these clothes made rather quick, especially in his favorite color.
“Such wonderful timing as always from dear Rosie and her demon folk, here I thought I would have to go to the meeting in this plain outfit,” he rummages through the boxes until he was able to find the suit. As much as he wanted to check all of them, he had an hour until he needed to reach the meeting room. Even though the imps had told him not to be concerned about what to wear, he wasn’t going to have that at all.
“As always, she sure knows how to make such nice clothing,” said Alastor as he finished changing out of his old outfit and putting the suit on, finishing pushing the last couple buttons on. His undershirt was gray almost to his skin color as his red vest hast little swirl patterns sewn on it. His black pants matched the color of his lovely tailcoat, the outside of the coat was black while the inside had the same color pattern as his vest. “I most definitely need to return the favor once I come back to hell, it even seems there’s quite a few more too.”
Alastor pulled out a few outfits just to look at, it seemed she really did push to get a wardrobe of clothes made for him. Putting some on the bed and bending down to look at them while squinting at them, he really should have gotten glasses during these past couple days. His shadow poked out and shivered with excitement that the emotion also traveled to Alastor while it looked in the boxes too and started looking around in the room, searching for something.
“If we do get approved for this,” Alastor said allowed grabbing the gloves off the dresser and putting them on to cover his clawed hands, the gloves were mostly black with red fingertips.
And that was quite an ‘if’ so far, he has heard so far, the Seraphim has been rejecting most of the selective that the Seven Deadly Sins have pick or choose to volunteer to take on the mission to the mortal world. His shadow let out what seemed to be a huff with how it slouched at him and seemed excited again when it found what it was looking for, a travel bag, and set it on the bed.
“Now there, there is no need to even pack right away, we have to go now and deal with the first hill,” Alastor grabbed the small box that he set on the dresser and opened it to see what Rosie added to the list. There was a monocle in the box along with a pair of glasses too, he stared at it for a few minutes before grabbing the monocle and placing it on the right side of his face. ‘Ah, another kind gesture again…already knew I wasn’t thinking about getting these,” he thought as he blinked a bit to get used to being able to see again after so long.
Alastor gave himself 1 more look of himself in front of the mirror, put on his best smile and walked to the door to head out, he stopped as his ear twitched and turn to the noise he heard behind him and then he turned to look himself. His shadow opened the travel bag and was already folding 1 of the shirts. Alastor let out a long sigh and stomped his feet, his shadow got yanked back towards him and settled underneath, but he could feel the shadows irritation, but he ignored it and closed the door behind him.
Alastor stood patiently at the entrance to the meeting room until it was his turn, which seemed it wasn’t much of a wait as he looked up when the doors opened and a demon that seemed more fire than anything walked out while pulling the chain link with a fish like sinner at the end, they gave Alastor a look. Whether it was to glare or the look of ‘good luck with that mess’ he didn’t know nor care, he looked straight ahead at what he should be more concern than a look from someone that didn’t matter. An imp walked out after a few minutes to motion Alastor to enter, he took 1 large deep breath and walked in.
They were set in a smaller meeting room compared to the last one Lucifer and Lilith were in, which they didn’t need to since it was just them 2 and the chosen few that were coming over to be chosen or not. Alastor entered the room and raised his hand to cover his eyes a bit from the bright light from the ceiling. Wait, he noticed that wasn’t just a bright light, but he could notice an image of the angels and other beings that were sitting in the middle, also sitting in a somewhat smaller room themselves. Once his eyes adjusted he noticed 2 of the angels has 6 wings on their back, they were defiantly giving off such high and mighty feeling as he walked to the middle of the room where an empty seat was. Lucifer and Lilith were more a bit at the back but can still be seen.
“Go ahead and take a seat,” said Lilith seeing that Alastor was staring longer then usual, he looked over at her once it seemed his focus was off.
“Pardon my rudeness,” said Alastor placing his hand on his chest, bowing to Lilith and sat down on the chair, crossing his legs and calmly smiled up. “This is the first I have seen angels, so I was quite taken aback.”
Lucifer rolled his eyes and refrained from shaking his head, but at least it was a smart recovery from Alastor. Lucifer coughed a couple times before standing up and spoke, “I present you Alastor, he’s from the Pride section, and despite his…history when he was alive and in hell, I believe he is someone capable of assisting in helping you to taking down the 3 overlords.”
‘Excuse me, what now?” Alastor thought as he turned his head to stare at the 2 with a ‘what do you mean assisting?’
Most the angels flinched and seemed unsettled seeing Alastor twist his neck in such an inhumane way. Emily let out a cough too, mostly to get Alastor’s attention. “Is there something wrong, Alastor?” she asked, she held back a flinch when he quickly turned his head back, it made a loud crack noise when he did that. Did his smile seem more forced on?
“Pardon my rudeness, I was not told I would be helping. I was offered an opportunity to be given a chance at my prey again, nothing more. I understand you are needing a demon or a sinner to hunt them and I assure you I am your guy for such a task!” Alastor gave a toothy smile as he noticed the bigger Seraphim was looking through the notes with a worried expression.
“This sinner has Eldritch powers?” said Sera looking shocked. “And he also was a warlock before he died…and his demon powers is the ability to consume souls?” She looked over at Alastor who had one hand on his chest and the other waved out a bit, as if he was getting a compliment. “Not only has he killed 300 people when he was alive but 10 of them were priests from our very own churches! This should be enough to just send him to the void.”
“Sera, it is not our decision on how he was punished down in hell, I’m sure there were reasons as to such an act,” said Emily and slightly frowned when she saw Alastor put 1 hand over his mouth while slightly shivering.
Lucifer ignored seeing that Alastor started shivering, probably holding back laughter from Sera’s reaction. “We did though about sending him to void once he started causing some…trouble down here, but the souls he’s eaten are still in him and he’s been…unwilling to spit them out. We don’t know if we banish him within the void if all those souls follow along with him, some of the ones he’s swallowed were going to be given a 2nd judgement after being punished for a certain amount of time.”
“And what do you have to say for yourself?” said Sera glaring at Alastor who seemed to be failing at holding back his, a snort slipped out after Lucifer mentioned souls getting a 2nd judgement. Sera frowned with how relaxed this sinner was being.
Alastor gave himself a minute to calm down his giggling fit and removed his hand from his mouth, he grinned with a smug look and slightly tilt his head. I’ll answer your question with 1of my own, tell me, are any of those priests in heaven?” His grin widened as he saw most of the angels looked baffled or insulted by what he said. “I have my reasons for targeting those fools when I was alive, and I have complete confidence none of them reached the holy gates of heaven. It doesn’t matter what they do or who they are, deary…once my investigation shows how vile they are I start my planning to hunt them down and kill them.”
The confidence Alastor showed on his face seemed to have annoyed Sera, she ordered one of the nearby angles to look through Alastor’s list of victims and to see if not only any of the priest are in heaven, but if anyone on his victims list were up there. As soon as the angel left Sera continued her argument with Lilith and Lucifer about Alastor who just sat there with a grin, occasionally sharing a word here and there. Though Emily was more focused on reading Alastor’s life history that she noticed Sera didn’t finish reading all of it, she noticed she stopped reading after the first page. Emily grabbed the few pieces of paper, including the first one from Sera so she can more about t his sinner who seemed to be enjoying watching the argument go down in front of him.
‘Huh his name is just Alastor, not even a last name so he must have come from a poor family background,’ thought Emily while looking. “Shot in the head by a hunter that was hunting quite late at night, I wonder if that’s why he has deer features on him. Unless is features mean something else,” she flipped to the next page, Alastor started traveling as a musician performer not long after the death of his mother when he was 25 from a sickness, playing at pubs and occasionally with other bards or even at theaters to play music or part of the singing.
She noticed on the notes how well loved the common people adored him, she looked down to get a better look at Alastor and noticed he was very well-dressed ass if he wasn’t from a common background. Yet he looked very comfortable in that outfit, she couldn’t find anything that mentions about a middle-class person favoring him or someone funding his travel expenses to be able to afford such an outfit without a backer.
‘These notes just explain how he lived his life, there isn’t anything we have that explains how he does his investigation or why he targeted these people,’ though Emily as she looked through the few pages, for someone that has killed 300 people they really didn’t have much here other then the first victim he killed was his father. Nothing about how or why he did it.
“I understand you don’t agree with him due to his abilities being deadly, but I can vouch he can put a dent in their plans with his demon abilities. We know at least when he devours someone, they are a part of him,” said Lucifer.
“It doesn’t change the fact he can do the same to innocent souls,” said Sera glaring at Alastor who did a slight gasp.
“Oh, I would never. If I ever did get…sidetracked, then it will be to find more vile mortals to punish! I don’t target those that are not causing trouble,” said Alastor shrugging. “Wouldn’t you want less evil roaming around, especially now that there are 3 overlords that can summon both while also forming contracts with mortals, I can easily nip that with my ability.”
He stood up and spread his arms out. “And as Lucifer said, when I eat a person, they are within me. I’m sure you all know if either a demon nor a sinner gets killed or banished back, they all come back to hell unless they are strike down from your holy weapons. If my memory is correct on that information.”
“How does a sinner-“ Sera seemed to start but Alastor kept going.
“If you allow me to go up there and enjoy quite the buffet of such sinners, they won’t be sent back to hell and waiting to be resummoned since they will be stuck in my stomach, unable to come back up. If I was one of the overlords that got up there, I would be quickly forming contracts to increase my power, so it requires less sacrifices to summon us up there. I can also target their contracts too to slowly weaken them…then go for the strike.”
“Do you think demons will keep coming up? I know they can connect to the other sections of hell if Pride starts ignoring the summoning,” said Emily after listening to his explanation, she felt quite conflicted on his opinion.
“My dear, once rumor spreads around that demons that are going to the mortal world aren’t coming back after being ‘killed’ or banish…well I’m sure there will be less willing demons or sinners taking up the offer if they are ‘dying’ and not coming back to hell.”
“How are they not tearing you apart from the inside?” Sera finally spoke up. “Surely there must be a limit to how man you can…eat…”
“What a wonder question everyone always wants to keep asking me! Maybe 1 day I’ll tell you when I figured out the limit myself, so nothing wrong with eating until you burst, right?” Alastor chuckled. “Don’t expect to get anything else out of me other then my ability can be quite helpful, and I can keep to souls within my body.”
“For now,” said Lilith and Lucifer at once, they got a sneered smile from Alastor when he sides glances at them along with a glare, they didn’t acknowledge his reaction and Lilith continued. “We have tried many ways to try and extract the souls once we learned about his ability, it’s quite a bit complicated since it seems he melds all of them into his powers…then next we can sense the individuals. No matter what ways we try to get him to talk about how to get the souls out he just laughs in our faces.”
Alastor hummed to himself hearing her irritation with a smug look while looking at his hand. “I like to keep what is mine,” said Alastor smiling.
Emily, being curious, put her focus on Alastor to see his magic, he was surrounded with a black aura with a mixture of red and green that flickered around as if they were flames trying to flicker to life before the darkness engulfed them. She felt a shiver down her spine just seeing how strong it was emitting from him. ‘He isn’t even an overlord rank, and he has that much within him? How is that even possible…wait, did they already contract him?”
She saw a contract collar bind slowly start appearing on Alastor’s neck, a mixture of 3 colors, purple, red, and white. Emily spotted there were chains and, on his ankle, and wrist wrapped up there while also it seemed they extended out and wrapped around his magic aura as if keeping a bubble in place. ‘I’ve never seen quite a contract bind before,” Emily thought, a little curious about his contract, but her train of thought was interrupted when she heard a voice s peak up. Everyone turned to see Michael entering the room, closing the door behind him while carrying a small stack of papers.
“I see you have already put this sinner under a contract already before bringing him to the meeting, but you also put a restriction on his powers it seems…this is quite interesting to join in to,” said Michael as he walked over to where Sera and Emily were sitting
“Sir Michael, I thought you were going to be busy today,” said Sera as Michael handed her the paperwork to her when he stopped next to her.
“Well, when I heard a request to check on not only 300 souls, but also 10 priests, who are not in heaven at all. In fact, not one soul on this list is even in heaven at all,” Michael shared a stern look at Sera with the look of ‘we will talk about this later’ before taking a seat between her and Emily. “Hearing the reason why they were checking these souls, I was quite curious why, you are quite a schemer and quite the informant when alive to figure out which priest has sinned under a church and finding the cruelest beings.”
Alastor eyed the new person that walked in, noticing he has 6 wings like the 2 girls, but he sensed there was something more powerful and threatening, one of the rare occasions he’ll listen to his prey instinct to lower his head and a respective bow. Though the icing on the cake was when he noticed the bigger Seraphim, Sera, seemed to have paled after the guy shared a look at her, he shouldn’t try to test this person’s boundaries.
“And quite quick to read the room too,” said Michael sounding more amused and waved at Alastor to sit back down, which Alastor sat back down and left both his feet flat on the ground and his ears were half down, yet he kept the smile up and his confidence on his face. “I did a quick look through on you before coming in and I have a question to give you…sinner, and I hope you answer with honestly. You will do well to not lie in front of me,” he left a slight warning at the end of his sentence as he looked at Alastor.
Alastor stiffened a little and straightening up even more in his chair, his ears shot up in alert, he swallowed lightly as he waited for the question.
“You have fallen with those you have murdered and eaten, yet you still wish to not only keep punishing them, but you seem to enjoy taunting them and kicking them down before you ate them when you used to punish sinners before you were back to being punished. It’s amazing how we weren’t digging this much information on the hell spawn that have been brought up here.”
“My good sir, I just believe that those from the mortal world that have fallen to hell deserve much worse punish-“ Alastor started but he frozen stone cold when he felt his prey instinct overwhelming him, no matter how much he told himself not to, his left leg started shivering first. He clenched his hands tightly on his knees, he probably would have dug his claws into skin if he wasn’t wearing gloves.
“Do you believe you have to be a monster to sinners and demons despite how you are treated?” Michael’s voice boomed through his voice with such power, and he leaned forward, his eyes were glowing pure white, and it seemed even his body glowed as Alastor felt the sense as if he could suffocate.
Alastor didn’t look away despite his body screaming to run, to look away. He would do no such thing and bit the inside of his lip to have some distraction, his ear was flat on his head and a trickle of blood dripped out of his mouth. Alastor’s first choice was to lie…yet while staring at Michael he could tell, lie and he might get worse than what he went through in hell.
“I will gladly be the monster to make sure other sinners will have even more regrets and suffer just as much or worse when they were alive or even still alive. The world could have a use for a monster just like me.” If it meant seeing his mom be happy again once he killed his father, he would gladly get one less scum off the world. None of them deserve to get away with how cruel they are.
Michael stayed quiet for a couple minutes while still staring at Alastor after his comment, he looked at his soul to see if anything had changed. He didn’t know what thought crossed Alastor’s mind, but he barely missed it within his black soul, a vague flicker of white slithered out for just a second, but that seemed enough for Michael as he gave a smile and his eyes stopped glowing, the pressure in the room lifted. ‘There could be something in there still,’ thought Michal as he let out a chuckle seeing Alastor let out a deep breath, probably just now realized they were holding their breath in.
“I think he will do well for this situation we are in,” said Michael tilting his head a bit in amusement when hearing the angels and Sera gasp at his decision, then try to disagree and argue about his choice. “He is the last choice from hell you have chosen, brother, and he has a better understanding to focus on the main goal than the others you have told me about, Sera. He knows to not involve the innocent, Lucifer?”
Lucifer was a bit surprised by the change in tone of his brother after he did that soul stare down. “Y-yes, it’s part of the contract agreement and he didn’t fight on3= that condition at all.” What did his brother notice in this maniac? “I know we usually offer the contract after they get approved in situations like this, but he’s been quite a headache ever since he’s been in hell the past 100 years.”
“Well, as in his words, sending a monster to handle monsters might be the best option for both parties. Do know we will notify Adam’s exorcist about…Alastor, but they tend to be rather aggressive to anything that’s a demon or sinner, I’ll speak to him about that.”
“R-right, we should be able to get him up there in a couple days, there is a mortal group that’s running an underground black market seeming to be setting up a summoning ritual, I’m sure Alastor won’t mind that timeline.”
“Not at all!” said Alastor a bit louder than he expected, he mentally cursed at sounding that loud, but it was taking a bit getting his body to stop shivering and keeping his smile from turning into more of a sneer while looking at Michael and the others. “I will be ready in 2 days, good sir.”
“Good luck to you, Sir Alastor. Make sure you don’t get kill while you’re up there, maybe this can help you out in more ways than you think.” Michael waved his hand and the image of the meeting room in hell slowly vanished, he slowly turned over to Emily with a kind smile. “Emily, I will be needing a word with Sera really quick here before she leaves, so if you don’t mind leaving for a moment so I can speak with her privately, please.”
“Oh, I don’t mind! I was planning on heading out to write a message to Charlie as soon as possible…or maybe I can try mentally talking to her?” said Emily excitedly smiling at Michael, not realizing he had leaned forward a bit to hide Sera’s worried look so Emily couldn’t see it.
“I don’t think you can do another mental communication again. Oh yes, I knew you did 1 so don’t be so surprised there. I don’t think making a communication like those 2 times at the same church. Those are used for emergences only but I’m sure you can still get a letter through; it does require less magic.” Michael chuckled a little at Emily’s sad expression, but it went away when she knew she could at least write a letter. He waved goodbye to her and as soon as her and everyone else were gone his face changed of irritation when he turned to Sera. “I need you to get Adam and the other angels that are involved in the churches and…” Michael pointed at the list of Alastor’s victims. “Figure out why and how the priest on this list were able to wear priest robes and pull all these crimes after being under an oath. Got it?”
“Y-yes, Sir Michael,” said Sera getting up quickly. “I will get them right now!”
While back in the meeting room with Lucifer, Lilith and Alastor, the 3 stayed mostly quiet once the image broke other than Alastor letting him breath deeply. He let himself get more relaxed once he was sure he didn’t feel such pressure. Yet the shivering wouldn’t go away, he could still feel the fear of being stared down, he his jaw from the irritation, mostly at himself for almost letting it overwhelm him.
“That was definitely unexpected…here I thought they wouldn’t accept anyone at all these past few days,” said Lilith as she stood up with Lucifer. “I also wasn’t expecting you brother to even give Alastor a soul stare while asking him a question.”
Alastor’s ear twitch from Lilith’s comment, so that’s what that bastard did to him. Lucifer stayed behind and walked over to Alastor while Lilith headed out. “Well, it seems whatever he saw in your soul either impressed him or he saw something I wouldn’t think you would still have any left,” said Lucifer standing next to Alastor and staring at him.
“And pray tell me, do you think he saw within a damned soul like me?” said Alastor no bothering to hide the venom in his tone as he looked at Lucifer as if he was being challenged.
“Probably still some humanity left in you,” Lucifer ignored the scoff Alastor gave him and placed a firm on Alastor’s shoulder. He felt Alastor stiffen from the touch and looked at his hand as if it was hurting him. “Well, the first bump is done and over with for you, looks like you and your shadow won’t be put back in to prison. Make sure you’re ready in a couple days, I’ll let you be since I’m sure you’re still not having any feelings in your legs yet,” Lucifer patted his shoulder before letting go. He didn’t have to look at the sinners’ face to know he did not enjoy Lucifer pointing out that he was unable to stand up right now.
Alastor held back his comment and licked the blood that was on his chin he didn’t clean off when he bit the inside of his mouth. ‘No, let’s not tease him anymore…this is quite worth it…I can finish my hunt,” once he was able to get back on his feet his shadow quivered in excitement and they both were in union in their thoughts.
Vox
We can continue the hunt!
“So true, my good friend! We also should take our time to enjoy this too, no need to rush this either while we can.” Alastor wasn’t going to call this freedom; the contract still had him restricted and having to forcefully come back too once he finishes the job. Alastor also had a feeling they wouldn’t even give a 2nd thought about giving him the overlord position, he may have been blind without his monocle, but he assumed with the quietness during that part of the conversation, they were going to put him back in that damn prison and back to being tortured to release the souls.
‘Maybe I can find a way out with the help of their daughter, I have heard rumors she’s been up there for quite some time. I’ll have to meet her anyways in a few years…” Alastor hated the thought, but he may have to agree on one thing from the meeting, he may need assistance, but he’ll need ones that won’t get in his way to take the final blow or take out his meal before he can get his jaws on them. That’s ok though, he can probably find a person or 2 and get them under a contract, maybe he can find 1 from the group of idiot mortals that is stupid enough to be summoning a demon.
Alastor was walking with Rosie while his shadow was carrying quite a few bags with an annoyed look and what seemed to be 2 bags with legs walking by, but you could barely see a red maid outfit underneath. They entered a building that looked like a cathedral from the outside made of some black stone, the building was a mixture of looking brand knew and some sections badly cracked, a red light glowing out of the cracks, but the small group didn’t give the building much of a glance, Alastor opened the door and held it for Rosie his shadow and the smaller person.
The inside has many symbols carved in the walls that Alastor has never seen before and was curious when he looked down when the floor was mostly a platform that hovered above a pool of blood, statues stood out of the pool of blood and were carved to hold the platform up. In the middle of the room Lucifer was standing there next to a large red crystal ball that looked like the inside was filled with blood swirling within it as it stood on top of a pure white pillar.
‘Hm…how is that staying such a nice white color?’ Thought Alastor as he noticed the pillar went all the way down to the blood, but he saw no stains linger on the white collum. “I didn’t even know the summoning has its own room,” said Alastor as they got closer to Lucifer, he looked at the sphere when he got closer. It may not look much but it was giving off some power, he even heard what sounded like a heartbeat from it.
“Oh yes, usually the summons link here first once they are offered the right amount of a sacrifice, but if it doesn’t sense anyone here it’ll go pick someone random if the summoner doesn’t have a preference or know the name or section, they are calling for a demon or sinner,” said Lucifer letting out a light sigh, it seemed he wasn’t getting much sleep.
“Are you sure he let you take this lovely darling?” Rosie asked Alastor while seeing the small person set the bags, she was carrying down to show she has 1 huge eye in the middle like a cyclops, she was close to the size of an imp. “Sir said I can join! He was able to get approval from the big, bad man of them all!” she yelled excitedly while Alastor’s shadow looked annoyed that it was carrying most the bags, it dropped them without a care on the platform as soon it was close to the rest of the group.
“Of course, my dear Nifty! It was quite the work to convince them, if you listen to my orders and only focus on the bad boys, we will have no problems,” said Alastor twirling his new cane in excitement. “I’m sure I can spare some mortals to summon you up there once I get up there.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to swallow her whole and spit her out once you’re up there? She is one of your contracts, right?” Lucifer asked, raising an eyebrow a little confused, out of the all the contracts Alastor had made he never spared them from being eaten. But this little demon not only denied getting her contract removed, but she was also completely loyal to Alastor after all these years.
“I would never treat my dear as I treat the ones I eat,” said Alastor as he leaned down to pat Nifty on the head who seemed upset about having to wait. “I can spare some ‘bad boys’ for her.”
Rosie gave a little giggle and nodded, she never pushed to understand their relationship, but she always had the feeling that Alastor treats her as a close friend. “Well, you 2 enjoy up there, don’t go too crazy up there and maybe it’ll do some good for you!” she said while patting Alastor’s shoulder.
Alastor let out a snort, not from the touching though. ‘Her and that pesky angel said the same thing,’ thought Alastor rolling his eyes and walked over to Lucifer mostly to ask when the ritual is supposed to start, then the sphere started humming and glowed.
Blood started spilling from the top of the sphere and the glow of magic turned black and it slithered out connecting to Rosie, which removed from her just as fast as it tried connecting, an echoing voice went out. “Not enough offerings,” then it slithered over to Alastor and connected on to him. Alastor didn’t feel anything from it other than an itch under his skin, but he genuinely smiled when he heard. “Do you wish to accept this summon?”
Alastor’s shadow quickly shrinks back to him as his smile slowly turned wicked and couldn’t help but laugh, which Lucifer looked concerned of this, yet before he could ask Alastor anything he yelled. “I accept!” The magic link grew and covered him fully, then was pulled into the sphere as all the symbols started glowing a mixture of red and green for a couple minutes, then nothing.
Lucifer rubbed his forehead, the regret already forming after seeing that display while Nifty seemed to have laughed along with Alastor and was still laughing after he was gone.
Notes:
Sorry this came out late after I said I was going to try and do weekly updates, but no matter what my mind wasn't happy with it I re-typed this chapter at least 3 times until I felt happy with it. I would still like to stick to trying get a chapter out once a week but if my ADD brain gives me this much headache then some chapters may take longer ;-; I may give myself a couple days before I start planning on next chapter, I hope you guys enjoy!
Chapter Text
“Do you mind explaining to me why there is being a delay in not only the angel exorcist that is supposedly to be my new traveling partner, but they haven’t sent any of them here nor the other churches?” Charlie asked the high priest in his study room; she was called over to have a word with him. At first, she thought it was to personally meet the angel, not be told she would have to wait a couple more days.
“I doubt I can keep myself occupied in my room with nothing to do…nor with Razzle and Dazzle as your followers learned in the afternoon,” she glanced at the 2 small demon goats sitting on the floor nibbling on fruit and bread that was on a plate between the 2. They got hungry and started digging in the kitchen, causing quite a mess in the kitchen.
“I’m just as surprised as you are, I was told that those that are chosen are being changed around by Sir Michael and a few of his siblings. They learned something from a sinner, they killed some priests…and none of them were in heaven at all. It seems they are planning to send out an investigation too to figure out why and how.”
Charlie’s eyes widen from shock. “But…they follow a code; how did they keep their position without the angels sensing a change? Were most the priest high ranking?” Those of higher position in the churches will get a blessing from an angel, but even the slightest attempt at doing anything sinister the magic will falter and the angel that blessed them will feel the magic fading on the mortal.
“It seems so, we don’t have much information on it since it seems their last victim was at least 100 years ago, so there is a bit us mortals can try and assist in trying to learn more information to what happened. So, with exorcists and angels being reassigned it is causing a delay, but I was told it will be a couple days to send you an escort.”
Charlie let out a light groan. “Look…I won’t complain about the delay time, but I can’t just sit in my room all day with just books, is it ok if I just go explore around the town? I would also like to check around to make sure there isn’t a demon trying to sneak in.”
It has been at least 4 days and it’s been quiet and calm, which seems not many people are seeing that as a concern, but it was leaving such a gnawing feeling in her stomach. It’s too calm and it feels unsettling. “This town isn’t far from the direction those 3 overlords have fled to, and I’m sure they are at the town of Kithe that’s a day travel. Have you sent word over to them to stay alert and activate their defense barrier?”
“We did that as soon as we got a magic letter sent to us after the fall of Andora, we haven’t heard back from them, I’m sure the shield can handle to withhold weakened demons and exorcists were sent down to defend,” said the priest waving his hand as if it was a small matter.
“Sir…please, I told you not to take overlord demons lightly. They were specially given those ranks from my parents themselves, so they are quite stronger than demons and sinners that get summoned up here.”
The high priest sighed; she could tell he was getting a little annoyed and not taking her warning to heart. “If it helps you feel any better, fine, you can explore around the town. I’m sure the scouts can handle the scouting around here.” Plus, he did send the remaining of the knights that came back were sent off to continue the hunt, so he believed her concern meant so little. “Just do remember to not let the townspeople know you are a demon; thank goodness your appearance looks more like those pale nomads that live in those dense forest far west from here.”
“I understand I need to keep that on the downlow, I may go check the adventure’s guild to see if they have any news around. I will head out now, come on boys,” Charlie stood up from her seat and started heading to the door, Razzle grabbed the plate of food before flying up to follow Charlie and Dazzle.
She ignored the high priest protest about her going to the adventure guilds, closing the door behind her and headed to her room. Razzle floated over to hold the plate out to her to offer what remained on there, which was mostly blackberries.
“No thank you, I’ll get something while we’re out in town. I just need to get my coin purse so I can at least buy some food, it seems I may need to look up at the adventure guild board to earn some more money…but who knows how that will be right now.
Razzle and Dazzle both let out bleeps and flexed their arms, which caused Razzle to almost drop the plate. Charlie giggled at their reaction. “Of course I have you guys, but the guilds require monster bodies in 1 piece and you guys tend to tear them up. So, for now we will see if we can assist anyone locally, so no turning big unless we are in grave danger guys, I’m fully rested now so I should be able to handle a few monsters and demons nearby.”
They both let out a sad noise but nodded to her knowing they understood, once they got in Razzle set the plate down while Dazzle quickly went to find her bag under the bed and pulled it out from underneath the bed. Charlie thanked him before opening her bag to looking for her coin purse and grabbed her belt pouch out, she clipped the belt on and put her coin purse in the bag along with here identification badge that was a metal copper card that has her information with the guild engraved on the card.
“That should be good for now, don’t need much,” said Charlie closing her bag, before pushing her bag back under the bed she cast a shield around her bag. The last thing she needed was them being nosey in her stuff, it wouldn’t be the first time and it probably won’t be the last time. “Let’s go,” she was eager to get out and get some fresh air and check out the town. ‘If only I have some extra funds to give to the orphanage in this town…or have some time to help some beggars get their lives back in shape, I need to figure out what those overlords next steps are,’ Charlie thought as she found the exit and walked out.
Hearing the bustling of people going on their day, it was early afternoon, so the smell of food was strong where she walked, and it caused her mouth to water in hunger. Luckily, she found someone kindly told her where a nearby inn was for her to get some food.
“Those are weird looking creatures, I have never seen those before,” said the guy after Charlie thanked him for directions and noticed the 2 demons flying around some kids that were trying to jump and catch them.
“Of course, they are my familiars my farther summoned up to help me during my travels,” said Charlie as Dazzle flew nearby and she scratched under his neck. “They are quite friendly as long no one tries to attack me, which I trust no one here has any attention to do so but I would still like to give the warning out.” Charlie wasn’t surprised by the nervousness that showed on the man’s face, but he nodded.
“What are you? I’ve never seen someone as pale as you around this place before,” asked 1 of the kids that probably gave up trying to reach for Razzle who was still flying around and chuckling while dodging some of the kids trying to catch him.
“O-oh…I’m sure you haven’t seen much of people from my race since my hometown is far west in the dense forest, my race is called a Marat. I left home since I was curious about the outside world other then the forest,” Charlie always felt bad using them, but after seeing she does almost share their appearance other than the black nose and the fact even their females, warrior or not, are quite just as buff as the males. “All of us are quite pale in the skin color.”
“Be careful out there, lass,” said the man as he tipped his hat to her. “There has been news from the adventures that some people have been missing in small villages, I suggest ye stay in a group if you plan to head there. It aint far from the inn I told you about.”
“Thank you, sir!” said Charlie happily and waved at him before heading off in the direction of the inn, which was at the other end of the town. Thank goodness this town wasn’t huge, but it was still a good 20-minute walk with how busy everyone was. The inn wasn’t hard to miss with how huge it was, it was a few stories high and defiantly looked like the innkeeper kept it in good condition.
With it being close to the guild there will be quite a bit of adventure’s eating right now or getting a drink, perfect timing to hear news and gossip. Razzle landed on top of Charlie’s shoulder while Dazzle perched on her head as she walked up to the door, but quickly backed away when an elf just opened it rather quick it would have defiantly hit her if she wasn’t quick to back away, Razzle and Dazzle eyes glowed and hissed at the werewolf.
The elf just glared at them and mumbled a ‘watch it’ as he turned and continued walking off, Charlie let out a little huffed along with a deep breath to calm herself. Not everyone is polite and they’re probably just having a bad day today. She entered the building to see it was packed but luckily, she was able to a seat at a small table that only 2 can sit at against the wall next to a window, though there wasn’t much to see other than the clear field that was between the inn and the guild.
“What can I get ya for today, lass?” said the waitress loudly so she can be heard from the other tables around that were full of noisy people.
“I would like an ale and 3 lunch specials, oh and 2 waters for my familiars,” said Charlie as Razzle and Dazzle sat on the table after crawling off her.
“Familiars eat?” the waitress raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know they can eat food.”
“My guys love the taste of food, and I don’t mind spending a little extra for their pleasure while assisting me.” Though she wondered how the lady guessed they might be familiar. “Do some people bring their familiars in as well?”
“Not often but it is rare to see, work around adventurers and you get used to seeing weird shit,” she turned and quickly left to head to the kitchen to put Charlie’s order in.
Charlie leaned against her chair and closed her eyes to put more focus on trying to listen to anything around her, hopefully she can hear something that might help ease the unsettling feeling she’s been having since yesterday.
“I heard that Ed’s crew hasn’t come back from Nanoth when they went there to handle a goblin problem yesterday,” Charlie put her attention to try and pay attention to the conversation.
“A few that come back have seem scared shitless these past few days after the fall of Andora, church won’t tell us crap what happened since they were first to respond. Might be best to hang low until we hear more-“
“Here’s your drinks, food will be a moment,” said the waitress setting the drinks on the table which startled Charlie to open her eyes. “Wouldn’t fall asleep here if I were you, we got a few pick pocketers hanging around. I’m sure your familiars can handle a regular one but quite a few of them are adventurers and know how to be sneaky about it.”
“T-thank you for the advice,” said Charlie letting out a sigh while placing a hand on her chest to calm her breathing, she grabbed her drink and took a few sips as Razzle and Dazzle grabbed theirs too, they seemed focus on looking around the room. They weren’t on edge or nervous, she assumes maybe they were trying to listen around too to hear anything else.
“We should get someone from the church to tell us what we’re dealing with,” she was able to focus back on the conversation which brought a frown that the church hasn’t told them anything about the demons. This matter can’t stay silent for long, another thing to add to the twisting feeling with a mixture of irritation.
“The few that aren’t stricken with fear mumble demons, we should check the stock if we have anything in the guild, they should have some stuff for demons. Can explain how some of those small towns are gone with just blood remaining. Let’s go,” with that they got up and started leaving. Charlie took a sip and looked out the window, looking like she wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings.
“Have you guys heard anything interesting yet yourselves?” said Charlie to Razzle and Dazzle. They both looked at each other and bleeped at her for a moment and waved their hands. “So pretty much the same thing I’ve heard, they’re getting worried and antsy. Sounds like no 1 is getting much luck on information out there without getting attacked. We may have to ask the reception on more details if they are allowed to.” She needed to know, if there aren’t any reports in those villages of rituals being done, where are they holding them?
“Here you go guys, 3 lunch specials,” the waitress as she easily walked by carrying 3 plates, Razzle and Dazzle quickly scooted more on the edge of the table so there were room for their meals. “Should I find seats for them 2?”
Both shook their heads and flapped their wings to fly, Charlie chuckled at them. “They are fine, they’re too small for chairs so they will be fine,” said Charlie as she leaned forward to set her cup down. Suddenly, her hand felt heavy and instead of slowly setting her cup down it slammed down, her hand let go and plopped on the table as if something heavy was there. The waitress looked confused and worried. “S-sorry! I don’t know what happened, my arm just gave out,” she said pulling her arm away. It defiantly felt heavier, but she couldn’t see what’s wrong with it.
“Hm, can’t help you there. Might be best to give it some rest, maybe using too much magic or something? Well, enjoy your meal.” With that, she left to go clean other tables as it seemed the lunch rush was dying down and there were more empty tables.
Charlie was slow to thank her, but she looked at her right hand and she shook her head and grabbed her fork with her left hand and used it to eat while she rested her right hand on her lap. Maybe she is stressing herself out too much, she should go enjoy a hot bath when she gets back to the church.
A little glimmer surrounded her hand until a slight faded glimpse of red chains seemed wrapped around her right hand, then it slowly faded away.
“You sure you want to help those that are assigned to inspecting the farm village? There hasn’t been much good news coming back from those people that get back in 1 piece,” said the receptionist as he looked at her information. “Though I guess not many will complain with you being a S rank adventurer, a support could probably make a difference with the group that will be checking the farm town north here.”
“I would love to help in figuring out what’s going on too, especially once I heard rumors about possible demons probably lingering around. It’s best to figure out where and who are summoning them before it becomes more of a problem than just this section of the realm,” said Charlie scratching the back of her head. “I came over wanting to know more of the situation once I got here.”
“I’m guessing you have recently got here? You must have gotten lucky getting here on your own with how bad it’s been out there the last few days.”
“Ah…well…I came back with the holy knights only yesterday and they finally let me get a breath of fresh air, but they are leaving things quite vague, and I just can’t sit and wait for them to let me know what to do next, I don’t want to wait and see when I can at least help those risking their lives to see what is going on.”
The receptionist raised an eyebrow when he looked at her. “Well, I guess the rumors I’ve heard how stuck-up S ranks are is all not true, though I never met one either way.” He walked over to a row of filing cabinets and searched for a leather-bound folder to look at. “We do have a request from our governor to check the farm town…as I said earlier, it will be set first thing tomorrow morning since it will be a 2-hour travel to get there. No farmers have come by to sell their wares of grain, and it will get quite concerning if we don’t figure out what is going on.”
“Of course! I will be here first thing tomorrow morning!” she said excitedly.
“Will…the church be fine with that? I know they can be strict.”
Charlie let off a scoff. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll come to help despite that they say.”
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Charlie felt Razzle nudging her awake when there was a dim light of the rising sun peaking over the horizon, Dazzle flew over to the window and worked on unlocking the window. Charlie quickly changed out of her sleepwear into a traveling outfit made of wool and linen, parts of it were dyed a near black color. She would d prefer to wear her red or green outfit, but that would be easy to spot while sneaking out.
“I haven’t used the flight spell in some time,” she mumbled to herself once she finished tying her boots on and climbed over the opened window and sat on the windowsill a moment on the edge for a minute while Razzle and Dazzle flew nearby, seeming ready to catch her if she messes up.
“I haven’t used my flight spell for some time, shouldn’t be too bad since we’re just needing to get to ground level,” Charlie closed her eyes as her body glowed a light blue, wind started to swirl around her until some of the wind started to glow green, then the wind swirled around her. She took 1 last deep breath before she pushed herself off the windowsill and floated in the sky, the wind followed her.
Charlie flew 1 little circle until she flew off until she saw the inn and noticed it still showed signs of still being open and a few people walking in, she slowly floated back down on the floor and the magic vanished as soon as she touched the ground. “I should have some time to eat before having to report in, not often you find inns that stay open this long,” this town must be quite active with adventurers to have the place stay open all the time.
With it being so early she could pick a bigger table so Razzle and Dazzle could sit at the table with plenty of room to eat while sitting, when the waiter came, she ordered a cup of coffee with milk and sugar in it with 3 breakfast meals. “Hm…I wonder how long they will take that I am not there,” said Charlie as she enjoyed eating her meal. At least she’s feeling less annoyed when they keep telling her to not get involved with anymore mortal conflict.
‘It isn’t a mortal problem if demons and angels are getting involved now,’ she thought while taking a sip of her coffee. She looked at her right hand and flexed it a little to check it, it didn’t feel heavy anymore. Yet she feels like there’s something there but can’t put her finger to it.
“Is there anything else you would like, ma’am?” said the waiter as he walked by to check on her when he noticed the plates were empty.
“Oh! No, we’re good, thank you very much.” Charlie pulled out the coins for him to take as well while the waiter cleaned up the plates, Razzle made a noise as he flew up with Dazzle as Charlie got up and headed out. “Yeah, I think we should ride on you guys to get to the village faster. Best to get this investigated as quickly as possible!”
The guild hall was empty other than 3 other people that were sitting close to the receptionist counter. One was a wolfman with gray fur color wearing battle armor with a battle axe latched on his back, his ears perked up and turned to see Charlie when he heard the door opening and closing. “So, is this the S class adventure you mentioned that is coming with us?” He looked over at the desk and grabbed the paper the lady working behind the table handed him, the other guy across the wolfman is a dwarf with a sword and shield.
“Hm, you got here on time, it’s nice to meet ya, my name’s Dain,” said the dwarf holding his hand up to Charlie as she walked closer. She lowered a little to grab and shake his hand. “Rude one is Fili, and our rogue friend is here is Hazel. She’s still working on the waking up.”
“Because I’m trying to get over this headache,” mumbled the woman who was sitting on the floor and has her hand covering her face. “The medicine Fili shoved down my throat is not wanting to kick in…I guess you’re not a local adventurer around this side of the realm, I ‘ave never seen you around. Big city doesn’t spoil you S rankers enough?”
“Um…no, it’s nice to meet you all. My name is Charlie, and I don’t stay in 1 place, I’m mostly traveling around, and I was led to here.” She stood back up after shaking Dain’s hand. “I hope with my knowledge and support can be useful and helpful.”
“Says’ here you’re an enchantress while also an Augmentation mage? Shielding and buffing is your most strong point, haven’t you worked on more of the offensive’s abilities?” said Fili, setting the paper down on the desk and raised his hand to give Charlie a handshake too. “May I ask what those 2 are flying around?”
“Well…these 2 tend to protect me quite well I haven’t had to worry much or have a reason to learn my offensives abilities, their names are Razzle and Dazzle. I named them when I was a kid once my dad summoned them to be my protectors.”
“As long they aren’t useless, I’m sure we’ll have no problems,” said Hazel as she wobbled to stand up. “They look quite adorable too,” said Hazel as she wobbled to the nearest chair, sat down and laid her head on the table with her hood covering her face. She peeked under her hood to stare at Charlie and the 2 creatures. They looked harmless, but she had a feeling if they can protect an S rank person such as her, then they’re probably very dangerous.
“We will provide you with some specific daggers or swords to your liking while you check the village, we still aren’t 100% what’s going on, but these must be returned once you come back.”
“If,” Hazel mumbled out loud which she got a glare from Fili and a scoff from Dain.
The desk clerk rolled her eyes and turned to leave to get them the stuff, but Charlie called for her attention, so she stopped and turned to look at her.
“Can you get some goggles for them too? Ones for flying,” Charlie asked.
The 4 looked at her confused and Fili finally asked, “Why would we need those?”
Charlie grinned. “Because we can ride on Razzle and Dazzle to the town, they can shorten the travel time with how quick they can fly!” Both let out a bleep and raised their arm, joining in on her excitement.
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Charlie was thankful most of them (except Hazel) didn’t seem too nervous at the idea of using her companions to fly over once they saw their huge demon/dragon form. A 2-hour horseback travel went down to 45 minutes, the sun starting to peak from the horizon by the time the village came to view.
Fili rode with Charlie on Dazzle while Dain and Hazen were on Razzle, though Dain spent most the time keeping a grip on Hazel since her grip kept loosening. As soon as they landed a quarter mile away from the village, Dain didn’t hesitate to let go of Hazel who fell to the floor and groaned. “If I knew I was going to ride a dragon goat I wouldn’t be this hungover,” she mumbled in between gasps from the feeling of wanting to throw up.
Dain leaped down and patted Hazel’s head, then moved her brown hair to the side away from her face just in case. “Well, also can’t blame ye for drinking as if it’s your last. I sure drank my share too,” Dain laughed after talking to Hazel and walked over to Fili and Charlie. “I at least feel hopeful of a higher chance of surviving! Maybe we can find some more information around here!”
“It is rather quiet for the time of day,” said Fili twitching his ears around to hear anything, he raised his head to sniff the air. He let out a low growl and his ears flattened. “Stay on alert, something smells rotten so let’s stay together.”
Within seconds Hazel quickly stood up and pulled out 2 black knives, she made a face when her stomach churned but kept her focus up and walked slowly. “Let’s go ahead and buff up now before we get any closer.”
Charlie nodded and mumbled the spells to add protection shields and a strength boost for all of them but Hazel, giving her a boost for her speed. Razzle and Dazzle stayed in their large forms as they started walking to the town, Charlie looked around and knew what Fili meant was true. It was too quiet for a farm village to be this quiet at this time of the day, not even seeing any smoke coming out of the chimneys.
“Let’s split in groups,” said Dain as he removed his sword and shield and eyed the ground. “It seems some have struggled about, some dried blood around some places. It will take too long if we stay together.”
“Agreed,” said Fili grabbing a black sword off his hip instead of his huge axe on his back. “Dain, you’ll be with me on the west side. Hazel and Charlie can go together and check on the east side.”
“Dazzle, go with Dain and Fili just in case, protect them if danger does show up,” said Charlie gently patting Dazzle’s snout.
The first house they went to check had the door ripped off from the hinges, Charlie walked to the side to avoid walking from the front when she noticed Hazel checking the ground. The inside was disheveled, furniture was tossed to the sides while it seemed whatever came in left quite some scratch marks on the floor and on some of the pillars in the house.
Yet there was very little blood around, they must have dragged them somewhere else instead of killing on sight. “We need to figure out where they were taken to,” Charlie told Hazel as she came out of the house. “We’ll check a few more houses but I have a feeling we may see the same thing.”
“I agree, people were defiantly dragged out,” said Hazel as she followed the tracks to the main dirt road. “It’s a bit hard to see since they struggled quite a bit while being dragged, but from the 2 choices of direction, it is either deeper in the town or over there what looks like a storage building. Quite a big storage room.”
“Let’s check it out, I’m guessing that might be where they dragged the villagers,” said Charlie avoiding walking on the dirt road. The few houses they looked on the way were in the same condition as all the ones they looked in on the way to the storage, Charlie noticed tools were scattered everywhere and some of the magical tools that helped with watering seemed to have been tossed out to the side of the storage room.
Hazel flinched when she heard Razzle growled suddenly then sprinted off around the storage building, she clenched her knives and was ready to follow but a loud screech stopped her in her tracks and a gruesome snapping crunch followed afterwards from the scream. Razzle came back around the corner and was dragging a large body.
“Did you already kill them?” said Charlie frowning a little as she walked to check as Razzle dropped it, it was double the height of Charlie with long arms with claws for hands. Parts of the body seemed scaly and slimy, and the head looked a bit off mishap between a human face to a fish.
“A human contract?” said Charlie gasping at the site and looking more of the body, seeing how the body seemed as if someone failed to merge a fish and this human together.
“Don’t you mean a sinner?” said Hazel looking at the body then placing her hand on the neck. “Well, it’s dead.”
“No, there’s a-“
“Are you guys okay?!” Yelled Fili, causing Charlie and Hazel to jump from the sudden shout. “We heard a scream that didn’t sound…oh…holy shit is that a demon?”
“Razzle, get the door open,” said Charlie as she stood up after checking the body. “No, this is a mortal that made a contract with a demon or sinner. One hint that is given is the blood,” Charlie pointed at the pool of black blood that was pouring from the bite wounds.
“I ‘ave never seen a contractor look this misshapen,” said Dain making a face from seeing it as he quickly moved from the door as Razzle jumped around them and slammed his head to the door, breaking them off the hinges with ease.
“It depends how sinful…or corrupted their souls are when the contract was made,” Charlie ran to the storage room entrance and gasped at what she saw.
On the right was a large summoning circle that had some remains lingering around, Fili gagged and grabbed a cloth out of his pocket to cover his nose. Some of the stuff was used to makeshift a seat in the middle, on the left it seemed burned marks in a circle, some of the lingering ashes had lingering symbols, leaving a lingering smell of burnt flesh.
“Was a demon summoning more?” said Dain scowling from the smell of the rotten flesh as he followed Charlie in. “Wonder if the 1 outside was here to grab us if people came, there possibly might be more.”
“Did Dazzle follow you guys back?” Charlie asked but was focused on checking the ritual on the ground. “It seems they were given a choice here, either accept the contract…or become sacrifices for a summon.”
“No…it ran off in another direction while we ran back over here when we heard the scream,” said Dain then mumbling a little prayer. “We must report back to the town, if they are targeting the smaller towns, ours might be next.”
“Let’s grab the large, enchanted bag off of Dazzle whenever it comes back, bringing the body back may be enough proof to show we need to activate the defensives,” said Hazel as she stayed at the entrance and eyeing around to see if she can spot the other goat dragon.
Dain told Fili and Charlie to head out while he grabbed some of the limbs and put some in a bag before coming out. “Wait, Razzle is missing too,” said Charlie looking around a little worried. She almost missed seeing the 2 from a distance, then she noticed they were both carrying more bodies over in their mouths.
---------------------------------------------------
“This is defiantly terrible news…5 demon bodies and 1 contractor,” said the Head Advisor looking at the large table that had the bodies there for the few people that were there, 1 being a humanoid goat wearing the guild master clothes, a human high-ranking priest that was requested to join, and a deer like woman dressed in governor clothing.
“And from what our professors inspected on the remains too, this town was hit 2 days ago with how decayed the limbs were. They’re targeting our food source right now it seems,” said the guild master walking around the table to look at the bodies. The Head Advisor bowed out and left, leaving it to the 3 to talk it out.
“This isn’t good, Corey,” said the doe itching her fur under her neck in nervousness. “With the amount of missing people reports, there might be more demons wandering outside waiting for more of us to kidnap…priest, haven’t you heard anything from your holy knights or scouts at all? I know you have sent them to check our other neighbors and to clear up any more surviving demons as you told me.”
“We have not heard anything back from them, we should have heard something by today hopefully,” said the priest keeping a light smile. “Half of them have holy weapons so they are more fit to defend themselves from demons…unlike the weapons you use.” He gave Corey a look. “Our people are better fit to handle demons.”
“No need to be trying to start an argument when we need to find ways to defend ourselves against demons when you won’t share holy weapons,” said Corey closing his eyes to hide them from being seen rolling. “Right now, we should assume they are all dead, I vouch we get defense up and expect an assault sometime tomorrow or the day after. Tala?”
The doe looked up and nodded. “I agree, if we are going to have exorcist come down in a couple days that will help too, if we can hold out until then, plus you also had an S-rank adventurer at your temple?”
“Ah…” the priest seemed caught off guard and glared at Corey who gave a chuckle with a bit of goat bleep mixed with it. “She was scheduled to leave a couple days ago so it’s why we offer her a place to stay. Some complications came up to cause her delay in her travel plan.”
“She isn’t a priest,” said Tala seeming confused at his statement. “If she isn’t oath to the church, surely she can come and go as she pleases if she was looking for work or take request from the Guild.”
“Exactly, so there was nothing wrong when she came to ask for work,” said Corey walking over to stand nearby the priest and showed a small smile. “I guess we should be thankful for her delay in travel, with what she and the others discovered, so do we agree to get our defensive up and send out requests of help and warnings for others nearby? At least let’s hope there are towns still standing.”
“We sent notes to one of our churches-“
“And heard nothing,” said Tala letting out a sigh. “I understand you want to handle this situation, but it’s getting out of control, and we must assume the town is gone. I’ll get messages out to warn others that hopefully haven’t fallen.” Tala was worried, it’s been almost days and who knows how quickly the demons are summoning or making contracts out there.
“I will get the adventurers ready and get the defensives ready, sir priest…can you please send word to the angels of our dire situation in need of the exorcist and have your healers and knights ready to aid the town?”
“…Yes, of course we will get our people ready to be prepared.”
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Charlie was quite thankful that the guild kept her busy the past couple days getting the town’s wall enchanted and request to channel her magic in the magical crystals that were carved in a marquise shape floating at the top of the few towers planted around the walls. By lunch on the 2nd day of preparing she was exhausted and agreed to share lunch with Corey, any reason right now to at least sit down and rest.
“I am starting to feel like you are taking quite the advantage of me with all these requests of me lately,” said Charlie covering her mouth from the yawn that crept up on her before she grabbed her plate of chicken and greens on the side.
“Do forgive me on that, if anything people are more amazed you haven’t dropped dead yet with how much help you have been. With how rarely S-ranks come by they do believe that’s why you haven’t collapsed from exhaustion, Miss Charlotte Morningstar.”
Charlie let out a groan, she always hated it when the guild masters used her full name. Most of the guild masters know she’s a demon, but at least they seem to not look at her as if she’s some sort of monster that’s about to snap and kill everyone. “I’m guessing you invited me for lunch on a different matter here then just small talk.”
“Sadly yes, I was able to learn you’re the sole survivor of the fallen city and I can’t get any information from either of the rogues I hire to go investigate the ruins, nor the stupid church since they keep telling me they have it taken care of.” Corey set his salad down on the table and snapped his fingers, a wave of magic covered the room. “Yet from your discovery they aren’t taking this seriously and I would like to know what happened.”
Charlie felt the magic, probably to soundproof the room so if anyone was listening, they won’t hear their conversation, Charlie nodded and told Corey everything that happened from the start and left nothing out. Once she was done Corey frowned in worry and rubbed his template.
“These idiots should have told us right away, if these overlords are much different then regular demons…” Corey let out an irritated sigh. “We could have saved some of the smaller villages around us, now this is a much bigger problem then what the damn church can handle.”
Charlie nodded as she set her plate down and grabbed her cup of tea. “I guess since not many of the knights fell when they came to the call of aid, they didn’t see it as a threat much, but I don’t know how much I worn them out and the more souls they have under their contract, the more powerful they are.”
“Will you be safe against them?” he asked, which seemed to have caught her off guard from the question. “You are a demon, wouldn’t facing a demon stronger than you they can force you into a contract?”
“Oh! No, they won’t be able to do that…erm, I guess you can say I’m…higher rank then an overlord?” She noticed Corey gave a quiet gasped with his mouth wide open from the shock. “I’m more like a royal rank demon, which is higher than an overlord by far. Yet if I use my demonic powers while up here…I think the church will use any excuse to see it as me breaking the agreement I made with them for me to wander within the realm.
“We really don’t need that happening,” said Corey recovering from his shock while scratching his chin in thought. “And if what you said is true being a royal demon, you can be quite valuable in assisting us to getting these overlords back to hell.” It also gave a decent answer for him to her amount of magic, he had never seen anyone or anything with that much. “I have taken much of your time, Charlie, if you are done eating you can spend the rest of the day resting if you would like. Your help has been quite helpful, best get some rest just in case an attack comes later.”
The town has been on alert since yesterday, even requesting Charlie to have Razzle and Dazzle patrol out of the town which was a pain to convince both to leave her side to spend the morning until the afternoon to search and kill any demons they see on the spot, much to her dislike of doing that. “Thanks, I believe I will take up on that nap. Razzle and Dazzle should be back by now, thank you for the lunch. You should get some rest yourself; your fur doesn’t hide those bags under your eye’s sir.”
Corey let out an amused humph and gave her a wave as she left, the magic cleared away from the room and his advisor came in to give him some reports. “A quick question, do you know if there were any mass killings that happened a hundred years or so ago?”
His advisor looked confused and a little worried, but he thought to himself for a couple minutes then shook his head. “Nothing that I know of, is there something wrong she mentioned?”
“I’m just worried about our situation…this situation might be quite complicated, and just a random thought came to mind. Sorry to startle you on that,” said Corey as he grabbed his salad bowl to finish eating. Even after saying that to his advisor the thought kept nagging at him, if a city as big as Andora summoned 3 overlords and demons. What was needed to summon a royalty demon?
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Charlie started to feel the exhaustion hit her as soon as she entered her room, Razzle and Dazzle closed her door, Razzle landing on the bed to stop her from collapsing straight on it and waved at her to at least take off her clothes.
“Fine,” Charlie grumbled as Dazzle flew around her and handed her night gown to her and grabbed her clothes from her. “I guess I do look that tired huh?” She was only thinking about sleeping for maybe an hour. “Goodnight guys, wake me if I don’t react to any of the alarms,” sometimes she can be a pretty heavy sleeper depending how tired she is. It didn’t take long for her to pass out.
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Her dream started off quite lively, a huge room that looked like a ballroom, her parents were there dancing together, not arguing with each other about what it was that got on their nerves for the day. Her aunts and uncles from hell chatting around or dancing, Emily with a couple of other angels.
Charlie perked up when she started hearing a piano start picking up, yet it seemed the pianist was on the opposite corner from the band. He had his back towards her as he played, but she had never seen such red hair before. She double takes to notice he had deerlike ears that were straight up as if alert and focused, she was surprised how detailed this person was in her dream but didn’t put much thought as she went over to Emily to join in on dancing.
She lost herself in the dancing and music, then something jerked her arm violently. She fell on a grassy field with trees, her arm that was feeling heavy randomly seemed to have a chain wrapped around her wrist and into her hand. The link led deeper into the forest, and she could swear she saw something run deeper in in dense forest.
“Who is there?” said Charlie standing up and looked around, there were no noises at all from anything other than the red chain that seemed to not want to remove from her hand.
As soon as she touched it, she heard voices echoing around her.
“So, you want me to also listen to your daughters command?” She doesn’t recognize this person’s voice at all. “I’ll already be under you 2.”
“Yet we won’t be there to stop you if you go astray or distracted,” that was her father’s voice sounding quite serious, the chain yanked again but this time she decided to follow the chain. Was this still a dream or a connection with whoever is on the other end of this chain?
She heard the unknown mans voice give off an irritated ‘tsk’ before she heard her mother’s voice. “And since neither of us will be there to make sure you stick to the goal.”
Charlie lost focus on their conversation when she heard a loud, fearful scream. She picked up her pace, the scenery changed around her to what seemed a lot of huge carriages that had cages in them, other stuff Charlie could remember being illegal. Smaller cages were left on the ground, and she could see children cuddled up and seem wide eye, so she turned to look to see what they were looking at.
It was huge, its body looked humanoid, but the arms were long, and his hands were more clawed like, its fingers were red tip, yet they easily tear through the people with ease. Charlie covered her mouth in horror when the thing grabbed the remains and started shoving them in his mouth and swallowing them, she noticed he had deerlike horns sprouting out of his head
.
It swatted something from the sky, and they fell right next to Charlie, she quickly kneeled to try and place her hand on him to heal, but her hand passed through. The guy was shirtless, having brown skin and she noticed he had long pointy ears like an elf. Huge black wings flared up from his back as he glared at the creature, there were scars on his neck and wrists.
A slave, and it seemed he was half Avian and half elf, defiantly looked like he was an older fella.
The guy quickly looked when he noticed the children and quickly ran over, he pulled out some magical key to open the door. He yelled something to them in an unknown language which seemed they understood and quickly fled out.
The slave flinched when he heard the huge beast start laughing, with quick reflexes the slave summoned wind to push back the claw that tried to grab him, using his other hand to form a ball of light. Black tendrils slithered in view to try but the slave raised the ball of light into such a blinding light even Charlie covered her eyes.
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Charlie jumped up from her slumber gasping, it was dark, and Razzle fell to the side from her sitting straight up. Though she couldn’t put her focus on trying to remember the dream right now since it seemed both her companion were panicking and waving at her attention to look out the window.
The alarms were going off.
Notes:
Little note Marats is a race from a story I read years ago and wanted to add them in. Quite a nice story i read from a series called Codex Alera by Jim Butcher. Figure be interesting to add them to the story
Chapter 6
Summary:
Erhm don't know what to put for a summary, just drawing a blank ;-;
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“Get up, you lazy slouch!” The slave master yelled as he raised his leg to give the sleeping slave on the floor a good kick, but it seemed the slave woke up and grabbed his foot to stop it from hitting his stomach. The slave glared up and didn’t hold back shoving his master hard enough to have them loose balance and fall on their ass.
The slave has brown skin with a magical collar around his neck and both his wrists, scars showed around them, many old and some that seem to be almost fully healed up. He grunted as he sat up as the slave master took a moment to get back on his feet, scrathing through his black hair that covers his ears. “What the hell, I was told I can at least sleep until the damn afternoon,” said the slave then let out a cough from feeling how dry his throat felt. Ignoring the glare from the master he stood up and dusted himself and stretched out his black wings as much as he can in his dump of a tent they let him have, he was shirtless with such worn out pants it seemed to be made more out of patches then what they once were, holes here and there in the legs at the bottom of his pants legs.
“Change of plans, Husk,” said a woman’s voice outside his tent. Once he came out following behind the slave master he glared at the woman, she was dressed in a loose black dress that covered most her legs, hair up in a bun. “Our customer is coming in tonight to finish up the deal, apparently he is quite eager to get this transaction done.”
“What the fuck, I don’t know if I can even finish translating the damn book. Did you see how many pages were left in the damn th-“ he was cut off when the collars glowed and put his body in burning pain, causing him to collapse on the ground. He restrained himself to curl in a ball, stayed laying on his stomach and glaring up at the slave master who was holding a smoothed black stone carved in an octagon shape that had glowing red markings etched in it with runes and a few magical gemstones.
“Really now, Tyler,” said the woman smacking the guy the back of his head. “As if that ever works on his attitude, turn it off! We can’t have him burned out since he’s also to one going to activate the ritual too.”
“My apologies, Madam,” said Eric flinching and removing his hand off the red gemstone, the stone stopped glowing and the burning pain left from Husk who was now breathing heavily as he wobbled back to his feet, still glaring at the 2. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t hide the shivering his body was doing, still feeling the lingering pain.
“Don’t be so surprised, it’s not the first time you rarely got any sleep on a job, at least we let you have 4 hours today,” she said rolling her eyes at the glare he was giving her. “I would offer you some booze for the trouble, but 1 lead to 20 with you and we need you sober until tonight, finish translating the grimoire and make sure the ritual is ready by tonight.”
Husk let out a sigh and scratched the back of his head. “Fine, I’ll go wash up and then get back to finishing the grimoire after getting some food…can I at least get more of a portion today since I’m sure you don’t want me to get mana starved once the summoning starts.” Husk knew today was the day he was going to get his ‘every 2 days’ meal, though even those meals were small amount, so he doesn’t regain much magic nor energy. On rare occasions like today when they need him for business, they will give him more food.
Madam was quiet for a moment then let out a sigh and nodded, then looked at Tyler. “Let the kitchen staff know he can have a full meal and only 1 cup of coffee. At least the coffee will make do until I can consider giving you ale again as little rewards, you drunk. Make sure this demon doesn’t cause a mess and maybe I’ll consider giving you some sort of reward. How long has it been since we gave you whiskey?”
“8 years 65 days ago,” said Husk not realizing his long-pointed ears perked a little from hearing her mentioning whiskey.
“Hm…maybe I’ll think about it if you can watch that mouth of yours for the rest of the day and evening. 1 day,” said Madam.
“No promises unless it’s 100% certain I’m getting whiskey, but you should know already I know to not fuck up your business or else I get worse than this magic collar.” Husk tucked his wings tighter to his back and felt a slight shiver. “I’m off, best to get a head start on this and not complain at you guys.” Maybe he can sneak a few extra hours of sleep if he can get the grimoire done fast enough.
Husk gave the 2 a slight nod and turned to walk off to the direction he knew where the nearby stream was that they had camped nearby, where the sun was it hasn’t hit even early lunch. “Fuck 4 hours of sleep…I’m getting too old for this bullshit,” he mumbled increasing his pace and giving off ‘don’t talk to me’ aura so that way not many of the other black-market employees tried to get close to him to try and start a conversation with him. “Or just hunger starved…” he let that trailed off as he continued his walk.
The campsite seemed to have quickly changed to a quickly built-up marketplace, 1 half were mostly cages that held the slaves they collected or bought. A variety of beast like race people that looked more animal than human, hell this was the first time he ever saw one of the rare dragon kin humanoid races that are known to live high in the mountains. This man must have gotten curious and now here he is, chained and if looks could kill Husk knew he would be dead a few times by now.
Good luck whoever buys him, he’s already seen that guy kill at least 5 of the workers the 6 months he’s been here.
The other sections were mostly illegal stuff the country had deemed dangerous, boosted potions, magic tools and enchanted weapons. A stand was also selling holy weapons next to the demonic weapons guilds have made that also harms demons just as much as the holy items, those have defiantly recently got on high demand recently.
“Oh, hey Husk, was wondering if they’d get you to wash up today,” the dwarf waved at Husk that was sitting at a table not far from the river, he has a couple more that had a variety of soap and wash cloths and a few bottles. “I got stuff here to wash up those feathers of yours too, got to look nice tonight from what I ‘ere, they defiantly looking grayer then black lately.” An employee walked by to drop the cleaning supplies and yanked the chains of a recently washed slave.
“Nice to know no one cares it’s been a year the last time I properly clean my feathers…. only when a royal comes by,” said Husk holding the scorn still on his face as he grabbed the rather large bottle the dwarf handed him along with a rag and a bar of soap. “And 7 days the last time they let me wash up.”
“Yeah, ye think with how useful ye been the past 80 years here-“
“Without my consent,” Husk cut him.
“Ye get a better treatment with how well your memory is on so many languages,” the dwarf carried on not carrying on being cut off for a moment and spoke louder when he noticed Husk started walking over to the stream. “Ye can fix the attitude, but we all know that aint going to happen!” The dwarf laughed when Husk raised his middle finger at his response. “Oh boy…that stubbornness must be the mixture of both the elf and that avian side, defiantly a bad mixture there.”
Husk heard the dwarf’s last sentence thanks to his ears, but he put his attention more to getting washed. Taking his trousers off and laid back into the water and opened his wings so they could get a proper soak in the water. “Fix my attitude…” scoffed Husk as he wiggled his wings in the water to get as much dirt off as he can.
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It took Husk a good 2 hours mostly due to how filthy his wings were, but they were a much blacker color and well groomed, they were still drenched when he got to the kitchen tent so he had his wings slightly opened so they could dry. Not caring that they were in the way, he went to the cooking area and 1 of the girls was already getting a plate ready for him. “Madam says I can have more than what you guys usually give me,” said Husk once he was close to speaking so he wouldn’t yell across. The woman looked at him then eyed his neck to see if the collar would react, his collar would shock him with lightning if he ever lied.
Seeing no reaction, she nodded and put more than he expected along with the cup of coffee on the tray and handed it to him, she kept her head down to not look at him.
“Thanks,” he said, seeing she was trying to hide her own collar. ‘Ah, must be a new 1,’ thought Husk as he left, grabbed the cup of coffee and drank that cup down rather quickly. Not often he’s given it, and he knew some of the few other slaves that can walk somewhat…freely like him, will fight for a cup.
He headed to the middle of the marketplace where there was a large tent set in the middle, Husk entered the tent and set his tray on the table that was set next to an almost finished drawing of the ritual summoning, it was drawn with black ashes and Husk left the clay jar where he stopped a while ago when he felt too exhausted to finish it. While he ate, he used one hand to open the book and read where he left off as he ate.
‘Huh…I guess this can be possible to get done on time, I can finish the rest of the drawing and figure out what the hell is at the bottom here,’ Husk could tell it was something about a spell. He shoved his now empty plate to the side and wiped his hand on his pants before writing down to translate this for everyone to read.
Make sure you are quick to use the binding spell on the sinner demon, most of them will resort to using their abilities to threaten you to make the deal more in their favor or use it to run off and go on the run and do what they want. 60% of those that answer the call are quite eager to make deals if it means staying up as long as possible.
Husk didn’t write that part down when reading that part, an idea came to his mind. Why not use that opportunity to get out? Sure, there may be 1 extra demon, but if he can learn this binding spell maybe he can seal the demon long enough to run. Hopefully they kill fucking Tyler so he can take the key and get these bindings off.
‘Hm…would it be better to kill it before leaving? It’ll just be sent back to hell if I kill it.’
The binding spell only keeps them restrained while you cast it in their weakened form, do not allow them the chance to use their full demon body, they are more tough to beat when they transform so make sure you have someone powerful nearby. Even then they can be quite tough to beat depending on how long they have been in hell. Depending on their appearance you can figure out a weakness to use to delay, it will be a gamble on what you get if you are going to summon a random one.
Maybe he will take that gamble, he’ll write down everything else but the sections that mentioned about the spell. ‘Maybe I should kill it before I make a run for it…at least to make sure it doesn’t kill the slaves at least,’ he thought for a moment, then nodded himself to the thought. It shouldn’t be too hard to face the demon if they never faced a magician that knew how to use illusion magic.
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Husk was able to sneak in a couple hours of a nap once he finished the circle and checked it 3 times to make sure it was ready for the rest of the materials, he quickly sat up once he heard a few people walking over to the tent. It was quite dim inside the tent, meaning the sun was almost gone. “Shit, they must be here.”
Husk eyes glowed purple and he cast an illusion magic over him to have it look like he was wearing a scholar’s outfit, making it a black color so it matches with his wings. He didn’t bother putting too many details since he doubt they would bother to ask where he went for ‘school,’ no one questions much about a scholar working at a black market. Once he finished changing the appearance that his hair looked ‘brushed’ Madam came walking in with Tyler, and a man that was dressed in such fine clothes he just yelled ‘a prince’ alone.
‘Time to work,’ thought Husk as he gave a bow. “Good evening, sir, I’m sure you would want to skip to the formalities and get this set up. I trust we got everything in order?” Husk grabbed the papers he spent all this time translating and handed it to Madam who gladly took it.
“This circle is huge…I thought they would be smaller,” said the prince walking over to check the circle, not bothering to grab the papers to look at himself when Madam tried handing them to him. “You can fit at least an elephant in there.”
“Sinner demons come in all different of shape and sizes compare to hell spawn demons, your highness. 1 can be the size of an elephant or have a smaller appearance, I believe the last thing we want is a demon having problems getting through the ritual.” Whether he knew if that was true or not, as far as he knew the ritual needed to be bigger compared to summoning a regular hell spawn.
“Husk, go ahead and remove the tent, make sure you don’t mess up the circle,” said Madam walking next to the prince. He noticed how much she was trying to be a bit…close with the prince in such a tight black dress where the sides were cut up to show her thighs, Husk raised his eyebrow noticing she defiantly added a bit more of the makeup on her face than usual.
‘A cave troll won’t give you a 2nd glance with how hard you’re trying there, may as well be consider his mother with how young he looks,’ thought Husk rolling his eyes, he raised his hands and it glowed white, then the tent completely vanished around them. A small group was surrounded by a few guards, they were chained.
A lump builds up in Husk’s throat, he wasn’t looking forward to the next part at all, one of the guards walked over carrying a black box and gave a slight bow before setting the box on the table.
“Alright, go ahead and bri-“ Madam was about to start but Husk let out a loud cough purposely, getting such a glare from her.
“We need to know which circle we’re summoning the demon from,” said Husk quickly when he noticed Tyler slowly putting his hand in the pocket, the shit head would turn that on before thinking. “As in the notes I put down, there are 7 sections of hell, is there a specific demon you are wanting to summon?”
“1 that will help me get the throne at my hometown, I’m sure they’ll be fine that I’ll offer my siblings as a price or money, who wouldn’t want to make a deal with a prince?”
“Then I wouldn’t advise anyone from greed, they may try and take more,” said Husk as the prince looked at the section he pointed out for him to look where he written as much of the explanation for each ring section. “Please carefully check and choose,” it took him a good 5 minutes for the prince to choose which ring he decided on, which he chose Pride. “I do advise to speak to the sinner as an equal, your highness.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine, I doubt the Pride section has many lower-class people in,” said the prince looking through the notes and lazily waving at Husk’s concern. “And even if we do, I’m sure they won’t pass the offer of getting into a deal with the soon to be king to get my favor once they help me get the throne. Now who would pass up having that they helped me get the throne?”
Husk opened his mouth to argue but he felt the collar start to slowly burn, Tyler was giving a warning. ‘This brat is defiantly going to get fucking killed, not my problem. I guess I’ll expect an argument or a fight to happen during this,’ thought Husk as he let out a sigh and nodded. “Then if you’ll excuse me, I will speak with your guards on bringing those…prisoners over to the ritual.”
Husk barely heard the Madam trying to gently explain to him about how dangerous a demon can be, at least she was taking his warning to heart. If things go to shit, then he’ll just worry about himself.
“Hold it,” said Tyler stopping Husk halfway, he almost didn’t grab the vial Tyler shoved for him to take. It was a blue vial, and he could feel the mana in it, he looked over at Tyler with a raised eyebrow a little confused they were giving this to him.
“Madam grabbed this after the small conversation she had with the prince, he’s paying extra to make sure you are capable to face the demon if things go wrong.”
‘What a good lie cover of the fact she doesn’t believe the demon will cooperate with the prince,’ but hearing Tyler asking if he’s capable irked him. Probably from lack of sleep, he leaned down a little to be eye level with Tyler.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m 1 of the best magician slaves this place has and ‘forced’ to protect it the 80 years I’ve been here. If the only reason I would ever fail, which I won’t, it will be because you guys have only been giving me 4 or 5 hours of sleep the past 6 damn days.” Husk let out a light chuckle when he felt the magic stone placed at his chest. “Go ahead and shock or burn me, you’ll just add to the mental exhaustion I’m in and maybe I’ll just pass out. If I wasn’t in this collar, I would gladly watch you guys get torn to shreds.”
Husk uncorked the vial and drank the potion in one gulped and shoved it back in Tyler’s hand. “Now…if you’ll excuse me, I should get ready to dirty my hands again for this forsaken place.” Husk let out a deep breath as he felt the mana refresh him, it’s been such a long time since his magic felt…this filled. Ignoring how irritated Tyler looked from restraining himself to beat Husk, he walked over to where the guards kept a circle around the people that were chained.
There were 11 prisoners, Husk noticed all of them were branded with the criminal brand, before he can say anything 1 of them must have assumed he would be easy to take down since he stood up quickly and dashed at him for a tackle. Husk side stepped slightly to avoid the tackle, placed his hand on the persons back and set a shock spell strong enough to put them in a paralyze state, his other hand quickly slipped under the guy before they fell to the ground and put him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
“Guess we got our first volunteer,” said Husk letting out a tired sigh, he walked to the nearest guard and leaned close to whisper to him. “I would advise on knocking them out, they’ll probably panic after they see what happens here.”
Husk set the criminal in the middle of the circle, careful to avoid stepping on the symbols and walked over to the black box, removing the lid he looked in to see a crystal with such a blood red color it looked like blood was in it. Once he put both hands on it, he felt a cold shiver go down his spine, feeling the demonic power pulsing in it, it felt disgusting in his hand and the urge to throw it was strong.
“This orb doesn’t feel like black magic at all,” said Husk walking to the circle looking over where the prince and Madam were. His feathers have fluffed out a bit from his discomfort feeling, he let out a sigh of relief as when he raised it over the circle, it slowly floated above until it was over the paralyzed prisoner, he could see the magic slowly humming to life for a moment and shoots a black beam down into the prisoner, it looked as if it impaled the person. Husk wiped his hands on his ‘robes’ as if he touched something foul.
“Of course it isn’t, I was able to find someone that has enslaved a demon that lives in the desert that makes these orbs. Are you sure it really doesn’t mater who is used to activate the orb?” said the prince looking over once the black beam stabbed the prisoner. Suddenly, the person screamed in agony, the darker the beam became the thinner the prisoners’ body slowly became until his body looked more bones than anything. The orb glowed a much darker red and the blackened ashes started to flare up to match the color of the orb, Husk’s hands glowed and slowly adding his magic into the ritual.
“No, it doesn’t, as long it’s a sacrifice it doesn’t matter, but I’m sure criminals are a better choice anyways,” it helped him feel less guilty killing them, at least these people deserve the agony.
Once the Madam noticed the nod Husk gave her, she quickly looked at the guards that were dragging the knocked-out prisoners closer. “Get them in position,” she ordered the guards. “Tyler, help them out.”
Once they placed the bodies in place inside the circle, Husk stopped channeling magic in the circle and summoned wind blades over each neck, not giving hesitation he flicked his hands down and beheaded them all at once. The prince took a couple steps forward out of curiosity as he noticed the bodies slowly disintegrating into black dust with a mixture of blood as it slowly got absorbed by the orb that was slowly turning from blood red to black.
A pressure hit Husk in the back of his mind, a question from a voice that gave him the shivers again. Is there a demon you seek?
“Not 1 in particular,” said Husk speaking loudly as he stared at the orb, he noticed that there was a single red eye with black pupils staring at him. “We wish to summon a demon from the Pride circle!”
Very well, the amount of payment has been accepted, wait a moment.
The pressure in his mind was gone but the eye stayed on the orb but didn’t keep its focus on him anymore, it looked around as if it was skimming through its thought. If there were any thoughts it has.
“So…we wait?” Madam asked as she walked to Husk when she noticed he was breathing a bit heavily when that weird feeling went away.
“Yes, it varies since it will go to random demons to see if anyone wants to accept the summon. So it may take a while-“ Husk stopped when he noticed the eye vanished and the orb was going through a mixture of green, black and red. It started to crack and the laughter he could hear coming out of the orb, it seemed the others heard it because the guards were quick to pull the prince a good distance from the ritual and circled him. It’s not often for fear to creep up on Husk, but it was there since there was 1 thing he wasn’t expecting…and that was a demon that was already waiting for a summon to activate. It was in the book, but he didn’t bother writing that down nor the warning it gave.
If a sinner demon quickly responds to the summon, then it was waiting. Be wary of those, they already have a plan set in stone once they enter the realm of the living.
‘Fuck my life,’ Husk swallowed as he took a few steps back himself as the orb completely shattered and the demonic magic swirled in the circle until it almost seemed to make a shape that seemed a bit more humanoid. The sinner defiantly has a human like appearance with such a gray pale skin, he was dressed in such a nice suite. ‘Hm…wonder if the prince did get some stuck-up rich person,’ thought Husk as he raised his arm that was slightly glowing, already getting ready to cast a spell. He was able to spot 2 little horns in the bright red hair and…ears? They didn’t look like cat ears, was he part deer? Those horns were rather small for the deer race. ‘Wait that isn’t it…sinners bodies change when they fall. I wonder if I can use that against him if he’s part deer.’
Alastor looked around and slightly tilted his head with what looked like curiosity, then gave a toothy grin to show his yellow sharp teeth. Husk noticed the cane in the demons’ hand and sensed dark magic seeping out of it, he stiffened when Alastor slowly looked his way and the look he gave was nothing but kindness despite that smile. He felt small, he felt he was looking at a predator that had just found their next meal they spotted.
“Greetings! The name’s Alastor, I see there is tension in the air,” said the demon as he looked around with curiosity as he raised his cane. “Should I have come in with more flare?” Alastor stopped when a spark of lightning passed by him and looked at Husk again, pretending to look taken aback at Husk’s reaction.
“Put the cane down,” said Husk eyeing the cane, he can sense magic coming out of it. It was only slightly but he wasn’t taking a chance, his body was already shivering. He still felt like something was watching him despite the demon looking laid back.
Alastor looked at him in amusement then gave a small smile his way and was pleased to see the shiver creep on the man. “Fine,” said Alastor twirling the cane a bit and setting it back down, but it made the perfect distraction since no one saw his shadow slip away. “I can leave it aside and listen to you guys for a moment to hear why you are needing a demons help.”
The prince pushed past his guards who seemed to understand the tension Husk was, but not the prince. “So, your name is Alastor? It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m the 5th prince Abasi from my kingdom and I would like to make a contract with you where you help me get the throne, I don’t have enough time to build support. If you can help me, I will grant you anything you want under my rule!”
Alastor raised an eyebrow and let out a small hum as he tapped his cane. “Why should I care about a conflict I have no interest in? I have my own goals I would like to do while I’m here,” he said chuckling at the men’s reaction. “You haven’t even brought much here to even convince me other than your 5th in line during a political conflict for the throne? I don’t want to be stuck in a castle, that sounds quite boring.”
“Excuse me? I just said I will grant you anything, is it because I didn’t bring anything convincing? I had to sneak out with the grimoire to summon you so the least you can do is humor me as the prince to hear more about my deal!”
“Titles mean nothing to me, good sir. You could be a king and I would still deny the same offer, try again!”
Husk noticed this Alastor was purposely ticking off the prince without even figuring out a bargain nor showing any signs of being aggressive…yet he could feel his avian instincts on high alert, his wings somewhat opened and the urge to fly away was strong. Something was watching him, waiting for his guard to be down and strike which caused his hand to flare a bit more violently with magic, it sparked between lightning and fire.
“Husk, you need to stay calm,” it was Tyler’s voice coming close and grabbed the arm that was still raised and shoved it down, causing Husk to startle and stare back at him with fear in his eyes. “Hah, you should see your face. You acting like-“
It made a move and everything in Husk told him to duck and he tucked his wings and quickly let himself fall to the ground, something barely touched him for a moment, then something wet hit his face. He didn’t need to touch it to know what it was, the smell of blood came to his nose, whose was it though?
His question was answered when Tyler’s body fell…well, the lower half past his waist was what fell and a shadow-like creature slithered away in the shadows.
“You sure took your time,” said Alastor as he slightly tossed his cane up, then it vanished. “Well, as much I was amused with our banter. I’ll kindly deny your offer and enjoy my meal before I go.”
The shadow thing lurched at Husk again, but he was prepared and blinded it with a ball of light as his other hand quickly dig in Tyler’s pants pocket until he found the bloody magic tool to his collar, he heard a few screams, but he had his own problems with this shadow. Husk eyes glowed purple and 4 illusions of himself slowly appeared around him, they wouldn’t do much but hopefully fool whatever is trying to attack him as he makes himself invisible for a few minutes, he cut the ball of light and stayed laying on the ground as his other illusions took flight to the sky in different directions. The ground rumbled a bit and Husk heard a crunch, but he stayed still and waited to see if he can spot that shadow.
It seems to have worked when he saw the shadows around quiver and it morph into a form as it looked up, it shared the same shape of Alastor. It looked confused with how it looked at his illusions before it seemed to give a silent screech before heading at one of them. ‘Ok that thing is gone,’ Husk thought as he slowly got on his hands and feet, slowly working up to get in a kneeling position. ‘Wait, there isn’t much yelling anymore.’ Did they all run away?
Something dropped on the right of Husk, and a huge claw hand dangerously close to touching him on his left, the red tip claws a foot away from him. He looked over to his right and noticed the thing that fell was an arm, and from the remains of the cloth it was Prince’s Abasi arm.
As much as he didn’t want to look up, he did and saw that Alastor was huge and he could swear he was looking at him with those black eyes. He needed to remind himself he was temporarily invisible; blood was dripping from Alastor’s mouth.
“You know a floating tool gives you away,” said Alastor with amusement, his grin growing wider. Alastor knew he could have grabbed him there while they weren’t moving with the tool giving them away, but where was the fun in that? This person could give him some amusement before eating him. “Make it amusing now, will you?”
Husk pressed one of the runes and the slave collar fell off his neck and wrist, Alastor leaned down quick with his mouth wide, ready to bite him in one. The ground heaved around Alastor’s left hand that was on the ground, causing him to lose his balance and fall on his side from it. Before he could get up a bright light flashed in his face, Alsastor’s whole body froze, and he couldn’t get his eyes to look away from it. ‘Damn body, move!’ thought Alastor, his grin shrinking just a little from irritation while he blinked and was able to finally move his head.
Those few seconds were enough for Husk to get an aerial attack on Alastor from above, having 1 of the boulder debris floating next to him he shaped it more into a spike and used the wind to give it speed as he aimed it at Alastor, a black tentacle slithers off Alastor’s back, and it smacked the spiked boulder away. “Is that the best you can do? I’m sure you can do better then that.” Alastor chuckled as he dusted his shoulder.
The shadows warning was too slow, Alastor bit his upper lip as he felt pain through his upper back. “What?” he said, turning his head to see three spiked boulders behind his back. ‘He only had 1 rock,’ 3 more tentacles came out of his back and attempted to twirl on them to yank them off, but then they vanished, and the pain was gone. A growl slowly came out of his throat and his grin looked threatening when he glared up at the sky, seeing 5 to 6 more illusions of Husk, a prick in the arm got his attention and noticed a throwing spear was in his arm, a few mortals were charging at him with holy weapons.
“I don’t have time for small fries,” Alastor raised his right hand and easily sliced and crushed them. ‘But I guess I can’t say no to some refreshments.’ Alastor reached to pick up the remains and eagerly gulped them down, his ears perked on alert, and he looked up seeing 4 of the illusions seemed to be charging up a lightning spell to aim at him. He used his other hand to swat at them, but all of them were able to shoot the magic spell before they each vanished and hit him.
Alastor groaned when he felt the pain and touched his chest to see if physically touching it will cause the illusion to vanish faster, he wasn’t going to be too concerned, they were going to vanish so the pain should go away too like last time. 3 of the wounds did vanish…but 1 stayed and that one was quite close to his heart. Alastor coughed out some blood and his smile quivered, 1 of them was the real one.
Husk was 1 of the 4 that shot a lightning spell and got swatted, luckily it seems Alastor didn’t give a second glance and didn’t see Husk fall to the ground and crashed nearby a cage, he was panting heavily. ‘Fuck…I think I broke a rib.’ At least he was able to get a hit on the demon, but he quickly looked up when he heard kids screaming and crying, he looked over to the cage nearby to see elven kids crying and begging anyone nearby to help them. Husk dug in his pants to find the slave device and clumsily got to the cage, placed his hand on the magic lock and easily broke the lock.
He was the one that made these locks.
He yanked the cage open and handed the device to the nearest kid. “Get out quickly, save anyone else you can! I’ll keep him distracted!” Husk yelled at them urgently in elven, thankfully they eagerly ran off. Laughter started to fill around and Husk flinched, it sounded as if the demon was laughing in annoyance instead of amusement. “Damnit, can’t I get a breather,” he said as he turned to give a glare at Alastor, yet he couldn’t help but smile with a smug look when he noticed the bleeding wound in his chest. “Is this the best you can do?” said Husk as his eyes glowed again, feeling a little confidence seeing that he got a hit in. Hopefully he can get another lucky hit in, he thinks he can try one more shot of a powerful spell.
His body was already telling him he’s worn out, already given most of the magic to the ritual. ‘Focus, survive.’
“Oh no you don’t,” growled Alastor charging at Husk and reaching to grab him. “No more tricks from you.”
Husk raised his arm to summon a wind to push Alastor’s hand away while his other hand was forming a ball of light behind his back, hiding it and pulled it out and flared it to brightness right in front of Alastor and his shadow once he closed his eyes. Relying on his reaction he ducked in time to avoid a tentacle that aimed for him, he was sweating and cut the magic to the orb of light and opened his eyes once it dimmed, staring up at Alastor as he panted heavily and clutched his chest.
Alastor’s shadow was hesitant to try and leap at Husk when seeing that he kept his arm up in a threatening manner, not wanting to get blinded again, complaining to Alastor which was not helping the irritation. “Out of tricks already?” said Alastor staring down at Husk with quite a glare. “I’ll admit you really sure made this…entertaining for me, unless I’m talking to your illusion here.”
“Nope…damn well worn out,” said Husk letting out a snort. “They don’t keep me well fed so I was already running on nothing but steam. At least I get to die as a free man,” he wobbled a little while standing and gave a small smirk.
Alastor didn’t trust this, he had a feeling this slave was planning something, yet he couldn’t help but laugh at his last comment. “I won’t allow that with you, and you think you’ll find peace after death? Hah!” he summoned his shadow away. “I was thinking about devouring you like the others…but I think your abilities can be useful to assist me, what do you say to that?” Alastor grinned at Husk and hunched down a little to look down at him. “Would you like to form a contract and live a little longer to help me?”
“Hm…you know what,” said Husk as he raised his hand and flicked it down, Alastor’s body jerked as something impaled through his shoulder and the force almost got him to fall on the ground. “I think I’ll take my last chance here, if you survive this, I might take up your offer,” once his eyes stopped glowing the sky above them quivered and slowly revealed 4 ice spikes that seemed to be merged with lightning. Alastor looked at his shoulder, now seeing the spike in there and his eyes widened a little seeing the sky.
Husk didn’t wish to give Alastor time to react and dropped the spikes down, at the same time Alastor took a swipe at him, Husk barely dodged it and saw Alastor’s whole body went black and started sinking into the ground as the spikes slam into the ground. ‘The hell was that?’ Thought Husk as he fell on his back and weakly looked up to see if he can look in the dust to see if he hit him or not, he didn’t get a chance to watch the dust clear as he felt many small hands yank his wings, then started to drag him away.
“What the fuck?” Husk said trying to look behind him, little black creatures were pulling his wings with glowing green eyes and grinning with glowing green smile and teeth. Husk raised his hand to attempt to cast what magic he had left, but 2 of the black creatures quickly jumped on his chest, 1 quickly tied his hands tight together while the other quickly blind folded him, he struggled with the 1 that tried to blindfold him but stopped when it succeeded in covering his eyes. His body instinctively started to still and he just let himself give up on trying to fight the avian side of him that started relaxing due to being blindfolded. ‘I barely have any magic left…and fuck am I exhausted…wait a minute, why are these things keeping me alive?’
Were these things working for Alastor? He can’t remember seeing any of them, but it seemed they weren’t here to kill him…yet, where are they were dragging him to, he could hear other people grumbling or whimpering once they stopped pulling him. Sounds like quite a few people were gathered here. “Was wondering if you died or not,” that was Madams voice and he just let out a snort.
“Well, I’m surprised you’re still alive after I saw the prince’s arm,” said Husk as he felt those weird little things tying his feet too. “I’m guessing those that haven’t fled got caught by these weird things.”
Madam was quiet for a moment, then let out what sounded like an annoyed sigh. “Not everyone, only my workers and quite a bit of the merchants. Doubt any of the slaves can run away but I don’t see any of them around here at all.”
“Huh…that’s interesting,” That just leaves more questions, but he doubts he had time to think on it, hearing some people gasp and footsteps came by.
“Holy shit, you did that much damage to the demon?” He heard Madam say and he felt his stomach drop and just let himself stay still even more, maybe he can just hide from the demon and won’t spot him. “Wonder how he is walking so casually with such wounds.”
‘Lord, please don’t find me.’
“Could have done more with more sleep and food,” he said quietly to himself.
Alastor was back in his small form walking over to where the ritual circle was before he checked how many people his shadow minions collected, he needed to see if the ritual wasn’t ruined once he turned to his demon form. His shadow appeared next to him once Alastor was looking at the circle, a small section got stepped on by his shoe. “Hm…poor Niffty isn’t going to be happy if I don’t let her come along,” he said as he leaned down a bit to look at it some more, a hissed almost escaped from his lips from the movement with the 2 wounds he got. He was able to slip into the shadows to avoid the hit, but it took him a moment to yank the ice spike out that was still in his shoulder when he got out of the shadows, since every attempt he tried with his own hand or a tentacle it would shock them and his body. Eventually he had to have his shadow yank it out.
A shadow minion ran up to him and waved its hand at him. “Oh, are we done clearing all the slaves out? Good job, let’s see if we can find someone to make the circle again!” Ignoring his body complaining as he stood back up, some blood leaked from his mouth for a second then wiped it off with his sleeve, summoned his cane back in his hands and followed the minion over to the edge of the marketplace.
Alastor let out a light chuckle seeing the group of people, at least 55 were there with what his minion told him. ‘Hm…I wonder if it will be enough,’ thought Alastor looking at the group that looked at him with fear. ‘Even the woman with that stubborn prince is here, hm I could of sworn I-‘ he stopped when a few people tried to move away from him he saw the person he was fighting with not long ago tied and laying down next to the woman, so his minions did snatch him after their fight. “There you are!” A tentacle popped out of his back and eagerly coiled around Husk and yanked him forward away from the group and lifted him upside down in the air as it kept coiling more on wrapping around Husk’s body, he didn’t bother keeping his wings folded over his back and they slung down.
“Fuck,” was all Husk said as he let out a painful groaned when he felt the black tentacle squeezed him, feeling the broken rib and frowned while holding back a painful groan. “Was hoping you’d think I was dead there.”
Alastor laughed loudly despite his whole body. “Oh no, you seem like a stubborn fellow so I’m sure you wouldn’t die that easily, seeing how they tied you up easily…you weren’t lying about running out of magic now, were you?” Alastor’s ears shifted a little hearing Husk groaned and he eyed his appearance. Odd, this fellow was wearing what looked like some robes before…and now he’s in nothing but a poor excuse of pants and scars “Oh! Where I manners here, guess I’m still a bit…hm, annoyed. Should we finish our last conversation, good sir?”
“Doesn’t look like I have a choice in this matter, so why not,” mumbled Husk as he heard Alastor laugh again. “Can I at least have the blindfold removed?”
“Oh no, that is staying on,” said Alastor with a little growl as he released Husk and watched him drop on the ground, then wrapped the tentacle around Husk feet and yanked his body with him, dragging Husk on the ground. “Let’s go talk somewhere more private so we don’t get interrupted.”
“Now wait a minute with Husk there-“ said Madam raising her voice so Alastor can hear her getting up on her feet and tried to follow, but the minions quickly yanked her back down and pointed their weapons they collected at her.
Once they got to the location, Alastor’s shadow had set up a table and 2 chairs near the ruined circle. “Be a good lad and get him in the chair, ole pal here doesn’t look like he’s able to move much,” said Alastor chuckling a little hearing Husk groan at him, the shadow wasn’t gentle picking up Husk and awkwardly put him in the chair with the wings in the way. The urge to stretch his wings out to smack the shadow was tempting, but he felt the shadow keeping him up still from leaning too much on the right.
“Now then!” Alastor sat down and crossed his legs while setting his cane against his own chair. “Before we talk about our last conversation on your attempt to impale me, I’ll need you to honestly answer a question of mine, lie or drag it out and I’ll start to lose what little patient I have left as is.” As if the shadow wanted to prove a point it digs their claws in Husk’s shoulder until it pierced through his flesh, Husk let out a harsh hiss. “Seeing how you’re a slave, I’m sure you know a difference from a threat and a promise.”
Oh, Husk knew just by fighting with the guy, and he could hear the tone from Alastor that he would enjoy tormenting him too if given the chance. “Then does that mean I get released after answering your question and amusing you with a conversation? I did hear about how those weird little minions have been letting the slaves go.”
“You think I’ve never been around a black marketplace? I know what the lack of restraints means on someone as…magically powerful as you. You have done quite a bit for these scums to only have a neck collar and wrist binds, how many have you killed? I can tell by your scars what restraints they left on you.”
“What is your damn question,” Husk mumbled as he started to feel the old guilts start building up in his chest. He knew Alastor wasn’t wrong, the things he did willingly or forcefully to have as less restraints he was allowed to have off.
“Oh my, I guess we did get a little bit sidetracked there now did we?” said Alastor grinning at Husk when he noticed how quickly he changed the topic, and how worn out he looked. “Was it you they had make the summoning circle?” Alastor noticed the flinch from Husk and the frown. “Ah, perfect! I’ll need you to remake it.”
“I’m not summoning a friend of yours up here if that is where we’re going with, and since I’m out of magic the only other replacement will be more sacrifices…” Husk paused a moment after a thought came by. “You’re going to use the people you have gathered already, you would have a higher success rate if you kept some of the slaves…plus you’re missing the needed orb with demon essence in it.”
“That is one of the reasons why I left those chums alive for now, our ruffle sure has worn you out! Besides, it seems that the prince had another 1 with his stuff…or maybe the marketplace had 1 themselves this whole time!” A couple shadow minions were pushing a black box over and seemed ready to lift it up once they got to their master’s feet, but Alastor raised his hand at them to stop as he stood up. The shadow removed their claws from his shoulder and Husk let out a long groan of relief from the removal of the claws. “Now then, the reason I won’t let you go is because I also want to make a deal with you…you can be quite useful with my plans.”
“No…I will not-“
“If you wish to deny so eagerly then I guess I can just devour you…you see I have quite a unique demon ability I got when I got to hell,” Alastor walked over and leaned over to Husk’s ear. “I can eat your soul and absorb you; you won’t get to go to Heaven or Hell if I eat you, I offer you this choice because you can be more useful in my goal still physically alive than being my next meal.”
Husk swallowed and shivered as he listened.
“If you aid me, I can do something else in return for you, I can assist in finding who sold you off and can get your revenge,” not seeing a reaction Alastor stood up as his ear twitch in thought, seeing the lack of reaction from Husk which was odd, slaves were usually eager to have revenge on whoever sold them off.
“If I’m going to be put in such a shitty situation…the only thing I want to do after all these years is destroy as many marketplaces as I can and drink as much booze as I fucking want.”
“I can arrange that, with the money we get from destroying these places…you will have enough funds to drink to your hearts content when I don’t need you working, and I won’t restrict your powers like they have done here. You’re more useful to me at your best, as long you don’t turn on me and obey me…” This was very simple to deal with, Alastor was already planning to mess with the black market anyways.
“What is your goal here?” Husk asked, but the only response he got was an irritated tsk from Alastor. “Look if I’m going to be working with you, I should at least know that much.”
“I came here to hunt demons and eat them, and maybe perhaps a few miscreants while I’m here. It will fill up with both of those soon up here…so do we have a deal?” Alastor’s shadow easily cut the rope around Husk wrist, but he didn’t move much being deep in thought for a moment.
“I want freedom once your goal is done,” Husk flinched when he heard a loud bang on the table, he assumed Alastor slammed his hand on the table. “I’m sure I’ll be heading to hell anyways so I’m sure you can have your fun with me when I die, you do that then I will gladly help you with anything.”
‘Oh ho…anything now, maybe I can wait until he dies if he’s going to leave it that open,’ thought Alastor as Husk weakly raised his hand to yank the cloth off his eyes, he looked at Husk hand and once he dropped the cloth Alastor reached out, his hand glowing green, and grabbed his hand before Husk can say anything else. “You have a deal,” said Alastor as his smile widened as light green stitches slowly showed at the end of his smile, a glowing red X appeared on his forehead as his antler grew a few inches.
“Wait, I wasn’t done!” yelled Husk, but the green aura that started glowing on Alastor’s hand creeped into Husk until his whole body glowed. Husk let out a gasp as his body twitched uncontrollably and the pain was too much for him to bear, he collapsed on the ground. “W-what?”
“Oh, don’t worry, it’ll take a few minutes…oh you guys found the book too?” said Alastor seeing one of his shadow minions running up to him to hand him a black grimoire.
Husk didn’t hold back the screams that came out, his face felt like someone was constantly punching him, his whole body felt itchy. Something got stuck in his throat and he rolled over and coughed out what seemed to be most his teeth, he weakly moved his hand to reach over…but froze when he saw black fur on his arm. Another yell of pain as it felt like his hands were being twisted from the inside and outside.
Alastor hummed while watching Husk’s whole body transform until the glowing green light finally faded away off his body, but he was still shivering on the ground. “Huh…I guess you were destined for hell with how much that changed your body, at least no one will recognize you!”
Husk slowly worked on getting back on his feet once he was sure there wasn’t going to be anymore pain. He looked at his hands which looked like cat paws with claws sticking out. “What the…” Husk looked at his wings to see they changed looking redder then black, only the underside of his wings was black with a strip of red and white dots across from his underside and over his wings.
“Now then, let’s get the ritual back up,” said Alastor and he reached over and scratched Husk’s ears, that’s when he noticed his ears were high above his head and he felt a…purr coming from his throat?! He quickly shoved Alastor’s hand away and started touching his face and head, his eyebrows felt like feathers and whiskers were near his nose.
“Am…am I a fucking cat!?” Husk yelled and took a few steps at Alastor but wobbled from feeling a little imbalance, something felt off behind him and he turned to look. A long thin tail was there swaying slightly while the end seemed to be a spray of plume-like feathers which seemed mostly red with black and white stripes. “What the hell did you do to me?!”
“Ah ah ah, questions can be for later,” said Alastor booping Husk nose 3 times. “Right now, let’s get the ritual set up before sunset comes, I would like to start on my planning with what little time I have before it gets…complicated.”
“No, I think I deserve an answer-“ A green collar with a green chain appeared around Husk’s neck and yanked him forward violently, he would of fallen forward if Alastor wasn’t holding the other end and held it up for Husk to look at him, Alastor’s eye turned black and gave such a threatening stare Husk swallowed the rest of the retort. “Alright…questions later,” he quickly got back on his feet before Alastor let the chain vanish. “I’ll have a lot, I’m sure you can answer at least some of them.”
“Yes of course, as long you stay useful, I’ll humor you with answers whenever I feel like answering all of them,” Alastor sat back on the chair and pointed at the circle again to let Husk know to get start, Husk groaned and grabbed the book from the shadow minion. Only a quarter of the circle seemed to have gotten stepped on when Alastor grew huge.
Husk looked to his left to see that the demon did try to avoid stepping on it. ‘If he was able to avoid stepping on it with his right foot, then why did he step on the other side?’ though Husk and looked over to see the jar of the black ashes was still sitting next to the circle where the section was stepped on. ‘Ah, that explains it,” Husk kneeled and set the book down to flip it to the page he needed and went to working on fixing it.
“I better at least get more than 4 hours of sleep after this,” mumbled Husk as he used his finger to fix the markings and pouring the ashes on the fixed section.
Notes:
I know odd spot to end but after seeing how big I was making this chapter, should stop there for now!
Chapter 7
Notes:
Sorry this took a while, work got crazy (and a week of no ac in the building, yay) had me too mentally tired to work on it so sorry, hopefully stuff calms down once move in day happens with college students. Getting this out before I hold it one more day lol
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Where is the attack coming from?” said Charlie grabbing a nearby priest outside the church, outside was a bit chaotic with the high priest and his chosen priest along with the commander knight, giving orders here and there.
“One of the hunters traps went off an hour ago on the Northwest side and they just now are trying to break the defense shield,” said the knight when seeing none of the priest were acknowledging her, he didn’t know if it was because of them ordering the priest around or getting people in the safe rooms he didn’t know nor care about the dislike. Peoples’ safety is more important right now. “If you’re able to get your own shield up then the wizard tower can switch to the offense instead of defending, so far it’s keeping most the demons back but somehow a few are getting through.”
Charlie nodded. “I’ll see what I can do to help those defending the gate, giving them buffs will probably help while Razzle and Dazzle can be on the offensive.”
“Once I get my squad ready, I’ll get there as quickly as we can, find out who is in charge of the defense,” he walked off away from the group of priests that were arguing. “Get healers over to the gates, I’ll get my knights ready!” He told a nearby Deacon that was waiting nearby.
Charlie didn’t stay long after nodding to the knight and quickly ran to the Northwest, which wasn’t hard to know where with the noises of battle and magic being heard. It was closest to the church but the farthest away from the guild so who knows how quick the guild was able to get people over there. The streets still had civilians running to either the church or other shelter locations.
“One of you get to the gates to help, don’t use hellfire at all! Regular fire should at least cause some harm from you on the contractors,” said Charlie to Razzle and Dazzle when she stopped to give herself a moment to catch her breath. The 2 looked at each other and Dazzle nodded and flew in the air high enough to transform into his larger form and flown off, Razzle stayed close and looked around with focus and puffed his fur as he perched on her head.
As much Charlie wanted to get there, she was out of breath waking up from a dream that started pleasant for a while until it turns into a nightmare, she can vaguely remember right now. Running from her room to out here. ‘Let’s try and think about it later…right now we need to protect the people,’ she thought as she looked up and started running again.
Once the gate came into view there were already a few holes as some demonlike creatures crawled through the holes, but a few fighters seemed ready by hiding on the sides and easily catching them by surprise. A human female wielding 2 battle scythes was easily slicing the demons as black blood sprayed from when she sliced limbs or their stomach, then she noticed the other was Fili, waving his huge battle axe for when a large demon tries to get through or make the hole bigger.
Charlie raised her staff and sent a buff spell for those that were fighting once she got close to, and she was going to get ready to make copies of herself, but she startled out of concentration when she heard Corey above the gate yelling orders. “They are trying to move more to the West! Get archers over there!” Yelled Corey while holding a bow and arrow, drawing an arrow, and shooting it to a spider demon that was close to the wall. “Tell the back up to check the walls when they get here!”
Charlie found the steps to get to the top of the wall, getting a clear view of the other side she froze and was shocked to see the horde that was being blocked off by the shield, some seemed to notice the shield doesn’t block spells, so some has switched to shooting spells and black magic.
“Miss Charlie, please put shields around the archers to protect them from magic,” yelled Corey when he noticed her. “Once your done there make a couple more copies of your familiar or buff our fighters.”
“How are some getting through the shield?” said Charlie as she raised her staff and started chanting to cast the shield, Razzle growled while staring at the demons and leaped over and transformed himself. He let out a deafening roar before breathing out fire, some seemed unfazed by it and pushed forward more but quickly backed away when their weapons barely cut Razzle’s skin, or when a few got torn to shreds.
“It seems some have the charms we give to our guild members to be able to go in and out of the shields whenever it’s active,” said Corey seeing how some of the demon casters switch to targeting Razzle who was quick on his feet to dodge some spells. “Which worries me some may have snuck in other sections so I have to keep people spread out-“
“Sir! The holy knights are here!” yelled Dain as he saw the commander of the holy knight marching over with a squadron, Dain rolled his eyes when he noticed the commander frowned at him.
“Nice to see a deserter still cares about protecting their people,” sneered the commander.
“Yeah yeah, get over it,” said Dain waving his hand at him. “No need to have back talk right now.”
“Swap places with the fighters for now so they can rest! If you have any healers with you, please have them heal them too! We might need them rested here depending on their movement.” Corey groaned as he squinted to look out in the darkness, but his vision was not made to see the night well. “Cursed my vision…”
Charlie finished chanting and a shield formed around the top of the wall where all the archers and some wizards were station. “Don’t wander too far from it, I mostly have them set where you guys are stationed.” A screech was heard, many worried what demons would make that noise, but Charlie knew that screech. Razzle! Looking down she saw Razzle quickly backing away as a holy sword was embedded in his front left leg and it looked like a pure white dagger was stabbed above the shoulder, seems they tried to aim for his neck. “Razzle! Get away!”
Razzle let out a yelp and backed away to avoid another slash at another holy sword and leaped in the air, a holy spear was thrown straight at him, but Dazzle flew by and used his tail to smack it away, leaving a scratch on his tail, they looked confused about the injuries but they quickly split to different sections to attack, maybe the back won’t have any of the holy items..
“Be prepared! Some are holding holy weapons!” yelled a wizard as she raised her hands to get ready to cast another spell, but a demon threw the spear and aimed right at her heart, the holy weapon pierced through the main shield and right through Charlie’s shield, striking the wizard right in the chest. The whole through the shields remained for a few seconds before they mended themselves, but it was enough to cause a falter.
“Archers get down!” yelled Corey as he grabbed Charlie and yanked her down with him, he noticed she was in shock from the death of an ally. “Charlie, can you debuff the enemies? We are going to need to weaken them if they’re going to use those weapons to break through the shield,” said Corey letting out a slight grunt from letting his full weight hit the floor.
“B-but how, usually they can block anything,” said Charlie giving a slight nod and swallowed as she reached for her staff, she let go of it from getting startled by Corey grabbing her and yanking her. “I know a few that can work, I’ll do that and make a few copies of Razzle and Dazzle, though that may take time.”
“Holy weapons are quite powerful, it is already known they can pierce anything, they must have gotten them from the knights that went to check on Kithe…Is there any word from the dang priest, Knight!?” he yelled at the commander.
“They are requesting the immediate help as we speak!” yelled the knight as he struck a snake-like demon that tried to bite his head, a loud bang could be heard on the wall. “They are trying to break the gate, get ready for a fight.”
Before Corey could check on Charlie she stood up and quickly ran to the steps to head down the stairs to assist the others, the wall is not safe if some of the demons’ resort to throwing another holy weapon. More of the gates were damaged, luckily it was still a small flow of demons, but it will pick up if they use the holy weapons to cut holes in the shield. Ignoring the warnings of others to stick within a safe distance with the other casters, she mumbled some works and when a demon got close to her they either wobbled, held their head in agony or just stop and look around in confusion with their eyes change from red to pure white, getting blinded.
A few of the warriors were quick to notice the change in the demons and roared as a sort of rally to others before joining in the fight once more, many can also see how quickly Charlie dodges some of the demons that try to throw a swing at her or claw her, she was quick on her toes. Until tripping on a body that she wasn’t paying attention to checking the ground and fell backwards on her butt, a cat like demon with 3 eyes saw the opportunity and leaped at her but was greeted with Razzle in his small form biting down hard on their neck until he twists it to snap the demons neck.
“T-thanks Razzle,” Charlie panted as she tried to stand back up, but someone grabbed her arm and easily yanked her up, she let out a slight squeak noise from the sudden grab and looked to see it was the Commander.
“Back up if you’re not going to pay attention,” he said as he let her arm go once she found balance again on her feet. Razzle flew over to her and let out a light grunt, his wounds were still opened when she noticed the blood dripping off him. “He won’t rest no matter what I tell him and nice we got the weapons out of him.”
Charlie held her hand out and Razzle snuggled in her arms. “They are stubborn,” she said as she quickly backed away as she kept using her debuff to cause their minds to get blurry or lose focus, most of the archers seemed to safely get down from the stairs. A loud humming noise with crackling could be heard, she looked up to see that the shield was breaking and vanishing. ‘Oh no! Did they reach to the wizard tower?!’ Charlie looked over to the tallest tower that could be seen.
The wizard tower was still standing, she could see the magic being pulled back in, then spit back out into the sky, clouds started forming and spreading out rather fast to extend out over the walls, then the sound of rumbling could be heard and that was the only warning given as a huge red lightning struck violently outside the wall into the demon army. It caused the ground to shake with how violent that was, and Charlie almost slipped again from the slight shaking of the ground, another strike could be heard more on the west side not long after the first strike.
“Alice! Have everyone spread out, Commander…have your knights do the same,” said Corey as he grabbed a fresh quiver of arrows. “They may try climbing the wall or breaking it once they figure out it’s gone. Mages get ready to try and shove them away or crush them into the wall…. or something, be creative!” Corey looked slightly over at the tower with worry. Did they really have to use that much magic? It usually does not require that much to cast it, the ground shook as another lightning struck down but it seemed to stay and dragged as if it was drawing something on the ground for a good minute, lingering screams of pain and agony could be heard. ‘Did…did I let Charlie put too much magic in there?’
“Think less right now, sir! At least it is not hitting inside the town,” yelled one of the nearby guild members. “It is stalling them, they’re coming in less! Yet those wizards need to settle down in the tower, aren’t they putting too much magic in those strikes…those are starting to get dangerously close.”
Corey could not argue back about those lightning strike, they were powerful…much powerful then the last time they had to use it and it didn’t seem each strike was getting weaker with each strike that was cast down outside the walls. “Maybe they got plenty of magic from Miss Charlie, I did have her channel magic to the tower…” mumbled Corey after letting out a startled bleep from hearing the thunder in the sky build up.
“Damn…I knew S casters have magic, but that is quite a lot there,” said Fili letting out a hearty laugh. “It may help here! It sounds like it is even hurting them out there, I know demons have sturdy bodies!”
Corey was remembering how Charlie mentioned being above those so-called overlords, being a royal. ‘How much does a royal demon have? This is quite scary seeing this,” thought Corey as he notched another arrow and aimed at a demon trying to climb over the wall, it had quite the burn marks on him.
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Valentino cover his eyes when the brightness of the lightning strike blinded him, he was at least half a mile away from the town and was waiting for the fight to be done before going in to either make more new contracts or more materials to summon demons that will properly listen. “The fuck was that brightness from. Was that from the mage tower, why is it not destroyed yet?!” He did not see what it was but felt how the ground shook and the rumbling, it must have been a lightning spell, but that felt strong compared to the last one he sensed from the last town he attacked for more contracts or materials to summon more demons.
“They must have learned what was going on, looks like they built quite a defense. One of them learned the holy items we collected can cut the tower’s shield spell; it is why they switched to the offensive. With how strong that attack was I am sure that tower must be out of magic,” said an owl-like demon that was keeping an eye on the battle for Valentino. “Those that have gotten in through the holes haven’t opened the gates yet from the inside.”
“Tch, we can at least replenish the numbers once we get in there. If they do not get this done in 20 minutes, I am going down myself.”
The demon opened its mouth to reply but then the second thunderstrike lashed out and dragged from the front of the gate and it lingered and dragged into the group, leaving sparks from the holes it was leaving and those that were close either got quite the burns or on the ground not moving.
“S-sir…I don’t think we should try, that strike seemed to have done a lot more damage than I can see right now,” he said nervously. They should not have that much magic source left…yet that strike defiantly killed quite a bit of the demons there.
“Just wait for the flank team to get around, we’re going to get this area cleared up before going to the meetup and I am not going to be the one with less minions…now where did that lightning strike go to?” Valentino shouted angrily as he heard a third strike cast down, but it sounded a bit farther away.
“I…I think it targeted the flank group, someone get down there and get me a report!” The demon shouted to a nearby demon who nodded and quickly started running to the battle. “Sir, I understand wanting to get more…but I’m worried we’re going to lose more than receive at this point, I don’t think that mage tower is done,” he really didn’t trust his hope that it was done since it seems the clouds still didn’t show any signs of dying down or any hints that the magic in the sky was wanning, it seemed the clouds were slowly spreading out.
“You don’t think I know a lot just died? I don’t feel their contracts anymore…oh I’m going to kill that wizard slowly in that tower once I get in there,” said Valentino seething in anger. Everything has been going his way so far, these past days, barely any trouble with the other 2 other towns that were decent size plus the farmlands they found. Yet this one is being a problem?
“I think I can offer you a better offer, demon sir,” said a woman voice close to Valentino. The owl demon stiffened and quickly turned to see who that was, that was not a familiar voice chosen to be close to Valentino. He raised his claws and growled once he saw the hooded person and was ready to attack, but Valentino raised one hand to stop him and turned to look at the person.
“But sir!”
“Oh, trust me, with how quiet she was, you would not react fast enough when she tries to kill me. Which does impress me since I didn’t even sense you nearby nor a smell, humans do have quite the smell…especially one of your businesses,” once he was in front of the person, they quickly got on their knees in front of him.
“I think my offer will be better than dealing with the town that also harbors Charlotte Morningstar, I’m sure a powerful demon such as you would know that name,” she said as she kept her head down, but still heard the gasped and murmurs withing the group.
“So, I guess you know what she is then,” sneered Valentino turning his head to look back at the town. “I didn’t think she was capable of casting spells.” Valentino felt a slight chill in the air, he squinted his eyes a little confused from the sudden cold.
“No sir, but they had her channeling her magic in the mages tower the past 2 days to prepare it for an assault…and it seems from the chill in the air, the wizards are about to cast a cold spell.” The hooded woman slowly stood up and removed her hood to reveal it was Hazel, the rogue that joined Charlie on checking a nearby village. “And none of the demons have successfully got close either to take out the wizards.”
Valentino glared at her while letting out a low growl, some of the demons slowly backed away from him, knowing how well he reacts if someone tells him what to do. He knew he wouldn’t have any luck if Charlie was there, much less put her magic in the tower. “Fuck…you better offer me something worth your life, because if it doesn’t please me, then I will kill you here and now. You! Tell them to retreat now!”
“I was sent to bring a message and a communication device to hand to you from my master,” said Hazel as she pulled out a note with a wax sealed of a spider along with a communication device and set it on the ground before backing away a few steps. “The boss wishes to talk about business with you and your companions, I wasn’t told much anymore other then pass this on.” Hazel pulled her hood back on and backed away into the darkness, which wasn’t hard since none of the demons nearby were carrying torches nor much of a light source. Many of their eyes started to glow red and search for her as the owl demon kneeled to pick up the note and the device to hand to Valentino.
“Sir, we don’t know where she went and she isn’t even leaving a trail,” said one of the hellhounds sniffing where she was and looking around.
“Hm…guess the underground has advance quite a bit while I was dead,” said Valentino as he looked at the back of the note to see if he can recognize the symbol, he’s been dead for maybe…50 years? Probably won’t know who this symbol belongs to since he never bothered keeping up with gangs that always came to his various buildings for pleasures and entertainment when he was a mortal. ‘Willing mortals can help me build up my shops again,’ he thought with such a sick smile as he ordered the others to get ready to leave.
“Exorcists are here!” Yelled a demon bloodied and seemed to have a few icicles impaled in its back, half limping half running to the group while yelling the same thing on repeat to spread the word.
“Fuck.”
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As soon as Charlie felt the cold build up, she quickly went to work to make a large shield that will block any ice spells, extending it at least almost 100 feet wide. “Everyone get in!” yelled Charlie but it seemed she really didn’t need to with how quick everyone was running in for those that were outside, some demons seemed conflicted on trying to run in themselves or find cover somewhere else once the rainfall of icicles started coming down…yet a loud howl could be heard from the distance and the demons looked up and quickly running out through the holes or climbing over the wall to flee.
“Thank the heavens, they are fleeing,” mumbled Corey panting as he dropped the small dagger next to his broken bow. “Though I don’t think many will get away uninjured.”
Large icicles the size of longswords started raining down, the ones that hit Charlie’s shield either shattered or bounced off. “Thank goodness…it feels like we’ve been fighting for half the evening,” mumbled Charlie letting out a deep sigh of relief seeing the demons retreating. Exhaustion was slowly creeping on her once she started to relax a little but she shook her head to keep focus.
A horn could be heard, as others looked up to check the sky the clouds were slowly clearing up as the icicle rain stopped along with it, Charlie could see something flying over the clouds and descending straight towards the fleeing demons, if any demons were still nearby or survive.
Most of the holy knights cheered and raised their hands at seeing the exorcists’ angels, the others looked too tired or annoyed to join the cheering and sat down on the ground as Charlie’s shield slowly vanished once she saw all the clouds start to vanish.
“Good work on defending the town everyone,” yelled Corey as loud as he can be. “Gather the injured so the priest and the healers can heal them, let’s get a quick patrol set up and scouts as the angels finish off the attackers.”
Charlie kneeled so she could set Razzle down and heal his two wounds that have not sealed up yet, which worried her a lot. She didn’t know at all that holy angelic weapons could hurt them, her dad gave them the toughest dragon skin so barely anything could hurt them unless the weapons were crafted from dragon parts, and those alone are hard to come by and quite expensive.
Razzle let out a little noise and licked her hand when she finished healing him, Charlie smiled at him as he flew up and was pounced on in the air by Dazzle with a hug and a little tear in his eyes. Luckily, the cuts didn’t get close to his vitals, but it did stop their ability to self-heal if they ever did get wounded, even with her healing the wounds remained as light cuts.
“Charlie, you should go get some sleep,” hearing Corey’s voice startled her out of her thoughts and quickly stood up to look at him.
“Sir, I can help with the healing at least.”
“You look exhausted, which I’m not surprised with how many spells you cast and quite a few close calls. You at least deserve that much right now.” Seeing how she healed those wounds from her bodyguard seemed to have taken more magic out of her with how tired she looks now after tending to Razzle.
“Yeah, lass,” said Dain while he was taking off his plate armor that had a few dents and some blood on it. “Looks like you used quite a bit, just as how some of the other wizards over there look.” He pointed over to the nearby building where a small group of mages had chosen that building to lean against and all looked like they were out cold.
Charlie was not magic drained exhausted, but her whole body was telling her it was still physically tired. She felt conflicted but ended up letting them convince her to head back to her room and get some rest, getting some sleep would be better than wobbling around until passing out into exhaustion. After some good sleep she can come back and help after a good rest.
“Alright fine, you all win. I’ll go back and get some sleep,” said Charlie waving her hand at them and letting out a sigh that slowly turned to a yawn.
“Would you like someone to walk with you back just in case?” said one of the elf archers nearby.
“I should be fine getting there on my own, Razzle and Dazzle will be with me, so they’ll make sure I get back to my room. Thank you for the offer, I’ll come back over and help once I’m more rested.” Charlie waved goodbye and started walking back to the church, leaning a bit onto her staff as she slowly started using it as a walking stick.
Luckily no one bothered her on the way back, the town was still mostly empty other than the few that were assigned to patrol and inspect every nook and cranny if any demons sneaked in and are hiding. Once she made it to her room, she noticed that the sunrise was starting to show, which didn’t help her figure out how long the fight was since she didn’t even know what time she woke up.
Charlie didn’t have the energy to change out of her clothes and fell into her bed after setting her staff against the wall, falling asleep instantly and already lightly snorting as Razzle and Dazzle put a blanket over her.
-----------------------------------
Charlie didn’t expect to sleep through the whole day until it was time for dinner, she felt filthy and grabbed her soap and shampoo with a change of clothes and headed to the baths. It was quite lively in the church, and she somewhat didn’t pay attention to the exorcists when one walked by, just humming a little tune to herself, the exorcist stopped momentarily to stare at her for a moment.
“Are you Charlie?” Charlie let out a light yelped when she heard the voice, she turned to see that the angel landed on the ground and walked over to her.
“Um…yes, good mor- wait it’s not morning anymore it’s evening. Good evening,” said Charlie as she looked at the angel, she was wearing mostly chainmail armor and was holding her angelic spear. She was one of the first exorcists to have long hair down to her ankle, and despite her hair covering her right eye she can spot an eye patch hidden underneath. “If the high priest is looking for me, can you tell him to give me a minute to wash up? I just woke up and I really want to clean up after the fight last night.”
“Oh, no…he isn’t looking for you, I was. I’m the exorcist that was picked to escort you until this overlord mess gets taken care of, my name is Vaggie,” said the angel giving a slight nod of her head. “I guess that can explain why I couldn’t find you these past few hours.”
“Oh! I wasn’t told you were here; no one woke me up or told me,” said Charlie with a mixture of shock and excitement to finally meet Vaggie, she was quite nice. The meeting went much better than what she was expecting to happen on the first meeting “It’s nice to meet you too! But can you give me a moment to wash up? I don’t mean to be rude, but I didn’t get a chance to wash up after last night, I guess it worn me out more than I expected.”
“Of course, afterwards we can meet up and talk more on what your plans are and goals for the moment. I wasn’t told much about why you were here, I’ll wait outside the baths then,” said Vaggie thinking that will be easier to follow Charlie to wherever she was going next after the bathroom.
“You really don’t have to wait for me outside the bathroom,” Charlie started but seeing how Vaggie had the set look like she made her decision to wait, she slightly slumped her shoulders a bit and continued walking.
‘Well, at least she won’t follow me inside,’ thought Charlie but there went her plans to take a long soak in the baths. One of the things she has been quite enjoying those warm baths as much as she can until she was back on the road. “Alright, I shouldn’t take too long,” she said once she reached to the door and entered, Razzle and Dazzle stayed out with Vaggie at the front door and got comfortable on the floor and seemed to have fallen back asleep.
Vaggie stared at the 2 creatures a little curious how calm and relaxed they were, she assumed they would be on alert being near an angel. Feeling a little less tensed and feeling relieved, she felt a little tensed hearing about how violent they can be from what the priest and some of the mortal knights have shared stories.
---------------------
“As long you don’t hold any violence or intention to harm Charlie or worse, then you won’t be seen as a threat,” said Michael chuckling a little after hearing all Vaggie’s concerns. It was only a day after Michael chose her to travel with Charlie. “You should be qualified enough to assist Charlie and protect her.”
“Wouldn’t someone that’s been here longer and more trained to assist the Princess of hell? I’ve only been an angel not even 20 years, yet you chose me to…protect Charlie?”
“Are you doubting my decision here, young one?” Michael asked, giving a light chuckle seeing Vaggie quickly shaking her head and trying to mumble out sorry. “It’s fine child, I merely believe you can make proper decisions without worrying about the older angels, they are quite…stuck in their ways to believing dear Charlotte is like her father or the demons that get summoned to the living realm.”
“Isn’t…isn’t she?” said Vaggie sounding worried saying that out loud, she has heard plenty of the angels say a lot of negative things about her during her training with them.
“I would like for you to see for yourself, would the churches let her in the temple if she did half of what those rumors around here did? She is powerful, yes, but she hasn’t used her demonic powers these past 100 years so she isn’t as dangerous…but who knows what the demons that try to befriend her will do to convince her. She’s too trustworthy and as much estranged I am with my brother, one thing I do agree with him right now is that I don’t want any harm done to my niece, and I don’t want an angel finding a reason to point their weapon at her.”
“I wouldn’t dare do that,” said Vaggie startled from the end of Michael’s comment.
“I trust you will do your best once the 3 overlords are taken care of.”
“I will do my best to protect her!” said Vaggie giving a salute.
“Very good, you may go and get ready to leave as soon as possible.”
-------------------
“Alright, I’m done!” said Charlie loudly as she came out, startling Vaggie from her thoughts. “Let’s get something to eat once I put my stuff up,” Charlie handed her stuff to Dazzle as she used her towel to finish drying her hair before folding it, shew as wearing her comfort night clothes which was mostly a long sleeve white shirt and pants that show some wear and tear. It surprised Vaggie seeing how simple her clothes were, she assumed that Charlie would have much nicer clothes.
“W-wait,” stumbled Vaggie as she quickly sped walk to catch up with Charlie with how quick she was going from a quick walk to an almost light run. “Your highness, I don’t have long legs.”
“Oh, please don’t use formalities, I’m fine with you calling me Charlie, no calling me Highness nor Charlotte please,” said Charlie slowing down from her run. The hallways were more cleared out of people, so she didn’t have to worry about running into someone while heading to her room and quickly putting her stuff up. “But I am quite thankful how polite you are, I was expecting someone close to Adam.”
“Well…that was going to happen until Sir Michael got involved and changed who he assigned you to, I don’t know much about the details why he changed the spot to me…”
“Oh! If my uncle believes you are someone to trust to join me then I feel less worried,” said Charlie feeling relieved and letting out a light sigh.
“Are you not worried I might be sent to just be rude to you or find ways to get you to go back to hell?” Vaggie has met a few of the knights that mentioned their travels with Lucifer’s daughter, some have tried to get her to give up on her idea.
“If it was someone picked by Adam then yes, I would assume they would try to knock me down, even though my uncle and father don’t talk to each other much, they at least agree I shouldn’t deserve the same treatment like my father since I wasn’t there during the whole fiasco.” Though Charlie did wish more of their aunts and uncles thought the same, she knows a few treat her as kindly as Micheal has been during her time in the world of the living.
“So…how much longer are you going to stay here? And where are we going once we leave?” asked Vaggie as Charlie reached the mess hall and was heading to the kitchen.
“Well…the plan was to find someone in Andora to try and find someone that need help or looking for help, or wanting help to get their life back together, but that plan has changed. So, for now I think we should try and figure out where these overlords are hiding and get them back to hell before they cause anymore damage.” The memories she has of the few overlords are those showing her respect as Princess, but she has seen how some handled souls and how they treated some of the souls, even though her dad says it was their job to make sure they were giving them proper punishments…it always left a bad taste in her mouth.
“I know they can be worse than demons, so we need to try and find a lead to one of them.”
“They won’t be easy to find,” said Vaggie.
“Then let us plan our travel plans while eating supper and see if we can get a head start on the road tomorrow morning. We can try and follow the tracks on where the demons fled to.”
Vaggie gave her a comforting smile before Charlie ran into the kitchen, then let it drop to a light frown as she remembered one thing Michael told her.
“Don’t let them return to hell, if you have the chance, Kim loose overlords in the spot.”
————
Husk weakly opened his eyes and slowly sat up, it was noticeably quiet and was confused why he wasn’t woken up with a kick in the stomach. There was a shuffled noise and he instinctively looked up and was halfway getting into a sitting position until a small figure came to him. She was wearing a red dress with a white apron on that seemed to have a few stains on it already.
“The kitty is awake!”
Husk’s ears perked up on alert and his fur bristled and looked over to see such a small …girl? No, she looks like a child, but he can see some slight maturity of a young adult. Maybe, she was hard to read right now. “Who the hell are you?”
The small woman giggled. “My name is Niffty! You have been sleeping most the day away!”
Husk looked up to try and spot the sun and it was starting to set. “And I guess you’re the companion he drained me to passing out to get here?”
“Yes! He did tell me to get some food ready for you once you woke up, I cooked what I could find in what I believe was where the kitchen was.”
He didn’t notice he was in a different location where he last remembered before passing out until he fully looked around and saw the mess of tables, chairs and variety of utensils that seemed thrown around. Husk flinched when he saw his new form when his hands came into view when using a nearby table to help him get up on his feet.
Despite how messy everything was scattered, there wasn’t a blood spot anywhere to be seen on the floor or anywhere at all despite signs of a fight that happened with scattered slave collars.
“Where is Alastor?” Husk asked the demon as he walked over to the smell of food, Niffty has cleaned up the kitchen area…it looked much cleaner than it has been in years. There was also a table picked up with a chair set next to where Niffty was cooking, which also seemed to have been scrubbed.
“He’s been busy checking for a salvageable carriage, seems some got destroyed,” said Niffty standing on a stool so she can reach the top of the fire stove. Husk’s stomach growled once the smell of food hit his nose as soon as he slowly set himself down on the chair. “Most of the big ones he was eyeing at seem all broken, he wanted some time to think.”
Niffty set a couple plates on the table for Husk with silverware and he didn’t hesitate to start eating, despite his thoughts telling him he should check the food for poisoning, he was starving and still felt like his body had a rock tied on his back.
“Take it slow, no need to rush,” said Niffty setting a mug on the table too for him, he didn’t notice when she looked up and gave a little giggle seeing Alastor slowly walking over.
“Yes, do take it slow there, Husker,” Alastor chuckled seeing the car demon nearly choke on his food. “When you get done eating, we will be setting off, I would say pack your belongings…but you seem to not have much already.”
Husk grabbed the mug and drank down the water to clear his throat of the food. “Do you even know where to go?” Husk asked in between coughs and deep breaths.
“Not really, I don’t even know where I am in this forest, nor how long times has been up here since the last time it was alive. That is where you come in, good old pal! You seemed like someone who’s lived quite a while, so you’ll be assisting me in finding a place to get a certain carriage custom made and to find a map.”
“What are you going to do about this mess?” Husk waved his hand around their surroundings.
“I have no use for anything here, I got what I needed here which was a summoning and some start up money, no one here is going to need it anymore! And there’s plenty of it too!” Alastor snapped his fingers and a pile of coins appeared next to them with a few chests too. “We can just leave this as is, it can be the start of our marking of how the other black marketplaces will be at the end!”
“Is that why you wouldn’t let me pick up these weird collars, sir?” said Niffty looking at one of the collars. “I really want to pick them up!”
“Now, now dear, we need them to think that the slaves started an uprising. Which is why we’re only taking the money and the armors and weapons to sell for later.”
Husk gapped at the amount of money in front of them, he never saw that much collected all together. He knew this traveling market was big, he didn’t realize how much money was hidden. “I doubt that will be a high chance with how clean everywhere looks…angry slaves tend to not leave a tidy crime scene here.”
“I tried telling that to dear Niffty, but she really couldn’t last for 5 minutes,” sighed Alastor but patted Niffty’s head when she ran over to him with a pout.
“It can add to the mystery!”
“Indeed!”
Husk rubbed his forehead watching the 2 start laughing. “That’s all and well, but what are you planning to do with all this money? I will assist with what I can” As if he has a choice to say no now. “What is the start of your plan?”
“Well, we’re going to need a better carriage for traveling from town to town, staying away from people does not help on looking for information,” said Alastor pretending to wipe a tear from his eye. It will be much easier to find information with how many shadow minions he can summon now than before when he was once a regular human with more limits, he needs to evaluate to see how many shadows he can summon out unnoticed.
“Well, that will be hard with your appearance to get into towns. Even if somehow, you can pull off saying you’re a unique crossbreed of the deer race…and whatever, you’re still going to cause some suspicion.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not aiming big yet, we’ll start small. Besides, you can’t become a popular musician in just a day!”
Husk’s ears twitched in confusion from what he heard. “The hell you are talking about?” Husk asked. “What is being a musician help with anything?”
“Because we’ll be traveling as entertainers or those people that have bard abilities, but you don’t need to be a bard to start your own crew! I used to only play solo, but with the extra company I’ll have to make some changes.” Alastor got up and walked over to Husk and patted him on the shoulder. “Now that you seem done and it’s early evening, let’s be on our way! The stage is set and it’s time to start the show!”
Alastor didn’t flinch when Niffty climbed up from his legs to perch on top of his head, beaming with excitement as Husk quickly got up and followed behind and walked to the carriage he got together and ready. Two shadow minions shaped like horses were already tackled and hooked to the carriage while a medium size was sitting in the coach seat holding the reins.
Time is of the essence!
Notes:
I tend to forget how busy working at a college can be the closer it gets to August so posting might be off here and there once things settle (hopefully) hope you guys enjoyed it!
Zero (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 06 Jun 2024 04:20AM UTC
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Zero (Guest) on Chapter 7 Thu 01 Aug 2024 06:46AM UTC
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