***The Infernal Plane of Lust***

***Amon***

The warband's large dining hall was in full attendance and filled to the brim with bodies. It surprised me that our people had somehow managed to occupy our regular table, but Jebril and Uphir were apparently enough to ward away anyone who might have shown interest in the free seats. The stronger demons who might have bested them apparently had their seating elsewhere.

I pulled out an unused chair for myself and sat down, trying to ignore the demoness who stood next to me pouting like a little child. The others took their seats and looked at me with long faces as if I was somehow responsible for Isabella’s newest problem.

The attention grew too uncomfortable, so I threw a sideways glance at Isabella who was waiting for something while looking at me with crossed arms. I knew very well what she wanted, but the problem was that in my mind we just weren’t like that.

Since Isabella was the only one who was left standing in our area of the dining hall, we soon drew the attention of other demons, which caused me to falter in my conviction. The last thing I wanted right now was a scene in front of the entire warband, so I pulled out the free chair next to me. “Please, sit.”

Isabella immediately sat down and smiled. “That could have gone better, but I knew that you would get it sooner or later!”

“I got it from the very beginning…” I muttered to myself. I just wasn’t willing to play the gentleman for her. Those antics were something for mortal breeding rituals.

Isabella ignored my mutterings and tried to inconspicuously entangle her tail with mine, which I prevented by flicking mine away from hers.

While playing her game of catch the tail, I absent-mindedly studied the hall for clues on what was going on.

Demons sat at their tables or stood at free spaces against the walls. Those imps who had wings hung from the ceiling, while the wingless ones and demonlings scurried between our feet, searching for food that had fallen to the floor. I chose to ignore that latter part, because the pitter-patter of hundreds of tiny claws on the tiles reminded me of the hatchery, and therefore turned my attention to the hall's changed layout.

Somehow, somebody had used spacial magic to add several upper floors with a perfect view on a large pedestal that was now the central stage of our gathering.

I studied the complicated runework that was inscribed on the upper ranks, making out some illusion magic. Or was I mistaken and had those upper floors always been there, hidden by magic? If so, it was expertly done, because I had never noticed a thing, believing this to be just a simple dining hall.

My wandering thoughts were interrupted when Ebandon entered the scene, slowly climbing his way up the pedestal as if he had all the time in the world.

As if commanded, every demon present went completely silent, which was impressive in itself since almost the entire warband must have been assembled in this hall. Demons didn't like to follow another's rules or to shut up in general, so I was a little daunted that Ebandon commanded such respect among his people.

So far I hadn't seen much of him aside from him spending all his time in his office, but he clearly wasn't one to be easily ignored. His frame spoke of power and his demeanour oozed confidence in everything he did. Either that, or he just didn't give a fuck about what others thought of him. Which was only reasonable, since he had achieved a social station in demon society that was just barely beneath that of a Lord. Few would dare to challenge him for that fact alone.

Ebandon had reached his place in the spotlight while I was sizing him up. He patted his rugged leathers for something, looking somewhat lost as he frowned, displeased for some reason.

An imp popped into existence and handed him a sheet of paper – which he snatched with a dissatisfied grunt. Our leader straightened out the sheet while the imp disappeared in a puff of smoke just in time to avoid the boot that would have kicked him off the stage a second later.

“What's with the imps?” I wondered not for the first time since I had met the man.

“It's the unique magic of his evolution,” Isabella whispered at my side, drawing glaring eyes from other tables around ours. She apparently didn't want to continue the Faux pas of speaking, and knocked onto our mental connection, sending me her thoughts, “Legion. The man can contract any number of lesser demons and summon them as he pleases. If he wished to, thousands of imps and weaker evolutions would be at his beck and call in an instant. The only downside is that he is the one who has to pay the soul-price should they die in his service.”

I managed not to curse aloud. The man was a one-man army as long as he had enough contracts and souls banked up. If he ever achieved the status of a Planar Lord and could rely on the Anima Stone Network's income of souls, he would be unstoppable. Which was likely already the case, given that he was the leader of a very successful warband. No wonder that he was held in such high regard among his minions.

Ah, and I probably shouldn't forget that I was currently one of those minions for the foreseeable future. Maybe I should grovel a little more in his presence? Although, that went completely against my nature. I just wasn't cut out to be a follower.

Ebandon finally cleared his throat after he had studied his note for over a minute. “Let me start this meeting with some minor issues...” He looked up, locking eyes with someone on the upper floors. “A certain ‘person’ suggested introducing something called a worker's council.” His eyes drifted back down to the paper. “Be assured that I've taken my time to investigate this concept, which apparently came from some mortal dimension...”

He scratched his ass in a bored manner. “I've come to the conclusion that we don't need such a thing. Thank me, because now you won't have to bother listening to this certain someone talking about his not-so-brilliant ideas. I took care of that one personally.

“Then there is the issue with the toilets in the warband's cafetaria. I think all of you remember that I threatened dire harm to anyone who caused damage or made them dirty unnecessarily. I am not paying the staff to waste time cleaning up your messes, no matter how powerful of a warrior anyone might think he – or she – is. I am running a proper mercenary business here, and not some run-down 'thugs for hire' group like the Locusts from the first floor...”

I practically felt my eyes glaze over as I zoned out while listening to our revered leader's hang-ups regarding toiletry, social behaviour among the warband, and the warband's latest balance in souls thanks to an increasing number of contracts. Which was apparently related to the rift-event that had involuntarily transferred thousands of refugees from Gluttony to this region.

Most had already been hunted down by the slavers, but the rest still caused disturbances in the form of marauding groups that knew no rule nor leadership.

I so totally had nothing to do with that… so I sank down in my chair, hoping that nobody would connect the rift with me and my group. The worst thing was that causing a dimensional rift that sucked up a large portion of Baaar wasn’t even part of the plan. The intention was to fight our way as far into the tournament as possible and to escape with whatever amount of souls I managed to gather.

In case of getting close enough, the ultimate fruition of the plan would have been to destabilize the Lode Stone’s runework with the stick of doom that I had enchanted with the most powerful magical interruptions I could gather from my souls at the time. I figured causing the Lode Stone to destabilize would cause an enormous explosion, killing me and most of the other competitors – therefore giving me loads of souls beneath the bottom line.

Who knew that it would open a dimensional rift that would suck me directly into the fangs of a succubus?

My attention returned to Ebandon who was still complaining.

For the Infernum's sake! The man ran a warband large enough to rival a legion and not some mortal industrial enterprise with mortals who couldn't be trusted to clean up their own messes. But then again, how else could such issues be handled if not addressing them?

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It appeared that taking care of a bunch of immortal demons was just as bad as having to reign in a posse of assembly line workers. Very powerful assembly workers who likely thought that they could do as they pleased as long as the boss didn't learn of it.

I wanted to jump up and scream, then run for the hills since I felt like nothing of this truly concerned me. But nobody else dared to move, and I didn't either because I didn't want to be the odd one out, which would have drawn the attention of the entire warband.

So I sat and endured what couldn't have been more than a few minutes of threats against my life, should I be caught doing any of the things that Ebandon had hang-ups with – like spilling guts in the hallways. He was clearly a neat-freak if keeping his headquarters clean was one of his top priorities.

Unfortunately for me, it felt like hours until he finally stopped harping about a certain incident that got one of the kitchen-staff imps flushed down a toilet. The imp dying and losing a soul wasn’t so much the issue as the indignity of the affair.

I was only glad that I wasn’t one of the peons who had to visit the public bathrooms. Thanks to Isabella our group had jumped over that step of our career.

Nobody said it, but even as an outsider I was almost certain that the toilet-incident wasn't an unfortunate accident like all involved parties asseverated.

“...and then we can finally get to the true reason of why I decided to call for this meeting!” Ebandon looked up from his paper and directly at me, causing my heart to sink down into my belly.

Had I done something wrong again? Had Ostreios somehow tracked me down and sent word? Or was it… I just beat up a single teacher and he was hale long since – at least I thought so. I wouldn't take responsibility for any of the guy's mental issues.

Then I realized that Ebandon wasn't looking so much at me, as at my group. Or rather, who was sitting with us at our table – Jada.

Isabella's sister smiled and waved at Ebandon, making it clear that she was the source of his ire.

I sighed in relief, knowing that Jada was something like the Ashborn family's messenger girl. She had probably brought Ebandon some dire news – which was her reason for being here in the first place.

Ebandon shuddered visibly and scrunched up his note, throwing it to the floor. Why he even needed one with a demon's memory escaped my understanding. Was it to make a point? Or did his imps compile it for him before he entered the stage?

“As you all know, there is a larger war going on, involving several Demon Lords from this plane. So far, we have been spared the repercussions thanks to this city's vicinity to Ashborn Castle. We largely hid behind the Ashborns' perceived neutrality in this conflict, even if the succubi officially sided with Demon Lord Khorne's legions. That is the guy who proclaimed his desire to take over all of Lust – if any of you mollycoddled demonlings remember. Unfortunately, a messenger from Lady Ashborn arrived earlier this morning.”

I looked towards Jada, but Isabella's sister gave off no hint at the severity of her message.

“It appears that politics no longer allow the Ashborns to take a back-seat. We got a contract from Lady Ashley herself to aide Khorne's legions with the goal of breaking the stalemate between him and his enemies – just the same as several other warbands who operate in this region. The message apparently went out to everyone who has affiliations with the succubi. It seems like the Ashborns decided to throw souls at ‘their’ problem.”

I perked up. Did that mean that I would get to eat more tongues and kill people? It had been some time since I got to see some real action. On my last outing, all I could do was to run like prey.

Isabella suddenly hissed next to me and shot a glare at her sister. Then the two females started whispering in a rapid-fire staccato that made it impossible to understand a single word. Their break of conduct was covered by more muttering among the crowd.

“I know that I have long since avoided getting my warband mixed up in large-scale conflicts, which simply aren't profitable from my point of view. But rest assured that I saw to it that we wouldn't be used as cannon fodder. It will be our task to guard some rear positions and convoys while Khorne's legions do most of the actual fighting and dying. Which doesn't mean that we won't see some action ourselves. War is unpredictable like that, and sadly largely unprofitable.

“As for why we are taking the contract in the first place, there are various reasons. Like the continued stability of the region or our affiliations with the Ashborns...”

***The Infernal Plane of Lust***

***Isabella***

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked Jada in our family's secret tongue, a language that was only spoken among the succubi of our bloodline. “I thought that Mother would see to it that Khorne’s war would be as exhausting as possible! Why is she helping him now?”

Jada frowned and admonished me, “Don’t be a naive child. She should have trained that out of you a few decades ago. The truth is that playing the trustworthy neutral party and possible ally works only for so long. The status quo was already left untouched over the course of several months. At some point, our dear Mother had to take sides, even if it just means paying off a few mercenaries to fight on Khorne’s behalf. Words alone wouldn’t have kept Khorne’s attention away from us any longer.”

“But this isn’t a case of just a few mercenaries, or showing some token support!” I rebutted. “If she really hired all the mercenary warbands in Irkos, that’s several legions worth of powerful soldiers, some of them Demon Lord material if they had the desire to rule. All of them veterans who have changed the course of wars in the past! We need more time. Amon just isn’t ready yet.”

My sister sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose. “Look, little sis, whatever your ultimate plan was, you should have known that betting some green contender against someone like Khorne wouldn’t work. Amon is great, a good choice for what I think you had in mind. If you can get him hooked to you, though it seems like he is a wily one. I admit that your guy shows incredible potential and growth, but at the rate he is going right now he would need another hundred years of training – which is still incredible. But you just don’t have that much time no matter what we do.”

I shivered, knowing that she was right but not wanting it to be true. But there was no other choice. “I am committed to my plan. Either it works or Khorne takes both of us once he finds out.”

“You know that if her hand was forced, Mother would rather fight than watch Khorne hurting you.” Jada squeezed my shoulder, clearly wanting me to know that if it came down to it the whole family would fight – and likely pay a heavy price.

“I am aware, but I wouldn’t allow it to come to that,” I replied somewhat sullenly. “I don’t want any of you to die for me.”

We shared a moment of uncomfortable silence before Jada tried to cheer me up. “And who knows? Maybe being thrown into a war is just the thing Amon needs to develop his abilities. Your boy-toy is certainly drooling over the prospect.” She pointed past me with a grin.

I turned around, just to find Amon grinning with excitement at the prospect of imminent carnage, which made me a little sad for him. Picking him on a whim and commencing with my plan by flying by the seat of my pants might not have been my best idea, but I was committed now, pledged as I was.

He had no idea what the future truly held for him, but I would make sure that he had one hell of a ride with me and no regrets.