"This place is nice." I looked around at the sparse tavern.

The place was nice as I said, I mean a little seedy but the whole city was like that. Upon entering, some shady purple-skinned demon approached me and wanted to sell me a vestal virgin, whatever that was. I did recall the name Vesta from some ancient tomes. I think it was an old goddess, which would make the virgin a priestess of some sort.

"Is it not to your liking my lord?" Etragos, seated to my left asked, sheepishly.

"It is nice, don't get me wrong, a nice place." I lied.

The place was a bit of a dump. A dive bar would be the most apt description. But I wasn't going to say that out loud. It was passable and honestly, I wasn't a very upscale person in my human life.

"That is good my lord." He said and I'm pretty sure he didn't notice the flat-out lie.

I looked around, noticing several demons of every shape or form. We were seated at the bar, the chairs were perfect for my size and accommodated my tail and wings.

Looking around I noticed a giant demon to my right. He was of similar form to me, but much larger. He had red skin, horns, a spade-tipped tail and bat-like wings. Unlike my toned stomach, he had an impressive set of abs.

All in all, he just seemed like a perfect specimen, handsome actually. I briefly wondered why I was thinking this. I mean I had no interest in men before, but now. It was too weird to contemplate, so I shelved it.

Based on his appearance, he was far more powerful than me. I quickly activated wizard's sight and took note of his aura. The demon was glowing like a sun, almost outshining a similar aura to his right.

Glancing over I noticed a smaller duplicate of the big demon. Now that seemed strange to me, but all of this was strange to begin with.

"My lord, it is a fourth order, do you know this greater demon?" Etragos whispered in my ear.

I shook my head in the negative. I'm pretty sure Etragos and the others thought I was a greater demon. Hopefully, he doesn't take note of the size difference.

The greater demon was sipping on a hot beverage, probably this Denubian drink they mentioned. His double was chatting to another demon just out of sight.

Working up the courage I spoke. "How's the drink?" I casually asked.

Perked up, he turned to me with a truly malicious look. My human sensibilities told me so, but another part of me saw it as just a normal smile.

"It packs quite the punch, like one hundred cups of coffee and vodka." He gestured to the beverage.

I had no clue what either of those was, but resolved to give the drink a try. I gestured to the barkeep with a handful of tokens, Etragos gave me. "Two Denubian Choco-Coffee TM, for me and my friend." I gestured to Etragos and he flinched at the words.

While I awaited our drinks, I reached out, offering a hand to the demon. "The name is Asmordis, what's yours friend?" I asked.

The demon seemed to ponder the offered hand but eventually relented. Engulfing my entire appendage with his own. "Tom." He said simply, having a surprisingly simple name for a supposed fourth-order demon.

"Unusual name for a demon." I blurted out without thinking.

He shrugged, a very human gesture. "It's my name, I'm stuck with it." He chuckled, turning back to his associates. "This is Boggy and Rupert." He gestured to his friends.

The smaller demon peaked his head around, he did look like a smaller copy of Tom. Was he a family member? Did demons even have families? I wondered that as the demon spoke.

"Hi, I'm Rupert, woah your wearing clothes, isn't that constricting?" The demon spoke akin to a child, which was odd given his size.

Then again, I don't know anything about demon children. Despite being a competent conjuror and a novice researcher of demonkind. I still knew very little about their ecology. I smiled, realising I was on the front line of research.

"Nice to meet you Rupert, Boggy. Yes I prefer clothing, but nudity is not an issue, especially in the Abyss." I gestured around us and then suddenly realised I was being rude. "This is Etragos." I introduced the oddly shy demon.

"Greetings great one." He performed a slight bow of respect.

"Just call me Tom." The greater demon quickly corrected, with an equally shy grin.

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I turned to Etragos and shrugged as if that was his prerogative. "Etty, is that you?" A shrill voice spoke from Tom's side.

Looking over, I noticed it was the demon named Boggy, I vaguely recalled a similar name. The gangly second order looked our way, eyes wide and locked to Etragos.

"Boggy, nice to see you." Etragos greeted politely, waving a hand.

"Well haven't seen you in a long time. In fact, do you know what happened to your companions, Astra and Kal? They left me high and dry." The demon complained, jokingly.

The situation clicked in my head and I realised exactly what was going on. "That's my fault." I raised a placating hand in the air. "I summoned the pair and now it makes sense why the two were drunk when they arrived." I chuckled, shaking my head with another mystery solved.

The demon Boggy raised a finger and made an oh sound. "That explains why the lads up and vanished, just when we were getting to have some fun." He downed his drink, stood up and came over to Etragos side. "What have you been up to these days?" He asked the demon patting him on the back.

Etragos shrugged, gesturing to me. "Not much since my accursed master died, now I'm working for Lord Asmordis and we had grand old time fighting off an invading army." He went on to regal the demon and the two sank into discussion.

I turned back to the greater demon Tom and looked towards the smaller version of him. My curiosity got the better of me and I had to speak.

"I must say, you bear a striking resemblance to each other. It's uncanny." I blurted without thinking. A habit I had yet to break.

The greater demon gave a half smile, glancing back at the smaller demon. Rupert, as he was named, grinned widely, happy about something.

"He's my father." The Rupert demon declared proudly, joyously even.

I was stunned for a split second, before getting my bearings and processing what he just said. I guess that answered a question about demons and having children. I wondered who the mother was, perhaps another demon, a powerful female greater demon. Or was the mother a human? But that was preposterous given the size differences.

"Did that demon just call you lord? Are you a demon lord?" Rupert rattled off a question.

Titling my head, I pondered how I should answer. Technically I was a mid-level third order, a major demon to be precise. Generally, our kind was treated as powerful weapons in war. Fourth orders like Tom were the true demon lords, at least according to historical records.

"Yes, sort of." I answered non-committally. "I do have some minions, if you can call them that. Does that make me a demon lord?" I shrugged, not knowing the answer.

"Cool." The boy exclaimed, turning to his father. "Can I get some minions dad?" He pleaded and they did look like a typical father and son duo.

"Maybe when your older." Tom suggested, eliciting a sour look.

I took a sip of my beverage and I didn't mind the bitter taste. Satisfied, I felt a bit giddy and open. I turned back to the father and son duo and decided to strike up a casual conversation.

"So what brings you to this neck of the woods?" I asked, unable to keep a smile off my face.

"That is a long story, you?" Tom gestured back.

"A long story as well, how about we swap stories? If that's okay with you?"

"Sure." He agreed, rather easily.

Were fourth orders this laid back, it seemed to contradict everything known about them. Of course, this was all conjecture from old tomes and long-ago history. Besides, demons can be formerly human in my case. I wonder if he is the same, but I shouldn't pry.

"Well I guess I will start." I began.

I explained the situation in Castle Wildhold, the siege and how my minions and I repelled the invaders. Ended up with a lot of loot and are waiting on our fellow demons to unload the stuff at the market.

"You got summoned to defend a castle from an enemy army?" Tom's eyes were wide.

"Yes." I nodded.

"What a coincidence, that's exactly why I was summoned. Only your summoner sounds far more reasonable then Lenamare the Great." He took a swig of his drink and turned to smirk at his son.

"Lenamare the Great, don't recognise the name." I wondered aloud.

"You don't want to meet him, he has an ego the size of New Jersey." He said and I mouthed the unfamiliar name.

"Probably even bigger, I attended his school so I should know." Rupert chimed in and I perked up at that.

"You attended a wizards school?" I asked.

"Yeah, I was planning to become conjuror and summon my dad. But Lenamare beat me to it." The demon boy explained and I paused for a moment.

"How exactly does a demon attend a wizards school?"

"Well I didn't always look this, I'm half demon and before I met my dad, I looked human most of my life." The child explained, excitedly.

I guess that solved the riddle of his child, but still didn't explain how he was able to do the deed with his size. But then a thought occurred, Rupert just mentioned he could shapeshift, does that mean demons can too? I wondered if I could do that, perhaps reclaim my human form.

I gestured for them to continue and the pair spun a mighty tale. This Lenamare the Great summoned Tom to defend his keep from a rival's invading army. Very similar to my own set of circumstances.

"Then he blew up his whole school with a nuclear blast." Tom explained and I learned another odd term.

"Nuclear blast?" I asked, perplexed.

The demon thought for a moment, scratching his chin with those deadly claws. "It's an explosion that uses nuclear material, like plutonium." He answered my question, with more unfamiliar terms.

I shrugged and continued. "So what happened after he blew his tower up?"

The pair continued and explained how Jehenna, Lenamares associate summoned Tom during a caravan attack. Her control ring failed and after defeating the attackers, Tom escorted Rupert and some wizard named Jenn. They got captured by the besiegers and had to open a portal to the Abyss.

The depiction of those cool spells they used to keep their human associates alive, intrigued me. But when they mentioned that Tom could somehow hijack a demon summoning and open a portal, I was again baffled. I would file those two tidbits for later research.

"We ended up in this place called Gizzor Del and had to take a ship back to Norelon and hoofed it back to Freehold." Tom explained, tilting his head to the side in thought.

"Freehold?" I wondered aloud.

I didn't recognise any of these places, I wondered if it might be a different world or even localverse.

"Yes when we got their, the place came under siege by the Rod of Tiernon and Oorstemoth. Now we are here and waiting for a friend." The pair finished their tale and I honestly had more questions than answers.

"A lot of besieging going on." I casually mentioned.

"There sure is." Tom agreed.

"Well, cheers to being free, at least for the time being." I raised my mug and they did so as well. All in all, it was a good day or whatever time it was in this place.