Epochē - PoV - Kingdom of Darius - Northern reaches
The sense of her magic shattering caused Epochē to halt with the dagger just breaking the surface of Hades’ skin. Despite the trickle of golden ichor spreading across his stomach, the Olympian didn’t flinch away from her gaze.
The golden script that blazed into Epochē’s awareness made her hiss just as she’d returned her attention to him. Farhad has slain Raivo but fled the battlefield to climb Immortal heights. The spoils go to Fenris and Tyr’s servant to split between them.
“Oh, you idiot. I told you to stay well away from Fenris. You were asking to be destroyed by fighting her and tangling with a Celestial—what a waste. Well, no matter,” huffed Epochē and shoved the blade into Hades's heart.
As the Greek God of the Underworld died, she felt her Domain shifting in the fashion she’d long planned out through her dormant Mantle. “At last, I’ll be free of the Abyss as well. I wonder if the Titan named a Plane after you Hades because he liked you or to remind him of those he planned to trap?”
Looking at the mummified body in front of her, she leaned in and kissed his lips. In the pendant around her neck, War’s call continues to pulse, seeking to spread its infection through the minds of gods and mortals alike.
When her actions caused the fragile remains to collapse into dust, Epochē howled in laughter. The sound echoing through the town emptied of life by Hades’ troops before the spells from Epochē’s hags and an onslaught of her manes and gnarls shock troops slaughtered them.
An ancient Night Hag, shrouded in shadows wrought from centuries of harvested pain and misery, let the door to Epochē’s borrowed chamber open with a gentle push of her taloned fingers. Her long tresses of green hair, a curtain that continued until mid-torso, hid her craggy features well. Indeed, they were far more effective in concealing what they covered than the mildewed rags of tunic and skirt beneath the shadows.
“The manes want to move on to slaughter the city as well, Lady Epochē. Should I continue to hold the Shaman in check?”
“Let them move to attack but don’t support them. The defenders are strong enough to deal with them. Ensure there are enough hints of my name and nature among their possessions to spread the fear.”
Epochē’s instruction had the Hag shift her weight unhappily as she moved off, only to stop and, with a moment’s hesitation, look back. Even as she turned, her shadow continued walking and stretched away from her, drawing thinner as it did.
“Does that announcement require any adjustments to the plan?”
“Yes, my little sister of fear, send me a few gnarls. With Raivo destroyed, I’ll have to take care of seeding some half breeds of my own. I want to ensure I have pawns in play to stir future conflicts as needed.”
Amdirlain’s PoV—Maze
True Sight washed away the dense shadows allowing Amdirlain to take in all the details that the dull lighting hid. The beautiful flowers and ripe fruit are a temptation to stay, relax, and meditate, but it was a temptation she ignored. Given the millennia the others had spent within the maze, finding a way out was not a priority—it was the priority.
The grey-white stone of the corridor met the chamber’s ceiling towards its peak. Where the hall and chamber joined was a simple curved archway decorated with carvings of roses, marking the threshold of her room.
With the shadows no longer obscuring sight, it was clear the corridor quickly turned away, and Amdirlain headed out to explore. The rough stone underfoot is far different from her assigned room’s lush grass and soft earth. Activating Ki State prevented the stone from rubbing her feet raw but, in a quick test of shifting direction, had the tattoos’ strange weight moving suspiciously.
Still, while every passage she found was large enough for a Fire Giant to travel along, none went in a straight line for long. Their twists and turns left uneven spaces for the dead ends of other halls to nestle within, though none of the pathways she initially tried led to another chamber.
Despite the fragrant blooms in her room, there weren’t any odours or sounds as she explored the maze. She followed the twisting curves through crossroads and T-junctions, turn after turn, mapping out her course by noting every choice and looking back frequently to memorise her return path’s appearance.
Tremor Sense sometimes showed chambers near, but finding her way to them was another matter. Her path twisted away from one promising hollow after another, and the vibrations from her deliberately echoing footsteps more often faded into solid rock.
Rounding a bend, Amdirlain stopped to regard an archway ahead. The stone was indistinguishable from the walls, the archway itself was completely unmarked stone. Beyond was an uneven path of river stones set into fallow earth. Only a few metres away, it looked like a rich brown loam, ripe for growth, churned with compost and dug up for a fresh planting, but there wasn’t any odour.
True Sight showed her nothing at the threshold, but she approached it carefully. A brief thought that death would likely set her back into her room wasn’t a comfort, but Precognition warned of no dangers ahead. The chamber beyond the threshold curved away, and the stepping stones arced wide along the chamber’s course until they disappeared from view.
The smells and sounds hit her when she moved to the first steppingstone. The room’s odour contained fallow soil and mulch in the moisture-laden air. With it came a loud splashing from around the path’s bend. Lifted by Ki Flight, she floated along the visible curve of the wall, keeping alert for any danger. Her precautions proved unnecessary when she spied the chamber’s far end.
The chamber’s shape curved like a kidney bean reaching nearly twenty-five metres at its longest point. The room contained more turned soil and stepping stones, with no obstructions until a pool at the far end. A stream of water cascaded down a tiered rock face at the back before it plunged the last four metres to froth the pool’s water. The crystal-clear water away from the foam allowed her to see the pool’s bottom, its depth mostly like her own—it might reach past her knees in some places. Despite the volume of water streaming in, the pool’s level didn’t change.
Though it was bare of the foliage that Mirage had described, the chamber still looked eerily like the description of her long time home. Amdirlain became sure of it when a shadow behind the waterfall deepened in True Sight. Skirting the fall’s edge, she crouched, slid behind the water, and wiggled inside.
Meticulous drawings and portraits covered the walls of the hidey-hole; worn pebbles carefully shaved to leave remnants behind used to set each in place. Amdirlain looked over carefully drawn illustrations and found familiar faces.
“What happened to Mirage’s trees?”
Heading back out, she continued onwards and slowly found more chambers. Each stripped of foliage, but some showed features that matched the stories the others had told. The occurrence of hunger was a surprise and prompted a return to her chamber.
Ki Movement sped her along the passages so quickly that sometimes she ran high along the walls or flipped from one to another to make a turn. The first time the weight in the tattoos threw off her balance within a flip, she’d put it down to coincidence; the second time, her suspicions grew.
Now Amdirlain was certain the brands contained deliberate malice and wondered how Orhêthurin had lived with them for so long. Had she been deaf to the effect, or were their results so minor that they hadn’t been able to throw her off-balance in the same way?
Rising, Amdirlain slipped her dress free and tied it around her waist, the cloth just long enough to fashion a loose sash. Inventory not working here was just one of the niggling annoyances among her locked powers.
Ki State had lessened most of the recent damage, but a freeway speed collision with stone had left bones broken. It was only when the last bones finished healing that she ran again. Picking up the pace slowly, she selected from the growing paths she knew. The echoing pulse of her running let Tremor Sense map out more of the maze.
In a test, she flipped from one wall to another at a slower speed, and though the tattoos itched, their uneven-balance stayed consistent. With deliberate care, she looped around, pushed her pace higher, and kept running while the itching grew more annoying. Three loops, then four, below her maximum speed, did nothing more than provide irritation.
The instant she raced forward, going full speed, legs a blur of motion and Ki Movement added in, the vines coiled within her flesh. At first, they did nothing, but she had the growing sense of them waiting to strike. When she finally committed to a path that required her to manoeuvre dangerously, the tattoos shifted forcefully to throw her off balance.
Instead of fighting it, Amdirlain turned into the shift and flipped the opposite way completely. Now heading away from the direction she’d planned, she landed on the ceiling, running along the other passage. The tattoos thrashed themselves about, and Amdirlain, riding within Precognition’s hold, had fractions of seconds to adjust.
Icy nails of pain raced up along her spine, and iron scented the air when their tips of growth breached her skin. The pressure of her muscles and flesh contouring around the thorns had her gritting her teeth, and still she ran. She migrated from the ceiling to a curving wall before reaching the ground again. Through all her manoeuvring, the thorns grew, their weight shifted, trying to hamper her into a dangerous misstep.
It was the pain of thousands of bone splinters squeezed up through every breach they made; gravel rash laced with salt and two hundred proof alcohol poured into an open gut wound, with a molten lead encore. With the next course, things got nasty. The speed caused them to vibrate, humming through her bones like they were trying to yank each one from her flesh. The blood that had trickled across her skin became a stream.
Thorns spearing upwards from her thighs tried to gut her as she ran, but Amdirlain snapped them, even when each regrew, without dropping speed. Their growth impeded her movements more and more, yet she pushed faster towards her space. The thorns scratching after stone didn’t leave a mark but repeatedly threatened her balance.
I’d want to gut the cunts that sung this if they weren’t already long dead.
I will not give in to them.
Her path delivered her back to her home chamber, and she looped around the walls before spinning free to land on the pool’s edge. Within the water, her reflection showed a bizarre monster of thorns, blood, and serrated flesh. Holding herself still, Amdirlain cycled Ki, counting each cycle until the thorns finally withdrew, letting her flesh heal.
[Ki Movement [M] (40->41)
Protean [M] (52->53)
Tremor Sense [J] (10->13)
Mental Hardening [S] (16->17)
Pain Tolerance [Ad] (33->35)]
Nice to see that doing stupid stuff has the regeneration aspect of Protean progressing.
When the last thorn retracted, her skin was glowing gold, and she untied the dress from around her waist and held it up. Thorns had left it a cut, pierced, blood-soaked mess, and Amdirlain rolled her eyes before she tossed it off one side.
And this Amdirlain is why you can’t have nice things.
“Back to hurting myself and celebrating the gains; Elliyna would be disappointed,” Amdirlain said aloud, simply to hear the words echo within the chamber.
Without the thorns’ distraction, hunger pangs provided a reminder of why she’d returned in the first place. All the empty chambers lacked the food this one offered, and she hadn’t wanted to use a Psi technique with the offered juiciness of this fruit. The green apple’s selection was immediate for its familiarity, and the taste was what she expected. But the message that appeared when her teeth crunched into a green apple certainly wasn’t.
[Resistance Poison [I] (6 -> 7)]
Underneath its bitter-sweet taste was something else, and she spat out the juices before she could swallow them.
Seriously what the fuck! My food’s poisoned?
Analysis
[Fruit of the Maze
Details: An apple from Amdirlain’s room.
In other words, they are not telling.
Holding it away, she considered her bite marks and the fruit’s exposed flesh with True Sight, but there wasn’t a glimmer of magic. With Crafter’s Insight, the Psi technique revealed what lay within.
The fruit would sustain her, but it would cause fading memories and the years to drift.
While it might be a blessing for some trapped in here for endless years, Amdirlain wasn’t eager to indulge in fruit formed by an aspect of Oblivion.
A flick cast the apple beneath its tree and the ground quickly absorbed it; as it submerged, she spun to seek her dress. Fortunately, it hadn’t disappeared, still laying atop the grass, but with the blood whisked from it. When she lifted it from the ground, she found the cloth was still pierced and cut but was slowly recovering. Leaving it to whatever process was reversing the damage, she knelt by the pool’s edge and cleaned herself off. Her Inventory’s non-functional state made washing necessary for the first time in far longer than she cared to consider.
As she cleaned herself up, she applied a Psi technique to herself that she had only ever practised on training constructs. She’d learnt it for two reasons: one, in case she found someone starving, and secondly, as a base for its more dangerous variant, which she hadn’t yet learnt.
With a combination of Psychometabolism and Metacreativity, Sustenance eased the growling in her stomach. The technique read the target’s nutritional needs and created a paste-like material straight into its stomach; it was a technique that the infirmary’s psi-skins maintained continually during a patient’s healing. The advanced technique read a living organism and then produced materials that would either make it sick or kill it, depending on her need.
“Brands on my Soul showing and behaving as if living things, and my body needing food. Soul made flesh or part of the prisoner maintenance system?” grumbled Amdirlain as she let the technique work.
By the time the hunger was gone, the dress had finished mending and collecting it, and Amdirlain moved to investigate her hiding place. Like Mirage’s waterfall retreat, it reached far into the wall, though hers had a completely smooth wall untouched by artwork. Tucking the dress inside, she glanced down at herself and shook her head; while the tattoo’s coverage was extensive, it hardly counted as clothes.
Teleport placed her back at the furthest point she’d explored so far, and she didn’t hesitate to continue. Yet another bare room followed others with varying foliage. In all of them, her True Sight showed no one hidden, and the Aura Sight technique just showed the life force around the plants she found.
Crafter’s Insights delivered the same verdict on the food source present in each, sustenance to ease the stomach and the burden of captivity. Hours stretched out and she sensed Protean’s regeneration wash fatigue away. Food wasn’t the only thing her body needed now.
When she finally found the staircase after days spent fruitlessly exploring blind pathways and empty chambers, it wasn’t entirely what she’d expected. Instead of only the expected paired staircases, another corridor was across the room, stretching for a half-kilometre or more. Where it joined the room showed hints that True Sight was peering through something, and turning it off, the change was instant.
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The chamber plunged into near-complete darkness, and a blank stone wall blended seamlessly with the rest. The staircases at least held no surprises. One led up, and another set led down. Those leading down ended in an archway with the mosaic boundary that Ebusuku had described just beyond it. The short staircase upwards ended in a blank stone door that matched Sage’s description of the seal when a trial wasn’t in progress. Reactivating, True Sight shunted the illusion aside but looking between another plain grey-white hall and the stairs down, Amdirlain went for option two and started down the stairs.
[Warning: Multiple life paths detected in approaching entity
The trial decision pathway is unstable.]
Sage said it put him back in his room, so if I fuck up, I can be back here quickly to try the corridor.
The first square showed a scene she wasn’t expecting rather than her first life. It showed the first sight she’d seen when emerging as a Succubus—stretched out in that image were scenes from Culerzic, the ‘Blood Planes of the Dretch’ beneath ‘The Cliffs of Lust’.
She ignited Ki State, making her flesh appear formed of golden flames, but when Ki Flight wafted her across the mosaic boundary, nothing happened. An invisible barrier stopped her at the far edge of the scene when she tried to continue down the corridor. Looking down had her reconsidering her choice. It was a scene she had spent hours taking apart in her mind, cataloguing all the vileness that the tortured souls beneath had committed.
But with the exit Ebusuku had taken potentially laying ahead, Amdirlain settled down, ready to move at a moment's notice. Yet she wasn’t allowed that moment; when skin touched the stone, she plunged into a cliffside moment far different from what happened. Amdirlain could only function as a helpless observer to another choice.
This Julia got caught in a cycle of denial that what lay beneath her was possible. A moment of choice to disbelieve costing her a fragile grip against the urges Amdirlain recognised as B’s work. Each moment of denial tipped the balance further from Julia’s control and made it harder to regain self-control. When she desperately forced herself to move, she realised she’d been screaming too late, and a Succubus’ lash wrapped around her neck. The cat-of-nine tails' metal tips guided the hide to smack against her skin, and when they touched against each other with the loop complete, the leather merged into one.
“My little pretty. I find it curious I didn’t see you arrive,” the Succubus purred and blurred forward to press bodily against Julia’s and Teleport them both. The chamber they arrived in burned with Mana to Julia’s senses, and uneducated, there was no way of understanding it.
Amdirlain, though, wasn’t hampered and picked apart the ward’s nature. Entry and exit via teleportation or other means were only possible by breaking the wards or possessing the key.
Julia caught a flash of gold, gem-encrusted walls, and a wide bed covered in poppy red silken fabrics before being face planted into it. Still restrained, the other Succubus pressed against her in a way that had Julia's body pulsing with body blows of lust. Trying to twist free, she found hard nipples rubbing teasingly against her back with the Succubus effortlessly pinning her in place. The leverage afforded by her wings was abused in full by her grinding captor.
“Get off me,” screamed Julia and snapped an elbow back that hit squarely but didn’t even make the Succubus blink. The press of the other’s weight grew, and the observing Amdirlain hissed in dismay to realise the uninjured Succubus was flying down to pin the inexperienced version of herself. The writhing Succubus pressed atop her, drawing an unexpected moan from Julia with the burst of lust spiking heat from her groin. The struggles brushed her body against living silk that sucked hungrily at every millimetre of exposed skin.
“Oh, I’ll get you off alright.”
Quick licks of the Succubus’ long tongue along her spine follow each word. In time a tail’s coil rubbed against Julia’s lower lips, each movement in sync with the undulations atop her. Waves of lust and heat drowned out her disgust and tried to swamp a mind already unbalanced by B’s unspeaking pressure. Not wanting to give in to the Succubus or the wet heat pulsing inside her, Julia tried again to twist free but felt like a helpless kitten in her grasp.
“You are a playful one,” the Succubus growled, her voice husky with lust. It only took a few well-practised movements for the Succubus to effortlessly force Julia to look in her eyes—expertly crumpling Julia’s wing into place as she flipped her onto her back.
The Succubus’ demonic gaze and beauty locked Julia in place but had Amdirlain within, frustrated with the inability to rip out her throat. Black tresses framed an ivory-skinned, heart-shaped face, and the power in the Demon’s gaze burned incongruently inside baby blue eyes. Her delicate, straight nose led down to full, poisonous red lips, that showed just the hint of sharp eyeteeth as they parted in speech.
“Why can’t I touch your mind? Oh, pretty! And here I was looking forward to simply fucking your newly spawned brains out. You might net me far more fun than simply a new toy. I’m not sure if I should hope Lord Moloch has time now or not.”
Pressed in place by a hand on her throat, Julia could only gasp in appalled surprise when a hand suddenly cupped her crotch. Not content to hold, long fingers plunged deep into Julia’s hot, desire-slicked pussy. Caught between revulsion and heat that had her twitching, B’s voiceless presence nudged for more. Unreasoning lust unchained, Julia’s hips lifted to allow the Succubus’ fingers to slip in further still.
Leaning forward, she shifted her grip into Julia’s hair and undulated to brush their breasts against each other. Her other hand wedged between them, she pressed hard against Julia’s mound, and with a slurp determined fingers sheathed fully inside her. The coil that had teased against Julia’s outer lips shifted to wrap python-like around the Succubus’ hand. The way it rubbed against Julia with every combined motion added to the electric bursts of pleasure through her body.
One moment she was on the bed and the next in a chamber far different, though the Succubus retained her hold and they hovered upright instead of sprawled out. The familiar grains of caramel-white polished marble formed the immense chamber’s floors and walls. Within the echoing expanse, a pair of leather reclining couches faced each other, with a low table between them. Various crystal glasses, from flutes to brandy snifters, inlaid with gold filigree, sat on the shelves of a silver and glass rack nearby.
“Let her go. Return when I call for you.”
The relaxed tenor issuing the order was too pleasant for the tongue they were speaking. As soon as silence returned, the Succubus disappeared, taking only her furnace of lust with her; the one ignited inside Julia remained and grew hotter still, dropping from her climax’s edge.
Denied on the cusp of release, Julia staggered and barely kept herself from falling. It had been a nightmare of sexual cravings made flesh, but the heat and fluid slicking her lips and trailing down her legs confirmed it wasn’t a dream. It hadn’t been a dream, and the desires ignited still roared around inside her, making it hard for Julia to think but causing a cold fire of rage to burn in Amdirlain.
The voice had come from behind, and finding her balance, Julia turned around and found herself only metres from a massive rosewood wine rack covering a long wall. It was a strange sight moments after an assault that still had her torn between fighting and her own body’s cravings. It was precisely like a twisted rapist would insist; that their victims had wanted it. That thought added to her feeling of being off-balanced and stained, let alone the desire still pulsing inside her.
Standing by that massive wine rack, examining her confused state, was a relatively ordinary-looking man. When their gazes locked, that deception got blown away as his powerful Charisma pressed against her, making lust surge higher. The furnace in the Succubus’ gaze was a mere candle to the inferno in his.
Purple irises glowing with power made his supernatural nature clear, but that was the only inhuman trait he possessed. Indeed, his straight nose, rugged features, and shoulder-length chestnut hair would have looked right at home in a romance novel. A black silken robe that draped from broad shoulders hung open, allowing a V to show sun-kissed skin and a muscular torso before a belt drew it tight at his waist.
“Julia Amanda Diane Earnst with such an Anglo-Saxon name, I’d assume you’re also a Hidden like myself. Is that correct?” asked the man and stopped to wave a hand at himself. “Call me Moloch. Not my real name, but one an old Jewish man called me some years before I ended up here.“
How his eyes looked her over made Julia aware of her naked state. When she moved to cover her breasts and crotch, appalled by her stereotypical maiden in distress behaviour, she found her wings wrapped—without thought—around her front. The spike at their knuckle joint framing either side of her face, but against him, the blades and claws felt a feeble threat highlighting the meaningless barrier of the wing’s membrane.
“What are you talking about?” Julia asked. With the question, she was suddenly aware the only words spoken were in a tongue that sounded cruel to her ears and not one she’d ever learnt.
“My apologies, where are my manners! But that is your name; I can see it with Analysis. If you prove yourself, I might help you with that and more. Obviously, by your behaviour, you’re not used to walking around in such a state of undress,” Moloch said. Pointing in her direction, a loose dress of royal purple puddled to the floor before her. “It has an open back. You can step into it and tie it behind your neck.”
When Julia hesitated, he raised his hand to cover his eyes. “I won’t look, in case that’s what’s keeping you.”
The Fabricate Spell had been evident to the observing Amdirlain despite the limited Mana Sense Julia possessed, but she couldn’t help but wince at Julia’s ready acceptance of it. It made her wonder how she’d survived the Abyss and avoided remaining tied to Usd’ghi or worse. Unsure what was holding her in this phantasmal existence, Amdirlain kept digging away, trying to find its seams to escape.
Julia dropped her hands away and bent to snatch it up, ignorant of the scrying spell that had formed to watch her. The dress was what he’d said and more: a backless satin dress with a split bodice, easily secured with a loop she could tie about her neck. The curve of its back reached low enough to allow her tail and wings free movement, but the loop had it crossing her front in a way that supported her breasts.
“How did you get here?” asked Moloch; once Julia stopped moving, he drew a bottle of what looked like a white wine from the rack and offered it to her. When Julia didn’t immediately respond, he returned it and continued along the wall. “A red instead? I was in the mood for a crisp white, but I could have a red.”
“Why should I tell you?” asked Julia, still trying to regain her composure, aware of the musky desire wafting from the slickness spreading down her legs.
Moloch’s eyebrows lifted, and he waved his hands at the racks.
“The colour wine you’d prefer or how you got here? In either case, what you tell or do is completely up to you. Likewise, what I do or don’t do is completely up to me. Our choices are our own, as is the repercussion of those choices. I did, though, just make you a dress,” reminded Moloch unnecessarily, Julia’s fingers still stroking the soft fabric. “You’re new here, but we’re already damned, so why not have some fun?”
“Will you tell me how you got here first?” asked Julia, desperate for time to calm down.
Moloch didn’t answer immediately but selected two bottles before he stalked across the room to the closest couch. “I’ve decided I’ll have a white, you can have it or the red.”
Not waiting for a response, he set both the bottles on the table, and wine glasses vanished from the shelves to appear beside each.
The bottles he opened by obliterating their tops—the bottle vanishing from the curve up—and then he delicately poured himself a glass.
Sitting down, he sipped his glass and nodded in approval at Julia, nervously pouring herself one at his prompting. “I was in the Holy Land and got news that a ship of mine had made a delivery in Cyprus under a new name; truly a miracle, since I had the assurances from a formerly trusted source that it had been lost with all hands. Naturally relieved that the ship and crew were safe, I had investigated and was told it had arrived from Crete. Oddly enough, a business partner also lived in Crete, but surely they wouldn’t have betrayed me.”
Awkwardly, Julia tried to sit down sideways on the other couch seeking a position where the wings wouldn’t get caught.
Raising a hand to stop her, Moloch gave an amused smile. “You’ll have Change Form, though more powerful versions are possible. Most powers activate by willing the result; the simpler the use of the Power, the less effort. Try it.”
Nodding, Julia followed his instructions, felt the wing’s weight disappear from her back, and repeated the exercise with her tail. Moloch smiled at her and gestured, welcoming as she settled onto the couch.
“You referred to my name as Anglo-Saxon. What nationality were you? What year was it?” asked Julia and stopped before she could blurt out any more questions. A helpless observer, Amdirlain still had no trouble spotting the cunning and desire in Moloch’s gaze. An emotion B—more in tune with her lusts—also felt, and set surging heat to engorge Julia’s clit. The embarrassing wetness that followed the heat wave widened the smile on Moloch’s lips.
“I was born in France. I made money transporting people and goods to the Holy Land and more in continuing to supply knightly orders. I would have made far more except a partner got greedy.”
Gulping down the glass, he leant forward and collected the bottle from where Julia had left it on the table.
“I didn’t know it was him at first. I thought it had been a factor in our employment. When I investigated, I eventually was directed to his lovely new opulent resident, and I felt compelled to clarify my disappointment. The guards he’d gained with my coin weren’t conversationalist, but after a brisk discussion, I slipped away,“ Moloch replied and relaxed into the couch, sipping the wine.
“If you left, how was he involved in your getting here?”
“I didn’t stay away,” laughed Moloch. “When we first met, he’d complained about people trying to make his children starve when they haggled hard. I returned later to save them from that fate since he was certainly going to pay me back, plus interest, the church be damned.”
“What did you do?” asked Julia, but Amdirlain could already see what direction he was heading by the smug smirk on his face.
Moloch took another sip of the wine and motioned Julia to drink as yet untouched wine. “Various things; it was roaring fun. I saw him later outside the church with his two eldest boys that unfortunately hadn’t been home for the fire or my archers. He started waving something at me when he caught sight of me, cursing my name, calling for my damnation, and for me to be tossed into the depths of the blackest and foulest of pits. Then here I was, well, not here exactly, but in the Abyss, though I look a lot better now than I did then. Demonic evolutions are wonderful things. Now, will you tell me your story?”
“The only thing I know about who sent me here was a message about breaking a heart, but I don’t know who cursed me. I was on the way home and felt unwell. Then I was chased through a stone passageway by something and burst out onto the cliff,” admitted Julia, reluctantly appalled by his tale and the delight he took in recounting the murder of a family.
“My experience was similar, but I was underground, in a dark hole filled with corpses, inhabiting a distorted and twisted body. If you ever see a Rutterkin, you’ll understand what I suffered. The thing chasing you would be the Demon whose form your Soul should have spawned if you were a normal arrival; its energy is what’s forming that lush body of yours,” offered Moloch, and Julia blanched. “Mine tried to eat my Soul later, but I was strong enough to strangle it out of existence. We’re able to get stronger faster than the normal demons can. You must be careful to avoid also empowering your Demon.”
“Is that why the Succubus needed to report my existence?”
Moloch nodded and responded after he refilled his glass. “I’ve met two other fortunate souls like us. We gain Class levels faster and increase our demonic tiers; if you know what you're looking for, it becomes obvious.”
“Fortunate? How are we fortunate? I want to get out of here, get home, not get stronger as a Demon.”
“Fortunate because the Church’s ridiculous declarations of sin no longer bind us, and we have eternity. Plus, out? There is nowhere to get out to,” Moloch laughed. “You’re not even in the realm whose existence once contained us. Time doesn’t even follow the same path, the most recent fellow I met came from nine hundred years after me, yet for me, it’s been a score of millennia. But the three of us, now perhaps four, were from the same world at least. That’s likely since I gave a few names and you didn’t even blink at them, so I know you recognised them. No, you’ll be far safer with me. That is if you know what’s good for you.”
“You feel a need to threaten me?”
“Merely a statement of facts. Given you didn’t like me looking at you naked, I’m sure you’ll break quick. Away from me, you’ll find yourself a mere sex toy, passed around to one and all. Now with me, at least I don’t share my toys; you smell all excited, I can’t wait to get acquainted.”
“Great, saved from a rapist by another rapist,” Julia growled, trying to fight the overwhelming desire twisting with the sick feeling in her guts.
Moloch shook his head, and a finger wave caused the dress to vanish. “I don’t need to indulge in such vices, well, not today; there are plenty of willing succubi. Despite your abuse of my hospitality, I’m still willing to forgive if you make it up to me. Otherwise, I’ll choose not to save you from whatever use my people have for you. After you’ve screamed yourself raw and pushed out a few litters of baby Succubi, then maybe we can talk again. Your choice, my companion, or Dretch bait? Choose now.”
His words chilled Julia to be core, and everything collapsed within the blooming of that frozen sense of desolation. Amdirlain, still fighting to get free, knew she hadn’t caused it. Instead, the illusion had released her to lay shuddering on the now blank stone.
Being helpless in the framework of that imaginary place didn’t lessen her. Holding herself motionless, she carefully took her time to work through the churning emotions that still sat inside her. Though these cut far closer to home, originating from the same life she’d lived, she’d lived far more since then. Every moment, she’d seen how the Succubus, B’s, urges and even Moloch had manipulated Julia’s reactions.
Shaking her head to escape the remnants of her old naïve self, she stopped at the change in her surroundings. Besides the scene beneath her having transformed into blank stone, the corridor was gone. Ahead and to the sides was a crescent of roughly hewn stone lined with fractures. The largest might fit a hand inside, but the rest were barely hairline breaks.
When Amdirlain leant forward to peek into the hand-wide crevice, she caught sight of a rustic home scene before the corridor trembled and shook. The closer she got, the stronger the vibrations, but even as she paused, the fracture opened like a credenza door, compressing the others.
[Trial path critical anomaly.
Warning: Cascading collapse from multiple lifetimes within path walker’s Soul.]
The words flashed through her mind, and the stone walls slammed on her. Suddenly, back in her room, the grass underfoot replaced the sensation of crushed bones and pulped flesh. Despite a quick survey finding her body uninjured, the feeling of being squished remained, and exhaustion accompanied the bone-breaking agony from head to toe drawing continual gasps of pain.
[Resistance: Mundane Materials [G] (4->6)
Pain Tolerance [Ad] (35->37)]
Moloch’s PoV – Culerzic
With his wards showing that no scrying occurred, he shook off a feeling that something had reached out to him. Stretched with his heels on the table before his couch, Moloch looked at the strange Succubus before him. Her sharp pointed features weren’t unusual among her kind, but the tiara formed of bone-white horns and ‘wings’ were very different. It had taken a dozen of his better wizards to secure her, and even with her Protean inert, she still possessed her strange features.
The nest of ribbons and chains formed from black ligaments that sprung from her back hinted at some exciting evolutions ahead for her. Even more interesting right now was the classes Analysis showed her possessing: Queen of Planes, Assassin to a delightfully high level, and Hunter and Wizard. It was another anomaly for investigation, since most would have taken a better base class after gaining a Tier 5 Prestige Class and all those affinities.
“Now, my lovely, since you’ve had us chasing you so long, I think it's time we got acquainted,“ said Moloch, motioning for the Succubus to sit across from him. “Your name is quite interesting. I don’t understand why you’d call yourself that, but the Anglo-Saxon lettering is interesting since it doesn’t exist here. This space intentionally left blank?” murmured Moloch. “How about I call you Slate? Or Intent?”
“You might have me for now, but I’ll get free of you. I’ve got foes I need dead, and I won’t let you stop me,” growled the Succubus.
“Stop you? Are you sure I’d stop you?” laughed Moloch and pushed aside the Succubus’ Will. “Who are you looking to kill?”
“Raivo, Balnérith, and Usd’ghi,” she replied, grinding her teeth as if it might restrain the answer he’d demanded.
“My, you have delightful tastes in enemies,” laughed Moloch. “One of those I don’t know, but the ladies, I’ll certainly at least applaud while you get blood on their boots. The question is: who do you want dead? You or them, Intent?”
“Them,” growled the Succubus. “Call me-“
“Bliss! That’s what I’ll name you, Bliss.”
The Succubus growled at the pressure from his Willpower set the name in place. A moment later, Analysis showed Profile Mastery hadn’t replaced it completely; instead, it had simply added his name to the existing one.
“Well, someone messed you up,” murmured Moloch. “This could be fun.”