The two riding spawn halted a little ways back from the top of a hill. Lily and Kyri did it so the animals’ large bodies would be hidden from scouts.
“Are we sneaking in? Or going through the front door?” Lawrence asked.
The city spread out below them in a bowl. Multiple valleys connected here, creating a kind of highway with an enormous basin in the center. Spiderwebs the size of skyscrapers wrapped around spires of rock and stretched between mountains. Spider demons were the result of one or two specific Mutation Skills. Thousands of spider demons lived around the webs. Thus, there were, in fact, two or more cities.
The base, regular city for flightless demons, their servants or slaves, and the damned, existed on the ground. Actual buildings of stone had been erected everywhere. Actual roads existed, even if they were just rocky paths cleared of debris. Coal, steam, and mana-powered lights dotted the roads and intersections.
Spiderwebs covered the buildings. Spiderwebs stretched between the spires of rock scattered around the city. Spiderwebs ran down from the tops of mountains. The spiders had built a vast highway for getting around. More cables and suspension bridges extended from the mountains out to other forts and cities, all it made from spidersilk.
Airships descended laden with the bodies of worms or hundreds of slaves. More airships rose to begin the hunt. Mines had been dug down along the walls, drawing up everything from coal to cobalt. Whomever built this city had taken a page from Dis’s playbook, for the outermost walls were made from soulstone.
A quiet wailing rose from the gray, softly glowing walls. Any damage was immediately healed by the thousands of souls packed together. It was a good idea, given the vast numbers of worms scoring the walls with their horns.
“Why don’t the worms go under the walls?” Lawrence asked.
“The entire city sits on rock. The worms can’t break through,” Kyri explained. “What do you think, Lily? The front door?”
“Seems to be the best option. We can trade work for lodging until we figure out what to do.”
“What kind of work can you two do?” Kyri pulled a flask of iliaster from her saddlebag. She uncorked and drained it. She made a face at the taste. “Besides crime and magic.”
“Being an [Opener] isn’t criminal,” Lily retorted. “Everyone uses spies. Information is often more valuable than gold. I just need a place to get set up. I can start with the Screamer Office or the Runner’s Guild. I can work there until I get set up with my own place. Lawrence?”
“I never gave it much thought,” Lawrence admitted. “My goal was always to learn magic and then figure it out later. I suppose I could introduce myself to some big [Lord] as an expert Faustian. No idea what they’ll ask me to do.”
“Mmm hmm.” Kyri put the flask away. “Guess that depends on which spells you know.”
“All of them,” Lawrence said. “The ones I don’t are Summoning 5, Binding 5, and the ones giving immortality. Summoning 5 works on unfallen angels, regular gods, Outsiders, et cetera. Binding 5 takes a demon, rips it apart, and grafts whatever parts I want onto my body. The demon dies, duh, but if I get too greedy, some of their personality may survive and try to Possess me.”
“But you only know rank four, right?” Kyri asked. “What can you do with those?”
“For summoning 4? Any demon, damned soul, fallen angel, most kinds of aliens—unless they’ve hit level 100 and Ranked Up—monsters, and demigods. You actually get to summon all of those except demigods by rank two. Ranks three and four are just power boosts to my will. Summoned entities can’t resist being summoned.”
“And Binding?”
“Binding 1 is a goad, basically a minor command. Two is an actual Contract, with the strength based on other factors. It’s a ritual remember, not a spell. There’s a lot of elements and preparation involved. Rank three locks the demon in a box, sort of like a lich’s phylactery. One common thing my Mom talked about—she was my teacher, an insanely powerful witch-beast—she talked about binding demons in a box with a strength-100 Contract that would transfer to whomever opened the box. Then she’d sell the box.
“Binding 4 is the same thing but it’s a weapon, a piece of armor, or a monster. In the final case it’s more like a special Possession. With weapons ‘n armor, they become Soulbound things. The item changes and gets part of the bound-thing’s Skills. There’s an entire field of Artificing related to it. Like a demon with the Trumpet skill gets Binding 4’d into a mace. Then a screaming face appears on the mace and whenever you swing it, it howls loud enough to cause deafness. That’s how they make Maces of Howling ‘n stuff. They also increase people’s stats when used, meaning they become stat sticks. Or armor.”
“What happens to the soul of the thing you bound?” Kyri looked a little apprehensive.
“They go insane,” Lawrence said bluntly. “If it’s armor or a weapon, imagine lying in a glass gibbet staring at the world. You can’t move. You can’t speak. You’re being used to either take hits or dish them, which hurts either way. If you have [Telepathy] or something maybe you can communicate. But it’s hard to break a Soulbound thing. Their stats get added to the metaphorical box, which also means their hitpoints and whatever natural or unnatural armor they were wearing. In theory, you could put a mithril-armored giant into a cotton t-shirt and thus make it almost indestructible. And by extension, its wearer.”
“And how long does one last inside an item?”
“Until the Faustian lets them out, or the item breaks. Thus, forever, in theory. The ritual specifies item breakage. Most steel doesn’t technically break, it warps. Or it chips. Or it dents, et cetera. But it’s pretty hard to full-on break a sword or engine.
Kyri looked at him, surprised. Lily turned her head enough Lawrence saw her smirk.
“Told you,” Lily said.
“Okay,” Kyri said in a tone of gracious defeat. She shook her head. “I’ll find a good [Lord] to seduce, then you can work for him doing whatever. You’ll have to sell yourself. Treat it like a job interview. You know what those are, right?”
“I had to sell myself to the CO’s back home. I can do it.” Lawrence settled back in the saddle. “Main question I got is how long we’re gonna sit here?”
“On this cliff?” Lily asked.
“No, I mean in the city. I need to get to Dis. You guys are talking like we’re gonna be here a while. Instead of settling in, we could steal one of the airships and get down to Tears. Or trade passage for work. They need sailors, don’t they? I’ve always wanted to learn sailing.”
“Everything requires money, Lawrence,” Kyri said. “Don’t forget, there’s a bounty on our heads. Yours for the thing, mine for other things. Best keep our heads down until we build up some favor.”
“We need a [Lord] for favor,” Lily told him. “Just stick close to me and Kyri.”
“Wait,” Kyri turned in the saddle. “Why Dis? You’re already a powerful [Faustian]. What do they have this place doesn’t?”
“Um.” Both women looked at him. Lawrence avoided their eyes. “Mom said. Ack, hang on.” He fished out his notebook. “Here it is. The Trials of Levelling. To get actual Classes—er, Jobs—and stuff, I have three options. First are the Trials. Second is committing something called an ‘abomination.’ Third is finding the Tenth Circle.”
“What are the trials of levelling?” Lily asked, at almost the same time as Kyri.
“I looked it up on my phone. Somehow I still have WiFi out here. Don’t know how or why, it’s something to investigate. Anyway, Trial One is the test of Renown. ‘To prove my species is capable of standing equal with others, at least ten people must offer sincere tokens without coercion.’ They must be high level, over fifty or sixty, I think, and they must do it on their own terms. The tokens must be a sincere qualifying emotion. Either, uh, gratitude, admiration, envy, respect, or fear.”
“Sounds easy enough,” Kyri said. “Just get to a high level and—oh wait, you need this to get the ability to level, don’t you? I forgot. You don’t have any Jobs or Status. That sucks.”
“What’s the other trial?” Lily asked.
“There’re three altogether. Second one is, um, Tower of Heights or something. My species needs to build a tower without aid from another species. It needs to be a certain height, and it needs to stand for one minute. And it needs to be different from any other tower before it, with a design or made from materials unique to my species. ‘To prove yours can climb greater still.’”
“And the third?”
“Beyond The Impossible. Basically someone of my species must perform an action we are completely incapable of doing. This action forces the Program to generate a new Skill, which will allow others to perform the same action, without requiring them to break reality first.”
“It sounds stupid and impossible,” Kyri commented. “But if you’re part of the Program, stuff like that happens all the time. I guess it makes a twisted sort of sense. Prove you can warp reality to get Access to a Program that lets users warp reality on their whims. You really only need one or two legendary individuals to do it.”
“This all begs one question.” Lily turned in the saddle. “What species are you?”
“I dunno.” Lawrence hunched his shoulders. “Mom said she’s a half-demon to ascended to full demon. She has Mortal Shape ‘n stuff, which lets her survive in mortal worlds without constant iliaster. I dunno what my bio-dad is. Something bad enough she left Hell forever.”
“The tenth circle,” Kyri whispered. “There isn’t one. I’ve been alive for hundreds of years. Pandemonium is the ninth and I’ve never seen it. Not important enough.”
“Mom says…” Lawrence trailed off. He was abruptly conscious of how childish it sounded to use his mother’s words as a defense. It was the job of mothers to support their children. It was not a good enough defense. Would he also hide behind her skirts?
“You must think your bio-dad is on the lower floors,” Lily mused. “Well, I’ll keep an ear to ground for any communities building big buildings. Did she say what abomination it was?”
“No. She said she didn’t want me to do it. Why?”
Lily and Kyri shared a look.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Is… something wrong?”
“Nope.”
“No, nothing.”
Lawrence looked from one to the other. He had the feeling they knew something he did not.
“We should get going,” Kyri said.
“Yeah. No sense dawdling,” Lily agreed.
“Your mother sounds like she knew what she was talking about,” Kyri said after a moment. “Maybe I should take that Skill.” She spurred the spawn forward.
“Lily?” Lawrence asked, tentative.
“Not now, Lawrence.” Lily kicked her spawn.
“Uh, Lily? D’you wanna talk about it?”
Silence stretched. Lawrence peered over her shoulder. Her face was red, her eyes glared. She was a half-demon, but full woman. She had the look of a woman stubbornly refusing to acknowledge reality in the face of overwhelming evidence.
“Abominations lead to Red Jobs,” Lily said with the tone of someone pressured to confess something and unapologetically judging someone else’s particularly disgusting action. “You only get them by doing something the Program considers, well, abominable. Abominable crimes.”
----------------------------------------
A line of stray demons waited to get through the security checkpoint. Lawrence did not understand why they couldn’t bypass the checkpoint by just riding around it. The spawn could traverse vertical surfaces. Lawrence and his… well, they did not need the elevator.
Lawrence wanted to explore the city, even as he knew it would be a bad idea. Horrible odors drifted up on the freezing winds. This close to the edge, the wind was near constant. Lawrence smelled human and animal waste, sweat, blood, and the stronger, deeper scents of mortal and damned misery. Constant wailing from the walls, piercing shrieks from the slave damned as the demons whipped them. Despairing cries from mortal servants attending the demons. Lawrence was both disgusted, horrified, terrified, and a little something else.
His stomach growled. He smelled cooking meat. His head told him it was not any such meat as he would want, but his stomach did not care. He had eaten travel rations for the past week. Travel rations and brackish water. He wanted meat. Or vegetables. Lawrence never thought he’d long for the days when his only frustrations were his parents telling him to eat his green beans. Beans sounded really good right about now.
Lawrence’s patience got a workout. Kyri and Lily alternated Face duties, consisting of talking the demons to death. Imps with clipboards flitted around the space. Low-level drones kept things moving. A few human-like infiltrators stood around with crossed arms, supervising.
Lawrence’s patience was truly magnificent. He longed take the spawn and ride all over the webs and the city. He smelled something delicious. He wanted to follow his nose until he found it. Unfortunately for him, there was a problem with one of the imps. It seemed Kyri did not have requisite paperwork for a [Lady] with her heir, and Lily did not qualify.
In the end, Kyri’s temper snapped. She grabbed the little devil by the shoulder, uncaring of the porcupine spike impaling her hand. Demonic ichor ran freely. Kyri’s eyes rolled back. Lawrence sensed a battle of wills. The other guards nearby noticed but said nothing.
Kyri won. She took her hand away, though her eyes remained blank.
“You may pass,” the imp bobbed up and down. “You have full access. Welcome to Dalheim.”
“Thank you,” Kyri growled. She led the party past. They ignored the elevator, which seemed wise in Lawrence’s opinion. It was an iron box controlled by a complex system of winches and mana crystals. They ignored the spidersilk tunnels leading to different districts across the city. Instead they directed the spawn over the cliff, as Lawrence wanted.
“I had to force him to swear a seventy-five strength Contract,” Kyri complained, furious. “Why was his will so strong? He was just a low-level clerk; I’m a succubus. He had no authority to question me.”
“We made it.” Lily looked up. In the center of the city rose a tower higher than any other. It was a machine, a colossal structure of mana and clockwork providing power to the entire city. It was also a demon, a machinist who had progressed so far along the Engine and Machine Lord Noble Skill tracks it had cybernetically merged with its own fief. “What’s next? The Guildhalls?”
“We can skip the process if we get a patron,” Kyri explained. “No working our way up if we get a [Lord] to show favoritism. People do it all the time; it’s how unions operate.”
“Then were do we find them?” Lily scanned the buildings. “There is no organization to this place.”
“I pulled information about a party tonight from the imp’s brain. It’s in the pleasure district. That direction.” Kyri pointed. “A great banquet or something. One of the bigshot [Lords] from the Seventh is visiting. We play our cards right, we can parlay ourselves into jobs with power.”
The spawn had to go single-file through the city. In hindsight, Lawrence thought they should have taken the silkways. Demons of all kinds crammed the streets. All of them gave Lily and Kyri weird looks. Lawrence, they ignored.
“We should ditch the spawn,” Lily said.
“I know,” Kyri replied. “Follow me.”
She turned her animal, cutting off a trio of drones. They shouted, but she ignored it. Lily directed her own spawn to follow, pushing aside the drones. Both spawn scaled the side of the building. In the wilderness, no one cared when the spawn’s feet spiked into the ground. Here, Lawrence doubted the demons would be blithe.
“We’re damaging the walls,” Lawrence said.
“They’ll be fine,” Lily replied.
Lawrence thought otherwise. The spawn’s claws left ragged holes in the stone. On the roof, Lily brought the spawn alongside Kyri’s.
“What now?” Lily asked.
“There’s a silkway station over there.” Kyri pointed. “Follow me.”
Kyri led them on a circuitous path over the roofs. Lawrence saw little organization in the city. As a result, the spawn traversed the roofs without touching the ground. All around, steam and black coal-smoke plumes rose from chimneys. A concrete and coal jungle surrounded them. Lawrence tasted soot on the back of his tongue.
With the Morningstar gone, darkness blanketed the crater. Illumination came from electric or mana-lamps. Lamps dotted the streets. Almost all the mortals carried a lantern, though the demons did not need them. An airship flew overhead. Lawrence smelled earth and sulfur. The not-quite-dead ice worm complained as the airship lowered it to a wide square stained with offal. [Butchers] began slicing off huge pieces, even as the beast groaned.
The two spawn scaled the side of the station. Kyri forced her way past a multi-limbed humanoid with multiple oversized eyes. The spider demon chittered at the sight of two beautiful women. The riding spawn set off down the silkways.
Lawrence stared his fill at the city. Up here was a wonderful vantage point, thought there wasn’t much to see. The demons all lived in rough-hewn barracks, no different from his time at Blood Well.
Among humans, women would sleep communally and men would sleep individually. Among demons, they used whatever quarters were available. Comforts did not exist. Feeding troughs lined the streets in front of a torture palace. Common demons collected their daily ration of soul juice or iliaster. If their job paid, they’d take their two coins and spend them on something frivolous.
“What are you thinking?” Lily prompted.
“I’m thinking life here sucks.”
“Makes you glad to be a [Faustian] and not a servant, amirite?”
“Is that what I am?” Lawrence mumbled.
“How do you mean?” Lily brought the spawn around a wall. “Oh wow.”
A ship stretched out before them. It had once carried passengers on vacation. Much of its former glory had been preserved, but it was unmistakable who controlled it now. Cages and iron nets prevented passengers from throwing themselves overboard. The prow of the ship carried an enormous dragon skull. Blood and pieces of worse dotted the hull.
Despite the obvious signs of carnage, Lawrence heard laughing. The ship sat on the side of a vast dock. A staircase led from a door in the side down to the platform. People with robes and elaborate masks mingled on the quay.
Kyri descended to an alleyway. Lily followed. Lawrence sniffed the oil on his wrist as the spawn rocked. Kyri stared for a long, long minute at the ship’s passengers. They all wore hooded black cloaks with short capes. Every single one wore a Venetian mask, and all were unique. Or rather, as Lawrence stared, most were unique.
Those with full black wore plainer masks. Those with cloaks dark purple, blue, or green shading to almost-black wore fancy, colorful, well-designed masks.
“Why are we stopping?” Lily asked.
“That’s the party I want to get in,” Kyri said, wistful. She sighed. “Those are elite cubi—the gender-neutral term for my species. Last I heard the fashion for men and women of my species was to wear long, dark cloaks and nothing else underneath. It seems the new fashion is to wear funny masks.”
“Lawrence?” Lily prompted. “What are those?”
“Those are Venetian Carnival masks,” Lawrence said. “On the mortal world Earth, the seas-side city-state of Venice was a wealthy center for trade and culture throughout history. It was built on a network of small islands, with the roads being a mix of canals and open sewers. The people of Venice liked to wear the masks so their elite could mingle with commoners without sullying their reputations. They had a classist society. If you read fiction detailing supernatural worlds overlaying mundane life, the Venetian Carnival is the origin for the word and use of ‘The Masquerade.’”
“Rich people.” Lily tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “That’s our target? Mingle with uppity people we can’t see and hope to impress one of them with sex?”
“No. Those parties require a password, not to mention costumes. There’s a hierarchy to the masks. We’re not getting in without an invitation. Trying otherwise would be suicide.” She turned her spawn aside. She gestured at a vast building of gray stone set against the wall. “That is our target. According to the imp, one of the local lords lives there. The elites must be visiting him or her.”
“Do we need an invitation?”
“No. The imp did not.” Kyri shook her head. “It is a banquet for the masses. All may enter. The challenge will be locating a [Lord] of sufficient renown willing to host or hire us. Local lords are not enough. We need someone from the Seventh looking for a servant with potential. That is why the elites are here at all. That, and secrecy.”
“Secrecy for what?” Lily asked.
“Debauchery,” Kyri stated, with a hint of disgust. “Of a kind not tolerated by even the hedonistic Auric Cat or pain-loving Agony LLC. The seducers and the cenobites,” she added after seeing their confused faces.
“You’re saying the corporation whose hat is debauched orgies are disgusted by what we’re about to see?” Lily leaned back. “Fins and scales. Are you certain this is a good idea?”
“No other option. If we sneak aboard the ship, we’ll get caught and executed. Unless you want to make a living by whipping slaves to generate iliaster for two horns a day, taking a hundred years to save up for real equipment and some dignity, this is the only option.”
“Enter the sex party of horrors, find someone powerful to talk to, and escape with our sanity intact,” Lily said. “Lawrence. Do you have anything to say?”
“Causing pain builds Corruption. If we do the day-job thing, we’ll damn ourselves. As we are now, I could Hellgout you and me back to the mortal world, but I’d never be able to touch sorcery again. You’d never be able to level as a half-demon, either, because mortals don’t like it when you torture their neighbors, even if they’re dead.”
“So this is the best option,” Lily said.
“Actually, no, it isn’t.” Lawrence pushed his glasses up. “The Ring itself builds corruption. Uh, Tempest has like a… Sin Rating of ten. Corruption radiates from the ground. Just being here is bad for us. But being inside a fortress is worse. Any place warded by demons against summoning—like that ship or that banquet hall—the Sin Rating is doubled just by being inside. Some [Lords] factor that in when choosing servants. They use it to give mortals specific Mutation Skills. Treat it like radiation. The longer we’re inside, the deadlier it is.”
“How do you calculate Corruption?”
“Just think of it as Experience. Instead of leveling your Jobs, it grinds the COR stat. You don’t need to worry about it. It happens in the background. For demons, it isn’t relevant unless they somehow have lower-than-normal Corruption. For you and me? It’s damnation and random Mutation Skills. Or semi-random, if one is a powerful [Lord] controlling a fortress.
“But it’s just corruption and Mutation Skills, right? It doesn’t actually kill us.”
“Not technically. Damnation is a kind of death. I personally value being at least somewhat pure. Corrupt mortals can’t leave Hell, even while they’re alive. Only a pure soul can ride a Hellgout out.”
“Then how did your mom escape?” Kyri frowned. “Being an Ascended demon, she must have been utterly corrupt.”
“You can lower Corruption by abstaining from evil acts. She was a [Faustian]. She prolly did it for the power, but between good moral acts and regular use of the Purify ritual, she lowered her Corruption enough to escape. Fifty points is the cut-off. Also the cut-off for a level one Half-Demon.”
Lawrence waited while they did the math.
“So… you’re right on the edge, aren’t you?” Lily looked over her shoulder. “You get Access, you’re as good as stuck here, since your COR’ll be at fifty anyway. You’ll get a Mutation Skill, and you can’t lose those. Even after I got saved and my COR was reset, I kept my Skills. If you go any higher with COR, you’ll have to be a saint to lower it.”
“Yeah.” Lawrence gulped.
“You sure you want to do this?” Lily shifted in the saddle to turn sideways. “I know you want Access, but it doesn’t sound like it’s a good idea. No shame is walking away.”
“The only other option is to Hellgout myself back home.” Lawrence nodded at the building. “This is the only path forward. I’ll do what I have to do and deal with the consequences later.”
“Then we are agreed,” Kyri said. “Follow me.” She urged her spawn forward along the boardwalk.
“Lily, there’s something I forgot.” Lawrence shoved his hand into his bag of holding.
“What is it?” she kicked the spawn. It lumbered after Kyri’s.
“When I was in the mortal world, a friend of mine gave me this.” He handed her a book bound in plain black leather. It had a single black ribbon. “A friend of mine said this is the Word of God. He said to start with Matthew. The ribbon is on the first page. I, uh, I tried reading it. I didn’t get it. You’re a Christian now. You should have your religion’s holy book.”
“Oh?” Lily took the book. She opened it to the place held by the ribbon. She handled the book with care. She placed a hand on the thin pages. After a moment, she closed the book. She slipped it under her jacket to an inside pocket. She said in a thick voice, “Thank you, Lawrence. And before I forget, it’s just a small fort. We will survive.”