Ivan gasped coming back to himself in their little camp, and threw out his arms. There was a lean-to he had made, and the large open space of dirt they had used for rituals. The demon succubus was still there. She was watching him carefully. It had only been moments in reality, but Ivan's memory of days past had been crystal clear.
Penelope had moved quickly to be out of his reach, and now had a cruel little smile on her face.
“Well that was unexpected.” She said softly. “I meant to distract you just a little, maybe get you to toss me to the ground again, maybe a little more, but not that. Your mind took up the little spell I was dancing over your brain instead of trying to resist it.”
Ivan's heart was hammering in his chest and his head was filled with searing anger. There was something just out of his reach that fueled it. The pain grew and grew as his anger raged until it piled up behind his eyes. All the while he was trying to get to Penelope. He wanted to strangle her, but before he took more than three steps he fell to his knees as the pain overwhelmed his sense of balance and of the world around him. He staggered and fell with both heels of his palms pressed over his eyes and unable to control the growling mewl of sound coming from his throat.
“Careful now. Careful master.” Penelope said, her voice gentle and filled with all the potent allure she could muster. “You're not ready for what your mind is trying to do. You're close, but not yet. We have more rituals to do. Relax if you can. Or at least hold back some of your anger. You'll just burst a blood vessel this way.”
Ivan groaned putting his head to the ground, the earth was cool and took some of the ache from his head. He turned enough to glare at the beautiful demon. She stared down at him, her strange goat eyes focused on him, and her face caught between fascination and worry.
“Don't act like you care. This is your doing.” Ivan growled.
Penelope stepped forward until she was just out of reach.
“It is and it is not master. Something within you is responding to the Demonic Corruption I bring, but what affects you now is ultimately within you.” She explained, and even came a little closer. A few more steps and Ivan could lunge for her throat.
“Master...” She said softly.
She had come all the way down to her knees. She spread them, and leaned back in a way that emphasized the soft and alluring shapes of her muscles running up her pale and hairless abdomen. “I will submit to you if that will calm your anger, but we've already stayed here too long. We must leave.”
Ivan growled, pulling his eyes away from the supple and inviting curves of her body. When he closed his eyes all he could see was that man's satisfied face as he looked down at Jen with his hand caught in Tanya's hair as he dragged her along. He shuddered and felt wretched. He was a murderer. Dozens of times over. He had dragged people off in the night and literally ripped them apart with blade and hand in his anger. He didn't know why his mind fought for clarity, but then again couldn't quite hold onto the wild madness of his anger either.
He let out a few ragged breaths; each making his shoulders shudder. Pointless and unhelpful wishes that could never come true ran through his mind. The demon was right. An angry sob escaped his lips. He clawed at his dirty hair and cursed the God of Light over and over again in his mind. Damn him. Damn him and everyone who followed after him. Any God who praised and raised up men like the man who had killed Tanya, Jen, and Ral had to be put down. He had to keep going. It was as simple as that.
He forced himself to rise. Penelope came to him, taking up his arm, and helping him up. She was strong for all she seemed a delicate maiden creature. She was faster than she seemed too; and both her fangs and horns could change shape at a moment. The only reason he could ever get away with harming her was because she liked it. He knew that rationally somewhere in mind as she tucked herself under his arm, and helped him come to his feet. Whatever episode that had come over him had weakened him and eaten up his stamina. He could barely hold the magically conjured ritual dagger she handed him long enough to tuck it away in his belt.
“Where we do we go? We've left a literal trail of blood, and a lot of missing people behind. They'll find us. All they need is a halfway leveled ranger and they find our path into the woods.” Ivan asked the demon.
Penelope grinned at him.
“Just one more ritual tonight and Samiel will be able to give you his gift. His Shroud will hide you from those who might sense you, and allow you to store me within its folds. I will be able to whisper to you there, and you will have some of my powers to use with your own hands.” She told him, smiling all the more as she explained. The smile showed her fangs before she continued on.
“It will corrupt you. -Storing me inside your shadow with the Shroud. -But it will bring us closer to your goal. Using the Shroud and my powers may give you the Shadow Spark granting you a much larger mana pool and ability with shadow spells all on your own.” She said before lifting a finger to gently touch his chest. “And I will be right there to guide you as we use all sorts of tricks and deception to achieve our goals.”
They headed into the wild abandoning the camp and the ritual site. Someone would find with or without their attempt at hiding it. Ivan didn't have the Forestry Skill or the Ranger Job at all, and anyone with it would see through his very basic attempts. For now speed was what mattered. While they were still drawing lines between all the dots he had left behind.
“What's your plan for me anyway. What's this Shroud?” Ivan asked.
Penelope grinned again showing her pearly white fangs.
“The Shroud is the key to keeping you hidden. It's the key to unlocking more magic just like this dagger. When we are able you'll gain even more magic as we gain the favor of the ancient Ek'Thun, who are the eldest of those still sane enough to communicate with in Hell. I've made preparations and Samiel too is working to aid you. It's very important that you show the Courts of Hell you mean what you promised them. Among our kind contracts are the only law and order we share. Strike a contract, fulfill it, and take what is given.” She explained.
The muscles of her body were soft under his arm and her slender shoulders seemed willing and pliant under his hand even as they made their way into the dark of the wood. She seemed to know it too. She kept flashing her toothy fanged smile at him.
“That's good to know, but only vaguely suggests what you have planned for me. I want to know. Please Penelope.” He said gritting his teeth and looking away from the haunting strangeness of her eyes.
He could still see her sudden smile even though he turned his face away. The scent of her was filling his nose with being so close. If he looked at her now he would feel the urge to lean down into her soft inviting lips. As inviting as they were, both he and his instincts knew that were he to go that far there might never be a way back from where it took him.
“First I think we need to move away from your bold, brave, and out the open Jobs. You've already gained the Amateur Assassin Job from when you poisoned all those men in the city. That was good thinking. We should expand on that.” Penelope said happily.
Ivan thought of the knife at his hip.
“Hence the bloodletting ritual dagger then.” He said.
“Yup.” Penelope agreed.
“We should start by getting you out of that armor and into something lighter. That and stealing a few things might give you the thief job. It will be easier to raise and explain than assassin before we get the Shroud of Shadow from Samiel.” She went on. “It would be better however to simply not get caught, but that may be difficult.”
Ivan considered what she was saying. His stomach growled. He hadn't really had a good meal in a while. He would have cooked and eaten some of those goats, but once their blood was used their flesh became tainted with Demonic Corruption. -And he was ready to embrace that fully yet. He had killed and could continue to kill, but consuming corrupted flesh was something else. Though the pangs of hunger did make him feel a little foolish for going so far and drawing a line right before a step that might have fed him.
He didn't have any coin. Not much anyway. He had taken some from corpses only as an afterthought, which was already mostly Penelope's idea. He hadn't a mind for greed. All he had ever needed was provided by the church. He had worked for every copper of it regardless, and fought various monsters besides, but he had never needed to think of coin. Now he would need to keep a supply just to live. That or maybe get the Hunter Job on top of what he already had.
“I suppose you're right about that. I don't know how else we'll get away from the forces of light unless we can hide ourselves. I'm not doing a good job of thinking ahead right now.” Ivan said after a long pause. His voice grew heavy with guilt and too many mixed emotions to count as he spoke.
He eyed Penelope as they made their way through the forest. She was smiling brightly at him again. This time it seemed a little more genuine, and it gave her all the more appeal for that. He bowed his head and kept on.
“Thank you.” He said softly.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The demon actually giggled. It was a girlish and mischievous sound that was filled with mirth. And it made him wonder just what he could do to hear it again. Maybe like Tanya she was ticklish somewhere, but that thought almost seemed to die on the vine as it came to his mind. The succubus gave a pleased little sound, and still under his arm, she leaned into his ribs companionably.
“You're very welcome as long as you keep to the contract. Do that and I will keep doing my job as your guide.” She replied. She was still helping him along, but it was getting easier as they went. His mana and stamina were recovering.
He had been sort of amazed at how much effort the seemingly simple ritual effects took out of him. It gave him a new respect for Father Julian ritual work. He had been going to teach Ivan those rituals very soon. It was one of the last steps before going out on a healing mission, the last test for those who would serve Istania before they were truly representatives of her will.
Ivan was surprised to feel tears on his cheeks and tried to force them down however he could.
“What's next after getting my next meal then? The Shroud and then what?” Ivan asked, his voice rough as he tried to control his emotions.
Penelope's dark amber ringed eyes watched him for a few moments. She was so close there was no way she missed his tears. She said nothing to them however.
“Once we have the Shroud it will be best for you to stop killing people for a while. We're heading toward one of the border towns. With the Shroud we'll be able to pass through even if we're directly inspected. Then we can move onto Dentennek and your first real test. We'll need to hide there and find a team to approach the Dungeon. Without it and the levels you'll gain inside we'll never make it to our true goal.” Penelope told him, still smiling all the while.
“Dentennek?” Ivan asked, sniffling once, before wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “I've always wanted to go into the dungeon. But even with the Paladin Job Istanina wouldn't let me go.”
Penelope chuckled. Her strange amber eyes looked Ivan up and down as they walked and she grinned at the face he made. Her gaze on him was always hungry, and he couldn't ever decide if she was just going to eat him or try to play with him.
“I understand getting job levels.” Ivan went on wanting to keep Penelope from whatever deviant thoughts she had going through her rotten head. “But why not get them out in the world? Couldn't we keep moving and lose whatever investigators come after us?”
Penelope raised her chin.
“Summon your Inspection Scroll.” She instructed.
He did. The scroll appeared; the parchment still a ghostly red and the ink now a light eating black. It described everything he could inspect on himself.
“Has anything changed since we began? How many people have you killed in the night and offered in ritual? A dozen? Two dozen?” She asked.
Ivan nodded as he noticed not one of his jobs had ascended in level. It took more than a few fights to raise any combat job to more than a few levels. Even then the lowest levels were the easiest and for all he had done with the intense rituals she had him doing it had only just advanced his Occult Ritualist to Level 2.
“If we went out in the world the path of blood we would leave would be found by anyone. We'll go into the dungeon with the Shroud and a party. You will deceive and fight alongside new allies in light armor, and use the weapon we've summoned today to reap the blood of many, many monsters before we give the offering back to Quixla. We'll do that alone, but managing that won't be hard once we have the Shroud. We can hope however to gain Quixla's praise and maybe one of the gifts I have arranged for you from her as well. Each step we manage will get you closer to your goal, but it is a very long road yet.” Penelope explained.
Ivan nodded. He understood though he felt rather stupid. He had no plan other than to summon a guide. He hadn't thought of how to get away. If Penelope hadn't known about the underground escape passage Ivan might not have gotten out of Istan alive. He felt blinded now; unable to look ahead. The days that had gone by were just a blur of seething rage and anger since Tanya's death. Her face at times seemed the only thing he could remember clearly. And now there was the man who killed her. And thinking of him, of all the God of Light's many zealots, made the pain return behind his eyes. With the pain came molten hot anger in his belly. He clung to it. He needed it.
“What have you arranged with Quixla? Another magic item?” Ivan asked.
In his mind he began taking the pieces Penelope was giving him of her plan. He sorted them, and placed them in his mind firmly with his resolve to claim vengeance upon those who had harmed his family and his Goddess's people. He would avenge them all. Istan had been bad enough, but he had also seen what the God of Light's forces had left behind on their way through Istan’s outer villages and farms. Inquisition. Altars destroyed. Families ripped apart member by member because they would not give up their items of faith to Istania.
“No Ivan. The first gift from Quixla I've arranged for you is the gift of the Blood Spark. It will take a great offering, but that's why we've summoned her dagger.” She told him simply, but still grinned up at him as they went on.
Ivan was shocked. To his mind it was only possible to gift Divine Sparks. They were sought after gifts of birth and station. He had even heard that some noble families did not marry off their young unless their partners had the right Sparks. All so that their own young might share in their gifts. As far as Ivan knew he had no Sparks of his own, but knew they existed in many states.
“A demon can gift Sparks?” Ivan asked.
Penelope grinned at him smugly.
“Of course, but warlocks always ask for something stupid instead. Usually some easy and quick solution to their problem without ever considering how much offense they're giving to the demon in question. At least your world has a very low rate of demonic corruption so we won't run into any Warlocks any time soon, but yes of course we can. And it is a true gift, and not some title thing that can be ripped away by a fickle hand. We keep to our contracts.” She said waving her free hand casually in various gestures to emphasize her points. Then as if realizing something she turned a dry gaze on Ivan.
“You had to at least expect that right?” She asked.
Ivan felt a bit sheepish. He shrugged.
Penelope sighed and shook her head.
“Oh boy. You at least know how Sparks work right? The difference between Latent Sparks, Nascent Sparks, and how Divine Sparks are mostly only borrowed?” She asked, her voice sharp with dissatisfaction.
“They give you magic. I had a Divine Spark.” Ivan said defensively.
He had his breath back now and his heart wasn't pounding so bad even if they were on the move. Penelope watched him as he pulled himself up and away from her, but then strode ahead of him smiling back over her bare shoulders. Her little tuft of a tail didn't do a very good job of hiding her behind or the bare patch in the gap between her thighs that Ivan had to rip his eyes from immediately.
“Sparks don't give you magic dummy.” Penelope said with a deliberately low toned and mocking voice.
She had even stopped and turned around to face him to make the point; her finger poking his chest as they came to a halt. It just so happened that they had come near a gathering of maple trees with forgotten or abandoned taps with hanging wooden buckets adorning their trunks. Penelope eyed them and smiled.
“They unlock what's inside. Like a tap into a tree. The magic is the sap trapped inside yourself. No one can give you magic. Oh there's ways like with the Shroud where someone like me can guide your hands toward a new magic, but that's just the forms of it. It's the soul that makes the magic, not the other way around.. –the energy of any spell or spell-like effect anyone casts still comes from inside themselves no matter what tool they use to do it. A mage isn't powerful because she's been given so much more magic than everyone else, she's powerful because she's found the ways to harness the energy within her soul and bring into the world!” She told him vehemently. As if not knowing that, or him not being taught so, had upset her.
Ivan touched at his chest where under his shirt the wooden carving of the Caduceus lay against his skin still. Penelope poked him directly atop it.
“She didn't give you healing powers, dolt. She simply lent you her own tools to use your own power to heal.” Penelope scolded him, guessing his thoughts accurately.
Ivan nodded in somber understanding.
“So I could...I could learn to heal again?” He asked softly.
For another few moments he felt like he was crumpling again. He thought of all the hurt and pain he had caused. And he realized something deep within his personality was trying to recover what he had been. It was lost. Hopelessly lost now and he knew it, but this deep part of him seemed not to care and wanted nothing more for things to return to how they had been.
He saw the faces of children risen from sick bed in his mind; their eyes changed from dull and fevered to bright and vibrant at a touch of his hand. He saw elders bent in pain, heard their gasps, as life and energy renewed filled their limbs and let them stand straight once more as they put their hands in his.
He saw the parish gardens as they would always be in his memories. He saw the Sun Lillies, the Rash Thorn Roses, and the white petal blossoms of enormous berry bushes behind the stained glass of the temple's main altar. That private little garden had been his secret place where only Tanya could come find him. There was a hollow in one of the bushes. A safe place where he could read alone in his first days as an orphan taken in by the church.
He looked at his dirty hands and somewhere in his heart a small voice wished he was there again. That Tanya would come find him, and help him make everything grow and be better again. He was startled then as the Demoness moved, snapping him from his momentary revere.
Penelope stepped close to him, her bare chest just inches away from his filthy shirt, and she drew his face up so that he looked down into her eyes. She would just have to lean forward a breath more to kiss him. With her light eating horns so close it almost seemed like she was the only thing in the world. Her scent doubled that effect and Ivan felt his heart pick up its pace as the amber rings in her dark eyes drew from squares to circles to focus on his own.
“Yes Ivan. You could. But you're going to learn to do so a different way now, and it's going to be all your own. Demon kind cannot take back what they have given. We are not so fickle as the Gods. We are bound. There are rules and traditions we dare not break, our word and reputation is all we have; favor a currency that is bound only how much one can be trusted to keep their word. In a world that is almost entirely spiritual it is all we have.”
She took a breath, her hands gliding gently along his cheeks, and her delicate nose touching his own. The scent of her so close was intoxicating. His hands started to lift from his sides, but he hardly noticed, only enough to keep them from moving any further forward.
“As your guide I will unlock the magic within you and show you how to use it to tear apart your enemies just as you wish. You need only trust in me, and follow where I lead you. I am very old, and know the realms of Hell very well as I have walked them for many lives of men. I will guide through the brambles that would snare and bleed you dry as you have asked, but you cannot falter where I would lead you. There is no turning back.” She said, her every word was like an enchantment upon his mind. In parts of his mind he tried to doubt her, but all he could see in her eyes was a shared pain.
The knowledge of betrayal and promise lost. For just a few moments it seemed Penelope had set aside the teasing and was trying her utmost to comfort him. He fought, but so badly wanted to give in. He knew it would take the pain away as surely as it would probably kill him. He just wasn't sure if he really cared at that moment.
He felt himself lean down toward her, and felt her lips as they closed and touched his own in the faintest kiss. Her breath was hot, and her lips moist. He realized somewhere in the back of his head that he was touching her hips, drawing her to him, and he fought to pull away. He did so, but slowly. The regretful little breath that came from her was almost enough to bring him back and drive her to ground. Not violently, but to take her with the certain instinctual knowledge that she wanted him to. She was too pliant under his hands; her willing movement under the barest touch of his fingers was like lightning striking his most base instincts.
He was panting again before he was able to make himself focus on her eyes. The dark orbs and their curious amber rings watched him as a slow and easy smile spread on her face. Her hands guided his own away from her hips.
“Not yet Ivan...” She whispered. “I will have you, but not yet. You're very close. Very, very close now.” He barely registered the words as she whispered them to him. “Resist a little longer. Just a little more.”
His mind cleared somehow with a tremendous effort and he pulled away from her on his own.
'A special action has raised your Mental Fortitude Attribute.' His Scroll read floating near him. He pawed at it in a vague motion dismissing the simple magic. There were a few too many entries like that now and he was beginning to hate having it show up whenever something progressed.
When he looked back at Penelope she was smiling at him again. She really did like to show her fangs it seemed, and her dark light eating antlers were suddenly so potent that it seemed they cast her in shadow. She had said something, but he couldn't really bring the words to mind. All that was in those memories was the softness of her skin and the touch of lips like a sweet burning brand upon his mind.
She came forward and took his hand.
“The next village isn't far now. There's more of the Army of Light's Militia men here. I can feel it. We'll have to kill them. Right now even just the priestess they have with them will be able to sense my corruption in you. Maybe she will be the one we drag off into the night.” Penelope said, her voice too friendly and casual for the subject matter. She shrugged. “It doesn't matter. Just as long as before they die...they're completely terrified.”