Transition Side Story: A Friend at the End

Demon Lord Valiant

I look upon the corpse that once held my friend, yes I consider him my friend, in fact my dearest friend, despite having known him for such a short time. Sadly and unfortunately, he lived up to the impression of being a bluntly honest sort;

He wasn’t lying in saying that undead spells have no effect on him, and after thinking about it and doing some experimentation with some of my holy artifacts I brought out from my inventory, even if I had holy magic myself or could find someone who did. It would also have no effect.

Holy type revival works by restoring the broken bond between body, spirit and soul also known as life force. Heroic water works by consuming those bonds and life-force itself to produce power; even if the revival was successful he would just die again moments after it succeeded, as there would be nothing keeping soul spirit and body together once the revival magic faded.

I hear the clanging and thundering footsteps of an army, but am not very concerned. it will take them hours maybe even days to even get to this point…I can guess from his humble personality that he would be surprised to hear me say so but he was indeed better than an army better than most demons. for because of the heroic water he was nearly on par with at least an average demon lord and the most surprising thing was despite  received very little official training due to his position, he had the skills to match myself who was many times his age.

Gazing once more the now empty body and once again being comforted by the peaceful expression on his face. I realize I don’t want to leave it here…depending on the slant they take; the humans could do anything from leaving it to rot, to the distasteful custom of burying it in a coffin in the ground.

Among demons most are cremated (to prevent others from using the body) and the ashes scattered…there is usually no such thing as a demon tomb...on the other hand…I think of a solution that pleases me and prepare to leave my dungeon, this mainly consisted of pausing for a moments rest, 30 days of nonstop battle was a bit much even for a demon lord that other demon lords call a monster.

After about 10 minutes, of resting, meditation and regulating my ki and mana I feel almost refreshed and am ready to go. I then turn to the body and after memorizing its current appearance concentrate and cast a time freeze spell on it. I considered casting this same spell on him when he was alive…but it would have worn off fairly quickly, especially because of all the magic resistance I sensed in him and besides it would have just been a small delay in his inevitable fate. Also he commented several times on how much we seemed to think the alike in many ways, and if I were him I would have wanted to go out in battle rather than to die slowly, painfully over time.

I pick up the statue the body has become and place it in my dimension bag, then I concentrate and summon a large lessor demon boss, which has a somewhat similar appearance to a higher demon and although it doesn’t talk it seems almost intelligent because of the serious way it looks at one who is looking at it …

Mischievously I also take out from the treasure room in my dimension bag a shiny and beautiful armor that despite its flashy looks is actually somewhat weak in defense and durability and at least in the demon lands cheap in material and workmanship.

I then using magic and a bit of mind puppetry I dress the demon in it…I hold him in place with my will easily as I add the finishing touch of a faux gold crown…and a large fragile black sword. I then open my escape portal, setting it to vanish behind me so that even if a magic user of my level comes here they will be unable to use it.

I step through the portal and find myself in the entrance hall of the lair that is my favorite, after the one I just left. That one is my favorite because of the solitude, but this one is my favorite because of all the creature comforts it provides.

I have no servants (most demons hate me because of jealousy or fear me because of my strength) so no servants but a lot of magic so I came up with the obvious solution. I have put many spells in place that automatically keep things clean and in repair for me. If a Human king saw the inside of my lair he would probably drop dead from greed at all the treasures decorating it and acting as furniture.

It is not that I myself am greedy and am obsessed with treasure, but with all the bribes, shame payments from demons that lost when challenging me and not to mention all the wealthy famous adventurers attacking me and dying leaving their belongings behind-I have much more treasure then I would ever know what to do with it. So in order to keep it from cluttering up my dimension bag or collecting dust in a rarely used storage room, I use most of my treasure as decorations and furniture, in as my mother would say my “show piece rooms”.

I walk past the 5 or so rooms I use as my entrance and greeting area and enter the rooms I have set aside for my more personal belongings- things I picked, found or even created myself that I actually liked and found a practical purpose for, many of these things could also be considered treasures in their own right.

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Statues and sculptures of demons both beautiful and ugly from multiple cultural perspectives, pose beside window frames and alcoves. Various weapons and armor made by those at least considered masters in their craft sit proudly on stands or hang on plaques and holders on the walls, and most impressively (in my opinion), hundreds of large book shelves stuffed to overflowing stand with military precision making small corridors…but the rooms are so big my stuff only takes up a fraction of the space.  I reach the end of this set of rooms, and come to the object that most interests me at this moment.

Most vampires living and dead fiercely hate sunlight, and while demons in comparison are merely are irritated by it in comparison it still weakens us. I was also weakened by sunlight in my youth…but one of the reasons I was able to reach boss level was unlike most of my kind after I realized I was weakened by it instead of avoided it I courted it…I would stay out in the sunlight until I felt sick, and thus I eventually developed a resistance that was equal to most hominids.

At the end of the room in tribute to this, is a place dedicated to the sun…it represents both my accomplishment as well as my awe towards the beauty of that great celestial body in the sky. First off instead of a normal wall I have a large stained glass window with a rainbow and ocean sunset motive, thick and enchanted so that it is almost impossible to break, but thin and pure enough that it easily lets in sunlight in various dazzling colors. Below it are various glass ornaments, shiny metal statues, mirrors and windows each more dazzling and more beautiful than the last, and each angled perfectly in order to catch and display the sunlight when it comes in to its best effect.

Then in the middle of what I call my garden of light and glass, is my eye catching center piece…the glass coffin. It is an piece with a rather gruesome history, a human kingdom once discovered a kingdom that was ruled by a small coven of undead vampires, but instead of just killing them, in order to make themselves feel safe which I could understand and rarely punish others for…they instead did things most obscene. They kept every vampire they successfully captured alive (though only barely) and every day they would try out various torture on the vampires for entertainment.

The glass coffin was a particularly cold hearted and ghastly one they thought up and crafted themselves and one they used specifically for the vampire queen…enchanted to keep her mute and still while inside…they would cover it with a black cloth in between shows…then when they felt like seeing her…they would slowly take off the cloth while making sure that it lay in direct sunlight. Unlike demons and most living vampires, the undead no matter what they do cannot cure their weakness to sunlight, so every torture never lessoned in intensity for the poor lady.

While it has been a long time since I brought justice to those insane sadists, I still vividly remember everything surrounding the incident because I kept the glass coffin as a memento. The glass coffin is strangely beautiful despite being designed and intended as a torture device…the inside is enchanted white silk (that is dust and ash repellent) and the lid is an extremely clear glass that easily lets in the light and allows one too see inside perfectly.

The coffin itself seems to be some sort of prism or jewel that creates dazzling rainbows when the light shines through. I open the coffin and gently lay my friend inside. The coffin was designed to keep whatever spell is on the victim or corpse in effect longer…so I know that as I shut the coffin I will now conveniently only have to refresh the time freeze spell every few years instead of once a month. I carefully arrange the body to look like it is merely sleeping, then slowly and smoothly place the lid back on. I rest my hands against the glass and although I am looking at that person’s face… I speak not to this empty body but to that person’s memory.

“I really enjoyed knowing you, and you gave me a lot of food for thought…I feel like I need to repay you for the company and friendship you so freely gave so I will try to achieve your dreams in your place, or at least what you recommended I should do. I will once again continue my journey to become stronger, but this time I will not stop in fear of my own strength instead I will accept my strength and learn to control it.

I will try to reach the pinnacle of this world and then change the world’s rules to suit myself. Don’t worry, I didn’t have much interest in killing humans before…but now I will only fight a human or other of weaker race if it is in self-defense, and I will have those who follow me keep to those same rules. And know this, no matter where your soul travels in your next life, no matter how long time passes in my heart you will always be my friend.”