The sisters swore and went for their weapons but I was unperturbed by the demonic manipulator. After all, she hadn't killed me yet had she?

"Hey there Merri. What brings you here?"

The demoness still had that pixie-like cuteness and the provocatively designed armour that had seemed like such a promise of erotic things to come when I had started my life in this new world. But I was no longer rendered a drooling imbecile by the sight of a pretty, demonically-shaped face and a nice perky pair of...Victoria snapped her fingers in front of my eyes and I tuned back in to the end of Merri's explanation. "I heard about a man suffering from the mutations old Ranyai used to take delight in inflicting and I just had to come check it out. Make sure I'm not leaving any loyal soldiers behind for him to make use of. I don't want to go back to the hells, I don't want him sending anyone after me either."

I shook my head. "Isn't he dead?" I thought that was the point, if Ranyai could just kill himself and go home then he wouldn't have bothered trying to open a gate.

Merri made a 'sort of' gesture with her hand. "He's mostly dead, the majority of his surviving creations are mindless but if he passed his taint on to a sentient creature like a human then he could... reassert himself."

So he wasn't dead enough then, if Karl gave into the demonic taint warping his biology then he might give the Butcher new life, on the plus side it meant Merri had a vested interest in killing our way through as many Derro as we had to in order to reach Karl, on the flip side however, she probably had a vested interest in killing him once we got to him. "Do you know how we can beat their paralysis? That venom nearly took us all down"

Luna interjected at that point. "Why are you so chummy with this bitch? She used us once already, now she clearly wants to kill my boyfriend and we're just going to trust her again?"

Victoria clearly had similar opinions based on her uneasy expression. Merri gave the sisters her most disarming smile. "Not kill, just see how he's doing, make sure he isn't going to lose his mind and become a monster. That's all, think of it as me repaying my debt to you if you want."

I cleared my throat. "The poison, any ideas on that? Any at all?"

Merri ignored the sharp looks she was still getting and turned that smile on me. "I don't know much about human anatomy remember. I also wasn't much more than a shock trooper, I don't do buffs or debuffs. You're the one with the support spells."

I couldn't argue with that, It wasn't helpful but I couldn't argue with it. "Can I get some of your blood then? I've got a feeling I can make something useful from that when we have downtime." It was true, looking at the demon I had this weird feeling, like being on the verge of a eureka moment, I could use her blood, make a spell that imitated her biology, it would require additional reagents, the application of my previously acquired knowledge to the problem but It just might work. It might give me a way to protect us from the Derro cult's worm-ichor.

"You're looking at me like I'm an ingredient or something." Merri tried to distract me but I kept staring at her, trying to imagine which of my known reagents might turn her blood into a defensive or curative spell.

"Fine, keep looking at me that way. I'll tell you something though, those Derro were scouts, I managed to incapacitate one of them before they all took those gondolas deeper underground. It took a bit of persuasion on my part but he told me they have a hive city to the north of here."

Merri raised an eyebrow and Victoria got it first. "You think they could come out underneath Croftop? That they've been beneath us the whole time?"

Merri nodded with a satisfied grin. "They conquered all the other settlements they could find in the deep depths, gnomes, deep dwarves and the overly squamous and rugose creations of the elder things. Then they dug tunnels until they found the homes of goblins and orcs, more gnomes and another cult of Derro Expansionists. Now they're popping out all over the place, attacking the surface. I'd wager it's only a matter of time before they just dig straight up from where they started."

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"Then we have to alert the capital. Call in more people to go down there and burn them out. Croftop doesn't have the forces to repel an assault from those things."

Merri seemed to be enjoying herself too much. "I propose a simple solution to your problems. The Derro are collapsing the tunnels behind them because they have a contingency in place. Unaware of just how limited your offensive capabilities are they have chosen to play it safe, popping up and attacking anew to the northwest of here. Bring your dead catgirl and venom-crippled human to your home settlement and I'll find their newest exit point. If we hit them hard and fast we can penetrate into the heart of the operation and seize control of the gondola system. Then we take the gondola to their home city and rescue this boyfriend of yours."

Luna bristled at that. ""Leave Karl down there for days? He won't suffer in silence, they'll kill him if he rebels."

Merri's smile disappeared. "They won't kill him, these Derro delight in the breaking of their slaves. They see the worm as both a sacred being and a pitiable one, they're ultimate goal is to shatter the will of their subjects, to leave them as nothing more than burrowing, broken things. You don't have a choice though, if you go down there now you'll have to dig through 50 feet of stone just to reach the gondola system. When you get there you'll find it dismantled and have to press on through numerous artificial cave-ins. My way will prove faster."

We reached an agreement and shortly after we were back on the horses, aching, bruised, muscles partly paralysed from the venom, everyone rode slowly, wincing with every bump and jolt, the man who'd been a slave in the Derro warrens rode with Luna, Merri flew overhead on wings of membranous black while Victoria rode with Farrah's limp body draped over her horse. I'd pushed myself to the limit before but doing that ride with my body already so fucked up was truly something else. We rode through the night, my magic augmenting the power of a lantern to illuminate our path clearly. At some point Farrah groaned and we stopped to rest. The Catgirl slowly looked around at us and then up at the sky. "Did we win?"

At that point we stopped to rest, I suggested Merri fly ahead and warn the estate but she shot the idea down. "I'm not a carrier pigeon, I'm also not leaving you all alone in the forest with a bunch of injured adventurers and a traumatised slave."

The slave in question had barely said a word since we broke him out. Following in our footsteps and occasionally wincing at some remembered trauma. I gave him a blanket and Victoria helped me dress and clean his wounds while he haltingly relayed his story to us. "They came out of the field, cut us down like we were crops, I tried to fight, it didn't matter. The Worms have ways to hurt you when you're down, they can make you scream, make you wish you were dead." We fed the man a few Spoonfuls of hot stew until he seemed to recover enough clarity of mind to do it himself. Then we sat with him by the fire and we all talked, trying to include him, to give him some degree of normalcy but finding ourselves unable to really provide it. Eventually he went to sleep and we moved him to my tent.

"Alright then, who's up for some whisky?" Merri had materialised a half-drunk bottle of some dark liquor and was shaking it around when I returned to the fire. I shook my head at her in disapproval but Luna silently snatched the bottle and gulped down a sizable portion before handing it over to her sister. Victoria tossed it to Farrah without imbibing and the catgirl drank most of it before tossing the dregs back to Merri. "You're alright demon, you're better company than the cleric at least."

Merri waved her hand and the bottle disappeared into some extradimensional storage. "How did you survive little cat? You seemed very dead when I first saw you."

Farrah explained her magical item's effect once again. She was way too trusting about that. Anyway, when she received a killing blow her body teleported away from the attack, the item's enchantment was smart enough to send her towards an ally if possible but she would remain corpselike for some hours afterwards, sometimes even days. "How many times have you died?" That was my question, she seemed to be quite knowledgeable about her item's abilities. "Oh, maybe ten or eleven times, I can be pretty reckless." The catgirl was slurring her words at this point and Merri was looking at her with open appreciation. "You, are exactly my kind of woman. May I ask what class you are?" Farrah happily expounded on her Beserker class to an increasingly interested demoness shock trooper and Victoria and I sidled up close to each other on a log while Luna pretended not to notice.

"Looks like you've got someone waiting for you in your tent? Should I be jealous?" Victoria put her hand on my thigh and let me pull her in close by the fire. "He's not my type, I'm more into blondes, you know, the svelte, library-dwelling type." Victoria kissed me, damn it, she always went for it just before I could take the initiative. Her lips brushed my ear as she leaned in and our kiss broke.

"I think he needs that tent all to himself, you can share mine though."