Kryton or the chain devils as they are called by their victims are almost never called to the front lines of the Infernal armies. They are the torturers and jailkeepers of the nine hells. No devil is crueler to a prisoner than a Kryton, and everyone that they are not explicitly told by a superior to be otherwise is a prisoner. They enjoy nothing more than breaking an unruly prisoner with their tortures, tortures that they often begin in the middle of combat.
They are masters of law-based magic and magic to induce all forms of pain. Their chains are stronger the more the laws of Hell demand their targets be restrained and tormented, and that is an absolute; Hell, always demands such things. – Common Monsters
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Adrian
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Only a few minutes after that first spearman died, the other humanoid monsters have ceased to follow after our group. That does not make much sense to me, not sure why they would not chase after us. Bringing an army and not even pursuing your target makes no sense.
“Why aren’t they following us?” asks Abagail.
“Doesn’t matter, we need to keep moving” I respond.
I can almost hear what she grumbles but I am too focused on the hoard of goblinoids and whatever sort of humanoid that spearman is. I can still hear wood striking wood and metal on metal, almost as if there is still combat going on.
Whatever problems that this army is having now are good news as far as I am concerned. If they are fighting something that will give me time to get some distance between us. I glance at my brothers and mother, they seem to be tired from this short run.
It is only after a few minutes that we stop our run, having little to see of any possible pursuit. Some of us simply did not have the stamina nor will power to hold a sprint for long.
My mother is nearly falling over from exhaustion though supported by my siblings; they are not in much better physical condition. Abigail, like my mother, is having problems from the sprinting but refuses to come to a stop forcing herself to keep going.
It is barley another hour before my mother could not physically continue and my brothers though willing also lacked the strength to keep going. I sigh as we begin to make camp far too close to where we encountered a nearby army.
“We need to keep going” K tells me in the tongue only us two speak.
“I know but the others can’t handle it.”
She looks over the group and I can tell that for a few seconds she had the same idea as me; they are dead weight lowering our chance of survival. Neither of us are willing to act on that but it is obvious to everyone.
“Rest, I’ll keep guard but sleep lightly and ready to run.”
She frowns and presses herself against me lightly. “Moonlight Runner wanted to play with you tonight.”
I can’t help but physically react when she said she wanted to sleep together tonight, but regardless of how eager and willing we are, it would be a bad idea right now.
“It’s too dangerous right now. I’ll make it up to everyone when we are safe.” I say while giving her a hug.
We separate and I turn around to everyone as they lay down around a tree.
“Be ready to wake and run, but get all the rest you can.”
I get a nod from Bryan and Abagail but the others seem to have already fallen asleep. There was a blanket layed out next to the elven twins, clearly for me but K takes the spot since I will be keeping guard.
As soon as I can tell that the trio entered sleep or maybe revarie, I should ask if they really do have a different kind of sleep they can use, I move just out of eyesight and shift into dragon shape.
The pain of my broken bones and missing wing explode, I nearly pass out as the flow of my blood into the ground also resumes. I twist reality, stopping the loss of lifeblood and setting bones as tears form from the pain form in my now reptilian eyes.
I shouldn’t have jumped into this form straight away but eased into it. I barely get the injuries to be scabbed over before my method of healing starts to cannibalize the other muscles to regrow what had been lost, something I should not let happen.
Able to breathe shallowly without breaking open one of my wounds I cast my mind into my Void Cache to search for what I can use to get the biomass to finish healing.
The organization of my cache was always poor but I cannot help but get upset over the dragon corpse that ruined what little organization I had.
At least I don’t have to know where in Void Cache something is, just that it is there. I’m still going to have to organize this since I never paid attention to just how much of what food is in here.
I pull a part of the radiance dragon's wings into my physical hands to begin eating, even if the red dragon is cut up I need to get rid of the radiance dragon to try to organize my Void Cache.
The texture of the wings is like an undercooked chicken wing, I don’t understand why this doesn’t disgust me but since I have to I may as well be glad I can enjoy the taste of raw flesh.
I don’t notice anything approaching as I continue to eat and then heal with the flesh of the radiance dragon. Before too long I had eaten most of the dragon's corpse and only the nub of what was once my left wing remains injured.
I saved it for last since it would be the hardest to heal, the rest the body could do on it’s own but regrowing bone and joints from nothing has to be guided.
I check for life by focusing on seeing all that lives as I twist reality. There isn’t anything other than bugs, plants and my friends for about a mile. I think, distances are hard I should try figuring that out.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I slowly manage to grow a mirror image to my right wing, which I assume is the right shape. My shattered and tattered wing left in Void Cache seems like it’s bones fit together as the other still does.
It feels right and doesn’t hurt so I will just assume that it is right. It could not have been significantly different from the right wing to have balanced flight anyways.
I should probably test the new wing but I don’t want to leave everyone else unguarded. I’ll just circle around the immediate area.
A jump and a few flaps of my wings sends me soaring back into the sky, my eyes easily seeing in the scant moonlight that breaks through in rays from the cracks between the night time clouds; whatever the dragon's equivalent of a smile is, it would be on my face.
I like flying, but I can’t just enjoy it tonight. I scan the ground for where any other humanoids may be and can see two.
One off in the distance, tents and many other things. I am not sure exactly how many creatures there are but I can see specks moving around and the lights of several fires, the distance being the only thing that let me handle looking at fire in infravision.
The other is closer a dozen or so beings moving around a something or someone? Whatever is going on there distracted and/or dealt with the few dozen creatures we didn’t kill a few hours ago. I kind of want to see what it is.
I have Lykou manifest again, his form still somewhat injured from what few weapons the hobgoblins had that could hurt him.
He feels my will and knows what I want, and soon begins to circle around on the ground where I had been up in the air.
I should probably wake one of the trio to take with me but they are all tired and need their sleep. Actually I probably shouldn't do this at all, but I want to and it shouldn't really endanger my friends.
It is not but a few minutes of my leisurely flight before I am close to whatever has been distracting the remnants of the hoard, and once I do see what it was I feel something in me.
I am not angry or enraged, just disgusted and abhorred. The monsters that I fought earlier tonight have shown their actions to be more inhuman than their appearance.
They had torn each other apart, cannibalized some of their number for food but that even with the gore and body parts strewn about as decorations in some sort of almost tribal manner was not what invoked my disgust alone.
In the center of their tents was a pile of nude corpses, or mostly corpses as some still we’re generating heat. Each and every single body was female and covered in injuries and a fluid that is not blood, though some of it was blood.
Time twists into a faster rate around me as my desire to simply erase this threat to my friends grows with each moment that I have to see what they would have done to my lovers and mother.
Black globs of what I could only call void fly from my mouth as I circle a single time around this remnant camp. I may not care much for those that are not my friends, but that does not mean I like things such as this.
I watch for a few moments, my second pass around this camp, as the blackness of the void expands and then thins before dispersing revealing small round craters where several tents that were previously filled with heat signatures.
I land and breathe out a ray of light brighter than the noonday sun on the remaining tent. Which was the biggest tent. There is a crackle of some sort of energy as a rune of quickly waning power blocked my attack for a few seconds before a crack resounds through the night air.
The rune shattered, the tent burst into flame and what few monstrous beings that walked this camp began to flee. Screaming in their tongue a word I can only assume is a depiction of either my actions or form.
Since they are all running away, and not in the direction of the small camp of my friends I don’t bother to stop any of them.
I hear the voice of some female behind me, probably someone from that pile. I turn around the light of the burning tent reflecting off my scales.
A single woman struggles to stand up, underneath the dirt and abuse she just endured lies a figure that I am sure I would find attractive in a different setting. She says something in a tongue I do not recognize but feels familiar.
Whatever it is that she said it was respectful. Is she thanking me?
[Yes, she is. Fancy words full of our majesty. I like her.]
So dragon-me speaks this tongue, and he has vanity problems.
[Oh and why don’t you share the knowledge of this tongue with me?]
[Because you don’t share our hoard with me.]
[So you’re being petty? Aren’t you a fragment of me?]
[Yes, that’s why since I like this woman’s words you should help her.]
[So she is complimenting us while asking for something? She’s playing us for a fool than.]
[But I want to hear more praise, help her. It’s not like it costs us anything.]
[If she is a foe it will, remember where we are. Besides you're not sharing either so why should I do something you want?]
There is a silence from dragon-me for a moment but the woman regardless of her injuries gives a deep kneel of supplication as she voices something that is clearly a question.
With that dragon-me finally answers, [I want to have more say in our actions than just changing our body into a dragon's.]
[Then share your knowledge and behave. You nearly got everyone killed from the tantrum you threw . . .]
[Does that mean I can have a turn with our hoard?]
[No, and don’t you experience everything I do anyways?]
[It’s not the same. Like dreaming about doing something and actually doing it.]
Well the real thing has been better than the horny teenager dreams I get about my girlfriends.
[Not yet, maybe if you go back to being an obedient and helpful dragon and the girls want some of you.]
I can feel excitement from dragon-me for a moment, but I doubt my girls will want love from the dragon who took their boyfriend away.
They probably will never accept him a a part of me, except for K. She and Moonlight Runner seem to be something similar.
[But when I was like that you kept pushing me away.]
[That’s because I thought you would try to take control of me. Was I wrong?]
There is silence in our communication before dragon-me responds.
[No, I’m sorry.]
I mentally nod towards dragon-me.
[Alright, start now and I’ll help this woman because you like her flowery words. But she is probably trying to manipulate us.]
[Deal, she wants us to wash over her with our aura to mend her flesh. And what is wrong with her manipulating us?
Didn’t our hoard manipulate us into also being our mates?]
I sit in stunned silence, not just from the information from what I can only assume as ancestrial memory begining to trickle in but from the idea that the trio was and is still manipulating me.
Before too long I respond to dragon-me, [because I like who they are and what they manipulated me towards.
Sure K pulled a drunk me into bed with her and the elven twins decided with her to share me, but have they tried to trick me into something I would be against?
Their manipulation is benign and aligned with our own wants. This woman’s could be malicious and detrimental. That’s the difference.]
I can feel dragon-me begin to think on that, I guess our introspective dialogue is over then.
I turn to the woman, I know what she pleaded for, and can feel the tongue of dragons almost literally on the tip of my tongue.
“Don’t think to play me with your words woman. I’ll heal you because you are an enemy of those who attacked my friends and me earlier this night.”
I reach across the nigh barren ground between us with a single claw as I twist reality to force her body to regenerate.
Scabs and scars vanish from her skin, revealing a figure more curved and feminine than the athletic builds of my girlfriends. I feel like shifting human and trying her out for an instant.
But I will not be like the brutes I just slew, and I will not cheat on my girls. I wouldn’t be against adding something like what I am seeing if they let me though. At least if her personality was good too, but as she is so quickly turns to flattering me in thanks while hinting that I should hunt down those that ran off I doubt I want her in my group.
I only half pay attention to her words before interrupting, “temptress, do not try to play me. Honeyed words and a pretty face do not hide the venom and hate from me.”
She stops speaking and I take off to the night sky before she tries again. Manipulator indeed but I can’t really hold it against her for hating those monsters. At least playing the role of an old wise dragon was fun.