"Dear diary. Possibly day 263 of my unending captivity. Still kicking myself for not keeping a diary earlier. Mother only lectured me for half an hour today through the door. She must be losing her voice. Good. Apparently my wickedness has tainted the country and so the Overlady of the North they all talk about is all my fault. The old hag's delusions know no bounds. She gave me a new book today. On manners and etiquette and obedience towards one's parents. What fun. Have started tearing out the pages and making paper birds from them. Much better use for it. Maid didn't come today. Hope she shows up tomorrow; I want to know how she got on with Henri and Jacques."
– Henrietta de Tristain
…
Shoulders hunched over, stubby wings protruding from the back of her low-cut dress, Jessica downed her drink. "It… it doesn't really matter," she muttered, slamming the glass down onto the table. "There's always next year. Right? Right?"
"Oh, you don't want to do that," said Cattleya, who didn't have a drink. "You might break the cup, and then you'd get glass in your hand."
"But really?" Jessica continued, ignoring the vampire, "Prahdear? Of all the people? Why him? He's… he's a talentless hack! He has no flair! No style! No originality! He couldn't design his way out of a wet paper bag with a sharp pencil!" She grabbed another drink, and downed it.
"That was my drink," Louise objected.
"This sucks," the dark-haired girl muttered rebelliously. "Like, I could accept that Pyria beat me. Some of her work in blended fires is gorgeous. I'd love to be able to do what she does. But Prahdear? His things; they're bland! Conservative! I… it's not fair!" She glared at Louise. "How are you taking it so well? You lost out on two things! You don't look even upset!"
"Oh, well," Louise said, shrugging with a clanking noise. "I guess I'm just taking the defeat well. I was a little annoyed at the time, but… well, I decided to take it in a mature and sensible way, befitting of my heritage and status."
Cattleya frowned, her eyes crinkling under the mask. "That doesn't sound like you," she said suspiciously. "Are you feeling alright? Do you have a temperature? Oh! Oh! Are you overheating in the armour?"
"Thank you, C… Countess," Louise said acerbically.
"I'd think not," Jessica said, sounding offended. "I designed that to be fire resistant and comfortable."
"Anyway," Louise continued, "… no, stop it, stop trying to feel my forehead to see if I have a temperature." She fended away Cattleya's room-temperature hands, paused and restarted. "Anyway, being beaten by the Cathayan emperor was fair enough. I haven't done anything as evil as taking over a whole country." Inwardly, Louise smiled. It was perfectly true, because killing the comte de Mott hadn't been a bad deed at all! This lying-by-telling-the-truth was so useful! "In fact, I think I'll go and congratulate him in person. As I'm going to get another drink, anyway. You know, just in passing."
For someone who was drinking anything she got her hands on, Jessica was apparently still quite aware. "Yes, he was rather cute, wasn't he?" she said. "Exotic. And he looked… you know, smart and sensitive, unlike the muscle-laden meathead types around here. Plus, you know, he's an emperor. And had a really large staff. With a dragon on top."
"I… I don't know what you're talking about," Louise blustered. "And… uh, you're clearly a bit tipsy so… sister, please take care of her. And don't try to drink her blood."
"L… Lady!" Cattleya said, her hand going to her mouth in shock. "I wouldn't do that!"
"Sorry, I know, it was…"
"Have you seen how much she's drunk? I don't know how she's still upright, but I don't have a demonic tolerance for alcohol! I'd probably… like, end up catatonic!" Cattleya paused. "Also, it would be wrong to take advantage of her," she added. "Or possibly right! I'm sorry, I still don't have this evil vocabulary thingie working properly!"
"And I can shoot hellfire from my eyes so if you start trying to vamp on me I might do something you'll regret," Jessica added darkly, looking around for anything with more alcohol in it.
"Precisely!" Cattleya said, in a happy tone. "My condition understands threats of burny violence. So everything's just swell!"
"... I see," Louise said, slipping down from her chair. Yes, perhaps everything would be better with a drink in her. One which hopefully she would be able to finish before Jessica made a move on it.
…
All alone, Louise de la Vallière wandered through the thronging masses of the aristocracy of the Abyss. This might possibly have been a mistake, she considered. She didn't realise how much she had relied on being near Jessica, who knew all the strange customs of this place, and Cattleya, who could tear the head off a man with only a minimum of effort.
She squared her jaw, and steeled her nerve. She couldn't show fear. They might laugh at her. Or kill her and eat her soul. The latter was probably the worse of the two options, but it was a close thing.
"Fair lady, I have always found that the advantage of this prayer-fiscal method is that one can so easily trap mortal cultists in a cycle of endless dependency, a captive market which one can restrict their options where they must continue in their worship or suffer immediate withdrawal," a lilac-skinned bald demoness with pitch black eyes was saying to the busty, horned redhead who had won the 'Best Economic Domination Plan' award.
"That's certainly a thing," the red-head said back, "but have you ever considered instead building up the value of your human capital?"
"Once. It ended poorly, because a Hero found them. With how unstable the human world is at the moment, a slash-and-grab strategy is the only one which works. Long term investments are just too risky at the moment."
"That is a real problem," the other demon said sadly.
Louise grated her teeth at that. Oh, if she could just set the lilac demoness on fire! How dare she treat people like that! Stamping off with a disgusted glare at the various scantily clad women of Evil around her, she tried to find a waiter.
The reason for the paucity of the help was explained when she found the table of dragons. Her finding involved 'looking towards the end of the vast hall where the giant scaled flying lizards were'. There was a full crew of tuxedoed demons serving them drinks, pigs wrapped in bacon, and cows impaled on oversized cocktail sticks. The aforementioned giant scaled flying lizards came in all colours, from the smallest blue one to a giant black one who, despite the best efforts of the serving staff, kept on smoking. Louise decided to listen in while she tried to catch the attention of the help; after all, any little bit of information she could gather could help thwart the causes of Evil that was not her.
Not that she was evil, of course.
"The hoard market is up," declared a female-sounding green-gold dragon, holding a bathtub-sized vessel of wine.
"Not really surprising; the price of gold and jewels always increases in these troubled times," said a grey dragon.
"Oh, indeed, indeed," said the black-scaled dragon said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "I must admit, I was over-leveraged in property. The way the bottom fell out of the dungeon market twenty years ago adversely affected my capital position quite badly. I'd bought to let, and when all those petty overlords and dark champions and the like proved unable to meet the rent – because blessed Heroes had cut their heads off – I went into negative equity. I lost vast sums in the Karinian Crash."
"Oh, indeed, me too, me too," said the feminine-sounding green-gold one, sipping from her drink. "Why, it shows quite shocking irresponsibility by the nations of the world. To think that they blame us for burning down all those towns and demanding tributes of princesses! The way they sent all those Heroes to pillage my dungeons was nothing less than government-sponsored theft!"
"I think what we have to discuss here," added the black dragon, "is who are the real forces of progress and dynamism here? The forces of Good? Hardly! Without us, society would stagnate! We create jobs and wealth! We're the ones responsible for keeping the gold flowing!"
"From humans to us," agreed the red-scaled one.
"Quite so! Why, peasants would probably laze around all day if they weren't beaten by their lords to make as much as possible, so they can pay the tributes we demand of them! And we're the way the nobility disposes of surplus children!"
"They're juicy, and are the best we can get in this time of high prices on the world markets for princesses."
The black-scaled dragon huffed sadly. "We used to rule Halkeginia, you know," he said, exhaling a smoke ring. "Those were the days. But then the wretched forces of Good cast us down, and then when Evil inevitably rose again the new Overlords were usually humans and thus had an irrational fear of putting us in charge again." He fixed a heavy eye on the youngest and smallest dragon at their table. "Pay close attention to our words, young lady; don't ever believe humans when they tell you that they're offering an alliance out of the Darkness of their hearts. Only accept payment in gold."
"Or precious gems," interjected the red-scaled one.
"Oh, indeed, indeed. But favours are worthless compared to lucre. Humans often try to give us filthy lucre, but you should have better standards and only accept clean coinage. Are you keeping this all in mind, young one?" he said, leaning towards the smaller blue one in a way which Louise could not help but feel was a paternalistic manner.
"Yes! Yes, it's really interesting!" the blue dragon said, sounding young, female, and more than a little awestruck. "I'm… well, I'm really honoured to be invited to sit with all of you and… I didn't expect any of this, so I don't want to seem rude and interfere or anything!"
"Proper behaviour from the young," the green-gold dragon said, approvingly. "Ah, I used to be romantically involved with your father; tell me, what does he have you doing at the moment?"
"Oh!" said the blue dragon. "Well, my parents don't believe in inheritance unless we can prove that we can make enough money on our own that we don't need it."
"A somewhat radical position," a grey-scaled dragon said, snootily. "A real traditional family would just let their children eat each other or be killed by heroes until one survived who deserved the inheritance."
"So, well, at the moment I'm… I mean, I have an intern position with Big S… with Milady d'Winter. I just need the experience and the contacts before I can build up my first hoard. She's put me in contact with a lot of dealers in occult tomes and blasphemous books! She also, when we're not otherwise occupied, lets me live in her ruined… well, it's not quite a ruined castle, it's mostly only a bit dilapidated, but at least it hasn't had a fresh coat of paint in a while. That's how I got the invite to be here, at the Cabal Awards; she… well, she relies on me for a lot, so she needed me to come with her!"
"Milady d'Winter?" asked the black-scaled dragon, frowning. "I don't believe I've heard of her."
"No, no, she's a very private human. She does assassinations, eliminations and disposal of rivals for… well, it's government work, I think you'll understand if I can't say more. I don't want to get a bad reputation this early in my career!"
"Very wise, very wise. No one likes a blabbermouth."
"Oh, indeed so," the black dragon said. "Hmm. Tell me, does she take private commissions? There's a wretched evil clown who's being extremely obnoxious and is kidnapping children from a place I've gone to quite some effort to develop as a long-term investment. This cannot stand; if he isn't disposed of quickly, I'm afraid some blasted Heroes will show up and ruin years of work."
"I'll certainly put you in contact! And…"
That was all Louise cared to listen to, because she was bored, thirsty, and had managed to work her way up to a waiter.
"Wine!" she demanded, and then paused. "Wait, no. What do you have that's stronger?"
…
Even Cattleya's smile was starting to get a little fixed as Jessica continued to drink. This may have been the product of her surprise just how many shots the other woman was managing to put away. It may also have been because she was slowly being exposed to the full list of Jessica's diatribes.
The current topic was 'how hard it was to get drunk when you have the alcohol tolerance of an incubus'.
Cattleya strongly suspected that Jessica had rather less resilience to drink than she thought she had. She was also starting to get thirsty herself, and was wondering where Louise had got to. The appearance of the elf who had given the speech for 'Best Halkeginian Villain', holding what looked to be a glass of fruit juice, was rather a welcome relief.
"Oh, heya, Lilly!" Jessica announced loudly. "How're you doing?"
The elf blinked, gingerly picking her way over to their table. She was taking more than a little care not to step out of her dress – if were one to call it that substantial a garment – and had both arms crossed protectively in front of her in case of mishaps. "Um. I'm… uh, w-well, I think I'm… okay. I mean, I… I w-wanted to die out there wearing this and I d-don't know how Emerald t-talked me into wearing this and…"
"That's great! I'm doing shit."
"Oh. Um." Lilly wilted in the face of this conversational opening, but bravely pushed on. "You were s-so right about the dress. Arachnochique is… um, not me. At all." She sighed. "It's… actually w-worse than when we have to c-carry out things to our dark g-goddess when we're… um, naked, because at least that's dark and everyone's naked and… well, she mostly just eyes us up, says we're all out of shape, and makes us d-do more training afterwards. Everyone was just staring at me, and n-not in a good way! Your overlady person and your fr-friend here… those look like things I could actually wear. And the masks would hide the blushing."
"Well, at least someone fucking values my opinion!" Jessica declared to the world.
Lilly took a seat, muttering under her breath and blushing bright red as a wardrobe malfunction necessitated a hasty recovery. She edged closer to Cattleya. "How much has she had?" she asked.
Cattleya pointed mutely at the table. "All of that. Um. Do you want to borrow my cloak?" Cattleya offered, feeling acute sympathetic embarrassment for the other girl. Even if she was an elf.
The look of gratitude in Lilly's eyes was nearly terrifying in its intensity. "Thank you thank you," she said, looking a lot happier now she was wearing a red-lined opera cloak and had multiplied the area of fabric she was wearing by about two orders of magnitude. "Uh… you're the C-Carmine Countess, right? I… uh, saw a sketch of you in the j-journals."
Cattelya nodded. "Even though," she dropped her voice, "I'm not really a countess," she said. It was so clever of her! It made her sound as if she was secretly lower class pretending to be a higher aristocrat, rather than a member of the high nobility pretending to be an inferior noble. No one would ever suspect that! "And you're called Lillysuffering?" she asked.
"Please, call me Lilly." The elf dropped her voice in turn. "It's my real name," she admitted. "I j-just know how stupid Lillysuffering sounds, but it's the one people know m-me by." She sighed. "I should h-have begged Emerald to d-do this ceremony instead of m-me and said I was doing… um, some dark ritual or something," she said. "I get all n-nervous in public places, and I h-hate-hate-hate Los Diablos. There's no trees or… or… it's dead. And all polluted. It's as b-bad as home." She paused. "As good as home," she corrected herself.
Cattleya nodded sympathetically. "I don't think demons really go in for nature," she agreed. "I don't like that; running with my wolves was one of the things I really like doing when M… whenever I could!"
"Oh, you keep wolves?" Lilly said enthusiastically. "I have a few, but I really like my pet spiders! They're so cute! And they're such good mothers, too!"
"I tried spiders, but I never had much luck with them," Cattleya admitted. "Though I think some of that is due to my bats."
"Oh yes, bats are a real problem. They eat the spiders and also the same prey. Have you tried any ground-living spiders?"
Jessica pointed an accusatory finger at Cattleya, grabbing the nearest drink and downing it. "You! Don't start trying to… you know, fucking vamp her up! Lilly's a friend! I don't want you breaking her heart by taking away all the blood it needs!"
"Uh," Cattleya said, leaning back in her seat, "that was a trifle unexpected. What did I do to deserve that? And please, L… my lady has already asked you this evening about not swearing so much."
"J-Jessica is a m-mean drunk," Lilly contributed.
"No I'm not! Shut the fuck up, Lilly!" Jessica paused. "Oh dear," she added, because the elf seemed to be somewhat closer to being in tears than she normally was. "Look, just drink your fruit juice."
"Y-you drank it. Just now."
Jessica looked at the glass in her hand. "Huh. So I did. Where did that come from?"
"I put it down," Lilly said, as Cattleya carefully eased the empty glass out of Jessica's hand.
The dark-haired girl leant back, her stubby wings arching upwards over the back of her seat. "Okay, maybe I'm a little drunk," she admitted. "And really, really pissed off. In fact, I'm fucking enraged! Fuck this! Fucking cheating fixed unfair…"
Metal crunched as Cattleya squeezed down on the table, her fingers extending into claws. Fangs bared, she leaned forwards. "Just stop swearing so much!" she hissed in a corpse-rattle.
Lilly gave a pathetic squeak, and the red glow in the vampire's eyes died down. "Oh, I'm so dreadfully sorry," Cattleya apologised. "Really, I very much am. That's not me. That's the hunger for the blood of the living speaking. It's just flipping annoying, how you swear all the time."
"Maybe I've got the right!" Jessica snapped back. "Maybe I totally should have won that and it went to an uncreative, talentless hack! Who probably bought the prize! Or f… slept with the Cabal for it!"
"Please!" Lilly said, raising her hands. "C-can't we all just get along?"
A silence fell over the table, the half-incubus brooding and the elf wringing her hands together, looking nervously between the two of them. Cattleya, for want of anything else to do started shifting empty glasses around the table.
Jessica blinked heavily, and focussed on the pink-haired woman. "What are you even doing?" she asked, frowning slightly blearily.
"Oh!" Cattleya put down the glasses, and clapped her hands. "I'm just moving all the glasses so they're positioned symmetrically on the table. At the moment, they're all over by you, and it's just…" the woman shuddered, "… it's like when you walk into a room and one of the paintings isn't level. It's like a pain in the eye!"
Jessica stared at her. "Whatever makes you happy," she said, eventually.
"I wonder if there's anyone to drink," Cattleya said, looking around. "I just can't stay here staring at these things!"
"If you're going to be getting some wine, um…" began Lilly, "can you see if they're doing s-something very weak?"
"Oh no," Cattleya said, "I don't drink… wine." She paused, and added, "It's just jolly nasty tasting." She pulled herself up, and neatly flowed into the crowd, moving with inhuman elegance.
There was a silence.
"Well… uh, she s-seems nice," Lilly said brightly. "I mean, for an undead m-monster. And. Um. You do swear too much. And you're drunk."
…
After several minutes, Louise managed to explain while she had, in fact, asked what they had that was stronger that wine, she did not want an alphabetical list, and also wanted it to be both not too strong, and not fatal to someone with a human metabolism. That reduced the list down to a manageable size.
In the end, she had still just ended up with wine. Although it was a very good vintage, grown by evil Romalian monks according to the server. She had made a note of the monastery it allegedly came from. It would see righteous purging, in time.
Though she might want to order a few bottles first. This really was a very good wine, she thought, sipping it. And then she tried not to spit it out, at the sight of the… thing heading towards her, with a quill and notepad in hand. Louise tried not to stare at the twisted figure. It was a woman, yes, and in certain ways she could have had the potential to… well, not be a horrific blasphemy against all that was right and proper. But as it was, she was certainly eyecatching, and the overlady could barely take her eyes off the – demon? That had to be a demon, right? – the woman.
She had curves in all the wrong places. The girl was fairly sure the chest was not meant to bend like that. Or expose its contents.
"Ah, the Steel Maiden! Sah'leah Juen'nez, Los Diablos Times. You were up for two awards, yes? But didn't get either of them. How do you feel about that?" The woman's quill was at the ready, like some monstrous talon.
Wait, no, it was a monstrous talon.
"Well, I wasn't the favourite," Louise said blandly. "And Emperor Lee… the Cathayan emperor… well, I feel no shame in saying that he is a more wicked man than me. But trust me, I'm already working on the plans for my entry for next year."
"Considering your very first year saw you murdering a member of the Regency Council of Tristain and stealing an Evil artefact from the de la Vallières, that'll certainly be something to see," the journalist said. "Care to give my readers a clue to what you're planning?"
"Of course not," Louise said, flatly, and then forced herself to smile. "That would just ruin the surprise."
"Rumours have whirling around Los Diablos dinner circuits about your background," the twisted woman said. "The accent of a Tristainian noble from a very well-off family, you refuse to show your face in public, and you have the Gnarl himself as an advisor… is it true you were once one of the comte de Mott's mistresses, before you suffered a disfiguring injury and your lover cast you out?"
Louise balled her free hand into a fist, the other still occupied with holding her wine glass. "I do not comment on my past," she said icily, "and anyone who asks should take care. I consider such speculation highly insulting."
"Still going for the mysterious past," the journalist said, apparently not intimidated at all. "Fair enough. Please can you hold still for a moment, while my assistant," she gestured at a monstrous half-human, half-spider creature worked away with a charcoal, "… yes, we have your sketch. Thank you very much for your time, your evilness. I don't want to occupy too much of your time; not when you have other demands on your time." She winked at Louise, in a salacious manner, and then wandered off toward the table of the dragons.
Louise let out a breath slowly, turned, and found herself face-to-face with Emperor Lee.
"Um," she said.
The Cathayan man said something.
"This Imperial Dark Majesty, Emperor Lee, Lord of the Dragon Throne, Master of Wickedness, Lord of the Countless Armies of the East, Tyrant of the Prohibited City, Sorcerer-Vizier of the Ninth Seal bids you welcome!" announced his translator.
Louise took in her rival up close. He was… yes, he was handsome, in a somewhat exotic manner, but also surprisingly young. She would be surprised if he was more than a few years older than her, if that. His hair was dark and somewhat spikey, as seemed to be customary for many of the inhabitants of the Mystic East; his eyes were sharp. His dark robe, now that she looked closer, was not one piece; instead, it was made up of carefully layered garments of subtly different shades of black and dark blue, picked out with tastefully done hints of silver.
He was also, unless she was very mistaken, wearing armour under it.
"Greetings, your majesty," she said, because there was such thing as manners.
The emperor said something.
"This Imperial Dark Majesty, Emperor Lee, Lord of the Dragon Throne, Master of Wickedness, Lord of the Countless Armies of the East, Tyrant of the Prohibited City, Sorcerer-Vizier of the Ninth Seal bids ye; heed well his words, for he is the fountain of all wisdom! You barbarians of the outer lands should be honoured to hear him speak! Listen well, for he says that he expresses mild respect for your deeds and your actions! For a lackless barbarian, you have done acceptably!"
Louise began to redden, and the emperor said something harshly.
"This Imperial Dark Majesty, Emperor Lee, Lord of the Dragon Throne, Master of Wickedness, Lord of the Countless Armies of the East, Tyrant of the Prohibited City, Sorcerer-Vizier of the Ninth Seal bids ye; heed well his words, for he is the fountain of all wisdom! If you don't stop interjecting commentary on what he is saying, he will have your fingernails pulled out with red hot pliers and hammered into your eye sock… oh, he was talking to me."
There was a babble of foreign language between the two of them, and the translator hurried off, throwing nervous glances behind them.
"Translators," the emperor said in heavily accented Romalian. "They more trouble than person is worth, I think some days."
Louise smiled, a genuine expression of amusement. "You speak Romalian very well," she said. Certainly far better than she could speak Cathayan, which was to say, 'not at all'.
"Oh, you no flatter me now. I know I not that good, but maybe, now we talk without I insult you because of stupid translator. I speak small Romalian."
"No, no," Louise insisted. "I can understand you; I deal with people on a day to day basis who have a far worse grip on the language than you do."
He probably didn't need to know that those people were minions, but that didn't make it not true.
Together, they made their way through the hall, picking their way through crowds of demons, warlocks, and the other attendees.
"Sometimes, I feel like idiots surround me," Lee said. "Not just translator, though he have no will to survive. You see rivals? I no respect person who no grasp power is point of evil. Like… you wear armour. That good. Armour stop kill. I wear armour too. Evil women who no wear armour, they die. Too interested in body, not interested in keeping body intact. Useless! Act of a concubine, there to look pretty, not of ruler who keep hand around throat of world with iron grip!"
Louise blushed. "Oh, I quite agree!" she said, taking a sip of wine. "Isn't it very telling that the greatest female Hero… indeed, the greatest Hero of the last generation wore full armour?"
The emperor let out a slow breath. "Yes, we hear tales of the Karin in Cathay," he said. "Very scary lady. I hear tale that she no has fingers under metal glove; she just has more wand for more magic. She not fall into trap of being objectively suboptimal! You hear tale of how I kill last vizier, before I kill emperor? He get magic amulet which project him against knives, poison, and which wake him up when person try to kill him in night. He paranoid. But he not have protection against disease! He catch disease from biting insects from Ind I let loose in room, he die! What kind of person no have protection against diseases? Suboptimal!"
"I have no idea," Louise, who did not have any protection against diseases, agreed.
"It so stupid," he said, sighing. "You have impressive aura of Evil magic. You know that? You very powerful Evil sorcerer… perhaps even more power than me, but I have more dragons than you! Maybe we talk more in longer time when I find new translator who understand I no want misunderstandings. I send you head of old translator as sorry gift, yes?"
"Um… thank you?" Louise said, not quite sure where this was going. "Though I don't think that…"
"You dance?"
Oh. Was that where things were going? Oh my. Louise looked around somewhat frantically, hoping for help. All she could see was Cattleya, talking to a very handsome-looking man. No help there, then. Well, all she could do was follow her sister's example.
Louise screwed her eyes shut, downed her wine, and opened them again. "I'd love to," she said, trying to ignore the churning sensation in her stomach.
…
"Have you seen the Steel Maiden?" Cattleya asked again, speaking loudly and slowly to try to get it into the thick skull of this meat-bound musclehead. What kind of man seemed to think that his muscles replaced the capacity to converse normally?
Also, it was jolly hard to take this kind of man seriously when one was fairly sure that one could break his arm off if it wasn't a bad thing for a well-mannered lady to do. Her mother had always taught her that decent young ladies didn't tear off men's arms unless the man had attacked them first. So instead she pushed past him, ignoring his protests.
"Excuse me?" she said to the nearest waiter. "Um! Excuse me!"
"My lady?" said the demon impishly.
"Do you have… uh," she should probably be good, because she had been rather pigging out on unicorn and she had noted a certain… tightness in some of her older clothes, "… a bull's blood, please?"
"Certainly, my lady. Coming right up," he said, ducking behind a pillar and somehow emerging with a wide glass filled to the brim with red liquid.
"Thank you very much," she said, passing him a small coin, and wandering off. Jessica had given them both a long and complicated talk on how one was expected to tip the help in the Abyss, and she hadn't understood it, so she was going to follow the instructions to the letter. Cattleya took a sip, and turned pale. Delicately, trying to stop anyone from noticing it, she spat the red liquid back out into the glass. This wasn't bull's blood at all! This was just a red wine! She had a jolly good mind to find the waiter who had played this horrible, mean trick on her and give him a piece of her mind! And then drain most of his blood!
But that would be wrong.
Looking for Louise, she instead found Gnarl. The elderly minion was sitting between two very buxom demonesses, a large goblet of brandy in front of him. The blonde one was scratching him behind the ears, and… was he purring? "Ah, Countess," he said, crocking a finger at her. "How are you doing?"
"Um… well," Cattleya said. "I mean, the Abyss is jolly strange, but it's interesting. Although I can't find a drink. Have you seen the overlady?"
"Last time I saw her," Gnarl said, "she was dancing with the emperor of Cathay."
"Oh, that's nice," Cattleya said warmly. "He looked like a smart young man. Good for her."
"Take a seat," Gnarl said, patting the thigh of one of the demons sitting next to him, who giggled. "I feel we perhaps should have a little talk. There is something you can do at this little gathering to aid the overlady, and as her chief advisor I feel it is most certainly in her best interests for you to listen to my suggestions."
…
