His armor, his shield, and even his blade were all cast aside as the chains binding the Archon to the boulder magically slithered tighter. Despite his pain and his defeat, the Archon's head remained unbowed, even though everything was stripped from him.

"So are you going to tell me what I want to know in a nice civilized manner? " asked the monstrous six armed snake woman. "Or are you going to scream it out?"

The golden haired Archon hacked a few times, but remained silent.

"Shall I start with your wings next, or maybe those pretty eyes? " hissed Kalikekeztra as she brandished her knife. Though bleeding from a dozen cuts, the Archon raised his chin, and simply stared at Keke. Not a defiant glare like so many other defeated angels had given her in the past, or even a pleading one like the type that most mortal adventurer's gave when they were caught in the Abyss. This Archon gazed directly into the meancing Kalikekeztra and gave her simply a look of pity, which infuriated the Marilith general even more.

"You dare mock me? Do you know who I am?" screeched Keke as she dislocated her jaw and bared her teeth a few inches away from her Archon prisoner's face.

The Archon did not flinch as he silently raised his chin even more to reveal his neck and await her bite.

"This one is a tough one to break," snickered Selexia, Kalikekeztra's Succubus adjutant, from the shadows. "Don't worry Keke, he'll be screaming soon enough. You can soften him up a bit while I get my 'interrogation' kit. He'll be whimpering for his mother or whatever archon's are born from before we're done."

As her assistant took flight into the crimson Abyssal skies of Torremor, Keke turned her attention back to her prisoner. "We'll finish this before she returns," she said as she slithered towards him with blade drawn. Torturer and prisoner exchanged gazes before Keke swung her weapon down.

"So are you going to tell me what I want to know in a nice civilized manner? " asked the monstrous six armed snake woman. "Or are you going to scream it out?"

Holy Sampada nodded as she cringed, while Kalikekeztra's presence dominated the clearing. Even the Succubus and Rakshasa seemed like minor menaces as the Marilith's overwhelming aura of power cowed the captured cleric.

"If you try to cast a spell I'll tear out your tongue. If you attempt to use your positive aura I'll rip off your arms," warned Keke. "You are in the dark jungles of Vinraj, a realm caught between the mortal realms and those of the grey wastes of Abaddon. There is no escape. Do you understand this?"

The bound and gagged Holy Sampada nodded as tears flowed down her cheeks.

Keke hated the whole scene, it was so anti climatic. Here was the Asura's greatest enemy, the cleric that had defeated Taraksun's hordes single handily, the vessel of the sacred blood of Puranas, and she was quivering at her feet like a simple peasant girl. Keke had always imagined her as some great warrior goddess reaping demons with her blade and magic, but that was far from the case. She dreamed of facing her in glorious battle one day, but was sorely disappointed after her recent encounter. The cleric had kicked and screamed when she put her in her sack, but that was about it for resistance. Even Prince Lalit put up significantly more of a fight than her.

"Praise Andak, Bogha, and Rahu! I can't believe it!" exclaimed Rajah Vikokima excitedly, as the tiger headed Rakshasa clasped his backward hands into the air and gave thanks to the Dark Gods of the Asura. "You've captured Holy Sampada. My mission isn't a failure after all. I can return to Abaddon with my honor."

"Is she supposed to be a powerful cleric or something?" asked Selexia. "I know she's supposed to be the Mahadevi of the Western Holy temple, whatever that is, but I thought she would be a lot more threatening than that. No disrespect to Keke here, but she doesn't look that tough. Do you think she bagged the wrong woman?"

Vik looked shock as she pointed at Keke's quivering captive. "Because you are an outsider to these parts, I'll forgive your ignorance. There is no mistake. That is Holy Sampada. The heir of the Nashput throne, and mistress of the Holy Temple. I can recognize her from anywhere. My spies and I have been watching her since she returned from exile from the western barbarian realms. Without a doubt this is the one that has ruled the temple and kept us out with her magic, as well as destroyed a good portion of Taraksun's army during the last Rahu's day."

Selexia frowned unconvinced. "Well, if little miss tied up here is so powerful, how did Keke simply waltz in and nab her? Shouldn't all her protective magic stop her from even entering?"

Keke nodded. "Yeah. The wards on the place weren't that powerful. I just walked through them."

Vik scratched his furry chin. "A good point. Let me try something," said the Rakshasa as he uttered a spell towards their captive. Faint blue symbols flared up on Sampada's skin around her tattoos.

"Hrrmm," puzzled Vik over his discovery. "Legend has it that when the great hunter Mogombo stalked the royalty of Nashput, great gurus and seers throughout the land placed protective wards and glyphs on their last children. Both Lalit and Sampada were enchanted this way before they were smuggled out of the country. I'm not talking about simple abjuration spells but epic and mythic level dweomer craft. As my spell demonstrates, she does possess the wards, but they are much weaker than I anticipated. "

"Perhaps, the spells wore out over time? " suggested Selexia. "That was what, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago?"

"Or perhaps, Miss Holy here isn't as pious as everyone thinks she is," snickered Keke. "I caught her making out with her own brother of all people when I snuck into the temple. I mean tongue on tongue, skin on skin action. I'm not an expert, but maybe her magic is faith based. The more pure she is the more powerful the enchantments on her and the temple."

Selexia's eyes grew wide as she turned to their captive. "Really? Your own brother? Lannister style? What a naughty girl!"

Vik considered Keke's statement and nodded. "I am unfamiliar with said Epic and Mythic enchantments since they are well beyond my power, but your suggestion is plausible. If your hypothesis is correct, than the timeline suggests that she began her incestuous relationship after their recent victory, which would explain how you evaded their defenses and captured her. Regardless, Lord Taraksun must know of this immediately. Without even a fallen Holy Sampada in their arsenal, invading Vinraj will be trivial during the next eclipse. We'll be…I mean Kalikekeztra here will be a hero, and great wealth and power will be heaped upon her. We'll simply drag Holy Sampada back to Abaddon here as proof and …. urk"

Keke silenced the Rakshasa as she wrapped her tail around his neck and lifted him off his feet."No…That's not how this will go down. No one's going to be telling Taraksun anything got it? Or at least not yet anyways," threatened Keke as Vik gurgled in her grip.

"Oooh….some blackmail action I see? Perhaps auctioning her off to the highest bidder? Vinraj will pay a pretty purse, as well as other Asura lords to possess her. I bet even some of the big bosses in the Abyss would cough up some loot if we sent her their way," purred Selexia. "Now things are getting interesting."

Keke shrugged as she turned her attention to the gasping Rakshasa. She brought her face close to her fur and breathed in his scent." I have your smell now. That means there is no way you can hide from me if you betray me. No one says anything unless I say so? Got it? When I'm done with her, you can have her and collect whatever reward you can weasel out of Taraksun. "

Vik nodded meekly before Keke threw him to the ground and returned her attention back to whimpering Holy Sampada.

"Now, I'm going to ungag you and you will answer my questions and no more. If you try to blast us or use a spell to send for help, I'll do the whole tongue and arm ripping thing I said earlier. Got that?"

Holy Sampada nodded in fear before Keke ungagged her.

"I'm not who you think I am. I'm not…"blurted Sampada before Keke placed a clawed finger on her lips.

"Nuh uh. Remember what I said. Just answer my questions. Got it?"

Sampada nodded again.

"Where is my sword? It's a scimitar with eagle wings on its hilt. Have you seen it?"

"What! You throw away near unlimited wealth and power to get your stupid sword back? This is madness, this is…."

Keke's tail shout out like a thunderbolt and smashed Vik hard in the stomach. As the tiger headed man doubled over from the pain, the tail then wrapped itself around his head and smashed it hard against the ground multiple times, till the Rakshasa simply gurgled from pain. Though Rakshasa's were famed for being resistant to all but blessed crossbow bolts, resistant did not mean immune as Keke's vast strength painfully reminded him.

"Damn, that's my girl, that's why no one messes with you," laughed Selexia as she watched the violence.

Keke ignored the Succubus and confronted the now terrified Holy Sampada. " Where is my sword? It's a scimitar with eagle wings on its hilt. Have you seen it? " she repeated.

"N..N..No…I ..mean yes," stuttered the cleric. "I've seen it, but I don't know where it is now. I mean, I'm not sure. I think Bey Javindar has it. He was showing it off after the battle."

Keke sighed and slumped her shoulders. It was as she feared. That pompous Prince still had her weapon. If she couldn't defeat him on the battlefield with her army behind her, then it would be impossible now. She hoped to simply trade Samapda back to the temple for her scimitar, but things just got more complicated. Especially when she had no idea where this Javindar guy was. "Can you contact him? Vik said he was on a boat, but your magic can get a message to him right? I want nothing more than to return you to your…heh…future husband in exchange for my sword."

"I..I…don't know where he is. He sailed off to Grom with..with my bodyguard. I've been told the Sea of Dawn is a treacherous place and most magic doesn't work there. I won't be able to send a message with magic."

"She's right you know. Ever since Alphatia sank, magic is unstable there,"added Selexia.

Keke snorted in anger. After all this, she came out empty handed. How was she going find this guy now? Rent a boat and sail after him? That would never work? Wait for him in Grom, but that was a big place, he could land anywhere. This was more frustrating than she had bargained for.

"Might I be of service?" offered Vik as he picked himself off the ground. "Please…no more hitting…"

Keke sighed and waved him permission to speak. " As I said before, Bey Javindar is on a fool's errand to Grom to recover a Black Scroll. Though his chance of success is negligible I thought it prudent to keep track of him regardless, since he is one of the more influential nobles in Vinraj. In fact, one my agents has infiltrated his war galley and is awaiting an opportunity to strike him down from ambush when they reach Grom. Though Holy Sampada is correct and magic is unreliable in the so called Sea of Dawn, we can reach his position by a greater teleport spell if we have a proper magical anchor to guide us. "

"Wait a minute," interrupted Selexia. "If you can simply teleport onto his ship why didn't you round up a posse of demons or Asuras and kill this guy earlier?"

Rajah Vikokima shook his head. "Like they did in the Holy Temple, my Rakshasas watch and wait, we only strike as a last resort. We leave the assassinations to the 'Death Hooks'. We tried to tip the tide of battle during the last eclipse, and I lost a whole team to Sampada's bodyguards of all things. Besides, if Lady Kalikekeztra is no match for the Bey, I doubt my men will fare better. However…since we have Holy Sampada in our grasp, I can think of a scenario where we exchange her for the scimitar in question, betray the humans, and either take back the cleric or kill her…"

"No… we can't kill her, or at least without proper preparations," added Selexia. " They will raise her with magic, or perhaps they already have a mystic clone prepared and ready to be activated. True, that involves powerful magic, but when an entire continent depends on one woman's survival, well…those are the types of preparations that I expect them to take. We need her alive, or at least till we turn her over to Taraksun or whomever else we cut a deal with."

Keke waved them both silent. "First we get my sword back, then we worry about the invasion and Holy Sampada," she stated.

"Keke, I know you have your own personal quirks and stuff, but what's so valuable about that sword?" asked Selexia. "If we do what Vik says, we will be swimming in enough gold, astral diamonds, slaves, and larvae to get a dozen such swords. Probably even get you a wounding blade or a sharpness sword, whatever you want."

Keke shrugged. "I don't know why, but I just want that particular sword back. Period."

Vik nodded. "Well, I've learned not to question your decisions General, but might I offer a bit of assistance if we are to do this venture properly," offered the Rakshasa timidly.

Keke nodded as the Rakshasa breathed a sigh of relief. "Human, I need you to lower your wards. If you resist my spell, Lady Kalikekeztra shall make you pay dearly. Do you understand?"

Holy Sampada looked confused but nodded anyways. The Rakshasa then began to weave a spell which surrounded the cleric in a red glow. Keke watched as Samapda then began to shrink until she was only a few inches tall. At that point the Rakshasa simply plucked her off the ground and dropped her into awaiting glass bottle. "She'll be a lot more manageable now," he said as he offered Keke the bottle with the tiny distressed woman inside.

"What did you just do?" asked the Succubus in amazement.

"It's simply an advanced version of a common lower level spell, reduce. It's not really that impressive actually. The bottle in which we now have trapped her though, that's some serious magic. She won't be able to work her spells while she's confined inside," explained the Rakshasa.

"Interesting," purred Selexia as she bent down and began tapping the glass. "You know Keke, I should be annoyed that your little mission is taking up a lot more time and effort than I originally planned, but I must admit this has turned out much more interesting than my own little revenge operation."

Keke nodded as she turned to Vik. "Okay, let's finish this and meet this 'anchor' agent of yours. The sooner I can get my sword back the better."

Keke, Selexia and Vik tumbled forward in a flash. Keke half expected to arrive surrounded by soldiers, or worse yet flung off into a far corner of the Astral plane due to the incompetence of Vik's agent, but instead the trio found themselves in a small state room .

"Is this the right place?" asked Selexia as she patted her straight her costume. The Succubus had assumed the form of a tall athletic woman with short black hair in a Ghatian uniform. Though by her standards her form was tame, she still exuded sexuality in a tomboy sort of way.

"Well, we are on the ocean at least," said Vik as he peeked out a port hole. The Rakshasa had assumed the form of an old sailor with a paunch and a bald head. "And we appear to be approaching two other ships. War galleys it looks like. Are we rendezvousing with them or something?"

Keke simply took the form of the chubby house wife like she did before and immediately began to sniff the air. Two hundred fifty humans, from their sweat roughly a hundred fifty of them were rowers. Besides Vik, there was also another Rakshasa with a racoon type scent. Lots of spices and incense. A big pot of vegetable stew, and the scent of the Bey and her sword. At first she was thrilled when she sniffed traces of both her targets, but that didn't last long when she realized they were just that…traces. Small traces that were now nearly faded.

"My sword is not here," she said dejectedly."I can't smell it nearby. Both that Javindar guy and my sword were here, but they're gone now."

"Are you sure?" asked Vik. "We haven't even looked around yet. Maybe its.."

Before the Rakshasa could finish, the boat shuddered as the sound of crashing and splintering of wood could be overhead, followed by war horns and then cries of shocks and surprise.

"Well…it looks like things have suddenly gotten a lot more interesting," purred Selexia.