Blood Ties, Part 31


"We do not know the full danger of this curse," Raxien says, his voice cold. "It is the height of irresponsibility to allow him free reign in our capitol."

He speaks as though he's trying to reason with Ceriss. But—thanks to your slowly-growing insight into his virtually imperceptible tells—you suspect that it's just an act. He knows he can't convince her. He's just stalling, while planning his next move.

And you're pretty sure that next move is going to be violent.

"I'll be the judge of that," Ceriss retorts, her voice just as hard. "In case you've forgotten which one of us is the royal court mage, general, I'll remind you. It's me. And that gives me authority in cases of magical threats and disturbances. Now stand down, before you provoke an incident with one of our allies over a situation that's already in hand."

You feel Raxien's grip tighten on your wrist, and you're certain he's about to strike. But before he can do it, you interject. "It's alright, Ceriss!" you say quickly, holding up your free hand. "I'm willing to go with him. I don't want any conflict on my account."

Both Ceriss and Raxien look at you, startled. Ceriss in particular is clearly wondering if you haven't noticed just how suspicious all this is. You meet her gaze, then give a small glance over to the uncertain Nevati and the weaponless Janessa, trying to convey just how unprepared you all are for this fight. If you forced the issue now, even if you won... you're becoming increasingly convinced that your allies would take losses in the process.

So you look Ceriss right in the eye, trying as best you can to plead with her using nothing but your expression. For a moment she wavers, glancing between you and Raxien, before finally exhaling. "...alright. If Niko is willing to go with you.. then I won't gainsay it. But if you do anything to hurt him—"

Raxien laughs. "Rest assured," he says, a note of victory lurking in his tone. "Your young friend will be entirely safe with me."

Then he turns to his soldiers. "I will take the prisoner back to the holding cells myself," he announces. "I want the rest of you men to take statements from Lady Zylnerios and her friends about everything to do with this curse. Make sure you take your time, and be thorough."

With that, he turns and heads for the exit, dragging you behind him, even as more soldiers pour into the room. Ceriss watches as you depart, even now a hair's breadth away from throwing caution to the winds and intervening. You glance back over your shoulder, mouthing the words trust me before the door slams shut behind you.

You want to give your allies all the time they need to fully prepare, after all. And you also want to see what else you can get the general to reveal. After all... you still have a card up your sleeve. One you don't think he's expecting.

Raxien drags you out into the street, moving quickly, his iron grip on your wrist only growing tighter. He glances over his shoulder, searching for any sign of pursuit, but none seems apparent. His pace increases... though you're not actually heading in the direction of any holding cells that you're aware of.

Fancy that.

In fact, you're being dragged away from the noble quarter entirely, toward the poorer sections of the city. As soon as he can, Raxien pulls you off the main street and into the nearest blind alley, out of sight.

"Why general..." you say dryly. "It seems you've lost your way. In fact... it almost seems as though you never intended me to end up in the authorities' hands at all."

Raxien's eyes narrow. The stoic, military demeanor is already draining from his expression. Revealing it for the facade it had always been. Revealing something far older and far crueler beneath.

"I apologize, your majesty," he says. "But I must do some damage to your shell. It is necessary to get you to safety. And besides... this fool talks too much."

Then Raxien's fist lashes out, crashing into your jaw with incredible force. And everything goes black.

You awaken some time later. You're not sure exactly how long he kept you out. But you're still in your smaller Niko form, so it must still be the same day, at least. You're also curled up in a rough sack, and you can feel yourself moving, thrown over a broad-shouldered back. Listening carefully, you can hear the sounds of the red light district, but the more you listen, the fainter they become as you move to a more abandoned area.

Eventually you hear the creak of a large door opening, then shutting, and you're dumped out to tumble along a rough wooden floor. Blinking, you look around you to see that you're in an old warehouse, boarded-up so nothing can be seen from the outside.

And there's an obvious reason for such secrecy, since there is a gagged young woman here, her manacles chained to a ring on the floor.

She doesn't look like a prostitute. You suspect your enemy obtained her quietly, through far subtler and far costlier methods than those of his more infamous persona. She slumps there on the ground, her cheeks bearing the signs of old tear-tracks, her naked body showing the signs of violence and rape. However, you see no sign of anything as life-threatening as the kind of tortures performed on the other victims.

After all, while trying to lay low, he can no longer abduct girls—or dispose of bodies—with the same extravagant impunity that his killer persona allowed him to. This girl must be his "survival rations", so to speak.

Still, you can see in how he's treated her the frustration of no longer being able to indulge. While her wounds may not be life-threatening, they are still cruel and disfiguring. The bile rises in your throat at the display of sadism, but you don't let your anger show. Right now, you need all your wits about you.

Turning away from the girl, you see the figure who brought you here. A huge, scaly lizardfolk towers over you. Reptilian eyes looking down with an all-to-familiar intensity.

You raise an eyebrow. "So. I assume this is another reason you didn't mind your 'description' getting out whenever a witness happened to see your killer guise. If 'everyone knows' the killer is a human of a certain build, it makes it that much easier to carry your prey through the city with impunity. Using forms that no one would even think to connect to the character you created in their minds."

The lizardfolk doesn't respond. So you continue to press him. "You do realize that there's no salvaging this," you say. "Even if I don't escape myself, your identity is ruined after today. Ceriss will be able to expose you soon enough, just with what she's already seen."

Your words draw a snort from the large creature. "My purpose in replacing Raxien was meaningless from the moment you showed me that brand," he rumbles. "What do I care now if those insipid heroines lack the spine to do what is necessary? What do I care now if the greenskin savages reduce what passes for civilization on this world into a barbarous cesspit? What do I care now if those I leave behind are forced to prostrate themselves before some mortal female?"

He walks closer to you, then kneels down to look you in the eye. As he does, you can see that same aching hunger that you saw before, that sense of desperate hope. "What does any of that matter to me now..." he says, his voice reverent. "...when after all the countless, unbearable years stuck hiding on this miserable mortal plane... I can finally return home?"

At that final word, the lizardfolk's form shifts yet again. By this point, he's already said enough that even you can no longer deny what is coming. But seeing it for your own eyes is still no less of a shock. Horns sprout from his head, as the lizard-like scales fade into his red skin. And, in the space of a breath... another incubus stands before you.

And yet... there is something wrong about him. Something... twisted. His eyes are bloodshot, sunken into their sockets, with streaks of black discoloration mottling the demon's flesh. Still, his every movement brings to mind a coiled predator, a lethal weapon. His muscles are tight, powerful and you don't doubt he could break you in half with barely any effort. But even that hardened, corded musculature looks... withered.

"So many times..." the demon murmurs. His gaze is still fixed on you with searing intensity, like he still can't quite believe that you're real. "So many times, I almost lost faith. Century after century after century of hiding. Every day, pretending to be just another one of these insects. But I knew. I knew one day that we would be vindicated!"

The ancient incubus lets out a cruel laugh, the obsession in his eyes now fully alight. "It is so glorious to imagine the fear that those traitorous, usurping bitches must have felt when you escaped..." he says, licking his lips. "They know what is about to happen. They know who will be coming for them. And when you gather your loyal followers to you once more, the vengeance we will take on them for all our years of humiliation will make them beg for the torments of his former reign!"

With each word he says about the succubi you can see the seething hate in the demon's eyes. Pure, vitriolic hate at the memory of how they had beaten him. How they dominated him. Forced him to flee to this mortal world with his tail between his legs. That rage festers in his soul with an all-consuming force that is so utterly at odds with the composure he's displayed until now. You've never seen such a bizarre dichotomy in an incubus before.

Except... no. No, that isn't true. This isn't the first time you've seen an incubus whose social skill could be supreme in one circumstance... and yet dissolve into outright madness in a different one.

It's just your first time seeing it from the outside.

Slowly you rise to your feet. "All my life..." you say. "A part of me assumed the stories about the horrors from before the Rebellion were just... propaganda. I thought they had to be exaggerated, at least. It just... didn't make sense that an incubi could even want do those kind of things."

Then you shake your head, your expression incredulous. "But... it was all true, wasn't it? You don't even care about Pleasure anymore. Not for anyone else, at least. It's this kind of sex that you feed off of now. What the fuck did you do to yourselves?"

"We chose to shed the weakness of our nature," is the withered incubus' unflinching reply. "Under the true King, we were no longer the cringing milksops of the Nine Circles. We gained the strength to stand against any who oppose us. And we will regain it once again."

His words carry absolute confidence in that victory. And why not? The legendary Incubus King is inexorably returning. You're stuck here alone with this demon, with no way to call for help. The only other enemies hunting him have no idea where you are. He has all the time in the world to work on breaking your will, clearing the way for his master's advent.

Or at least, all that would have been the case... if you hadn't had the foresight to task the Thousand Eyes with shadowing Raxien anywhere he went.

The trick he pulled with the lizardfolk shapeshift did worry you a little... but not too much. Your spies knew the enemy was another shapeshifter, after all. And you have faith that they wouldn't miss someone emerging from a blind alley that they never went into, but that you and Raxien had.

A faith that is soon justified, as you catch subtle movement in the rafters above. Several small figures, moving stealthily through the shadows. You resist the urge to grin. It might have been outside your calculations for the killer to have control over Vekmar's entire army... but you're pretty sure he still has no idea that Kovora's spy network is helping you hunt him.

And you'd take your clever little rodent allies over his thugs any day.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll try to regain your old power..." you quip back. "But going up against the Lust Queen didn't exactly end well for you the first time, did it? If I were the betting sort, I'd lay odds on her kicking your asses again. And you might not even get that far. I wouldn't be surprised if Ceriss learns where you're keeping me soon. Which would mean you'll die without even seeing how badly your precious king fails."

One ratfolk nods to the others, then slips away, no doubt in obedience to your indirect command. The reply of the withered incubus, however, is much more direct.

You see the flames of rage surge in his eyes, and he drives his fist into your stomach. The force doubles you over, sending you flying into one of the warehouse's wooden support beams, which groans under the impact. You slump down, only to feel his fingers in your hair, yanking your head up.

"Whatever trickery she used to assassinate our master, it will not work again!" the demon snarls, his face inches from yours. "And when he returns, the true King will inflict such unimaginable suffering on her and her traitorous followers, that none of the cum-rag whores who are born from now on will dare raise their hands against us for the rest of time!"

Yes... your inhumanly keen perception is definitely giving you the very subtle sense that these lunatics' loss to the succubi is just a bit of a sore spot for them.

The demon drops you, letting you slump against the support beam again. Then he disappears for a moment... only for you to soon feel rope wrapping around your body, tying you to the structural support. He follows that up by binding your ankles together, leaving you trapped.

It's only once you're fully secured that the ancient demon grabs your hand again, studying the brand closer. His fingers explore Ceriss' seal as well... only to draw back with an irritated snarl.

"Tch!" he mutters, his lip twisting. "That wretched half-breed. Interfering yet again. Not that it will matter. The most it can do is delay the inevitable. And I'm sure Zethuriel will be able to remove it entirely."

He turns away from you, walking over to a certain spot and driving his fist through the floorboards. From there, he proceeds to tear up the earth with superhuman strength, until he grabs onto a buried chest and simply rips it from the ground, dirt cascading down on every side of it. When he opens the ancient box, you see inside all manner of scrolls and other magical accouterments, many of which you don't even recognize.

Their ages seem to vary wildly, as well as their style of construction. You realize that this is something the withered incubus has been building up over his entire exile here. He's probably not terribly proficient with magic himself... but he's been accumulating gear to compensate for that over the centuries. Preparing for this exact moment.

Digging through his chest, the mad incubus soon pulls out a scroll and spreads it on the ground before him, placing two fingers on the paper and beginning to recite words in a low, guttural voice. The runes inscribed on it light up, the air above it starting to swirl, though for the moment there is no other response as the demon continues to chant.

You lick your lips. This... may be worse than you expected. This isn't just one loyalist of the old Incubus King, who somehow escaped the Lust Queen's purge. You have no idea how many others there are out there, scattered and hiding across different worlds. Waiting in exile for their master to return to them. Waiting for their chance to rise up and reclaim what they lost.

And to do that... all of them need you to lose the struggle for your soul.

Your mind races as you sit there, tied to the support beam, watching as the summoning progresses. Whoever this "Zethuriel" is, he sounds important. And—if your captor's assessment is to be believed—extremely skilled in magic. If the summoning completes, it will probably make the coming battle significantly harder.

On the other hand... the situation is also entirely unlike it was before, when you had unprepared casters caught in close-quarters with an impossibly-fast demon. Now it will be your ambush, with the mages having had time to position themselves, ready their best gear, and prepare as many enchantments and countermeasures as they see fit. The difference should be like night and day. Would that be enough to also make up the difference of a second opponent?

You could try to distract the withered incubus from his task. Unfortunately, the only way you can think of that would reliably work against someone as savvy as your counterpart is to target his irrational mania. Considering how many times that psychotic fury has fouled up your plans, there is a certain satisfaction in the idea of using it to foul up the plans of the ones who inflicted it on you, for a change.

Still, since you do know that unthinking rage firsthand, you also know that deliberately bringing it down on your—helpless—self could leave you in a very bad way. Worse, if Nevati happens to notice you regenerating, it might increase her suspicions as to your true nature.

If you allow this new demon to be summoned, though, you have no idea what that will do to your chances of victory. Granted, since the new arrival would be crossing over as a summon, you'd only need to kill the summoner to win. But if the fight only ends with Zethuriel banished, not killed, then he'll still know about you. And your location.

Of course—as dangerous as that might be—it could also create opportunities for you as well. If this demon is as high-ranked and magically gifted as he appears to be, then he might know details about your curse unavailable anywhere else. If you met him face to face and he did survive, you might be able to dreamwalk through his thoughts and memories later on. Who knows what you might learn? Would it be worth what he would learn?

In the end, there are no perfect options... but the window for your decision is fast closing. What will you do?