Love's Labors, Part 28
You stand there for a while, observing Taharial and considering what to do. Then you make your decision. With a wave of your hand, you bring the powerful succubus out of the dream-fog and into full, lucid dreaming. At the same time, you stop actively hiding your presence.
Taharial stiffens. Then she turns to look up at you, her eyes meeting yours for the first time since your escape from Hell. Back when she nearly killed you. Back when this all began.
So much has changed since then.
With another small gesture you dismiss the dream-image of the Lust Queen, as well as the water in the pool. That would have left Taharial's naked, scar-crossed body open before you. But you also conjure up the clothes she wore in your previous encounter, wrapping the fabric carefully around her neck, to throttle the life from the bitch body.
In one sense, the dignity it affords her puts her in a less-vulnerable position. But it also demonstrates just how powerful your Dreamwalking has grown. How much control you have over her surroundings, in this realm. For all her terrifying prowess in hand-to-hand combat, you doubt that this is an ability that a warrior like her has achieved.
"You..." she says, watching you warily. "Or... is it still you?"
A humorless smile tugs at your mouth. "If the king had claimed my body, I doubt someone as deranged as him would have the patience for subtle deception," you remark. "He tried to take me over. He failed."
You raise your hand, showing her the glowing runes. Taharial sucks in a quick breath. "Five..." she murmurs. "It's... never gotten that far before."
Then she looks up from the Brand, right into your eyes. "Please," she says, desperation in her voice. "You have to listen. I beg of you. Even if you keep running from us... it won't save you. You're doomed either way. But... if you allow him come back..."
Her voice trails off, unable to finish. But she doesn't need to. The memories you stole from the Incubus King is all too vivid in your own mind. To meet an end like that? Completely consumed, eaten from the inside out? Your empty husk used by your killer to conquer the Second Circle, turning it into a grotesque repudiation of everything you ever believed in?
Death at Taharial's hands would be preferable.
But no less vivid is the memory of Lily's frightened face. The memory of the fate that awaits her should you fail in killing Melca. An unending eternity of torture by fire, like all her predecessors before her. It's... not something you can accept.
Nor is your struggle as hopeless as Taharial thinks, either. Especially not now that you're armed with knowledge you wrested from the old king himself.
"I'm sorry," you say. "I can't let you stop me. But I won't let him win either. I have a plan. And powerful allies who can help me pull it off."
Taharial just stares at you, incredulous. "What do you think your 'plan' can do against a Demon Lord?" she demands. "When he reaches his full power—"
"I'll be ready," you say, putting every bit of confidence you have into the words. "I've already beaten him once. And by the time we finally settle this, I'll have even more advantages on my side. I'm going to end the threat he poses to the Second Circle. Once and for all."
"That's impossible," Taharial says, shaking her head. "Even if you could purge him from your own soul, he'd still return. Each host we capture, we try so hard to find a way to make the eradication permanent. But nothing works. There's... something else out there. Something beyond the individual hosts. Something that keeps bringing him back, no matter what we do."
"I know," you say quietly. "I've seen it."
Now Taharial's eyes really go wide, and she stares at you in pure shock. Disbelief, fear and hope all twist together in her expression. It's obvious just how desperate the succubi have been for millennia to learn what you now know, the secret that could end their nightmare. For a moment, you consider how easy it would be to use this as a lever. To extract something from them in return.
Yet... you decide not to. You're confident that you can get anything you could have gotten by extorting them through alternate methods. Right now, you want to focus on making a show of good faith. Something that would incline their hearts toward you, even just a little. Something you could build on over the long term.
And more than anything else... you want to make sure that the Incubus King's artifact is destroyed. You're already facing dire threats from every side. More so than ever, now that the heroines aware of your presence and the Paladin is actively hunting you. If you're being honest, you know full well that your luck could go bad on any of these missions.
If that happens? You can't let this knowledge be lost. One way or another, you will be the last incubus to bear the mark of this curse. This way, even if one of your countless enemies does succeed in ending your life, you'll at least have the satisfaction of taking the Incubus King down with you.
With a wave of your hand, you shift the entire setting of the dream, pulling Taharial into the memory that you stole. You show her the cliffs at the edge of the Abyss. You show her the shape of the coastline. You tell her to burn it into her memory, as the two of you gaze out across the roiling Chaos, the wind pulling at you.
Then, with another gesture, you take her below. You show her the collapsed tunnel. You show her the warded room.
You show her the artifact, ceaselessly dripping its pollution into the Abyss itself.
For a long while, Taharial just stands there, completely stunned. "This... can't be real..." she whispers, half to herself. "It... must be a trick. How did you learn of this?"
"As I said, the old king tried to overwrite my soul with his own," you explain. "But I beat him. And then I tore these memories out of his soul before he could flee."
Taharial gives you another incredulous look, which you meet with a level, unflinching gaze. She licks her lips, glancing from you, to the artifact, then back to you again. "I... I will need to look into this," she finally says. The Lust Queen's chief enforcer actually looks downright shaken.
She knows you could have used this as leverage against her. In fact, she knows that, with your control over her dream, you could have taken a much more seductive posture, working to corrupt her like you did Rysanial. Taking advantage of the devastating weakness the geas imposes upon her.
But you didn't do any of that.
Instead, you've given her hope. Hope she never even expected before this moment. Hope that the Incubus King could actually be defeated for good.
Still. Hope alone is not enough to override duty. Not for someone like her. "If what you have shown me is true, then... we will owe you a debt that would be impossible to ever repay," she admits, her expression conflicted. "But... that still does not change anything. Not about the danger you pose. Nor about what my response must be. Letting you live is too great a risk to my sisters. You will die by my hand."
Taharial glares intently at you. You can tell that she wants to provoke a reaction with the blatant death threat. She wants you to respond with enmity, with the outrage she feels she deserves. But instead, you just give her a wan half-smile.
"I understand," you say, nodding once. "If that's the course you feel you need to take... then I won't hold it against you. But I can't back down. Just like you... I have someone I need to save as well."
It's almost imperceptible, but the succubus flinches at those words, and you know they found their mark. Satisfied for now, you turn and start to walk toward the shadows at the outer edge of the dream.
"Find this location in the real world," you remind her over your shoulder as you depart. "Destroy that blasted artifact. And while you do... think carefully about where the path of least risk really lies. Because even if you do try to kill me, I don't think you'll succeed. But if we worked together? I don't think the old bastard would stand a chance."
And with those parting words, you exit the dream, returning to the waking world.
You don't expect that exchange will be enough to sway her, of course. Not by itself. Still, it's a start. A seed, planted for the future. Either way, you expect that Taharial will make tracking down the artifact her absolute first priority. That could buy you at least a little extra time to prepare, before she comes for your blood.
Still, all that is in the future. Right now, you're once again lying in your bed, staring up at the ceiling as you plan your next move. You know that you'll need to set out on your next mission very soon. Still, there's probably time for at least a bit more preparation. You briefly consider what you might be able to accomplish in this last little bit of downtime before you go after your next target.
You could use this time to summon a new long-term demonic agent, expanding how many secondary missions you can pursue at the same time. It would require your second summoning slot, leaving a single one left for quickly calling up tentacle monsters.
There's also the third and final level of the Seal on your Brand. It was a crucial part of how decisively you were able to defeat the Incubus King, and there's no question that you'll want it at full strength before the final battle.
Still, even with the current level of the Seal, the intrusive urges are... mostly manageable. At least at present. You'll need to decide exactly when you want to make that final improvement. Especially since it would make your demonic powers more costly, just like the previous levels.
Finally, you could ask Nevati and Ceriss to examine you and Rysanial, and collecting any data they can on this geas that binds the succubi to the incubi. You're not sure what might come of it, although to get something really useful, you'll probably need to assign Nevati to study the resulting data in great depth, as a full-scale mission.
And either way—whether before this downtime task or after it—you know that you'll need to talk to Rysanial about what you've learned. You've been mulling it over in the back of your mind, trying to think of the right way to bring up the issue. But you know it has to happen before you leave on your next mission, regardless of whether you decide to study the geas during this downtime, or leave it for a bit later.
