Jori pulled the bone stopper from the small demon skin vessel and focused on its contents, slowly drawing the soul from it. Her control had improved, but it was still hard to move souls or soul fragments without drawing them into herself.
There wasn’t much left of this one – a headless arm and torso that Xoryath had found drifting aimlessly over the endless, dead plains to the north, walking on legs that weren’t there anymore. Scavengers had snatched pieces off of this one, but it would keep wandering until it was fully consumed.
By the time they reached the third hell, there wasn’t much humanity left to souls, but they still ran from obivous danger when attacked. Lesser demons rarely managed to snatch an entire soul by themselves. Instead, they would draw in a fragment, leaving the rest to flee. When they finally ceased to exist on this plane and manifested in the fourth, they would no longer have a humanoid shape. At least, that's what Josie had told her.
Jori talked extensively about this topic with the warlock, but the knowledge of exactly what happened to the souls they consumed still surprised her. According to her, the first and second hells stripped souls of their will and their mortal knowledge and experience. So, how did they summon the will to run when they reached her plane?
Josie had called it the cycle of souls – cleaning all the mortal bits off of something immutable and endless to be thrown back into the world as a new person. Eventually, after the ninth. Jori liked that theory. It made her part of a natural process.
It also made her feel slightly better about the fact that this had obviously been a child – a gnome, like Trip.
“Come here!” Jori ordered Faedris as Xoryath looked on. The spawnling chittered nervously and approached, looking back and forth between the more powerful imps. It eyed the soul, but didn’t make any move to seize it. Snatching a prize like that in front of a more powerful demon was a good way to get killed, normally. But they were going to do things a little differently.
It had taken a lot of convincing to get the others to start giving up soul fragments for the benefit of their lessers, but Jori thought she was starting to get through to them. The first transformation cost little in terms of souls, and they would be much more powerful as a group if everyone could at least create hellfire.
Jori held the soul in place with her will, and took a step back, gesturing for Xoryath to do the same. Faedris' eyes flitted back and forth between them and the soul.
“You can have it.” Jori said, realizing that he was waiting for her permission. He shuffled a little closer and finally tried to draw it in. A few fragments tore free, like loose threads from a piece of cloth. It was a messy process. Spawnlings had very weak control over souls. Jori could remember what it had been like for her. But this wouldn’t take too long. Even this incomplete soul was far more substantial than the tiny residual fragments she’d been able to pull from corpses on the mortal plane.
The little imp drew in larger and larger fragments over the course of a few minutes, getting the hang of the process. By the time he slowed down, there was nothing but a shapeless blob left, smaller than Jori’s head. It shivered oddly, though she was still holding it in place.
Jori had never witnessed this next part from the outside. Faedris squirmed uncomfortably, eyes bulging. He scratched at his joints and hissed. Then he fell to the ground, writhing. Light glowed from a point at his shoulder, brightly at first, then softening suddenly as it washed down his arm. Another brightened at his elbow, then one under his chin, then more and more all over his body.
As this was happening, the little imp grew. He was getting bigger, sure, but he was changing in more subtle ways, too. Small horns pushed up from his head and his wings changed color, gaining new black patterning along the tips as they grew. His teeth and claws grew longer, and his proportions changed subtly, making him look older.
When he finally stopped moving and opened his eyes, they were a deeper red and they flickered oddly like fire, just like her own. He jumped up and hissed, beating his wings against the air. Then he looked down at his hand, puzzled. Jori could guess what was going to happen next and took a step back.
Sure enough, the newly evolved imp shook out his wrist, trying to relieve the odd sense of pressure he’d be feeling there now. Hellfire formed in his palm as he did, spraying all over the place in little droplets. Xoryath yelped when it hit him and cuffed the other imp over the back of the head.
“Stop it!” she snarled and Faedris cowered submissively. They were equals now, technically, but it would take time for him to get used to his new self.
“This… is annoying,” he grumbled, sneaking a glance down at his wrist. The words were mangled, but it seemed that he’d managed to pick up some Beseri from her and Ed. Now that he had the capacity for mortal speech, she’d be able to teach him properly.
“You’ll get used to it. The first transformation is always the worst.” Jori reassured him. “It was for me, anyway. Don’t worry about it!”
“There. I contributed to the pack.” Xoryath said impatiently, ignoring the other imp. “You promised rewards. Are you finally going to tell me the secrets of the mortals that you think will keep us alive and free?”
Jori grinned at her cousin and held up a hand in demonstration. Concentrating, she called up hellfire, tweaking her channels as she did in a complex pattern that she’d only worked out hours before. Hellfire flickered around her claws for a moment before coating her entire hand in flames. Casually, Jori picked up a small rock and let it melt in her palm.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Xoryath wouldn’t be able to use this spell yet – hellfire could still burn her. But it just looked so great! The other imp stared, wide eyed. Apparently she agreed.
“How are you doing that? Does it hurt?”
“Of course not! It's sorcery! I think it’s something that the Great Ones all do. They figure it out, eventually – they just never bother to tell us. That’s what’s wrong with us, and with this whole place! We don’t share anything – not souls, not knowledge, and not power. That’s what I want to change. I’m going to tell you about magic, and together, we are going to become the greatest pack of demon sorcerers ever!”
***
The expedition stopped relatively early, choosing a defensible position on top of a hill and packing everyone close together in a tight circle, with the wagons and the carriage near the outside providing an additional barrier between them and the nearby trees. Nirlig and Ina, who'd been making eyes at each other all day, volunteered to take the horses out to pasture and hobble them there. It wasn’t ideal to leave them outside and undefended all night, but they wouldn’t tolerate being stuck between the cooking fire and Bernt's wall of flames for hours on end.
While the others set up camp, Bernt and Estrid got to work on the camp’s defenses. She cast seeds around them in a ring, leaving just a narrow gap to allow them to get in and out. Under her ministrations, the seeds rapidly grew into a thicket of stringy green plants several paces thick. It was enlightening to watch her work. Druids worked magic, in the sense that Bernt could sense that she was manipulating mana. He knew that druids were born with the same innate talent as mages, but he'd never actually sensed one work before. It was strange – she wasn’t shaping spellforms or casting spells. Instead, the ambient mana was being “fed” into the wall of plants in front of her somehow. Bernt knew there was more to it than that, but it was all he could sense directly.
The plants didn't look especially dangerous – but Bernt realized they didn't need to be. Every stalk was covered in miniscule barbs that would catch on skin and clothing, so anyone who tried to push through would be hopelessly entangled. Hellfire would burn through it easily, of course, but it wouldn’t be subtle. And after that, they would still have to contend with Bernt’s circle of flames. It would take time to break through, and would rob them of any element of surprise.
“Are you sure this isn’t going to destroy my clingweeds?” Estrid asked a little nervously as Bernt’s spell raised silver fire all around the camp, the flames licking at the edges of her odd plants. “You’ve tried this with the archdruid before, right?”
In a stroke of inspiration, Bernt had decided to cast his ring of banefire just inside the druidic thicket, mostly hiding it from view. The dim flame was faintly visible in the fading light, but maybe the demons wouldn’t see it in time. Whatever the case, their combined efforts should go a long way to slowing down any attacks and keeping their sentries safe.
“Leirin didn’t do anything like this, so not exactly.” Bernt confessed. “The archmage likes to cover the ground in tiny weeds that have thousands of thorny seeds. No matter how they fall, a thorn is always pointing up. He’s probably out there doing it right now. I’m not sure how well it works on demons, since they haven't attacked us since he started doing it, but don’t go out there without your boots on. Regin made that mistake trying to find somewhere to relieve himself – he had to ride in the cart for a day. Anyway, I’ve tested it on plants before. It’ll be fine.”
The druid nodded, and looked around, probably trying to spot Leirin outside. “I’ll need to compare seed libraries with him. Something like that could be really useful. Someone like him might have all kinds of exotic plants, maybe even Seheshi swampmaws! I’ve always wanted one, but they’re incredibly hard to come by. Hard to propagate, you see.”
“It’s worth a try, probably.” Bernt said noncommittally. The archdruid had been polite, but relatively standoffish so far. If druids worked like mages, he doubted she’d be able to get anything out of him for free. He also wasn’t so sure that Leirin really carried such a broad assortment of seeds. All in all, the man had been a bit of a disappointment in terms of his defensive work, at least for someone who’d been trusted to fight a dragon alongside archmage Janus. He hadn’t really done much when the demons came for them.
Then again, Bernt supposed he might just not be well-suited to these kinds of fights. Or maybe he excelled at supporting other adventurers or fighting singular, very powerful enemies. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to find out.
The two returned to the others to find that they’d set up a large but low ring-shaped cookfire, where several adventurers were busily making dinner. Kanan and Nirlig fried strips of salted pork in two large iron pans while Torvald, Regin and Elyn toasted rock-hard travel biscuits over the coals alongside everyone else who wasn’t currently busy elsewhere. Ina and Ksuwa were already asleep under one of the wagons – they would have to stand watch during the darkest part of the night.
A few steps away, Xul’evareg was performing some kind of ritual, chanting something under her breath as she rocked back and forth and wafted the smoke from a smoldering bundle of herbs around. Bernt could feel mana moving around her in odd ways. Then, the stone knife came out and she nicked herself on the back of a scarred hand, producing a small amount of blood that seemed to evaporate away in a matter of seconds.
That done, she tossed what was left of the herbs into the fire.
“Alright, time for some dinner!” She looked over the activity by the fire with some skepticism. “Having meat’s nice, I suppose, but no greens?”
“Ah, right!” Estrid said, digging in the pouch that hung around her shoulder. A moment later, she pulled out a small envelope and shook a few seeds out onto her palm. “Hey, you can conjure water, right? I could make us a salad, but crops are always thirsty. Will you help me out?”
Bernt shook his head. “Ah, I can... but we should just ask Uriah. That’s more his kind of thing. I’ll go find him.”
He should probably ask the hydromancer for a bit of help on his own water spells. Bernt could conjure water if he absolutely had to – he did it routinely at home – but it took him a long time and he never got the alignments quite right in the spellform. Shaping a conjuration spell to evenly irrigate a patch of dirt was well beyond his abilities. At least this leg of the trip was shaping up to be a bit less chaotic than the previous one. He wasn’t too exhausted – maybe he’d find some time to practice after dinner.
When he returned, Uriah in tow, Estrid wasn’t there. She was following Xul’evareg, who was pacing along the inside of their defensive circle with a serious expression. No one else seemed to have noticed, so the two mages hurried over.
“What is it?” Bernt asked.
“Hmm, something nasty," the old goblin grumbled. "Local wildlife maybe, for some of it. But demons, too. Xul says their stink is in the water, here. Need to watch out, tonight.”
