It was beginning to get dark, and Edric was now carrying the very drowsy Tilly, when another disturbance had my faithful hell hound on alert. But he wasn't the only one who could here what lay ahead.

  There were people out in this forest, and they were not trying to be stealthy nor cautious at all. Whoever they were, they were stomping through the forest, breaking branches and cursing every few seconds, between which they were shouting something. It took me a moment to make out the exact cuss words they were using, but the main thing I heard was that these people were calling out Tilly's name.

  Apparently Edric had been right and Aunty ritz had gone for help. But whom ever this 'help' was was either very confident in their combat skills, or highly stupid. Who runs around like a bull in a China shop, screaming out your position, in a forest full of deadly monsters that see people as snacks?

  "They are going to summon every monster within a mile." Chastised Edric, coming up to my side. He kept his voice low, not wanting to give away our own location, nor looking to wake the sleeping child.

  "Fools." Huffed Pride, speaking for the first time since Tilly joined us. "Let us bring the girl to them before they have us all in a tight spot..."

  "Tilly, do you know those people?" I asked the girl, turning to look at her, still held in Edric's arms. But she wasn't looking at the humans calling out to her, but rather staring wide eyed at Pride. Oops. "Its alright Tilly, Pride is a demon, like me. He is a good guy..."

  One of Pride's doggy brows lifted skeptically, but he did not comment. Yeah, it was a bit of a stretch, as I was sure neither of us- except maybe Edric- could be classified as 'good guys'.

  "O-okay..." Whispered the little girl nervously.

  "So- these people?" I asked the girl again, and this time she turned her head to look.

  Tilly shook her head. "They don't look familiar..." She said.

  It was a little concerning, but I also didn't expect a child to remember every person in her town ither. Even if it was a small one. These people were likely sent out to find the girl, but I would stay cautious all the same.

  "Best to get this over with then." I sighed, getting to my feet. "Come on."

  It did not go as planned.

  I had expected there to be suspicion, yes... But the second I stepped into view of the two young humans and opened my mouth to speak, I saw that this was not going to be easy.

  "Ryan! It's a demon!" The woman shouted first, and whipped a bow out of no where, aiming an arrow at me that I had not even seen her draw in the first place.

  In an instant the man had leapt in front of the woman, but in a way that did not block her shot. He stood there, sword out and hard iron shield raised with chocolate brown eyes glaring down at me.

  With a snarl, Pride leapt out of cover and took a protective stance before me. His hackles were raised, fangs barred, and as I watched he began to grow in size.

  This was all escalating very fast.

  "Hold it! I just want to talk!" I snapped, but no one was listening. I glanced back to check on my slave and the little girl and saw that Edric had set the girl on her feet and was using his body to protect her, sword also drawn.

  The second I looked back at the humans I saw that the man was charging. He was young, with pale skin and burgundy hair, his body slim but fit. He looked barley into his twenties but that wasn't slowing down his fearless charge toward Pride at all.

  But he was no match for my hellhound. Already Pride was about the size of a horse and he started to take on his demonic fire and brimstone look. He rushed forward, fangs glistening and a snarl echoing in his throat.

  The man first tried to swing his sword down on Pride, but with a strange clang, the weapon merely bounced off, nearly leaving the man's hand all together. He the raised his shield just in time for Pride to smash into it.

  The metal prevented Pride from sinking his teeth into the man, but there was no stopping the doggy behemoth, and the man went flying backwards by the sheer force of the collision. Laws of physics still seemed to be holding strong in this world, it seemed. For now at least.

  With a sharp in take of breath, the man crashed to the ground, both shield and sword lost on impact. In a matter of an instant Pride was on top of him, one paw pinning the man to the ground while his open jaws hovered over the man's head. It looked as if Pride was waiting for the go ahead to bite it off.

  That was when the archer let loose her arrow. But that twig was nothing to Pride, and the wood splintered on impact. The girl might as well had shot a boulder, really.

  Well, I supposed I should stop being a spectator in this. Why the hell did these people have to jump the gun like that? Talk about jumpy! So far I had gotten a lot of dirty looks as a demon, but this was the first time some one had taken one look at me and tried to kill me.

  "Enough!" I snapped, seeing the woman's eyes were wide and wild as she went for another arrow from the quiver on her back. I glared as her eyes jumped from me to her downed partner.

  It was as I was glaring that I sudden thought that she looked familiar. But from where?

  Then it clicked! Had she of been dressed in a coffee shop uniform rather than the tight leather pants and green top, she would be the spitting image of one of the girls that was summoned with me. What was her name again...?

  "Pansy?" I asked, eyes squinted in concentration. Why did I have to be so bad with names? "Or was it Lilly?"

  "Wh-what?" She asked, looking pale and flabbergasted.

  "Your name." I sighed, frustrated. "I know its some kind of flower... Ah, was it Lavender?" I somehow felt like I was just shouting out Harry Potter names at this point.

  The girl, who had honey blonde hair and caramel eyes, started to grow red in the cheeks. "My name is Marie." She mumbled, still looking frightened, but now embarrassed and confused too.

  Right! It was Marigold! I knew it was some kind of flower... Meh, I was close enough.

  "Well Marie, can we please put down the weapons and have a nice, civil conversation?" I asked, hands held up in a placating gesture. The girl had an itchy trigger finger, after all. "As you can see, your arrows have no effect on my friend. And I can very much grantee that his teeth will have a very devastating effect on his neck. If you get my meaning."

  "M-Marie, just do it." Panted the man on the ground, hands hovering near Pride's jaws, wanting to shove the hellhound away, but not wanting to risk touching him.

  "But, she is a demon! A mind reading demon!" She added, arms jerking back up, her arrows now pointed at me. Pride let out a snarl causing the man to go death pale.

  "Demons can't read minds." I scoffed, before growing thoughtful and turning to my current demon encyclopedia. "Can they?" I asked Pride, not bothering to keep my eyes on the unstable woman with an arrow pointed at my face. It was a power play on my part, but I was a little afraid I was about to get shot in the neck.

  Pride narrowed the one red eye I could see on me and made an annoyed huffing noise, a large and disgusting drool glob plopping down on the swordsmen's face.

  "Oh, right... You're busy. Sorry." I turned back to Marie. I had no room to judge a girl for changing her name, I did it after all. "Well, I can't read minds. Would be handy, though."

  "Then-the how did you know my name?" She asked, shaking slightly.

  I rolled my eyes. "You told it to me. You went around and introduced yourself to everyone, remember? That dick head Shane tried to hit on you, but turned on me when I snorted at his lame pick up line... I can't remember what it was now..."

  "You're Karen?!" Grunted the prone male, desperately trying to blink away dog slime from his eyes while simultaneously looked astounded.

  I was surprised as well. Aside from Grace and Jake, I hadn't thought anyone of the group had known my name.

  It was right about then that I remember that I no longer looked anything like the ruffled homeless chic I had been rocking before I had take that fateful bite of man jerky. Obviously neither of these people would recognize me. Then again, i didn't recognize Sir Slobbers down their either, so...

  I crossed my arms over my ample chest and narrowed my eyes at the man. "I go by Nyx now, thank you very much."

  "You died!"

  I rolled my eyes again. "If you could tell miss trigger happy over here to put down the bow we can have a good old catch up. My friends and I are just trying to get a little girl home. I am pretty sure we both want the same thing here."

  Marie bit her lip, but slowly lowered the bow. Still looking pale and defiant, she took in the pair of people behind me, finally realizing that we had a little girl with us.

  I sighed and nodded at Pride. "Let him up."

  The hellhound gave the man one last growl before backing up and closing his jaws. He did not reduce his size.

  "Gross!" Grunted the man, sitting up and scraping dog drool from his face and chest. "This stuff is nasty, and it burns!"

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  "Be glad your head still rests upon your shoulders, boy." Pride growled, shaking himself and glaring with his coal bright eyes.

  The man gaped at the hellhound, burning slobber forgotten.

  "This is Pride, he is a hellhound. As you now know, I am Nyx. Over there is Edric, my slave, and the little girl is Tilly. We just met and decided to get her home. I may be a demon, but even I can't seem to be awful enough to just leave a little girl in the woods at night, especially since we were headed for her town anyways." I said in a slightly condescending tone. "And you are...?"

  Frown, the man pulled his gaze away from Pride and narrowed his eyes on me. "You remember Marie, but not me?"

  "She had a weird name."

  "Hey!" Snapped Marie, who was in the process of helping the swordsmen to his feet while doing the utmost not to touch the slobber.

  The man shrugged. "I can't argue with that. i only remember you because your name was Karen and you were a complete bitch. It was ironic."

  Sighing, I nodded. "Yeah, I was real meme worthy. Still, that being said, I am sure you can see why I would change my name."

  It took about two seconds for the irony to sink in to the man's head before he broke into a broad grin, still scraping off drool. "A demon named Karen?"

  "Are you seriously believing that she was that girl who fell down that worm hole?" Huffed Marie.

  "Centipede." Both the man and myself said at the same time.

  He chuckled. "See, how would she know?" He shook his head before turning to look at the little red head that was still hiding behind Edric. "Are you Tilly?"

  I watched as Tilly bit her lip, thinking about weather or not to answer. Eventually, after Edric placed a comforting hand on her back, she nodded.

  "We have been looking for you. Your mother is very worried."

  Tilly teared up, but still did not move from Edric's side nor said anything. I had a feeling that she was just done with it all. Poor thing had been through a lot for one so little.

  "I think it would be best if we all calm down." Edric sighed, speaking for the first time. "It is very late, and we need to set up camp before the sun fully sets."

  I looked up and saw that the prince was correct. The sun we, indeed, setting.

  "Truce?" I asked Marie, who had lowered her bow, but still had the arrow nocked.

  She frowned, but nodded, finally letting the tension go on the weapon. "Fine."

  It was pretty awkward, setting up camp with these people right after we had all tried to kill each other. But we got it done. It wasn't comfortable or pretty, but it was done fast. We even managed to get a fire going and Edric had a couple rabbit monsters stewing over it. Who knew a prince could field dress and cook game meat?

  We ate in relatively awkward silence as well, all seated on logs or boulders. The only one really chatty was Tilly, who seemed much chipper now that she was with people from her village and knew that she would be with her mother again in the morning. She ate two bowls of food then promptly passed out in Edric's lap.

  "You do know we have to give that back tomorrow, don't you?" I teased him, smiling at the sight of him pulling a cloak over the girl's shoulders and patting her head.

  "It is not like I wished to keep her, my Lady." He sighed back. Was that a hint of sarcasm I detected? Was my skittish prince teasing back? Well, there may be hope for him yet then.

  "If you really are the girl who fell down the hole..." Huffed Marie. "then why would you ever get a slave. Its barbaric!" She had done little too no talking at all, the whole time we had been preparing camp. The only time I saw her speak at all were in hushed whispers between herself and her companion-whom I was eventually told was named Ryan.

  "It is perfectly legal here." I said, matter-of-factly. I did not mention that I was fairly positive that Edric's own enslavement was probably anything but legal. It wasn't her business.

  "That's besides-!"

  "Marie, enough." Sighed Ryan, setting his empty bowl to the side. "I think its a little more pressing to ask how a girl falls down a hole in a dungeon filled with horrid monsters, manages to survive, and then reappears as a completely different species."

  I could feel even Edric's eyes on me. He still did not know much, if any, details either.

  I shrugged. "I did nearly die. I must have fallen several dozen floors... I'd say the only reason I didn't die on impact was because I kept bouncing off the centipede and the torn up floors on my way down. How I managed to drag my half dead, broken ass off that floor is beyond me. I just wanted to live."

  "Okay... But how are you alive now? And a demon? Are all of us who were brought here going to turn into one?" Ryan asked, eyes narrowed. I watched as Marie grew pale.

  This time it was Pride who snorted. "You needn't worry, whelp. My Mistress was a unique case, chosen by our former god. Only once before has a human ever become a demon, and that was Tristan himself, our former god and king, the very creator of the demon races."

  I sighed. "In other words: You're good. I'll be the only one growing wings here, I promise."

  "A-and he-" The words seem to catch in Ryan's throat as he nodded his head to Pride. The hellhound hadn't even bothered to lift his head off his paws or open an eye when he spoke. He looked like he was going for a nap, but I knew that he would be up the whole night. No way he would let his guard down around these hostile strangers.

  "As I said before, this is Pride. He was the one who saved my life and helped me get out of that dungeon. He is a demon known as a hellhound."

  "Don't you get it? The demons are the enemy!" Marie snapped. I could tell that it was fear that was making her angry, but it didn't make me any less irritated by it.

  "Says who? The sketchy Stella Empire?" I snapped at her.

  "Everyone! The Empire, the rest of this planet, and even common sense! Even on Earth Demons are the bad guys."

  I snorted. "Unless you are particularly religious, demons are make believe on Earth. And they didn't exist here at all till a millennium ago or something. Tristan was like us! Did those creep Stella Priests tell you that? He was a summoned hero who fought off monsters for the greater good and all that bullshit. He created demons to fight them too. But humans, being the little shits that we are, turned on him in a bid for power. A tale as old as time as far as I am concerned."

  "And how do you know that?" Marie snapped back.

  "Pride told me, obviously. And he is far more trust worthy than a bunch of creepy priests that kidnap a bunch of people to fight their wars for them, throw them- including freaking kids and elderly people I might add- into a freaking dungeon, and have them fight for their lives. That all sounds reasonable to you, but the fact that demons are not the bad guys, when earth fiction says they are, is the unbelievable thing to you? I think you are the delusional one here not me."

  Marie looked like she was going to snarl something else at me, but Ryan held up a hand before her face and silenced her. "Marie, stop it. No matter what, we both know that Stella isn't what they wanted us to believe at first. Right?"

  Marie looked like she really wanted to keep fighting, but pursed her lips, leaned back, and nodded.

  Ryan sighed in relief before addressing me. "Sorry. We've been pretty stressed. On top of that, its become pretty hard to figure out who can, or can not, be trusted."

  I levied one last glare at Marie, before letting it drop. She was just a scared little girl, after all. She was probably twenty years old at best, and the worst thing she had to deal with before now were angry customers at her coffee shop.

  "Well, you know how I am here, but what about you two? Why aren't you all in intensive training to fight the demon menace back in the empire?"

  Ryan and Marie shared a troubled glance, then Ryan spoke to me. "That's what we all did once we got out of the dungeon. You weren't the only one who died that day. The centipede managed to kill three others before we escaped... We were all pretty down after that. Some delt with it by just shutting down, others- like crazy Shane- laughed it all off, while still others threw themselves into training. It was a pretty stressful couple months."

  Wait, months?

  "Don't you mean weeks?" I asked, confused.

  "No..." Ryan said, looking at me strangely. Then it was like a realization came over him and he said. "Oh! Maybe you didn't know. The priest told us after we left the dungeon. That place, the time flow there is all messed up. It isn't a huge difference, but enough to be worrisome if you spend too much time in there."

  "Huh?"

  "Tristan made it so that time flowed strangely in the dimension, once he had everyone leave it, at the end." Piped in Pride, making Ryan jump. Did he think the massive demon had fallen asleep? "He wanted to discourage the humans from entering in as many ways as possible. Going in meant that you may miss out on months or even years of your loved ones lives. It could have adverse effects on those inside the dimension as well... but Tristan didn't really have to worry about that once all but he and I had been removed."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked the hellhound, annoyed.

  This time pride did open one of his glowing red eyes. "I didn't not see that it mattered any. The time difference would only have been a matter of weeks for you, and you didn't have anyone out here waiting on you. What did it matter? And your transformation would have cured any adverse effects the distortion would have had on you, spending so much time in it."

  I suppose I could see his point... "I still would rather of had you tell me from the start. It may have been important at some point you know?"

  "I will remember that for next time."

  So months had passed since I was summoned to this world? I wonder if Grace and Jake were doing alright. I hope so.

  "So, wait, you still haven't explained why you are in the Waring States rather than the Empire." I said, getting back on topic.

  Ryan nodded. "The Empire sold us."

  "What!?" My eyes jumped to their necks, but I saw no slave collars.

  Marie saw me looking and flashed a sour smile my way. "They didn't make us slaves. It was more like they changed our employers."

  "Yeah. After a bit more training, the Priest told us there would be an auction, to find the majority of us new homes... The Empire would make a little coin, sure. But the way they made it sound, it was to be sure that we went to lords who could care for us properly."

  "Like a freaking pet adoption. But with millions of dollars." Said Marie, poking the fire with a stick.

  "I guess it made sense. From what we were told, the whole world needed help from heroes, not just the Empire. They Kept about ten of us at the empire, but auctioned off the rest of us."

  "Let me guess, the kept the strongest?" I asked with a roll of my eyes. So this was why they summoned so many of us. Maybe the Empire needed money?

  "For the most part, yes. But I think it was more like they wanted the strong and the malleable. They auctioned off Shane, after all. And he was, objectively speaking, one of the strongest of us all."

  "He is the epidemy of 'problem child' though." I said.

  "Exactly. Marie and I just got here yesterday. The Lord of this State bought our services."

  "How is this different from being a slave?" I asked. I felt bad for them all, but I wasn't about to go on a rescue war path or anything over it.

  Ryan shrugged and smiled sadly. "Because we aren't. We are treated good, all of our needs and wants are provided for, and we have jobs to do. We can't get home, and this is about as good a gig as we could hope for, really. We are free to go if we want, but then all the perks go too." He shrugged again. "I'm just glad to be in a relatively back water place like this. All Marie and I need to do here is protect the land from monsters, and go find missing little girls."

  "I am sure that others are having to fight wars, or demons, or hoards of monsters..." Said Marie, still stoking the fire. "We are pretty lucky here. We can work for our meals and not have to do any of that horrible stuff."

  "I was depressed that I was only given a defensive skill, when we first were brought here." Said Ryan. "It was frustrating when many of the others had all these cool powers. But my skill has kept me from needing to be in the heart of any conflicts right now. Marie to..."

  "My skill lets me aim really well." Said the girl. She seemed to relaxing a little now, at least. "Its great for using the bow, but its not like I can shoot really powerful magic arrows or something. I can just shoot at a level that most archers had to work years for..."

  "Hey, I have an appraisal skill." I laughed. "I bet they would hardly get a copper nickel for me. Still, its wild to think there are just a bunch of us scattered about the continent now."

  "Yeah... we haven't seen any of the others since leaving Stella, and we don't know where most of them went. For all I know there are other just a days trip from here."

  "So, what are your plans then?" Marie asked then, eyes narrowed.

  I nearly said 'world domination', just to see the look on her face. It was clear that she was expecting something pretty close to that. Instead I just shrugged and told her the truth. "I'm taking Edric here home, and hoping to find more demons along the way. I haven't really thought much beyond that. I was never one for looking at the long game, after all."

  "Your whole goal is to get your slave home?" Ryan asked, eyeing Edric, who had kept silent this whole time, true to his nature. "Where is his home?"

  "A country pretty far off." I said, not wanting to air Edric's business. "But it's not like I have anything better to do. It gives me a direction to go in, and takes me as far from the Stella Empire as I can get."

  I was well aware that it wasn't a real life plan. But I figured that I would get a clearer goal as I traveled. For now, it was good enough to have any goal at all. Something to keep me moving forward. Return Edric to his family, and find Pride's family. Everything else would work it self out eventually.