Of course, she had always loved Bloody Tatanias. Particularly when she had been alive. Admittedly, in her afterlife, meeting the drink’s namesake saint and learning firsthand of her grisly martyrdom and thus the source of the drink’s name, had put her off them for a few decades. Really, poor girl — what a ghastly way to go. Hilda shuddered at the thought.
The important thing was to start collecting her wits, now that she could think. Her homemade relic was working fantastically, if she did say so herself. It was such a relief. She was quite pleased with her success with it.
Unfortunately, her link meeting with Moradel, Sentir Fallon and Supreme Archon Beragamos had been of very poor quality, as well quite taxing and unsatisfying, thanks to those stupid wards.
She had managed to let them know that she was in the city, had made contact with Trisfelt, and had interviewed several people with direct knowledge of the greater greater demon, and would be interviewing others over the next couple of days. The key point she had wanted to get across, and she felt she had, was the nature of those wards and how detrimental they were to her, and likely far more so to archons.
They had all agreed that she would try to get out of the city for their meetings if she could. The links from inside the city were just too much of a pain. Once outside, she could physically go to Tierhallon, which would make things far simpler. However, of course, there were days where that might not be possible without blowing her cover, so they agreed not to assume the worst if she missed a day. No need for a Tierhalloc Invasion on her behalf! She chuckled to herself.
“So” — Hilda handed the plate of biscuit rings to Danyel as he sat down at the table with her — “with all that damage in the palace, I am thinking that as a healer and responsible citizen of Freehold, we should go volunteer to help with any remaining wounded. Wizards are not noted for being great healers. We can be of assistance and can insinuate ourselves more into the life of the palace and the Council to gather more information.”
“As you advise, Your Holiness!” Danyel smiled at her as he reached for the orange juice.
“You don’t need to call me that. I’m just Hilda here in our rooms.” She shook her head and smiled. “If you wish, among the wizards you may call me mistress, since you are pretending to be my valet.”
Tom sat back in his chair as they all paused for a bit. They had spent the last who knew how long discussing the insane wizard’s proposal. Oddly, Talarius seemed to be feeling better, or at least slightly more talkative after discussing Orcus and Etterdam. He supposed that hearing demons admit to the defeat of one of their own at the hand of one of his own gave him more self-confidence. It was as if the knight had needed that.
Talarius, naturally, felt that Vaselle deserved to burn in the Abyss for even thinking of offering himself to a demon as a slave. Such a bargain was obviously unholy, a sin and abomination, thus requiring the person committing it to be sentenced to eternal damnation. Perversely, Tom thought, the knight did not seem to understand that that was exactly what Vaselle was asking for. The wizard had just volunteered his eternal soul to a demon, and for nothing in return. That seemed very odd.
Boggy, of course, was all for it. He loved the idea of turnabout, and Tom was sure he would love to tell other demons that he was friends with someone who had a warlock. Boggy seemed to be quite the gossip. Estrebrius was mainly pacing, worried about his master’s mental state. Tizzy was not saying much, just smoking on his pipe. Rupert was excited by the idea. He was a kid, after all; he probably thought it would be cool and in fact, had probably started plotting how to get one of his own. Admittedly, if Tom had been reading this in a book or playing a video game, he would have wanted to see the protagonist get himself a wizard slave. Seriously, who would not want a wizard slave?
It was just that things were a little more complex in reality, even as insane as it currently was. Vaselle was a real person, with hopes, dreams and feelings. Taking such a person and ‘enslaving’ him just seemed extremely wrong. In addition, the whole possession thing that Vaselle seemed to want was not something Tom felt that comfortable with. He had not spent a whole lot of time reliving or rethinking his experience on the battlefield. But when he did, it had all just been rather uncomfortable, too intimate. During the battle, if he had had the time or desire, he could have easily accessed those people’s memories, their thoughts and feelings. He had felt their fear, their adrenaline; he had even harnessed it and redirected it. Redirected the fear and hatred from himself to Talarius.
Such power was frightening. Tom had to admit that that was a big part of it. When he was possessing those men, he had felt rather splintered. He felt like he was a whole bunch of different people at the same time. He was not really himself, but more of an amalgam or something. He could not really describe it to himself in words. Nevertheless, it had been unsettling. Even as the subject of the possession lost themselves to the possessor, so the possessor lost a part of themselves. More precisely, Tom corrected himself, they opened themselves to the possessed, let the possessed in and made the possessed part of themselves.
The air in the cave suddenly shifted slightly and there was a loud thunk as Reggie suddenly appeared and fell to his knees. “Holy fucking fuck!” the Incubus gasped.
Boggy rushed over to give Reggie a hand up. “Are you all right, lad? Were you beaten mercilessly by your master?”
Reggie chuckled with what seemed a large dose of irony. “Mistress. And well, yeah, there was a bit of whipping, but not the bad kind.”
“What kind of whipping is not the bad kind?” Rupert asked.
“The sexy kind.” Reggie shook his head as he stood up. Tom got up from his chair and offered it to Reggie. “I have never, ever dreamed of having that much sex in that short a time!”
“Sex?” Rupert asked, shocked.
“Shit man, the woman was insatiable. We were going at it continuously from the moment I got there, and I had to have shot my load thirty to forty times. I cannot believe it! I’m exhausted.”
“Sounds like hell,” Tizzy commented drily.
“It sort of was.” Reggie nodded. Antefalken chuckled.
“Seriously!” Boggy yelled. “Why can’t I get an accursed mistress like this? It simply is not fair!” The demon stormed around the room furiously, presumably for dramatic effect. “One bloody summons and he gets his brains screwed silly! It simply is not just!”
Talarius was shaking his head. “A wizardess summoned a demon to use as a sex toy? Clearly, Astlan has fallen into the hands of sin and debauchery. Wizards are a pox on humanity!”
“Okay, finally! That’s something we can agree on!” Tizzy smiled and tried to pat the knight on the shoulder, but Talarius dodged out of the way, frowning through his visor. Tizzy just shook his head in mild annoyance. “Just trying to be nice! See what it gets me?” He took a big puff of his pipe.
Estrebrius was frowning as well. “It really does not seem fair. I hope she’s ugly.”
Reggie chuckled. “Not at all. My chocolate mistress is gorgeous with junk in all the right places. She is totally fine!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah... like huckleberry wine. Yes, we get it. You got yourself a hot accursed mistress who tortures you with endless sex. Boo hoo!” Boggy said, harrumphing and crossing his arms in front of him.