Demon Core

~ [Mayor Papmond] ~

Human, Male, Civil Servant Location: The Nearby City LEVEL: 50

The evacuation is well underway. Hundreds of carriages have already begun moving away towards the north, and more and more people stream out of the city gates, a literal river of bodies flowing along the road towards the north in fear — as the horrific scourge approaches from the south.

The escape is fairly well controlled, all things considered. Easily a hundred thousand, and then some have been moving towards the north for some time now. The road is lined with guardsmen, who have left the city walls unmanned and are now instead manning outposts along the road to the north, guiding the escaping people along the way while keeping peace in the crowd. One would think that chaos would have broken out by now, but the organization and the spirit of the people are impeccable.

The few criminals who do try to take their chance, sensing an opportunity to find easy plunder, are quickly apprehended or swarmed by exhausted, fearful people who are too tired to deal with another threat within their own midst.

Considering the immense, unprecedented scale of the civil project, it’s a roaring success. These are good people.

His eyes wander down the line that stretches down the main road towards the north, which thousands and thousands of his citizens wander down. They’re people who he has watched for all of his life, growing and shaping into the people they have become now. Sure, they’re imperfect creatures. Every parent has to contend with some of their children having flaws, some of these are more glaring than others, but he’s held this position for over two decades now. He’s watched a generation grow. He’s guided their lives from his position of authority as mayor of this city.

And yet, many of them don’t even know who he is. Not everyone is interested in politics. For every few hundred who look over their shoulders back towards the city that they are leaving behind, only one or two will recognize him watching them leave and spare a moment to wave or to nod.

But that’s fine.

In a way, he’s like a bird that is kicking its chicks from the nest. They don’t say goodbye. One day, they’ll just leave, and he’ll be happy for them.

“Mayor, it’s about time for you to go too,” says the guardsman at his side.

Papmond turns his head to look at the guardsman. “No,” he replies, shaking his head. “The last man out has to lock the door,” he explains. The man nods his head. “You get out of here.”

“Sir.”

The man waves him off. “Isabel is probably waiting at the first outpost. You know how she is,” says the mayor, referring to the guardsman’s wife. “Go on. I really don’t think anyone is going to bother assassinating me at this point.” He places a hand on the man’s shoulder and holds out his other hand to shake. “See you in the north, Rickwill.”

His bodyguard looks at his hand and then back at him, nodding and shaking him.

“We’ll be waiting on you there,” says the guardsman, before turning away. “Mayor.” He leaves.

Mayor Papmond watches him go down the stairs and then watches a moment later as he merges into the stream of people down below.

He’s sure that the guardsman means that too.

The man nods, content.

He’s raised good, beautiful people.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

Ash surrounds him, raining down from the top of the throne room like falling snow on a black winter’s day.

The Demon-King sits on his throne, staring up at the ceiling as a smoldering glow drifts down from above, only to be caught by a draft of rising heat and lifted into the air again.

Thousands of ghosts wind their way through the statues, which have all reassembled themselves back into their positions as if they had never left them before. The spirits drift around, floating across the throne-room as they meander, lost — just like the ash. All of it comes together as a coalescence of haunting imagery.

As the demon-core has been growing in power, now that he is collecting more and more souls as they come to move through several significant human settlements, reaping the harvest, the pressure in his body intensifies. The heat grows as it radiates outward, filling the dungeon with an incredible swelter, as if this deep hole in the world were simply an unimaginably hot furnace.

Here, at the deepest core of the Demon-King’s castle, this power has begun to manifest itself in the presence of ash.

“How come?” asks a voice from below.

Swain lowers his gaze to look at the dancer, Cartouche. She looks up at him. “How come you started looking for it?” she asks, ash drifting down over her head to land on her as if she were standing out in winter snowfall. Abydos stands to the side, painting his shadow that has come to life. “- For beauty?”

— A ghost idly drifts through the air, landing in the painter’s shadow. It gets stuck, like a fly in a web, and the shadow bulges in and out as it folds over itself, wrapping the spirit up into a tight bundle.

The Demon-King looks down at his massive hand, as he lifts it from the armrest of the throne. His fingers, gigantic, coil inward as he slowly closes them, trying to piece together his thoughts.

“Because,” replies the Demon-King. “I have seen what lies opposite.” He narrows his eyes, not able to put his past together anymore as a whole. His hand rests back down on the throne. “I have seen the core deep ugliness of this world,” explains the entity. “As you have, Cartouche.”

Swain lifts a hand.

A ghost flies in, holding a strange object. She turns to look at it. It is holding a once broken jar, repaired somehow, and once again full of coins.

“Everything that we did in our lives because we wanted to find beauty… it was just taking us further from it,” he explains. Cartouche lifts a hand, touching the jar that once was hers. It was her life savings. This is the money she had danced every day of her life for. It’s the savings she had wanted to use to chase after her dreams.

— But even those dreams were just a compromise, weren’t they?

The dream of living in the city and opening a dancing studio of her own, that was just a way for her to be able to to survive while living in the shadow of her truest, more pure dream. The search for beauty can’t be completed on a lecherous carnival stage, and it can't be completed inside a dance studio.

One may feel more dignified than the other, but this is just a comfortable lie, isn’t it?

Both of these places are tangible, physical places in the material world. Both would have resulted in the same thing.

Dancing for economic survival and not for the purest, untainted pursuit of the passion, for the stain free radiance of the art itself.

“I, too, fell for the same trap,” explains the Demon-King. “I was spellbound by it, by the allure,” he says. “My soul was taken whole by a promise that was never going to result in anything to begin with,” he explains, his voice shaking the stones around him. The ghosts and the ash both stay distant, as if they knew coming too close would spell the end for them. “How many of us do you think there are, Cartouche?” he asks.

Cartouche, her hand sliding over the glass that had once meant everything to her, turns to look at the Demon-King. “What do you mean?”

“How many?” repeats the horrific creature. “In every city, in every home, in every bed,” begins the Demon-King. “How many hearts do you think there are that beat deeply for the hope of one day even experiencing a whisper of true beauty?” he asks. “Out of the thousands of pulsating, writhing animals that fill the world, existing for nothing more than the sake of it? Purposeless and aimless, like meandering ghosts,” finishes the Demon-King, gesturing to the ghosts that haunt the hall.

Cartouche shakes her head.

“The minority,” replies a voice from the side — the cook, Byblos. “They’re the few.”

The Demon-King nods. “Yes,” replies the monster. “And I grew tired of letting the world belong to them — the majority, the wretched, the ungrateful.” The eyes all over his body stare at his gallu. “I grew tired of writing a poem on the hide of a beaten carcass,” he finishes, returning his gaze up to the top of the room where ghosts drift, flying past each other as if they were flocks of confused birds.

Like the petals of a soft flower in spring, a tuft of ash blows past his face.

~ [Ruhr, the River-Sorceress] ~

Human-Half-Elf, Female, Sorceress Rank: SSS Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor 11B LEVEL: 95

“Hold still, loser,” barks Ruhr, yanking on Zacarias’ leg.

“I would, if you’d be a little less rough,” he replies.

Ruhr rolls her eyes. “Please. Since when have you been a softy?” asks the river-sorceress. She pulls a small tub to the side that had been in the room and places his hurt leg in it. “So what did the room turn into after I left?” she asks, holding a hand above the tub.

(Ruhr) has used: [Holy Water]

A trickle of water escapes her hands, beginning to fill the tub. Zacarias winces as it touches his bloody leg.

“Somebody had a fear of clowns as a kid,” he explains. “The whole thing turned into a circus.”

“Wow,” says Ruhr. “Glad I got out of there,” she replies sarcastically.

“You should be,” remarks Zacarias. “If you thought your monster was bad, that clown…” He shakes his head. “There’s a reason I’m the only one who made it out.”

Ruhr sighs. The tub fills up with water. “We’re so boned, Zac.”

“Like hell we are,” replies Zacarias, moving his toes down beneath the reddening water. “We’re set here for a little while. We’ll just hold the fort until reinforcements come.”

Ruhr looks up his way.

“What?” asks Zacarias. “You didn’t think we’re the only ones coming to kill the Demon-King, did you?” He shakes his head. Ruhr blinks. “The whole world is on its way here. We were just the tip of the spear.”

“Right,” replies Ruhr. “I knew that, dummy.”

“Mhm,” replies Zacarias, getting splashed with some water from her fingers for his trouble. The man wipes his face off. “We did good, Ruhr,” he explains. “We cleared the whole first eleven floors of the castle.”

Ruhr rolls her eyes. “Yeah, great,” she replies. “And by the time the others get here, it’ll be reset.”

Zacarias shakes his head. “No. It won’t,” he remarks. “You’re an adventurer, aren’t you?” he asks.

“Excuse me?” asks the woman. “Ruhr, the river-sorceress isn’t an adventurer,” remarks Ruhr, glaring at him. “She’s the adventurer. Don’t cheapen the brand.”

“Referring to yourself in the third person now, huh? I can see this place has taken its toll on your mental health,” he suggests. Ruhr pokes his hurt leg, and he swipes her hand away. “Dungeons can’t reset if someone is still in them,” he replies. He taps his head. “Which means, as long as we stay alive a little longer, the next troop can just skip the first ten floors.”

"Well, fiddle-faddle,” says Ruhr.

“Fiddle-what?” asks Zacarias.

Ruhr blinks, rubbing her face. “I think I’m tired, Zac,” she says. “My head’s been getting weird.”

“Take a nap,” replies Zacarias, nodding his head toward the bed. “I’ll just be sitting here and watching the door.” He looks down. “And enjoying being off my feet for a while.”

“Oh, sure, I’d bet you’d like that,” replies Ruhr, lifting an eyebrow. She clasps her hands by her face. “Defenseless little Ruhr, lying there all by herself,” she says, turning her head away. “Alone in this dark room with a brute.”

Zacarias sighs. “Really?” he asks. “After what happened up on floor ni-”

“- SHUT!” snaps Ruhr interrupting him and turning her head back towards Zacarias. “We are never going to talk about that,” she warns.

“I feel like we -”

“We are NEVER going to talk about that,” repeats Ruhr, getting up.

Zacarias looks at her and then grabs a rag from the table, starting to tend to his leg. “You sure?”

Ruhr cautiously pokes the bed with her foot before then looking under it to check if the whole thing is trustworthy. It seems okay, so she flops down onto it without further comment and proceeds to ignore him.

Zacarias shrugs. “Right, I guess it would be bad for the brand,” he explains. “If anyone ever heard that Ruhr th-”

— A pillow thwacks him against the face, silencing him.

~ [Mayor Papmond] ~

Human, Male, Civil Servant Location: The Nearby City LEVEL: 50

Mayor Papmond wanders the streets of his city.

It’s never been so empty before, not during times of great sickness or hardship. The spirit of the city has never been quieted like this. Front doors remain open and unlocked. Windows are ajar, as if the inhabitants had simply been planning to air for a moment. The rain cascades down around him, as it has done for days. The underground rainwater runoff system is at its limits, just letting all of the water stream back out of the city into rivers and lakes that are already overflowing.

He turns his head, staring at a plaza that is adorned with a fountain, a wishing-well. He walks over towards it, staring at the coins glimmering down at its bottom.

Each one symbolizes a wish, and, in a way, the wishing-well is a measure of his success as a mayor, as the guiding force of his people and their lives. The better he does his job, the better the quality of life is for his people, and the fewer coins that land in the wishing-well.

But now, its bottom is full from one side to the other. Coins are stacked on top of each other, the water in the basin of the fountain overflowing and running past his boots. Hundreds, thousands of wishes have been made as of late and he can’t help but wonder how many of them will come true.

— At least a small solace is that, prior to this, the fountain was always relatively empty.

A glimmer catches his eye to the side through the rain, and he turns his head, looking at a small house on the plaza that a light still burns inside of.

Mayor Papmond walks towards it, knocking on the unlocked door before looking inside.

“Is anyone home?” he asks, looking inside.

A face looks his way from the one room space, looking out from a small bed. “Oh, Gerald!” she says. “Is that you, dear?” asks the voice.

The man shakes his head, looking at the old woman. “No, mam,” he replies. “I’m Mayor Papmond,” he says, stepping inside. “You should leave.”

“Gerald dear, come closer!” she asks, beckoning him over with a frail hand. “Why, look at you!” says the woman as he steps in. She grabs his arm. “You’ve grown into a fine man, Gerald! Thank you for coming to visit me,” she says. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” laughs the woman.

“Pardon, miss, but I’m not -”

— Her face goes blank, and she stares at the wall for a time in sudden silence, before simply laying back down again without saying a word.

The man frowns.

After a minute, she opens her eyes again and looks at him in surprise.

“Gerald?” she asks. “Gerald, is that you?” laughs the old woman. She sits upright, patting his arm lightly with a shaky hand. “Look at you, visiting your nana.” She looks up, smiling, as she squeezes his arm. “You’ve become a fine man, Gerald,” she explains. The mayor puts a hand on top of hers.

The woman is clearly demented and has either been left behind or simply had nobody to take care of her to begin with.

“Would you like some soup?” she asks. “I’ll make you that soup you like so much!” she says excitedly. “Oh my, oh my, how long has it been?” The woman tries to get out of bed. He stops her, shaking his head.

“No, that’s okay, thank you,” replies the mayor. “Lay back down, Nana,” says the man, speaking to the strange woman. He nods to her. “I’ll make the soup for you this time,” he explains, getting up.

“You’re a sweet boy, Gerald,” praises the woman. “Did you find yourself a wife yet?” she asks. “I want my grandkids. Merlina’s daughter is a widow, you know? Should I ask Merlina to set something up?”

He walks over to the stove, which is in the same room, and looks her way. “I’m working on it, Na-”

He stops.

She’s laid back down, having fallen back asleep again.

He stares at the old woman and then at the pot that is already on the stove. He lifts the lid, looking inside at the moldy soup that was made days ago.

~ [Grand Crusader Vilheim] ~

Human, Female, Crusader Location: The Heart of the Nation LEVEL: 100

Vilheim sits in the box she has been sitting inside of for some time now, unable to move, locked in a praying position that she is unable to escape from, even if she wanted to. She fasts for the duration of the journey, as do all the grand crusaders who are carried by the rest. The crusade rides towards the south with a haste known only to a few souls on this world.

Her lips continue to move, to whisper, as they have for days now, as her prayers continue on just as fervently.

The crusade rides on fast mounts, blessed with haste and quickening spells by an array of casters that work around the clock. They’ll be at the beast’s heart soon. The crusade will strike true, felling the beast and returning the grace of the gods to this world that so desperately longs for it.

Locked in her preemptive coffin, Vilheim utters her prayers over and over, the recitation of them filling her head with the beautiful spectacle of a world that is free from all evil and corruption.

The Demon-King does not need to fear humans, but he must learn the fear of the heavens, as must all good things that crawl and walk upon the surface of this world.

~ [Byblos] ~

Gallu, Female, Spirit Cook Location: The Demon Quarters - Kitchen LEVEL: 79

Byblos wanders the kitchen, looking around at the masterful craftsmanship of the room. In a way, it’s too much.

A cook who seeks the truest form of expression shouldn’t need fanciful, exotic tools and work-stations the likes of which only kings and queens have ever never looked at, because they never go into their own kitchens. In a way, what Cartouche and the Demon-King talked about before applies to her too.

Beauty can be found in the simplest of things. A single egg from a nest, cooked in river-water in an old, rusted pot over an open fire, could lead to a life-changing revelation for the person who eats it, if they engage in the act with the openness of finding experience. Yet, as a cook, materialism is neatly tied to her profession. A cook needs ingredients, after all, even if it is just an egg.

— But that is in the past.

Byblos reaches to the side, grabbing hold of a ghost that flies through the air, wailing, and she looks at it, before slapping it down onto a counter, holding it firmly with her hands as she grabs a knife from the block.

In the era of the Demon-King, even such simple things as ingredients for cooking are anything but.

After all, if she is striving for immaterial grace, then doesn’t it square that she needs immaterial ingredients?

The ghost wails as she lifts the knife over its horrified face.

~ [Abydos] ~

Gallu, Male, Painter Location: The Carriage LEVEL: 79

Abydos sits at the front of the carriage as the carnival rattles down the road. The undead coachman is next to him, whipping the reins of the dead anqas. Rain crashes down around them, the storm continuing on as it has for days now.

The rains will never stop as long as the Demon-King is present upon the world.

But that doesn’t bother him.

Instead, he watches the landscapes go by, observing one sight after the other through the framing of his fingers in a small rectangle, as he tries to find a moment worth capturing.

The rushing forest, the crashing storm, the splashing of mud, and the rattling of bones. There are so many good images here, each worth painting. But all of them, while filled with action and drama, lack a certain depth — soul. They’re good images, but they’re missing a key color from their palette.

He stays there, watching, waiting, and observing, with his shadow at his side, for a moment of perfection to come that is worthy of being captured.

~ [Mayor Papmond] ~

Human, Male, Civil Servant Location: The Nearby City LEVEL: 50

He sits at the side of the bed, holding the woman’s hand and stroking a thumb over the top of it.

Some might say that those in politics are just conniving snakes, determined to fill their pockets and to secure positions of power. In many cases, they may be right. But this discounts those people who mean well from the bottom of their hearts. For him, this political position wasn’t about status or wealth; it was about the chance to be a leader for his people — people who likely don’t even know his name or face.

It was a chance to do some real, tangible good in the world, and he likes to think that he managed to do it.

Sure, he didn’t do it perfectly, but he thinks that he did it well. He did the job to the best of his ability as a human, as a flawed man with desires and dreams of his own. Sometimes he was lazy and didn’t work as hard as he should. Other times he invested far too much effort in areas that perhaps didn’t matter, while ignoring areas that mattered more. Sometimes his decisions failed and hurt people.

But as the leader of a city of this size, this is inevitable.

He loves these people; they’re his family.

His thumb strokes over her hand, and he gets up from the side of the bed, letting go with his other hand as he pulls the pillow off of her smothered face and stares in quiet distress for a time.

After a minute, he gently lifts her head and places it back down on the pillow before covering her with the sheet and saying a quiet prayer for her soul.

The Demon-King won’t have this woman.

He’s not going to take one of his children while he’s here.

After his prayer is finished, Mayor Papmond goes back to the kitchen and then diligently washes out the pot and the lid before placing everything away nice and neatly where he assumes it belongs.

It’s about dignity.

Afterwards, he makes sure the windows are locked and then steps outside, quietly closing the door and locking it, leaving the key inside, should Gerald ever come back home after this.

He walks through his city, heading towards the other gate in the south.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

They’re getting closer.

By the second, his count of souls rises as more and more fall beneath his crushing dominion.

— And all the while, he doesn’t even have to lift a finger.

Swain watches through his many eyes as people, all around the edge of his ever-expanding territory, fall one after the other, unable to run fast enough. The carnival, pulled by the undead and traveling down a road, is quick and hard to outpace, and with every death to come, his presence expands itself outward even further.

Already now, he can feel the city entering into his dominion.

He can feel the fields outside of it turn fallow and gray. He can feel the walls of the city begin to absorb the heat of the demon-core. He can feel the screaming horror of souls within its strong walls, beginning to scream in anguish as the demon-sickness begins to take them.

But there are not that many.

A few hundred tallies rise up over the course of a minute and then another minute. The carriage rattles onward, and then hundreds more fall to the sickness. But, for a city in the scope of this size, this is a paltry amount. It is nothing compared to the farmsteads, villages, and country houses he has reaped during the journey.

Swain uses his ability to observe any land that his corrupting influence has touched to look into the houses and the homes. They’re all empty. The streets aren’t littered with bodies, and only a few sparse fires begin to emerge as the heat of the core catches some straw here and there.

It would seem that the humans of this city have evacuated.

The carnival nonetheless breaks for the gate of the city, following the road, and there, standing at the entrance, is a single man.

The Demon-King leans his head onto his fist, watching this distant vision as they draw closer and closer towards the city and the gate and the only man left alive. He’s clearly lived a life of comfort without having a trained or hardened body. He’s not a great warrior going by appearance, his presence doesn’t signify that of some incredible caster — some exotic wizard of any sort.

He just looks like any other human, born and raised inside the comforting confines of a city.

— Swain can smell it on him from here, though.

His eyes go wide as he stares at the sight of the person, his vision becoming ever clearer as they descend towards the city, rounding the last bend. Even here, in this room filled with ash and cinders, with the smells of death and rot and decay, he can smell the tinge of something… familiar.

But unlike Cartouche, unlike Abydos, unlike Byblos, had done, this man does not succumb to the crushing weight of the demon-sickness.

It wafts off of him, the rising heat of the darkening land causing a firestorm that dances along the walls of the city, jumping from rooftop to rooftop as gracefully as a prancing cat. His entirely unremarkable presence in the material realm is outshadowed by the long arc of energy he casts behind himself, trailing like a spider’s web that reaches every door and every window in this entire city. It spans from the tiny alleys, cutting through the headstones inside the graveyard, connecting to the festival plazas and the schools of trade and mercantilism. Everything here is tied to this man in a way that Swain has never quite seen before.

It’s a spectacle.

It’s beautiful.

“Stop,” orders the Demon-King.

— The carnival comes to an immediate halt before the man, who stands by a closed gate. The last man who had locked the door behind himself before he left.

Swain rises from his throne, finally having a good reason to do so.

~ [Mayor Papmond] ~

Human, Male, Civil Servant Location: The City, Southern Gate LEVEL: 50

Mayor Papmond stands there, before the closed portcullis of the city gate. It took a few minutes for him to understand how it works, but he managed, and he’s here now. Cities are really fascinating things. One, in their normal day to day life, might not even pay them much mind. But the amount of logistics and intricacy that goes into the infrastructure — the roads, the channels, the bridges, the gates, the mapping of housing and placing of fountains, the identification of common areas that need more investment, and everything else – there are simply too many variables to count.

As complex and as rich as human lives are in their experiences, needs, and components, cities are reflective of this on a grand scale.

Cities are homes, as much as a house is, at least if it's done right. They ought to be places where communities foster and gather together under one connecting spirit. They’re the glue that ought to hold so many faces together into one unified force.

This is speaking strictly of the spiritual, esoteric nature of cities, ignoring their pragmatic practicality.

Gulping, the man stands up straight as he looks at the mangled crowd of horrific, tormented faces of the undead that stop before him, leaning out of carts and carriages to look his way. The rotting carcasses of the anqas that pull the parade along stamp their feet in impatience.

But nothing happens.

The landscape around him burns, the world turning gray before his eyes. His city, this place he has made over the course of his life, is rotting away.

The ground beneath his boots quakes, rattling. The air all around him feels like it is condensing, growing thicker and thicker, making it harder to breathe. The walls behind him seem to crumble a little, with flakes of stone coming off of the exterior as something monstrous, something horrific, steps foot onto his land.

He’s bought a little time.

He has to buy a little more.

Every second he can win is a second that his people get further and further away.

It's a good thing that the civil servant class has so many strong resistances. That's the only thing keeping him alive.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

The Demon-King steps out of his castle for the first time since the siege, able to move past the two humans left alive because they are not blocking the path. The ground compresses beneath his mass, the carriage leaning a little to the side as the dirt sinks a little. A dozen eyes and then a dozen more turn, looking towards the man who stands there on legs that tremble, but he stands there.

Swain walks towards him, the undead moving out of the way as he moves through them, stopping before the human he towers over, and the two of them stare at one-another for a time.

“I- I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” says the man, looking at the Demon-King. “You’re not welcome here.”

“What are you looking for?” asks Swain.

“What?” asks the man. He shakes his head. “I’m looking for you to leave.”

The Demon-King’s eyes narrow themselves. “Answer me,” he commands, the walls behind the man crumbling. “What is it that you’re looking for in life?” he asks.

The man stares at him in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replies. “However, as mayor of this city, I must insist that you leave.” He lifts a hand.

(Mayor Papmond) has used: [Civil Banishment]

A glowing wall appears between the two of them, separating Swain from the city.

The Demon-King lifts an arm, simply pressing through the barrier. It shatters immediately, crystalline splinters of magical essence raining down around them as he grabs the man, lifting him off of his feet.

“What. Is. It,” repeats the Demon-King, his many mouths frothing as he lifts the man to his face. He can smell it on him — the smell of someone seeking something of otherworldly grace.

A hand grabs one of his fingers, which is larger than the man’s neck, and he tries to pull it off, staring the Demon-King in the eyes. “It’s not something an ugly beast like you could ever understand!” He spits, the glob striking the Demon-King’s face.

The warm spit runs down Swain’s face, running over the lips of one of his mouths that opens to feel it.

This rank odor in the air – it is a smell that reminds him of a feeling he once had. It is what he felt when a hand took his own and tore him off into the night. It is the smell a soul has when it beats for a heart that belongs to another, but in this case a hundred-thousand times over.

It is the stench of love.

The shadowy vision of her dances before his eyes. Her. The woman who did this to him. This smell is the befoulment that he himself had carried on his own person once.

He hates it.

The Demon-King grabs the man's legs, his other hand holding his neck, and he tears him in half. Blood and viscera spray everywhere as he tosses the quickly quieting wretch to the ground, stamping a massive foot down onto his skull to flatten it.

His eyes burn with rage, the froth of his mouths running down his body and to the stones, hissing as the droplets strike the hot ground.

He glares down at the body, filled with hatred. Yes, the man made him remember something about her, but it was not something that he wanted to remember. It was something that hurt. His rejection, the smell, the spit — It all reminds him of her, of that moment when he changed.

The stench fills the air, wafting out from the man’s exposed bowels that cook on the stones below. It emanates from inside of him, a spiritual connection that drifts far off to the thousands of people who have escaped this place.

The Demon-King kneels down, tearing at his intestines to make chunks out of which he can write with.

~ [Guardsman Rickwill] ~

Human, Male, Guardsman Location: The Road to the North, Refugee Convoy LEVEL: 57

Rickwill and his wife walk, moving forward with the stream of people in the thousands. The march is well organized and, even now, going well. They’re making good progress. They’ll be safe soon.

— The man stops, turning his head around to look back down the road.

And then he simply lets go of her hand in the middle of the crowd and turns around to walk back to the city. “Rick!” she calls after him in confusion, running through the crowd. Others turn too; hundreds of them begin to walk back with lifeless, dull expressions.

Much of the crowd watches in confusion and keeps on going the way they were before, but a good chunk of them simply turn around and walk back to the city. Their families and friends, confused, try to latch on to them.

But none are able to be deterred.

“Daddy?” asks a voice, holding a man’s hand as he turns around to walk back towards the city too.

The crowd panics, people realize that something strange is going on, and then anarchy breaks loose.

The well-structured flow of people turns into chaos as everyone begins to rush, running as fast as they can in the dense crowd, desperate to get away before whatever spells fill the air might reach them too. People push and shove, and a stampede begins.

~ [The Demon-King] ~

The Conjoinment

Connected souls dance, now entwined,

Bound by the bonds of their moments, since passed,

And prance atop the foggy dew,

Atop the ashy, midnight grass,

All roads connect to the places that they’ve once been before,

The Conjoinment sits there, spread wide, and holds open the door,

It has no bones and it has no such things as mouths,

It is nothing but skin that a city now shrouds,

It stretches from one wall around to the next,

Spanning over houses, over bridges and nests,

And all who return to it, to enter inside,

Find themselves becoming apart of its hide,

After all, the Conjoinment, with no limbs, teeth or eyes,

Needs only more skin, so that it might survive,

- It is good that it knows so many people.

(Swain) has used [Poetic Summoning] to summon: [The Conjoinment] Cost: 50% SOUL-POINTS

~ The Conjoinment ~

- Summoned Entity -

The Conjoiner is nothing other than a massive, stretching span of skin that hangs over an entire city like a tent. It is fused into the exterior walls of the place, covering it all in darkness. Only the gates remain open.

All of its prior spiritual connections and the strong bonds it has held with people draw them back inside the city that it now covers.

Once inside, it will drape down over them, taking their skin and adding it to its mass.

Swain looks at the city that skin grows around, covering the entire thing as if it were a circus tent. Ethereal tendrils of spiritual energy leak outward in all directions, pulling in the souls that this many were so tightly connected with and drawing them back into the city. He looks down at the gory mess at his feet and then turns around, stomping back into the carriage.

In a way, he wishes he had stayed on his throne.

“Go,” orders the Demon-King.

The coachman whips the reins, and the anqas stampede over the gory poem and through the melted portcullis of the city as they follow the road, through to the other side.

He wonders what they’ll find along the way.

~ [Zacarias] ~

Human, Male, Royal Guardsman Location: The Demon-King’s Castle, Floor 11B LEVEL: 91

Zacarias sits there and rewraps the bandage around his leg. The purified, holy water that Ruhr had made is going a long way toward healing the wound. He turns his head, looking at the opening to the room that he has barred his shield against just to be sure. It really does look like they’re safe here.

But why would the Demon-King allow such a place to exist inside his own wretched castle?

He doesn’t quite understand.

The man shakes his head, not understanding a lot of things, as he looks towards the woman, who has buried herself in the bed and sleeps as would the dead.

— He ties off the bandage.

A week ago, he was a man with a family, a home, and a job. He took part in boring, ridiculous courses to learn how to save nobles' daughters, and he went home in the evening every day after work.

So he doesn’t quite understand why he is the way he is?

The man stares down at the bloody water and takes his leg out, letting it drip dry.

The truth is that he is perhaps also more talk than substance. In a way, maybe he really is just like her, Zacarias thinks, looking at the mound on the bed, buried beneath a tower of blankets. Maybe he, too, is strangely interested in how he appears rather than how he really is.

After all…

— He looks back at the doorway that nobody walks past.

The real, tangible truth is that, well… he wasn’t the last man alive on floor eleven. Ruhr left by herself, and the room did change, yes. He did go back alone, sticking to his principles to try and save as many of the others as he could.

But all the while, with every step he took back into that room, he could only hear the last thing she said to him before she left.

‘Don’t make me go by myself. I’m scared.’

He doesn’t know why that got to him, let alone to such depths.

But after a while, even if he knew there were still others on floor eleven, he also left. He returned to the changed exit and left by himself, despite the screams he heard from the distance behind him. He, just like her, left them behind.

As a person, she’s a monster by all standards of good society. In a normal world, he would shudder at the thought of someone like her becoming famous and influencing generations of people to come with her self-interested, society-destroying, fame seeking behavior. A week ago, he would have found her to be truly revolting.

Yet here they are.

But maybe it’s because he’s seen past the surface of Ruhr the river-sorceress.

The man rubs his head, thinking about what a horrific mess she actually is. But maybe everyone is? Maybe she’s just different because she wears it on her exterior in full display for everyone to see. She’s more honest than he is, isn’t she?

He turns his head.

Even now, the perhaps most pathetic thing he has ever seen in his life was on floor nine, a floor filled with sensual, carnal temptations that most living creatures would be unable to resist. Succubi and incubi, demons of lust, swarmed the floor, and just as many of their own troop gave in to the transformation that the floor caused, dozens of them turning into demons and joining the lustful debauchery, giving in to depravity which may have never been conceived of before in the world, outside of forbidden, secret books.

And there, in the center of it all, desperately latching on to as many put-off, confused, and entirely lost demons of pleasure that she could, was Ruhr the river sorceress, ugly crying, trying to drag them back towards her, asking, even in the depths of the mind-control spell, if they would be her friends.

— Even these horrific servants of the Demon-King rejected her, and he doesn’t even really know how to classify that. It’s just sad. Eventually, the demons, annoyed, quite literally pushed her onto him, seeing that they had a bond, just to get her out of their hair.

And so, for a while, the two of them were just sitting there in what might have been the sweatiest room to ever exist, and all she did was cry and touch his face, constantly asking if they were really friends every two minutes.

Zacarias shakes his head.

The Demon-King is truly a horrific beast.