Lucyfer
Said you'd die for me, well -- there's the ground
The debris of Temen-ni-gru fell over the many circles of the underworld. It was enough to make the Lady of the 9th Circle pause and look up, to watch the debris fall, and with it, so many demons who had thought to use it to escape from this place. ‘Idiots.’ Something like that was bound to have been seen in the human realm.
Bound to have been locked up again by Sparda.
She looked upon it dispassionately, before sighing and shaking her head. Her time to seek out anything of use in the 2nd Circle was going to grow short, as demons made their way back, full of disappointment for not being able to get out. The vast majority were no threat to her, but in numbers, they could be. If they came with Mundus’s “fake Lady” Astarte, that would also be a nuisance, though she wouldn’t mind crushing her underfoot.
‘The fall is likely to create other paths.’
Something that big didn’t fall without sending ripples, but finding them before they were shut would be the hard part. Not impossible, though.
Still, while she had time, she stepped around debris and continued closer to the old ruins of Gomorrah, still a heavily contested zone, though it had slid more into Astarte’s hands than Asmodeus’s. Asmodeus had probably run to the breach as well, but if they hadn’t, the Veritas Demon was not concerned with running into them. She had a working agreement with Asmodeus, and supported their ascent if only because it pissed off Mundus, but she didn’t trust them. Asmodeus was the sort who survived by draining life, after all – only a fool trusted an incubus or a succubus for long. Asmodeus may have been a rare one who could think beyond their primal desires, but they were still just a step above feral in Khione’s not at all humble opinion.
Their alluring appearances wasn’t a sign of intelligence.
Gomorrah’s neon lights still flickered where they had fallen and Khione stepped over them, heels clicking on the broken-up marble as she entered one of the gambling dens. Some mazzikin startled, crouching in the building for safety, a couple blinking out of sight. Invisibility was the way those fiends survived, after all, but Khione paid them no attention so long as she heard no approach.
One did call out, “Are you—are you here to play?”
She couldn’t help the slight smile, and scoff, “What’s at stake?” she glanced over, and let her eyes widen in surprise when she saw one dangling a golden necklace with a red gem in it. She turned fully around. There was something powerful about that necklace, even if she couldn’t place it.
“Thought—thought maybe…to sell it. Astarte or Asmodeus…but you…maybe…maybe that Devil Arm….”
Khione could probably kill all of them. They didn’t seem all that powerful, even in a group. None were armed with a Devil Arm themselves, and she doubted they’d killed much, which honestly begged the question of how they’d scavenged such a gem. “What is it?”
“Don’t know,” the mazzikin drew it back, close to their own chest, “Play. Play and claim it.”
Gamble her glaive, for a mysterious gem? “What’s the game?” It probably came from the human world, and she dared to take a seat on one of the cushions that had been set down near a tabletop. The table had no legs, but it was still a solid, flat surface.
“Liar’s dice.”
Khione shut her eyes for a moment, not suppressing her grin. She was actually quite good at games involving lying and truth, not at all because she was a liar. To the contrary – she prided herself on honesty and was good at picking out lies in others. “Play me in,” she set the devil arm on the table, “Best out of 3?”
It didn’t take long. She won two games in a row.
One of the mazzikin immediately accused her of cheating. A second attacked her, going over the table as she grabbed the glaive. She leaned back, shoving the pole of the glaive up to catch him under his chin, and rolled him with his missed lunge, ending up on top of him and putting an icicle through his throat before daring the others to rise against her.
They didn’t. There was no comradery amongst thieves. She rose, and claimed the necklace from the table, before pointing the glaive at the trembling demoness, “Where did you find this?”
She pointed out, “N—near the falls of Cocytus.”
Khione nodded, and slipped the necklace on. It was an uncomfortably long chain – not long enough to double it up, but she didn’t enjoy the way the heavy pendant felt on her chest. The metal was annoyingly jagged and uneven. ‘Who even made this to wear as a necklace? A broach would be better.’ Then again, a necklace could be covered up by a shirt.
Or a dress with a higher collar.
She hadn’t considered such things in her attire so the necklace was on full display with the v-cut as she walked out of the den and made her way towards Cocytus, the river that divided the 2nd and 3rd levels. She attracted far more attention then she would have liked from the animals of hell, what humans would have still mistaken as demons. It started with one, a ball-tailed cat that let out a yowl at the sight of it.
The yowl drew others, and the others drew more, never considering that having others around meant having to share the spoil they wanted so much. Then again, animals were animals, after all. No braincells between their eyes.
It started out a nuisance she could handle with her glaive, cutting them in twain with the hard metal, or splitting them open with the golden light she could bring forth with a slash of air, but soon enough, they started to arrive in numbers, and she was starting to make a scene between the golden crescents and the icicles that sprouted up, drawing on the attention of a raiju, one of the more powerful animals, a cat that spewed lightning. ‘I need to get to a safe house.’ The enchantments would keep these cats out, at any rate – even the raiju. They couldn’t undo them, and they’d get bored waiting and meander off, forgetting there was anything at all they were interested in.
There was a safe house not far from the Wailing Falls, and soon she put her Devil Arm up and shifted, the necklace not vanishing like the clothes. It was tighter against her neck in this form, but at least the chain didn’t break against the strain and she was able to flee far faster than before, and slither up and around places the cats couldn’t follow as easily.
Another interesting thing happened, though.
Near the falls laid a man – well, somewhat laid, it seemed he was regrouping – with a group of curious imps near, seeming to all be daring each other to get closer. Perhaps they’d found him passed out and now didn’t know what to do with him. Khione thought to leave him, but she didn’t recognize him as one of Mundus’s generals.
Nor as any of the Lords of Hell she supported, although he looked powerful.
He looked—
‘Sparda?’
A flash of anger restored that human form, and brought down the imps as golden light tore through them with an upwards slash of the glaive from some distance away, blazing through like lightning, before she thought to do the same to the stranger, no matter how dishonorable it was.
‘No.’
And she lowered it. Not Sparda, but she couldn’t shake the resemblance all the same. Nor the thought that there was just something wrong with him that had nothing to do with Sparda.
The crackle of thunder reminded her that she didn’t really have time for wondering about strangers too much right then.
Unaware the necklace had belonged to him, she tossed a, “There’s plenty more rabid animals coming this way, I’d get out of their way if I were you,” over her shoulder as she put the glaive away once more and turned from him to get back on her path.
Bound to have been locked up again by Sparda.
She looked upon it dispassionately, before sighing and shaking her head. Her time to seek out anything of use in the 2nd Circle was going to grow short, as demons made their way back, full of disappointment for not being able to get out. The vast majority were no threat to her, but in numbers, they could be. If they came with Mundus’s “fake Lady” Astarte, that would also be a nuisance, though she wouldn’t mind crushing her underfoot.
‘The fall is likely to create other paths.’
Something that big didn’t fall without sending ripples, but finding them before they were shut would be the hard part. Not impossible, though.
Still, while she had time, she stepped around debris and continued closer to the old ruins of Gomorrah, still a heavily contested zone, though it had slid more into Astarte’s hands than Asmodeus’s. Asmodeus had probably run to the breach as well, but if they hadn’t, the Veritas Demon was not concerned with running into them. She had a working agreement with Asmodeus, and supported their ascent if only because it pissed off Mundus, but she didn’t trust them. Asmodeus was the sort who survived by draining life, after all – only a fool trusted an incubus or a succubus for long. Asmodeus may have been a rare one who could think beyond their primal desires, but they were still just a step above feral in Khione’s not at all humble opinion.
Their alluring appearances wasn’t a sign of intelligence.
Gomorrah’s neon lights still flickered where they had fallen and Khione stepped over them, heels clicking on the broken-up marble as she entered one of the gambling dens. Some mazzikin startled, crouching in the building for safety, a couple blinking out of sight. Invisibility was the way those fiends survived, after all, but Khione paid them no attention so long as she heard no approach.
One did call out, “Are you—are you here to play?”
She couldn’t help the slight smile, and scoff, “What’s at stake?” she glanced over, and let her eyes widen in surprise when she saw one dangling a golden necklace with a red gem in it. She turned fully around. There was something powerful about that necklace, even if she couldn’t place it.
“Thought—thought maybe…to sell it. Astarte or Asmodeus…but you…maybe…maybe that Devil Arm….”
Khione could probably kill all of them. They didn’t seem all that powerful, even in a group. None were armed with a Devil Arm themselves, and she doubted they’d killed much, which honestly begged the question of how they’d scavenged such a gem. “What is it?”
“Don’t know,” the mazzikin drew it back, close to their own chest, “Play. Play and claim it.”
Gamble her glaive, for a mysterious gem? “What’s the game?” It probably came from the human world, and she dared to take a seat on one of the cushions that had been set down near a tabletop. The table had no legs, but it was still a solid, flat surface.
“Liar’s dice.”
Khione shut her eyes for a moment, not suppressing her grin. She was actually quite good at games involving lying and truth, not at all because she was a liar. To the contrary – she prided herself on honesty and was good at picking out lies in others. “Play me in,” she set the devil arm on the table, “Best out of 3?”
It didn’t take long. She won two games in a row.
One of the mazzikin immediately accused her of cheating. A second attacked her, going over the table as she grabbed the glaive. She leaned back, shoving the pole of the glaive up to catch him under his chin, and rolled him with his missed lunge, ending up on top of him and putting an icicle through his throat before daring the others to rise against her.
They didn’t. There was no comradery amongst thieves. She rose, and claimed the necklace from the table, before pointing the glaive at the trembling demoness, “Where did you find this?”
She pointed out, “N—near the falls of Cocytus.”
Khione nodded, and slipped the necklace on. It was an uncomfortably long chain – not long enough to double it up, but she didn’t enjoy the way the heavy pendant felt on her chest. The metal was annoyingly jagged and uneven. ‘Who even made this to wear as a necklace? A broach would be better.’ Then again, a necklace could be covered up by a shirt.
Or a dress with a higher collar.
She hadn’t considered such things in her attire so the necklace was on full display with the v-cut as she walked out of the den and made her way towards Cocytus, the river that divided the 2nd and 3rd levels. She attracted far more attention then she would have liked from the animals of hell, what humans would have still mistaken as demons. It started with one, a ball-tailed cat that let out a yowl at the sight of it.
The yowl drew others, and the others drew more, never considering that having others around meant having to share the spoil they wanted so much. Then again, animals were animals, after all. No braincells between their eyes.
It started out a nuisance she could handle with her glaive, cutting them in twain with the hard metal, or splitting them open with the golden light she could bring forth with a slash of air, but soon enough, they started to arrive in numbers, and she was starting to make a scene between the golden crescents and the icicles that sprouted up, drawing on the attention of a raiju, one of the more powerful animals, a cat that spewed lightning. ‘I need to get to a safe house.’ The enchantments would keep these cats out, at any rate – even the raiju. They couldn’t undo them, and they’d get bored waiting and meander off, forgetting there was anything at all they were interested in.
There was a safe house not far from the Wailing Falls, and soon she put her Devil Arm up and shifted, the necklace not vanishing like the clothes. It was tighter against her neck in this form, but at least the chain didn’t break against the strain and she was able to flee far faster than before, and slither up and around places the cats couldn’t follow as easily.
Another interesting thing happened, though.
Near the falls laid a man – well, somewhat laid, it seemed he was regrouping – with a group of curious imps near, seeming to all be daring each other to get closer. Perhaps they’d found him passed out and now didn’t know what to do with him. Khione thought to leave him, but she didn’t recognize him as one of Mundus’s generals.
Nor as any of the Lords of Hell she supported, although he looked powerful.
He looked—
‘Sparda?’
A flash of anger restored that human form, and brought down the imps as golden light tore through them with an upwards slash of the glaive from some distance away, blazing through like lightning, before she thought to do the same to the stranger, no matter how dishonorable it was.
‘No.’
And she lowered it. Not Sparda, but she couldn’t shake the resemblance all the same. Nor the thought that there was just something wrong with him that had nothing to do with Sparda.
The crackle of thunder reminded her that she didn’t really have time for wondering about strangers too much right then.
Unaware the necklace had belonged to him, she tossed a, “There’s plenty more rabid animals coming this way, I’d get out of their way if I were you,” over her shoulder as she put the glaive away once more and turned from him to get back on her path.
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