Nick was never a clever man. He had plenty of smarts, sure, but that was an inevitability of having Warlock as his primary Job. Where he struggled was applying all of the knowledge he had collected over the years into practice. That and socializing. He was rude, stubborn, arrogant, and couldn’t read the mood in a room to save his life. He also had a habit of blaming others whenever things went bad, even when he was clearly the one at fault. This critical lack of self-awareness was perhaps his biggest flaw, as he would never learn from his many mistakes.

These negative traits had been the main reason why Nick hadn’t made a single trustworthy adventuring companion. Normally this would render him unable to complete Quests and defeat monsters appropriate for his Level without putting himself at great risk. However, Nick was a Warlock that specialized in Demonology. He told himself he didn’t need other people so long as he had his demons. It was true, to an extent. He was able to scrape by and slowly accumulate wealth, gear, and power, though he would do so much quicker if he was able to fully utilize all three familiars at once.

It was also worth noting that Nick’s familiars were also a huge part of why people actively avoided associating with him. Usually a Warlock with a succubus by their side would be seen as shifty or lecherous by strangers. A man with three of the demonic seductresses was instantly labeled a perverted creep who was so desperate to get laid that he sold his soul to a bunch of extra-dimensional hookers. There were a few adventurers that didn’t want to judge a book by its cover and were willing to give Nick a chance despite that public perception. However, they all quickly learned that the Warlock was just as bad as he seemed. Especially the ‘perverted creep’ part. The man would undoubtedly grope, harass, and molest any woman within reach if he wasn’t constantly doing those things to his familiars.

All things considered, it was no surprise that Nick wound up as a forty-something bitter loser who would never amount to anything. He knew that, his parents knew that, his familiars knew that, and anyone who laid eyes on him instantly knew that too. His only saving grace had been that he hadn’t broken any laws, aside from several counts of public indecency. In the grand scheme of things, it was somewhat unfortunate that he hadn’t committed a crime worthy of significant jail time. If that hadn’t been the case, the Warlock might have been put on a watchlist or two, which would have alerted the authorities to the catastrophe he was about to unleash.

The Warlock had set up shop in a small, formerly abandoned warehouse. He had inherited the place four years ago when some distant uncle had passed away. Nobody else in the family wanted to deal with the crumbling property, so they had forced it onto Nick. It wasn’t as if the building itself was in poor shape. Just the contrary, in fact. Sturdy dwarven stonework and elven-made support beams meant the warehouse was structurally sound despite its obvious age and lack of maintenance.

The issue was that it was located in the town of Mulligan. What had been a prosperous industrial neighbourhood just ten years ago had become a filthy, lawless slum when the local oil fields suddenly dried up. Between the rampant muggings, drug trafficking, illegal vagrancy, and abysmal property value, Nick’s extended family decided looking after the building wasn’t worth the taxes they were expected to pay on it. So, they forced it onto the black sheep of the family out of a combination of pity and spite.

To his credit, Nick had looked after the property surprisingly well. Upon receiving the deed, he immediately used force to evict the homeless bums that had been squatting in the old warehouse. He then fixed up the doors, installed enchanted locks, reinforced the walls, blocked off all the windows, and even had the place warded against scrying. The sturdy building was quickly renovated into a sort of urban fortress. It wouldn’t hold up to any serious assault, but was secure enough to keep out unwanted pests and prying eyes.

The process hadn’t been cheap, of course. Because of his terrible reputation and the building’s bad location, Nick had been forced to pay a small fortune for all of the materials and labor that went into the project. It cost him his entire life’s savings, but he finally had a lair to call his own. Normally people would have questioned this overzealous need for privacy. After all, it seemed logical that anyone who went that far to keep people out had something to hide. But, given the Warlock’s notorious degeneracy, it seemed far too likely that he simply wanted a place where he could indulge in his perverse fantasies undisturbed.

That assumption was only partly correct. Though debauchery did indeed take place within those walls, the main purpose of the private fortress was something far more sinister. Much like many disgruntled Warlocks before him, Nick had been digging deep into the occult powers of the Beyond and the demonic rites that invoked them. The fortified warehouse would serve as the staging ground for one such terrible ceremony.

It was an ancient, powerful, complicated ritual that required years of preparation, but the promised payoff was tremendous. If successful, it would call forth one of the demonic Overlords and force them to grant their summoner three wishes. Usually, any Warlock with two functioning brain cells to rub together would have been sceptical of such promises. History warned that the summoning of an Overlord was an incredibly foolish and borderline suicidal act. However, such cautionary tales meant little to the depraved, the desperate, or the deranged, and Nick checked all three boxes.

Furthermore, the Warlock had put himself in a situation where he could no longer back out. His endeavor had required so much time, effort, and resources that he had been forced to borrow a substantial amount of money from a bunch of unscrupulous individuals. It was not the kind of sum the man could repay even if he intended to. He only had about a week before those loan sharks sent someone to collect on the debt, which would most likely involve selling Nick’s vital organs on the black market. The desperate fool’s only way out was for the ritual to work as advertised and grant him the wealth and power he desired.

Whether or not it would work out that way would become apparent before the day was over, as Nick’s preparations were almost complete.

“Move it, Bitch Three!” he barked from the walkway overlooking the main floor. “And careful with those wild griffin feathers! They’re worth more than your sorry existence!”

The succubus he was addressing had no choice but to obey while responding with a tired ‘Yes, Master.’ Her actual name was Stimulaaduulaah Thealixxaaz, and she was one of the rare ivory succubi that could wield holy magic. Not that anyone would be able to tell just by looking at her. Nick had commanded her to take on the appearance of a certain blonde-haired elf girl that had rejected his advances multiple times in the past. The other two succubi were similarly ordered to impersonate various women that had ‘wronged’ the spiteful Warlock in one way or another. As part of his petty revenge fantasy, all three of them were walking around completely naked aside from the metallic slave collars on their necks.

“Bitch Two!” he yelled at the next one. “I told you to keep mixing that evenly! I don’t care if your fucking arms fall off, you do it right!”

The second familiar’s name was Yukihukhikiki Shraonaanthaon, a cerulean succubus with the power to manipulate mortal minds through their dreams. Her kind was infamous within the Beyond for their predisposition towards masochistic tendencies, and Yuki’s were fully developed. One would think that the humiliating label, degradory attitude, and the excruciating manual labor she was subjected to were right up her alley. However, that wasn’t the case. Yuki wanted to be dominated and controlled by a powerful Warlock whose cruelty knew no bounds, not some pathetic sack of shit who was too scared of a few Paladins of Order to even spit on the sidewalk. She once had hope that Nick would become some psychotic woman-hating serial killer that would molest and torture her on the regular, but that was over a decade ago. For better or for worse, he had gotten into the habit of abusing his familiars instead. It was a victimless crime by enlightened standards, but a gutless cop-out from the demon’s point of view.

“And Bitch One!” he bellowed once more. “If you’re done polishing those dragon bones, how about you come up here and start gobbling my dick instead of standing around like the useless cunt that you are!”

The last of the trio was Raoxaarsaa Bluusthiodruun. A violet succubus with an affinity for portals and teleportation, she was the one that hated her current assignment the most. She had been Nick’s first familiar, and as such her grudge against him was the strongest. Not a day went by that she didn’t regret signing up with him, and was actively contemplating abandoning the contract. The only reason she hadn’t done so already was because the punishment she would receive for doing so was only slightly worse than being Nick’s familiar. It was frankly incredible that he somehow managed to be both weak-willed and infuriatingly stubborn. He never listened to anyone yet also refused to seize certain opportunities. If not for his natural cowardice, she would have already led him to his doom a dozen times over.

Thankfully for Rao and the rest of the ‘Bitch Squad,’ their liberation was at hand. Over the past six years, the violet succubus had painstakingly manipulated Nick into sinking everything he had into that ritual. It had been a long con like none other, though it was hardly glamorous. The whole thing had been the conspiratorial equivalent of digging a tunnel through a mountain using nothing more than a pin needle. She also wished that Nick would have settled for a more basic and more easily performed form of assisted suicide, like the Offering to Nagnamor. However, he wasn’t quite that stupid, so she had to settle for guiding him towards a more obtuse ritual.

The main downside of this method was that the ceremony required an immense amount of effort and labor to prepare for. One of the things it needed was an enormous cushion made from red velvet and stuffed with wild griffin feathers. It was just specific enough that it would raise some alarms should anyone put in a custom order for one, so cobbling it together from raw materials was the only option. That was what Stimula had been working on for the past few months. Her handiwork was hardly exceptional, but it was good enough.

The second requirement was a large-scale diagram that needed to be drawn using a mixture of sunflower seed oil, perfume, golden dust, and a twenty-year old bottle of rotgut. That last one had been surprisingly difficult to track down. That drink was so toxic that it was actually classified as a dangerous substance. Even then, preparing the cocktail was its own carnival of frustration. It required an absurd amount of stirring which, in accordance with the ritual, had to be done inside a very specific container. Namely, an iron-bound oaken chest with some very specific yet conveniently common dimensions. Nick had delegated the mixing task to Yuki as never once in his sorry life had he ever put in a hard day’s work, and he wasn’t about to start doing so anytime soon.

The third and final major component of the Offering was also the most difficult to obtain - an intact spinal column from a diamond dragon. It had been about eighteen years since the last Dragon Festival, so the availability of such remains were exceedingly scarce, especially in the required condition. The extremely limited availability meant that those bones were far too expensive for some random loser to obtain them, even with the enormous loan Nick had taken. The only reason he had that particular spine was because he had stolen it from a museum, a feat he never would have accomplished without Yuki, Sitmula, and Rao. The demon-girls hated the man so much that they actually went above and beyond to secure it, despite his orders during the heist.

Ironically enough, Nick could have solved a lot of his problems if he just sold those bones to a collector instead of using them in some shady ritual. Admittedly the heat from such a transaction would have most likely landed him in deep shit with the authorities, but he could have fled the country to live like a king. However, Nick was not a clever man, so the thought had never occurred to him. Similarly, Nick never really questioned the accuracy of the information he had regarding this ritual. Just because it had been written down in an ancient grimoire that was found in an old tomb that reeked of foul magic didn’t mean that it was reliable. A Level 10 Demonology Skill might have shed more light on the validity of those writings, but Nick’s wasn’t that well developed.

That, at least, was something he could have been forgiven for. The only way to train that Skill was to perform the rites it taught. Many Warlocks opted to stop dabbling with such things as soon as they had raised Demonology to the point where they unlocked a third familiar. Nick was one such practitioner. If he had trained the ability fully, he might have noticed a few inconsistencies in the grimoire. Instead he only saw a ritual that offered literal wish fulfilment through the reality-warping powers of an Overlord. Nick knew just enough about demonic lore to deem that it seemed all too plausible, and as a result had bought into it hook, line, and sinker.

The Warlock thus continued his preparations completely oblivious to the fact that he was only hastening his own demise. Once the gigantic cushion was ready, he had his familiars drag it to the center of the warehouse. He then instructed Rao to use that odd mixture as paint for the required sigils and diagrams. Finally, he had the succubi place the dragon spine and a few other items of lesser importance atop the griffin-feather cushion. Each of the familiars could have easily sabotaged any of the preparations. Instead, they had done everything within their power to ensure that the preparations were completed without a hitch. The succubi actually wanted to see how the whole thing would play out. Whether he succeeded in the ritual and got obliterated by an Overlord or failed and later got chopped up by the mafia didn’t matter, just so long as they could watch him perish. Even if an unimaginable miracle happened and Nick actually got his wishes, the three were certain he would fuck himself over with a poorly worded request.

With all of the extravagant material preparations out of the way, the only thing left was the actual ceremony. Like all good demonic rituals, it involved a lot of chanting and a very specific set of motions. Nick had to personally perform these. Thus far he had forced his familiars to do all of the prepwork, but that final step wasn’t something that he could delegate. He absolutely would have if he could have, though, because even he didn’t trust himself. That was why he had repeatedly practiced and rehearsed the words and motions described in that old grimoire, to the point where he had effectively memorized the whole thing.

“Vestibulum at tincidunt mauris. Aliquam in mattis faucibus.”

He kicked things off with a surprisingly accurate chant. Then again, the book was written in such a way that even the biggest moron would struggle to screw it up so long as the steps were followed.

“Suspendisse potenti. Fusce accumsan consequat feugiat.”

And Nick most definitely was a moron. An educated moron, but a moron nonetheless. One would think that a Warlock, of all people, would know not to invoke ancient words of power that he did not fully understand.

“Duis lectus ligula, imperdiet in cursus vitae, viverra sed augue.”

All that mattered to him was that his little ceremony was bearing fruit. The room shook and the draconic spine glowed blue as his MP began to drain. That was only the start, though. The actual chant was incredibly long-winded, to the point that it required nearly an hour to complete. Furthermore, that estimate assumed that it was all carried out flawlessly on the first try. That did not happen with Nick’s case. He barely got three minutes into the ceremony before he flubbed his words and caused the ritual to fail. Thankfully the material components hadn’t been consumed, so he was able to retry it straight away.

Five hours and seven failed attempts later, Nick was finally on the verge of success. The magical charge of the room had slowly built up until all kinds of lights, shapes, and letters were floating around in a rather dazzling fashion while an alien humming noise bounced from one wall to the other. It was a good thing he was performing the ritual in a secure and secluded building, otherwise the unnatural phenomena would have attracted all kinds of unwanted attention. Nick hadn’t even considered that when he chose the warehouse for the ritual site, but he was quick to pat himself on the back for that ‘ingenious bit of foresight.’

The momentary distraction nearly caused him to stammer his words and fail the ritual, but he was able to maintain his focus right until the end.

“Sed enim lectus!” he shouted, his voice hoarse. “Sed enim facilisis! Sed enim ipsum! Sed enim lorem! Praesentat L’okrelaila!”

With those final few words, the fabric of reality went from warped to ripped asunder. The dragon spine that had been floating in the air suddenly exploded into a corona of energy that coalesced into an enormous figure. It was a practically naked female form, with voluptuous proportions and light-blue skin that betrayed the demon’s origins. She wore an exotic outfit that left very little to the imagination, had golden curled horns, was adorned with sparkling jewelry that resembled sharp teeth, and had roaring golden flames for hair.

The Overlord of Sloth, by dmaxcustom

Xerababadubuth L’okrelaila, also known as the Overlord of Sloth, had been successfully brought into the material plane. It was a good thing she had appeared in a mostly horizontal position, otherwise she wouldn’t have fit inside the warehouse. Not that she would have cared anyway. The way she laid on her side while propping her head up with one arm made it clear that she had no interest in whatever damage her flashy entrance might have caused. However, the emotionless look on her face and the vacant stare of her eyes hinted that her apathy ran much, much deeper than a general disregard for private property.

Not that anyone was around to witness that expression. Yes, Nick was there, but he didn’t exactly count. It seemed difficult to believe considering he was still standing upright with arms raised, but the man was already dead. The only reason his corpse hadn’t slumped over like a sack of onions was because it was in the presence of the Overlord of Sloth. Xera’s power manifested itself as an aura that caused everything around her to cease. Wind did not blow, gravity did not pull, sound did not exist, magic did not function, lungs did not breathe, and hearts did not beat. Light was the only thing that was permitted to move within this field of inactivity, aside from its owner. Not even souls could escape its snare, meaning that Nick’s disembodied spirit was having a grand old time looking at his own corpse.

The truly frightening thing about the aura was that it would expand rapidly for as long as the Overlord was present. The Warlock’s thoughtless actions had not only gotten him killed, but also endangered the lives of every person in town. There was nothing the locals could do except flee from the incomprehensible phenomenon once they identified just how deadly it was. The three unshackled succubi had already gotten a head start and had discreetly vacated the warehouse when their summoner had instantly expired.

Despite everything that was happening, Xera remained as still as a statue. Not even her immensely bountiful chest moved to circulate air, almost as if the act of breathing was too bothersome. Her hollow, indifferent gaze rested on the standing corpse with all of the intensity of a dead fish. It wasn’t as if the pitiable mortal was interesting, remarkable, or otherwise worthy of attention. The only reason she was staring at him was because there was nothing else to look at in that drab, empty warehouse.

While the djinn’s apathetic attitude was perfectly fitting for one bearing the title of Overlord of Sloth, it wasn’t laziness that caused her immense inactivity. She remained still because she didn’t want to move, not because she wanted to not move. It was a subtle yet important difference in motivation. This vigorless malaise wasn’t some side-effect of the Offering, either. She had been in that listless state for nearly two millennia, and a reminder of the thing that had caused it could be seen right next to her. It was a stuffed doll large enough to serve as her pillow, its shape resembling a simple wooden chest.

After what felt like weeks, but in reality had only been a few minutes, the magic supplied by Nick during the ritual began to run out. Xera felt a familiar tugging in the back of her flaming head, signifying that her allotted time was nearly up and she would soon return whence she came. Not that it mattered to her either way. Whether she was drifting in the Beyond or pulled into the material realm, the djinn would remain as motionless as ever. Some would say hers was a pitiable existence, a fate worse than death. However, Xera didn’t think of it that way. Granted, it had been several centuries since she’d bothered to conjure a thought at all, but that was besides the point. To the voluptuous Overlord, her idle existence was merely a necessary step towards her ultimate goal, and she would stay the course for as long as it took.

Something was different about that particular day, however. In the last seconds before she was pulled back into the Beyond, Xera’s eyes caught movement. Like a moth drawn to a flame, her hollow stare unthinkingly drifted towards the source of that disturbance. What she saw was but a man. A lowly, basic human male. He looked to be a young adult, either in his late twenties or early thirties, yet already balding heavily. He had a sunken face, with a ginger goatee that was thicker than the terrible comb-over on his scalp. His figure was thin and gaunt, almost as if he was born with a severe allergy to muscle and fat. His attire consisted of a white T-shirt with unreadable text on the chest, a set of light blue trousers made from a bizarre fabric, and a pair of beige sandals with black socks.

The unfamiliar figure strode casually towards Xera. It was at that moment that the Overlord’s mind finally managed to realize something was terribly amiss. Namely, that a person was moving within the djinn’s aura. It was possible in theory, of course. If one had both Legendary Strength and Legendary Endurance, then they stood a chance at resisting its effects. Even then such an individual would have had to move through air that felt as dense as dried concrete, which would hinder them greatly. And yet this sickly wimp that looked as if he’d never lifted anything heavier than a fork was walking around as if it was another day out on the town.

Xera couldn’t remember when was the last time she spoke. In fact, she had trouble recalling a lot of things. It wasn’t as if there was anything wrong with her memory. Demons her age had simply experienced so much over the centuries that it was almost impossible for them to call upon a specific memory with any sort of urgency. In the djinn’s case, she was taking a few seconds to remember something as basic as uttering a single word.

“… What?”

“Well, you certainly let yourself go,” the man said dismissively. “Enough lazing around, we have work to do.”

“What?!’

That time around, Xera’s words had something resembling life behind them. This reaction wasn’t caused by the stranger’s crass words, but by the fact that she was able to hear him at all.

“How are you able to speak?” she sat up slightly. “Wait, how am I able to speak? Sound shouldn’t travel through my Slothful Embrace.”

“Telepathy, idiot,” he rolled his eyes.

“Oh. Right.”

Indeed, now that he mentioned it, his lips hadn’t actually moved. Xera’s hadn’t either. She hadn’t talked in so long that she had mixed up speaking with thinking aloud. In her hazy state, she didn’t even stop to consider that some random dude seemed to be reading her mind like an open book.

“Come on, then,” the man beckoned. “I’d rather not waste any more time here.”

The demoness frowned slightly and laid back down, her head resting upon the oversized chest plushie.

“Go away, mortal. I have no desire to do anything, let alone with you.”

“Huh?” the man raised an eyebrow, then looked down at his hands. “Oh. Oh, I see. No wonder why you didn’t recognize me. Give me a second.”

The stranger’s form suddenly distorted into a mass of white noise, only to reform into a massive, monstrous amalgamation of teeth and tentacles. Seeing that thing made Xera’s eyes widen with a mix of surprise, disbelief, and expectation. Her vacant mind was flooded with ancient memories, causing her to breathe heavily while her nonexistent heart went wild.

“You… C-could it be?” she mumbled.

The creature did not reply with words, but with force. One of its limbs stretched out and coiled around the Overlord’s neck before she could even react. It then lifted her up with minimal effort and choke-slammed her against the wall on the opposite side of the warehouse. The impact was so great that it broke her Slothful Embrace and caused the entire building to start collapsing. Another tentacle then bit into her thigh, gouging out a huge chunk of her succulent flesh. An avalanche of pain surged through the demon’s entire body, awakening a part of her that had laid dormant for two millenia.

“Ahhnnn!” she moaned loudly. “Pleaaase! Mangle me moooooore!”

The indifferent and unchanging Overlord of Sloth disappeared like a bad joke, replaced by a depraved slut that was far too excited to be eaten alive.

In other words, Boxxy had successfully retrieved its favorite Snack.